The Artful Life: 8 Things Galerie Editors Love This Week
From Daylesford’s new digital venture that ships Cotswolds farm favorites direct to the US to a Lacoste x French Open collaboration inspired by the warm tones of the tournament’s iconic clay courts.
1. Daylesford Offers Its Cotswolds Farm Favorites in the US
Daylesford, the Cotswolds organic farm and lifestyle destination, has long been a favorite for Americans looking for that classic English countryside experience. A big part of that has always been the getaway’s signature aesthetic, featuring a mix of hand-thrown ceramics and linens as well as its incredible range of Bamford skincare products. Finally, there’s no need to pack extra luggage on journeys across the pond as Daylesford has launched a dedicated website that ships directly to the US, allowing Americans to immerse themselves in the wondrous world of Lady Carole Bamford, the organic farming pioneer and founder of Daylesford. Of course, there’s still plenty of reasons to make the trip, including the destination’s 32 cottages, four pubs, spa, and farm-to-table restaurants.
2. Fashion Designer Ozwald Boateng Crafts a Dapper Tailored Bed for Savoir
Menswear-inspired furnishings and textiles appeared throughout the most recent High Point Market with gentlemanly tweeds, plaids, dark chocolatey browns, and sharp edges giving sofas, chairs, and other home accents a sartorial nod. Perhaps the most debonair introduction this season is a boldly shaped bed by Ozwald Boateng for Savoir. For the collaboration entitled Authenticity, the esteemed British-Ghanaian fashion designer reinterpreted a traditional kente cloth using a bespoke woven leather by Alma that’s stretched across angular panels of solid oak. “Kente has always been central to my work; it carries history, identity, meaning,” says Boateng. “Bringing it into a piece of furniture, something you live with intimately, felt like a natural progression. Every detail, down to the lining at the back of the headboard, has been considered with intention.”
Each made-to-order Authenticity bed is finished in a crisp green cotton satin for a tailored piece that takes more than 200 hours to complete. The work is the highlight of Savoir’s new Manhattan showroom at the New York Design Center, which is designed by Hannah Carter Owers of Carter Owers Studio, who oversaw the look of Savoir’s Mayfair flagship. For the space’s grand opening, Savoir is introducing Boateng’s bed design alongside other collection highlights and examples from other revered British brands found within the NYDC, like Fromental and Tom Faulkner. It’s Savile Row meets Lexington Avenue.—Jill Sieracki
3. Leonora Carrington’s Surrealist Works Go on View at L’Space Gallery
A master in crafting worlds that twist and turn the mind, late and great artist Leonora Carrington made a name for herself through her richly toned paintings, where objects and animals were brought together to transport viewers into alternate realities. Now, a rare opportunity to see the Mexico City talent’s work in other mediums has arrived in New York courtesy of L’Space Gallery. On view through July 25, “Shape of Dreams” brings together a significant group of bronze sculptures as well as jewelry made by Carrington, where her continuous interest in themes including animals, cosmology, and the spiritual world are brought into new focus. Highlight works including Catwoman, The Ship of Cranes, The Palmist, and Unknown, will be joined alongside an inventive exhibition addition in the form of an interactive tarot reading booth, where visitors can select a card from a tarot deck that Carrington herself designed and listen to her voice reconstructed through AI technology in English, Spanish, and French as it delivers a reading.—Shelby Black
4. Louis Vuitton’s City Guide Debuts Charming New Format
The City Guides from Louis Vuitton are a delightful companion for sophisticated travelers. Available in an app or in slender individual volumes in a series of bright, saturated shades redolent of a sunny day’s journey, each guide is written and illustrated by with a creative eye and voice specially tuned to the joyful esoterica of their subject matter. The four summery-toned new guidebooks offer an LV-eye view to the best places to stay, eat, shop and explore in Bordum, Marbella, Portofino and Taormina. Any of the evocative illustrations would look lovely on a silk scarf. —Rena Gross
5. Burberry Stages a Fashionable Takeover at Hôtel Belles Rives
The Brits have arrived in the South of France for an exclusive beach club experience at Hôtel Belles Rives in Cap d’Antibes this summer. Burberry, in partnership with the iconic stay that was a favorite among literary greats such as Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, has reimagined the hotel’s distinctive blue in its signature check for lounge chairs, umbrellas, interior touches, and more. The fashion house is also introducing a Burberry ice lolly, which can be enjoyed at The Fitzgerald Bar terrace, and exclusive brand experiences, including waterskiing. The partnership continues through September 30.—Alexandria Sillo
6. Charlotte Chesnais Introduces Gilded Sculptures Inspired by Jewelry
Paris designer Charlotte Chesnais conceives elegant jewelry that twists and swoops in graceful arcs and loops around fingers, wrists, and earlobes. Her willowy forms are an ongoing evolution of her earliest work, imagining ready-to-wear for Balenciaga under the visionary direction of Nicolas Ghesquière, and an inspired style that helped shape an artful silverware collection for Christofle. Now, her signature style of wearable art is being reintroduced as sculpture in a series of five pieces that celebrate motion. These sinuous shapes challenge perception with their mirror-like surfaces while the change in scale add a unique energy to her recognized oeuvre. These newest works come to fruition just Chesnais unveils “On Artefacts,” an exhibition of photography by Livia Melzi, on display in the designer’s Rue d’Alger boutique through June 13. The limited-edition prints capture Chesnais’ sculptures in production, set against the background of the Atelier de moulage du Grand Palais RMN artist workshops.
“What I love about Charlotte’s work is seeing how a piece of jewelry transforms into sculpture—and how that object can impose itself in a space built for making sculptures,” says Livia. “I proposed to photograph her pieces in this place that you visit like a museum, but which is not at all where these works originate. There was an artistic challenge in it: revealing the contrast between this very raw space, filled with dust and plaster, in total dissonance with Charlotte’s sculptures —polished, immaculate.”—J.S.
7. Apparatus’s Peepshow Reveals the Seductive Art of Slow Craft
If the barrage of exhibitions around New York during NYCxDesign proves anything, it’s that attention has become a scarce commodity. At Apparatus’s crimson-hued showroom, however, founder Gabriel Hendifar asks visitors to decelerate and consider time itself as a marker of luxury through “Peepshow,” a seductive new exhibition created with storied French silversmith Puiforcat. Guests settle into new editions of the Episode chair, whose aged aluminum armatures and supple leather upholstery cocoon the body before directing the eye toward a row of peepholes. Inside, centuries of painstaking handiwork flicker from the darkness in flashes of silver and gold. A circa 1645 gold-glit tumbler commissioned for Anne of Australia appears alongside an exuberant 18th-century candelabra by Philippe Caffieri and an elaborate tea and coffee service created in 1759 for Dom José I of Portugal. Introduced in 2022, the Episode series required four years of development and still requires 22 hours of hand-craftsmanship per piece in New York. —Ryan Waddoups
8. Lacoste and Roland-Garros Launch Clay Court-Inspired Collections
To coincide with world-class match play, Lacoste has again partnered up with Roland-Garros to celebrate the moment when sport and culture collide. Taking cues from the French Open’s role as the only Grand Slam tournament played on clay, the collaboration’s second edition features performance and lifestyle wear in Lacoste’s signature colors that are enhanced by the warm tones of the courts. The collections include polos, breathable t-shirts, skirts, shorts, training jackets, footwear, and more. Additionally, from May 21 through May 24, Club Lacoste will take over a rooftop in the 16th arrondissement, where tennis greats will be on hand for exclusive meet-and-greets, pop-up experiences, and live match screenings. —A.S.