Planning the trip, however, filled me with apprehension. Our boys were no longer little travelers content to trail along behind us through forts and museums. They were teenagers now-15 and 13-with strong opinions, independent streaks, and a finely tuned radar for boredom.
Traveller check into hotels for easy access to historical Mayan sites and the cenotes beyond, with ambles through colourful squares and late, balmy nights digesting feasts over tequila tipples. Between cultural excursions and natural wonders, however, there's much to be said for the artisans in these parts. From crafted perfumes to handmade chocolates, these are the gifts and trinkets to make space for in your luggage.
Leading the collection is the Oscar Dog Bed, a contemporary take on rest that treats nap time with the same importance as your own. Crafted with a solid oak frame and wrapped in leather, the bed feels both architectural and intimate - a throne of your pet's own to claim. A plush cushion with a removable cover keeps naps comfortable while making weekly cleaning refreshingly easy. Offered in three sizes, it's designed to suit everyone from the curled-up napper to the full-body lounger.
Also known as boho style, this free-spirited aesthetic is built on an eclectic mix of patterns and organic textures anchored by earthy elements and color palettes. Take a look at Justina Blakeney's Los Angeles home tour to find inspiration-her peacock-hued bedroom is a lesson in texture. The beauty of this style is that you can express yourself with bold prints that range from paisley motifs and palm leaves, or tone it down by layering a neutral bedspread and pillow shams with tassels or pom-poms.
There's a new way for people to display their Tube loyalties* as the London Transport Museum has started selling a range of moquette doormats. Just two patterns and one roundel at the moment, but if you use the Bakerloo or Elizabeth lines, you can have a bit of seat pattern on your doorstep. For everyone else, there's the Mind the Gap in roundel form.
In the early 19th century, the invention of the loom threatened to turn the labor market upside down. Until then, cloth was made by skilled artisans, but the loom enabled more cloth to be made more quickly by less-skilled workers. One could even argue that the Jacquard loom, a loom that allowed for complex weaving patterns via punch cards, was the first computer.
In the show, "dirty" extends to anything that breaks fashion's pact with propriety. Here are clothes caked in grime, blotted with makeup, stiffened by salt, pieced from trash, frayed, and faded. The garments span decades, from the 1980s through the mid-2000s, when the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier built their fame on defying convention, to today, when corporatization has made such daring increasingly rare. But forgoing practicality frees certain designers from the demands that the body be polite-and thereby policed.
But this week I spotted an ingenious use for the extras, courtesy of NY-based company Proche Studio. Here's their proposal: Mail in a wool blanket, and they'll give it new life in the form of a great-looking-and uber snug-chore coat, vest, or scarf. I'm particularly smitten by the chore coat, a fresh version of the quilt coats that became popular a couple of years ago, and much, much warmer.
From a single material, a Hyderabad-based design studio creates a wide range of site-specific installations, furnishings, and decor. It's all in the name of the firm, The Wicker Story, which was founded in 2019 by architect Priyanka Narula. Capable of being formed into everything from abstract constructions to functional objects, the natural material lends itself a huge variety of pieces that vary in size and complexity.
The show features the work of 14 contemporary artists who use the rug as a medium to engage with cultural concerns related to religion, technology, social justice, housing, and the environment. The diverse roster of artists from the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia work across a variety of media, including yarn, cardboard, repurposed carpets, and hair combs, to transform this functional object into a site of experimentation - manipulated, reinterpreted, and made new.
The collaboration brings together Designtex's deep expertise in high-performance contract textiles and nanimarquina's poetic command of craft, tactility, and the beauty of the imperfect. For both teams, the partnership emerged from an immediate sense of kinship - a shared language of material integrity, color sensitivity, and a respect for heritage techniques reinterpreted for contemporary spaces. "We did that by using performance yarns and intentionally embedding imperfections into the weaving process."
Tons upon tons of these single-use plastics end up in landfills or even floating in the ocean. Spanish design firm PET Lamp set out give another purpose to these otherwise short-lived materials. Partnering with artisans in communities from Chile to Ethiopia to Australia, the company celebrates both Indigeneity and sustainability, drawing upon time-honored global craft traditions while supporting local economies and recycling discarded materials.
The 26-year-old real estate project manager from Munich came to the surf camp to improve her skills on the water. I came to talk with adventurous travelers about their big ideas, from new businesses to life after layoffs.
Despite their slender profiles, the best runner rugs can still transform a space from confused to curated. While they don't have quite the anchoring effect of an area rug, they can still breathe life into the spaces that need it most (see: entryways, hallways, all-white kitchens in need of resuscitation). Beyond creating impact in your entryway or hallway, runners serve an entirely practical purpose: catching and/or disguising debris in your high-traffic areas.
The Rural Cut places vintage fashion in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, among vineyards, open fields, and the animals that inhabit the land. As a Beirut-based stylist, I worked with a fully Lebanese team to create a shoot that feels authentic, where each garment and every frame reflects the textures, history, and rhythm of the rural landscape. Photography by Angele Basile / Instagram: @angelebasile Styling by Rinad Saad / Instagram: @rinaaaaddd
Kulhads, also known as terracotta mud cups, once defined the everyday ritual of tea at railway stations across India. Used briefly and discarded soon after, they accumulated along tracks and coastlines, leaving a quiet record of consumption. For this pavilion, more than 18,000 of these cups were gathered from local communities in Dharavi and reused as a building material with structural purpose.
In this freezing season, we're thinking warm thoughts. Hot chocolate, '90s rom-coms, purring kittens, and the best luxury throw blankets. "Feels like -6 degrees" day after day has us dreaming up cozy blankets speciated for sophisticated lounging. We're talking thick wool that's not scratchy, cashmere not prone to pilling, oversized throws as soft as your favorite sweater. High-quality textiles are of the highest import, and we'll even pay the dry cleaning fee for this level of comfort.
The age of white-washed, super scant, and industrial spaces are behind us. Designers are craving excitement and color this season, manifesting this shift with maximalist bedding sporting punchy colors, big stripes, and winding patterns. An eye-catching bedding set is as good as a full bedroom makeover. Linens have the ability to fully shift the tone of a room: A set of deep cobalt silks can add mystery and allure, while a gingham duvet can take a space from empty to adorable.
At first glance, the faux fur treasures all look similar, but each has its own distinct perk. For instance, the Lola Blankets pick has a stretchy construction that's perfect for wrapping, while the Cozy Earth bubble blanket is the ultimate reading-in-bed accessory thanks to its heftier weight and tailored look. Since these are quite fluffy, I like to style my faux fur blankets in two ways, depending on my mood. For all-season decor, you can't go wrong draping it against woven upholstery.
It's not a multi-thousand pound handbag from Hermes that best captures the new era of It bags, but a 149 tote from John Lewis. Launched this season, it's deeper (45cm) and taller (33cm) than your average handbag, and comes loaded with good intentions. It's able to hold your packed lunch, flask and book, as well at a push as your gym kit.
The new blanket collection proudly presented by Electric Bowery and Bien Mal is a story of memory made physical for co-founders of Electric Bowery Cayley Lambur and Lucia Bartholomew. A physical documentation of a road trip that ties four cities together, Venice, Santa Barbara, Big Sur, and New York City, the specific terroir of the textures, colors, and personality of these
