Last week, Hermès opened its sixth maison, this one in London. It wouldn’t be right to call 166 New Bond Street a building, exactly. Comprising six structures and several alleyways, including one that was supposedly once called Mugger’s Alley, it’s more of a complex. Sir Norman Foster enclosed the courtyard in the early 2000s and installed within it a showstopping glass-and-steel spiral staircase, which is now wrapped in buttery Hermès calf leather.
        The French architecture firm RDAI led the Hermès renovation, with the maison spread over five floors, covering a twisting warren of 55 rooms and a beautiful English garden on the rooftop. Each space is like a small chapter within the brand’s story, highlighting craftsmanship as the omnipresent star.
        One stretch of hallway features a mosaic floor that was discovered during the transformation. Rather than hide it, Hermès brought in a craftsperson to execute a painstaking restoration. The same goes for the Victorian elevator, which was lovingly brought back to life by the very last mechanic in England to specialize in the antique equipment. From custom wallpaper to inlaid floors finished by local artisans to, of course, the brand’s own products created by French ones, every corner of the magical space celebrates the workmanship of people making things, often in very niche ways. It also incorporates another key Hermès ingredient: playfulness.
        As Axel Dumas, the brand’s CEO put it at the store opening, “We are the most British French brand.” I’d never considered this before, but it’s true. I can’t think of another brand that honors both tradition and weirdness in quite the same wonderful way — or that would dare to.
        A similar sentiment is seen in the maison’s significant artworks, which include over 500 works from the Dumas family’s private collection. Many of the pieces star horses, naturally, but what is less expected is that the depicted animals are all in motion. Tradition at Hermès is never stagnant, never standing still. Like the house itself, it is always moving forward, looking toward what’s next.

Stepping into Christina Forrer’s colorful, textural world leads you into an exploration of the human psyche. The Los Angeles-based weaver creates tapestries that are strikingly original, yet also stir a sense of recognition. Populated by enigmatic figures, animals, and dreamlike scenes, her works unfold like pages in a children’s book written for adults. They are playful, unsettling, and deeply human, balancing humor, vulnerability, and depth with remarkable clarity — as documented in her new monograph and recent solo exhibition at Parker Gallery.

Amanda Valdez: When you started weaving, you had no formal training. What led you to seek out weaver Babajan Lazar in Los Angeles?

Christina Forrer: I don't really remember how it came together. My friend and I found this place in [the Highland Park neighborhood in LA] to look into how to weave patterns. It was a cool store in the front, [and] the back had four floor looms and a rug loom. [The owner] was a rug weaver; that was his passion. He had tons of books, and it was just such a different setting from what I was used to: I went to school for design, and it was all very rigid. When I started [weaving], it was instant. I sat at that loom, and I just couldn't stop.

AV: Your weaving brings together the codified imagery of fairy tales with the tensions and volatile emotions of contemporary human relationships. It often feels unfiltered. When these images first emerge in your drawings and watercolors, do you encounter moments of resistance before they make their way onto the page or loom?

CF: Yeah, all the time. It's actually really hard to talk about because it's very mysterious to me. Sometimes the best drawings are things that are made while I'm on the phone and I doodle — or in the last five minutes of the day before I have to pick up the kids. A lot of my drawing is very doubt filled and restrained, [but] I do have moments when I’m like, “Oh my God, this just came out.”

AV: At what point do the fairy tales enter your process, and how closely do you stay to their traditional narratives?

CF: Fairy tales became part of the process because people were looking at my work and making references to them, so I thought l should look into them. Then I got really obsessed. The fairy tale finds you, or it shows itself to you when you need it.

AV: Your weavings are very seductive, materially, with plump folkish flowers and animals darting across fields of dynamic color. Yet, there are darker human behaviors and a foreboding fairy-tale logic slowly emerging as the imagery unfolds. How do you hold these two qualities in tension?

CF: I think it has to do with the process of weaving. An image comes first, and then I sort of let go of the image, or the subject matter, because I don't see the whole thing while I am weaving; I see 10 inches of width at a time on the loom. I go into this other space where it becomes more formal and about color.

AV: Do you use a cartoon behind the warp?

CF: I do — just the outline in black and white. I fill it in, but I have no clue at that point what the colors will be. Sometimes I even change it a little bit; it’s hard to translate a very rough, sketchy drawing into something on a grid.

AV: There's a lovely wonkiness because of what the grid imposes on your imagery.

CF: Sometimes you don't really think about what's going to happen if you take a drawing and essentially make a material out of it. Strange things happen that are sort of unpredictable.

AV: Are you pondering what's happening with these characters or subject matter as you are weaving? Like, let’s make a part with more blood dripping or let's make these teeth a little more grotesque?

CF: No. When you say that, it just makes me think that sometimes things are funny. Pondering sounds so serious. It's not as serious … It is also metaphorical. I'm not thinking: Oh, this person just got their arm cut off. It’s more: This person doesn't have an arm, meaning the person cannot act in this moment. In "Gretel, Gretel," I actually forgot to put a mouth on the Gretel on the right. At first, I was like, “Oh, crap, you have to put the mouth in there.” And then, I thought, “No, this is perfect.”

AV: What are you working on right now?

CF: I'm trying to do more drawings, and I have all my collaging materials out. That's my thing right now. ​

Martin Parr, one of Britain’s most prolific and celebrated photographers, passed away this past December at the age of 72. He produced more than 120 books and countless global exhibitions, picking up his first camera as a young teenager before honing his vocation at Manchester Polytechnic. His photographic style profoundly influenced generations of photographers, ranging from Alec Soth and Nick Waplington to Nadia Lee Cohen and Sinna Nasseri.
        Parr initially worked in black and white; when he began taking pictures in the 1970s, only commercial photographers or amateurs worked in color. Discovering the works of Stephen Shore, Joel Meyerowitz, and John Hinde’s vivid postcard photographs were revelatory for Parr, galvanizing his definitive shift to color in the 1980s with The Last Resort, his seminal 1986 book on the working‐class British at leisure.
        The anthropological study employed a medium‐format camera (with its tremendous descriptive power) and flash to explore the contradiction and humor between aspiration and lived experience. He would continue to mine this tension throughout his career.
        Some saw Parr’s saturated colors, intense light, and close-ups as a critique or satire of his subjects. In his book Small World, for example, the image “Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2000,” memorializes tourists soaking up international monuments in the middle of the American desert. In “Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland, 1994,” skiers trudge across a barren landscape while a postcard carousel in the foreground carries images of dreamy alpine vistas. Parr’s interpretation of such scenes illuminates the absurd, sometimes tawdry intersection of class ambition, cultural norms, and mass tourism. Yet, these images express his empathy too, describing unrealized hopes, universal fantasies, and yearnings that often lurk beneath the shiny surfaces.

Read the full feature and more close takes on a wide world in our Spring/Summer 2026 print issue. Order now.

Few creators leave their mark on a place as distinctly as the industrial architect and designer Philippe Starck. Whether creating a surreal landmark hotel in Metz, France, or reimagining a historic building in Madrid, Spain, he brings a singular perspective to every destination he touches — in remarkably different ways.

Philippe Starck’s Maison Heler Metz, part of the Curio Collection by Hilton, rises like a dream that has insisted on becoming reality. The fantastical 104-room hotel is both familiar and impossible: a 19th-century Lorraine mansion perched neatly atop a brutalist block of concrete and glass, as if spirited from another time and bolted firmly into place.
        “Surrealism is only open symbols,” Starck has said. “When nothing is fixed, anything can happen.” At Maison Heler, that openness takes architectural form. The house on the roof is not a joke or a provocation. It's a declaration that the world can contain multiple truths at once: memory and futurism, fantasy and function, French and not quite French.
        Starck’s first ground-up architectural project, more than a decade in the making, began not with blueprints but with a poetic novella, La Vie Minutieuse de Manfred Heler (The Meticulous Life of Manfred Heler), written by Starck. Accordingly, arriving at the hotel is like stepping into the fictitious world of the book’s protagonist, a solitary orphan.
        Reception feels like a stage set for dreaming; corridors are softly lit and deliberately disorienting, lined with Heler’s peculiar inventions. Bars and restaurants (two each) have their own moods, some bright and convivial with stained glass designed by Starck’s daughter, Ara, others hushed and velveted. Threaded throughout — tucked into corners, printed on key cards, hidden in wallpaper alcoves — are coded messages from Heler. Guests are not simply staying here; they’re inhabiting the character’s mind, surrounded by his odd objects and obsessive devotion to his beloved, Rose.
        The hotel’s placement in Metz is no accident. This is a city accustomed to holding multiple realities in a single frame. Roman, gothic, baroque, art nouveau, and German imperial styles coexist, reflecting an identity that has been rewritten, overwritten, and stitched back together by history’s hand more than once

Word to the Wise … If Maison Heler invites you in, Metz itself pulls you out. A short walk from the hotel, the gothic Cathédrale Saint-Étienne presents the largest surface area of stained glass in the world, including contributions from Marc Chagall. And at the edge of the city center, Centre Pompidou–Metz offers Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines’ vision of contemporary culture, built from a lattice of timber curves and translucent membrane. Even the Michelin-starred restaurant Yozura, upstairs, feels like a dreamy observatory, its windows offering a wide panorama of the city.

Brach Madrid is an adventure, inside and out. It’s situated smack in the center of Madrid’s most trafficked street, Gran Vía, which makes for a colorful arrival. And its interior is a whole other type of trip. Designed by Philippe Starck, the intimate 57-room property is inspired by the love affair of an imaginary couple from the 1920s (a musician and boxer) and their hypothetical travels through Spain.

Your favorite thing about your room … The rooms are populated with sundry souvenirs: coffee-table books, postcards, flamenco castanets — all sourced from flea markets across the country. You can piece together the couple’s journey through Spain and maybe even appropriate their itinerary for your next trip. I definitely will.

The best amenity … A Dyson Airwrap with all the attachments. I typically don’t bring any heat-styling tools on international trips due to adapters failing to adjust to voltage.

Something not to miss … As part of a French hotel collection (the Evok Collection), Brach Madrid knows pastries. From morning to lunchtime, passersby stop to stare in its windows at its croissants, breads, and beautiful cakes. Many are unable to resist taking photos and leaving with a treat.

Best thing about the spa … The gem of the hotel is La Capsule, the hotel’s wellness sanctuary. Weary travelers can opt for hyperbaric oxygen therapy upon arrival. It beat my jetlag nearly instantaneously. Two saunas (heated and LED) and a cold plunge are open daily until 11 p.m., and the pool is open 24 hours a day.

This photograph was taken in York, Maine, of tourists sitting at the shoreline, watching the waves crash against the rocks. It remains a reminder of peace, of a place where I can always retreat to and find comfort. So much of Maine is about watching — watching sunsets from porches, watching boats drift through the harbor, watching the tide roll in and out along the coast. There is a stillness to it, a beauty that lives in the quiet: the sea spray, the trees stirring in the wind, the blue skies and water, clear and sparkling. When I think of Maine, I conjure the smell of the ocean, clean air, and driving on gravel roads with the windows down. But more than anything, I think of the world around me slowing down long enough for me to pay attention.

More Than Meets the Eye. A freak golfing accident. Two spoiled Pakistani American brothers. A convenience store empire. A secret cocaine ring. An Auntie Lucky. Philadelphia. This is Deli Boys, Hulu's chaotic comedy series and my latest obsession. It's a fast-paced hybrid of The Godfather, Arrested Development, Weeds, and Succession that masterfully subverts the "model minority" stereotype with refreshingly flawed, odd characters. Its second season dropped in May — please join me in praying for a third. –Jackie Risser

Shoulder Season. Because my quest for the perfect bag is never complete, I recently picked up a Unisex Leather School Satchel from Los Angeles Apparel. Not only does it come at a price that won’t haunt you but the roomy, full-grain leather bag also hits the elusive sweet spot between utilitarian and luxe. There are two outer pockets and a silver key fob. Still, my favorite thing about it (aside from handles that are actually long enough to be worn over the shoulder) is that it is perfectly nondescript and just big enough to serve as a carry-on. –T. Cole Rachel

Blast From the Past. My high-school memories are scented by ruthless cucumber-melon body spray, ozone-melting Nautica cologne, and one standout fragrance: Amarige by Givenchy, a bodacious yet enigmatic white floral with a gardenia heart and woody base that I wore throughout my most formative teenage years. It arrived in my world by way of my chic grandmother, but its maker was master perfumer Dominique Ropion. A couple of months ago while killing time at JFK Airport, I stopped by a Duty-Free shop and spotted the eau de toilette’s tulip-like bottle and faceted stopper, inspired by the ruffled sleeves of Hubert de Givenchy’s famous Bettina blouse from his 1952 debut collection. A dusting of the iconic yet forgotten aroma’s steamy summer blooms rocketed me down memory lane. I’ll be wearing it all season while making carefree, adolescence-style decisions. –Erin Dixon