Victor Glemaud Teams Up With Schumacher, Hermès Opens in Austin, and More News

Roman and Williams unveils newest Guild Gallery show

Downtown New York’s Guild Gallery, an outgrowth of the Roman and Williams Guild, opened its newest exhibition, Living Stone, on May 12 (through July 9). The first-ever U.S. show for Dutch artist Mirjam de Nijs, it showcases 32 works hand-picked by Roman and Williams’s Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch from de Nijs’s Amsterdam studio, including Chaise and Totem, two pieces of furniture commissioned specifically by the designers. De Nijs creates sculptures in a range of scales (including a recent 800-pound marvel) from marble, alabaster, onyx, travertine, and bluestone with the help of saws and chisels alike.

Italian design duo responds to the surroundings of New York’s Hudson Valley

Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, the Italian masterminds behind the Milan and Rotterdam-based design practice Formafantasma, have long been intrigued by experimental materiality, sustainability, and the natural world. Those ideas collide at the site-specific installation Formafantasma at Manitoga’s Dragon Rock: Designing Nature, which opened May 13 (through November 14) at late industrial designer Russel Wright’s home and studio in New York’s lower Hudson Valley. Presented by the Magazzino Italian Art museum and research center and Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center, the objects—mostly early works by Formafantasma—are in harmonious dialogue with Wright’s modernist stone, wood, and glass abode.

Hermès bolsters its presence in Texas with an Austin store

Austin’s quirky South Congress neighborhood is now the unlikely home of a two-story 7,600-square-foot Hermès boutique. Part of the mixed-use Music Lane complex that brings together brands like Parachute, Tuft & Needle, Le Labo, and Soho House, the store marks the luxe French retailer’s third flagship in Texas, joining locations in Dallas and Houston. Adorned with mineral terrazzo and cactus and sand-colored carpets, the interior has a distinctly Southwest feel that also pulls from Austin’s live music and skate cultures.

In the news

Ukrainian bedding company continues to produce amid the war

War is still raging in Ukraine, but Natalya Ishchenko and Eteri Saneblidze, the undeterred founders of the minimalist bedding and sleepwear company Sea Me, have kept the lights on in their Odessa atelier to help give the Ukrainian economy a boost during this harrowing time. Sustainability remains top of mind for the brand. 

Spun from medium-weight 100% pure European Oeko-Tex–certified linen, each bedding set is sewn to order. Solid blue, green, and neutral hues, identified by such transporting names as Emerald, Atlantic, and Breeze, evoke the nearby Black Sea and happier days. Worldwide shipping is inevitably slower now, but springing for a new pair of sheets is one small way to support talented Ukrainian designers.

London music landmark reopens with members club

After seven years of planning and three of construction, fans will be welcomed back this month to Koko, the beloved music venue in London’s Camden neighborhood where late luminaries like Prince and Amy Winehouse have performed. Led by Koko CEO and creative director Olly Bengough and local firms Archer Humphryes Architects and Pirajean Lees, this iteration of the Victorian-era venue—which first opened as a theater in 1900—includes such standouts as a pavilion terrace restaurant floating atop the original roof, a reconstructed dome complete with cocktail bar, and House of Koko, a members-only club with perks like private vinyl rooms that are an ode to the site’s BBC broadcast heritage. “I’m excited to bring Koko back to the public at a time when people need it the most—contributing to London culture and giving the building back to the artists and the people where it belongs,” Bengough tells AD PRO.