£45
Paris-born Anissa Kermiche creates fine jewellery and objects that reflect the “successful, powerful and funny women” who surround her. Her exuberant ceramics have a mischievous edge, including this Bottom of my Heart vase, with its voluptuous curves and playful name. Kermiche celebrates the female form in all its shapely glory.
£260
For Valentine’s Day, The Wick’s founder Katy Wickremesinghe has handpicked gifts that celebrate acts of love and the human form. Why not plant a kiss on someone’s hand with a little help from Moroccan-born jewellery designer Bernard Delettrez? The Rome-based creative is known for his bold, playful style and signature motifs, such as skulls, eyes, lips and animals. He sketches his designs by hand, before they are made by a team of artisans in his atelier in Rome. This timeless ring says all you need to say.
To celebrate the Lunar New Year, LOEWE has taken cues from the long tradition of jade sculpture in China, commissioning master jade carvers to create five limited-edition pendants mounted on gold chains. Xiaojin Yin’s pendant takes the form of a cabbage, Qijing Qiu has created an eggplant, and Lei Cheng’s is in the shape of a pea pod—each symbolising luck, success, and abundance for the new year. While the pendants are only available in selected stores in China, the Jade collection also includes the Flamenco Purse Mini bag in colours inspired by ancient jade carvings and featuring a ring of precious jade stone in a matching tone. Jade symbolises goodness, intelligence, prosperity and luck, according to LOEWE, so you can carry good fortune around with you wherever you go.
£5,300
To celebrate the Chinese Year of the Dragon, French audio brand Devialet has tapped artists Yang Bao and Wa Liu to give its flagship product, the Phantom I speaker, a fire-breathing twist. The collaboration played to their strengths: Bao is an installation artist and musician with a classical piano background, while Wa is a multimedia artist whose work explores the “complex interplay between humans, nature and technologies”. The side panels of their design are hand-embellished with 22.5-carat gold leaf and red varnish in a matte finish, to reference the colours and scales of the dragon. Wa Lui describes the device as “breathing” and “morphing”, while also “producing very beautiful music”. She adds: “We wanted to envisage this encounter and symbiosis between humans and this mythical and potent idea of this legendary being.” Just 150 examples of the Devialet Phantom I by Yang Bao and Wa Liu will be available, so you’ll need to snap up this mighty musical beast fast.
Rather than merely pay homage to the dragon for Kenzo, Japanese fashion designer Nigo has fashioned the mythical creature into the form of an eight – a symbol of prosperity in Chinese culture. The dragon embellishes bomber jackets, jerseys and more, bringing fashion fire to your wardrobe.
£55
Sarah Lucas has been making her “Bunny” series since 1997: soft, fleshy sculptures fashioned from stuffed tights to evoke the seated female nude. Often sporting stilettos or heeled boots, these ‘women’ feature breasts made from balloons and impossibly long limbs that wrap around their chairs. Some appear vulnerable and uncomfortable while others seem to ooze self confidence as they sprawl upon their seats.
A full cast of these uncanny sculptures stars in Sarah Lucas: Bunny Book, co-published by Walther König and Sadie Coles HQ. Designed by Studio Claus Due, it charts their evolution, including the addition of colour, plinths and metal, as well as their increasingly assertive poses. Produced to coincide with Lucas’ show Happy Gas at Tate Modern, it includes contributions from curator Nancy Spector and writers Rose Eastwood and Róisín Tapponi. Don your stilettos and slouch in a chair while you flick through this must-have tome.
£3,820
Swarovski Optik has called on design titan Marc Newson to collaborate on a world first: the new AX Visio binoculars, equipped with an artificial intelligence system to help you identify over 9,000 birds. These vision sharpeners come with the brand’s precision 10×32 optic systems (10x magnification and an objective lens diameter of 32mm) and an inbuilt camera for snapping images and videos. Newson has given the binoculars the smooth styling you’d expect, concealing its complex inner mechanisms behind a clean, ergonomic form. Bird watching has never been so chic – or high tech.
£273,000
Takeshi Murakami is no stranger to watch design, having lent his creative magic to Hublot timepieces several times before, as well as to devices for Casio and the independent Japanese maker, Hajime Asaoka. But the Japanese artist’s latest for Hublot is his most striking and ambitious. Murakami has turned watch design on its head by eschewing a central dial – known as the ‘face’ of the watch – instead fusing the case, movement and dial in a central arrangement. The central flying tourbillon is surrounded by a flower (a classic Murakami motif) with sapphire petals. Just 50 are available, so Murakami lovers will need to act fast – and have deep pockets.
£150
The gardens at Highgrove are captured in all their seasonal glory in this series of scarves by young artist Sammi Lynch. Burberry tapped the recent graduate of the Royal Drawing School as part of its shared mission with The King’s Foundation – steward of Highgrove Gardens – to nurture the next generation of artists and craftspeople. Lynch spent time on the estate to sketch from life in pastels before working with oil paint in the studio, seeing the works as a collaboration with the gardeners. Each scarf, finished with hand-rolled edges, evokes the colours of a different season, while framing King Charles’ private residence in the centre.
