366: The kind of glass worth trading kingdoms for
And the furniture center of the Hamptons.
Welcome to Magasin Interiors. In a dedicated monthly send, Xavier Donnelly shares his latest on-the-ground intel, dives deep into a timely interiors topic, and pulls together a useful edit of resources from his vast network.
First up…
I was in São Paulo over Memorial Day, where incredible Brazilian design is everywhere. Melting caned furniture, turned aluminum stools, and Percival Lafer leather were highlights.
SHOOSTER Arts & Literature, a new design gallery in Sag Harbor, opens this weekend with an elegant curation of furniture, objects, and art, further cementing Sag as the furniture center of the Hamptons.
On nearly every vacation, I find that my carry-on luggage usually makes its return full of very fragile objects. Pelican cases to the rescue: They finally make a rollaway bag.
My friend Gabby Green recently opened the newest Hamptons hotspot, the beautifully restored Sagaponack General Store. If you want one of their already famous breakfast sandwiches, you better be in line at 7:30 a.m.
Entering the realm of designer glass
While I was walking along the beach in Amagansett this past weekend, a glint of turquoise in the sand caught my eye. As I held a worn fragment of glass in my hand, I allowed myself to be mesmerized by the depth of the color and the way it almost seemed to radiate light. What is it about glass that makes the medium so alluring, the work so desirable, yet, as a material, comparatively underrepresented in the world of art and design?
I posed this question to my dear friend Clara Zevi, founder of the nonprofit Artists Support, whose family established the glass gallery Le Stanze Del Vetro in Venice, and whose mother founded Yali Glass.
“So much to say on this topic,” she texted me back immediately. “I grew up surrounded by glass and I’ve married into glass. The biggest misconception about living with glass is the fear that it will break. The reality is that glass doesn’t break any more than a painting might get knocked by an elbow or a ceramic might chip. My husband Leon is Venetian and comes from a long line of glass makers. When we got married, we bought our first artwork together, a slim glass sculpture made by his aunt Laura de Santillana in 2003. It’s called ‘Blessure’ (wound) which feels so right as it’s deep red and has a very sexy, bodily slit down the middle. It moves around the apartment depending on the light, but usually lives on our dining table in front of a big window. I love seeing how the work transforms with the day’s light.”
Clara’s message was a revelation. She got right to the heart of why glass is so alluring and enigmatic. It can be soft, sensuous, and dazzling, cold, severe, dangerous—and sometimes all once. It can reveal and obscure; it transforms and amplifies light. It clads our enormous skyscrapers, yet on a small scale, it’s delicate and rare. To create beautiful glass objects requires immense skill, extensive expertise, and uncommon facilities—barriers that help make sense of why artful glass is still such a rare commodity.
Since the dawn of civilization, humans have considered glass precious, but its ubiquity since the turn of the century means we are somewhat numb to its inherent magic. I’ve been wondering, to myself and in conversation, what glass objects continued to bewitch us? Micheal Scanlon, the creative director of Chandelier, forwarded me the work of Miranda Keyes, whose sinuous forms are undeniably sexy. I obsess, admire, lust for Miranda’s work,” he told me. A prized possession is an amber glass bowl with floating jade squiggle handles, but also ghostly martini glass—“spindly and shaped to cradle a pinch of vodka and a single olive,” or the blown-glass pendant with dripping calla lilies once spotted at Jermain Gallacher's studio.
Amber Day, an art director at Proenza Schouler, referenced Elsa Peretti’s work in glass, particularly pieces like the thumbprint dish that exemplifies the tenderness of her work. This intimacy with the human hand is echoed in the designs of Joe Colombo, whose “Smoke” glasses were designed to be held alongside a cigarette, sent to me by designer Alex Whyte.
These pieces feel almost like they are meant to be worn, not merely held. Creative director Olivia Fialkow shared a favorite Ayllón pouch: “I love how the glass bead adds a luxurious weight to an otherwise very simple piece.”
If unbroken, glass doesn’t degrade over the centuries in the way other materials do. Occasionally, perfectly preserved ancient glass comes up at auction, like these Roman glass and gold beads that I would trade Manhattan for.
Writer Zoe Ruffner has been collecting Lalique’s old glass scarab designs. She told me that through patience (and an unhealthy number of email alerts on every platform imaginable), she’s found good deals on some highballs, in which she often puts a single flower, and the most incredible vases in black and clear. “The search continues,” she told me, “for reasonably priced jars, boxes, and ashtrays—and I’d like to have a whole family of their colored paperweights!”
Meanwhile, designer extraordinaire Adam Charlap Hyman recently sent me a link to the most incredible Lalique “Passiflore” hanging lights. He (quite rightly) told me that he “will stop at nothing” to get one for a project someday.
At the end of the day, age-old techniques continue to inspire: The jeweler Jean Prounis has recently reproduced 14th-16th century “Waldglas,” a technique that appears almost animalistic in form, applied to glassware and jewelry.
Mark my words, glass as an interior finish is about to have a big moment. We’re seeing glimpses of movement here —the Venetian stained glass ceiling at Cafe Zaffri mesmerizes, and I recently dined at a certain uptown members club whose restaurant is clad in stunning neoclassical cast-glass panelling by glassworker Stephen Cavallo. Last week, I attended a cocktail party at Athena Calderone’s gorgeous new studio, where she had incorporated a tinted glass block by Eco Outdoors above her kitchen, and I noticed that in a recent feature of Julio Torres’s apartment in AD, a platform bed is also built from glass block.
I’m also excited to see glass artists show up in gallery shows. My friend Cristina Vere Nicoll, a director at David Zwirner, recently sent me a preview of Andra Ursuta’s humanoid glass forms. (she’s got a solo show this summer on Hydra, for any lucky ducks who happen to be going there). Will we be seeing a new wave of glass artists in arts and design, the way ceramics came into the spotlight over the last decade?
Artist Sophie Lou Jacobsen (whose lighting and homewares are in high demand these days) seemed to think so, telling me last week: “I think it is already happening! We're seeing more and more glass focused design studios popping up at every trade show or design fair, or designers turning their attention to glass. At this year's Matter & Shape in Paris, there was a whole section devoted to glassware, and one of the best shows in Milan was the Italian studio 6:AM that contemporizes traditional Murano glass, as well as Yali Glass and many others.” Her dream exploration: a stained glass window. I’m on the edge of my seat.
In the meantime, while we await the further glass takeover of design, I’ll sign off with this lovely Art Deco glass tulip.
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Just lovely, thank you for sharing. Those "Smoke Glasses" are so exquisite, even the sketch is oh so charming.