The holiday season is fast upon and our curated gift guide brings together objects and spaces that range from the inspirational to the aspirational.
Besides stocking fillers such as sustainable glass-blown candles and handmade ceramics, we’ve got a space-age work from home pod and collectable furniture and NFT art. Take a look.
Liz Vidal ceramics
From weighty mugs that fit snugly against the heel of your palm to abstract vases glazed with overlapping shades of rust, slate, sky and sea blues, Liz Vidal’s earthenware is solid and joyful to use. The Bristol-based ceramicist follows a ‘slow and steady’ mantra of making, dipping her vessels to glaze them with overlapping swatches of colour.
From £28 per mug via Toast
Murano candles by Eym
Fragrance masters Eym tapped Murano glassmaker Laguna B to create these refillable three-wick candles. The hand-blown objects are bursting with colour to match the brand’s all-natural aromatherapy scents, which are said to have a positive impact on emotional well being – perfect for home studios or unwinding after a stressful day. Burn, refill and repeat.
From £115
Marble cubes by Eagle & Hodges
Solid, tactile and inherently beautiful, these veined side tables by Eagle & Hodges come in a range of marbles, from Calacatta Viola Estramoz to Arabescato. The studio – founded by creative director Alex Eagle and interior designer Sophie Hodges – recently launched its furniture and homewares collection with pieces ranging from midcentury armchairs and 1950s kidney sofas to bamboo handle cutlery sets, hand-embroidered table linens and swirl glassware, hand-blown outside London.
Cubes from £1,695
NFT ballet performance by London’s Royal Ballet
Theatre, opera and art were out of bounds for much of 2020, and a good chunk of 2021. But fans of dance can now own a very special performance as the world’s first NFT ballet set goes under the hammer at Bonham’s courtesy of London’s Royal Ballet. Principal ballerina Natalia Osipova will dance three pieces for the sale, titled ‘Encore! Modern Art on Stage’ with the successful bidder granted the full license for the non-fungible tokens.
Bidding runs until 10 December
Gio Ponti – collector’s edition by Taschen
This monumental tome by Taschen casts the maestro’s work in a fresh light, bringing together 100 of Gio Ponti’s buildings alongside commentary, essays and archive photographs of his furniture and startling interior designs. The lavishly printed coffee table book is available in a boxed, XL version as well as a limited edition collector’s bundle, accompanied by Ponti’s Planchart Coffee Table – a square reproduction of the Arlecchino design, produced by Molteni&C – and four numbered prints of Ponti’s ocean liner studies.
From $250
A-frame cabin kit by Midwest Products
Build your own classic A-frame cabin – at ¾” scale. The kit is of a one-bedroom cabin, with a living room, kitchen, bathroom and spiral staircase to the loft. Even though it’s on a miniature scale, the kit offers the opportunity for wannabe architects to learn unconventional framing, in accordance with most US building codes.
$150 via Blick
SPACE prefab by Ecocapsule
On the other end of the scale, this egg-shaped prefab is conceived as a moveable studio or a solar-powered off-grid retreat. The retro-futurist pod features a fibreglass shell and minimalist plywood interiors with integrated storage, lighting and a sleeping area. It can be also be customised by the client and offers a stylish garden room option or used as a weekend getaway, mountable on most terrains.
From €49,000
Carlo Scarpa: Beyond Matter by Rizzoli
Patrizia Piccinini and Lorenzo Pennati take readers on an armchair tour of Italy through this book, capturing the iconic post-war buildings of architect Carlo Scarpa. Beginning in Venice, Treviso, Verona and Bologna and culminating with the Dolomites, Pennati’s photographs capture both the scale and detail of Scarpa’s imposing structures which have come to typify postwar Italian architecture.
$55
Limited edition prints by Jasper Fry
Jasper Fry captured the immersive world of London’s prop houses and their treasures in this limited-edition run of fine prints, exhibited earlier this year. The series lifts the lid on these secret spaces that are so integral to the film industry, with each image capturing a portrait of time through products; from walls covered in 150 years of telephones, to surgical lamps spanning the earliest days of surgery to present.
£75 for a 30 x 30cm print via Instagram
Ettore Sottsass polychrome mirror via 1st Dibs
This colourful polychromatic mirror was designed by Memphis Group maverick Ettore Sottsass for Gli Specchi di Dioniso and produced by Glas Italia in Brianza in 2007. The rebellious postmodern design movement was the subject of the exhibition Memphis Plastic Fields in Milton Keynes earlier this year and continues to grow in popularity despite its early derision as ‘Fisher-Price’ design. Memphis founder Sottsass is the most collectable, and this piece is from his late career. It features a square mirror plate surrounded by lacquered shards of burgundy, yellow, white, orange and yellow.
$3,500
