Katarina Kroslakova. Photography by Pierre Toussaint. Welcome to our “Structure” issue, in which we explore the theme from several angles, from the shape that cuisine takes in the social media age, to the anatomy of the contemporary luxury flagship store, to the fabrication of some of the most impressive artworks in the world.
For our cover story (page 64), the writer Lance Richardson travelled to upstate New York to visit the workshop of Urban Art Projects (UAP), a company created to realise artists’ wildest dreams. Amid the noise and heat and mess of the workshop floor, artisans construct works on an epic scale from molten bronze, ceramic slurry, paint and timber. Lance talks to the company founders, twin brothers Daniel and Matthew Tobin, who started out with a humble welding shop in the Seventeen Mile Rocks area of Brisbane in 1993. As Lance writes, UAP is now more than a manufacturing company; it’s dedicated to creating history and meaning for communities through art. “Public art has been part of the human story since things all started,” Daniel says.
Speaking of works of art, have you scrolled through the Instagram feed of any new restaurants recently? You’ll notice that food is, well, getting prettier. On page 36, Hannah Tattersall reveals why: social media-savvy chefs like José Saulog, of the new Catalan restaurant Parlar in Sydney’s Potts Point, are changing the way dishes are not just presented, but devised, down to the ingredients used. As Saulog says, “I do it visually first and then I trust myself and my team that we can make those things tasty.”
In fashion, the adjective “structured” is often applied to the work of Phoebe Philo, the enigmatic designer who transformed first Chloé then Celine with her rigorously elegant clothes. She quit the industry in 2017 and has stayed quiet until now, breaking her long silence in a rare interview (page 38). If you’ve missed her clothes — and I know I have — you’ll be happy to learn that she has a new label, under her own name, available online now.
Structure isn’t just physical. It can also be organisational. In mountainous Ecuador, a new wave of young architects are doing things their way — going solo or pairing up to collaborate,
shrugging off the yoke of history and expectation — to design unique buildings that celebrate what’s special about that landscape (page 54).
Hollie Wornes charts the beauty industry’s search for new forms of skincare, whether cutting-edge science or, paradoxically, a return to natural ingredients that echoes ancient practices (page 34). The fabric of drinks is changing, too, reports Fred Siggins (page 52), as craft distillers and brewers, in pursuit of ever more complex and distinctive products, are welcoming wild yeasts and pollens into their production process. And Luke Benedictus spotlights the breathtaking new designs from the “fashion watch” category (timepieces made by fashion brands). As the line between traditional watch “manufactures” and fashion brands becomes increasingly blurred, the structure of the watch industry is shifting, too.
We hope you enjoy the issue as much as we enjoyed making it.
Katarina Kroslakova — Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
