Teaming Up with Mumbai’s Æquō Gallery, Kelly Wearstler Infuses Age-Old Craft with a Signature Splash of Southern California Cool
On a warm afternoon in Alibag, on India’s Konkan coast, Kelly Wearstler is in an animated conversation about hinges. Jeevaram Suthar, the owner of a Maharashtrian carpentry workshop, is sharing a sample, his son acting as translator. After a five-minute proposition, supported by demonstrations, the AD100 Hall of Famer is convinced, promptly moving on to the next order of business. Never mind the language gap—everyone here speaks the same language of design.
“You feel the artisans’ energy and their commitment to quality and craftsmanship,” reflects Wearstler. “It’s all in the execution.” This is the Angeleno’s first trip to India, though her connection to the subcontinent was forged a couple of years ago when she met Florence Louisy and Tarini Jindal Handa of the Mumbai gallery Æquō. “There was this natural feeling that, at some point, doing something together could be genuinely exciting—nothing formal, just a shared curiosity,” recalls Louisy, the gallery’s creative director. After a second meeting in Miami, things started to take shape as Æquō’s craft-centric philosophy aligned with Wearstler’s own vibrant, seductive, and material-driven visual code.
Their design collaboration now spans 15 pieces across two collections, both created in partnership with expert artisans across Mumbai and Alibag. The first line, titled Lahar after the Hindi word for wave, includes accessories, lighting, and furniture—all bearing a sinuous grid of bronze fitted with enamel panels. "I’ve always been intrigued by enamel work,” says Wearstler, a longtime collector of the craft. “I’m drawn to the color, the variation, and the permanence of bronze paired with the nuance of enamel.” Whereas the metalwork seems suspended in motion, the panels gleam, their bespoke shades of bone, ocean blue, steel gray, and green shifting with the light. The second line, Tarang, meanwhile, features a chair, a stool, and a bench crafted in burnt teak with cast-bronze edges. “As a studio, we love timber, and Æquō was very open to experimenting with another material,” Wearstler says. “These pieces are both sculptural and functional, and the tension between the metal and the wood is quite dynamic. There’s a really soulful hand to this.”
The partnership is in many ways an embodiment of the gallery’s unique approach to cross-cultural matchmaking. “The designer must begin by understanding the context of the atelier—its rhythm, its tools, its logic, what can be pushed and what must be respected,” Louisy explains. “Our role is first to transmit our fascination for a craft and to give the designer that same excitement.” Equally central is the mission to support India’s vast but largely unorganized sector of traditional ateliers. “We do not want to just be nostalgic. It’s in the coming together of all creative energies, without any hierarchies, that a thing of beauty is born.” Adds Wearstler: “Contemporary craftsmanship is about innovation—celebrating the past and bringing it into the future.” —Nuriyah Johar
Jake Arnold Partners With Everhem on a Collection of Customizable Window Treatments
The right window treatment, Jake Arnold knows from experience, can complete a space, if imperceptibly. “When done well, you don’t notice them,” says the AD100 designer. “You just feel the comfort and cohesion they bring to the room.” Now, working with the veteran window dressers at Everhem, he has dreamed up a series of accessible, customizable designs that could pass for to-the-trade treasures, among them straightforward Roman shades, prim pleated curtains, bamboo blinds, and classic drapery. Curtains up! —Hannah Martin
Textile Designer Josie Ford Channels Art Nouveau and Ballets Russes Drama Into Jewel-Toned Prints and Sculptural Objects
For the LA-based textile designer Josie Ford, founder of Studio Ford, every collection offers a window into her latest obsession. Whereas a recent line explored the women of the Bauhaus through modern, graphic patterns, her latest series of block prints, titled Soirée, mines the Art Nouveau illustrations of Alastair and the set/costume designs of Léon Bakst. (The latter conjured tented rooms for the Ballet Russes.) Spanning quilts, tablecloths, throws, and pillows, the collection now fills her Wilshire Boulevard studio and showroom. From sweet florals to abstracted animal prints, the patterns all recall the drama of a bygone age, with jewel tones inspired by Indian miniatures. Each motif is hand-painted then translated as a textile in India, where Ford first traveled in 2017 to meet weavers, printers, and other craft specialists. More recently she’s been exploring production closer to home, making light fixtures and other objects with her romantic partner Dan Bruinooge. In the studio, rays of sun filter through the nubby silk shade of a prototype Diamond pendant lamp, which looks plucked from the top of a pagoda. Its cast-bronze details were forged locally. Watching her textiles take three-dimensional form has inspired Ford and Bruinooge to further investigate what LA has to offer. “I’m a sixth-generation Angeleno,” she says. “There’s just this aura here that anything is possible.” —H.M.
Transformed by Electric Bowery, a 1931 Church Is Ready for Its Close-Up as Silver Lake’s Newest Hot Spot
Hollywood is known for cinematic makeovers, whether onscreen or across its cityscape. So when the hospitality brand Casetta tasked Lucia Bartholomew and Cayley Lambur of Electric Bowery with reimagining a 1931 Silver Lake church as boutique accommodations, the design duo tapped into that local knack for reinvention.
Their vision for Hotel Lucile (so called for its perch, at the corner of Lucile Avenue and Griffith Boulevard) was of a sorely needed new hub of East LA social life. Lively, singular, and stylish, public spaces would beckon neighborhood creatives and visitors alike. There would be great art and great furnishings, all made by Californians. “From the beginning, we thought about it as almost an exhibition space, with this European villa feel, like you’re coming into a gallerist’s home,” says Bartholomew, chatting from Electric Bowery’s studio in Venice Beach.
Updates honor the building’s history while breathing fresh life into its unique architecture, originally designed by Scott Quintin. Classrooms became two dozen guest rooms and one jewel-box suite. The nave was transformed into a vast restaurant, which can be reorganized for different uses throughout the day. Original stained-glass windows, some carefully restored, still depict the lives of saints, though they presently loom over a sexy all-day lounge with low-slung custom furnishings. Outside, against the backdrop of urban views, the swimming pool and landscaped roof terrace provide an alluringly private “garden within the city.”
Crowning the narthex, a new mural of nearby Eaton Canyon by the artist Erin Lynn Welsh nods to the city’s resilience after the fires. Other artworks throughout the hotel, curated by Rhett Baruch Gallery, include pieces by Nicole Anastas, Kayla Plosz Antiel, and RF. Alvarez. The balance works: Hotel Lucile feels at once thoroughly contemporary and also like it’s long been a part of Silver Lake’s vibrant social fabric. —Alessandra Codinha
The Elder Statesman Distills Nonchalant Los Angeles Cool into Italian-Cashmere Blankets and a Patchwork Teddy Bear for the Home
Founded by Greg Chait in 2007, The Elder Statesman has become synonymous with nonchalant Los Angeles cool. Think acid colors, groovy patterns, and cozy knits—the kind of loungy sweaters you might slip on after a morning of surfing. The freshest additions to the brand’s ever-expanding home line build on that same low-key California spirit. Woven from Italian cashmere at their downtown LA factory, these striped blankets and matching pillows are just the things to grab for stargazing or a sunset picnic. And this handsewn teddy bear, a patchwork of knitted panels, offers a haute-hippie spin on the classic childhood keepsake. “These pieces speak to where we come from and the world we’re continuing to create,” says Chait, who launched the line with cashmere throws. “Luxury is something you build slowly.” —H.M.
These stories appear in the March issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.
