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
Debut
Jake Arnold Partners With Everhem on a Collection of Off-the-Shelf Window Treatments That Could Pass for Custom Treasures
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 off-the-shelf 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
One to Watch
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.
Hotel
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.