Eighteen months have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine, sending shock waves around the world — and through the global diamond market. Russia is the world’s biggest diamond exporter by volume, with a state-owned company, Alrosa, mining almost one third of all diamonds produced in 2021. To prevent funds from flowing into the Kremlin war chest,…
To the visitor driving in from out of state, the 127 Yard Sale seems like a kind of Ironman for thrifters. The “world’s longest yard sale” is a test of endurance and attention. Spanning six states, 690 miles and thousands of stalls, it traverses dramatic landscapes, delicate cultural terrain and two time zones. Seeing it…
This article is part of our Design special section about new interpretations of antique design styles. When Andrew Raftery, a master engraver and professor of printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, decided to make wallpaper, he chose an 18th-century French format called domino — small sheets printed on a letterpress, which were originally…
This article is part of our Design special section about new interpretations of antique design styles. I’m looking for a new, ergonomically correct desk chair — but I want it to look nice. Is that too much to ask? Certainly not. These days, plenty of options deliver good looks and comfort. And it’s a smart…
“You encounter racism, but you don’t tie it back to that,” she said. A trustee of the nonprofit Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, Ms. Graziolo admires classicism for its symmetry, proportion and deference to human scale — pinpointing the ideal height for a windowsill, for example. She is inspired by the photographer Pieter Estersohn’s…
“To me, a classic has three qualities,” said Bobbye Tigerman, the curator of decorative arts and design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “It reflects the time in which it was made, it demonstrates outstanding craftsmanship and it has a timeless visual appeal. Her pick: the Nyala chair by Jomo Tariku, which signals…
This article is part of our Design special section about new interpretations of antique design styles. Six years ago, Sonya Schneider and her husband, Stuart Nagae, bought a federally designated historical landmark in Seattle, a 5,000-square-foot, two-story home sheathed in dark, old-growth Western cedar shingles, with multiple gables, dormer windows and a cedar-shake roof. It…
This article is part of our Design special section about new interpretations of antique design styles. If Beth Cayre had to move, she would regret leaving the dining room ceiling, with its plaster cherry blossom branches hand molded by the ceramics artist Matthew Solomon. And who could blame her? The branches were part of what…
This article is part of our Design special section about new interpretations of antique design styles. Some forms of architecture and design, produced through arduous or even backbreaking labor, can be thought-provoking or perhaps even discomfiting to study, while also enduring as role models. Four new books explore such places and objects, while paying tribute…
This article is part of our Design special section about new interpretations of antique design styles. Scroll through Erick J. Espinoza’s Instagram feed, and you might think you’ve traveled back in time to the 1930s — not the Art Deco version, but the version filled with hooked rugs, weathervanes and candlesticks betokening the era’s American…