Mark C. O'Flaherty

A wonky 16th-century house has become a labour of love for Simon Costin — and he’s even fallen for the ghosts

Interior design meets soap opera in the latest high-end real-estate trend, where the wealthy approach homeowners with no desire to sell and buy their houses turnkey—down to the tchotchkes
By Mark C. O'Flaherty
March 22, 2025
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Some real-estate agents suggest baking chocolate-chip cookies to set the scene for selling your home. Others might bring their own Diptyque candle for an open-house day. But the trend at the giddiest heights of real estate isn’t the waft of a Brady...

Paris is a place for revolutions: the sci-fi fantasies of Cardin and Courrèges, Jean Paul Gaultier’s skirts pour homme and the inflated gothic rituals of Rick Owens. All wild, memorable and museum-worthy. But it may be Agnès Troublé who has changed what we wear today, more so than any fierce iconoclast.

The style bible’s photographs of Kate Moss, Neneh Cherry and Kurt Cobain shaped popular culture

The founder of the Rains fashion brand has restored a 19th-century industrialist’s summer house, flooding it with sun — and vibrant decor — during the dark Danish winter

Oh, the Beaumont, how do I love thee? Let me count just a few of the ways. Let’s start with the smell. All your corridors and stairwells have that just-laid, expensive carpet fragrance, gently scented with something wonderful I can’t quite identify. Then there are those vintage-looking lift dials in the hallways, informing guests precisely where the elevator is on its journey up or down.

Completing a trilogy of collections with indomitable women at their heart, the latest designs by Erdem bring yet another compelling narrative to life through beautifully crafted pieces drawing from the richest history. WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY MARK C O’FLAHERTY

Filled with a lifetime’s worth of antique treasures, the home of the former boutique owner Virginia Bates is still a social spot for her fashion-set friends. WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY MARK C O’FLAHERTY

But can you handle a herbaceous perfume?

More than mere workwear, the Norfolk label’s clothes have become classics. How will loyal fans manage without it?

For brands, controlling footfall improves security, creates an air of exclusivity and weeds out casual shoppers

There are pinks and then there are pinks. Millennial pink coloured the 2010s. Schiaparelli pink lit up the 1930s. Miami pink was the neon glow of the 1980s.

In the cinema of science-fiction, corridors take a lead role. It’s within those interstitial spaces that the action and beauty unfold, from intense moments of peril to the panning of backlit walls configured to look infinite in scale.

Meet New York’s new meme lords

The designer talks about perverse femininity, working with Gaultier and the influence of her Irish heritage