Latest news with #Wittmann
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Inside Designer Arthur Arbesser's First Interior Design Project for the Altstadt Vienna Hotel
MILAN — Fans of Arthur Arbesser's upbeat, sophisticated fashions can now sleep in a haven of his aesthetic. The Vienna-born designer, a rising player in the home sphere, designed two rooms for the Altstadt Vienna, marking his foray into the worlds of hospitality and interior design. The boutique hotel, located at in Vienna's Spittelberg neighborhood in the 7th district, has come to the fore as a hot spot for art and design enthusiasts, namely for its rooms designed by prominent fashion designers, artists and architects. Among them, Italian designer Matteo Thun and Istanbul-born and Vienna-based designer Atil Kutoglu. More from WWD Reiss and Tom Daley Collaborate on Pride Collection Karl Lagerfeld and Donald Duck Reunite for Capsule Match Your Stripes While Traveling With My Style Bags' New Collab Arbesser, who has been based in Milan for 20 years, joined the Alstadt roster of luminaries this month, creating his own 'Viennese-Milanese melange' in two rooms of the family-run hotel, working with furniture and fabrics from the Austrian furniture manufacturer Wittmann. 'I love that it's a family-run hotel and a place for art and design lovers. I filled the rooms with a lot of Wittmann furniture and my favorite design classics. I wanted to make them really cozy and sweet and you can see clearly that someone from Vienna designed those rooms, with a strong connection to Italy,' Arbesser told WWD on Wednesday. Arbesser designed two rooms: Room 14 and Room 30. In 14, he incorporated his Flower fabric on the Wittmann Spring bed and bench. Flower is an homage to bygone Wittmann collaborator Josef Frank and includes 20th-century scenes and elements like cell phones in a cartoonish splash of shapes and flora. Frank was an Austrian architect and artist of Jewish origins who emigrated to Sweden before World War II, where he became a designer for the Stockholm-based design company Svenskt Tenn. Elsewhere, he enhanced the space with Milanese influences, both modern and retro. Key pieces include the Quaderna desk by Superstudio for Zanotta and the Imbuto floor lamp by late architect and designer Luigi Caccia Dominioni and which is produced by Azucena. It also includes the 1967 Flos' Snoopy lamp by Achille e Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. The bathroom is splashed with Arbesser's signature bold stripes that call to mind Arbesser's fashion designs. In Room 30, he played with geometric motifs like chessboards and cubes. It includes two colourfully lacquered bedside cabinets, the Atrium modular sofa by Wittmann and Chess carpet. He injected a Bauhaus vibe with Hungarian American architect Marcel Breuer's Laccio coffee table (produced by Knoll) and the Le Grand Bleu lamp by French architect and designer Charlotte Perriand produced by Nemo Group, as well as Austrian American architect Friedrick Kiesler's Freischwinger chair, covered in mint-colored leather and produced by Wittmann. He also included two paintings by Austrian artist Xenia Hausner. Room 30 starts at 244 euros per night, while Room 14 starts at 235 euros per night. The Alstadt hotel is owned by Otto E. Wiesenthal, who opened the boutique hotel in 1991 and is known for his vast collection of art. The landmark was originally built in 1902. While his fashion line is still his focus, Arbesser has been diversifying in recent years. A roster of collaborations includes corkscrews for Italian design firm Alessi and another tie up with Denmark-based firm Gubi for his Oca chair, made in collaboration with Italian artisan Alan Zinchi. Arbesser accepted the role as creative counsel for historic Austrian furniture-maker Wittmann Möbelwerkstätten in 2023, after which he expanded his involvement into supporting Wittmann in the areas of presentation, branding and communication. Admittedly, this first interior design project presented a few challenges. 'I basically started with a white room.…There were some technical details I wasn't prepared for, like working with curtains for example, but once you start digging in you figure it out,' he said, adding that he's open to working more in the field of interior design. Arbesser joins a roster of designers delving into the world of home and interiors. Lars Nilsson — the Swedish-born designer whose fashion career included top positions at Bill Blass, Nina Ricci and Gianfranco Ferré, as well as behind-the-scenes roles at Christian Dior and Christian Lacroix — made news with his 2018 textile collection with Svenskt Tenn, and a Vandra Rugs collaboration before that.
Winnipeg Free Press
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Earth angels
In 2017, while visiting New York City, Winnipeg retailer Lauren Wittmann spotted a teensy-tiny baby in a gift shop window and asked, 'How much?' 'I had no idea what a Sonny Angel was,' says Wittmann, who, with her mother Trish, co-owns Riley Grae, one of the city's leading purveyors of cuteness and kitsch since opening on Corydon Avenue in 2019. 'I just thought it was so adorable and so I got one.' Riley Grae co-owner Lauren Wittmann has a personal collection of Sonny Angels Then another, and another, and another: the figurines, mostly naked, usually pantsless cherubic-looking boys wearing different kinds of headgear, about eight centimetres tall, quickly became a personal obsession for Wittmann. Ever since the shop began carrying the figurines in October 2022, the rate of adoption across Winnipeg has skyrocketed. In under three years, Riley Grae has sold more than 14,000 of the collectibles produced by Japan's Dreams Inc., retailing at a price range from $19 to $24. For the business, which opened on the eve of the pandemic, the seraphic babies, which, like hockey cards, are distributed in 'blind boxes,' have been an economic godsend. Every time a new shipment of Sonny Angels or associated products 'drops,' a horde of eager collectors assembles on Corydon, with the queue often exceeding 200 customers, each in pursuit of a trinket's worth of joy and moral support. 'They're so cute, they're so tiny and they bring me happiness,' says accounting student Eliza Param, who lined up at 9 a.m. last month to get her hands on a Sonny Angel Hipper, which sticks to the top of a cellphone and stares outward across the back. 'Mine are all on a shelf in my bedroom. They sit there and watch me study,' says 21-year-old university student Gabby Serek, who has as many figurines as she has years lived. The Sonny Angel product line has existed since 2004, but Dreams Inc.'s fortunes have risen with the advent of TikTok, where millions of posts highlight the figurines' charms and the thrill that comes with opening their hexagonal containers. 'A lot of the appeal is the adrenaline,' says Wittmann, who repurposed a shelf intended for an antique spoon collection as a display for her own array. While this form of babified trinkets is still relatively novel, Wittmann believes the current trend is the latest stage of a century-spanning tradition of comforting, infant-based art. 'As weird as it is, people have always liked cute, naked baby decor,' Wittmann says with a laugh. 'Think about bathrooms filled with cherubs and those prints you'd find at grandma's house of a baby sitting in a pile of vegetables or sitting in a pasta pot at an Italian restaurant in a movie.' According to the product's lore, Sonny is a 'little angel boy … who will always be by your side, watching over you and making you smile.' Since his birthday — May 15, 2004 — the Japanese manufacturer has introduced more than 650 variations to the market, contributing to the product's collectible appeal. While some customers were early adopters, Wittmann says Sonny Angels didn't exactly fly off the shelves until they achieved more ubiquity on TikTok and other social media. 'Now people come in on a mission,' she says. Last year, the figurines were the focus of a Saturday Night Live sketch starring pop star Dua Lipa. 'I think I've seen those on shy teenagers' phone cases. What are they?' asked cast member Marcello Hernandez. 'They're huge. They're companions for lonely 25-year-old working women,' Lipa replied. But the customer base is wider than that, says Wittmann, who estimates that her store regularly welcomes collectors who span expected gender and age demographics. Brothers King and Prince Camia — 15 and 24, respectively — are avid Sonny Angel fans. There have been more than 650 variations of Sonny Angels released since 2004, with most figurines only wearing different headgear and tops. 'It makes me happy to waste my money on stupid collectibles like this,' says King, a student at Tec-Voc. Fleeting joy, or the pursuit of it, is key to the Sonny Angel brand, perhaps best exemplified by the product's will-he-or-won't-he motto: 'He may bring you happiness.' 'I think specifically this past year there's been a trinket trend online, a trend about allowing yourself to treat and heal your inner child by buying anything playful and unnecessary, and I understand the hype: if we didn't sell them here, I'd be in line to buy them elsewhere,' Wittmann says. Six British Columbia retailers carry the products, along with one in Alberta and 13 in Ontario, but Riley Grae is the only Manitoba shop with angels in stock. With the ongoing volatility to international supply chains owing to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threats, Trish Wittmann anticipates that Sonny Angels, along with other shop staples, such as Baggu products, could be arriving with less frequency, at a higher price tag, or both, in the coming months. Between product-specific surcharges, tariffs and counter-tariffs, the independent retailer has had to carefully assess the viability of most international vendor relationships, she says. 'It's quite sad for us because there are so many awesome, small independent artists in the States that we support. The short and tall of this is that (the tariffs) are affecting our business greatly,' Trish Wittmann says. While Sonny Angel enthusiasts are keen on continuing to amass their personal collections, the figurines, which arrive at Riley Grae through an American distribution centre, have already seen their prices increase. 'It's not fun, but it's what's happening with everything,' says Lauren Wittmann. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. 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