I’m writing this from somewhere over the Indian Ocean, on the last leg home after a month criss-crossing Europe — London to Copenhagen, Amsterdam to Paris, with a stopover in Antwerp. 3 Days of Design had been in my sights for a while, so when I was invited to join the official press trip, I said yes. You can read about the fair on page 108.
Between design shows and museum visits, I tracked down expat New Zealand creatives building lives and businesses over there for stories in this issue and in issues to come. I filled my dance card so thoroughly it’s hard to fit the past few weeks into one note.
What I keep coming back to is how that number-eight-wire instinct — the urge to just get on and make the thing — travels so well. Local creatives are making their names out there in their own right. Moving between places, I was struck by how small the design world can feel once you’re in it; for all its scale, it runs on a village’s worth of relationships, and New Zealanders are well and truly woven in.
In Copenhagen I kept noticing the threads between them and the people they work with abroad. Resident has been working with Stockholm’s Note Design Studio on the Avant Lounge, their newly released chair which you can read about on page 118. Landing in Amsterdam happened to coincide with Abel’s return to the city, so I got to celebrate their latest scent with them there. The story behind the Double Scoop collaboration is on page 126.
What connects them, wherever they’re working, is an honesty and humility, an intentionality in how they operate: collaborative, sure of the work, more interested in making the thing than owning the room. It’s the same instinct running through the projects we’ve gathered closer to home in this issue.
There’s a moment coming back from a trip when people ask how you’ll ever settle again. But with my cup full, I’m pretty happy to be landing back into the routines of home: the garden that’s got away on me, my morning hill walks, the people I’ve been missing. A few weeks away reminded me how good we’ve got it. I hope these stories do the same for you, with a little international fuel for good measure.
Alice Lines, Editor
@alice.lines
The post Alice Lines on travel, and the instinct that carries home appeared first on Homestyle.
