Collector’s Edition

A designer by all depths of the title, Marc Newson has imagined an unimaginable amount of physical works over the past four decades. There are those you’ve sat on— from the bowed Embryo chair that first debuted in 1988 to the more formal and far more upright Task office chair for Knoll three decades later—to those you’ve strapped on—most famously, the Apple Watch, which he designed in 2015 with Jony Ive, years after co-founding the timepiece brand, Ikepod, in 1994—plus, the long list of pieces you’ve lusted over from afar. (That’s saying nothing of Newson’s under-the-radar archive of prototypal works scattered across the best private collections around the world.) Much of this expansive oeuvre appears in the decorated designer’s new tome with Taschen, Marc Newson. Works 84-24, which releases this summer. In spite of, or perhaps thanks to, the sheer volume of design imagery rattling around in his head, Newson readily identifies Maison Alaïa creative director Pieter Mulier’s exact whereabouts through the fog of Zoom in mere moments as the two connect on a recent spring day.

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“I see the Super Guppy lamp,” Newson says, spotting his curved aluminum tube from 1987, which tapers at the mid section in a nod to Achille Castiglioni, while squinting around Mulier’s silhouette to pick out the defining traits of the space. He correctly names it as Azzedine Alaïa’s four-storey hôtel particulier on 5 Rue de Marignan. “And the Serge Mouille light behind you,” he adds.

The two men, the former in between London and the English countryside, and the other back and forth from Paris to Belgium, are tethered to one another through odd if
not special means. Though their relationship was conceived through loss, it’s been earned in its own right for the past three years and nurtured through shared practices. Newson was a close collaborator and confidant of the late couturier: a regular at Alaïa’s infamous dinner parties, where he’d sit anchovied between Catherine Deneuve level starlets and political leaders from across the globe. He also designed the shoe annex for Alaïa’s Parisian store in the Marais in 2006. When Mulier took the reins at the house in February 2021, he opened the mysterious maison’s doors to a new generation of curious minds while still keeping its most time-tested relationships, like that of Alaïa’s with Newson, clutched to his side.

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“I have so many fond memories there,” the industrial designer shares with the fashion designer, who previously was Raf Simons’ right hand at Jil Sander, Dior, and Calvin Klein. When Mulier reveals plans for the future—that his team will move to another site and that the hotel will become the new home of the fashion brand’s foundation this fall—a look of uncertainty briefly furrows Newson’s grin. What of his many works—and those of his friends—which Alaïa himself selected from his personal collection, to fill the space with? A table by Jean Prouvé, chairs by Pierre Paulin. “Everything is being saved in our arts storage,” answers Mulier, resolutely. “We’re keeping it all forever.”

Pieter Mulier: Marc, I came to stay with you and Charlotte [Stockdale, Newson’s wife] at your beautiful, historic house in the Cotswolds shortly after I joined Alaïa. That was so special to me because, Marc, I don’t like the word “fan,” but I’ve been such a big fan of your works since I was a student. I studied interior architecture in the late ’80s, early ’90s—during your heyday of experimentation—and so it was really a dream to come and visit you.

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Marc Newson: That’s so kind. And of course, it was really a pleasure for us to host you, to have you there. It’s not always easy to find the time, and that house in the countryside of England is not exactly central or easy to get to. I still need to populate it.

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PM: It’s always nice to spend time with people whom Azzedine was very close to, people that he respected a lot. There were not many that he thought of as true creative partners, so that was just one of the many reasons why I enjoyed that trip so much.

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MN: Azzedine was like an uncle to me. Obviously, he was from a different generation. I always really enjoyed his sense of humor. He was one of the funniest people when he wanted to be funny. He could be quite mean too—don’t get me wrong—but he was usually just absolutely hysterical. I laughed so much with him.

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His reputation doesn’t need any defining, but actually the one thing that I enjoyed most about his atelier was that it was kind of its own environment—something almost like a theater. What’s interesting to me about that, even now, is that so much of Azzedine’s interests were outside of fashion. You would be at his house for dinner and one time you’re sitting next to Kanye West, and the next it would be next to Jack Lang, France’s ex-Minister of Culture. No matter the occasion, though, there was always this one tailor from the studio...

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PM: Erdal!

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MN: Yes! Of course, Azzedine loved fashion ... but it was something else. I even hesitate to use that word—“fashion.” What he was doing was more like architecture, in a way.

PM: Sculpture even. I think also that’s what he liked in your work.

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MN: Possibly. I could never really understand what he liked in my work, but I do know he liked it. When we first met him in the late ’90s, Azzedine had already been collecting my work for some time. In fact, he somehow acquired one of the pieces [a chaise lounge] I had made in Australia for my college graduation. I remember walking upstairs, where he kept it 15 years later, and being completely shocked. Even I hadn’t known where it had gone to! He had an interesting eye for things.

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PM: Maybe it was through Peter Brant. He has a lot of your earlier pieces. I actually just tried to buy a desk of yours from him.

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MN: Really?!

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PM: Yes, one of these round, beautiful shapes. I think you made it for a boutique in Berlin. Someone was faster than me.

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MN: It’s always been important for me to be able to solve different kinds of problems through design. Sometimes we are limited by definition for various reasons, of course, but ultimately, one of the jobs or goals for designers like myself is to be able to design things that are on some level accessible for most. There’s a fine line, though. I draw that at making things that are disposable. It’s safe to say most of the things that I make end up costing a certain amount of money because there’s a certain value there. These things will not end up in a landfill one day. That for me is a more sustainable model, and I think it’s probably the same with Alaïa. Your pieces are beautifully conceived and beautifully created. There is a timelessness, which is actually a little bit contradictory in this age.

PM: I try to give attention to the small things that make everyday products—clothes—feel more important. Of course, we have the limit, too: the body. It’s rare today to take the time to consider all of this, but it’s rare to have it! We are trying to make the name of Alaïa a little bit more democratic, because back in the days I think the house did feel like a private club. You were either a part of it or you were not.

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MN: I remember once sitting next to Lauren Bacall at one of his dinners.

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PM: In a positive sense, I do like this idea of being a snob—that you have close attention to the details and aesthetics around you—but the negative qualities? No, not at all.

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MN: There was definitely a sense of intimidation before. Obviously, I had a close relationship with Azzedine, but when he first met Charlotte, she was terrified. That was a very typical dynamic of most people when they first encountered him, so I appreciate you trying to make Alaïa feel more democratic. I think you’re on the perfect trajectory. Nobody could have imagined this kind of transition for a brand so unique and specific, but you’ve done it.

PM: A jewel like Alaïa has to be treated with importance and care, which takes time. But in the world of design now, it’s a bit of the same as it is in fashion?

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MN: This idea of time taking is so rare now, especially in the luxury world. It’s more like a waste of time, which was for sure a quality that Azzedine had for realizing. He always told me if he didn’t think a project I was working on was a good idea. “Look, stick to what you’re good at and do it the best you can do,” he’d say. “Do it your way.” Inevitably, he was right.

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PM: For me, good choices are always hard to make, they need to be. They also need to be extreme. There’s no middle road. If I look at your body of work, it’s quite astonishing because there is consideration. And yet, at the same time, time does not matter. Your early works still feel completely modern. I’m thinking of, for instance, your closet, Pod of Drawers, designed in 1987. Is it made of aluminum?

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MN: The outside is covered in aluminum; inside it’s synthetic plastic. It was inspired by [cabinetmaker] André Groult.

PM: Oh really? I didn’t know that. And there are only a few in the world, right? I love that entire collection with the lounge.

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MN: Yeah, they were done as a pair. There were two distinct references—this Neoclassical painting for the lounge, and the Groult cabinet for the drawers. The collection was a bit of a reinterpretation, let’s say, of what I really loved. There’s one in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris; they bought one a few years ago.

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PM: And another is owned by a private family in Paris.

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MN: I don’t know. I don’t have one, that’s what I can say!

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PM: It’s a piece that you can’t put a timestamp on, a piece that you know the shape but don’t know how it’s made. That’s my favorite. Personally, I own your Orgone table in orange. It was one of the first design pieces I bought a long time ago, and I have kept it since. I thought it was a combination of a surfboard, an African bed, and something else... even an art deco Brâncuși. Very simple.

“My intention has never been to create objects that I can have. Once it's done, it’s done. Then it lives on in a life of its own.”
— Marc Newson

MN: I never thought about the African connection, but I totally see it.

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PM: What I find so unbelievable about your work is how you manage to do both the high and the low so perfectly. That marble series you showed at Gagosian [in New York in 2007]—just wow—and then you designed luggage right after? It’s so astonishing to me because most people can’t even attempt to think like that.

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MN: As a designer, versatility is important. To have more than one interest—or to be interested in different scales, materials, typologies—is important. Expensive, inexpensive, big, small, in the end it’s all just design. Perhaps, some of this comes from growing in Australia. At that time, we didn’t really have any sort of sophisticated cultural menu, so to speak. If you wanted something, you had to do it yourself. That forced me to be versatile, especially as I’ve jumped from one place to another. I find that notion, to have that kind of dexterity, to be quite liberating and helpful.

PM: You must always have to be thinking, What’s next?, or, What’s new?, like myself. Can your mind be open when you’re surrounded by what you’ve done?

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MN: Azzedine was a true collector of things; I am not. I don’t even like the idea of it. Inevitably, of course, there are things that follow you around your life. I have a lot of my work—mostly old prototypes and things like that. But for the most part, it’s all in storage, and I don’t really touch it. My intention has never been to create objects that I can have. Once it’s done, it’s done. Then it lives on in a life of its own.

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PM: I used to collect everything around me, and then when I turned 40, I stopped. I actually sold all my furniture, except your bed, and lived without it for one year.

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MN: The older I get, the more I want to divest myself of things. It’s a responsibility to have stuff: physically, mentally.

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PM: Maybe it will come back in a few years; maybe I’ll start doing it again, but now I only buy contemporary art. I prefer taking care of somebody else’s work rather than mine.

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MN: I completely understand that. I’m not really taking care of my work, either.

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PM: You should!

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MN: Yes, I really should.

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Fashion BEN SCHOFIELD.
Grooming YOKO SETOYAMA at DAWES & CO.
Photo Assistant MAXWELL ANDERSON.
Fashion Assistants KIT SWANNN and SEAN BAKER-HUNTER.
Executive Producer ROSIE DONOGHUE at UN/PRODUCED.
Producer ROSIE MEYER at UN/PRODUCED.