In Copenhagen, where Kinfolk is based, we are entering the season of long nights, cold skies and at-home gatherings that feel smaller, cozier and more intimate. This turn in the season has prompted the magazine to take as its theme a subject that has been of perennial interest in the office, but which has never been explored in a dedicated issue: interiors.
It is a great privilege to be welcomed into the homes of interesting people. On behalf of our readers, Issue 46 accepts invitations inside 10 extraordinary residences across five continents.
You’ll find remote farmhouses in Japan and England, modernist masterpieces in California and Australia, a guesthouse in Senegal, and two palatial European apartments reimagined in very different ways by their fashion designer occupants. What unites all of the homes is the intimate way in which their owners have shaped them.
For some, this has been a question of working with what was already there—Jorge Parra scraping away at layers of paint on the walls of his Spanish palazzo, or Sean Fennessy and Jessica Lillico tirelessly restoring the work of “bush modernist” Alistair Knox, whose suburban Melbourne homes were being razed by many neighbors. Other interviewees have been involved in shaping the blueprints right from the laying of the foundation stone. In Cairo, we visit costume collector Shahira Mehrez’s penthouse, which she commissioned from the architect Hassan Fathy over 50 years ago. It’s an extraordinary example of a home that has not only been shaped by the vision of a single occupant, but which stands today as a beacon of local tradition.
Woven through other sections of the magazine, you’ll find stories that delve into the twin issues of sociability and isolation that encapsulate the winter months. At the convivial end of the spectrum, we speak to party reporter Brock Colyar, who outlines what makes for a night to remember, and cook Deb Perelman, whose blog, Smitten Kitchen, has weathered the rise and fall of the format to remain one of the best-loved recipe sources on the internet. And for those who view winter as a season of withdrawal, you’ll find short essays on the concept of “wintering” and the solace of nature, and a longer exploration of the renewed popularity of homesteading.
Plus, we have interviews with two very different, but equally fascinating, fashion designers—the British menswear designer Samuel Ross and the French couturier Charles de Vilmorin; a visit to the hangarlike studio of West Coast sculptor Yoko Kubrick; and a new column in which we meet people working behind the scenes in the creative industries.
Magazine sold individually