What’s Happening: Upstart gadget-tech company Loftie is offering sleepy aesthetes an alternative to the characteristically unpleasant, if not effective, medical-grade SAD lamps designed to make shorter winter days a little less melancholy.

The Download: Every winter, as the days get shorter and some climates experience drops in temperatures, getting out of bed seems to be that much harder. Light therapy, clinical lingo for flooding a room with rays that mimic the sun, is touted by researchers, doctors, and normies as a solution for sluggish wakeups and a possible treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), also known as seasonal depression.

SAD is a medical condition that can only be treated by a doctor, but the term “SAD lamp” has emerged as shorthand for tabletop lighting designed to trick the body into thinking it’s getting more than a scant few hours of natural light each day. Searching for SAD lamps online turns up a slew of options that may be doctor-endorsed but, aesthetically speaking, are more depressing to look at than a 3:30 P.M. sunset.

Take the Day-Light Classic Plus Bright Light Therapy Lamp. SAD expert Norman E. Rosenthal, MD, recommended it to the New York Times, and while it seems very legit, it also looks more suited to lighting the site of an archeological dig.

The briefcase-like lightbox above was recommended to the Strategist by Hanne F. Hoffman and Dr. Gail Saltz, two researchers and faculty at Michigan State University and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, respectively. Hoffman and Dr. Saltz pack standout credentials, of course, but we can’t help feeling that this piece of equipment is a bit too industrial-grade for the person trying to cajole themselves out of bed for a 6:00am run.(Really, will anything help with that?)

The SAD-lamp-curious who are looking for something that vibes with their snake plant and linen bedding might be more into Loftie’s wake-up and wind-down Lamp. Launched in 2020, the company has since been trying to disrupt the home-gadget industry with the promise to banish phones from the bedroom in the name of better, more restful sleep. Its alarm clock has been picked up by MoMA Design Store and the pickiest editors (including these) for its ability to deliver on that promise by replacing the dreaded beeping with a melodic but effective wake up tune.

In Their Own Words: “Dr. Robert Sack and I realized that humans really don’t have seasonal rhythms like animals do, like breeding and hibernation and reproduction,” says. Alfred Lewy, a pioneering researcher whose work has informed the use of light therapy as a SAD treatment. “We proposed a ‘phase shift hypothesis’ that is still the leading hypothesis for how bright lights treat SAD, which is that in the winter, with the shorter days, most people’s circadian rhythms drift late with the later dawn, out of phase with their natural sleep-wake cycle. It’s like having jet lag for five months. With morning bright-light exposure, those rhythms are pushed back earlier, back into phase with their sleep.”

Surface Says: We love lamp.

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Visual arts incubator Creator Labs announced its newest drop of photography created by 25 rising photographers and filmmakers. An initiative led by Google and creative agency SN37, Creator Labs supports its network of artists as they launch new work grounded in social impact and cultural storytelling.

The current season of Creator Labs includes pieces by the likes of self-taught Bushwick photographer Andre D. Wagner, known for his street-focused documentary style, and multimedia artist Glassface, whose exhilarating portraits (pictured above) showcase a community of Los Angeles musicians ranging from ages 20 to 75. It’s an astounding body of work, all of which was captured on the Google Pixel 7 Pro and inspired by a central thematic mantra of “Be Seen, Be heard, Belong.”

Head to the new Creator Labs hub to learn more.

During a trip to Israel a few years back, Mario Carbone was introduced to fellow chef and restaurateur Eyal Shani. It was love at first sight. “We knew immediately when we locked eyes that we needed to do a restaurant together,” jokes Carbone. The Italian-American chef behind a slew of hit restaurants in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and beyond is one member of the triumvirate behind the culinary empire Major Food Group.

Few stars can outshine Carbone—the person or the restaurant— at the moment, but in Shani, he’s met his match. The Jerusalem–born chef is the grand poobah of the Israeli food scene and one of its most acclaimed exports. Known for his creative interpretations of Mediterranean produce (tomato sashimi; blackened whole-roasted cauliflower) and dishes with cheeky names (7 Clouds of Ricotta, Not One More; Sea Bass Fillet with a Deep Memory of Gas Stations), Shani has a constellation of restaurants in and around Tel Aviv and has taken many of them global, from New York to Paris to Singapore.

After their encounter in Israel, Carbone and Shani decided to team up and launch an outpost of Shani’s HaSalon concept in Miami. Housed inside the colorful art deco bones of former South Beach icon, China Grill, the lively communal-style restaurant puts the duo’s devotion to fresh ingredients on full display with theatrical flair. In the latest installment of Designing Delicious, we go inside HaSalon Miami and talk to Carbone and Shani at the restaurant’s one-year anniversary party.

On a recent night in November, the New York City outpost of swanky London social club the Ned hosted Felicia Ferrone and a crew of well-wishers to celebrate the American glassware designer’s latest launch. There, Ferrone debuted her Cowie collection of handmade Scotch glasses, cleverly designed with a stem to keep body heat from impacting the spirit’s flavor profile. The launch marked the fifth collaboration of Mortlach by Design, the Scottish distiller’s yearlong campaign to collaborate with leading industrial designers in pursuit of creating the ultimate whisky-tasting experience leading up to its 200-year anniversary.

Ferrone joins a prestigious roster of previous Mortlach by Design collaborators, which represent a cross-section of the industry’s foremost creative talents. These include prolific Italian designer Luca Nichetto, who debuted a hand-blown Murano glass decanter called SEI at Frieze L.A. in February. A few months later, at NYCxDesign, the multihyphenate Joe Doucet unveiled Tropos, a sinuous metallic wingback chair that even Ettore Sottsass would consider a conversation piece. There, the in-demand material experimentalist Sabine Marcelis also revealed Shift, a cubist glass bar cart whose rich brown and honey hues mimic the tint of Mortlach spirits.

Paying homage to Danish midcentury talent Henning Koppel and the original pitcher he designed for the brand in the 1950s, Georg Jensen has reissued the Koppel pitcher in an array of vibrantly-hued matte finishes. This stainless steel kitchen staple is instantly recognizable for its elegantly curvaceous silhouette: a reflection of Jensen’s own tendency to embrace the contemporaneous Art Nouveau lines of his day with a distinctive twist that resonates even now.

At one time RH, then known as Restoration Hardware, was just another mall-caliber furniture store selling greige furniture and decor to suburbanites. Since then, the California-based brand has truncated the name and shifted its consumer base up a few tax brackets by embarking on a sweeping foray into opulent restaurants, ritzy lodgings in New York and Aspen, shrewd expansions of its furniture business, and now a media arm helmed by former AD editor Margaret Russell.

Sound familiar? The furniture juggernaut’s recent trajectory seems to be mimicking that of Soho House, whose parent company, Membership Collective Group (MCG), rapidly expanded its U.S. holdings leading up to its 2021 IPO. Soho House has been in expansion mode ever since, with a spate of buzzy clubs and hotels opening in Nashville, Copenhagen, and Tel Aviv, and future ones slated for Mexico City and Bangkok.

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Omi Woods jewelry are contemporary heirlooms that celebrate all of our connections to Africa and her diaspora. Our jewelry is individually and ethically handmade with fair trade African gold and globally-sourced recycled and conflict-free fine metals. Omi Woods jewelry is intended to be collected, worn everyday, gifted for special occasions and passed down to future generations so its meaning can live on for generations to come. Omi means ‘water’ in the Yoruba language. Together with Woods it pays tribute to founder Ashley Alexis McFarlane’s Jamaican-Akan-Indigneous-Maroon heritage; the word Jamaica derives from the indigenous Taino word ‘Xaymaca’, which means ‘land of wood and water’.

Surface Says: With handmade craftsmanship and conflict-free gems and precious metals, the conscious consumer will be equally dazzled by Omi Woods’ wares and their ethical principles.

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