What’s Happening: With his 58-look, 35 minute-long Couture Week debut, the CFDA chairman put a spotlight on American fashion at the industry calendar’s most venerated showcase of artisanry and craft.

The Download: American fashion has come a long way since 1973, when the legendary Battle of Versailles benefit fashion show forced the French to acknowledge for the first time that the U.S. even had serious design talent. The Battle of Versailles shifted the industry’s focus from ready-to-wear to couture in the interest of raising funds to restore the historic palace. Just this week, CFDA chairman Thom Browne put American fashion—and made-to-measure—back on the map in Paris, this time with his Couture Week debut.

The designer took over the Opéra Garnier in a dramatic fashion, filling its seats with 2,000 cardboard cutouts dressed in his signature gray suit while sentient attendees sat right onstage. There, they witnessed an evolution of Browne’s signature as his models embarked on a journey through an imaginary train station, representing travelers, bells, pigeons, gargoyles, and, for the finale, a triumphant bride. Along the way, the gray flannel suit evolved from a kilt and blazer ensemble to something more experimental: trompe l’oeil skirt suits affixed to voluminous bell-shaped wool coats, extravagantly beaded miniskirts and evening coats, and oversized double-breasted blazers with nautical embroidery and brocade.

This year, though, reality is impinging on Paris’s Couture Week fantasy. The city is alight in demonstrations and protests after local police shot and killed a 17-year-old over the weekend. On the heels of men’s fashion week, which concluded on June 25, the city had just emerged from gridlock wrought by 43 shows and 38 presentations, along with conflicting diplomatic and sporting events. As Couture Week’s organizing body, the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, looks to give show attendees sufficient time to get between the city center and farther-flung locales like Versailles and Chantilly, there have even been whispers of adding an extra day.

In Their Own Words: Browne devoted 20-some years to establishing and helming his eponymous label and embarking on the beginnings of couture in the form of Met Gala commissions before diving into Couture Week. “I wanted people to know me for what I do—starting with tailoring, and conceptual ideas, and giving you the story,” he told Vogue Runway. “I was just doing what I do, but heightening it to a level that was worthy of showing this week.”

Surface Says: We won’t hold our breath, but Browne’s pigeoncore is a hype trend we can get behind.

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In the somewhat rarefied world of high-end design, rarely do sofas scream “come play!” But that’s precisely the case with Family, an exuberant new collection of “art furniture” by photographer David Luraschi and set designer Nara Lee, both fashion-industry forces who recently launched their own studio in France.

The inaugural collection’s six pieces—a sofa, two armchairs, a cocktail table, a side table, and a footrest, all upholstered in colorful Kvadrat textiles—function like life-size building blocks. “They’re modular in many different ways,” the duo says. “Different compositions are possible—these are almost limitless, a reflection of the user’s imagination.” Catch them on view at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris until July 10.

Racha Gutierrez and Dahlia Hojeij Deleuze grew up in Côte d’Ivoire and studied architecture together in Paris, solidifying their like-minded design sensibilities through their burgeoning new venture Studio Ebur. The duo’s multi-pronged approach yields an array of timeless interiors and experimental objects rich in spirit and rooted in place, particularly in their new collection, Le Bruit de la Mer, which recasts memories spent on the Mediterranean into furniture and accessories that reverberate with lyrical nods to the sea.

On the idyllic site of East Hampton’s female-focused artist destination Onna House, it’s easy to become mesmerized by the surrounding landscape’s pastoral allure. Ceramicists Adrienne Fierman, Amy Dov, Babs Haenen, Carey Lowell, Colour Masich, Jane Yang D’Haene, Kelly Klein, Leah Kaplan, and Nicole Corbett have all channeled their fascination with stones, flora, fauna, and flame into the artist haven’s latest exhibition: “Nature/Nurture.” Dov’s oeuvre bears a resemblance to bones, branches, and reeds, while Corbett’s work nods to the overlap between spirituality and nature. Indoors and out, the property reverberates with the creative energy of the artists and the final form clay takes in their practiced hands.

Our weekly roundup of the internet’s most preposterous headlines, from the outrageous to the outright bizarre.

Japan Will Soon Release Fukushima Radioactive Water Into the Ocean. How Worried Should We Be? [CNN]

Roller Coaster Riders Were Trapped Upside Down for Hours After Mechanical Failure [NPR]

“I Chopped Off My Fingers to Look Like an Alien—Now I’m Removing My Skin As Well” [Mirror]

Humanoid-Faced Robot Takes the Baton, Conducts Orchestra for 950 People in Seoul [Interesting Engineering]

Doctors Flabbergasted After Finding Octopus in Patient’s Throat [New York Post]

Antiques Roadshow Viewers Left Unable to Sleep After Freaky Dolls Get Valued [LADbible]

Cocaine Found in White House Near Guest Entrance for West Wing Tours [Washington Post]

Boatjumping TikTok Trend Reportedly Leads to 4 Deaths [Forbes]

Last week, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and Genesis House celebrated the new AAPI Design + Innovation grant, a joint initiative in which three emerging fashion designers will receive mentorship and funding made possible by the two organizations. Supporters turned out for a reception at Genesis House New York, where CFDA president Steven Kolb introduced the initiative and some of its key mentors over a spring menu of hors d’oeuvres and drinks curated by Onjium.

When was it? June 28

Where was it? Genesis House, New York

Who was there? Jodie Turner-Smith, Prabal Gurung, Fernando Garcia, Maria Cornejo, Eugenia Kim, CaSandra Diggs.

Achille Salvagni leads his eponymous, multidisciplinary, and award-winning architecture and design firm with offices in Rome, London and New York. In 2013, Salvagni founded Achille Salvagni Atelier, a studio devoted to the production of his limited-edition furniture and lighting.

Surface Says: One of the most versatile designers working today, Salvagni wields a passion for quality and craftsmanship that takes the lead in every project, from sumptuous apartments in Rome and an eponymous line of clean-lined furniture to his award-winning yacht interiors.

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