What’s Happening: The Japanese women’s professional wrestling league’s explosive world championships arm-dragged, body-slammed, and slide-tackled its way into being one of the most memorable events at Miami Art Week.

The Download: Overhyped art shows mounted on megayachts, star-studded ragers with perilously long lines, and Uber’s laughably high surge pricing are all par for the course during the overly corporate and slightly surreal Miami Art Week, but one event on last week’s crowded calendar seemed to promise something different. More than 2,000 eager spectators crowded into Miami’s Lot 11 Skatepark on Wednesday night to watch the championship match of Sukeban, the Japanese women’s professional wrestling league. Skeptics of the WWE’s melodramatic machismo were in for nothing of the sort that night, which played out more like a “riot girrrl–themed drag show.” Power moves were on the menu, but so was a spirit of rebellion and showmanship aiming to destroy the barriers between art and wrestling with a dynamic alchemy of fashion, anime, music, and storytelling.

Sukeban wrestlers, much like drag performers, cultivate over-the-top personas and backstories that coalesce into a performance-art spectacle of choreography, comedy, and pageantry. On the roster were names like Bingo, “the resident evil clown,” as well as Commander Nakajima and Countess Saori, two villainesses dressed as Victorian-era goths.

Helping bring each wrestler’s character to life are lavish, flamboyant costumes—the group effort of fashion designer Olympia Le-Tan, milliner Stephen Jones, makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench, and nail artist Mei Kawajiri. Each costume is meant to summon the performer’s strengths and idiosyncrasies—and give a brief history lesson. The name “Sukeban” originated in a subculture that became prominent in the 1960s, when packs of “delinquent girls” rebelled against the Sexual Revolution that was taking hold in Japan. Their drug use and modified schoolgirl outfits, which sported long skirts designed to conceal weapons, rebuffed the country’s rigid gender norms.

That ethos of defiance was on full view. After a marathon of six matches, Commander Nakajima defeated Ichigo Sayaka with a schoolboy rollup to become the first Sukeban World Champion. Bull Nakano, the Japanese wrestling legend, handed off the championship belt, a Marc Newson–designed leather showpiece whose central plate uses the cloisonné technique to reflect illustrator Ayako Ishiguro’s vivid portrayal of seminal moments in wrestling history. Emblazoned with Siamese crocodiles and surrounded by the claws of a blue dragon, the artwork sparks comparisons to Hieronymus Bosch’s depiction of hell—an apt nod to the equally mesmerizing and menacing energy each performer brought in the name of empowerment and rebelling against society’s expectations.

In Their Own Words: “It is very important to carry on the legacy of sukeban, not just in pro-wrestling, but in creating a new world,” Sayaka told Vogue. “We can’t just fulfill the wishes of higher-ups; we need to find our own meaning in life, by getting involved and fighting for the things we believe in.”

Surface Says: Your move, Lucha Libre.

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While various fairs were busy setting up shop in Miami, sculptor Nekisha Durrett had her sights set on amplifying the legacy of the Styx—an erstwhile Black community in Palm Beach—and the heyday of legendary jazz club the Sunset Lounge. The giant copper RCA-style gramophone that Durrett installed earlier this month in West Palm Beach is titled Genius Loci, a Latin term that translates to “the spirit of a place” and beckons contemplation about the voices of Palm Beach’s history that would be amplified by the earth itself.

Durrett pays homage to the plight of the Black laborers who developed the tropical resort town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, only to have their homes razed and seized by eminent domain as their work on the Breakers and Royal Poinciana hotels comes to an end. The West Palm Beach Sunset Lounge, which is undergoing a massive restoration, is located adjacent to Genius Loci, and comes into play as “Black spaces for living, leisure, and entertainment have often offered respite and safety from a hostile world,” Durrett says. “That’s what the Sunset Lounge was for the Northwest community.”

Eva Menz’s dynamic lighting experiments may have begun as small, residential-scale sculptural works, but they quickly took on architectural dimensions as designers commissioned her to create gravity-defying pieces with an ethereal glow. From a tight-knit studio and showroom in Notting Hill, the Munich-born illumination artist launched Atelier001 to make exquisite, hand-finished lighting works readily available as bona fide souvenirs of artisanship and the uniqueness of the maker’s hand, imperfections and all.

As the design fair’s university partner for five years running, the Savannah College of Art and Design always makes a point of having a notable presence on South Beach. This year was no exception: university president Paula Wallace led a design talk with Kelly Wearstler, while six jewelry alumni displayed their work at the university’s booth designed by fibers alumnus Paola Maldonado. Within the softly lit environs, a respite from the bustle of the fair’s foot traffic, alumni Andrea Ortiz, Xinia Guan, Miao He, Xun Liu, Seth Carlson, and Shuoyuan Bai explored material innovation, as well as inspirations rooted in both the natural and manmade worlds.

Last month, an intimate group of collectors and notables from the art and design spheres gathered at Spring in New York City to celebrate Lauren S. Thompson’s debut Tetrastella Collection in collaboration with Simple Flair, Metis PR, and Surface. The series took pride of place at Spring’s ground-floor gallery, where the group perused the collection before heading upstairs for dinner at the Spring restaurant. There, Thompson spoke about Tetrastella’s inspirations and announced her brand would officially launch at Frieze L.A. in February.

When was it? Nov. 28

Where was it? Spring, New York

Who was there? Stefano Giussani, Rafael Prieto, Donna Redel, Vittorio Calabrese, Marcia Levy, Scott Drevnig.

There’s perhaps no designer working today who is more skilled at the art of the statement accessory than Bevza. For nearly two years the Ukrainian fashion designer has championed the country’s resilience and resistance, and her new Grain bags continue the tradition started by her spikelet accessories, centering Ukraine’s legacy as a major global wheat exporter. Spikelet-shaped hardware gives the wheat collection its name, while the campaign imagery nods to Agnes Denes’ conversation-starting 1982 installation Wheatfield — A Confrontation, in which the artist grew a wheat field in a landfill that sat opposite the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. From $570

Dedon transforms outdoor spaces into places with unique energy. Each piece of handcrafted furniture is an invitation to experience the joy of life under open skies. Pioneering since 1990, Dedon innovates continuously to offer products of unrivaled quality, responsibility and desirability to customers in more than 100 countries on six continents.

Surface Says: Dedon’s architectural, hand-woven outdoor furniture wins our heart for its sense of whimsy. From its suspended loungers inspired by nests to the Rilly Collection’s cocoon-like pool chairs, the brand’s distinctive lens stands out.

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