What’s Happening: Launched in a history-laden Manhattan storefront once home to Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Angelina Jolie’s new fashion boutique is more concerned with craft and charity than deepening an A-lister’s cult of personality.

The Download: The squat, two-story building at 57 Great Jones Street may seem out of place in a Lower Manhattan neighborhood known for gleaming new residential buildings packed with deep-pocketed A-listers, but it too housed a laundry list of notable (some infamous) New Yorkers. As the former home of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who rented the second floor from his friend Andy Warhol in the 1980s, the address is enshrined in downtown art-world lore. The building may have switched owners multiple times in the three decades since Basquiat’s death, but it endures as an indisputable landmark for graffiti artists who’ve sprayed the facade’s front panels with Basquiat’s SAMO moniker and the signature crown motif on his paintings.

That rich history may explain why Angelina Jolie felt an “immediate communion” with the building when she was scouting retail spaces for Atelier Jolie, her newly opened fashion boutique focused on selling clothes made from vintage and deadstock materials. The actress, director, and former UN Refugee Agency Goodwill Ambassador and Special Envoy may have raised eyebrows when she announced her latest venture’s storied address this past summer, but she took care to maintain the integrity of its architecture—and the artistic sensibilities of its former tenants—during the renovation. That care reverberates throughout the two-story atelier, mostly by giving buyers the option of customizing pieces in the Atelier Jolie collection, which ranges from fluid trench coats and sheer dresses to plain white T-shirts, all at accessible prices.

Jolie, who has largely stepped away from the spotlight to prioritize motherhood and charitable interests, envisioned her atelier as a collaborative space that celebrates the power of tailoring and recasts the customer as a maker. “I’ve met a lot of artisans over the years,” she tells Vogue, noting her goal is to create community. “I’d like to see them grow. I don’t want to be a big fashion designer. I want to build a house for other people to become that.” Trained in-house artisans work with buyers on alterations like embroidery and patchwork, but take-home mending kits and stud-it-yourself activity stations are free for anyone to use. Proceeds from sales of artist-made patches will go to charity, and the atelier’s first collection, a collaboration with Chloé and Gabriela Hearst, was created with charitable organizations Akanjo and La Fabrique Nomade.

In Their Own Words: “Designers often sketch or approve designs, but it is the tailors who make the difference and who I truly love creating with,” Jolie wrote on Atelier Jolie’s website. “These makers rarely receive the credit and respect they deserve. I’m building a place for creative people to collaborate with a skilled and diverse family of expert tailors, pattern makers, and artisans from around the world. A place to have fun. To create your own designs with freedom.”

Surface Says: Basquiat used to scrawl anti-capitalist messages around New York City, including SAMO (“same old shit”). Something tells us he’d be skeptical of a celebrity brand inheriting his address, but Jolie’s label is aiming for something more like Fenty and The Row, where fame doesn’t overshadow design and craft.

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New York City’s skyscraper boom may be waning, but Hudson Yards recently welcomed its latest addition: The Spiral, a 2.8-million-square-foot office tower marked by a continuous series of garden terraces wrapping its facade. At 1,031 feet tall, the ziggurat-shaped skyscraper becomes the Western Manhattan complex’s second-tallest building and the first completed supertall designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, the Danish-American firm known for championing “hedonistic sustainability” by fusing joyful leisure and clean energy.

Both qualities shine at the foliage-friendly Spiral, whose cascading terraces sprout at the nearby High Line before forming a continuous line as they ascend its 66 floors. It provides tenants with the desirable post-pandemic amenity of outdoor green space and ensures longevity by selecting plant varietals—birch, wisteria, petunias—based on sun orientation. Don’t miss a lobby installation by Dutch studio Drift and two dining concepts by Michelin-starred Chef Gabriel Kreuther, who plans to open a full-service restaurant and cafe this year, as well as a Peruvian-Japanese eatery by the owners of Llama San.

After losing her mother at age 25, Fie Isolde found herself drawn to the heirlooms she left behind. “Her precious jewelry became the most valuable and meaningful physical reminder of her presence in my family’s life,” she says. “Every time I touch her jewelry, I feel an intimate connection to her soul.” That sentiment inspired the Danish-born designer to launch an eponymous jewelry brand where she meticulously sculpts and casts talismanic pieces in precious metals that, she says, encapsulate emotions and memories. “Designing fine jewelry pieces for any person to wear holds an indescribable significance for me.”

Now based in Los Angeles, Isolde recently celebrated the brand’s fifth anniversary with a West Hollywood boutique envisioned as a testament to her mother’s legacy. Misaligned timeworn columns nod to the architecture of Copenhagen; they intersect with clean-lined display cases reflecting Scandi grace. “We wanted these columns to feel like they’d been around for a century—beat up, stained, chipped away, with residues and paint stains left behind,” says Mark Kremer, founder of spatial design firm Extra Ordinary, which oversaw the renovation. Hints of green throughout amplify the color of the metal and gems, but custom 3D-printed display units evoking the geological forms in Isolde’s jewelry add the most personal touch. “It’s amazing to see the jewelry on them,” Kremer says. “You’re able to paint a clearer image of Fie’s process.”

Sometimes, a fresh coat of paint is all a design needs—and sometimes that fresh coat of paint becomes a design all its own. That’s certainly the case with the new Party of Three chairs designed by Mexican artist Sofia Elias. Unveiled in Labor/Pamela Weissenberg Gallery’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach, the collection appears to dunk traditional café seating in vats of candy-colored paint—not even a stretch given how Elias produces each by hand, making the form from metal and applying sumptuous layers of resin and pigments in violet, red, and bright blue hues. A sealant of UV epoxy ensures the chairs stay as fresh as they look, no drop cloth required.

When: Until Feb. 4

Where: Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence

What: Anish Kapoor and Renaissance architecture may seem like strange bedfellows until seeing his latest exhibition, which unites works from across the British-Indian sculptor’s oeuvre at the grand Florentine palace. His experiments with materiality, form, space, and color are on full display, from Vantablack sculptures to an architecturally scaled installation conceived specifically for the site’s courtyard. Besides finding harmony in uncanny connections, the result seeks to challenge what we perceive as the truth.

Art of Tea is an award-winning tea importer and wholesaler based in Los Angeles that hand-blends and custom crafts fine organic teas and botanicals. Founder and master tea blender Steve Schwartz selects and sources rare and distinct teas directly from growers around the world based on deep, long-lasting relationships and his travels.

Surface Says: Informed by craft, quality, and the relationships forged on the far-flung travels of its founder, it’s easy to see why Art of Tea is the purveyor of choice for the pros behind Vera Wang, the St. Regis, and more.

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