In September, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and Genesis introduced Andrew Kwon, Grace Ling, and Siying Qu and Haoran Li of Private Policy as finalists of a newly announced mentorship and grant program to support rising AAPI designers. With $40,000 in initial funding from Genesis, each member of the group was challenged to create a collection influenced by both modernity, their heritage, and an inspiration trip to South Korea. Along the way, the program connected them with mentors who also happened to be among the industry’s top talents: Monse founders Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, Saks menswear merchandise manager Sandra Park, CFDA CEO Steven Kolb, and more.

Now fast forward to last week, when the CFDA kicked off New York Fashion Week with a cocktail and collection reveal party at Genesis House in celebration of the program’s three finalists. Their collections were exhibited for attendees to see alongside archival pieces from Altuzarra, Bibhu Mohapatra, Monse, Naeem Khan, Peter Som, PH5, Prabal Gurung, and Vivienne Tam. At the end of the night, Kolb and Genesis House’s own program mentor Rachel Espersen jointly announced Ling as the recipient of the $60,000 grand prize, as determined by a panel of judges including top leaders at Carolina Herrera, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Kering, along with Kolb and Espersen.

Ling’s collection combined references to Asian folktales, such as the Chinese nine-tailed fox, with material ingenuity in the form of a 3D-printed chrome couture gown and an interpretation of femininity shown through the lenses of seduction, transformation, and imitation. Recently, Ling said during her acceptance speech, “people have come up to me saying ‘I feel like I can do this because I see you, an AAPI person, doing it.’”

In conversation with Surface, Espersen, Kolb, and Ling get frank about the knowledge you can’t put a price on, how a $60,000 prize impacts a rising luxury designer’s bottom line, and the “why now?” of it all.

Have a news story our readers need to see? Submit it here.

Reach the design world every morning. Find out more about advertising in the Design Dispatch.

The mystic and missionary St. Philip Neri was beloved in 16th-century Rome as the patron saint of joy and laughter. His contagious affability is precisely the energy that interior designer Samuel Amoia summoned at Saint Neri, a glamorous new cocktail bar and lounge serving up dashes of old-world decadence in his native Buffalo. Along with best friend and business partner Michael Woltz, Amoia delved into the romantic, Art Deco grandeur of Europe’s private members clubs to forge a first-of-its-kind haunt for his hometown that does justice to the city’s architectural past while forecasting a vibrant future. “We dreamt of creating our own place for years,” Amoia tells Surface, “and it always had to be in our home city first.”

When conceiving Saint Neri, the duo stayed close to home while letting their imaginations run free. “There are many different styles, from Gothic and Renaissance Revival, to Art Deco and Richardsonian Romanesque,” Amoia says about Buffalo. “We wanted to incorporate those motifs and elements, and mix styles.” Those touches manifest at every turn, from draped curtains made from 17th-century Venetian fabrics and walls gilded entirely with 24-carat gold leafing to stunning Murano glass fixtures emanating a sexy, dimly lit glow. Leopard-print carpet backs 15 stools facing a show-stopping bar adorned in an enchanting tortoiseshell print.

When Duncan Campbell and Charlotte Rey visited Copenhagen’s Thorvaldsen Museum a few years ago, they were blown away. Named for the Danish sculptor Berthel Thorvaldsen who displayed his life’s work there, the museum gracefully blends Greek and Roman architecture with Egyptian and Pompeiian motifs, with each room boasting one-of-a-kind ceiling grotesques. “We loved it so much that we’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to incorporate it into our work,” Rey tells Surface. That should be no surprise to followers of the London-based design atelier, whose interiors and furniture thrive on a compelling mélange of historical architecture, traditional decorative techniques, jewel tones, and the whimsical dialogues that ensue.

Not long after, Nordic Knots was itching to refresh three successful hand-knotted Campbell-Rey rugs from its range, including the Gustavian-inspired Climbing Vine that was reinterpreted for the rooms of Porto Ercole’s Hotel Il Pellicano. With a renewed appreciation for Thorvaldsen’s gesamtkunstwerk—and an abiding curiosity about Italian classical design as well as Charlotte’s Swedish and Duncan’s Scottish heritage—the duo got to work devising new colorways using the museum’s jewel-toned interiors as a starting point. They sought to create a welcome contrast to the core collection’s lighter, springier colors with a deeper, richer palette that creates depth and mystery. “We’re always drawn to great colors,” Campbell says, “delicious colorways that evoke emotion and that draw you in to touch.”

In 1970, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé relocated to an eclectic duplex on Paris’s rue de Babylone, where they amassed a dynamic art collection—Francisco Goya, Andy Warhol, Piet Mondrian—that wove together a medley of styles and periods. The couple’s residence has inspired the Kering-owned maison’s latest outing in the French capital, an intimate bookstore stocking a selection of rare titles and out-of-print records curated by artistic director Anthony Vaccarello. Saint Laurent Babylone makes subtle nods to the house’s recently opened Avenue des Champs-Élysées flagship with hulking shelves, Donald Judd seating, and monolithic marble storage units that forge a gallery-like atmosphere within the building’s raw, stripped-back interior.

Much like Saint Laurent and Bergé’s duplex, treasures abound inside. Find a selection of Leica cameras, François Daubinet chocolates, and a series of new titles under the Saint Laurent Rive Droite Editions imprint created in collaboration with artists Bruno Roels, Daido Moriyama, Jeanloup Sieff, and Cai Guo-Qiang. The rarest books, however, will be arrayed on a vintage Pierre Jeanneret desk stocked with white gloves for handling delicate pages. Black-and-white photographs that Rose Finn-Kelcey took in the late 1970s are up for grabs, as are images by Juergen Teller, who’s planning a book signing there later this month.

After cutting his teeth in the studios of Vincent Van Duysen and Ora Ito, the Belgian designer Pieter Maes has been freeing himself from the rational forms embodied by traditional manufactured furniture and playing with the essence of bronze as a structural material. His latest collection of one-of-a-kind furnishings, made in collaboration with Les Ateliers Courbet, wields time-honored techniques like lost wax casting to embrace the material’s authenticity and adaptability, resulting in highly textured statement pieces rippling with personality and quirks that can only arise from getting one’s hands dirty.

Last week, Hannah Traore and Chella Man celebrated the landmark achievement of Man’s first solo exhibition in New York at Traore’s downtown gallery. The occasion offered guests flutes of Moët & Chandon and the opportunity to preview Man’s sketches and paintings, which chronicle the artist and trans activist’s creative evolution. The crowd rang in an afterparty at WSA, where friends of Man and Traore celebrated with the duo over custom cocktails while overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge.

When was it? Feb. 8

Where was it? Hannah Traore Gallery and WSA, New York

Who was there? Indya Moore, Andrea Delph, Adam Eli, Quil Lemons, Colm Dillane, Ashley Tyner, Caleb Hahne Quintana, and Charlie Jarvis.

When: Until May 4

Where: Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Mexico City

What: For the artist’s first solo exhibition in CDMX, he puts his friends and collaborators on display at Mariane Ibrahim. Each work captures their liveliness, and with careful attention to texture, background, and foreground and how they influence the viewer’s connection to the person in the frame. At the heart of the show is Boafo’s exploration of relationships: his to painting, the viewer’s to his works, and his subjects to their surroundings.

Since 2016, Wrensilva has been producing handbuilt HiFi record consoles coveted by both design and audio connoisseurs alike. Rooted at the intersection of high design and technological innovation, Wrensilva sets a new standard for the home music experience. All Wrensilva consoles are made in San Diego with the finest American hardwoods and carefully selected materials.

Surface Says: HiFi purists know the importance of sound, but Wrensilva goes a step further by making console tables that also look worthy of your favorite records.

A sleeping polar bear snuggling on an iceberg wins a major photography award.

Missed the Super Bowl? Here’s one critic’s list of the best commercials.

Drexel researchers develop an AI-guided robotic structural inspection system.

The contents of Charles Darwin’s entire personal library will finally be revealed.