What’s Happening: Instead of a 15-minute runway show, the Dutch designer strikes a symbiosis between her spellbinding garments and her art practice with a new series of aerial sculptures.

The Download: Iris van Herpen is no stranger to the City of Light. Just this past April, her fashion retrospective “Sculpting the Senses” concluded at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. For five straight months, the show drew crowds with its 100 couture garments exhibited through the lens of questioning the body’s relationships to “space, clothing, and the environment.” On Monday, van Herpen kicked off Paris Couture Week with a highly anticipated art and fashion presentation dubbed as “one of the wackiest of the week.”

Van Herpen’s tight edit of five gowns was complemented by an exhibition of aerial sculptures made from paint-splattered tulle and 3D printed elements that evoked swirling wisps of smoke. And instead of a runway, attendees took in performances from models who appeared to be suspended in midair against white canvases, and wore van Herpen’s spellbinding tulle and brocade gowns. While an artist reference or two isn’t unusual on the fashion calendar, van Herpen goes all in and notes the influences she gleaned from Kazuo Shiraga, Joan Mitchell, Hieronymus Bosch, and Louise Bourgeois when conceiving her aerial sculptures. Elsewhere, the work of biochemist Emmanuel Farge creates thematic links to nature and the ocean.

In Their Own Words: In the presentation’s notes, the designer goes a step further by likening her draping methods to sculpture. “For a long time, I’ve been working on expanding people’s perception of how fashion and art can be symbiotic,” she says of her life’s work up to this point. “This is the natural next step for me to really show what I mean. “Even though we call one practice ‘Haute Couture’ and the other ‘art,’ to me, it’s one universe.”

Surface Says: A suite of 45-minute shows might plunge global fashion weeks into chaos, but we’re here for van Herpen’s bold departure from the norm.

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It was a trip to Italy that inspired Tonen’s vision for the 109-room Hotel Bella Grande located near Copenhagen’s City Hall. Studio founders Malene Bech-Pedersen and Mette Bonavent wanted to honor the historic building’s magnificent architecture and found themselves captivated by the pink courtyard of a Venetian palazzo. In an homage to their muse, the duo transformed a dank inner atrium to a light-filled Italian restaurant named Donna, done up in mauve marble flooring, damask floral upholstery, and pops of chartreuse for contrast. Guest rooms, by comparison, exude the serenity of midcentury Italy with parquet floors, shades of cream, and the occasional pop of burnt orange. Lampshades and upholstery by the makers behind Danish brand Oi Soi Oi create a subtle but meaningful connection to Hotel Bella Grande’s local roots.

When sifting through inspiration for Wrensilva’s high-fidelity record consoles, Debra Salyer, who founded the company together with business partner Greg Perlot and spouse Scott Salyer, likes to keep things classic: “We’re inspired by old recording studios, classic consoles, and that cool innovative spirit of Hi-Fi that engages all the senses, but we’re not designing for nostalgia or following fashion trends,” she says. In the brand’s newly redesigned collection of M1 and classic consoles, the touchpoints of vintage recording studios—wood tones, warmth, and supple leather—are particularly resonant through what she describes as “the feel of heavy knobs and dials, and an element of precision in the electronics equipment.”

According to Salyer, materials are always at the center of Wrensilva’s vision, but so too is sonic integrity. Scott Salyer spent time with Giles Martin, Manny Marroquin, and Joe Harley, a mix of recording studio engineers and producers, to hone what she refers to as the Wrensilva signature sound. “It’s a warm, true, faithful sound,” she says. “It’s not about us, it’s about what the artist made.”

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

A Court Ruled an Exhibit Discriminated Against Men. Now It’s in the Women’s Restroom. [New York Times]

Abraham Lincoln’s Wax Head Melts Off in DC Heat Wave [Independent]

New Jersey Man Flies to Florida to Attack Another Player Over an Online Gaming Dispute, Deputies Say [ABC]

The Best Design Book of the Year Is a 700-Year-Old Poem About Hell [Fast Company]

How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe [ProPublica]

More than a decade after founding YoDezeen in his home country of Ukraine, Artur Sharf has created a truly global and in-demand design firm with offices in Miami, Los Angeles, Dubai, Warsaw, Milan, London, and Kyiv. His approach imbues touches of emotion and a deep understanding of context into the interplay of form and function, striking a harmony between innovation and cultural sensitivity that informs projects as diverse as a sun-soaked resort in the Maldives to Teyo, a brand specializing in sustainable Italian marble.

When: Until Aug. 18

Where: Amar Gallery, London

What: Dora Maar was immortalized as the “Weeping Woman,” but a new show of the Surrealist photographer’s rare photograms and never-before-seen images highlight her independent artistic achievements beyond her association with Picasso. The show coincides with renewed interest in her legacy, including Louisa Treger’s book The Paris Muse (Bloomsbury) and a play called Maar, Dora at Camden Fringe that emphasizes her significant yet often overshadowed artistic contributions.

Lasvit is a cutting-edge manufacturer of breathtaking works of glass that bring beauty, pleasure, and Czech soul to customers worldwide. Lasvit combines the authenticity of glass with creative craftsmanship and innovative ideas to create bespoke lighting sculptures, art installations, and glass collections.

Surface Says: Lasvit’s bold lighting and tabletop designs, created in partnership with boldfaced names such as the Campana Brothers and Zaha Hadid Architects, are such venerable works of art that it’s easy to forget that they’re also entirely functional.

Vogue Germany gives a 102-year-old Holocaust survivor the cover treatment.

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