What’s Happening: With its Dance Reflections festival, the haute jeweler is almost single-handedly buoying the contemporary dance world’s machinations from New York to London, Kyoto, and beyond.

The Download: Among those who closely follow dance, Pina Bausch’s “The Rite of Spring” (1975) is legendary. To bring it up within earshot of anyone who knows Merce Cunningham from Martha Graham is to invite wide eyes and near-breathless urgings to drop everything and go if you ever have the chance to see it live. So last fall, when the Park Avenue Armory joined forces with the Van Cleef & Arpels Dance Reflections festival to stage the production’s New York premiere, the 1,500-seat Wade Thompson Drill Hall sold out almost immediately. Some of the best seats in the house went to the impeccably dressed leaders of the city’s most prestigious cultural institutions, like New York City Ballet. Those in the know, it seemed, did in fact “drop everything” for the German luminary’s ferocious exploration of how pain and fear eat away at humanity.

That production of “The Rite of Spring” is an exemplary case study for how Dance Reflections is shaping the medium’s future. Our readers don’t need reminding that the art world, for all its glamour, is also perennially resource-strapped. But the power of the 118-year-old fine jewelry house transcends borders, institutions, and, yes, balance sheets. Bringing “The Rite of Spring” to New York entailed collaboration between Germany’s Pina Bausch Foundation, Senegal’s École des Sables, Saddler’s Wells in the U.K., and Dance Reflections curator ​​Serge Laurent, who oversaw the novel repertory pairing of Bausch’s composition with “common ground[s],” from École des Sables founder Germaine Acogny and dancer Malou Airaudo.

Even those who don’t closely follow the dance world and its luminaries could hardly escape the marketing blitz that seemed to blanket New York City to promote the festival’s 11 performances. Now, Van Cleef & Arpels is in the midst of preparing for an encore. This fall, the fair will return to New York, including the Park Avenue Armory, where it will collaboratively stage “Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful,” a world premiere from Kyle Abraham. Its patronage will also extend to performances and programming at the French cultural center L’Alliance New York, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Joyce Dance Theater, and beyond.

In Their Own Words: For all of its moving parts, Laurent, who this fall will oversee the festival’s Kyoto debut and has ambitions to bring Dance Reflections to China, Brazil, South Korea, and beyond, sees his role in simple terms. “We didn’t realize that we were inventing a model,” he told the New York Times. “If you find money to produce, it’s hard to present and tour. So we sponsor creation, and I also tell theaters I can help present the work. It’s not complicated.”

Surface Says: With Van Cleef & Arpels leading the modern patronage charge, we’re eager to see who will step up next.

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The retail scene in Downtown Los Angeles has a stylish addition in multi-brand menswear retailer Departamento, which fittingly relocated from the Arts District to the retail enclave Signal. It offers an array of luxury labels like Marni, The Row, and Wales Bonner within moody environs masterminded by local studio 22RE, whose founder, Dean Levin, is cementing its status as a fashion-favorite firm that artfully deploys sensory details in boutiques on both coasts.

Accessed through a hidden storefront, the deconstructivist-inspired Departamento abounds with strategically placed mirrors that reveal glimpses of styled vignettes, sparking moments of voyeuristic intrigue. Industrial flourishes like silver painted beams (an homage to Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra) are tempered with softer touches like burgundy carpeting and spotted cowhide seating. Levin even partnered with unisex label Taiga Takahashi for a transportive shop-in-shop that evokes traditional Japanese inns—it features wood repurposed from 300-year-old ryokans, shelving with tatami-mat bases, pebble-inspired flooring, and a glowing ceiling that shrouds the shop in a futuristic aura.

A monumental standout from her solo show at Jack Shainman’s converted upstate school, the prolific American artist invokes Warhol’s soup cans to unpack and critique how consumer culture shapes our existence.

Here, we ask an artist to frame the essential details behind a recent work.

Bio: Nina Chanel Abney, New York.

Title of work: Soup Kitchen (2024).

Where to see it: Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook, until November 16.

What was on your mind at the time: I was exploring the ways in which consumerism impacts individual identities and how economic disparities are often masked by the façade of consumer goods. I wanted to highlight the overlooked personal stories within these broader social issues.

The clean-lined furniture that Antares Yee designs and makes for his family-run studio Sun at Six appears distinctly contemporary, but nearly his entire range employs traditional Chinese joinery techniques that he learned from his mother. The California-based designer aims to preserve this fading art form—and channel its wisdom into creating timeless pieces that emotionally nourish their users and breathe life into interiors.

This collection of double-sided table linens is purpose-made to push 2D prints into the third dimension. A series of high-contrast colorways, combined with Tortuga Forma’s Japanese production facility (and its knowledge of the country’s folding arts) are guaranteed to make for a conversation-worthy tablescape. From $48.

Tend is the first dentist you’ll look forward to. Launched in October 2019, Tend was created to set a new standard for oral health by providing dentistry the way it should be—hassle-free, personalized, and straightforward, with a focus on patient happiness—all in a calm, inviting, and thoughtfully designed space.

Surface Says: By prioritizing hospitality and design in equal measure, Tend has made dental care downright chic.

A lewd encounter with a statue could ban this woman from Florence for life.

Drawing on walls is for grownups now—even the aesthetically inclined.

A circle of famous film buffs might revive an arthouse cinema in New York City.

Tom Anderson—Myspace Tom—is staying busy as a landscape photographer.