Born in Sicily, Oscar Piccolo had a roaming childhood, moving between Ghana, Turkey, Egypt, and Libya. Now based in East London, he dabbles in loads of different creative disciplines. Art direction, set design, interiors and—most notably—his signature range of squiggly lights, named ‘Lampada Cappello,’ which you’ve probably seen online or in the home of someone with great taste. As Oscar says, “I was always encouraged to explore and make, and that’s definitely stayed with me.”

Made up of Andrea Thuesen and Vilhelm Strange, Snuggle is a Copenhagen-based duo who make dreamy, thoughtful, slightly melancholic music that is the ideal soundtrack to staring out of a bus window as beads of rain drip from the glass, or walking through a quiet park in spring as sunshine filters through trees in early bloom. Not that I have first-hand experience of either of these scenarios… not at all.

Turnstile, King Krule, Tyler, The Creator, Toro y Moi, FKA Twigs, … Are we just naming names now for our dream festival line-up? Well, yes, but what these legends also have in common other than being in heavy rotation at the office is a man named Nick Dierl. He’s the co-founder of Orienteer, a PR company, and – as you can tell – it’s going pretty well. Other than being an industry heavyweight, Nick’s also a thoroughly sweet guy and father. 

Meet our friend, Jarod Taber, one of Los Angeles’ finest. Jarod’s a director, gallery owner and creative director. In other words: a man of our times. Nowadays, he likes to refer to what does as creative consulting. Whatever the wording, he’s got taste. We called him up one recent morning, just before he went down to his gallery, Authorized Dealer Gallery, to chat about surfing, getting older, morning tunes and his favorite movie set in L.A. (Our main takeaway from the conversation: We’ve got to find an empty highway to walk on!).

One hour’s drive south of Paris, at the frontier of suburbs and agriculture, there’s a place called Le Doyenné. Now, what is Le Doyenné? Well, it’s a restaurant, a guesthouse and farm in one, but that’s just the mere facts. It’s more than that: It’s a dreamy vision of food and general well-being. Or, as James Edward Henry, the chef and co-owner of the place, puts it: “an oasis of calm.” At the farm, they produce lots of stuff themselves, they even have a pack of pigs, but they also take advantage of the fact that they’re based in the produce heaven that goes by the name of France. Fish from Britanny, citruses from the south, ducks from Pay Basque.

Brawn, one of the nicest restaurants in all of London, sits on the corner of Columbia Road and Ravenscroft St in Hackney. In the kitchen, Ed Wilson and his team create small miracles in an extremely chill fashion, and we’ve had some tremendous nights there already. (Afterwards, make sure to go to Royal Oak, a great pub just one block down the road). Here, we talk to Ed about traditional English cuisine, East London kebab and stupid food trends.

Alfie Whiteman, former Spurs goalkeeper and now host of the monthly NTS Radio show Sweet Tooth, is a 27-year-old creative from North London whose talents span photography, film direction, and radio. With an eye for detail and a knack for storytelling across mediums, Whiteman talks toe wrestling, the perfect Lime ride soundtrack, and who might play Mads Mikkelsen in an international remake of Pusher II.

Mads Bryld is a carpenter turned landscape architect turned painter — he’s also a father and a mega Oasis fan. We, on the other hand, are big fans of Mads and just had a painting of his put up in our store. In this edition of Life With, we meet with Mads for two pints of Guinness and talk music, Peter Doig, work-appropriate clothes, and what his brushes would say if they could speak. 

If you – like us – need a little gastronomical shake-up now and then, put down Le Cheval d’Or – located in the 19th arrondissement – in your little list of places you have to visit the next time you find yourself in Paris. It’s Chinese meets French and it’s splendid! And when you’re there, please say hello to Taiki Sakurai, the restaurant’s extremely kind and well-dressed manager and wine guy.

If there’s one thing we can all agree on during these stinking times, it’s this: the Tokyo food scene still slaps. One of the forces driving it forward is mr. Chihiro Maruyama, who – judging by his cv – apparently is bestowed with more hours in a day than the usual twenty-four. Based in Yoyogi-Uehara and trained in France, Chihiro runs a couple of bistros, a combined tableware gallery and restaurant in one, and an izakaya.

In this latest installment of the Life With series, we talk to Yuji Chung, the octopus of Japanese clothing brand Ernie Palo. (Although, personally, she identifies more as a cat). Think everything outside of designing – that’s basically what Yuji does, and she does it well. When she’s not working, Yuji likes to grab a bottle of wine and head to her favorite park. And just hang. We also talk peak 1980s Japanese fashion and some warning words from her mother, who used to work in fashion, too.

Imagine this: Instead of vacant buildings in the city (you know them, they’re in every city) being just that – vacant, and therefore: useless – you have a group of wildly talented people filling them with meaning and life, creating new value in what’s otherwise just nothing? Now get this: They exist, and they’re called SKWAT. Here, we chat to Keisuke Nakamura, Tokyo-based co-founder and owner of SKWAT, whose own design studio, DAIKEI MILLS