No wallflower
Inside the Chinese film industry, only a lucky few girls go far beyond simply being well-known in China. But those who are selected by legendary director Zhang Yimou, one of the few directors to achieve int...
East meets West London
Tucked away behind London’s Bayswater station, La Suite West hotel is housed in one of those buildings conjured up in the mind of Americans when they imagine our fair city. On a quiet street of enormous tow...
Passion for purity
“White is the most wonderful colour because within it you can see all the colours of the rainbow … The whiteness of white is never just white; it is almost always transformed by light and that which is changi...
I get by with a little help from my friends
Possibly the best piece of advice ever given is, “You don’t need to know everything. You just need to know where to find it out”. Collaborative working is the new bread-and-butter for designers; in a climat...
From dust to dust
Quentin Tarantino, Hollywood’s perennial über-brat – but lest us forget, high craftsman of the hyperreal – throws up his “slavery epic” Django Unchained with little of his usual charismatic heft. This sadly...
The new Noah’s Ark
Since the dawn of civilisation, capturing animals has been a common practice. At first, human beings were motivated by pure basic instinct – the need to survive – seeking food and protection. Subsequently c...
Eastern promise
Face it – Christmas shopping is a nightmare and here at Glass, we’re no better at it than anyone else. Over the last few weeks, we have ventured out into the freezing London weather with the very best of i...
Budget boutique
A couple of years ago, an architect friend of mine applied to be on the Apprentice UK. He got down to the last 20 shortlisted before being sent home at the final hurdle – his “business plan”. When he outlin...
Mi Casa (blanca) est su Casa (blanca)
“Of all the gin joints on all the world” I ended up at Ric’s Bar Americain in Casablanca in readiness for the city's annual fashion week and started my love affair with Morocco's most business-minded popul...
In her image
On billboards, in the street and on the underground, in television adverts, music videos and from the front covers of newspapers and magazines, before we even get onto the internet, images of lust and sex a...
Still got it: Japan
C’mon, admit it. Japanese creativity bleeds heavily to all corners of art, fashion, design and architecture on a global scale, and more so than many other countries that are credited with a trendsetting nat...
On the radar: Io Echo
Dubbed everything from shoegaze to grunge to goth to dark pop to new orientalism (thanks, in part, to the band’s use of Koto harps and Chinese violins in their music), Leopold Ross and Ioanna Gika, who front th...
The power to preserve?
Two men are balancing on a small craft, propelling themselves along a moonlit river using long sticks as oars. There are two more boats ahead. All the half-naked sailors are fishermen, from an indigenous pe...
Couture in China
Haute couture, French for “high sewing” has long been synonymous with the very finest form of skill and craftsmanship. While the wider influence of prêt-à-porter often trickles down the fashion chain, haute...
The vocabulary of response
As a choreographer, whose signature style has been described as having a “sculptural quality”, Russell Maliphant’s life-long obsession with the human form and its artistic representation is brought to life ...
Ayia Napa Reunion 2013!
In the aberrant words of Maria and the Mirrors’ head soundscaper, Charles Feinstein, this collective’s MO is all “Dancehall queen meets Slovakian sex worker, under the watchful eye of Bryan Ferry”. This dic...
Face value
One of the well-honed skills of any Londoner worth their salt is an ability to keep walking and continue with their journey at a rapid pace, regardless of what stands in their way – be it a clipboard-wieldi...
The Art of Writing
Long before characters were created, the ancient Chinese made different knots on ropes in order to record information. But ropes might easily be burnt and information lost, and as life gradually became more...
InHOTim
When I was a child – and, indeed, until the day that my grandparents sold their home – nothing would make me happier than spending time in my grandparents’ garden. The garden, which to this day still forms ...
Electronic impulses
From Erol Alkan and Kelis to Snoop Dogg and the Scissor Sisters, the queue of those seeking out the talents of Hamburg-born DJ Alex Ridha keeps on growing. Having produced, collaborated, remixed and shared stag...
Without qualities – the space of Rem Koolhaas
When I proposed to talk about space instead of architecture, Rem Koolhaas appeared dubious – he said, “It’s difficult. Space has been the most important mystification of the Modern Movement. It is a colossal al...