Karl Lagerfeld was a mega-collector. Of high-collared white shirts (1,000). Of books (300,000). Of period décor (Art Deco, Memphis Group, 18th-century European). And of homes — at least 20, in Europe and in New York. “He loved buying, redesigning and decorating houses,” said Sébastien Jondeau, the longtime assistant and bodyguard of the fashion designer, who…
How do we define furniture? It might seem like a silly question, but it’s one that kept coming up in October of last year, when, in a conference room on the 15th floor of The New York Times building, six experts — the architects and interior designers Rafael de Cárdenas and Daniel Romualdez; the Museum…
If Indiana Jones took a turn toward the elegant and developed an obsession with textiles, he might be a bit like Louis Barthélemy, the French illustrator and designer who travels to Africa and the Middle East to work with weavers and craftspeople who are skilled in traditional techniques. Ishkar, a London-based company that collaborates with…
The human hand is a marvel of nature. No other creature on Earth, not even our closest primate relatives, has hands structured quite like ours, capable of such precise grasping and manipulation. But we’re doing less intricate hands-on work than we used to. A lot of modern life involves simple movements, such as tapping screens…
In February last year, a new Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max plane was on one of its first flights when an automated stabilizing system appeared to malfunction, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing soon after they took off. Less than two months later, an Alaska Airlines 737 Max plane with eight hours of…
When Elon Musk unveiled the first Chinese-made Teslas in Shanghai in 2020, he went off script and started dancing. Peeling off his jacket, he flung it across the stage in a partial striptease. Mr. Musk had reason to celebrate. A few years earlier, with Tesla on the brink of failure, he had bet on China,…
On April 8, a total solar eclipse will blot out the sun for roughly 4,200 miles stretching from Mexico to Canada — a cosmic show that so much of North America won’t see again for about 20 years. Many made their plans to view it well in advance. And then there are the procrastinators, who…
The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it had finalized a new regulation that curbs the use of short-term health insurance plans that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act, reversing a move by the Trump administration to give consumers more access to cheaper but skimpier plans. Under the new rule, the short-term plans…
In a sign that the tech industry keeps getting weirder, Meta soon plans to release a big update that transforms the Ray-Ban Meta, its camera glasses that shoot videos, into a gadget seen only in sci-fi movies. Next month, the glasses will be able to use new artificial intelligence software to see the real world…
Boeing has faced intense scrutiny and pressure since a panel blew off a 737 Max 9 shortly after the plane, an Alaska Airlines flight, took off on Jan. 5. The episode raised fresh questions about the quality of the planes the company produces several years after two Max 8 planes crashed, killing nearly 350 people….
