Issues

Scandinavian minimalism with an inviting generosity

In an industry as fast-paced as fashion, the value of long-term collaboration can easily be forgotten. But some creative relationships deserve to be more than just flings. Stockholm-based luxury fashion label Toteme has called on design and architecture studio Halleroed for 10 years to help create a visual identity for its offices and shops. What started as a commission to design the label’s first office in New York has flourished into a global partnership. Toteme’s co-founder Karl Lindman and Christian Halleröd, his counterpart at Halleroed, have worked together to design shops in London, New York, Los Angeles, Shanghai and Seoul, establishing a design language that is as recognisable as the brand’s signature outerwear and contrast-stitch knits. They have proven that architecture and good interior design can help to define a label. “Our shops have become the physical expression of Toteme as we develop into a global business,” says Lindman.

When Monocle visits Toteme’s Stockholm headquarters in the Stureplan neighbourhood, we find Halleröd sitting across from Lindman – a position you’ll find him in whether the duo are sharing design references or plotting their next project. “With every new shop, we’re getting closer to what Toteme stands for,” says Halleröd. “As interior architects, we try to align with the brands that we partner with by following their work and putting in the research.” When the pair envision a new space, they try to capture Toteme’s aesthetic with neutral palettes and playful antique finds that add warmth and signal that this is far from your average Scandinavian minimalist label. “We want to be generous to our customers,” says Lindman (pictured, on left, with Halleröd). “Their time is important.”

The first design reference that Lindman and Elin Kling, his partner and Toteme co-founder, shared with Halleröd was the work of Donald Judd, the US artist known for his clean colour palettes. “Looking back, I think that it was the first hint of what we would develop together,” says Lindman. A sense of restraint has come to define every boutique that they have since worked on, starting with the brand’s flagship on Stockholm’s Biblioteksgatan 5, designed to resemble a townhouse, complete with a lounge, a walk-in wardrobe and a bedroom. In New York, they went on to design an even more distinctive space in which metal shelving is placed next to striking patterned sofas by Austrian architect and artist Josef Frank. Customers come to replenish their denim and silk shirts but equally to see the vibrant patterns on Frank’s sofas up close and take in the interiors. “The design always remains pure and minimal to reflect Toteme,” says Halleröd.

More recently, the pair worked on the brand’s first London opening. In a Queen Anne revival building on Mayfair’s Mount Street, you’ll find a marble statue from the 1900s by Swedish sculptor Carl Milles, a steel sofa by Australian industrial designer Marc Newson and various items by designers from the 1930s Swedish Grace aesthetic movement, including a coffee table by Otto Schulz and a couch by Olle Engkvist. “Every new project starts with a site visit and broad conversations about the city and Toteme’s place in it,” says Lindman. “The physical space that we work on needs to reflect where the brand is at that given moment. I’m not interested in applying a formula. Every city and neighbourhood is unique and should be treated accordingly.” For Toteme’s co-founder, this process of applying the brand’s design values and Swedish heritage in different contexts is the most exciting part of the retail-expansion process.

Toteme’s next and biggest outpost will open this spring on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the original Stockholm flagship is currently under renovation and doubling in size. You can expect more Marc Newson pieces; the designer is a fixture in all of the brand’s flagships. For Stockholm’s, Lindman bought a sleek silver cashier desk from the 1990s that was designed for the Skoda boutique in Berlin. And he has become fond of a little ceramic statue of leaping zebras; so far, he has acquired two of these at auction and they are now installed in Stockholm and London. “If you come across another one, please get it for me,” he says.

Halleröd nods, understanding what types of objects appeal to Lindman. “That’s the beauty of our collaboration,” he says. “We have built a common understanding of what we like. We share memories and references so, if I mention a zebra, for example, Christian immediately knows which one I mean.”

As in any long-term relationship, the key to their success seems to be communication. “It’s our job to move different ideas forward, be it materials, techniques or architectural elements,” says Halleröd. “We’re always in dialogue.” According to Lindman, this type of open exchange between trusted partners is “part of evolving the brand while retaining our dna”. “Sometimes the best way to move forward is to be consistent,” he says.

Toteme and the Halleroed studio also share a sense of pride about their Swedish roots, which, in typical Scandinavian fashion, their joint design projects express discreetly. “Eight years ago we found a sofa by functional designer Bruno Mathsson for the first Toteme flagship in Stockholm,” says Halleröd. “We are still finding new pieces from Scandinavian design history. Stockholm is quite clean in terms of lines and colour palettes. It’s not like Paris, where there are decorative layers to the interiors.” 

Further nods to their homeland can be found in details such as pewter railings made by Swedish ironmongers or the Milles statue in the London boutique. “We want to bring a minimalist Swedish aesthetic to different parts of the world and highlight the country’s design and art whenever we can,” says Lindman. “These shops are like embassies for us. We put our hearts into these spaces to leave room for emotions and discovery.”
toteme-studio.com

Balat: A boisterous district with an undiscovered vibe

Istanbul’s riverside Balat neighbourhood is full of surprises. The working-class area also has preposterously rich history. Once home to the Ottoman Empire’s dense mix of Christians, Muslims and Jews, it emptied out and declined throughout the 20th century, turning into a ramshackle district that became home to Black Sea immigrants and Istanbul’s Roma communities. 

Yet Balat has kept its spirit and its style: colourful old townhouses wind up steeply cobbled streets, peopled by boisterous local characters whose celebrations (even weddings) are open to anyone lucky enough to be passing by. Gentrification has arrived here rather happily and has not yet polished away the neighbourhood’s rough edges. You might, for example, spy a hip restaurant or a popular tearoom in the middle of a street of otherwise abandoned buildings. 

These contradictions are part of Balat’s charm – and if its grittier side tends to keep bigger crowds of tourists away, so much the better for those of us who are feeling intrepid.

1.
Read
Cornucopia magazine is the cultured Istanbullu’s bible: a gorgeously designed English-language affair covering arts and history. Find a spot on the renovated Golden Horn waterfront to be transported through the rich layers of the city’s story.

2.
Board
One of Istanbul’s great pleasures is taking the public ferry (ignore tourist boats and just get a transport card). Many routes go straight up the Golden Horn, giving you a view of Balat from the water. Jump board at Eminönü.

3.
Stay
Castello Bella’s gilt-framed mirrors, chandeliers and sumptuous furnishings are only surpassed by the view over the water from its balcony suite. The building dates from 1820, when Balat was a beating multicultural heart of the city.

4.
See
The rainbow of tall, narrow houses on Kiremit street is a fine sight, many of them adorned with balconies and intricate metal trelliswork. Nearby are plenty of cafés, shops and the odd street mural to keep you entertained as you wander. 

5.
Shop 
Orhan Pamuk’s 2014 novel A Strangeness in My Mind captures the changes that districts such as Balat have undergone over the decades. Visit Balat Sahaf, an antiquarian bookseller with shelves full of dusty volumes. Be sure to pick up a historical caricature magazine or something from the shop’s collection of old newspapers.

6.
Eat
Greasy, spicy, satisfying: there is little to match Turkish meatballs, known as köfte, for comfort food. Reward yourself after a morning’s exploration by popping into Köfteci Arnavut, which has served the classic snack to a peerless standard since 1937.

7.
Book
Snag the corner table at seafood specialist Smelt&Co, set in a restored traditional house, for inventive twists on Turkish cuisine. If the weather is kind, try the rooftop terrace for views of Balat and the Golden Horn. 

8.
Hear
Many of Balat’s residents are Roma, a minority known for distinctive, joyful music. Roma popstar Kobra Murat lives here – be sure to get a picture if you see him strolling past.

9.
Buy
Yasemin Aslan Bakiri’s glass studio, next to the Bulgarian St Stephen’s church, is filled with brightly coloured pieces that are beautiful, functional and collectable. She works here most days and teaches classes too.

10.
Consider
Byzantium is long fallen and the Hagia Sophia no longer a cathedral but Istanbul is still the seat of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Patriarchate of Constantinople complex includes St George’s church: visit on a Sunday to experience a ceremony unchanged for centuries.

Patience is a virtue: But is waiting in line really worth it?

The queue endures. Back before the misery of coronavirus, there was a spate of people getting in very long lines for fashion drops, over-logoed skatewear and even covetable buns. But then – phew – the pandemic killed the queue. It was replaced by text messages telling you when your time was up (not in grim reaper style, rather that your table was ready). But now? Otherwise sane folk are queueing for loaves of bread like it’s the USSR in the 1970s. People are voluntarily spending whole mornings in formation just to gobble a cream puff. Generation instant gratification has discovered a yearning for a very delayed payoff. This waiting game has even ensnared the worlds of academia and psychology as people ponder what the hell is going on. Not wanting to miss out on the action, or inaction, Monocle gets in line to find out how lust and restraint are intertwined.

Bistro
Cheap as chips
Bouillon Pigalle, Paris

When it comes to classic French bistros, Bouillon Pigalle is a hit with Parisians and visitors alike. Located on Place Pigalle, in the heart of the city’s former red-light district, the queue outside the restaurant regularly snakes around the corner of the block, with waiting times that can exceed an hour. 

Waiters in white shirts and black waistcoats serve dishes ranging from soupe à l’oignon and oeuf mayonnaise to the French-cuisine cornerstone steak frites, all at alluring prices. Many of the people queueing outside note that this is a considerable part of the place’s appeal. “I’m queueing today with my flatmates from back home in Germany,” says Stephanie Schachel, a student living in Paris while spending a semester at Sciences Po. “I know this place: it’s cheap but good.” Another queuer, Nicolas Lopez, is also an international transplant to the city and showing visitors around. “I wanted to introduce my family to the concept of a bouillon [a restaurant that serves traditional French cuisine],” he tells Monocle. “I particularly like the saucisse-purée [sausage served with mash]. It’s French and inexpensive.” 

Everyone in the queue agrees, Bouillon Pigalle is perfect for an extended lunch with friends, perhaps with a carafe of wine, which here can range from a modest un quart to a supersize jeroboam; again, at prices that are hard to beat. “We are queueing because this place has the esprit bouillon [bouillon spirit],” adds Cécile Vassas. “There’s traditional French cuisine and a convivial brasserie atmosphere inside. And you can always order steak frites.” The consensus is: the queue might be long but once you make it through the door you will be rewarded tenfold.
bouillonlesite.com

Onigiri shop
Banging the drum
Onigiri Bongo, Tokyo

Come rain or shine, there’s always a queue outside Onigiri Bongo, a renowned onigiri [rice ball] shop in Otsuka. At the weekend people have been known to wait for more than six hours. When Monocle visits, the queue is already taking shape at 08.45 – nearly three hours before opening time. The first to arrive get a stool. Everyone in the queue is served green tea and spirits are high. 

Bongo’s owner is Yumiko Ukon, a youthful 72-year-old, who has been working six-day weeks for the past 40 years. “I’m the face of this place and I don’t like to disappoint people, particularly my regular customers,” she says. Her late husband started Bongo in 1960; they met after she tried one of his onigiri on a visit to Tokyo. It was love at first bite. 

Today, Ukon runs a tight ship with a team that starts work at 07.00 and spends the morning prepping before the doors open at 11.30. Ukon uses rice from Iwafune in Niigata prefecture and a wooden mould to make the ball, adding any of the more than 50 fillings on offer and wrapping it in seaweed. “People crave the taste of home-cooked food”, says Ukon. 

Kiyoe and Michiyo from Tokyo are the first in line. They saw Bongo on TV. “It’s fine,” says Kiyoe of the queue. “Women are used to waiting.” Masakazu has come all the way from Shizuoka. “I’ve never waited this long for anything,” he says. He’s planning to order the grilled salmon onigiri, Bongo’s most popular. Sujiko (salted salmon roe) is another favourite, as is egg yolk soaked in soy sauce.

When the restaurant recently relocated, the old interior came too, including the worn counter. “The world is changing but nothing changes here and that’s how people like it,” says Ukon. 
2 Chome-27-5 Kitaotsuka, Toshima City, Tokyo

Bagel shop
Running rings
It’s Bagels, London

New York-born photographer Dan Martensen can name supermodels and actors among his subjects but it’s his bagel shop in north London that is turning heads. The idea to bring a slice of New York bagel culture across the pond first began as a passion project. But when the shop opened in 2023 it was clear that the business would become more than a sideshow.

From the moment it opens, a long queue grows outside It’s Bagels on Regent’s Park Road. “It gets a bit lawless,” says the manager, Franklin Arthur. “When we ask people to cross the road, to start a new section of the queue, people start jumping ahead and we don’t know who was there first.” He often has to leave the assembly line to put on a high-vis jacket and control the chaos. The shop hired its first queue manager, so that Arthur will be able to focus on the bagels. “The demand is outrageous,” he says. 

A mixture of north London devotees and out-of-town visitors make up the daily queue, which can be 50-people long by midday. 

Customers who bring friends and family are helping to drive the queues: when Monocle visits, David Lock has brought his mum, Tricia, visiting from Belfast, to his new favourite spot. Every week, Lock makes the journey from Bermondsey in southeast London to It’s Bagels and describes the occasion as “a bit of a pilgrimage”. But for others in line, the idea that waiting for your bagel makes it taste better divides opinion. “When you wait a long time for something, you have to hope [it meets expectations],” says Freddie Phelops, who is queueing for his first It’s Bagels experience. Another punter, Jack Bergman, welcomes the anticipation. “If you’re waiting 30 minutes for a bagel, it’s always going to taste better.” 
itsbagels.com

Recommended reading: 50 books that will stay with you

Much like the people who we encounter in our lives, the books that we read can shape who we are and profoundly affect the way in which we think. It’s hard to say what, exactly, makes one work resonate more than others. Sometimes, it’s the individual who owned a copy of it before we did – as is the case with Kim Jones, the artistic director of Fendi, and his first edition of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, originally gifted by the writer to her lover, landscape designer Vita Sackville-West. Other times, it’s because it has taught us something practical, like how to cook.

To discover what kinds of books can enrich lives in such ways, we asked 50 key figures – from novelists and chefs to CEOs, photographers, musicians and architects – to recommend one book and tell us why they chose it. The result is an often intimate look into these readers’ minds and at the moments that shaped them. It’s also a guide to some of the best works in the worlds of design, fashion, literature and food. So, no excuses. Take a page out of their book and get reading.

1.
Political Science
Catherine Ashton
‘Essence of Decision’ by Graham Allison

A brilliant description of the models that we use to make decisions that then help us to make better choices in times of crisis. 

Ashton served as the UK’s high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and first vice-president of the European Commission.

2.
Fiction
Benjamin Moser
‘The Apple in the Dark’ by Clarice Lispector

The Apple in the Dark, which I translated last year, isn’t for those who like their books nice and easy. It’s a slow and agonising trudge but that is also the whole point. Clarice Lispector makes great demands on the reader but offers great rewards too.

Moser is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sontag: Her Life and Work.

3.
Fiction
Kim Jones
‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf

One of my passions is first-edition books, especially those written by Virginia Woolf. I’m very lucky to have Vita Sackville-West’s copy of Orlando, as well as Vanessa Bell’s – the two most important women in Woolf’s life.

Jones is the artistic director of Fendi.

4.
Design
John Pawson
‘Architecture of Truth’ by Lucien Hervé

A book that I return to endlessly is Architecture of Truth, Lucien Hervé’s photographic essay about a Cistercian abbey in France. “Light and shade are the loudspeakers of this architecture of truth, tranquillity and strength,” writes Le Corbusier in his preface.

Pawson is an award-winning British architect. 

5.
Non-fiction
Fiona Rogers
‘Scumb Manifesto’ by Justine Kurland

Photographer Justine Kurland once said that she wanted her collages to be punk but “nothing could be fussier than hours of sustained concentration… trying to create the most beautiful thing possible”. That idea stayed with me – that art could be both angry and quiet, radical and suburban, redefining and reparative.

Rogers is the Parasol Foundation curator of the Women in Photography project at the V&A.

6.
Non-fiction
Lou Stoppard
‘A Girl’s Story’ by Annie Ernaux

This is one of the books that kick-started my fascination with Annie Ernaux. She is, to me, the perfect writer – ambitious in every project that she undertakes. She never hides behind literary flourishes or trickery and any book that you read after hers will feel like a compromise.

Stoppard is a writer, curator and broadcaster.

7.
Non-fiction
Avery Trufelman
‘300 Arguments’ by Sarah Manguso

I have never read anything like 300 Arguments. It is essentially a series of insights and philosophical asides – the kind of titbits that you would underline in a larger novel. Here, they are presented on their own without a plot to unite them. I turn to it often. 

Trufelman is the host of Articles of Interest, a podcast that explores the stories behind the clothes that we wear.

8.
Collected works
Alexis Self
‘Bliss to Be Alive’ by Gavin Hills

I met journalist Gavin Hills on holiday in Cornwall in 1997. A week after I left, he drowned in a cove in an accident; he was 31. His humour and warmth made an impression on six-year-old me but it wasn’t until many years later that I read his work. This collection includes pieces from Somalia, Sarajevo and Disneyland, most of them written for The Face. It is heartwarming and very funny. 

Self is Monocle’s foreign editor. 

9.
Design
Dorte Mandrup
‘Mask of Medusa’ by John Hejduk

I remember buying this book in Berlin when I was a student. It’s a beautiful, in-depth documentation of John Hejduk’s poetic and original work – not only his architecture but drawings, essays and poems. Reading it, we are reminded that architecture is so much more than the physical form of a building.

Mandrup, a Danish architect, is the founder and creative director of Copenhagen-based Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter.

10.
Fiction
Jennifer Higgie
‘Threshold’ by Ursula le Guin

A moving tale of a supermarket cashier who finds himself in a twilight world in which he slays a dragon to save a village and finds love.

Higgie is an Australian writer living in London. She is the former editor of Frieze magazine.

The Small Literary Publisher
Transit Books
San Francisco

Founded in 2015 by partners Adam and Ashley Levy, this San Francisco-based independent press brings exceptional international literature to US readers. Its diverse roster of global voices includes Nobel Prize winners Jon Fosse (Norway) and Annie Ernaux (France), and Windham Campbell Prize winner Maria Tumarkin (Australia). While working in New York, the duo noticed “a gap between two audiences in America: those who read a lot of US literature and those who were reading literature in translation”, says Ashley. They started thinking about how to bring those two readerships together.

After moving to California, the couple started Transit Books. “Looking back, it has been wonderful,” says Adam. “We still very much feel plugged in to the New York literary world.” Having lived in New York, which he calls “the place of literary consecration in an American context”, the move out West “presented something different. It felt like the right place to take a risk, to try to start something.” 

For its first nine years, Transit Books operated out of the couple’s home and published about four titles a year. That number has slowly risen to about 12. As the publishing house has grown, launching new imprints and attracting Nobel Prize winners, the couple have set their eyes on the next chapter by making additional hires and acquiring a bricks-and-mortar office in the Bay Area. “Deep down, we knew that we were onto something,” says Adam. 

11.
Fiction
William Patey
‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ by John le Carré

A brilliantly crafted spy thriller by a writer at the height of his powers. It tells the story of spymaster George Smiley and his efforts to identify a Soviet mole in the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service.

Patey is a former UK ambassador to Afghanistan.

12.
Photography
Alec Soth
‘Ravens’ by Masahisa Fukase

Ravens is a masterpiece of photographic sequencing that I return to whenever I need to remember why I became a photographer.

Soth is a photographer based in Minneapolis.

13.
Biography
Rosh Mahtani
‘Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost’ by Pina Bausch

The late choreographer Pina Bausch is one of my muses. This book is a treasure trove of interviews and photos from Tanztheater Wuppertal, where she worked. She explores the importance of tension and duality. There is something meditative about reading it time and time again. 

Mahtani is the founder of jewellery brand Alighieri.

14.
Food
Erchen Chang
‘Cooking with Scorsese’ by Laura Snoad

This book sits at the intersection between cooking and cinema, inviting 46 experts from the culinary world to select a beloved film that inspires them to cook. Every film provides a window into chefs’ creative process. It makes me feel as though I’m embarking on whirlwind blind dates, getting to know their tastes and passions. 

Chang is co-founder and creative director of Bao.

15.
Short stories
Jacob Kenedy
‘The Lady with the Laptop’ by Clive Sinclair

This collection of short stories by my stepdad is full of unexpected cultural collisions and the ironies that result from them. It is beautifully written, darkly amusing and sharply observed, yet also underpinned by a gentle melancholy and profound love. 

Kenedy is a chef and the owner of Bocca di Lupo. 

16.
Fiction
Robert Bound
‘The Magus’ by John Fowles

The Magus, set on the fictional Greek island of Phraxos, is a weird, wonderful, trippy, sexy and psychotic tale of a young utopian being driven mad by a sorcerer under the baking Saronic sun in the 1960s. It is both a work of postmodern brilliance and a page-turning beach read that will send shivers down the spine despite the heat.

Bound presents Monocle on Culture on Monocle Radio.

17.
Fiction
Inès Longevial
‘Le Blé en Herbe’ by Colette

Colette paints with the written word, giving this text a sense of freedom. Her descriptions of colours are precise and poetic. She uses words as an intoxicating palette, drawing on the sublime and lending it to her characters. Reading this book, I rediscovered the sensuality of nature.

Longevial is a French painter based in Paris.

18.
Culture
Signe Bindslev Henriksen
‘In Praise of Shadows’ by Junichiro Tanizaki

This consists of 16 sections that discuss traditional Japanese aesthetics and the importance of paying attention to the small things that surround us.

Bindslev Henriksen is the co-founder of design studio Space Copenhagen.

19.
Design
Charles O Job
‘Everything but the Walls’ by Jasper Morrison

Jasper Morrison is one of the reasons that I started designing. Nobody else does simple, durable and functional products that are true to their materials like him. He manages to imbue his designs with an unmistakable, agelessly modern aesthetic. 

Born in Lagos, Job is a Zürich-based architect and designer.

20.
Food
Ruth Rogers
‘The Essentials of Italian Cooking’ by Marcella Hazan

In the early years of becoming a cook, Marcella taught me so much of what I needed to know. 

Rogers owns and runs Michelin-starred restaurant The River Café.

21.
Design
Richard Spencer Powell
‘Grid systems’ by Josef Müller-Brockmann

Josef Müller-Brockmann quite literally wrote the book on what came to be known as the International Typographic Style. This study on how grids aid design is as essential to designers as a dictionary is to writers – and your column widths wouldn’t be the same without it.

Powell is Monocle’s creative director.

22.
Non-fiction
Mariam Kamara
‘Les Identités Meurtrières’ by Amin Maalouf

I’ve never read a book of his that has not resonated with me. This one looks at how identities and allegiances get weaponised and how, in turn, we can become weapons that are then used against other people.

Kamara is a founder and principal of Atelier Masomi in Niamey, Niger.

23.
Historical fiction
Yassmin Abdel-Magied
‘River Spirit’ by Leila Aboulela

It’s difficult for me to choose my favourite book of all time but this is my current one, written by Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela. It’s a fantastic retelling of a pivotal moment in Sudan’s history, which is made all the more chilling by its relevance to today.

Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese–Australian presenter and writer.

24.
Fiction
Josh Fehnert
‘The Ginger Man’ by J P Donleavy

A ribald, at times reprehensible, tale of student misadventure scrawled across gloomy postwar Dublin and latterly a sparkly party in London. It’s a reminder of the power of words to stir, delight, frighten and amuse. Meet your protagonist for this tipsy, frivolous tale, the inimitably named Sebastian Dangerfield.

Fehnert is the editor of Monocle.

25.
Art
Lesley A Martin
‘[2,3]’ by Tauba Auerbach

I never cease to be astounded and delighted by [2,3] by Tauba Auerbach. It’s a prime example of a “book as autonomous artform” – a medium-melting, slipcased set of pop-up sculptures that are masquerading as a book. A book disguised as a sculpture. 

Martin is executive director of Printed Matter, a non-profit that promotes artists’ books to bring an increased visibility and appreciation to the field.

26.
Fiction
Brian Dillon
‘The Waves’ by Virginia Woolf

The Waves is Woolf’s most formally intense novel – spoken by six characters, with italicised, near-poetic interruptions – and a delicate but devastating meditation on the fragmentation of a human life. For some reason, I only read it in the summer.

Dillon is an Irish art critic and the UK editor of Cabinet, an art and culture quarterly based in New York. 

27.
Art
Susanne Kaufmann
‘Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings’ by Andrea Kettenmann

I am a huge admirer of Frida Kahlo’s work and this book not only shows her art in a stunning way but it also describes her as a person. Whenever I look through it, I am inspired by the themes and beautiful colours.

Kaufmann is the founder of the skincare and beauty brand Susanne Kaufmann. 

28.
Architecture
Jan Strumiłło
‘How Buildings Learn’ by Stewart Brand

This book is a must for all architects, homeowners and anyone interested in buildings. But there is a caveat: reading it might completely alter the way you feel about design. 

Strumiłło is a Polish architect with a Warsaw-based practice and resident architecture fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart. 

The Photo-Book Publishers
Loose Joints
Marseille

Anglo-French couple Lewis Chaplin and Sarah Piegay Espenon’s love of photography and design led them to found Loose Joints in London in 2015. Four years later, they moved the business to Marseille and opened Ensemble. Here, Lewis tells us about the art of book design and why independent publishers should champion new voices. 

How did Loose Joints come about?
It began as a place for us to experiment with printed matter, then we started to reach out to other artists. Both of us engage quite a lot with photography in our careers and I’ve been self-publishing zines since I was about 16, so this has always been close to my heart.

What sorts of projects are you attracted to?
Most of our list is contemporary photographic projects – nearly always things that are new or unseen. Among the most important things that we’re looking for are new dialogues about photography and underrepresented voices, as well as people making their first significant statements about the world. 

How does book design bring the project together?
Our books always start with the physical examination of what we’ve done before. We go through the paper samples, materials and bindings to give the books an identity through those kinds of physical choices, then let the rest of the design follow. 

29.
Fiction
Joanna Biggs
‘A la Recherche du Temps Perdu’ by Marcel Proust

To be read in French or in the Scott Moncrieff translation. A gruelling, lush, strange reading experience that lives on in the mind for a long time, ripening, blooming and bringing pleasure for years.

Biggs is a writer and senior editor at Harper’s Magazine and the author of A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again. 

30.
Photography
Orély Forestier
‘A Photographic Memory, 1968-1989’ by Peter Schlesinger

I love everything about this book: the colours, the light, the characters and the friendships depicted. The memories evoked conjure a sense of belonging similar to the way people feel about their vacation memories. It’s very moving.

Forestier is a fashion designer and co-founder of La Fetiche, a Glasgow and Paris-based clothing brand.

The Mover and Shaker
Jacaranda Literary Agency
Singapore

When Jayapriya Vasudevan launched Jacaranda Literary Agency in 1997, she was among India’s first agents in the sector. After moving to Singapore, she established the agency’s official headquarters there in 2010. Today her company has a team of four full-time agents representing 40 fiction and nonfiction authors from all over the world. It is the only literary agency in Singapore. “It’s a good place to be because it’s a melting pot of cultures,” she says. “You’re exposed to so many kinds of writing.” 

Most of Vasudevan’s clients are from Asia but the agency’s list includes writers from Nigeria, Kenya, Australia and the UK. “We’re not driven by geography as much as by books that we like,” she says. “We bring to our list a fair amount of diversity. We’re interested in regional work.” 

Vasudevan has now moved back to Bengaluru, while her colleagues are in the UK, Singapore and New York. Jacaranda’s geographical breadth helps it to discover emerging authors in a variety of countries. Vasudevan says that works in translation have become one of her “biggest joys”. Now that she’s back in India, working remotely for Jacaranda, she has a large list of Indian authors but she has also pushed for first-time translations of English-language authors such as Mitch Albom and Noah Yuval Harari, negotiating contracts for versions of their bestsellers in Bengali, Hindi, Urdu and Tamil. “It’s terribly exciting to do,” says Vasudevan. 

31.
Music
Shain Shapiro
‘How Music Works’ by David Byrne

This is an expansive outline of why music matters and why it should feel relevant to all of us. It is a text that I hope everyone will read. 

Shapiro is the founder of economics consultancy Sound Diplomacy and director of the non-profit Centre for Music Ecosystems. He is also the author of This Must Be the Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better.

32.
Fiction
Talia Loubaton
‘Belle du Seigneur’ by Albert Cohen

There isn’t anything even close to Cohen’s writing. The freedom and modernity of his style are unique to him. I love the protagonist, Solal. His exuberance, cynicism and pretend vanity make him complex and charismatic.

Louba­ton is the creative director and designer of the fashion brand Liberowe.

33.
Fiction
Maja Ganszyniec
‘The Summer Book’ by Tove Jansson

This little gem presents a gentle, universal story about the love between a grandmother and her granddaughter who spend the summer on an island in Finland. It consists of a series of glimpses paired with seemingly chaotic scenes that are almost overwhelming. It’s as if it were woven from spiders’ webs, grass, water and voices heard across from across a field.

Ganszyniec is a Polish designer based in Warsaw.

34.
Philosophy
Perla Servan-Schreiber
‘De l’autre côté du désespoir’ by André Comte Sponville

This book introduces the ideas of Indian sage Svâmi Prajnânpad. His thoughts can be summed up in five words: the joyful acceptance of reality. 

Servan-Schreiber was born in Fez and moved to Paris to relaunch Psychologies magazine with her husband, Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber.

35.
Economics
Tosin Oshinowo
‘Scarcity’ by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson & Carl Wennerlind

A book that looks at how economic scarcity has shaped our modern world, demonstrating that the model wasn’t inevitable. It enlightens on capitalism, consumption and climate change.

Oshinowo is a Nigerian architect and designer based in Lagos.

36.
Psychology
Nora Fehlbaum
‘The Art of Gathering’ by Priya Parker

I’m a firm believer in the office as a place for learning, creative exchange and, yes, meetings. The Art of Gathering has increased my awareness of the signals that we send when organising events. Inspired by this book, at Vitra we have made adjustments to the schedule and location of our management team sessions. 

Fehlbaum is the CEO of Swiss furniture brand Vitra.

37.
Poetry
Nada Ghazal
‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran

Published in 1923 and translated into more than 100 languages, The Prophet has never gone out of print. Consisting of 26 prose poems, it offers profound insights on love, marriage, work, joy and sorrow. It speaks to people at different stages of their lives. The more I read it, the more I see how meaningful it is.

Born in Beirut, Ghazal is the founder and creative director of jewellery brand Nada Ghazal.

38.
Food
Anissa Helou
‘Les Secrets des Cuisines en Terre Marocaine’ by Zette Guinaudeau-Franc

Though Guinaudeau-Franc was French, she became so familiar with Moroccan cuisine that she wrote a book about it. Essential reading for anyone interested in Moroccan food. 

Lebanese chef Helou specialises in Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and north African cuisines.

39.
Fashion
Natalie Theodosi
‘Chic Savages’ by John Fairchild

This book takes a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of some of the 20th century’s greatest fashion designers, from Karl Lagerfeld to Giorgio Armani and the high-profile clients who drive their businesses. It brings together observations on class, style and business, all delivered in New York publisher John Fairchild’s humorous, at times cutthroat, style. 

Theodosi is Monocle’s fashion director.

40.
Fiction 
Jukka Siukosaari 
‘Där vi en gång gått’ by Kjell Westö

A masterpiece from a traumatic period in Finland’s history, which begins at the start of 20th century, unfolds through the civil war in 1918 and culminates on the eve of the Winter War in the late 1930s. Westö’s characters are from different parts of Finnish society and bring Helsinki’s past to life, while showing how the capital has grown and changed.

Siukosaari is Finland’s ambassador to the UK.

41.
Design
Nic Monisse
‘A Pattern Language’ by Christopher Alexander

Since its publication in 1977, A Pattern Language has served as a guide for designers seeking to build cities and homes that are lasting in their appeal. It provides a code for breaking down the places we live, showing how small decisions can have big knock-on effects on residents’ quality of life.

Monisse is Monocle’s design editor. 

42.
Essays
Laufey
‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’ by Joan Didion

This book’s title is derived from a poem by William Yeats and it’s a phrase used to describe the slow coming of an apocalyptic revelation that will change the world. That might sound quite heavy but I found the book to be comforting. Joan Didion’s voice kept me company while I adjusted to life after moving alone to Los Angeles.

Laufey is a Grammy Award-winning musician. 

43.
Autobiography
Scholastique Mukasonga
‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote in order to fight against oblivion. This is what led me to writing too, as a survivor of the Tutsi genocide in 1994 in which 37 members of my family were murdered.

Mukasonga is a French-Rwandan author. In 2012 she won the Prix Renaudot for her first novel, Our Lady of the Nile.

44.
Fiction
Mariana Enriquez
‘Blood Meridian’ by Cormac McCarthy 

This is a study of evil and violence like no other. The first time I read it, I didn’t fully understand it but was horrified and shaken. Here, violence is explored in words that are solemn and beautiful.

Argentinian writer Enriquez is the author of nine books, including two short-story collections, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed and Things We Lost in the Fire. 

45.
Fiction
Lindsay Johnston
‘The Overstory’ by Richard Powers 

This book has haunted me ever since I read it. It lays bare how people view the planet and everything on it as resources that can be used with impunity. It interweaves stories from the perspectives of different characters who all come to realise that action needs to be taken to stop humans devastating Earth.

Johnston is architect director at BDP PATTERN, a UK studio specialising in sports venues.

46.
Fiction
Itamar Vieira Júnior
‘Beloved’ by Toni Morrison

This is one of the most beautiful and important novels of the second half of the 20th century. Literature enables us to exchange roles. When reading or writing, we live the lives of the characters. We peer into their most unfathomable secrets and recognise ourselves in the immensity of our own humanity.

Brazilian writer Vieira Júnior’s novel Crooked Plow was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2024.

47.
Non-fiction
Gert Jonkers
‘Personal History’ by Katharine Graham

This is the memoir of a woman who became the publisher of The Washington Post almost by accident and fearlessly steered it through Watergate and so many other huge crises, with the White House on speed dial. A page-turner that’s full of feminism, power, politics, humour and compassion.

Jonkers is the editor in chief and publisher of Fantastic Man, and the associate editor and publisher of The Gentlewoman.

48.
Psychology
Hazel Gardiner
‘The Art of Rest’ by Claudia Hammond

How busy you are was once deemed proportional to success. But there has been a paradigm shift towards living a balanced life for both a healthy body and mind in recent years. This is a necessary, data-driven read for the perpetually fatigued who are looking for permission to stop.

Gardiner is a writer, broadcaster and founder of floral design studio Hazel Gardiner Design. 

49.
Fiction
Leslie Jamison
‘Housekeeping’ by Marilynne Robinson

Every few years I reread this book about two orphan sisters. I do so because I want to return to the lucidity of its prose and the integrity of its world. It’s a story about grief and caregiving. Images of icy water, bare skin and the ghosts of violence are set against the profundities of trust and homemaking. 

US novelist and essayist Jamison’s latest book, Splinters, is out now, published by Granta.

50.
Photography
Matthew Beaman
‘Subway’ by Bruce Davidson

Bruce Davidson’s use of flash in Subway had seldom been seen before in photo reportage. Harsh and illuminating, his camera pulls travellers out of the darkness, presenting them in stark contrast to their gritty surroundings. Davidson spent five years riding the New York subway in the 1980s, capturing the grit, beauty and humanity of city life. 

Beaman is Monocle’s photography director.

The Scene Maker
Casa Bosques
Mexico City

As the owner of Casa Bosques, Mexico City’s premier art bookshop, and founder of the Index Art Book Fair, Jorge de la Garza has been a major influence on the Mexican capital’s publishing scene. Here, he tells us about what elements make a good book and gives us the lowdown on what prompted him to make a life out of print. 

What do you look for in a book?
My favourite books are the ones that value every aspect of the reading experience, from the writing and photographs to the editorial design, paper selection and binding. If these elements work together, they elevate the book. As the artist Ulises Carrión stated in his manifesto, “A book is a sequence of spaces… A book is also a sequence of moments. A book is not a case of words, nor a bag of words, nor a bearer of words.”

What made you choose to launch a bookshop and a publishing fair?
It might look like these decisions were planned or deliberate but there was a lot of chance involved. It came down to meeting people who shared my enthusiasm for print, who eventually became business partners or collaborators. I also felt that there was already a vibrant cultural scene in Mexico City but no platforms or bookshops focused on independent publishers or contemporary art.

As the far-right ascends across the continent, what lies ahead for this travelling circus?

“I used to send interns here with a ball of twine,” says Pelle Geertsen, aide to a Danish MEP. We’re at a bar in the Winston Churchill building of the European Parliament (EP) in Strasbourg and Geertsen is explaining how difficult this place can be to navigate. Not that he needs to. This is one of eight meetings over two days to which either Monocle or the interviewee has been late. It doesn’t help that we are in the midst of the penultimate plenary session before what many believe will be the most consequential parliamentary elections in EU history: a four-day spectacle conducted in 24 languages across 27 countries between 6 and 9 June that is expected to result in a surge of support for far-right Eurosceptic parties.

Conversations are snatched in vestibules and photographs hastily taken. But they are always taken. MEPs have a visibility problem and media attention, especially during an election cycle, is eagerly received. So, over two days in Strasbourg, Monocle runs down corridors, up stairs and into lifts. After getting lost nine or 10 times, we begin to find our bearings. 

The unnavigability of the EP’s official seat is a long-running joke. If you were being unkind, you could say that this particular institution’s design serves as a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for the wider system. The building’s façade is magnificent: a glassy amphitheatre reaching towards the heavens. But inside, it’s a maze. Spiral staircases skip whole floors while seemingly endless curved corridors quicken your pulse as they deaden your legs. 

Several times, members of parliamentary staff approach Monocle asking for directions – surely a sign of desperation.

Or perhaps it’s exasperation. Most of the MEPs, aides, functionaries and even journalists who descend on Strasbourg for four-day stints 12 times a year do not want to be here. Whenever the issue is put to a vote in the chamber, there is overwhelming support for scrapping the seat altogether and consolidating the parliament in Brussels, where the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, is based. “There isn’t really any democracy in the world that puts its parliament 450km from the executive with which it is supposed to negotiate,” says Daniel Freund, a German Green party MEP. 

But then again, the EU isn’t like any other democracy in the world. A union of 27 sovereign nations, its most potent value is arguably symbolic – or, at least, it was when its spiritual predecessor, the European Coal and Steel Community, emerged from the rubble of the postwar continent in 1951. At the time, Franco-German reconciliation was considered the bedrock on which a prosperous Europe would be rebuilt. In this regard, Strasbourg – the capital of Alsace, a region that had been fought over by Paris and Berlin in a succession of increasingly devastating wars – was a powerful emblem of a new age of peaceful co-operation. It began filling up with European institutions in 1949 but only became the EP’s official seat in 1992, a decision that was incorporated into the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty and therefore requires unanimous support among member states to alter. Thus began what many call a “travelling circus”.

Since most of the EU’s business is conducted in Brussels, where there is another larger parliamentary building, and a third of MEPs, as well as almost all of their staff, are based in the Belgian capital, about 6,000 of these people descend on Strasbourg from across the continent. To facilitate this great migration, the EU charters two trains that run from Brussels Midi to Strasbourg via Paris Charles de Gaulle, a journey that takes three hours and costs MEPs €160 each way. Then there’s the paper trail: every plenary session necessitates the transportation of some 750 trunks of MEPs’ personal documents and effects in four articulated lorries. Whenever Monocle meets a parliamentarian in their office, an open trunk sits, usually in the corner of the room, as a reminder of their peripatetic life. 

“For MEPs, the question, ‘Where do you live?’ is sometimes difficult to answer,” says Freund. But his situation is relatively straightforward. Freund is based in Brussels, where his children are at school, and either takes the train or drives for five hours between there and Strasbourg or for two hours to Aachen, which is in his constituency. For others, things are more complicated. 

Marcel Kolaja, a Czech MEP from the Pirate Party, drives for more than seven hours from his home near Prague to Strasbourg every month. “Having the EC in Brussels and the EP in Strasbourg is like the UK government being in London and parliament being in Glasgow,” he says. “It doesn’t really make sense.” Nikolaj Villumsen, a Danish MEP from the Red-Green Alliance, flies from Copenhagen to Frankfurt Airport, from where he takes a two-and-a-half-hour train journey to Strasbourg, a common route for those travelling from places other than Brussels. “It’s seldom that I talk to people about my work without the conversation leading to how stupid this situation is,” he says.

Brando Benifei, an Italian MEP for the Democratic Party, commutes from his home in La Spezia to Milan, then flies to Frankfurt. He thinks that the EP should consolidate its work in Brussels, whose airport, unlike Strasbourg’s bijou hub, has connections to most of Europe’s large cities. “It could still meet here on a few important occasions,” he says, by way of compromise. 

In common with nearly all MEPs, Freund, Kolaja, Villumsen and Benifei have arrangements with hotels in Strasbourg that offer them the same room at a regular rate for their it’s nice to know my way around when I wake up in the morning,” says Villumsen. Freund believes that the parliament’s 6,000-strong entourage is propping up the city’s hospitality sector. “The quality is so questionable,” he says. “It’s of a standard that I have rarely seen anywhere else in Europe. It has to do with this bizarre situation in which hotels are making a living from people staying for just a few nights a month, which doesn’t pay enough to keep things in good shape.” 

Strasbourg is a very handsome city. Its largely intact medieval centre is ringed by canals and is home to one of Europe’s finest Gothic cathedrals. But it is doubtful whether these charms could draw enough tourists to support its 103 hotels. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the city’s authorities are vociferous in their support for keeping the EP where it is. Its Green mayor, Jeanne Barseghian, has repeatedly dismissed arguments for moving it all to Brussels – even those relating to the sizeable carbon footprint accrued by MEPs flying to her city every month.

Barseghian’s views reflect those of the French government and its MEPs. The EP is the only EU institution based in France (the Council of Europe and European Court of Human Rights, also in Strasbourg, are distinct from the EU) and the country isn’t about to let it go. Indeed, in what is largely seen as an attempt to shore up its position, Paris is trying to expand the EP’s presence here. There have been long-running attempts to convert an existing office building into a hotel for MEPs and their staff, a move that would then justify the purchase of another site to be turned into offices. The Osmose building next to the parliament was erected on spec by private developers in the hope that the EU would buy it – an idea that was heavily criticised by MEPs. In the end, the French government bought the building for €53.5m and has agreed a deal to lease it to the EP for €700,000 a year.

It is difficult to find a non-French MEP in favour of keeping the Strasbourg seat and impossible to find a French one who is opposed to it. The country’s 79 parliamentarians represent 22 parties of almost every political stripe – from far-left to far-right; from Corsican nationalist to eco-socialist – and yet all are united on this issue. In an office deep in the bowels of the Winston Churchill building, Monocle asks French Green MEP David Cormand whether this is the only subject that he and his compatriots have ever agreed on. “Well, that and the very big trucks,” he says. What “very big trucks”? 

“Yesterday parliament passed a resolution authorising the use of mega-trucks, carrying up to 44 tonnes, on European roads,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “France is in the middle of the continent so we will suffer the most from these. All of the French MEPs voted against it.” 

This is a salutary lesson in the EP’s work, which at first sounds amusing, then sensible, then quite amusing again. Perhaps that’s why its defenders often have a hard time rousing their audience: they must appeal to the heart using the language of a bureaucracy. My French interlocutors begin by justifying the Strasbourg seat on political grounds, citing historic Girondin principles of decentralisation, but eventually fall back on symbolism. “It is a symbol but if we kill all symbols, what do we have left?” says Cormand. “We will only have a market. We would only deal in business. I don’t want to build that.” 

Fabienne Keller, a former Strasbourg mayor and now an MEP for the Renaissance party, is less conciliatory. “There’s no reason to have a vote or anything,” she says. “It’s not a decision to be taken.” She’s blunt but right. In order to change the EU constitution, there needs to be unanimous support from member states and France will never agree to relinquish the EP. So the bloc must find a way to compromise, to muddle through. 

This is what the EU does. It is its greatest strength and greatest weakness. MEPs come to Strasbourg to vote on legislation but, in order for laws to even be put before the chamber, their passage must almost be a foregone conclusion. Parliamentarians and commissioners haggle for months, often years, over laws before they reach a position that will allow a majority of MEPs to give their assent. Still, alongside the many regulations, tax codes and subsidies that are rubber-stamped here, radical work is done. While Monocle is in town, the EP passes world-leading legislation regulating artificial intelligence, cleaning up business supply chains and strengthening powers to confiscate criminal assets. It’s not necessarily glamorous but it’s important. 

Any pizzazz is provided by power and success, which usually come from the outside. 

Whenever someone with political clout visits Strasbourg, their presence stirs the whole estate. This week it’s Finland’s prime minister, Petteri Orpo, who is here to offer his government’s views on pan-European security co-operation. During his speech to the chamber, known as the Hemicycle, there is a hushed deference. 

The Hemicycle is an impressive space. Here, the different parliamentary groups occupy seven sections that fan out from the centre, in which stands a solitary podium. The public gallery, two floors above, sweeps around the entire room. Every seat features a neatly positioned pair of headphones into which translators whisper their work. All is bright but not overlit. But no debating takes place here. MEPs can speak for a maximum of one minute, a strange format that journalist Tim Adams once described as preventing “personal anecdotes, specific examples, jokes, argument, passion, anger, thought…” – in other words, any rhetorical device that you might reasonably expect in a parliamentary chamber.

But today there is anger and most of it is coming from one of the EP’s two right-wing groups: Identity and Democracy (ID), made up of far-right parties such as Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), which includes parties such as Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia. These are the Eurosceptics and their presence reflects one of the EP’s most jarring contradictions. They exist in opposition not just to the ruling party but the entire institution. Yet their presence gives the EP a credible claim to being a proper democratic establishment. They are usually easy to spot – or, at least, their apparatchiks are, with their bad suits and cropped hair. 

Not all of them, however, are the far-right bogeymen of popular imagination. Monocle meets Alternative für Deutschland’s Gunnar Beck in the MEPs’ bar, which is 25 metres from the entrance of the Hemicycle. He has bouffant hair and wears a tweed jacket, and speaks, unusually for a far-right German MEP, in a posh English drawl. Beck is an expert on European law who taught for many years at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. He still spends a lot of his time in the UK, from where he gets the train to Paris and then to Strasbourg for plenary sessions. Though his views on immigration or the war in Ukraine offend the consensus here, some might consider his opinions on the workings of the EU quite sensible. “We don’t even have debates on particular subjects,” he says. “No one’s voting behaviour is influenced by what is being said here.”

If the EP is just a chamber of acclamation where there is no debate and legislation is merely rubber-stamped, what is it for? Surely the work of legislating for the bloc could be done solely by the EC, whose 27 members are appointed by the national governments. Then you could do away with the Strasbourg parliament, the chartered trains, the lorries filled with paperwork, the 275 translators – the whole travelling circus. Wouldn’t that be the rational thing to do? 

But the EU isn’t really about rationality – not in a procedural sense anyway. It’s about agreement and, therefore, compromise. In this regard, Strasbourg represents both the best and the worst of the entire European project. During our two days there, Monocle is dumbfounded by its architecture, befuddled by its methods and bewildered by its bureaucracy. But we are also moved by the large groups of schoolchildren milling around, humbled by the idea of a 27-nation parliament and surprised by the ragtag nature of MEPs – rather than stale Eurocrats, those who we meet are often idealists, rogues or eccentrics. Maybe you need to have no skin in the game to look at the EP in such romantic terms. Or perhaps having skin in the game is the only way you could do any of this at all.

At the extremes
As the EU heads to the polls, how should the establishment respond to the expected far-right surge? In Brussels and Strasbourg, a coalition of centrists has long held the levers of power. This includes the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the liberal Renew Europe (RE) and the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), the frontrunner in this year’s elections. But polls suggest that the far-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Identity and Democracy (ID) could secure a quarter of the vote. The EPP could find itself having triumphed only to face a main rival from the same side of the political spectrum. Prominent EPP members have so far refused to discuss making deals with the far-right, which could embolden the faction, especially in Germany and France. 

Jerry Zagoritis of Campaign Lab thinks that the current coalition will hold but tilt rightwards. “The dynamics will be different,” he says. “The EPP will be the new kingmaker.” While the old coalition will still control the top jobs, he says, temporary right-wing alliances could form to challenge, for example, green initiatives. “The ECR and ID increasingly hold contradictory positions on matters such as Russia,” says Zagoritis, so they might not be united enough to play a pivotal role.

In March, Czech and Belgian authorities claimed that some MEPs had been paid to promote Russian propaganda ahead of the elections. To keep the threat at bay, it’s likely that there will be a repositioning of priorities when campaigning starts in May to address the gripes that are helping the far-right to attract support: the treatment of farmers, concerns over migration and climate-change policies. 

How progressive entrepreneurs are attempting to forge a new India

“This is India!” says Monocle’s taxi driver, laughing, as his vehicle pulls out of a deep pothole and enters the smooth, tree-lined lanes of Embassy Boulevard, a gated community in the north of Bengaluru (also known as Bangalore). “It’s a bubble but it keeps some of the chaos at bay,” says Jacqueline Chandra, a Swiss-Australian marketing executive who lives here with her Indian CEO husband and their children. Embassy Boulevard’s neatness verges on the banal but, in 21st-century India, such bastions of cookie-cutter monotony are relished for their order. Chandra is typical of the residents of Bengaluru, the capital of India’s southern state of Karnataka, where about half of the population of 13.6 million consists of migrants. Many are expats; most have flocked to this city from across the subcontinent.

Bengaluru was once known as “The Garden City” but is now widely referred to as “India’s Silicon Valley”. Its transformation from a sleepy town full of lush gardens into one of India’s most economically important cities took just a few decades. The southern city has long placed a premium on education and English is widely spoken here. So when US software companies began looking for low-cost skilled workers, it became a natural talent pool from which to draw. The tax incentives and liberalisation of India’s economy in the 1990s provided fertile ground for homegrown companies such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS. Their example attracted multinationals to Bengaluru, which now boasts about 67,000 registered technology companies and 13,000 start-ups, 43 of which are “unicorns” (valued at more than $1bn). It is also home to 13,200 millionaires, a number that is expected to double in the next 10 years. Today, Karnataka contributes 8.2 per cent of India’s GDP.

This sense of economic opportunity is something that many young Indians (half of the country’s population is under 25) are embracing as campaigning intensifies ahead of a pivotal general election. With some 970 million people going to the polls, it will be the world’s largest-ever democratic exercise. Facilitating a vote involving nearly an eighth of the planet’s population is a huge endeavour, which is why the election is staggered over six weeks, from 19 April to 1 June. Unlike in other democracies that enjoy (or endure) long campaigns, in India the candidates aren’t even announced until a month before polling. If there is one city that’s a microcosm of the nation – with hopeful, young voters embracing the idea of a progressive India, while navigating issues such as poor infrastructure and social stigmas – it is Bengaluru. 

Ankit Nagori, who moved to the city from New Delhi, is a classic T-shirt-wearing Bengaluru technology CEO. He cut his teeth as chief business officer at Flipkart (India’s answer to Amazon) and now runs Curefoods, a business with 300 takeaway kitchens and 50 restaurants. “The city is a melting pot,” he says. “It’s a place where people with no hang-ups live.” His view is shared by content creator Jharna Kukreja, who moved here from Mumbai 15 years ago and lives in a 10-storey apartment block with a playground for her children. She loves Bengaluru’s progressive attitudes and the way that the “Who’s your daddy?” background check common in India is not as prevalent here. “Unlike in other parts of the country, where you have to come from a certain family, community or background, you don’t have to be someone to access opportunities here,” she says. To Nagori and Kukreja, Bengaluru represents what a successful 21st-century India could be: egalitarian, outward-looking and economically dynamic. However, like the country as a whole, the city faces many obstacles to future success. 

This year the effects of water scarcity will be felt more severely than usual, as Karnataka endures its worst drought in 40 years. Inadequate infrastructure is another significant problem. But ask residents to name the worst thing about Bengaluru and you’re likely to get one answer: traffic. It’s heavy and slow-moving at best and a single breakdown can bring it all to a standstill. “The city grew faster than the infrastructure,” says Venkat K Narayana, the ponytailed CEO of Prestige, one of India’s largest developers, who is based in Bengaluru. “It’s a constant catching-up game.” Prestige’s growth exemplifies the long boom that has transformed the country. In the past 30 years, it has completed projects covering a total of 17 million square metres; this year alone it has a further 14 million square metres in the pipeline. Like most business leaders in Bengaluru, Narayana credits the ruling, right-wing Bharatiya Janata  Party (BJP) and its figurehead, prime minister Narendra Modi, with India’s progress. “Growth only happens if there’s infrastructure, stability and consistency,” he says.

But there are increasing concerns that not enough is being done and that if the city can’t get on top of its problems, companies will locate elsewhere. “India is a strange country, ancient and modern at the same time,” Naresh V Narasimhan, principal architect at Venkataramanan Associates, tells Monocle. “On one hand, I have designed a high-spec building for Boeing here that the company said was the best of its kind outside the US. And on the other, all you have to do is get out of your car and your leg falls into a ditch of raw sewage.” Narasimhan led the team that transformed the now-bustling Church Street in the heart of Bengaluru from a “rotting, stinking” mess into what he calls “India’s first truly shared pedestrian street”. While some of the city’s other thoroughfares are clean and buzzing, most are cluttered and in disrepair.

Last May the BJP lost the Karnataka state elections and the opposition Indian National Congress (commonly known as the Congress party) is now in charge. This could be viewed as an attempt by voters to send a message to politicians about their perceived slowness in delivering change. While Bengaluru’s rich get richer, its poor swell in number, mostly as a result of an influx of rural workers; the city’s population has grown by about 400,000 a year since 2020. Yet this sort of electoral flip-flopping has gone on for the past decade across the country and many say that it’s a sign of a healthy democracy. Young BJP MP Tejasvi Surya, who naturally would prefer his party to control Karnataka, attributes Bengaluru’s recent advances to the funding and support that it has received from central government. The 33-year-old rattles off a list of these accomplishments, including 75km of new metro rail, a 268km ring road around the city, 1,500 electric buses and even approval for a long-awaited US consulate. “Because of all of these measures, people of Bengaluru have greatly benefitted from the Modi government,” he says. “This is why the city votes overwhelmingly for the BJP.”

He is right that India’s boom town does seem to favour the ruling party. Despite its popularity, however, the BJP has a defensiveness born of the criticism that Modi’s India often receives, both from within the country’s once-dominant left-wing intelligentsia and from observers beyond its borders. For example, the party has been accused of using state institutions to pursue political rivals. In March, Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s chief minister, was arrested on corruption charges, resulting in a protest that brought hundreds onto the capital’s streets.

Many also worry that Modi is trying to turn India into a “Hindu Pakistan”, with full rights and protections only given to the Hindu majority. “I fear for India,” says Brijesh Kalappa, a Supreme Court advocate and former Congress party leader. “Decisions to hurt amity among religions will have long-term consequences.” India is home to more than 200 million Muslims, making it the country with the second-largest Muslim population. But they are a minority compared to its 1 billion Hindus. Modi’s project to reclaim pride in Hindu civilisation has unnerved Muslims and revived fears of civil conflict. He has been criticised for condoning interfaith violence as chief minister of Gujarat in 2002, when widespread Islamophobic riots left more than 1,000 people dead. And his decision in January to consecrate a temple in the city of Ayodhya was seen as highly inflammatory: it was built on a sacred Hindu spot but one that is also the site of a 16th-century mosque destroyed in 1992 by Hindu mobs. Like most places in India, Hindus and Muslims live and work side by side in Bengaluru, though none of the Muslim shopkeepers who Monocle spoke to were willing to comment on the election.

At Bengaluru’s trendy Third Wave coffee shop, however, a group of young office workers say that they don’t see such divisions in their circles. “I have a lot of Christian and Muslim friends,” says 32-year-old Lakshmi Narayan. “We all live in harmony.” Her 39-year-old colleague Jiban Kumar agrees. “As far as any sectarian discord goes, it’s politics and hype,” he says. “The BJP has made developments for the past 10 years. We have seen no corruption or social disharmony.” This view partly reflects Bengaluru’s ability to move beyond India’s ancient divides towards a more peaceful settlement. But there have been exceptions. On 1 March, a homemade bomb exploded at a vegetarian café during lunch hour, injuring eight people. Many initially tried to underplay its link to terrorism but investigations are pointing to the role of Islamist extremists.

“Fear has permeated the community,” says Tanveer Ahmed, a former spokesperson for secular political party Janata Dal Secular (JDS). “The BJP systematically excludes Muslims from holding representative positions. Meanwhile, other parties only allow mostly illiterate or problematic Muslims to lead: individuals who lack education and fail to grasp the complexities of issues or pose challenging questions.” Peculiarly, the jds has now entered into an alliance with the bjp in Karnataka, underscoring not only the elasticity of ideology in India’s politics but also the fact that religious violence – or the threat of it – has become a campaigning tactic for many.

Indeed, most people in Bengaluru only have praise for Modi, his reputation as an antagonist notwithstanding. “Modi is legendary,” says taxi driver Hareesh Kumar, part of a group crowding around a tea stall on a balmy evening. “He’s the one and only gift for India.” MC Shilpacharya, who used to be a goldsmith and now owns his own photocopying shop nearby, agrees. “Because everything is online, Modi has brought digital to India,” he says. Restaurant manager Pradeep Shetty is most impressed by India’s improved standing on the world stage. “Since Modi came to power, everyone knows us,” he says. “He’s doing very good things for the country.”

Unlike in many Indian cities, where people chew over the endless horse-trading of coalition politics, Bengaluru’s business and start-up communities tend to look at politics through a cost-benefit lens. When the going’s good, few want a regime change. Whether Modi is good for India is a touchy subject for the venture capitalists who Monocle meets in a smart building off Church Street. Between conversations, their attention flits to the large, muted CNBC screen – the trademark twitch of 21st-century moneymen. 

Karl Mehta is a foreign investor of Indian origin who feels that the West has the wrong idea about the country. “It views nationalism as a negative word because of the trauma of Hitler,” he says. “But being nation first isn’t a bad thing. The US is nation first and nobody questions it. The West doesn’t understand India. We’re a 5,000-year-old civilisation. But for the past millennium, we have been told that our culture and traditions are inferior. Now, India feels proud of its identity.” At a time when the old powers of Europe and the West are failing to get their way on the international stage, the BJP is the party for those trying to shake off the last of India’s postcolonial grievances, a potent attribute in this city of young companies. 

There are more Indians than ever with no direct connection to British colonial rule, which ended with independence in 1947, or the decades of socialism that followed it. Of the nearly one billion eligible voters in this election, more than 550 million are under the age of 40. Their worldview developed after 1991, when India’s markets opened to foreign capital. Within a few years, hundreds of millions of Indians suddenly gained access to a wideing machines and laptops) to the modish (Adidas and Armani). Smartphones and digitisation increased financial inclusion. Very poor Indians, who for centuries had been at the mercy of ruthless moneylenders, could instead procure loans directly from banks. Middle-class shopkeepers, used to keeping cash stuffed in mattresses, can now invest in stocks and bonds more easily. “They don’t know much about the freedom movement or Gandhi,” says TV Mohandas Pai, a Zen-like 65-year-old investor and philanthropist. “They’re not bothered. They’re not beaten people who believe in the superiority of the white man. They’re seeing India growing, especially under Modi.”

Pai made a name for himself as a former board member and CFO of Infosys, one of India’s behemothic IT firms. “Modi is in a strong position because most Indians are poor,” he says. “What has he done? He has put roofs over their heads and given them toilets, mobile phones, food and medical help. And he has never backed down on Pakistan or China.” Pai rails against what he calls the “anti-Modi ecosystem” that wants to “save India from itself”, especially when it is fuelled by Indians who live abroad. “Liberalism is making sure that there are multiple voices,” he says. “But I know of people who have said positive things about Modi, then been cancelled. The only ones complaining are those who were kicked out of power or economic refugees who left India. We stayed and built the country. Not the malcontents. We don’t need them. India will stand up for itself.” Conspiracy theorists suggest that there is a movement to stop Modi from flourishing because a strong India challenges the world order. “It’s not a massive conspiracy theory,” says investor Karl Mehta. “It’s just an old colonial mindset, a Western worldview.” 

For all the talk of India’s authoritarian backsliding, millions of its diaspora are returning and many are heading for Bengaluru. Prospects in the US and parts of Europe, where taxes and crime rates are far higher than in India, are bleak for young people. But more significantly, the country’s economy is booming: it was recently named the world’s fastest-growing by the executive director of the International Monetary Fund, Krishnamurthy Subramanian. India’s GDP grew by 7 per cent last year and is predicted to grow by 7.6 per cent in 2024. By comparison, most economies in Europe were stagnant or even contracted in 2023. Many Indians who left the country now see more opportunities in their homeland.

Heena Randhawa, who has spent most of her life abroad and is married to an Englishman, left London when her husband got a job in Bengaluru. Though she was a marketing and communications specialist in the UK, she decided to set up an apparel company designing costumes for children. “There are many people who want to come back to India,” she says. “There are so many opportunities and it’s easy to get things done. Opening a business, especially in the creative space, would have been harder in London. It’s so easy to source quality material here. There’s a whole street in Bengaluru full of ribbons and another full of buttons.”

Bengaluru is becoming almost as well known for its micro-breweries – there are about 80 – as it is for its start-ups. Monocle visited two of them and couldn’t find anyone who wasn’t planning to vote for the BJP. The closest things to dissenting voices that we encountered were endorsements with caveats. “I’ll vote for Modi because there’s no other choice,” says 22-year-old software engineer Arnav Mahajan. “We have to settle for the least bad candidate,” says his friend Anjali Sharma. The lack of a strong opposition is a common complaint, including within the Congress party, but even the most anti-BJP activists believe that the party’s victory is a foregone conclusion. The question is how big a mandate Modi will receive and what he will do with it. For those in Bengaluru, India’s city of the future, his stewardship has brought rapid technological and economic advancement.

On the city’s streets, among both rich and poor, there is a sense that this is India’s time – a sentiment that comes across more as joie de vivre than chest-thumping nationalism. The real test for the country’s strongman leader is not the election but how much discomfort the booming economy’s developmental problems will continue to cause. If he can find a way to harness the energy surging through this vast nation while preventing conflict between its religious groups or with its neighbours, India will almost certainly assume its place at the top table of nations within this century. If he cannot, its young population will surely turn away from the BJP. There’s a phrase that Indians use to sum up the country’s bumps and contradictions: “We’re like this only.” “As much as I’d love smooth roads, this is India,” says returnee Randhawa. “And I like its twists and turns.”

Insights from the world’s largest property fair

Monocle was tempted back to the shores of the Med in March for the 2024 iteration of Mipim, the world’s most important real-estate fair, which pulls in more than 20,000 delegates and exhibitors, mostly from Europe and the Middle East. Hosted in Cannes, this is a sales event, a soft-power arena for governments and cities to show what they’re made of, for funds to seek out investment opportunities and for a lot of convivial hospitality. In the space of a few days you can gain a snapshot of the forces shaping the ways our cities will develop and the trends and social powers that are materialising in the built environment.

The mood this year was much improved on 12 months ago. There was a feeling that capital was about to flow again, that more projects were being greenlit and that more companies were returning to in-office working, ready to buoy the market for commercial landlords and boost the prospects for CBDs and retail. And if you are in hotels, data centres or South American malls, it was also all positive. Over the following pages, we’ll introduce you to just a few of the folk we met at Mipim and hear their concerns, ambitions and predictions for the years ahead.

Felicity Black-Roberts
The vice-president of acquisitions and development Europe at Hyatt Hotels Corporation championed the post-pandemic hotel boom on the continent.

“We were surprised at how well the business-traveller sector bounced back after the pandemic. I was faced with doom merchants saying, ‘There’s never going to be another Frankfurt Book Fair, it’s all dead’. But it’s come back. And it’s a testament to how human beings want to do business. They want to be face-to-face, have eye contact, be in the same room. I also think that people coming out of the pandemic realised how much they valued travel. There have been a lot of leisure trips, as well as blended trips where people might be taking their family away for some leisure time and doing some work as part of that. That’s partly driven the increased demand for suites, which often delivers the experience element for those high-end guests who can afford that pricing level.”

Muyiwa Oki
The president of Riba (the Royal Institute of British Architects) was in Cannes to promote British talent, especially around the climate crisis, and reflect on the built environment in an election year.

“I’ve been invited to roundtables by [UK political parties] Labour and the Conservatives. We are making the case that the built environment has a major effect on towns and regions in the country. For example, in the northwest and the West Midlands, we have quite a lot of homes that are not fit for purpose and we’re lobbying for a retrofit strategy, a way of rethinking and reimagining these dilapidated buildings and bringing them up to standard for the future. And that has an effect on jobs, job security, healthcare. So basically, what I’m trying to say, is that the built environment is an indicator of prosperity. And if you invest in it, you invest in income, in the economy. I can feel that people are listening to us and they’re getting the idea that, if we want to solve the big issues when it comes to a global climate emergency, we need to think about the built environment first, because the built environment contributes to about 37 per cent of global greenhouse gases. And there is no pathway to net zero without solving this issue.”

Valdas Benkunskas
The mayor of Vilnius was on the ground to champion the Lithuanian capital and realign people’s focus on the effects of the war in Ukraine on this neighbour of Russia.

“It’s a dangerous situation because a lot of countries and societies in western Europe are just tired of this war. And that’s what the Russians are seeking to do: crush us. Our goal is to say that we won’t forget, we won’t get tired and we will do everything that’s needed until Ukraine wins this war. For us, it’s much easier to do that because Ukraine is closer to us than it is to Portugal or Spain, for example. But still, we believe that Ukraine is not just fighting for themselves. They’re fighting for us as well. So our goal is to help as much as we can and, in Vilnius, we have a lot of people who support this and who understand. Our society doesn’t panic.”

Duncan Swinhoe
The regional managing principal of Gensler, the world’s biggest architecture firm, founded in San Francisco in 1965, had some thoughts on the company’s spiritual home and the future of the office.

“Nvidia [an AI tech company] is the hot topic. Everyone’s talking about Nvidia and its headquarters were designed by Gensler before the pandemic. We’ve just completed the third phase of that building and it’s as far from what you would think of as an office building as you could possibly imagine. It is a future environment that’s designed to facilitate collaboration, to bring innovators together in a super-effective way, in a way that differentiates their space from their competitors’ spaces. And you can see the results. I mean, it’s an incredible building. 

“Just to play on the San Francisco conversation a little bit: there has been a lot of negativity around the hollowing out of the CBD but we’ve just moved into a new building there and what’s interesting is that the teams are a full-time presence – they’re in most of the time together, collaborating. And that’s because the space facilitates this – there’s the ability to choose where you want to spend time, for example.”

Belit Onay
The mayor of Hanover had much to say on the challenges of trying to make the city centre car-free by 2030 – especially given that Hanover is a key manufacturing base for Volkswagen.

“About 50 per cent of the population are going with you: they support this idea of having a car-free city centre; they see the necessity of transformation because of the climate crisis that’s hitting our urban areas very hard. But when it comes to cars, Germans are very emotional. After the Second World War, the automotive industry was important for the rebuilding of Germany. What we are doing in Hanover is trying to explain that it’s not about whether you like driving a car or not. It’s more about: how do you want us to organise the city? Do you want areas for parking cars when they could instead be used to host concerts or a space for your family, for your children to play? We don’t talk about the minus; we talk about the plus. We talk about bringing a better quality of life to different neighbourhoods.”

Melanie Leech
We asked the chief executive of the British Property Federation whether there are any reasons to be cheerful in the UK right now.

“Our members are positive. Election years are always quite tricky but people are looking beyond that, to quite a positive future for the UK – lots of long-term plans are being made. And if you look at what’s happening with the best offices in the right locations, then they are doing really well. The retail market is also coming back strongly, for the right assets in the right locations. The living sectors are all doing well. The key thing we need to see from national government is that partnership but also investment. One of the other key inhibitors to getting stuff done is just the lack of resources in local authorities. Part of that is going to be around direct funding but also thinking creatively to tackle major projects. But there are lots of reasons to be optimistic.”

Mehmet Kalyoncu
The founding chair of the Turkish Design Council told us about efforts to rebuild Hatay, the province most damaged in the 2023 earthquakes that destroyed some 300,000 homes and killed 50,000 people. 

“After you lose a city, you want to build it back fast but we are focusing on not only how we can create a city again – a historical city, a magical city – but also how we can provide a better standard of urban living. The role of design is critical. But when you have a really big crisis – losing 50,000 people, having rescue teams from at least 60 different countries, not being able to have electricity, utilities – not everybody is thinking design at first, of course. But when the time comes to build the city back, then design really is the most important thing because you cannot make a better city if the planners and designers are not providing the best possible solutions.”

Kelsea Crawford
The co-founder and CEO of Cutwork architecture and design studio, based in Paris, told us about delivering alternative living concepts in Saudi Arabia.

“There’s lot of things to wrap our heads around in the studio in terms of design for the Saudi Arabia project because, culturally, it’s so different to Europe. But the challenge is the same in that people’s lifestyles are evolving – and rapidly. Even six years ago, women [in Saudi Arabia] weren’t allowed to drive. In the next 10 years, I think we will see them leapfrogging in terms of culture to a much more open form of living that’s community-centric. What I’ve also learnt is that there’s a different concept of privacy, of the family and the role of the family and society. Designing for co-living in this context will be different to London or Paris. But therein lies the beauty of being able to design bespoke products for their environment for their local context.”

Laura Viscovich
We asked the executive director of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction about the future of greener building.

“We believe that sustainable buildings and landscapes must address four interconnected goals: protecting the planet, helping people, contributing to economic prosperity and placemaking. And the latter is vital, because it means that happiness and happy people will be the result of whatever construction is taking place. There are clearly some strong impact-minded stakeholders who are looking to create the narrative around the long-term effect of investing in sustainable construction. Our sponsor is a cement-and-concrete manufacturer and they’ve been doing a lot of work on low-carbon solutions. But the foundation has supported research on different bio-based materials and what we’ve seen is that it’s more about those holistic solutions of retrofit, adaptive reuse and working with existing buildings to find new ways to keep going and serve the communities for many more years.”

Alex Knapp
The chief investment officer for Hines Europe, the global real-estate investment, development and management business, took the market’s temperature.

“The markets feel different this year. We’ve been through a market correction for real estate on par with the early 1990s, or the global financial crisis. So it’s a 20 per cent correction in values across the board. It’s a really material moment and a cyclical reset that happens periodically in real estate – and it feels like we are coming close to the bottom of that cycle. Are we there yet? Are we there in six months? I’m not quite sure. But the mood is changing. For offices, for retail, there are versions of each that are functioning well. So for offices, which is a big topic in the real-estate world and for cities everywhere, the CBDs are very healthy and that gives a foundation for values to eventually increase. The same is true in retail. At this point we’re starting to see occupier levels stabilise, footfall levels rising again and e-commerce penetration flattening, which gives everyone more cause for optimism.”

The business agenda: Swedish snowmobiles, reimagining London’s high streets and Singapore’s special brew

Mobility: Sweden
Cool runnings

An electric snowmobile might sound risky: if its batteries fail in the cold, wouldn’t it leave you stranded on the tundra? But Swedish start-up Vidde says that it has a solution. Its electric snowmobile, the Alfa, is currently in its last stages of testing and Monocle recently took it out for a spin in Jukkasjärvi, Swedish Lapland. All clean lines and appealing finishes, the Alfa has a frame that’s partly made from a timber-based biomaterial and whizzes along with a refreshing lack of engine rumble or fumes. Its batteries, made by Swedish manufacturer Mattr Collective, promise a range of up to 100km on a single charge. Crucially, the Alfa features an intelligent heating system that keeps these batteries warm, increasing their charging speed and helping them to last longer. And that’s not to mention its zippy acceleration and option of adjusting the seat for comfort to suit different types of terrain. Vidde has about 300 pre-orders and is hoping to start deliveries later this year, with the goal of producing 1,000 units in 2025. The current cost to reserve an Alfa is €26,200. 
viddemobility.com

Music: Serbia
Gig economy

“For most bands, Serbia hasn’t been a tour stop for years but I believe that it has a lot of potential,” says Dmitry Zaretsky, the co-founder of concert agency Honeycomb. He’s acting on that conviction by promoting shows in Belgrade for the likes of UK indie stalwarts Bombay Bicycle Club, punk-popper Yungblud and even Ed Sheeran, who will give an outdoor performance at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. 

For Serbian music fans accustomed to being ignored by big international tours, the change has been welcome. But it might not have happened without Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which led to the demise of Zaretsky’s previous business. Pop Farm had promoted shows in Russia for everyone from Billie Eilish to the Arctic Monkeys, as well as Moscow’s Bol festival. Zaretsky was among the thousands of creative Russians who chose Belgrade as their location for a restart. “Serbia’s mentality is similar to Russia’s and the language is simple for us to learn,” he says. And with no initial visa requirements, it’s easy for his compatriots to start businesses here. Honeycomb now operates in 12 countries, including Greece and Romania, but Belgrade remains its base. “It’s full of people who love music, so why not bring it to them?”

F&B: Japan
Q&A

Makiko Ono
CEO, Suntory Beverage and Food

Makiko Ono is the first female CEO of Suntory Beverage and Food, a Japanese company with revenues of more than €9.6bn last year whose global portfolio includes Ribena, Schweppes and Lucozade. Within its home country, it sells 120 million cases of Tennensui mineral water, 100 million cases of Boss Coffee and 61 million cases of Iyemon green tea every year. Suntory is increasingly focusing on water conservation and plastic reduction. Monocle spoke to Ono at the company’s Tokyo office. 

Where do you see areas of growth in Japan?
Though Japan’s population is declining, it’s a huge, mature market that appreciates novelty. To cater to its ageing society, we’re bringing in value-added products called Food for Specified Health Use [For example, Iyemon Tokucha, a green tea drink that helps to lower body fat]. Sugar-free tea drinks and bottled water hold large market shares in Japan and there are vending machines everywhere, so people can buy them any time. 

What are your major challenges?
Suntory Group has a target of using 100 per cent sustainable pet by 2030. Water is a top priority too: it’s our most precious ingredient. We have been working on things such as water sanctuaries and a water-education programme. 

How do you keep the business growing globally? 
We have two growth streams: inorganic, which comes from M&A or partnerships, and organic, which comes from polishing existing brands. We’re trying to do more to share the strengths of the Japanese business with other regions and, in turn, import best practices.

The Japanese side does a lot of research and development. We want to bring that to other places. Boss Coffee is a unique product that has given us expertise in making canned and bottled coffee, so we are expanding it into Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam, and maybe Europe in the future. 

How did you begin your career? 
When I joined Suntory in 1982 I was in a team that was acquiring a French winery and other international companies. No woman had worked abroad in our company but I was keen to go overseas. So I was sent to Paris, where my role was to manage the winery and a cognac company that Suntory had acquired. I needed to learn about production, management and finance, and deal with banks – something that I wouldn’t have experienced in Japan unless I’d been in the finance division.

How can Japan bring more women into the top level of management?
Women can lack confidence even when they are just as capable as men and there are unconscious biases at play. Companies could offer flexibility in working hours. Positive discrimination is unpopular but we are trying to nurture female talent and build career plans for women.

What’s your vision for the company? 
More than half of our sales and profits come from our international businesses. But we are also a Japanese company and want to keep that specialness, which makes us different from our peers, such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola.

Retail: UK

Having tapped into the demand for temporary retail spaces in London, Paris and New York since 2014, Ross Bailey, the founder of Appear Here, is now taking on a whole high street with his latest project, Deptford Market Yard. “Through Appear Here and the 30,000 pop-up shops that we have launched around the world, we had a good idea of the streets that people wanted to be on,” says Bailey. “It wasn’t Oxford Street or Fifth Avenue. It was the likes of Broadway Market in east London. The smaller streets were key. So we thought about creating our own.”

In 2023, Bailey found a site in need of love in Deptford, southeast London, where there were about 20 spaces for retail or restaurants under old railway arches. He seized the opportunity to shape a street that would unapologetically be part of the community, tapping into chefs and creatives who were already active in Deptford, rather than bringing in outsiders to disrupt the neighbourhood’s existing character.

“We looked at areas of London such as Brixton and pockets of east London that are undergoing rapid gentrification as examples of what not to do,” says Bailey. “Yes, we wanted the project to feel slightly curated but not like it was owned by a corporation.” Growing up with shopkeepers as parents, Bailey’s aversion to homogeneous high streets – with the same rotation of chains, from sandwich shops to chemists – runs deep.

To achieve the overhaul of the area in a manner that was respectful of Deptford’s community, Bailey decided that anyone taking over an archway had to have some connection to the area. “Everything on the street is designed by someone from southeast London,” he says. “Even the flags down the road were drawn by local schoolchildren.” The restaurants that dot Deptford Market Yard, from Afro-Caribbean venue Jerk Yard to family-owned Japanese café Kekaki Izakaya, attest to the diversity of the neighbourhood. 

So far the reception has been positive. Appear Here is now looking to, well, appear, at a more extensive scale, in north and east London. “If you truly want to understand a city, the key is to pay attention to the shops and streets, not the public buildings or town halls,” says Bailey. “Museums and monuments tell outsiders what a city wants to be. But the streets and the shops tell people what a city really is and how it treats and serves those who actually live there.”

F&B: Singapore
Bean and gone

In February, Singaporean start-up Prefer raised $2m (€1.8m) to scale up the manufacturing of its signature product: bean-free coffee. Its co-founders, Jake Berber and Tan Ding Jie, are betting that their substitute, a fermented mixture of soybean pulp, barley and bread, will satisfy the most ardent coffee aficionados.

“It looks and feels just like ground coffee,” says Tan. Prefer’s product is cheaper, quicker to make and more sustainable than the original. It brews in the same manner and even produces a layer of frothy crema. But a lack of coffee beans means no caffeine. Prefer’s grounds make a great decaf, while customers looking for a kick can opt for a sprinkle of caffeine powder that the company extracts from tea. “As with any novel product, there’s a healthy amount of curiosity, as well as scepticism,” says Tan. But Prefer has managed to win over an important demographic: baristas. The product is already available in 14 cafés in Singapore and there are plans to expand to the Philippines.
prefer.coffee

Why stamps are sticking around and still used as a soft-power pusher in the post

Despite their slightly fusty image, stamps show no sign of being consigned to the dustbin of obsolescence. Indeed, these small pieces of paper, whose inherent design has remained largely unchanged since 1840, when the Penny Black became the first adhesive stamp used in the public post, still possess a potency that belies their humble function. The rarest sell for millions but since designs only have limited print runs, any stamp can become collectable. Postal services worldwide use stamps to promote their countries, so some of Monocle’s correspondents sent us a collection that they felt would leave a good impression on a foreign recipient. Here’s our pick.

1.
National icons
Japan

There are few topics or occasions in Japan that don’t merit a stamp: a new bullet train, a change of season, a sports team or obscure historical figure are all good material. Philatelists keep a beady eye on Japan Post’s releases for good reason: new stamps sell out in no time. These stamps are part of a series celebrating the attractions of regional Japan: snow monkeys and Matsumoto Castle in Nagano and a bowl of Tokushima’s famous ramen. There is only one problem with Japan’s dedication to quality stamps: many are just too good to use.

2.
Wash and go
Slovenia

A cross-country skiing boot, a vintage desktop computer and a washing machine are not, perhaps, the typical subjects of European philately. But as far as Slovenia is concerned, they are evidence of an impressive heritage in industrial design. The Alpina boot is from a company that claims to be “the first choice of Olympic and World Cup winners”. Meanwhile, the Gorenje washing-machine stamp highlights another company with Yugoslav heritage that continues to thrive in the 21st century, albeit under Chinese ownership. But this design celebrates a pair of Slovenian industrial designers, Janez Smerdelj and Anton Holobar. And the Triglav computer was Yugoslavia’s bid for IT glory in the 1980s. Despite Vid Bratasevic’s innovative design, it failed to crack the global market. This stamp gives the Triglav some overdue international exposure.

3.
The people’s architect
Italy

Italy likes to tout itself as a global centre of design, so it’s no surprise that it celebrated the centenary of the birth of architect Carlo Melograni on a stamp. The interesting thing about Melograni is that he wasn’t a “starchitect” by any means. An academic, teacher and author, Melograni – pictured in stately profile – almost exclusively focused on projects for the common good, including residential blocks and schools during the postwar boom years. There’s a clear message in the use of a picture of his Ludovico Ariosto di Ferrara state high-school project: we could do with more architects like him today.

Robert F Kennedy Jr’s campaign and the rising prospects of third-party candidates

You won’t get far in the US without a healthy amount of self-belief. So when Robert F Kennedy Jr introduced his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, a Silicon Valley stalwart and deep-pocketed donor to his campaign, as “the next vice-president of the United States”, he said it without a scrap of irony. Of course, Kennedy – nephew of JFK, son of Bobby, now running as an independent tearaway disowned by the Democrat establishment – probably knows he isn’t likely to be in the White House come January 2025. But that hasn’t stopped him whipping up a modest yet vocal movement of his own. To understand this forthcoming election, it’s essential to recognise the threat that third-party candidates such as RFK Jr pose to the two main parties and why some Americans are looking for another way.

I was in Oakland, California, to see Kennedy announce his “Veep”, and the crowd of flag-waving supporters were surprisingly normal for a candidate who has made anti-vax and conspiratorial waffle his stump. Ben, a former Democrat voter turned “mega-donor” to the Kennedy campaign, has had dinner with RFK Jr. “I’ve seen how the country has been run over the past four years and I don’t think it is being managed in the interest of the people or the international community,” he told me. “I will vote for Mr Kennedy.” Jessy had never been to a political rally before and, incredibly, believes Kennedy is a centrist voice. She fiercely dismissed any suggestion that her candidate peddles in conspiracy theories. “He just wants more truth, more transparency,” she said. 

Kennedy’s campaign is tapping into a distrust of media and official narratives that has seeped into so much American discourse. It is also the case that many voters feel turned off by both Trump and Biden (so-called “double- haters”) and might be seeing what they want to see in the outliers. One political consultant who has spent time around Kennedy tells me that while he may be disconnected from reality, you can’t underestimate the enduring brand power of his surname. That nostalgia was on display in Oakland. “Neither my father nor my uncle would recognise the version of America we have today,” came Kennedy’s raspy voice over a video showing scenes of homeless encampments in Los Angeles. Yet there was old-fashioned US optimism in there too: “[Americans] are ready to unite to rebuild this country.”

Appeals to emotion might be basic tactics but compare that message with Donald Trump’s, who warns of a “bloodbath” if he loses in 2024, or Joe Biden, who says that his opponent is an existential threat to democracy. “People want to vote for something, not just against something,” Lindsay Vermeyen, a pollster for the Benenson Strategy Group, which advised the successful Obama campaign, told me. The campaigns of today’s two mainstream parties are a far cry from anything like “Yes, we can”. 

Vermeyen is unsure whether many of those currently waving the flag for third-party candidates will ultimately come out to vote on election day. But the Democrats have been stung before – not least in 2000 when analysts say that votes for the seemingly distant Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader, ultimately swung it in favour of George W Bush – so the party isn’t taking any chances. The Democratic National Committee has set up a dedicated task force of strategists to challenge third-party candidates, with much of the focus currently on messaging that the Kennedy campaign has some of the same donors as Donald Trump. Meanwhile, there are legal challenges to keep Kennedy off the ballot in swing states. “If that happens, I would feel I’ve been failed as an American,” said one Californian voter as we left the event in Oakland.

Christopher Lord is Monocle’s US Editor.