The Globe and Mail Style Magazine

Once all the practical bases are covered, it’s essential to carve out space that satisfies your off-duty interests. From a Toronto recording studio by @superkularchitecture , pictured here, to a West Coast cabin and writer’s room, our annual roundup of Canada’s best architecture and interiors illustrates how to live creatively at home. See all of the passion projects profiled by @matthew.hague at tgam.ca/stylemag. Photo by @2spacephoto .

When @chanelofficial creative director Matthieu Blazy presented his first Métiers d’art collection in a defunct Lower Manhattan subway station in December, it had all the trappings of a grand New York moment. Models swanned along empty train cars in plumes of feathers and faux fur, one wearing a very bedazzled “I ❤️ NY” T-shirt beneath a quintessential tweed skirt suit. There, in the front row, was house ambassador and certified New York It Girl @whitneypeak , giddily taking in the cinematic collision of her two worlds. “It was an incredibly transcendent experience,” she says. “I was like, ‘I don’t know what movie this is, but I really want to be a part of it.” At tgam.ca/stylemag, Peak speaks with @randibergman about her life in the Big Apple, her upcoming role in the Hunger Games prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, and how she’s just as happy being a film fan as a film star. Photo @brentgoldsmith , fashion editor @nadiapizzimenti , makeup @tyronmachhausen , hair @naeemahlafond , photo assistants @clay.howardsmith @kalumko , styling assistant @raisaberkowitz , makeup assistant Lucie Nguyen, hair assistant @beautybykaycantrell ,art director @benj_macdonald , editor @andrew_sardone . Photographed @dannykaplanstudio . All clothing and accessories from Chanel’s Métiers d’art 2026.

Whitney Peak on film. From fashion’s front row to the Hunger Games franchise, this is the B.C.-raised actor’s blockbuster moment. The Summer 2026 edition of The Globe and Mail Style Magazine is out May 15 in subscriber copies of @globeandmail . Cover photo @brentgoldsmith , fashion editor @nadiapizzimenti , makeup @tyronmachhausen , hair @naeemahlafond , photo assistants @clay.howardsmith @kalumko , styling assistant @raisaberkowitz , makeup assistant Lucie Nguyen, hair assistant @beautybykaycantrell , art director @benj_macdonald , editor @andrew_sardone . Photographed @dannykaplanstudio . All clothing and accessories from the Métiers d’art 2026 collection by @chanelofficial .

It feels as if Milan Design Week is at something of a tipping point. What began in 1961 as a furniture fair at the city’s Campionaria Fairgrounds has, over the years, expanded into a city-wide platform for brands across all industries, from cars and fashion to beauty and technology. Much of the conversation around this year’s edition – which saw thousands of design-hungry visitors descend on the city at the end of April – centred on what constitutes “design,” who gets to be part of the conversation, at what point a “design week” evolves into something else entirely, and whether that even matters. Amid the noise and pretension, the most interesting moments were often found in smaller, more considered settings, suggesting a growing tension between the understated and the spectacular. At tgam.ca/stylemag, @ali__morris highlights moments that considered craft, waste and the future of design fairs themselves. Photo of @wright_jane_ and @jesse__butterfield ’s @alcova.milano exhibition by @piergiorgiosorgetti .

On April 23, for the first time in the annual event’s 12-year history, @cafawards rolled out its red carpet in Montreal. The gala’s relocation from its previous home base in Toronto hints at a momentum shift of sorts. Première Vision, the international fashion trade fair held in global style capitals such as Paris and New York, added a Montreal event to its calendar last year. The annual @madfestival and @semainemodemtl continue to galvanize Montreal’s eclectic creative community and celebrate its rich lineage in textiles and manufacturing. And homegrown talents such as the meteoric @matieresfecales and @elizafaulkner are finding acclaim on the global stage. On theglobeandmail.com’s Style page, we talk to many of CAFA’s boosters and honourees including @lcchan , pictured here, about Montreal’s international influence and how the awards energize the industry. Photo by @ya_mboutch .

Calgary-based interdisciplinary artist @marigoldasantos ’s two most recent shows at @patelbrowngallery in Toronto have featured spell-binding frames fabricated by Santos’s partner, Yarko Yopyk. “Her paintings are compelling, concentrated, and confident, and so are her framing selections,” says Patel Brown’s gallery director, Jennifer Simaitis. “The stain and grain of the frames often mimic the colours and mark-making found within the works themselves.” At tgam.ca/stylemag, @odessapaloma reports on how many artists and collectors see a frame as an extension of creative expression. Photo of Shroud hand (orchid mantis), 2025 by Marigold Santos courtesy of Patel Brown Galley.

“As somebody who’s never had the option of blending in, fashion is a way for me to take control of how I’m seen,” @tangled_arts gallery director @seanleelee1 tells @odessapaloma in the latest edition of Best Dressed. “I make different choices around gender, race and disability when it comes to dressing, and it’s a way of reclaiming the stares that happen to me. It’s a bit genderbending. I love to wear dresses, and I love to mix different kinds of tailoring within what I wear.” Read the full Q+A at tgam.ca/stylemag. Photo by @markbinks .

If you know anything about @maisonmargiela , the wickedly maverick French fashion house, you’re likely not all that surprised that it skipped out on Paris Fashion Week to debut its fall/winter 2026 collection. Instead, the brand travelled to Shanghai where, on April 1, it staged a mixed couture and ready-to-wear show at a shipyard on the edge of the city. The sprawling, 76-look collection opened with corseted gazar dresses made with layers of printed glass organza, mirroring the glazed appearance of porcelain and paired with masks impressed with the faces of antique dolls. The Shanghai show was a moving, fantastical spectacle and follows years of investment in the Asian market. Margiela is expanding in Canada too. The label opened its first Canadian store last year, at Yorkdale mall in Toronto, with a second store slated to open at Vancouver’s Oakridge Park in late May. “I think Canada is a very interesting market,” said Margiela CEO Gaetano Sciuto following the show. “It’s both fashion and functional, because Canada is more international. There’s a lot of different cultures. It’s a place that has a lot of values shared with the brand, but we have to educate people because the brand is new [there].” At tgam.ca/stylemag, Sciuto and creative director Glenn Martens tell Haley Steinberg about how the brand immerses its devoted fan base in its past, present and future. Photo courtesy of Maison Margiela.

When Vancouver’s Jeanette Kopak retired from her career in digital media, she wanted to get into baking. Unfortunately, it was a challenge to get excited about cooking anything in her existing kitchen. “When you spend more time at home, the little things really start to bug you,” she says. “I started to hate the kitchen. It was dark and cramped.” Previously, the kitchen was a narrow galley and had a small, west-facing window that let in limited light. The best option was to tear down a wall that separated the space from the rest of the ground floor, bringing in sun from south-facing patio doors near the dining area, and borrowing a bit of square footage from the adjacent entry. For the redesign, Kopak collaborated with Andrea Jae of @andreajae.studio . Some of the project’s inspiration came from the past, including Bauhaus modernism. “The Bauhaus is form and function together,” says Jae, who added utility wherever possible. The kitchen now has wide, uncluttered counters that are ideal for kneading dough. It also adjoins the entryway, with a peninsula packed with storage shelves and cupboards. Read more of @matthew.hague ’s story at tgam.ca/stylemag. Photo by @takenby_jh

The search for the perfect lobster roll could easily begin and end in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, at Salty C’s, a bright and friendly fish shop on the town’s main square. Salty’s offers swicy and traditional twists on the coastal staple, but they’re all built on a solid foundation of perfectly cooked, fresh-caught Bay of Fundy lobster, topped with zesty house-made dressings on an expertly toasted bun. If you still consider New Brunswick a “drive-through province,” you’ll miss out on a Salty C roll and so much more, but a growing number of food adventurists are keenly aware of the many tasty gems to be found in the province. Some even consider it Canada’s next great culinary frontier, thanks to abundant natural resources, rich traditional foodways and a groundswell of talented chefs and entrepreneurs excited to tell the story of the region’s unique terroir and merroir. At tgam.ca/stylemag, @mondosismondo heads east to create a delicious summer road trip to do list. Illustration by @kelseydavisdesign .

Not far from the historical centre of Görlitz, Germany, with its sleepy-eyed dormer windowed rooftops, is the factory where @birkenstock manufactures its famous cork footbeds. A humming hub of activity, where the sustainably harvested material is compressed, cut and shaped, the facility is the focus of the brand’s local legacy and centuries of innovation in the realm of comfort-conscious footwear. Lately, there’s also a lot of hometown pride for Birkenstock’s fashion collaborations with the likes of Manolo Blahnik and Rick Owens. For the brand, the goal of these designer moments is cultural relevance and placing their shoes in new, unexpected contexts. Its chief product officer, Markus Baum, is quick to note that these styles are distinguishable from the glut of sartorial mash-ups that have become all too ubiquitous in the fashion industry over the past decade – partnerships that often feel more like cash grabs than genuine meetings of creative minds. “Fashion came to us,” he says. At tgam.ca.stylemag, @odessapaloma heads to Germany to learn how the shoes went from a comfy staple to a designer favourite. Photo by Werner Bartsch.

“Last year, I was having dinner at a very cool place in Paris’s 20th arrondissement when the most divine woman walked in and stood at the bar with her son and husband,” writes @nolan_bryant in the Spring 2026 edition of The Globe and Mail Style Magazine. “She was wearing a louche white linen pantsuit, wonderfully messy hair and one of the freest and freely given smiles I’d ever seen. I couldn’t stop looking at her. I was struck by just how self-possessed she was, not because of some item of clothing (though the suit was great) or beauty trick (I have always loved a slightly dishevelled ‘do), but for the radiant smile that she wore. It looked like it felt so good to her, and I decided then and there to channel ‘that woman at the bar in Paris’ and smile more.” At tgam.ca/stylemag, Bryant reflects on the fresh wave of optimism sweeping into fashion and why a smile can be a revolutionary accessory. Illustration by @laurentamaki .