NUVO Magazine

Venice has always understood the power of a gesture. A masked glance across a canal, a dramatic shrug on a vaporetto, an espresso ordered with operatic flair—this is a city fluent in performance. Fitting, then, that JR’s (@jr ) arrival at @venicevenicehotel with Il Gesto is an exhibition devoted to the expressive possibilities of the body. 🖊 @claudia_cusano

A collaboration between Flip Wentink Architecten, @eestairs , and interior architect Julia van Beuningen, this 19th-century barn is part of a wider restoration of buildings on the site, and it strikes the eye with its thatched roof covering a massive area and the red-brick walls with large glass windows and double doors. 📸 @alexbaxter.co 🖊 @jackdouglaslowe

In a city of black puffers and neutral palettes, @elizafaulkner still believes in pink, tulle, and ruffles. From her studio in Montreal’s Chabanel district, the Vancouver Island-born designer speaks with an ease that mirrors her clothes: confident, expressive, unafraid of taking up space or making a statement. Since launching her namesake label in 2012, Faulkner has built a devoted following for what she describes as “bold, feminine, contemporary womenswear.” While the wording is succinct, the garments are not. They arrive with puffed sleeves, generous bows, saturated colour, and silhouettes that refuse to shrink themselves. When Faulkner launched the brand, fashion was in its normcore era, and her early collections, rooted in linen and natural fibres, were more relaxed, distinctly west coast in spirit. Dresses, yes, but pared back. Effortless. Over time, the brand evolved as romanticism returned to the forefront of fashion with the rise of cottagecore. Her shapes grew more exaggerated, the frills more pronounced, the colours brighter. What some might have once dismissed as “dressing up” began to feel like a confident expression of personal style. “It felt like a natural evolution, but we are trying to grow up the brand, so getting a little bit more sophisticated,” she says. 🖋 @vickiduong 📸 @samuelfournier_

One of the drawbacks of having a beautifully designed house or building, for those seeking privacy, is the scores of onlookers who come to view it. When @akbarchitects completed a dock and boathouse in Muskoka, just such a situation arose. Curious onlookers would float up to the structure on their boats hoping for a better look at the award-winning structure. The inspiration for the design, alongside the need for privacy, was the floating wooden docks found all over Muskoka. As a result, the home is made up of flat, two-dimensional elements, without curves or even a pitched roof. The house and boathouse share a common architectural language, having been conceived at the same time but completed years apart. 🖋 @jackdouglaslowe 📸 @shaigilfoto

Few liqueurs are quite so steeped in tradition as the ones that hail from Italy. Whether in Piedmont or Puglia, the local aperitivi and amari follow recipes held dear for centuries, their unique combination of botanicals and base liquors telling the story of the regions’ long-standing dining cultures. It is exceedingly rare that a new type of aperitivo or amaro is able to break through in the tradition-steeped category, and undoubtedly more so that its inventor comes from beyond Italy’s shores. But that isn’t stopping @ericksonmeredith , the Montreal native and food writer who fell in love with Italy’s herbal liqueurs while doing research for Alpine Cooking, a cookbook and travelogue about the cuisines of Austria, France, Switzerland, and Italy’s alpine regions. At its current trajectory, @doladira , which is inspired specifically by the Italian Dolomites, is sure to top the mountain of fabled aperitivi sooner rather than later. From our Issue 108. 🖋 @johncclegg

Canada has its fair share of acclaimed designers, but on the world stage most of the praise has been heaped on those who work on macro projects. Mirroring the country itself, the Canadian design scene has long valued largeness, with architecture in particular garnering attention from audiences both domestic and international. It’s not that there aren’t fantastic object designers in the Great White North. Indeed, from coast to coast, pioneering studios are crafting heirloom-worthy pieces of collectible, lighting, and furniture design deserving of the limelight often reserved for the country’s finest architects. Now, with the launch of @ourse.ca , a pioneering new furniture company that highlights Canadian furniture designers, that limelight is changing focus. From our Issue 108. 🖋 @johncclegg

Morocco is rarely the first place that comes to mind when planning a summer escape. The North African country is more often associated with extreme heat: sun-bleached medinas, desert horizons, and cities that shimmer under high temperatures. Summer, most assume, is something to be endured rather than enjoyed. But that assumption unravels the moment you travel north. Along the country’s Mediterranean coast, Tamuda Bay tells a different story. Here, summer is not only bearable, it is ideal. The sea is at its calmest, and the air is refreshingly cool (20-28°C) compared to the rest of the country (upward of 35°C). This is where Moroccans come to escape the heat, trading inland cities for long afternoons by the water. Yet Tamuda Bay is so deeply local that even the king of Morocco retreats here to his summer residence—a sign that this stretch of coast has long been a well-kept secret. When King Mohammed VI decided to expand the Royal Mansour hotel collection beyond its Marrakech flagship—an icon since opening in 2010—and @royalmansourcasablanca , he chose a plot of land in Tamuda Bay: the stretch of coastline adjacent to his own palace. Thus, @royalmansourtamuda was conceived not as a hotel in the conventional sense but as a private seaside sanctuary. From our Issue 108. 🖋 @claudia_cusano

Stepping into @peridothk is like entering a futuristic dream with a hint of the familiar. Occupying the 38th floor of @thehenderson_hk , the plant-based bar and restaurant by @studiopaoloferrari is an experimental space that feels both cinematic and timeless. Opened in late October, @peridothk is named after the gemstone that inspired its green palette. From the custom mohair seating to the cave-like ceiling, sinuous lines and organic shapes reflect the green hills that encircle the city. Ferrari was influenced by the tower’s glass façade, designed by @zahahadidarchitects , which resembles the form of a plant before it blooms. “There’s a bit of softness to the tower, yet there are big gestures in its form,” says the Toronto-based architect and interior designer. “It’s beautiful and subtle with a forward-looking quality to it.” This balance is reflected in details such as the cantilevered, cast-steel bottle holders in the wine room and the central bar carved from green marble, both of which signal luxury and opulence. From our Issue 108. 🖋 Amy van den Berg 📸 @virgilebertrand_hk_photo

Florence doesn’t need embellishment. What it needs is a vantage point that honours its complexity. Enter @collegioauberge , an @auberge Collection hotel that has arrived on the scene and is already making a strong case for why checking in there is as memorable as checking out the @uffizigalleries . The Renaissance city has no shortage of hotels, many located in the historic centre. Instead of landing you in the sea of tourists, @collegioauberge is perched in the hills above the Le Cure neighbourhood. Approaching it, the road curves upwards, and the city transforms from a crowded masterpiece into a panorama, with terra cotta rooftops unfolding under the Tuscan sky. Arrival feels cinematic, with a driveway lined with cipressi (cypress trees), rosemary bushes, and bursts of colour from the bougainvillea that spills over stone walls. For @auberge Collection, Florence seems a natural choice for the brand’s first Italian address. Rather than chasing capitals, the hospitality group sought a destination with a living cultural rhythm and found it in Florence, where every street seems to tell a story. What distinguishes an @auberge Collection hotel is its deeply rooted sense of place (underscoring this philosophy is the preservation of the name, honouring the building’s former life as a boarding school), and each property is conceived as a one-of-kind expression—@collegioauberge is a distinctly Florentine @auberge . From our Issue 108. 🖋 @claudia_cusano

@dior ’s Capture skin-care range is a master class in modern anti-aging. At its core lies a serious scientific ambition: to help skin regenerate itself. The skin care is built around research into skin stem cells with the standout innovation being OX-C, a powerful oxygen-boosting technology that fuels skin regeneration at a cellular level. Rather than relying on a single hero ingredient, @dior focuses on optimizing the skin’s most essential resource—oxygen. From our Issue 108. 🖋 @claudia_cusano

“If we knew how difficult it was in the beginning, we might have rethought the journey,” laughs Jonathan de Swaaf, who co-founded Toronto’s @creatorsofobjects with Joanne Byrne. Resin, their signature medium, captures colours and forms like nothing else—but it’s a tricky, time-consuming, temperamental material. Few studios fabricate resin pieces as large and ambitious as @creatorsofobjects , which means Byrne and de Swaaf create truly inimitable works—partly because no one else has the patience to try. From our Issue 108. 🖋 @keithflanny

No matter how you slice it, the wine industry is at a turning point. For the pessimist, articles with headlines proclaiming its demise read like a tragedy, with tales of vines being ripped up, wineries going bankrupt, and would-be Gen Z customers reaching for cannabis rather than cabernet. For the optimist, these and other more positive articles spell out what they’ve long known: the wine world needs to adapt, and these events are a necessary kick in the ass. At the front lines of this sea change is the sommelier, whose precarious role in the restaurant industry has always rested on the acceptance that wine is as essential to a good meal as the food on the plate. Now, with consumer habits shifting faster than ever before, somms more than any other in the world of wine are witnessing first-hand just what’s next for the beleaguered industry and are adapting themselves to it along the way. Read the full story at the link in our bio. From our Issue 108. 🖋 @johncclegg 🎨 @fra_z