Khaite Clothes, Made Miniature

26.10.2023 - 13:19 / nytimes.com / Martin Brudnizki / Art

The Khaite designer Catherine Holstein was newly pregnant in the fall of 2022 when the French children’s wear brand Bonpoint reached out to her about collaborating on a capsule collection. Now, the 11 new designs, intended to fit babies and children up to 10 years old and made with materials that are gentle against sensitive skin, are launching on Oct. 25 with a campaign featuring Holstein’s now-seven-month-old son, Calder. Standout pieces include a billowy white cotton top with a ruffled collar, a whimsical red-and-white botanical print skirt and miniature versions of two Khaite mainstays: a double-breasted Tanner blazer and a wool version of the brand’s flare-sleeved Scarlet cardigan. “I’m just amazed at the conversations you can have with kids after the age of three, and what their perspective is,” says Holstein. “I wanted the collection to give them the option to really home in on their individuality.” The pieces most dear to the designer are those inspired by her 1980s childhood. “I had black corduroy overalls that I would wear with suspenders with cars on them and a Fair Isle cardigan. … I really wanted to capture that nostalgia.”

In the overcast spring of 1988 in Bournemouth, on the southwest coast of Britain, an Edwardian-style hotel called the Mon Ami went bust. According to Noel Hayden, the gaming entrepreneur whose parents owned the hotel, it had a hundred bedrooms and a resident band that performed six nights a week, a stone’s throw from the beach. “Every night was a celebration,” says Hayden. But international travel had become increasingly affordable, and British guests craved sunnier weather. Bookings dried up. Thirty-five years later, in London’s Soho, Hayden is plotting a comeback.

A month before Broadwick Soho’s planned opening on Nov. 15, the concierge staff are behind the front desk, dressed in leopard print jackets and velvet bow ties, obscuring a Francis Bacon lithograph. Bartenders practice pulling shots of espresso on the La Marzocco in the Italianate cafe with striped Murano glass sconces, or opening champagne at the rooftop hangout, Flute, which has kitschy cork paneling and a mirrored ceiling. The 57 bedrooms are stylish and eccentric (beds sitting in the palms of bronze hands; wardrobes covered in reproductions of a 17th-century tapestry), and some feature notable artwork (four more Bacon lithographs hang in the penthouse). The winking 1970s-inspired décor was a six-year job for designer Martin Brudnizki, who describes the concept as “Studio 54 meets your godmother’s Soho townhouse.”

The Danish jeweler Sophie Bille Brahe is known for her delicate designs featuring diamonds and pearls set in inventive combinations that often seem to float above the body. Now she’s lending