Elena Tamburini’s Touch-Encouraging Furniture

Inspired by sex as taboo, especially among older people, Italian designer Elena Tamburini created Filotea—a collection of furniture that encourages physical affection whether solo or with another individual. The range includes several standout pieces: Otello is a mirror surrounded by feathers, which allows the user to caress their own face, and the Filomena is a body brush that stimulates the skin. Our favorite is the …

Documenting Strip Clubs Throughout the American South

French photographer François Prost’s Gentlemen’s Club collection archives the sun-soaked facades of strip clubs across the southern US—everywhere from the beaches of Florida to downtown Houston. Through 193 photos, Prost surveys the design of these buildings, with their “generic signifiers of sex and sensual pleasure,” focusing on parts of the country that have “conservative and puritan reputations.” The exteriors are brightly colored, eerily similar from city …

Studio Visit: Surfboard Shaper Paul Surf

At Rockaway Beach, owner Paul Schmidt crafts boards that can be put to use just a few feet away

Inside of his shipping container studio at Marina 59 in Rockaway Beach, New York, Paul Schmidt crafts surfboards for friends and first-timers under the moniker Paul Surf. The process, which can takes upward of an entire day, demands precision and artistic prowess. For Schmidt, the desire to create things stems from seeing his dad do so too. “My father owned a construction company when I …