This October, MARKA made its London debut with a Capsule Edition that examined the ideas and cultural shifts defining luxury in the 21st century, and their impact on how we live, consume and create.
Every conversation opened up a new perspective. Ideas flowed across disciplines and new connections emerged from one session to the next, all expertly compèred by creative entrepreneur BJ Cunningham, moderator of MARKA since it started in 2000, who drew out the key insights from the day’s talks.
Designing for Shared Experience
Hosted at the Design Museum in London, the conference opened with a keynote by internationally acclaimed artist and designer Es Devlin, whose work for theatre productions, music tours and public art installations provided the backdrop for a conversation with the museum’s chief curator, Johanna Agerman Ross. “The terms of engagement that I learned in theatre are that you gather, you turn your phone off, and you pay attention,” Es Devlin told guests, sharing her ethos of designing around communal experience to encourage real-world connection.
To set the stage for this approach, the MARKA London speakers were framed by an evocative installation created by textile artist Alfhild Külper. “Feeling with our eyes, hands, feet, and bodies is so important, and we lose this in a world where we live behind layers and layers of glass,” Külper explained in a discussion with artist and designer Tom Atton Moore, whose work examines the memories and sense of connection present within rugs, “which are something really familiar to us all.” It is a thought that will resonate with anyone who has lived with a modern rug at home.
The need for tangible representations of these cultural ideas in our day-to-day lives was further explored in a talk by Ayşegül Yürekli Şengör and Ayşe Şengör Onger, president and managing director of STEPEVI, respectively. The pair discussed how they had transformed a historic carpet brand into a contemporary cultural leader, investing in design and craftsmanship as a vehicle for cultural progress and exchange; seen this way, a luxury rug becomes a meeting point of design, craft and culture.
Turning to the hospitality industry, a series of talks engaged with the centrality of emotion in contemporary culture. Contributions from interior designer Shayne Brady, journalist Dylan Jones and restaurateur Jeremy King revealed insights into designing restaurants that cater to diverse moods and moments.
Cities, Communities and Creative Exchange
Broadening out from restaurant interiors to the city as a whole, the relationship between urban planning and contemporary luxury came into focus in a conversation between brand strategist and journalist Çağdaş Ertuna and creative director Alex Eagle, who discussed designing interiors for 180 The Thames, a major residential, hotel and cultural development in central London. Later in the day, Ertuna spoke with developer Harry Handlesman, creator of London’s celebrated Chiltern Firehouse hotel, about the importance of integrating architecture into its wider surroundings.
Architect Kent Jackson of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill explored how technological innovation can advance more sustainable construction, discussing carbon-sequestering materials and circular design principles in a conversation with creative director and journalist Tony Chambers. The idea was picked up by industrial designer Sebastian Conran, who explored the potential of AI and robotics within societies, questioning the tech industry’s impulse to create machines in our own image.
Annie Doble, founder of the Annie’s Ibiza vintage fashion boutique, and DJ Fat Tony, a celebrated producer, DJ and activist, were joined by cultural entrepreneur Caroline Rush to discuss how to nurture a thriving, multidisciplinary creative scene. In this spirit of inclusion, and paying tribute to MARKA’s Istanbul roots, artist Seda Gazioğlu, hospitality entrepreneur Cem Mirap and İrem Kınay, founder of luxury lifestyle brand Madame Malachite, led another talk examining the city’s distinctive creative spirit, from the vibrant energy of its bazaars to the bridges that stitch together the continents it straddles.
Reflecting MARKA London’s ability to bring its home city’s ethos of open artistic exchange to a fresh cultural stage, this perspective on the Istanbul Effect served as an apt conclusion to the event, uniting diverse disciplines, generations, and geographical locations.
