In 1996, Canadian journalist Tyler Brûlé and Austrian journalist Alexander Geringer launched a magazine in London with a name that sounded like a decorating afterthought and an ambition that was anything but. Wallpaper\* — always with the asterisk — set out to be the global authority on design, architecture, fashion, travel, and lifestyle, and within a year Time Warner came knocking. Brûlé sold, stayed on as editorial director until 2002, and eventually left to found Monocle. The magazine, meanwhile, kept evolving under a succession of editors who each pushed it further into the cultural mainstream.
What makes Wallpaper\* singular is its range. A single issue might move from a Kengo Kuma hotel in Kyoto to a Mathias Hahn lamp for Marset, from an Erwan Bouroullec farmstead in Burgundy to a runway report from Milan — all rendered in photography so crisp it practically has a texture. The annual Design Awards, launched in 2005, have become a genuine industry benchmark, and the guest editor tradition for the October issue reads like a who's who of contemporary culture: Jeff Koons, Zaha Hadid, Karl Lagerfeld, David Lynch, Kraftwerk, Frank Gehry, Jenny Holzer, Yayoi Kusama.
Now entering its thirtieth year and owned by Future plc, Wallpaper_ publishes monthly in print and daily online, with a Chinese-language edition launched in 2017 through Huasheng Media. Its Bespoke division creates content and curates exhibitions for third-party clients, and the WallpaperSTORE_ sells products featured in the magazine. The city guide series, published with Phaidon, has covered over a hundred destinations. Under current leadership, the January issue has become an annual talent showcase spotlighting emerging designers from around the world.
For all its commercial reach, Wallpaper\* has maintained a visual standard that few competitors can match. The paper is heavy, the photography commissioned rather than sourced, the layouts designed to reward the kind of slow browsing that a screen can never quite replicate. It is a magazine that takes design seriously enough to treat the magazine itself as a design object — and after three decades, that consistency is its own kind of authority.
<a href="https://www.wallpaper.com/">Visit Wallpaper\*