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Marshall.

Seven years is a long time to wait for a follow-up, but Marshall has used them well. The Stockwell III takes everything that made its 2019 predecessor worth owning and addresses the parts that, over time, started to show their age.

The standout feature is 40 hours of wireless playtime, double the Stockwell II’s offering which significantly enhances its usability for extended trips or long days. True Stereophonic 360° sound means there is no positioning it for optimal listening, no sweet spot to find and guard – you can place it anywhere in the room and the audio holds. Dynamic Loudness handles the volume balancing automatically, lifting bass and treble at lower levels so the detail does not disappear when you turn it down, and levelling out naturally as the volume increases.

Marshall.

Marshall.

The design has stayed recognisably Marshall. A slim vertical silhouette, a guitar-inspired PU leather carry strap with velvet lining, a textured silicone sleeve, and solid metal grilles front and back with the logo centred in the brass panel. The control panel itself has been updated, with an M-button for preset access and a media jog for track navigation. “Since launching Stockwell II in 2019, technology has moved fast, and Stockwell III takes full benefit from this. Extended battery life, more powerful acoustics, and improved water and dust protection are just some of the key enhancements we’ve made,” says Simona Berbec, Product Manager at Marshall Group. “We’ve also refined the UI panel for improved tactility and introduced more modular parts to extend the product’s overall lifespan.”

Those modular parts are worth noting: the battery, front and back grilles, silicone sleeve and carry strap are all replaceable, which is a more considered approach to longevity than most consumer electronics bother with. The speaker also contains 27% recycled material by weight, drawing on post-consumer recycled plastics, pre-consumer recycled aluminium alloy and post-consumer recycled rare-earth elements. An IP55 rating covers dust and water resistance for outdoor use, and a USB-C port doubles as a charging bank for topping up other devices on the go.

Marshall.

The Stockwell III is available in Black and Brass and Cream. Sign-ups are open online, with retail sales following on 25th August. Discover more here.

photography. courtesy of Marshall
words. Gennaro Costanzo

Christopher Barraja.

This June, Saint Laurent Babylone is hosting ‘Daydreaming of Him,’ a photography exhibition by French-Australian artist Christopher Barraja, curated by Anthony Vaccarello. The exhibition marks Barraja’s first major presentation at the Left Bank cultural space and offers an intimate look into a body of work shaped by memory, desire and the sun-soaked landscapes of the Mediterranean.

Vaccarello has spent his tenure at Saint Laurent building a cultural programme that runs parallel to the runway work, using the Rive Droite platform to champion artists and photographers whose sensibility aligns with the house’s broader universe. Previous Rive Droite collaborations have included Beijing photographer Lin Zhipeng, known for his depictions of Chinese youth culture and a vision that recalls the sensuality and poetry of Wong Kar-Wai films. Barraja arrives in that tradition and fits it naturally.

Born in Nice in 1996 and now working between Paris and the Côte d’Azur, Barraja treats the south of France as an ambiguous space, simultaneously real and imagined, where the everyday accumulates emotional tension and hidden meaning. His photographs are built on suggestion, on light used almost as a material in itself, on the kind of image that does not tell you what to feel so much as leave you somewhere and let you work out where you are. This latest work also offers a new perspective on contemporary queer culture, examining the relationship between softness and strangeness, vulnerability and voyeurism.

Christopher Barraja.

Barraja first gained wider recognition with De Chlore et de Rosé, a graduation project published by Fisheye Éditions in 2023 that earned the Picto Prize and led to his selection as a finalist at the 37th Hyères Festival in 2022. Hyères, which has long functioned as one of the more reliable indicators of emerging talent in both fashion and photography, is a meaningful credential. ‘Daydreaming of Him’ promises a particular type of longing, unhurried and unresolved, the kind that belongs more to the imagination than to any specific person.

All exhibited artworks will be available for sale and a special limited edition of 100 numbered fanzine copies signed by the artist will be available for purchase. Saint Laurent Babylone is located at 9, rue de Grenelle in the 7th arrondissement in Paris, and the exhibition runs until 13 September.

Find out more here.

photography. courtesy of Christopher Barraja
words. Gennaro Costanzo

Louis Vuitton.

Marc Newson’s most famous design is a chair. The Lockheed Lounge, to be exact, made in 1986 which bent aluminium into a curving, futuristic form so prescient that it became the most expensive functional design object ever sold by a living creator, auctioning for around $3.2 million in 2015. Thirty years on, his newest aluminium invention is considerably more portable, and considerably more practical. Newson has created the world’s first rivet-free aluminium suitcase for Louis Vuitton.

The ‘Horizon Aluminum’ marks ten years of one of luxury’s more productive design partnerships. Of everything Newson has created, from the Apple Watch to the first electric Ferrari to the twisting staircase in Karl Lagerfeld’s home, his work with Louis Vuitton has perhaps been the most sustained exercise in translating industrial design language into the vocabulary of travel. The original Horizon launched in 2016, built around the same rounded curves and clean silhouette that define Newson’s broader body of work. The aluminium version takes a decade’s worth of thinking and applies it to a material the house has a longer history with than most people realise. Louis Vuitton was making aluminium trunks for explorers in the late 19th century. Newson is the latest chapter in that particular story.

Louis Vuitton.

Louis Vuitton.

The engineering involved in making the Horizon Aluminum look as uncluttered as it does is, by the house’s own admission, considerably more demanding than the finished object suggests. The shell is shaped through a stamping and laser-cutting process that preserves the Horizon’s signature rounded curves while working in a material that does not naturally want to hold them. The Monogram motif embossed across the surface is not ornamental: it helps strengthen the shell by spreading stress evenly across the surface, turning one of the house’s oldest visual codes into a structural solution. The absence of rivets, which would ordinarily be the standard method of holding an aluminium shell together, required developing an ultra-thin frame system attached to the shell instead. A single-piece, full-depth three-dimensional mould with no folding or riveting is a first in luggage design.

The hinges presented a separate problem. Traditional external hinges were replaced by concealed internal mechanisms, integrated into the interior without taking up additional space. The telescopic handle is wider than standard, the wheels are enlarged and made from a material designed to absorb shocks and run without noise, and the interior lining is thermoformed to create a completely flat main compartment, maximising capacity in a way that most hard-shell luggage does not manage.

Louis Vuitton.

Louis Vuitton.

VVN or black leather covers the corners and handles, one of the few places on the case where the material softens. A leather luggage tag doubles as a bag hook, meanwhile a protective cover with openings for the wheels, top handle and trolley protects the case during storage. The companion Vanity Case follows the same design logic throughout: aluminium embossed with the Monogram, no rivets, an ultra-slim frame, concealed hinges and an ultra-slim TSA combination lock.

Aluminium dents, but Louis Vuitton has thought about this and framed it accordingly: the case is built to bear its marks as souvenirs rather than damage, which is either a very elegant piece of positioning or a genuinely useful way to think about a material that will, inevitably, show the evidence of wherever it has been. Given that the original Louis Vuitton trunks were designed for people crossing continents and oceans, a few airport scuffs seem relatively manageable.

The ‘Horizon Aluminum’ is available from June 12. Discover more here.

photography. courtesy of Louis Vuitton
words. Gennaro Costanzo