Hello readers…
Maybe it’s the Negroni talking, but sunsets in Venice just hit differently. Everything’s alive here. The sky outside my hotel window has been doing ridiculous things every night, the streets are full, and everybody is on the way to their next Aperol Spritz. I’m here for Homo Faber, of course, one of my favorite weeks of the year.
I spent this week being a cultural ambassador, visiting factories, wandering around churches, and looking at work so good it made me question my very existence. I also ate my entire body weight in spaghetti alle vongole. The place next to our factory makes the most incredible dish with clams and maybe three or four ingredients. It’s simple and incredible.
I’ve told you before that Homo Faber is quickly becoming one of the must-see events on the design calendar. I was still not ready for this edition. It’s just such a mind-blowing experience — the way it’s curated, the way you walk around the island to see it, the way you travel from room to room. Even the staff are dressed in hand-dyed uniforms.
WWD just published a report on why our industry should take Homo Faber seriously. Sure, it’s getting much bigger, but it’s also putting furniture, marble, glass, metal, and textile makers in the same rooms as the people that matter. If you make incredible wallpaper or any other beautiful work by hand, this would be a great show to consider. Our readers should be paying attention.
The mission here is the same as Mr. Thread’s: to get people excited about craft again and give artists a venue where they can put their best foot forward. Every object here has a QR code, then visitors vote, and somebody wins. For too long, everyone has been too nice to each other about art. A little competition brings out the best in people, I say.
This week’s Insider is my full Homo Faber report. I’ll show you the best rooms, the objects that stopped me in my tracks, and the pasta I spilled on my shirt. I went to every exhibition we could get into, took the iPhone snaps, and came home with enough ideas to keep our showroom busy for a year. Be warned, this kind of show takes you outside your comfort zone. If you run a design business and believe that craft is one of the last great luxuries, you’ll see why you need to be there next year.
Also, keep reading to find out about a new American school teaching the classical building trades, the latest on tariff refunds, and why a former prison is currently Japan’s hottest new hotel. Then meet me in Venice below.
See you next week!
Mr. Thread
🎲 P.S. Don’t just read—play. Scroll down to find out who guessed right on last week’s item, and enter this week’s challenge.
🏭 INDUSTRY
Congrats to the Godfather
Jim Druckman is getting the 2026 Design Leadership Award at the Design Summit in Los Angeles this November. Jim has run the New York Design Center since 1995, and under his watch 200 Lex became a trade-only home for nearly 100 luxury showrooms.
Jim has spent decades making the design business feel like a community. He gets designers and makers talking, and keeps 200 Lex a center of the design world. You can still go there, lounge in the chair, and run into an old friend.
He is a treasure for our industry and he means the world to me. For close to 2 decades he has been trying to get me to move my fabric company out of the doldrums of the D&D to his sunny and warm confines. I never took him up on his offer, but honestly, it feels like a decision I wish I could revisit.
I love this award. Enjoy your night in LA, Jim.
Charleston keeps the skills alive
Not far from where I live, the American College of the Building Arts in Charleston teaches carpentry, blacksmithing, plasterwork, and stone carving. Students work on real buildings while earning an applied-science degree with liberal-arts coursework. Sounds like a creative nirvana to me.
Everyone seems to be complaining that they can’t find skilled labour. Then they act surprised when the kids say they can’t find a way into a trade. Somebody has to shape the stone and lay the plaster; we can’t all be out there choosing paint colors and cushions. I’d hire the young person who spent a few years learning a trade over someone with a beautiful mood board any day of the week.
“Aut disce aut discede”
— the student body’s unofficial motto at American College of the Building Arts in Charleston. [“Either learn or leave.”]
Tariff refunds are not free money
This tariff-refund story in Business of Home gets it spot on: customers shouldn’t expect tariff refunds to come back to them. The businesses absorbed losses, watched demand get ruined, paid more to move things, and now new tariffs are landing on top of the old ones. We were getting crushed then, and we still are.
At my business we’ve only had a handful of people ask us for a refund. You’ve got to be pretty audacious to reach out and ask, I think. Nice try. But the refunds don’t line up with what smaller companies actually paid out. The big boys can turn it into a lovely quarter. Companies in the middle are still getting kicked in the ass.
Look at RH’s numbers. Its latest reported adjusted EBITDA included $55.1 million from tariff refunds. That is real money when you’re a giant company. For a smaller textile business, the refund cash just vanishes into the overhead.
“Everything we’ve received back has gone into reducing the ongoing increase in overhead costs. Shipping and fuel surcharges are through the roof these days.”
— John Greenawalt, Stout Textiles, via Business of Home
RH discovers traditional
RH beat forecasts this quarter, and as reported this week its new traditional Estates line is bringing in a new customer. That shows the power of traditional and classical, and how much it’s back. RH is changing the first floors of its galleries to show traditional furniture. They realized they had nothing for the biggest segment of interior-design clients.
My definition of modern? It never goes out of style. The Glass House is modern. RH is contemporary, and contemporary can go out of style in a snap. Have they gone too contemporary? Yeah. Estates seems like a smart play, and I think they’ll do well for a while. But they’re over-leveraged in other places, so I’m not buying a party hat just yet.
They’re trying to scale taste and luxury, which is a hard thing to do without making it a little hokey. Still, as much as I like to poke fun at Gary Friedman, I certainly wouldn’t bet against them.
“Perhaps RH had been ‘too modern’ for the past eight years.”
— Gary Friedman, chairman and CEO of RH, via Business of Home
💰OPPORTUNITIES
The warehouse becomes the gallery
R & Company has opened its Brooklyn Navy Yard warehouse to the public by appointment. I bumped into Zesty Meyers, the visionary behind R & Company, at Homo Faber and heard about the new 16,000-square-foot space. It’s experiential, it’s a warehouse, and it’s much more interesting than your average showroom.
Clients want to see the back of the house, the samples, the tools, the worktables. I say let them. We spend too much time trying to look perfect, and then everyone wonders why the room has no energy. Show your mess.
I’ve never met someone as passionate and knowledgeable about design and craft. Honestly, if we could elect a mayor of the design industry, he would get my vote!
“It feels so refreshing to be able to pull things out and just play.”
— Zesty Meyers, co-founder, R & Company, via ELLE Decor
📊ECONOMY
Five-percent money is back
The 10-year Treasury yield reached 5.04%, its highest level since 2007. If these numbers mean nothing to you, mortgage rates are still in the toilet. People aren’t moving house, and people who aren’t moving house aren’t taking on the big renovation and furnishing projects that follow.
Wayfair has had good reports and it’s still under pressure. Hermès is getting crushed. There’s a really bullish, bad vibe everywhere. I’m not hitting the panic button yet. The client already in the house still has a kitchen, a bedroom and a sitting room that need a change. Go find them.
📈TRENDS
The latest wealth flex is a tree
SPECIAL REPORT FROM MR. WEFT, WEST COAST EDITOR
I was walking my kid to a park in Bel Air, in Los Angeles, not long ago when I noticed a huge crane lifting a full-sized palm tree into what must have been a $40 million home. It was pretty close to the famous Spelling mansion, if you know the area. Anyway, I asked one of the crane operators what each tree cost. He said $180,000. I nearly fell over.
The New York Times has been onto this too. The super-rich are craning mature palms, banyans, baobabs, and whatever else they need to make their new-build feel as if it has been sitting there for 40 years. Because who has time to let trees grow?
Welcome to the K-shaped economy. The other flex in this neighborhood, apparently, is burying your power lines at the cost of half a million dollars or more. I mention it only so you can feel poor in a completely new way.
To be honest, I felt a pang of jealousy for the crane operator. This business didn’t exist five years ago, and now he’s spending his days lifting $180,000 palm trees, and eating the incredible tacos from the food truck that services the manual laborers of Bel Air (and occasionally, hungry dads on their way back from the playground).
🧵LOOSE THREADS
• Washington’s proposed 250-foot “Arc de Trump” has preliminary site and building-plan approval.
• Japan’s former Nara Prison is now a 48-suite hotel, with each suite made from nine to eleven original cells.
• A giant Poké Ball-shaped hotel is coming to Hokkaido. Gotta catch ‘em all.
• Faye Toogood has named her crumpled-paper lanterns. Johnny. That’s British slang for a condom, she says.
• Tom Dixon is showing new lights, tables and textiles at Coal Drops Yard for London Design Festival.
• Studio Waldemeyer just put rechargeable Lumeable candles in a church. Even the Lord likes sustainability.
• Raw Edges has added LightMass table lamps made from a single material. Less waste, more floating sculpture.
🎲 PLAYTIME
How much for Trey the Triceratops?
Last week’s item was an original movie poster for the classic Italian movie “La Dolce Vita” (1960). It sold at Sotheby’s last week for $17,125. Freddy V. came in with $16,500 and took the crown. Congrats, Freddy!
This week we’ve got Trey, a largely complete 66-million-year-old Triceratops skeleton. I mean, why not?
Here are some clues:
✅ Excavated in Wyoming in 1993, then restored and mounted in Germany
✅ Spent three decades on public display at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center
✅ The first fossil offered by Joopiter, the auction platform founded by Pharrell Williams
What was the final HAMMER price? The person who guesses closest to its final price wins!
Reply to this email or click the button below to submit your guess.
Honor system, please—no using Google to look up the answer! (If you do cheat, we still get the engagement, but you’ll have to live with yourself!)
The Stakes
Whoever gets the closest guess each week wins an entry into our grand prize drawing! We’ll be holding the final drawing on October 15th—the more weeks you win, the higher your chances! Our winning threader gets:
A featured spotlight for you/your firm in an upcoming issue of Mr. Thread.
Another special mystery gift from yours truly, Mr. Needle.
Stay sharp,
Mr. Needle
🎨 THIS WEEK’S ART
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Mr. Thread goes to Homo Faber
I went to Venice for Homo Faber. I saw the Biennale, a few factories, a few churches and ate an irresponsible amount of food. You can see a lot in a showroom, but you never get to see real artisans making things that take thousands of hours. That’s why Homo Faber is such a mind-blowing experience. I went to every exhibition I could get into, asked too many questions, took all the iPhone photographs and ate all the spaghetti. Let me take you on the tour.
