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IN NUVO

In a world where just about every brand uses all manner of legal and shady contrivances to cover up cheap, overseas production, the relatively new retail category known as superluxury, is as refreshingly honest as it is pretentious-sounding. Unlike mere luxury brands, superluxury labels revel in the work of their skilled artisans.

“Many contemporary philosophers say that consumerism is the biggest ethical battle of our times,” says Sara Nickleson, associate curator at the Design Exchange in Toronto, as she walks through a sea of white mannequins just days before the opening of the design museum’s new exhibition Politics of Fashion | Fashion of Politics.

Lukas Peet is the winner of the Design Exchange’s inaugural Emerging Designer Competition, and will have a solo exhibit at the museum from February 21 to April 1, 2014.

Christian Louboutin’s red-lacquered soles speak for themselves. This summer, Toronto’s Design Exchange plays host to a celebrated Louboutin retrospective.

The granite and limestone art deco building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in New York contains 16 jewellers’ benches on the seventh floor. The tools splayed on each bench mimic what would be found in a carpenter’s toolbox. The noticeable difference is scale: screwdrivers, pliers, and saw blades are a fraction the size of what Mr. Fix-It uses.