President Obama sits behind a custom walnut desk of their design in his private study, and François-Henri Pinault and Salma Hayek’s Paris apartment is illuminated by their light boxes, but until now, the design partnership of Daniele Albright and Stefan Lawrence fell under the auspices of Twentieth, Lawrence’s contemporary furniture showroom in Los Angeles. Now, the longtime collaborators have launched Videre Licet (Latin for “to be able to see”), a new line of furniture and lighting, in conjunction with Twentieth’s sweeping new space on Beverly Boulevard. Designed using contemporary technologies but crafted entirely by hand — and priced accordingly, in the $20,000 range — the collection is daring, glamorous and a touch tongue-in-cheek, with sly references to Hollywood, modernism and the ’70s.

The BBC Table, shaped like a smoky, mirrored crystal, is equal parts disco decadence and L.A. New Age culture, while the Subtracted Cube’s flawless brass surfaces come thanks to its complex folded construction. The Abalone Lounge chair (which has a coordinating console) recalls the shape of the beloved beanbag chair, but is in fact made from cast fiberglass and resin with hand-laid, sustainably harvested abalone from the Philippines. The Woolly Bella is both the sexiest and the strangest piece in the debut collection: a curvy, comfortable chair with cast-bronze legs and long, glossy Mongolian goat hair more often used by fashion designers. It can be dyed, but Albright prefers the natural black and white. Unlike some contemporary designers who celebrate industrial precision, this team embraces the human touch and the unpredictability of organic materials. “With our shell pieces or the fur or the bronze,” says Albright, “you’re using this natural material that has its own characteristic, and you’re not afraid to not control that completely.” Of course, there are exceptions; they recently had to bring in a hairstylist to give a particularly unruly Bella a nice layered cut.

Albright — a world traveler and photographer whose work is featured in the Gypset series of lifestyle books — has been staging elaborate photo shoots with each piece in iconic California locations, from the beaches of Malibu to the mountains in Mammoth. “This cinematic element is something we can bring to it,” she says. And for Lawrence, who was the first to bring designers like Tom Dixon and Marcel Wanders’s Moooi to Los Angeles, the collection is a refreshing new way to contribute to the global design discourse. “After all these years,” he says, “it’s nice to be able to make our own statements.”

The Lockheed Lounge by Australian designer Marc Newson has retained its title as the world's most expensive design object, after selling for more than £2 million.

Newson's riveted aluminium and fiberglass chaise longue fetched £2,434,500 during a sale at auction house Phillips in London last night.

This surpasses the £1.4 million raised by a prototype of the design when sold by the same auctioneers in 2010, when it first became the most expensive object sold by a living designer.

"We are proud to have set, yet again, the auction record for Marc Newson, one of the most influential designers of the last quarter century," said Alexander Payne, worldwide head of design at Phillips.

Designed in 1990, the Lockheed Lounge is one of Newson's most famous early works. It gained international fame when Madonna was seen reclining on it in the music video for her 1993 track Rain.

Ten editions of the seat were created, along with four artist's proofs and one prototype. The edition put up for auction by Phillips was estimated to fetch between £1.5 million and £2.5 million, and was eventually sold to an anonymous telephone bidder.

The chaise longue is formed from thin plates of aluminium welded side by side, with rivets beside the seams. The metal curves around a body made from fibreglass-reinforced plastic and the feet of its three legs are coated in rubber.

An early version of the seat, named LC1, was displayed at Newson's first exhibition Seating for Six at Sydney's Roslyn Oxley Gallery in 1986.

Over the next two years, he refined the form to create the Lockheed Lounge – named after an American aerospace company.

Istambullus are talking about how to make a living by creating. They are embracing—as Turks always have—an updated hybridity: new and old, local and global, industry and craft, discipline crossed with discipline. Istambullus are talking about how to make a living by creating. They are embracing—as Turks always have—an updated hybridity: new and old, local and global, industry and craft, discipline crossed with discipline. Multidisciplinary creative platform Istanbul '74 opened a second gallery space this May, furthering its mission to connect Turkish with international culture through exhibitions, performance, publishing and events. '74's offices are in burgeoning waterfront Karaköy, which hosts the critically praised Istanbul Art Biennial, the country's first design biennial launched in 2012 and, in October 2014, what will be its second. Karaköy's tiny working class backstreets are now dotted liberally with galleries like Mana, the luminously tiled eatery, Karaköy Lokantası, Europhile cafes like Karabatak and the new fusion eatery Gaspar designed by Autoban and inspired by knolling, the process of arranging like objects in parallel or 90 degree angles as a method of organization. There are also new boutique hotels, high-end “junk” shops, and a nightclub that doubles as a New York-style artists' flea market called Souq. If it is difficult to make a living selling ideas and modern design in Istanbul, and challenging to bring designers together to solve the problem, no one is admitting defeat. They're just trying it every which way and then making up another way to try tomorrow (more on this in our Insider's Take with up-and-comers Atölye).