When visitors arrived on the Mouki Mou retailer in Athens at 6 p.m. on the final weekend in Could, they grabbed cool glasses of Greek rosé earlier than retreating into the concrete-clad boutique. Its founder, Maria Lemos, who grew up in Greece, opened the store within the metropolis’s historic middle, Plaka, in 2023, ten years after establishing Mouki Mou’s flagship on London’s Chiltern Road. In each locations, she curates a roster of under-the-radar clothes and homeware manufacturers that middle craftsmanship with a tactile, wabi-sabi strategy. On this explicit night, the model in focus was Dosa, based by the American-based Korean designer Christina Kim, 67, in 1983. The label is understood for its roomy garments in pure, hand-woven materials that nod to workwear similar to shepherd jackets, kurtas (lengthy, unfastened shirts frequent in Pakistan), cossack tops and dashikis (boxy tops worn in West Africa), in addition to its no-waste strategy to manufacturing.
Along with showcasing Kim’s newest assortment of garments, Lemos, 59, who can also be the founding father of the London-based public relations company Rainbowave, commissioned Kim to design an artwork set up. The work, titled “Shades of White / Whisper of Gold,” is a curtain of delicate gold leaves created in collaboration with the Oaxacan paper-making co-op El Taller Arte Papel. Every paper type was made utilizing the impression of a bay leaf collected from a tree exterior the co-op’s workshop, then embedded with wire and coloured by hand with gold pencil and spray paint. “For me, white and gold imply Greece,” she says. “It’s the Greek mild, and all these whitewashed villages.”
Because the temperature dropped, visitors wound their approach up two flights of stairs to the U-shaped roof terrace which was planted with verbena, oregano, jasmine, thyme and miniature pomegranate bushes. On their approach, they took within the new Dosa assortment, organized on the shop’s second ground and composed of gauzy kaftan attire, delicate camisoles, unfastened pants and shawls, all in creamy hues with orange and golden accents. Footwear with gold leaf motifs by the Athens-based firm Historical Greek Sandals and 18-karat gold rings and pendants with roughly hewn crystals by the London-based designer Pippa Small have been additionally on show, made particularly to coincide with the collaboration. As soon as exterior, attendees might see the acropolis on the hill above because the sound of musicians enjoying Athenian and Ionian kantades, or love songs, drifted throughout the roof backyard and into the evening.
The attendees: Pals and collaborators of Lemos’s got here from many corners of the world: Kim, 67, flew in from Los Angeles; Jon, 65, and Tiina Rosen, 60, of Tiina the Retailer, the lately shuttered minimalist clothes and design boutique in Amagansett, came to visit from New York. Different attendees included the British actress and producer Daisy Bates, 50; the Historical Greek Sandals founder and designer Christina Martini, 47; the Italian artist Paolo Colombo, 75; the inside designer Leda Athanasopoulou, 33, who designed each the shop and Pagostas, the visitor home Lemos and her husband, Gregoris Kambouroglou, 61, opened in Patmos in 2022; and Tina Daskalondonaki, 50, the curator of Athens’s Museum of Cycladic Artwork.
The desk: Servers clad in uniforms by the Danish bedding and sleep put on model Tekla wove between all three ranges of the property, proffering massive white bowls of fennel and phyllo pies and golden-crusted fried zucchini flowers full of rice, however there was additionally a heaving desk on the east aspect of the terrace, from which visitors might assist themselves to meals. An oatmeal-colored linen tablecloth by the Venice-based cloth designer Chiarastella Cattana fashioned a backdrop for grey and white earthenware dishes by the Danish father-son designer duo Okay H Würtz. A hammered copper bowl crammed with floating marigold heads made for a press release centerpiece.
The meals: Working with the Athenian catering firm Dipnosofistirion, which makes a speciality of basic Greek fare, Lemos sought to rejoice what she calls the nation’s “gilded historical previous — conserving every little thing easy and striving for philoxenia, a love of 1’s visitor.” Food and drinks have been served on each ground to maintain everybody satiated always. Road vendor-style brown paper cornets have been crammed with shelled pistachios from Aegina “as a result of they’re such an historical type of meals in Greece,” says Lemos; slices of olive bread got here from Tromero Paidi, Lemos’s favourite bakery in Athens; miniature dolmades (vine leaves full of dill, parsley, spices and rice) have been made on the island of Kasos. In a break from custom, there have been bite-size madeleines studded with poppy seeds for dessert, together with bowls of cherries and apricots, in addition to candied pistachios from the 96-year-old Athenian confectionary Aristokratikon.
The drinks: Company have been greeted by copper carafes of Magoutes rosé, a mix of 80 p.c Xinomavro grapes and 20 p.c uncommon black Moschomavro grapes, all grown about 2,600 ft above sea degree on the rocky terrain of Siatista, Macedonia. The fragile pink wine, which has notes of purple currant and strawberry, was served in basic glass taverna tumblers. Additionally on supply was Lemonodasos — a lemonade made with citrus from a lemon forest in Poros, a port city within the Peloponnese peninsula.
The music: Firstly of the night, the musicians Spiros Mandalas and Dimitris Christodoulopoulos, who carry out because the Singers of Zante, have been positioned on the store’s entrance steps. They performed the mandolin and the guitar and sung Ionian and Athenian kantades. Their lyrics mused on previous Athens, describing the labyrinthine again streets of Mouki Mou’s neighborhood and its stunning homes, flowers and ladies. As soon as visitors filed indoors, the duo introduced their music to the roof.
The dialog: Lots of the visitors have been longtime followers of Dosa and spent the night extolling the model’s love for craftsmanship, custom and upcycling. Others marveled at Athens’s new cultural panorama, discussing the opening of a brand new outpost of Michael Werner Gallery earlier within the month and the launch of the newest problem of Nomas, an artwork and journey journal printed by fellow visitor and photographer Yannis Bournias, 52.
Tip: Once you’re internet hosting, costume merely. “I’ve thought of this so much since my husband and I opened the visitor home in Patmos,” says Lemos. “Flat sneakers are tremendous essential since you’re operating round taking care of your visitors.” On this case, Lemos wore the London-based model Le Monde Beryl’s black woven leather-based Mary Jane flats with a brief Dosa costume in khadi cotton and large cubic earrings in yellow gold by the New York designer Judy Geib. “You don’t need to outshine anybody, actually. You’re not the focal point. However it’s a must to be elegant and cozy on the identical time. I need to prepare in 5 minutes once I host — my focus must be all over the place else.”
