Chic by Accident

Travel + Leisure calls Chic by Accident "an incredibly stylish store." Then again, Rotterdam's Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art calls it a "working group." It is all that and more--a furniture and object store in la colonia Roma, at the heart of the starkly divided Mexico City, and the home of the exceptional antique dealer and design mastermind Emmanuel Picault. Picault's collaboration with Philippe Starck in these pages constitutes his first book. Starck's prologue and Picault's text are accompanied by the work of six young photographers commissioned for the occasion, including Erwan Fichou, Guillermo Merino, Khaled Aboumrad, Fernando Etulain, Fabien Bijou and Carlos Ranc. The book itself is designed by Michel Mallard of M/M studios, half of the team that recently took the helm as art directors at French Vogue. The result is an exceptionally beautiful volume on what Picault calls "antiquities of the twentieth century."