Over the past few months, we’ve been printing some of our favourite NALA archive designs as art prints, and seeing them come to life has been incredibly rewarding. Old patterns, forgotten sketches and much loved illustrations have found a new home, not on fabric, but on paper.

Our new visual merchandiser, Hakim, has taken this idea and run with it. He has transformed our stores by treating them like little galleries, mixing fashion, homewares and art in a way that makes you realise a beautiful print can completely change a space. A wall that was empty suddenly has a story to tell.

The best part? You don’t need a major renovation or a big budget to refresh your home. One colourful print can brighten a corner, fill an awkward space or simply make you smile every time you walk past it.

Have a look the next time you’re in one of our stores. All of our archive art prints are available across our locations, and who knows, you might just find the missing piece for your home.

Dutch artist Gijs Frieling and Job Wouters were creating a live mural called Amor e Consola, or Love and Comfort. I remember standing there completely captivated. The colours, the confidence, the craftsmanship. It was one of those moments where you know you’ve discovered an artist who will stay with you.

At the time, I was deeply involved in mural painting myself. We created large hand painted walls for Delicious, the BIG group and many of our Nala stores. Each mural was unique, telling a story about the place and the people who visited it. Today, the last of our original murals can still be seen in Penang, where walls bloom with flowers that have become part of the shop’s identity. Watching Gijs Frieling paint that evening in Milan felt like meeting a kindred spirit, someone who believed that walls deserve to tell stories too.

Born in Amsterdam, Frieling has built a remarkable career creating murals that blur the line between art, decoration and architecture. His paintings draw from folklore, mythology, religion and nature, creating spaces that feel timeless. In a world increasingly dominated by white walls and temporary trends, his work is a celebration of craftsmanship and colour.

His latest publication, That Very Night in Max’s Room a Forest Grew…, brings together many of the extraordinary murals he has painted in private homes. It is more than a catalogue of artworks. It is a testament to an art form that has existed for centuries, one that asks us to think differently about the spaces we inhabit and the stories they can hold.

What I admire most about Gijs Frieling is his commitment to keeping this tradition alive. Murals require patience, skill and trust. They cannot simply be moved to another room or packed away. They become part of a building’s history and, in many ways, part of the lives of the people who live with them.

Seeing this beautiful book reminded me how much I miss creating murals myself. I hope that one day we will return to painting walls and transforming spaces, not only because they are beautiful, but because they preserve a craft that deserves to survive. In an increasingly digital world, there is something profoundly human about putting brush to wall and creating something that may last for generations.

Some artists make paintings. Gijs Frieling creates worlds. Fourteen years after watching him paint live in Milan, I am still inspired by his work and by his dedication to an art form that should never become a lost art.

genuinely think everyone should carry a sketchbook or notebook with them at all times.

Not for productivity.
Not because you need to become organised.
But because you never know what might appear during the day that feels worth keeping.

A sentence someone says.
A flower combination.
A strange idea.
A colour palette.
A dream.
A restaurant name.
A feeling.

And the beautiful part is not even writing it down in the moment. It’s finding it again years later.

Opening an old notebook feels like opening tiny fragments of another version of yourself. Sometimes it’s profound. Sometimes completely ridiculous. Sometimes you realise you had an idea ten years too early. Sometimes you read something and think, wow, thank God I didn’t go through with that.

The other day I found a note from almost five years ago about wanting to learn Japanese. Sadly, life had other plans. But it still made me smile because for a brief moment, that version of me existed so clearly on paper.

And honestly, maybe this is just another reminder that Nala should finally make mini notebooks.

Even though they’re ridiculously expensive to produce properly.

Traditional batik is usually divided into a few methods. Batik tulis is drawn by hand using a canting tool. Batik cap uses copper stamps dipped in wax. Ours is closer to what is sometimes referred to as screen printed wax batik, a more contemporary evolution of the craft that allows larger surfaces and bolder compositions while still keeping the unpredictability that makes batik beautiful.

And that unpredictability is exactly why I love it.

The wax never behaves perfectly. The dye shifts slightly from batch to batch. Colours deepen, soften, or move depending on temperature, timing, and the hand of the maker. Some prints come out sharper, others more blurred around the edges. There are overlaps, irregularities, tiny imperfections that machines would immediately correct. But that is where the soul is.

The more I worked on this Brutal Times collection, the more I realised how closely this process reflects brutalism itself. Brutalism was never really about concrete. It was about honesty. Letting materials speak for themselves. Showing texture, process, and construction instead of hiding them behind polish.

This batik does the same thing. You can see the hand in it.
You can feel the process in it. Nothing is overly corrected.

And in a world where everything is becoming increasingly digital, smooth, and identical, there is something deeply human about that. Every piece in this collection was designed in Malaysia, printed in Malaysia, dyed in Malaysia, and manufactured in Malaysia. That makes me incredibly proud. Not just because it supports local craftsmanship, but because it proves that Malaysian making still carries depth, character, and beauty when it is given the space to breathe.

No two pieces will ever be exactly alike, and we do not want them to be. Variations in colour and alignment are part of the process, not defects. They are evidence that somebody touched it, printed it, dyed it, and brought it to life by hand. That is the beauty of batik. And for us, that is the beauty of these brutal times.

Not the chaotic, plastic-heavy version most of us grew up with. Not the place where you buy emergency hangers and forgettable storage boxes. Next to our store at Great World sits something called Standard Products, and honestly, it’s one of the most inspiring retail concepts I’ve seen in a very long time.

Imagine if MUJI loosened up a little, discovered color, and started designing everyday objects with actual soul.
That’s Standard Products.

The magic is not in expensive materials or luxury branding. The magic is in restraint. A tissue box suddenly feels gift-worthy. A soap dispenser becomes something you actually want to leave on your sink. Even the candles, scissors, notebooks, kitchen cloths, and storage baskets feel considered. Nothing screams for attention, yet everything quietly works together.

And the packaging. My god, the packaging. The colors are spot on. Soft earthy tones, muted greens, warm creams, dusty blues. The kind of palette that makes you realize how visuall

What I love most is that they prove something very important:

Good design should not only belong to expensive brands.
There is something deeply democratic about making beautiful objects accessible. It reminds you that design is not about price. It’s about care. About editing. About understanding proportion, color, texture, and human behavior.

They also have incredibly beautiful knives, which are surprisingly difficult to find these days. Years ago, I used to hunt for good kitchen knives at Isetan Kuala Lumpur, but now you can walk into Standard Products and suddenly find objects that feel almost Japanese boutique level, without the intimidating price tag.

It’s also the perfect place for gifts. The kind of gifts that feel thoughtful because they are useful. A beautifully packed soap. A set of kitchen tools. Elegant stationery. Tiny objects that make daily life feel just a little more beautiful.

It understands something many brands forget: people are tired of clutter, but they are still hungry for beauty.

There was a time when this was how I spent my Sundays. A newspaper, a few magazines, and a quiet table somewhere in Paris, Brussels, or Amsterdam. No rush. Just time to look, to think, to absorb.

Elle Decor UK was always part of that ritual. So was Vogue Australia. They were not just something you flipped through. They were where you went to understand what was happening in design, in style, in the way people were living.

And you did not consume them quickly. You sat with them. You went back to pages. You noticed things you had missed. You could open the same magazine a week later, or even months later, and still find something new. A colour, a composition, a detail that suddenly made sense in a different way.

That kind of looking matters.

In my world, I have always said, look for pink elephants. Train your eye to see what is not obvious, and ideas will follow. A pattern, a campaign, a direction. That does not come from speed. It comes from attention.

Magazines help with that. They activate a different part of the brain. The slower, more curious side. The side that connects things that are not immediately related.

Instagram, I am not so sure what it activates.

It is fast, efficient, and everywhere. But it rarely asks you to stay. It does not invite you to look twice. And without that second look, something is lost.

Books are finding their way back, which is good. But magazines should not disappear either. They sit somewhere in between. Accessible, visual, but still grounded in time and intention.