WRITING & CURATION
For his bestselling book The New Antiquarians: At Home with Young Collectors, Michael drew on over a decade of antiques advocacy to examine how a new generation lives with historic objects. Their spirited interiors are resetting the conversation around historic art and design.
REAPPRAISAL
In an essay for The World of Interiors, Michael took up one of design's great ironies: that the most modern objects on offer are already antique, and that the surest route to a daring future runs straight through the past.
EVANGELISM
On the Middlebrow podcast with comedians Dan Rosen and Brian Park, Michael makes a spirited case for antiques, connoisseurship, and the importance of cultural history—leaving one of the hosts unexpectedly converted.
ELECTIVE AFFINITIES
For Christie’s In the Frame series, Michael discussed his latest projects, preoccupations, and picks from the collection of Irene Roosevelt Aitken.
EDITORIAL & CREATIVE DIRECTION
For a guest-edited "Collector's Edition" of The Magazine ANTIQUES, the century-old publication at the heart of the collecting field, Michael assembled curators, dealers, designers, photographers, preservationists, technologists, veteran connoisseurs, and new voices to imagine the future of antiques and ANTIQUES.
ELECTIVE AFFINITIES
For Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2025, Michael highlighted an ancient pottery fragment, a snuffbox decorated with sea creatures, and a contemporary sculpture to house them.
COMMUNITY & LEADERSHIP
For the Design Leadership Network’s twentieth-anniversary summit in Madrid, Michael orchestrated a multi-day, city-wide experience that combined conversations and encounters across Spanish architecture, art, design, and fashion with the distinctive sense of community that defines DLN gatherings.
Under Michael’s leadership, the Design Leadership Network has mounted summits in Rome, Mexico City, and Edinburgh, alongside the cultural, editorial, and educational programming he guides throughout the year. Together, these efforts expand collective knowledge, spark collaboration, and bring designers and makers into conversation on craft, heritage, emerging ideas, and the future of design.
For The Madrid Summit, Michael and DLN editorial director Hadley Keller Lloyd produced a special edition of the Design Leadership Network’s quarterly magazine—part summit guide, part city guide for those wishing to delve deeper into the Spanish capital.