Rude Awakening

Top Shelf is a one-off limited-edition publication devoted to sex in design, published alongside The World of Interiors’ body-themed issue for September 2026. Through a selection of fascinating essays and objects from a range of historical periods and cultures, Top Shelf examines how desire is expressed, concealed and subtly staged within the home.

This sumptuously printed special edition binds uncoated pages, peppered with three foldouts, within a dust jacket of textured Japanese paper – all sewn in sections with an open spine. Treating subjects from the female body in design to the British Museum’s 19th-century Secretum – a carefully guarded storehouse of sexually explicit objects – the publication’s four exclusive features are complemented by an array of archival images that provide a pictorial account of how our relationship with eroticism has changed over time.