A new take on old things.

Welcome to the future of the past.

A new take on old things. Welcome to the future of the past.

Cover of "The New Antiquarians: At Home with Young Collectors" by Michael Diaz-Griffith featuring a dark-blue and chartreuse jacket showing a tasseled pair of parted curtains.

WRITING & CURATION

For his bestselling book The New Antiquarians: At Home with Young Collectors, Michael drew on over a decade of antiques advocacy to spotlight a rising generation of collectors whose spirited interiors are resetting the conversation around historic art and design.

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Inside the design

ANTIQUES EVANGELISM

On the Middlebrow podcast with comedians Dan Rosen and Brian Park, Michael made a spirited case for antiques, collecting, and a historically informed understanding of contemporary culture—leaving one of the hosts unexpectedly converted.

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What's old is new

Photo by Fujio Emura

The May/June 2025 issue of The Magazine Antiques: one cover shows a retro-modern collage, the other shows a blue-painted antique cabinet filled with mochaware pottery.

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.

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Ancient Greek ceramic fragment depicting a seated youth holding a hare, with a black background.

MATERIAL CULTURE

For Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2025, Michael highlighted an ancient pottery fragment, a snuffbox decorated with sea creatures, and a contemporary sculpture to cleverly house them.

See his top picks
Michael Diaz-Griffith mid-presentation — on stage before a red background, slide-advancer in hand, brown cardigan over untucked embroidered dress shirt, smiling.
Two formally dressed people looking down into a glass display case inside the library at Madrid's Palacio de Liria, with old leather-bound books lining tall bookshelves behind them.

Photos by Sophie Davidson

LEADERSHIP & COMMUNITY

For the Design Leadership Network’s twentieth-anniversary summit in Madrid, Michael orchestrated a multi-day, city-wide experience that combined thought leadership, cultural immersion, and explorations of 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, advance best practices, and bring designers and makers into conversation on craft, heritage, emerging ideas, and the rapidly evolving future of the design field.

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.

The Madrid Guide

A new take on old things.

Welcome to the future of the past.

A new take on old things. Welcome to the future of the past.