New York City creative studio Casalino Design produces a limited-edition photography book that marries the visual language of a Michelin-starred menu with a high fashion lookbook, launched at the St. Regis and the Diane von Furstenberg Gallery in the same week.
When photographer Melanie Dunea set out to house her self-directed series blurring the line between couture and cuisine, she knew she wanted the book itself to be as considered as the images inside it. She turned to long-time collaborator Catherine Casalino, founder and creative director of Casalino Design, with a clear intent: the book should be an object of art in its own right.
“Creating a book for an amazing artist is exciting in and of itself,” Casalino says. “But what made the process with Melanie Dunea even more thrilling is that she wanted the book to be an object of art, too. Being encouraged to push and play with the design and production in the same joyful way that Melanie approached the photography resulted in a really magical final product.”
The brief, to design something that felt like a marriage between a Michelin star restaurant menu and a high fashion lookbook, gave Casalino both a clear conceptual direction and genuine creative latitude.
The production of Amuse-Bouche is entirely self-directed, with every material decision made by Dunea and Casalino together. The book interior and cover onlays were printed by Puritan Press in New Hampshire, and the book was bound by Bindtech in Arizona. Winter and Co cloth and endpapers give the object its tactile refinement, while the colourful elastic binding was sourced in person by both Dunea and Casalino at Pacific Trimming in New York’s garment district, a detail that captures the spirit of the whole project: hands-on, deliberate and genuinely joyful in its making.
Amuse-Bouche launched in New York in June 2025 across two events that reflected its dual subject matter, one at the St. Regis Hotel and another at the Diane von Furstenberg Gallery in Chelsea. The response from both the food and fashion worlds confirmed what the project set out to do. The New Yorker called it “witty, provocative.” Galerie Magazine landed on “extraordinary.” Trend Hunter described it as “crafted with playful precision and a surrealist flair.”
Catherine Casalino is the founder and creative director of Casalino Design, an independent creative studio based in New York City specialising in bold, conceptual creative direction and design for books and branding. Her clients have included Penguin Random House, Stephen King, Lady Gaga and the Oscar-winning film American Fiction.
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Amuse-Bouche by Melanie Dunea, designed by Casalino Design, 2025. Limited edition. Photography and paintings: Melanie Dunea. Styling: Robert Molnar. Printed by Puritan Press, NH. Bound by Bindtech, AZ.
