Dental offices don't need to be sterile holding pens. This Beverly Hills project is plush, pink and magical
But what if it wasn't? That's the question Kiyan Mehdizadeh asked when he decided to renovate the 12th floor of a mid-century office building on Wilshire Boulevard for his dental practice in Beverly Hills. When Mehdizadeh — who does mostly cosmetic work like veneers, implants and gum work — committed to opening a third office for his business, he sat down and thought about what he wanted the experience of dental work to feel like. When I saw the space he created with the design firm of Charlap Hyman & Herrero — lush carpets, wooden walls, Italian Dominioni chairs and monochromatic color schemes that recall the best of 1960s and '70s design — I referred to it as opulent. But Mehdizadeh doesn't see it that way.
'Opulent isn't the word I would use,' he told me over Zoom. 'I like the word salubrious, like something that gives life, you know what I mean?'
A typical visit to the dentist doesn't give life as much as it gives anxiety. Someone is going to stick a tube in your mouth, prod you with shining metal implements, and chances are strong you will bleed at some point. Worse yet, if you're having a major surgery done, and you're zonked on anesthetic, a room full of strangers will see you being dragged by your spouse/best friend/co-worker/bored neighbor you promised to buy dinner for on some undetermined night. Your mouth will be full of gauze or cotton balls and your eyes will be half-closed like last call at a sports bar. Mehdizadeh and the designers Adam Charlap Hyman and Andre Herrero — who work in both architecture and interior design and recently designed the 2024 New York Fashion Week dinner for Thom Browne — had an answer for that too: a circular office. Charlap Hyman & Herrero aimed to create a unique space that causes you to experience each and every room differently. Those rooms take you on a journey that inevitably leads to the exit.
You start in the lobby, head to a cozy waiting room that feels more like someone's house than a dentist's office, and then are shuttled to a stark white operating room filled with light from adjacent windows on the other side of the hall. When you're done, you follow the circular path back out to the exit. The halls are lined with Mehdizadeh's personal art collection, which includes works from Cy Twombly, Leonor Fini and more. There's even wallpaper in the bathroom with drawings from erotic artist Tom of Finland, which certainly sets quite a tone for visitors. It's all quite a step up from the 'hang in there' poster. All of this happens in a continuous loop, without you ever being seen by another patient. No matter where you are in the office, you're technically on your way out.
'It was the design team's idea to make this little monolith in the middle of the office with the circular hallway on the outside,' Mehdizadeh says. '[W]hen they started talking about traffic flow, they were thinking of it like the way traffic flows in a hotel hallway or in a large home or something like that. They weren't thinking of it in terms of dentistry — they brought this completely fresh perspective.'
Dentistry should ideally be a bit private, shouldn't it? The invasive nature of it — gaping mouths, drool and other bodily fluid on full display — makes it an activity that makes us all feel deeply vulnerable. You're prone, strapped into one of those reclining chairs and prepped for an excruciating afternoon. At least when you were a child, there were prizes at the end if you were good. I would always task myself with being as still as possible during my cleanings. If I could be the most perfect, cooperative patient, I thought, maybe I can take two prizes from the treasure chest. I never got a second prize. One prize per child was the stated policy and there would be no deviation. Maybe that's why I'm still so unnerved by going to the dentist. Not only is it physically terrifying, but it also reminds me of the limitations of my charm.
There is no reward for being still in Mehdizadeh's dentist chair other than something resembling peace. What Charlap Hyman & Herrero created was a place for reflection. You can lie prone on a plush red couch and ponder the nature of existence. You can be enveloped by a floor-to-ceiling pink room that looks like something out of the Barbie movie. Every room is its own environment, carefully crafted to make you feel something magical. These waiting rooms ideally get you to a place of inner peace before your entire mouth is rattled and you potentially lose sensation in your gums. But once you're out of the chair and on your way, you're one step closer to aesthetic nirvana.
The perfect smile can be the key to self-esteem, to happiness, to personal connection. Even more than our eyes, our smile is the key that unlocks trust amongst strangers. A flashy, warm smile has the power to disarm. We trust dentists so that they can help us earn trust from others. How does a dentist — with their drills and picks and other tools — earn trust from a patient? Well, as Kiyan Mehdizadeh's office proves, having good taste certainly helps.
Photography courtesy of Charlap Hyman & Herrero.
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We are here, and we should be here and should have the dignity of having access to fashion." Culturally and economically, plus-size people are often pushed to the side. Plus-size sections are often hidden away in stores. Brands that sell plus-size clothing often market them almost covertly. The vast majority of their Instagram posts and social media show straight-size models, even if they have plus-size merchandise. And the supposed plus-size models they do use are often still much thinner than their actual plus-size customers, who may not even really realize they're being targeted because models don't look like them in the ads. "A lot of plus-size brands will default to showing Size 14 models, Size 14 people. To me, that's the midsize range," Krass says. "They can shop straight sizes, so why are you catering to them for plus sizes? Get some thicker models, and we'll know, and then we'll shop." Vogue Business' Autumn/Winter 2025 size inclusivity report found that while "curvaceous silhouettes" were all over fashion show runways, curvy models were not. "We're in danger of creating a false narrative yet again, stating that the only way one can look beautiful is to be skinny," Carter says. There are, of course, brands that have figured out that plus-size people have money and cater to them accordingly. Holliday points to Universal Standard, ASOS, and Eloquii as brands getting it right on plus size, though many more brands are "doing it wrong," she says. Krass points out that resale and thrifting can be especially popular among plus-size shoppers, especially as brands pull back on new merchandise. Ozempic and other GLP-1s may change the lay of the land in plus-size fashion, but it's not going to make the need for such options obsolete. These medications are not widely available and accessible. They're costly and often not covered by insurance. And they're not for everyone — they have a lot of side effects, and one study found that more than half of the people who take them for weight loss quit within a year. "With everybody suddenly being like, 'Oh, everybody can be skinny now.' If they could all be skinny, why are there still fat people?" Holliday says. While GLP-1s won't get rid of obesity, they could make it easier for brands and retailers to ignore heavier people. The fashion industry wants to be aspirational, and American culture aspires to skinny, even if that's not realistic or even savvy business-wise.
