I wake up in the dark, even in the summer, because we florists are very early people. It’s a little bit of a scramble to get out the door, but I can’t wake up without taking a shower. I’ll use Éminence Monoi Age Corrective Exfoliating Cleanser, followed by Dior Capture Totale Le Sérum and Dior Prestige La Crème. I try to slather myself in those, and then another big slather of Kiehl’s Avocado Eye Cream and Carmex Classic Lip Balm. I don’t wash my hair every day but, when I do, I use Alba Botanica So Smooth Gardenia Conditioner. (I don’t use shampoo.) I always scrunch Kiehl’s Creme With Silk Groom into wet hair and then wind it up with these discontinued Scunci Clips to set — I’ve resorted to buying them on eBay. I started pinning my hair up to control the curl, and now it’s become my signature. It is pretty healthy because it’s tucked away all the time but, when it starts to feel gangly, I’ll snip it myself. I almost never wear makeup because my day starts so early. If I do, I’ll do a cat eye with Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner, Diorshow Mascara and, sometimes, Rouge Dior 999 lipstick. Other lipsticks I rotate in are Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick and Clinique Almost Lipstick in Black Honey. I’ll use Weleda Gentle Cleansing Milk to wash it off at night and, sometimes, I use this Borghese Purifying Mud Mask — I’ve had a jar of that forever. I don’t get massages enough, but I need to. I threw out my back recently, and a massage at Element spa in Brooklyn helped me get back on my feet. A lot of my team has favorite hand creams that are around the studio, one being Aesop Reverence Aromatique Hand Balm, so I’ll use those. One thing I use often is this hand wash that is used to remove sap and resin. The filth if we don’t wear gloves is incredible, it just gets into your pores, and this really removes it. Working with flowers and sometimes rotting flowers, I like to be aware of smells, so I don’t wear fragrance very often. What I do love to wear is Hermès Eau d’Orange Verte. It’s very piney and not very femme. It just feels a little sharp, like me.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Visit This
A Curvaceous Treehouse Off the Coast of Panama
The first glimpse you get of the Nayara Bocas del Toro resort, approaching by boat (the only way to approach), is a line of thatched-roof villas perched over the water and backed by mangroves. There are 16 villas in all, occupying a private island off the Caribbean coast of Panama. Some have plunge pools, but snorkel sites abound right off the shore, where you’re likely to spot squads of iridescent squid, platter-size stingrays and bright yellow damselfish. Though the luxury eco-resort opened in 2021, it relaunched as a Nayara Resorts property in 2022 and, as of this January, guests craving even more privacy can choose to stay in a newly built treehouse nestled amid greenery. Designed by Elora Hardy, the creative director of the Bali-based architecture firm Ibuku, the treehouses, which sleep two, are largely built from wood excavated from the Panama Canal. (Forests were flooded as part of the canal’s construction.) “When you submerge wood in water for that long, it gets stronger, and it weathers in beautiful ways,” Hardy says. A spiral staircase leads up to an enclosed bedroom that’s entered through an egg-shaped door. The upper level is open so that guests can listen to the full symphony of the island, including birdsong, crickets and rain pelting the domed bamboo roof. Equally relaxing, says Hardy, is sleeping in a room with abundant curves, which the designer says mimic nature and our own bodies far more than right angles do. From $1,140, all inclusive, bocasbali.com.
For Tarini Jindal Handa, the founder of the new Mumbai gallery Æquō, working with artists is a family tradition. Her grandmother created an artist residency, and her mother is the founder of the quarterly magazine Art India. With Æquō, Handa and the French creative director Florence Louisy have set out to celebrate both Indian artists and artisans. “The name, Æquō, means ‘I equalize,’’’ Handa says. “Often, the designer takes precedence over the craftsman. We want craft and design to stand on equal footing.” The gallery’s mission is epitomized in Æquō’s first-anniversary exhibit, “Handmade Tale,” which showcases a series of drawings by the French artist Boris Brucher. The illustrations take shape in two centuries-old Indian crafts: the metalwork technique of bidri, and hand-embroidered textiles. In one room of the exhibit, four silver-inlaid screens made by the bidri craftsman Mohammad Abdul Rauf display Brucher’s hand-drawn scenes. Paying homage to the landscape of Bidar, the city where the craft of bidri originated, Brucher’s signature wrestlers are pictured alongside Bidar’s rivers and ruins. In the second room of the exhibit, Brucher’s illustrations come to life on embroidered linens, which are suspended by ropes anchored to red laterite bricks, the same material used in the construction of the 15th-century Bidar Fort. Handa plans to take one of the bidri screens to Paris’s art and design fair, PAD, this spring. The exhibit is a key step in her goal to preserve traditional Indian craftsmanship. “We have many local artisans on our wish list to work with,” she says. “I think this is just the beginning.” “Handmade Tale” is on view through Feb. 24, aequo.in.
Eat This
A Parisian Brasserie in Dubai From the Designer Luke Edward Hall
“There’s nothing subtle about it,” says the English artist and designer Luke Edward Hall of his latest creative project, Josette, a Parisian-inspired brasserie that opened in Dubai on Feb. 1. Named after the French actor Josette Day, who starred in Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” (1946), its silver-leafed ceilings and mirrored columns bring some old-fashioned cinematic glamour to the city. “It’s quite different for Dubai — what I wanted to do was make something that felt very feminine,” Hall says. Inside, Hall’s drawings adorn the walls as well as the napkins (he tapped the Brooklyn-based designer Zan Goodman, who worked on his 2019 book, “Greco Disco,” for art direction). The enormous bar is what Hall calls “Dorothy Draper-esque,” with its green marble and oversize molding. Hall sketched it in pencil before architects at Florence, Italy’s Studio 63 rendered it to be produced on-site. “The stuff that they’ve been able to build is just bonkers,” he says. “We’re just really going for it and created something that I hope feels fun and playful and transporting.” Visitors can attend regular performances by the singer Sébastien Agius, push a button for Champagne during afternoon tea and sample the menu charmingly illustrated by Hall and featuring classic French dishes, including ratatouille and escargot. josette.com.
Covet This
A Jeweler’s Eclectic Manhattan Atelier
The New York-based jeweler Briony Raymond started her business in a small Upper East Side studio eight years ago, selling vintage and antique jewelry along with bespoke commissions and limited-edition pieces that have since been worn by Rihanna and Michelle Obama. Her new atelier, which opened last month in Manhattan’s Fuller Building, reflects her eclectic eye for design with its art and antiques. Another source of inspiration: Raymond’s global upbringing — her mother was born in Beijing and met her father in Nairobi; Raymond herself grew up in Indiana, Paris and London. The interior designers Micky Hurley and Malu Edwards brought in custom-made French jardinieres with topiaries that sit in the foyer, welcoming customers into a room filled with hand-embroidered antique silk screens, lamp shades made of Indian saris and 19th-century French chandeliers. Some shelves feature Raymond’s family heirlooms, including sterling silver vases and antique ginger jars. As for the jewelry on display, Raymond is always on the hunt, and her newest acquisitions include a heart-shaped diamond pendant from the Edwardian era and an 1890s Victorian bib necklace made of diamonds, both of which are available for purchase. For an appointment, email info@brionyraymond.com.
At 15, Eva Alt moved from her hometown, Buffalo, N.Y., to study at the prestigious Boston Ballet School. Five years later, shunning what she calls the “hypercompetitive” world of professional dance, Alt traded her pointe shoes for a position at Glossier, where she spearheaded the beauty brand’s social media. And yet, gradually, ballet lured her back. “I felt determined to continue to dance,” she says. In 2018, she began teaching an all-levels class popularized through Instagram; soon after, Alt — who was selected to be one of five choreographers in this year’s American Ballet Theatre ABT Incubator — performed at the Storm King Arts Center and the East River Park Amphitheater. On Feb. 13, she will return to the stage with “Eva Alt: Steps and Words,” a highly personal, year in the making solo show about her journey both inside and outside the discipline’s traditional institutions. Premiering at New York Live Arts, the performance pieces together a homage to George Balanchine’s “Apollo,” choreography by Nicholas Palmquist and Kate Wallich, a mime act passed down to her by the ballet dancer Jacques d’Amboise, a home video of a 12-year-old Alt dancing in her family living room and a diary entry she wrote in 2013 upon leaving Boston — a life-changing decision that ultimately gave her space to embrace the art form once again. “I now see my failure at becoming a professional dancer as something that opened up a bunch of other opportunities for me,” she says. “To carve out my own path has been thrilling.” newyorklivearts.org.
From T’s Instagram
This Spring, Classic Fashion Staples Are Infused With High Drama
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