Sonny Vandevelde’s Australian fashion week photo diary.
T Summer Design | Must Haves
On our design list this summer: a bar trolley, illustrative wallpaper, timely clocks. More…
Look of The Moment | Elizabeth Banks
The Look: Red State. A pleated peplum turns an exacting column dress into a look that’s anything but conservative.
The Girl: Elizabeth Banks, one of the stars of “The Hunger Games,” at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C.
The Details: Antonio Berardi dress, Bulgari clutch and jewelry.
Artifacts | Gilding the ‘Lilliput’
Over the last year, four million people walked the High Line, the elevated park in Chelsea. Many have stopped to photograph themselves in front of the birdhouses at the halfway point, not always realizing they were posing with a sculpture by the artist Sarah Sze. All can be forgiven for thinking it a housing project for birds. A number of birds suffering the same delusion have nested within it, either because passers-by keep leaving them food or because the birds know a great piece of art when they see it.
They may have to look harder for the six new works in “Lilliput,” the High Line’s first group exhibition of outdoor sculpture. Even from a bird’s-eye view, they’re not easy to spot. As commissioned by Cecilia Alemani, the curator of the High Line’s art program, they’re miniatures designed to counter the often oppressive monumentality of traditional public artworks. Because they’re also set in unexpected places, you never know when — or if — one will turn up. Read more…
People Watching | Jesse Schlesinger
Sometimes names fly into your life like birds, and without noticing, what was once just one bird quickly becomes a flock. I started hearing Jesse Schlesinger’s name among friends, and each one would tell me a completely different tale about him. “He is the artist that built the greenhouse behind the General Store.” “He is designing the interiors of Bar Tartine.” “He sells at the farmers’ market every week.” It didn’t make sense, but it made me curious about who Jesse Schlesinger is. When I met him by chance at an art opening in San Francisco, I realized I already knew him. I had been buying strawberries from him at the farmers’ market for six years. Since then, I have come to know Schlesinger as an artist. All those seemingly disparate activities that I heard about him are true and feed into his art practice. Read more…
Vain Glorious | A Fragrant Pop-Up
Who: Odin
What: The first pop-up shop dedicated to its fragrance line.
Where: 330 East 11th Street.
When: The shop opens tomorrow and runs for six weeks, from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Read more…
Borough Haul | Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Festival
If there are any doubts as to Brooklyn’s status as the coolest borough, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, a three-day music and film festival named for a poem by the Brooklynite Walt Whitman and curated by the twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner of the much-loved local band The National, should put them to rest. “The independent music scene in Brooklyn is the world capital of that culture,” Bryce says. “And it has a massive visual arts scene.” So when the Brooklyn Academy of Music approached the brothers about putting together a program of musicians and filmmakers who live in the borough, they jumped at the chance. Many of the names on the bill, like St Vincent and the Walkmen, are friends of the Dessners; others, like the Sierre Leone-born Janka Nabay, were chosen to represent Brooklyn’s musical diversity. But despite being organized by a pair of musicians, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry was initially conceived of as a film festival. “BAM is singular in its commitment to commissioning new work, and we wanted the festival to reflect that,” Bryce explains. “Plus it’s exciting for musicians to work with filmmakers, so we decided to commission new films and have scores written for them.” Among the filmmakers who will be screening work at BAM’s Rose Cinemas are Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio, Jonas Mekas, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Poppy de Villeneuve, whose dreamy, black-and-white depiction of an afternoon on the bayou, “And So, We Begin Again,” an excerpt of which can be seen here, was hypnotically scored by Missy Mazzoli. “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, the poem, talks about leaving Manhattan and islands,” de Villeneuve says. “I took that as a very literal starting point — I went to the Everglades and then the Ten Thousand Islands.”
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Festival runs from May 3 to May 5.
Profile in Style | Misha Nonoo
A self-described magpie, the New York-based fashion designer found her aesthetic match in fellow Briton Alexander Gilkes (a co-founder of Paddle 8, an online art market). ‘‘We both have a knack for assembling clutter,’’ she says. The couple (who will wed in Venice in May) spend countless hours scouring antiques markets around the world for offbeat and interesting furnishings that act as an ‘‘Old World-y’’ counterpoint to their contemporary-art-filled apartment in downtown Manhattan. Nonoo’s favorite find is an 18th-century birthing table she bought in L’Isle Sur la Sorgue, in France. ‘‘It now serves a far less serious, but equally important, purpose as our drinks table,’’ she says with a laugh. The pair are consummate hosts who entertain often and effortlessly. According to Nonoo, the recipe for a good dinner party is simple. ‘‘We give our guests a good dose of grape, then it’s time for after-dinner games’’ — celebrity is a current favorite — ‘‘and an obligatory wearing of our collection of fancy-dress costumes and hats.’’ More…