I do not know why Vilnius/Lithuania isn't getting more press, but trust me, it is a city on the rise. I'm glad I got there before the place explodes (figuratively), and was able to get a last minute, same day reservation at Ertlio Namas. Incredible meal a la chef Tomas Rimydis, with everything served having roots in history. Read all about it here....
20 Odd Questions with Bronson van Wyck, the go-to party planner for all sorts of bold faced names. Read all about why your tabletop shouldn't match, but you should invest in Magnolia garland, here....
Departures current issue focuses on Scandinavia. I travelled to Copenhagen to search out a few stories, and had several in the magazine. My favorite, by far, was the discovery of Arje Griegst. Second, a visit to the Georg Jensen smithy and an awesome visit with Frans at Maritime Antiques, which was super cool. ...
Dennis Hopper designed a tee shirt to commemorate the opening of his art gallery in Taos, New Mexico, in the 1970s. Flash forward a few decades and his daughter, Marin Hopper, had the tee remade and is selling it in her fantastic NYC shop, Hayward House. Read all about it here, with a direct link to buy the shirt here....
Every floor of this Turtle Bay townhouse, designed by Allison Julius and Louis Mara of Maison 24, serves a different function, and is a different color. You can see the whole thing, which is super cool (and I'm not just saying that because I wrote about it) in the current issue of New York Cottages & Gardens....
Virginia Lebermann bought a circa late 1800s Adobe ruin and turned it into her family's home. The native Texan, who co-founded Ballroom Marfa, and owns the Thunderbird Hotel as well as the Capri restaurant and event space, painstakingly researched indigenous methods to use in the construction process, including fermenting cactus to mix with local clay to create a proper adobe paste. Insane! But the results, published in the October issue of Elle Decor, are very cool....
Marta Ferri is known to some as the go-to fashion designer for the Milanese jet-set, and to others as the head of fabrics for Molteni. For the Milan fair, Ferri created a capsule collection of women's styles, made out of Molteni's fabrics, that will be used to accessorize their ever- popular closet systems. Sadly, you can't buy them...
Every year, the St. Regis Hotel in New York City has a fabulous, but temporary, holiday shop. This year they enlisted event designer Rebecca Gardner, who has produced some of the hotel's famous midnight suppers (most recently for fashion designer Jason Wu), to create a pop-up featuring her favorite things, which include Venetian glassware and Elizabethan collars for dogs (really). Read more here, and if you can't make it in person, you can shop it online here....
A kind of major shopping story with loads of insider tips (from the likes of Jill Kargman, , Maya Jankelowitz and Jordan Roth) on navigating what can seem like daunting spaces. Did you know that Barneys has a concierge who can get you the hottest reservation in town? Or that Bloomingdales plays Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" throughout the store every morning when the open the doors? Or that if you buy any two skincare products at the La Mer counter in Bergdorfs, you get a free facial? I didn't either, until reporting this story. It's in the November/December issue...
Amsterdam has a new hotel in an old structure, courtesy of Paul Hermanides, a well-known restaurateur in the city. Bonus: stay here and you're pretty much guaranteed to spot wild parrots. Full story here....