Jamie Ballard (she/her) is a freelance writer and editor who covers news, lifestyle, and entertainment topics, including sex and relationships, TV, movies, books, health, pets, food and drinks, pop culture, shopping, and personal finance. She regularly contributes to Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Day, Good Housekeeping, and YouGov, among other publications. When she’s not working, you can find…
My purses have always been extraordinarily small. For example, the purse I have now is really just a wallet with a string connected to it that doesn’t even totally fit my phone. I have never been able to close it, so it is insecure and ripe for thievery. And still I pay it an appalling…
Luxury is often associated with unattainability—high cost, utmost quality, and opulence. What if it didn’t have to be quite so impossible to achieve? Since the onset of the pandemic, the cost of a classic Chanel flap bag has gone up from $6,500 to over $10,000. Other classic luxury labels like Hermès and Dior have also…
Wearing a fluorescent orange life preserver and rubber gloves that reached his biceps, Prince William waded — ever so carefully — into New York’s East River. A minor slip might have been embarrassing. A splash? Nothing short of an international incident. It had been raining since early morning. Damp onlookers watched the prince toss a…
In ELLE.com’s monthly series Office Hours, we ask people in powerful positions to take us through their first jobs, worst jobs, and everything in between. Ahead of fashion month, we spoke with Rajni Jacques, Snapchat’s global head of fashion and beauty, who, after getting her master’s from Columbia Journalism School, has had a wide-ranging career…
Terrines Made for the Upper Crust Pâté en croûte, the centuries-old French dish composed of meat terrine baked in savory pastry, was first developed out of economy as a way to preserve and use up bits of offal. But today, with skilled kitchen staffs in short supply, the labor-intensive delicacy — which requires multiple days…
Ms. Shields was asked about her experience with Mr. Trump. “I was making some movie in the late-90s,” she said. “My phone rang and it was him. He said, ‘You and I should date. You’re America’s sweetheart, and I’m the world’s richest man. People will love it.’ At which point I stifled laughter and said,…
As a traveler who prefers the off-season for its more affordable prices and fewer visitors, I try not to fly in July and August, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. I wait until fall when rates for flights and hotels normally plunge and crowds shrink. Or they used to. This year, hotels in Florence, Italy,…
When Aaron and Anna Schiller began thinking about building a new home in Brooklyn where they could start a family, Mr. Schiller knew he could use his training as an architect to his advantage. It was 2017, and housing prices were already soaring. Mr. Schiller, 39, the founder of the architecture firm Schiller Projects, assumed…
SOME NIGHTS, IN her bedroom in a former tenement in downtown Manhattan, the fashion designer Sandy Liang can hear the strains of “Happy Birthday” filtering up through the floorboards from Congee Village, the restaurant that her father opened in 1996, when she was 5. So many times she’s listened to the waiters sing those bars,…