My morning routine depends on how much time I have. Lately I’ve become a huge fan of using gadgets like the Red Light Face Mask from HigherDose while I’m still in bed in the morning. Or I do that old-fashioned trick of dunking your face in ice water. A male co-star of mine would do it and I got into doing it too. I’m into pre-cleansing. I love rose and I’ve been using this Best Skin Ever Rose oil cleanser. Osea makes a couple of cleansers that I rotate between — there’s the Ocean Cleanser that’s milky and the Ocean Cleansing Mudd that I use at night after wearing makeup. I like when I can feel a product doing stuff, and the latter has a cooling effect that feels like it’s activating your pores. I warm it up in my hand with some water and leave it on for a minute or two like a mask. I struggle with hyperpigmentation, and microneedling has helped tremendously. For a gentle version at home, FaceGym makes a Faceshot Electric Microneedling Device and a Brightening Active Roller. I’ve been using this natural mask from Simply Divine Botanicals called Honey, I Shrunk the Pores. I accidentally ate a little bit of it from the corner of my mouth and I swear you could put it on toast. I’ll use Thayers Witch Hazel toner or Biologique Recherche Lotion P50 to tone.
If I’m wearing makeup, I’ll use a moisturizer like Armani Beauty Crema Nera along with the Luminous Silk Hydrating Primer. On days off, I’ll take Armani Beauty’s Luminous Silk Foundation, which I love because it looks like skin, mixed with their Beauty Fluid Sheer Glow Enhancer. I mix all of that with a little bit of my moisturizer and use a blush brush to apply it to my skin. On a normal day I don’t wear much on my eyes, just a wash of color from the Armani Beauty Eye Tint Long-Lasting Liquid Eyeshadow in a gold hue. They make an orangy metallic one that I’ve worn at night, too.
My hair routine has changed recently because I’ve been dying it more. When curly hair is damaged, bits of it will go straight and lose texture. For that, K-18 Molecular Repair Hair Mask has been a lifesaver. I don’t like to leave the house with wet hair but I’ll use that as a styling product and let it air dry. It’s like my hair is getting a treatment all day. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and the city’s Korean spas, in particular Olympic Spa, changed my approach to beauty and self-care. They really believe in body scrubs. If I can’t make it to the spa, I’ll do it at home using something granular like Osea’s Salts of the Earth Body Scrub.
Friends of the artist Barkley L. Hendricks, best known for his life-size paintings of stylish Black Americans, remember that he always had at least one camera hanging around his neck. Yet it wasn’t until after his death, in 2017, that his art dealer became aware of just how many photographs he had taken. The process of digitally archiving hundreds of thousands of negatives he left behind stretched over six years, and it’s not done yet. Dozens of never-before-seen images will be on view at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York this month alongside vintage prints, some of which Hendricks hand tinted himself. The artist not only shot reference photographs for his famous portraits, but also compulsively snapped his surroundings, dramatically cropping images and playing with light along the way. (In the precision of the compositions, one can see the influence of Walker Evans, with whom Hendricks studied at Yale.) The shots, spanning nearly 40 years, include one of an elegant woman, face out of frame, slipping out of a pair of heels, and another depicting Hendricks’s reflection in a convex mirror, a twist on Parmigianino’s famous self-portrait. Perhaps the most delightful series consists of photos focused on the television screen at the Dutch Tavern, a historic bar in New London, Conn., capturing defining media of the ’80s and ’90s: stills of “I Dream of Jeannie,” a Chicago Bulls game, Anita Hill’s testimony. Hendricks’s stylized portraits may have captured his subjects as they wanted to be seen, but his photographs illustrate how he saw the world. “Barkley L. Hendricks: Myself When I Am Real” is on view at Jack Shainman Gallery from April 13 to May 26, jackshainman.com.
Buy This
Kit Kemp Designs Maximalist Tableware for Spode
When the British crockery brand Spode asked Kit Kemp, the co-founder and creative director of Firmdale Hotels and Kit Kemp Design Studio, to collaborate, lockdown had only recently begun. Kemp’s boutique hotels in London and New York had just closed their doors. “It was really doomsville,” Kemp says. But she had an unusual amount of time to dedicate to the project, one she eagerly agreed to. “For an English designer like myself, you grow up respecting a name like Spode thinking you’re never going to have the opportunity to design with them,” she adds. This month marks the debut of her collections for the 253-year-old company: a wide-ranging array of tableware, picture frames and Christmas ornaments showcasing Kemp’s eclectic taste. Her favorite designs are Tall Trees, a forest motif inspired by “walks on a misty morning and love of the countryside,” and Doodles, an illustrated series of leisurely moments with playful phrases — “like ‘mind over matter’ with someone doing an amazing yoga pose while reading a book,” Kemp says — sketch-painted by her 35-year-old daughter Willow. “Minimalists would get so upset with my collection, but I love decoration,” says Kemp of her aesthetic. “I’m unapologetic about it.” From $15, available from April 17 on spode.com and shopkitkemp.com.
Wear This
Silk Skirts and Button-Down Dresses Made in Collaboration With Mexican Artists
The fashion designer Stephanie Suberville grew up in Monterrey, Mexico, and spent her childhood traveling around the country on family trips partly fueled by her parents’ interest in collecting local art. “Each region of Mexico has very different kinds of artisans,” says Suberville. “[My parents] instilled in me the importance of investing in these communities and in our culture.” In 2022, after honing her design skills at New York companies like Rag & Bone and La Ligne, Suberville partnered with her husband, Jeffrey Axford, to create their own line, with each piece constructed in durable materials like deadstock calf leather and Italian wools and silks. While the collection is largely produced in New York City, each season Suberville works with a Mexican artist on an original print. For the first two collaborations, the artists Jose Pajarito and Juana Gómez Ramírez painted their signature motifs (normally done on pottery and sculptures) on A-line dresses made of painter’s canvas. Those designs were then scanned and reprinted on silk or silk blends before being used for long pleated skirts, gigot-sleeved blouses and button-down dresses. Heirlome also worked with Arturo Estrada, a weaver from the central state of San Luis Potosí, to create ivory and black silk rebozos — traditional garments similar to shawls — that were inspired by those Suberville’s mother has collected for decades. “When I’m designing, I think, ‘Is this special enough for someone to want to hold on to for years to come?’” says Suberville. heirlome.com.
When the pandemic started, Andria Mitsakos, the Greek American founder of an international hospitality PR company, was on the island of Paros, where she had just rented a cottage. Already an avid collector of vintage wares from across the country, Mitsakos decided to create a few new objects to decorate the home: She commissioned a ceramist from Crete to make contemporary pieces modeled after her 20th-century pitchers and bowls and turned to a nearby seamstress to transform her traditional Greek textiles into pillowcases and wall hangings. Soon, her hotelier and architect friends were placing orders for the items. “This passion project turned into a business pretty quickly,” she says. Mitsakos eventually made it official: She created an online shop, calling the brand Anthologist. This week, in Athens’s emerging Vathi neighborhood, Mitsakos opened a showroom and by-appointment shop in an early 20th-century Neoclassical building. On display alongside her artisan collaborations are a jewelry collection, Greek tagari bags and stained-glass coffee tables. As she describes it, “It’s a retail space but also a center for people to come together to learn more about Greek craft.” anthologist.com
Eat Here
A Growing Group of Japanese Restaurants in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
For the past eight years, the New York restaurateur Yuji Haraguchi has been quietly expanding his group of Japanese restaurants. His first place, Okonomi, opened in 2014, serving up Japanese set breakfasts and mazeman, a brothless style of ramen that Haraguchi had popularized through a pop-up a couple years earlier. In 2016, he opened the fish market Osakana down the street, which has since expanded to locations in the East Village and midtown Manhattan. More recently, Haraguchi has opened two new cafes in the neighborhood. “I wanted to create a space outside of restaurants where people can come together,” he says. As You Like is a serene coffee shop where the matcha latte is sweetened with kuromitsu, a black sugar syrup, and shelves are decorated with shoppable ceramics. My Coffee & Cream, a few blocks south, appeals to families, with a selection of books and games on hand, as well as ice cream in flavors like yuzu or white chocolate matcha, made in collaboration with the local micro-creamery Mom & Icepops. Finally, Haraguchi has transformed the original Osakana into Okonomi Market, a takeout-only lunch operation with a weekend dinner omakase led by the chef Daniel Lee, who showcases Haraguchi’s seafood bounty — like seasonal firefly squid flown in from Japan — in an informal setting. $150 omakase, okonomimarket.com.
