On a recent visit to Budapest, I stumbled across Karolina Gallery, a lovely pottery shop at 55 Andrassy Avenue, the city’s blend of the Champs-Élysées and Broadway. As a ceramics lover, I could not resist a few pieces crafted in the pottery-making tradition of Mezotur, a town in eastern Hungary known for its practical and…
TOKYO — The best souvenirs tell a story. The jeans in Japan provide a walking history lesson. Levi’s landed in Japan about 75 years ago, and since then, Japanese manufacturers have combined their centuries-long tradition of indigo dyeing with their love of the Levi’s 501 style to craft some of the world’s most meticulously constructed…
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — The Hotel Kyjev has dominated Bratislava’s skyline in stark, tombstonelike fashion since 1973, a Brutalist holdover from the communist era. But the building, long closed as a hotel, got a personality makeover in August 2018, when it was dragooned into service as part of a festival plastering the city with street art.…
MADRID — Living in Europe, I’m frequently reminded of an oft-repeated dictum from my high school French teacher, Madame Morris, who insisted that Europeans — at least the late 20th-century ones she knew — would rather invest in a few quality garments than a closet full of cheaply made clothes. While Zara, H&M and other…
KAREN, KENYA — In this southeastern suburb of Nairobi, the ubiquitous rust-red dirt is kicked up and splattered onto the banana tree leaves by the intense rains that sweep across the hills and by Maasai tribesmen herding their cattle through the roads during rush hour. Away from the capital, there is space for designers to…
In a dark club in Downtown Brooklyn, surrounded by more than 100 people, Agathina Ginoue Nozy took a sip of Haitian rum. She stood near an altar stacked with skulls, lit candles, cigars, rum, coffee and bowls filled with charred salt fish, boiled plantains, cassava and piman (spicy peppers). “You typically drink white liquor during…
What has happened to the white pantsuit? Watching the Democratic debate held in Atlanta on Wednesday night, it was one of the questions that stuck with me. It’s not as important as Medicare for All, obviously, or economic disparity. But given the role white pantsuits have played in the national conversation for the last three…
She’s collaborated with Usher and Tyler the Creator, but when it comes to her personal style icons, Malaysian singer/songwriter Yuna is strictly with the girls. A little Gwen Stefani and a lot Audrey Hepburn, the pop star (who boasts more than 750,000 followers on Instagram alone) looks to these women, plus the ‘90s and ‘00s…
The old maxim that you don’t really know a person until you live with him does not apply to Andrew Shackett and Patrick O’Keefe. In their case, all they had to do to really get to know each other was hop on a plane from New York to Birmingham, England. Mr. Shackett, 54, and Mr.…
While tourists are flooding European cities like Barcelona, Venice and Dubrovnik, the Serbian capital is quietly molding itself into a very fun and accommodating Balkan metropolis. Chefs are getting creative with Serbian cuisine and the cocktail bar scene has taken off, much to the delight of sophisticated locals. The National Museum and the Museum of…