When I wake up in the morning, I shower and wash my face with CeraVe Hydrating Facial Cleanser — I’ve been using it for over ten years. It doesn’t leave a tight feeling, which is a real problem for me during the winter, when I get so dry and dehydrated. I’m not superloyal to any one body wash, I’ll pick whatever looks good. Right now, that is Byredo Gypsy Water, which smells very delicious. Otherwise, I use Dr. Barbara Sturm the Good C Vitamin C Serum and OurSelf HA+ Replenishing Serum, which is super hydrating and plumping. When I shave, I always follow with the Calming Serum from Dr. Barbara Sturm because my skin gets red and irritated easily. If I want to feel extra special, I use Merit Beauty Great Skin Instant Glow Serum. When I use it, people remark on my skin. I finish with Dr. Barbara Sturm Sun Drops.
At night, I use a Holidermie Sérum Repulpant. Out of everything I’ve started using in the past few years, this one has really changed my skin. It makes my pores smaller. In the winter, I use Augustinus Bader Rich Cream and, if my skin is very dry, I’ll add a few drops of their Face Oil. For a mask on the weekend, I’ll use the Tata Harper Regenerating Cleanser, followed by the Hydrating Floral Mask while I’m watching TV with my daughter. And I use Vaseline everywhere — on my feet, lips, hands, around my nostrils in winter. During the pandemic, I started using cream blushes. They bring a bit of life to the skin, and I feel better when I use them. My favorite is from Simi Haze called Sun Flush in Sand or Soft. It’s very easy to blend and is superbuildable. I’ll put hair spray on an old toothbrush and run it through my eyebrows to hold them in place. That works better than an eyebrow gel.
I’m on a hair journey: During the pandemic I was losing it by the fistful, probably from stress. I’ve been using Nutrafol Shampoo, Conditioner and Hair Growth Nutraceutical. It feels healthier, softer and I don’t think I’ve had as much loss. I use Fellow Barber Styling Cream to give my hair that two-day-old dirty look, but it still feels touchable.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
It was a pine tree looming behind a garden wall that drew the Taipei-born Parsons graduate Annie Le to a derelict nishijin-ori (a traditional textile) factory, in Kyoto’s central Kamigyo ward. “Pines symbolize longevity and endurance in Japanese culture,” Le says — the same qualities she seeks to establish in her guesthouses, grouped under the brand A Day in Khaki (the name is inspired by the many shades of yellow-beige Le noticed around Kyoto). After opening her first property, near Nijo Castle, in 2017, she commissioned the local architecture studio Ikken to convert the textile factory — a pair of wooden buildings connected by a courtyard — into a five-bedroom inn that, in January, opened as A Day in Khaki Muromachi. Guests can opt for a Western-style bedroom on the ground floor or one of the traditional tatami rooms with futon beds upstairs. Side tables and common-room chairs are made of recycled scraps by the Japanese designer Katsuyoshi Kameda. Some details from the original structure were kept intact, including exposed-beam ceilings and roof supports made from bamboo and mud. The pine tree stayed, too. It’s now flanked by a moss-covered garden designed by Daisuke Narui, following the Japanese concept of shichu no sankyo, or urban-mountain living. From $366 a night, adayinkhaki.com.
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T-Shirts That Pay Homage to Queer Icons
Timothy Hull — the Warwick, N.Y.-based painter best known for reimagining ancient Greek iconography through a graphic, ’80s pop-inspired lens — has introduced white cotton T-shirts as a more accessible and affordable canvas for his art. His new line, Timoteo Tees, features Hull’s “personal pantheon of offbeat queer icons,” as he describes it. (“Timoteo” is a nod to Hull’s adopted Italian name when he lived in Florence.) Hull’s homage includes the likes of David Bowie, Tracy Chapman and Sinead O’Connor, all hand-drawn in blue gel pen and printed onto American Apparel shirts. “They look pretty hot tucked in a pair of denim,” Hull says. Other, lesser-known queer figures with a profound influence on the artist’s oeuvre include the Blur frontman Damon Albarn and the Jungian psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz. Every portrait is intricately drawn with Hull’s signature patchwork-like patterns. As for his favorite design, “Boy George was the catalyst of the whole idea,” Hull says. “I have made many drawings of him over the years because he fills me with an intense amount of joy.” $40, etsy.com/shop/TimoteoTees.
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A New Cheese Shop and Wine Bar in Paris From the Chef-Owner of La Buvette
Camille Fourmont, the chef-owner of the popular natural wine bar La Buvette, has a new project. Across from Gare de Lyon in the 12th Arrondissement, the bar, called Olga, focuses on cheese first and wine second. “Over the past decade, natural wine has become very trendy,” Fourmont says. “I didn’t identify with the movement anymore.” Most of the cheeses will be French, like tomme from Jura and Savoie or blue from Auvergne. Olga shares La Buvette’s preservationist ethos in its design: The décor of the one-time chocolate shop — mirrored walls, tiled floors and wooden cabinetry — have been preserved. The serving ware will be mostly vintage, along with some ceramics that Fourmont has made herself. The space only seats six, though it has standing room for 10 and a small terrace for a dozen. Unlike many of its bar à vin counterparts that are only open in the evening and often closed on Sundays or Mondays, Olga will welcome patrons every day from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. for sandwiches, and then again from 4 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. for wine, cheese and small plates. To go bottles, cheese and classic accompaniments (such as chutneys, crackers and pickles), will be available all day. instagram.com/olga_vins_et_fromages/.
In seventh-century China, Empress Wu Zetian established the water banquet, a procession of 24 brothy dishes served in bowls. Kelly Bit, the founder of the jewelry brand Sublima, was reminded of this ancient tradition one night in 2021, as she gazed into a cloudy-white soup with sliced pig’s stomach and wisps of tofu skin at the Chinese restaurant Uluh, in New York’s East Village. “I imagined an empress and a whole lush banquet, and jewelry,” she recalls. Soon after, she created Tofu Skin hoop earrings, the first piece in a collection called Water Banquet. A ring in the collection resembles a splash of liquid, meant to represent boba pearls falling into tea. A pair of earrings evoke a clutch of ruffled bok choy leaves. Items are made to order in either tarnish-resistant recycled brass or recycled deoxidized sterling silver. Bit, who founded Sublima in 2017, grew up on Long Island, from which she and her family made frequent trips to Manhattan’s Chinatown. When the pandemic threatened many of her beloved shops and restaurants, and with anti-Asian sentiment on the rise, she felt compelled to create pieces that celebrate Asian food. Since 2020, Bit says that Sublima has donated proceeds of jewelry sales amounting to more than $20,000 to the nonprofit Welcome to Chinatown. From $89, sublimajewelry.com.
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Botanical Wallcoverings and Fabrics Inspired by Indian Artistry
This month, the Dutch-born, Jaipur, India-based fashion designer and decorator Marie-Anne Oudejans plans to debut a collection of fabrics and wallcoverings with the home décor company Schumacher. For her designs, Oudejans commissioned a team of three Indian artists to paint flowers, bulbs and leaves that could then be used in various patterns, from block-printed lilac and pink florals to wavy Delft blue stripes and panels that create the illusion of bamboo trellises. Schumacher adapted the designs into pale pastel shades, with the exception of two poppy prints in bright red, a color that Oudejans loves and has used generously in her own home in Jaipur and at the newly opened Villa Palladio hotel, also in Jaipur, that she helped design. Marie-Anne Oudejans’s collection for Schumacher is available to interior designers at fschumacher.com, and to the general public at decoratorsbest.com beginning March 6.
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