I was recently reading “The Children’s Bach”, by Helen Garner, when a sentence stopped me in my tracks. Dexter, a gregarious stick-in-the-mud living in 1980s Melbourne, is talking to another character about relationships. “Love!” he roars. “I’ve never been in love, then. In lerve. I don’t even know what that is.” There’s a familiar cynicism here: the Australian habit of dismissing anything too sentimental by making it the subject of mockery (“lerve”). But what caught me was the last part: his incomprehension. Dexter is a bit of a fool in “The Children’s Bach” — his wife leaves him for a reas ..read more

The annual Salone del Mobile furniture fair has always been big — it’s the event of the year for the international design world, drawing hundreds of thousands of makers, curators, editors and buyers to Milan each April for a week’s worth of inspiration, shop talk and aperitivi. Even more so than fashion week, the fair consumes the city. But this year’s edition seemed to buzz with a new level of excitement, with more people from outside the design industry joining the throngs and hourlong lines forming outside events like the launch of the French luxury brand Hermès’s interiors collection, th ..read more

The near lifelong friends Alexa Brazilian, Aaron Dickson Millhiser and Courtney Broadwater met in the late 1980s as children on Nantucket in Massachusetts, where their families would spend time each summer. They’d ride their bikes together and pass the days at Siasconset Beach, at the far eastern end of the island. In the years since, each has followed her own creative path: Brazilian, 43, is a writer, consultant and T contributing editor based in Little Compton, R.I.; Dickson Millhiser, 43, is a creative consultant, and a former head of men’s and children’s wear design at J. Crew, who lives ..read more

Austin Hennelly, the 35-year-old bar director at Kato, a Taiwanese restaurant in Los Angeles, likens tasting bitter melon to “going down the drop of a roller coaster.” Sipping the fruit’s juice — which is the star ingredient in his Garden Tonic, a mocktail he considers the best drink on Kato’s menu — is, he says, “a little bit unpleasant and maybe a little bit scary, but it’s exhilarating, and then you just want to do it again.” Bitter melon, which is actually a member of the gourd family, has long been a staple of Asian, African and Caribbean cuisines. The Chinese variety is a luminous cact ..read more

Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello dress, sunglasses and shoes. Model: Scarlet Hayes at Vivien’s Models. Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello top, skirt and shoes. Model: Scarlet Hayes at Vivien’s Models. Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello dress and shoes, ysl.com. Model: Scarlet Hayes at Vivien’s Models. More expert fashion & beauty coverage from T Australia: Elevate Your Confidence With Hugo Boss’s Two New Scents Rick Owens, Fashion’s Patriarch of Freaks How Female Bodybuilders Became Fashion’s Latest Muses The post Embrace the Timeless Elegance of Beige With Transeasonal R ..read more

In the 17th century, the French, like many others, did not bathe. Famously, even Louis XIV seldom washed. And so in the 19th century the French invented synthetic perfume to hamper the smell and improve the nation’s confidence. That feeling of confidence remains one of the reasons people continue to wear fragrance today, says Sue Phillips, who has created scent for Tiffany & Co., Burberry and Diane von Furstenberg, and is the founder of custom perfumery Scenterprises on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “When it is corroborated by a compliment, when somebody you hug says, ‘Oh my God, you smel ..read more

As official timekeeper to the Olympics, a role it has held since 1932, watch brand Omega is gearing up for Paris in July with a new Speedmaster Chronoscope in the colours of the competition. The sporty 43mm series has four available models, presented in the gold, black, and white colourway of the Olympic Games Paris 2024. This includes a version in full stainless steel with an anodized aluminium bezel, and another with a ceramic bezel and 18K MoonshineTM Gold case and bracelet – OMEGA’s own yellow gold alloy, known for its subtle hue and long-lasting shine. Each watch contains a silvery whit ..read more

Australian artist Archie Moore’s exhibition, ‘kith and kin’, at the Australia Pavilion has been awarded the prestigious Golden Lion for Best National Participation at La Biennale de Venezia 2024. This is the first time in history an Australian artist has received this accolade.  In ‘kith and kin’, Moore displays a genealogical chart spanning 65,000 years. Hand-drawn in white chalk, the chart illustrates Moore’s lineage stretching back more than 2,400 generations and serves as a stark representation of the decline in First Nations Au ..read more

At the start of this year, the celebrated Danish chef Frederik Bille Brahe, 40, closed down Apollo Bar & Kantine, his beloved art-world hangout in the courtyard of Copenhagen’s Kunsthal Charlottenborg, in order to reinvent the space and its menus. He and his executive chef, Yuta Kurahashi, 36, shifted their focus to dinner and now serve an evening meal of pared-back dishes that riff on seasonal ingredients. But if Bille Brahe likes to keep things simple, he also enjoys surprising his guests. The dish he calls Salada Rosso presents as an untouched head of radicchio but it is, in fact ..read more

Orior, a family-owned design studio, often returns to its Irish roots. Founded in 1979 in Newry, Northern Ireland, by Brian and Rosie McGuigan, it’s now run primarily by their son, Ciarán, with a workshop in Newry and a showroom in New York City. The company works with many of the same artisans it did four decades ago, sourcing materials such as Connemara marble and Irish crystal to build modern credenzas and tables, and producing chairs and sofas in Ireland’s signature green. Orior’s latest collection, Fearn, consists of sculptural planters made from three Irish limestones: Armagh, Kilkenny ..read more