Guest Edits
When the coronavirus closed college campuses, Kumra left University of Pennsylvania, where he was an economics student, to return home to New Delhi. He started developing Kartik Research, a brand that fuses his passion for streetwear and local Indian artisanal craft. By the time he went back to school, he was running a business. Since then, Kartik Research has been a semifinalist for the LVMH Prize, it recently staged its first runway show at Paris Fashion Week, and opened a store on New York City’s Lower East Side. Kendrick Lamar, Steph Curry, Brad Pitt, and Lewis Hamilton have worn pieces from the collection, which includes jeans, jackets, and shorts that have been hand-embroidered or block-printed. Here, Kumra shares his taste for Carter Young sneakers and William Eggleston photography.
Before launching Alice functional chocolate mushrooms, Lindsay Goodstein was in pharmaceutical sales by day and DJ-ing by night. Charlotte Cruze was working in advertising while getting a master’s degree in food studies. Their interests in cultivating connection and happiness converged on two things—mushrooms and chocolate. They spent two years developing Alice’s products, a combination of chocolate with mushroom’s nootropics and adaptogens, with homeopathic doctors, formulators, and chocolatiers. Goodstein and Cruze’s holidays are filled with good lighting and vibes. And chocolate
Photo: SSPL/Getty Images (model in cover-up)
Setting the backdrop to a beautiful life is the Spanish couple’s family business, dating back generations. In just over a decade, they launched their interior-design studio, Casa Muñoz, and opened Madrid’s first contemporary design gallery and store, Machado-Muñoz. Muñoz, whose family founded Casa & Jardin and Darro, leads the firm’s architectural vision, while Machado, who began his career assisting Mario Testino, is creative director. For them, the holiday spirit is the scent of quince wafting over a table set with silver, and eating Roscón de Reyes from La Duquesita in Madrid with hot chocolate, preferably while wearing Anderson & Sheppard robes
Photo: Condé Nast/Getty Images (Veruschka holding frame)
The artist, filmmaker, and self-titled “conceptual entrepreneur” has exhibited at MoMA, directed the feature-length film The African Desperate, collaborated with Prada, and shot Rihanna for a Louis Vuitton men’s campaign. Syms co-founded Golden Age, a book store, and started Dominica, an artist-book imprint. Her prolific work offers sharp, self-aware commentary on Black identity through humor, theory, and pop-culture and Internet references. Syms grew up in Altadena, California, and is based in Los Angeles. She likes her holidays laced with cyanide and lip balm
Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images (modeling Dalí eye watch)
The Buenos Aires–born creative director travels the world year-round producing photo shoots, campaigns, and zines for clients including Loewe, Range Rover, and Interview magazine. When he’s not globetrotting, Fecchino splits his time between New York City and the Connecticut countryside. For him, nothing says “the holidays” like firewood, the smell of barbecue, and a Speedo
Photo: H. Armstrong Roberts/Classicstock/Alamy (swan dive)
The chef behind Comal, a Mexican-inflected restaurant on N.Y.C.’s Lower East Side, shares his secrets to a successful holiday menu, including warm plates, Mexican chilies, and love
Photos: TV Times/Future Publishing/Getty Images (Hitchcock stirring pot)
Photo: George Hurrell/John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images (Crawford)
The former fashion designer channels his artist’s eye into Somerset House, the interiors firm he co-founded with his wife, Haley Loewenthal, in 2020. This week, they open a new, 10,000-square-foot showroom in Long Island City’s Metropolitan Building, originally constructed in 1909 and now being restored as a creative hub. Part vintage gallery, part design studio, part restoration workshop, Somerset House’s new space embodies Eckstein’s eye for contrast: Italian and Danish modern alongside primitive and baroque, all under vaulted skylights and 15-foot ceilings. Here, he shares his style obsessions.
Mary Giuliani has stories. After 20 years of literally catering to New York society and Hollywood’s inner circle with her company, Mary Giuliani Catering & Events, she has seen things go down. She has the celebrity NDAs to prove it. The author of three books, including her memoir, Tiny Hot Dogs, currently being adapted for television, recently opened Storied, an aptly named event space in the former West Chelsea studio of Annie Leibovitz. Here, Giuliani shares her picks for a stylish and entertaining life
Sisters Alexandra Niakani and Davitta Niakani-Bartlow, along with her husband, chef Ryan Bartlow, opened Ernesto’s on the Lower East Side in 2019. Their fresh interpretation of classic Basque dishes created an improbable combination of neighborhood restaurant and destination dining, earning a spot on The New York Times’s Best NYC Restaurant list. Five years later, the trio is trying something similar in the West Village, where they opened Bartolo, a Madrid-style taverna, over the summer. Davitta has a design background; Alexandra, hospitality experience. Together, they shape Ernesto’s and Bartolo’s front of house. Here, the sisters share their must-haves.
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