When Lee Miller picked up her Rolleiflex and walked into the ruins of Europe, she left behind the world of glossy magazine covers and Surrealist salons. Her photographs of World War II — published in Vogue between 1940 and 1945 — transformed her from a society beauty into one of the most unflinching photojournalists ofContinue reading “Lee Miller at War: The Camera as Witness”
Category Archives: Aesthetics
Lee Miller: Beauty, War, and the Alchemy of Reinvention
Lee Miller (1907–1977) lived many lives, each more improbable than the last. She was first a fashion model of startling beauty, then a Surrealist muse in Paris, then a groundbreaking war photographer who witnessed some of the darkest scenes of the twentieth century. By the end of her life, she had retreated into the quietContinue reading “Lee Miller: Beauty, War, and the Alchemy of Reinvention”
Missing the Summer & the Sea? Here Are Five Films That Take You Right Back
When the days shorten and the air turns crisp, nothing transports us back to sun-soaked afternoons and the languid rhythm of the Mediterranean quite like cinema. Some films capture not just water and light, but also the psychology of summer — its languor, its tensions, its beauty, and its dangers. Here are five iconic filmsContinue reading “Missing the Summer & the Sea? Here Are Five Films That Take You Right Back”
Jørgen Leth, Poet of the Ordinary, 1937–2025
Jørgen Leth, the Danish filmmaker, poet, and cultural omnivore whose quiet, incisive images revealed the beauty—and strangeness—of the everyday, has died at 88. For more than six decades, Leth moved between poetry, film, and journalism with an almost anthropological detachment. Yet his work was never cold. It shimmered with curiosity, whether trained on the ritualsContinue reading “Jørgen Leth, Poet of the Ordinary, 1937–2025”
Peter Marino: The Dark Knight of Design
In the world of architecture and interiors, few figures are as instantly recognizable — or as fiercely debated — as Peter Marino. Dressed head-to-toe in black leather, with biker boots, sculptural chains, and tattooed arms, Marino has cultivated an image as a renegade. Yet behind the theatrical armor is one of the most influential architectsContinue reading “Peter Marino: The Dark Knight of Design”
The Evolution of the Private Swimming Pool
The swimming pool is more than a reservoir of water: it is an architectural statement, a cultural symbol, and a mirror of shifting ideals of leisure, health, and luxury. Its evolution—from ancient communal baths to mid-century suburban icons, from Riviera resorts to infinity-edge marvels—charts the trajectory of modern life itself. To trace the history ofContinue reading “The Evolution of the Private Swimming Pool”
A History of Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc
Origins & Literary LegacyIn 1869, Villa Soleil was built by Hippolyte de Villemessant, founder of Le Figaro, as a haven for writers seeking peace and inspiration. By 1870, it opened, Napoleon III–style, as a retreat for figures like Jules Verne and Anatole France. By 1889, under Italian hotelier Antoine Sella, it became the Grand HôtelContinue reading “A History of Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc”
Grey Gardens House Tour
On the fiftieth anniversary of the Grey Gardens documentary (released September 27, 1975), we return to one of America’s most mythologized houses — not in ruin, but in radiant renewal. Immortalized by Albert and David Maysles, the storied halls of Grey Gardens once echoed with the eccentric lives of Big and Little Edie Beale, relativesContinue reading “Grey Gardens House Tour”
Grey Gardens at 50: The Eccentric American Dream
Today marks fifty years since the premiere of Grey Gardens on September 27, 1975 — the Maysles brothers’ documentary that unveiled the eccentric, crumbling world of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter “Little Edie.” Half a century later, the film remains as haunting and magnetic as ever: a portrait of decline and resilience that hasContinue reading “Grey Gardens at 50: The Eccentric American Dream”
Scott & Zelda: Legacy, Love, and the Geography of a Jazz Age
Few couples loom as mythically over the 20th century as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. They were beautiful, brilliant, and reckless — the gilded children of the Jazz Age, as dazzling as the parties they haunted, and as doomed as the decade they defined. To speak of them is to speak of literature, glamour, andContinue reading “Scott & Zelda: Legacy, Love, and the Geography of a Jazz Age”
My World of Interiors 