If French cuisine is a language of precision, Italian cuisine is a language of generosity. Rooted in simplicity and seasonality, it transforms the humblest ingredients — tomatoes, olive oil, flour — into poetry. More than any other national tradition, Italian cooking celebrates terroir: the soil, the sea, the sun. Its cornerstones, refined over centuries fromContinue reading “The Cornerstones of Italian Cuisine”
Category Archives: History
Levi’s: The Story of Denim’s Most Iconic Brand
A pair of Levi’s jeans has travelled from the gold mines of California to the catwalks of Paris, worn by miners, rebels, movie stars, and presidents alike. Levi’s is not just a brand—it is a cultural shorthand, a symbol of rugged Americana and global style, both practical and aspirational at once. Origins in the GoldContinue reading “Levi’s: The Story of Denim’s Most Iconic Brand”
Catherine O’Hara Obituary
Catherine O’Hara, the Canadian actor whose singular blend of comic precision and emotional depth reshaped modern screen performance, has died aged 71. Over a career spanning more than five decades, O’Hara proved herself one of the great character actors of her generation: a performer capable of extracting profound humanity from the most stylised comedy, andContinue reading “Catherine O’Hara Obituary”
Château de Chambord: A Renaissance Fantasy in Film
In the heart of the Loire Valley rises one of France’s most extraordinary buildings: the Château de Chambord. Commissioned by François I in the sixteenth century and attributed in part to Leonardo da Vinci’s influence, Chambord is both palace and dreamscape. Its double-helix staircase, fantastical roofline, and forest of turrets and chimneys make it lessContinue reading “Château de Chambord: A Renaissance Fantasy in Film”
Frank Lloyd Wright: The Architect Who Bent Nature to His Will
Few figures in modern history embody both genius and scandal quite like Frank Lloyd Wright. To his admirers, he was the visionary who made buildings breathe with their surroundings, inventing a new American architecture rooted in landscape and democracy. To his detractors, he was an egotist, a man of tempestuous loves and public ruin. ToContinue reading “Frank Lloyd Wright: The Architect Who Bent Nature to His Will”
The Bloomsbury Group: Rebels in Cambric Shirts
“They lived in squares, painted in circles, and loved in triangles.” In the genteel drawing rooms of early 20th-century London, respectability was still the reigning order. But in a cluster of shabby houses around Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, a group of young intellectuals tore down the rules. They questioned the empire, mocked Victorian morality, experimentedContinue reading “The Bloomsbury Group: Rebels in Cambric Shirts”
Virginia Woolf: The Stream of Consciousness That Changed the World
“Arrange whatever pieces come your way.” – Virginia Woolf She was born into the last glow of Victorian London, in 1882, in a house on Hyde Park Gate filled with books, paintings, and the chatter of intellectuals. Virginia Woolf came of age in a world weighted by tradition, but she would dismantle that tradition wordContinue reading “Virginia Woolf: The Stream of Consciousness That Changed the World”
Dorothy Draper: The High Priestess of Style
If Sister Parish was comfort and Billy Baldwin was restraint, Dorothy Draper (1889–1969) was pure theatre. The first woman to establish her own interior design firm in the United States, Draper turned interiors into grand spectacles of color and pattern. Her work blended baroque fantasy with modern scale, making her one of the most influentialContinue reading “Dorothy Draper: The High Priestess of Style”
The Shining: Interiors of Unease
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) is remembered for its haunting images — Jack Nicholson’s manic grin, Danny’s tricycle in the corridor, the tide of blood spilling from an elevator. But beneath the horror lies another, subtler masterpiece: the interiors of the Overlook Hotel. Designed with meticulous care, these spaces are not mere backdrops but charactersContinue reading “The Shining: Interiors of Unease”
Dada: The Art of Unreason
In the wreckage of World War I, amid the disillusionment of a generation, a radical new art movement was born: Dada. Emerging in Zürich in 1916, Dada rejected logic, tradition, and aesthetic convention in favor of absurdity, spontaneity, and provocation. Its practitioners — poets, painters, performers — sought not to create beauty but to explodeContinue reading “Dada: The Art of Unreason”
My World of Interiors 