Seeing March around the corner makes us restless. We’re throwing open windows and doors – though still wrapped in sweaters against that bright, biting air. We’re poking in the chilly mulch for the intrepid crocus (or two). We’re unfolding from the winter, a bit, ourselves. Not quite ready for energetic Spring, we’re craving something fresh all the same. And we’ve found it in these five creatives who share, online, their distinctive visions of a vibrant and exuberant world. Consider this your wake-up call.
1. J.J. Martin is a Berkeley-educated American journalist living in Milan, where she writes about Italian style for the likes of Elle Décor, Wallpaper*, T: New York Times Style Magazine, and WSJ Magazine. Martin’s new website, LaDoubleJ , combines her joyful, insider’s take on Italian life and design with e-sales of her luscious collection of vintage clothing and accessories. Our favorites are her tours of Italian homes and ateliers (look under “Live Like an Italian”), including her recent visit to the historic family home of legendary designer Piero Fornasetti:
Martin’s Instagram feed is delightful, too: @jjmartinmilan.
2. International design magazine Cabana, launched in 2014, took only a few issues to secure its reputation as a coveted inspirational source. Founded by Martina Mondadori Sartogo on the principle that “[i]f you are going to do print, you might as well do it beautifully,” Cabana visits spaces drenched in the creative emotional lives of the people who have inhabited them – whether rural bolt hole or pedigreed urban castle. And, almost unbelievably, every copy of each issue is covered in actual wallpaper or fabric, by designers like Pierre Frey, the Italian fashion house Etro, and the Milan textile maker Dedar. It’s hard to convey what it’s like to hold a magazine covered in real, and really beautiful, paper or fabric. It takes a few minutes to catch your breath for the compelling photographs inside, where the images are sometimes printed on specialty paper like vellum, or with unique finishes or lamination.
On Instagram, Cabana offers regular doses of the rich, charged interiors the biannual hard copy seeks out. The Cabana feed has become an essential, regular fix for us, like these 18th century textiles from the Rubelli Group archive in Venice,
or this mix of Hungarian embroidery:
And if you find, like us, that your Cabana crush extends to founder Martina Mondadori Sartogo herself, take a look at this Architectural Digest spread on the London townhouse she shares with her husband and two young sons.
3. Danielle de Lange lives in a village near Amsterdam, where she writes The Style Files, a design and lifestyle blog that features stunning spaces in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe. Expect serene photography and a cool Northern European touch: a nice balance to the Italian sites’ maximalism.
4. Rita Konig, daughter of designer Nina Campbell, is an English writer and interior designer whose work appears regularly in Vogue, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and House & Garden UK, among others. Her two books – Domestic Bliss and Rita’s Culinary Trickery – are lovely hymns to a kind of openhearted, open-armed life with family and friends. The rooms she designs (or admires) give off that same whiff of lives richly-lived.
It’s possible she also had one of the coolest weddings we’ve ever not attended:
(Guests arriving at her childhood London church being served espresso from a Fiat 500)
We check in on her website, Rita Konig, which collects images of her interiors work and a sampling of her published articles (click “Rita Says”), and we follow her on Instagram here. Be prepared, though: her website also sells linens, lighting, art, glassware, and other chic bits and pieces – our wish list now includes the bottle green “Corners” tray she’s designed in collaboration with The Lacquer Company. Sigh.
5. It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that writer Amanda Cutter Brooks might have invented the Instagram-driven, high-end lifestyle brand. Makes you want to hate her? We find that impossible. Palm Beach and New York bred, Brown University educated, Brooks’ early New York resume is pretty enviable to design geeks, including a stint as fashion director at Barneys New York. A few years ago, she transplanted her young family to rural Oxfordshire, England, the childhood home of her husband, artist Christopher Brooks. Amanda Brooks has chronicled her life since then (and her work writing about remarkable 20th century and contemporary design) on her irresistible blog, I Love Your Style, and in her genre-defining Instagram presence. Seriously beautiful photography, and Brooks’ distinctive writing voice – intelligent admiration for what she considers best in visual culture – have made us loyal readers. And the precious children, dogs, pigs, and horses don’t hurt, either.
Inspired yet? Let us know what’s waking you up these last weeks of winter. And happy first of March!
Think you know what Valentine’s Day is all about? Hearts and flowers? Candy and doilies?
Think again.
Valentine’s Day started as the ancient Roman ritual of Lupercalia, a fertility festival honoring Juno-Lupa, a She-Wolf who nursed Romulus and Remus, the human twins who founded Rome. Celebrated on February 14 even in the 4th century B.C., Lupercalia called for animal sacrifice, with the sacred blood then smeared onto the foreheads of unmarried noblemen dressed only in goatskin thongs. These blood-marked men then marauded in gangs, lashing young women with goatskin strips, called “februae,” to ensure their fertility. During the festival, the names of willing young women were placed into a box or urn, and each unmarried man drew a name to be matched with a girlfriend for the following year, which started in March.
By 500 A.D., the Catholic Church found all this a bit hard to stomach. Popes tried to tame Lupercalia into a Christian festival: young people could still have the Juno Februata lottery, but instead of being matched to a lover, they’d draw from a box of saint names to discover whose saintly life they’d try to emulate for the following year. Unsurprisingly, this did not catch on with young Romans, who began instead, on February 14, to write love notes to the young women they wished to court. Eventually, the Church simply assigned the ancient pagan Lupercalia to St. Valentine, a 3rd century priest martyred for marrying couples secretly, thus defying Claudius II’s ban on marriage for military-aged men.
We like Valentine’s Day even more, now that we know its robust history. Goatskin lash or not, it’s all about finding that bright door into your beloved’s heart. Happy Lupercalia!
Now, down to business: Here are some Nashville favorites to call upon for your Valentine essentials:
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re Amanda Gluck, influential style and entertaining entrepreneur, and founder of The Fashionable Hostess. You’re moving your young family to Nashville, and you have less than three months to put your personal design stamp – fresh, contemporary, gorgeous . . .
Photos courtesy of the Fashionable Hostess and @LindsayGracePhotos
. . . on this traditional Belle Meade house:
How did the Fashionable Hostess transform this home in a hurry? With the Wills Company on her SWAT team, that’s how.
With Amanda’s lead, Miami interior designer Charlotte Dunagan and the Wills Company revamped every room. “Amanda is a great decision maker, with a terrific sense of style,” explains Ridley Wills. “That made the difference. That’s why we could turn her vision into reality, in just a few weeks.”
Is “transform” a big enough word? We wonder:
Tough to imagine a bigger change, without moving the walls.
portfolio
It didn’t happen by cutting corners. Take the kitchen countertops, for example. Amanda wanted pure white marble, with very little veining, to add light and a happy shimmer to that crucial family space. Increasingly difficult to source – and always complicated to get delivered on time – white marble is the kind of choice that can grind a complex house renovation to a logistical halt.
But not this time. Amanda located a perfect Bianca Oro stone in Miami, and the Wills Company found a truck and driver to haul it up to Nashville. The right stone, on site, on time. Truly, a special delivery.
And the drama didn’t end there. The new, white marble was significantly thinner than the old stone countertop Amanda was removing; so it didn’t fit the old cabinets, which she wanted to retain. What to do? Ridley made it work, with retrofitting carpentry and new millwork to keep it all looking beautiful. We think you’ll agree, it was well worth the effort.
It took the Wills Company’s award-winning Handyman team to make Amanda’s vision happen in less than three months. Experienced professionals Tony Brown, Director of Handyman Operations, and Brian Lewis, Project Manager, work only with Nashville’s best and most reliable specialists – the best painters, carpenters, electricians, and, yes, the best marble-wranglers: the experts most in-demand and hard to hire in this booming city. Then we plan our projects rigorously, and we commit our team and our specialists to real schedules. Your work gets done beautifully, like we promise, and when we promise. Just ask Amanda.
At the Wills Company, we’re enormously proud of our part in Amanda’s stunning transformation of her family home. For more on her work here and on other chic projects, join us in following her at Fashionable Hostess and on Instagram, @FashionableHostess, and #TNChateauFH.
Yesterday, the iPhone spoke and Nashville listened. 100% chance of snow. In this city, it is a tradition to over-prepare for weather events. Natives rushed to the groceries with a healthy sense of panic to stock up on the usual staples – milk, hot chocolate, peanut butter, bread, cookie dough, and “Ice Melt”. Now we can turn our attention to 20 of the best ways to spend a mid-week weather disruption!
Here are a few ideas:
1) Binge watch a Netflix series (i.e. Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, etc.), or an old favorite movie like “Singin’ in the Rain!”
2) Tackle that kitchen junk drawer. Go on, get a garbage sack and start pitching. It will probably take 15 minutes. Who knows? You might move on to the front hall closet and find that missing glove!
3) Open the bottle of wine you’ve been saving. After all, you do have to stay warm!
4) Exercise. This is a great chance to use the thigh master you’ve neglected.
5) Try a new recipe. Challenge yourself to use those orphan ingredients that keep staring at you in the pantry.
6) Polish some silver. Instant gratification!
7) Take a look at your taxes. Not a long look. But there might be a few loose ends you can tie up that will pay off big come April!
8) Call an old friend. Or two.
9) Clean out the fridge! You may even get a few good ideas for lunch.
10) Snow paint. Put some water and food coloring in squirt bottles and go to town. Instagram/Facebook the results.
11) Play with your dog. Dogs love snow.
12) Write a love letter. On paper. Your someone special will be thrilled.
13) Unsubscribe to superfluous emails. Not this one!
14) Draw a hot bath. Add bubbles.
15) Plan your next vacation or trip. Bet it’s to somewhere warm!
16) Take inventory of your closets. Anything you haven’t worn in a year put aside for charity. Especially winter stuff, not everyone is so fortunate on snowy days.
17) Rearrange your furniture.
18) Soak your feet. Epsom salt is a wonder product. Your feet will thank you!
19) Make a new music play list. Consider classical guitar.
20) Catch snow flakes on black paper. No two are alike!
Time to thank Mark Zuckerberg. His 2016 New Year’s resolution is to build – by himself, mind you – an artificial intelligence tool to screen his guests, control his home’s lights, temperature and music, and keep an eye on his new baby girl. Yes, he’s resolved, like Tony Stark, to build a J.A.R.V.I.S. of his own.
So we thank you, Mark Zuckerberg, for announcing a resolution so ambitious, so superhuman, that it puts our own feeble lists to shame. Eat less sugar? Finally organize the photo albums? Assign the kids chores, and mean it this time? Why even bother with such unexalted goals?
We say, don’t even bother. Instead, try January our way:
1. Be aimless. Be purposeful.
We’re willing to bet you don’t wander enough: choose a neighborhood that’s not your own, and go for a long walk. See which of Nashville’s jewels are thriving under the care and passion of a committed urban community. Historic Belmont-Hillsboro is a great place to start, with its early 20th century bungalows and foursquares, along side-walked streets.
(detail from poster, 2015 Belmont-Hillsboro Home Tour, by resident J. William (Bill) Myers)
Then head to Germantown, Nashville’s oldest residential subdivision.
Once you start looking, you’ll find neighborhoods to wander all over Nashville. Get out and meet your city.
Thenbe purposeful: inform yourself about what it will take to bring all Nashville’s neighborhoods along into its bright new future. Affordable housing? Public education? Traffic and transportation? You’ll need your own informed opinion. Get busy.
2. Love an easy book. Love a hard book.
(Terrifying Haunted Hotel) (Particle Physics)
3. Dream big. Dream small.
January is perfect for making a comprehensive home-improvement list, a master dream list of every project you’ve imagined for your home and garden. Don’t hold back. Pretend money and time are no obstacles. Review all your magazine tear sheets and Pinterest boards, all those saved Instagram screen shots. Picture every project finished and perfect. Aaahhh.
Now, choose just one thing on your list – large or small – and simply do it. This month, ours might be building shelves for kitchen storage. Or adding bright pillows to offset winter’s gray days.
The trick is, just get going. Every success makes the next job easier.
4. Be romantic.
Don’t forget: February’s coming. Start now to plan a Valentine’s treat for your favorite January warrior. It’s not too early to reserve a table at one of Nashville’s new-legend restaurants, or to practice cooking that new recipe for an inspired movie night at home.
The FAA predicts 1 million (1 Million!) drones will be sold this holiday season.
That’s a lot of desperate gift buyers.
We know how it is. Everyone on your list has everything they need, and more. Then the gift guides flood in, and you panic: Well, maybe your loved one would like . . .
an Italian designer skateboard? Or . . .
luxury bar bells? Or . . .
a levitating Bluetooth speaker?
At least that’s one name crossed off your list. Right?
We have a better idea. This year, give your home-loving loved ones what they really want: help on the house projects they never get around to.
Build a raised garden box? Re-paint a powder room? Hang shelves for the cookbooks? Light plugs for reading out on the porch?
Be the hero. Call the Wills Company Handyman. 615-352-1228
