Rethinking time, a riot on the runway, and my favorite archipelago
1.
This book will change your life…if you let it: I finally read Oliver Burkeman’s 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, which, within the first few pages, delivers the stunning reality that the average human lifespan is approximately 4,000 weeks. It becomes the foundational premise for the rest of the book and Burkeman’s assessment that we’ve been approaching time, time management, productivity, and even our notion of leisure all wrong. Life is absurdly short, and our lives will be over before we know it—which has made me all the more inclined to slow down.
2.
Rainbow on the runway: Those lips! Those opening blue looks! Then came the florals, and fuchsia…followed by a joyous riot of more vibrant hues, and even bolder prints. Very few designers can make chartreuse green seem like such a natural shade to pull from one’s closet, but that’s the magic of Christopher John Rogers, who showed his latest collection inside a warehouse at Brooklyn Navy Yards last night. For Rogers, color isn’t a gimmick, it’s an intrinsic part of his DNA (and I’m speaking about the designer, not just his brand). The show was effusive, exuberant, well worth waiting for…and yet I can’t wait to get that next hit of visual dopamine.
3.
I’ve been running out of empty wall space chez moi (just ask my parents who involuntarily adopted a portrait I’d brought up to their house last weekend), which is perhaps why I’ve been looking at new places to accommodate artful things—specifically floors and the exciting, imaginative potential of rugs. This three-piece collection by Sam Baron, entitled Florae Folium, and currently on view at Milan’s Design Week, is a maximalist’s fever dream.
4.
I considered waiting the few extra weeks until I’m in Italy to visit the Santa Maria Novella flagship and purchase more of these scented wax tablets (they’d probably cost less, and would certainly make everything in my luggage smell gorgeously fresh), but as “Mention #1” points out, life is brief and I’m already kicking myself for not having these aromatic bars in my linen closet and drawers sooner.
5.
A magical island destination worth adding to your bucket list—now accessible on direct flights from Newark.