Quick Read: “International Velvet” in The New York Times

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One sure sign that it’s the end of summer: The New York Times Style Magazine, which is always printed on the last Sunday in August.

Velvet is apparently making a come-back in fashion—did it ever really go away?—and the magazine features a cultural history of the fabric, compiled by Carolina Irving, Charlotte di Carcaci, and Miguel Flores-Vianna. It ranges from fashion history to film to art, so it’s right up my alley. You can view this feature here. (There’s also a video, which I found less interesting.)

Passing Fancies: August 2013

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August already?! Yes. Late August. Here are some of my recent and current fascinations…

Reading: Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies.

Art: The exhibition “Swing Time: Reginald Marsh and Thirties New York,” at the New-York Historical Society.

Eats and Treats: A summer salad of tomatoes and peaches from the farmers market, with basil from our yard.

Drinks: Cocktails at Little Branch with my old friend Joe when he was in NYC last week. My favorite was a Water Lily (gin, crème de violette, lemon, and Cointreau). Perfection.

Beauty Products: Lipsticks in brighter rose shades, from higher-end (Lancôme’s Roses in Love) to drugstore (Maybelline’s Rose of Attraction).

Garb: Classic espadrilles in black.

Video: Breaking Bad. We can talk of nothing else these days.

Milestone: My first pair of eyeglasses, for reading. I’m getting old!

Image: August (Août) by Eugène Grasset (1896), via Wikipaintings.

Covet: tenoverten Wall Street Nail Polish

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I recently attended the Elements Showcase, a biannual trade fair for “niche” fragrance houses and a few select beauty lines, and between rounds of smelling perfumes, perfumes, a few scented candles, and more perfumes, I sat down for a mini-manicure at the Tenoverten table. I wrote about Tenoverten (“ten over ten”) and the brand’s line of polish last year (see here), and this time around I was able to sample a new shade: Wall Street.

I was so entranced by this polish that I forgot to take a photo of the bottle, and when I got home I realized that the polish wasn’t going to show up well in photographs. Well, I tried. Here’s what I got…

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A Visit to the Aroma M Atelier in Brooklyn, NYC

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On Friday evening  I took the subway out to Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood. DUMBO stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass; you can see the bridge here, from the Brooklyn side of the river, with the lower Manhattan skyline in the background. I took this photo from the roof of the building where Aroma M Perfumes has just opened its new “atelier.”

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