I’m a big double cleanser, sometimes even a triple cleanser. Step one is usually Biologique Recherche Eau Micellaire Biosensible, followed by Lait Dermo-S. At night, I’ll use Vintner’s Daughter Active Renewal Cleanser with cold water. I’m a big fan of Clean Skin Club towels in XL. I’m prone to acne and hyperpigmentation, and those towels really changed my skin. I use Tower 28’s SOS Rescue Spray to prevent transdermal water loss. Then I do three big droppers of Dr. Barbara Sturm’s Hyaluronic Serum, followed by Paula’s Choice Discoloration Repair Serum and Biologique Recherche Crème Dermopurifiante. I use Supergoop’s Unseen Sunscreen to lock everything in. Every evening, I cleanse and do my Dr. Dennis Gross Spectralite FaceWare Pro LED mask. I use my hyaluronic serum and, after a few minutes, apply a Tretinoin Cream USP 0.1% — my skin responds well to the constant turnover. I’ll follow with my Biologique Recherche Crème Dermopurifiante and Prequel’s Skin Utility Ointment as an occlusive layer. As needed, I use Cosmelan 2 Maintenance Cream for a spot treatment and Biologique Recherche Masque Visolastine+ as a hydrating mask. SK-II Treatment Masks are just good to have in the fridge. I’m a devotee at the temple of Vanessa Lee from the med spa the Things We Do. I did a Cosmelan peel last winter and it took away 80 to 90 percent of my hyperpigmentation. I also love the High Frequency Wand; when I have little breakouts, I’ll use that to help.
For makeup, I use just a bit of Ami Colé Skin-Enhancing Concealer, a lighter and darker one that I mix. For brows I use KS&Co Clear Strong-Hold Brow Gel. Kristie has done my brows for seven years, and she also tested her microblading technique on me. I use Merit’s Clean Lash and, for lips, I love Rhode’s Peptide Lip Tint and Tower 28’s Lip Jelly. They give you shine and condition the lips. Sunnie’s Lip Dip in Posh is my go-to lipstick and I also like the Lip Bar’s Nonstop Liquid Matte in Bawse Lady.
My baths are a whole thing. I’ll do a whole bag of Ancient Minerals Magnesium Bath Flakes and Osea Vagus Nerve Bath Oil. I’ll be in there for an hour. I’ll work in the bath, send voice notes in the bath. And then I get out and use the Rhode Glazing Milk all over my body. In the shower I use Nècessaire the Body Acne Wash and I like to have the Dr. Bronners unscented formula in the shower, too. Afterward, I use Biography’s Sea Chrome Revitalize Body Oil. Once a week I’ll do a first wash with Olaplex Bond Maintenance Shampoo, then T-Gel twice because I have psoriasis, then Olaplex Bond Maintenance Conditioner. After that I have this microfiber towel that soaks up all the water but doesn’t deposit any lint. There’s a trichologist I follow, Anita Wilson, who said the best thing to do if you suffer from dandruff or psoriasis is to cut all oils from your hair routine. I have to say, it changed my life. No dandruff at all. Instead, I started using this glycerin spray called Greg Juice that has nettle. It’s basically a hydrosol I spray on as my hair or scalp needs hydration. My Zuvi blow dryer is something I’m wild about; I use the diffuser, and I’m obsessed with it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Paris is ever-changing, but La Tour d’Argent, the grande dame of French gastronomy overlooking the Seine, has been reliably constant since 1582. So when André Terrail, the seven-story restaurant’s owner and president, closed it for a 15-month, top-to-bottom transformation led by the architect Franklin Azzi, the ambition was clear: preserve and extend the experience that his family has offered for three generations. That included adding several new spaces, like a ground-floor bar and salon, a rooftop terrace that seats 45 and, most recently, L’Appartement, a 1,200-square-foot pied-à-terre on the fifth floor designed for couples. “La Tour d’Argent was already a destination, but now we can take it further, with a full tailor-made stay,” says Terrail. “If guests want to dine in the restaurant but have a full aperitif in the room with all of our best bottles, they can. If they want the multicourse dinner experience for six to come to them, we can do that, too.” Once inhabited by Terrail’s grandmother Augusta Burdel, the space was designed to embody the family’s French and Finnish heritage: Haussmannian molded ceilings, herringbone parquet floors and a fully equipped kitchen — complete with Christofle tableware and Baccarat glassware — merge with Scandinavian furnishings and an in-room sauna to harmonious effect. Vintage family photographs line the walls alongside contemporary commissions like the 1930s-style enameled ceramic piece “Le Souvenir d’Augusta” from the painter and ceramist Maximilien Pellet. But Terrail insists the most spectacular touch of all sits across the river. “What could be better than these views of Notre Dame right from the living room?” From about $4,860 a night, tourdargent.com.
Wear This
Vintage Soccer Jerseys Made New
In recent years, soccer and style have come together on the runway (see: Balenciaga’s Soccer City Series) and off (consider TikTok’s Blokecore trend). Systemarosa, a New York-based clothing company and creative studio launched last year by Naomi Accardi and Sam Herzog, is the latest arrival at that intersection. Accardi and Herzog have created an archive of vintage soccer clothing for stylists to borrow from, an online shop where customers can buy curated pieces — 1970s jerseys sit alongside Prada Sport loafers from the 2000s — and a consultancy for others looking to bridge football and fashion (Adidas and Serie A North America are clients). Herzog plays soccer regularly, while Accardi, who grew up in Italy, is the daughter of a professional footballer. Both have experience in fashion marketing, and Accardi has worked with titles in the emerging cluster of fashionable football magazines, including Mundial and Season. They see Systemarosa as a service for two emerging groups: “fashion girls who love the look of a football jersey and maybe would love to know more about football, and the hard-core fans who would like to express the different facets of their life in a more fluid way,” says Accardi.
Their first collaboration — with the Danish sportswear upcycling label Nouveau Nova — arrives this month. The designer Nova Norgaard fused vintage Italian jerseys sourced by Systemarosa with knitwear to make six designs, including a track top, a ’70s-style dress with a frilled skirt and a long dress with corset-inspired lacing down its sides. “It’s more about integrating the appreciation for the game into your everyday life without necessarily looking like you’re going to play,” says Herzog. From $400, systemarosa.com.
The childhood friends Thomas Montier Leboucher and Iris de La Villardière started their Paris-based fine jewelry label, Viltier, in the spring of 2020. Montier Leboucher had previously worked in marketing for Cartier, while de La Villardière gained experience as an art director at the whimsical French jewelry house Marie-Hélène de Taillac. With Viltier (an appellation derived from their combined last names), they wanted to combine craftsmanship with environmental consciousness. All the pieces are made by artisans in Paris using 18-karat fair-mined gold, and all of their diamonds are regulated by the Kimberley Process, a certification that aims to ensure gems are ethically sourced. The brand’s first collection, Magnetic, features a magnet-inspired motif that shows up in diamond-linked bracelets with inlaid natural stones like malachite or lapis lazuli, and gold chain pendant necklaces. This week, Montier Leboucher and de La Villardière opened a showroom in the Seventh Arrondissement, adorning it with bespoke furniture, including a marble console from Porta Romana and pleated Dior couches reupholstered in their brand’s signature yellow hue. The space also serves as an art gallery with regularly rotating pieces. Currently on display is an abstract work by the French painter Serge Poliakoff and silver dishes by Pablo Picasso. The showroom is by appointment only, and those who book can also schedule a consultation with the designers for the creation of custom jewelry. For an appointment, call 011-33-6-50-88-84-36 or visit viltier.com.
See This
Nancy Brooks Brody’s Delicate Final Works, on View in New York
Throughout their lifetime, the artist and activist Nancy Brooks Brody — a native New Yorker and, from 1991, a founding member of the lesbian art collective Fierce Pussy — was concerned with the invisible. Moving between painting, drawing, sculpture and architectural intervention, Brody used commonplace materials to reveal unseen bodies and negative space. In “Broken Shells,” a series begun in 2002, the innards of smashed seashells were painted with jaunty enamels; arranged together, the cracked skeletons became a rainbow. An ink on newsprint series, “Merce Drawings,” outlined the outstretched limbs of Merce Cunningham dancers, containing and extending their movement.
Brody died in December, and an exhibition of their final body of work, “Ode,” opens this week at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery in TriBeCa, including several works made in the last week of their life. Brody hand-tore pieces of colorful tissue paper into ovoid forms, then affixed them to raw canvas. Each pared-back composition includes two stacked, hovering shapes that ripple, wrinkle and tear slightly along the taut surface, recalling the wheat-paste posters of Fierce Pussy. Marisa Cardinale and Joy Episalla, co-executors of Brody’s estate and longtime friends of the artist, compiled “Ode” with the gallery. The rounded silhouettes, they say, emerged from Brody’s longstanding fascination with circular forms in various iterations, including the growth rings of trees and painted coins. “Ode” is on view from April 5 to May 11, klausgallery.com.
In Pharaonic times, royalty and nobles traveled the Nile on dahabiyas, traditional wooden boats with two sails and private cabins. (“Dahab” means gold in Arabic; early forms of the boats were often painted to resemble that precious metal.) Steamships ultimately replaced the dahabiya in the late 1800s but lately the boat is back in style thanks to its slow pace and relative silence. This spring, a five-cabin boat called Set Nefru, originally built in the 1940s for a member of the Egyptian royal family, began accepting charters. Its Cairo-based owners — Margarita Andrade, the co-founder of the luxury linens brand Malaika; her husband, the lawyer Florian Amereller; and the entrepreneur Alexander Arafa — invested in a team of 50 craftspeople who restored it with reclaimed wood from historic palaces in Alexandria and laser-cut marble for the bathrooms. (Andrade and Amereller are also behind the Luxor hotel Al Moudira.) In the process, they discovered a hidden Art Deco painting on the boat’s saloon bulkhead. The interior was otherwise returned to its former glory with vintage French and bespoke furniture, Limoges porcelain tableware and Egyptian bed linens from Malaika. For chartered voyages (typically three days or more), Set Nefru, which comes with a staff of 11 including a chef, sets sail from Luxor and makes its way toward Aswan, stopping at historical sites like the Temple of Horus and for visits (and sometimes meals) at small family farms along the Nile. Price on request, setnefru.com.
From T’s Instagram
