Anna
CAMP
The South Carolina native talks Pitch Perfect, producing & bread pudding
Go South
travel DISPLAY UNTIL AUG 1, 2015
Tree houses, caves and islands, from a Carolina river to the Louisiana bayou
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THE BEST IN THE SOUTH. Tootsies - Crate & Barrel - Seven Lamps - Kendra Scott - DEKA Roots Juices - American Apparel - Dantanna’s - Paper Source - lululemon athletica Suitsupply - The Impeccable Pig - fab’rik - Waiting on Martha - Bhojanic Ona - Swank - CorePower Yoga (Opening June 2015)
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noun, plural of ei·dos [ahy-dee]. The distinctive and formal expression of the cognitive or intellectual character of a culture or social group. It is the essence of each thing and its primary substance.
Tova Gelfond EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/ CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Craig Rosenberg CFO
Avi Gelfond ART DIRECTOR
Jaime Lin Weinstein SENIOR EDITOR
Tian Justman FASHION EDITOR AT-LARGE
Meghan Jackson EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Cassie Kaye FASHION ASSISTANT
Mark Haddad ASSOCIATE DESIGNER
Joanna Berliner, Jeanne Everett, Emily L. Foley, Natalie Fressell, Jess Graves, Austin Holt, Cynthia Houchin, Han Vance, Wyatt Williams and Gina Yu CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Lindsay Appel, Dustin Chambers, Jamie Clayton, Brett Falcon, Amanda Greene, Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee, Jamie Hopper, Alex Martinez, Anne McGonigle, Brooke Morgan, Angela Morris, David Rams and Elena Rosemond-Hoerr CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Hannah Johnson and Jabe Mabrey CONTRIBUTING STYLISTS
Caitlyn Daniels and Hannah Lenore Gray EDITORIAL INTERN
Liz Best FASHION INTERN
Victoria Davis PUBLIC RELATIONS INTERN
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CONTRIBUTORS’ WORDS
CYNTHIA HOUCHIN As much as she loves her adopted hometown, Eidé’s Austin correspondent Cynthia Houchin is always looking for the next escape. So when the invite to the Big Easy came for a friend’s bachelor party-turned-voyage, her wanderlust quickly chimed, “Laissez les bon temps rouler!” While she did not fulfill dreams of selling portraits in Jackson Square to finally put her art degree to use, she did score a balcony view of the parade, discovered she actually liked chargrilled oysters and even spotted the band most likely inspiring “Portlandia”’s Bahama Knights at Tropical Isle. (cynthiahouchin.com)
ALEX MARTINEZ Born and raised in Colombia, Alex Martinez is an award-winning fashion, portrait, advertising and commercial photographer. He has shot for Bravo, Fox, the Discovery Channel, NBC, TVOne and Paramount Pictures along with AT&T, Spanx, Goody, Pfizer, Atlantic Records, CVS and Vibe. Known for his striking color sense and unique use of light, Martinez creates powerful images that resonate, and his vibrant personality allows for easy interactions on set. “What a treat shooting Anna Camp!” he says of this issue’s cover star. “She was so sweet and easy to work with. I love her style and had a great time spending the day with her.” (alexmartinezphotography.com)
MARTINEZ CREATES POWERFUL IMAGES THAT RESONATE, AND HIS VIBRANT PERSONALITY ALLOWS FOR EASY INTERACTIONS ON SET.
JABE MABREY Stylist Jabe Mabrey has been surrounded by fashion his entire life. One grandmother taught him to sew and made him elaborate costumes to play in, while the other grandmother had a boutique. He remembers going to her store as a child and helping the ladies pick out outfits. So becoming a stylist seemed natural. “Pitch Perfect is one of my go-to movies … and when I was asked to style the lovely Anna Camp, I jumped at the opportunity!” Mabrey says of working on the cover shoot. “The W Hotel provided the perfect backdrop. You can always count on the W to add that touch of glamour and sparkle that is always fun for shooting!” (jabemabrey.com)
“I HAVE HAD A LONGSTANDING LOVE AFFAIR WITH AIRSTREAMS; THE SLEEK LINES, THE TIMELESS RETRO FEEL AND ALMOST BIOMECHANICAL LOOK TO THEM,”
“YOU CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON THE W TO ADD THAT TOUCH OF GLAMOUR AND SPARKLE”
DAVID RAMS David Rams has worked with some of culture’s biggest icons over the past 30 years (Morgan Freeman, Woody Harrelson, Tony Bennett, Outkast, to name a few). His keen eye as a photographer has cultivated his work, which graces the pages of publications such as Playboy, Esquire and Interview magazines, and it’s his love of people and their stories that drives Rams to constantly pursue new artistic horizons. “I have had a longstanding love affair with Airstreams; the sleek lines, the timeless retro feel and almost biomechanical look to them,” Rams says of the set chosen for “In Full Bloom.” “It’s almost as if the Airstream becomes a character itself!” (davidrams.com)
Anna
CAMP
The South Carolina native talks Pitch Perfect, producing & bread pudding
ON THE COVER
ANNA CAMP
Go South
travel Tree houses, caves and islands, from a Carolina river to the Louisiana bayou
like a
SOUTHERNER $ 6 . 9 9 U S
Photography by ALEX MARTINEZ Styling by JABE MABREY (More on pg. 60)
DISPLAY UNTIL AUG 1, 2015
ANGELA MURRAY MORRIS Angela Murray Morris began her career with a pink Le Clic film camera, sending rolls of film off in the mail to be developed. In later years, she gained experience in front of the camera until fashion photographer Terry David Drew encouraged her to begin shooting her own ideas. Her editorial work has graced the pages of Vogue, People, Essence and InStyle while commercial clients include Gap and Nordstrom. “I have long been a fan of the layout, design and content of Eidé Magazine, and I was thrilled to be asked to be a part of this issue,” Morris says. “The shoot [‘Waterproof ’] was amazing because I was involved from conception to completion.” (angelaphotography.com)
速 Your New Jewelry Obsession!
W W W . Z E N Z I I . CO M
LETTER FROM THE
Rediscover the South
I
’ve always fancied myself a travel elitist. Perhaps even a snob. Not to say that I have to be in five-star digs at all times or that I can’t rough it on a camping trip like the rest of them. But I want to go, see and do the very best — if that means walking by foot with a backpack everywhere so be it; if it calls for the most expensive establishment on the island then take me there. I guess it’s about the experiences really, and I want to go to the most coveted places, talk to the most interesting people and discover the most idyllic of scenarios. For a long time, I thought this meant going a far distance: In order to marvel at something ancient, one has to go to Europe or the Middle East. If you want to dip your toes in powdery soft sand, it better be in the Caribbean or the Philippines. Exclusivity meant difficulty getting there, or a certain level of global notoriety. But over the past year, I decided I wanted to travel locally. Not for any particular reason, I suppose, it just worked out that way. Instead of spending a week in Central America, my husband and I opted to enjoy seven days in New Orleans (my first time!). In lieu of Barbados, there was Florida; instead of Mexico, we went to Asheville. Most of these choices were based on the fact that we wanted to drive, which meant I could have all the luggage a girl could want, and we could enjoy the perks of having a car. But once I began visiting these destinations that are near and not far, I was overwhelmed and surprised by what has been here in the South all along. A cluster of states that prides itself on coveted places, wildly interesting people and don’t even get me started on the food. As a result, I have fallen in love. Again. The South may not have the age of the cobblestones of Paris, but I just came back from St. Augustine, Florida — the oldest city in the
country — and looked up at gold leaf ceilings, around at hundreds of panes of Tiffany glass and down at hand-tiled mosaic floors that rival the most celebrated structures in the world (more on this trip in a future issue). Earlier this season, I spent time in the Florida Keys on a private island a mere 90 miles from Cuba that has all of the allure, wildlife and tropical vegetation of any international beach. And have you been to the Biltmore Estate? There is as much majesty in that modern castle as any episode of “Downton Abbey.” Don’t believe for a second that I have given up ambitions of singing karaoke in Tokyo or walking through spice markets in Morocco, but I have discovered a renewed interest in the domestic beauty of our surprising side of the country. A place with vineyards, handmade forts, cobblestones and gardens; with tastes and sounds that will take you from Europe to South America just miles from home; a region so rich in culture and experience, it’s snob-worthy.
Tova Gelfond
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CULTURE OF THE SOUTH
WHILE PREPPING THIS ISSUE WE… Didn’t leave the house until we finished “House of Cards” Season 3. Binge-watched “True Detectives” Season 1, in preparation for Season 2. Ate (and drank) our way through Charleston. Ate a LOT of cupcakes (thanks to Georgetown Cupcakes opening in Atlanta!). Got some AMAZING designer deals at Goodwill (yes, Goodwill!). Toured ancient Tulum ruins (& won a bottle of tequila!) in Mexico. Talked Southern design with Jonathan Adler. Stumbled upon some important Civil War grounds from 1964. Ate at Ford Fry’s Superica too many times to count. Chatted with television star Bailee Madison. Made several unnecessary purchases at Target (it gets ya every time…). Celebrated Topshop & Intermix & Tod’s coming to Atlanta! Saw the newest revival of “Pippin” at the fabulous Fox Theatre. Decided Craft Izakaya just might be our current favorite restaurant in Atlanta. Discovered the amazing combination of parmesan + edamame. Spent too many hours at the vet over minor ailments to (Eidé mascot) Posey. Published our first edition of “Lookbook Atlanta.” Made our office smell like roses with a new Diptyque diffuser. Listened to the entire “Serial” podcast in a matter of days. Got a Fitbit. Lost a Fitbit challenge. Follow the journey online at @eidemagazine and eidemagazine.com.
“Little Terrarium” erinmcmanness.com
Illustration by Atlanta artist ERIN MCMANNESS
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TABLE OF CONTENTS: 44
ANNA CAMP (60) Actress and ultimate Southern gal, Anna Camp, gets real about Hollywood, fame and paving her own path. BISCUIT SLIDERS (18) Three slider recipes sure to be crowd pleasers. SAY CHEESE (22) The Spotted Trotter’s cheesemonger talks dairy. THE DRINKER’S GUIDE TO NASHVILLE (26) Explore the city bar scene with a local.
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IN FULL BLOOM (32) Because nothing says summer like florals. SHOWSTOPPER (44) A Buckhead mansion with Hollywood glamour. TRUE NORTH IN NASHVILLE (50) A Tennessee home becomes a family farmhouse. HIGH-FLYING DESIGN (56) Five things you didn’t know about private jets. FASHION ANATOMY: THE LOUIS VUITTON TRUNK (68) Defining the time-tested significance of the classic trunk. TRAVEL LIKE A SOUTHERNER (70) Summer staples that add an air of Southern charm. 2 TALES, 1 CITY (76) Two writers share their experience in New Orleans.
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BROAD SPECTRUM (80) Escape to Puerto Rico in colorful, Southern styles. THE KEY TO LUXURY (94) Opulence at the Florida Keys' Little Palm Island.
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TREE HOUSE HIDEAWAY (98) Off the ground along the Edisto River. OH, THE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN CAVES (104) The Southern pace of Cappadocia, Turkey. FOREIGN AFFAIR (108) TripLingo, the ultimate international companion. URBAN SELECTION (110) The evolution of the Southern city. MINING THE DATA (116) Two Georgia brothers bring change through filmmaking. ARTFUL CONVERSATION (120) Artist David Swann reminisces about his career. DYNAMIC DENIM (124) The staying power of the jean jacket. WATERPROOF (126) A summer glow doesn’t always have to appear bronzed. EIDÉ CITIES (133) Atlanta, Austin, Birmingham, Charleston, Nashville and New Orleans. TIME WARP (146) Tiffany debuts a new watch collection.
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FOOD & BEVERAGE
Biscuit Sliders Recipe and photography by ELENA ROSEMOND-HOERR
R
ecently, I arrived at a potluck with a big tray of country ham biscuit sliders and was received with an excited, “Well of course you brought biscuits!” You see, since 2008, I’ve been chronicling my exploration of Southern food culture on my blog, Biscuits and Such. It’s been a whirlwind of an adventure that has included hundreds of recipes cooked and photographed in my Wilmington, N.C., home and a few cookbooks, including my most recent, “No Time to Cook!” My friends and family have come to expect that inviting me to a potluck means I’ll show up with something good, whether it’s a big platter of shrimp and grits, a freshly baked pie or a tray of biscuit sandwiches. Biscuit sliders are one of my favorite party foods because they’re easy and versatile. The three recipes included here — chicken and honey; country ham and cheddar; and bacon, mozzarella and tomato — are great crowd pleasers, but the formula of fresh buttermilk biscuits, spread and toppings is a winner every time. Add your favorite jam, fruits, vegetables or whatever strikes your fancy, and enjoy delicious biscuit sliders all year long.
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Makes 8-10 large biscuits or 20-25 small biscuits
Buttermilk Biscuits 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon baking soda 3 teaspoons baking powder 1 tablespoon salt 2 sticks unsalted butter 2 cups buttermilk 1 tablespoon butter for topping Heat oven to 425 F. Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Cube butter and work into the dry ingredients with your fingers, spreading the butter paper thin until it is completely combined. Stir in the buttermilk and turn dough onto a floured surface. Press into a rectangle, covering any sticky spots with flour. Fold in half and press back into a rectangle. Repeat 3-4 times, then press into a large rectangle, about 1-inch thick. Use a biscuit cutter to cut 3-inch rounds or, for bite-size sliders, use a knife to cut dough into 1-inch squares and transfer to a baking sheet. Refrigerate biscuits for 30 minutes to fully chill. Melt butter. Brush the top of each biscuit with butter and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a rack.
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Fried Chicken Sliders Chicken: 8 chicken thighs 2 cups buttermilk 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes 1 tablespoon salt 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon chipotle powder 1 tablespoon garlic powder 3 eggs 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 1 cup breadcrumbs Peanut oil for frying Sliders: Buttermilk biscuits Honey 10-12 cornichon pickles Combine the buttermilk, a pinch of red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt, and soak chicken. Refrigerate overnight. For bite-size sliders, cut chicken into 1-inch chunks prior to soaking. In a mixing bowl, combine half the flour and half the spices. In another bowl, whisk the eggs and apple cider vinegar together. In a third bowl, combine the remaining flour and spices with breadcrumbs. Heat oil to 375 F. Dip chicken into the flour, then into the egg mixture and finally into the breadcrumbs, making sure the pieces are fully coated. Fry for 3-5 minutes, turning once, until crisp and brown. While chicken is frying, halve biscuits and smear with honey. Slice pickles and, as chicken comes out of the fryer, layer each biscuit with a piece of chicken and a few pickles.
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Country Ham and White Cheddar Sliders Buttermilk biscuits Spicy brown mustard 1 pound thinly sliced country ham 1 pound sharp white cheddar cheese Slice each biscuit in half and spread a decent amount of mustard on both the top and bottom halves. Layer each biscuit with a piece of ham and a slice of cheese and serve.
Bacon, Mozzarella and Tomato Sliders Buttermilk biscuits 1 pound bacon 2 tomatoes 1 pound fresh mozzarella Handful of fresh basil Sea salt Heat oven to 375 F and lay bacon on a rack above a baking sheet to contain grease. Bake for 15-20 minutes until crisp and brown. Let cool. Slice tomatoes and mozzarella into bite-size pieces and break strips of bacon in half. Layer each biscuit with fresh mozzarella, tomato, bacon, a pinch of fresh basil and a sprinkle of sea salt and serve.
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FOOD & BEVERAGE
Story by MEGHAN JACKSON Photography by JAMIE HOPPER
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SAY CHEESE Head cheesemonger of Atlanta’s acclaimed charcuterie haunt, The Spotted Trotter, shares an inside look at the world of dairy.
A
nybody who comes in has to eat what I like,” Scott Stroud says proudly. And not in the stubborn way a 5year-old tells you they aren’t sharing their toys, but rather, in a thoughtful manner that brings meaning to the title, “cheesemonger.” Stroud is the cheesemonger at The Spotted Trotter, the boutique charcuterie in Krog Street Market (Atlanta’s answer to New York’s Chelsea Market). A cheesemonger, also known by the French term fromager, is one who deals in cheesemaking and the sale of cheese. But Stroud is also a Certified Cheese Professional, which makes him more than simply a lover and a monger. Put plainly, he is to cheese what a sommelier is to wine. CCPs are crowned by the American Cheese Society and can only don the title after meeting extensive experience requirements and passing a certification exam. Stroud is currently one of 391 in the country, and he’s taking his expertise to New York this June and competing in the Cheesemonger Invitational. Yes, competing. Stroud is gearing up his taste buds in hopes of taking home the guts, glory and cheese for challenges that seem nearly impossible to mere mortals (i.e. taste tests that require you to identify both the type of cheese being tasted and where it came from, or a wrapping competition to see who can use the least amount of cheese paper — a vortex for cheese that allows it to breathe when wrapped to preserve the taste — to package cheeses). “I will get my clock cleaned I’m sure, but it will be fun anyway,” he says. It’s a humble statement coming from someone who is one of only 10 accepted competitors. So when Stroud says everyone who comes in eats what he likes, he means they choose — generally with his much-needed assistance — from an assortment of cheeses he has individually selected to sell in his fridge: a trophy case, more appropriately, for displaying his delights and conquests from around the world. Stroud has more on his agenda than practicing for the cheese olympics. He’s been busy traveling throughout the country (The Spotted Trotter is currently focusing on Southern cheesemakers) and internationally (he’s eaten his way through Paris), exploring, researching, tasting and, all the while, putting a tremendous amount of thought into what he wants to offer his customers.
Interesting Wedges from a Cheese Expert: It’s so expensive because the good stuff comes from small producers. Read: They make the cheddar so they can bring home the bacon. Only buy as much as you can eat in 3-5 days. “Come back and get more when you’re done with that. It’s gonna taste better, and you’re gonna have a better chance of storing it where it’s not gonna go bad, because a normal refrigerator is a horrible place to keep cheese. It’s too cold, it’s too dry, but it’s pretty much the only choice you’ve got unless you have a wine cellar.” A fresh cracked wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano will change your life. To be given the name Parmigiano-Reggiano, it has to have been aged at least a year and a half (by Italian law). The cheese, which hasn’t been exposed to air, isn’t oxidizing. No one has ever tasted it until that wheel gets cracked open, and Stroud claims that he’s witnessed it turn even non-cheese lov-
“Stroud is gearing up his taste buds in hopes of taking home the guts, glory and cheese for challenges that seem nearly impossible to mere mortals”
ers into believers. “You can see their expressions change, like, ‘Oh my God. I’ve never realized this is what Parmesan tastes like.’ It makes a big difference.”
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And though the cheese in the case is constantly changing based on availability and season, you can expect the options to look something like this: Dancing Fern An award-winning cheese from Sequatchie Cove Creamery in Sequatchie, Tenn. “Nathan Arnold, who is the cheesemaker there, just keeps coming up with great cheeses. And they’re just really good people as well.” Crottin A goat’s milk cheese from Prodigal Farm in Rougemont, N.C. “North Carolina is a real hotbed of cheesemaking in the South — primarily goat’s milk cheeses. They have a lot of good cheesemakers over there, producing just tremendous product.” Georgia Gold From Nature’s Harmony Farm in Elberton, Ga. “[It’s] an English-style, clothbound cheddar … It’s got an earthy flavor to it, but then there are also these overtones of fruitiness that come through.” Grayson A washed-rind cheese from Meadow Creek Dairy in Galax, Va. (a personal favorite of Stroud’s). “What the French would call their stinky cheeses … You get to know it … But the funny thing is, they never taste the way they smell.”
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Colston Bassett Stilton A bleu cheese from the prestigious Neal’s Yard Dairy in London (possibly Stroud’s proudest accomplishment in his position). “They are really picky on who they will ship cheese to … It took a lot of groveling and saying the right things and pulling out the right names of cheeses that they didn’t think anybody over here really wanted and they decided, ‘I guess this guy kind of does know what he’s doing and we’ll send it to him.’ That was really gratifying because they’re definitely the cheese place in the U.K.”
H
e has clearly done his homework. And as a second career for Stroud, it’s safe to say he enjoys doing it. In his former life, he was a commercial photographer for 25 years, much of which was spent photographing food — a serendipitous parallel of what was to come. “As I was reading about [becoming a cheesemonger] I did find things that, at the time, I could correlate what cheesemakers were doing in their cheesemaking room … with what I used to do in the darkroom. You kind of have to be willing to accept that not everything is gonna be exactly the same every time you make it and live with those differences.”
A few recommended pairings: A washed-rind cheese (the stinky kind) with a crisp beer (“Something with some hops to it maybe. Not as dense as one of the Belgian ales, but an IPA or a really crisp Pilsner is tremendous with this style of cheese.”); bleu cheese with sweet dessert wine, such as Sauternes; and “Parmigiano-Reggiano with Champagne is pretty freaking hard to beat.” THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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FOOD & BEVERAGE
T H E
D R I N K E R ’ S
G U I D E
T O
Nashville Story by Jess Graves Photography by Jamie Clayton
N
obody ever really teaches you how to drink. It is, like anything, trial and error. Some people manage alright, some don’t. Then, there are those inexplicable souls who can toss enough alcohol down their gullet to immobilize Shaq while somehow managing to remain not only upright, but downright likable. Jamie Clayton, my Nashville, Tenn., source, photographer and partner in crime, is one such soul. I am not. Despite being a mediocre drinker (at best), I still like it, because I am neither interested in rationality nor mediocrity, and I take the pleasure of drinking seriously. So I needed an expert by my side, one who could cull from the colossus of the city bar scene with the expert aplomb only a well-hydrated local could provide. In plain language, I needed to tear ass through Nashville, and Jamie was the man for the job.
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8 : 0 0 P. M . 9 : 4 5 P. M . 1 1 : 0 0 P. M . 12:00 A.M. 1:30 A.M.
“Nothing Camparis 2 U.”
8 : 0 0 P. M .
R O L F A N D D A U G H T E R S 700 Taylor St. (Germantown) rolfanddaughters.com Our taste buds fresh, our bellies empty and our composure intact, we logically choose this as our first stop of the night. At a glance, Rolf and Daughters is a lot like the other fancy cocktail joints popping up across the country. All your basic stuff is in place: hipster bartenders with intimidating facial hair, house-made bitters, artisanal light bulbs, a nerd-like passion for craft beverages bordering on obsessive. We sit at the bar and map out our game plan: drink as much as possible and eat intermittently to prevent maximum drunkenness. Seems simple enough. I glance at the menu — the cocktail names, of course, are twee and clever. Jamie has a “Nothing Camparis 2 U”; I order a “Deep Pimmside.” We get a passionate dissertation on, and tasting of, their in-house vermouths (delicious) from a barman named Brice with more ink than The Sunday Times. This is a nice joint. It’s not trying too hard and neither is the crowd, which varies from mom and dad on date night to expensive-looking 20-somethings. There’s no curtain being pulled back, no manufactured sense of exclusivity. Just good drinks in an intimate, high-end atmosphere.
9 : 4 5 P. M .
T H E S T O N E
F O X
712 51st Ave. N. (The Nations) thestonefoxnashville.com As we ambled up to The Stone Fox, a girl approaches to tell a long and winding tale about how she scrapped with her girlfriend and got herself punched and booted from the bar. She needs some scratch to get home. Jamie and I raise our eyebrows. Hard pass. Hasn’t she ever heard of Uber? We are heartless. Once inside, I immediately land on the “Babs on a Budget,” because I suddenly really need to know what PBR, St. Germain and grapefruit juice taste like together. Pretty good, as it turns out. (Good enough that I procured the ingredients and have been making this drink at home ever since.) Jamie goes up to the bar to retrieve our second round and ends up in a conversation with Brendan Benson, whom he recognizes from The Raconteurs, a band Benson plays in with Jack White. As it turns out, he’s there to watch the band playing that night, Earl Burrows, whose record he is producing. Oh, Nashville. They call you Music City for a reason, don’t they?
“Babs on a Budget”: PBR, St. Germain and grapefruit juice.
“Deep Pimmside” from Rolf and Daughters.
1 1 : 0 0 P. M .
P I N E W O O D S O C I A L 33 Peabody St. (SoBro) pinewoodsocial.com Green Chartreuse is the new mezcal, which was at one point the new Fernet-Branca, which itself was at some point the new something … Translation: trendy as hell. Also trendy: Pinewood Social. Being a high-minded, non-hipster semi-grownup though, I like to think I look past the current heat factor of a particular spirit in light of whether I actually like it or not. I like Green Chartreuse. Here at Pinewood, we are given a very Green Chartreuse-y beverage dubbed, naturally, the “Chartreuse Swizzle.” It’s radical. Pinewood is also radical. Off to one side there are people eating a proper dinner, but in the back people are bowling. Then off to the other side some people are studying, and in the middle there’s a big ass bar. I’m glad a bar/ bowling alley where you can study did not exist when I was in college; I would have accomplished zero.
12:00 A.M.
S A N T A ’ S P U B 2225 Bransford Ave. (Berry Hill) santaspub.com Well, that’s it. I’m done. I am forever ruined on bars, because nothing could ever be as great as Santa’s. This is a karaoke bar in a graffiti’d double-wide trailer that is completely bedecked in tacky Christmas décor, despite the fact that it’s mid-February. I am greeted by Santa’s nephew. Santa, as it turns out, is real. “What do you drink here?” I ask. “Santa likes Coors Light,” he says. My mountains are blue and cold, but my heart is warm. There is a very drunk girl singing a surprisingly still-decent version of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know,” but this is Nashville, a place where (according to television) everyone is able to pick up a guitar and burst into song anywhere, anytime. Jamie’s next up on the mic. He completely botches ’90s-era trio Next’s “Too Close,” so maybe not everyone in Nashville is musical. The crowd loves him anyway. I’ve heard stories of everyone from Ed Sheeran to Bubba Sparxxx showing up for a round of karaoke, which leads me to believe they must be nice people, because Santa has clearly marked signage that says “NO DOUCHEBAGS.”
1:30 A.M.
D I N O ’ S 411 Gallatin Ave. (East Nashville) dinosnashville.com We have done it; we have accomplished peak drunkenness. Our final resting place? A diner called Dino’s, which proclaims it is the oldest bar in East Nashville. We both order hamburgers and fries and watch as the line cook flips patties on the griddle in front of us. My final beer of the night is a Shiner Bock on tap served in a Solo cup, a red that matches the plastic basket our late-night chow is laid out in before us. Total Recall is playing on the TV inside, and I chew while I watch Arnold Schwarzenegger dream about moving to Mars. A pixie girl with a buzz cut flutters up to Jamie and begins to flirt voraciously. I’m completely tuckered out. As he puts me in a car home, he spins on his heel to follow the pixie into the night. For the real soldier here, the evening march is far from over. THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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Silk Floral Shirt, $248, EQUIPMENT, at Neiman Marcus. Pleated Skirt, $895, MICHAEL KORS, at Saks Fifth Avenue. On clothesline: Floral Top, $278, and Silk Shorts, $188, both JOIE, both at Neiman Marcus. Lace Bra, $418, and Underwear, $204, both LA PERLA, both at La Perla.
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Photography by DAVID RAMS | Styling by HANNAH JOHNSON Hair by JAIME TERLECKI and RACHEL JENNETTE DABREU for b. You Salon | Makeup by ERICA BOGART | Models: KAREN
POWELL for Ursula Wiedmann Models and CHARLZ CHALMERS for Directions U.S.A. | Prop Styling by TIAN JUSTMAN Photography Assistant: MAX RAMS | Fashion Assistant: CASSIE KAYE | All Jewelry by REGINA-ANDREW | All Dishware amd Table Linens from KATHRYN LEACH HOME
Lace Bra, $418, Underwear, $264, and Silk Robe, $1,044, all LA PERLA, all at La Perla.
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Floral Applique Dress, $495, REBECCA TAYLOR, at Saks Fifth Avenue.
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Floral Shirt, $470, and Jeans, $525, both ETRO, both at Saks Fifth Avenue.
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Swimsuit, $848, LA PERLA, at La Perla. Straw Hat, $400, EUGENIA KIM, at Saks Fifth Avenue. Sunglasses, Stylist’s Own.
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Swim Short, $168, LA PERLA, at La Perla. Sunglasses, Stylist’s Own.
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On him: Woven Cashmere Blazer, $2,895, ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA, Plaid Shirt, $178, PETER MILLAR, and Jeans, $195, THEORY, all at Neiman Marcus. On her: Lace Dress, $495, BCBGMAXAZRIA, at Saks Fifth Avenue.
On him: Floral Jacket, $1,580, and Polka Dot Shirt, $370, both ETRO, and Plaid Pants, $198, SAKS FIFTH AVENUE, all at Saks Fifth Avenue. On her: Floral Silk Romper, $425, HAUTE HIPPIE, at Neiman Marcus. Sequin Jacket, $1,098, ALICE + OLIVIA, at Saks Fifth Avenue. Silver Heels, Stylist’s Own.
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ART & DESIGN
A built-in grill and tiki torches line the columned corridor on the outside. On the inside, there is a gym, game room and infrared spa.
SHOWSTOPPER A peek inside a Buckhead mansion that combines modern Mediterranean architecture and Hollywood glamour. Story by MEGHAN JACKSON Photography by AMANDA GREENE
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erched at the top of a winding driveway in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood, a 22,000-square-foot abode rests poised as if nestled in the Hollywood Hills. Immediately upon entering the home you can see directly over the fountain into the foyer, through the broad door frames and out the wall of windows that dominates the living room, exposing the expansive backyard patio, pool and tennis court. It’s nothing short of mesmerizing, perhaps even overwhelming. It’s like being on the set of a movie — a feeling that’s only accentuated when a remarkably petite woman with golden blond hair, Carrla Goldstein, shows me into her kitchen. “I like that from the front door you can just see all the way back through … The whole idea was kind of indoor-outdoor,” Goldstein explains. She’s just shy of 5 feet in platform heels, and an Australian shepherd dutifully follows her around the house — it’s his palace to roam. Another smaller dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, later saunters out of the master bedroom from his afternoon nap. The two of them have learned to navigate around the built-in fountain and live palm trees that festively decorate the living room. And as it turns out, the five-bedroom, 11-bath home has been used as a set for several movies, television shows and photo shoots. It’s easy to see why. Ceilings as high as 36 feet at some points, with massive crystal chandeliers and balconies off every
room, lay the framework for crisp and clean designs with an overall Mediterranean vibe — as evidenced in the colors, materials and architecture, helmed by architect Haitham Haddad. While it’s certainly not shocking that Hollywood, or more appropriately “Y’allywood,” has made its way into the mansion, it doesn’t need any movie magic. There are dazzling surprises hidden throughout the estate: a book in the library that opens a secret door to the master bedroom, curtains hiding artwork, French doors that open to an outdoor shower, designs in the ceilings and elaborate tile art in every nook. Oh, and there’s the basement, which hosts a full-size bowling lane and retro-styled bar. The Goldsteins, who previously lived just a half mile away, made the decision to purchase the property within a week of seeing a for-sale sign. However, with plans to tear down the existing house and start from scratch, it was a long road to their palace on top of the hill. “I want to say [it took] four years. It was a very long project. We had issues. I guess you always do ... We ended up building it, the last bit, by ourselves with the onsite manager and [our interior designer] Tamara [Bickley]. It was crazy.” But a crazy process only makes the end result that much sweeter, and they couldn’t appear more pleased with the outcome. “Our old home was very traditional and we didn’t want stark modern, so it kind of, to me, is just clean and simple. And then just tons of pictures,” Goldstein shares.
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The dining room is white and modern with table and chairs by Fendi..
The overhead view of the living room reveals tropical inspiration: “We looked at a lot of stuff from South Florida.” -Goldstein
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The library boasts an indoor fireplace, 36-foot ceiling and massive crystal chandelier.
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The master bedroom has French doors on the side that open directly to the pool, while the doorways behind the bed lead into the bathroom — complete with an outdoor shower, vanity and his-and-her closets.
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The full-size bowling lane in the basement.
“[It’s] Ozzy Osbourne, Paris Hilton — she looks funny — Reagan, Pam Anderson and Mick Jagger. And my husband.” -Goldstein
Tile art and mod hanging chairs behind the bowling lane.
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ART & DESIGN
TRUE NORTH IN
Nashville Story by MEGHAN JACKSON | Photography by BROOKE MORGAN
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A Tennessee home’s classic architecture is revitalized to create a luxuriously comfortable family farmhouse.
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hey say that Rome wasn’t built in a day. But when Toni and Jim Turner stepped inside their fully adorned Nashville, Tenn., retreat for the first time, they felt as though maybe it was. “We came back and the home was just turnkey ready. He had hung every picture, every accessory. He just did it all. It was amazing! It was a wonderful feeling,” Toni reminisces. While it may have felt as though things came together at a snap of the fingers for the Turners, that wasn’t the case for the “he” Toni is referring to: Mr. Roger Higgins of R. Higgins Interiors. It was through much collaboration and deliberate planning that he turned the Nashville farmhouse from simply a beautiful work of architecture to a comfortable family chateau. “It was an absolutely picturesque piece of property with a beautiful, classic, Southern-style house on it,” Higgins explains. “And [the Turners] … I believe, wanted to sort of expand on the gracious comfort of it … So I immediately went to a more traditional Southern aesthetic, but I didn’t want it to appear dowdy. I wanted it to appear like a family lived there. So that was my approach.”
While Higgins did have free reign over this particular project, he gathered a wealth of information from the Turners before proceeding with the décor. “He had us go through magazines and tear out pictures of things we liked; things that we wanted to see in our home. And we talked about how we wanted our home to be comfortable, not feel formal,” Toni says of the process. The house serves as an escape for the couple from their primary home in Florida. “When you have a home in Florida, everybody visits you there, so we needed a place to get away to by ourselves,” Toni jokes. And in the end, Higgins’ beautifully curated touch gave them just the haven away from the coast they were looking for; their very own “True North,” as the house is titled. “It came out of the movie Meet the Parents when Robert De Niro talks about how sometimes you have to find your north on your compass. You have to regroup; things get hectic and kind of crazy and it’s just nice to get back to your true north again. So this farm represents that for our family,” Toni says with sincerity.
“[Landscape architect, Gavin Duke] and I ... ganged up on Toni one day and made her paint the house. It was red brick … She allowed us to do that, which I think just softened it a little bit and made it a little quieter because it was very big and architecturally strong and ... the contrast was huge.” -Higgins THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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“I am a sketcher … I get all sorts of information from the client about how they see themselves using this and that and what they are hoping to get in the end process. So I do sketches of how I see it looking based on the floor plan that I come up with and how they want to use the space.” -Higgins
“We appreciate the way the home has come together. It makes us comfortable in every room. We spend a portion of the day in pretty much every room, whether it’s that front den to read the paper with the sunlight coming in, or the beautiful screened porch — we just enjoy everything.” -Toni
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“I was going for a traditional Southern aesthetic, but I didn’t want it to appear too heavy and too overwhelming, so I tried to stay away from the Southern Victorian thing and went more toward a English country idea.” -Higgins
“There was a wine cellar that was sort of just barely there … Toni said, ‘Can we make this sort of look more like a destination rather than just an afterthought?’ I bought those ends of those barrels and hung them to make them look like kegs built into the wall ... and put some chairs and seating down there so they could go down and open a bottle of wine or have a tasting.” -Higgins
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ART & DESIGN
Interior of a Learjet 60 XR. Photo courtesy Bombardier Inc.
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HIGH-FLYING
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onference tables with space for six (or more), master bedrooms with king-sized beds, charging stations at every seat, domed ceilings that change color to mimic the time of day — the world’s elite certainly know how to travel in style, and design mavens clearly manage to bring their interior ideas to life. Whether working on a “green” plane (one containing a cockpit and an otherwise bare interior) or giving jet “facelifts,” interior designers meld a client’s desires with the safety requirements of an aircraft that has the capability to fly just under the speed of sound. After speaking with Charlotte, N.C., interior designer Amy Vermillion, we got a glimpse of just how much goes into the design of private jets. Here are five things we didn’t know:
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1. It’s not a job for your average interior designer. “I do everything from sitting in on avionics meetings and determining how the flight attendants want the galley laid out to designing seating and selecting wood veneers for cabinets,” explains Vermillion. Suffice it to say, her job goes beyond mere decoration. Although it, of course, means keeping the client happy, it also means keeping them safe. “I never have to think about g-force when designing upholstery for a home, but the possibility of a crash is exactly what we have to plan for when looking at [airplane] seat design.” Ease of evacuation, a furniture layout that doesn’t impede the traffic path of the crew and how quickly fabrics may melt are all things that have to be considered with each jet interior, beyond basic needs like maintenance and comfort. 2. The interior is totally customizable. As long as every item onboard meets the Federal Aviation Administration requirements for flammability, the sky’s the limit, as they say. Textiles (treated with a flame-resistant finish, of course), layout and décor are all completely up to the cli-
ent (as much or as little as they’d like) and are usually decided upon based on what the plane is used for. Is it for a CEO traveling on weekly international flights for business who needs a functional office on board? Or is it for a celebrity who plans on taking one-day trips to tote around their entourage and wants a sound system installed throughout the cabin? The Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban, for example, refitted his Boeing 767-277 with specially made seats that could accommodate the height of the tallest players on his NBA team. Bill Gates’ jet can make it nonstop from Tokyo to New York and Donald Trump’s $100 million dollar aircraft dons Waterford crystal lamps and personal TV screens for every seat. 3. Well, almost totally customizable. Even the rich and famous have some limitations, like gravity. “Every pound that gets put on the aircraft costs more money in fuel,” Vermillion explains. “The key is to make everything feel sturdy and look beautiful, but actually be lightweight.” Which comes into play for things like china, glassware, custom bars and solid gold appliances.
The private bathroom inside a Learjet 60 XR. Photo courtesy Bombardier Inc.
“The key is to make everything feel sturdy and look beautiful, but actually be lightweight.”
The Challenger 605 typically hosts 11-12 passengers and costs $27 million. Photo courtesy Bombardier Inc.
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Photo courtesy Amy Vermillion Interiors / Chris Edwards Photography
4. They bring a new meaning to the words first class. While any spot on most of these jets would be an upgrade to seating on your standard commercial flights, even the best of the best seats get prioritized. “The VIP seat is chosen by the owner of the jet wherever he or she likes to sit the most,” Vermillion says. Typically, the VIP seat is forward-facing in the very front of the plane or located in the back with a little more privacy. From here, all of the main controls are accessible.
5. There’s no previously scheduled inflight movie. However, there are often cameras filming outside the plane. “A lot of the higher-end jets now have cameras mounted on the tail, belly and front of the plane,” says Vermillion. “So you can see where you’re landing, taking off from or just have a fun view in-flight.” And if the passenger would rather not see the world around them, they can distract themselves with mounted flat screens and the host’s collection of movies and shows in a plush lounge chair — without the worry of making enemies by reclining their seat. The Challenger 850 is a business jet that has options for executive club seating arrangements and an airborne office. Photo courtesy Bombardier Inc.
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A L L AB O U T
A NNA Story by EMILY L. FOLEY
ACTRESS AND ULTIMATE SOUTHERN GAL, ANNA CAMP, GETS REAL ABOUT HOLLYWOOD, FAME AND PAVING HER OWN PATH
Photography by ALEX MARTINEZ | Styling by JABE MABREY | Makeup by FABIOLA for NARS at traceymattingly.com | Hair by BOBBY ELIOT using NEXXUS at tmg-la.com | Photo Assistant: RANAE Shot on location at the W Los Angeles - West Beverly Hills hotel in Los Angeles.
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ca-scuse me? You haven’t seen the musical comedy Pitch Perfect? Not only is that a grievous situation that needs to be remedied — and quickly — but it also puts you in a fairly miniscule group of people. The 2012 sleeper hit focuses on the highs and lows of an all-girls collegiate a cappella group, and became a cultural phenomenon thanks to its offbeat humor, witty dialogue and catchy soundtrack. The film also put actress Anna Camp on the proverbial map. Despite turns in HBO’s “True Blood,” the first season of “The Mindy Project” and Season 4 of “Mad Men,” it was Camp’s portrayal of the uptight and fiercely competitive Aubrey Posen in Pitch Perfect that has given her the facial recognition members of Hollywood both covet and loathe. (Of course, the Southern-bred Camp is all class when it comes to being approached in public.) “There was never a doubt in my mind that I could deliver those ‘aca-isms’,” laughs Camp about the film’s signature vernacular of adding the prefix of the word ‘a cappella’ to other words (see: aca-awesome, aca-awkward and the ever-popular acascuse me). And while Camp could have never predicted that the film would get a sequel (“I knew after I read the script this was different, and everyone was so perfectly cast that no matter what happened with the public reaction, it would always be something magical to me.”), she got to revisit the franchise and Aubrey this summer in Pitch Perfect 2. “It’s a great thing when you’re an actor to get to live with a character you love multiple times,” she says. “My
character on ‘True Blood’ was picked up after several seasons off, so you get to see how you’ve grown and how you approach the character. And with Aubrey, I got to see how she has changed, and it’s such a blessing as an actor to do that.” That growth wasn’t reserved solely for the character, but was something Camp, as an actress, also got to experience. “I got to improvise a lot more in the second film,” Camp explains. “In the first one, I was the stick-in-themud who was very grounded … But in the second one, Liz (director Elizabeth Banks) gave me lots of freedom. There is a camp scene where I was giving orders, and I was able to riff and do all sorts of things. It was vaguely reminiscent of Parker Posey in Dazed and Confused and really, really fun.” Those fun moments at work put life in perspective for the 32-year-old South Carolina native. “I know plenty of people in their 30s who don’t know what they want to do, and I feel very lucky that I am literally living my dream,” she says. But living your dream doesn’t mean an easy path, and anyone who has set their sights on Hollywood knows how challenging the industry can be. “There are so few good roles for women, so it’s a real competition to get those good parts,” Camp explains. “There’s a lot of rejection, so you have to love the chase of getting the role. If you don’t love the chase, you’re in the wrong business.” Camp shares that while the competition exists across the board, it is magnified dramatically for women, explaining that for every one script she reads featuring a complex, interesting female character, the next five feature women who are merely sex objects or “there to service the men, who are the main characters.”
Previous page: Jumpsuit, $368, ALICE + OLIVIA, and Vest, $1,030, ISABEL MARANT, both at Neiman Marcus. Gold Quartz Fishtail Belt, $278, Jimmie Double Heart Mixed Stone Bracelet, $218, and Mixed Stone Trio Bracelet, $88, all BILLIE HILLIARD, all at billiehilliard.com. Diamond Studs, stylist’s own. Right: Floral Print Dress, $2,950, GIAMBATTISTA VALLI, at Saks Fifth Avenue. Rose Gold, White Onyx and Ruby Earrings, price upon request, and Bracelets, price upon request, both LISA STEIN, both at Tassels Jewelry.
“THERE ARE SO FEW GOOD ROLES FOR WOMEN, SO IT’S A REAL COMPETITION TO GET THOSE GOOD PARTS,”
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Above: Sleeveless Linen Dress, $3,790, VALENTINO, at Valentino. Mint Cutout Tote, $385, VERY FINE SOUTH, at veryďŹ nesouth.com. Rose Gold and Diamond Earrings, price upon request, LISA STEIN, at Tassels Jewelry. Right: Floral Maxi Dress, $3,145, ETRO, at Neiman Marcus. Gold and Diamond Earrings, price upon request, LISA STEIN, at Tassels Jewelry.
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ortunately, Camp isn’t one to take adversity lying down. She’s recently stepped into the role of producer for the first time, because if you can’t find roles you want, why not create them yourself? “I just optioned a book with powerful female roles, and now I’m searching for a female writer and female director,” she says. “It’s really important to me to cast and work with women, so I [love that] by producing, I can create my own projects. I don’t want to be a slave to my agents calling me. I want to create my own work. I want to see more great roles for women.” But don’t think creating female jobs is enough to keep Camp occupied. She confesses, “I’m a workaholic. I come from a hardworking family and I want to always be doing something.” So while she works on her pet project, she’ll also be heading to Tennessee to shoot another film, doing reshoots of an independent film she recently wrapped (“I find that independent films have meatier roles for women, typically.”) and pitching a television show project. “All in a day’s work,” as they say. “I like to have my eggs in a million baskets or I feel like I’m being lazy,” she laughs. Born and raised in Aiken, S.C. (where her parents still live and she still returns to visit when she goes “home”), Camp has that “Steel Magnolia” gene running deep. “I’m very proud of being from the South, and I think it helped make me a genuinely nice person,” she says. As for the “steel” part of the equation, it was her traditional Southern upbringing and constant support of her parents that taught her to never give up. “My parents supported me in all my acting classes and would drive me around after school and wait in parking lots for hours until rehearsals or auditions were over,” she shares. The
next step was earning a degree from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where she studied acting in depth and learned to speak in standard English, which explains her lack of a regional accent (“The twang still comes out from time to time,” she laughs). Of course, growing up in the South has also seeped into Camp’s closet and kitchen. “I can’t walk past a sundress I don’t fall in love with,” she laughs. “My mom was very Southern and only wore skirts and dresses, and raised me to be a very ladylike and feminine person — and I never want to lose that!” Her signature dishes are also decidedly Southern. “I make a really good bread pudding that is a Paula Deen recipe and uses Krispy Kreme doughnuts as the bread, and I serve it with pecan praline. People freak out for it,” she says. “I also make a supremely Southern chicken where I actually crush up barbecue-flavored potato chips and bread the chicken with that!” “I MAKE A REALLY GOOD BREAD PUDDING THAT IS A PAULA DEEN RECIPE AND USES KRISPY KREME DOUGHNUTS AS THE BREAD, AND I SERVE IT WITH PECAN PRALINE. PEOPLE FREAK OUT FOR IT” Luckily, Camp currently has someone to help with the taste testing. She and her boyfriend, fellow actor Skylar Astin, met while filming Pitch Perfect in 2012, and appeared publicly together for the first time the following summer. Now, the couple can often be seen walking red carpets together, and Astin, in particular, is quite fond of offering up ro-
mantic photos and sentiments to Camp via his Instagram account. Camp tells us she’s “very fortunate to have a very loving relationship,” and often refers to Astin as her best friend (Astin seems partial to the term “soul mate” when referring to Camp on social media). As for those she looks up to in the industry, she shares: “I’m a big fan of Naomi Watts. I think she’s an incredible actress, and I love the choices she makes. I’m also the biggest Kate Winslet fan. Her naturalism and strength are something to be admired in an actor, and they’re both strong women who are themselves and who take on incredibly great roles and seem to be fearless. I admire the work of fearless actresses.” It should be no surprise that a woman who demonstrates her own courage in her career would admire the greats who have similarly gone before her. Camp made her Broadway debut in 2008 in “A Country House,” and that same year she played alongside a much-buzzed about Daniel Radcliffe in the revival of the show “Equus.” And while much noise was made in the media about Radcliffe’s nudity, it was Camp who appeared alongside him in those nude scenes. A feat she says she would never have done for a film, but was willing to tackle for such a significant role and worthy show. Earlier this year, she made her way back to the stage in the off-Broadway production of “Verite.” “I didn’t exactly plan to always go back to the stage, but I was aching to do a play, and when I read the script for ‘Verite,’ I thought ‘Man, I want to do this.’ It was a really fascinating journey for the lead character, and I wanted to become a better actor and being on stage is always the biggest challenge,” she explains. “You are really living a life in front of people for two hours, and it takes a lot of focus and energy and forces you to be so present. So while I don’t necessarily plan on always going back to live theater, if I see the right role, I will go fight for it.”
Left: Cream Sweater with Fringe Hem, $1,250, and Cream Pant, $1,200, both CELINE, both at Saks Fifth Avenue. Onyx and Pave Diamond Horn Necklace, $1,425, S. CARTER, and Sterling Silver and Diamond Wrap Bracelets, $2,100-2,500 each, LIZA BETH, all at Tassels Jewelry.
TRAVEL
FASHION ANATOMY: The Louis Vuitton Trunk Defining the time-tested significance of the classic trunk.
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Story by CASSIE KAYE
he phrase “luxury travel” brings to mind images of private jet trips to Europe, leisurely laps in infinity pools and yacht parties complete with Champagne and caviar off the coasts of remote islands. But it hasn’t always. Recreational travel — because of the emergence of trains and steam-powered ships — was a concept that only began to emerge during the Industrial Revolution and the Victorian period. It was then (roughly 1840-1900) that European influence in the U.S. was revealed in full, especially in densely populated places like the South. This was a time when people weren’t exactly sure what it meant to be “American,” let alone upper class American. Those considered “old money” were particularly at a loss, but, as we’ve seen in other cultures during this time period (“Anna Karenina,” “War and Peace,” anyone?), when in doubt, act French! In a time when travel was becoming easier and more fashionable — voilà! (since we’re being French ...) — the appropriately named steamer trunk was born. Fortunately for roaming Southerners, Louis Vuitton had created the trunk for leisurely — and now luxury — travel. With its signature brown leather siding and classic company monogram, these trunks — originally created in 1858 — carry with them a sense of adventure and the memories of the far-off places they’ve traveled. And they’ve stood the test of time (as evidenced by their reemergence in miniature form in the fashion house’s fall 2015 runway show). A brief look into the history and details of these pieces — as explained by Lindsey Almquist, trunk expert and founder of LV Trunks, an online retailer specializing in the resale of antique and vintage Louis Vuitton trunks — proves their worth and worthiness of being referenced as one of the greatest luggage essentials of all time.
Tracing the Trunk At the time of its release, the company’s original trunk was the first of its kind to have a flat top and bottom for easier transport and increased stackability, with traveling by train and ship in mind. Although the shape may have caught the eyes of the first investors, it was the quality that helped the soon-to-be iconic trunks gain a cult-like following over the next 150 or so years.
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From the very first in gray Trianon canvas to today’s widely recognized LV Monogram canvas, the exteriors have undergone multiple transformations over time to prevent imitation. Louis Vuitton has also made several different styles of trunk, from a large steamer trunk to a portable wardrobe, a cabin trunk, a shoe locker, and a boot, shoe and hat trunk; each of them squared-off to fit nicely together — a necessity for early travel. Outside... Although canvas is the standard covering of today’s luggage, they can be made with nearly any material. According to Almquist, “Many special-order products use various leathers, such as calf, ostrich or crocodile, and they also have specialty trunks in materials like zinc or copper.” And if it’s canvas that’s used, it’s always treated to protect from
moisture damage (not even Southern humidity can crack these bad boys). The trunks are typically trimmed in iron or leather, although speciality materials can be used here as well. Rivets, locks and latches are also made in different metals, as determined by the price-level of the final product. “Trimmings are typically all brass, but a basic trunk may have a mixture of iron and brass pieces,” she says. ...and In Many trunks are equipped with various trays and drawers to help contain the items held within, and the model determines the number and type of each. A wardrobe trunk would come with hangers, drawers and various compartments, “such as baskets for hats and an executive desk for writing on the go, which would be more oriented for that purpose,” Almquist explains. A steamer trunk may just have removable trays that you can lay clothes on, and some may be totally empty with only webbing inside. A Trunk of Your Own Today, an authentic, antique or custom-order Louis Vuitton steamer trunk is worth as much as $50,000. Throughout the years, Louis Vuitton has made a number of special-order trunks for its favorite customers — like Ernest Hemingway, whose trunk was created shortly before his move to his famous Key West, Fla., home — and the company continues this tradition today. “Any of the older trunk models can still be special ordered through Louis Vuitton, and many are now being made using interesting and speciality materials,” Almquist says. People are constantly coming up with new uses for them, from creating storage space for electronic devices to designing humidors for cigars. “Anything you can dream up, they can do.” If it’s just a travel bag you’re looking for, Louis Vuitton offers multiple suitcase options, like the hardsided Alzer 75 or 80 models. Though buying a newer model suitcase or going for a vintage or custom-order trunk is like the difference between picking up a high-quality travel accessory and owning a piece of history.
“E.F.K.” Steamer Louis Vuitton, Circa 1930s $26,000 Photo courtesy LV Trunks.
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Travel Like a Southerner Story by HANNAH LENORE GRAY
Though a vacation itself promises to be restorative, the preparation for it can be anything but. A raging inner dialogue characterizes the act of stuffing a suitcase: Have I packed enough? Too much? Am I forgetting anything? The good news is that the situation can be easily remedied with this definitive collection of the best travel necessities the South has to offer. Whether it’s a trip to a locale domestic or abroad, these summer staples promise to add an air of Southern charm no matter the destination.
Marysia Bowery Swimsuit New York by way of Charleston, S.C. $317 The latest “it” swimwear designer, 2009 Charleston Fashion Week’s Emerging Designer: Southeast winner Maria Dobrzanska Reeves combines her love of fashion with her love of surfing and ballet to create suits that permit activity but retain style. Alternatively abstract in the most stylish sense, the Bowery one piece achieves the seemingly impossible feat of mixing sex appeal and comfort. marysiaswim.com
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Andover Trask Hatteras Bag Atlanta, Ga. $125 Classic stripes splashed across hand-woven cotton meet a roomy interior to create this nautical-chic bag from Andover Trask. andovertrask.com
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W Hunter Bell Bella Dress New York by way of Florence, S.C. $319 South Carolina native and 2013 winner of NBC’s “Fashion Star,” Hunter Bell knows how to design for summers in the South. With the on-trend mid-length hemline and classic nautical stripes — plus the versatility to be worn as casual daywear or for a polished night out — this dress will be your suitcase’s jack-of-all-trades. hunterbellnyc.com
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Sugarboo Designs Canvas Bag Roswell, Ga. $16 Available in 17 inspiring versions, this canvas and leather tote is grounded in community; Sugarboo Designs is a family-run, locally sourced company, ensuring integrity and transparency in all of their carefully curated stock. sugarboodesigns.com
Billie Hilliard Ahjah Bangle Trio Atlanta, Ga. $78 Artfully hammered and intentionally stackable, Billie Hilliard’s bangles are far from simple. The designer names each collection after family members for a reason (Ahjah, after her niece); the pieces are created with the intent to last a lifetime, making these bracelets a wearable heirloom. billiehilliard.com
Hannah Cross Ltd. Elephants Scarf Atlanta, Ga. $325 Scarves may be largely synonymous with cold weather, but this silk scarf is undeniably ideal for summer. Designer Hannah Cross’ current collection is inspired by traditional cultures — and this bright, billowy scarf adorned with colorful elephants exemplifies that perfectly. hannahcrossltd.com
Seraphine Design Tumbled African Pyrite and Raw Pyrite Necklace $325 Nashville, Tenn. Designer Brooke Seraphine’s designs are inspired by Mother Nature. She incorporates raw stones into every piece, like the pyrite in the necklace shown here — a symbol of action, vitality and will. seraphinedesign.com
AILA Cosmetics Nail Lacquer in Wheatgrass and I’m Naked! I’m Naked! Franklin, Tenn. $17 With ingredients such as soy, garlic and coconut oil replacing the likes of formaldehyde and camphor, choosing these polishes over others is an intelligent and stylish choice. All of Aila’s nail varnishes are vegan, paraben-free and gluten-free, saving nailbeds — and the earth — one coat at a time. loveaila.com
VALENTINE VALENTINE Pillar Jumpsuit Nashville, Tenn. $198 A twice-over “Project Runway” veteran and current Music City local, Amanda Valentine is consistent in her production of comfortable, chic pieces. Made of tencel gabardine, a light fabric with a brushed appearance, this jumpsuit is a multi-tasker. Capable of functioning as a base for layering or a striking stand-alone piece, the garment’s elements form an integral item for any suitcase. amandavalentine.com
Young Frankk Dotted Choker Richmond, Va. $106 Minimalism never looked so good. Dainty yet striking, this choker is handmade in designer Christine Young’s studio, ensuring its uniquity. Understated in its beauty and on-trend in its style, the piece is a complementary one, sure to enhance and augment any travel outfit. youngfrankk.com
Gigi Burris Millinery Gigi Burris x Lizzie Fortunado Cruise Fedora New York by way of Lakeland, Fla. $395 The word “fedora” has never described something quite this chic; not surprising considering it’s from CFDA-nominee Gigi Burris. Adorned with a colorfully threaded, sunstone quartz-studded band, this hat epitomizes summer and, better yet, will stylishly hide travel-frenzied hair. gigiburris.com
One Love Organics Essentials To Go Travel Kit St. Simons Island, Ga. $50 Not only are these products certifiably green (One Love Organics owns Georgia’s only manufacturing facility licensed by ECOCERT, one of the largest organic certification organizations in the world), they also come in an adorable and convenient bag. Each pouch includes perfect portions of the Easy Does It foaming cleanser, Brand New Day microderma scrub and masque, and Skin Savior multi-tasking balm. oneloveorganics.com
Very Fine South Circle Clutch Atlanta, Ga. $215 Composed of 100-percent buttery soft leather, this clutch is the latest from maker Laura Shope’s line. Imagined with functionality in mind, it’s malleable and adaptable, ensuring quality without forfeiting style. veryfinesouth.com
Hayden Lasher Jules the Belgian Bag New York by way of Houston, Texas $1,500 As the great-grandniece of Henri Bendel, Hayden Lasher is no stranger to the world of design. After stints at fashion houses such as Michael Kors and Oscar de la Renta, the handbag designer collaborated with Belgian Shoes to launch her very own collection. We’re fans of this artfully constructed handbag from the new line; classic in both silhouette and hue. haydenlasher.com
PurseN Tiara Jet-Setter Jewelry Case Atlanta, Ga. $66 This pretty yet practical case unzips to reveal a multitude of designated pouches designed to keep precious cargo safe and untangled — an absolute imperative when adventuring this summer. pursen.net
Red’s Outfitters Rigby Gold Atlanta, Ga. $170 Named after the Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby,” these shades were designed in Atlanta and handmade in Northern Italy. Gold metal frames and smoke gray Carl Zeiss optics lenses come together to ensure quality and style. redsoutfitters.com Abbey Glass Steph Halter Gown Atlanta, Ga. $800 All of Abbey Glass’ hand-dyed and made-to-order pieces result in universally admired ensembles that just happen to be locally constructed in Atlanta. The figure-flattering draping and cascading dip-dyed silk of this dress embrace the dreamy atmosphere of late summer nights. abbey-glass.com
Nisolo Serena Sandal in Pale Honey Nashville, Tenn. $98 Summer is incomplete without the perfect sandal, and with a complimentary color and hint of height, this pair kicks it up a notch. Plus, it’s from Nisolo, a brand with an ethos of quality and sustainability, so you know this shoe is built to last. nisolo.com THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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Hamilton Shirts The Floral Camp Houston, Texas $245 A family business four generations strong run by brother and sister duo David and Kelly Hamilton, Hamilton Shirts has been in business since 1883, and each shirt, like the one shown here, is hand-cut and sewn on site in the Hamilton’s Houston workspace. hamiltonshirts.com
Emil Erwin Leather Cuff Nashville, Tenn. $25 Simple in its ruggedness, this wide, leather cuff adds dimension in the most masculine way. The handmade accessory is the product of a family business with its name rooted in the designer’s Appalachian hometown of Erwin, Tenn. emilerwin.com
Small Keys Smoked Amber Triple C Beer Soap Charlotte, N.C. $5 each or $20 for five Consisting only of fair-trade ingredients and leaving an aroma of hoppy earth notes, this bar of soap is a must-have for the modern man. Maker Toni South prides herself in forgoing the use of toxic ingredients in her all-natural products. tonisouth.com
79 Ashley Jimbo in Alligator Charleston, S.C $2,995 A company inspired by history but determined to maintain a modern aesthetic, 79 Ashley is known for its quality leather goods. Designed in Charleston, S.C. and handmade in Massachusetts, it will hold everything you need for a weekend adventure. 79ashley.com Sid Mashburn Sid-Length Swim Short Atlanta, Ga. $150 Summer can hardly be enjoyed without a decent pair of swim trunks, and the esteemed Mashburn brand delivers once again with this stylish and functional set. Wearable as both casual daytime shorts and a water-ready suit, there’s no excuse not to don these trunks all summer long. sidmashburn.com
Southern Proper Club Short Atlanta, Ga. $79.50 With a 7-inch inseam and soft, breathable cotton, these shorts are part of the company’s intention to cater to the preppy and active Southerner. southernproper.com
Noah Marion Quality Goods Passport Carrier Austin, Texas $100 and up This multifunctional cover fits a passport, credit cards and cash all in one sacred space. Made with vegetable-tanned leather, the product itself is worth keeping track of. It’s untreated, too, like all of Noah Marion’s goods, allowing for each piece to gain character as it ages. Bonus: It’s monogrammable for added safety and personalization. noahmarion.com
Southern Proper Beach Towel Atlanta, Ga. $45 Prep and wit can coexist. This oversized, 100-percent cotton towel is the epitome of Southern Proper — a brand that began with the intention of reflecting and emulating the classic “Southern gentlemen” while retaining the humor of the South’s ever-evolving culture. southernproper.com
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Bayou Boratoria in Lafitte, La. Photo by Anne McGonigle.
Two writers share their own, unique experience of a weekend in New Orleans. Because it’s not always about the town itself, it’s about the person who goes there.
St. Louis Cathedral. Photo by Cynthia Houchin.
Where the Black Trees Grow Story by CYNTHIA HOUCHIN
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t was only my second trip to New Orleans’ oldest neighborhood, Vieux Carré, in over a decade. I arrived in the flurry of the French Quarter as the city scrambled to make way for the Krewe du Vieux parade, kicking off a two-week sprint toward Fat Tuesday. After a quick hotel check-in, my friends and I eagerly set out for Royal Street as merrymakers emerged from the woodwork, multiplying as they lined the sidewalks. We escaped the crowd through a side alley gate and up a grand, arched staircase where a friend had offered up keys to a crown jewel: an apartment with a balcony overlooking the parade route. Glittering in the sunshine, purple, gold and emerald beads streamed from the balcony’s wrought-iron railing, and distant drums steadily built our anticipation. Rather than relying on the Parade Tracker app, with a cold beverage in one hand and king cake in the other, it seemed fitting to simply wait for the rising wave of revelry to hit. The Krewe du Vieux came parading through the Quarter. Nothing is safe from their bawdy political satire. In 2006, they were the first to march post-Katrina with the theme “C’est Levee.” This year, in keeping with the softer “Begs for Change” theme, pun-inspired floats like “50 States of Gay” and “Toke of the Town” rolled by, each in-
creasingly outrageous. Mule-drawn floats alternated with marchers on foot as howling horn players and costumed characters spilled along, tossing trinkets. Arms raised in unison for beads at every opportunity, and from our balcony throne, we benevolently tossed a few beers to the less fortunate below. As the last of the parade finally drifted past, we headed just a few blocks away to the jazz joint Little Gem Saloon on Rampart Street, originally opened in 1903. We slid into our reserved booth as bandleader Kermit Ruffins took the stage. Rather than sticking to traditional numbers, the band’s rousing set included a rendition of “I Gotta Feeling” by The Black Eyed Peas (a self-fulfilling prophecy for a good, good night), as well as crowd pleasers like “Iko Iko.” As the dance floor filled, the evening dissolved in a whirlwind of dancing, drinking and wandering well-worn streets first laid out in the early 18th century. The following morning, gathered in Jackson Square were the usual fortune tellers, tarot card readers, patiently waiting horse-drawn carriages and fast-talking artists hocking paintings. But it was the tolling church bells of St. Louis Cathedral that drew me in. I was delighted by a surprise recital on the towering second floor pipe organ that resounded beautifully throughout the church. THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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At brunch, the original Brennan’s restaurant radiated old-world elegance. The birthplace of bananas Foster, the rosy pink building dates back to 1795, designed by then-owner and architect Vincent Rillieux, great-grandfather to Edgar Degas. In the tranquil courtyard, a dozen turtles sunned themselves in the pond, blissfully unaware of those in the kitchen destined for turtle soup — prepared with brown butter spinach, grated egg and aged sherry. Soft scrambled duck eggs (with “smoked duck ham”) were a favorite at the table, along with the New Orleans barbecue lobster with Creole spiced butter, lemon confit and thyme. The next day, we were bound for the bayou, embarking on a high-speed swamp tour in Lafitte, La., 45 minutes outside New Orleans. At Airboat Adventures, a ghostly pale, pet albino alligator floated in a holding tank, watching us with blood-red eyes. Later, the airboat captain’s infinitely less sinister, pocket-sized baby gator perched calmly in my palm. I kept my eyes peeled though, after our guide good-naturedly recounted how he lost a finger to a wild ga-
tor on a particularly thrilling airboat tour; he “looked away at the wrong moment.” Brimming with bald cypress trees cascading with Spanish moss, the swamp had an otherworldly air to it. During our nearly twohour tour, we spotted gators, egrets and herons and even made a quick stop at the loneliest place on earth: Bayou Self. That night at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar — the oldest continually operating bar in the country and alleged former smuggling headquarters of the pirate himself — we lurked in the dim, shadowy tavern, plotting our next moves. During dinner at the French Market Restaurant (after a number of Bourbon Milk Punches), I dug into the deliciously spicy crab leg basket with such relish, my friends feared the loss of their own fingers. We made the obligatory Café Du Monde stop in the wee hours of the morning, where a spontaneous food fight raining powdered sugar erupted, but not before I devoured two beignets. My café au lait was the sweetest nightcap to fuel the dwindling hours of a long weekend in the Crescent City that somehow still wasn’t long enough.
Back on the Bayou Story by HAN VANCE
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porch covered with beads; rooster in the middle of the street; pink, blue and green duplexes, somewhere near Tremé around 8 a.m. A place called Phoenix across the parking lot of the Elysian Fields Megabus drop-off must be a gay bar, and it’s open. I haven’t been drinking for Lent, but the boozy Big Easy beckoned. My Cajun stepbrother in Athens, Ga., said he was too under the weather for company yesterday, so I spontaneously switched destinations and took an overnight double-decker from Midtown Atlanta to my former home state of Louisiana. An ex-girlfriend and I once drove here and immediately stepped out of her car into a gang fight, so I was happy to arrive after sunrise and get inside the relative safety of an establishment. For all its legitimate rebounded tourist hospitality and undeniable quirky charm, New Orleans is a markedly precarious city.
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Two $2 Dos Equis lagers later and I’m in the massive new black truck of executive chef Rob Vance [no relation] of The Ruby Slipper Café on my way to eat an award-winning breakfast in the Central Business District of this great, Southern city. There, I devour saucy fried chicken and eggs over biscuits and slug down local French Truck Coffee while chatting up some Los Angeles actors in town to film a TV show. Bloody marys are the solution, not the problem, and Rob told me The Slipper makes a mean one, so I imbibe. Any trip back down to the bayou usually includes one big drunk and subsequent hangover; I decide to get it over with early. Slipping from Canal Street and the cosmopolitan CBD into a semi-mandatory French Quarter stumble, around the first corner I run into a huge local guy named Nate buying drinks for profit for some preppy, underage college students.
Little Gem Saloon. Photo by Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee.
On the streets of New Orleans. Photo by Cynthia Houchin.
Baby alligator in Lafitte, La. Photo by Anne McGonigle.
My session begins on that block at The Alibi, where the bartender is wearing a Museum of Death T-shirt and pouring me a tall, citrus-flavored vodka soda as a local walks in saying to us, “I just got people out of my house from Mardi Gras.” “Did you get ’em vacated?” I ask. “You damn right,” he says. “You been down here for Mardi Gras before: people on the couch, the floor, the bathroom.” A short walk later, a voluptuous bartender known as “Echo Storm” makes an amazing liquored coffee at Pirate’s Alley Café and Absinthe House. A cute, older couple strolls in saying, “This muffuletta is too big … Who will share it with us?” I savor the olive tapenade of a quarter of their sandwich while they tell of their grandfathers fighting on opposite sides of the Spanish Civil War. They got married here 30 years ago. I cut through Royal Street quickly, mostly saving the epic art scene for later, but still have enough time to see a family of five busking for money to “We Are Family.” Catching my eye is the work of painter Kerry Stewart, displaying with permit by a government building, so I stop and visit with him. Walking this way and that with eyes wide open to the architecture of the old city, I pop into a tourist chain on Bourbon Street for a melon-flavored Hand Grenade at noon and marvel at their picture of Marlon Brando having one. When it detonates, I’m in a bit of a stupor walking through the haze of this former capital city of a Spanish territory, laughing to myself at the surreal day and taking pictures of street art. Then, blocks away at affable proprietor Jeff Taylor’s The Upper Quarter — the site has been a bar for over 150 years — I plop down next to another solo traveler, an Iowan I first saw in Pirate’s Alley. I’m toast, so this is mercifully my last brief stop before reconvening with chef Vance. He drives us for a beer at The Bulldog, where I decide it will be funny to dance on a table … The next day’s late lunch is at Rob’s favorite local spot out on the big lake, Lake Pontchartrain, where I shift into an intense food focus, washing an oyster po’boy and seafood gumbo down with Sprite at the aptly named New Orleans Food and Spirits. We chat about the restaurant biz, as Rob is set to open a fifth location in Pensacola,
Fla., then walk through a light drizzle down to the surprisingly oceanic lakefront. Rob’s wife, New Orleans radio personality Kat Vance, joins us for dinner at High Hat Cafe in the Freret Corridor near where they met. A local micro-green salad and traditional Sazerac set the stage for tasty culinary delights such as flat topcooked catfish, pimento macaroni and cheese, and boudin (a mild and savory rice sausage; my favorite Cajun cuisine) plated with homemade pickles and mustard. Rob quaffs his current consistent drink, Abita Amber, while Kat samples craft cocktails and art photographer Le Milford provides us top-flight service. I even gain introduction to the talented chef, Jeremy Wolgamott. Final morning, I’m back in The Ruby Slipper eating their top seller, Eggs Cochon, with a bloody mixed by a lady named Gina who is moving to Ireland for her husband to run a brewery. Loud, clamoring business types at a long table behind me enhance my headache, so I slide to my favorite place to stay in NOLA, the Hotel Monteleone. Their Carousel Bar & Lounge has been turning since 1949, and the hotel was famously frequented by huge literary figures such as Hemingway and Faulkner. Up Royal, art unfurls. Assistant Director Jill McGaughey graciously guides me through works by Françoise Gilot, an ex-lover of Picasso, at Vincent Mann Gallery. Cubs the Poet customs me a poem called “Impressing” on an old typewriter between gallery visits and through oft-present strains of street musicians bleeding noise into the atmosphere. Ten blocks up, I comfortably settle into a contemporary art scene with gallerist Taylor Lyon at Graphite Galleries. Sunshine comes in and is obscured behind afternoon clouds. I chat with local Richard Edgerly, deciding to end my day with a fresh Hurricane from the oldest bar in the U.S., Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar. That night, Rob, Kat and I indulge in mushroom cheeseburgers and baked potatoes at Port of Call on Esplanade Avenue. I carry a giant Neptune’s Monsoon rum drink from there with me, strolling Frenchmen Street and slowly sipping until it’s just too warm to finish, then board an 11 p.m. bus bound for Atlanta, and reality and the rest of Lent.
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Photography by ALEX MARTINEZ Styling by TIAN JUSTMAN | Hair and Makeup by KATIE BALLARD Model: ALYNN BABINSKI for Factor Women | Photography Assistant: RUBEN RODAS | Fashion Assistant: CASSIE KAYE
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Nude Bikini, price upon request, ROSA CHÁ, at Miz Scarlett’s. Blush Top, $225, HUNTER BELL, at hunterbellnyc.com. Silk Scarf (worn as sarong), $98, MARIDADI TRADING, at maridaditrading.com. Mini Urchin Necklace, $60, SHELTON METAL, at sheltonmetal.com.
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Floral Top, $253, and Gold Skirt, $242, both HUNTER BELL, both at hunterbellnyc.com. Bangles, $5 each, SHELTON METAL, at sheltonmetal.com. Shoes, stylist’s own.
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Sheer Top, $1,500, TASHIA, and Bikini, price upon request, ROSA CHÁ, both at Miz Scarlett's. Sunglasses, $95, WARBY PARKER, at warbyparker.com. Link Necklace, $98, SHELTON METAL, at sheltonmetal. com. Jimmie Cuff, $398, and Ahjah Cuff, $42, both BILLIE HILLIARD, both at billiehilliard.com. Earrings, stylist’s own.
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Cover-Up, price upon request, ETINCELLE COUTURE, at Miz Scarlett’s. Mini Urchin Necklace, $60, and Hoop Earrings, $48, both SHELTON METAL, both at sheltonmetal.com.
Nude Bikini, price upon request, ROSA CHÁ, at Miz Scarlett’s. Scarves (worn as headwrap and sarong), $98 each, MARIDADI TRADING, at maridaditrading.com. Mini Urchin Necklace, $60, and Earrings, $40, both SHELTON METAL, both at sheltonmetal. com.
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Swimsuit, price upon request, ROSA CHÁ, at Miz Scarlett’s. Link Necklace, $98, SHELTON METAL, at sheltonmetal.com.
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Pantsuit, $3,800, FAUST, at Miz Scarlett's.
Long Tie-Dye Dress, $432, ANNA TOTH, at bowandarrowapparel.com.
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Yellow Dress, $128, NATT TAYLOR, at natttaylor. com. Cross Necklace, $70, SHELTON METAL, at sheltonmetal.com. Sunglasses, $95, WARBY PARKER, at warbyparker.com. Shoes, stylist’s own.
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Short Tie-Dye Dress, $206, ANNA TOTH, at bowandarrowapparel. com. Green Stone Earrings, $48, and Green Double Stone Necklace, $58, both SHELTON METAL, both at sheltonmetal.com. Cuff, $198, BILLIE HILLIARD, at biliehilliard.com. Sneakers, stylist’s own.
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ENJOY THE MOMENT. a modern boutique hotel in hollywood, california. themomenthotel.com
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Little Palm Island Resort & Spa 28500 Overseas Hwy. Mile Marker 28.5 Little Torch Key, Fla. 33042
littlepalmisland.com
THE KEY TO L UXURY Privacy, opulence and one-of-a-kind experiences are found at the Florida Keys’ Little Palm Island.
Story by TOVA GELFOND
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feel like there’s something nibbling at the end of my cocktail glass. I ignore it. I’m lazily unfolded on a beach lounger 2 feet away from the waves like a freshly plucked oyster, shucked open and baking in the heat. There it is again — something pulling at the large orange wedge on my thick-rimmed rum drink. I open my eyes, drearily, while swatting it away, but it’s not a bug, or a pigeon … I see fur. I whip around and my glossy stunned look is mirrored by the big doe eyes of a deer. I thought it might run, or be startled by the fact that I’m a human (you’re supposed to be scared of me, right?), but it looked straight at me, clunked back toward my chair and proceeded to reach again for the orange. I held it in my hand, and she took it. More so, she stayed while I pet her; munching blissfully on the rind. Am I in a Disney movie? What in the world just happened? I come to find out that becoming BFFs with the Key deer down at Little Palm Island is not a hallucination. It’s not even unusual. They are ev-
erywhere: sleeping under the bungalows, moseying over to the docks, swimming onto the beach from other islands. Such surreal encounters with these majestic creatures are not just a reason why people come to this itty, luxe private island in the Florida Keys; it’s the reason they come back. Just 90 miles from Cuba and 30 miles off the coast of Key West, Little Palm Island Resort & Spa is 5 1/2 acres of paradise. The entire place features 30 suites by way of a mere 15 impeccably designed bungalows. That’s it. The only way on and off the island is by boat or seaplane. Privacy takes on a whole new meaning, luxury doesn’t seem elite enough and romantic doesn’t begin to describe it (though I, myself, enjoyed a girls’ trip). This didn’t strike me as a family getaway (though people have been known to rent the entire island to throw parties where kids might be invited), and it’s certainly not a spot you’ll run into spring breakers. It’s where CEOs and celebs go to get away — rumor has it, guests have included Nicolas Cage, Ryan Gosling, and Sandra Bullock — and the mere mortal goes to sample the opulent: to sleep, to eat, to spa and to do.
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To Sleep Ah, the rooms. There is a reason these digs have been on the Condé Nast Traveler’s “Gold list.” Each suite is like the little private-island home you wish you had. Highlights include the regal netting winged over four-poster beds, clawfoot tubs, glassframed showers, a cozy living room area and Instagram-worthy patio views. Depending on the suite of choice, each palatial space includes unique touches like classic French décor or British colonial; indoor hot tubs or a private outdoor fire pit. Around every suite corner, there is a hammock or lounge chair in which to hide away, and a path that leads you about the periphery. It’s hard to get lost, but very easy to lose yourself. To Eat There’s one dining room on the island — aptly named “The Dining Room” — with an ever-chang-
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ing menu that boasts noteworthy food (including a “best hotel dining” rating in Florida and No. 3 in the U.S. by Zagat), which could be why it’s not uncommon to see private yachts tied up on the dock for worldly travelers craving an impeccable meal created by the talented chef Roly Cruz-Taura. The “modern tropical” menu features a little bit of everything with an emphasis on fresh catch, rich starches and flavorful vegetables. There are a ton of French techniques in the dishes, made evident through the silky potato soup, but balanced with pan-Latin favorites like the snapper ceviche with passion fruit and coconut gelee. I recommend the Italian poached egg for breakfast with fresh mozzarella, grilled tomato and spicy pesto served on brioche. But if you’re into sampling the finest luxury breakfast, indulge in the caviar and Champagne omelet with Petrossian Paris caviar, crème fraîche, chives and a glass of Dom Pérignon (a breakfast
with a $125 price tag). And of course, you can’t leave without trying the Key lime pie. Right off the kitchen you’ll find a chef ’s table where Cruz-Taura personally attends to a group of up to eight lucky palates who enjoy a five-to-seven-course tasting menu sourced from his own genius ideas. Elsewhere on the island, if you’re craving light fare, the poolside bar can oblige with American tastes and treats like french fries (in regular, sweet potato or yuka, of course), sandwiches and chips and dip. But if you can save your appetite to dine via picnic on a catamaran cruise to the tune of French breads; saucisson sec and chorizo; pâté de foie gras; truffle butter; artisanal cheeses and preserves; lobster and shrimp spreads; marinated olives; spiced nuts; and pistachio biscotti, your taste buds will appreciate it. To Spa SpaTerre is a little reprieve from the daily activities on the island, and I recommend you go, and go often. The services include the usual splendors such as facials, manis, pedis, massages, couples’ treatments on the beach, wraps, scrubs and baths. All amazing, all luxurious (think spa rooms with chandeliers and outdoor tubs made from bamboo). I’ve traveled a lot, and it’s safe to say this Mai Pai Thai ritual is tied for the best spa treatment I have received to date (the other being a 14-karat gold 90-minute facial I received in Italy at Terme di Saturnia). It’s a passive stretching Thai massage that’s similar to having a masseuse yoga partner who helps you relax and move into every stretch. And after you feel more limber than the instructor at Bikram, you
get an exfoliating bamboo ginseng scrub that buffs away the dead skin while hydrating and stimulating your fresh, new layer. Finally, after a nice shower, you melt into a soaking tub infused with relaxation-inducing extracts and sprinkled with flower petals. I sipped hot tea for a short spa-lifetime in that tub and never wanted to leave. But when I did, an application of jasmine-scented lotion completed the “ritual,” and I was left softened, pampered, relaxed and wanting more. To Do If nothing else, snorkeling, snorkeling and more snorkeling. As if you needed a reason, Little Palm Island is right smack in the action of the third largest barrier reef in the world. Boats take guests out daily to submerge and swim among neon colors, shining fins and porous corals. In your non-snorkeling hours, there are kayaks, paddleboards, motorboats and fishing gear always at your disposal and private sailing or seaplane excursions at your every whim. And for the off hours, when you’re not on the go, but on the stay, the beach is ready-made for your every relaxation need by a team of eager staff to set up and take down your daily lounge area. For most of the guests, the heat of the day is spent beachside, cocktail in hand and Key deer at the ready. The only rule: no phones allowed. The only problem: you never want to go home.
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TRAVEL
Off the beaten path and off the ground along the Edisto River in South Carolina.
Story by MEGHAN JACKSON | Photography by LINDSAY APPEL
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t’s like a Third World country out here, without the airfare,” Anne Kennedy says, laughing. It may be a strong analogy, but her and her husband Scott’s canoe locale, Carolina Heritage Outfitters in Canadys, S.C., is located in true backwoods, almost an hour and a half from any metropolitan area. With no running water or electricity, campers are invited to visit the outfitters and explore the Edisto River whilst staying in one of the three tree houses located around 13 miles from the Kennedy’s downstream home.
As a swamp river system, the sides of the river flood when it rains. The tree houses, built in 1994, 2002 and 2006, were constructed to give the avid kayaking and canoeing couple a dry place off the ground to sleep during multi-day trips. And it’s no happenstance that the Kennedys set up shop on the Edisto. After 15 years of serving as the marina manager in charge of outdoor recreation at the Charleston Naval Station as well as president of the American Canoe Association, Scott had explored every river in South Carolina and many others outside of it during kayaking and canoe trips. Anne attributes Scott’s Edisto attraction to its unique features, like the entirely sandy bottom and the length — it’s the longest undammed blackwater river in South Carolina (both great conditions for canoeing). “It’s a great swimming river. It’s relatively shallow,” Anne describes. She talks about the river with reverence, referring to it as “our river.” Which seems perfectly acceptable considering she and Scott act as keepers of the river, making it accessible to other adventurous visitors, like photographer Lindsay Appel and Jeffrey Wall, executive chef of the notable Decatur, Ga., restaurant Kimball House. The Kennedys are more than a quick check-in and checkout to guests; visitors often return. “We’ve had a good time here with Lindsay on several occasions,” Anne remembers. The feeling is clearly mutual. Atlanta-based Appel and Wall have nothing but fond memories of their tree house getaway. “It’s fun to remember how to do everything. I think both of our families went camping a lot when we were kids,” Appel says, as she and Wall pore through their photos from the trip. The couple took their time getting to camp, basking in the warm weather, stopping to explore over 150 acres of land and forage for mushrooms. “We were basically considering it a reverse race,” Wall laughs, and Appel agrees. “They call that winning on the river! If you are the people who can reverse race and spend the most time out there.” They describe packing supplies, finding camp and surviving without power for a night without a hint of inconvenience, a feat that may come across as difficult for most people in a technologically dominated society. A gourmet meal made in a cast-iron skillet over a fire, it’s the obvious understated pleasure that the two of them found in doing things the old-fashioned way — the perfect fit for the type of people with whom the Kennedys are happy to share their rustic paradise. THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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The tree houses, built by the Kennedys and their friends and relatives, are made from local, rough-cut lumber. Each one sits around 35 feet off the ground.
“This is actually when we were pulling away from the shore to leave the next morning. It doesn’t look super tall, but it actually is pretty high up, so you feel like you’re in the trees.” -Appel
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The tree houses, while all located in the same vicinity, still offer unparalleled serenity to guests.
“They’re positioned in this really nice way where you don’t really interact with each other. You see each other when you’re canoeing down the river and you pass each other sometimes. But that’s really it.” -Appel
While foraging in the woods on the trip they found plenty of mushrooms. Though most were non-edible, they did get lucky and find a couple that Wall was familiar with: two varieties of the chanterelle, the yellowfoot and black trumpet.
“These are a really tiny version of chanterelle mushrooms, and you can always tell those because they smell like apricots. They were super good. We had roasted mushrooms with the duck that night.” -Wall
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“There’s no plumbing, there’s no electricity. This is a propane stove… There’s a little ladder [on the left] that you can climb up, and the sleeping loft is right there at the top.” -Appel The smallest of the three tree houses maintained by Carolina Heritage Outfitters sleeps two to four people and the largest sleeps five to eight.
“We were actually in one of the larger ones this time, which was awesome because we had a ton of space to move around and a huge sleeping loft. It was super warm during the day; we went swimming, and then at night it was just the perfect temperature. The windows are actually screens, so they’re open.” -Appel
Duck was the main course for dinner. Wall roasted it in a cast-iron skillet and then used the fat to roast the foraged mushrooms.
Appel attests to Wall’s skill, “[The duck fat] makes them amazing and then crispy, very crispy. Then [he] roasted a leek and a sweet potato in the fire.”
Ingredients: peppers, sunchokes, carrots, russet potatoes, sweet potatoes, fresh bay leaves and thyme.
When asked about the challenges of preparing a five-star meal in the middle of a camping trip, Appel simply responds, “It’s so much easier on yourself to keep it super simple, especially when you’re camping and you have to put it all in a canoe ... It’s just a few things, but you make them shine with what they have to offer.”
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Oh, the People You Meet in Caves
The Southern pace of Cappadocia, Turkey. Story and photography by JOANNA BERLINER
They tell you, in the guidebooks, about the places. You make your to-do lists. We will go here, here and here. Check! Don’t forget the GoPro. But they don’t tell you about Pete and Sue, late 60s, of Johannesburg. How you’ll sit outside your cave hotel room in the middle of Cappadocia — Turkey’s version of Mars — eating hazelnuts by the handful until long after midnight.
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C
appadocia is Mars like the Grand Canyon is Mars. Red and rippling. Carved long ago by volcanic activity into phallic rocks that pierce the sky, a triumphant salutation to the heavens. They call them “fairy chimneys.” The hazelnuts are local, purchased from a stand next to The Pumpkin Woman. She sits streetside, scooping the seeds out of pumpkins then tossing the carcasses, useless, into a pile a small-child high. The pumpkin flesh is bitter. Inedible. The hazelnuts are firm and sweet. They’ll punctuate your conversation:
Sue: “We’d move back to the U.K., but the rand is worthless.” Hazelnuts. Pete: “And with me off to the Congo for work, it’s hard.” Hazelnuts. You: “The Congo?” Hazelnuts. Pete: “For geology.” Hazelnuts. “The mines.” Hazelnuts. You’ll wash it all down with local wine, gifted that day by the hotel’s owner, Ali Yavuz, who is quiet and warm at the same time. You won’t know how that’s possible. At home in the States, quiet skews detached, but in Turkey it gives you an enveloping welcome. You’ll want to be around Ali — not because you think of him romantically, he is fatherly not husbandly — but because you have the distinct feeling that he has endless stories to share and that somehow, as if by osmosis, they’ll be yours. Your conversations will go like this: You: “Hello.” Ali: Nod. You: “You’re so lucky to live in this beautiful place.” Ali: “Ah, yes.” Nod. But you’ll know there is more than that. The guidebooks paint him as the Bill Gates of cave hotel owners. He opened his hotel, the Kelebek, in 1993 — the first of its kind in the town of GÖreme. Previously, Cappadocia’s offthe-beaten-path appeal lured mostly backpackers, hungry for adventure. But Ali’s hotel marked a seismic shift in tourism. Now, the guests housed in the Kelebek’s 47 rooms are a worldly but more settled mix, largely couples, who delight in Cappadocia’s slow, almost Southern pace and lunar landscape.
After a day spent exploring the Byzantine cave churches of the GÖreme Open-Air Museum (a must) or weaving through town in search of a handloomed Turkish rug, these couples return to their rooms — some caves, some majestic fairy chimneys and some traditional, arched spaces where Ali’s family lived for generations as farmers. You’ll return to a junior suite tucked near the hamam, or Turkish bath. At just 85 euros a night — hardly 100 U.S. dollars — it boasts unobstructed views of GÖreme’s strange and otherworldly skyline. For 20 euros more, Pete and Sue call a traditional cave suite home, complete with fireplace and soaking tub. The night you sit together eating hazelnuts by the handful, you’ll pop inside to marvel at the ancient cave walls.
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ong ago, these walls were more than shelter. The town of GÖreme was first inhabited during the Hittite era, as early as 1800 B.C. It sat amidst two opposing empires, first the Greeks and Persians, and later the Byzantine Greeks and a slew of rivals. This dangerous position meant that residents needed hiding places and found them by tunneling into the rock itself. Cave dwellings were built, as well as entire underground cities. You’ll find over 40 of them in Cappadocia — complete with stables for livestock, ventilation shafts, bathrooms and tombs — some over 30-stories deep. When the area came under attack, a single cave city protected thousands. The thought will make you feel small as you sit outside your cave hotel room, finishing off the wine. The next morning at dawn, the sky will fill with hot air balloons, a Cappadocia signature. Some mornings, there is more balloon than sky. You’ll be in one — from Butterfly Balloons — sardined next to Pete and Sue and a Venezuelan couple toting a GoPro. (They found the company in the guidebooks. But then again, so did you.) Hundreds of feet below, back at the Kelebek, Ali will wait outside your door in a sort of Noah’s Ark on wheels,
a wooden boat hitched to a tractor. You’ll pile in and wind deep into Kings Valley to the Yavuz family’s 400-yearold farm — a trip Ali has taken daily since he was a boy. “SOME MORNINGS, THERE IS MORE BALLOON THAN SKY.” There, you’ll wind down 42 steps, hand-carved into the valley, where an overflowing breakfast will greet you. The “organic breakfast,” as Ali calls it, is signature to the Kelebek and complimentary for guests. Honeycomb. Vegetables grown tableside. Stinking cheeses. Walnut jam. Hot tea. Bubbling platters of menemen — tomatoey eggs, not unlike Israel’s shakshuka. You’ll eat with your hands, padded with thick slabs of village bread served straight from the wood oven. Pete and Sue will be there, too, and they’ll laugh at you, softly, when you slide a square inch of cheese into your mouth, only to realize it’s fresh butter. Some things, the guidebooks will tell you. This, they will not. THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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SOCIETY
Story by JAIME LIN WEINSTEIN
FORE IG N AFFAIR Atlanta-based travel app TripLingo has become the ultimate international companion for individuals and enterprise.
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luency is overrated,” says Jesse Maddox. Try telling that to your high school Spanish teacher. But if your foreign language needs are less verb conjugation and more basic communication, then he’s probably right. Maddox, the South Carolina-bred, Atlanta-based technology enthusiast, is no stranger to the struggles of cross-cultural conversation. Six years ago he was fresh out of college (from Brown in Rhode Island) and on a plane heading to Vietnam for a marketing job. After quickly discovering that the Asian country is far less of a tourist destination than say, Thailand or Japan, — read: not everyone speaks English — Maddox began studying Vietnamese. “I hired two tutors and basically everyday they would alternate eating lunch with me … And because I was paying them I didn’t have to go by their lesson plans,” Maddox says, and explains how
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he took the opportunity to learn about topics of interest like drinking, slang and other subject matters particularly useful for a traveling 23-year-old. “And then I would hold these monthly expat dinners and the only rule was you could only speak Vietnamese … Each dinner had a different theme, so I’d create a cheat sheet each time. And then I was like, ‘Alright, how can I automate this so it’s based on desires of people and create a unique phrase list for them?’” Ever the entrepreneur (he had previously started an online bookselling business during college), Maddox took the idea and a sort-of six-month sabbatical and by the end of it, he had the first business plan for TripLingo. Cut to today and after a series of initial successes — including a first place win at Atlanta’s Startup Riot followed by being named one of the “11 Groundbreaking Inventions of 2011” by Business Insider — the travel application has become much more than the phrasebook that first launched in Apple’s App Store
back in May 2011. From language aids like flashcards and a voice translator to a culture guide with a tip calculator and etiquette info, plus safety information (embassy info, emergency numbers, medical terminology, etc.), the version you’ll download today is the “ultimate tool for international travel,” in Maddox’s words. It’s full of things he could have used himself during his time overseas, like when he was in India and got pink eye. “I went to the hospital at like 5 in the morning. And they could see what was wrong with me; my eyes were welded shut. But they couldn’t tell me what to do with the medicine … Language and culture are clearly big problems when you go abroad, but so is converting the currency or knowing how much to tip, making phone calls or getting help if something goes wrong.” Which is why the number of languages on TripLingo has gone from five to 25. And the number of users? Nearly 400,000. But big ideas and big user stats don’t always translate to banknotes. These
When traveling abroad, TripLingo helps users overcome the challenging local customs and language barriers.
days, it’s the corporate travel side, it turns out, that has made TripLingo a success in an arduous industry. “A lot of travel companies have a really tough time, because people travel and then they don’t for eight months and then they travel again. There’s no consistent revenue, and people aren’t going to pay you every month if they’re not traveling,” Maddox explains. “That’s why a lot of [venture capitalists] stay out of the travel industry; it’s a graveyard full of people that get really excited about travel, but actually turning it into a business is really hard. Especially because most of the money is made in the bookings, and Expedia, Priceline, they’ve got a lock; you can’t compete with them on buying advertising.” So in addition to TripLingo for individuals, there is now TripLingo for enterprise. Companies, after all, have different international needs than the solo traveler, and Maddox realized this meant a potential opportunity for his product in the corporate world. “They care about language translation a little
bit and cultural stuff, but they really care about saving money and employee safety,” Maddox says, rather bluntly. Translation: the Wi-Fi dialer (no roaming charges) and tip calculator (“People usually overtip in restaurants abroad.”)
“A lot of travel companies have a really tough time, because people travel and then they don’t for eight months and then they travel again.” are big corporate motivators. And as far as safety goes, it can be customized for each company, so businesses can have their “Safety Section” link directly to their travel agent, and they can even include their travel policy or other company-specific information. Plus, TripLingo provides monthly analytics with critical usage stats and overall
cost-comparing savings, so companies (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cox Communications and The Home Depot, to name a few) can easily justify maintaining the app. Maddox is no corporate sellout, however. The travelers, not the travel managers, are still at the core of the product, which means so is language — the colloquial kind. Essentially, if the goal is to create positive, cultural interactions in far-flung destinations, then textbooks aren’t the answer; TripLingo’s slang translator is. “That was what I realized in Vietnam … If I said something that is slang, they’d crack up. And that’s when people really respond to you,” Maddox says. And if the goal is a free bottle of wine, well slang might just be the answer, too. “When I was in Italy I got my wine bill comped at a restaurant because the crazy way that we have to say ‘Check, please’ translates to ‘I don’t have to pay, right?’ And I said that to the guy in Italian and he just started cracking up and didn’t charge me for the wine.” THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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Story by AUSTIN HOLT
URBAN SELECTION The evolution of the Southern city comes from its past.
On the Great Seal of Atlanta, there’s a picture of a noble-looking bird emerging from an inferno. In bold type, the word “resurgens” wraps around the top of the crest — Latin for “resurrection.” On either side, a date: 1847 and 1865, respectively. The former recalls the establishment of the city; the latter, its rebirth in the aftermath.
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he train lines had been cut, the Confederate forces were weakened and the generation-old city of Atlanta was a sitting duck. Sparing only the city’s hospitals and churches, General Sherman ordered the city burned to the ground. Soon thereafter, ashes still fresh on red clay, the war was over. The rebuilding process began in earnest. A superior railroad infrastructure quickly established the reviving city as a political and commercial center of the postwar South, and a flood of investors and captains of industry, eager to get in on the ground floor of a good investment, jump-started the economy of the city from scratch. One of these men was a German-Jewish immigrant named Jacob Elsas. Elsas had achieved some success during his time spent in Cincinnati, and upon arriving in Atlanta, eyed an opportunity:
vendors across the city had goods to sell, but didn’t have any packaging in which to sell them. A small cloth and paper business was formed to fill this void, and Elsas prospered. By 1881, his small firm evolved into a full-fledged, smoke-belching factory — one of many such complexes that had begun to pepper the cityscape. In the decades that followed, the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill continued to grow. Cabbagetown, a sort of residential district of shotgun shacks adjacent to the factory, sprung up to house the workers who had come from the Appalachians for gainful employment. Neighborhood shops quickly followed suit, and before too long, a community was born in the shadow of the smokestacks. For a century, the denizens of Cabbagetown — children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren — followed in the family business of eking out a working class living. They were only a mile away from the Capitol building located in the hub of the bustling downtown district,
but their existence was fairly solitary. This was a poorer enclave of Atlanta, content to exist on its own accord. But in any city, the tides of commerce change, and this was no truer than for Atlanta’s industrial concerns. Businesses come and businesses go, and in 1978, after a good, long run, the mill closed its doors for good. The property became abandoned, and the surrounding mill town all but followed suit. There was a 20-year period where you just didn’t go to Cabbagetown. What was once a humble-but-thriving community had devolved into a place that accommodated the shadier aspects of human nature. Many of the simple domiciles running along the oak- and maple-lined streets had fallen into disrepair. Crime filled the gaps left by need and want, and a culture of neglect sealed the neighborhood’s fate. Cabbagetown was just one of many such sections of Atlanta, after all: forgotten and unfixable, and at the very bottom of the docket. THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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Revelator Coffee Company in Birmingham, Ala.
So, in the late 1990s, when Aderhold Properties acquired the defunct factory complex, a lot of people thought they were kind of crazy. The idea of urban resurgence was only in its infancy, and yes, this was the dawn of Atlanta’s condo craze, but what they wanted to do with this dirty old factory was seen as absurd: Aderhold wanted to convert the sprawling property into loft apartments. Hundreds of them. They wanted good, honest, respectable people to commit to a lifestyle that included living inside of an old textile mill. It wasn’t shiny, it wasn’t new, and it certainly contained none of the streamlined comforts that dominated the zeitgeist of new urbanism. It was an ugly old building next to a dead town. But the project went forward, and people actually bought these units. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe the sheer novelty of the thing had somehow convinced a few countercultural, would-be property owners to invest in some affordable real estate in a nook of town that, at best, “had potential.” But the buying didn’t stop. Suburbanism had given way to contraction as, slowly, people began returning to the city. The dynamics gradually changed. Condos were the new plastic, and everyone wanted a piece of the action. Across the
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city, the success of “The Stacks” was being felt, as abandoned high schools, empty factories and obsolete shipping depots were converted, en masse, into housing that wasn’t just functional and repurposed, but trendy. Back in Cabbagetown, something unexpected was taking place. Trickle-down real estate was emerging. The Stacks had created just enough of a demand for the area to allow a few old houses to be purchased at a steal. The new inhabitants gussied things up, and for the first time in decades, perhaps ever, people realized what a charming old neighborhood this could be. Houses aren’t cheap in Cabbagetown, anymore. “Pretty” is an adjective that in all likelihood had never been applied to the place but, now, it is. It’s walkable. It’s safe. People sit out on their front porches drinking sweet tea; a little hipster pub slings house-made pasta and witty cocktails next to a general store that sells pimento cheese, next to a tattoo parlor, next to a pizza joint, next to a laundromat. People hang out. There are block parties and, every year, people actually come to Cabbagetown by the thousands for a chili and bluegrass festival. It’s a community again. From the ashes, another phoenix.
“ ... people actually bought these units. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe the sheer novelty of the thing had somehow convinced a few countercultural, would-be property owners to invest in some affordable real estate in a nook of town that, at best, ‘had potential.’”
“ ... people actually come to Cabbagetown by the thousands for a chili and bluegrass festival.”
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he Cabbagetown story isn’t exactly unique. In fact, it’s a story being told pretty commonly in cities around the country, frequently enough that we tend to overlook the whole idea. That’s because urban renewal, for all the novelty it contains for each new generation, isn’t a new concept. As long as structures containing four walls and a roof have been erected, they’ve been repurposed for one function or another: an antiquated hotel is converted into apartments; a defunct inner-city railway is transformed into a pedestrian thoroughfare; a Victorian courthouse finds new purpose as an art museum. The list goes on. In the United States, a pendulum that was set into motion five decades ago is reaching its point of origin. Suburbanism came with the promise of a quarter-acre, a white picket fence, a brand new car in every garage and enough money to raise 2.5 kids in peaceful comfort.
The rise of these residential developments brought the inception of a new environment for living. Sprawling shopping malls offered one-stop shopping for all domestic needs; supermarkets, impractical for a tightly packed city setting, anchored sprawling strips of restaurants, boutiques and nail salons. The city was never too far away: close enough to commute, but a distant-enough fixture from which one could remove themselves from the often undesirable hustle and bustle. Suburbanism was the physical embodiment of the American dream for nearly half a century, and in many ways, it still is. The comfort and security of a small town with such proximity to the financial and commercial hub of the region is an alluring combination of qualities. But trends, as we’ve discovered, wane, and tastes manifest themselves anew as each subsequent generation comes of age. The preoccupations of the up-and-coming Millennials are different from those cherished by the Generation X-ers. A want for possessions has been replaced by experiential forays, as family and homeownership are relegated from expected necessity to “something we might get around to someday.” Cynical minds may refer to this aggregate of qualities as narcissistic and self-involved, while demographers may see it as the simple progression of social mores. Whatever the case, the instant gratification and social saturation offered by city life has become appealing for the first time in decades as once-abandoned urban locales receive a new breath of life. Broad swaths of property that were recently unusable are being repurposed by keen investors. It’s not so much a “build it and they will come” scenario; rather, it’s the opposite: “They’re coming, so let’s give them somewhere to go.”
Bottle & Bone, now a butcher shop and restaurant, was a previously vacant space in Birmingham, Ala.
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In Birmingham, Ala., this trend has followed the predictable course as well. Since the mid-two-thousand-oughts, dying portions of city have been reallocated to accommodate a new commercialism, and at the forefront of this charge, Appleseed Workshop has come out as the aesthetic voice of the new urban class. Part architecture firm, part philosophical think-tank, Appleseed has been the lock, stock and barrel behind some of Birmingham’s trendiest new venues: Bottle and Bone in Uptown; Revelator Coffee Company; Whitmire Lofts; the list goes on. If it’s a new place in an old space, there’s a good chance Appleseed has something to do with it. These entities are scattered across the city, but they all have one thing in common. They take advantage of existing property, adapting 19th century structures to 21st century needs, with one philosophy in mind: why build something new when there are millions of square feet of empty buildings that are eager for a second chance? With a few success stories thrown into the mix, the strong examples of this philosophy replicate themselves. In Chattanooga, Tenn., Warehouse Row has risen from the ruins of a derelict, well, warehouse. The old space has been converted into a shopping and dining center that is actually quite chic. Down the road, a robin’s egg blue trestle spans a mighty river. It’s not used for trains anymore; it’s a pedestrian bridge that hosts a wine and culinary festival one weekend out of the year and offers killer vistas for the other 51. In Asheville, N.C., one of America’s first nuevo-trendy cities, the River Arts District houses almost 200 artists in a series of 222 converted industrial structures, offering a sufficient space for creatives to explore their skill sets while giving visitors the chance to visit, purchase
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and commission one-of-a-kind treasures. In this vein, the spirit of creativity itself is localized and interactive, and the RAD has become a social epicenter. In Pensacola, Fla., a county jail where they used to publicly hang people is now being used as a performance arts venue, its three stories of cells having been converted into a 461-seat theater. In New Orleans, a city still reeling from a storm that happened almost a decade ago, community gardens are springing up in unused plots of land. A place that used to hand-roll cigars in Mobile, Ala., is now a hot nightclub. In Savannah, Ga., a bordello that used to dispense fantasy and syphilis for sailors is now a watering hole for restaurant workers off the clock. There is a 2 million-square-foot building in Atlanta, once owned by Sears, then slipshod-utilized by the city for storage that is, finally, getting a brand new lease: Ponce City Market will house restaurants, shops, condos, doctors’ offices, daycare centers, a massive rooftop garden and maybe even a design firm that will one day command some facet of the city’s progress. It’s the birth of a new city, inand-of itself. The South provides a unique lens through which to view these anecdotal success stories. While tales of architectural and urban reemergence can be spied across the nation, the South is just so new; it’s so young and it’s had such a checkered past that, when responsible sustainable progress happens (beyond the scope of typical, antiquated, ham-fisted gentrification), we tend to notice and become fiercely proud of them. It’s places like these, and the people who make them come together, that allow us a glimpse of tomorrow, both in what the city is and what it’s destined to become. But without the city, the culture would wither and fade away; and without the people, the same fate would befall the city.
“In Savannah, Ga., a bordello that used to dispense fantasy and syphilis for sailors is now a watering hole for restaurant workers off the clock.”
Appleseed Workshop renovated the old Jaymark Jewelry building into the two-story live/work space, Whitmire Lofts, in Birmingham, Ala.
COME SAY HI.
Come Say Hi. M
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ARI GRAYNOR HOLLYWOOD IS CALLING
THE THE GENIUS GENIUS ISSUE ISSUE IN SEARCH OF THE
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ARI GRAYNOR HOLLYWOOD IS CALLING
ARI GRAYNOR HOLLYWOOD IS CALLING
THE GENIUS
IN SEARCH OF THE
SUITABLE MAN
IN SEARCH OF THE ISSUE
SUITABLE MAN
SEPT/OCT 2012
SEPT/OCT 2012
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C A R P E T
ATLANTA . NASHVILLE . DALTON
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Story by WYATT WILLIAMS Photography by DUSTIN CHAMBERS and the Visual Epidemiology Team
MINING THE DATA From the mines of southern Africa to the small businesses and nonprofits of the South, two Georgia brothers bring change through filmmaking.
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Yale University and Machetes When you think of a thesis project from an epidemiology student working on his master’s in public health at Yale University, do you think of spoken word poetry? “Do you know what it feels like to have a machete taken to your lungs? To have a drill in your hand so long you forget it is not a part of your body? To work at a place where the light at the end of the tunnel is more than a figure of speech? Welcome to the mines.” Or do you think that kind of academic work should sound like this? “The protonated POA accumulates in the cell and causes cytoplasmic acidification and reduces cell membrane energy, disrupting the proton motive force and affecting membrane trans-
port. EMB is a bacteriostatic agent that inhibits the polymerization of arabinan, arabinogalactan and lipoarabinomannan, thus preventing its biogenesis formation on the cell wall.” Both excerpts are from the work of Jonathan Smith, a lecturer and epidemiologist at Yale who is currently completing his doctorate at Emory University in Atlanta. The second quote comes from a paper called “Nanoparticle Delivery of Anti-Tuberculosis Chemotherapy as a Potential Mediator Against Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis” published in 2011 in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. The first quote is the poetry of Clint Smith [no relation], as spoken in Jonathan’s first documentary film. Despite how different they sound, both are ways of discussing the same epidemic. It is that difference, the familiarity of storytelling in one phrase and the rigor of science in another, that Jonathan is seeking to reconcile in his work.
Jonathan and Alan Smith at Creative Cabin Studios at the Goat Farm Arts Center in Atlanta.
Sent Home to Die Jonathan and his brother, Alan, were both born in LaGrange, Ga., a rural Southern town far from the concerns of gold miners in Africa. As undergraduate students, Alan studied finance, and Jonathan studied biology. Aside from the fact that their grandfather had been a professional photographer in the Navy, the brothers thought little about photography or filmmaking. Neither could have guessed they would one day be traveling the world to make documentary films, or that they would one day establish a collaborative filmmaking venture. While studying for his master’s degree at Yale, Jonathan discovered the startling conditions of a tuberculosis epidemic in the gold mines of sub-Saharan Africa. He eventually wrote hundreds of pages about the situation, but his quick summary goes like this: “Mine workers generally live in rural regions of southern Africa; very rural. They come to work in urban mines and then go back home. Work in the mining industry there is contract-based. So you’re not formally employed by the mine, you’re employed by a third-party labor contractor. The mine isn’t legally responsible for the miner. This is really important in this conversation, because if a miner gets sick with tuberculosis, they’re able to terminate the contract because the miner isn’t able to fulfill the work. The miner gets fired.” In other words, the contractors are able to fire workers for doing their job and getting sick because of it. Tuberculosis is highly contagious. Miners return to their rural homes often without health care or any other kind of workers’ compensation, spreading the disease and living without treatment. “That process of men coming to mines, getting sick and getting sent home was called, colloquially, ‘being sent home to die,’” Jonathan says. Data Needs a Face The second startling revelation for Jonathan was that this problem wasn’t exactly a new discovery. “I looked into this situation and realized we already know all of this. We know that men get sick at the mines. We know that South African gold mines have the highest rates of tuberculosis in the world. At first I couldn’t understand. If we know all of this, why is the situation still persisting?” Despite the fact that gold mining has contributed to, by some estimates, 760,000 cases of tuberculosis just in South Africa in 2011 alone, the situation causing it continued untreated and largely unchanged. “There was data, so much data, but there was nothing else,” Jonathan says. That’s when he realized his work as an epidemiologist would require more than data. “We didn’t have a face.” And so, lying in bed mulling over this problem, Jonathan made the curious decision to become a filmmaker. This is not the typical career path for a student of epidemiology studying for a master’s in public health. He had no
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background in it. He studied biology and chemistry in undergrad. But he found himself searching for a form that could combine “the strength of data with the power of storytelling.” That phrase is now the mission statement of Visual Epidemiology, the filmmaking company that Jonathan founded with the help of his brother. What better way to elucidate data that is baffling to most? We all know film has the power to create shared experiences and can shape memories and worldviews.
“THAT PROCESS OF MEN COMING TO MINES, GETTING SICK AND GETTING SENT HOME WAS CALLED, COLLOQUIALLY, ‘BEING SENT HOME TO DIE’”
A Novel and Pragmatic Approach Visual Epidemiology’s first film, They Go To Die, follows four migrant workers who have contracted drug-resistant tuberculosis while working in the South African gold mines. Of the four miners featured in the film, three have since died from the disease. The film has done more than just raise awareness. Jonathan and Alan were invited to share their footage with members of the United Nations and the World Health Organization. The one surviving miner from the film, Mr. Mkoko, was invited to participate in drafting a political commitment to overcome tuberculosis in the mining industry, a document that has now been signed by presidents and prime ministers from all 15 southern African countries. Further lobbying by Jonathan at sessions of parliament in the U.K. has led to millions of dollars in funding to reduce tuberculosis and HIV in southern African mining communities. Visual Epidemiology has successfully turned their processes and documentaries into tools for impactful social change. “OF THE FOUR MINERS FEATURED IN THE FILM, THREE HAVE SINCE DIED FROM THE DISEASE. “ Other projects have followed, including Behind the Numbers, a series of short films that profile a range of individuals whose work intersects with the tuberculosis epidemic, and Story of a Girl, another series that includes self-filmed footage of people living with HIV. Throughout all of their work, one gets a sense of deep empathy from the brothers’ filmmaking style. These films stray far from the big numbers of academic studies and often focus on quiet moments — the unvarnished reality of living with disease or surviving treatment, the way that lives are lived around and through disease. It is that touch of very human chronicling the brothers have brought to a new endeavor, Creative Cabin Studios. With this venture, they’re using the same techniques as Visual Epidemiology, but telling the stories of small businesses and nonprofits. One video tells the story of an organization that makes “dream rooms” for children suffering from long-term illness. Another recounts the life of a party disc jockey. Ideally, these projects will complement one another, with the commercial work of Creative Cabin helping to fund the expensive work and travel required to make the Visual Epidemiology films. Creative Cabin clients can take comfort knowing their commercial needs eventually ripple positively into the world of data science and global health epidemics. A novel and pragmatic approach to say the least. “Why wouldn’t we want to help out small businesses?” Jonathan asks rhetorically. “Yeah, we just love storytelling,” Alan says.
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Story by NATALIE FRESSELL Photography by BRETT FALCON
A RTFUL CON V E R SAT ION Atlanta-based surrealist painter and photographer, David Swann, reminisces about his career and offers advice for the future of the South’s creative minds.
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Eidé Magazine: Tell us about your art and the mediums you work with.
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ver since David Swann started his artistic endeavors, he’s been a thorn in reviewers’ attempts at labeling art and, more importantly, labeling what is or isn’t art. But Swann, a selftaught rural Pennsylvania native, has produced paintings and photography that refuse to be put in a box (though his website defines his work as surrealism and neo-modern abstract art). Since his first show in the early 1960s, he’s gone from amateur sculptor to criticized photographer to abstract painter; however, he will be the first to tell you that he does not label himself as an artist, but rather a documenter of life. Over the years of both roadblocks and triumphs, the now Atlanta-based artist’s work has been shown on a global scale. In 1985, his piece, “après du bord,” was accepted in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris — the first photograph to be shown in the Grand Palais since the organization’s conception in 1884. Today, he continues to produce pieces that are just as significant to his career. Most artists (Swann included) can agree that the communication and support within the art community could, and should, be louder. No matter what generation you’re from, you know the creative struggle is real. Luckily for us, Swann shares his humbling experiences for those who find the art world difficult to navigate or sometimes impossible to reach.
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David Swann: My first introduction to art was when I produced a sculpture for the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania. At the time, I was doing metal sculpting and my parents owned a small oil company, and Harry Bertoia happened to be one of our customers. Locally, Bertoia was notorious for his furniture design for Knoll, Inc. I naively — because I didn’t realize how famous he actually was — asked Bertoia if he would teach me to weld metal, and he did. After learning the acetylene torch technique, I ended up producing a 6-foot-tall sculpture made with 6,000 roofing nails that I welded together. Later, my first real love became photography. Then I moved into mixed media work and music photography. I like to work within different portfolios because I get bored fairly easily — I’m a Gemini. EM: What has your artistic journey been like? DS: Some of my not-so-proud moments were when I started to do abstract photography. It wasn’t well received in the traditional photography world. Getting accepted at the Salon in Paris was one of my highest achievements. I’m not sure how I would rate everything, but I guess whenever you do something that started as experimentation and it’s well received, then I’d say that’s something to be proud of … The main thing that I’ve discovered over the years is that you just have to start and understand that the finished product isn’t always going to be how you imagined or expected it to be, but that’s part of the journey.
EM: What role do you think art plays in social change?
EM: How can artists establish a connection with others in the art community?
DS: There are several examples in the past where images brought sensitivity to the forefront. Some artists were more provocative, which isn’t always a bad thing because you need to cross the line sometimes to get people’s attention. I think there’s a balance at some point in time where you need to be sensitive. I think art, or any other social interaction in the media, can and should be used to get that message across … Art plays a role in carrying a message, and art can be a stimulator for change if used in a productive way. If there’s a message for a genuine cause, then artists should not be exempt from being responsible for change.
DS: One of the things I think artists need to realize is to be realistic in their expectations. There’s a real dilemma between following your dream and looking at the practical/business side of art. You shouldn’t necessarily negate or destroy the other, but if you want to go into the art world as a working artist, then you have to understand the expectations of the galleries and the audience that you’re trying to reach. It’s a difficult thing for artists to grasp, but your success as an artist goes beyond your studio, your canvas, your paper and your medium. It’s a matter of acceptance, and by that I don’t mean to abandon your dreams or dumb down your approach simply to appease expectations, but you must be realistic. EM: Have you always thought of yourself as an artist? DS: I don’t know if I initially gave myself that entitlement. I was the first in my family to go to Europe in 1963. I traveled with some friends that I met in Spain. One was a fellow who wanted to be another Hemingway, the other went over there to get away from his family identity and I went over there simply because I wanted to go. I ended up staying for three months. I caught some really interesting images with a tiny Minox camera. Afterward, I became inspired to experiment with photography more. I always enjoyed documenting and never thought of myself as an artist but more as a person who wanted to document my life. EM: How have you seen art change over the years? DS: There’s diversity in the artists and diversity in their purpose. It’s more thriving today [in Atlanta] than when I first moved here in 1982. There are more pop-up shows, which has made it so artists aren’t as dependent on brick-and-mortar display opportunities … Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” We need to continue actively supporting artists and need to turn the volume up when it comes to educating the public about the benefits of having a well-advocated arts community. Members of art communities must devote time and effort to educating the general public as well — and artists need to do their part, too.
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FASHION
DYNAMIC DENIM Story by JAIME LIN WEINSTEIN Photography by JIMMY JOHNSTON
The staying power of the jean jacket.
Hair and makeup by Erin Tierney. Styling by Jenna Atkins. Model: Ana Karas for Factor Atlanta.
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Sometimes, the latest must-have garment is already hanging in your closet. This season, the denim jacket gets resurrected with a luxury twist, but it proves to be a classic you can wear however you like. Suffice it to say, the jean jacket is back … but it never really went away.
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wenty-some years ago, when I was the tender age of 4, I was introduced to my sartorial soulmate: the jean jacket. My mother had lovingly bejeweled a dark denim version for me, complete with rhinestone studs and sequin appliques (it was the late ’80s). I was living in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where summer daytime temperatures frequently reach upwards of 90 degrees and no form of outerwear is ever really necessary, yet the jacket, more often than not, remained on. It was — I would later understand — my first experience sacrificing personal comfort for the sake of fashion. I’d like to think I was channeling the gallant aura of a Western cowboy as I sidled up to the swingset, ready to withstand the trials of the playground and its rugged terrain. That’s where the garment originated: as working wear for ranch workers and miners in the “Wild West” of the late 1800s. And then, like any good fashion trend, it rode the wave of anti-materialism and rebellion through the 20th century and was adopted by artists and intellectuals in the 1950s (Jackson Pollock, Allen Ginsberg), followed by youth subcultures through the ’70s (the Greasers, the Punks), and immortalized by silver screen stars and musicians along the way (think Robert Redford in Little Fauss and Big Halsy; Madonna in her “Boy Toy” emblazoned jacket during the “Express Yourself ” days). Truth be told, I was probably more akin to an ’80s-era Madonna than a cowboy (even at 4 — I was a precocious child). And therein lies the jacket’s allure: If you forget the cultural cues or the history or the decade, a jean jacket can truly transcend any association. It’s an any-age, any-gender, anywhere,
anytime jacket; a chameleon of the closet. One need look no further than the SS15 collections for evidence. The humble garment got a luxury makeover this season, from the shearling-trimmed, corseted silhouettes at Burberry Prorsum and leather detailing at Michael Kors, to a military-inspired look at Gucci with front plastrons and embellished hardware. Then there were the patchwork compositions at Tommy Hilfiger and double layers at Fendi (marking denim’s first appearance on a Fendi runway), among other designer iterations.
“I was channeling the gallant aura of a Western cowboy as I sidled up to the swingset, ready to withstand the trials of the playground and its rugged terrain.” “There are so many different looks and ways that you could wear a denim jacket,” says Marcus Hall, founder of Marc Nelson Denim in Knoxville, Tenn., and he should know: A Knoxville native, Hall grew up a mile and a half from the city’s now defunct Levi’s factory. (Many say it was Levi Strauss himself who constructed the first jean jacket; in its rudimentary state, at least.) “Most of my family, all my friends’ family, worked in that Levi’s factory, whether it was in the wash facility or in the actual sewing line … Our community thrived off it.” Of course, there are other garments with such history and versatility: a khaki trench and leather pants, for two. But I’ve yet to see high fashion bestow such a boundless blessing to these pieces as it has to the jean jacket. Especially because it’s not necessarily what you would define as “modern,” or refer to as the new “it” item to covet (albeit the looks on
the runways were both contemporary and covetable). I’d argue that it’s the authentic appeal, rather than the designer labels, that everyone will be longing for this season. As for me, I’ve always had a habit of being unabashedly loyal to select garments. (On an earlier childhood occasion, my mother took me bathing suit shopping for a neighborhood pageant. After setting my sights on a pink, sparkled one-piece my mind was firmly set. “Wouldn’t you like to pick out a few to choose from?” my mom sensibly asked. “No. Just. This. One.”) Looking back, likely an early signifier of obsessive behavior. But of all things to be the point of passion, I can’t blame myself for obsessing over the denim jacket. Lightweight yet sturdy, edgy yet unassuming, the jean jacket manages to operate like a basic while, at times, subtly steal the show. Lena Dunham gets it. I was reading her 2014 memoir, “Not That Kind of Girl,” when I stumbled across a passage in which she describes one of two moments in her life when she felt cool: “... at my new school, I was cool. My hair was highlighted. I had platform shoes. I had a denim jacket and a novelty pin ...” Paul McCartney, Kanye West and Rihanna get it, too. “Kanye came up with the idea of doing some real street denim. [An] all-American type look … Denim never goes out of style. It’s classic. It’s iconic. Just like the f***ing Beatles,” Rihanna says in a behind-thescenes video about the wardrobe for the “FourFiveSeconds” music video released earlier this year. In it, she wears an oversized, belted Sean John vintage jacket, McCartney dons a dark wash and West, a worn-and-torn rendition. Personally, I’ll be wearing my medium wash version that I’ve had since college. Like Hall says, “You appreciate it more every day.” THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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aybe it’s thanks to the ’70s vibe that dominated runways, but a carefree, pared-back beauty regime revealed flushed, natural-looking skin this season — because a summer glow doesn’t
always have to appear bronzed. A sultry red lip or a flash of color on the eye brings enough warmth to match the heat.
Photography by ANGELA MURRAY MORRIS | Makeup and hair by KATIE BALLARD | Manicurist: HANNAH LEE for Crewsinc.net | Model: SHELBEY LEE for K Starr Management | Shot on location at the Mullet private residence.
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LOOKBOOK is a glance at the best a city has to offer in fashion, beauty, design, spirits and edibles.
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Summer Sips
Festivals flourish in the warmer months, but Atlanta’s brew-based events bring together the best of the best in local music, food and — obviously — beer.
Can’t beat the heat? Grab a local pint: it’s the perfect complement to the city’s 50 percent relative humidity.
The Brookhaven Beer Fest on Saturday, June 13, will feature more than 150 beers (as well as wine-tasting events for those who favor grapes over hops). Food vendors will be on site for all your non-liquid dietary needs, and DJs will keep you dancing all night. If you’re more into live music, Ocean Street and Atlanta-based Sailing to Denver will both be playing sets during the course of the event. Apple Valley Rd.; facebook.com/brookhavenbeer Held on Saturday, June 20, at the Masquerade Music Park, the Atlanta Summer Beer Fest will feature over 200 beers to keep you occupied throughout the day. There will be plenty of food to chow down on with fun games and activities to keep you entertained — we’re hoping for magnetic darts and giant Jenga. Live music will play on five stages and it just might drown out the babbling guy beside you whose first thought upon seeing the beer list is “challenge accepted.” 695 North Ave. NE; atlantasummerbeerfest.com
From left to right: SweetWater Brewing Company’s Waterkeeper Hefeweizen, sweetwaterbrew.com; Monday Night Brewing’s Eye Patch Ale, mondaynightbrewing.com; Red Brick Brewing Company’s Hibiscuwit, redbrickbrewing.com; Terrapin Beer Co.’s Maggie’s Peach Farmhouse Ale, terrapinbeer.com.
Frozen Treats
To satisfy your sweet tooth and bring some relief from the heat at the same time, try one of Atlanta’s favorite frozen treats to cool down.
King of Pops: The Raspberry Lime and Blueberry Cobbler flavors are the perfect companion to a stroll through a hot Atlanta farmers market. kingofpops.net The Ice Cream Bar: Bring along a pint of the Mojito Sorbet to impress the hosts at your next cookout. theicecreambar.com There’s no better way to celebrate America than at Red, White & Brew at the Georgia Aquarium, with unlimited beer tastings, dinner by Wolfgang Puck Catering, live music and the best view of the Centennial Olympic Park fireworks show. Oh, and sea creatures, too. Held in the Oceans Ballroom on Saturday, July 4, there will be views of beluga whales, manta rays and whale sharks, and proceeds benefit the Sponsored Education Admissions program and the aquarium’s H2O summer camps. 225 Baker St. NW; georgiaaquarium.org
High Road Ice Cream & Sorbet: The Mango Chile Lime sorbet is ideal for adding an unexpected kick to your homemade margaritas. highroadcraft.com
Frozen Pints: Grab the Peach Lambic and a spoon for an after-dinner treat with 1 percent alcohol on the back porch. frozenpints.com
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Not Your Backyard Barbecue
Cirque du Soleil Photo by John Davis, Costumes: Eiko Ishioka ©2010 Cirque du Soleil
One half of the expert hog-roasting duo at Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q gives us his take on summer cookouts plus one of their signature recipes. “You know, it’s just comfort food for Southerners. I think that’s what it comes down to. It’s always been kind of a celebration meal of sorts — because to smoke a whole hog, it takes a whole day … It’s not like it’s fast food. It’s food that takes a while, and it’s that end reward that makes it that much better.” -Justin Fox 1238 DeKalb Ave. NE; foxbrosbbq.com
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Sent From Above Well worth the trek beyond the perimeter, Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai is making its way to the Gwinnett Center in Duluth. The performance follows the story of Icarus as he falls from the sky and lands in the kaleidoscopic world of Varekai in a production that pays tribute to the wonder of a wandering soul and to the artistry of the circus tradition. Full of amazing sights expected from the spectacle that is Cirque du Soleil, and with only eight performances beginning July 29, Varekai is one show this summer that’s not to be missed. 6400 Sugarloaf Pkwy., Duluth; cirquedusoleil.com/varekai
FOX BROS. BAR-B-Q FRITO PIE (individual servings) 2-ounce bags of Fritos Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q Brisket Chili* Shredded cheddar cheese Diced red onion Fresh sliced jalapeño Dollop of sour cream Cut open each 2-ounce bag of Fritos from the top or side, ladle in chili, add shredded cheddar cheese, diced red onion, fresh sliced jalapeños for more heat and sour cream, if desired. Mix up and eat. *Get the Fox Bros. Brisket Chili recipe at eidemagazine.com.
Must Have Bag Atlanta’s own Bella Bag shares the season’s hottest trend.* Bucket Bags: “This season brings a bit more fun to the classic silhouette. Think bright colors, fun textures and vintage throwbacks. Bucket bags are perfect for all-day wear, but one in a bright color or a vintage piece with metallic accents can also be easily transitioned from day to night.” -Teodora Nicolae, director of public relations and marketing for Bella Bag 3065 Peachtree Road NE, Suite B209; bellabag.com
Louis Vuitton Yellow Epi Petit Noe Bag, $749
*For more “it” bags of the season, visit eidemagazine.com.
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Into the Wild
Wild Standard formed when a friend reached out to Linsey Metcalf to design a custom flag for his new collaborative workspace, Foster. Officially launched last October, the flag-making venture (comprised of Metcalf and Tara Bauerschlag) took flight after the popularity of their “Atlanta on the Rise” flag prototype and has grown to include an array of artists running in limited editions of 20 and 40. Metcalf (now based in Los Angeles) handles the creative side and Bauerschlag stitches up each flag, cut from unprimed, all-natural cotton. Austin-themed flags will be unveiled mid-summer. thewildstandard.com
Bee’s Knees Native Texan Taylor Hall and his wife Casie tended their first honeybee hive in 2010 after learning of Colony Collapse Disorder’s threat to western honeybees. Now they are the owners of the newly opened Apis Restaurant & Apiary, where Taylor also serves as executive chef. With a garden and 20 on-site beehives at the back of the 6-acre property overlooking the Pedernales River, Apis derives its name from the western honeybee taxonomy, Apis mellifera. The ever-evolving menu melds seasonal ingredients with Apis’ “house honey” in everything from honey ice cream and honey buns to craft cocktails. Plus, guests are welcome to join a tour of the Apiary every Thursday at 5 p.m. 23526 Hwy. 71 W., Spicewood; apisrestaurant.com
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The Wild Standard Photo by Ellie Koleen; Apis Food Photos by Paul Brick, Sign Photo by Robert Lerma; Austin Detours Photo by Elizabeth Alderson; Skyspace Photo by Florian Holzherr; Keep Austin Weird Photo by Brian Fitzsimmons; Austin Bed & Brew Photo by Cynthia Houchin.
Off the Beaten Path Whether you enjoy food, music, history, sports, alcohol or just about anything else, Austin Detours has a themed outing to suit your interests. Join a regularly scheduled public tour — like the popular “Live Music Crawl” on Friday nights, whisking you to three iconic live music venues running the musical gamut — or choose from nearly 20 other handcrafted experiences. “Sunday Funday,” for example, kicks off with a rollicking gospel brunch and wraps up with a boat cruise on Lady Bird Lake. History buffs may enjoy the “Life of LBJ” detour, an in-depth exploration of the 36th president, including stops at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, the Texas White House and LBJ Ranch. 602 E. 4th St.; austindetours.com
Get Weird The 13th annual Keep Austin Weird Fest and 5K is slated for Saturday, June 27, at The Long Center. Billed as “the slowest race ever,” runners don their weirdest costumes and make their way through 10 strange and wonderful “Fun Stops” along the course. Benefitting the Capital Area Food Bank, this year’s celebrity dunking booth will be filled with tangy Stubb’s BBQ Sauce and the costume contest winner will receive a year’s worth of ice cream from Austin-based Amy’s Ice Creams. The festival’s Sideshow will also feature oddities ranging from a smelly chamber to a toe wrestling contest. 701 W. Riverside Drive; keepaustinweirdfest.com
Home Brewed Everything is Illuminated James Turrell’s “The Color Inside” Skyspace is a free, permanent installation on the University of Texas campus presented by the university’s public art program, Landmarks. This naked eye rooftop observatory features an oculus that captures the variation of natural light and colors at sunrise and sunset. A lifelong pilot, Turrell’s inspiration stems from his love of the sky. This is the 84th Skyspace in his series and just one of 12 open to the public in the U.S. 2201 Speedway at 22nd St.; turrell.utexas.edu
Made for craft beer enthusiasts and adventurous travelers alike, Austin Bed & Brew is a lovers’ loft filled with all the essentials: chilled craft beer in the fridge; an intimate music nook packed with instruments including a piano, violin and guitar; and a cozy, lofted sleeping area perched atop a ladder. With outdoor showers and mounted bottle openers in most rooms, this colorful retreat clocks in at just 438 square feet, but includes an award-winning wildlife habitat and a 17-year-old mature garden brimming with herbs, veggies and fragrant flowers like the Cécile Brunner rose. 1506 Dartmouth Ave., austinbedandbrew.com THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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Good Beer, Good People
Known for some of the best brewing in the South, Good People Brewing Company is a Birmingham staple for any post-Barons game celebration (we recommend a can of the beloved Coffee Oatmeal Stout). This year, they’re hosting the Happenin Fest on June 20. Grab a pint glass and groove to the likes of the Black Lips, Andrew Combs and more while mingling with Alabama vinyl-havens Seasick Records, Vertical House Records and various other vendors. 114 14th St. S.; goodpeoplebrewing.com
Raising the Bars Simple and wholesome aren’t words you typically look for in skincare. Freedom Soap Company is trying to change that with handmade, small-batch soaps made from 100-percent natural ingredients you can actually recognize. Founder Chasity Curtis forages materials from her backyard, local farmers, beekeepers and breweries, making for some serious suds like the Oatmeal bar. See her at the Saturday Pepper Place Market, pick up a bar (or three) at boutiques across the U.S. or order online. freedomsoaps.com
Get Slossed More than 30 bands, regional craft brews, local eats and artisans (yes, there will be live iron-pouring) will populate the iconic Sloss Furnaces for Sloss Fest July 18-19. A National Historic Landmark since 1981, the industrial site symbolizes the boom of iron wealth that gave Birmingham its name — the Magic City. Modest Mouse, Band of Horses, Young the Giant, Manchester Orchestra and more will be playing on three stages inside the abandoned iron factory. Be there. 20 32nd St. N.; slossfest.com
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Special Delivery Helmed by design duo Kelly Kinnaird (Stevie Nicks and film-photography aficionado) and Sam Corcoran (vintage
Good People and Freedom Soap Photos by Gina Yu; Sloss Furnaces Photo by Lauren Barry Starnes; Deliver Paper Studio Photo by Ali Thurwachter; Melt Photo by Jana Sobel.
paper enthusiast), Deliver Paper Studio has a mission to create conceptually driven wedding invites for the design-conscious bride. Here, Kinnaird and Corcoran share how they’re filling the wedding design void.
Eidé Magazine: How does Deliver differ from other wedding invitation services? Deliver Paper Studio: Rather than just create an invitation, we aim to establish a brand that serves as a visual extension of the couple. Every job is full of deep research, exploring various options and fine tuning designs in hopes of creating a look and feel that is all their own. EM: What is your mission for Deliver? DPS: We would fight the fight against ugliness, of course! But simply put, we hope to inspire brides to think of their wedding not as a Saturday event
or a Pinterest board, but as an atmosphere established by good design and tasteful style. EM: How are you “fighting the fight against ugliness”? DPS: We find there is so much white noise in the wedding world, with formulas that rotate out every few years. A trend pops up and suddenly everything feels the same. We hope to break the mold and create timeless, good design. We are here to stand up for thoughtful design and not bow down to trends. deliverpaperstudio.com
Melt Your Heart Out Grilled-cheese-food-truck-turnedrestaurant, Melt, wants to bring back comfort food with a modern twist. With a devotion to local brews and ingredients, it’s shelling out ham sandwiches with chorizo and a fried egg, and throwing guac and fried jalapeños on turkey in between sourdough. Wash it all down with their seasonal Shanghai Kate — rum, pineapple, lime and jalapeño simple syrup in a chili flake-rimmed glass. 4105 4th Ave. S.; meltbham.com THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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CHARLESTON CITIES
by JEANNE EVERETT
Light It Up Candlefish brings a fresh perspective on a craft as old as time to downtown Charleston — you guessed it, candle making. Started by a talented group of passionate crafters in 2009, Candlefish is what they call an “inspiration destination”; in addition to candles, the boutique sells a beautifully curated collection of accessories and offers BYOB candle-making events and workshops. 71 Wentworth St.; candlefish.com
Listen Up, Y’all Innovators Megan and Craig Evans have created a screen-printing lifestyle brand that creates good for the South, from the South. 5 Reasons to Shop Y’allsome: 1. Fifteen percent of profits from every product sold go to helping Southern foster children find permanent homes through Adoption Discovery. 2. For every $20 donation on the website, Y’allsome donates a duffle bag to a foster child, along with a luggage tag where they can write their name. 3. Y’allsome works with only Southern businesses and purveyors to produce each product (cotton from North Carolina; screen-printing in Tennessee). 4. You can track every stage of your product during the manufacturing process by identifying the thread color and using the “dirt-to-shirt” feature online. 5. Because Y’allsome is awesome, and the name is as punny as the products. 334 East Bay St., #200; yallsome.com
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Charleston Chow
With restaurants and chefs racking up James Beard Awards and nominations like it’s nothing, Charleston just might be
Candlefish Photos by Chloe Gilstrap; Park Cafe Photo by Jonathan Boncek; Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit Photo by Jason Stemple.
the South’s most exciting dining destination. Get a taste of the Holy City at these favorite locales: Owned and operated by head chef Ross Webb, R. Kitchen is the hidden gem of Rutledge Avenue (emphasis on hidden; there’s no sign outside). Known for extremely reasonable prices — it offers a five-course meal for $25 during dinner service — it’s also keen on variety; the menu is written daily. Yes, daily. The only exclusion is Monday, when guest chefs take over the kitchen and create their own menu using primarily local ingredients. 212 Rutledge Ave.; rutledgekitchen.com Renowned Charleston restaurateur Karalee Fallert’s newest venture, The Park Cafe, is the perfect place in the heart of Charleston to sit back, sip a glass of prosecco and sample an out-of-this-world cheese plate while basking in the summer sun. Natural lighting and a welcoming neighborhood atmosphere will bring you in; a seasonally changing cocktail menu, curated by operating partner and bartender extraordinaire Xan McLaughlin, will keep you there. Ingredients are sourced from Charleston purveyors such as Ambrose Family Farm, Holy City Hogs and Lowcountry Shellfish for a range of dishes during breakfast, lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch. 730 Rutledge Ave.; theparkcafechs.com Urged by loyal customers to open a counter-service restaurant for years, Callie’s Charleston Biscuits has finally given in to the demand. The spin-off of owner Carrie Morey’s successful biscuit-making purveyor, Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit, serves all seven varieties of the classic biscuits in addition to other Southern favorites (pimento cheese sandwiches and grits) and their line of take-home products. The 629-square-foot venue was designed to cater to patrons on the go, but also serves as a late night hot spot for the Charleston social scene. 476 King St.; calliesbiscuits.com
Another product of Karalee Fallert, this time with friend Lily Lei, Lee Lee’s Hot Kitchen is an upbeat and vibrant spot bringing classic Chinese dishes and Asian-inspired cocktails to downtown Charleston. Lee Lee’s has recently begun hosting mash-up dinners: exciting themed evenings of multiple courses and wine pairings prepared by Lei and executive chef Jeff Cali, alongside a guest chef. The next mash-up will take place in August and features the executive chef of Spero, RJ Moody. But if you want to attend, make reservations early; the last dinner was such a success that guests had to be turned away. On a regular evening, diners can expect weekly dumpling and fish specials sourced from local and gourmet Asian markets. 218 President St.; leeleeshotkitchen.com
Anne Bowen Dabney was looking to expand her floral design business when she discovered a historic 19th century house and an old trolley warehouse. Taken by the spaces, Dabney partnered with her husband Dave, as well as operating partners and hospitality moguls Lynn Easton and Dean Porter Andrews, to create Cannon Green — a restaurant with a charming courtyard, a menu featuring dishes that blend Mediterranean cuisine with Southern favorites and a venue fit to host a fairytale wedding, rain or shine. 103 Spring St.; cannongreencharleston.com THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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Take Me Out To The Ballgame Baseball fans have been flocking to the new First Tennessee Park to cheer on the Nashville Sounds minor league team since the season began in April. But it’s not just the players that are benefitting from the perks of this state-of-the-art facility: the Goldberg brothers, notable Nashville restaurateurs behind Strategic Hospitality known for Pinewood Social and The Catbird Seat, opened The Band Box at the stadium, an outdoor bar and restaurant touting fun outdoor games like cornhole, shuffleboard and pingpong, as well as upscale-stadium cuisine (think quinoa salads and kielbasa pork sausage). Each activity is meant to be played with a craft beer or specialty frozen drink — like grapefruit and vodka slushies — in hand. 401 Jackson St.; firsttennesseepark.com
Collector’s Edition This summer, all eyes are on JandHP x Nomad Collective. Nomad Collective is an international online curation of artists and artisans with the goal of connecting them to the modern world via an online outlet. The new collaboration combines West African artist Issa Toure’s textiles with the design skills of Nashville husband-wife duo Jonathan and Holly Powell, owners of JandHP, who rendered Toure’s fabrics into a beautiful collection of primarily tribal printed shorts, bustiers, trousers, skirts and clutches. The line is available online through both parties, however no two pieces are exactly the same. 717 Porter Road; nomad-collective.com and jandhp.com
Damn, Hoover What started out as one woman’s affinity for interior design eventually transformed into a passion for accessorizing, culminating in Ceri Hoover’s eponymous line of handbags. The designer was named this year’s Nashville Fashion Forward Fund recipient, claiming the spot as the first accessory designer to win the honor. It’s no wonder celebrities like Jennifer Love Hewitt and Kristin Chenoweth have been spotted carrying her chic totes. 1200 Clinton St., Suite #41; cerihoover.com
JandHP x Nomad Collective Photo by Brooke Morgan; First Tennessee Park Photo by Mike Strasinger; Ceri Hoover Photo by Zachary Gray; Italian Style Photo by Gian Paolo Barbier; Green Brier Distillery Photo by Danielle Atkins.
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Happiness Distilled Though Tennessee is known for its whiskey (Jack Daniel’s, anyone?) the amount of care that goes into maintaining and reviving the traditions that make these whiskeys so perfect often goes unnoticed. These distilleries, all located in Nashville, though young in age are old in custom and give new meaning to the word artisan. Whether boasting typically Southern whiskeys, or touting liquors not seen in Tennessee since Prohibition, SPEAKeasy Spirits seems to be collecting the best of local liquors and, thankfully, sharing them with the world (or, at the very least, Nashville). Brands like Whisper Creek Tennessee Sipping Cream — an Americanization of the traditional Irish cream liqueur — and Pennington’s Strawberry Rye — a success in experimental drink infusing — have entrusted this brand-new distillery with their creations. The newest addition to the list, Pickers Vodka, has earned bragging rights as an exceptional artisan vodka; all three flavors are distilled 11 times and filtered four. 900 44th Ave. N.; speakeasyspiritsdistillery.com
Collier and McKeel distills small-batch Tennessee whiskey that reaches back over 200 years. Distilling a traditional Tennessee whiskey, along with an unaged, Charcoal Mellowed White Dog whiskey, a cinnamon whiskey called Fiery Gizzard and newer addition Snowy Creek Vodka, Collier and McKeel believe each batch should get a special touch. Every bottle of their Tennessee whiskey is personally thumb-printed by their master distiller himself, ensuring that it gets all the attention it deserves. 1200 Clinton St.; collierandmckeel.com
On lend from England’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the Italian Style: Fashion since 1945 exhibition is landing in Nashville at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts for the last stop on its American tour. An extremely comprehensive and educational look at Italian fashion from the postwar era until today, the collection contains pieces from big names like Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, Prada, Missoni, Versace and Valentino. Workshops, a film series and forums will accompany the exhibit, including the Artists’ Forum: Nashville Fashion Designers hosted by Amanda Valentine, the woman behind the revered VALENTINE VALENTINE label. This panel is just one of the many events scheduled to celebrate the temporary residency of the collection, which may be viewed from June 5- Sept. 7. 919 Broadway Ave.; fristcenter.org
Located just down the road from Collier and McKeel, Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery is the rebirth of a distillery born out of tragedy and hardship. With roots in Germany as far back as the early 19th century, this distillery, closed in 1909 by Prohibition officers, was finally reopened exactly a century later by founder Charles Nelson’s great-great-greatgrandsons Andy and Charlie. Green Brier’s Belle Meade Bourbon, Tennessee White Whiskey and Sherry Cask Finished Bourbon have already spread traditional Tennessee whiskey and Southern ways from California to Washington, D.C. 1414 Clinton St.; greenbrierdistillery.com THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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Tropical Charm
Musical Education
Inspired by the local fruit and vegetation Louisiana shares with more tropical regions of the world — the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, Latin America — DVRA (pronounced “doo-rah”) designer Kathi Keppel creates unique textiles that feature produce from these warm climates; think pillows and clutches with fun prints of pineapples, banana leaves and papayas. They bring the allure of the tropics beyond the resort confines, plus each cotton-linen piece is made locally using materials from the U.S. That’s a double win. shopdvra.com
Every Thursday evening, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art features live performances by various Southern musicians at Ogden After Hours. Following their performance, each musician is interviewed by a journalist seeking to reveal how the South has influenced and shaped their sound. This interactive element lends an educational component to the already entertaining event, which takes place inside the art-lined walls of the museum’s atrium. Suffice it to say that listeners leave feeling more cultured than when they arrived. 925 Camp St.; ogdenmuseum.org
White Hot Affair
Lost and Found
Every year on the first Saturday of August, the citizens of New Orleans don their best white outfits and flock to the Warehouse District in order to celebrate the historically steeped tradition of Whitney White Linen Night. Back in the bayou’s desolate years without air conditioning, residents would combat the heat by wearing outfits made of sun-reflecting white linen. Fortunately for today’s locals, central AC is commonplace, but the custom remains, and similarly dressed celebrators flood Julia Street to honor their city’s past, meandering through the art galleries and booths flanking the curbs. The Contemporary Arts Center hosts the official after party. 900 Camp St.; cacno.org
Louisiana-native and acclaimed sculptor/visual artist Lynda Benglis is returning to her roots for a victory lap of sorts. After residing in a strange limbo at a now defunct Kenner, La., sewage treatment plant, Benglis’ 19-foot-tall bronze statuesque fountain, “The Wave,” will be installed in City Park in early June. One of the artist’s earliest pieces, it was originally constructed for display at the 1984 World’s Fair before it sat unadmired for close to three decades. The details surrounding its former home at the sewage plant are murky, but a deal cut between Kenner and the philanthropic, art-minded Helis Foundation is in place, allowing for the masses to appreciate the fountain. 1 Palm Dr.; neworleanscitypark.com
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Nosh in NOLA While beignets and po’boys obviously abound in the Big Easy, the city’s dining scene has been upping its culinary game in recent years. You’ll still get your crawfish, but it might just come served with cracked prosciutto, pan-fried DVRA Photo by Hunter Holder; White Linen Night Photo by Frank L. Aymami III; Ogden After Hours Photo by Hannah Joyce; The Wave Photo Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York; Salon by Sucre Photo by Hannafoto; Shaya Photo by Stephen Young; Tales of the Cocktail Photo by Jennifer Mitchell Photography.
gnocchi, fennel puree and beurre blanc. Here are three restaurants worthy of your taste buds. Essentially a mecca of flavors, Salon by Sucré is the restaurant, lounge and tea room collaboration above Sucré, a New Orleans favorite for macarons, gelato and chocolate. The restaurant’s menu is downright innovative, serving wagyu beef “sliderettes” with tea cocktails by day and caviar-topped fries alongside foie gras with Creole cream cheese by night. With an ideal location in the French Quarter and plenty of hype, this establishment has the goods to satisfy any palate. 622 Conti St.; shopsucre.com A wood-fire grill and a Middle Eastern background merge together to form the menu base of Chef Alon Shaya’s eponymous restaurant, Shaya, featuring modern Israeli cuisine. The dishes are inspired by many flavorful cultures and they are simultaneously localized by seasonal, fresh, straight-from-the-farm ingredients. The quality of the fare is matched by the luxury of the space — bright blue and white décor lend a calm but chic atmosphere, accentuated by an airy outdoor dining area. 4213 Magazine St.; shayarestaurant.com
Shaken or Stirred Since its 2003 inception, Tales of the Cocktail has morphed into the ultimate annual bar industry networking event where attendees can collaborate and share ever-evolving tricks of the trade. The multi-faceted affair, from July 15-19, is more than just a place to imbibe: Events such as tastings, competitions, seminars and various others collide to ensure an enjoyable, informative experience. Events held at various locations.; talesofthecocktail.com
With a large communal table serving as the centerpiece to new American cuisine, the atmosphere inside the cozy space at Kin is the perfect accoutrement to its fresh and flavorful dishes, in which homemade pasta and farmers market produce are constant stars. Without a liquor license, it’s BYOB for the time being (and you’re encouraged to leave younger family members at home). Overall, an intimate, neighborly vibe dominates the new joint. 4600 Washington Ave.; facebook.com/kinfordindin THE DISCOVERY ISSUE
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TIME WARP
Tiffany debuts a new watch collection made for the modern moment with the past in mind. Story by JAIME LIN WEINSTEIN
T
hey may say that life moves slower in the South, but these days we’re on par with the “New York Minute.” Which is why the watches we’re gravitating toward this season are the ones inspired by the inventor of the famous phrase — Charles Lewis Tiffany. The new Tiffany CT60 collection comes over two decades since the last (not including the 2009 addition to the women’s cocktail collection) and nearly 17 since the first Tiffany & Co. watch introduced in 1847. But it’s a 1940s timepiece on which the new collection’s design is based — a gold calendar watch given to Franklin D. Roosevelt on his birthday in 1945. Reimagined in 18-karat rose gold with a black crocodile band, only 60 of this limited edition model have been made. The three other models (a 42mm chronograph, a 40mm 3-hand and a 34mm 3-hand) have the same modern trademarks of luxury horlogerie — pedigree Swiss-made automatic movements; 42-hour power reserve; poudré numerals; decorative finishings; sapphire crystal display backs — plus a total of 22 dial and strap variants, and the vintage Arabic numerals of Roosevelt’s Tiffany design. They’re the latest embodiment of that harmony between the old and the new, which seems to be a tenet of Tiffany these days. You may recall that pieces from director Francesca Amfitheatrof ’s debut collection last year were inspired by sketches found in the Tiffany archives from the 1920s. It’s a line the company treads well: honoring its own legacy while infusing contemporary design. And in an accessories market that’s becoming more and more electronically driven, where some of the biggest names are tech companies, not jewelers, there’s something alluring about an analog watch rooted in history. Because we all want to embrace the future, but we’d still like to celebrate the past. Tiffany CT60 Chronograph in 18k rose gold, 42 mm, self-winding mechanical movement with a white soleil dial on a black alligator strap. $15,000 Photo Credit: © Tiffany & Co.
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