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CAT EYE vs. RED LIP

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Are you the sleek, mysterious, alluring vixen of your friend group? The one whose eyes can draw in any guy from across the bar or restaurant. The one whose makeup aesthetic highlights her smartest asset – the eyes?

Kate Moss, Adele, Alexa Chung, and Angelina Jolie are just some of our favorite icons who are known for their cat eyes. The beauty exuded by a simple, yet bold winged liner continues to inspire movie stars, models, artists, and you, too.

When considering liquid eyeliners  – bold, precise, perfectly manicured cat-eye – are just some elements that come to mind. With so many options from luxury to drugstore brands, it can be very daunting experience to say the least.

Here is a carefully curated collection of eyeliners to add to your collection.

BEST OVERALL

NARS CLIMAX LIQUID EYELINER AT SEPHORA FOR $24

BEST DRUGSTORE

MAYBELLINE EYE STUDIO MASTER PRECISE LIQUID EYELINER AT ULTA BEAUTY FOR $9

BEST CAT-EYE

PAT McGARTH LABS PERMA PRECISION LIQUID EYELINER AT SEPHORA FOR $35

RUNER-UP, BEST CAT-EYE

TARTE MANEATER LIQUID EYELINER AT AMAZON FOR $16

BEST LUXURY

CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN LUMINOS INK LINER AT SAKS FOR $75

BEST FOR BEGINNERS

STILA STAY ALL DAY WATERPROOF LIQUID EYELINER AT AMAZON FOR $24

BEST SPLURGE

HOURGLASS VOYEUR WATERPROOF LIQUID LINER AT SEPHORA FOR $36

BEST OVERALL

MARC JACOBS HIGHLINER GEL EYE CRAYON AT AMAZON FOR $69

Or, Are you the delightfully irresistible, flirty yet witty, magnetic feline of the group? The one with Alizarin crimson stained lips? The one whose voluminous pouty lips can charm any living being with a pulse.  The one who can stop time with just a flash of a smile radiating across the romantically dim light Tribeca restaurant?

Dynamic, bold, and confident – the red lipstick is the ultimate beauty staple. Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Rita Ora, and Megan Fox are just some celebrity icons we have come to love for their red-lip signature cosmetic style. The ruby red lip is the beauty classic that transcends time, genres, style, and age. Who doesn’t love the statement a red lip makes, whatever that statement may be.

Not all who bleed red are the same! Here are some exciting new options for you to expand your collection:

 
 

BEST OVERALL

CHARLOTTE TILBURY K.I.S.S.I.N.G LIPSTICK AT SEPHORA FOR $35

BEST DRUGSTORE

L’Oreal PARIS COLOR RICHE LIP COLOR AT AMAZON FOR $7

RUNNER-UP, BEST DRUGSTORE

REVLON BALM STAIN AT AMAZON FOR $9

BEST LONG-LASTING

MAYBELLINE NEW YORK SUPER-STAY MATTE INK LIQUID LIPSTICK AT AMAZON FOR $8

RUNNER-UP, BEST LONG-LASTING

BEAUTY BAKERIE MATTE LIP WHIP AT ULTA FOR $20

BEST MATTE

CHARLOTTE TILBURY MATTE REVOLUTION LIPSTICK AT SEPHORA FOR $35

RUNNER-UP, BEST MATTE

PAT McGARTH LABS MATTE TRANCE LIPSTICK AT SEPHORA FOR $39

BEST SHINY

FENTY BEAUTY SHEER SHINY LIPSTICK AT SEPHORA FOR $26

BEST METALLIC

UOMA BEAUTY METALLIC SHINE LIPSTICK AT ULTA FOR $16

BEST HYDRATING:

ILIA COLOR BLOCK HIGH IMPACT LIPSTICK AT REVOLVE FOR $28

 

NEW YORK: ARCHITECTURE

 
 

Somewhere between

Living & Dreaming,

there’s New York.

Even if you have never been to New York, you have been to New York— from superhero movies to Seinfeld, Friends, Sex in the City, or any number of Woody Allen movies, New York has been in your living room more times than you can recall. With over 800 languages spoken (making New York the most linguistically diverse city in the world), New York’s extraordinarily diverse population has earned its nickname as the ‘melting pot’. 

Having welcomed millions arriving by sea, the Statue of Liberty, located on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, is not only a symbol of freedom and an American icon, but also just one example of the beautiful, diverse, and inspiring architecture in New York City. New York is most memorable for its Art Deco style, a brash, exuberant movement combining geometric motifs, dramatic historical allusions, and the integration of industrial craft.

Buildings should be artistic as well as practical; they should be admired and enjoyed, not just lived in, and worked in. After all, renaissance artists such as Raphael and Michelangelo worked as architects, too. 

 

NEOCLASSICAL 

Statue of Liberty // IMAGE SOURCE

STATUE OF LIBERTY

The statue depicts Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty, with a torch in her right hand and a tabula ansata with a date of the declaration of Independence. Dedicated on the 28th of October of 1886, the copper statue was a gift from the French people to the USA intended to commemorate the lasting friendship between the peoples of the two nations.

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed it in a neoclassical style, but Gustave Eiffel built the framework. The statue of liberty was inscribed as a UNESCO heritage site in 1984. UNESCO states that it’s a masterpiece of the human spirit,  and it “endures as a highly potent symbol—inspiring contemplation, debate, and protest—of ideals such as liberty, peace, human rights, abolition of slavery, democracy, and opportunity.”

 

NEOCLASSICAL/ GREEK REVIVAL

Federal Hall (Alexander Jackson Davis)

Brooklyn Borough Hall (Calvin Pollard)

14 Wall Street (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon)

Inspired by Ancient Greek and Roman forms, Neoclassical buildings are known for  their heavy massing, regimented geometries, and dramatic, temple-like columns. Neoclassicism flourished in New York in the early 19th century, as the times gravitated towards a more restrained form of architecture (& away from excessive styles like those of Baroque and Rococo).  Mostly popular in civic and office  architecture, but it can also be found in the austere mansions and townhouses in Upper East Side and townhouses like the Gramercy. A lighter (and later) version, Italianate, can be found  in many of the city’s brownstones.

Federal Hall (Alexander Jackson Davis) IMAGE SOURCE

 

COLONIAL/ NEO-COLONIAL

MORRELL SMITH (726 Madison Avenue)

DELANO & ALDRICH (1130 Fifth Avenue)

ITHIEL TOWN (St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery)

Colonial Architecture—traditional, European-influenced structures built (or made to look like they were built) during the period between 1600 and 1800. In New York, these buildings can be found in lower Manhattan. Common features include stone, brick, or wood  cladding; pitched roofs; and symmetrical designs. In the 1870s and 1930s, colonial architecture came back in style along with Georgian,  Federalist, Cape  Cod, and French variations.

MORRELL SMITH (726 Madison Avenue) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

RENAISSANCE REVIVAL

Flatiron Building (Daniel Burnham) // IMAGE SOURCE

Flatiron Building (Daniel Burnham)

Plaza Hotel (Henry J. Hardenbergh)

Carnegie Hall (William Tuthill)

This style embodies the grandeur of palaces and chateaux of Renaissance Italy and France. Increased in popularity among wealthy citizens of New York who aspired to emulate the ostentatious  style of aristocratic Europeans. It became so favored that almost every Fifth Avenue home was entirely with Neo-Renaissance mansions. A heavier, more  restrained version is Romanesque Revival, whose most famous example in  New York is the south wing of the American Museum of Natural History. 

 

GOTHIC REVIVAL

Trinity Church (Richard Upjohn) // IMAGE SOURCE

Trinity Church (Richard Upjohn)

St. Patrick’s Cathedral (James Renwick)

Belvedere Castle (Calvert Vaux)

In the mid-19th century, Gothic Revival became a trend in New York largely under the  influence of the Romantic Movement (a reaction against machinery and  mass production) and a reverence for all things medieval. The style  features Gothic architecture’s tell-tale pointed arches, complex  tracery, and familiar gables, dormers, and turrets, all carried out in  stone or brick. 

 

ART NOUVEAU

Little Singer Building (Ernest Flagg)

Decker Building (John H. Edelmann)

New Era Building (Buchman and Deisler)

Rejecting both the rigid formalism of classical revival  styles and the mechanized repetition of the Industrial Revolution, Art Nouveau originated in France, but gained popularity in New York at the  turn of the 20th century. Inspired by natural forms like plants and flowers, it features sinuous curves and  intricate decoration, often cast from iron, stone, and glass.  The style came to New York through the wide dissemination of graphic art  (magazines, posters, etc.), and designs of famed  practitioners like Louis Sullivan and Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Decker Building (John H. Edelmann) // IMAGE SOURCE

Decker Building (John H. Edelmann) // IMAGE SOURCE

Decker Building (John H. Edelmann) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

CAST IRON

Haughwout Building (J.P. Gaynor)

448 Broome Street (Frederick Clark Withers) 453 Broome Street, 47 Mercer Street, 429 Broadway

At the end of the 19th century, any building constructed with prefabricated cast iron came to be known as Cast Iron Architecture. First appearing in Europe and then used in London’d Crystal Palace and Paris’ the Eiffel Tower. But in New York, its  use was focused almost exclusively in Soho—then an industrial  neighborhood—where buildings took on eclectic facades (often combining  classical forms and intricate ornament) that were lighter, cheaper, and  more elegant than the usual granite, marble, and brick. The Soho  Cast-Iron Historic District was created in 1973 and includes more than  500 buildings, making it the densest concentration of cast-iron  architecture in the world. 

Haughwout Building (J.P. Gaynor) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

BEAUX-ARTS

New York Public Library (Carrère and Hastings)

Grand Central Terminal (Warren & Wetmore)

Metropolitan Museum of Art (Richard Morris Hunt and McKim, Mead & White)

 At the turn of the 20th century, Beaux-Arts started appearing in New York. This style is of ancient-looking historical revival. Beaux-Arts structures combine the grandeur and tradition of classicism with  Renaissance-inspired—and technologically aided—lightness, uplift, and  ornamentation. Innovations like steel-reinforced concrete and large  sheets of glass allowed these buildings to be especially cavernous and  impressive. 

Metropolitan Museum of Art (Richard Morris Hunt and McKim, Mead & White) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

ART DECO

Empire State Building (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon)

Chrysler Building (William Van Alen)

Rockefeller Center (Raymond Hood, Harvey Wiley Corbett)

Buildings designed in this style often  incorporated sleek, showy materials like colorful stone, chrome plating,  plastic, stainless steel, and glass block. New York’s most iconic style is Art Deco, a  brash, exuberant movement combining geometric motifs, dramatic  historical allusions, and the integration of industrial craft. The  movement’s name derives from Paris’s 1925 Exposition Internationale des  Arts Décoratifs, but in New York, the style’s emergence echoed the  excesses of the Roaring ’20s.  

Chrysler Building (William Van Alen) // IMAGE SOURCE

Chrysler Building (William Van Alen) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

INTERNATIONAL STYLE

UN Building (Harrison & Abramovitz, Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer, others)

Lever House (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill)

Museum of Modern Art (Edward Durell Stone and Philip Goodwin)

Emerging from the industrial-inspired functionalism of  the Bauhaus in Germany, the International Style is characterized by  simplified geometries, lack of ornamentation, and exposed structure. The  term was coined by New York architects Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell  Hitchcock in the catalogue for their 1932 MoMA exhibition on modern  architecture, titled “The International Style: Architecture since 1922.”  While the style was originally intended for the masses, by the time it  took off in New York in the 1950s, it had been co-opted by some of the  biggest corporations in the world— Seagrams, Lever Soap, Pan Am—which  replaced simple, mass-produced materials with travertine and bronze, not  to mention world-class art collections. 

Lever House (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

BRUTALISM

Met Breuer (Marcel Breuer)

Bronx Community College (Marcel Breuer)

University Village (I.M. Pei)

Meant to exhibit strength, power, and rawness, the  structures themselves often function as ornament or sculpture. This  style is all about cement, prized for its weightiness, malleability, and  monumentality. Most Brutalist buildings exhibit simple, block-like  forms; large scale; and structural innovations like cantilevers and  floating masses.

Met Breuer (Marcel Breuer) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

NEW FORMALISM

Lincoln Center (Wallace Harrison, Eero Saarinen, and more)

2 Columbus Circle (Edward Durell Stone)

Lenox Health Greenwich Village (Albert Ledner)

New Formalist structures in New  York were often intended to evoke the idea of the city as the new center of Western culture, with Acropolis-like raised podiums, deep  overhangs, heavy grids, and Roman-style arches. The most noted practitioners were Edward Durell Stone, Philip Johnson (whose aesthetic  changed several times over the course of his career), and Minoru  Yamasaki, who designed the World Trade Center’s original Twin Towers.

Lincoln Center (Wallace Harrison, Eero Saarinen, and more) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

GOOGIE/ SPACE AGE

New York State Pavilion (Philip Johnson)

TWA Terminal (Eero Saarinen)

New York Hall of Science (Wallace Harrison)

Googie architecture had an overall futuristic essence with upswept roofs, dramatic angles, and high-tech  materials like steel, glass, and neon. The Jetsons-esque style took New  York by storm with the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens. 

TWA Terminal (Eero Saarinen) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

HIGH-TECH

Citigroup Center (Hugh Stubbins)

Hearst Tower (Foster & Partners)

Javits Center (Pei Cobb Freed)

As modernism reached its apex, architects began to  fetishize its technical innovations, from cantilevers to ventilation  systems to curtain walls. In New York, the ultimate expression of this  style is the 59-story Citigroup Center, with its chevron bracing system,  sheer glass and metal facade, and behemoth upper mass, which floats  over stilts in Midtown Manhattan.

Hearst Tower (Foster & Partners) // IMAGE SOURCE

Hearst Tower (Foster & Partners) // IMAGE SOURCE

 

POSTMODERNISM

Westin Times Square (Arquitectonica) // IMAGE SOURCE

AT&T Building (Philip Johnson and John Burgee)

Westin Times Square (Arquitectonica)

Scholastic Building (Aldo Rossi)

Battery Park City (Cesar Pelli, others)

Detested until its recent nostalgia-fueled comeback,  postmodern architecture developed as a middle finger to the austerity  and arrogance of modernism. The populist style included watered-down  historical allusions; mismatched, often cartoonish elements; and bright  colors. 

 

DECONSTRUCTIVISM

8 Spruce Street (Frank Gehry)

Cooper Union New Academic Building/41 Cooper Square (Morphosis)

IAC Building (Frank Gehry)

 When digital technology began to allow it,  architects like Frank Gehry created buildings that looked like they were  being mangled and ripped open. The term Deconstructivism came about a  little later, with the 1988 MoMa exhibition “Deconstructivist  Architecture.” Developer-driven New York took longer than many major  cities to adopt the antiestablishment style. 

Cooper Union New Academic Building/41 Cooper Square (Morphosis) // IMAGE SOURCE

 
 
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WORKS OF ART vs. THE HANDBAG

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THE HANDBAG: No health insurance needed for this instant anti-depressant, physical side effects or co-pay required if you decide to take it out for the day.

The handbag is an extension of the individual, form of creative self-expression, and many times a fashionable security blanket (aka: A bottomless pit of ‘just-in-case’ to ‘life-and-death’ aids for whatever you may scenarios encounter during the day).

Fans and collectors alike consider handbags as more than a precious and necessary accent for their outfit, but refer to them as WORKS OF ART.

Who’s to say they are wrong?

Art isn’t a science. Art is meant to make you feel something - to make you come alive! A handbag certainly inspires joy, confidence, and creativity.

You be the judge, below are some of my favorite handbags next to ‘works of art’.

 
 
 

Red Shift (1990) by Helen Frankenthaler

 
 

‘N/A’ (yellow) by Mark Rotheko

 
 
 

Tournament by Helen Frankenthaler

 
 
 
 

Onde IV (1961) by Pablo Palazuelo

 
 

The Death of James Lee Byars (1994) by James Lee Byars

 
 
 
 

Tuxedo (1982) by Jean-Michel Basquiat

 
 
 

Pascal, State of Grace (1987) by Dorothea Rockburne

 
 
 

Lunatique compact n3 (1996) by Francois Morellet

 
 

Kalklijnen Hoek (1971) by Raoul De Keyser

 
 
 
 

Amrta (2011) by James Turrell

 
 

MEDITERRANEAN JEWELS

 
 

Zia Louisa, Zia Sandra, Zia Silvia, and Zia Francesca- The chicest women I will ever know.

My aunts are some of the strongest women I have known. When they speak, they do so with thoughtful intention, earnest passion, and fearless self-expression. They exude style, grace, and strength. 

My childhood bounced between cold winters in Albania and scorching hot summers in Italy. 

It was the time I spent in Genova (at Recco’s Beach, small beach just outside of Portofino) at my aunts that I learned so much from as well as their incredible sense of style. 

Living by the sea, my aunts have 3 key attributes: 

1.    sun kissed golden skin

2.    linen as their clothing fabric of choice

3.    accessorized with vibrant stones and bold jewels

They wore large jade stones from China, teal and coral from the islands, and gold from the farthest reaches of the globe. 

These pieces had vibrancy; colors so saturated that it took your breath away. 

Whenever I look at these jewels, they always take me back to ITALY.

Here are some pieces of jewelry that they would wear:

 

108 Jadeite Bead, Rubellite, and Diamond Necklace

Tiffany & Co. Spinel and Diamond Necklace

 

Gold, Turquoise, and Ruby Bracelet

Coral Necklace and Turquoise Necklaces

 

Cartier Diamond Ring

Van Cleef & Arpels: Pair of Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, and Diamond ‘Domino’ Earring clips, Originates from France

 

Bvlgari gem set gold convertible necklace

Chanel Multicolor Gripoix Glass and Gold Metal Necklace, 1989

 

Sapphire, Emerald, and Diamond Necklace & Pair of Pendant Ear clips

Van Cleef & Arpels: Gem Set & Diamond Demi-Parure

 

Cartier Coral and Diamond Bracelet

Piaget Watch, Yellow and diamond-set bracelet watch with jade dial, Circa 1975

 
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MENSWEAR PEACOCKS

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Cambridge Dictionary defines Peacocking as:

  • Peacocking. noun [ U ] us/ˈpiː.kɑː.kɪŋ/ uk/ˈpiː.kɒk.ɪŋ/ behavior by men that shows they are very proud of their appearance, for example wearing clothes that make people notice them: Peacocking is something men do to highlight their strong points and stand out from their competition.

Businessman. Best Friend. Creative. Lover. Family Man. 

Style is an occasion to discover and express yourself. Every aspect of who you are should be honored in your wardrobe. With a pandemic behind us and summer in the horizon, now is the time for excitement, now is the time for colors, patterns, and textures. A floral shirt, flamboyant shorts, outlandish colored tie - what aspect of your identity will you honor in this new chapter of your life?

For inspiration, take a visual journey of self-expression below:

 

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2019) by Jonathan Daniel Pryce, VOGUE MAGAZINE

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2018), Fashionista

 

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2019) by Jonathan Daniel Pryce, VOGUE MAGAZINE

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2019) by Jonathan Daniel Pryce, VOGUE MAGAZINE

 

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2017) by Robert Spangle, GQ MAGAZINE

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2019), Fashionista

 

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2018) by Imaxtree, Fashionista

PARIS FASHION WEEK (2019) by Dan Roberts, GQ MAGAZINE

 

PARIS FASHION WEEK (2019) by Dan Roberts, GQ MAGAZINE

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2018) by Imaxtree, Fashionista

 

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2018) by Imaxtree, Fashionista

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2019), Fashionista

 

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2019), Fashionista

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2019) by Imaxtree, Fashionista

 

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2019) by Imaxtree, Fashionista

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2017) by Robert Spangle, GQ MAGAZINE

 

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2019) by Imaxtree, Fashionista

MILAN FASHION WEEK (2019) by Imaxtree, Fashionista