Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we share things we’re eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday, along with monthly travel and beauty guides, and the latest stories from our print issues. And you can always reach us at [email protected].
Consider This
A Grand Vacation Villa in Montmartre, Paris
By Lindsey Tramuta
Of all the places to stay in Paris, very few are entire buildings that can be rented out with the concierge-style services of a luxury hotel. Villa Junot, in Montmartre, offers just that, occupying a 7,600-square-foot hôtel particulier from the 1920s that was once the home of the composer and librettist André Mauprey. The five-bedroom villa was reimagined by the designers Laure Gravier and Soizic Fougeront of Claves Architecture (who were also behind the throwback Paris cafe Le Cornichon); they added a game and movie room, a wellness enclave featuring a hammam and an eight-person hot tub and a rooftop equipped with a Big Green Egg grill, dining area and plush sun loungers. Custom furnishings complement Surrealist lithographs and decorative pieces commissioned from France-based artists, including a cosmos-inspired mural by Maldo Nollimerg and trompe l’oeil striped walls that give the impression of draped cloth by Mauro Ferreira. These blend with the home’s original details, from the two orchestra-style balconies in the grand salon to the Greco-Roman-inspired mosaics in the main bathroom. “This had to reflect the neighborhood’s character,” says Robin Michel, co-founder of Iconic House, the group behind Villa Junot. “It’s a celebration of the decorative arts — with air-conditioning, of course.” A stay also includes breakfast, a dedicated house manager and daily housekeeping. Price on request, iconic.house.
Buy This
Made-in-Nantucket Clothes and Accessories
Alexa Brazilian, Aaron Dickson Millhiser and Courtney Broadwater met as teenagers on 1990s Nantucket, where they spent countless summer days together on the beaches of ’Sconset. They’d also explore the old-timey shops, and the general style of the place had a lasting effect on them. In 2023, the women pooled their talents — Brazilian is an editor (including a contributing editor at T), Dickson Millhiser a designer and Broadwater an artist — and launched the lifestyle newsletter The Perfect, which offers carefully researched recommendations for the best of everything, from a white cotton nightgown to a bottle of cranberry bitters. The trio featured the CPO jacket, a handwoven lamb’s-wool button-up from Nantucket Looms, in their first issue. Now, they’ve curated a capsule collection of uniquely Nantucket pieces for Old Stone Trade, Melissa Ventosa Martin’s brand of artisanal wares from all over the world. The offering is part of a larger one devoted to Northeastern makers that includes a netted tote and boat shoes from Maine. “There’s so much interesting history of craft in the region tied to fishing and the ocean,” says Ventosa Martin. Further proof comes in the form of the Craftmasters brass belt buckles — shaped like a lobster claw, oyster, fishhook or Beetle Cat sailboat — that are among The Perfect’s selections. The CPO jacket again makes an appearance, as do antique lightship baskets, a Susan Lister Locke signet ring and, from Murray’s Toggery, vintage Nantucket Red canvas pants and shorts with or without embroidered whales. In a sea of imitators, these are the original whale pants, and while you could absolutely roll up the cuffs and surf-cast for bluefish in them, the women hope wearers will make the items their own. “In high school,” says Dickson Millhiser, “I’d wear my Nantucket Reds to Phish shows.” From $85, oldstonetrade.com.
See This
A Japanese Woodworker’s Imperfect Objects, on Display in Brooklyn
By Siska Lyssens
The woodworker Yuriko Nishiishigaki uses fallen trees she finds in Okinawa, Japan, the prefecture where she was born and raised, and where she still lives. Because typhoons are frequent there, the pieces of hardwood timber she finds are often gnarled and twisted — indications of growth after distress. Seeking to highlight these imperfections, she makes plates and trays with knots and cracks, and leaves the edges of vases jagged. “Rather than prioritizing a design, I prioritize the individuality of the wood,” says Nishiishigaki. “Like the Okinawa custom Kachāshī, where people blend sorrow and joy in folk dance, there’s a strong kinetic energy subconsciously reflected in my work.” Later this month, Nishiishigaki will open her first U.S. exhibition at Cibone O’te, a Japanese design and lifestyle store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Pieces include three large-scale vases made from a fallen Chinese Banyan tree and a Japanese ehretia that had grown at the base of Shuri Castle, another wooden symbol of Okinawa that was first built more than 500 years ago and is now being reconstructed after a fire in 2019. “The tree that lives on” is on view from June 21 through July 13, cibone-us.com.
Stay Here
An Under-the-Radar Hotel on the French Coast Freshens Up
Le Provençal, a family-run hotel perched on the Giens peninsula near the French town of Hyères, has been an under-the-radar idyll since 1951. Set on the water’s edge, its grounds include five acres of fragrant Mediterranean gardens, a tennis court and a large seawater swimming pool carved into the rock. Locals have been happy to keep it a secret. Now, the hotel’s 41 rooms, two restaurants and public spaces have been thoroughly refreshed by the Paris-based interior architect Rodolphe Parente. Working with the location’s abundant natural light, he redesigned rooms with a palette of soft yellows and earthy oranges accented by dark wood finishes. Mid-20th-century influences play out in the furniture, custom designed by Parente; while large-scale commissioned works by young French artists, including a lively ceramic wall piece by Maximilien Pellet and a ceiling mural painted by Hugo Capron, nod to the Riviera’s long history as a gathering place for artists. From about $165 a night, provencalhotel.com.
Covet This
Toogood and Cubitts Collaborate on Bold Glasses Frames
By Jinnie Lee
Since 2013, Tom Broughton, the founder of the eyeglasses brand Cubitts, has designed expressive frames inspired by the retro spectacles of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. “My love is acetates,” he says of his preferred material, a type of plant-based plastic. “They’re timeless, have so much personality and you can combine them with super-tiny, refined details.” When Broughton linked up with Erica and Faye Toogood — the London-based sisters of the limited-run fashion and home-goods design studio Toogood — the trio took a more tactile, artistic approach to creating acetate frames. The Cubitts x Toogood sunglasses collaboration comprises two styles, the Sculptor and the Tailor. The sisters, whose process always begins with a maquette, presented Broughton with frames made of tinfoil, clay and tape. For the round-lens Sculptor, “our challenge was to make acetate feel like sculpture,” Broughton says. The team started with a thick slab of acetate that they hand-chipped “like a sculptor would to a piece of marble.” The goal for the rectangular Tailor was to make the frame iridescent, “almost like the mother-of-pearl on a button,” says Broughton. In the spirit of Toogood’s micro runs, there are only 20 pairs available of each style. $550, cubitts.com and t-o-o-g-o-o-d.com.
Gift This
Tekla’s New Bedding Collection Finds Inspiration in Traditional Embroidery
By Laura Regensdorf
When the Copenhagen-based textile brand Tekla launched in 2017, it started with bedding, though early references were more restrained than cozy: John Pawson’s monastic spaces, rectilinear furniture by Donald Judd, Agnes Martin’s paintings of muted stripes. Minimalism guided the design philosophy — even if it’s “cliché to point that out when you’re a Scandinavian brand,” says Kristoffer Juhl, who co-founded the company with Charlie Hedin, an Acne Studios alum. Now, following an expansion into sleepwear, kitchen linens and bath towels, Tekla returns to its origins with a streamlined take on traditional embroidery. Called Broderie Anglaise and produced in Portugal, the organic-cotton collection includes duvet covers, pillow shams and decorative pillows, with trims that range from crisp scalloped edges (Anaïs) to fanciful ruching (Madeleine). The pieces, offered in classic white, hark back to an era of heirloom-quality bedding; at the same time, the line’s delicate details and hand-tied closures feel in step with the recent proliferation of bows, as seen on sterling silver spoons and track pants. “Now is the time to experiment, to break a little bit out of our comfort zone,” says Juhl, who sees dressing the bed as an extension of personal style. To debut the collection, Tekla has teamed up with the Danish architectural studio Mentze Ottenstein on “Modern Romance,” an installation during Copenhagen’s 3 Days of Design, where the Broderie Anglaise pieces share space with more ornate examples of embroidery. From $75, teklafabrics.com.
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