Tabla de contenidos para Issue 29 en The New York Times Style Magazine: Australia

AS A QUALITY, beauty has never been easy to define. Clearly, there’s more to it than flawless appearance. Sometimes an engaging quirk of character or personality is the very thing that nourishes the soul. Beauty might be discovered in a feeling, a journey or even the realisation of a cherished dream. Most intriguingly, beauty is totally subjective. Everyone has different triggers and unique experiences to inform what pleases their own eye and warms the heart. In our Beauty issue, this nebulous concept abounds not only in people or physical objects, but also in stories and experiences, such as the one about the journeywoman actress who finally discovers the role she was destined to play — and totally owns it. When Leslie Bibb was cast in season three of “The White…

I’VE RECENTLY FOUND myself thinking about the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s infamous novel, “American Psycho”, which is somehow now 25 years old. In an interview with Letterboxd Journal, the film’s director, Mary Harron, professed to be “mystified” by the attitude of modern “Wall Street bros” who admire the character of Patrick Bateman. The film was meant as “a gay man’s satire on masculinity”, Harron explains, but the bros seem to have missed the satire part. Instead, they treat Bateman, a preening serial killer played with flinty menace by Christian Bale, as an enviable Alpha-type: designer suits, rock-hard abs, beautiful girlfriends (whom he murders). BEYOND A CERTAIN POINT, IS IT REALLY WORTH SO MUCH TROUBLE? SURELY THERE HAS TO BE A LIMIT. Rather than being revolted by the psychopathic…

The Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre, which traces its origins back to 1833, is known for many of haute horlogerie’s mind-bending innovations, from crafting the world’s thinnest mechanical movement to creating the first watch to have three — and, more recently, four — dials powered by a single movement. In 1931, tasked with figuring out how to shield polo players’ watch faces from the rigours of the field in India during the British Raj, the house invented the Reverso, with a delicately curved rectangular body that one could flip in its cradle, without removing the watch from the wrist, to reveal a protective steel back. In recent years, Jaeger-LeCoultre has explored the possibilities of the dual-sided timepiece, incorporating ingenious complications on the reverse surface. This new travel version in stainless steel or…

TIFFANY & CO. ELSA PERETTI BEAN CUFFLINKS Drawing on Elsa Peretti’s legacy and Tiffany & Co.’s timeless craftsmanship, the Bean cufflinks meld luxury with effortless wearability. Since 1974, Peretti’s Bean design has held its status as an upper-crust wrist essential, gracing the carpal bones of the chic and elite, despite — or because of — its humble legume form. Crafted in 18-karat yellow gold and set with round brilliant diamonds, these are best worn fastened to the shirt cuffs just so. $28,800, tiffany.com.au Montblanc Meisterstück ‘Igloo’ Silver and Onyx Cufflinks While its fountain pens have garnered a fanbase of legendary writers, statesmen and cinematic auteurs, Montblanc has been in the business of crafting cufflinks since the mid-1990s. The German stationer’s “Igloo” style is decorated using a distinctive brickwork motif, with…

From left: Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello jacket, pants and belt; Miu Miu swimsuit (worn underneath), miumiu.com; and MM6 Maison Margiela sunglasses, maisonmargiela.com. Gucci coat, gucci.com; and Ferrari sunglasses. Bottega Veneta dress and shoes, bottegaveneta.com; and Courrèges sunglasses, courreges.com. Models: Achol Ayor at Supreme Management, Caitlin Soetendal at Fusion Models NYC. Hair by Joe Burwin at Bryant Artists using Oribe. Makeup by Masae Ito at MA+ Artists. Casting by DM Casting.…

AS A TEENAGER in the late 1890s, Guccio Gucci travelled from Florence to London, where he soon began to work as a porter at the Savoy hotel. Inspired by the memory of the establishment’s stylish international guests, in 1921 he opened a leather goods and luggage atelier on Florence’s Via della Vigna Nuova. Gucci found success by combining Tuscan craftsmanship with English elegance; by midcentury, the house had also become known for its equestrian motifs: handbags in the shape of saddles were introduced in the late 1940s, and Guccio’s son Aldo incorporated horse bit hardware for his debut loafer collection in 1953. Within a decade or so, the horse bit emblem adorned belts, jewellery, watches, silks and ready-to-wear. In 1973, the brand released its now-iconic bucket bag, featuring a horse…

Ditch the Jetlag Baggage DEVELOPED BY GROOMING innovator Patricks, AL1 is a dual-phase supplement designed to ease the toll of long-haul travel. With clinically backed ingredients including ginkgo, ashwagandha and L-theanine, the supplement targets brain fog, poor sleep and immune stress. Think: a quiet recalibration for the body in transit. Safe travels. $60, patricks.com.au Everything is Technicolour Trudon’s Lost in a Moment scented candle collection is a study in summer, capturing the season’s pleasures with two evocative fragrances: Summer Haze (pictured), a lush blend of red fruit and rose; and Under the Trees, a crisp scent with mint, cucumber and cedar. Both are housed in gradient glass vessels destined for display long after the wax hits the base. $179, trudon.com.au MODERN FIELDWEAR A REFINED UPDATE on utilitarian outerwear, Morrow’s Dry…

HISTORICALLY, THE WEIGHT of a secret may be defined by the cost of its revelation. It’s one thing to proclaim the wetness of water, another entirely to share a polarising truth via social media. Occasionally, though, there are secrets that are too good not to share: a riveting TV series, a crowd-pleasing cocktail recipe, or maybe an under-the-radar soundtrack. These types of secrets — the kind that flirt with the excitement of an indiscretion — are a classic theme in Swiss watchmaking. During the early 20th century, inspired by Art Deco and the proliferation of the Hollywood jetset, watch houses crafted all manner of “hidden” or “secret” creations: those in which time was disguised by gold and rare gemstones or a shapely aesthetic drawn from nature. Omega, the maker of…

THERE ARE FEW names more mythic than that of Leonardo da Vinci. Painter of enigmas, architect of impossible machines, anatomist, philosopher and dreamer of the divine — his legacy is a constellation of genius. But even among the known marvels, there are secrets. One of them wafts gently through time, unexpected and sensual: da Vinci, it turns out, was also a perfumer. Behind the frescoes and flying machines was a man obsessed with the invisible art of scent. He distilled jasmine, macerated orange blossom and composed fragrances with the same rapturous attention he gave to light and proportion. It’s a lesser-known chapter in the life of the Tuscan master, one that scholars and fragrance experts alike have only recently begun to fully appreciate. Yet da Vinci was, without doubt, a…

AT 51, BIBB WAS SUDDENLY EVERYWHERE. SHE WASN’T THROWING THE PARTY ANYMORE, SHE WAS THE GUEST OF HONOUR. The aesthetic and psychic differences between New York City and Los Angeles are well documented. There’s the vertical thrust of the former — all skyscrapers, concrete and steel — versus the sun-bleached, low-slung sprawl of the latter; becoming versus discovery; urgency versus myth-making. According to Leslie Bibb, there’s another obvious point of difference: event catering. When the actress throws a party in New York she’s “eaten out of house and home”. In Los Angeles? The spread remains essentially untouched. Bibb recalls with evocative profanity a New Year’s Eve party she hosted years ago in LA (along with party food, Bibb is partial to colourful language) during which she found the actress Minnie…

While walking around Harajuku, the birthplace of Tokyo street style, this past September, I passed a man with a pink mohawk in A camouflage bomber jacket, holding hands with a woman dressed like a bag of candy. As they entered a convenience store, the couple stepped aside to let an older woman in a floral kimono go first. Earlier that year at Paris Fashion Week, on what some editors call Japan Day or Rei Day — when the Tokyo-based Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo and her acolytes Junya Watanabe and Kei Ninomiya all present their new collections — two guests had arrived at Ninomiya’s runway show unintentionally wearing the same outfit: a black polyurethane top with exposed braces, a trellised tulle dress and a plaited synthetic leather face mask.…

FROM PORTOFINO TO Prague, a glittering wave of new five-star hotel offerings has arrived in Europe and western Turkey for 2025, making their mark on storied Mediterranean coastlines and “1 per cent” postcodes. Whether it’s members-only luxury on the Aegean or a Ligurian Riviera renovation that expands LVMH’s high-end hotel remit, these addresses will whisk you into holiday mode this northern summer. Splendido, A Belmond Hotel With LVMH behind the project and the feted interior designer Martin Brudnizki in charge of aesthetics, Portofino’s most iconic hotel has been relaunched, heralding a new era for the Splendido on the Ligurian Riviera. Its new interiors fuse Brudnizki’s signature maximalism with nods to the hotel’s 16th-century monastic heritage, with a plush upgrade to the common areas, guest rooms and pool, and the addition…

IN THE THIRD chapter of Cartier’s Nature Sauvage high jewellery collection, presented in Singapore recently following its premiere in Vienna and a second chapter in Shanghai, nature is neither just a backdrop nor occasional inspiration — it is the main character, interpreted through gemstones and precious metals. If the elements of nature are canvases for the Nature Sauvage collection, then lush Singapore was the best possible frame. The venue was the historic Former Command House, originally purposed as the official residence of the British General Officer Commanding Malaya. In this gracious building, set against a backdrop of tropical greenery, Cartier created immersive spaces themed around different elements, each designed to reflect a facet of Singapore’s unique Peranakan culture and landscape. A workshop with local artisans and Cartier’s director of transmission,…

ON A WARM September afternoon in subarctic Finland, the architect Laura Mattila kneels in the grass beside a sauna that she and Mikko Merz, her 50-year-old partner in life and work, built eight years ago in the factory town turned artists’ colony of Fiskars, an hour’s drive west from Helsinki. Mattila, 41, doesn’t mention the near-perfect symmetry of the building’s two 12.5-square-metre volumes (one a changing room, the other the sauna), separated by an open void that frames the forest; or the construction’s elegant lock joints, folded like knuckles over the corners of its solid timber walls. Instead, she wants to discuss how the building works: thin layers of linen packed between logs provide insulation; the stove’s residual heat and air circulation below dry the sauna between uses; gaps around…

A DECADE OR so ago, Nicholas Ward-Jackson woke up one morning determined to get out of Venice. After nearly five years, the English art dealer and his wife, Margherita, an Italian psychotherapist, had outgrown their small home and were tired of the tourists. But the day before their scheduled return to London, where they have another residence, Ward-Jackson, now in his 80s, received a call from a real estate agent cousin of Margherita’s about a listing in Dorsoduro, a more intimate neighbourhood separated from the crowded cafes of Piazza San Marco by the Grand Canal. Reluctantly, he agreed to tour the property: a 325-square-metre apartment on the piano nobile, or second floor, of a 17th-century palazzo. As he walked around the main hall — a “very scruffy” space, he recalls,…