One night in Delhi has passed and I am feeling like I am missing something extremely important. Whenever I close my eyes and concentrate on the city’s energy, I can’t avoid connecting with a certain elegance present in its austerity, discipline and asceticism.
Category:
Cities
Commissioned by Shah Jahan (Taj Mahal) in 1639, it took nine years to build one of India’s most important building complexes- This seat of Mughal power encapsulates a long period of Indian history and its arts, its significance transcending time and space.
Capri is a rocky mountain rising from the sea, dotted with build-up areas and villas immersed in the typically Mediterranean vegetation. A slow erosive process allowed the sea and the Sorrentine Peninsula to squeeze in. But it also caused the formation of free-standing rocks and spectacular natural marvels.
I heard about a girl who lived 250 years ago, and before leaving her house to get married, wrote a letter of her good fortune in love. Her letter apparently was found during renovations to the house she lived in. I must find that place before I leave Marrakech.
My friend Adriana decided to host a dinner in my honor. She invited her friends and inaugurated the beautiful dining room at her Riad Nour. Among Adriana’s guests, a top haute couture designer Zineb Joundy, from Casablanca, former Comissaire de la Mode in France for Les ‘Temps du Maroc’.
At the Royal Air Maroc check-in in JFK, I notice a large group of African women dressed in long multicolored Kaftans . I realize suddenly that I’ve totally packed the wrong clothes. It’s the first time in my life that something like this happens… I have a strange feeling that I’ m going to learn something unusual on this trip.
Body adornment is a universal art, practiced by Berber women covered with amulets and pendants, Indians sheathed in their bridal saris, Africans with highly codified headdresses, Geishas disappearing under their ghostly white makeup, and Maoris, their bodies sculpted with spiral tattoos.
Mucha exercised his greatest influence through his Encyclopaedia for Craftsmen (1902) a catalogue of Art Nouveau decorative elements , forms and designs whose precise drawings and sketches in small shelves are absolutely superb.
Strahov Monastery is of great importance in the history of the Czech Republic. In 1989 its archives housed over 6 million items. The Strahov library contains over 900 thousand volumes and 300 thousand works of expressive art.
The romantic river’s edge terraces of Nils Jebens’ chic Kampa Park with unrivaled views of the Charles bridge while sampling the appropriately fishy menu, oysters and Iranian Caviar. The delicious dining together with Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte will leave us in the hands of Prague’s world famous fireworks for us welcome the new year to come.
I’ve been visiting Naples for the past few days. I am totally overwhelmed by all the holiday lunches and dinners, Christmas concerts, rich Presepi, crucifixes, antique markets, old churches, hand-crafted nativity figurines, internal cloisters, hyper-caloric, delicious traditional pastries and delicacies…
Hong-Kong Born Malini, of Indian nationality, reveals to my surprise that she has been designing for over five years a line of accessories, handbags and belts, her forte that have become a favorite with editors at Harpers Bazaar, W magazine and Vogue.
Most commonly known as the Reggia di Caserta, this Unesco-listed pad is considered one of the greatest and last-achievements of Italian Baroque architecture. It also where Tom Cruise shot scenes for Mission Impossible 3 and where George Lucas filmed the interior shots of Queen Amidala’s royal residence in Star Wars Episode 1.