Isabella Rossellini’s Mama Farm Introduces a Knitwear Collaboration

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Plus: obscure Surrealist literature, a virtual South African art gallery — and more recommendations from T Magazine.

Step by Step

Interview by Caitie Kelly

My grandmother and mother have great skin, so I have good genes, but eating healthy is important for my skin, too. I haven’t had instant ramen in 10 years and don’t drink soda. When I wake up, I wash my face. I’m really into certain aromas and when I found this Clé de Peau soap for the face, I loved it. It’s so velvety and gentle. I rotate that with the Superegg Gentle Elements Cleansing Foam, and I tone with the La Mer Cleansing Micellar Water and Infused Lotion. I know sun cream is important, but I feel that it’s sometimes too oily, so I try to mix it with other products. I combine SK-II’s Atmosphere CC Cream SPF 50 with the La Mer Hydrating Illuminator. In the shower, I use Aesop Geranium Leaf Body Cleanser. My husband and I have been using it for at least four years now. For my hair, I use Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo and No. 5 Bond Maintenance Conditioner.

Because I’m meeting with guests all the time at the restaurant, I wear makeup most days, but I stay more neutral. I change my foundation depending on my skin’s condition and the weather. If my skin is oily, I use Armani’s Luminous Silk Foundation, and when I need more moisture, I’ll use La Prairie Skin Caviar Concealer Foundation. I cover the skin and contour with a Beautyblender and line my eyes with Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eye Liner. I use the Dior Lip Sugar Scrub once in a while and the Dior Addict Lip Maximizer. I’ve been using the same Helena Rubinstein mascara for about 10 years, but it’s not sold in the United States. When I go to Korea or when I’m in other countries, I’ll pick up a few. Olive Young is a drugstore in Korea that has really affordable, good products. When I go there, I buy all of their paper sheet mask packs.

I’m standing all day at the restaurant, so circulation is important — I try to get a massage once a week. In New York, I like the La Mer spa at the Peninsula Hotel and the recovery spa at S10, where I work out, in the West Village.

At night, I wash off my makeup with the SK-II Facial Treatment Cleansing Oil and follow the same routine as in the morning. I help my skin recover from dryness by using the La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Eye Cream and Pure Gold Radiance Nocturnal Balm or the original Crème de la Mer. I don’t wear perfume on the job, but when I travel or on my days off, I love Celine La Peau Nue and Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille.

Covet This

By Angela Koh

In 2013, the actress Isabella Rossellini established the 28-acre Mama Farm, in the Long Island hamlet of Brookhaven, intent on promoting environmental conservation and biodiversity. The farm serves as an animal sanctuary for heritage-bred chickens, goats, quails, ducks and sheep. Rossellini and her daughter, Elettra Wiedemann, run a knitting program using ethically sheared wool and this month, Mama Farm launches its own limited-edition four-piece knitwear collection in collaboration with the designer Aisling Camps, sold through the online shop Moda Operandi. “It provided me a closeness with the raw material that I had not experienced before,” says Camps. “I met all the sheep and did my best to preserve their variations and use different techniques that best showcased the quality of their wool.” Pieces include a coily beige sweater vest and a geometric-patterned skirt hand-crocheted at Camps’s studio in Brooklyn. From $1,100, modaoperandi.com.

View This

By Natalia Rachlin

This summer, the culture journalist turned art adviser Fiona Mackay launched Kombi, an online gallery and retailer that specializes in South African art, design and craft and caters to the American market. “Because of geography and logistics, so much of this work hasn’t been shown stateside, and I wanted to rectify that,” says Mackay, who was raised in Cape Town and now lives in Brooklyn. Kombi, named for the Volkswagen minibuses that were ubiquitous during Mackay’s childhood, will present work from both emerging and more established makers, offering readily buyable pieces, as well as made-to-order and limited-edition works. Available now are Cameron Platter’s trompe l’oeil sculptures, fashioned out of wood and enamel, that, from afar, look like cheap plastic garden chairs, and a mirror fringed with black nylon strands designed by TheUrbanative, a Johannesburg-based design studio founded by Mpho Vackier and inspired by the hairstyles of the Ovambo people of Namibia. “I hope [Kombi] becomes both a cultural and commercial exchange,” says Mackay, who also plans to initiate residencies and collaborations, creating opportunities for American artists to produce work in South Africa and vice versa. She’s currently facilitating the production of a new body of work from the ceramist Sandile B. Cele, which will include calabash-shaped vessels studded and painted with patterns inspired by traditional Zulu iziqhaza (earlobe disks). Cele plans to show the work with Kombi at an exhibition this autumn in New York. From $250, kombi.nyc.

Wear This

By Natalia Rachlin

For Jasper Toron’s new men’s clothing line, Toron Studio, which he launched earlier this summer, the Danish designer — who formerly led men’s wear teams at Burberry, Givenchy and Brioni — shows off his playful side. Silk and cotton separates feature motifs including a bull with a bowed head, a Minotaur and a man tussling on a floor and laurel leaves interspersed with stars. Toron says he drew inspiration for the collection from a wide range of sources, including Northern European neoclassicism, the dressing gowns of the British playwright Noël Coward and Julian Schnabel’s “delightfully anti-reality pajama uniform,” as Toron puts it. The brand, which is produced in Italy and Britain, is an exercise in extravagance and escapism, though Toron hopes the clothes will be just as easy to wear on the streets of East London (where he’s based) as they are on the Aegean coast. Inclusive sizing and flattering draping are at the heart of the label: “I’m a bigger guy myself, and it’s crucial that there is space for all kinds of bodies,” says Toron, “When I wear the pieces, I move differently: These are happy, decadent clothes.” From $420, toron.studio.

Read This

By Erik Morse

For those who would prefer an obscure European novella to the typical summer beach read, Wakefield Press is the place to turn. Founded in 2009 in Cambridge, Mass., by the editor couple Marc Lowenthal and Judy Feldmann, the publisher’s catalog of titles is divided into whimsically labeled categories such as “The Library of Cruelty,” “The School of the Strange” and “De Profundis.” Highlights include translations of Decadent and Surrealist authors such as Paul Scheerbart and Marcel Schwob, in addition to those of forgotten female iconoclasts such as the Surrealist author Unica Zürn and the Expressionist poet Bess Brenck Kalischer. Taking inspiration from other avant-garde publishers like Cape Editions, Exact Change and Semiotext(e), Wakefield produces lavishly designed, pocket-size editions whose often colorful and abstract covers make them ideal vacation companions, as well as coffee table collectibles. Most also contain scholarly introductions or afterwords to situate the texts (and authors) within their historical and literary milieus. This season’s publications include more Decadent gems, like “The City of Unspeakable Fear” (1943) by the prolific Belgian horror writer Jean Ray and “Great Liberty” (1946), a collection of Surrealist-inspired prose poems by the enigmatic French novelist Julien Gracq. wakefieldpress.com.

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