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Elvira Golombosi and her partner, Hector Lasso, first started selling their jewelry line, Oraïk, in 2015 at the Las Dalias market in Ibiza. The intimate setting allowed them to have direct connection with their clients, which is still a priority for the couple. “I like to know where all our pieces go,” says Golombosi. The designer, who is originally from Ukraine, first visited Ibiza on holiday in 2013 and felt an immediate connection to its bohemian aesthetic; she and Lasso now live there about half the year. Eventually, through word of mouth, their talismanic pieces — a ring in the shape of a jaguar with diamond eyes or a gold bracelet with two snake heads — became so coveted by the island’s insiders that, as of last year, the couple shifted to selling through studio appointments and scheduled appearances at the Sabina Estates, an exclusive development with villas designed by multiple architects including David Chipperfield. Golombosi, who designs the jewelry, sculpts each shape from soft wax while Lasso makes a cast of it and sets the stones. They have always worked in an organic way, creating pieces that look like they “could be found in an archaeological museum,” says Golombosi. This summer, she had the urge to create a collection of pendants inspired by the zodiac. “The symbols of the zodiac are both ancient and figurative, so I wanted to do my own version of it,” she explains. The result: disks of gold with childlike reliefs that are colored with a centuries-old enamel technique and feature small gemstones. The couple has created a limited series of 50 pendants per symbol, launching this week for pre-order, and by the end of the year they will be available at Love Adorned in New York City. $1,600 each, without chain, oraik.eu.
Pikliz is an everyday Haitian condiment made from naturally crisp vegetables like cabbage and onion, plus the specific fruity heat of Scotch bonnet peppers, all pickled through submersion in vinegar and salt. At the restaurant Kann in Portland, Ore., the Haitian American chef Gregory Gourdet touches up his recipe with lime juice and shallots. “Finding that perfect balance of salt and acid and heat really makes the best pikliz,” says Gourdet, who adds that the condiment’s real magic is the transformation of pantry staples into something greater than their disparate parts, and in very little time. (Pikliz only needs a few hours to ripen, though some say it’s better after a few days.) “It’s so humble, but the combination, it’s explosive,” he says. At Honeysuckle Provisions, a cafe and grocer opening in West Philadelphia later this month, chef Cybille St. Aude-Tate, also Haitian American, will serve homemade pikliz at Friday fish dinners and sell jars of it. She’s sourcing the traditional ingredients from neighboring Black-owned farms and featuring allspice as the primary seasoning. “We want to introduce people to the culture first and how it connects to the island, how it connects to migration,” says St. Aude-Tate. In time, she may incorporate okra or green beans, acknowledging that substitutions are common within the diaspora. “You had to make do with what you had,” she says. In Milford, N.H., chef Chris Viaud is serving pikliz in a fried-chicken sandwich at his family’s just-opened traditional Haitian restaurant, Ansanm. In New Orleans, pikliz shows up on a plate of fried tostones at the Pan-Caribbean restaurant Cane & Table. While these chefs largely serve pikliz alongside fritay, or fried foods, in their restaurants, their at-home application is broader: Pikliz goes wherever a dash of vinegared hot sauce or a tangy slaw might go. As St. Aude-Tate says, “In our household, we put pikliz on everything.”
There will be many eye-catching pieces on view at the contemporary design fair PAD, held this week in London’s Mayfair, but one worth lingering on is an extraordinary wooden cabinet embedded with a tapestry designed by the Finnish multidisciplinary artist Kustaa Saksi. Originally a graphic designer, about a decade ago Saksi went to the Textiel Museum in Tilburg, the Netherlands, which also houses a textile lab and workshop, with the idea of turning one of his visual ideas into a tapestry. “It opened up a whole new world for me,” he says. Saksi has since been commissioned by fashion brands such as Hermès, to create immersive window displays, and Marimekko, to create fabric collections. More recently he has incorporated his textiles into furniture. He worked with the renowned Finnish cabinetmaker Nikari to create a wardrobe made from the wood of an apple tree with textile work woven of Japanese paper yarn then framed in brass. The result is something out of Narnia; the imagery that Saksi uses is inspired by both fractals and Finnish folklore. “These archetypal — often pagan-era — characters are still very much ingrained in Finnish culture,” Saksi says. The piece showing at PAD features abstract trees and rock formations woven with eggplant purple, brown, yellow and green threads, a reference to the hiisi, which in pagan times referred to a sacred grove in the forest and then later was redefined as a demonic trickster. “It was the church that probably changed the meaning,” says Saksi. “I’m interested in those ancient mythic figures that have been maligned over time because I think this is a time that we might need them.” On view from Oct. 10-16, kustaasaksi.com.
When Alice Russotti and Francesca del Balzo became Brooklyn homeowners, they found themselves thinking more about tableware — at least, more than they did during their itinerant careers in art and fashion, respectively. “We were suddenly becoming house-proud, wanting to buy nice things for our homes,” del Balzo says. Growing up in London, the two old friends often visited charming local shops to find standout home goods. “In New York, there was an element of that, but the offerings weren’t as colorful and whimsical as we were used to,” del Balzo explains. Working with artisans across Europe, the pair have since collaborated on a number of pieces that joyfully blend global influences: A series of Farrow & Ball-painted lampshades is made by Spanish-born, London-based artist Alvaro Picardo; the Bud tablecloth is emblazoned with an Italian hand-block print of an oversize floral motif borrowed from Portuguese embroidery. These creations are sold exclusively at Porta, Russotti and del Balzo’s welcome treasure trove of a shop on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue. The earth-toned, Giancarlo Valle-designed storefront also features vibrant plates, linens and glassware sourced throughout Portugal, Spain, Italy and beyond. While all of these items are perfect for an evening of entertaining, Porta’s founders hope their customers will find use for them on an everyday basis as well. As Russotti puts it, “We encourage people to throw it all together.” Porta opens Oct. 14, porta-nyc.com.
Abigail DeVille has always loved sci-fi and history, which explains her interest in the space race and her view of it as a mirror of the United States’ colonial legacy: Both fantasize the unknown, both seek to produce wealth, both use exploration as a means of power and control and both are what she calls “larger systems that we’re a part of, though not always consciously.” In her latest show, “Bronx Heavens,” the multimedia artist nods to these themes through Afrofuturist sculptures like a space capsule that visitors can enter, or a deconstructed mannequin on a wire-framed rocket ship. The latter, inspired by Gil Scott-Heron’s song “Whitey on the Moon,” examines how the moon landing distracted the United States, both fiscally and emotionally, from inequities at home. Taken together, her pieces consider what these types of new-world pursuits erase or leave behind.
To counter this erasure, the Bronx native, 41, seeks to play a part in preserving her home and one of the nation’s most diverse neighborhoods. Through nontraditional record-keeping, she has built work with local scraps like cigarette butts, synthetic hair or materials left behind by her late grandmother; she has erected vintage TVs that broadcast little-known and newly shot footage of the neighborhood’s historical sites. She will also, she shares, “record unexpected snippets and unofficial histories of the people living here now” through the space capsule, which will start in the museum and eventually make its way to nearby schools and cultural festivals. As DeVille says, “There are an infinite amount of ways in which we hold history, in which we pass it down to one another that exists outside of the written record.” “Bronx Heavens” is on view at the Bronx Museum of the Arts until April 2023, bronxmuseum.org.
White Galvanized Sheet Metal Perhaps no one in America is as revered for cooking fish as Eric Ripert, who became the executive chef of New York’s Le Bernardin in 1994 at age 29 after his mentor, Gilbert Le Coze, died unexpectedly. Now you can attempt to master Ripert’s techniques at home with La Poissonnière, an oval-shaped, flat-bottomed fish pan that’s made in France’s Vosges region using carbon steel, which conducts heat uniformly, making it ideal for searing, browning or frying everything from sole to salmon. Made in collaboration with a venerated manufacturer called de Buyer, this is Ripert’s first cookware release: a replica of an old pan that he uses every day at his restaurant, where this version is seasoned (in a process that Le Coze taught him) before being sent on to a customer’s home. With a bit of care, it’ll remain naturally nonstick for decades. Limited to just 500 units, they can be purchased starting today on Short Order, a new website that sells special, custom-made items from some of the world’s best chefs and restaurants. $575, shortorder.com.