Gift Guide

It’s a common refrain: So much of travel writing is diluted by travel writers getting comped fancy hotels and Michelin meals. Over here at Gift Guide, we try to stick to hot girl travel guides. Lily’s guide to Georgia (the country, not the state); Paulena’s guide to Panguipulli; Savannah’s guide to partying in the Mississippi Delta; Begum takes a Solo Swiss Spa Vacation, etc.

It goes without saying that the next decade will preference people who know how to make things with their hands. (I feel like my generation didn’t care about this?) I was thinking about this when I saw the post by the woman who made a miniature Paul Revere house for New Balance. Hire her to make your Christmas window display. London-writer-about-town James Vincent just launched a Substack and his first post is about making a “a French peasant’s lunch.” Enchanting stuff.

News from the West Village: the It Bag Designer of Aughts Montauk was one “Toland Grinnell.” He made this purse for my friend Susie using “an antler from Peter Beard’s Montauk estate,” replete with an Hermes orange interior, and a roman coin sewn onto the zipper. He’s quite the inventive contemporary artist. Seriously! Check out his ode to lockdown (“toilet paper, leather straps, suede, gold chains and locks”). He had a wonderful show of speciality objects at Mary Boone in 2002.

Light Industry—the place for independent films in New York—has programmed a screening of Anne Haugsgjerd’s movies. “She has been making short films since the 1980s, but for a long time received little recognition, either in Norway’s relatively conservative (and chauvinist) film world or beyond. Undeterred, she has continued to produce an uncategorizable body of films—she herself calls them ‘bastards’.

Even though brands occasionally hire me to make lists for parties, and frequently I am paid to do publicity for parties, I don’t “throw events”—no nuts-and-bolts, iPads, or location scouting for me. That kind of publicist has better hair. However much I aspire to the OCD of Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner or Reese Witherspoon in the opening credits of Legally Blonde, I don’t have it. I compensate for this professional lack in my personal life.

When I say limited edition, I mean limited edition. The limited edition Gift Guide Substack merchandise by elusive graphic designer Visitor Design is now available via dm. All proceeds go to the designer. I have no part in shipping or payment.

Though a fan of Alan Cumming, I don’t recommend his memoir except to say that the (otherwise unexceptional) chapter about Gore Vidal’s villa in Italy, excerpted in Vanity Fair, is a good primer on why you might want to stay there today, as it has been converted to luxury accommodations.

Turn any stick into a walking stick. Would you purchase a present that only works half the year, but for ten years? In this case, a watch. (It doesn’t honor daylight savings, so must be shelved until time leaps back; also, you cannot travel, you must pick the time zone you want, for the next decade, at purchase.) The timepiece is designed by CW&T. They clearly have a sense of humor and great imagination. Their inventory is sort of what you want “gifts for dads” lists to be like, but they never are.

The cake landscape is quite competitive. If I was ordering one right now, though, there’s no doubt in my mind it would be from Lauren Schofield. Painstakingly beautiful and inventive work. These “tailored” shirt companies are a dime a dozen, but the fabrics Chava Studio use caught my eye.This shirt. Because what do you wear to a summer meeting. I read about it in the Financial Times. I’m so glad a gay guy wrote about the end of DataLounge.

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