20 joyful things to do in July

see

Lyrical photographs of the British-Gujarati diaspora

The first solo exhibition from photographer Vivek Vadoliya, a regular HTSI contributor, explores the tension between personal and cultural identity in the British-Gujarati diaspora. Made in both the UK and India, the series moves between photographs of traditional wrestlers and sun-warmed red earth in India, and gentle domestic scenes peopled with Vadoliya’s own family in England or the buildings of nondescript English towns. The photograph shown here of two men wrestling “was created in a moment of frustration after spending time with my family in India, witnessing toxic traits of how men perform around each other”, says Vadoliya. “Their balance seems precarious, with one wrestler on his toes, hinting at the possibility of collapse”. Baya Simons

EAT

Ballymaloe’s dessert trolley arrives in London

Head to London’s Sessions Arts Club for a day of “pure, elegant Irish cooking” courtesy of Ballymaloe Cookery School founder Darina Allen and Ballymaloe House Hotel’s pastry chef JR Ryall. The duo will join forces with Sessions’ head chef Abi Hill on a five-course lunch, spotlighting original, “untouched” Ballymaloe recipes: smoked Irish salmon, shoulder and rack of lamb and the famed dessert trolley stocked with fruit fools, chocolate meringue and traditional Carrageen Moss Pudding. Inès Cross

BUY

Sunspel draws inspiration from F1 

What might a grizzled veteran of the Formula 1 track wear while relaxing? If the new film F1 is anything to go by it’s a pair of stonewashed jeans and a pastel-coloured crew-neck Sunspel sweatshirt. The British brand has now released two limited-edition designs of the classic Loopback sweater that Brad Pitt wears to play Sonny Hayes in the film. The soft cotton jumpers are available in sage-green and pale-pink, with 100 of each colour on sale. Alexander Tyndall

SEE

Alex Katz paints the White Lotus 

The American artist Alex Katz will unveil 11 new paintings at Gray Chicago in mid-July, two weeks before his 98th birthday. Katz is “always interested in the present moment”, says the exhibition’s host and Gray’s president Valerie Carberry. Katz named the exhibition Alex Katz: White Lotus after watching the HBO series (though, he admits he only watched part of a single episode before beginning the first work). Drawing on photographs he took at his local beach in Maine, Katz has painted three pairs of figures in his signature close-cropped style, against large fields of sky blue. “What always strikes me is the power that one colour has,” says Carberry. “Alex always finds a colour and makes you feel like you have never seen it before.” Georgina Elliott

BUY

Goldwin O moves into trail running 

Founded as a knitwear manufacturer in 1950 in Japan’s Tateyama mountain range, Goldwin has become one of the leading makers of technical sportswear, known for its ski jackets and well-cut hiking gear. It’s now bringing its technical nous to trail running clothing. The first collection, released by Goldwin 0, the brand’s experimental platform, features compression shorts with cargo pockets for phones and gels, a lightweight trail pack and T-shirts made in moisture-wicking fabric, with side slits to maximise mobility. BS

SEE 

Sculptural furniture on view in a Provençal vineyard 

At design studio Ralph Pucci’s new exhibition at Château La Coste, everything is white. Streamlined chairs, bulbous tables and biomorphic lamps have been designed to show off his material Plasterglass, a strong plaster-resin material that captures every detail of an artist’s handiwork. The works will be accompanied by live sculpting demonstrations and jazz from the 1950s, when the New York gallery was starting out as a mannequin repair shop. Marion Willingham

EAT

Mayfair restaurant Mount Street goes back to the 1970s

Where once there were 16-course tasting menus, a more comforting culinary mood is taking place – one characterised by home-style dinners and nostalgic desserts. Jamie Shears, executive chef of Mount St Restaurant, has taken note: this month sees the launch of his limited-edition “Retro Menu”. Expect melon ball cocktails, chicken vol-au-vents and artic rolls – simple dishes made “Mayfair” with caviar and black truffle mash. Rosanna Dodds

BID 

The original Birkin bag goes up for auction

Jane Birkin first met Jean-Louis Dumas, former chairman of Hermès, on a flight from Paris to London in 1981. The late singer, known for carrying around a straw basket, confided that she couldn’t find a bag suited to her needs. The result? The ultimate rectangular leather holdall with a burnished flap, saddle stitching and four perfectly studded “feet” known as The Birkin, still considered one of the most desirable handbags in the world. This month, the original, all-black prototype, “a true unicorn in the world of fashion” according to Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s global head of handbags and fashion, hits the auction block in Paris, just as crowds descend on the city for Couture Week. IC

SEE

Zhou Li’s bold abstract paintings open in Seoul

Each morning the Hunan-born artist Zhou Li sits down to practice calligraphy, “to quiet myself into a creative state,”. The influences of those strong, fluid lines is visible in her abstract painting practice, which is defined by swaths of bright colour and precise black loops and swirls. Her new exhibition, titled ‘Seeing the world in one flower, a universe unfolds’, which is now open in Seoul, shows the influence of Chinese calligraphy as well as Western contemporary painters including Mark Rothko or Cy Twombly. BS

BUY

L’Uniform celebrates its anniversary with a yo-yo holder

L’Uniform, the French canvas bag specialist known for its egalitarian designs, is celebrating a decade in business with some playful launches. World yo-yo champion Hiroyuki Suzuki has collaborated with the brand on a canvas yo-yo holder (available in six colours, including a cherry-red and military-green design) and the Hôtel Costes team (also celebrating its birthday this year), have partnered on minimal white totes. The collaborations will be for sale in-store and online throughout the summer. IC

SEE 

Linder takes inspiration from the idea of glamour

The British photomontage artist Linder, who came up in the 1970s punk era with her playful critiques of consumer culture, has long been fascinated with glamour, a word whose etymology she traces back to the early-18th-century occult meaning of enchantment. This month, she will debut a new series of artworks exploring the subject at Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute. Titled A kind of glamour about me, the dream-like photomontages and ‘traces’ draw inspiration from the Neo-Gothic mansion’s interiors and gardens and will be accompanied by a special performance at the Royal Botanic Gardens in August. Choreographed by Holly Blakey, the performance will weave together costumes by long-time collaborator Ashish and bodily ornaments woven by the master weavers of West Dean Tapestry Studio, bringing Linder’s unique photomontage practice to life.   Sara Semic

DRINK

NYC’s Dante takes Claridge’s 

Just in time for the opening of Claridge’s summer terrace, the London hotel has invited legendary New York restaurant and bar Dante, helmed by husband-wife duo Linden Pride and Nathalie Hudson, for a month-long residency. It will involve a daily ‘Aperitivo’ Hour and menu of hot American classics featuring sliders and seafood towers, a Negroni infused with lemon bitters and a Chocolate Negroni fountain. At the weekend, guests can also dine on a New-York style brunch, replete with fluffy buttermilk pancake stacks. IC

GO

Goodwood returns with a line up of classic F1 cars

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Formula 1 Championship, the theme of this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed is “The Winning Formula – Champions and Challengers”, with legendary drivers Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Mario Andretti in attendance alongside a line-up of classic F1 cars. In addition, more than 600 modern and historic cars and motorcycles will take part in the four-day event, which sees TAG Heuer, the official timekeeper of F1, return as the timing partner for the Festival. To mark the event the watchmaker has created a limited edition of 100 Carrera Chronographs with a dial in British racing green and a brown-leather rally strap (£6,450). Tim Auld

BUY

A glimpse into 11 artists’ studios

The 11th volume of Study, a magazine by fashion editor and stylist Christopher Niquet, indulges the voyeuristic fantasy of peeking inside an artist’s studio. Launching during Paris Couture Week, the issue sees photographer Jeff Henrikson take a studio tour of New York, paying visits to minimalist Joe Bradley, sculptor Jessi Reaves and Joan Jonas. It’s a feast of exposed brick, creative clutter and paint-streaked walls (and chairs, and tables). MW

BUY

Rimowa and Moët’s suitcase of champagne

Do you like to travel with your own champagne? A collaboration between Rimowa, Moët & Chandon and Moët’s ambassador Roger Federer has produced a suitcase designed for transporting seven bottles of champagne and one magnum. The Legacy Case was designed by Rimowa to celebrate Moët cellar master Benoit Guez’s 20th anniversary with the brand, and comes filled with seven bottles of champagne, with vintages from 1998 to 2022, and one magnum, each selected by Federer and Guez. All proceeds benefit The Roger Federer Foundation, which helps fund school readiness programmes in Switzerland and six African countries. BS

BUY

Insider guides to Capri and Ibiza, courtesy of Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton has released the latest series of its illustrated insider’s guide books on the Mediterranean, with postings from Capri, St Tropez, Mykonos and Ibiza. The latter is written by designer Jade Jagger, who points readers to Hatha yoga sessions on the Sol d’en Serra, craft shopping in Santa Gertrudis village and sweets made by the cloistered nuns of San Cristobal. GE

SEE

David Bailey’s fashion photography pops up in Galicia

“Irving Penn’s studio is like a cathedral; David Bailey’s studio is like a nightclub,” pronounced the legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland. This rougish energy is on full display in a solo exhibition at the MOP Foundation in A Coruña, bringing together 140 photographs taken in the 1960s and 1970s and including images of Jack Nicholson mid-laugh, model Jean Shrimpton, Mick Jagger, Penelope Tree in Mickey Mouse ears and, controversially at the time, the east London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray. BS

SEE

Andrew Cranston and Winifred Nicholson’s paintings offer a moment of respite

The intimate domestic scenes in Andrew Cranston’s paintings often centre on something slightly strange: a snake on the living-room floor, or a cat lying by a cheeseboard. In a new exhibition, titled Dreams of the Everyday, opening in Orkney this week (it later moves to Bath), the Scottish artist’s ethereal works are paired with those by the late British artist Winifred Nicholson, another artist who painted the seemingly ordinary. “There is a resonance [between our work] that surprises me,” says Cranston. “Nicholson’s work doesn’t shout for attention, but quietly works its magic by holding you still, keeping you silent.” In the show, which was a collaboration with designer Jonathan Anderson, Cranston’s painting of a beach where two men are camped, one smoking and the other cooking eggs, sits in conversation with Nicholson’s painting of a saucepan of water balanced on burning coals. Like a hazily recalled memory or dream, these vignettes take the viewer away from the churn of daily life for a moment. “It has nothing to do with nostalgia,” Cranston says. His interest is in acknowledging “the power of the past to break into the present”. Aoife Murray 

BUY

Angela Hill, X-Girl and a paean to ’90s New York

In 1994, X-Girl, the cult indie New York fashion label founded by stylist Daisy von Furth and Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon, took to the streets of SoHo with a guerrilla-style runway show. Produced by Sofia Coppola and Spike Jonze, who hijacked the starry traffic from Marc Jacobs’ NYFW show, it epitomised the brand’s DIY ethos: models, including a pink-haired Chloë Sevigny, stomped down the street dressed in ringer tees and miniskirts while Linda Evangelista and Kyle MacLachlan watched from the crowd. “We were in the middle of a wonderful indie chaos,” says photographer and Idea Books co-founder Angela Hill, a bystander who was visiting New York at the time and happened to document the event. Having rediscovered the negatives last year, Hill has now gathered her photos in a book with an introduction by Sevigny. In their raw, unfiltered quality, they capture the giddy, rebellious spirit of a lost New York and the exuberance of an event “born out of romance and a love of hijinks”, writes Sevigny. They offer a portal to “an important cult moment in time”, says Hill – and one that would pave the way for today’s fashion disruptors, from Collina Strada to Vetements. SS

READ

Virgil Abloh’s life less ordinary

The late designer Virgil Abloh took an unconventional route into one of the biggest French fashion houses. Born to a seamstress mother and a businessman father in Illinois, he went on to study architecture and found his own streetwear label before becoming artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton, making him the first Black designer to head up the house. His journey is the focus of Make It Ours, a new biography by The Washington Post’s cultural critic Robin Givhan. Abloh, who died suddenly at the age of 41 in 2021, wasn’t a trained pattern-maker or a tailor, but he possessed the DJ’s knack for reading mood and temperature. Writes Givhan: he knew how to “draw folks to the dance floor, commune with them, make them believe they were invincible, and keep them spinning and yearning for more”. BS