HTSI Editor’s Letter: How to Pass Your Salad Days

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Having waited what seemed like an eternity for some sunshine, we have been rewarded with gloriously long and hot days in recent weeks. With him, activities have inevitably moved to the garden. Although I have yet to employ the TikTok hack to protect my laptop from overheating by placing it inside a cardboard box, I’ve been eating, sitting, reading, and occasionally gaming while trying to soak up every lightning strike.

In Italy, our hosts show us two culinary cultures

For this issue, we have resumed our theme of How to host it, asking style leaders how they like to entertain when the going gets hot. Rosh Mahtani of jewelry brand Alighieri hosts a summer feast of Indian food prepared by her and her mother, while twins Tata Naka, Tamara and Natasha Surguladze, originally from Georgia, cook up a barbecue. In Italy, our hosts give us an insight into two food cultures: one in Rome and the other in Milan. JJ Martin, founder of stylish clothing and homewares brand La DoubleJ, explains how, as an American who came to Milan 20 years ago, she had to get used to the carefree attitude Milanese have to making plans. In Rome, the founders of Giuliva Heritage, Margherita Cardelli Cavaliere and Gerardo Cavaliere, make their meals a family affair: they are very fond of fueling conversation, delicious clothes and local products. I only wish I had been there.

Elsewhere, we look at new trends in global luxury. In China, the rise of xin zhong shi has seen creatives reexamine and reinterpret traditional crafts and codes that are unique to Chinese design. Part of a patriotic wave resulting from the cooling of relations between the United States and China, xin zhong shi it is also a corollary of the maturity of the local market, as consumers invest more in things made locally. Zoe Suen talks to designers and artists that have driven the trend.

Similarly, in Africa, a growing number of designers (both within the continent and in second generation communities in the diaspora) are looking to local fabrics, techniques and manufacturing to create a new expression of the “African” style. Obviously, as with China, the region is so diverse and geographically huge that it’s hard to label anything with such a broad generic term. But, as Liam Freeman finds in “We are in control now”New dialogues between creators and artisan producers (not to mention visits from big houses like Chanel, which organized a show in Dakar last December) have helped shed light on dozens of indigenous design practices and put them on a global stage.

Finally, it is up to me to present The best fridge in the world. Or at least the fridge that goes for that title in terms of freshness, cooling capacity, and size. Rhodri Marsden meets Sub-Zero & Wolf’s French Door Refrigerator + Freezer at the technopolisAnd let me tell you, their faculties are ferocious: strawberries will keep for up to four weeks, and an avocado halved will keep its greenness for many days. All that, and apparently no stench in the fridge. Take me to this sarcophagus of cold.

@jellison22