The Trove: Lynda Johnson August 11, 2011

Living lovely in Harlem. Lynda Johnson was born and raised in Syracuse, New York but her family’s roots are in Montgomery, Alabama and it shows in her Southern hospitality and colorful storytelling. Her people were part of the epic, 20th century migration of blacks from below the Mason-Dixon line in optimistic search of opportunity up [...]

The Trove: Erin Robinson July 23, 2011

With schoolgirls in Banda Village, Rwanda. Erin Robinson loves summer thunderstorms and she got one as we chatted in her childhood home in Washington, DC over the July Fourth weekend, her sweeping gestures and sound effects underscored by the distant thunder and gentle rain. We noshed on fresh fruit and spoke of mutual travel glories: [...]

The Trove: djassi daCosta johnson May 26, 2011

Mrs. Verini: djassi daCosta johnson, 2 months pregnant. djassi daCosta johnson adores her “ridiculously amazing family.”  It is in the haven of their embrace and the freedom of their trust that she’s been able to move fearlessly through her life. Her educator parents Awolowo and Orundun, of whom she speaks reverentially, anointed their eldest daughter [...]

The Trove: Lois Samuels April 28, 2011

The delighted designer: “I really like myself; If I didn’t know me, I’d want to know me.” When I first met Lois Samuels, she was a carefree 21-year-old giddily dancing her way through fittings in Barbados for a Ruven Afanador photo shoot.  A cavalcade of fashion to a jungle music soundtrack, the seemingly endless try-ons [...]

The Trove: Renaldo Barnette January 13, 2011

The impeccable Professor Barnette, photographed by fashion peer, Michael McCollom. Renaldo Barnette loves models.  In fact, he was one — a muse to esteemed fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez as he created the brooding genie in the lushly illustrated 1985 re-telling of the Scheherazade classic Tales of the Thousand and One Nights.  Friendships with runway legends [...]

The Trove: Cheryl R. Riley & Courtney Sloane December 2, 2010

An invitation and homage: Courtney Sloane & Cheryl R. Riley. Gotta love a woman who whips up a few baubles to wear on her opening night from the discards of  “yesterday’s soup.”  And so it is that interior designer Courtney Sloane adores such a woman, her wife, Cheryl R. Riley. Cheryl, one of the artists [...]

The Global Africa Project November 19, 2010

An absolute must-see exhibition, The Global Africa Project is on view at the Museum of Art and Design at Columbus Circle through May 2011.  I have anticipated this show for a while, as the works of my friends Xenobia Bailey and Cheryl R. Riley are included, but I was unprepared for the magnitude of the unprecedented installation of the design, art and craft [...]

The Trove: Barney Bishop September 23, 2010

Holding court on West Broadway. The alliteratively named Barney Bishop was graced with a name befitting his dapper bearing. When we met for coffee recently at Soho’s Ground Support, he sported cufflinks in his white herringbone, French-cuff shirt and a silk pocket square in the breast pocket of his striped linen sport coat.  Relaxing the [...]

The Trove: Nnenna Ogwo September 16, 2010

Radiant and surrounded by fragrant rosemary and blossoming chives. Though the brilliant concert pianist Nnenna Ogwo recently completed her doctoral studies in Musical Arts at SUNY Stony Brook, she is “going ‘back to school’ in such a delightful way,” losing herself in the pages of Larousse Gastronomique. “I like to fancy myself a cook of sorts.” I can vouch for [...]

The Trove: Lloyd Boston September 9, 2010

LB, unbuttoned elegance.  Become a fan on Facebook.  Photo: Robert Tardio Sure he’s poised, handsomely photogenic and genially telegenic, delivering doses of friendly, practical style advice to the masses, but it’s not just fashion knowledge Lloyd Boston is dropping, it’s the well-timed bons mots that get me every time (and I’ve worked with him on [...]