The T List: Five Things We Recommend This Week – The New York Times

Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we’re sharing things we’re eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday. You can always reach us at tlist@nytimes.com.

Taste This

For Aishwarya Iyer, the founder and C.E.O. of the California-based pantry staple company Brightland, coronavirus-mandated stay-at-home measures have meant lots of cooking, lots of long walks and lots of time devoted to developing her company’s newest product: vinegar. To start, there are two limited-release offerings — Parasol and Rapture — both of which are considered raw for retaining a bit of the bacteria that spark the fermentation process and are thought to promote good digestion. The former is a champagne vinegar made with chardonnay grapes and navel and Valencia oranges; consider using it as a shrub in a tart summer cocktail. The latter is a juicy balsamic vinegar that comes from zinfandel grapes and blackberries; Iyer likes to drizzle it over grilled peaches and vanilla ice cream. They also both mix well with olive oil (try combining Parasol with Brightland’s basil-infused oil for a perfect panzanella dressing). Founded in 2018, the company is committed to sustainability and social consciousness (this month, 15 percent of proceeds from its Artist Capsule are going to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund). The organic grapes used for the vinegars are grown in Northern California, and both varieties are double-fermented and distilled on a family farm on the Central Coast. Fittingly, the bottles’ Alexander Calder-esque labels are meant to evoke a California sun, and printed on the inside are little messages — Rapture, for one, reminds us to “look for wonder.” $22 per bottle, brightland.co.

Wear This

Having your outfit compared to a pair of curtains isn’t usually a compliment. But for the London-based artist and interior designer Luke Edward Hall, who studied men’s wear design at Central Saint Martins, furnishing fabrics are as well suited for making clothes as more traditional materials. And so for his latest project, he is creating a limited run of unisex jerkins from surplus interior textiles, some left over from his own design projects and others carefully sourced online. Named the Castle of the Forest Sauvage, a reference to a land from Arthurian lore (Hall, who has a love of mythology, reread stories about the legendary British king during the lockdown), the line takes inspiration from the jerkin’s history as both formal attire and utilitarian military wear. Hall also looked to his own collection of Moroccan, Indian and Austrian waistcoats for design cues, eventually landing on a garment with an unfussy silhouette that lets the wildly colorful fabrics be the focus. “There are amazing trellis prints, medieval village scenes,” he explains. “These are patterns not made for clothes, and that’s part of the appeal.” Available through the brand’s Instagram page, @thecastleoftheforestsauvage.

See This

A crisis can reveal space for new possibilities, and with Florence recently emptied of its customary throngs of tourists, Martino di Napoli Rampolla, the founder and creative director of the city’s Numeroventi artist residency, saw a chance to strengthen the community of Tuscan makers. Earlier this month, he opened the exhibition “So Close So Good” at the residence, which is housed within the stately 16th-century Palazzo Galli Tasso, showcasing the work of 10 local artists and designers produced during these past months of confinement. “We realized we can reclaim Florence for ourselves now,” explains di Napoli Rampolla. “The globalized system may be helpful and remunerative, but it’s not what makes a community healthy.” The works, which will also be exhibited online beginning July 16, have a distinctively Florentine feel, with an emphasis on natural materials and handcraft: The designer and artist Duccio Maria Gambi contributed slablike sculptures hewn from white onyx, their rough edges highlighted with spray paint in bold primary colors; Bloc Studios, a marble-focused design practice founded by Sara Ferron Cima, is showing satin-smooth vases; and the artist Justin Randolph Thompson hand-built a room-size multimedia installation that layers representations of Black experiences of both contemporary and colonial-era Italy. “We finally see how we can work amongst ourselves,” Di Napoli Rampolla says, “instead of looking abroad.” “So Close So Good” is on view at Numeroventi through Sept. 5, Via Pandolfini 20, Florence, and online beginning July 16, numeroventi.it.

Listen to This

This month, having pushed the original date on account of the pandemic, the singer-songwriter Margo Price released her third studio album, “That’s How Rumors Get Started.” Instead of touring, she’s been quarantining in Nashville, Tenn., with her family (her husband contracted the coronavirus but has since recovered). In a bit of a departure for Price, the album’s 10 tracks grapple with restlessness, career expectations, motherhood and the peripatetic life of a musician. But while Price may also have mostly traded in the pedal-steel-laden tracks of her previous two albums for up-tempo melodies Tom Petty would be proud of, her voice still carries that distinctive golden country glow for which she’s known and loved. Co-produced by Price and her friend and fellow singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson — one of Nashville’s biggest stars, whose chameleonic style makes him an enigmatic figure to the industry’s establishment — the album sparkles with gospel singers, iconic guitar lines and soaring, catchy hooks. Three standout tracks — “Hey Child,” “Gone to Stay” and “Prisoner Of The Highway” — beg to be played on the open road, a place of much reflection throughout the record. Though that may be well-worn territory in the canon of country music, Price’s lyrics reveal an original portrait of an artist on the bus passing through. margoprice.net.

Buy This

Ceres, a new line of athletic wear created by the stylist and designer Nina Miner and the yoga teacher Kumi Sawyers, began in a typically Los Angeles fashion: while the pair were on a hike. The two had met recently through mutual friends and bonded, as they walked through Rivas Canyon, over their love for the perfectly broken-in, vintage long johns that Miner was wearing. As it turned out, they shared a desire to start their own line of sportswear inspired by the days when Olympians would train in cotton T-shirts and shorts and Princess Diana would throw a blazer over her sweatpants — in other words, a time before skintight black leggings in synthetic fabrics took over the gym. “You don’t have to be corseted in. It doesn’t have to be so tight in order for it to look good,” says Sawyer. The result is a sustainably made 17-piece collection cut from natural fibers such as cotton and cotton blends in Kelly green, navy and shades of beige with stylistic nods to both ballerinas (scoop-back leotards, deep V-neck tops) and boxers (waffle-knit tanks and leggings). The standout item may be the high-waisted cotton fleece sweatpants, which the pair swear flatter every body as they fit slim through the hip and don’t have pockets. “Pockets add bulk, and they’re unnecessary because if you’re hiking or running, whatever is in your pockets falls out anyway,” says Miner, who designed a fanny pack using fabric remnants from the line’s sweatsuits to solve exactly this problem. sportceres.com.

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