T LOunge for March 23rd, 2023

Studio Frantzén Bar, Restaurant and Rooftop – London, UK

Enjoy the rooftop view and the buffet of distractions, darlings! We have a bunch of little red carpet nibblies to serve you and then we’re off for another day of Sangria-drinking and cathedral-visiting. Ciao!

Jennifer Lopez Doesn’t Believe in Fashion Rules
The multi-hyphenate shares her philosophy on personal style, bedazzled heels, and her new shoe collection with Revolve.
It goes without saying that Jennifer Lopez has become known for her electric style — of course, among many other things like her acting chops and insane dance moves. Her bejeweled water bottles, extensive lineup of crop tops, and iconic red-carpet appearances (including the most-googled dress of all time) are some of the superstar’s trademark staples. But we’d be remiss not to mention one of the most important pillars of her signature style: her massive shoe collection, which features everything from over-the-knee boots and sky-high platforms to the trendiest sneakers.

Nabiyah Be Wants You to Remember Disco’s Roots
“The face of rock and roll was the white man; the face of disco music was the Black woman,” the Daisy Jones & The Six actress tells BAZAAR.
Nabiyah Be was always destined to be a performer. As the daughter of legendary reggae musician Jimmy Cliff, the Brazilian-born Be grew up touring internationally with her father from the ages of seven to eleven, working as a background singer and dancer. After spending her teenage years in her hometown of Salvador and working as a background vocalist for Brazilian artists such as Daniela Mercury and Carlinhos Brown, Be moved to New York City. She soon found a home on the stages of the Big Apple, earning a B.F.A. in acting from Pace University and appearing in theatrical productions of Hadestown and School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play.

Get to Know All the Queen’s Great-Grandchildren
Here are the British royal babies from oldest to youngest.
To UK citizens, Queen Elizabeth was the Sovereign and Head of State, but to the royal babies she was simply Gan-Gan. Here, take a look at the Queen has 12 great-grandchildren—the youngest being Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi’s daughter Sienna, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s daughter Lilibet, and Zara Tindall’s baby boy Lucas.

Who Pays for the Wedding? A Guide to Cost-Splitting
Fresh off your engagement, you’re probably ready to book a venue, secure a wedding planner, and buy a dream dress. But before you tackle any of that, there’s one major question you have to address: who pays for the wedding?
“These days, anything goes when it comes to paying for a wedding. Engaged couples taking care of the finances is on the rise,” says Kylie Carlson, the CEO of the International Academy of Wedding & Event Planning. “At the same time, the tradition of the bride’s parents contributing is still very prevalent, especially in particular regions. With some weddings, costs are split between the couples and other members of the family. You’ll also run into scenarios where parents are divorced or remarried, and splitting the costs. Grandparents may chip in—it really does depend on each individual wedding.” When it comes to nuptials, it really is a case by case basis.

Keira Knightley’s Stylist On Masterminding Her Fashionable Return to the Spotlight
For stylist Leith Clark, Keira Knightley was a friend before she was a client. “As we developed a relationship, it felt really natural to try to make her look authentic in her public persona after knowing what she’s like privately,” explains Clark, who started working with the actor over 15 years ago. “It’s been an adventure ever since.”
Once a permanent fixture on red carpets worldwide, these days, Knightley’s appearances in front of the paps are rare. But she recently made a brief (and welcome) return to the spotlight in New York, where she was promoting her new film, Boston Strangler. “It felt like a really nice story,” Clark says of the British actor’s Stateside fashion streak, which the stylist started plotting out last autumn. “Playing a good game of dress-up with someone you love is a great thing to do.”

Abi Balingit’s Cookbook Mayumu Is an Ode to the Sweet Side of Filipino Cuisine
If you’ve marked up your copy of Claire Saffitz’s Dessert Person with so many sugar spills and butter stains that it’s barely readable anymore, allow me to introduce you to Mayumu: Filipino American Desserts Remixed, The Dusky Kitchen blogger Abi Balingit’s brand-new cookbook.
Mayumu is crammed full of recipes for adobo chocolate chip cookies, halo-halo baked Alaska, lychee madeleines with hibiscus tea glaze and dried rose petals, and a host of other sweets inspired by the mix of Filipino and Western-style dishes Balingit grew up eating—and that are sure to make you the most popular person at your office cookie swap or school bake sale. (Or, best of all, you could make Balingit’s recipes for no occasion whatsoever; trust me, they’ll get eaten.)

How to Make Bad Coffee Taste Better
You don’t have to suffer through a bad cup of morning coffee.
Most people would probably assume I make great coffee at home. I work at Food & Wine, I care about things like garnishing my scrambled eggs in a cute way, and I deeply appreciate a good cocktail (or mocktail). Still, when it comes to my at-home coffee situation, the standards are floor-level. My roommate and I have been brewing our daily coffee in an ancient Mr. Coffee machine for the past four years — the coffee pot actually came with the first apartment we got together, so its age is undetermined, and someone clearly didn’t care enough to take it when they moved out. It also doesn’t help that we’re reluctant to buy anything but the cheapest coffee beans available at the grocery store.

How Wegmans’ Ginger Seltzer Became a Cult-Status Drink
One can makes a stressful day a little smoother.
As a lactose-intolerant person who loves cheese and has a generally anxious disposition, my tummy hurts sometimes. In college, I quelled my anxieties about life after graduation, midterms, student media drama, and who I was going to bring to a sorority formal with 20 oz. bottles of Diet Ginger Ale, purchased at the Wawa on 38th and Spruce in Philadelphia, which was open 24 hours a day. I’d carry them from the library to the offices of the student newspaper, like little security blankets to wash down late night pizza or sweetgreen salads.
Now, as I near my thirtieth birthday, the artificial sweeteners of Diet Ginger Ale just don’t hit the way they used to — I tried a bottle recently and was admittedly disappointed in myself for outgrowing it. Sometimes growth is painful, like realizing you’ll never wear a favorite skirt or call a certain friend again.

The TSA Says Peanut Butter Is a Liquid and People Have Feelings About It
The TSA has finally shared their reasoning behind declaring peanut butter a “liquid.”
The Transportation Security Administration has spoken: You can’t bring your jar of peanut butter through airport security. Why? Because, according to them, it’s a liquid, not a solid.
Though this debate has raged on for some time, it was given new life last week when podcaster Patrick Neve attempted to take a jar of peanut butter through airport security.
“I tried to take peanut butter through airport security,” he wrote in a now-viral tweet. “T.S.A.: ‘Sorry, no liquids, gels, or aerosols.’ Me: ‘I want you to tell me which of those things you think peanut butter is.”

Divorced, Not Dead: How Marriage Endings Have Had A Rebrand
From divorce influencers to all-inclusives for the newly-separated, this is how marriage break-ups became something to celebrate. Writer Naomi May explores…
Divorce has similarly seen its own image rehabilitated in recent years. On TikTok, #Divorced has 1.8 billion views, while #DivorcedLife has just shy of 62 million. There are divorce podcasts, manuals, dinners and even divorce all-inclusives – Virgin Atlantic debuted its first package designed for the newly-single in 2019, swiftly followed by Ushuaia Ibiza which launched its own offering the following year. There’s big business in the broken-hearted.

In Conversation: Dominique Fishback
Donald Glover selected her for his new show, and this summer she leads the latest ‘Transformers’ film. ELLE meets an actor taking control of her destiny.
Fishback, now 31, is speedily taking over our screens. Having signed up to free drama classes at 15, she graduated from New York’s Pace University with a theatre degree in 2013, before launching her self-penned play Subverted, in which she played over 20 characters (Jamie Foxx is helping her bring the work back to Broadway later this year). Parts in The Hate U Give and HBO series The Deuce followed and, in 2021, Fishback earned a Bafta nomination for her supporting role in Judas and the Black Messiah opposite Daniel Kaluuya. Since then, there’s been the critically acclaimed The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey on Apple TV+, in which she stars alongside Samuel L Jackson. But this year will be her biggest yet. Swarm, the highly anticipated new show from Donald Glover (he hand-picked her for the role) is out this month. And later this summer, she’ll take the lead in the $200 million blockbuster Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

Newly unearthed portrait of the infamous ‘dirty Duchess of Argyll’ will be showcased in vibrant National Portrait Gallery exhibition
‘Yevonde: Life and Colour’, which celebrates photographer Yevonde Middleton, will open at the National Portrait gallery on 22 June
Photographs by pioneering photographer Yevonde Middleton, including a newly discovered image of the infamous Duchess of Argyll, will be showcased in a vibrant exhibition when the National Portrait Gallery reopens this summer.

Rare Coin, Minted by Brutus to Mark Caesar’s Death, Is Returned to Greece
The gold coin, which dates from 42 B.C. and is valued at $4.2 million, is thought to have been looted from a field near where an army loyal to Brutus camped during the struggle for control of Rome.
A rare and ancient gold coin that morbidly celebrates the stabbing death of Julius Caesar was returned this week to Greek officials by investigators in New York who had determined it was looted and fraudulently put up for sale at auction in 2020.
The coin, known as the “Eid Mar” and valued at $4.2 million, features the face of Marcus Junius Brutus, the onetime friend and ally of Caesar who, along with other Roman senators, murdered him on the Ides of March in 44 B.C. According to historians and experts, Brutus had the coins minted in gold and silver to applaud Caesar’s downfall and to pay his soldiers during the civil war that followed the killing.

America Already Loves Spritzes. Now It Just Needs Its Own Aperol.
Producers across the United States are working to create a uniquely American aperitif and digestif tradition using local ingredients and less sugar.
Depending on region and personal preference, you might order a vermouth on the rocks in Barcelona before lunch or amaro neat in Sicily after dessert. Aperitifs and digestifs — alcoholic drinks traditionally served before and after a meal — are rituals inextricably woven into the social fabric of many countries.
But you could also enjoy a pre- or post-dinner tipple in Brooklyn, perhaps even from a bottle made in the borough.

Amtrak Restarting Service Between NYC and Montreal Next Month
The route will resume on April 3 for the first time since 2020.
“Whether you’re experiencing the greatness of New York City, the culture of Montreal or the beauty of the Hudson Valley and Lake Champlain region, the return of the Adirondack provides customers with a reliable, relaxing and sustainable way to travel,” Amtrak President Roger Harris said in a statement, adding the company is “proud to restore service to one of the most popular trains in the Northeast.”

The 50 Best Lana Del Rey Songs
The finest moments so far from the reigning queen of summertime sadness
LANA DEL REY officially debuted in 2011 with her instant-classic single “Video Games,” and followed that with her groundbreaking 2012 album, Born to Die. Del Rey’s “gangster Nancy Sinatra” artistic approach was striking, and her music set her apart even further, a mix of torch ballads, trip-hop, and classic Sixties pop that stood in stark contrast to the glossy dance pop of the early 2010s. Over the course of her career so far, she’s developed into a bona fide musical visionary, packing her increasingly ambitious albums with brilliant songs that are steeped in her unique vision of Americana while exploring dark, obscure aspects of relationships most singers don’t have the courage to even go near.

[Photo Credit: studiofrantzenlondon.com, joyn.studio]

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