Non-alcoholic drinks go in their own way

Queens-based sculptor Raul Delara's Mexican-born Ridgewood knows the irony of his medium choice: wood. The most rooted material contrasts with the instability of his cultivation. He comes to Texas at 12 o'clock with his parents and is under DACA.

Delara, 33, a meticulous sculptor who frequently uses traditional American and Mexican techniques, rethinks snow shovels, chairs, spades and the deliciosa plant of Southern Mexico's native Monstera – a confessor of labor and immigration.

His series, “The Weary Tools,” evokes fatigue in the invisible worker. The broom hit the wall. The pitchfork shaft hangs from the hook like abandoned clothing. For the “soft chair” (2022), the Siberian Elm live edge slab is built in what appears to be a soft, upholstered seat. “The Wait” (2021) and “The Wait (Again)” (2022) are round lockers covered in spikes that mimic cactus spines. (In 2023, Hermes commissioned a version of a chair shaped like a child's shaking horse, and equipped with one of the gorgeous saddles for windows in Aspen, Colorado.)

The artist, who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and has an MFA at Commonwealth University, Virginia, likes to source wood from past locations. Chicago; in Provincetown, Massachusetts, he had a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center. and Mexico. Like Martin Purya and Wendell Castle, counting among his influences, Delara will hold its second solo museum exhibition in modern Austin on September 12th – preferring ki, oak, walnuts and ashes, but sometimes internal mystery reveals only during the sculpture. “In the wood,” he says, “You can see the passage of time on that skin. No other ingredients will show you the time.” – Petala Ironcloud

Creating complex flavors has always been a major challenge for non-alcoholic wines and spirit makers. “You're trying to mimic that alcohol bite,” says Jens Christophersen, 45, a Brooklyn-based, less than 0.5% founder. Often, Vintner starts by using vacuum distillation or enzymes to remove alcohol from the highly preventive beverage, then add water or grape juice to re-season. But now more and more manufacturers are adopting different strategies, offering products instead wearing notebooks of wild ingredients, such as green wood. For example, the Norwegian company Villbrygg uses plants that are primarily forged in blends like Eng. The name is Norwegian for “meadow.” This includes vanilla-scented meadow leaves and flowers, as well as fireweed flowers and leaves like tannic black tea. Including multiple parts of a single plant, co-owner Vanessa Krog said: 34. Minneapolis-based Label's Dry Whit takes a similar approach with a pippi blend, white pine needles and branches underwater, blending fusions with virge, Ynewinger and salt, and using a pippi blend, white pine needles soaked in branches and salt. “The needles are bright and citrus, and the sap adds depth and nuance (from the twigs),” says Peder Schweigert, 42, one of the brand's co-founders. Copenhagen-based label Muri also uses evergreens, foraging Douglas Fir Shoots from Woodlands around town for the Sherbet Daydream. According to founder Murray Patterson, its top-selling blend, Pass Cloud, features dried woodruff, a ground cover herb “providing a slight madipane flavor.” “We have to create something new.” – Ella Riley Adams

The early form of decorative art, the mosaic appeared in Anatolia around the 8th century BC in a form set in smooth, multicolored stones. Hundreds of years later, the Romans realized that mosaics could run up the wall with delicate bursts of colours made from small pieces of glass called tessera (the term is the Latin for “cube” or “dice”). However, it was the Byzantines who completed the use of gold and silver leaves in mosaics that began with a fourth-century advertising. Buccellati, a first-century Milan-based jeweller known for acquiring and etching precious metals on webs like Tulle, celebrates crafts with this latest incarnation of its etertelling. With 18 carat yellow and white gold, 10 Karecut rubies, 20 faceted troliates and over 200 sparkling diamonds, this is a luminous homage to Byzantine style wild decorations. Buccellati Mosaico Eternlle Ring, price on request, buccellati.com. – Nancy Hass

Photo assistant: Pietro Dipace

A magnificent and intimate hotel in Milan

One of Milan's most spectacular new hotels, the nine-story Maison Senato, designed by architect Massimiliano Locatelli, offers just a handful of rooms. It consists of five 1,800-square-foot, two-bedroom, full-floor apartments opened earlier this month in a postwar building at the northern tip of the Milan fashion boutiques, and a two-story 3,600-square-foot penthouse with a rooftop terrace and plant pool. The furniture is from a well-known Italian designer. Gabriella Crespi's bamboo armchair, Gay Aurenti's balloon-shaped lamps, and some works from the Locatelli line. The basement floor features a spa and gym, and just off the lobby there is a guest-only cafe and a spacious patio hidden from the neighbours by trellis covered in English ivy and jasmine. “The idea was to create a sense of you stepping into the space that has been here for a long time,” says Rocatelli, 58. Starts at around $4,200 per night. maisonsenato.com. – Laura May Todd

Casey McCafferty's life follows a picaresque trajectory, so it's no surprise that the 35-year-old furniture and objects are so imaginative. Despite his early interest in sculpture, he began to create distinctive car speaker enclosures from fiberglass – a Staten Island native who studied funding at university. In his mid-twenties, he was tired of the banker's life, so he stopped doing custom woodworking for Los Angeles architects and sided with the personified work that is now his signature. Recently, he works and lives in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, and has his subconscious lead him while he is carved. On this chest, abstract facial features and geometric shapes appear like dreams from the swelling cherry blossom surface. “I'll take it to me,” he says of the work. “For me, it's always been the best way to get things going.” Gaeta Cabinet Low, $24,000, Casey-McCafferty.com. – Nancy Hass

Photo assistant: Timothy Malkea. Set Designer Assistant: Checka Lapierre

Runway belt bag