Latest news with #LoveLetter
Refinery29
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Refinery29
I Got ‘Vanilla Chrome' Nails, The Latest Manicure Trend
I love white clothes. My wardrobe is so packed with white button downs, dresses, and linen skirts that I'm starting to worry I won't have enough non-white options to wear on a friend's upcoming bachelorette trip. My nails, however, are a different story. Most white nail polishes make me think of glow-in-the-dark paint — not exactly in line with the 'clean' aesthetic my mostly white wardrobe evokes. As with the difference between a red lipstick with blue undertones or a red lipstick with orange undertones, we're talking about nuances here. If the polish is a pink-toned or milky white or grey, like a chic gallery wall, it looks nice on my fair, sometimes blue-tinged hands. It's all about the undertone, which is why I was excited to try one of the budding nail trends of the moment: vanilla chrome. An evolution of the glazed doughnut trend, vanilla chrome is all about the specific off-white tone. Instead of a bright white chrome powder over the white polish, it's a white powder over a cream polish. The cream tone is important because it adds a warm yellow undertone to the white, which makes it softer, in my opinion. (The vanilla in the name comes from the cream colour, not the problematic 'vanilla girl' aesthetic trend.) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Alexandra | Nail Artist (@thehotblend) My main design inspiration came from this photo posted by nail artist Alexandra Teleki on Instagram, and I wasn't the only fan: hundreds of followers flooded the comments asking how to get the design, so Alexandra dropped a corresponding 'vanilla chrome' tutorial that soon blew up with 114,000 likes. Since then, 'vanilla chrome nails' have inspired other nail artists like Aimee L Link and have become a major search trend, with people looking to Google for more information. I took the design to Yoshimi Muranishi, a nail artist at Vanity Projects in New York. Working on my natural nail, we went with a shape similar to Alexandra's but a bit shorter and more round. Vanity Projects uses Japanese gel that lasts for three to four weeks, so I wanted to make sure that my nails could grow out without breaking or getting too long or pointy. To create the right polish colour, Yoshimi actually mixed a custom shade, combining a few drops of yellow polish with white on an aluminium foil palette to create a vanilla tone. (This made me feel like Hailey Bieber; her nail artist Zola Ganzorigt recently told me that she'll mix custom colours for her.) But if you're looking for a perfect vanilla polish in a bottle, use The Gel Bottle in Love Letter, which is the eggshell ivory tone that Alexandra used. For regular, non-gel polish, you could use OPI One Chic Chick or Gucci Cecilia Ivory. After the base polish, Yoshimi used a small sponge to rub chrome powder over my nails. The reflective finish made all the difference: up to that point, I was worried that the vanilla would read too yellow and might wash me out. Nail design by Yoshimi Muranishi for Vanity Projects. While I was a little skeptical at first, the vanilla chrome manicure is definitely a design I'm saving for future reference. The warm cream tone is a good neutral — white without being stark. The name is a relatively new way to describe the look, but there's plenty of design inspiration to be found. This is a good reference by @FemmeBlk on TikTok: the colour is more of a pearlescent white, but the white is sheer so it feels toned down. Searching for milky white chrome nails, like this design on content creator @TashiaJaem, is also a good example of a take on the trend. According to Yoshimi, chrome powders are still a popular salon request. If anything, this shows me that dusting a chrome powder over a colour that I'm iffy on makes me like it better almost instantly. That said, if I were to try this at home without a gel polish or chrome powder, I'd use one of the aforementioned eggshell polishes and add an opalescent top coat.
The Hindu
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
How Love Endures Conflict: Mehak Jamal's Loal Kashmir Tells Intimate Stories from a Besieged Valley
Published : Jun 24, 2025 16:30 IST - 8 MINS READ In her latest book, Lōal Kashmir, the filmmaker and author Mehak Jamal gathers 16 stories of intimacy and separation, tracing how Kashmiri couples sustained relationships under extraordinary constraints. Through letters, medical networks, and disrupted digital channels, these narratives trace the emotional landscape of a region where affection often had to navigate the machinery of surveillance. In conversation with Gowhar Geelani for the latest episode of The Kashmir Notebook, Jamal reflects on memory as an important archive, the poignancy of unrecorded sentiment, and the role of storytelling in reclaiming the personal amid conflict. Edited excerpts: Your book Lōal Kashmir consists of 16 love stories from Kashmir. These stories are set mostly in Kashmir against the backdrop of the communication blockade of 2019. How did you gather these 16 stories? I started this project as a memory project in 2020, one year after the abrogation and the communication blockade. I kept hearing stories of love from people during that blockade when people were finding ingenious ways to reach out to each other, to communicate because the regular means of doing so weren't available. I got interested in examining love and longing in Kashmir through different periods of unrest. The main way of collecting these stories was an online project called, where I put out exactly what I was looking for with a simple Google form. I would interview them over a phone call or Zoom, or in person. The other way was through word of mouth. Over the course of four years, from 2020 to January 2025, when the book came out, I had to drop a few stories because sometimes they were repetitive. You divide the book into three sections—Ōtru, Rāth, and Az—day before yesterday, yesterday, and today. One story that struck me was about Bushra from the other side of Kashmir, like the divided families of East and West Berlin. Tell us about these stories where conflict and communication blockade impact love stories differently. What's intriguing is that the first chapter of the book is called 'Love Letter', set in the early 1990s, where this boy and his girlfriend use letter writing as a way of communicating. Many years later, 30 years later, when the abrogation happened and there was no form of communication, people were forced to resort back to letter writing and become experimental and inventive. And find joy in this old communication tool. It is poetic and ironic, but it's also heartbreaking to think that a group of people are reduced to that when the whole world has the highest speed of internet, and you can reach out to anybody in a second. In Kashmir, just five, six years ago, it was impossible to even talk to somebody who maybe lives one kilometre away from you. I felt something poignant about these stories, and they should be documented because when you generally talk about Kashmir and the conflict, the lived experiences of the conflict are as important to document. In the times that we live in, when history can be altered, sometimes memory is a more powerful tool. Collective public memory means that 10 different people, if they say this happened to me, you start making that thing undeniable. Also Read | National Conference should learn from history: Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi It is irrefutable in a way. The first story about Javed, who wants to show off a love letter written in Urdu during a crackdown in the early 1990s—soldiers find his letter and get interested. Tell us about this story. That story is the perfect entry into the world of Lōal Kashmir because it perfectly encapsulates the dichotomies that Kashmir exists in. Here is this love letter, and these soldiers first don't understand it because it's written in Urdu. He is afraid that they think it's a militant code and they're going to take him away. Nobody attributes crackdowns to pleasant memories. So he doesn't really know what to do, except they say recite your love letter. That's the only short way that he sees to get out of the situation. He decides I'm going to just stretch this out as long as I want, whereas maybe he's not conscious of the fact that this can be seen as humiliation, but he focuses on wanting to get out of the situation. Those soldiers are lapping it up, and by the end of it, they're almost like buddies. And he doesn't like that. He doesn't want to be seen as their buddies or be seen as complicit with them. The use of Kashmiri words throughout your stories—was this deliberate to introduce other audiences to Kashmiri words, or linguistic decoration? Certainly not the latter. I wanted to bring about more layers to the text. The words are not italicised in any way. I was trying to inculcate them into the prose itself. For a Kashmiri reading it, it's a happy surprise. For somebody who is not from Kashmir, they learn something new. A lot of times, the dialogues are in Kashmiri, and most of the time, those are how they were told to me by the contributor. Sometimes I just felt like something like Chilai Kalan, how do I say that in another way? Having all of those words and objects which are a part of Kashmir—what is a kandur or what is a kanger? I felt they were very much needed and came organically to the text. For anybody who doesn't understand it, there's a huge glossary explaining everything in detail. Tell us about your multicultural background—your father is Kashmiri, your mother from Maharashtra, you were brought up here, studied in Bangalore, work in Mumbai. How did this influence your approach to these stories? I was born and brought up here. I did all my schooling here, and went through all those summers of unrest from 2008, 2009, 2010. When I was growing up, I kept thinking, does the world really know what's happening to all of us in Kashmir? Everybody reads the news and sees what's happening on the news, and that's all they know of Kashmir. But there's a different side to our lives. There's always that struggle as Kashmiris to want to live a normal life, but also want to let the world know what's happening here. Even while I was growing up, it was always a struggle for me—I wondered whether I completely belonged to this space or not? It was very cathartic collecting these stories, talking to these people and writing this book because it really did bring me close to the place and the people. Stories like 'Visa' show how the Kashmir story gets transported to non-Kashmiris through relationships. How does this dynamic work? There is a certain unlearning which comes with being in a relationship with somebody from Kashmir. In the visa story, she gets married and has to go back to the US, but her visa application gets flagged for a year. So for a year after her marriage, she didn't see her husband. This is from 2008 to 2009, when even broadband internet wasn't the best. They didn't have video calling. How did they sustain this relationship over the internet for a year? And it was an arranged marriage. For a person who has not experienced any of it, how do you explain that to them? You just married them, and they don't understand anything about Kashmir. What does that really do to your relationship? The story 'Ambulance' about Dr Khawar and Dr Iqra using ambulance drivers to pass letters—tell us about this. This story is one of the few in which I spoke to both sides. This is the first story from the last section of the book, which is Az—today—dealing with the abrogation of Article 370. Both are doctors. Khawar is in general medicine at SMHS, and Iqra is a psychiatrist, which is not seen as an emergency branch, so she doesn't have a duty as much. Even though the hospitals are governed by the same medical college, they have permutations and combinations happening in terms of whether they will be able to see each other or not. At that time, even civilian vehicles were not allowed, so doctors were taken in ambulances. Would you read a favourite paragraph from your book? This is from someone whose name is also Mehak. She told me these exact words: 'We cannot control death. That is inevitable. But what is within our reach is love, loving the people we can and showing our love to them. When we aren't given the freedom to profess our love, it is the worst kind of cruelty, a crime against a people. Love is humanity, it is everything, existing beyond borders, beyond language. We have seen curfews and lockdowns, and each of them leads to a curfew on love. Love gets caged, and a lock is put on it. And yet, here's the miracle. Despite the obstacles that do exist, people continue to love. They don't forget each other.' Also Read | India can't afford to dither on its response: Yaqoob-ul-Hassan There's resilience in these stories, but also heartbreak. Have you probed this resilience—where does it come from in Kashmir? When you talk about resilience in Kashmir, I don't think it's something that you have a choice to have or not to have. It comes organically because you are put into circumstances where you have to find ways to survive, to hope, to deal with things. There's an urgency in a lot of these people to reach out to the ones they love. It comes from living in a place like Kashmir, where things can get volatile very quickly, so you look for a person in your life who is a constant or who understands you or understands what's happening around you. Can we hope for more books from you in this vein? In some other form, maybe. I haven't thought about a sequel. I want to tell more stories from Kashmir. That's what I have always wanted to do. Gowhar Geelani is a senior journalist and author of Kashmir: Rage and Reason.
The Age
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Richmond's Love Letter is an ode to Yorkshire puddings, gravy and chaos
Perry and Bellamy go to Vic Market three times a week to see what their favourite vendors have put aside for them. They turn the spoils into good-value feasting for the $49 feed-me menu on Wednesdays, and steak nights on the Thursday and Friday when you might find a fancy surf'n'turf with wagyu eye-fillet and exquisite Skull Island prawns, or porterhouse with Moreton Bay bug. The approach is over the top, exuberant and generous. Drinking is adventurous and accessible. I love the Campari served in a mini frosted-glass 1930s bottle for pouring over ice and an orange slice. There's a wine blackboard with weekly glasses, carafes and bottles listed by colour and weight, which is a nice way to stretch and learn. Most wines make the list after a local winemaker brings them in and chats the team through a tasting. Service is eager and caring, a love letter enacted for every table. The very idea of fine dining can feel exclusionary, something that other people do, but Love Letter rewrites the template. The restaurant is down-to-earth, personal and cheerily obsessed with making people happy, a fine formula for dining indeed. Three more restaurants redefining fine dining Cutler It opened 13 years ago as Cutler & Co, and chef and co-owner Andrew McConnell has given his flagship a few rethinks over the years. Now it's simply Cutler, with a poised bistro menu and an all-class no-fuss feeling. Wednesday Cellar Nights mean $30 corkage and shared dishes that match well with Bordeaux and Burgundy. 55-57 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, Regale Cafe empress Sutinee Suntivatana owns Humble Rays and matcha specialist Tori's, and now also has Regale in the Old Carlton Brewhouse at the top end of the city. The Asian fusion menu includes chicken rigatoni with gochujang vodka sauce and smashed olives, and sticky rice and white chocolate mousse with corn relish. 555 Swanston Street, Carlton, The Roe A backstreet warehouse is now a temple to sea urchin. They're served raw, rolled up in spring rolls, infused into broths, tucked into fried rice and arranged in colourful bowls with other seafood. An invasive and feral species, eating sea urchins is also conservation.
Sydney Morning Herald
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Richmond's Love Letter is an ode to Yorkshire puddings, gravy and chaos
Perry and Bellamy go to Vic Market three times a week to see what their favourite vendors have put aside for them. They turn the spoils into good-value feasting for the $49 feed-me menu on Wednesdays, and steak nights on the Thursday and Friday when you might find a fancy surf'n'turf with wagyu eye-fillet and exquisite Skull Island prawns, or porterhouse with Moreton Bay bug. The approach is over the top, exuberant and generous. Drinking is adventurous and accessible. I love the Campari served in a mini frosted-glass 1930s bottle for pouring over ice and an orange slice. There's a wine blackboard with weekly glasses, carafes and bottles listed by colour and weight, which is a nice way to stretch and learn. Most wines make the list after a local winemaker brings them in and chats the team through a tasting. Service is eager and caring, a love letter enacted for every table. The very idea of fine dining can feel exclusionary, something that other people do, but Love Letter rewrites the template. The restaurant is down-to-earth, personal and cheerily obsessed with making people happy, a fine formula for dining indeed. Three more restaurants redefining fine dining Cutler It opened 13 years ago as Cutler & Co, and chef and co-owner Andrew McConnell has given his flagship a few rethinks over the years. Now it's simply Cutler, with a poised bistro menu and an all-class no-fuss feeling. Wednesday Cellar Nights mean $30 corkage and shared dishes that match well with Bordeaux and Burgundy. 55-57 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, Regale Cafe empress Sutinee Suntivatana owns Humble Rays and matcha specialist Tori's, and now also has Regale in the Old Carlton Brewhouse at the top end of the city. The Asian fusion menu includes chicken rigatoni with gochujang vodka sauce and smashed olives, and sticky rice and white chocolate mousse with corn relish. 555 Swanston Street, Carlton, The Roe A backstreet warehouse is now a temple to sea urchin. They're served raw, rolled up in spring rolls, infused into broths, tucked into fried rice and arranged in colourful bowls with other seafood. An invasive and feral species, eating sea urchins is also conservation.
IOL News
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
The Love Letter Exhibition - commemorating 10 years of Movie Snaps
A look inside an installation of the Love Letter exhibition at Michaelis Galleries, UCT. Image: Supplied As South Africa marks 31 years of democracy, the Love Letter exhibition at the UCT Michaelis Galleries speaks in the language of absence and memory, with some of its standout pieces including an over two-metre large apartheid eviction letter and 80kg of keys once kept by families forcibly removed from their homes. Running until May 16, it appears alongside the evocative Movie Snaps photographic exhibition. The Love Letter commemorates the 10-year anniversary of Movie Snaps, the exhibition and documentary film on street photography and forced removals in Cape Town by University of Pretoria Professor Siona O'Connell in 2015. Once a beloved pastime, having your black-and-white portrait taken by Movie Snaps photographers captured everyday elegance on Cape Town's streets from the 1940s to the '70s. The Love Letter invites visitors to revisit those memories through images, installations, and the stories behind them. The project is produced collaboratively by O'Connell and Michaelis Galleries, UCT, curator Jade Nair, with the support of the University of Pretoria, District Six Museum and the Centre for Curating the Archive. 'The Love Letter' exhibition runs until May 16. Image: Supplied Along with the two-metre display, the exhibition features a further selection of eviction letters in display provided by the District Six Museum and the Commission on Restitution Land Rights, as well as period-accurate recreations of outfits worn by people in the Movie Snaps photographs sourced from vintage stores, alongside movie snaps photographs. 'When I joined this project as a project manager ten years ago I'd never heard of Movie Snaps, I didn't know what a Movie Snaps was. Until I saw a few and realised that the photos of my maternal family I had grown up looking at were Movie Snaps. So deeply ingrained are Movie Snaps in family archives across Cape Town that for many, the only photographic record of our forebearers are Movie Snaps. They are glamorous objects - beautiful black and white photographs of stylish people. But they belie a collective trauma, the displacement of forced removals,' said Nair. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ The exhibition was launched on Freedom Day with guests young and old from across Cape Town in attendance, including Commissioner for Restitution Dr Wayne Alexander and UWC vice chancellor Professor Robert Balfour. Speaking at the opening, UCT, Emerita Professor Linda Ronnie added that South Africa was by no means unique in its history of dispossession, 'this is the story of every person whose land was and is being forcibly taken from them'. 'One of the most brilliant pieces of writing to capture this notion of historical dispossession is from Lebogang Seale and he writes: '[my home] is only a distant nostalgia now, for the land is no longer ours. Today it belongs to the descendants of colonial settlers; strangers who came from far-off places, and claimed it as their own. As in other parts of the country, the claiming of this land was an arbitrary and capricious land grab with no regard for owner's rights and sovereignty. The occupation altered our lives on a scale that is unimaginable.' Like Lebogang Seale and others, Siona O' Connell looks at 'the long reaches of the past'. She reminds us that everyday life continued then and still continues now and that we owe it to ourselves to acknowledge, remember, and talk about those moments (for ourselves and for future generations), even though they hold the potential to conjure up what Dikgang Moseneke, former Deputy Chief Justice, describes as 'feelings of fresh dispossession' – a haunting, melancholic yet necessary reflection. What can we learn from these past/present experiences? To continue the conversations and to raise issues wherever and in whichever way we can,' said Ronnie. The Love Letter is open to the public, free of charge until May 16 at Upper Gallery, Michaelis Galleries, UCT Hiddingh Campus, 31 Orange Street Gardens, Cape Town. The gallery is open weekdays from 10am to 3pm. Cape Times
