MJ – Luxe-Edit.com

Gentlemen, Your Closet Called – Vacation Style Every Day

Somewhere along the coastline of the French Riviera, in the long golden summers of the nineteen twenties, something shifted in the way men thought about getting dressed. The shift was quiet at first — a looser collar here, a lighter fabric there, the subtle permission that warm salt sea air and sunlight seemed to grant a quiet permission for more relaxed dressing. A permission that spread and became permanent. A new category of dressing was born, a relaxed and easy summer style, neither sloppy or unfinished its elegantly understated and relaxed. When train travel threaded across Europe and America in the mid-nineteenth century it delivered the seaside to anyone who could afford a ticket. The seashore and the resort, once the private preserve of the upper classes, became attainable to others on both continents. In America Henry Flagler drove his Florida East Coast Railway all the way to Palm Beach, Florida in the 1890s carving out a resort culture from subtropical wilderness of Florida. Travel had expanded everywhere creating more travelers who needed a more relaxed wardrobe. The French Riviera had been a winter destination for the upper class. When summer came the upper class were gone as they typically avoided spending time in the sun — summer was for the people who had no choice but to stay. When Coco Chanel arrived in Antibes on the French Riviera things began to change she wore jersey on the beach complete with sailor stripes. When she returned to Paris all tanned and bronze she made having a tan fashionable which in turn made summer fashionable further expanding the need to for easy but fashionable warm weather attire. Coco Chanel understood that dressing for vacation holiday was not dressing down. The idea of elegant but casual dressing crossed the Atlantic with considerable momentum and America welcomed it with open arms while re-inventing it with American flair. Palm Beach, Florida had been quietly cultivating its own vocabulary of leisure dressing since the early twentieth century — linen suits in pale colors, open collars — put together but with an understated ease. Miami, Florida brought heat and color and a Latin American exuberance that pushed the color palette even further. Then Hawaii entered the pictures with its own set of relaxed rules with the aloha shirt — bold, prints, worn untucked with a kind of deliberate ease that didn’t ask for permission because none was needed. Casual dressing in America was a full tune far more than just one note. When returning GIs brought aloha shirts to the mainland after the Second World War they didn't just bring a shirt they brought a philosophy of leisure that was worth celebrating. I’m off-the-clock and ready for fun! California absorbed it all, made its own and expanded the idea of casual dressing. The boundaries between resort wear and ready-to-wear, between vacation dressing and everyday dressing dissolved. California with its seemingly endless sunshine, surf culture and live life outdoors philosophy took casual dressing into new realms, realms still being discovered today. Well-dressed men on both continents were realizing that the vacation holiday wardrobe could in fact be worn year round. The very American way of thinking about casual dressing found its way to Europe, an influence that lives on today. Make every day a getaway. One can be both comfortable and stylish.

Get Your Grill On! | BBQ Grills & More…

There is something that happens when fire meets food outdoors that's almost magical, that no kitchen, however well-equipped, can replicate. Fire is the oldest human technology and cooking over it outside, in the open air, with smoke and heat is where every food culture on planet Earth began. The backyard grill as Americans came to know it has a surprisingly specific origin story. In 1952, a Chicago metalworker named George Stephen Sr. took a spherical metal buoy, cut it in half, added legs and a lid, and changed the way Americans cooked outdoors. He called it the Weber kettle — named for Weber Brothers Metal Works, where he worked and eventually bought a controlling interest. It wasn't conceived as a design object or a status symbol — it was practical, it was democratic, and it worked. The domed lid turned the grill into an oven sending the heat down into the food being grilled, the lid increased the interior temperature and kept it steady, while the trapped smoke had nowhere to go but down into the food, thus enhancing the flavor. George Stephen Sr. founded Weber-Stephen Products Company to manufacture and sell his innovative kettle grill, and the timing could not have been better — postwar suburban expansion had millions of Americans now living in a house with a backyard space that was perfect for a Weber grill. Within a decade of the Weber kettle's arrival, the gas grill entered the picture and changed outdoor cooking permanently. Propane brought precision and consistency to the backyard grill — even, controllable heat that put the cook firmly in command of the process. Gas grills spread rapidly across American backyards, decks, and patios and for good reason: they delivered reliable results without the unpredictability of burning charcoal briquettes to keep enough consistent heat to cook on. Then backyard grilling evolved even more with multiple options — Pellet fueled grills that delivered genuine wood-fired smoke flavor — Kamado grills that are ceramic-walled, descendants from ancient Japanese clay cooking vessels called mushikamado that earned the devotion of serious outdoor grillers for their ability to maintain temperature for hours. The Argentinian-style Gaucho grill involves open fire, live embers, and adjustable-height cooking. The grate and/or meat hooks can be moved up or down above the embers, adjusting the protein’s proximity to the fire/heat to achieve the desired cook. Gaucho grilling is the most hands-on grilling experience available — and for the cook who wants that direct engagement with live fire, nothing else comes close. Electric outdoor grills deliver consistent, controllable heat without live fire. If where you live doesn’t allow live fire grilling or if you prefer a non-live fire option then an electric grill is for you. There's also the flat-top grill which is really a flat surface griddle capable of cooking anything from delicate fish to a sunny-side-up egg — a full range of cooking had arrived in the backyard. Smokers occupy their own universe in outdoor cooking — patient, deliberate, and rewarding in ways that no other method can match. Where a grill works with higher heat and a quicker cooking time, a smoker works with low heat and wood smoke over a longer period of time, transforming proteins into something smoke-infused and truly special. The offset smoker is the classic configuration — a separate firebox attached to one end of a cooking chamber, feeding fragrant hardwood smoke across the food low and slow for hours. Cabinet smokers, sometimes called vertical smokers, place the heat source and wood chips at the bottom and the food is placed on a series of racks above the heat, space conscious while providing lots of capacity. Barrel smokers — also known as drum smokers — use an upright steel drum design that maintains heat remarkably well and delivers bold smoke flavor with minimal fuss. Pellet smokers offer precision feeding compressed hardwood pellets automatically to deliver consistent heat and smoke from start to finish. Electric outdoor smokers provide a smoking method without having to manage and maintain a live fire — set the desired temperature, add the wood chips, and the smoker does the work. The common theme across all smokers is the time involved — it's an unhurried process that rewards in the end with deep, satisfying flavor. Get your grill on with this mouth-watering luxe-edit.com curation of grills and smokers — dinner is served!

Have a Seat | Finest in Outdoor Living

There is a particular kind of intelligence at work when furniture is designed to live outside. It has to hold its own against sun, rain and time — and still compel you to sit on it. Not out of necessity, but out of desire. That distinction matters more than one might think. For most of human history, the outdoor seat was an assertion of power. The throne moved outside. The court convened in the garden. The Romans understood this with absolute clarity — the triclinium, their iconic three-sided arrangement of couches set in the open air, was not a casual accommodation. It was architecture. A deliberate staging of social life under the sky, where the quality of the furniture announced the ambitions of the host as plainly as anything being served. To relax and recline outdoors, attended to and at ease, was civilization at its highest register. The great estates of Renaissance Europe carried this understanding forward with obsessive refinement. The gardens of Versailles were not a backdrop — they were a theater. Stone benches placed along the allées of Le Nôtre's geometry were not incidental. They were part of the composition, as considered as the fountains and the parterres. To sit in the garden at Versailles was to occupy a well-designed moment. The furniture and the landscape were inseparable from one another, each giving meaning to the other. What the 20th century did quietly, and all at once was democratize outdoor living spaces. Post-WWII suburban expansion gave millions of people their first private outdoor spaces, and the furniture design world responded. Aluminum replaced iron. Synthetic weaves replaced natural ones. The chaise lounge, once the province of Mediterranean villas and grand hotel terraces, entered backyards. The idea that comfort and beauty also belonged outside, and deserved the same consideration as the living room became the new standard. The finest outdoor furniture is no longer a weatherproofed approximation of indoor furniture it is a design category unto itself with its own standards of craft. Teak selected and dried to precise specifications. Powder-coated aluminum frames engineered to hold their finish through decades of sun and salty sea air. Performance fabrics that resist UV degradation, moisture, and staining while affording the comfort of indoor upholstery. The full spectrum of outdoor seating is vast, something for everyone. The deep sectional sofa that anchors a terrace like a living room. The single lounge chair — the one you claim as yours, the one that faces the right direction at the right hour. The chaise lounge that invites the kind of horizontal R&R that only happens outdoors. The rocker and the glider, with their unhurried rhythms, their quiet insistence that leisure time should be relished. This is your invitation to browse the luxe-edit.com curation of the finest in outdoor living furniture, have a seat and get comfortable.

Dine Alfresco | Shop Outdoor Dining Furniture

The table set outside is one of the oldest acts of civilization. Long before walls defined the room, the meal defined the gathering — and the gathering, almost always, happened en plein air. The Romans formalized it with the triclinium, the three-sided arrangement of couches set in the garden, where the ceiling was the sky and the host's ambition was expressed as much in the setting as the bounty served to guests. The great royal courts of Europe carried this understanding forward. At Versailles, the gardens were not backdrop — they were dining stage. Louis XIV dined in them, received in them, performed the ritual of court life in them. The outdoor dining table was as grand as the indoor dining table. It was life well lived. Café culture made outdoor dining democratic. Paris exported the sidewalk cafe table to the world. The French philosophy was that a meal eaten outside alongside the pulse of the street as the world passed by was life meets meal. The Italians understood this instinctively with dining Al fresco, a tradition that lives on and has been adopted around the world. The outdoor dining table and its companions have evolved and expanded across myriad styles for every taste.

Let’s Throw Some Shade – Shop Outdoor Umbrellas & Shade

Shade began as a power move. The word umbrella traces back through Italian to the Latin umbra — meaning shadow and/or shade. Before it was a design object, before it was a considered element of outdoor living, it was the oldest status symbol in recorded history. The instinct to seek shade is as old as humanity itself. What changed, over millennia, was who was allowed to take cover under it. The earliest evidence of the umbrella as shade appeared in ancient Egypt around 2450 BC — palm fronds, feathers and stretched papyrus fastened to poles, held aloft by servants over pharaohs and gods moving in procession beneath the African sun. Not for rain but for shade from the sun and for the unmistakable power statement that came with it. In Assyria, only the king held the right to be shaded by an umbrella or parasol. The carved reliefs of Persepolis show Persian kings attended by servants bearing canopied shade over their heads. In ancient Mesopotamia the message was identical — shade was only for the powerful. China took the concept further and engineered it into something enduring. Around 1100 BC the Chinese were the first to waterproof the shade material, waxing and lacquering paper and silk canopies into all-weather instruments. Archaeological digs at Luoyang later uncovered bronze castings of collapsible umbrella mechanisms dating back to the Zhou dynasty around 600 BC — the earliest known folding design, recognizable in its geometry even today. Social hierarchy was built into every tier — the Emperor traveled beneath four elaborate layers of canopy. Only the Chinese royal family was permitted use of yellow shade. The rulers of Siam and Burma extended this tradition across the region, commanding between eight and twenty-four tiers of canopy overhead. The message was architecture as power: the bigger the shade, the greater the power being shaded by it. The Silk Road carried Chinese umbrellas into Europe by the late sixteenth century, arriving in a world that found them exotic, fashionable and expensive. For centuries the outdoor umbrella remained a luxury object — heavy, elaborate and the exclusive province of those who could afford both the umbrella and the person to shade them with it. That exclusive status finally changed in mid-eighteenth century England when Jonas Hanway became the first man to carry an umbrella regularly in public. He was mocked, pelted by coachmen who feared umbrellas would eliminate their trade, and persisted anyway. By the 1790s the umbrella had shed its associations with exclusivity and femininity and begun its migration toward everyday object. The outdoor umbrella as we know it today is the direct descendant of that five-thousand-year history — same essential architecture, same fundamental purpose evolved. Powder-coated aluminum frames. Performance canopy fabrics engineered for UV protection, water resistance and fabric color retention. Cantilever designs that shade without a center support pole. Integrated heating and lighting for use at night. What remains unchanged is what shade does for an outdoor space, and for the people occupying it. It is a stylish element that adjusts the outdoor space, making it more comfortable — hello outdoor living and entertaining. Click-through to view the luxe-edit.com curation of outdoor umbrellas and shade — from the sculptural and the statement-making to the architecturally scaled — shade your outdoor space in style.

It’s a Wrap – Beach Towels & Inspired Places to Dry Off

It begins, as so many great things do, in a hammam. Seventeenth century Bursa, Turkey. The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, and its hammam — the communal bath — at the center of daily life. Social. Sensory. The place to be seen. The cloth used after the steam was called a peshtamal — hand-woven cotton or linen, often embroidered, narrow enough to drape, long enough to wrap. In the Ottoman world a beautifully crafted peshtamal reflected the standing of the person who carried it. Artisans who had mastered carpet-weaving brought that same knowledge to cloth, and the first looped towel — the havlu, meaning simply "with loops" — was born in Bursa's workshops. Slow to make. Expensive to own. Unmistakable luxury. Two centuries later, a British banker named Henry Christy visited Constantinople and encountered the havlu. He brought samples home to England, and together with his brother Richard studied its construction. Their employee Samuel Holt designed a machine to weave the looped fabric at scale and terry cloth was born. In 1851 the Christy brothers took their terry cloth towels to the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace, Queen Victoria approved, and became one of their first clients. The havlu had traveled from the hammams of Bursa to the most celebrated exhibition in the world. For centuries the beach was not a sought after destination, one endured the outdoors when necessary, that was it. That changed in 1923 when Coco Chanel returned from the French Riviera accidentally tanned making tanned skin the new currency of a life well lived. The beach, the swimming pool and the great outdoors were suddenly de rigueur. The havlu (terry cloth towel) already a century old had found its place in the world. A century of evolution followed giving the world what we know today, the beach towel. Beyond their utility they are a style statement and the design houses realized this. Which brings us to this curation, a journey into that world as well as enticing places to travel to with your luxurious, thirsty friend. Bon voyage!

Have Cap Will Travel | Designer Baseball Caps

In 1849, the New York Knickerbockers baseball team took the field in straw hats — impractical, itchy, and almost immediately abandoned. After a few seasons they had switched to a cap featuring a crown made of panels of merino wool, topped with a star-like pattern and a short front visor to keep the sun out of a player's eyes. The Brooklyn Excelsiors refined the shape in 1860 to a rounded cap with a long brim and a button on top. This style became known as the Brooklyn-style cap and spread across American baseball through the end of the century. In 1894, the Boston Beaneaters baseball team became the first team to stitch monograms onto their caps as team identity, the earliest signal that the cap was becoming more than a sun shade. Then in 1901, the Detroit Tigers went further: they put their mascot animal on the front of the cap. Through the early decades of the twentieth century, manufacturers refined construction — reinforcing the front panels, lengthening the brim, and standardizing the six-panel crown that remains the blueprint today. Wool gave way to cotton twill as the game expanded into warmer climates, and the cap evolved from equipment into emblem. By the 1930s, professional teams were working with sporting goods companies to produce versions for team supporters, an early precursor to licensed merchandise and the beginning of the cap’s migration from ball field to main street. In 1954, New Era introduced the 59FIFTY, establishing the modern cap shape: structured crown, stitched eyelets for ventilation, fabric-covered top button, and a flat brim designed to be shaped by the wearer. Major League Baseball adopted this version as its official on-field cap. Television carried the image nationwide, and what began as a practical solution to sun glare became a recognizable symbol of allegiance, geography, and team identity. By the late twentieth century the baseball cap had moved decisively beyond the ball field. Youth culture embraced it first, then music, then fashion. The cap became both uniform and anti-uniform — worn forward, backward, curved, flat, pristine, or deliberately worn in and even distressed. Logos communicated belonging; the absence of logos communicated intention. Designers began exploring the form not as novelty but as archetype, translating cotton twill into suede, cashmere, baby cashmere, leather, and technical fabrics. Luxury houses understood something the Brooklyn Excelsiors could not have anticipated: the cap’s proportions were already perfect. Today the baseball cap occupies a rare position in the modern wardrobe — equally at ease paired with tailoring, knitwear, or swim shorts. It travels easily between city and resort, between anonymity and statement, between sport and style. More than 160 years after a group of amateur players abandoned straw hats in favor of wool panels and a modest brim, the essential architecture remains unchanged. A small adjustment for comfort became an enduring object of design — proof that when form follows function closely enough, function eventually becomes form’s greatest style advantage. Explore the luxe-edit.com curation of men’s designer baseball caps — from heritage interpretations in cotton twill to elevated versions rendered in baby cashmere, suede, and technical performance fabrics — each grounded in the same structure first refined on a nineteenth-century baseball field. Click for more…

From Staple to Style Statement | Women’s Designer T-Shirts | Tees for Where Life Takes You!

The t-shirt, though not the most obvious, holds the most power in a woman's wardrobe and with over two billion sold each year it’s not going anywhere. Jane Birkin — the woman whose name graces the most coveted handbag in the world, the Birkin — understood the t-shirt's power long before luxury did. Her nonchalance became one of the most influential style signatures of the 20th century. In 2017 Maria Grazia Chiuri opened her first collection for Dior — the house's first female artistic director — with a runway model in a plain white t-shirt bearing the words WE SHOULD ALL BE FEMINISTS. The t-shirt had arrived at fashion's most powerful address with something to say. Marlon Brando wore one in the film A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951. James Dean wore one in the film Rebel Without a Cause in 1955. Two performances revolutionized the t-shirt’s status, transforming it from a mere undergarment to a cultural statement for women and men. Enjoy the luxe-edit.com curation of women's t-shirts ready for your wardrobe. From Prada to The Row, from feathers to cotton-silk jersey — high fashion to street it’s all here.