By working directly with designers to reinvent the way in which products are designed and manufactured, Parley is working towards turning the global effects of fashion into an opportunity to protect our oceans—and we’re with them.
Learn more about Parley for the Oceans here.
(UPPER LEFT PICTURED Jesse Katz)
Notoriously unapproachable, the wine world can be pretentious, snobby, and at some points even shameful. Always embarrassed to ask questions or make casual comments in fear of sounding like an idiot, I would try (and fail) to piece together context clues of what people were talking about. Smelling and nodding. Swishing and spitting.
But Jesse Katz is different. A first-generation winemaker and an easygoing, genuinely kind person, he’s open about every part of the process, from soil to barrel to bottle. Whether you’re a sommelier or complete novice, he doesn’t believe in stupid questions and meets you with genuine excitement. To him, “luxury” isn’t about exclusivity or showing off—it’s about care, quality, and craft. He’s not interested in gatekeeping. He just wants to dive in, and bring you with him.
As we sat down for our first tasting of Aperture’s newest vintages, I discreetly tucked my bikini straps into my pants, hoping no one would notice I’d accidentally packed swimsuits instead of underwear, but it didn’t matter. I was quickly reminded that high-end doesn’t mean you have to fit a certain mold, say the right things, or look the right way. It's just about the product.
And let me say that the wine was one of the best, most unique blends I had ever tasted—shared in great company, surrounded by beautiful scenery.
Years and years in the making, the COLLAGE collection lives up to its name: a blend of varietals from five distinct regions, spanning over 200 acres, woven into a single, striking vintage. With lack of an official “wine language” to describe it, I can say it was deep but not harsh, rounding off the tongue smoothly leaving a sweet satiating aftertaste. Made of 77% Cab, 11% Merlot, 5% Malbec, 7% Petite Verdot, it’s easily some of the most layered bottles I’ve had. The collection isn’t about following rules, but about rewriting them, celebrating contrast and complexity, imagination and identity.
Like the wine, Jesse’s own journey has been far from conventional. By the time he was legally allowed to drink, he had already traveled to over 80 countries with his father, a renowned photographer and fellow wine lover Andy Katz. At 12, Jesse visited Burgundy with his father and he remembers sipping a wine and casually saying, “This one tastes like stones.” The waiter lit up: “Oui, oui!” He attributes that memory as the moment he knew that’s what he wanted to do with his life.
He named his winery Aperture as a tribute to his father, designing the buildings to resemble the aperture of a camera lens, with deconstructed hexagonal shapes, interconnected structures, and varied roof geometries. His father’s photographs line the walls, pasted as the bottle labels themselves. The newest COLLAGE bottle takes it a step further using over 100 of those images spliced, layered, and kaleidoscoped into a mosaic framed by the aperture shape.
It’s this attention to detail across image, space, and flavor that defines Aperture. It’s not just the wine, or the architecture, or even the origin story, it’s how all of it blurs the line between storytelling and taste. Every element, from the label to the land, invites you in without asking you to perform. You don’t need to know the right words. You just have to take a sip.
Frieze Art Fair: Opening Day Looks
A focal point of the week, one would be remiss not to capture the range of expression present at Frieze, particularly on an anticipation-rife opening day. From the young and buzzy galleries in Frieze Focus, to the establishment players marking a sequentially countless year of showing at the fair, looks (and a tasteful brand of whimsy) abounded.
Acne Studios: Heart Beat Rose
At Acne Studios’ SoHo outpost, an interior sculpture garden of grand proportions awaited – ‘Heart Beat Rose’ by Jonathan Lyndon Chase. The artist developed the series of soft sculptures draped in richly-colored gowns, T-shirts, expressive poses and stares, and (of course) quintessential Acne denim to coincide with the ‘Acne Studios Loves Jonathan Lyndon Chase’ capsule collection.
Frieze x Miu Miu: Opening Party
Just before opening to the public, Frieze and Miu Miu invited select guests into Terminal Warehouse for a live preview of Tales & Tellers, a limited-run show conceived by artist Goshka Macuga with curator Elvira Dyangani Ose. The performance saw models visualizing a New York-centric mise en scène, frolicking to and fro in Miu Miu’s finest, and providing an air of levity and repose to the bustle of the attendees’ schedule of appointments.
Alyssa Davis Gallery and Foreign & Domestic: Late Night Digestivo with Genevieve Goffman
To celebrate Genevieve Goffman’s solo show convened in partnership between Alyssa Davis Gallery and Foreign & Domestic, Davis threw open her home’s doors for a dinner and afterparty that went on late into the night. The revelry spanned the sweeping length of her dining room, up to the roof where guests could catch a scenic view of Manhattan and take in the crisp night air, to downstairs on Cornelia Street (where you might have seen friends of the gallery taking a cheeky cigarette break).
Company Gallery: DASH with Cajsa von Zeipel and Museum Manu with Women's History Museum
Manu with Women’s History Museum In a treat for New Yorkers and just touched-down Art Week visitors alike, Company Gallery launched dual shows in their downtown space featuring a wide array of figures (both animalian and humanoid) and fashion products (both irresistibly chic and thought-provoking) across shows featuring artist Cajsa von Zeipel and designers Mattie Barringer and Amanda McGowan of Women’s History Museum.
As people trickled in—artists, writers, actors, lovers, fighters—there was a shared awareness that each person would eventually step onto that bed and offer something up in front of everyone. Denier became the compass. A word that measures the thickness of nylon—a material’s ability to conceal or expose. The stories that followed range from summer camp awakenings to old letters, oedipal confessions, and fresh fantasies of one opening their throat. Alice Scope had a conversation with the original chatbot E.L.I.Z.A., turning digital code into erotic reflection. Another guest sang. Another whispered. And some barely got the words out.
There were dirty martinis. Friends among friends. Strangers among strangers. Voices tangled with candlelight. The room held all of it—confession, humor, arousal, and hesitation. Some stories stayed with us. Others flickered out the second they hit the air. Still, for a moment, we stitched ourselves closer, thread by trembling thread.
