Camille is a New York–based writer and art and design historian whose work has appeared in Apartamento, Architectural Digest, Domino, Pin-Up, and Vogue. Her practice centers around fine antiques, contemporary art and design, and European history.
Scent has the power to transport us instantly to another time or place. Consequently, the evocatively perfumed objects from the fragrance company Homesick enable wistful souls to travel to a cherished holiday, family tradition, or any state in the continental U.S., as well as a handful of other countries, in a sniff. Its core product is the candle—of which there are currently more than 100 varieties, all made of hand-poured, natural soy wax—but the brand also applies its nostalgia-inducing smells to reed diffusers and car fresheners.
Concocting each aroma is a collaborative effort: To make a new scent, Homesick surveys up to 100 people to understand their definition of a given subject (including New York City, pumpkin picking, and more abstract experiences, such as a ski trip or a book club), then translates their feedback into an authentic, recognizable fragrance. More than a momentary escape, the scents support mental health, too: According to Lauren Lamagna, Homesick’s director of product development, memory-generating smells have become that much more pertinent in the midst of the pandemic. “Whether it’s escaping to a warm, sandy beach in Hawaii or the crisp mountain air of Colorado, Homesick has been especially important to our community during this time,” she says. To get through winter’s inevitable cabin fever, we suggest burning the Road Trip candle by day, and Beach Cottage by night.
As the holidays roll around, gelatin desserts—a festive Thanksgiving staple, cast in extravagant shapes and fantastical colors—will undoubtedly make their annual appearance on many a dinner table. But Lexie Park, an L.A.-based, self-taught food artist, has Jell-O molds on her mind all year round. She started cooking up candy-colored jelly cakes about a year ago, after parting ways with Phelmuns, an underground clothing label she’d worked on, looking to apply to food what she learned about texture and transparency in fashion. This month, she began taking cake orders (currently available for local pick-up only, due to the pandemic) via the newly launched website for her full-fledged dessert business, Nünchi.
Shapes such as five-petaled flowers recur in Park’s delicate, decidedly cute confections, which riff on the Sanrio characters and Morning Glory stationery that filled her childhood. Most of her work falls within a pastel colorway—happy colors, if you will—but she’ll branch out for the right concept. Certain cakes have an experimental edge: While pieces of fresh California produce or edible flowers jiggle inside some, others suspend silvery fish, gestating babies, and a slew of other creatures within their wiggly worlds. The spellbinding response elicited by each gelatinous structure befits Park’s venture, which is named for a Korean term that refers to the hyper-awareness of things that can’t be put into words. Through the cakes of her creation, Park reveals just how intertwined food and emotion really are.
