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What is home? And how do we choose to make one? There are many answers to these questions, as the conditions of home are not only personal but also cultural, circumstantial and economic. For some, home is where they sleep; for others, it’s where they feel them?selves, which might not necessarily be in their apartment or house. The stories in this issue get at the expansive notion of home — its aesthetic pleasures, its secrets, its necessity. Photographer Catherine Opie shares the object she cherishes the most in her home and, even, the world: a beautiful designer chair that perfectly molds to her body. Domestic objects with real design can transform your living experience, and artist Bailey Hikawa extends this philosophy down to your toilet seat. At home, there is “the sanctity of Inside,” as Mariam Rahmani explains in her essay on the value and luxury of dressing up to stay in.

Making a home in an expensive city like L.A. can be challenging. For some, it means perpetual renting and moving, though there is beauty to be found in this impermanence, as Diana Ruzova writes in her intimate essay about growing up as an apartment manager’s daughter. We can make home out of the very fabric of a city, gradually collecting places and street corners until they feel like our own. For Julissa James, it’s the laundromat, a haven that has become her “comfort zone” — her “own private version of the club, where fluorescent light floods from the ceiling and there’s always Amy Winehouse or Salt?N?Pepa playing over the loudspeaker.” If we’re lucky, we become the designers and architects of our own lives, a role that Aleali May has fully assumed. In this issue’s cover story, May gets real about her design ambitions and shares her latest sparkling creations within the iconic setting of a quintessential modernist home, the Sheats?Goldstein house. The 1960s house has long been admired by the fashion crowd, architects and artists, including Opie. (When she realized she’d never live in such a space, Opie made a film imagining that she set the property on fire. Luckily for us, it still stands.)

L.A., perhaps more than most cities, is many things at once — “an enigma of contradic?tions,” as Gotha Shakira puts it in her horoscope of the month — and so it’s unsurprising that there are so many ways to make and define home. But in Gemini spirit, we don’t need to settle on one definition. We can change our minds and reinvent it. We can live in many places at once.

Elisa Wouk Almino
Deputy Editor


Image logo by Beatriz Lozano For The Times


With a new jewelry line, Aleali May is designing mini monuments to the self

With a new jewelry line, Aleali May is designing mini monuments to the self

May has released her first drop with lab-grown diamond company GRWN, called Metamorphosis. She wanted the pieces to feel nostalgic and, essentially, for the girls.  Read the story  ?  
Catherine Opie wants to tell you about her sexy ‘big-bottom girl chair’

Catherine Opie wants to tell you about her sexy ‘big-bottom girl chair’

The L.A.-based photographer and artist tells us the story behind her rare Danish designer chair and why chairs “are everything.”  Read the story  ?  
The L.A. laundromat offers something special and rare: a home away from home

The L.A. laundromat offers something special and rare: a home away from home

The laundromat is your rare “third place” — a spot to go to that’s not your house, nor your office, but a secret third thing.  Read the story  ?  
Issue 27 cover

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Issue 27: Homemaking

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Renting used to be a source of shame to this apartment manager’s daughter. Now it’s a comfort

Renting used to be a source of shame to this apartment manager’s daughter. Now it’s a comfort

Los Angeles, like its residents, is impermanent, always shape-shifting, always on the verge of becoming something else.  Read the story  ?  
The benefits of dressing up to stay in — and why they outweigh dressing up to go out

The benefits of dressing up to stay in — and why they outweigh dressing up to go out

Inside you are your main audience. The joy lies in the freedom. Be extra. Go bold.  Read the story  ?  
Your toilet seat doesn’t have to look boring. Bailey Hikawa’s designing ones with pizza slices and pearl necklaces

Your toilet seat doesn’t have to look boring. Bailey Hikawa’s designing ones with pizza slices and pearl necklaces

There’s something really beautiful that happens when people see a designed object in a space where they don’t expect it, like toilet seats.  Read the story  ?  
We’re transitioning into Gemini, and Rick Owens won’t let us lose our house keys

We’re transitioning into Gemini, and Rick Owens won’t let us lose our house keys

Homemaking is an art, a craft, a practice, a burden, a necessity, a privilege. It’s in the talismans that we arrange within our homes — including our house keys.  Read the story  ?  
Looking to upgrade your home with designer touches? Here’s a start

Looking to upgrade your home with designer touches? Here’s a start

From an unforgettable decanter to an adorable ottoman, these 8 items will awaken your inner interior designer.  Read the story  ??  
8 L.A. happenings in May to get you ready for summer

8 L.A. happenings in May to get you ready for summer

It’s time for May and all of its offerings. From Michael Kors Collection’s return to Beverly Hills to Mickalene Thomas at the Broad, here’s what to do this month.  Read the story  ?  

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