This December, I headed to Milan to stay at Giorgio Armani’s newest hotel.   It was my first stay at the hotel, which opened in 2011.  I love how everything in the hotel – from the Art Deco building to the forks and spoons – is about design.  No detail seems to have escaped its designers – in fact, looking down on the hotel from a helicopter, one notes that it is in the shape of a capital A.  The hotel is in a great section of the city – an easy walk to La Scala.  On my first night there, I had dinner at the hotel’s rooftop restaurant, -- not surprisingly the food was phenomenal.  Then, it started to snow: the first of the season.  It was a truly magical, looking out of the floor-to-ceilings windows at the Duomo and streets below as snow began to fall... what a wonderful way to begin the holiday season.

A very special thanks to Aaron Kaupp, the hotel's GM, for making my stay such a memorable one.  

After the buzz of ILTM, I scheduled a few days for myself in Paris.  I ended up spending most of my time on the Left Bank in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.  This is one of my favorite haunts in the city – utterly relaxing to wander from bistro to café, to stay at the Esprit St. Germain and be treated like one of the family, to stroll the nearby Luxembourg gardens, or to take in the boutiques.  When staying at the Esprit Germain in the fall or winter, I love to come in and sit by the fire in the hotel’s lounge.  I cannot wait to return to Paris…perhaps this spring.

For me, the fun of shopping when I travel is in finding something that I wouldn’t at home.  It makes the bulging suitcase, the explanations at customs, or the shipping fees -- like when I brought back a table that took 12 men to carry – all worthwhile.  With that in mind, I set out to visit the jewelry studio and showroom of Maestro Alessandro Dari in Florence.  Once I was there, however, I realized that nothing about being there resembled “shopping.”  Maestro Dari, a self-taught master goldsmith and jeweler, has a mystical connection to his work and to each and every piece he creates.  Learning his art through exploring the techniques of ancient goldsmiths and alchemists, Alessandro Dari seems less to be making jewelry than to be exploring the qualities and beauties of various precious metals and gemstones.  I did leave there with a beautiful, simple ring, and like everything he makes it is one of a kind.  It is closer to the truth, however, to say that the ring selected me rather than the other way around.