Lifestyle

A slime museum is coming to L.A. — and it’s bringing the healing power of play

Published

2 years ago

February 16, 2024

A slime museum is coming to L.A. — and it’s bringing the healing power of play

When it comes to healing from grief, there’s often not a simple answer, but there are some recommended standbys. Therapy, of course, is essential, and maintaining close contact with a community also is often recommended.

And maybe, perhaps, a bit of slime?

Such was the case for Karen Robinovitz, one of the co-founders of the Sloomoo Institute, a playful palace dedicated to all things gooey and goopy, where guests can toss slime, mold it, walk on it, get drenched by it and even experience the ASMR benefits of it. Los Angeles soon will be home to the fifth Sloomoo Institute in the U.S. — an outpost on Fairfax Avenue across from the Original Farmers Market opens this summer.

Kids play with slime at Sloomoo Institute’s Atlanta location.

(Sloomoo Institute)

Before the interactive, make-a-mess emporiums became a reality, Robinovitz was struggling to simply get through the day. A survivor of multiple tragedies, Robinovitz seven years ago lost her husband. Months later, a cousin was killed in the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Fla. She was living, she says, with “a very deep and dark depression,” talking to someone — a therapist or various support groups — five days a week.

“I was really struggling,” Robinovitz says. “You’re talking about it all the time. In my home, I’m reminded of it in every corner of my house. In my neighborhood, everything reminds you of the person that you lost.”

Healing came in an unexpected place — and a surprising substance. A friend visited with her then-10-year-old daughter, who brought some slime with her for solo playtime while the adults talked. Robinovitz, however, found herself transfixed by the ooze.

Sloomoo Institute guests in Chicago get drenched with slime.

(Grace Pisula)

“I sat on the floor with her, and four hours later I realized I was in a complete state of joy,” Robinovitz says. “I had unleashed a part of myself that I never thought I’d see again, which was the inner child. I was happy playing. When they were leaving, I said that this did more for me than all the therapy, all the experts and all the support groups I had been seeing. I said I need to keep this. I became what is known affectionately as an ‘adult slimer.’”

Robinovitz and her longtime friend Sara Schiller created the Sloomoo Institute. The first location launched in late 2019 in New York, and Sloomoo Institutes in Atlanta, Chicago and Houston followed.

This is no mere immersive “pop-up,” says Robinovitz, as the two have signed a long-term lease with the intention of being in L.A. to stay — perhaps even tapping into the city’s creative class to expand their slimy mascots and creatures into other media. But for now, their mission is to merge silly with a bit of science, and to explore the importance of play for play’s sake.

A visit to a Sloomoo Institute takes guests through various slime stations, some that are very hands-on and others that resemble a light obstacle course. Some are just goofy, such as a slime slingshot, which allows participants to catapult slime at someone else. (Don’t worry, they’re tucked safely behind plexiglass.) Stations may focus on touch, such as a blindfolded journey through various gloppy textures, while others are directed toward more aural sensations. New for Los Angeles is a sound bath, with art from Randy Polumbo — think reflective surfaces, amorphic shapes and synchronized sound.

Karen Robinovitz, left, and Sara Schiller founded the Sloomoo Institute to celebrate the power of play.

(Lanna Apisukh)

Built into the room will be bowls and meditation-ready balls, which guests will be able to strike to create their own personal symphonies. One can imagine a cacophony of noise on a crowded day, but Robinovitz and Schiller also speak of it as an event space, a potential home for yoga or more relaxing, psychedelic-inspired sound baths. It taps into the Sloomoo Institute’s underlying mission, as the firm collaborates with psychiatrists such as Dr. Judith Joseph to better understand the importance of sensory play.

“Adults, we need this,” says Robinovitz. “I started to talk to a psychiatrist friend of mine because I wanted to understand what was happening. At once, you’re tapping into three or four of your five senses. It’s tactile. It makes sounds when you touch it. All the slimes we make are scented, so they smell really yummy, and scent is the sense that’s most closely tied to memory.”

L.A. ticket prices haven’t been announced yet, but based on admission in other cities, expect to spend around $40 for a general admission Sloomoo Institute ticket. Those who want to get rained on by slime — an experienced dubbed Sloomoo Falls — will need to pay for an “enhanced experience,” which can double the ticket price. Important to note: One shouldn’t come wearing a favorite outfit to the Sloomoo Institute, even though ponchos will be provided for the slime showers.

A shop inside Sloomoo Institute.

(Sloomoo Institute)

Schiller had her own personal connection to slime, noticing that play allows participants to get out of their head. Vulnerability, for instance, can come naturally in a state of play. Schiller’s eldest daughter has Angelman syndrome, a genetic disorder that can leave children unable to communicate via speech or writing, and her husband has survived multiple bilateral strokes. Slime, she says, has helped foster connections, helping her family better deal with disabilities and stressful moments.

“The great thing that I say about slime is that when you’re playing with slime, you can have difficult conversations or meaningful conversations without them being awkward,” Schiller says, theorizing that when we are in a relaxed, playful state — and focused on a group activity — we feel more at ease. “But you’re not on your device. You’re not distracted. You’re connected to yourself and you’re connected to the other person.”

The two founders are eager to talk about their history, noting they don’t want their personal stories divorced from the Sloomoo Institute. Longtime friends, Robinovitz and Schiller have entrepreneurial backgrounds. Robinovitz, for instance, launched a talent firm dedicated to digital influencers, while Schiller has an extensive history in the hospitality and art worlds. Together, they’re proud to note that the Sloomoo Institute workforce is about 10% neurodivergent, as they wanted the spaces to be inclusive and accessible (there are scent blockers available, for instance, for those sensitive to Sloomoo Institute’s smell-heavy focus).

While they are still places full of picture-friendly moments ripe for social media — one area is filled with gargantuan-sized slime-inspired chairs — the two clearly are wary of their slime boutiques going the way of so many so-called “Instagram museums,” spaces that used “immersive” as a buzzword for little more than photo opportunities. The centerpiece of the Sloomoo Institute, perhaps, is a do-it-yourself “slime bar,” where guests can explore 40 colors of slime, 60 fragrances and dozens of textures to build their own take-home creation.

“I know when I was going through my own personal grief, talking to other women who lost their husbands at young ages was really powerful to me,” Robinovitz says. “I had people going through the same kind of grief, and I could see there was potentially a way to live a life when you’re not in pain 24/7. It makes our brand important. This brand wouldn’t mean anything without the hardship. It’s not just a fun candy-colored universe with cute things.”

Sensory play is at the heart of the museum.

(Sloomoo Institute)

That’s not to say Sloomoo Institutes are purely mindful places for serious play, though there are references to the science of slime and what chemical mixtures may result in a substance that’s more sticky or more bubbly. With a contemporary, space-age sheen — Robinovitz and Schiller stress they designed the spaces to be inviting to adults — Sloomoo Institutes allow for unexpected moments to occur: the sensation, for instance, of walking barefoot on slime, or ASMR-focused installations that allow guests to experience the pleasing, tingling sound sensations of slime.

Well, mostly pleasing. One of the ASMR sounds asks guests to imagine what it sounds like when slime farts.

“It’s a whole fart soundtrack,” says Schiller. “It’s loved by kids and adults.”

Play may have rejuvenating powers, but no one said it need always be sophisticated. Sometimes the best healing prescription may be to simply giggle like an 8-year-old.

Lifestyle

Street Style Look of the Week: Airy Beachy Clothes

Published

9 hours ago

April 22, 2026

Press Room

Street Style Look of the Week: Airy Beachy Clothes

“She’s like a female Willy Wonka,” Sakief Baron, 36, said about Kendra Austin, 32, after she explained that her personal style had a playful and cartoonish spirit.

Dressed in loose, oversize layers in blue and neutral shades, the couple were walking on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when I noticed them on a Saturday in April. There was a symmetry to their ensembles, so it wasn’t too surprising when she noted that he had influenced her fashion sense.

Before they met, she said, she was “less sure” about her wardrobe choices. “I also have lost 100 pounds in the time we’ve been together,” she added, which she said had helped her to recalibrate her relationship with clothes.

His style has been influenced by hip-hop culture, basketball players like Allen Iverson and his mother’s Finnish background. “I just take all these pieces and then it kind of comes together,” he said.

Both described themselves as multidisciplinary artists; he also has a job at a youth center, mentoring children. “I want to make sure that I look like someone they want to aspire to be every time they see me,” he said.

Lifestyle

What are Angelenos giving away in one Buy Nothing group? All this treasured stuff

Published

10 hours ago

April 22, 2026

Press Room

What are Angelenos giving away in one Buy Nothing group? All this treasured stuff

In my L.A. Buy Nothing group, I started noticing how some objects, given for free from neighbor to neighbor, carry emotional weight. An item was more than it appeared. It was a piece of personal history, perhaps one with generational memories.

From one person’s hands to another’s, objects find new life through the free gift economy on Facebook or the Buy Nothing app. Buy Nothing Project, a public benefit corporation, reports having 14 million members across more than 50 countries who give away 2.6 million items a month. There are more than 100 groups in Los Angeles alone.

Buy Nothing reduces waste by keeping items out of landfills. It also builds community. When our lives are increasingly online, Buy Nothing encourages us to get out of our cars and make connections with neighbors, even if the interaction is no more than a wave when picking something up left by a doorstep. Researchers have found that even small social interactions can foster a sense of belonging.

Still, Buy Nothing has its challenges. For years, some have complained that the groups shouldn’t be limited to neighborhoods, but rather have more open borders. Last year, many longtime members complained about the project enforcing its trademark, leading Facebook to shut down unregistered groups even if they were serving people under economic strain. Critics saw the tattling as a shift from mutual aid toward control and branding. For its part, Buy Nothing says its decisions are based on building community, trust and safety.

Despite those disagreements, Buy Nothing offers a platform for special connections. As much as there are jokes about people offering half-eaten cake, many have passed along treasured items. Buy Nothing items may feel too valuable for the trash or too personal for Goodwill. The interaction between giver and receiver becomes just as meaningful as the object itself.

I set out to document these quiet exchanges in my Buy Nothing group, drawn to the question of why people choose to pass their belongings from one neighbor to another.

Tiny builders, big exchange

Lidia Butcher gives a toolbox and worktable her two sons used to Chelsea Ward for her 17-month-old son.

“We’ve had the toolbox and worktable for the last 10 years, it’s been very special. When I told my youngest son we were going to give it away, he was a little sad. He said he was still playing with it, but then I explained that it’s been sitting untouched for a year and that if we gave it to someone else, maybe someone else would be happy about it. So he felt joy about giving it to another child who would want to play with it. I have this little emotional feeling letting it go, but at the same time, it’s a good feeling. Like a new beginning.”

— Lidia Butcher, 35, joined the group several years ago when someone told her a person in the group once asked for a cup of sugar.

“We’re getting a worktable. Benji is now old enough to be interested in playing with tools. I’m going to move my drafting table out of his room. His bedroom is my office. So that will go into storage or the Buy Nothing group and the worktable will go in its place. We live in an apartment, and as he’s growing, his needs change but our space doesn’t. Buy Nothing is really helpful to be able to cycle out of stuff.”

— Chelsea Ward, 38, has found the Buy Nothing group extremely helpful since becoming a mom.

Something borrowed

Abby Rodriguez lends Sophie Janinet a veil for her wedding.

“Sophie had asked for a wedding veil on our Buy Nothing group and I’m lending it to her because I wanted it to have a second life. I hate the idea that precious things just sit there and never get touched. My wedding day was one of the best days of my life. At one point the power went out and now we have this amazing picture with my husband and I and everyone using their phone to light up the dance floor.”

— Abby Rodriguez, 40, discovered Buy Nothing when she moved to her northeast L.A. neighborhood in 2020.

“I moved to Los Angeles from France four years ago. The day I joined Buy Nothing was the first time I felt connected to the community. It played a huge role in my adapting to life here. I’m receiving a veil because I want my wedding to look and feel like my values. I thrifted my dress, I chose a local seamstress to alter the dress but when I tried it on, I felt something was missing. I wanted a veil but I didn’t want to buy new because I didn’t want to add anything to the landfill. So I posted a request for the veil on Buy Nothing.”

— Sophie Janinet, 37, is recreating the low-waste, slower-paced values she once lived by in France through her local Buy Nothing community.

2 Two women sit on steps with a fake owl.

1. Abby Rodriguez, left, holds her wedding veil that she is lending Sophie Janinet, right, for her upcoming wedding. 2. Michele Sawers, left stands with Beth Penn, right, while giving her a decorative owl.

A pigeon-spooking owl gets a second life

Michele Sawers gives Beth Penn a decorative owl.

“Coming from a place of luck, now I have plenty to give. The owl has been with me for 26 years. I bought the owl soon after I bought this house. The owl was purchased because I had a pigeon problem, they would camp out under my eves and I would have bird poop everywhere. The owl must have worked because they’re gone and they haven’t come back.”

— Michele Sawers, 58, uses Buy Nothing regularly to connect with her community and support her low-consumption values.

“There are things I don’t want to own. So borrowing those things on Buy Nothing is really nice. There is a person who I borrowed their cooler twice and their ladder twice so I feel like they are my neighbor even though they are not [right next door]. We get these birds that poop on the deck and the recommendation online was to get a fake owl. When it was posted on Buy Nothing, I thought, ‘I have to have that owl!’ It’s going to have a good home with me on the deck with some cats, a dog and some kids.”

— Beth Penn, 47, once helped build her local Buy Nothing group and now experiences it from the other side, as a member.

Stuffed toys find a new purpose

Two women stand in front of a green plant holding stuffed dolls and a bag of ball pit balls.

Magaly Leyva gives stuffed toys and plastic play balls to Tatiana Lonny.

“My mother-in-law gave the dolls and plastic play balls to my daughter, but she has so much. My daughter is not going to play with them with the same intent that another kid would, because she’s really little. I’d rather another kid use these things.”

— Magaly Leyva, 35, joined Buy Nothing nearly four years ago to find clothes for her nephew.

“I’m taking these new items to a township called Langa in South Africa. I know the kids there will be so happy. They have so little there. I’m doing this all by myself, I’m just collecting a GoFundMe for the suitcase fee at the airport.”

— Tatiana Lonny, 51, began using Buy Nothing in hopes of finding resources to support the animals she rescues.

A second helping

Laura Cherkas gives Aurora Sanchez a cast iron pan.

“Buy Nothing gives me the freedom to let go of things because I know that they will stay in the community and the neighborhood. I’m giving a couple of cast iron items that my husband and I got when we were on a cast iron kick, probably during COVID. We determined that we don’t actually use these particular pans and they were just making our drawers heavy. So we decided to let someone else get some use out of them.

“I hate throwing things away. I want to see things have another life. Sometimes I take things to a donation center, but I like the personal connection with Buy Nothing and that you know that there is someone who definitely wants your item.”

— Laura Cherkas, 40, has built connections with other moms through Buy Nothing and values it as a way to cycle toys in and out for her child.

Two women stand by a gate at night holding cast iron pans.

“I wanted a cast iron pan because I cook a lot of grilled meat. I’m excited to try this style of cooking out and it will help me when I cook for only one or two people. I got lucky because I was chosen to receive it.”

— Aurora Sanchez, 54, has spent the past two years engaging with Buy Nothing, finding in it a sense of neighborly support that makes her feel valued while strengthening her connection to the community.

Next player up

A man poses next to a basketball hoop in front of his garage.

Joe Zeni first offered a basketball hoop on Buy Nothing in 2023, where it remains unclaimed.

“I’m giving away a Huffy basketball freestanding hoop because it’s just taking up space. We used to play horse and shoot baskets together. My son is now 35, he doesn’t live here anymore.”

— Joe Zeni, 70, uses Buy Nothing often to give items away, believing many of the things he no longer needs still have purpose.

Lifestyle

Armani Goes Back to the Archive

Published

21 hours ago

April 21, 2026

Press Room

In the year since his death, there has been no hard pivot at Armani. The shadow of the founder has stayed in place over the Milan HQ, where the brand seems happy to leave it. Armani is not just plumbing the past for continued inspiration, it’s reselling it.

Today, Giorgio Armani is announcing Archivio, a grouping of 13 men’s and women’s looks, plucked from the brand’s back catalog and remade for today. (And, yes, at today’s prices.) There’s a jacket in pinstriped alpaca of 1979 vintage; a buttery one-and-a-half breasted jacket with a maitre d’s flair that first appeared in 1987; and an unstructured silk-linen suit that will activate ’90s flashbacks for die-hard Armani clients and those who want to capture that era’s nostalgia. The advertising campaign was shot and styled by Eli Russell Linnetz, who has his own label, ERL, but always seems to be the first call brands make when they want sultry photos with the aura of Details magazine circa 1995. (He did a similar thing for Guess recently.)

Linnetz’s images are a reminder of how Armani’s work still reverberates decades later.

Archivio is also a canny recognition of what shoppers crave now. On the resale market, Armani wares are as coveted as can be. Every week it seems as if I get an email from Ndwc0, a British vintage store, announcing a new drop of meaty-shouldered ’90s Armani power suits. They sell for less than $500. At Sorbara’s in Brooklyn, you can buy a tan Giorgio Armani vest for $225.

That vintage-mad audience is in Armani’s sights: To introduce the collection, it’s staging an installation, opening today, at Giorgio Armani’s Milan boutique. It will feature the hosts of “Throwing Fits,” a New York-based podcast whose hosts wear vintage Armani button-ups and shout out stores like Sorbara’s.

It’s prudent, if a bit disconnected. Part of the charm of old Armani is that it can be found on the cheap. I’m wearing a pair of vintage Giorgio Armani corduroys as I write this. I bought them for $76 on eBay. Archivio is reverent, but its prices, which range from $1,025 to $12,000, may scare off shoppers willing to do the searching themselves.

If you ask me, the next frontier of this archive fixation is that a brand — and a big one — will release a mountain of genuine vintage pieces. J. Crew and Banana Republic have tried this at a small scale, but a luxury house like Armani hasn’t gone there. Yet. Eventually, Armani (or a brand like it) is going to grab hold of the market that exists around its brand, but through which it gets no cut.