Valentine’s Day has a way of getting loud.
Every year, it arrives wrapped in urgency — bigger gestures, bolder colours, grander declarations. Cards shout, flowers compete, and love is often measured by how much space it takes up.
But I’ve always been more interested in the quieter moments.
The kind of love that isn’t performed, but shared.
The kind that doesn’t need an audience.
The kind that lingers long after the moment has passed.
This year, I found myself thinking about that as I packed a small bag and boarded a train, heading off on a slow, romantic journey through Europe.
Venice: love written
Venice reveals itself best at night.
When the crowds thin and the light softens, the city feels almost secret — a place of whispers rather than declarations. It’s impossible to walk along a quiet canal after dark without thinking about letters: words folded carefully, sealed by hand, meant for one person and one person only.
Casanova wrote his love this way — not in grand gestures, but in letters. Intimate, personal, often unfinished. Love expressed in ink, carried across distance, held close.
There’s something deeply human about that kind of love.
It asks you to slow down.
To choose your words.
To trust that what you’ve written will be enough.
Standing there, I kept thinking about how powerful something small can be when it’s made with care.
Vienna: love painted
From Venice, the train carried me north to Vienna.
Where Venice whispers, Vienna reflects.
In the warmth of a café, surrounded by curved lines and golden details, I thought about Gustav Klimt and the way he painted love — not as something dramatic or theatrical, but as closeness. Bodies leaning into one another. Emotion wrapped in pattern. A single kiss held forever in gold.
Klimt’s work doesn’t explain love.
It lets you feel it.
Texture, colour, and warmth do the talking instead.
And I realised that written love and painted love aren’t opposites at all. They’re two languages saying the same thing — one in words, the other in feeling.
Where it all came together
Somewhere between Venice and Vienna, between letters and gold, the idea for The Art of Love began to take shape.
I didn’t want to make something big or extravagant.
I didn’t want a centrepiece or a showstopper.
I wanted something small enough to feel personal.
Something that could be held in the hand.
Shared quietly.
Given without pressure.
A love letter you could taste.
A kiss captured in flavour.
That’s why this Valentine box is made the way it is — thoughtfully, modestly, and with intention. Not to impress, but to connect. Not to shout, but to linger.
Because sometimes love doesn’t need to be louder.
The Art of Love
Love can be written.
Love can be painted.
And sometimes, love is something you share in a single bite, late in the evening, without needing to say very much at all.
A small moment.
Chosen carefully.
Remembered long after it’s gone.
That’s what The Art of Love is trying to be.
And if it finds its way to someone you care about — or back to yourself — then it’s done exactly what it was meant to do.