Town & Country May 2017

T he T&C team generally go our separate ways after a fashion show, rushing to make our next appointments. Once we’ve settled in the back seat of a car and are racing through the streets of New York or Paris or Milan, the e-mails begin: “Perfection,” “????,” “Strong,” and a few instances of “Ewwwwwwah,” inspired by Jimmy Fallon. It took longer than usual, however, for our thoughts to form after Dries Van Noten’s 100th show, in Paris, which featured models who have walked his runway since 1992: Nadja Auermann, Emma Balfour, Guinevere van Seenus, Kirsten Owen, Trish Goff, Esther de Jong, Alek Wek, Carolyn Murphy, Liya Kebede. “That generation,” the designer told critic Cathy Horyn, “understands what they’re wearing.” There was beauty on the runway, and intelligence and thoughtfulness, too.…

ALEX KUCZYNSKI “I didn’t expect to learn much from Mama Gena,” says Kuczynski, who writes about the Aphroditechanneling life coach in “THE FEMININE MYSTICS” (page 168). “But I left her seminar feeling a bit more proud: my shoulders back and walking a little taller.” Kuczynski covers culture, society, and adventure travel for T&C and other publications. She is pictured above with President Barack Obama at an event last fall. DAVID NETTO “I’m as interested in seeing it as I would be in seeing Kate Upton in the seat next to me on JetBlue. In other words, very,” says interior designer Netto, who wrote “VANITY PLACE” (page 54). “It” refers to a famed Park Avenue apartment that has been owned by a long line of notables, including Helena Rubinstein, a princess,…

SPACESHIPS, YACHTS, AND AUTOMOBILES Cars, it quickly became apparent, were taking a back seat at a daylong event held by Lexus in Miami Beach earlier this year. The first hint came when Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, zoomed up at the helm of the gleaming Lexus Sport Yacht. Making the boat was “an opportunity for us to expand our design language,” said one executive. Next it was off to 1111 Lincoln Road, a striking parking garage conceived by Herzog & de Meuron, for a photo shoot. Then, that night, everybody piled into the Rem Koolhaas/OMA–designed Faena Forum to watch actor Dane DeHaan unveil the Lexus Skyjet, his ride in Luc Besson’s upcoming Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. It wasn’t all high design, though. At one point helicopters…

Announcing that you would soon be set to check in at the Little Nell for a week of late-season skiing or heading off on a quick jaunt to Parrot Cay to escape April showers used to be enough to garner the jealousy of, well, anyone. Now, suddenly it seems that inspiring envy requires twice the effort. “It always irked me when people would ask, ‘Where are you going for break?’ What if I’m not going anywhere?” laments Odd Mom Out creator Jill Kargman, her gimlet-eyed take on her Upper East Side surroundings as keen as ever. “But lately I’ve also been stuck hearing their entire itineraries: ‘We’re going to Aspen ’cause Jackson and Dakota are such good little skiers! And we love the restaurants there and everything, but it’s soooo…

If one is ruthless about these things, the question of what is the best apartment in New York boils down to two candidates: a duplex that has received plenty of attention and a triplex a few blocks down that hasn’t gotten enough. This is the penthouse at 625 Park Avenue. Famous in its time as the home of beauty tycoon Helena Rubinstein, this apartment—which I was reminded of by the new Broadway show War Paint, about Rubinstein and her rival Elizabeth Arden—served for more than two decades as the backdrop for Rubinstein’s inimitable, original, and extraordinarily daring taste. “Madame,” as she was known, had many other residences, but she always referred to 625 as home. The apartment, which she described after first seeing it as “a castle in the air,”…

FOR MORE THINGS TO DO, GO TO TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM ARTS & CULTURE May 4–8 TEFAF New York If you’re in the market for contemporary art and design, head over to the Park Avenue Armory. May 4 “Rei Kawakubo/ Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between” The Met’s Costume Institute honors the avant-garde designer and her cult brand. May 16–19 SALT Conference Founder (and White House reject) Anthony Scaramucci, Bill Ackman (above), and their billionaire pals will trade business tips at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. May 30 La Colle Noire: Christian Dior in the South of France Rizzoli’s tome goes inside Dior’s Provence retreat. Cue the wanderlust. April 19–30 Tribeca Film Festival On the lineup is a documentary on music mogul Clive Davis and a short written by Kobe Bryant. Yes,…