Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2016 i Town & Country

2014 WOLFE HAUL American letters owe a debt to Tom Wolfe, the gimlet-eyed social observer who, in addition to 17 books—most recently The Kingdom of Speech—has given us such cherished zingers as “radical chic,” “plutography,” “the Me Decade,” “social X-ray,” and “lemon tarts.” So imagine our surprise when, in 2014, he told us, “I’m still persona non grata at the New Yorker,” citing a 50-year ban from the magazine. Wolfe might not be welcome in other revered pages, but at T&C we can’t imagine writing about the one percent without him.…

MUSICAL GAME CHANGER “DAVEED DIGGS, who played Thomas Jefferson and Lafayette in Hamilton and won the Tony for best supporting actor, is a genius rapper who came to acting second. He and his writing partner are bringing together rappers, actors, and playwrights to expand what we think of as verse drama. He’s not only an artist, he’s a visionary.” —Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater, where Hamilton debuted and which will host the world premiere of Tiny Beautiful Things, based on the book by Cheryl Strayed and directed by Thomas Kail, in November. SURF SPOT “GUETHARY, FRANCE . It’s a small fishing village south of Biarritz with an amazing surf break.” —Julia Chaplin, journalist, author, designer, and adventurer whose books include Gypset Living. NEXT GREAT THRILLER “Novels informed…

ANOTHER T&C HISTORY LESSON FROM BRUCE McCALL. In 1936, as America was being transformed by a wave of innovation—celluloid, nylon, Kleenex, Technicolor—Town & Country’s editors saw fit to predict what new wonders would be enriching readers’ lives 80 years hence. What they failed to predict was the loss of the finished article before it ever saw print. It was recovered only last month, jammed in the back of a file cabinet. We present it here as a historical curiosity, filling the space originally allotted for an article that—O irony! O coincidence! O s––t!—has in its turn also dematerialized. The current editors predict with total confidence that in the very near future T&C’s office manager will be spending more time with his family. ROBO POLO Robots riding real ponies will…

Getting ready for the day or winding down at night is a process that is demarcated for many women by the products they use. The lineup is constantly changing—after all, there is so much discovery in the worlds of makeup, skincare, and haircare that you’d be remiss not to experiment from time to time. But what about the things that don’t change, the products you buy again and again, that make you happy when you use them and actually seem to work? They are what we call the untouchables. And it isn’t always obvious which ones they are. Writer Susan Fales-Hill will leave the house without makeup but not without Hermès Amazone, a fragrance she has worn for 36 years. “It is an article of faith,” she says. With…

The creation of Town & Country was roughly contemporaneous with a major revolution in the world of perfumery, and while one single scent couldn’t capture the spirit of such an iconic magazine, to my mind one name can: American Dream. Such a scent would convey timeless elegance, modernity, precise taste, culture, and openness to the outside world. As a home scent it would be an indoor garden, a place that bridges inside and out. For a scent to wear I would definitely create a woman’s perfume, a signature fragrance built on sheer floral and woody notes wrapped in a halo of sensual musks, like a digest of simplicity and elegance.…

“MY FAVORITE DEFINITION OF THE UPPER CRUST: A LOT OF CRUMBS HELD TOGETHER BY DOUGH.” —Cleveland Amory , in Town & Country , July 1962 T.C . BOYLE THE PLEASURES OF SOLITUDE I have three guilty pleasures: having relations with my wife, drinking copiously in very dark bars, and striding through the woods, head down, muttering to myself. Since the first of these is a bit too intimate to share with readers (especially considering the costumes, role-playing, and athleticism involved), and contemplating the second makes me feel like drinking flaming shots of 151 rum at eight o’clock in the morning, I will, briefly, let you in on the very guiltiest of these pleasures: the woods. Why, you say, does walking in the woods qualify as a guilty pleasure, especially since…

On a bright St. Petersburg evening this past spring, as the pale Russian sun glittered on the Neva River, Mikhael Piotrovsky, the director of the State Hermitage Museum, stood up at a dinner attended by curators and art critics at Menshikov Palace. Raising his glass, Piotrovsky asked the guests—many of whom had flown around the globe to be at the dinner—to toast the most expensive art show in history, a blockbuster among blockbusters headed from Russia to the West. The artworks—130 Impressionist and Modernist masterpieces, including some of the greatest works ever created by artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh—are stupefying to behold. Billed almost too modestly as “Icons of Modern Art,” the show pays tribute to a private collection so magisterial it…

If Town & Country built a library in honor of its 170th anniversary, it would have to include literary classics and indulgent tales of excess (and a few cautionary ones as well), not to mention guidebooks and etiquette manuals on whom to know and what to serve when they show up for dinner. To paraphrase Brillat-Savarin: Tell me what you read and I will tell you what you are.…

Is there a better time to indulge in true haute couture than on your wedding day? Chanel, Giorgio Armani, Giambattista Valli, Oscar de la Renta, and J. Mendel have been dressing high fashion brides for years, though you don’t need to be famous to make the grade. You just need to be informed. “Most don’t realize what couture actually entails,” says Monique Lhuillier, whose bespoke creations start at $55,000 and can take more than a year to make. “But brides who do couture always see the difference—the dress is really their own.” An initial phone call is typically followed by two design consultations, one muslin fitting, and up to three dress fittings at her L.A. workshop. The price, time, and travel commitment pays off. “On the first fitting we…

The important thing is not what they think of me but what I think of them,” said Queen Victoria of her subjects. She may as well have been referring to her unusual engagement ring, a gold serpent set with emeralds. During her reign, rings were often ornate, featuring colorful gemstones and meaningful symbolic motifs. It wasn’t until the mid–20th century that the simple diamond engagement ring became popular, largely because of De Beers’s A Diamond Is Forever campaign in the late 1940s. White diamond and platinum rings are now the standard, but increasingly women are eschewing the expected, and jewelers are helping them find more personal alternatives. Taffin, the mark of jeweler James de Givenchy, frequently resets heirloom diamonds in modern ceramic bands, while designers at Buccellati and Tiffany…

In late July, as the entire staff of Town & Country was deep in the planning stages of the issue you now hold in your hands, our publisher, Jennifer Levene Bruno, invited editors to join her team for part of the magazine’s annual national sales meeting. There is an especially congenial relationship between the edit and business sides here at T&C, so the hour passed with inside jokes and forthisroomonly commentary—as well as honest and impassioned insights about this magazine we love—but at the end Jenn asked us each to describe T&C in just one word. I said “quality.” Our creative director at large, Nicoletta Santoro, who spent almost a year curating the oneofakind fashion portfolio that begins on page 228, chose “uniqueness.” Executive design director Alexander Wiederin, our reigning…

FOR MORE THINGS TO DO, GO TO TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM ARTS & CULTURE Through October 16 Jeff Koons Damien Hirst honors his contemporary with a solo exhibit at his private London museum, Newport Street Gallery. October 8 Bunny Mellon Horticultural art from the philanthropist’s collection at the New York Botanical Garden. October 4 Plenty at the Public Rachel Weisz stars in the revival of David Hare’s play about postwar malaise. Through October 2 David Hockney 82 colorful portraits by the prolific artist at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. October 6–10 Hamptons International Film Festival Alec Baldwin co-chairs during quiet season on the East End. October 12 Caravaggio London’s National Gallery explores the angsty Baroque artist’s wide influence. October 19 “L’Esprit du Bauhaus” Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs recreates the German art school…

SA R A H J O N E S is grazing on shrimp salad and sipping a Virgin Mary at the Norwood Club in Manhattan when it starts to rain. “No, it’s just someone peeing,” Jones tells me, adopting an Irish accent she has picked up from the maître d’, a Dublin native. “That’s an Irish shower, we call that. Ignorance is bliss.” We’ve known each other for three minutes. Clearly I’m in for a show. In her 2004 off-Broadway hit Bridge & Tunnel, Jones inhabited 14 characters in the span of two hours, including a Pakistani defjam poet and a Chinese mother despairing for her lesbian daughter. The one-woman show won a special Tony and catapulted Jones to fame and a 2005 Bravo special. But then, as quickly as…

THE MONOGRAM It has been used as royal seal, artisan’s mark, family crest—and with preppy pride. We value it most as a way to transform quotidian objects—a notebook, a pencil, pajamas—into oneof-a-kind objets. N O W A N D F O R E V E R 2 . A HOUSE ACCOUNT 3. GATS BY 4. CHAMPAGNE ON ICE 5. WICKER 6. PRENUPS 7. COLLEGE FOOTBALL 8. KENNE DYS 9. ANONYMOUS GIVING 10. SEERSUCKER 11. POLKA DOTS 12. PIMENTO CHEESE 13. GREEN JACKETS 14. MALIBU 15. YELLOWSTONE 16 THE PERSONAL UNIFORM Steve Jobs’s black turtleneck, Tom Wolfe’s white suits, Carolina Herrera’s white shirts, Marlene Dietrich’s tuxedos, the queen’s hats. When consistency meets conviction, style happens. 17 HORSE COUNTRY This equestrian life has taken hold of a new generation of riders—and designers.…

PRIZE INCLUDES: THREE WINNERS WILL RECEIVE A CLARA WILLIAMS SHOPPING SPREE VALUED AT $1,500 TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM/ClaraWill iams NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. Clara Williams Town & Country Sweepstakes Sponsored by Hearst Communications, Inc. Beginning September 6, 2016 at 12:01 AM (ET) through October 10, 2016 at 11:59 PM (ET), go to Townandcountrymag.com/ClaraWilliams on a computer or wireless device and complete the entry form pursuant to the on-screen instructions. Three (3) winners will each receive a $1,500 shopping spree at Clara Williams. Offer is only redeemable through Clara Williams, not CWC retail partners. Important Notice: You may be charged for visiting the mobile website in accordance with the terms of your service agreement with your carrier. Odds of winning will depend upon the total number of eligible entries received. Must…

.COM FOR ADDITIONAL READINGS BY KATHARINE MERLIN, GO TO TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM LIBRA SEPTEMBER 24–OCTOBER 23 Richard III With Mars powerfully positioned this month, be ready to take a firm stand on issues that matter to you. You appear to have some inspiring ideas up your sleeve, and while others may not be on the same page, just sit tight and be your diplomatic self. You’ve been on a learning curve, and now it’s time to test new ground. It’s also time to break free from connections and associations that are dragging you down—and time to be true to your ideals. SCORPIO OCTOBER 24–NOVEMBER 22 Marie Antoinette Scorpios may be secretive, but you can also be startlingly direct, and this month your urge to tell it like it is may backfire. Fortunately,…

They conquered the world as a sharp-cheekboned, glossy-haired pack. They appeared together on magazine covers, and famously in the George Michael “Freedom” video in 1990, directed by David Fincher. Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Tatjana Patitz, and Cindy Crawford: Models had been famous before but never this famous, migrating from magazine pages to TV screens, building their own brands and earning huge sums of money. It was Turlington’s image that launched Calvin Klein’s Eternity fragrance in 1988. Now 47, Turlington Burns (she took on the surname of husband Ed Burns, the actor and director whom she married in 2003) grimaces at the word supermodel. Polishing off a bowl of watermelon gazpacho and a plate of Caesar salad with tofu at a West Village restaurant on a recent afternoon,…

I’ve distilled everything to one single principle,” declares the Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. “Win or die.” The villainess-heroine of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s 1782 novel famously does both, manipulating and seducing her way through one of the most iconic tragedies in the Western canon—and in the process giving us the image of the ultimate grande dame. When Les Liaisons Dangereuses was published it was a scandalous sensation, relished and gossiped over by Marie-Antoinette and the court of Versailles. Whether a shameless celebration of libertinism or, as later claimed, a denunciation of pre-revolutionary decadence, the novel laid bare the excesses of the ancien régime; never before or since have characters schemed with such Mephistophelian relish, destroying lives and savaging reputations with a calculating froideur that has influenced…

“Everyone around me was freaking out.” Thomas Keller, six foot two and dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, is sitting across from me at the noisy Italian restaurant Ciccio, in Yountville, California, waving his hands and talking about the scene in his office on a winter morning earlier this year. “Everybody was expecting an immediate response, because that’s the world we live in,” he says. “It was devastating.” Keller is the chef and proprietor of two of the world’s most revered fine dining restaurants, as well as a handful of popular and well-respected less formal establishments. But on January 12 the New York Times had knocked Per Se, his seemingly untouchable restaurant on Columbus Circle in Manhattan, down from four stars (its highest rating) to two. In the…

When Lady Charlotte Wellesley was planning her wedding to Colombian-American businessman Alejandro Santo Domingo, she asked her future sister-in-law Lauren Santo Domingo and family member Beatrice Borromeo Casiraghi for advice on the invitations. Both recommended calligrapher-artist Stephanie Fishwick, who is based in Charlottesville, Virginia, and who trained under White House chief calligrapher Pat Blair. “I have a niche of sophisticated brides who are very aesthetically educated,” Fishwick says. Appropriately, Lady Charlotte’s custom wedding suite was inspired by an original mix of Moorish tiles seen in Granada’s Alhambra palace, the rehearsal dinner venue, and the olive groves on her father’s estate, where the couple held their reception. Vanderbilt HALLS Who knew that the Commodore’s family’s great estates can be rented out for your wedding day? T&C picks the top three. $…

I’ve been a fan of hand-medowns my whole life, from my cousin’s rock T-shirts in high school to my dad’s leaky old Barbour jacket. But when it comes to my wedding day, I won’t be dusting off some ancestral suit. (Truth is, I don’t have one.) So, rather than troll the racks, I chose to have one made. For a professed thrifty New Englander and full-bespoke neophyte, going the custom route was not an easy decision. For one thing, it’s expensive. But that was offset by the thought that the gentlemanly fitting process would deliver a healthy dose of confidence any man would welcome on the eve of marriage. It just so happened that my friend Jake Mueser is a tailor, and he agreed with my thinking. At his eponymous…

Just as it seemed that the era of “no makeup” makeup and natural, undone hair was here to stay, the tide has started to turn toward a decidedly more “done” look. Brides like Allison Williams, stylist Giovanna Battaglia, and Princess Sofia of Sweden recently forwent loose waves and laid-back braids in favor of chic chignons and structural updos. In one of the more stunning displays, Claire Distenfeld, owner of New York City boutique Fivestory, wed hedge fund executive Michael Olshan, in a weekend-long affair in Palm Springs in March, with her hair in a flower-festooned fishtail plait that created the perfect amount of volume at the crown. Adorned with blooms, a tiara, or just a simple veil, such dramatically defined styles require an arsenal of volumizing cleansers, frizz-fighting primers, and…

MAX VADUKUL “Shooting the iconic Christy Turlington was a highlight of my career,” says the photographer behind our cover story, “A THEORY OF EVOLUTION” (page 218). “And to do it for a magazine that has been around since before the Civil War was a triumph.” JESSICA SEINFELD The mother of three describes how she and husband Jerry navigated—and survived—the kindergarten admissions process in “THE T&C GUIDE TO LIFE” (page 208). Seinfeld heads the GOOD+ Foundation, a nonprofit that donates essential products to families in need; she has also written three bestselling cookbooks. LISA BIRNBACH Could there possibly be a hidden etiquette to sleep time? Of course, says the author, who unearthed previously unpublished material from her 1980 classic The Official Preppy Handbook on what to wear to bed for “THE…

.COM SEND WEDDING SUBMISSIONS FOR THE MAGAZINE AND WEBSITE TO TNCWEDDINGS@HEARST.COM Scott Turow met Adriane Glazier in 1987, when he recruited her to join his Chicago law firm, Dentons (where he is a partner). He went on to write such best-selling legal thrillers as Presumed Innocent and Personal Injuries; she left in 1992 to start a family. Two decades later Scott and Adriane, both single again, reconnected for a business meeting—she’s a senior vice president advising nonprofit organizations at Bank of America—that turned unexpectedly romantic. This May, four years later, they wed at their bucolic Wisconsin country home. “We thought the next time our loved ones came together would likely be when one of us died,” Adriane says—so a dark-humored free-spiritedness was the theme. She wore vintage Missoni (“a…

Symbols of Success 1910s America’s wealthiest industrialists and bankers—the Vanderbilts, Whitneys, Morgans, Hudsons, Guggen heims, and Astors—built mansions on Long Island’s Gold Coast in an aristocratic European style. T&C featured Knollwood (left), an estate inspired by the Italian Renaissance. International Affairs 1920s After the First World War the crosscultural aesthetic championed by American decorator Elsie de Wolfe (chinoiserie walls paired with French furniture upholstered in animal prints) was the height of sophistication. Futuristic Thinking 1930s The formative years of modern architecture were shaped by visionaries like Le Corbusier, who completed his masterpiece, Villa Savoye (bottom), in 1931. Decorators such as Cecil Beaton (left) spread the gospel of innovation indoors. His mantra: “Be daring, be different, be impractical.” Welcome Home 1940s Moving away from the extravagance of previous decades, post–World War…

STONE AGE THE UNLIKELY RISE OF THE GEM THAT HAS BEGUILED HUMANITY FOR EONS. To truly appreciate diamonds, it helps to understand both their ancient origins and their exquisite construction. Formed more than a billion years ago in a cauldron of heat and pressure about 100 miles below the earth’s surface, diamonds are distinguished from other carbon allotropes by their perfectly symmetrical organization. That seamless structure is what gives a diamond its legendary hardness—indeed, what makes it the hardest mineral on earth. But hardness is merely one of the gem’s attributes. Diamonds are excellent conductors of heat as well as spectacular prisms; light slows once it slips inside one of the stones, splitting into a full spectrum of colors. The effect is a seductive combination of brilliance and fire. Intriguingly,…

KRISTINA BAZAN @KRISTINABAZAN 22: Years of age 2,400,000: Instagram followers 36,900: Twitter followers 2,145,620: Facebook fans 54.82: Carats of sapphires and diamonds on her neck, ears, fingers, and wrist JENNIFER GRACE @THENATIVEFOX 28: Years of age 990,000: Instagram followers 12,200: Twitter followers 527,693: Facebook fans 109.51: Carats of diamonds around her neck AMANDA STEELE @AMANDASTEELE 17: Years of age 2,700,000: Instagram followers 844,000: Twitter followers 2,904,577: YouTube subscribers 133.22: Carats of rubies, diamonds, and sapphires on her ears, neck, and finger JASMINE SANDERS @GOLDEN_BARBIE 25: Years of age 1,600,000: Instagram followers 107,000: Twitter followers 561,969: Facebook fans 857.40: Carats of diamonds, sapphires, onyx, pearls, and black spinels on her neck and finger DANIELLE BERNSTEIN @WEWOREWHAT 24: Years of age 1,500,000: Instagram followers 37,200: Twitter followers 183,962: Facebook fans 88.35: Carats…

ROYAL PROPORTIONS Pippa’s shapely figure demands a sophisticated silhouette to complement her barely there waist and toned derrière. FAMILY LINES A streamlined classic lace gown borrows a page from Kate’s fairy-tale playbook.…

Of the dozens of Kennedy weddings Denis Reggie has photographed, none required such a level of stealth as the 1996 nuptials of Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr., on Cumberland Island, Georgia. Privacy was obviously not negotiable for the most paparazzi-hunted couple of the decade. (Sarah Jessica Parker once said she never understood true fame until she met John.) Extraordinary measures were taken, including limiting the guest list to 35 (one delegate from each Kennedy faction—“cousins alone would have been 100 people,” Reggie says) and delaying the ceremony until dark in case helicopters were lurking. Reggie, who was ferried to the island along with Christiane Amanpour, told curious residents that he was photographing wildlife. Guests were taken to the First African Baptist Church in the beds of pickup trucks…