Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2020 i Town & Country

Many designers have walked the halls of Fendi, including Maria Grazia Chiuri, Virgil Abloh, and, of course, the late Karl Lagerfeld. But for decades Fendi was truly a family affair. At the time of this shoot the six Fendi daughters (clockwise from top left: Maria Teresa Venturini, Federica Formilli, Silvia Venturini, Simona Saracino, Maria Ilaria Venturini, and Alessia Caruso) all worked with their mothers, the five Fendi sisters: Carla, Franca, Anna, Paola, and Alda. Now, with Kim Jones of Dior replacing Lagerfeld as artistic director, one imagines that creative director Silvia Venturini—designer of the Baguette bag and the only Fendi still at the company—will remain a maternal guide, the keeper of the family flame.…

Earlier this year, journalist Cynthia McFadden and her son Spencer took their relationship quite literally to new lengths, when they drove from their Connecticut home to California and back. The trip was ostensibly to collect Spencer’s belongings from his Los Angeles apartment (and teach the New York native how to drive), but over the course of 7,000 miles it became something else entirely, as they stepped outside their comfort zones to learn about each other and themselves, strengthening their bond (and nerves behind the wheel) along the way. Here are selections from their travel journal. DAY 1 SPENCER: What if the car breaks down? What if we get in an accident? What if we have a catastrophic fight? What if I let Mom down? The possibility of failure has kept…

For the better part of the last decade, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has been in the midst of an ambitious expansion, which, with its $475 million price tag, is currently the largest cultural construction endeavor in North America. This month it finally comes to an end with the debut of the Kinder Building, the last piece of a 14-acre puzzle that makes MFAH the fourth-largest museum in the country. The Kinder Building, named in honor of Nancy and Rich Kinder, who spearheaded the fundraising efforts, will serve as the new home of the museum’s extensive collection of modern and contemporary art, a trove that has grown drastically thanks to the late philanthropist Caroline Wiess Law, who, upon her death in 2004, left a majority of her estate to…

LOCK & CO. LONDON Legend has it a postcard addressed only to “The best hatters in the world, London” once found its way to the 17th-century townhouse on St. James Street long occupied by Lock & Co. Still family-owned (now by the seventh generation), Lock remains focused, says managing director Ben Dalrymple, on “quality, craftsmanship, and the pleasure of ownership.” Service too is a valued principle: During lockdown, its milliners created PPE visors for health workers. Victoria Murphy GRANADO PHARMACY RIO DE JANEIRO Long before Gwyneth Paltrow was doing it, José Antonio Coxito Granado preached the benefits of natural beauty by cultivating plants renowned for their medicinal powers. One hundred and fifty years later, the Latin American Goop put its expertise to use for the greater good by donating thousands…

Family time looks a lot different in 2020. There are those who have been unable to see their families, and those who have been unable to escape them. And then there are those who have said, “To hell with it. Let’s just all get face-lifts.” “I’m seeing tons of relatives and spouses come in together,” says the plastic surgeon and author of The Park Avenue Face Andrew Jacono. “Next week I’m doing a husband, a wife, and a daughter on the same day. The husband and wife are getting their face-lifts done, and the daughter is getting a rhinoplasty. I have another case coming up that’s a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter. The grandmother and mother are getting face-lifts, and the daughter, who is in her early forties, is…

When Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were married, on July 29, 1981, they had an audience that reportedly included 750 million viewers worldwide. And while the union was one of the most watched events of its time, it’s one major moment that’s not recreated in the upcoming fourth season of The Crown. That may be a missed opportunity for viewers who don’t recall the day themselves, but for those of us who woke up early to watch every minute, the real thing still plays on repeat in our minds. “I must have just been transfixed by the news coverage and, of course, Diana’s superlatively poufy gown, which was tailor-made for maximum appeal to dramatic little girls,” says Jessica Morgan, half of the fashion writing duo Go Fug Yourself. Her…

JOAN COLLINS & CARA DELEVINGNE Collins reportedly has 13 godchildren to look after, including model and actress Delevingne. CICELY TYSON & LENNY KRAVITZ The 95-year-old Tony and honorary Oscar winner was a close friend of Kravitz’s mother. JAMIE LEE CURTIS & JAKE GYLLENHAAL It was godson Gyllenhaal who reportedly talked Curtis into making the 2018 Halloween reboot. DOLLY PARTON & MILEY CYRUS “She’s as incredible as you would have ever dreamed,” Cyrus has said of having Dolly in the family.…

It was late June, and Steve Bing wasn’t picking up his phone. This wasn’t all that unusual. The movie producer and real estate heir was known to disappear at times, usually without warning. Only his closest friends knew where he went, and why he frequently changed his number. He was weathering the lockdown at the hottest address in Los Angeles, the Ten Thousand Building in Century City, where a 4,000-square-foot penthouse costs $65,000 a month, and the isolation was bringing deep-seated anxieties into sharp relief. Back in the 1990s Bing had cultivated a Jay Gatsby–esque image in Hollywood, dating supermodels and starlets, most famously Elizabeth Hurley. At six-foot-four, he had the lanky build of an athlete, but he was quiet and elusive, and he took great pains to downplay the…

SCORPIO OCTOBER 24–NOVEMBER 22 Matters beyond your control will raise anxieties during the first week of November, but aspects happening between the 10th and the 12th will alter your perspective, and by midmonth it’s time to assert your will even if you risk alienating others. Venus will begin to sweeten your personal life after the 21st, and the month ends with an emphasis on reaching agreements. CHOPARD ($61,900), 800-CHOPARD TAURUS APRIL 21–MAY 21 Work-related issues challenge you as November sweeps in, but you can begin to plan ahead with more certainty. Bear in mind that with the Sun in your relationship angle until the 21st, coordinating with others is vitally important. Whatever occurs midmonth seems to spring you out of an impasse, and your personal life grows more buoyant. OMEGA…

Its most recognizable form is all shoulder pads and crisp angles, but the power suit can take many shapes. After all, even the most formidable leaders rely on their wardrobes for strength. Think of Abraham Lincoln and his stovepipe hat, a sartorial touch that, atop his six-foot-four frame, made him an even more commanding presence, or Madeleine Albright and the subtle messages she broadcasts via her pins and brooches. Such a trademark can be as low-key as a trusty pair of sneakers or as audacious as a vibrant red suit, but whatever the amulet, it always seems to help when there are important matters at hand. NOW With such titles on her résumé as attorney general of California and U.S. senator, Kamala Harris doesn’t need to prove her career chops…

Soon after the period of collective grief, the texting of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg quotes began. “My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent” was frequently cited. Several married fans of RBG sent this: “In every good marriage, it helps sometimes to be a little deaf,” advice she said she also followed “in every workplace, including the Supreme Court.” That weekend a post with the words “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you” was probably the second-most popular image in my Instagram feed, after portraits of the justice herself. My personal favorite? “What’s the difference between a bookkeeper in the Garment District and a Supreme…

Along with everybody else, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are spending a lot of time on Zoom these days. And every time they jump on a call, royalists go into overdrive, poring over every single frame as if they were on CSI: Room Rater. The man who actually knows the palace’s design secrets is the 49-year-old architectural designer Ben Pentreath, who has been on speed dial with the royal family since 2009, when Prince Charles first enlisted his services, and who has become especially well known for his work for Prince William and Kate Middleton on their Kensington Palace apartments and their country home in Norfolk, Anmer Hall. The Windsors are not Pentreath’s only fans. “I have great respect for his mix of traditional architecture and eclectic decorating,” says…

When the kaleidoscope was invented (in Britain in 1816 by Scottish physicist Sir David Brewster), the optical toy captivated people’s imaginations with its rich patterns reflected on glass. But that was child’s play compared with what the house of Harry Winston did with the concept in the ’90s, creating a decidedly more adult version of the toy encased in diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. The company has revisited that inspiration once more for the Winston Kaleidoscope Collection, this time with a suite of jewelry and watches, each unique piece exploding with multicolored patterns rendered in such precious stones as red rubellites, green tsavorites, purple sapphires, turquoise, and tanzanite. “Our clients are looking for pieces that have their own personalities—pieces that really speak to their individuality and are more fun and fashionable,”…

Growing up in the South, I was reminded by my mother not to hunch over my plate like an animal every night at dinner. When I entered junior cotillion as a preteen, I learned proper deportment along with table manners and ballroom dancing, although my training stopped short of having my shoulders tied to a chair or walking around with a book on my head. Maybe that’s why none of it stuck. Now, bent over my computer like a fairy-tale crone offering someone a poisoned apple, I’m finally understanding the importance of posture. My office desk and ergonomic chair have given way to a lumpy sofa, thanks to the work-from-home situation. I rarely sit on a dining chair, since I have no kitchen table in my tiny apartment. My back…

Queen Elizabeth II By Victoria Murphy Some of the most significant remarks Queen Elizabeth II has made during her reign came in 1997, when she addressed the nation following the death of Princess Diana. Speaking from the balcony of Buckingham Palace, with the grieving crowds visible below, the monarch began by saying, “What I say to you now, as your queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart.” Her tribute was meant to comfort a nation in mourning that had been hungry to hear from its head of state. But Diana’s tragic death also brought sharply into focus the queen’s role as a grandmother to two young boys who had just lost their mother. Although it has perhaps never been more clear than in that moment, balancing her…

Here we are, Town & Country. Wouldn’t both of our mothers be shocked?” That was John Waters on the phone with Patricia Hearst, his longtime friend, muse, and comrade in troublemaking. They met 30 years ago at the Cannes Film Festival and immediately struck a friendship, going on to collaborate on five movies, including Serial Mom, in which Hearst, as Juror No. 8, is infamously killed by Kathleen Turner’s title character for wearing white after Labor Day. A tireless provocateur, Waters maintains that it’s the only tradition, sartorial or otherwise, he’s willing to tolerate. As a matter of fact, the auteur known as the Pope of Trash has strong opinions on the subject of fashion. He is both a client and a perennial source of inspiration, and this year, suddenly,…

“A sense of freedom is something that, happily, comes with age and life experience,” the actor, author, and filmmaker Diane Keaton once alleged. Diane, as your devoted fan and acolyte of many decades, I must respectfully disagree: Your sense of freedom, your daring, your staggering sartorial imagination were in evidence from the very beginning of your storied career and have made you, after all this time, the unrivaled fairy godmother of fearless style. For devotees of Diane, a voluminous dirndl skirt is not complete unless you pull up a pair of tweedy trousers beneath it; a redingote cries out for a floppy blouse, an ascot, and a humongous shawl-scarf; and even the most elaborate confabulation is not ready to roll unless it is accompanied by gloves—no matter what the weather—and…

Every Saturday, at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, the San Francisco philanthropist Felicia Horowitz throws a dinner party. Only it’s not a dinner party as you recall them, from before lockdown. There’s no RSVP, dress code, or polite chitchat before the entrée. There is no dinner, as a matter of fact, except the one you make yourself. That’s because this party doesn’t happen in person but in the palm of your hand, in an exclusive app that’s still in beta but is already valued at $100 million. The Clubhouse is Davos in your phone, a social audio app where movers and shakers from Silicon Valley, the media, and Hollywood can log in and mouth off. Those of us in their orbit can drive by, eavesdrop, clutch our pearls, have a laugh…

Americans, as citizens of the world’s military, economic, and cultural superpower, have long been scrutinized and stereotyped. We are either brash and bossy or easy and informal, with an alluring, “Singin’ in the Rain” optimism. But there is universal agreement on one national trait: We take the world’s shortest vacations. Europeans have that month-plus summer shutdown; Americans worship at the altar of the summer Friday. No wonder: The United States, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation time or paid national holidays. What days off we do get are at employers’ discretion, and so they are taken with at least a subliminal sense of anxiety, as if we weren’t in compliance with our country’s…

When I was growing up, my father owned a Rolex that I half suspected would be my sole inheritance after he blew through everything else in a libertine blaze of glory. It was the Submariner my mother had given him when I was born (and they were still together)—the prototypical diver’s watch, with a black face and glow-in-the-dark tritium markings, the kind Sean Connery wears in the first four James Bond movies. On a road trip once, I remember staring at the Submariner, as he slid his ’69 Porsche 912 into fifth gear, and asking, “Dad, why do you wear your watch backward?” “So I can check the time when I’m driving,” he said. His hand rested on the top of the windshield as he pushed the car over 100…

“There are two things that can destroy a family business: the family and the business, and they both have to be kept in order,” writes beauty industry legend Leonard Lauder in The Company I Keep. But don’t expect the Estée Lauder scion’s much-anticipated memoir (out November 17) to read like a Succession script; it’s as much a master class in conscientious brand building as it is an insight into the world’s most powerful cosmetics dynasty. Lauder’s tenaciously ambitious mother, Estée (née Josephine Esther Mentzer, in Queens), founded the brand with a kitchen sink “magic cream” in 1946; he reflects on his role in transforming it into the $12 billion corporation it is today, dropping anecdotes about a head-spinning litany of industry firsts along the way. The 87-year-old former CEO is…

“It’s a legendary story, this one,” says Josh O’Connor, flashing a sly, dimpled smile. The British actor, who plays Prince Charles in The Crown, then launches into the serendipitous details—not of the real life love triangle involving Charles, Camilla Parker Bowles, and Lady Diana Spencer, which drives so much of the drama in the series’s fourth season, but rather of the day of auditions that led to the casting of an unknown actress to play one of the most iconic women of the 20th century. The story begins in 2018, as the third season of The Crown was getting underway. The casting team was on the hunt for their Camilla and brought in O’Connor to read with a few front-runners. They hadn’t started their search for Diana yet, as her…

SHANNON LEE Bruce Lee’s daughter is executive producer of the TV series Warrior and author of Be Water, My Friend. “My father’s philosophy is something people should know about. For me that was understanding his message: You’re not supposed to try to be me. You’re supposed to try to be you.” PAT HOUSTON Whitney Houston’s sister-in-law is the executor of her estate and a producer of the upcoming biopic Whitney. “I learned to present the world with things I knew she’d appreciate. We’re working on some unreleased music, and she’s being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I so wish she was here for this.”…

Barack and Michelle Obama are seated at a small dinner party in the Brentwood home of interior designer Michael Smith and his husband James Costos, who was Obama’s ambassador to Spain. It’s a few months before Los Angeles will be locked down, and Reese Witherspoon, Rita Wilson, and Shonda Rhimes are there, as well as Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos and Nicole Avant, Obama’s ambassador to the Bahamas, a formidable Democratic fundraiser and Sarandos’s wife. Smith begins a toast in honor of the man he says has been the single most positive and powerful influence in the lives of millions of people around the world. Shifting his gaze pointedly past the former first couple, Smith delivers his punchline: “Thank you, Ted Sarandos.” The joke kills, according to people in…

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