Town & Country November 2025

1998 GIORGIO ARMANI “There is an air of mystery about Giorgio Armani. Some say he cultivates it—by avoiding the press; by giving interviews only in Italian, sometimes in French; by traveling little and sticking close to his home, family and business in Milan.” So wrote former T&C editor in chief Pamela Fiori in her January 1998 cover story on the designer, who passed away in September. The accompanying spread was a family album taken at his weekend villa in Broni, near Milan, during the wedding of his niece Roberta Armani. True to Fiori’s point, Armani wasn’t interviewed for that story, but his policy had changed by 2022, when we featured him in our OGs issue. The then-87-year-old king of the red carpet (and of a multibillion-dollar empire of fashion, hospitality,…

I know I shouldn’t, but I sleep with my phone next to my bed. And I check the news as soon as I wake up. It’s not a good idea generally, I realize, and even less so lately. The world can change in an instant, as we are all aware, but recently doesn’t it seem it changes even faster than that? Each day comes with a sense of urgency to do something, to help someone. And yet, according to findings from the Bank of America 2025 Study of Philanthropy, that dread is not always translated into action: “While the vast majority of affiuent households give (81 percent), this share has steadily declined over the last nine years from the 91 percent measured in 2015… A downward trajectory is also observed…

WHERE ARE WE GOING? Margot Tenenbaum’s fur. Mr. Fox’s motorcycle. The pink façade of the Grand Budapest Hotel. Asteroid City’s vending machines. Wes Anderson has boundless imagination, and he’s a hoarder, too. More than 600 items from his personal archive, including storyboards, miniature models, props, and costumes, are on view at the Design Museum in London. NOVEMBER 21–JULY 26, 2026, DESIGNMUSEUM.ORG WHAT ARE WE WEARING? What does individuality look like in a watch? Glashütte Original, the 180­year­old German brand, has perfected the formula with the Serenade Luna. Start with a solid foundation of state­ of­ the­ art tech and a 60­hour power reserve. Add diamonds and a mother­-of­pearl moon phase display. Then throw in a surprise: an orange alligator leather strap. It’s probably what Wes would do.…

A certain type of architecture has never been properly documented but comes up in campfire stories, and it’s time we talked about it. Like doomscrolling or kink shaming, this building category, like anything catchy and new, deserves a new name: fuck you buildings. The stories behind their design (with FU buildings, there’s always a story) are as interesting as their form. Why, for instance, at Paul Mellon’s estate in Virginia, does a huge earthen mound obscure views of the exceptionally pretty William Adams Delano house Mellon built with his first wife? Because Bunny Mellon quietly used landscaping to rewrite the past. Whether inspired by grudges, financial motives, score-settling after romantic disappointment, or just FU moments that happened to go down that way, these are equal parts architecture and revenge. Let’s…

Sade Lythcott and Dasha Zhukova Niarchos’s first encounter was like the collision of two galaxies—dazzling, radiant, rare, producing a new whole greater than the sum of its parts. They talked about their work and passions, about their journeys and ambitions, about art, theater, design, architecture, business, and philanthropy. But before any of that, they talked about their mothers: the formidable Barbara Ann Teer and Elena Zhukova, PhDs both. Dasha spoke of the ways her mother, a molecular biologist, challenged her to dream without limit, Sade of the passion she felt for upholding her late mother’s legacy in Black theater and community building. Both spoke of the ways they hoped to honor the fierce, fearless women who transfixed and transformed the worlds around them. Over that first lunch, over these stories,…

This summer Mary Culler, president of Ford Philanthropy, joined Bill Ford, Ford Motor Company’s executive chairman, in announcing a partnership the automaker has struck up with the American Red Cross, Feeding America, Habitat for Humanity, and Team Rubicon. Along with providing financial and material support to the nonprofits to help them respond to disasters and to bolster ongoing relief efforts, Ford said it would offer something new: the help of a nationwide network of trained volunteers who are employees at the company’s corporate, manufacturing, and dealer locations. Ford has a long history of supporting disaster relief efforts, as well as providing its employees paid time off to do volunteer work. But with this new program, called Ford Building Together, the corporation hopes to tap additional resources. “We have experts in…