Town & Country February 2026

1956 THE WINTER OLYMPICS, CORTINA, ITALY “Nowhere, not even in hallowed St. Moritz, is the snow dented every season by so many celebrated and titled derrières, and nowhere do the slopes and the cafés boast more comely or more fashionably attired enthusiasts of this sport,” W.A. Powers reported while surveying the skiing preparations for the 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympics. This year the world’s best giant-slalomists and curlers are returning to “the Pearl of the Dolomites.” (The skaters will be in Milan, which is sharing the hosting duties this time around.) Let the fine folks at NBC detail every geological formation’s impact on the athletes’ speed as they race down the slopes of Stelvio and Livigno. All you really need to know is that in Cortina, “a gondolier’s song is…

There are the offcial dates, 1846–2026, but I have my own moments of T&C history: the first story I tore out of the magazine (in 1999, an early piece on Perivolas Santorini; Alison Stern was on the cover). The text Hanya Yanagihara sent me telling me that T&C editor in chief Jay Fielden was looking for a new jewelry and accessories editor (2011; I was at Hearst Tower a few days later). The first time we ordered Princess Cake (2020; a pandemic-era Central Park picnic). The inaugural Shun Lee holiday dinner (2019; we had Christmas cracker crowns. The hats came later). But from what you tell me when I see you—on the streets of New York, by the bar at the Carlyle—you each have a T&C moment of your own.…

WHERE ARE WE GOING? Who says the art market is in trouble? Certainly not the anonymous client who paid $236.4 million for Leonard Lauder’s Klimt masterpiece at Sotheby’s in November. And not the glitterati who will descend on Santa Monica Airport, which is hosting the seventh edition of Frieze Los Angeles. Go early if you’re serious about buying—this is a competitive crowd. FEBRUARY 26–MARCH 1, FRIEZE.COM WHAT ARE WE WEARING? Sometimes all it takes is a blank canvas, which is what Harry Winston gave watchmakers Franck Orny and Johnny Girardin. They, in turn, came up with the Opus 14, an extraordinarily inventive timepiece inspired by 1950s jukeboxes. It functions like one, too, with interchangeable disks that rotate on demand. As with most masterpieces, the rule of scarcity applies here. That’s…

You’re at an elegantly appointed home for a dinner party, with the tapers lit just so and the martinis just dry enough. After surviving a relatively painless happy hour, you’re escorted to your seat, you tuck into your beet salad, and you turn to your right, hoping the conversation will be saltier than the bland vinaigrette. Like any practiced partygoer, you’re equipped with a few softball introductory questions. Any upcoming travel? Are you watching the new Ryan Murphy show? But before you can ask your neighbor what he thinks of the Studio Museum’s reopening, your host announces, “I’d love to go around the table and ask a question.” You shiver. Somehow you know the question won’t be a welcome one, such as “Who would like to join me on the…

“I have been doing this for 31 years, and I can’t recall a bigger year in sports,” says Brian Wilder, who is referring to the trifecta of Super Bowl LX this month at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California; the Winter Olympics, also this month, at a host of venues across northern Italy; and the FIFA Men’s World Cup this summer, at 16 stadiums across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Wilder is going to be a very busy man: He’s the chief experience offcer of On Location, a hospitality behemoth known for crafting wildly extravagant—and wildly expensive—packages for major sporting events, in addition to handling such plebeian concerns as acquiring prime tickets and suite reservations. Of course, it’s news to no one that the sports world has become increasingly…

Football fans, of both the pigskin and soccer varieties, will soon be pouring into the Bay Area to convene at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, host of both Super Bowl LX on February 8 and six matches of the FIFA World Cup tournament this summer. San Francisco is just 40 miles to the north—which is a long way if you’re sitting in postgame traffic snaking up Highway 101. Why not skip all that and stay in Silicon Valley? You won’t be bored—we promise. WHERE TO SLEEP In downtown Palo Alto, the Nobu Hotel’s minimalist rooms blend natural materials with the subtlest of tech features (like Alexa). A few miles away, a more Old World experience awaits at the Rosewood Sand Hill, which sits on 16 acres of olive trees and rolling…