Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2017 i Vanity Fair

Given the world’s problems, from income inequality to terrorism to climate change, our timing in bringing a man like Donald Trump into the White House really couldn’t be worse. The man is clearly unfit for any kind of public office, let alone the highest office in the land. The majority of the electorate knew this when they went to the voting booths. His response to the events in Charlottesville during his horribly eventful, 17-day vacation sparked a run on his remaining popularity. The members of his vaunted business panels left him. The members of his arts panel left him. The Republican leadership blanches at the mention of his name. His popularity in the swing states he won is on a downward spiral. Even charities that had booked space for their…

OCTOBER All Is VANITIES 2017 ...Nothing Is Fair THIS MONTH Scarlet, crimson, and cherry reds What’s haute: beetles, basketball, and beauty Danielle Steel’s larger-than-life desk AGE: 20. PROVENANCE: New York, New York. FAMILY BUSINESS: She is the niece of actor Dick Van Patten—show business runs in her blood. “Everyone in our family made cameos on Eight Is Enough. I love to go back and watch.” MOB DOLL: Thanks to her father, director Tim Van Patten, she was raised on the set of The Sopranos. “I got my first job at eight years old playing Pontecorvo’s daughter. I remember watching Jimmy Gandolfini transform from a gentle giant into a beast—he made me interested in acting.” FAME: “I was accepted to LaGuardia high school of performing arts. It was four hours of acting every day…

Danielle SteelÕs wildly popular novels have made her a household name, and as the founder of the Nick Traina Foundation—so called after her late son—the mother of nine is also an ardent advocate for mental-health awareness. Ahead of her new book, Fairy tale, being published next month, take a look at where Steel’s best-sellers are brought to life, at her desk in San Francisco. My beloved, partially handmade 1946 Olympia standard typewriter I’ve written 163 books on this typewriter, and it’s still going strong. This tall stack of papers is all pending projects. I love these mementos that my children have given me for good luck. They touch my heart but do not help my creative process. The desktop is so crowded that, when I’m writing, I have to take…

Charlie SIEM OCCUPATION: Violinist. RESIDENCE: Monaco. FAVORITE ITEM OF CLOTHING: “My great-uncle’s W.W. II flight jacket.” FAVORITE DESIGNER: “Loro Piana.” FAVORITE PLACE T O SHOP: “Jean-Jacques, in Monaco.” FAVORITE SCENT: “Armani Eau pour Homme.” STYLE IDOL: “David Niven.” STYLE MOTTO: “Make it look easy.” Daniel ROMUALDEZ OCCUPATION: Architect. RESIDENCE: New York City. FAVORITE ITEM OF CLOTHING: “White button-down shirt.” FAVORITE DESIGNERS: “Anderson & Sheppard and Hedi Slimane.” FAVORITE PLACE TO SHOP: “Lyst.” STYLE IDOLS: “The kids in my office.” STYLE MOTTO: “I depend on a uniform so that I do not have to make any fashion decisions in the morning.” Donald GLOVER OCCUPATION: Actor, musician, writer, director. RESIDENCE: London. MOST NOTABLE LOOK OF THE YEAR: A brown velvet custom Gucci suit and bow tie and Christian Louboutin shoes, worn to…

Emmanuel and Brigitte MACRON OCCUPATIONS: President of France; retired schoolteacher. RESIDENCE: Élysée Palace, Paris. HER NOTABLE DESIGNERS: Louis Vuitton, Balmain, Alexandre Vauthier. MOS T MEMORABLE LOOKS OF THE YEAR: A navy suit for him, and a powder-blue dress and matching military-style jacket by Louis Vuitton for her, worn to Macron’s inauguration. T.M. King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the NETHERLANDS RESIDENCE: Villa Eikenhorst, in Wassenaar, the Netherlands. MOST NOTABLE LOOKS OF THE YEAR: A navy pin-striped suit and red patterned tie for him, and a royal-blue, bell-sleeve Roksanda dress paired with a diamond brooch and a Eudia hat for her, worn at Noordeinde Palace, in The Hague. Barack and Michelle OBAMA OCCUPATIONS: Former President and First Lady of the United States. RESIDENCES: Washington, D.C., and Chicago. MOST NOTABLE LOOKS OF…

H.R.H. PRINCE PHILIP, DUKE of EDINBURGH PRIMARY RESIDENCE: Buckingham Palace. ROYAL CONSORT: H.M. Queen Elizabeth II. TAILORS : John Kent and Turnbull & Asser. MOST NOTABLE LOOK OF THE YEAR: Morning dress with a gray top hat and boutonnière, worn at Royal Ascot.…

‘Ididn’t have any fear about being too personal,” says Charlotte Gainsbourg about the songs she wrote on her new, and revealing, fifth album, Rest, out this fall. “I said what I wanted to say; I was talking to myself.” The actress/singer/songwriter and fashion muse—daughter of the late, legendary singer/actor Serge Gainsbourg and singer/actress Jane Birkin—is accustomed to controversy. At age 13, she recorded a provocative song (“Lemon Incest”) with her father, and some of her movie roles with director Lars von Trier (Nymphomaniac, Antichrist) have been considered shocking. Here, she talks with Lisa Robinson about music, stage fright, and her self-imposed “exile” in New York City. LISA ROBINSON: You said it was a sort of exile, living in New York City for the past three years. Why did you leave…

So, you’re a Silicon Valley billionaire and you’ve already got the private plane. What you need next is a philosophy, something to live by, and to help finance, and—most important—to use to explain or justify yourself. Don’t just grab the next philosophy to come along. Chances are that will be Ayn Rand and her extreme form of capitalism, which she called objectivism. Rand has a lot going for her, to be sure. First, you may have actually read her in high school and may have been genuinely influenced. Second, in a nutshell, she rationalizes greed, which you have nothing against. Third, she was into mildly kinky sex—something else you may have in common. Fourth, she was associated in some way you don’t quite follow with Alan Greenspan, who is respectability…

‘Jackknife was Joint’s operation. Under Bill Haydon’s command. Haydon, then Alleline, Bland, Esterhase. Bill’s boys, we called ’em. George was nowhere near it.” The words are spoken by Peter Guillam in John le Carré’s new novel, A Legacy of Spies (Viking). “George” is the redoubtable and enigmatic George Smiley, Guillam’s longtime boss, who appears in a le Carré book for the first time in 25 years (and for the ninth time in all). Just the names of those characters are enough to conjure a Cold War world back into gritty gray life. It’s a world that le Carré—the pseudonym of David Cornwell, a British intelligence officer before becoming a full-time novelist—today apprehends from a post–Cold War perspective. In a conversation that ranged from the humor of Philip Roth to the…

We are well into the first year of Donald Trump’s term, and the country remains badly divided. An unprecedented low of only 35 percent of the electorate approve of his presidential performance. About 60 percent of those surveyed believe he is falling short of how a new president should behave. Worse yet, unlike earlier presidents, he doesn’t seem to care about winning majority support or may be under the illusion that it already exists. He seems to have talked himself into believing that three to five million illegal votes gave Hillary Clinton a popular majority. “It is impossible to imagine Trump unifying the country behind his leadership.” When we consider how other modern presidents began their administrations, the current divide is particularly shocking. Polling data going back to the 1930s…

Sometimes a soaring rate of cockamamieness can leave us clueless about what to make of it and therefore unable to do anything about it. Those are the times when we seek out something—anything—with enough similarity to the new person or thing, to guess what we are dealing with. We see that in the current search for something Trumplike in our past, to help get a handle on the Trump in our pres ent. Some have been wild enough to compare him with Hitler—which is simply absurd. Comparisons with lesser figures are not very helpful, either. Some dredge up bragging demagogues like Senator Joe McCarthy and Governor George Wallace. But neither of them rose as high as the presidency. And both of them had some concept of law, of which Trump…

David Downton’s portrait captures the public essence of Anjelica Huston: the confident posture, the regal allure, the glossy dark hair over wide shoulders, the turn of the hip, the formal and irresistible image of her as a star. But her raw performance as unadorned Vicki—Jeffrey Tambor’s love interest in Transparent— reveals how deep she can go. She will soon be seen in Theresa Rebeck’s film Trouble, shotgun in hand, fighting her brother (played by Bill Pullman) over land. Land is a key to her: land, earth, animals. At the horse show at Ballinasloe, the Irish summer chill turning wet as the day sloped into the long soft twilight, Anjelica stood in an anorak and Wellington boots, sobbing uncontrollably at the sight of a sick horse, its age indeterminate, its ribs…

THE HISTORIANS ON TRUMP//P.158 A. SCOTT BERG A. Scott Berg, whose biographies have won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, commemorates President James Monroe and his Era of Good Feelings, a foil to today’s dismal political climate. “Presidents set the psychological tone of the nation, and in less than a year the woefully ill-prepared Trump has created a constant din of anger, bluster, and lies,” says Berg, whose “Profile in Discouragement” is on page 168. ROBERT DALLEK Best-selling biographer Robert Dallek’s newest work, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, comes out in November. In “Powers of Separation,” on page 163, Dallek compares the temperament and experience of our 45th president to those of our 32nd. Says Dallek, “The job is difficult enough for even the most skilled politician,…

Get ready to paint the town red, whether it’s with a full look or a rosy accessory…

WOMEN Anh DUONG Charlotte GAINSBOURG Kirsten GREEN Solange KNOWLES Eugenie NIARCHOS Rebecca de RAVENEL RIHANNA H.M. Queen LETIZIA of SPAIN LadyAmelia WINDSOR Dasha ZHUKOVA MEN Roberto BOLLE Roger FEDERER Donald GLOVER LeBron JAMES Henry KOEHLER Daniel ROMUALDEZ Jack SCHLOSSBERG Charlie SIEM Harry STYLES Justin TRUDEAU HOLLYWOOD Cate BLANCHETT Zoë KRAVITZ Janelle MONÁE Ruth NEGGA Dev PATEL ORIGINALS Catherine BABA Jaden SMITH Mademoiselle YULIA  COUPLES Emmanuel and Brigitte MACRON T.M.King WILLEM-ALEXANDER and Queen MÁXIMA of the NETHERLANDS Barack and Michelle OBAMA PROFESSIONALS Adwoa ABOAH Alexandre ARNAULT Petra COLLINS Inés andMercedes DOMECQ Nico LANDRIGAN Hervé PIERRE Miuccia PRADA Carlos SOUZA Vanessa TRAINA  HALL of FAME Lauren HUTTON Jeremy IRONS Lauren SANTO DOMINGO  SPECIALCITATION H.R.H.PrincePhilip, DUKE of EDINBURGH…

Janelle MONÁE OCCUPATION: Musician, actor, and C.E.O. of Wondaland Records. RESIDENCE: Atlanta. NOTABLE DESIGNERS: Armani, Stella McCartney, Chanel, Elie Saab. MOST NOTABLE LOOK OF THE YEAR: A custom Christian Siriano jumpsuit, worn to the C.F.D.A. Fashion Awards. Dev PATEL OCCUPATION: Actor. RESIDENCE: Los Angeles. FAVORITE DESIGNERS: “Burberry, Dunhill, Armani, and IWC.” FASHION PURCHASE OF THE YEAR: “My love-heart socks I wore to the Oscars.” STYLE IDOL: “Jeremy Irons.” STYLE MOTTO: “It’s all about wearing what makes you feel good.” Cate BLANCHETT OCCUPATION: Actor. RESIDENCE: London. NOTABLE DESIGNERS: Givenchy, Balenciaga, Christopher Kane. MOST MEMORABLE LOOK OF THE YEAR: A black velvet suit paired with black Roger Vivier heels, worn to the taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Zoë KRAVITZ OCCUPATION: Artist, actor, singer, model. RESIDENCE: “N.Y.C., baby.” FAVORITE DESIGNERS:…

Adwoa ABOAH OCCUPATION: Model and founder of Gurls Talk. RESIDENCES: New York City and London. NOTABLE DESIGNERS: Gap, Versace, Conner Ives, Burberry. MOST MEMORABLE LOOK OF THE YEAR: A white embroidered Burberry suit paired with Repossi jewelry, worn to the Vogue Paris Foundation dinner. Alexandre ARNAULT OCCUPATION: C.E.O. of Rimowa. RESIDENCES: Cologne and Paris. FAVORITE DESIGNERS: “Hedi Slimane, J. W. Anderson, Karl Lagerfeld, Tom Ford.” STYLE IDOL: “Pharrell Williams.” STYLE MOTTO: “ ‘Simplicity, good taste, and grooming are the three fundamentals of good dressing. And these do not cost money.’ —Christian Dior.” Hervé PIERRE OCCUPATION: Fashion designer and creative director. RESIDENCE: New York City. FAVORITE ITEM OF CLOTHING: “Hermès scarf.” FAVORITE PLACE TO SHOP: “24 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, in Paris.” STYLE IDOL: “Philippe Noiret.” STYLE MOTTO: “Casual clothes are…

TRUE BLUES The British musician Benjamin Clementine moved to Paris when he was a teenager, with little more than a mystical baritone voice. He would sing barefoot in hotels and on the Métro, was discovered on the streets, and for a whole year wore nothing but a coat he found in a trash bin. “I wore it to sleep,” he says. Clementine’s debut album, in 2015, won the U.K.’s prestigious Mercury Prize, and next month the 28-year-old, whose sound is often compared to Édith Piaf’s and Nina Simone’s, releases his second album, I Tell a Fly, and headlines New York’s Carnegie Hall. He still prefers to perform barefoot in a coat: “I adopted this feeling that the stage is my home, so just keep my coat on and not wear…

SHOCK JOCKS Backstage at the ESPY Awards, on July 12, at the Microsoft Theater, in Los Angeles, contributing photographer Mark Seliger captured the sports stars currently dominating fields, slopes, and courts—including Russell Westbrook, the reigning N.B.A. M.V.P., whose record-breaking season for the Oklahoma City Thunder earned him this year’s award for best male athlete. (For more of Seliger’s portraits, head to VF.com.) After the show, Vanity Fair kept the night going with a dinner, honoring ESPYs host Peyton Manning and the 25th anniversary of the ESPYs, and an after-party at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills.…

Jackie Kennedy, wife of Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy, liked to escape life in D.C. by going foxhunting in Virginia. Her friends there included the widowed and re-married Adele Astaire, Fred Astaire’s older sister, who lived on a sprawling farm in Middleburg with her second husband, Kingman Douglass, a former assistant director of the C.I.A. Adele thought her friend Bunny Mellon and Jackie might like each other and took Jackie to Bunny’s home for tea in early 1958. As Bunny recalled, “That evening Dellie called and said, ‘Young Mrs. Kennedy wants to call you, but feels I should ask you first if she should.’ ” The next day, Jackie made the call and told Bunny, “I loved your house, but I don’t like mine.” Bunny was flattered, later recalling, “She…

As interviews go, it wasn’t exactly a model of clarity. In May 2016, on assignment for Time, I called on the putative Republican presidential nominee at Trump Tower to talk about presidential literacy—the core knowledge, including a sense of the history of the office itself, that our greatest presidents have brought to the highest levels. Trump’s mind, however, was fixated on the pres ent and on himself, chiefly polls and the number of Republican rivals he’d knocked off. We did talk about his criticism of nato, which he said he had given little thought to before being asked a question by Wolf Blitzer on CNN. His answer—that the alliance was obsolete and that other nations weren’t pulling their financial weight—had, he admitted to me, come “off the cuff,” adding, “I’m…

Our 26th and 40th presidents have long been absent from the national scene, but they retain a lively (if that’s the right word) interest in current affairs. Their biographer, Edmund Morris, interviewed them recently on the subject of Donald Trump and found them willing to forgo the usual discretion of comment that obtains between former commanders in chief. The discussion took place in Mr. Morris’s study, where both men have long been a ghostly presence. Their words, including expletives, are reproduced verbatim from cards kept on file in this repository. The questions are Mr. Morris’s. EDMUND MORRIS: I’m not sure what honorific to use when addressing you both. “Messrs. Presidents” is kind of hard to pronounce. RONALD REAGAN: My oldest friends still call me “Dutch.” E.M.: That sounds overfamiliar, sir,…

EDWIN COASTER 8/21/ 17 Dear Graydon: Back up in Maine, dock side in shorts with a welcome dram of Blanton’s and a pedicurist doing her bit as I type. My buddy Gov LePage has no fondness for immigrants, but cheers to him for ma king an exception for the slim, obeisant little people from whatever hu mid country that mani-pedi ladies come from. Looks like my stint as off-the-books speechwriter for DJT is kaput. Truth is, he hasn’t needed me much, what with Twitter and all. Like a lot of writing gigs, the job of presidential wordsmith has been “disrupted” (a word I loathe, except in contract bridge) by screens a nd apps. Bill Safire would be turning in his grave if he was dead, which, by the way, he…

American in Paris West 53rd Street meets the Bois de Boulogne: beginning October 11, treasures from New York’s Museum of Modern Art will fill Paris’s Fondation Louis Vuitton, in the landmark exhibition “Être Moderne: Le MoMA à Paris.” The 200 pieces on view will include masterworks by artists such as Edward Hopper, Paul Cézanne, and Jackson Pollock. According to the museum’s curator Quentin Bajac, “The exhibition exemplifies how MoMA has shaped the public’s definition of modern art and continues to challenge our interpretation of it.” (fondation louisvuitton.fr) SLAM DUNK Celebrate 35 years of Nike’s Air Force 1 with its new “N.B.A.” sneaker. Launching ahead of the pro basketball season next month, the shoe comes in eight colorways tailored to the league’s star teams. Baller. (nike.com) THROWBACK The Super Nintendo Entertainment…

RIHANNA OCCUPATION: Singer, actor, designer. RESIDENCES: Los Angeles and New York City. NOTABLE DESIGNERS: Dior, Vetements, Puma, Hood by Air, Adam Selman. MOS T MEMORABLE LOOK OF THE YEAR: A Monse tweed dress, worn to receive the 2017 Harvard University Humanitarian of the Year award. Eugenie NIARCHOS OCCUPATION: “Jewelry designer.” RESIDENCE: London. FAVORITE ITEMS OF CLOTHING: “My custom-made Burning Man outfits by Manish Arora.” STYLE IDOLS: “The Spice Girls in the 90s, Lauren Hutton, Cleopatra, and Gloria Guinness.” STYLE MOTTO: “I like to dress elegantly but with a touch of 90s humor.” Rebecca de RAVENEL OCCUPATION: Designer. RESIDENCE: Los Angeles. FAVORITE ITEM OF CLOTHING: “My hot-pink couture Madame Grès dress.” FASHION PURCHASE OF THE YEAR: “A pink-and-blue striped Carolina Herrera dress.” STYLE IDOLS: “Loulou de la Falaise and Bianca Jagger.”…

Mademoiselle YULIA OCCUPATION: “D.J., singer, Growing Pains designer.” RESIDENCE: Japan. FAVORITE DESIGNERS: “Coco Chanel and Vivienne Westwood.” FAVORITE PLACES TO SHOP: “GR8 and Faline, in Harajuku, and Shimokitazawa for vintage shopping.” FASHION PURCHASES OF THE YEAR: “Vintage kimono and a jacket and skirt, made of pile fabric, from Miu Miu.” STYLE IDOL: “Tetsuko Kuroyanagi.” STYLE MOTTO: “Express yourself.” Jaden SMITH OCCUPATION: Actor, musician. RESIDENCE: Hidden Hills, California. MOST NOTABLE LOOK OF THE YEAR: An all-black Louis Vuitton women’s-wear ensemble, with his cut-off blond dreadlocks in hand, at the Met Gala. Catherine BABA OCCUPATION: “Designer, stylist.” RESIDENCE: Paris. FAVORITE DESIGNERS: “Monsieur Saint Laurent, Madame Grès, Valentino by Pierpaolo [Piccioli], Dries Van Noten, Zandra Rhodes.” FAVORITE SHOES: “Christian Louboutin.” FASHION PURCHASE OF THE YEAR: “Valentino cape.” STYLE IDOL: “Nancy Cunard.” STYLE MOTTO:…

Jeremy IRONS OCCUPATION: Actor. RESIDENCES: “West Cork, Ireland [see page 198], and Oxfordshire, England.” FAVORITE ITEM OF CLOTHING: “My John Varvatos leather waistcoat usually finds a use.” FAVORITE DESIGNERS: “Armani, John Varvatos.” FAVORITE SHOES: “Sendra riding boots, bought 20 years ago in Madrid.” FAVORITE ACCESSORY: “My tobacco pouch.” STYLE IDOL: “Renzo Piano.” STYLE MOTTO: “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. If it is, mend it.” Lauren HUTTON OCCUPATION: Model, actor. RESIDENCES: “New York City; Venice, California.” FAVORITE DESIGNERS: “Armani, the Row, Gabriela Hearst.” FASHION PURCHASE OF THE YEAR: “Huntsman bespoke Harris Tweed four-piece suit.” STYLE IDOLS: “Carole Lombard, Georgia O’Keeffe.” STYLE MOTTO: “Fashion is what we’re offered four times a year; style is what we learn to choose.” Lauren SANTO DOMINGO OCCUPATION: Co-founder and creative director of Moda Operandi.…

Take a nice long walk off a literary pier with fall’s big books. First, Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan makes her maiden deep dive into historical fiction with the vivid Manhattan Beach (Scribner). Anna Kerrigan, a child of the Great Depression, embraces the toughness she learned from her mysteriously vanished father by training as a professional diver at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She is singlemindedly focused, a girl amid a sea of boys. But it’s not long before she becomes entangled with an irresistibly dangerous man who submerges them both in the shadowy past. Everything must go when the newly divorced Jules Epstein, of Nicole Krauss’s Forest Dark (Harper), decides to liquidate his life and travel to Tel Aviv. With a well-aimed arrow of autofiction, Krauss fires a Brooklyn-based writer named…

The me- Tarzan heyday of political broadcast journalism’s “big swinging dicks” (to borrow Michael Lewis’s hallowed term) has entered its twilight phase, a long-overdue development obvious to everyone except those little swinging dicks who keep injuring themselves trying to perpetuate the old swagger. Lift the lid on the lusty telenovela at Fox News, if you dare, where once testosterone, cigar smoke, and rampant innuendo were the seething norm under the long reign of former chairman and C.E.O. Roger Ailes, whose emperorship ended in shabby disgrace after a cluster bomb of sexual-harassment accusations. Ailes—who did not live to enjoy the golden parachute from his former employer, dying from a subdural hematoma in May—was soon followed on the exit runway by the network’s biggest star and gnarliest samurai, Bill O’Reilly, who also…

When it comes to dismissing science as false or the news as fake, when it comes to torching history, America has not traditionally led the world. (Who was it who said, “The truth is the greatest enemy of the state”? Ah, yes: Goeb bels.) When it comes to persecution complexes and conspiracy theories, however, our current president taps into a rich, rancid homegrown tradition. To borrow his phrasing, a lot of people have been saying that bad things were happening out there since before America was even America. The Puritans’ howling wilderness included a shadowy fever swamp from the start. In establishing “a city on a hill,” New England’s settlers implied that others occupied a lower altitude. And by designating themselves “a flock in the wilderness,” they suggested they had…

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Getting hired. With the possible exception of my daughters’ births and my wedding day, the happiest moments of my life were when someone offered me a job. What is your greatest fear? Talking too much. Which historical figure do you most identify with? Benjamin Franklin. (It’s an age thing.) Which living person do you most admire? My wife, Pat. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Absentmindedness. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Failure to be on time. What is your greatest extravagance? Golf clubs. What is your favorite journey? Driving through the American West. What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Common sense. We all think we have it, which is often not the case. What…