Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2019 i Vanity Fair

EVENT Genesis Small Car, Big Apple At the intersection of art, music, design, sustainability, urban life, and global community, the new Genesis Mint Concept premiered in a spellbinding multi-media experience on April 16 in Hudson Yards, the soaring, architecture-driven neighborhood that’s become an instant destination. Introduced by Manfred Fitzgerald, Global Head of the Genesis brand, the thrilling event titled “Small Car, Big Apple,” featured a fashion show by internationally acclaimed designer Prabal Gurung; singing from Vy Higginsen’s Sing Harlem Choir; new choreography from Andrew Winghart; a remixed version of Foxes’ hit song “Rise Up” by Music Director Venus Brown and musical artists from a range of genres; and sculptures by Michael Keller. But the star of the evening was the Genesis Mint Concept, a surprisingly pared-down, all-electric luxury car created…

In 1997, I read an article in The New Yorker by John Seabrook called “Why Is the Force Still with Us?” It was a look back at the three original Star Wars movies, Episodes IV–VI, in advance of the coming prequel trilogy, which began with The Phantom Menace in 1999. Before reading this piece, I had not thought of the first three films as canonical work, to which one would apply critical thinking the way one might a novel or a symphony. It’s not that they didn’t merit it; it’s that I could never have held them at such a remove. They were part of the fabric of my childhood and coming of age. They gave me my first celebrity crush (three guesses) and my first (unconscious) acquaintance with the…

SHOP Diamonds and Sapphire A single block of colored sapphire enters Richard Mille’s factory in Switzerland, and no fewer than 40 days are needed for the company’s watchmakers to hone the extremely hard material into a perfectly finished, tripartite case. The crystalline housing of the new RM 07-02 Gemset Sapphire, as blue as the Aegean, sparkles with a delicate row of white diamonds, which are secured by gold prongs within a laser-cut incision in the sapphire. This new case allows the mother-of-pearl and diamond dial, as well as the skeletonized automatic movement, to dazzle beneath the surface. The purity of the caliber echoes that of the case, each complementing the other to form a unique timepiece that combines innovation and finesse. www.richardmille.com EVENT BVLGARI and Tribeca Premiere Film Series BVLGARI…

Last January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bono sat on a frigid outdoor television set for a friendly chat with Andrew Ross Sorkin, the New York Times columnist and co-creator of the hit show Billions. As it happens, the show—a fictionalized account of a hedge-fund billionaire and the federal prosecutor who sets out to bring him down—provided a bit of ironic foreshadowing at the annual gathering of the world’s wealthiest do-gooders. Joining Bono onstage that morning was William McGlashan Jr., a managing partner at TPG Growth, who had helped the U2 front man launch the Rise Fund, a $2 billion portfolio of investments committed to creating “social and environmental impact” that leads to “meaningful, measurable, and positive change.” In a Times column, Sorkin once described McGlashan as…

There’s a desert valley in southern Jordan called Wadi Rum, or sometimes “the Valley of the Moon.” There are stone inscriptions in Wadi Rum that are more than 2,000 years old. Lawrence of Arabia passed through there during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. More recently, J. J. Abrams went there to film parts of the latest Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, because it’s largely uninhabited and starkly beautiful and looks plausibly alien, and one of the things that has always made the Star Wars movies feel so real—as if they had a real life of their own that continues on out beyond the edges of the screen—is the way they’re shot on location, with as few digital effects as possible. George Lucas shot the Tatooine scenes…

A long time ago (the 90s), in a galaxy far, far away (on set in Tozeur, Tunisia), a special relationship between Vanity Fair and Star Wars was sparked. Back then, Annie Leibovitz was one of the only outsiders that Star Wars creator George Lucas allowed on his set. Today, in the franchise’s ever-evolving landscape—which includes a sale to Disney in 2012, a succession of groundbreaking directors and new characters, plus mind-bending advancements in special effects—there remains a constant: Leibovitz is still one of the few outsiders allowed. Such was the case for the new film, The Rise of Skywalker, the final installment in a trilogy of trilogies, which, according to Alan Horn, co-chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, “is over 40 years in the making. [President of Lucasfilm] Kathleen Kennedy,…

“Fantastical lives rarely survive close scrutiny.”—Nick Mafi, Brooklyn, New York El Chapo Don Winslow’s article on El Chapo is spot-on [“The Chapo Trap,” March]. There will always be someone to provide drugs as long as there is someone to buy them. And it is interesting whom we prosecute—the Sackler family is every bit as guilty as El Chapo, yet they will never see a jail cell. We call one man evil and the other a businessman. I enjoyed Winslow’s article and I look forward to the verdict, but in the end, when the cost per gram of cocaine, for instance, is $2 in Colombia and $70 in Atlanta, someone will continue to pursue those profits. Jay Bischoff Atlanta, Georgia Miley Cyrus Zach Baron truly captured the spirit of Miley Cyrus…

Rihanna, as we know, hides from nothing. Fashion statements. Big business. The sun. The Barbadosborn artist chases it, as the name of Fenty Beauty’s debut bronzer suggests. Sun Stalk’r boasts eight shades—a category-redefining breadth in line with the brand’s inclusive approach. The campaign shows a golden RiRi in the desert. Unfazed by the scorching heat, she turns her face into the light. We’ve come a long way from the age of one-shade-fits-all bronzer, that orange-tinged brick designed to suit, say, a freckled Lindsay Lohan. Sephora alone stocks nearly 200 variations and counting (Marc Jacobs’s O!mega bronzer now comes in a burnt caramel). Priscilla Ono, Fenty’s global makeup artist, spent two years on Sun Stalk’r, with a close eye to undertones: rich reds for darker skin; cool taupes for fair. Simulating…

On a sun-dappled summer day 10 years ago, a balding, slightly manic man threw open the door of the J. Crew Collection boutique on the corner of Madison Avenue at 79th Street and made a beeline for the first employee he spotted. “Hey, who are you?” he demanded of a college student—let’s call her Emma—re-folding the stack of cashmere sweaters she’d folded a hundred times that summer. “Um, Emma?” she replied. “Emma! We have Emma!” the man exclaimed, his Bronx accent reverberating through the almost empty store. She looked around. Who was “we”? “O.K., Emma, whaddya think—how are we doing with these sweaters?” It took a second to spot his cell-phone headset, and another to realize that Millard “Mickey” Drexler, her boss’s boss’s (boss’s boss’s) boss, was conferencing this impromptu…

Phoebe WALLER-BRIDGE Role: Playwright and star of Fleabag After a sold-out run Off Broadway, the one-woman show will return to London for its final performances, as the inspired series airs its last season on Amazon. “People say, ‘I should see more theater,’ as if it’s a boring thing you have to do, like going to the dentist,” says Waller-Bridge. “But it’s meant to be good for our soul.” ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,” goes Howard Beale’s cri de coeur in Network. Bryan Cranston, whose role in the Broadway adaptation earned him a Tony nomination, says, “In most cases, anger is not acceptable—we shun it—but at times, perhaps anger is the right emotion. This may be that time.” Great art has always emerged from tumultuous…

“I’m not exactly the barefoot-in-the-forest, earth-mother type,” Mindy Kaling says as she looks around. We’re on the edge of Paramount Ranch, a wilderness center originally built by the studio in 1927 to house movie sets—you’ve seen them on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, American Sniper, Westworld. Parts of the ranch burned down in last year’s Woolsey fire, but here, in April, the wildflowers are popping in abundance. And maybe Kaling isn’t Gaea but she is, without a doubt, a creator. From her years writing and starring in The Office, to The Mindy Project, to Champions, to an upcoming film with Emma Thompson called Late Night, and a romantic comedy with Priyanka Chopra, to two New York Times–best-selling books and two new TV shows in production (one on Hulu and one on…

What is your idea of perfect happiness? No contest: seeing my grandchildren enjoying each other. What is your greatest fear? The current occupant of the White House. Which living person do you most admire? My husband, Paul, who is an enabler of the exuberance of his wife and five kids. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I’m not into self-deploring. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Discrimination, for any reason. What is your greatest extravagance? Very dark chocolate ice cream for breakfast. What is your favorite journey? Home to San Francisco. On what occasion do you lie? To make someone feel better about how they look. What do you dislike most about your appearance? Gray hair poking out. Which living person do you most…