Town & Country features the latest in luxury, from beautiful homes, sumptuous dining to exotic locations. In 11 gorgeous annual issues, Town & Country covers the arts, fashion and culture, bringing the best of everything to America's trendsetters
1983 DIANA ROSS What defines an OG? It’s a question T&C has been asking in earnest since 2022, when we began dedicating an annual issue to the individuals most worthy of the title. Over the course of our research we’ve found that while there may be several paths to OG status, all who get there are linked by a few indispensable qualities: grit, originality, and, most important, staying power. An OG never rests on her laurels. Which brings us to Diana Ross. When we profiled her in May 1983—photographed here in a dress of her own design, paired with Bulgari ice—the icon was enjoying a newfound sense of freedom. Two years prior she had left Motown—the legendary record label that had shepherded her wildly successful career for two decades, first…
If we were putting together the T&C OG Issue of 1924, it’s safe to say Jean Cocteau and Elsie de Wolfe would appear in its pages. Indisputable icons of their age, certainly, but also examples of how we determine who makes our annual OG cut—those who make their mark, and then another, and another. Look at this year’s list: No matter how long they have been at the top of their game, these 100 legends are having their best year ever. As is another legend. Cocteau and de Wolfe would have made the OG list, but they also could have popped up in Bright Things, 1924. They were among the first that year to wear a new creation from the mind of Louis Cartier: a ring and a bangle of…
WHERE ARE WE GOING? Few events draw as eclectic a crowd as South by Southwest, the Austin mecca for tech bros, Hollywood stars, and creative aristos. Consider it a mix of Sun Valley, Sundance, and Coachella, with a lineup to match. On this year’s list: the third season premiere of Hacks; a keynote by the Daniels, the Oscar-winning duo behind Everything Everywhere All at Once; and lots of panels on—what else?—AI. MARCH 8–16, SXSW.COM WHAT ARE WE WEARING? SXSW calls for a little savoir faire—and a dash of individuality. Conceived during the Art Deco era, Vacheron Constantin’s Historiques American 1921 is still a paragon of radical innovation. Note that off-center dial. Quirky, sure, but practical, too: The diagonal placement means not a second is wasted checking your watch. Because who…
There’s a scene in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie when Ken, in a rare moment of introspection, laments the burden of his people. Not extremely good-looking airhead playboys, mind you. “Is it my destiny,” he croons, “to live and die a life of blond fragility?” Oh, is it ever. Heavy indeed is the crown of blond locks—always has been, but especially lately. Just ask Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe, and all the other gone-but-not-forgotten golden-haired beauties who remain in death as famous as ever. The dirty little secret of these pop culture legends: They still move merch. A lot of merch. Bessette Kennedy, who died at 33 in 1999, is not just a fixture on TikTok and fashion mood boards (Prada even reissued a circa 1995 boxy tote beloved by…
Learn them. Use them. Thank us later. Call it Society Physics 101. If you gather a bunch of rich, powerful people behind a wrought iron gate or a velvet rope—whether at Versailles in 1685 or Zero Bond last week—you’ll have outsiders desperate to get in. (Similarly, as Julian Fellowes wrote in his novel Snobs, “Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them.”) The desire of have-nots to make it through a forbidden door has long been a driving force in the stories we tell. Literature and film are lousy with arrivistes: Becky Sharp, Undine Spragg, Lily Bart, Eve Harrington. Just last winter, Bertha Russell ended season two of The Gilded Age in a voluminous green gown selling her daughter off…
1955 Novelist Patricia Highsmith introduced the world to Tom Ripley, the con artist driven to murder by his insatiable thirst for the good life. The author, who considered her protagonist her alter ego, would chart his exploits in four more novels. 1960 Alain Delon went from rising talent to international star when he was cast as Tom Ripley in René Clément’s French adaptation, Plein Soleil (Purple Noon to American audiences). Highsmith was impressed—she called his portrayal “excellent.” 1977 Dennis Hopper took up the role of Ripley in The American Friend, German auteur Wim Wenders’s neo-noir take on the third novel in the series (Ripley’s Game). The same book was adapted for film a second time, in 2002, with John Malkovich as its star. 1999 Highsmith, who died in 1995, wasn’t…
