Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2024 i Town & Country

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…

Let me be clear: Both middle age and cruises were once topics I rarely thought of—and when I did it was with utter disdain. Not for any logical reasons, of course, as I had absolutely no experience of either. The former, although inexorable, I decided I’d get around to when I was less busy. And the latter was just too old-fashioned: Seven days stuck onboard with white-haired wrinklies? Fuddy-duddy dress codes, like formal attire for dinners or costumes for themed parties and balls? And what would I do with all that time? But life has a funny way of confounding expectations. Although I’m still enjoying the same sparkly social life I have reveled in since I moved to New York in my early thirties (I even opened my own club,…

For Christmas last year Nicky Rothschild’s eldest daughter, Lily-Grace, who is seven, asked for two things: a jean jacket and a jump rope. Which seems like a normal request for a child her age, right? Not anymore. These days kids are more precocious than ever, and nowhere is this more apparent than in their shopping habits. Ten-year-olds are emptying the Drunk Elephant shelves at Sephora. Eightyear-olds are walking into boutiques in Beverly Hills and asking for Off-White crop tops and Stone Island bombers. The conditioning begins early. Take Sienna Miller. Days after giving birth to a baby girl, she went for a stroll around London with her newborn swaddled in an Artipoppe carrier made of vicuña and cashmere that retails for $3,800. Then, of course, there is Cardi B’s five-year-old,…

“As wrote as he gazed into the tomb of my eyes grew accustomed to the light,” archaeologist Howard Carter Tutankhamun, “details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold.” Can you get all that down on a diamond bracelet? Why, yes, in fact, Van Cleef & Arpels actually did. After Carter discovered King Tut’s tomb in 1922, the house captured the ensuing Egyptomania on bracelets that told tales of pharaohs, sphinxes, scarabs, and phoenixes. Each jeweled panel was a hieroglyph scripted against a diamond background and written in lapis and coral, turquoise and sapphire, ruby and emerald. “If you asked me to name 10 jewels that a collector should own,” says Claibourne Poindexter, vice president and senior specialist in the…

MARY J. BLIGE What’s the 411? New music is expected this summer from the Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated multihyphenate, whose latest acting role, in Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Rob Peace, premiered at Sundance. Naturally, she plays Peace’s mother. MERCEDES BASS “Her generosity to the Met is evident to the throngs who visit the Mercedes T. Bass Grand Tier, the landmark architectural feature of the opera house, punctuated by the two iconic Chagall murals on its walls. As a philanthropist, Mercedes has helped write the history of grand opera, and we are forever thankful for that.”—Peter Gelb, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera HOWARD STERN “Jerry Seinfeld once said to Howard, ‘You didn’t want to do what radio was.’ He’s an incredible example of someone changing an industry by force of will, the way…

KIM GORDON “I’m not a conventional musician,” Kim Gordon says. “I’m an artist making music.” This might seem at odds with her legacy—namely, 30 years in the rock band Sonic Youth—but it makes sense when you consider her work as a fashion influencer, painter, and author of the 2015 memoir Girl in a Band. Gordon’s latest accomplishment? Her riotous sophomore solo album, The Collective (out now). What has a life in the arts taught the eternally cool Gordon? “Be sure it’s what you want,” she says, “because you might just get it.” BETH DITTO Rocker turned actress reunites with indie group the Gossip for their first album in 11 years, out now. GISELE BUNDCHEN Name a more badass divorcee with a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. BEVERLY JOHNSON Per her…

Half a century ago, a murder took place in London. It was brutal, bloody, and committed almost certainly in error. The case was that of the 7th Earl of Lucan, a 39-year-old professional gambler who was believed to have killed his children’s nanny and attacked his wife. He then vanished, possibly in an escape organized by his circle of powerful friends. Stoked by the press and inflamed by speculation, the case quickly took shape as a modern morality tale. And 1970s Britain, which was nearly bankrupt and torn by political strife at the time, could not get enough of it. Fifty years on, the public’s obsession—which never really went away—is about to spark back to life. Documentaries from the BBC and Amazon will appear later this year. The Amazon project…

PISCES FEBRUARY 20–MARCH 20 Testy Saturn is moving forward in your birth sign, and you need to be aware of what you’re setting in place right now and where you’re heading. Thinking critically and reading the changeable signals you’re getting will enable you to adjust to current demands. Pisces is possibly the most flexible and intuitive sign of all, so be ready to go with the flow. CICADA ($22,000), CICADAJEWELRY.COM ARIES MARCH 21–APRIL 20 You’re not one to sit on the sidelines, but surveying the landscape and engaging in a bit of reflection is what you must do at the moment. It’s a matter of letting others come to you rather than always leading the way. Being supportive and receptive is an important theme in March, especially when the full…

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…

For a garment whose origins are more grassroots than silver spoon, the barn jacket is quite popular among those who spend most of their working hours twiddling between Instagram and TikTok in the comfort of their country homes in the Cotswolds. Even Silvia Venturini Fendi has recently found the garment amusing; a plethora of barn jackets came down the runway at the Fendi men’s fall 2024 show. “I call it town and country,” she told journalists, “because it’s classic chic.” This came shortly after Prada introduced its own version for women—in colors ranging from tan to burgundy, and layered over delicate, feminine separates—in its spring 2024 collection. How did the barn jacket, built for toughness, become a fashion staple? Let’s start at the beginning. Also known as the chore jacket,…

“I ’m getting ready to make a long cartoon character necklace in gold with stones interspersed—for myself!” Judy Geib tells me when I visit her jewelry atelier, a vast, crammed space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that was once an air conditioner factory. Who else would contemplate employing the finest materials in the service of Foghorn Leghorn, the Tasmanian Devil, and Bugs Bunny? Geib’s startling inventiveness has captivated her audience, a veritable cult, since she made her first piece, a pair of opal earrings with surprising enamel backs, in 1996. I became a loyal member of this coterie when I first encountered her work at the late, lamented Barneys—it was a necklace of twisted flat letters, a nutty calligraphy in 22K gold and cabochon rubies. It fairly leaped out of the case…

The unveiling of a new perfume typically goes like this: Beauty editors and influencers are invited to an exclusive meet-and-greet, where they sniff blotter strips spritzed with the eau du jour. They wave the samples under their discerning noses and make polite sounds of pleasure. Everyone is happy, if noncommittal. There’s a new perfume in the world, and it’s… pretty good. At the Paris launch of the latest Dior La Collection Privée perfume, held in a vaulted white room within the Palais de Tokyo, things went a little differently. When Dior perfumer Francis Kurkdjian handed out blotters of New Look, his latest creation for the house’s prestige fragrance line, there were two very distinct reactions. Some sniffers’ eyes lit up as though a switch had been thrown, their expressions registering…

Last summer Narciso Rodriguez moved into a new design studio on 11th Avenue in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, a proverbial stone’s throw from the Hudson River. “I feel like I’m at the beginning of my career again,” he says. A fresh beginning, more than 30 years in. The reboot finds Rodriguez plotting his return to fashion, starting with geography. The current office is closer to his home than his previous headquarters, allowing for a quicker commute and more time with his six-year-old twins. And even if he’s still clarifying all that a new ready-to-wear venture entails, one thing is certain: It must “make sense for my life.” For more than two decades Rodriguez, 63, was a master of sensual minimalism, creating alluring, sophisticated clothes for legions of women who…

I first visited the Napa Valley in 1995, at the dawn of its third era—not long after the birth of the so-called Cult Cabernets, also known, in wine critic Jon Bonné’s phrase, as the era of Big Flavor. My ignorance of Napa history was fairly comprehensive at that time; as an East Coast guy I had cut my teeth on Bordeaux—the legendary 1982 vintage was released just as I started making money from my first novel. After my friend Dominique Browning convinced me to write about wine for House and Garden magazine, which she had lately taken over, her California-born food editor insisted that I visit Napa to broaden my horizons. Moreover, Robert Parker, the critic who made the 1982 Bordeaux famous, was just starting to award huge scores to…

Close your eyes. Picture someone who wears Polo Ralph Lauren. Other than Ralph himself, who springs to mind? A dad—or grandfather—from your country club? A ball boy or girl at the U.S. Open? Maybe it’s Diane Keaton as Annie Hall or Will Smith as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air or Princess Diana. Maybe it’s you in college, if you enrolled between the late ’80s and the early aughts. Fresh in the pop culture record is Taylor Swift on the cover of Time and Jacob Elordi in Saltburn, in which he wears a cornflower-blue Polo V-neck over a white T-shirt when Oliver first lays his lovesick eyes on him across the Oxford quad. None of these answers are wrong. In fact, all of them are spot-on for one of the…

COVERS NEWSSTAND: DIOR DRESS AND TOP, 800-929-DIOR. ERES BRA ($230), ERESPARIS.COM. BALENCIAGA PANTA-LEGGINGS ($3,550). SAINT LAURENT RIVE GAUCHE SPRING 1987 VINTAGE HAT, LIDOWARCHIVE.COM. GRAFF EARRINGS, GRAFF.COM. ATELIER BISER GLOVE (MADE TO ORDER, $650 FOR PAIR), VIOLETTAMALAKH.COM. SUBSCRIBERS: CHANEL JACKET ($9,850) AND BERMUDA SHORTS ($3,350), 800-550-0005. GIORGIO ARMA-NI SHIRT ($1,195) AND BOW TIE ($195), ARMANI.COM. WOLFORD TIGHTS ($55), WOLFORD.COM. CARTIER EARRINGS ($44,600), CARTIER.COM FRIENDS OF JUDY PAGE 78 JUDY GEIB CASINO ROYALE PIN ($2,920), SUN DANGLE EARRING ($4,150), SUPER LOOPY NECKLACE ($12,640), DENDRITIC AGATE PIN ($3,780), AND FLAT DANGLY FLOWERY EARRING ($2,800), BERGDORFGOODMAN.COM MADAME BINOCHE WILL SEE YOU NOW PAGE 84 BALENCIAGA, BALENCIAGA.COM. CARTIER, CARTIER.COM. CHANEL, 800-550-0005. DIOR FINE JEWELRY, 800-929-DIOR. ERES, ERESPARIS.COM. GIOR-GIO ARMANI, ARMANI.COM. GRAFF, GRAFF.COM. HARRY WINSTON, HARRYWINSTON.COM. LOUIS VUITTON, LOUISVUITTON.COM. MANOLO BLAHNIK, MANOLOBLAHNIK.COM. MAX MARA, MAXMARA.COM. PRADA,…

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…

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…

Of course you know the saying: “Money talks. Wealth whispers.” Here’s what that sounds like. It’s a weekday afternoon at the Loro Piana boutique on Madison Avenue in New York City, and there is music playing—a faraway tinkle of Italian pop—but amid the white floral bouquets and low-slung cream sofas where well-preserved men with lush thickets of hair are trying on slip-ons and piles of sweaters, the atmosphere is hushed. Founded a century ago, long before the notion of quiet luxury filtered down to main-stream fashion, Loro Piana is today a redoubt of refinement. It has 171 stores around the world, each catering to potentates of every imaginable stripe, from standard-bearing power brokers like Bill Gates to next-gen fictional machers like Succession’s Kendall Roy, fan of the Savile cashmere-blend overcoat…

IN THEORY & PRACTICE TIP 1: LEARN THE LANGUAGE It’s not for nothing that Wonder Woman’s cuffs have powers. Ancient civilizations prized the jewels as protective talismans. The ’70s added a new layer of symbolism: liberation. TIP 2: IDENTIFY YOUR IDOLS Coco Chanel took apart the jewels she got from her lovers and asked Fulco di Verdura to do something with them. He made the Maltese cross cuff, and an icon was born. TIP 3: EXERCISE GRAND GESTURES There is no show of force quite like a matching set. Jackie and Coco wore their cuffs in pairs, as did ’70s Liza Minnelli (hers were Elsa Peretti). We suggest you follow suit.…

Getting to Juliette Binoche’s house feels a bit like walking into a fairy tale. Off an average Paris street, you head behind a nondescript building and across a cobblestone courtyard before going through a doorway and into an enchanted-looking garden with a winding path that leads to a freestanding stone house. Once inside, things are no less bewitching. Binoche greets me wearing sweatpants and a V-neck sweater, but she still has the magnetic pull (not to mention luminous skin and tight jawline) of a movie star. A wood-burning stove crackles, her cat Bacchus naps in front of it, and we sit at a low coffee table dotted with bowls of lychees, chocolate, madeleines, and a pot of herbal tea. It’s fitting to see the star—who has appeared in nearly 100…

In the powder room of my home you will find a litmus test of sorts. Mounted above the toilet, directly in the sightline of anyone entering, there are two felt collages by the artist Sam Sidney, one of Larry David and one of Leon Black, David’s unlikely housemate on his HBO show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, played by the actor J.B. Smoove. Now, if a guest says nothing, one can assume nothing—perhaps she despises Larry David’s brand of humor, or is unfamiliar with it, or even likes it but thinks it’s a little much that he lords it over our bathroom (fair). But if a guest emerges and proclaims that she too loves Larry and Leon, a few things can be banked upon. Among them, that this guest finds the following…

JOEL GREY When Joel Grey won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Cabaret, he beat James Caan, Al Pacino, and Robert Duvall—all nominated for The Godfather. “Those guys hated me,” Grey says now, but his win wasn’t a fluke. The part of the Emcee was Grey’s big break, and ever since he’s been a formidable presence onscreen, onstage, and behind the camera. He has also published four books of photography and a memoir. What’s left for the 91-year-old to achieve? “I won’t know until I wake up tomorrow,” he says. “Whatever it is will surprise me.” CONNIE BUTLER Hammer Museum chief curator headed east to lead MoMA PS1. TWYLA THARP At 82, premiered two new works at NYC’s Joyce Theater and revived a classic, Ocean’s Motion. NORMAN…

My first crush drove a sleek Chevy Camaro, but it was my 1976 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser that was my first true love. A gas guzzler during an oil crisis, but otherwise perfect, it symbolized freedom, whether I was cruising to the mall or driving to West Point for weekend cadet dances. That car meant a life beyond my small upstate town—just me and Tracy Chapman on the radio, the city lights laid out before us. When the transmission seized, I welled up as it was towed to the junkyard. Years later I was living with Anthony, my future husband, and he had a new 1992 Jeep Cherokee, navy blue with a tan interior. We’d drive every weekend to our house in Long Island and return to his garage in New…