Town & Country October 2017

OPEN DOOR POLICY 1975 Forty-two years ago T&C traveled to Iran to shoot a portfolio of prominent Iranian women for whom “the melding of classic and contemporary is a way of life.” Reading the story now feels like opening a time capsule from an ancient and slowly changing civilization. Too slowly, it turned out: That Iran ended dramatically with a revolution in 1978. Last year a much different Iran opened its doors, following the nuclear weapons treaty, only to slam them again a few months later, post–U.S. travel ban. A reminder for seeing a swiftly changing world: Whether it’s Havana, Damascus, or Tehran, go when you can.…

Soon after I moved back to New York, post-college, I lived in a building with a jewelry gallery on the ground floor. Primavera showcased an eclectic array, from pieces by the grand houses to one-of-a-kind design experiments by Alexander Calder and Ettore Sottsass. The owner, Audrey Friedman, knew things about jewelry I had never thought to ask of a bright and shiny object before. When was it made? What was happening in the world that made these materials available? What inspirationtriggering travel routes had opened up that year? Audrey taught me to ask those questions of every piece I had the privilege to look at, and she let me try them all on, too. I was in grad school then, so there was nothing in it for her. I wasn’t…

CYRILL MATTER In “LOOK UP!” (page 148), Matter photographs the magnificent and labyrinthine Paris apartment of Countess Isabelle d’Ornano, matriarch of the Sisley cosmetics brand. “It was almost like being in a novel,” he says of visiting the storied, art-filled residence. “Being able to dive in and have a glimpse of everything, I felt as though I was able to document my own interpretation of it.” MATTHEW BROOKES The New York– and London–based Brookes shot October’s “very funny and down-toearth” cover star, Claire Foy, for “AN AUDIENCE WITH THE QUEEN” (page 138). “She made everyone on set feel comfortable and included in the conversation,” says Brookes, whose work appears in numerous periodicals and books, including Les Danseurs (Damiani), a stunning collection of images of Paris Opera Ballet dancers. DAVID FREEDLANDER…

READ+FOLLOW NYC and Nantucket hostess Cathy Graham’s Instagram, @CATHYBGRAHAM, features drone videos of flower-filled tablescapes and delightful illustrations of style icons. Her new book (above) is equally surprising. POWER SEAT This season Japanese fashion designer Kenzo Takada reupholstered French furniture house Roche Bobois’s signature sectional in kimono-inspired fabrics. ROCHE BOBOIS CORNER CUSHION ($2,890), ROCHE-BOBOIS.COM RETRO WANDERLUST San Francisco’s Legion of Honor marks a century since Gustav Klimt’s death with an exhibit of his floral- and femalefocused paintings. WALL FLOWER I had a moment in midsummer— standing in the English countryside surrounded by 13 acres of foxgloves, poppies, roses, and lavender, wearing a Danielle Rollins floral ball skirt with Aquazzura shoes embroidered in a de Gournay palm and bougainvillea print—when I thought my love for the botanical had reached full bloom.…

One hundred years ago the ultimate symbols of corporate power wore varying styles of masonry. Neo- Gothic perhaps, as with New York’s Woolworth Building, or proto-Renaissance, like Detroit’s Book Tower. But they had one thing in common: height. Now we’re in a race to lower profiles as fast as carbon footprints, and the building everyone’s obsessing over is four stories tall. Apple’s new headquarters in Cupertino, California, conceived by Steve Jobs in 2008 and being completed right now to the design of architect Norman Foster, is a sleek and exquisite one-mile-in-circumference glazed donut enclosing a park. It’s too early to understand its interiors, but the talk, fed by reams of statistical firsts, has already begun about what it does and does not do as a design object. Construction cost: $5…

Martina Mondadori Sartogo’s childhood home in Milan was created by Renzo Mongiardino, the designer whose client roster (Radziwill, Rothschild, Agnelli, Niarchos) was often referred to as “a kidnapper’s wish list.” But although Mondadori Sartogo—who is T&C’s European editor at large— credits Mongiardino with inspiring her to launch Cabana, the interiors magazine she founded three years ago, she wasn’t always his biggest fan. “When I was a little girl I would tackle him with questions,” she says. “Why didn’t he make my room pink like my friends’? Why didn’t my living room have a single square inch of white?” Over time she learned to appreciate his philosophy. Mongiardino treated every room (even kitchens and bathrooms) like a stage set, from the way he drew inspiration from faraway places like Persia and…