Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2016 i Town & Country

1976 LAVIE EN ROSE “We’re Dancing Again,” T&C reported in March 1976. To accommodate the craze, New York City granted 45 cabaret licenses that year, one of them to Doubles, a members club–slash– discotheque–slash–rolling backgammon tournament. The club, which turned 40 in May—an eternity in a business where success is measured in dog years— has lately become a favorite among uptown tweens, who congregate there for private school mixers.…

When it came time for Claire Distenfeld, the owner of the boutique Fivestory in Manhattan, to plan her March nuptials to Michael Olshan (who works in finance), she had decades’ worth of inspiration to fit into a weekend’s worth of parties. Jetset emblems of the 1960s—boîtes like El Morocco and the Stork Club, legendary artist Tony Duquette’s colorful home, the photographs of longtime T&C contributor Slim Aarons—were used to recreate the glamour of that era, set against the understatedly chic backdrop of Palm Springs. “She’s a very visually astute person, with such confidence in her style,” says wedding planner and designer David Stark. Together they found malachite tablecloths, de Gournay monkey print wallpaper, and a band to play Sam Cooke classics for the threeday celebration, which included a rehearsal dinner…

On a night in February, at the Susan Roberts theater in Philadelphia, a rapt audience watched the actress, playwright, NYU professor, and National Humanities Medal awardee Anna Deavere Smith morph into a dozen characters ranging from a former teen convict to a Stanford University psychiatrist. She was performing excerpts from Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, the latest installment in her play cycle “On the Road: A Search for American Character,” which includes 1991’s Fires in the Mirror, her examination of the racial strife between blacks and orthodox Jews in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Playing multiple parts herself has become a signature of Smith’s astounding repertoire, but in this new work she has focused on what some have called the civil rights issue of the 21st century: the school-to-prison…

Every summer gets the accessory it deserves. (Case in point: the 2015 craze over Vita Kin’s embroidered Vyshyvanka dresses.) This year, look higher. Rebecca de Ravenel’s Les Bonbons earrings have appeared on Hayley Bloomingdale, Vanessa Traina, and Lynn Wyatt. The daughter of the Lyford Cay–based marquis and marquise de Ravenel designed the hollow dégradé spheres to be deceptively lightweight. Each pair is embroidered in India and then wrapped in silk or lurex cord or hand-beaded in one of 30 color variations. Like their sweet namesakes, they’re better consumed more than one at a time. Family STYLE Two Italian sisters redefine alfresco dining for the rest of us. It takes willpower to tear one’s gaze away from the view of the Mediterranean during dinner at Le Sirenuse, the famed Positano hotel.…

Ask any actress or social media star her number one beauty secret and chances are it will be that she drinks tons of water—oceanfuls, she swears! But the truth must be told: A few liters of Fiji do not lead to perfectly hydrated skin. “Unless you’re trekking through the Sahara and are severely dehydrated, it’s bogus,” says Washington, DC, dermatologist Tina Alster. She prefers topical moisturizers to counteract dehydration, which can happen to any skin type (even oily) thanks to aggressive air conditioning, alcohol, and even washing with piping-hot water. But a product doesn’t have to have the texture of tar to be effective. Case in point: the new crop of featherlight mists, essences, and serums that employ moisture-retaining ingredients such as algae and ceramides— summer’s version of a single-ply…

“You can still find me in the breakfast room. Same chair. That’s where I get all the gossip.” —Ruth Buchanan, age 98 “My father didn’t tell my mother when he purchased the house. We were driving to Newport and stopped at Howard Johnson’s. Daddy looked at me and said, ‘Don’t say anything, but let me show you what I just bought.’ It was a flier for Beaulieu, and it looked like a wreck. My parents were the only young couple in Newport, except for the Drexels. They started bringing ambassadors from Washington and prominent people, and all of a sudden the town really had a life. Today you go to Bailey’s Beach and there are so many children. It’s gratifying to know that Newport has a long history in front…

JANE MOSELEY When I first met Jane Moseley she was almost five, and she, her mother Lisa (my girlfriend then, wife now), and I were going for a hike in L.A.’s Griffith Park. Jane was a towhead then, wearing a little sundress and high-tops. Already a determined person, she would put her foot on a rock, grab a branch, and pull herself up a hill with surprisingly tensile, skinny little arms. “Look at that bird, Jane. It’s a hawk,” Lisa said. Immediately Jane crouched down low to the ground and, looking up, said, “I am a bird. I am a hawk.” Michael Lindsay-Hogg (in Paris): Jane, you’re 29 and suddenly having a career as a model. [Moseley walked in the fall/winter 2016 Balenciaga show in Paris.] How? Why? Jane Moseley (in…

How guilty are your guilty pleasures? And should the beach read—a novel that keeps you glued to a chaise longue despite sun and spray—always be on the list? Not if you’ve chosen wisely. For example, all of the books pictured above— The Sport of Kings, C.E. Morgan’s harrowing look at the Kentucky racing scene; Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld’s smartly imagined paean to Pride and Prejudice; The Girls, Emma Cline’s oddly seductive portrait of a cult; and Kemper Donovan’s mysterious romance, The Decent Proposal—feature finely drawn characters, compelling prose, and riveting (okay, juicy) plots. We suggest pairing with a club sandwich and an exquisitely lazy afternoon.…

“I don’t do official family stuff if I can help it,” says Zara Phillips, Queen Elizabeth II’s oldest granddaughter, who is known more for her prowess in the saddle than for ceremonial ribbon cuttings. In the last decade the onetime “wild child” daughter of Princess Anne has tamed her public persona, declined most of the tedious obligations that define the lives of her relatives in the House of Windsor, and literally emerged an Olympian. She was the eventing world champion until 2010, she won silver at the World Equestrian Games in 2014, and she has qualified for three Olympiads: Beijing in 2008, London in 2012, and now Rio. Although the queen, who recently celebrated her 90th birthday, remains one of her greatest supporters (“a typical grandmother,” Phillips says), these days…

Her Imperial Majesty Farah Pahlavi, Empress of Iran, is sitting in her living room in Potomac, Maryland. Behind her is a portrait of a young woman wearing a crown of rubies and emeralds, and a guestbook with notes by Jimmy Carter and King Hussein. She’s telling a story about how she died recently—for the third time. “They said I had a heart attack in L.A.,” the 77-year-old Pahlavi says. “Apparently my body was sent to Egypt to be mummified.” “They” refers to the ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who in 1977 overthrew the government led by Pahlavi’s husband, the shah of Iran. Pahlavi believes that the ayatollahs circulate rumors of her death to lure into the open—and punish—Iranians who might be tempted to mourn her passing. She hasn’t…

Aspen has long been prized for its natural beauty, bountiful black diamonds, and cultural outlets that rival those of cities many times its size. Does that explain the hot real estate market for outsize primary residences? Perhaps it’s connected to the recent expansion of the Aspen Art Museum (design by Shigeru Ban; free admission courtesy Amy and John Phelan) or the renovation of Theatre Aspen (at the hands of former Goldman Sachs VP Bob Hurst). Or is it simply that the one percent is addicted to Colorado’s 4.6 percent flat personal income tax rate? (Manhattan’s is 12.7 percent, L.A.’s 13.3 percent.) “Surely taxes have something to do with it in some cases,” concedes local real estate broker Susan Guggenheim Lodge. And while the migration may not be as palpable as…

One morning I rose from bed and was slammed with a level of nausea I had experienced only once before: the time I joined my son on the Gravitron ride at a country fair. But I had only been sleeping, not airborne in a metal saucer. I arrived at the emergency room at New Milford Hospital in Connecticut convinced I was having a stroke until the resident there asked me, “Is there any chance you have Lyme? Sometimes it causes vertigo.” I had Lyme all right, and I was lucky to have landed in the care of a physician who was switched on to the many fickle faces of a disease that seems to have co-opted our headspace and, sadly, our summers. Button up, everyone. Just when we want to…

FOR MORE THINGS TO DO, GO TO TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM ARTS & CULTURE Through August 21 Bill Cunningham His photos of the historic 1973 “Battle of Versailles” fashion show are on view at SCAD FASH in Atlanta. Through August 27 Gagosian San Francisco The new space opens with an exhibit comparing artists’ 2D and 3D works. Go see the usual suspects: Lichtenstein, Twombly, et al. Through August 14 Van Cleef & Arpels Four hundred jewels will be displayed at the ArtScience museum in Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Don’t miss the rooftop infinity pool while you’re there. Ongoing Dior in London The maison’s new megaboutique in Mayfair now carries the brand’s very first—and very posh—home collection. August 3–5 ArtCrush The Aspen Art Museum’s fundraiser includes an auction, a dance party, and dinner.…

The choker, that simple strand worn tight around the neck, is not a recent invention—see Mary Queen of Scots, Anne Boleyn, and Marie Antoinette. (The fate of their chokers post-beheadings remains unclear.) The regal necklace has been revived on runways including Lanvin and Ralph Lauren, as well as on a global stage, at the unofficial debut of President Obama’s daughters, when Sasha met Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau while wearing a black ribbon choker. Jewelers have responded to the style’s return with a modern take: wires of precious metal that can be worn alone or with a charm dangling from the center, sitting in the sweet spot of a woman’s neck. The English Patient taught us all about the suprasternal notch. Anne Boleyn had one of those once too. Hard…

FOR ADDITIONAL READINGS BY KATHARINE MERLIN, GO TO TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM LEO JULY 23–AUGUST 23 Bill Clinton Even though you were born under a “fixed” sign, the key to negotiating the changeable conditions you’ll encounter this August is flexibility. Your plans and vision will be subject to unanticipated challenges, but though others may be resistant and critical, you’ll ultimately be able to achieve your ends if you don’t allow your pride to get in the way. The best aspects of the month occur near the 27th, when financially the picture promises to brighten. VIRGO AUGUST 24–SEPTEMBER 23 Sean Connery You’re likely to feel an increasing desire to hide out this month, and there do seem to be some personal issues you’d be well advised to circumvent near the 13th and 24th. On…

IT’S EVIDENT IN EVERYTHING FROM A CONGRESSMAN SHOUTING DOWN THE PRESIDENT DURING A SPEECH TO SAMUEL L. JACKSON’S TWITTER DISSING OF A.O. SCOTT The realization that civilization was ending hit me at a Greek diner one weekday a few years ago when I was having lunch with my then assistant. A brilliant MFA student at Columbia, he was embarrassingly overqualified for the dreary filing and printing I needed done, and I suppose it was out of some obscure sense of guilt that I took him to lunch every week, ostensibly to talk about the coming week’s tasks. Still, I was paying him, which to my mind meant that he owed me some kind of deference—an expectation that, like so many expectations of civil behavior in recent years, was bound to…

One afternoon last August I was driving from Rome to Venice with my wife when the phone rang. “Take the next exit,” said Mark Getty, the cofounder of Getty Images, the world’s top photography agency, and one of many heirs to the Getty oil fortune. “I have tickets to the Palio.” I looked at my wife. We had no urgent business in Venice. The Palio, on the other hand, guarantees 75 seconds of pure adrenaline as 10 reckless jockeys riding bareback chase one another three times around Siena’s Piazza del Campo, the most beautiful medieval square in the world. And the race is only part of it. An hour later we were pushing our way down the Banchi di Sopra, one of Siena’s narrow, bustling streets, for a traditional pre-Palio…

It’s all, “I have interesting houseguests like the Clintons, David Adjaye, and Warren Buffett, and we’re whipping up pizzas in our outdoor pizza oven.” —HOLLY PETERSON When Jonathan Adler was an undergraduate at Brown in the 1980s, he started going to the Hamptons to stay with friends. “It felt like a secret,” says the owner of the home decor stores that bear his name. “The only thing there was the Barefoot Contessa.” Much has changed. “This idea of the Hamptons as a party place was a bizarre development.” Now Adler and his husband Simon Doonan own a place in the relatively remote confines of Shelter Island, where entertaining is done almost exclusively at home. “We go to people’s houses or have people over,” he says. “It’s unimaginable to go out.”…