Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2024 i Town & Country

On the night of November 5, some-where between 40 and 50 percent of you will begin a period in which your preferred president is out of a job. If you’re in that club, congratulations: It eventually includes everyone. The etiquette of living in dissent there-after, especially if it goes on for a long time, is another matter. In theory, we are supposed to learn how to be good losers as kids. Athletic leagues give out sportsmanship awards, and institutions like the Scouts try to coach their members toward grace in defeat. Both aim to teach us how to live on the outs, perhaps drawing upon the British public school attitude of let’s-all-pull-together-for-the--empire. (The out-of-power party in the UK is even known as“His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition.”) In the American ideal,…

It’s a Hollywood cliché that the people you make a film with become family. But for The Piano Lesson, an adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play that hits Netflix in November, it’ll be true. The Piano Lesson is the feature debut of director and screenwriter Malcolm Washington, but he didn’t do it alone. His brother John David plays Boy Willie; sister Olivia, fresh off the West End, plays Young Mama Ola; and sister Katia is an executive producer. (Not left out are mom Pauletta, who plays Mama Ola, and dad Denzel, a producer.) Bringing the story to the screen is an accomplishment, but showcasing this kind of next-gen talent is a showbiz-dynasty-flex ne plus ultra. GABRIEL SMITH Author Smith’s first book, Brat, was released in June and announced the…

GO WHERE THE SNOW IS… Long before the first ski lifts, winter sports enthusiasts like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Ernest Hemingway climbed Alpine slopes on their own power, then schussed down through valleys and villages, never skiing the same piste or staying in the same hut twice. From their exploits the modern ski safari was born. And it’s having a day. These three outfitters—snow cognoscenti and logistical wizards—craft custom itineraries with an eye to the best snow conditions, terrain, lodges, and lunches (and mugs of vin chaud). For all skill levels, and a no-crowd guarantee. SWISSKISAFARI Switzerland, France, Italy Founder Danielle Stynes nails the alpine trifecta, accompanying guests on most trips and always with a plan A, B, and C. A 10-day tour might include runs under the Matterhorn, a…

Here’s a secret. It’s not that cold up above the Arctic Circle—as long as you’re in Norway, where, thanks to the Gulf Stream, the temperature rarely dips below 14 degrees Fahrenheit (which is balmy compared to the frigid climes of Sweden and Finland).“It is the perfect winter country. We have amazing scenery, all this wilderness, a lot of snow, and a mild climate,” says Jan Sortland, who has been crafting #IYKYK itineraries in his homeland—and the rest of Scandinavia—for 40 years. Here’s how to do it. JAN@NORWEGIAN-ADVENTURES.COM IF YOU WANT TO CHASE POWDER The runs may not be as long as in the Alps, and the après scene isn’t as sexy as what you’d find in Gstaad, but if you’re a purist who is simply after pristine terrain, stunning nature,…

“It’s completely by accident that I ended up here,” says Diane von Furstenberg, perching on a bronze daybed in the piano nobile––the second floor of a palazzo, traditionally where Italian nobles live––of the Palazzo Brandolini, one of Venice’s most venerable buildings. Three generations of the patrician Brandolini family still occupy apartments within the sprawling 15th-century palace, which fronts the Grand Canal, but von Furstenberg has taken a long lease on the stupendous principal floor, where she plans to spend several months a year. Following a long renovation, she has just moved in. As we saw in the recent documentary Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge, there is little fashion’s fairy godmother emeritus hasn’t done in her 77 years. But in Venice she has found the makings for a glorious finale.…

Last May I received this text message: “I know it’s been a while. We’re approaching our final space flight with our current spaceship. I thought this could be a great time for you to see the experience we’d talked about!” I had met its sender, Aleanna Crane, head of communications for Virgin Galactic, several years prior. I read the text with some surprise. Space may be the final frontier of human knowledge, and space tourism the ultimate, rarest, and priciest of travel experiences, but for some time now there has been mucho talk and seemingly little action. Richard Branson, after all, first announced his venture nearly a quarter-century ago. Nearly 20 years later he was telling a reporter, “It would be embarrassing if someone went back over the last 13…

GABRIELLA CAMPAGNA & MARIO MILANA The former actress, 39, and her husband, 42, moved in 2022 from NYC, where she was born and he began his furniture design practice. Their home and studio is in Brera; the Famiglia sofa (below) is their first joint effort. @GABRIELLAMCAMPAGNA; @MMARIOMILANA SOFIA ZEVI The 35-year-old New Yorker came to Milan in 2020 and opened her namesake design gallery (above) in Brera, where she starts her days with coffee at Café Monet on Via Borgonuovo. Hot tip: “Gravati, the most beautiful shoe store that perfectly encapsulates Milan glamour.” @SOFIAZEVI SATOSHI KAWAMOTO The Tokyo-born plant artist, 50, came six years ago and opened his namesake store (open by appointment) near Porta Genova. He has worked for Valentino (below) and Prada, and has been featured in the…

“A short invite list meant that each guest truly reflected a significant part of our individually and as a couple,” says playwright and screenwriter Lila Feinberg, who married fashion executive Douglas Raicek this past summer in front of 70 friends and family members at La Mercerie in New York. “And it allowed for the focus to be on the joyous and sensory experiences of the night: the food, the cocktails, the conversation, the love.” Plus, were it not for the small scale, Feinberg wouldn’t have been able to plan her own wedding in just four weeks—and still succeed in creating the dinner party vibe she had always envisioned, complete with a jazz trio to set a “sexy Bemelmans” mood, meaningful toasts, and thoughtful touches like the poetry books given as…

1959 Eddie Fisher married Elizabeth Taylor only 3 hours after his divorce from Debbie Reynolds was finalized. 1966 Their union ended in ’68, but Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra remained friends until his death. 1985 Fourth time’s the charm? Joan Collins thought so when she married Swedish pop star Peter Holm. 2000 Marc Anthony jetted Dayanara Torres to Sin City to surprise her with a wedding. 2022 A Vegas ceremony seemed to seal the deal for Bennifer 2.0. Or so we hoped.…

With his all-American good looks, David Ellison could have been an actor. He did try for a while, dropping out of USC in the early aughts to make it in Hollywood. An onscreen career never took off, but he did ultimately make it big in this town—as a producer. Since founding Skydance Media in 2010, Ellison has put his stamp on series like Grace and Frankie and blockbuster movies like Top Gun: Maverick and the Mission: Impossible franchise. By 2021 his star was so ascendant—and his company so valuable—that a New York Times profile predicted, “Skydance could quickly become an acquisition target.” Turns out Ellison had greater ambitions. In July Skydance launched an $8 billion bid to take over Paramount. If the deal is finalized, it will effectively end the…

By day he hosts the Princess of Wales for royal visits. By night he walks red carpets in black tie with best friend Courtney Love, who calls him her soulmate and “family for life.” In the same breath he can give you the provenance of a Roman cameo glass amphora that dates back to the 1st century, and then tell you about his love of Mean Girls. Nicholas Cullinan is a modern Renaissance man, no doubt, but there is so much more to him. The art historian and curator was educated at London’s Courtauld Institute and went on to earn his blue-chip stripes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Tate Modern before stepping into the top job at London’s National Portrait Gallery in 2015. During his tenure he…

Sure, we can wax poetic on all of the impressive virtues of the new Maserati GranCabrio Folgore, the first allelectric convertible in its class. A canvas top that opens in 14 seconds. Those sumptuous interiors, made from the same quality recycled fabric Prada uses. The range of gorgeous colors (choose from 27, or make it bespoke like an OG). The 818 horsepower that propels it from 0 to 60 in 2.7 seconds, which also makes it the fastest electric convertible in the world right now (fitting, since folgore is Italian for lightning). And that signature Maserati engine roar, specially engineered—and delivered through a state-of-the-art sound system—to mimic the vroom of the Folgore’s gas-powered V6 sister, the Trofeo. But to really understand how a hulking piece of metal (a mix of…

We know that Edward VIII was a certified dandy, but perhaps he was even more of an OG fashion influencer than we think. When Emile-Maurice Hermès, the grandson of the founder of Hermès, began to work for the family business, one of his early tasks in 1918 was to outfit the Prince of Wales with a new golf jacket equipped with a zipper. At the time Hermès had exclusive rights to use the zipper for leather goods, and the prince was high-profile enough to deserve such a distinction. One might assume that from this interaction the prince took a liking to French fashion, and a recent discovery suggests that Hermès may have also left a sartorial imprint on the United Kingdom. A new version of the Constance bag—which was propelled…

A few years ago, when I was writing a novel about reckless young men in Venice, I stumbled upon a photo online that conjured the spirit of my characters. In it, a scruffy-haired twentysomething sits precariously on the edge of a palazzo rooftop, staring out over the city as if he owns the place. Later I discovered that the young man in that photo wasn’t a random backpacker but Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda, descendant of one of Venice’s most noble and socially well-connected families. The rooftop on which he’s perched is his family’s majestic 15th-century Gothic palazzo on the Grand Canal. By most definitions, the handsome young man in the photo really does own the place. This past summer, on a blisteringly hot morning, Marcantonio stands at the helm of his…

BECOME A “NXTGEN” ASTRONAUT A $600 registration fee signals your interest. You get: ▸ Access to the NXTGEN community. Others who want to go to space. ▸ Four master classes over Zoom. Taught by Virgin Galactic’s senior pilots and engineers—on, say, the latest in space flight technology. ▸ Select in-person visits. To the spaceport, the design and engineering offices in California, a launch. ▸ Priority access. To the next available space flight reservation—before they open to the world. BECOME A FUTURE ASTRONAUT You’ll need a firm booking; the current price is $600,000. Sales have been paused while the Delta ships are being built, but if you get to yes earlier, just say so. Becoming a future astronaut gets you: ▸ A firm spot on the list. Virgin Galactic is projecting…

Seven years before Prince William married Kate Middleton, another photogenic bride of modest breeding created the model of the very modern princess. It was the spring of 2004, and Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano was on the arm of the dashing Prince Felipe of Asturias, a member of the 750-year-old Bourbon dynasty and heir to the throne of Spain. By marrying Letizia, Felipe was putting to bed years of gossip and speculation. The tanned former Olympic yachtsman, who was 36, had been linked to a string of head-turners, including a Norwegian model, a Liechtensteiner princess, and American model turned socialite Gigi Howard. Like Kate Middleton, Letizia, then 31, was notable for being a“commoner,” the middle-class daughter of a journalist and a nurse. Unlike Kate, she was also divorced and established in her…

It would be impossible to dream the dreams we have of New York without the architecture of Rosario Candela. Candela’s apartment houses are the means by which we know the great residential neighborhoods of the Upper East Side and Sutton Place—the built environment by which they signify. His buildings are the crown jewels of Park and Fifth avenues. The Roaring Twenties, the era Candela dreamed and drew for, in reality spanned less than five years—until the crash of 1929 brought virtually all construction, luxury and otherwise, to a halt. But his buildings and their apartments have lived on for a century, and will certainly live another hundred years. In perpetuity, actually, or as long as steel clad in masonry can be made to last (a method of construction about which…

The Lowell, New York City Michael S. Smith, the Obamas’ White House decorator, refreshed the interiors of this Upper East Side gem. LOWELLHOTEL.COM Villa La Massa, Florence Marry like a Medici at this 13th-century property nestled on 25 beautiful acres just outside the city center. VILLALAMASSA.COM Domaine des Etangs, France This Auberge Resort in the country-side is a 2,500-acre playground with excellent food and wine. AUBERGERESORTS.COM The Point, Saranac Lake, NY Book all 11 rooms and turn this former Rockefeller Great Camp into your own Adirondacks retreat. THEPOINTRESORT.COM…

Back in April, at Coachella, an up-and-coming musician dressed in a glimmering red fairy costume cooed to the crowd, “My name is Chappell Roan. I’m your favorite artist’s favorite artist. And I’m your dream girl’s dream girl.” Like some mystical invocation, that phrase boomeranged around social media and kickstarted the ascent of a new musical phenomenon. Chappell Roan is the alter ego of Kayleigh Rose Am-stutz, a 26-year-old singer-songwriter raised in rural Missouri, a fact she alludes to in the title of her 2023 debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, a sleeper hit produced with the help of pop svengali Dan Nigro. Since then Roan has appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series, The Tonight Show, and at Gov Ball (dressed as Lady Liberty), Bonnaroo,…

An effusive performance review is always nice, but few of us have ever received one on the scale that the ballet dancer Chloe Misseldine did this summer—in front of 3,000 cheering people. After a matinee of the American Ballet Theatre’s Swan Lake at the Metropolitan Opera House, artistic director Susan Jaffe stepped out onstage and turned to her star: “So, Chloe Misseldine doesn’t know this yet, but as of this moment she’s just been promoted to principal dancer.” Later Jaffe said, “I felt no need to wait. The moment was right.” Misseldine, 22, is still processing the news. “It was the last thing I would have expected,” she says. Despite beginning ballet lessons before she started kindergarten and seeming to be 80 percent leg, Misseldine insists that she wasn’t a…

1. What was the eureka moment in the last two years when you realized what your Etro should be? Exactly one year ago, with the spring/summer 2024 show, I realized how I could resolve the conflict of feeling like an author and at the same time an interpreter of this brand: respecting its codes but transporting them into my own imagination. 2. How you doing that at a label so tied to one family? I must draw on my personal history to avoid feeling overwhelmed by a legacy of more than 50 years. Only by blending my journeys, my books, my sense of color and decoration with the history and archives of the maison can I achieve a new result. Within each collection I create, there are shortcuts, sometimes invisible but…

1959 3500 GT VIGNALE SPYDER The 3500 GT was Maserati’s first mass-produced sports car for road use. In 1959 came the convertible version, which the press called “a work of art in motion.” 1969 GHIBLI SPYDER If the 3500 GT was all ’50s, the Ghibli “was more audacious, reflecting the spirit of the ’60s, when there was so much change in fashion,” says Maserati’s Klaus Busse. Henry Ford II was a fan. 2001 4200 GT SPYDER In 1999 the company looked to revive its convertible production. Two years later the Maserati Spyder was born, with a powerful V8 engine and a top speed of 175 mph.…

Henry David Thoreau extolled the transcendent pleasures of a cabin in the woods in Concord, Massachusetts. But in Canada, he quipped, all he got “was a cold.” Marc Telio of Entrée Destinations specializes in helping travelers comfortably access his country’s most beautiful and remote places. “Think cabins in falling snow, snowshoes, dogsleds, snowmobiles, and roaring fires. It’s gorgeous.”Included in his itineraries: Wander the Resort in Ontario, two hours east of Toronto, has 10 two-bedroom cabins, a five-bedroom house, and a new 10,000-square-foot Nordic spa among the pines. Of the cabins sprinkled across the 700 acres of Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, in Alberta, the one to book is Outlook, which offers room service and has had royal occupants (Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip). A private plane delivers you to the log…

SPACE SCHOOL You spend three days before your flight at Spaceport America’s training center. Only future astronauts and training staff are permitted in the quiet oasis on the top floor. All prep takes place here, supplemented by G forces and weightlessness exposure in a small training plane—just you and a pilot. The goal: Building confidence and bonding—you’re about to do something dramatic together. FIRST STEPS You’re assigned a private “astronaut suite” and presented with your space suit (name, mission patch, country flag). You go over everything you’ll be taking to space (personal pocket items, intracabin communication devices, and so on) and are introduced to the seat trainer. ▸ The goal: To learn how to strap back in during microgravity with a rodeo strap, foot bar, and five-point harness. CABIN TRAINER…

Henry James went into ecstasies when he first saw Venice, when he peered up at the Duomo in Florence, when he gazed out on the Bay of Naples. The beauty overwhelmed him. He was the American author who taught a whole country “the luxury of loving Italy.” Still, there was one city this Italophile had no time for. “In its general aspect still lingers a northern reserve,” the young James sniffed in 1869 when he reached Milan. He walked through the Duomo and was only moderately impressed. He looked at Leonardo’s Last Supper and called it the“saddest work of art in the world.” And then, like too many Americans after him, he bailed for Lake Como. He was not about to hang around a city he called, with Jamesian understatement,…

There is a scene in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla that perfectly captures the allure of the Vegas wedding. Elvis Presley (played by Jacob Elordi) and his bride, Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny), are standing before a white cake under an arch of white flowers, when a camera flash immortalizes the moment. There are no other people in the room except a few cameramen (in real life, the king of rock ’n’ roll brought his whole entourage). Here, it’s only Elvis and Priscilla. At a time when weddings seem increasingly made for show (in addition to photographers and videographers, couples are now hiring content creators to document their festivities for social media), the no-fuss Sin City wedding has started to reemerge as the most genuine declaration of love. “Romantically, it worked, because it…