Town & Country October 2025

1959 CROWN PRINCE AKIHITO AND MICHIKO SHODA IN TOKYO “The love match,” as it was called in the press, between Crown Prince Akihito and commoner Michiko Shoda began at a tennis tournament in 1957. Eschewing the tradition of arranged royal marriages, the future emperor courted his bride with phone calls and doubles games. Henri Cartier-Bresson photographed the couple’s official public debut at the Tokyo Lawn Tennis Club, and the image ran in a portfolio in T&C’s April 1959 issue. Though the wedding was all carriages and jewels, reality didn’t live up to the fairy tale. Both the press and Akihito’s mother, the nobly born Empress Nagako, relentlessly criticized the newcomer, leading to a depressive episode that left Michiko mute for months. Later, her granddaughter Princess Mako suffered from PTSD during a…

There is a great story on townandcountrymag.com about the history of fabulous parties at the Waldorf Astoria. I looked it up when I visited the newly reopened hotel last week and again saw that grand, perfectly shaped space with those gorgeous silver-leafed balcony boxes. I had an excellent BLT at Lex Yard (the chef is Michael Anthony from Gramercy Tavern, and he knows from a ripe Union Square greenmarket tomato) and the reborn Waldorf salad. I’ll be back soon for drinks at Peacock Alley, and we are already conspiring on what dinner we can have in that private dining room they’re calling Track 61 in homage to the hotel’s famed secret entrances. (We’re also working on an update to the best private dining rooms in New York for our Snob’s…

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH VAN CLEEF & ARPELS There is, of course, the primary purpose of a timepiece: to mark the minutes and the hours in a day, to keep us on schedule, to alert us to a moment, to tell us when it has passed. But what if a watch not only told the time but expressed the possibilities of all that could happen within it? What if it could be a timepiece, a novel, a short film, an animated postcard, a meditation on the meaning of it all, all at once? From their debut almost 20 years ago in Switzerland, the timepieces of Van Cleef & Arpels’s Poetic Complications collection have defied expectations. To paraphrase one American dreamer: Some see watches as they are and ask, “Why?” Some dream…

WHERE ARE WE GOING? Neoclassicism began to take root in the mid-18th century as an antidote to the fantastical excesses of Rococo. Restraint and virtue were its hallmarks, which could have felt sanctimonious (and a bit boring) had it not been for Jacques-Louis David, who infused his paintings with life, verve, and a powerful dignity. For the first time since 1989, the Louvre has a landmark survey. OCTOBER 15–JANUARY 26, LOUVRE.FR WHAT ARE WE WEARING? Understanding evolving tastes—and turning them into art—is also a signature of Vacheron Constantin, which makes sense for a company founded during the Enlightenment (1755, to be exact). The house’s MO is apparent in this Historiques 222: The original, created in 1977, was a radical approach to the sports watch. Now it has been updated accordingly…

From the beginning, the River Cafe in London has been hard to get to and even harder to get into. It opened in 1987, in an old warehouse on a then forsaken stretch of the Thames, closer to Heathrow than to Hyde Park, it seemed. Ruthie Rogers and Rose Gray, two friends who were both amateur cooks, took the leap and opened a canteen—originally just to feed the staff of the architecture practice founded by Ruthie’s husband Richard Rogers, who had earned fame designing the Centre Pompidou in Paris with his Italian partner, Renzo Piano. Soon enough, word got out. “I am going to tell you about a restaurant run by two women with no professional experience, miles from anywhere, that you are not allowed to go to,” wrote an…

1 BOOK SUNDAY LUNCH The restaurant serves dinner six days a week and lunch seven. Sunday lunch is best, especially in warm weather on the terrace. 2 ASK FOR TABLE 4 The namesake of Rogers’s podcast is situated near the open kitchen. If it’s not available, anything with an oven view will do. 3 KNOW YOUR ORDER Sure, the menu changes daily, but you can never go wrong with a pizzetta (above) or wood-fired fish. A Chocolate Nemesis is required. 4 TAKE AWAY Leftovers aren’t likely, but do stop at the River Cafe’s store for linen napkins, glass bowls, cookbooks, or a bottle of the kicky house olive oil to use at home. 5 DON’T GAWK Will you see famous faces across the room? Maybe. But please refrain from playing…