Town Amp Country USA - May 2021

M AY 2 0 2 1
LE
RS
The Invincible E
A
ND E
A RY Y
SELMA BLAIR
MIRACLE GURU
Directory
BESPOKE BEEF
Is Coming
(But will it pair with Bordeaux?)
The Tap Back

SCANDAL
Your Workout
Just Got Canceled
Our Secret Plan

For Your
GREEK SUMMER
REVENGE
GLAMOUR
Armor for Social Reentry
CHOPARD BOUTIQUES
NEW YORK 709 Madison Avenue – MIAMI Bal Harbour Shops
COSTA MESA South Coast Plaza – LAS VEGAS Wynn Hotel & Resort
1-800-CHOPARD www.chopard.com
T&C H I S T O R Y
2021
THE ONE THAT COULD
H AV E B E E N
T&C ’s April issue was dedicated to
celebrations, and, fittingly, we
commissioned Ruben Toledo to
create an illustration for the cover.
His depiction of an effervescent
dinner party captured the right spirit,
but this painting of a maypole dance
was too beautiful to leave unpublished.
“It’s a rite of spring, a ceremony of
fertility and renaissance. What’s not
to love?” says the Cuban-born artist,
RUBEN TOLEDO
who credits his late wife, fashion

designer Isabel Toledo, with teaching
him to dance. “To move to music is
good for the soul and body.”
TOW N A ND C OU N TRYM AG . CO M | MAY 2 02 1 11

C ONTE NT S /M AY
E S TA B L I S H E D 1 8 4 6
F E AT U R E S
54 THE INVINCIBLE EDITOR’S LETTER . . . . . . . . . . 16 92 HOUSE RULES
WOMAN #VERYT&C . . . . . . . . . . . 20 A classics scholar on
STARS & SIGNS . . . . . . . . . . 94
Selma Blair is one of INVALUABLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 the modern art of
her generation’s most multitasking.
acclaimed perform- BY DANIEL MENDELSOHN
ers. Today she’s also
an advocate, and it might just be the
greatest role of her life. BY KEAH BROWN
62 IT’S ACTUALLY
QUITE SIMPLE
The most perfect basics Savvy travelers have
are the ones made just started booking trips
for you. Haute couture again (page 34).
A sturdy handbag
isn’t only feathers, will be an invaluable
sequins, and ornate ball gowns. companion.
BY BRIDGET FOLEY LORO PIANA SESIA
HANDBAG ($4,725),
LOROPIANA.COM
70 FAKE STEAK,
WELL DONE
Will we eat filet
mignon from a bio-
reactor? BY PAUL TULLIS
74 WAKE UP AND
SMELL THE IRISES
The colors and aromas
of an Olmsted Jr. garden
stand the test of time.
BY LYNN YAEGER
80 TRAINS OF
THOUGHT
How do you
make The
Underground
Railroad into the year’s most
anticipated television series?
BY HUNTER HARRIS
84 TURN THE
OTHER CHEEK
A flush of joy, of passion,
of excitement—of life!
Why blush suddenly feels
so right. BY LINDA WELLS
88 WHAT A WILD
RIDE IT’S BEEN
How do you get fans
of a high-octane spin-
ALLIE HOLLOWAY
ning class back on the

bike? BY ABBY ELLIN
12 M AY 20 21 | TOW NAN D C OU NT RYMAG . COM

C ONTE NT S /M AY
E S TA B L I S H E D 1 8 4 6
D E PA R T M E N T S
SO CIAL NET WORK
23 CAREFUL NOT
TO FAINT
A plan for the carnival
of sensations waiting
outside our doors:
Look, marvel, swoon.
O UT & AB OU T
29 TELEVISION
In the new series Halston,
Krysta Rodriguez gets inside
Liza Minnelli’s life and lashes.
30 ART
With a classically inspired
new exhibit, Damian Loeb
is set to become Silicon
Valley’s artistic north star.
31 REAL ESTATE Who doesn’t need a little

bloom on their cheeks this
Leave the mansions to the Clam- time of year?
petts. L.A.’s hottest new homes are CHANTECAILLE FLOWER POWER
PERFECT BLUR FINISHING POWDER
all apartments—really. ($84 EACH) AND FLOWER
POWER CHEEK SHADE ($50),
CHANTECAILLE.COM
32 FOOD
What do we really
mean by “power
lunch”?
34 TRAVEL
Restrictions are still in place, but LO OK ING GL ASS
that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be 43 THE COMEBACK
planning—everyone else is. COACHES
We all need
35 CULTURE re-tuning—
How magic shows became the must- emotionally, physi-
see entertainment of the year. cally, spiritually. These are the gurus
36 WINE
A French village that pro- 52 PERFUME
duces delicious, nuanced, The last year awakened us
and (gasp!) affordable to the mood-boosting
white wine. power of smell.
ST YLE SPY
38 LESS IS MORE
ON OUR COVER:
If fashion brands, celebrities, and SELMA BLAIR, PHOTOGRAPHED BY ALEXI
the world’s most famous royals LUBOMIRSKI. STYLED BY ELIZABETH STEWART.
PRABAL GURUNG TOP; IRENE NEUWIRTH
EARRINGS; DAVID WEBB RING. TRY ESTEE
bowed out too? LAUDER DOUBLE WEAR STAY-IN-PLACE EYE
PENCIL IN SAPPHIRE AND SUMPTUOUS REBEL
ALLIE HOLLOWAY
MASCARA IN BLACK, ESTEELAUDER.COM. HAIR BY CHRIS MCMILLAN

40 FASHION FILE FOR SOLO ARTISTS/DRUNK ELEPHANT. MAKEUP BY RACHEL GOODWIN
FOR MAKEUP FOREVER AT A-FRAME AGENCY. NAILS BY TOM BACHIK AT
A-FRAME AGENCY. SET DESIGN BY GILL MILLS AT 11TH HOUSE AGENCY.
Happy Diamonds. PRODUCTION BY VIEWFINDERS LA. SHOT AT MILK STUDIOS.
14
EDITOR’ S L ET TER
After 17 years at the helm of Departures (he was
my boss for nine of them), Richard David Story
brought his unquenchable thirst for adventure to
T&C. The highlights: checking into an alpine retreat
favored by world leaders (right) and convincing
me to join him on safari in South Africa (below).
N E I L S O N B A R N A R D / G E T T Y I M A G E S / D E P A R T U R E S ( S T O R Y ) ; A L E X I L U B O M I R S K I ( B L A I R ) ; J A M E S W O J C I K ( S T I L L L I F E ) ; H O R S T P. H O R S T / C O N D E N A S T / G E T T Y I M A G E S ( P E R E T T I ) ; G E T T Y I M A G E S ( P A G E ) ; J O E D A R R O W ( K I S S I N G E R )
The Things They
TAUGHT Me
ne morning, in Departures magazine’s old offices at the Hippo-
O drome on Sixth Avenue, my beloved boss and mentor Richard

David Story sat down in my cubicle. He did that often, and I loved
hearing about where he had been the night before, what he had seen and
whom he had talked to. Sometimes in those conversations an enduring
obsession would be born. He sat in that chair and told me about his first
meal at Il Posto Accanto, his first stay with the Sersales in Positano, his
first lunch with Lee Radziwill.
This particular time it was his first day back in the office after an acci-
dent had kept him out for a period. He was in great spirits, but he wanted
to ask me something: Would I promise to read the introductory para-
graph of our Milan Fashion Week Diary out loud at his funeral? I reread
it today. It’s a chronicle of our first day on that trip, and it included men-
tions of the clothing on the runways but also gamberi at Da Giacomo and
prosecco at the Principe. It mentioned old and new friends and curious “I always think people give me compliments
characters, and recounted rushed visits to Peck to pick up marinated arti- for what I was, not for what I am now.
chokes and fresh parmesan and a trip to Max Bernardini’s treasure trove Now I am Tiffany,” Elsa Peretti told T&C in
2016. The late designer leaves a legacy of
of vintage watches, as well as identical twin security guards we kept con- revolutionary collections: Scorpion, Bean,
fusing at Dolce & Gabbana. the Bone cuff… The list goes on.
Cover star Selma Blair sent us a few I always wondered why he would want this to be read, but as I look
vintage T&C covers for inspiration,
including January 1969, featuring
at all the tributes to Richard, who died suddenly on March 5, I see that more than a few mentioned the sig-
Catherine Gogois. nature qualities reflected in that one day in Milan. If life is a banquet, as someone said in one of his favorite
movies, Richard’s mind and spirit were a feast, one he shared with so many, including his readers at Vogue
and Departures, and also as a contributing editor here at T&C. He believed, and knew, that there could be a
story anywhere—as long, of course, as there was a headline. “If you don’t have a good headline, you probably
don’t have a story” was one of the many, many things he taught me. If you see any of his joy, and curiosity,
and belief in fascinating people and beautiful places and magazines on any page of T&C, well, that would
be my proudest and happiest achievement.
Like RDS, another hero, Elsa Peretti, who died at age 80 on March 18, adhered
to a philosophy of eyes-wide-open. She found inspiration for her Bottle pendant in
young girls in Portofino carrying gardenias, and for her Bone cuff in the relics of
monks in a 17th-century church. She also never wavered from her signature point of
view. Could that be the reason her designs remain some of the most covetable of all?
Looking for stories and inspiration far and wide is one of the most important things
an editor can do for her readers, but sometimes we need our readers to remind us to
take a look at ourselves. When we invited the inspiring and invincible Selma Blair to be
on our May cover, she divulged a lifelong affection for T&C and sent us some vintage
covers she hoped we might use for inspiration. Here’s one, and here we are, finally able
to go out and see the world, and each other, a STELLENEVOLANDES @HEARST.COM
little. I hope we all remember to look around. @THEREALSTELLENE @STELLENEVOLANDES

| | | | |
T&C
STELLENE VOLANDES
Editor in Chief
DANIELLE STEIN CHIZZIK ERIN HOBDAY

Deputy Editor Executive Managing Editor
KLARA GLOWCZEWSKA NORMAN VANAMEE KRISTIN FITZPATRICK

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Beauty Director Digital News Director
Chief Visual Content Director, Hearst Magazines ALIX CAMPBELL
BRIDGET FOLEY LINDA WELLS
Writer, “It’s Actually Quite Visual Director DARRICK HARRIS Writer, “Turn the Other
Simple,” page 62 Executive Director, Editorial Business Development JOYANN KING Cheek,” page 84
Visual Editor NELIDA MORTENSEN
NEW WEEKNIGHT ROUTINE? Senior Fashion Editor MARYKATE BOYLAN Senior Digital Editor ROXANNE ADAMIYATT GOING ABROAD? I can’t wait
BRYAN BEDDER/GET T Y IMAGES (FOLEY); YANNIS VL AMOS/COURTESY DRIES VAN NOTEN (RUNWAY); HARRY HOW/GET TY IMAGES (ROSE BOWL); CARTER SMITH (WELLS); GET TY IMAGES (CAPRI);
Eating indoors (with friends Style & Interiors Writer OLIVIA HOSKEN to go back to Capri for a
who haven’t embraced swim in the Green Grotto
Assistant Managing Editor ASHLEIGH MACDONALD-BENNETT Credits Editor CAITLIN MULLEN
gritty sidewalk dining) at followed by lunch at Conca
my favorite neighborhood Associate Editor LEENA KIM Assistant Editor LUCIA TONELLI
del Sogno. I want to hear
restaurant, Tre Otto, where Fashion Assistant CASSANDRA HOGAN other languages. I want to
the amazing Biljana takes be in a crowded room with
such good care of everyone. Assistant to the Editor in Chief LAUREN TAPPAN people laughing and singing.
Wine Critic JAY MCINERNEY Editor at Large VICKY WARD

European Editor at Large MARTINA MONDADORI SARTOGO
KORNIENKO ALEXANDR/EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES (POLISH); CHRISTOPHE BRACHET/FTV/MON VOISIN PRODUCTIONS/MOTHER PRODUCTIONS (CALL MY AGENT!)
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Designer ARIANNA CANELON
Digital Imaging Specialist KEVIN ARNOLD
READY TO WEAR? Real clothes!

Copy Chief JAMES LOCHART
Especially the glorious PRIMPING PLANS?
spring 2020 Dries Van Noten Research Chief LINDA A. CROWLEY
Associate Research Editor KAREN LUBECK
A manicure and pedicure
floral sequined coat that I from my friend Josephine
bought just before lockdown. Allen and a blowout from
DRIESVANNOTEN.COM PR Manager KYRA TAYLOR Sam at the Samuel Shriqui
Salon in New York. It
Editorial Business Director CAROL LUZ Editorial Business Manager KATE REMULLA was my Tuesday morning
routine before the pandemic.
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SPENCER BAILEY (Architecture & Design), LEA CARPENTER, ANNE CHRISTENSEN,
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CORNELIA GUEST, AMANDA R. HEARST, GILLIAN HEARST, ALEX HITZ, ELIZABETH HOLMES, NETFLIX INSPIRATION?
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PRINCESS MARIE-CHANTAL OF GREECE, ANNE HEARST MCINERNEY, DEBRA MESSING My Agent!, I’m longing to
(Jewelry), BROOKE GARBER NEIDICH, DAVID NETTO, JILL NEWMAN (Jewelry & Watches), walk around Paris. I know
SUMMER TRIPS? Visiting my
RUTH REICHL, ALEXANDRA RICHARDS, JAMIE ROSEN (Beauty), OLIVIER SAILLARD, it’s not original, but I’m
daughter Grainne in L.A. yearning for that beauty.
We’ll hit the Rose Bowl Flea DIANORA SALVIATI, RICHARD DAVID STORY, LIZZIE TISCH, MATT VISER
Market and overindulge in
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# V E R Y T&C
WRITE
This Down
W H AT’S # V E RY TA N D C H E R E ?
The history: From woodworkers to
Broadway legends, artists to Pulitzer
Prize winners, one indispensable tool
unites them all: a pencil known as
the Blackwing 602. Created in the
1930s by Eberhard Faber, this writing
instrument, characterized by its
unique ferrule design and rectangu-
lar eraser, is famous for its smooth-
as-silk graphite. “The calligraphy pen
of pencils,” according to T&C
contributor Will Kahn. “It turns note
taking into an artistic experience.”
The fans: John Steinbeck, Stephen

Sondheim, Truman Capote, Leonard
Bernstein, Quincy Jones.
The news: In 1998 Blackwings were

discontinued, which created a
frenzy; Sondheim allegedly bought
a lifetime supply. In 2010 the 602
returned, along with new styles
(pictured). Today, at a time of stillness
DIAN CHEN/BLACKWING (PENCILS)
and creativity, they’re essential—for

finally making plans again. Leena Kim
BLACKWING PENCILS ($25 FOR SET OF 12),
BLACKWING602.COM

REVERSO
DUETTO
J a eg e r- Le Co u l tre B o ut i q u es
New Yor k – L as Ve g a s – So ut h Co a st Pl a za – B ever ly Hill s – Toronto
asprey.com the daisy heritage collection
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S T E N D H A L S Y N D R O M E 2 0 2 1 / B E A U T Y O V E R D O S E P R E V E N T I O N / N E X T S T O P, P A R A D I S E
A man once suffered a heart

attack at the Uffizi Gallery
in Florence while looking at
Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus,
still breathtaking 600 years on.
Careful Not to FAINT

FRANCO ORIGLIA/GETTY IMAGES
ately, with spring upon us, I’ve taken We’ve all been desperate of Art, and it’s filled with vibrant, fantasti-
L to holding a heavy art book as I walk

around my San Francisco apartment,
tucking it beneath my arm like a fine treasure.
to see beauty up close.
Will we be prepared for
cal images so life-giving that I often find I’m
staring at the gilded feathers and painted silk
jacquards with my nose all but touching the
Savage Beauty is a collection of photos from the swoon when it finally page. The colors! The textures! The complex-
the fashion designer Alexander McQueen’s happens? BY R.O. KWON ity! I half want to eat the pages, just to have
2011 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum the photos that much closer to me.

THE S O CIAL NETWORK
THE AESTHETE’S DIET

The last time I saw a lot of these designs, Science tells us that looking at beautiful things is a form of self-care.
I was at the Met, pushed and crowded by
Can it also be making us more beautiful? BY FIORELLA VALDESOLO
strangers, dazed by the extravagance before
T
me. Although I haven’t been inside a museum he ubiquitous Calgon commercials from only mental well-being but also sleep and diges-
since last February, it’s now possible that the 1980s all followed the same formula: tion, and accelerate the aging process of the skin.
before long a lot of people will be able to do Exasperated woman rattles off her woes While lowering cortisol is key for curbing waves
(The boss! The baby!) before crying out, “Calgon, (or, when it comes to this past year, tsunamis)
things like go to exhibitions again, and I won-
take me away!” and being immediately transported of anxiety, it’s also essential for diminishing the
der if the physical world and its glories will to the blissful solitude of a bubbly bathtub. Over the damaging impact of stress on the skin, a precursor
at first be too much for some of us—if, more course of this past year, my version of that Calgon to inflammation and a slew of conditions like acne
specifically, we’ll be bodily overwhelmed by bath wasn’t a bath at all but looking at art; scrolling and eczema.
through a museum’s neatly archived Since physical trips to a museum posed a
online collections teleported me to a challenge this year, many institutions pivoted to
similarly euphoric place. The soothing amplifying their digital accessibility—and it turns
palettes of Etel Adnan; Jacqueline out you don’t need to be in the same room as an
Marval’s pastoral scenes of women artwork to feel its power. Coming together and
lounging around in beautiful frocks; sharing the experience of art (even an action as
Edward Hopper’s lovely depictions of simple as posting a picture on Instagram) has,
solitude; and countless images of New Ramos says, the power to make us feel comforted,
York—especially photos chronicling its stronger, and more connected. It can also be a
nightlife and street life by Meryl Meisler catalyst for critical thinking. At the Art Institute of
and Robert Herman—to remind me of Chicago, Ramos leads civic wellness workshops for
my home’s pre-pandemic spirit. medical students and professionals. “Artwork is a
That looking came before language, starting point for conversations about power, race,
a point art critic John Berger estab- and empathy,” he adds.
lished in the first lines of 1972’s Ways Another point Berger makes in his landmark
of Seeing, is an indication perhaps of book is that art is relational: The perspective every-
its far-reaching power. “If you look at one brings to the viewing of a piece influences indi-
something for a long period of time and vidual reactions to it. Beautiful art, and beauty too,
try to understand it, you get a deeper for that matter, is subjective; a painting you may
pleasure,” says Ellen Winner, professor find beautiful doesn’t necessarily have a universal
emerita of psychology at Boston College appeal. “What art can do is make us aware of the
and author of How Art Works. She beauty that exists elsewhere,” Ramos says.
often has her students engage in “slow Both physically and psychologically. “Beautiful
looking” exercises, spending up to an art makes you step away from yourself and this
hour with a particular work, which is a everyday world so you can think bigger,” says
challenge in this age of speed-scrolling. Dina Schapiro, assistant chair and director of the
But even a few moments of looking graduate creative arts therapy program at the Pratt
has benefits. “Slowing down to con- Institute. It also allows you the space to dream,
template a piece of artwork can provide a feeling you get even when the thing of beauty
solace and balance, something sorely you’re gazing at is an actual beauty product:
lacking for many of us, even in normal Hermès’s lacquered, color-block lipsticks, Byredo’s
times,” says Sam Ramos, associate rainbow of shiny, platinum-encased Colour Sticks,
director of innovation and creativity at or an exquisite handblown bottle of Perfumer H’s
BSDG 2021 © SARAH ANNE JOHNSON/COURTESY YOSSI MILO GALLERY NEW YORK
the Art Institute of Chicago. That act concoctions always manage to transport me to a
of looking is also an act of destressing. happy place.
And for those who have struggled to In looking back at the images I saved this year,
connect with the mindfulness methods I noticed that one shape kept recurring: the circle.
extolled by wellness gurus, art can serve There it was in paintings by Jordan Belson and
as its own form of meditation. “Rather Hilma af Klint, Alma Thomas and Carla Prina. “We
than just being a distraction from what’s collectively relate to circles, and they’re the first
happening, you find yourself being 100 shapes we see when we come into the world,”
Sarah Anne Johnson’s work, exhibited recently at
percent present,” says Marie Clapot, an associate Schapiro says of their appeal. Agnes Pelton,
NYC’s Yossi Milo Gallery, recalls Belize’s description of
heaven in Angels in America: “Overgrown with weeds, educator at the Met. “Looking at art is very much a another artist whose circles I kept returning to, was
but flowering weeds.” self-care tool.” Doctors in Canada in 2018 were so intentional in her use of them. In her mystical paint-
convinced of art’s serotonin-boosting abilities that ings they conveyed calm radiance at the center of
the beauty and joy of it, perhaps even to the they began to hand out prescriptions for museum a storm. Consider the magnificent Nebra Sky Disk;
extent of passing out. visits to their patients; a trip to the museum was a round bronze plate dating back to the Iron Age,
Implausible as it might sound, this has considered a boon to the healing process. it’s one of the earliest depictions of cosmic phe-
happened before, most famously when the Art doesn’t simply have the ability to make nomena. The epitome of calm radiance, it is indeed
19th-century French novelist Stendhal vis- you feel good, it may also help you look good. deeply soothing and pleasure-inducing to look at,
ited the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. Research has shown that those regularly exposed and reassuring, too—a reminder that beauty exists
During this visit, as he details in his book to art have experienced dramatic dips in cortisol, elsewhere but also that it endures. This circle has
the increased production of which can affect not withstood, and so will we.
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THE S O CIAL NETWORK
Rome, Naples, and Florence, Stendhal was so try to fill as much as I can. Around this time
violently affected by the idea of being in Flor- last year I was, like many people, so unsettled
ence at last, along with “the contemplation The first time that for the first time in my life I couldn’t
of sublime beauty,” that he experienced heart I visited Florence, read fiction. As I’m a novelist, this inability
palpitations and more. “Life was drained from was disorienting, existentially bewildering.
me,” he says. “I walked with the fear of falling.” I experienced no dizziness But I could still look at visual art, thank god,
In 1979 an Italian psychiatrist observed or hallucinations, and so I turned to art books, and I often stared
this phenomenon often enough among tour- at them, drawn to the rich mélange of col-
ists that she gave it a name: Stendhal Syn- I didn’t faint, but my ors, the intricate variety mostly absent from
drome, typically a short-lived condition that my one-bedroom apartment. In addition to
strikes people while they behold art or other
pulse was fast, and what McQueen’s ensembles, I’ve relied on gorgeous
forms of great beauty. Symptoms include it sang is a melody I images from the work of Ana Mendieta and
fainting, a sped-up pulse, panic attacks, diz- Niki de Saint Phalle. Kimberly Drew and
ziness, nausea, disorientation, and hallucina- now spend much of Jenna Wortham’s Black Futures, a powerful
tions. The symptoms usually do not require my life chasing. collection of Black art, imagining, and mem-
medical intervention; one exception was a ory, sits open on my desk.
man who, in 2018, had a heart attack at the As more museums reopen, and more of
Uffizi Gallery while looking at Botticelli’s The the country is vaccinated by the day, a trip to
Birth of Venus (he survived). an exhibition might become not just possi-
Falling ill from beauty, fainting in front ble but not even unusual. De Saint Phalle’s
of an extraordinary painting—this can seem wild phantasmagorias, some 200 of them,
like the material of fairy tales, of fabulous are on view at MoMA PS1 through Septem-
lands and wishes granted, of conjuring and ber 6; some of the prominent artists featured
magic. And in fact The Birth of Venus, along HELLO AGAIN, in Black Futures, like Kerry James Marshall,
with Michelangelo’s David—also known to GORGEOUS Kara Walker, and the photographer Deana
elicit the vapors—have been accused of magic. Lawson, are part of the resonant “Grief
The sights and sounds that will
Spells, for instance. The evil eye. make our hearts skip a beat when and Grievance,” at the New Museum until
The first time I visited Florence (in college we see them again IRL. June 6. And if you don’t make it there to
I had a summer job in Geneva, and anytime watch Theaster Gates’s riveting video Gone
I could get away and take a train elsewhere, I Constantin Brancusi’s Sculptur- Are the Days of Shelter and Martyr, he and
al Ensemble in Targu Jiu, Roma-
did), I encountered some of this magic. While multimedia artist Cauleen Smith rework
nia. My grandfather used to take me
visiting the Uffizi, I paused in front of a Titian as a kid, and to this day the smell
images from magazines like Jet and Life for
painting of a naked, long-haired woman of the park and the faint sounds of their joint show at my local San Francisco
reclining, hand lightly resting between her baby doves are too much. — Nelida Museum of Modern Art.
legs. She stared back at me, the hues bold and Mortensen, Hearst Visual Editor I haven’t gone anywhere I don’t have to
vivid, and I was so transfixed by the sight that, be, and won’t until after I’m vaccinated, but
forgetting the surrounding crowds, I stood in The courtyard at the Isabella for months, with friends, I’ve relied on a
place for what must have been half an hour, Stewart Gardner Museum in Bos- number of what can only be called art sup-
an hour—I have no way of knowing. I expe- ton in late spring, when the Roman port groups. We text and email one another
rienced no dizziness or hallucinations, and I sculpture garden is also a riot of pieces of art we’ve found moving, sharing
hydrangeas. — Adam Rathe, T&C’s
didn’t faint, but my pulse was fast, and what a poem here, a photo there, to say: Here,
Culture Editor
it sang is a melody I now spend much of my look, marvel. Nowadays I find I’m stalking
life chasing. I get lightheaded thinking of the the websites of galleries and dance compa-
Which is what? It’s not quite the song paellas I devoured, sometimes with nies and performance spaces, sending possi-
of the occult, I think, at least for me, but it a strawberry mojito in hand, at the ble future shows and openings to this same
does feel like a heightened kind of living. My byzantine Mercado de San Miguel cohort. I send images from ArtHaus and the
attention stands tall, and I don’t want to miss in Madrid. We’ll meet again. Asian Art Museum, and clips of dancers we
any part of the phenomenon in front of me. — Lauren Tappan, Assistant to the could, in a little while, fingers crossed, watch
I chase it in paintings, music, photos, books, Editor in Chief in person.
poems, designs, performances—in art, that We can get ready, is the thing. It’s no lon-
is, this concentrated form of human genius, Galloping again on an Arabian horse ger just a substitute, it’s also, hallelujah and at
along the dunes of the Great Sand
dazzle, and ingenuity. Of all the deprivations last, a kind of preparation for when I can first
Sea near the Siwa Oasis in Egypt’s
of the pandemic, of this past year’s many Western Desert—just as Alexan-
walk into a gallery in San Francisco, or when
and profound collective hardships, this is der the Great did in 332 BC on his I’m in New York standing in front of de Saint
the one I’ve felt least inclined to even bring way to conquering the world—then Phalle’s creations. Thus readied, maybe we’ll
up in conversation, for what is a yearlong reaching home, Siwa’s phantasma- be less strongly visited by Stendhal’s palpita-
want of beauty compared to death, illness, goric Adrère Amellal lodge. — Klara tions and dizziness, and maybe I won’t risk
and destitution? Glowczewska, Executive Travel Editor a beauty-stricken fainting fit. Or I will, and
The absence, though, feels large, a lack I either way, I can’t wait.

H O W T O D I S A P P E A R / T H E D O O R M E N O F B E V E R LY H I L L S / T H E P O W E R AT T H E TA B L E
Krysta Rodriguez,
photographed at the Towers
of the Waldorf Astoria.
H A I R B Y M A T T H E W M O N Z O N F O R O R I B E A T T M G - L A . C O M . M A K E U P B Y M E G A N L A N O U X A T T H E W A L L G R O U P F O R D I O R M A K E U P. M A N I C U R E B Y K A Y O H I G U C H I F O R C H A N E L L E V E R N I S . L O C A T I O N : T H E T O W E R S O F T H E W A L D O R F A S T O R I A
MAX MARA TOP ($1,090);
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LAPOINTE PANTS ($1,350);
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FOR DETAILS SEE PAGE 97
Loves a
WINNER
In the new series Halston, Krysta Rodriguez
gets inside Liza Minnelli’s life and lashes.
BY ADAM RATHE PHOTOGRAPH BY EMILIO MADRID
STYLED BY MARYKATE BOYLAN
lthough the filming of Halston, the high society of the disco era. But beyond the he says, “is that they gave each other their
A Netflix limited series about fashion’s

glamorous, troubled 1970s golden boy,
wrapped last December, Krysta Rodriguez—
cocaine and caviar, the series portrays a singu-
lar friendship between two misunderstood
people who were able to bring out the best
best selves.” And to embody that dynamic, he
needed an actress who could play Minnelli at
her best. “Besides the similarities of Krysta’s
who stars as the designer’s friend and confi- in each other. physicality—she has the right bone struc-
dante Liza Minnelli—hasn’t yet left the world “Liza has been replicated so often by peo- ture and those big, beautiful eyes—she had
that the legendary pair created. ple trying to do impersonations and emu- something about her,” he says. “That guile-
“I’ve been renovating my own house to late her,” says Rodriguez, 36, a California less quality, the sadness, and the tenacity that
add a little Halston-Liza flair,” she says. “I native whose career on stage and screen has Liza has.”
want it to feel like a sophisticated place where included roles in Spring Awakening, A Chorus For Rodriguez, nailing the inner life of an
people will climb on the roof. What Halston Line, Gossip Girl, and Smash. “What I wanted icon was the most important thing she had
had was a place where, when the lights went to get into was her emotional journey and to do. “What I tried to honor was her genu-
out, it all went down.” her relationship to Halston. They were linked ine humanity,” she says. “There is a quote of
When the five-part series—which stars their whole lives, and I think that the two of hers I read: When someone asked, ‘Would
Ewan McGregor as the designer—pre- them meeting created both of them.” you ever do any of your mother’s songs?’ she
mieres this month, we’ll all be plus-ones The series’s director, Daniel Minahan, said, ‘My mother sang about victims, and I
on a tear through the fashion, nightlife, and agrees. “The thing about Halston and Liza,” sing about survivors.’”

O U T &A B O U T
BITCOIN
Baroque
With a classically inspired
new exhibit, Damian Loeb is
set to become Silicon Valley’s
artistic North Star.
BY CHLOE MALLE
amian Loeb has the lowest level of vita-
D min D his doctor has ever seen. The

50-year-old painter, whose exhibition
“Wishful Thinking” opens at Pace Gallery’s
Palo Alto outpost in May, has skin that is
pale to the point of translucence due to the
12 hours a day he spends in his subterranean
Tribeca studio. To remedy his lack of outdoor
exposure Loeb has outfitted his workspace with
screens playing the feeds from cameras on his
rooftop and throughout the home he shares
with his wife Zoya and their two children.
This doesn’t help his vitamin D level, but
it does satisfy his fascination with surveillance,
which is also evident in his hyperrealist large
scale tableaux, which, for the last decade, have
focused on painstakingly detailed, astronom-
ically accurate spacescapes. Using digital
manipulations and collages of photographs
© DAMIAN LOEB/COURTESY THE ARTIST AND PACE GALLERY (PAINTING); GLOBE PHOTOS/ZUMAPRESS (WITH IMAN AND BOWIE)
taken from airplanes and the Hubble tele-
Damian Loeb’s painting Danae and The artist’s latest works combine To depict the cosmos, Loeb paints
scope, Loeb has brought the sensibilities the Shower of Gold (after Rubens) his interest in outer space with from collages of photos taken
of 19th-century Romantic landscapes into will be in his exhibit at Pace Gallery a reverence for masters like from airplanes and the Hubble
the 21st century, replacing a J.M.W. Turner in Palo Alto, opening May 14. Tintoretto, Turner, and Rubens. Space Telescope.
seascape with the 2017 solar eclipse and the
Aurora Borealis. And just as the ocean repre- at Mary Boone Gallery in 1999, Loeb was in New York, but, as literature and personal
sented the unexplored frontier in Turner’s day, described by the New York Times as “one of the experience show, it wasn’t what I thought it
Loeb’s glossy cosmos invites viewers to con- hottest young things to strut his stuff on the was,” says Loeb, who taught himself to paint
sider the great beyond. “I wanted to make pro- season’s runway.” Then, he was arguably better by visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
paganda for places I knew were going to be a known for his friendship with Moby and his For the works in this show, almost entirely
tough pill to swallow,” Loeb says via Zoom one broken engagement with writer Plum Sykes.“I produced during quarantine, Loeb was inspired
winter afternoon. “If we don’t figure out how spent a lot of time trying to actualize a fantasy by the romantic mythology of Baroque paint-
to put our DNA somewhere else, we die here.” that a Connecticut boy had about the art world ing. “I wanted to see if I could make these
He’s not alone in this opinion, images of places that I knew were
and with his upcoming show open- very inhospitable and apply that
ing in Silicon Valley, Loeb’s space- Baroque lusciousness and beauty.”
scapes are primed to pique the inter- A painting of Mars, titled Roman
est of those plotting what’s possible Charity (after Rubens), is inspired by
for human existence. “One hopes Rubens’s work of the same name,
that laying it at the feet of the peo- in which a woman breastfeeds her
ple that have the influence to affect imprisoned, starving father. The
these things…” Loeb trails off. “I breast in the Rubens finds its parallel
mean, Elon [Musk, a rumored colin Mars’s Olympus Mons, the largest
lector of Loeb’s work] has done so known volcano in the solar system.
many things that we have been told “I wanted to make sure I could paint
are impossible.” Loeb in 2001 with Iman it so that from a distance it looks like
and David Bowie at a
Once an art world enfant terri- gallery opening. a breast, but when you get close to
ble, on the eve of his first solo show, it, it’s a bit horrifying.”

Some of L.A.’s most THE HIGH LIFE
discerning buyers are House hunting for the
eschewing traditional
mansions for high-end
vertically inclined.
apartment living.
$ 100 MILLION
8 8 99 BE V E RLY B LV D. ,
2 P E N T HO U SE S
That’s the cost of a compound in the sky,
F R E D L I C H T F O R R E L AT E D CA L I F O R N I A (C E N T U RY ) ; G E T T Y I M AG E S ( S I G N ) ; B I N YA N ST U D I O S ( 8 8 9 9 B E V E R LY B LV D. ) ; J I M BA R TS C H ( B E V E R LY W E ST ) ; BA R C E LO P H OTO G R A P H Y ( 1 W. C E N T U RY D R I V E )
a small price for 4,000 square feet of

outdoor space. 8899BEVERLYBLVD.COM
Beverly Hills CO-OP

Leave the mansions to the Clampetts. L.A.’s hottest new
homes are all apartments—really. BY CANDACE JACKSON
Mediterranean mansion in Beverly Siegel describes as “pieces of jewelry.”
$ 23 MILLION
1 2 00 C LU B V I E W D RI VE , #P H 1 9
A Hills. A modern glass box in the

Hollywood Hills. While apartment
living has long been the way in cities from
Developers say condos cater to those look-
ing for security and less maintenance—and
fill an underserved niche in the market. Of
The 35-unit Beverly West was built by
the developer of the Burj Khalifa. Status
neighbor: The Weeknd. HILTONHYLAND.COM
New York to Paris and beyond, the Los Ange- course, vertical living isn’t new to Los Ange-
les dream home has always been a house. les. Downtown, there are dozens of apartment
But now ambitious developers are taking buildings, and the dense Wilshire Corridor in
that dream vertical, betting on strong demand Westwood has long been a canyon of high-
for luxurious condos from buyers interested in rise homes. In 2009 developer Related Co.
more traditional city living. Under construc- built the Century, a 42-story luxury tower
tion now: a Four Seasons Private Residences, in Century City where Candy Spelling paid
the brand’s first stand-alone residential devel-
opment in North America, and the Century
Plaza, two 43-story condo towers attached to
$35 million for the penthouse, still the record
for a condo sold in L.A.
But Siegel says the market is evolving.
$ 4 MILLION
1 W. C E N TU RY D RI VE , # 2 6 D
the Century Plaza Fairmont Hotel in Century Today’s buyers want to be in buildings that Candy Spelling is moving out of the
City. A Mandarin Oriental Residences in Bev- are integrated in walkable neighborhoods, Century, but it’s still the grande dame of
L.A. high-rises. THEAGENCYRE.COM
erly Hills is also in the works. and he’s confident that a pandemic-induced
One of the most anticipated new projects dip in demand for condos is temporary.
is 8899 Beverly, a 10-story building in West One-bedroom units at 8899 start in the
Hollywood that has 40 condos, each with a mid-$2 million range, and two penthouses, roof decks and private restaurants to appeal
Vitrocsa glass wall that opens to the outdoors. each with 2,000 square feet of terrace space, to buyers in a post-pandemic world.
The building is within walking distance of will ask upward of $100 million as a com- Agents and developers agree that easy
Rodeo Drive and West Hollywood’s nightlife. bined unit. Agent Fredrik Eklund says they’ll access to nature is at the top of everyone’s
“It’s still true that 95 percent of the people feel like single family “compounds” in the sky. list. At Beverly Hills’s 16-unit Gardenhouse,
who buy in L.A. want single family homes,” Jill Epstein, a broker with Nourmand & designed by MAD Architects, the units are
says Tyler Siegel, a developer with Townscape Associates, says that while the L.A. market set behind what is described as the largest
Partners, the company behind 8899 Beverly. has been hot, with buyers relocating from living wall in the U.S. Each condo opens to
“But we’re creating a product that bridges cities like New York and Chicago, condos large private outdoor space. (Starting price:
the gap between condo and single family remain a tougher sell. Still, Mauricio Uman- $3.3 million.) “It’s not your grandmother’s
home living.” He started by hiring architec- sky, co-founder of real estate brokerage the condominium,” says Don Heller, of Compass,
ture firm Olson Kundig, which oversaw every- Agency, says demand is returning. He’s coun- who is handling sales. “That’s not to say your
thing down to the front door handles, which seling developers to include amenities like grandmother wouldn’t be very happy there.”

O U T &A B O U T
Have you
guys ordered?
Because
I really have
something
after this.”
You know
what? Why
don’t you bring
one for the
table—we’ll all
pick on it.” Can you
make an egg
white omelet with
P ROJ E CT A N A LYS I S
shallots, but where
How to have a terribly red lunch”—
suggesting lobster, tomato
soup, strawberries, and per- the shallots are
Gene Hackman and Danny
DeVito at the Ivy in Get Shorty.
EAT LUNCH haps Jell-O. (Sadly, no pho-

tograph exists to document
slightly brown,
very little olive oil,
claims it was self-defense.
His career—once as dead
in This the result.) What a lunch

needs to make the cut are
great characters, improb-
and no salt?”
as the man on the floor of
his office—is revived by the
morning’s headlines, and in
Town Again ably and just for the one
occasion mixed together; a story around how
it came to be; and, perhaps most important,
a rite of passage he enters
the restaurant to much backslapping and
acclaim (wincing, in a neck brace) for lunch
A scene study for power
a memorable venue so we can set the scene with Martin Weir, the biggest movie star in
meals. BY DAVID NETTO in our minds. Because we want to be able to town (played by Danny DeVito). The four-top
ower lunch. What is that phrase? Where feel we are there. here consists of John Travolta and Rene Russo
P did it come from? According to the

Cambridge English Dictionary, it is an
occasion at which people eat lunch while
Let’s start in L.A., where lunch is the lin-
gua franca. Of all the great ones that have
become L.A. folklore (Orson at Ma Maison,
as well as DeVito and Hackman, and in four
minutes of screen time, everything you need to
know about the rituals of the Hollywood Power
they are working and talking about business. Billy Wilder at La Scala), the greatest love let- Lunch to cement status and signify a comeback
We at T&C have our own definition. A great ter to what amounts to a regional art form is is set up (ordering off-menu) and unpacked
lunch has no agenda, and the purpose of the in the 1995 movie Get Shorty. The setting is (“You’re a celebrity, Harry—you should’ve shot
ones we will present in this column—a sort of the Ivy, in West Hollywood. Gene Hackman someone a long time ago”). It’s not satire, really,
MGM/PHOTOFEST
great lunches of history tour—is by no means plays C-list horror producer Harry Zimm, because lunches this silly go on all the time.
transactional. Far from the Four Seasons, one who was trapped in a fight between two mob- It’s just wonderful when a group like this, the
of my favorite lunches was ordered by a mem- sters the night before. One ended up dead, insidest of insiders, is in on the joke.
ber of the Bloomsbury Set, who said, “Let’s and Zimm is framed as the killer, but he The Ivy, by the way, has never been hotter.

high-end Italian agency IC Bellagio, says, “I
have strong bookings for Q3 and Q4 of this
year” (i.e., July through December). “And I’m
already taking reservations for many dates
in 2022—villas especially, on the Riviera,
Lake Como, the Amalfi Coast, Tuscany, Pug-
lia.” She recommends booking “experiences,”
too. When the Uffizi opens, for example, it
will be letting in a fraction of the 2 million
annual visitors it welcomed pre-pandemic. “If
you don’t plan ahead, you won’t get in. We
are shouting this message from the rooftops.”
If you’re still standing shyly on the sidelines,
see below and consider yourself forewarned.
“I am overwhelmed with requests for
France,” says Philip Haslett, of Kairos Travel.
“It’s already impossible to get rooms on the
coast this summer, at the Hotel du Cap or
the new Lily of the Valley near St.-Tropez,
designed by Philippe Starck. It’s the French
enjoying France until borders open. Septem-
ber? Maybe. It’s a fantastic time here. And I’m
taking bookings for summer 2022.” Greece
has announced that it is opening in mid-May.
“The Amanzoe, in the Peloponnese, is in espe-
cially high demand,” says Jules Maury, of Scott
Dunn Private Travel. “A charter on the Satori
yacht, the ultimate Mediterranean adventure,
is worth holding now for 2022—before some
of our 2021 bookings roll over.”
It’s turning into a blood sport out there.
The harbor of Portofino.
Splendido Mare, Belmond’s
That bucket list African safari? Think summer
reimagined seaside 2022—or ’23. A fall Antarctic cruise? Sailings
offshoot of the Splendido, for 2021 are filling up, and 2022 has been
opens here in mid-April.
going strong since January. Closer to home?
“June, July, and August are almost at full occu-
pancy,” says Fabrice Moizan, general manager
You Are ALMOST Here

Travel restrictions are still in place, but that doesn’t mean you
of Eden Rock St. Barths.“People who used to
go to the Maldives and Seychelles discovered
us last summer, when much of the world was
shouldn’t plan ahead—everyone else is. BY KLARA GLOWCZEWSKA off-limits, and they’re coming back, now and
for the holidays.” Mexico never closed. “This
BRIAN JANNSEN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (PORTOFINO); GETTY IMAGES (SIGN)

n Elizabeth von Arnim’s 1922 novel The have been less joyful. Today such a property summer,” says Kevin Wendle, owner of the
I Enchanted April, four women, despondent

over their constrained lives in London,
impulsively respond one dreary February day
would have been booked months ahead by
those dreaming of Mediterranean solace after
a year of Covid lockdown. Yes, the world is
Riviera Maya’s super-chic Hotel Esencia,“will
probably be our best season ever. We also have
four weddings on the books in September,
to a newspaper ad for a furnished medieval still a shifting heat map of places one can October, and November.”
castle in an Italian village, available for a one- and cannot go, countries where quarantine Most telling is New Zealand, which is prob-
month rental and just right “for those who is or is not required. But those in the know ably not opening until early 2022. “We are not
appreciate wisteria and sunshine.” (In real life are making “placeholder” bookings, lest they only receiving inquiries daily,” says Sarah Farag,
the village is Portofino and the little castle be shut out when the gates open. “There is of Southern Crossings,“but people are focused
is Castello Brown, where von Arnim stayed so much pent-up demand,” one hotelier told on securing every detail, for fear of missing out.”
and wrote and which is now a museum.) By me, “it’s like a spring ready to pop.” If you’re in the game, the travel gods might
the end of this paean to the transformative Partly that’s because there is so little risk. smile on you. “It would not surprise me,” says
power of travel (the novel became a best-seller Cancellation policies are extraordinarily gen- Paul Tumpowsky, of Skylark, “if we get a call
in Britain and the U.S., launched tourism to erous, with refunds or credits for future book- in mid-August: ‘Hey, I know you have a client
the Italian Riviera, and was later made into an ings available until mere days before sched- planning a safari for 2023. If they can get on a
award-winning film), all four have found joy. uled stays. Italy entered a new lockdown flight in four days, they can do the exact same
A century later the denouement might in mid-March, but Andrea Grisdale, of the trip now, because someone canceled.’” Joy.

O U T &A B O U T
of what these shows might have to offer is

Are We reinforced when viewers receive a package
that comes with the command to leave it
Out of This ters with sharp objects.

sealed until showtime.
Such a swell in appetite for enchantment
Thing Yet? amid adversity has historical precedent.

Harry Houdini incited public fascination
with the art of illusion around the turn of
the century, and his disciples dazzled wide-
eyed pleasure-seekers during the Roaring
’20s, following the influenza pandemic. “I
think there’s a desperation for that wonder
all it the great presto change-o. Not so and hope and joy right now,” says Rob Lake,
C long ago, magic shows were easily dis-

missed as a staple of corny backyard
birthday parties or cringe-inducing night-
whose illusions tend to be grand in scale.
The America’s Got Talent alum, who has piv-
oted to filmed interactive productions of his
club acts. But in recent months a slate of stage show, will continue his yearslong stint
cultivated conjurers have done the seem- of performing for America’s armed forces
ingly impossible: They’ve made virtual with a streaming special this spring.
magic shows some of the most in-demand “Magic is not just an escape but an uplift-
entertainment options around, drawing ing feeling, like when you’re watching Peter
sold-out audiences around the globe and Pan fly for the first time,” Lake says. “There’s
generating monthslong waiting lists. Still, this brief moment when you feel like maybe
the question asked of magicians since time anything can be possible.”
immemorial seems more relevant than ever:
How’d you do it?
“Magic is fantasy,” says Jason Suran, whose
virtual show Reconnected is produced by Alan
Cumming and has been visited by the likes
of Julianna Margulies and Edie Falco. “It’s
a way of looking at the world through a
lens of wonder.” Suran likens his intimate
show, which is capped at around 30 guests,
to what’s known as parlor magic, which he
would normally perform in private homes.
But now attendees gather on Zoom, leaning
in to witness Suran’s feats of physical dar-
ing, seemingly impossible sleights of hand,
and apparent mind reading.
“There is something inherently social and
personal about mentalism that feels partic-
ularly good right now,” he says. “It’s the only
medium that looks back at the audience.”
All attendees must keep their cameras on
during the show, as it facilitates audience par-
ticipation. “For a mentalist, there’s nothing
better than having a camera in everybody’s
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O U T &A B O U T
My Side
of the
MOUNTAIN
Right next to France’s most
famous winemaking region
is a village that produces
delicious, nuanced, and (gasp!)
affordable white wine.
BY JAY M C INERNEY
he white wines of Burgundy’s Côte
T de Beaune are considered by many

to be the greatest whites in the world.
The most famous of these come from the
villages of Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-
Montrachet, and Meursault. Worldwide legendary villages of Burgundy are strung
demand makes these wines very expensive; like pearls, but in a separate valley that Saint-Aubin’s soaring reputation in recent
any entry-level village Puligny from a famous begins just around the backside of the hill years. His family has been in Saint-Aubin
maker will sell for more than a hundred dol- of Montrachet. The appellation has two dis- since the 17th century; Olivier took over the
lars, and the grand crus can cost five or 10 tinct zones, with the best vineyards located on domaine from his father after putting in an
times as much. the southwest-facing slopes behind the hill. apprenticeship at Méo-Camuzet in Vosne-Ro-
But there are less exalted villages in Bur- Unlike neighboring Chassagne and Puligny, manée. “When my father started, the produc-
gundy producing excellent chardonnays. Saint-Aubin has no grand crus—the highest tion was 80 percent red wine,” Olivier says.
(Don’t call them chardonnays in Burgundy category in the Burgundy hierarchy—in part “White wine was difficult to sell.” (Two hun-
or you’ll get dirty looks. Place trumps grape because its vineyards are higher in elevation dred years before, Thomas Jefferson noted
in France. Grapes are just delivery systems for and cooler than those of the Côte d’Or, but that growers of white grapes ate rye bread,
the taste of a specific site— it is blessed with 30 premier whereas red wine growers were able to afford
what the French call terroir.) crus, all of them on the east- white bread.) But fashions change, and most
My favorite of these villages is ern side of the valley and all observers believe that the limestone and marl
Saint-Aubin, which in recent sharing the limestone and here is much better suited to chardonnay than
years has been emerging marl soils of their posh neigh- pinot noir. Under Olivier’s guidance the pro-
from obscurity thanks to the bors on the Côte. duction has shifted largely to whites, and his
efforts of some of Burgundy’s Because of the slightly meticulous work in the vineyard and cellar
top white winemakers. It is lower temperatures, Saint- has made these some of the most sought-after
one of 70 villages in France Aubin tends to excel in wines in Burgundy.
named after a 6th-century the warmer vintages, when The other young star of Saint-Aubin is
bishop known for his gener- the whites of Chassagne Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey, who was born in
osity to widows and orphans, and Puligny can seem a lit- the village and started his career at the fam-
but it’s the only one that tle overblown. And indeed ily domaine, Marc Colin, before launching
wine lovers need to know there’s no doubt that global his own estate, with six acres of vineyards in
about. And while this may warming is partly responsible Chassagne-Montrachet and Saint-Aubin. His
not be relevant to the quality SA I N T-AUB I N ’S for the rising prominence of wines rapidly gained a following in Europe A L A M Y ( M A P, W I N E ) ; G E T T Y I M A G E S ( P I N , W I N E S T A I N )
of the wines, Saint-Aubin is FIRE Saint-Aubin’s whites. Thirty and the United States. Those at the top of the
one of the prettiest villages in Standout wines from the years ago the vines here strug- range sell for hundreds of dollars; his Saint-
village include 2019 Domaine
Burgundy, with steeper hill- gled to ripen grapes. The cur- Aubins are relative bargains, and they are
Hubert Lamy Saint-Aubin
sides than its neighbors; it Premier Cru En Remilly ($90, rent year on retail shelves, wines close to his heart. Tall and rangy and
also boasts a 13th-century KLWINES.COM), 2018 Domaine 2018, is a good example—a perpetually tanned from his work in the vine-
fortress rising from a base of Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey very warm vintage that pro- yard, Pierre-Yves usually chugs up on a tractor
solid rock. Saint-Aubin Premier Cru Les duced a bumper crop of deli- when we meet at his winery in Chassagne-
Saint-Aubin is not located Champlots ($84, VERVEWINE.COM) , cious, well-balanced wines. Montrachet. “Saint-Aubin is cooler compared
directly on the so-called and 2019 Domaine Paul Pillot Olivier Lamy of Domaine to Chassagne and Puligny or Meursault,” he
Saint-Aubin Premier Cru Les
Côte d’Or, the east-facing Charmois ($65, KLWINES.COM).
Hubert Lamy has been as told me at our last meeting. “The terroir of
escarpment along which the responsible as anyone for Saint-Aubin is more [CONTI NU ED O N PAGE 9 6]

D O N ’ T @ U S / I N S TAG R A M D I S S E N T E R S / D I A M O N D S O F S E L F - CA R E
BOTTEGA VENETA DRESS

($22,000), NECKLACE ($7,500),
BRACELET ($1,600), RING
($620), AND HANDBAG ($2,700),
BOTTEGAVENETA.COM
The
GARBO
Challenge
If fashion brands, celebrities, and
the world’s most famous royals quit
social media, is it time we
all bowed out too? BY JESSICA IREDALE
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALLIE HOLLOWAY STYLED BY DANIA LUCERO ORTIZ
ottega Veneta started 2021 off with a numbers are good; Kering, its parent com- as “the brand community.”
B power move. The Milan-based luxury

brand pulled a Greta Garbo for the dig-
ital age and went dark on all its social media
pany, reported remarkable gains for Bottega
in 2020, a year when most of the group’s
brands were down. And half its customers
The truth is, Bottega isn’t really vanish-
ing from social. It’s just letting others do the
work for it.
platforms, deleting its Facebook, Twitter, and are younger than 40. “What contributed to Daniel’s rise, rather
Instagram accounts in one fell swoop. Like his shoppers, Lee is a millennial, and than his imagery, is what people are doing.
It was a bold gambit, for sure. Hasn’t social he expressed his distaste for social media How many influencers have you seen with a
media been the sun we all orbit, brands and early on. Yet social media loves him, his work, Bottega bag?” says Bryan Yambao, aka Bryan-
mere humans alike? What does disappear- and his palette, and quirky proportions play boy, the first-gen blogger and influencer.
ing mean, anyway? And will others follow? well on these platforms. Instagram accounts Being out of sight, after all, doesn’t neces-
Should we all just log off? such as @bottegaveneta.by.daniellee and sarily mean being out of mind. Just look at
The list of notables who have forsworn @newbottega (a riff on the wildly popular the Duke and Duchess of Sussex—who needs
social in recent memory includes Jennifer @oldceline, which was devoted to Philo’s Instagram when you’ve got Oprah?
Lawrence, Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson, work) are highly curated feeds of Bottega “When you see celebrities like George
Pamela Anderson, and, most recently—and product that have garnered significant fol- Clooney, Angelina Jolie—none of them are
with great pomp and circumstance—Meghan lowings. The hashtag #bottegaveneta turns on social media,” says luxury consultant Ana
Markle and Prince Harry. A detox after a year up 2 million posts; #newbottega, 58,000, all Andjelic. “Bottega Veneta is recreating the
of nonstop screen time may be just what we generated by what is known in social jargon luxury strategy that is about being culturally
all need. But is it even possible? relevant but not readily accessible. This comes
For fashion brands the calculus is with an asterisk: This is not a traditional
tricky. They have a commercial imper- SOCIAL MEDIA luxury strategy.” Kering chief François-
ative to flaunt their wares far and wide, A P O S TAT E S
-
M A RT I N
M A RGI E L A
-
Maison
Margiela -
question. -social lead, or
acle need a -and-see status for

Comme des
one all the time.” Garçons platform? When
the mistress of
very cool right now.
viewing.
of ready-to-wear at Phoebe Philo’s cul-
tish Celine, presented his first collection
as creative director at Bottega Veneta. J U N YA WATA N A B E
The feeding frenzy was instantaneous, Kawakubo’s protégé, the
founder of his namesake
driven by the intrigue of Lee’s time in label is on Instagram. -
Philo’s studio and the fact that fans His label has used it exactly
were starved by the void she left. To a once—to announce it’s
FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (MARGIELA)
on Instagram—and
great extent, his vision filled it. never since.
The influence of old Celine looms
large over new Bottega’s shoes and -
M A RY- K AT E A N D
accessories, many of which have become ASHLEY OLSEN
huge hits, like the Pouch and Cassette, The Row The former child stars
defined by their puffy, pillowy shapes. fly under the radar, letting
@therow’s IG account
Then there are the square-toe shoes and do all the talking.
sandals and exaggerated lug sole boots, Pro tip, MK: Junya
whose wonky silhouettes at first looked @textsfromyourex Watanabe
might be cathartic.
very strange but are now being imitated
up and down the market. The brand
39
ST Y L E S PY
The
Well-Being 45 YEARS OF FUN
METER
How an unlikely pairing
1976
“These diamonds are happier because
they’re free,” Chopard matriarch Karin
Scheufele said when she saw the twirling
gems in the first prototype. Hence the
broke with tradition and name: Happy Diamonds.
invigorated the world of
diamonds. BY JILL NEWMAN
ur style decisions were once dictated by
O unwritten rules: no whites after Labor

Day, black tie means a tux or a sweep-
ing gown, and diamonds go only with gold 1 970 S
Chopard’s
or platinum. So in 1993, when Chopard scion
Happy Diamonds
Caroline Scheufele suggested to her father and timepieces
brother that they create a sporty stainless steel adapted to the
watch set with diamonds, they were hesitant. vibe of the era with
large, curvaceous
“I said, ‘Where is the law that we must set dia- gold cases and
monds in gold or platinum?’,” she says. She won dancing disco
that battle, and Chopard created Happy Sport, diamonds.
the first stainless steel and diamond timepiece.
Scheufele, now the company’s co-president
and artistic director, may have pushed the 1985
Caroline Scheufele, a lover of
boundaries of the conservative Swiss watch the circus, designed the Happy
industry, but Happy Sport was conceived for Diamonds clown pendant,
her own convenience. “I ski, swim, and sail, marking the maison’s first foray
into jewelry.
and I wanted a watch with a twist, something
I could wear while playing sports and then
into the evening,” she says.
It wasn’t the first time Chopard broke the
1 99 3
rules. When it unveiled the first Happy Dia- Caroline created Happy
monds timepiece, in 1976, it jolted the indus- Sport to fit her active
try with a design that featured loose diamonds lifestyle, introducing a
timepiece that would be
swirling around the dial. The playful watch as appropriate for the ski
could have been dismissed as a novelty, but it slopes as for an elegant
has proved an enduring and iconic design— evening out.
and proof that Swiss watchmakers don’t always
take themselves too seriously.
Those whirling diamonds—and rubies, CHOPARD HAPPY SPORT 33MM WITH 09.01-C AUTOMATIC
emeralds, and sapphires—now dance in a MOVEMENT IN ROSE GOLD ($14,200); WHITE GOLD AND DIAMONDS;
AND LUCENT STEEL AND ROSE GOLD A223 ($20,700), 800-CHOPARD
range of whimsical watches and jewels, and
they have caught the attention of collectors
around the world, including Elton John, who
commissioned a custom watch with floating
diamond-studded dollar signs.
Nearly 30 years after Happy Sport’s con-
ception, Chopard has reimagined the style
in a new 33mm-diameter model inspired by
SHAYNE L AVERDIERE (ROBERTS)
the golden ratio; 13 variations include Lucent

steel and rose gold, and one set entirely in dia- 2021
monds. All have the trademark floaters. Famous for her smile,
Julia Roberts is named the face
Whether displayed on a watch or in a pen- of Happy Sport and Chopard
dant, the Happy Diamonds concept remains unveils 13 new models in rose
as fresh and appealing as ever. Whirling dia- gold, diamonds, and two-tone
Lucent steel and rose gold.
monds on your wrist? It’s pure bliss.

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P R E PA R E F O R R E E N T RY / S TAT U S M U S H R O O M S / T H E P E R F U M E A R M Y
We all need re-tuning—emotionally,

physically, mentally, spiritually. As we
finally reenter the IRL world, these are the
gurus we’re looking to for realignment.
BY APRIL LONG AND JAMIE ROSEN
T HE S IL HOUET TE beauty routines, and family life. GUIDING PRIN- SHAPE

RE FINER CIPLE “Our habits shape our health. The more SHIFTERS
Melissa Wood’s time-sensitive workouts I commit to my habits, the more grounded Build muscle and firm skin with
are essential for overscheduled women I feel in every way.” HOW WE EMERGE “If we
who pine for long, lean lines. don’t have our health, we have noth-
THE METHOD More than 200 live- ing. The MWH Method is about
streaming and app-based work- WA KE UP showing up for yourself and wit-
Wood starts every
outs that touch on yoga, Pilates, day with an oat milk latte nessing the shift internally as
meditation, and dance, Wood’s and a lesson from Helen much as externally.” THE TAKE- DR. DENNIS GROSS DRX
Schucman’s 1976 SPECTRALITE BODYWARE
doable daily fitness regimens AWAY “Consistency is the key
SARAH ORBANIC
book, A Course in PRO ($435), SEPHORA.COM.

are supplemented on social Miracles.
ingredient to experiencing last- EQUIPT 4LB UBARRE ($129
EACH), EQUIPTMOVEMENT.COM
media with light takes on bal- ing results.” MELISSAWOODHEALTH.COM,
ancing self-care and motherhood, @MELISSAWOODHEALTH

LOOKING GLASS
pandemic, and now people are curious where

they stand.” THE TAKEAWAY “Health is action-
able, not an assumed right. And it is a journey
that needs constant evolution and attention.”
DOCTORTAZ.COM, @DRTAZMD
THE P OS ITI VE
AG ING SAG E
London-based health
coach Karen
Cummings-Palmer
creates bespoke wellness
packages for weight
management and healthy aging.
THE METHOD Palmer offers virtual and in-
person consultation packages, with addi-
tional sessions for kitchen edits, skincare
edits, and cooking classes. GUIDING PRINCI-
PLE “My most powerful tool isn’t the latest
superfood or adaptogen but rather the mind,
which is where I start—helping clients
GET HIGH change the way they think about how
NYC’s Edge X Equinox they inhabit their body and life.” HOW
takes outdoor yoga WE EMERGE Palmer designs her strate-
to a new level: 1,100 feet
in the air at the
gies to be attainable and sustainable
highest outdoor sky (“Health should not be hostage to
deck in the Western gyms or access to exotic ingredients”)
Hemisphere.
and believes that the flexibility forced
upon us by the pandemic will benefit
The BODY Re-Tuners

Meet the diet and exercise pros
us in the long run. THE TAKEAWAY “Youth
is currency—but so is age. Grace, wisdom,
who will get you back on track. and humility are beautiful and must be cel-
ebrated.” KARENCUMMINGSPALMER.COM, @79LUXSKINCARE
TH E EQUILIB R IU M At Dr. Taz’s CentreSpring MD practice in
ADV I S ER Atlanta, every patient is unique. “Strategically THE TORCH’ D
Dr. Taz Bhatia’s Super Woman Rx book thinking through a treatment plan and select- TR AINE R
and podcast make finding balance easy. ing the right diet and regimens for patients Broadway dancer Isaac
THE METHOD Integrative wellness physician Taz is more cost effective for them than assum- Calpito turned 11 a.m.
Bhatia has devised a methodology that uses ing one modality will work.” HOW WE EMERGE into a totally free and
your “power type” (Are you a Nightingale There is a positive path ahead. “People under- hard-as-hell pandemic
or an Earth Mama?) to determine the nutri- stand that their whole health matters. Words fitness moment.
tion, fitness, and overall better-living plan that like inflammation, oxidative stress, vitamin lev- THE METHOD A 45-minute body toning and
GUIDING PRINCIPLE els (C, D, zinc) were showcased through the endurance workout Calpito created called
Torch’d, taught to one person or a thousand
over Instagram and Zoom. Lizzie Tisch,
’S H R O O M B O O M
Appearing in everything from GUIDING PRINCI-
His workouts have raised more than WENDY YALOM (BHATIA); K AREN WISE (MUSHROOMS)
DR. ANDREW WEIL

MEGA-
HOW WE EMERGE “Over-
TREATMENT LOTION
($36), ORIGINS.COM
MUSHROOM CHARM THE TAKEAWAY “Most

($325 EACH), ($58), MABAND
MAURAGREEN STOKE.COM people take better care of their cars than they
JEWELRY.COM do their bodies. If you give your body love,
it will love you back.” ISAACBOOTS.COM, @ISAACBOOTS

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The WELLNESS
Pathfinders
You don’t know what you need, but you
need something. They can help.
TH E E ART H MOTHER
Brooklyn-based doula and founder of
Mama Glow Latham Thomas has worked
with Alicia Keys, Anne Hathaway, and
Doutzen Kroes.
THE METHOD Thomas offers bespoke doula ser-
vices, as well as in-person and virtual training
for birth workers. Community doulas within
her organization provide services to under-
served populations. HOW WE EMERGE “Mother-
hood can be extremely isolating, which is why BRAIN TRAIN
Heinz (below) teaches
we expect to see more folks engaging post- clients how to use
partum doulas,” Thomas says. “As we have all cognitive bias to their
seen during quarantine, we need friends and benefit. “We are all
subjective storytellers—
family to help us navigate new parenthood.” not objective
THE TAKEAWAY “Create your support circle and cameras.”
enlist folks to help before your baby arrives.”
MAMAGLOW.COM, @GLOWMAVEN, @MAMAGLOW
THE R EGI MEN clearings for homes and businesses. HOW WE Nine times out of 10, you know deep down
REVAM PE R EMERGE “Covid has magnified what is and in the pit of your stomach what you should
Dara Kennedy blends isn’t working in our lives, whether in our do. The problem is almost always a mindset
personal guidance with relationships, careers, or home environment,” gap.” DRSASHAHEINZ.COM, @DRSASHAHEINZ
conscious products. Bell says. “We are all seeking to go back to
THE METHOD As the founder basics, starting with a connection to nature.”
of San Francisco’s Ayla THE TAKEAWAY The Cristalline’s Illuminate pro-
LIQUID GOLD
Beauty, Kennedy susses out items from around gram starts in June: a $2,000 eight-week vir-
the globe for skin and spirit with a magic tual immersion program “for those who want
ability to find just the right routine for every to harness energy tools for personal growth
client. HOW WE EMERGE Schedule an online and success.” THECRISTALLINE.COM, @RASHIABELL
meeting to make your own Bach Flower Rem-
edy ($97). You’ll dissect the ways you process TH E M IN D
fear, anxiety, and confidence before Kennedy F RE ER
and her team create a blend of homeopathic Psychologist Sasha
essences just for you. THE TAKEAWAY “Our Sea Heinz makes online
Soak is like a deep tissue massage, a trip to a group therapy
favorite acupuncturist, and a facial, all in one transformational.
go” ($59). AYLABEAUTY.COM, @AYLABEAUTY THE METHOD Heinz’s five-
month group coaching program, Mind Your YUNHEE KIM (THOMAS); JUSTIN BUELL LLC (KENNEDY)
THE C RYSTA L Mind, uses positive psychology and other

CO NC IERGE methods to, as she puts it, “help clients close
Rashia Bell’s the the gap between who they want to be and
Cristalline helps us feel the person who actually shows up.” GUIDING
safer and more creative PRINCIPLE “I teach my clients to trade nox-
in our interior spaces. ious thoughts for the self-compassion, self-
THE METHOD Energy heal- belief, and self-confidence that come from
ing, workshops, and wellness retreats, as well knowing they can sit with difficult feelings
LIVING
as private crystal healing sessions at the Four and emotions and accept them.” HOW WE
Seasons New York Downtown and Philadel- EMERGE “There’s no point trying to change
phia spas. The Cristalline provides energetic what you do before examining what you think.

JEWELLERY
We look forward to welcoming you to the spring season at Christie’s New York. Please contact us
to arrange a virtual appointment for complimentary and confidential valuations, or to discuss the
market. We look forward to advising you on buying and selling opportunities at Christie’s.
CONTACT • Daphne Lingon • [email protected] • +1 212 636 2300
SPRING AUCTIONS
JEWELS ONLINE
20 May – 3 June 2021
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8 June 2021
AN ELEGANT PAIR OF DIAMOND

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LOOKING GLASS
The SKIN Refreshers

How to look as if you took the vacation you skipped.
THE E LEGANT any trace of intervention. GUIDING
UPDAT E R PRINCIPLE “When treating patients
Dr. Rosemarie Ingleton in my office, I like to approach
is well-rested-looking them through a holistic lens, rather
New Yorkers’ secret than picking them apart and deal-
weapon. ing with each wrinkle one by one.”
THE METHOD Ingleton is a HOW WE EMERGE Zoom has made us obsessed BOUTIQUE HOTEL OR
master at Botox and Fraxel, and at curating with skincare, but “once normalcy resumes, D E R M A T O L O G I S T ’S
skincare regimens that are a mix of drugstore I believe patients will be looking toward OFFICE?
standbys, prescription products, and items body treatments at an increased rate, as they
Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank’s new West Village location
from her own Rose Ingleton MD line. GUIDING will finally be fully seen again while out and
is leading the way in mindfully designed medical
PRINCIPLE “I am always happy to share how I about.” THE TAKEAWAY “I truly believe that eve- spaces. The 4,000-square-foot aesthetic
traveled the path from immigrant of limited ning out of skin tone, particularly pigmenta- healthcare center was imagined in collaboration
means to accomplished physician and entre- tion, gives most people the biggest bang for with Gachot Studios, and the result feels like a
preneur.” HOW WE EMERGE She anticipates that their buck.” UNIONDERM.COM, @SHEREENEIDRISS private home—or home away from home—with
the end of mask-wearing will bring on a big dark wood, comfortable couches, mood lighting,
surge in lip fillers. THE TAKEAWAY Take note TH E SUBTLE and a gallery-worthy art display. If you’re getting
your frown lines relaxed, shouldn’t everything else
of her daily routine: meditation, prayer, and S CAL PE L be relaxed too? PFRANKMD.COM
exercise, plus at-home sessions with a quartz Beverly Hills surgeon
gua sha tool to improve circulation and lym- Jason Roostaeian
phatic drainage. INGLETONMD.COM, @INGLETONDERMATOLOGY executes undetectable
nose jobs and face-lifts. his busiest months ever, which he attributes
TH E INSTA DE RM THE METHOD “You should to disposable income not spent on vacations.
Dr. Shereene Idriss’s #pillowtalkderm be able to cover a before photo and look at “Plus, days-long recovery times used to be a
Instagram stories were a lockdown go-to. the after and say, ‘Would I think this person point of contention. Now most people have
THE METHOD A whiz with fillers, neurotox- had surgery already?’ You may not be able to the time.” THE TAKEAWAY “You get one shot
ins, and lasers, Idriss can erase the imprint articulate why, but humans know what looks to do a procedure right. Do the research up
that 2020 left on our faces without leaving human.” HOW WE EMERGE He’s been having front.” DRJASONPLASTICSURGERY.COM
THE GLOW-UP
ART IST
Visit Dr. Catherine
Chang’s all-female
Beverly Hills practice
for the subtlest nip-tuck.
THE METHOD Chang has
actually trademarked her philosophy, Naked-
Beauty MD™, which is all about making sure
her work is invisible but transformative. GUID-
ING PRINCIPLE “I always try to show my patients
that it’s not about the outside all the time.
Beauty truly comes from within.” HOW WE
EMERGE “It has been an unprecedented year
of stress, uncertainty, and loss of routine.
SECRET
SUP P LE ME N T Many people will notice a lackluster qual-
Idriss suggests arnica: ity to their skin, so they will want to restore
“It helped calm underlying their glow.” She also expects to be doing a lot
skin inflammation and of lower face and neck lifts. “I don’t think
GABRIELA HERMAN (IDRISS)
minimize swelling
when my diet hit masks are going away soon, so now is the per-
a low.” fect time.” THE TAKEAWAY “Botox is my favorite
bang-for-your-buck nonsurgical treatment. It
helps to soften and prevent fine lines and also
decreases the oil production of your skin.”
DRCATCHANG.COM, @CATCHANGMD
TH E H OLIST IC
HEA LE R
Juhi Singh’s NYC practice
is a one-stop shop.
THE METHOD Singh’s center
houses specialists in every-
thing from functional
medicine to pain management, preventive
care, nutrition, and aesthetic services. Clients
include Carine Roitfeld, Hannah Bronfman,
and BFF Petra Nemcova. HOW WE EMERGE The
Accu-Facelift is more than a facial: “It’s an acu-
puncture treatment of the whole body. Imbal-
GET TO SLEEP ances show on your face, like one too many
In a study, 75% of
insomniacs who started martinis or an all-nighter with a teething baby.
daily meditation were Correct the internal flow and you will glow.”
able to fall asleep within THE TAKEAWAY “For me, a balanced person looks
20 minutes of going
to bed. great in H&M. A Chanel suit, lovely as it is, will
not camouflage imbalance.” JUHI.CENTER, @JUHISAYS
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Amanda Kloots is the
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T HE BR EATHWO RK including reiki, craniosacral therapy, polarity strength, and fitness level. Whether it’s five or
GURU energy balancing, EFT (also known as tap- 50 minutes, the goal is to sweat with a smile.
Ashley Neese literally wrote the book: How ping), guided visualization, and sound ther- GUIDING PRINCIPLE “Moving your body every
to Breathe. Join the wait list for her San apy. HOW WE EMERGE “We have been in mental day is a gift. Working out boosts my energy
Francisco IRL and online classes. overdrive. Anxiety, fear, and stress are constants and puts me in a good mood.” HOW WE EMERGE
GUIDING PRINCIPLE “Daily breathwork is key in our lives. This means we need to work on Her daily posts, prayers, and dances during
to staying grounded and reducing anxiety downregulating the sympathetic (aka fight-or- and after husband Nick Cordero’s battle with
while promoting health and creativity.” THE flight) nervous system. Through light touch, Covid-19 became a beacon for those working
METHOD Neese’s book How to Breathe: 25 energy work, and a calming presence, we can through the loss of loved ones. In opening
Simple Practices for Calm, Joy, and Resilience help activate our parasympathetic nervous sys- up about her own struggle, she has modeled
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SCENTS of SURVIVAL
undeniable. And somehow this obstacle course
I luxurious—but, above all, essential.

of emotional uncertainty has led us back to
the primal power of fragrance. In the early
days of the pandemic, scented candles became
a touchpoint. The combination of warmth,
light, and aroma proved a balm during dark

LOOKING GLASS
times, as we mastered the art of creating sooth- mind, like calmness and balance. And per-
ing sanctuaries. It turned out that taking all
those deep breaths at home was even better
According to legend, fumers, who have always known this, are tak-
ing note. “Fragrance houses and perfumers,
when one was inhaling something pleasant. Marie Antoinette more than ever, are focused on current trends
“When stress and anxiety are running high,
consumers seek out products that deliver on
doused herself in her and needs, whether a fragrance is functional,
wellness-focused, or escapist,” Levy says.
comfort and relaxation,” says Zoë Freedberg, favorite perfume before One of the most interesting examples of
senior marketing manager at global fragrance functional fragrance is Forest Lungs, which
house Robertet. It’s no surprise that cozy
she was ushered to the was introduced at the end of 2020 by well-
scent choices like vanilla and smoky woods guillotine. A small ness brand the Nue Co. Created by perfumer
spiked, along with aromas reminiscent of Guillaume Flavigny and dubbed a “sensory
childhood treats (remember all that banana
clandestine comfort, but supplement,” the scent is part of a collection
bread?). Vacation-inspired fragrances that fed certainly a telling act. that includes sleep aids and ingestible well-
our wanderlust as our passports gathered dust ness powders. The inspiration comes from the
did well too. “Scent has always served escapist fact that spending time with nature reduces
needs,” Freedberg says,“and these have been an significant spectacles of the French Revolution? stress and anxiety, and so, with the help of
even bigger draw as we long for the momen- Centuries before Marie Antoinette, the chemicals emitted by trees (phytoncides), a
tarily unattainable.” ancient Greeks came to believe that fennel calming fragrance could be concocted. For-
That candle glow illuminated new real- inspired strength after they defeated the Per- est Lungs is said to lower stress levels within
izations about the power of fragrance in a sians at Marathon on a field of fennel. Thyme, 30 minutes, according to the brand.
broader sense—as portal, mood setter, and an herb considered sacred by the Celtic dru- Insofar as scent has been used throughout
mind alterer—while seamlessly linking with ids, who used it to lift the spirits, was later the ages for many purposes beyond pleasure,
our memories. Spraying on perfume has used by other cultures to instill bravery. The the functional fragrance movement has always
started to feel very different from the way it idea that courage was something that could been around; today it offers a fresh opportunity
did before: comforting, conjuring, empow- be carried and inhaled prevailed during the to rediscover or to become acquainted with
ering, and deeply personal. Even shielding. Middle Ages, when pomanders (orblike cases the seriousness of smell and its very real value
A quick check in some history books that held crushed flowers, fragrant herbs, and as we look ahead. “The desire to feel good, live
shows that more than a few notable figures perfume) became the It accessory. Pomanders loud, and seek distraction will be top of mind
thought that wearing fragrance could inspire were thought to bestow everything from pro- for everyone coming out of the pandemic,”
or fortify courage. How else to explain the tection to valor on the wearer, but chiefly they Freedberg says. “Celebratory fragrances will be
extravagant amount of fragrance Napoleon (a were used for health purposes, as they were embraced, along with a shift toward multiple-
legendary cologne addict) brought into battle? believed to purify the air—which was some- purpose experiences, including fragrance.”
He insisted that a sizable supply of his favor- thing of an obsession during plague years. Mindfulness will remain important as we
ite fragrances travel with him and his army These days industry experts are citing as gradually resume normal life. (It may take
in his campaign chest during the years he the trend to watch “functional fragrance”— some time to recall what that means.) Perhaps
was conquering Europe. Perhaps these were that is, fragrance that does something. This fragrance will be part of our evolving arse-
enlisted as additional reinforcements, invisi- invites the question: Are we ready to embrace nals as we set—and scent—our intentions and
ble weapons to stir morale? the full spectrum of functions served by fra- begin anew. We have grown braver, bolder, and
Then there’s Marie Antoinette, who, accord- grance, whether it be beacon, amulet, or anx- more appreciative, but let us also remember
ing to legend, doused herself in her favorite iety antidote? the simplest power of fragrance: to bring joy.
perfume before she was ushered to the guil- “The pandemic has shown us that fra- This particular function may be the strongest
lotine. A small clandestine comfort, but cer- grance is far from frivolous and serves a real as we emerge from our little scented bubbles
tainly a telling act. Did this familiar scent purpose,” says Linda G. Levy, president of the to take the world in a love embrace (to quote
serve as a final defense as she faced the throng Fragrance Foundation. Specific notes can Steppenwolf). No doubt we’ll keep the home
gathered to taunt and gawk at one of the most evoke certain feelings and a desired state of fires burning, too.
BOTTLE SERVICE
A spring potion for every emotion.
1 6
2 1. CARTIER L’HEURE OSEE EAU DE PARFUM ($275), 4
GRAEME MONTGOMERY/TRUNK ARCHIVE
CARTIER.COM. 2. LANCOME LA VIE EST BELLE

3 SOLEIL CRISTAL EAU DE PARFUM ($100), 5
LANCOME-USA.COM. 3. HOPE FRAGRANCES
HOPE NIGHT PARFUM ($300), HOPEFRAGRANCES
.COM. 4. LOUIS VUITTON ON THE BEACH EAU
DE PARFUM ($265), US.LOUISVUITTON.COM.
5. BYREDO MIXED EMOTIONS EAU DE PARFUM
($190), BYREDO.COM. 6. BULGARI ALLEGRA
DOLCE ESTASI EAU DE PARFUM ($230), BULGARI.COM

ınvıncıble
THE
woman Selma Blair rose to fame as one of her generation’s most

acclaimed performers. Today she’s not only an actress but an
advocate, and it might just be the greatest role of her life.
BY KEAH BROWN PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALEXI LUBOMIRSKI STYLED BY ELIZABETH STEWART
L
ong before we met, I thought I knew who Selma
Blair was. As a pop culture buff, I’d watched
her work, and I believed I could surmise what
her life was like through red carpet photos,
magazine covers, and movie screens. I came
of age, and Blair rose to stardom, in an era
before social media, when fans put public fig-
ures on a pedestal and projected a grandeur
onto their every moment. On a recent Satur-
day night Blair and I met over Zoom. She was
perched in front of a blue wall in her Los Angeles home, wearing
a dreamy sequined Molly Goddard dress, with one knee pulled to
her chest. I was in a New York hotel room, wearing my best red lip
and quickly learning how wrong I had been.
In conversation, Blair is wonderfully human. Of course, you’re
aware that she’s a movie star, but since she disclosed her multiple
sclerosis diagnosis on Instagram in 2018, Blair has become more
than just her profession, she’s been a light for many disabled peo-
ple. After her disclosure, I was one of many disabled people who felt
seen, understood, and, strangely, hopeful. As a public figure who

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has been open about her disability and the ways in which it can be Caldwell, the naive daughter of social climbers, in Cruel Intentions, the
both beautiful and frustrating, she has made room for many of us to reimagining of Les Liaisons Dangereuses played out among teenagers
do the same. More important, she’s a full person whose life includes on the Upper East Side. The New York Times called the film “faintly
her illness, but she is not solely defined by it. Blair is a world famous ridiculous,” but it was a box office hit and it became a generational
actress, someone with MS, a goofball, a beauty buff, a fashion plate, touchstone; Blair and co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar famously won
and a fierce mother. The fact that she is able to be all these things an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss to commemorate their onscreen
at once and out loud makes her feel like something more than the lip lock. (Last December, to mark the 20th anniversary of the award,
sum of her parts, something like a messenger of hope. the pair recreated the kiss with one very 2020 update: a plexiglass
Often, when there is any mention of disability in the public sphere, divider between them.)
it serves to create narratives about disabled people who find that their From there Blair went on to become a reliable presence in roman-
sole purpose is to make nondisabled people feel better about their tic comedies (Legally Blonde and my personal favorite, The Sweetest
lives. In these narratives disabled people become tools used to fur- Thing) and action films (she starred in 2004’s Hellboy and has lent her
ther the idea that disability is inherently wrong or pitiful. This will voice to TV sequels and video games). She made a movie for John
not be that narrative. If it were, it would be a cheapening of who Waters (A Dirty Shame) and starred opposite Molly Shannon in an
Blair is. Her truth gave many of us the chance to dream bigger, to American adaptation of the cult Australian series Kath & Kim. Blair
see that we too belong on television, movie screens, and red carpets. became the kind of actress you root for, thanks to her easy comedic
We belong, and so does she. timing and ability to be funny, sexy, charming, or evil depending on
“I am aware my challenges affect other hopeful or isolated peo- what a script required.
ple—and a few of them may be joyful snobs like me,” Blair says. “I’m Her choices were thoughtful—even if some, like Legally Blonde,
very comfortable in my body, mostly because which turns 20 this year, are only today being
I am now making a deeper positive connec- celebrated in earnest and not treated as ironic
tion with it. I am fascinated by this body and
this life. I am humbled and pleased to be any
Makeup is pleasures. “Legally Blonde is one of those Tech-
nicolor Hollywood films that really spans the
inspiration for people.” not trivial to me. ages,” Blair says. “Now we see things with a
One of the first things we discuss is beauty. different lens, and all those things [the movie
Not simply looking good for others—though If anything portrays] are celebrations of the human spirit.
there’s nothing wrong with that—but our
desire to look and feel good because it’s what moves the needle It’s dressed up in pink and feathers and glitter,
but it’s eye-catching and kind. I love that the
we deserve. The thing about beauty for Blair
is that it can affect how we see ourselves, and
for me in world’s more like that.”
In fact, many of the films on Blair’s résumé
that isn’t frivolous. It matters.
“I’ve been made up by some of the most
my life, it is my subverted Hollywood ideas and flipped misog-
ynistic tropes on their heads. In conversations
famous makeup artists since I started acting,
and I’ve felt so transformed by their makeup
gorgeous about films that hold up because they were
ahead of their time, Blair’s work is often men-
that I really did become a different person,” she war paint.” tioned; she’s had one of the most considered
says. “It was a superpower to me, and I mean careers of her generation of stars.
this. Makeup is not trivial to me. If anything moves the needle for Blair led what seemed a charmed life. In 2011 she became a
me in my life—even before my diagnosis or challenges—it is my mother, when her son Arthur was born. (His father is her ex, fash-
gorgeous war paint.” ion designer Jason Bleick.) In the years following, she starred in the
She adds, “I don’t mind if my muscles get caught at the intersec- FX series Anger Management, she played Kris Jenner for a season of
tion of a slow brain signal. I just want those words to come from Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story, she won a Grammy nomina-
lips covered in Chanel gloss.” tion for her narration of an audio adaptation of The Diary of Anne
The makeup artist Gucci Westman has worked with Blair on such Frank, and she starred in fashion campaigns for brands including
projects as a cover of Italian Vogue; most recently the pair collabo- Chanel, Miu Miu, and Gap.
rated on a charitable campaign called Natural Beauties that featured In February 2018, however, she first knew that something was
13 ambassadors for Westman’s beauty brand. And while Westman truly off. Blair was walking in a New York Fashion Week show for
can’t quite remember when she first met Blair, she’s clear on what Christian Siriano when she noticed a loss of sensation in her leg.
made her perfect for the campaign. She had noticed similar symptoms before but had considered them
“I really wanted to approach this list of diverse people who are minor troubles and not signs of something significant.
extraordinary in their own right,” Westman says. “Selma was the first “It was on that runway, with the thrill of walking in the show,
person we asked. She’s a great storyteller and a great actress. We loved that I suddenly lost feeling in my left leg,” she says. “But I was on a
letting her go and seeing what she was going to do.” runway and thinking, What do I do?”
B
In October of that year, Blair revealed her diagnosis to the world
lair was born in 1972 outside Detroit, the youngest of four via Instagram, writing, “I am disabled. I fall sometimes. I drop things.
sisters, and began acting as a high schooler. After moving My memory is foggy. And my left side is asking for directions from
to New York City, she began seriously studying acting and a broken GPS.”
landed roles in commercials, on sitcoms, and in films. Her She was met with support from her fans, and the active choice
first leading role was in Strong Island Boys, a 1997 coming-of-age fea- she made—and continues to make—to be open about the realities
ture, but her breakthrough came in 1999, when she played Cecile of her condition is saving lives. Blair has made the choice to be

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transparent about her struggles and successes alike; she showed up film is an unflinching, funny look at her life, the people who care
at the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar party with a cane; she has been vocal for her, the realities of what unknown things the future may bring,
on social media, posting photos of her hair loss after chemotherapy and the joy, exhaustion, and silliness of illness.
and patiently explaining her symptoms; she has lent her celebrity But for now, on our Zoom call, we’ve blown through the time
to philanthropic causes like Race to Erase MS. allotted for our chat and gotten lost in a conversation about good
Sharing her illness with the public gave Blair a new dimension, hotels, fingernails, and Toni Morrison, among other things. It’s
but that didn’t mean the ones we knew would disappear. She’s still easy to see how Blair has earned such admiration from the 2.4 mil-
gorgeous and goofy and looking for a way to make her mark. Speak- lion people who follow her on Instagram, as well as the select few
ing about the night she brought her cane on the red carpet, she says, who know her best: She’s funny and frank and devastatingly smart.
“It was a no-brainer, and there was no choice.” She needed the assis- “Regardless of what is happening in her life, she always shows up,”
tance walking, but the glamour she added was says the beauty entrepreneur Nyakio Grieco,
completely, deliciously optional—her manicur- a longtime friend.
ist monogrammed the cane with gel nail pol-
ish and jewels. “I hadn’t been on a red carpet
Real Sarah Michelle Gellar says, “We have one
of the purest friendships I have ever had. We’re
for so long, and now I was coming,” she says. friendships are able to be scared, to feel the highs and lows.
“I knew, since my diagnosis, people might be Between Covid and her diagnosis, a lot of
watching. I didn’t know if I would be forgotten when you can sit in the barriers that we put up have been broken
about and be the last one on the red carpet.”
She wasn’t forgotten. Her look that eve- silence and know down. [Before the pandemic,] if she was hav-
ing a bad day I would come over and crawl
ning made headlines, and she didn’t stop there.
Siriano, a friend and frequent collaborator, says,
that the other into bed with her, and we would lie there for
hours and watch HGTV. We didn’t have to talk,
“I want to make sure that what she wears is still
her. She still loves to have fun with fashion and
person is there to and to me, real friendships are when you can
sit in silence and know that the other person
get dressed up. We try to make things easier;
we try to make sure the zippers are functional
support you.” is there to love and support you.”
Perhaps what’s most appealing about Blair
and that she can do things herself. I dressed — Sarah Michelle Gellar is that she shows us ways we could all be better.
her for a gala that she was being honored at She is there for her friends and teaches them
not that long ago, and we did a suit without any fastenings. We still to laugh at themselves; she feels at her best with her family; she’s
F R A N K M I C E LOT TA / G E T T Y I M AG E S ( K I S S ) ; A L LSTA R P I CT U R E L I B R A RY LT D. / A L A M Y STO C K P H OTO ( L E GA L LY B LO N D E ) ; D I M I T R I O S K A M B O U R I S /

have fun. We still can have great fashion moments.” passionate about what she does—and despite her successes, there are
WIREIMAGE (WITH WATERS); ROB LOUD/GETTY IMAGES/CHANEL FINE JEWELRY (CHANEL); DIA DIPASUPIL/GETTY IMAGES (OSCAR PARTY)
Today Instagram is where Blair is serving her most fun looks— things she’s still hoping to conquer.
whether she’s playing with her horse, Mr. Nibbles, posing in a black “One day I would hope to be a great writer,” she says, “and that
hat and ruby slippers, or hanging out with her son in the pool— people who were with me on this journey from when I was little,
playing with the color and texture of her clothes and crafting the in Cruel Intentions, and got to make mistakes and really mess things
perfect eye to go with it. Later this year she’ll be back onscreen when up, can come back and see a whole new way of me being at peace
a documentary, Introducing, Selma Blair, streams on Discovery+. The with myself.”
THE ESSENTIAL SELMA BLAIR

A brief history of her most memorable moments onscreen and off.
In 2019—soon after
she announced her
“So, it’s like a secret society?” In 2001 Blair played Forever the wildcard, In 2005 Karl Lagerfeld diagnosis—Blair
Blair asked Sarah Michelle Vivian Kensington in Legally Blair showed her bawdy side cast Blair in a Chanel made headlines when
Gellar in Cruel Intentions, in Blonde, reminding us that as Caprice Stickles in the she appeared at the
which the two had an award- preppy boyfriends are not 2004 John Waters movie a global fashion fixture. Vanity Fair Oscar
winning kiss. to be trusted. A Dirty Shame. party with her cane.

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It’s Actually Quite
SIMPLE
The most perfect basics are the ones
made just for you. Haute couture is
not only about feathers, sequins, and
ornate ball gowns—bien sûr!
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H
aute couture. The phrase conjures element in so many of the looks that many people who saw them
images of romance, fantasy, visual said, ‘It’s completely impossible. This is nothing that anybody will
extravagance. But wardrobe basics? ever wear’… That was crazy. There were all kinds of great ideas to
Probably not. modify in a million ways, and there were plenty of other clothes
Yet to characterize couture as in the mix.”
the pinnacle of sartorial indul- Truth be told, the press often got swept up in these romantic
gence for celebrities and the narratives (they were hard to resist), and magazine editors took to
superrich is to misunderstand and featuring the most flamboyant offerings. This had a snowball effect
undervalue the form. Yes, grand across the haute sphere, ultimately fostering a narrow view of it. In
gowns, often embroidered, feath- photographs an over-the-top ball gown looks “special” and distinctly
ered, and frothed for otherworldly different from ready-to-wear, whereas a photo of even the most pains-
enchantment, play an essential takingly crafted, expertly fitted jacket often just looks like, well, a
part. But couture is not only about that. nice jacket. So why the fuss?
It is also about clothes for real women in real life—“albeit,” Gior- The fuss is in the creation, the craft, the handiwork, the way each
gio Armani tells T&C, “a very rarefied form of real life.” Dior’s Maria piece is still fitted to the person who will wear it (or wear it first—
Grazia Chiuri, another of couture’s most high-profile practitioners, couture gets handed down the generations). The item is unique to
says couture is “clothing that isn’t content to shine only under the the woman.
chandeliers of a gala or party, but that proudly displays its person- “This beauty and craftsmanship are the key for me, not the extrav-
ality in the light of day.” agance,” Armani says. “Extravagance may indeed have become the
Chiuri’s words carry a powerful subtext: Haute clothing can’t image of couture, perhaps because of its visibility at lavish occasions.
be content to shine only under chandeliers, because the couture But couture can be beautifully wearable.” And suitable for round-
client doesn’t confine herself only to such flattering illumination. the-clock. At the major couture houses, daywear comprises a healthy
Rather, she lives in the real world, where for most people, the very proportion of the orders. Privé clients favor jackets and trousers.
rich included, daytime pursuits are at least as important as swanky At Chanel, daywear has the edge over evening in terms of looks
soirees. Just look at the authoritative pants from Dior and Armani ordered—about 55 to 45 percent, with (shocker!) the seasonal inter-
Privé on these pages, and the perfect Chanel white blouse that easily pretations of those iconic suits and jackets leading the way (although
moves from day to evening. The French couturier Alexandre Vauth- in couture the “tweeds” are often intricate embroideries). The house
ier describes his clientele as “bold, empowered women with dynamic states that its haute purpose is “to be by the side of our clients at
lives” and numerous wardrobe requirements. “Couture is not only every moment of their lives, day to day, not just for lavish occasions
ceremonial clothing,” he says. “It can be exceptional in all its details, or ceremonies.” Yet day to day must not be confused with mundane.
and it is adapted to the best techniques in the world.” And, he muses, “Haute couture is, by essence, romantic,” says Chanel creative director
evening regalia aside, “discretion is the essence of luxury, isn’t it?” Virginie Viard. “There is so much love in each silhouette.”
In fact, providing full-wardrobe options to fashion’s most discern- The love. While such language may sound corny to those who
ing customers has been couture’s raison d’être from its founding, don’t buy into the emotional aspects of dressing, believers believe.
which is widely attributed to Charles Frederick Worth, who estab- Especially at the haute level, when each dress, each jacket, each coat
lished his fashion house in Paris in 1858. (It’s one of the industry’s is literally handmade. “It is a rare privilege being able to work like
anecdotal delights that couture, perceived as consummately French, this,” Viard says. “Excellence reigns everywhere, in the famed Chanel
traces its origin to an expat Brit.) Across the decades couture gave ‘hand’ that can achieve everything, from the flou work to the tailoring.”
rise to versatile, high-endurance wonders such as Coco Chanel’s Couturiers would not design and oversee this most specialized
tweed suits, Yves Saint Laurent’s peacoats and smokings, and, in realm of fashion if they didn’t revere it; there are far easier ways to
between those two, Christian Dior’s New Look, which after World make a pretty dress. The dynamics of a couture atelier are very personal
War II proposed an audacious move from austerity to flamboyance on multiple levels, with strong relationships between the couturier
and ultimately provided the template for a new daytime silhouette and the devoted, gifted craftspeople who make the clothes, known
that would resonate across fashion. with admiration within the houses as les petites mains, the little hands.
Yet, over time, reality can collect dust. Leapfrog several decades, and In turn, those petites mains are notorious for their emotional attach-
by the early 1990s couture had receded in influence and attention, ments to the pieces on which they work. They are artists, and the tail-
surpassed in excitement by a generation of new stars of European leur and flou they so painstakingly cut, stitch, and shape are their art.
ready-to-wear, designers such as Miuccia Prada, Helmut Lang, and Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli often speaks of the intense collab-
Jil Sander, all of whom challenged old notions of chic. Compared to oration involved in creating couture; he once named each look in
their work, couture’s prevailing staid aesthetic felt très madame, still his collection after a member of the atelier. He describes a ritualis-
serving an important clientele, but of little creative interest. Then tic gravitas in the processes of creation and stresses that this exists
something happened: John Galliano and Alexander McQueen arrived regardless of the degree of ornamentation.
at Dior and Givenchy, respectively, where they presented exquisite For spring 2021 Piccioli set out to create a daywear-focused cou-
collections in extraordinary theatrical events. ture collection that would highlight the skill and devotion of the ate-
“Galliano and McQueen were pivotal figures,” says the fashion lier. That meant eliminating the visually spectacular elements and
historian Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at overtly fancy fabrics that, when overemphasized,
the Fashion Institute of Technology. “Their cou- ONE GREAT WHITE SHIRT can distract from the beauty of the form itself.
CHANEL HAUTE COUTURE BLOUSE
ture shows were amazing extravaganzas that AND SKIRT; CHANEL FINE JEWELRY
“I don’t believe that luxury is about
went so far toward the costume NECKLACE AND RING decoration or [CO NTINU ED O N PAG E 96]

THE TA ILORED JACKET
ARMANI PRIVE JACKET, PANTS, AND
SCARF; GIORGIO ARMANI HIGH
JEWELRY COLLECTION EARRINGS,
NECKLACES, AND BRACELET
TH E L BD 2 .0
DIOR HAUTE COUTURE
SHIRTDRESS, BERET, BOOTS,
NECKLACE BAG, AND RINGS
T H E C L AS SI C TRO U S E RS
DIOR HAUTE COUTURE
BREASTPLATE, SHIRT, TROUSERS,
BERET, SHOES, EARRINGS, AND RING

THE DAY DRESS,
T WO WAYS
LEFT: DOLCE & GABBANA
ALTA MODA A-LINE DRESS,
HEADPIECE, AND SHOES;
DOLCE & GABBANA ALTA
GIOIELLERIA EARRINGS
AND NECKLACE. RIGHT:
DOLCE & GABBANA
ALTA MODA TUNIC,
HEADPIECE, AND SHOES;
DOLCE & GABBANA ALTA
GIOIELLERIA EARRINGS
AND NECKLACE

A KILLER
C O C KTA IL F ROC K
SCHIAPARELLI HAUTE COUTURE
DRESS, EARRINGS, AND BOOTS.
Hair by Charlotte Mensah at
Premier. Makeup by Valeria
Ferreira at the Wall Group.
Nails by Michelle Class at
LMC Worldwide. Set design
by Trish Stephenson at
Patricia McMahon. Production
by Zoe Rose-Davies
FAKE
SW ETL LED AO N KE
Science is promising us steak that’s
heart-healthy, eco-friendly, and still decadent. But will
we eat filet mignon from a bioreactor?
O
BY PAUL TULLIS ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOE DARROW
n the third floor of a modern marble and glass build- safety cabinet, washes the shelf with filtered air so she can slip her
ing half an hour from Tel Aviv and around the corner hands through an opening in the screen and uncover the dishes
from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel’s lead- without contaminating them with the tens of millions of microbes
ing research institute, Neta Lavon snaps on a pair of that float around us every minute of every day. She exchanges the
blue latex gloves and opens an incubator. She removes growth medium before moving the re-covered plate to a microscope,
a plate of six circular dishes covered with clear plastic, where she can check on the cells’ progress.
each containing a clear solution of vitamins, minerals, A computer screen shows what’s under the lenses: dozens of gray-
amino acids, and all the other compounds that the white cells, roughly triangular in shape, with black nuclei, in a gray
cells she is working with need to grow. Lavon, 49, a biology PhD solution. “Every 24 hours they duplicate themselves until they fill
who earlier managed the human embryonic stem cell lab at the whole surface,” Lavon says. “Then we harvest the cells—that’s
Cedars-Sinai Research Center in Los Angeles, takes a seat the terminology we use—and expand them.”
on a rolling chair before a large box about nine feet tall, Once enough cells have developed, they’re placed in
33
six feet wide, and two feet deep. The box has a plastic a bioreactor, a vessel for carrying out a biological pro-
screen like the ones we have grown accustomed to cess similar to devices the pharmaceutical industry
seeing at banks and checkout lines; here, it covers uses to manufacture vaccines. The one in Lavon’s
a shelf holding vials, pipettes, and other parapher- Companies around the world lab, a chrome-plated cylinder about a foot tall with
nalia of scientific labs the world over. that currently grow meat in tubes sticking out of it, looks like a blender on life
labs—from dog food to foie
“When I want to give the cells fresh nutrients, gras, pork to duck, chicken support. A motor on top mixes the cells so they rep-
I take out the used growth medium and replace it nuggets to hamburger licate in suspension.
with fresh,” Lavon says. The box, called a biological patties. “In our pilot plant we are going to have vessels

that are 1,000 or more times bigger than this one,” says Lavon. “They The first studies on the effects of cho-
$161M
can grow into a big mass of cells that then we can make into the meat.” lesterol, of which there is a copious
Wait, what? Meat? amount in beef, were published in
the 1940s; by 1964 medical journals
THE NEW BUTCHER CASE were replete with warnings, such as Amount raised in early 2020 by
Lavon is vice president of research and development at Aleph Farms, the one in Angiology that year that Memphis Meats, just one of
which in 2018 produced the first steak without the use—or, many told of “considerable indications more than 30 international
companies developing
say, abuse—of a living, breathing animal. That was a thin-cut steak— for the supposition that the risk for “cultivated” meat.
not exactly a hallmark of chefs or backyard grillmasters—but it was the development of coronary disease is
merely a stepping stone to Aleph’s announcement in February that enhanced by hypercholesterolemia [high
it had developed a ribeye, considered by many the finest cut of beef. cholesterol].” The American Heart Association
Aleph is one among an expanding field of companies racing to today recommends no more than 13 grams of saturated fat per day
bring to market what they would rather not be called “lab-grown for people watching their cholesterol intake; a single McDonald’s
meat” (they prefer “cultivated” or “slaughter-free”). Though the tech- Quarter Pounder with Cheese contains 12.
nology did not exist even just a few years ago, today at least 33 start- At the same time, researchers have been painting an increasingly
ups in 12 countries are producing a variety of meats—from dog food bleak picture of the effects on the global climate of producing meat
to foie gras, pork to duck, chicken nuggets to beef patties. Some are in the conventional (whoops, Aleph prefers “traditional”) way. Live-
promising cultivated meat in stores next year. stock for beef and milk production are responsible for about 10
Investment is also growing rapidly: At the end of 2019 companies percent of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions—more than two-
had raised $166 million; early in 2020 Berkeley, thirds the amount produced by the transport
California’s Memphis Meats took in $161 mil- sector. The environmental effects of raising cattle
lion on its own. (Aleph has raised $14 million
from Big Food heavyweight Cargill, the Israeli
“You can have can be both direct (methane released as part of
the digestive process is the second-most abun-
Innovation Authority, and others.) Together they
will be rushing into a space that environmen-
meats that dant anthropogenic greenhouse gas, after car-
bon dioxide, and 25 times as effective as CO2
talists, the health-conscious, and promoters of
wellness have cultivated carefully. Vegetarian-
are beneficial at trapping heat) and indirect (nitrogen fertil-
izer that grows corn that is fed to cattle spills
ism is growing, from 1 percent of the U.S. pop- for certain into waterways and flows into oceans, where the
ulation to 6 percent in recent years, as is the nitrogen crowds out oxygen molecules that fish
“flexitarian” diet. groups—I can need to survive. Eating beef, apparently, impedes
Animal welfare is one reason many choose
vegetarianism or veganism. Others aren’t ready even imagine our ability to eat fish).
And we’re going to need a lot more of both.
to take that step, but, as you’ve no doubt noticed
if you’ve ever set foot inside a Whole Foods, personalized The world’s population is expected to reach 9.8
billion by 2050, a 30 percent increase in as many
they are willing to pay more for beef that is
grass-fed—meaning no “finishing” on corn in nutrition.” years. “I don’t think we can keep producing and
eating animals in this manner much longer,”
concentrated animal feedlot operations, where says Daan Luining, founder and chief technol-
close confinement provides a less than ideal lifestyle for the resi- ogy officer of Meatable, a cultivated meat startup in the Netherlands.
dents—or for eggs and chicken that are free-range, even though no “We’re going for big impact—which is what’s needed in terms of
regulatory standard exists for such terms. climate change, antibiotic resistance, animal welfare.”
Restaurateurs have noticed these trends. “There is no doubt that Luining, Lavon, and their competitors hope to produce meat
diners are increasingly interested in nonmeat offerings,” says Dan much more efficiently and, in the process, reap environmental ben-
Kluger, owner of Loring Place, in Greenwich Village, and veteran efits. The Good Food Institute, a Washington, DC–based nonprofit
of some of the country’s most lauded kitchens. “They have concerns that advocates for a food system that’s “better for the planet, peo-
about the environmental…” he trails off. “But protein grown in labs? ple, and animals,” claims that cultured beef will use 95 percent less
I’ve just been trying to get people to eat more vegetables.” land than livestock and cut climate change emissions and nutrient
Bill Gates, who along with Richard Branson, Cargill, and Tyson pollution from beef production by three-quarters and by 94 per-
Foods was an investor in Memphis Meats’ series B round of invest- cent, respectively.
ment, told MIT Technology Review in February The coronavirus pandemic has brought into stark relief one more
that to “avoid climate disaster,” rich countries argument for advancing technology to supply our hunger for meat.
like the U.S. “should move to 100 percent The virus that causes Covid-19 is widely believed to have evolved
10%
synthetic beef” (which would be good from one that circulated for years in another mammal. As the virus
for Memphis Meats, and hence good replicated, mutations developed that enabled it to infect and sicken
for Bill Gates). That seems unlikely, humans. Thanks to our palates, Americans don’t generally eat bats,
Amount of humanity’s
greenhouse gas emissions given the more than 10,000 years of the animals most widely suspected of harboring SARS-CoV-2’s pre-
that come from beef and milk raising livestock ingrained in our civ- cursor, but two other potentially fatal viruses, the influenza strains
production (more than 2/3 ilization, but cultivated meat will find H1N1 and H5N1, have come from poultry and livestock in recent
the amount produced
by the transport a niche because the march of science years—suggesting that more are on the way.
sector). has not been good for cattle producers. And if pandemics aren’t enough to convince people, maybe
antibiotic resistance is. Cat- in a complicated two-step process
tle producers discovered some that has never been tried.
time ago that giving their ani- And then there’s the question
mals antibiotics to head off any of how fake steak will go over
possibility of bacterial infection with the people who patronize
also causes even healthy cat- the world’s top restaurants. “My
tle to grow faster. Today meat initial impression is that this is
producers in the U.S. are the undoubtedly good for the planet
largest purchasers of antibiot- and bad for gourmands and food-
ics—more than the healthcare ies,” says the novelist Jay McIner-
industry. Overuse of antibiot- ney, who writes about food and
ics has accelerated the evolu- wine (the latter for Town & Coun-
tion of bacteria that can resist try). “It’s a noble effort, but it’s
them, and now around 700,000 hard to imagine that, certainly in
people all around the world die the early stages, it will be relevant
every year from what should be to people who take food really
treatable infections. seriously. It seems like a mass-
market product, and a tough sell
GRILL MARKS for people who dine at Per Se.”
In March, Aleph’s in-house chef, The startups will also need
Amir Ilan, gave me a video cook- to allay the suspicions of what
ing demonstration with one of has been called the “food move-
the company’s thin-cut steaks. ment”—those who favor the arti-
Dressed in an apron and stand- sanal and eschew the industrial.
ing in his kitchen in Israel, Plant-based imitation burgers
he heated a cast iron pan on such as those from Beyond Meat
a black electric range while and Impossible Foods have faced
sautéing shiitake mushrooms and snow peas in garlic-infused oil in opposition for being overly processed. Not coming from any here-
another pan. tofore known method of producing food, cultivated meat is likely
He held up to the camera a white plate that held a square piece to bear similar scrutiny.
of meat. It had less red tint and more brown overtones than a typical “We don’t need this,” says chef and author Mark Bittman, whose
slab of raw flesh, but it looked steaklike nonetheless. He sprinkled most recent book, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sus-
it with salt and pepper and then poured some oil into the pan and tainable to Suicidal, details some of the less savory trends in recent
waited for it to start smoking. culinary habits. “We have perfectly good food out there” to replace
At the start of the demonstration, I asked Ilan if there was any- environmentally damaging, unhealthful beef, “and it’s called plants.”
thing about this meat—from the type of cells they used to grow it To convince food movement advocates, he says, cultivated meat would
to how it was formed in the lab—that would make it difficult need to fulfill its promises of safety and low resource use and reduce
to cook. Quite the opposite, he said: “We don’t have the consumption of animal products, rather than merely add
problem of a cow [being raised] outdoors, which can another option to the menu.
toughen the meat. We create the perfect steak in the More than anything, though, the new companies
6%
lab from the start, according to the flavor, texture, will need to produce something that is as good as the
and structure we want.” meat you can buy in a store, or a steak you’d order
He dropped the square onto the sizzling cast at a restaurant. Suzanne Tracht, chef and owner of
iron, then swirled the vegetables some more. Once Amount of the U.S. Los Angeles’s Jar—consistently rated among the best
population that identifies
he was happy with the steak’s color, he flipped it; as vegetarian, an increase
steakhouses in the U.S.—told me, “I have a chop-
then he dribbled a wine reduction onto a plate from 1 percent just in the house, so I have to source and get the best. My cus-
that was already decorated with sprigs of rosemary. past few years. tomers are not asking, ‘Where did this piece of meat
Using tweezers, he placed the steak in the center of come from?’ But they do know what tastes good.”
the dish and surrounded it with a few snow peas and
shiitakes. He held up the finished arrangement, which looked WHERE’S THE BEEF?
very much like something that would be served at a good restaurant. Aleph’s steak grew out of a process developed at the Technion-Israel
Purported benefits notwithstanding, Aleph and its competitors Institute of Technology by Shulamit Levenberg, an expert in bio-
are going to need to overcome a lot of resistance to get Americans medical engineering who hopes to cultivate from cells human tissue
to replace their filets mignons and pork chops with ones grown in for transplant. She worked for years at MIT with Robert Langer, a
a bioreactor. First, the price will need to fall dramatically. Aleph says pioneer in the field of tissue engineering, before co-founding Aleph
it can produce a steak for $50, but considering that Memphis Meats’ with Didier Toubia, a life science entrepreneur.
hamburger was $6,000 per pound just four years ago and steak is a Growing muscle tissue for human consumption is much simpler
lot more complicated, that quote seems suspiciously low. The FDA than growing it for transplant. Transplanted tissue requires functional
and the Department of Agriculture will need to approve the products cells, such as muscle cells that can contract. But [C ONTINU E D ON PAGE 97]

WAKE UP
& SMELL
THE IRISES
A mini–Central Park in your back yard? Close.
At an estate as old as T&C, the colors and aromas
BY LYNN YAEGER PHOTOGRAPHS BY CLINT CLEMENS
Japanese irises at the
Chimneys, a Massachusetts
estate dating back to 1845,
chosen by landscape architect
Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.

“W
hen the world wearies and society ceases to sat- verdant slice of Cape Ann a landscape out of a painting by John Singer
isfy, there is always the garden,” the poet Minnie Sargent, who was a frequent guest, often alongside Isabella Stewart
Aumonier once observed. Though she offered Gardner; Henry Frick and J.P. Morgan were also seen there. When
this advice nearly a century ago, she might have Anderson and Mullen bought the property in 1991, Olmsted’s water
been talking about our own fraught times—the lily pools, the garden’s central feature, had crumbled. Granite walls
ways we look to the earth for comfort and sustenance, the avenues and steps that defined and linked the series of terraces had collapsed
we explore for solace and renewal. from age and erosion. But slowly and carefully, they nursed this New
Maybe this is why the new book Immersion: Living and Learning England Eden back to life over the course of 30 years.
in an Olmsted Garden, is so timely. Featuring spectacular photogra- “It has to be touched!” Anderson exclaims. Americans can be intim-
phy, previewed here exclusively, Immersion chronicles the birth and idated by all the luscious greenery, but she says “British and European
revival of a little-known garden designed by Frederick Law Olmsted visitors immediately take off their shoes and pick the vegetables.” She
Jr. on a secluded 19th-century estate in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mas- recalls sack races and birthday parties when her daughter was small,
sachusetts, known as the Chimneys. impromptu fashion shows at the Tea House, croquet games on the
An Italianate landscaped wonderland overlooking the Atlantic lawn. Sometimes the pleasure is enjoyed in total solitude. Anderson
was conceived as a series of descending terraces for contemplation, says that her husband, who she says shared her passion for the land-
but by the time former advertising executive Nola Anderson and scape, even if he didn’t share the work, referred to it as “his shrink.
her husband, the advertising mogul and sailing enthusiast Jim Mul- When he got home from the office he would go into the garden and
len, came upon it three decades ago, sit for hours on the bench in the Over-
the Chimneys had become the Miss look House, or sometimes in the Tea
Havisham of mansions. House, by himself, and all his cares
“Fools rush in,” Anderson con- would just float away.”
fessed to T&C. “It was a total wreck!” Two years ago, having retired, they
In the book Anderson describes a
nearly impassable half-mile drive-
A horticultural decided to put their life’s work up
for sale, and they had photographer
way overgrown with rhododendron couturier, the Clint Clemens move in for the sum-
and forsythia. “Depending on your mer to document the fruits of their
perspective, it was either Sleeping younger Olmsted labor. The book is a product of that
Beauty’s castle or Grey Gardens. We
loved it.”
created a landscape collaboration, and last October, with
a pandemic raging and the sales of
Love, as we know, can be strange,
and notoriously blind, too. Perhaps
out of a painting sprawling estates like this one boom-
ing, the fates handed them another
the most poignant lesson gleaned by John Singer twist: Another couple who appreci-
from a project of this size and scope, ated the history and pedigree of the
and the one that resonates with us Sargent, who was a property purchased it for $21 million.
most forcefully today, is that a garden,
no matter how carefully planned, how
frequent guest. It was a bittersweet parting (“We had
29 and a half years in paradise”) but
meticulously laid out, how doted on one that has been commemorated
and cared for, is a living, breathing with an elegant coda.
organism, ever shifting and chang- Asked to reveal a favorite garden
ing. A garden is not a painting, not moment, Anderson prefers to demur.
a statue—it is an entirely different order of art. If you can’t step in She allows that it might be early spring, when, under the fragrant
the same river twice, you likewise cannot count on a landscape to white blossoms of the crabapple allée, tiny violets begin to emerge.
remain frozen in time. Colors bloom and fade, aromas blend and “And then you watch for other flowers, the first little daffodils…
dissipate—day by day, hour by hour. Even the most assiduous gar- Oh, and after the rain is really great too! The spiders come out and
dener, and Anderson is one, discovers early that he or she is at the make their last webs,” she says, warming to the subject. “There is very
mercy of primordial forces. “After love at first sight, I suppose it was much a spiritual connection. It’s so quiet. In the summertime you
inevitable that reality would set in,” she writes. “Mother Nature is could hear happy kids splashing, dogs, the waves, but then in other
always in charge and is not always benevolent.” areas of the garden it’s very quiet, calming.”
Olmsted, the son of the famed landscape architect behind Central Isn’t that what we long for now, more than ever: the peace that
Park, understood he was just a collaborator with this fierce matriarch comes from a silent stroll through the nearest patch of greenery—
when he was commissioned, in 1902, by the Boston financier Gar- perhaps with a glass of wine in hand—feeling the grass beneath our
diner Martin Lane and his wife Emma to site a seven-chimney Geor- feet, letting the cares that consume us melt into the soft spring air?
gian Revival summer residence for their 28 acres on Dana Beach; he
spent the next 12 years designing the gardens. (The property was a Steward of the landscape for 30 years, Nola Anderson kept the counsel of Olmsted
specialist Arleyn Levee as she replanted and restored the gardens: “This is
fraction of the original estate purchased in 1845 by the beach’s name- not Colonial Williamsburg. You should feel free to change it.” Landscape designer
sake, Richard Henry Dana, a poet whose father was a delegate to the Patrick Chassé riffed on Olmsted’s drawings to carve out a series of outdoor
Continental Congress and whose son, the abolitionist Richard Henry rooms, from the all white Tea Garden inspired by Sissinghurst in Kent, England
(middle row, far left), and the central fountain (middle row, center), to the terrace
Dana Jr., wrote the early American classic Two Years Before the Mast.) overlooking the ocean (bottom row, center). The nine discrete gardens teem
A horticultural couturier, the younger Olmsted cultivated on this with a variety of flora, creating ever changing vignettes throughout the year.

One of Olmsted’s enduring
flourishes is a half-mile driveway
that builds to a dramatic reveal:
oceanfront views. This image,
among others, is on vivid display in
the new book Immersion: Living
and Learning in an Olmsted Garden,
by Nola Anderson. DAMIANI, $75
Barry Jenkins, the
Oscar-winning director
helming The Underground
Railroad, photographed in
Los Angeles.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
ERIK CARTER
TRAINS of THOUGHT
How do you make The Underground Railroad into the year’s
most anticipated television series? Take a two-time
Pulitzer-winning author and Hollywood’s hottest Oscar winner
and let their imaginations run wild. BY HUNTER HARRIS
Colson Whitehead, who
won the Pulitzer Prize for
writing The Underground
Railroad, photographed
in New York City.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
JAI LENNARD

B
arry Jenkins wanted The Intuitionist first. This was and The Master, by Paul Thomas Anderson.” I was just like, “Okay,
before he directed Moonlight and If Beale Street Could sounds good.”
Talk and became one of Hollywood’s most sought- BARRY JENKINS: I remember being really nervous, because I had
after filmmakers. Even before he made his first feature, explored The Intuitionist so many years ago and didn’t get any trac-
2008’s Medicine for Melancholy, the director wanted tion. I also realized that a lot of people were probably talking to
to make a movie of Colson Whitehead’s first book. “I Colson about The Underground Railroad. I remember being pretty
tried to track Colson down way back in the mid-2000s. straightforward, saying, “I don’t want to make this as a feature film.
I didn’t have any money to option the book, and I didn’t have any I want to do it as a limited series. I think that’s the best way in terms
way to actually get to Colson,” he says. “But that was my first attempt.” of conveying the scope of the book to the screen.” I think Colson
It took a decade—during which Jenkins, 41, became an Oscar win- appreciated me being upfront in that way. Because there’s a version
ner and was hired to direct Disney’s Lion King prequel, and White- of that conversation where, as a director, I’m trying to woo you and
head, 51, won two Pulitzers and landed on the Time 100, for which figure out what you want, so I can then understand how to say back
Oprah Winfrey wrote, “Colson has a vision about what it means to to you everything you want.
make art”—for Jenkins to get his hands on
The Underground Railroad, Whitehead’s Pulit- I have this idea that you both gave this work
zer Prize–winning book about an escaped long gestation periods. Colson, you had the idea
slave named Cora making her way to free- for the book in 2000 but didn’t write it until
dom on a literal railroad. Their collabora- 2015. Barry, you optioned this before Moon-
tion is worth the wait. light opened, and made a whole other movie
Jenkins has turned the novel into a sear- in the middle.
ing, emotional epic. It’s his version of a road CW: I had the idea in the spring of 2000
movie, stretched across five states and 10 of making the Underground Railroad real,
episodes (it premieres on Amazon Prime but I was 30 years old and didn’t think I was
May 14). There are striking departures from mature enough to write about slavery in the
(and additions to) the novel, but Whitehead, way that it needed to be treated. It took 14
whose next book, Harlem Shuffle, will be pub- years before I felt that I could do it, but I
lished later this year, seems to delight in a was still scared. I think that fear, for me, is
new reading of his work. good quality control.
The Underground Railroad is an epic meet- BJ: It was a much shorter gestation period
ing of two artistic minds. Jenkins is effusive for me. Once Moonlight premiered and all
in his praise for Whitehead, who’s an execu- the talking happened, this became a real-
tive producer on the series and who visited ity. I talked to a few other directors, Steven
the Georgia set where his book’s world was Soderbergh and Cary Fukunaga, and they
made real. “This is gold!” Jenkins exclaims both told me, “This is going to kick your ass.
of the novel’s rich details. “It was all there And there are going to be moments when it
[in the book]. It was all in there.” Whitehead seems literally impossible.” And yet, I knew
was just as moved when he visited the set. “I that having this on the horizon was the best
spent the last few years not thinking about thing for me, because it scared the shit out of
[The Underground Railroad]. When I came me. And having those dudes, both of whose
back into that world, I was confronted with work I respect, tell me, “No matter how hard
the fact that there’s this beautiful version of “I didn’t think I was you prepare for this, you can never prepare
my book coming out. It’s really astounding
and moving in so many different ways.”
mature enough to for this.” There was something very energiz-
ing about that.
Here, the men discuss the adaptation, write about slavery…
finding themselves in the work, and—despite
their mutual admiration—the one idea to
Fear, for me, is good How much of yourselves, if any, did both of you
see in Cora?
which Whitehead said no. quality control.” CW: There’s the least amount of me in Cora,
which is probably why it’s my most popu-
I’d like to start with how you two were introduced, and how your first lar book. I think when I’m pushed to make characters who have no
conversation about The Underground Railroad went. resemblance to me, it’s a little bit harder, and I think they come out
COLSON WHITEHEAD: When the novel came out, in August better, frankly. I can’t imagine what it was like to cast her.
2016, it was making the rounds; a few people were interested, and BJ: Cora is me in the sense that I went through the first 24 years of
Barry was one of them. It was a month before Moonlight hit the fes- my life not understanding why my relationship with my mom was
tivals, so I hadn’t seen it yet. When I did, it was so great and lovely. the way it was. From all the Moonlight press, people know my mom
I immediately wanted to talk to him. I had never interviewed a was addicted to drugs and we never lived together. For the longest
director, because no one was interested in my work before. I didn’t time I thought it was something deficient in me or something I had
know what to ask. I remember specifically being like, “Are there done. I learned, when I was 24, the story of my mom living with my
any slave movies or TV shows that you would use as a model?” And father for the 10 years before I was born, and the two of them separat-
Barry was like, “Slave movies? No, I was thinking There Will Be Blood ing because of a supposed act of infidelity. And this broken heart was

Thuso Mbedu and
Aaron Pierre in
The Underground
Railroad, which
premieres May 14
on Amazon Prime. and so the starting point was just really great. But I do like breaking
things, so I was like, “Where are the points where we can break this
and figure out what’s interesting in the detritus?”
How did you find those breaking points? And, Colson, how did you feel
watching them? There are a handful of really interesting additions, and
they make the novel and the series complementary, in a way.
BJ: What I loved about what you did in the book, Colson, is that
typically when you read a story like this it’s all about the central
character. I just love that there were so many of these stories hap-
pening around Cora.
CW: Well, it’s funny that I’m watching and I’m like, “Oh, that’s a
new avenue. It’s different from the book. Is it going to work?” And it
always worked. The word rescue keeps com-
ing to mind, because you rescued different
the thing that sort of fractured our family. characters. Like Jasper. Jasper is only there
I remember getting to the end of the for a couple of pages. He becomes this really
book and finally learning the story of [Cora’s beautiful person [in the series]. You give him
mother] Mabel and understanding that Cora more time onstage, and he really blossoms
had been on this journey, and been driven by differently than I ever envisioned. [And the
this animus, this hurt. The hurt wasn’t mis- character] Ridgeway’s childhood is recast
placed, because she was right to feel aban- in a way that makes it work. It was not in
doned, but the abandonment was caused by my head, and the seeds are barely on the
something that was beyond any of their con- page, but…
trol. And I was like, “Holy shit, this is me.” BJ: I don’t think that’s true! It was all in
That’s when everything just clicked. the book. I’m curious, because when I read
a book it’s sometimes hard for me to see a
What opportunities did you have to collabo- face. Did you see faces as you were writing
rate on the series? Colson, how involved did you these characters? And then how did the faces
want to be? we cast line up? I know it’s your interview,
CW: Barry would talk to me about once a Hunter, but I’m sorry, I want to ask.
year. [Television is] a different skill, and I CW: The sad thing is I see everything except
respect that. I’m not just going to walk in faces and bodies. It’s startling to see Cora
as a novelist and say, “This is how you do an for the first time.
adaptation.” I don’t think about the book
in that way. I’m used to working alone. I The book is so realistic about slavery, but there
couldn’t imagine the collaboration it would is a sense of wonder in those little breaks from
take to pull off an incredibly huge enterprise reality. The first time we see the real railroad feels
like this. I’d rather just write my books, and like a big reveal, for us and for Cora.
then keep my fingers crossed that, if they are BJ: We filmed this initially in the state of
made into movies, they are in good hands. “Where are the Georgia, and filming on train tracks anywhere
And from the first conversation I knew the
book was in good hands.
points where we can in this country right now is very difficult, as it
should be. I wanted the trains and tunnel to
BJ: In the early going we had a writers room, break this and figure out be real. I didn’t want CGI trains. We found a
and I would ping Colson to check that we
weren’t straying too far from this or too far
what’s interesting in rail museum in South Carolina, and we built
the tunnels over these train tracks. Instead of
from that. There was one terrible idea that the detritus?” a big, sweeping shot, she gets down and starts
Colson wisely shot down. I had been staffed banging on the tracks. I wanted to channel
in the writers room of season two of [the HBO series] The Leftovers, everything through Cora’s experience. The reason I wanted to adapt
KYLE KAPLAN/AMAZON STUDIOS (SERIES STILL)
but I didn’t write anything. One of the writers I met there was a this book is because when I was a kid they used to say, “the Under-
woman named Jacqui Hoyt, and she came with me to The Under- ground Railway Road,” and I imagined Black folks underground riding
ground Railroad. I’d wanted Colson to be in the room too, but he was trains. It was cool, man. Thank you for giving me that gift. You’ve got
writing another book [2019’s The Nickel Boys] that won a Pulitzer to go through hell to get to it, but you gave me back my childhood.
Prize! We had a very short, eight-week room; it was myself and four
other writers. It was very intense. We tried to cover a lot of ground. I want to go back to the idea that Colson shot down immediately. What
We pitched the show to Amazon twice in eight weeks, front to back. was it?
The book is so good, the map was there; it was just about me as a BJ: I’m not going to say. It was so bad, I’m not going to say. Less is
director working with other writers figuring out where this story can more. You were absolutely right, my friend. It was also the quickest
go and what was filmable. It was mostly the latter. Colson’s a genius, reply I have ever gotten from you.

Turn the Other
CHEEK A flush of joy, of passion,
of excitement—of life! Why blush
suddenly feels so right.
BY LINDA WELLS PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELLIOT & ERICK JIMENEZ STYLED BY JESSICA WILLIS
T
he heat starts in my cheeks like a very focused fever. It trav-
els down, blotching my neck and chest, scorching my ears,
and shooting up to my scalp, where it pricks the root of
every hair. I could, at any moment, spontaneously combust.
My skin has betrayed me, in fourth grade history and
sophomore physics, in class plays and dances, at podiums
and in television studios. I’m blushing just thinking about
it. Charles Darwin, who believed blushing was caused by
“thinking of what others think of us,” called it “the most peculiar and the
most human of expressions.”
That’s comforting. And with my history it would make perfect sense that
I’d avoid this particular category of makeup, because my natural inclination is
so florid. But I love the stuff. The first blush I owned was a squat glass bottle
holding a vivid liquid. It was called Colour Rub, an American product with a
fancy u for pedigree. The word rub should have been printed in bold, upper-
case letters on the label, because as soon as you dotted the liquid on your
skin, you had to rub like mad before it dried in streaks like a Cy Twombly
painting. It was makeup as athletic event.
I moved on to powder blush, learning from the makeup artists I inter-
viewed in my first job the skill of applying a gentle swirl to the cheeks. One
suggested adding a hit under each eye and along the hairline to imitate the
effect of the sun. A “healthy flush” was the goal, and I typed those words so
often they were practically inseparable. It took a few years to break that habit
when I realized there was nothing healthy about a flush from the sun, which
was, let’s face it, a sunburn. That came from experience too.
“O blush not so! O blush not so!/Or I shall think you knowing,” wrote
John Keats, somewhat judgmentally. There is good blush and bad blush.

HERMES TRENCH COAT.
HERMES ROSE HERMES
SILKY BLUSH IN ROSE NUIT
($77) AND ROSE HERMES
ROSE A LEVRES IN ROSE
D’ETE ($67), HERMES.COM

HERMES TRENCH COAT,
BODYSUIT ($2,500), NECKLACE
($40,600), AND RING ($3,150).
HERMES ROSE HERMES SILKY
BLUSH IN ROSE POMMETTE
($77), HERMES.COM. OPPOSITE:
HERMES ROSE HERMES SILKY
BLUSH IN ROSE POIVRE ($77),
HERMES.COM. FOR DETAILS SEE
PAGE 97
Hair by Hiro & Mari for
Bumble and Bumble at 87
Artists. Makeup by Bo at
the Wall Group. Nails by
Nori for Chanel Le Vernis.
Casting by Shawn Dezan
at Home Agency

Innocent and guilty. Outdoorsy and febrile. Sweet and lurid. Virgin with women in leadership roles, and the success stories of Elizabeth
and whore. It’s impressive, really, that one physical reaction manages to Arden, Helena Rubinstein, and, later, Estée Lauder gave their prod-
hold so many warring emotions, so much conflict and contradiction. ucts an additional gloss of ambition and achievement.
The products that imitate a flush play with those paradoxes. By Estée Lauder, the woman, was a makeup evangelist, applying lip-
naming his pale, shimmery blush Orgasm, François Nars turned a stick and blush to people in stores, at parties, and even at parent-teacher
demure peachy pink into a racy proposition. Keats would definitely conferences. In 1991, I saw Mrs. Lauder at the gala opening of the
call it “knowing.” Benefit’s popular cherry-red Benetint started life short-lived Galeries Lafayette store in New York City. We chatted for
in 1976 as a nipple stain made for exotic dancers out of rose petals a moment, and then she took my hand and led me to her cosmetics
and carmine and later commercialized for the unexotic rest of us. counter. We were both in evening gowns and full hair and makeup,
Now Hermès is bringing its characteristic refinement to the mat- but never mind. She dipped into a virgin tester unit and rubbed
ter with the introduction of Rose Hermès, a collection of blushes blush on my right cheek. “Just a little more glow,” she said, and then
that’s about as far as you can get from the stripper pole. “Rose for turned to greet another guest. And there I stood, with extra makeup
us is very poetic,” says Agnès de Villers, chief executive officer of on one side of my face. I wasn’t about to sneak to the restroom and
Hermès Parfums. “It’s an evocative way of bringing some light and dab it off with a wet tissue the way I did when people who were not
blood circulation to the face.” The Silky blush, an elegant powder named Estée Lauder did my makeup at a department store. This was
embossed with the Hermès name and with ribs that resemble the like getting a little glow from Renoir. So I hovered over the tester,
weft of Hermès silk, comes in eight shades, trying to duplicate her work on the other side.
from the pale Rose Abricot to the deep Rose Lauder believed that everyone could benefit
Feu. The blush is scented a milky sandalwood, from a little more blush.
with arnica and green tea, a blend dreamed To embrace blush is to embrace life. Diana
up by the house’s perfumer. It’s also immac- Vreeland, the legendary editor, thought so,
ulately dressed in a white and brushed gold wearing red blush on her cheeks, temples,
compact with a bright gold Hermès seal on forehead, and ears in great, emphatic excess.
top—a crisp, modern disk. Pierre Hardy, cre- A flight attendant once offered to rub in some
ative director of Hermès shoes and jewelry, of Vreeland’s rouge, believing it was unin-
calls it “sensual, discreet, soft and beautiful tentional. At that, Vreeland turned to her
and tender.” With it, Hermès turns a functional seatmate, Bill Blass, and remarked, “Isn’t that
piece of makeup into an object of desire. Keats sweet? So American.”
no doubt would approve. Over the past five years or so, blush has
Blush came into being, as many things did, taken a back seat to contouring and highlight-
in ancient Egypt. How Cleopatra got anything ing, in the highly sculpted Kardashian mold.
done is a miracle, between the milk baths
and the hairstyles, the embellishments and
Blush is makeup “Young girls now know how to change their
faces [with contour],” says de Villers. “Blush
the seductions. Ancient Egyptian and Roman as mood lifter, an is another way of being and accepting your
women of means covered their skin with a face, your skin.” Dick Page, the makeup art-
chalklike powder made from gypsum, adding affirmation of ist known for his deftness with blush, rejects
red pigment to perk things up a bit. That pig-
ment came from red clay or berries. Chinese
humanity, proof that trends in makeup and especially in blush. To
those makeup artists who declare,“I’m not feel-
women in the Tang Dynasty fashioned rouge
out of pomegranate, safflower, and cinnabar, a
passion is there, ing blush this season,” Page responds, “What?
You’re not feeling human?” Blush gives the
mineral containing toxic mercury. In medie- for everyone to see. skin animation, says Page. “The heightened
val medicine, one book of formulas included response to being alive is to have blood under
a recipe for a cheek-reddening powder to be applied with a feather. the skin.” He enhances that with a creamy red from a variety of sources,
Yes, a feather! It sounds so delicate until you read the warning that including lipstick, that he mixes and warms on his fingers. “I like
comes with the recipe: “It corrodes all flesh and all bodies.” Reli- transparency. It makes the eyes look brighter. It’s emotion. It’s human.”
gious authorities soon condemned beauty products and activities, The humanity of blush is what inspires the creators at Hermès.
apparently out of concern not for corroded flesh but for corroded “It’s blurry, subtle, very close to your skin,” de Villers says. “When
minds. Anything that altered God’s creation and distracted from the you put rose on, it blends with your skin. It’s very revealing. It gives
beautification of the soul was problematic. But blush prevailed again strength to your beauty, your person. When I’m feeling dull, a hint
during the Renaissance, with concoctions of cochineal, sandalwood, of rose makes a difference.”
or cinnabar mixed with grease or wax. When makeup artists get me camera-ready—an adventure that
The rest of blush history follows a pattern of aristocratic embrace seems like a lifetime ago—they apply blush to the apples of my
and rejection, leaving rouge to the prostitutes and showgirls, and cheeks, telling me first to smile. Sometimes I’m not feeling so smiley,
GETTY IMAGES (SMUDGES)
then lifting it back up the social ladder. distracted by what I have to say or do, or the thoughts in my head,
By the early 20th century, women of all stations wore makeup in but I comply, grinning and pushing out my cheeks to form two cir-
general, and blush in particular, without threat to their reputations cles. And there it is, a little glow, a little life, some animation. Pretty
or health. Makeup became not just a key aspect of grooming but soon my smile becomes genuine. Blush is makeup as mood lifter, an
a sign of femininity, an expression of optimism, and, in wartime, a affirmation of humanity, proof that emotion and passion are right
show of strength and patriotism. Beauty was also the rare industry there, for everyone to see.

WHAT A
WILD
RIDE
IT’S
BEEN
A HIGH-OCTANE SPINNING CLASS
RULED THE WORLD OF FITNESS
UNTIL A SERIES OF SCANDALS
ALIENATED SOME OF ITS MOST
DEVOTED FANS. WHAT WILL IT TAKE
TO GET THEM BACK ON THE BIKE?
BY ABBY ELLIN
P
atty Chernick was addicted to SoulCycle. She knows this.
She admits this. You don’t log 2,745 rides on an immobile
bike without being obsessed. Nor do you spend seven weeks
hitting every single Soul studio in the New York tristate
area while your kids are at sleepaway camp.
But SoulCycle is what Chernick, a homemaker in West-
chester County, did almost every day for years. “I’d wake up
at 6:30 on a Sunday to drive to the Upper West Side to take an 8:30
class, and I thought nothing of it,” she says. “I was full-on drinking
the Kool-Aid.” That was her tribe. Her #soulfam.
Then her beloved cycling studio and its instructors became mired in
scandal after scandal. Allegations of fat-shaming, bullying, and racism
hit the news. And then the pandemic made it impossible to visit any
studio anywhere. With no option, Chernick was forced to ride her
husband’s Peloton at home. And, shock of shocks, she kinda loved it.
“They have great music,” she says. “I could take a class every day
and never have to repeat a playlist.” Peloton also has an archive of
classes to choose from, and a vibrant community similar to the one
she had at SoulCycle, but with fewer alleged improprieties.
Chernick’s is just one of an increasing number of stories that hint
at how a seemingly unstoppable fitness juggernaut has found itself
suddenly out of favor with some of its most loyal fans. In addition to
the allegations of less than inspiring behavior, the temporary shut-
tering of the 99 SoulCycle studios thanks to Covid-19, and the less
than awesome rollout of its at-home bike, the company has faced a
host of internal conflicts. These include ties to a major Trump sup-
porter, a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination, and the departure
of some top executives, including CEO Melanie Whelan, who left
in November 2019, and Jason LaRose, the CEO of Equinox Media
(creator of an on-demand fitness streaming platform run by Equinox
Group, which owns SoulCycle), who departed in February.
To understand the full story, you have to understand the culture
of Soul, as the cool kids called it (and that was everybody). From
its inception in 2006 to at least 2015, Soul was the hottest, fastest-
growing spin studio in the United States, catering to the rich, obses-
sive, famous, and famous-adjacent. Like the Vertical Club and David
Barton Gym in the 1980s and ’90s, Soul attracted all sorts of celebrities,
EVAN SUNG/NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
from Lady Gaga to Beyoncé to Bradley Cooper to David Beckham.

Devotees would arrive in Soul-branded clothing—leggings, sweat-
shirts, sports bras, tanks—to train in candlelit rooms that somehow
managed to elude the fire warden. The music was deafening, and instruc-
tors were loath to lower the volume, even upon request. That’s why the
studios offered (free!) earplugs. The most popular instructors gained
cult followings specifically because their classes were so high-octane.
People felt privileged to work there. They were the stars and

pretty much had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. “I have discrimination. (When asked to comment on allegations in the Vox
so much love for the company,” says Daniel Wiener, a former master piece, Equinox declined, except to say “much of it is inaccurate.”)
instructor who worked at Soul from 2008 to 2018. Wiener taught One woman, Jordan Kafenbaum, the former senior director of
all over Manhattan, in the Hamptons, and at a pop-up studio on instructor programming and talent management at SoulCycle, is
Martha’s Vineyard, where Michelle Obama was his student. suing the company for pregnancy discrimination. She alleges that
He recalled the tiny office on West 72nd Street where SoulCycle she was fired in April 2020, 32 days after giving birth. “Shamelessly
was born, in 2006, to Julie Rice, Elizabeth Cutler, and Ruth Zuker- what goes on behind closed doors at SoulCycle is in stark contrast
man. Back then there was just one outpost; another opened in Bridge- to the brand’s alleged commitment to ‘tolerance’ and ‘equality,’ ” her
hampton a year later, in a huge space with 75 bikes. Regulars devel- lawsuit claimed. (SoulCycle has denied the legal claims.)
oped warm friendships with staff. Observers, both in the fitness and business worlds, began to won-
“There’s nothing like walking into a studio on your birthday and der if Equinox fully comprehended what it had acquired. Customers
seeing a ‘Happy Birthday’ banner with wondered too, with many commenting
your name on it on the wall,” says Deb-
orah Kerner, a beauty publicist in Green- “YOU CAN SUSTAIN THAT that the club had started to feel manu-
factured, generic, “like a caricature of its
wich who rode at least three times a week LEVEL OF EXCLUSIVITY original self,” as one rider put it.
for more than five years. Kerner remembers
the stress she felt every Monday at noon, ONLY FOR SO LONG BEFORE “They were changing the schedule a
lot more, moving star teachers around to
when Soul disciples chose their rides for the SOMETHING ELSE ATTRACTS help studios because they were expand-
THAT KIND OF ATTENTION.”

week. The competition was brutal. “If you ing so much,” says Sherri Rifkin, a novelist
weren’t online at 11:59, you might not get and brand strategy consultant in Montauk.
the seat or class or instructor you wanted,” “Studios were a lot less busy, and there were
she says. She preferred the prestigious front row, where celebrities like all these new teachers. It was a lot of money to spend on a teacher I
Jake Gyllenhaal and Kelly Ripa perched their backsides. didn’t know.” (Classes started at $34.)
Established brands wanted to get in on the action. In 2011 Equi-
A
nox Group acquired a major stake in SoulCycle. Both SoulCycle mid all this, SoulCycle filed paperwork to take the company
and Equinox are subsidiaries of the Related Companies, a privately public, claiming to have expanded its total revenue from
owned real estate firm founded by billionaire Stephen M. Ross. Within $36.2 million in 2012 to $112 million in 2014. Cutler and
three years, Equinox had added 24 more Soul studios, in New York, Rice, who had taken on the roles of “chief culture officers,” resigned
L.A., DC, Boston, and Miami. To many onlookers, it was too much in 2016, reportedly pocketing about $90 million each. (Zukerman
too soon. “A lot of us felt that the magic and the power of being in had left earlier and founded the now-defunct Flywheel.) Around
that room was being diluted by expanding so quickly,” Wiener says. the same time, a little company named Peloton whizzed onto the
Still, the company seemed to be cruising along just fine, at least track. Founded in 2012, it offered live and on-demand workouts,
to the bike-riding public. But a string of public missteps brought along with snazzy bikes for at-home use. The original Peloton Bike,
into focus an organization facing concerns that the soul was seep- which rolled out in 2014, cost $2,245 but could be financed for $49
ing out of the cycle. Scathing articles, including a December 2020 per month, including setup and delivery. Live classes were available
piece on Vox, along with social media posts alleged toxic environ- online, along with a digital library of more than 1,000 classes and
ments laden with racism, favoritism, sexual harassment, and gender an extensive music selection. According to MarketWatch, Peloton’s
CA N B I K E C L A S S E S G O T H E D I S TA N C E ?
JUM PI NG ROP E P I L AT E S SLIMMONS DAVID BA RTON

1600 BC 1920s 1960–70s 1970s 1990s 2000s 2016
The Egyptians did it A balance and From Farrah to Jimmy Richard Simmons’s Hired drag queens Targeted “accessory” Invented by a down-
with vines; modern strengthening routine Carter, everyone contribution? and pioneered gyms- muscles; partnered on-her-luck farmer;
kids added a second developed by a seemed to go crazy Embracing the cum-nightclubs. Long with celebs; launched made $160K the first
rope. Long Game: German “physical all at once. Long out-of-shape. Game: “Look Better lines. Long Game: year. Long Game:
Simple premise; culturist.” Long Game: Runners are Long Game: Shame- Naked” an enduringly Made apparel, beauty, Pet collabs never bad;
endless variations. Game: Hurts so good. still feeling that high. free sweating. good plan. food part of workout. jury still out.
What a difference a year can make
in the exercise business. In 2019,
Peloton faced backlash after airing an
ad (left) that many critics called sexist.
In 2020 the company saw orders
boom from people stuck at home
during the pandemic.
its own challenges, including pub-

lic outcry about a commercial
many deemed sexist, had a lock
on the market. In March 2020
Soul finally released its $2,500
at-home bike along with Variis,
an app that allowed unlimited
on-demand access to all Equinox
brands, among them Pure Yoga and
Precision Run, as well as SoulCycle.
But there were two problems: In
order to access the app you had
to either be a member of Equinox
or purchase the at-home bike, and
many found the app confusing. To
stay competitive, Soul opened out-
overall revenue, including apparel and equipment, was $915 mil- door studios in 14 locations over the summer, but the company was
lion in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, up from $435 million still struggling with its at-home product.
in 2018 and $219 million in 2017. Finally, in October, with Peloton miles ahead, Equinox announced
In 2018, SoulCycle withdrew its IPO application, citing “market that the Variis app would be available to the public for $40 a month.
conditions.” Peloton went public the following year. “It’s not totally But four months later Equinox launched its own app, Equinox+, and
uncommon for a company to file an IPO, withdraw it, and then shoehorned SoulCycle into that. “It was a weird launch,” says a former
attempt to come back to the market,” says Lise Buyer, a partner at SoulCycle executive. “Why would you switch branding?”
Class V Group, an IPO advisory firm headquartered in New York and Meantime, Soul’s studios were still shuttered, and a handful of
Palo Alto, who was not directly involved. Buyer says that typically locations were closed for good. Several employees throughout the
when an IPO is withdrawn, “the presumption is that it’s because the company were let go, among them Shai’La Stiggers, who opened
numbers aren’t coming in as expected.” the Las Vegas studio in 2018; she was furloughed last March during
SoulCycle had never worried too much about Peloton, but when a group phone call and then fired in May. “They just got on a call
it realized how well the competition was doing, Soul decided to get and blindsided the staff,” says Stiggers, who lives in Los Angeles. She
into the at-home market. In August 2019 Equinox announced that cried for a month, she says. She was also furious. “Everything was
it was starting on-demand fitness streaming. Customers waited excit- always a secret or on a need-to-know basis. I didn’t feel taken care of.”
edly, but nothing was ever unveiled. “They definitely missed the boat
T
in terms of trying to gain a competitive advantage in the at-home he scandals kept coming. In January star instructor Stacey Grif-
and online fitness market as a whole,” says Ryan Roth, a senior ana- fith got vaccinated against Covid-19, and she bragged about it
lyst at the market research company IBISWorld. on Instagram. As an “educator,” she was simply tending to the
There were other issues gurgling beneath the surface that may “health and wellness” of her community. The internet went ballis-
have delayed the release. In July 2019 Ross, Related’s founder and tic, and Griffith later issued an Instapology: “I made a terrible error
chairman, hosted a fundraising lunch at his Southampton estate for in judgment, and for that I’m truly sorry,” she posted.
his pal Donald Trump. SoulCycle had always boasted of its inclusiv- In response to the negative press about the at-home rollout, a
ity, authenticity, diversity, and tolerance. Many riders and instructors spokesperson for SoulCycle forwarded a statement acknowledging
felt that Trump did not embody those values. that it had been a “challenging year” but that the company was “excited
Chrissy Teigen and Billy Eichner called for boycotts, and many about the future and the opportunities ahead of us—we look for-
customers listened. The data analytics firm Earnest Research com- ward to continuing to show up for our community both inside and
pared signups at Soul studios across the country 18 days before news outside of our studios.” As a former employee who had a high-level
of the fundraiser came out and 18 days after. The average decline was field position at multiple studios across the United States says, “It’s
12.8 percent, the Atlantic reported, although it was unclear how long gotten to the point where having SoulCycle on your résumé is no
that would last. As it happened, there was no way to find out: The longer a positive.”
pandemic hit, and all kinds of businesses, especially those in the fit- No one knows for sure what’s next for SoulCycle, though it’s clear
ness space, suffered. The International Health, Racquet, and Sports- that the company’s current focus is on restoring its reputation. In
PELOTON (SELFIE)
club Association estimated that by the end of September 2020 the February it unfurled five Black History Month–themed rides, along
industry had lost $15 billion in revenue, with 15 percent of clubs with limited edition tote bags with inspirational mantras from four
permanently closing. of their instructors of color. One former employee is not impressed.
Soul was now racing to catch up to Peloton, which, despite facing “The people who ran the studios and cleaned the [C ONTI NU ED O N PAGE 96]

T&C HOUSE RULES
How to
Check Twitter,
Read Gibbon,
and Binge-Watch
The Serpent,
All While
Remembering
to Call
Your Mother
A classics scholar on the
modern art of multitasking.
BY DANIEL MENDELSOHN
A
book I’ve been thinking about a great deal over the present, looking at an unknowable future, that allows you to feel as
past year is a slender 1989 French novel with the rather if you have some kind of control? The questions raised by that little
hair-raising title Les tablettes de buis d’Apronenia Avitia French book are, to be sure, ones that all of us have been struggling
(“The Boxwood Tablets of Apronenia Avitia”). “Tablets” with over the past 12 months. But their implications will linger.
refers to the ancient Romans’ version of the Samsung With spring stirring and widespread vaccination in sight, people
Galaxy: You’d slather a rectangular wooden tablet with wax and are starting to emerge blinking into the light and wondering what’s
use a sharp stylus to write in it, then smooth over the wax when next. How do we create meaningful order in our lives? How do we
you needed to reuse the tablet. The scratchings in question here structure our daily experience out of the sudden, hard-won stillness?
are a series of diary entries by the fictitious 4th-century AD Roman Some writer friends of mine were recently remarking that, on
matron whose name is in the title; the novel consists of her jottings the whole, many of us seemed both slightly more productive and
over two decades—shopping lists, somewhat lite musings on par- slightly less crazed than other people. Although I myself certainly
ties and friends, affairs and deaths. The poignancy is that we, unlike don’t feel that I’ve dealt with things better than anyone else—just
DAN FORBES/TRUNK ARCHIVE
Apronenia, are aware of the significance of the occasional references ask the friendly crew at the Tops Market Pharmacy in Rhinebeck,
to the “barbarian” tribes just outside Rome, or to the bothersome lit- New York—I started to ponder why it might be the case. One thing
tle sect called Christians. Which is to say we’re aware that the world was obvious: When you’re a writer you tend to be isolated during
she records in such touching detail is about to disappear. much of your working life anyway. That aspect of the last year, at
How does it feel to live in the middle of something that feels a lot least, hasn’t felt all that strange to us.
like the end of life as we know it? Is there a way to live in an unsettled But solitude has its dangers. You can get lost in it. Your motivation

can dissolve. In order to have a career as a working election, Covid, the collapse of neoliberalism, migration, populist
writer (or any kind of freelance or self-employed career), tyrants, the Kardashians. Biography and history are great—anything
there’s something you need to master that most work- to remind you that there is and has always been a world out there.)
ing people don’t have to think about, let alone create
for themselves, something that’s crucial to a healthy CREATE A SCHEDULE
work life—to a healthy life, period. Only teenagers think that total freedom equals total happiness. The
That something is structure. If you work in an office fact is that if you know you have to be doing a certain thing at a cer-
or a restaurant or a school, you may complain about tain time each day, the sense of relief is palpable. Do your journal
the punching in and out, the prescribed lunch hours, writing (or whatever) at the same time every day; you’ll find yourself
the daily or weekly conferences and meetings. But be looking forward to it. Ditto your Proust reading. My latest reading
thankful: You’re actually more efficient—a better, hap- project is the memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, the French aristo-
pier worker—as a result of the temporal discipline that’s crat who (minutely) recorded the doings at the court of Louis XIV; the
being imposed on you. Trust me on this one. When I standard French edition is seven 1,000-page volumes. I wake up every
got my first book contract, I wasted four years futzing morning around 6, clump downstairs to make my coffee, clump back
around with all my “free” time. I’d learned a thing or up avec café, and read exactly 10 pages. (Regularity is everything—
two by the time I wrote my next one, which was twice and not just for your gastroenterologist.) Then I get myself up, make
as long but took me one-fifth the time to write. the bed (crucial), get dressed, have breakfast, and enter my morning
The problem that a lot of people have been facing writing session—about 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Then lunch. (Give yourself
since early 2020 isn’t, in fact, all that different from a real lunch. No one’s watching, and you’ll feel better about your
what I had to confront when I started my career. Here work if you don’t feel deprived.) Then comes the afternoon work
are some ways I’ve learned to structure my own days session, from 2-ish to around 6:30 or 7. Then drink, dinner, whatever
over the years—tricks and stratagems that can help Netflix I happen to be engrossed in, and bed. Nothing is better in a
create a sense of ongoing purpose…whether in busi- freelancer’s day than to feel you’ve earned your pleasure. (Go to bed
ness or pleasure. at the same time every day, too. You’d be surprised how many fewer
Ambien you’ll need from Tops.)
CULTIVATE A SECRET OBSESSION
Commit to some kind of consistent, private activity that BE REALISTIC ABOUT TEMPTATIONS
no one else will see and gives you pleasure. Keeping a Structured breaks are a particularly good way to handle social media.
diary is a great idea; 10 years from now you’ll be happy to Twitter didn’t exist when I was first figuring out the freelance life,
have a record of this extraordinary moment (as will your but it has become as much of a distraction for me as it is for every-
descendants, who can auction it off in April 2521). But one else—lately more than ever, of course, when our lives have been
it can be knitting, or cooking, or whatever, as long as it’s wholly online. You’ll feel better and more in control if you admit
just for you, something neither visible to nor judgeable that you’re going to be posting, but create pockets of time for tweet-
by anyone else. And don’t doom yourself from the start ing, Instagramming, Facebooking, and the rest. I’m quite active on
by making it a daily activity; part of creating a structure Twitter, but I look at it only in the morning, at lunchtime, and when
that works is being realistic about what you can do. Reg- my workday is over. Ditto for consumption of other media—and
ularity is what’s key here: Whatever else is happening entertainment. (I watch a huge amount of TV—but only after I’ve
(writer’s block, pandemic), it’s essential to feel you’re knocked off for the day.) If you “just peek” at CNN or Netflix, you’ll
involved in an ongoing activity that you know how to never get back to work. Save it for your evening cocktail. This may
do and is producing a tangible result. I’ve kept a journal since I was hurt, but…the world will go on without you, and you don’t actu-
about 11, and the sense of coming home to it every few days is both ally need to know about everything as it’s happening. (In fact, a lit-
rewarding and oddly comforting. tle distance will make it easier to handle when you do plunge in.)
COMMIT TO A LONG-TERM PROJECT DRESS THE PART

It’s amazing what psychological relief you can derive from being The Covid-era joke about conducting business Zooms in your under-
immersed over a long period in a book, or series of books, or com- wear was funny for a few weeks. No more. Work is serious: Take it
plete oeuvre of some dead Russian director, which will take you into seriously, even if no one is watching. That means bathing, shaving,
a future you can’t yet imagine. A few years ago I listened to the audio- hair-combing, and the rest. Since March 7, 2020, no one has been
book of (hello, Apronenia!) all of The Decline and Fall of the Roman close enough to me to know how I smell. Still, I dig out the Santa
Empire; since it’s 125 hours and 31 minutes, and since I decided I’d Maria Novella every day and spritz. If you feel like a human being,
only listen while driving—and, moreover, since I basically drive only you’ll act like one.
to the local supermarket and dry cleaner (this was before I got on a Finally, remember: It will end. If there’s one thing you learn from
first name basis with the gang at Tops)—it took three years. During the fall of the Roman Empire or the intrigues at Versailles, it’s that
that time I moved house and published two books; Rome wasn’t everything really does pass. And if today we know about how bad
the only place that had seen some dramatic shifts. Seriously, it’s vital the crisis was back then, it’s because some people, at least, kept their
to have a sense of being involved in an activity that will move you heads, woke up in the morning, got dressed, went to their desks, and
beyond the present moment. (Your project should not involve cur- wrote the words in their journals that comfort us today.
rent events–related books or films or whatever, nothing about the Which reminds me: It’s time for Saint-Simon. Gotta go!

STA R S SIGNS
T H E E M E R A L D , T A U R U S ’ B I R T H S T O N E , I S L I N K E D T O F I D E L I T Y, H E A L I N G , A N D L O V E .
BY KATHARINE MERLIN
TAURUS GEMINI CANCER LEO VIRGO LIBRA

APRIL 21–MAY 21 MAY 22–JUNE 21 JUNE 22–JULY 22 JULY 23–AUGUST 23 AUGUST 24–SEPTEMBER 23 SEPTEMBER 24–OCTOBER 23
Clashing priorities With your ruler, Mer- Mars in your sign Be ready to branch You’ll be receiv- Adrenalizing Mars
present you with cury, entering your intensifies your need out and do some ing mixed messages is now at the top
choices as May begins, birth sign on the 4th, to assert yourself and networking in May. early this month, of your solar chart,
and it seems to be you’ll be on form and take charge; this will Others will be eager but you’re absolutely so you will need to
time to reset your thinking with partic- work in your favor to meet you halfway, right to stick with occasionally tap the
compass. Making smart ular clarity. Timing is where new plans and and with the new your plans. The plan- brakes. Relationships
financial moves while very important right associations are con- Moon at the top of ets will be increas- and new associations
still following your now, so it’s very much cerned. You are now your solar chart on ingly in your favor will flower if you
heart may not prove as a matter of planning finding your feet in the 11th, you’ll be in as May unfolds; con- make the slightest
difficult as you think. ahead and then seiz- situations where you sync with trends and tact with those at a effort, and you’re also
After the 23rd you’ll ing the moment. Also, need to take the initia- able to successfully distance is also part in a phase that can
be putting some plans with the full Moon tive. You also need to launch plans. Jupi- of the picture. Seize turn out financially
on the back burner happening in Sagittar- do some clever strate- ter in Pisces expands the moment and be favorable as long as
and exploring options ius, be ready to make gizing, and financially financial options, proactive, as Mercury, you’re consistent. The
that hold tremendous necessary adjustments midmonth is the and Venus in Gemini your ruler, will go out Sun in Gemini stirs
potential. Just keep where partners’ needs time to step back and brightens friendships of sync on the 29th, your wanderlust after
trusting your hunches are concerned. reorganize. and love ties. skewing progress. the 20th, and new vis-
as May winds down. DIOR FINE JEWELRY , NAK ARMSTRONG ($15,800), GUCCI HIGH JEWELRY , HARWELL GODFREY ($10,800), tas are opening up.
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SCORPIO SAGITTARIUS CAPRICORN AQUARIUS PISCES ARIES

OCTOBER 24–NOVEMBER 22 NOVEMBER 23–DECEMBER 21 DECEMBER 22–JANUARY 20 JANUARY 21–FEBRUARY 19 FEBRUARY 20–MARCH 20 MARCH 21–APRIL 20
Put more focus on Temper your enthu- The Sun in Taurus Be confident this May will be a stimu- You’re in a good posi-
how you respond to siasm with common urges you to lighten month: You’re in lating month when tion to increase your
the important peo- sense as May begins, up and open up, but a position to take you should not hes- status this month, but
ple in your life as and you’ll set yourself you’ll keep getting charge and show itate to blaze new you’ll have to let go
May begins; you have on a brilliant path. pulled back to practi- everyone how pres- trails. With Jupiter of a past dream and
a chance to restore Your work life is in cal issues—especially cient you can be. tiptoeing into your move on. Being a dar-
mutually sustain- the spotlight, and on the financial front. Any lifestyle changes sign until late June, ing Aries, you’re likely
ing connections. It’s you can accomplish Not to worry, because are blessed by the give a lot of thought to opt for adventure
turn-over-a-new-leaf what you’re aiming you appear to be get- exalted new Moon to what you really over safe harbors, and
time. New financial for with happy results. ting a firmer grip, in Taurus, and your want to create at this it’s clear that no mat-
arrangements can also More security is what and you also seem to social life is revved time in your life, ter what you choose
enhance future sta- you want right now, be getting involved up by Venus in Gem- because you’re on the you’ll land on your
bility, especially near so go ahead and make in projects that take ini. Be ready to make brink of a new 12-year feet. Crossed signals
the 19th. Just be sure changes you’ve been you in a more creative some adjustments cycle. Upbeat aspects toward month’s end
not to put off import- thinking about. Venus direction. Demand where plans and goals involving Venus and urge you to slow the
ant paperwork until is bringing more plea- more privacy near the are concerned as May the Sun draw atten- pace and reformulate
month’s end. sure in love. full Moon of the 26th. winds down. tion your way. various plans.
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MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN IT’S ACTUALLY QUITE SIMPLE SOULCYCLE
[CONTINUED FROM PAGE 36] exposed to the north [CONTINUED FROM PAGE 65] expensive fabrics,” Pic- [CONTINUED FROM PAGE 91] studios were incredibly
wind, which was inconvenient in the past but cioli says. “It’s the hours, the time that peo- diverse,” she says. “The executive team has been
became an advantage with the warmer sum- ple spend to transform something that you less than diverse.” Several Black instructors
mers we have now. To me Saint-Aubin wines know into something different and special. have quit. Soeuraya Wilson, who was a face
have something very special. They are maybe That’s why I didn’t want to decorate the sur- of the at-home app, posted on Instagram that
a bit less ‘serious’ than their neighbors, but face. I wanted the construction itself to show she could “no longer allow my image to be
much more sexy. They can age very well when the workmanship.” As examples, Piccioli cites used by a company that performs its activ-
the vintage is in balance, but they are more a skirt crafted from small squares of yellow ism when it is convenient for their bottom
approachable when young. They have a lot of cashmere, knotted together into an openwork line or their seasonal campaign.” In March,
quality from the beginning, and something grid, and a masterful trench coat in which the SoulCycle announced that it is “committed
more spontaneous. The fruit may be a little back flap somehow morphs into the sleeves. to increasing diversity across the board” and
less ripe, but they have more freshness and “This apparent simplicity is actually com- hired a “vice president, head of people” to
energy than the wines of their three neighbors.” plexity—all the effort, all the workmanship join its executive team.
The premier crus of Saint-Aubin tend to to achieve pure lines,” Piccioli says. “I wanted It’s unlikely that stationary bikes—
sell for a fraction of the cost of the premiers to transcend the gravity of the execution to which have been around since the turn of
of Puligny and Chassagne, and they represent arrive at the simplicity, the magic of fashion.” the 19th century—are going to disappear.
tremendous value. The most famous of these None of which matters if the magic on Neither is at-home exercise. A survey of 3,500
not quite famous vineyards is En Remilly; just view doesn’t speak to the client. At Dior, Americans by Coefficient Capital and the
a stone’s throw from Chevalier-Montrachet, Chiuri heads one of fashion’s most storied New Consumer found that 66 percent of
it produces crisp, bright wines that have the houses, and she has brought a determinedly people who switched to at-home workouts
piercing character that wine buffs call mineral- feminist viewpoint and an unapologetically during the pandemic prefer them. Some
ity, a quality also found in the wines of Murg- problem-solving approach to design. “The people think it might not be such a bad
ers des Dents de Chien, the highest-altitude relationship between utility and creativity thing if Soul, or at least the cultlike, exclusive
vineyard in the appellation. La Chatenière, should never be a compromise,” she says, “but version of it, changed gears. “The idea that
just down the slope, gets the hotter afternoon rather a deliberate use of the rules as a strong fitness is the exclusive property of a certain
sun and tends to be richer and more opulent starting point for new directions.” demographic is not where we want the
than En Remilly. When designing daywear, she works industry to be going,” says fitness historian
Among the producers I would recom- toward a specific goal: “to ponder what fash- Shelly McKenzie, author of Getting Physical:
mend, besides Lamy and Colin-Morey, are ion today actually is. Something to be used The Rise of Fitness Culture in America. “You
two Chassagne-based domaines, Paul Pil- on a daily basis, an attitude toward life, more can sustain that level of exclusivity only for
lot and Bernard Moreau, as well as Vincent than just a single moment of attention for an so long before something else attracts that
Latour, who is based in Meursault, and Saint- event or occasion. If I think of haute couture, kind of attention.”
Aubin specialist Henri Prudhon. The warm I would say that this design is even more per- The company could even try to go pub-
2018 vintage provides an excellent introduc- sonal, ‘tailored’ to those who choose to wear lic again. “If they get the ship righted, then
tion to these vibrant whites—whereas 2017 the unique couture pieces. I constantly keep investors will look at the current situation
was undoubtedly better in nearby warmer in mind the woman who will wear the piece, and not so much at what went wrong seven
terroirs. I suspect the village also excelled in and I ask myself what she will be doing when years ago,” says Buyer, the IPO expert. As far as
2019, though I haven’t tasted the wines yet. she wears it. The clothing in the spring 2021 riders go, the jury is still out. Deborah Kerner
If you’re a white Burgundy fan who is collection is the answer to those questions.” says she isn’t going anywhere. The one thing
suffering sticker shock from the escalating That’s it in an exquisitely sculpted nut- she found distasteful was that SoulCycle had
prices of the various Montrachets, Saint-Aubin shell. At its non-soiree best, haute couture is ties to a Trump supporter, but, she says, “it
offers a nice respite. If you haven’t yet been about serving a discerning, demanding client doesn’t stop me from riding. It didn’t affect
converted to the incomparable pleasures of with impeccable clothes crafted specifically my workout. At the end of the day, that’s all
Puligny-Montrachet or Meursault, this might for her, to suit her myriad wardrobe needs I really care about.” As for Patty Chernick,
be a perfect place to start your education— while keeping it real. she isn’t sure she’ll go back to Soul when
the gateway drug to addictive pleasures far And, of course, keeping it beautiful, in in-person classes resume. “It’s sad, because
more sublime than you might have imag- craft and workmanship—the haute X factor. it was such a huge part of my life,” she says.
ined the chardonnay grape was capable of Says Armani, “Beauty is eternal, and our love “When things return to ‘normal,’ I hope to
delivering. of it a powerful force.” feel differently.”

SHOPPING & CREDIT
INFORMATION
experience of biting into a cut of beef. But
Aleph, Meatable, Memphis, and the rest don’t
need to replicate the components of meat;
myoglobin—and the 1,000-plus other mol-
ecules that comprise our interaction with
food from animals—is already in the prod-
uct. Because the product is, biologically, meat.
FAKE STEAK WELL DONE
BIG MEAT’S BIG BEEF
“Traditional” beef enjoys several built-in
[CONTINUED FROM PAGE 73]for meat, Lavon says, advantages that will make it difficult for lab- ON THE COVER
PRABAL GURUNG TOP ($1,495), AVAILABLE BY REQUEST,
“We just need the components that bring grown meat to replace it in shopping carts PRABALGURUNG.COM. IRENE NEUWIRTH EARRINGS ($8,980),
the unique taste.” A “bioprinting” technique in wealthy countries, and without the early IRENENEUWIRTH.COM. DAVID WEBB RING ($44,000),
DAVIDWEBB.COM.
that Levenberg helped develop enables the support of Americans and Europeans, it will
steak to grow three-dimensionally, with a struc- be difficult for the fledgling industry to grow EVERYBODY LOVES A WINNER
PAGE 29 HARRY WINSTON , HARRYWINSTON.COM.
ture similar to what is cut from a slaughtered to the scale necessary for it to furnish the LAPOINTE , SHOPLAPOINTE.COM. MAX MARA , MAXMARA.COM.
cow, and in a single batch, with muscle, fat, expected demand for meat from the develop- O2 MONDE , O2MONDE.COM.
and other types of tissue maturing together ing world. First, in the U.S. the federal govern- THE INVINCIBLE WOMAN
so they’re integrated from the outset, just as ment leases land to ranchers to graze cattle at PAGE 54–61 CARTIER , 800-CARTIER. DAVID WEBB , DAVIDWEBB
nature does it. Other companies grow differ- below-market prices. The subsidies make meat .COM. DIOR , 800-929-DIOR. FENDI , FENDI.COM. IRENE
NEUWIRTH , IRENENEUWIRTH.COM. PRABAL GURUNG , AVAILABLE
ent cells separately and combine them later, cheaper, inducing Americans to eat more of BY REQUEST, PRABALGURUNG.COM. PRADA , PRADA.COM. RALPH
so all they can come up with is less refined it than anyone else on earth. LAUREN COLLECTION , RALPHLAUREN.COM. SABBA , FD-GALLERY
.COM. SCULLY & SCULLY EXCLUSIVE , SCULLYANDSCULLY.COM.
meat, such as hamburger or chicken nuggets. Then there’s the beef lobby, which doesn’t TONY DUQUETTE , TONYDUQUETTE.COM.
Aleph starts with a small sample from an even want cultivated beef to be called beef. IT’S ACTUALLY QUITE SIMPLE
animal (a Holstein cow, for the ribeye proto- Missouri and several other states have already PAGE 62–69 ARMANI PRIVE , GIORGIO ARMANI HIGH
type) acquired in a nonsurgical procedure that passed legislation banning companies like JEWELRY COLLECTION , 212-988-9191. BULGARI HIGH JEWELRY ,
800-BULGARI. CARTIER HIGH JEWELRY , BY APPOINTMENT
provides enough cells for thousands of tons Aleph from using the word. Since the United ONLY, 800-CARTIER. CHANEL HAUTE COUTURE , CHANEL FINE
of meat. These cells can grow into any type of States Cattlemen’s Association’s members JEWELRY , 800-550-0005. DIOR HAUTE COUTURE , AVAILABLE
BY SPECIAL ORDER, 800-929-DIOR. DOLCE & GABBANA ALTA
cell: muscle, fat, skin, whatever. After all the pay for the organization to promote “beef,” MODA , DOLCE & GABBANA ALTA GIOIELLERIA , DOLCEGABBANA
types have been replicated in an off-the-shelf “it would seem unfair to beef producers to .COM. SCHIAPARELLI HAUTE COUTURE , 011-33-1-76-21-62-59.
STEPHEN JONES MILLINERY , STEPHENJONESMILLINERY.COM.
bioreactor, they are 3D-printed into the com- have this new player in the game come in to VALENTINO HAUTE COUTURE , AVAILABLE ON REQUEST, VALENTINO
bination Aleph wants. “We are designing our take advantage of the good nutritional repu- .COM. VAN CLEEF & ARPELS , VANCLEEFARPELS.COM.
meat,” Lavon says, “so we can choose the pro- tation beef has built up,” says Maggie Nutter, TURN THE OTHER CHEEK
portion of fat cells to muscle cells.” The com- a Montana rancher who chairs the associa- PAGE 84–87 HERMES , HERMES.COM.
bination is then grown in a medium Aleph tion’s labeling committee. Town & Country (ISSN 0040-9952) [incorporating Connoisseur] is published
developed that mimics blood serum in its As Bittman suggests, it may come down to monthly, except with combined issues for Philanthropy and December/
January and when future combined issues are published that count as two
composition of vitamins, amino acids, min- the environmental claims, which have been issues as indicated on the issue’s cover, by Hearst, 300 W. 57th Street,
erals, fatty acids, proteins, and sugars. at the center of the new industry’s portrayal New York, NY 10019 U.S.A. Steven R. Swartz, President and Chief Executive
Officer; William R. Hearst III, Chairman; Frank A. Bennack Jr., Executive
Less fat means less cholesterol. More of a of itself to investors and media. “There really Vice Chairman; Catherine A. Bostron, Secretary. Hearst Magazine Media
particular compound in the growth medium needs to be independent analyses normal- Inc.: Debi Chirichella, President; John A. Rohan Jr., Senior Vice President,
Finance. © 2021 by Hearst Magazine Media Inc. All rights reserved. Town &
means more omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty ized among different products, so consumers Country and Connoisseur are registered trademarks of Hearst Communi-
acids, which have been shown to reduce heart can have confidence that if someone wants to cations Inc. Periodicals postage paid at NY, NY, and additional entry post
offices. Canada Post International Publications mail product (Canadian
attacks, particularly among people who don’t buy something more sustainable, it really is, distribution) sales agreement No. 40012499. Editorial and Advertising
eat much fish. Luining, of Meatable, foresees on some objective level,” says Gregory Jaffe, Offices: 300 W. 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3797. Subscription pric-
es: United States and possessions: $30 for one year. Canada and all other
a day when “you can have meats that are ben- director of the Project on Biotechnology at countries: Add $24 for each year. Subscription services: Town & Country
eficial for certain groups—I can even imagine the Center for Science in the Public Interest, will, upon receipt of a complete subscription order, undertake fulfillment
of that order so as to provide the first copy for delivery by the Postal Ser-
personalized nutrition.” a DC-based nonprofit. vice or alternate carrier within 4–6 weeks. For customer service, changes
Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, Regardless, the potential health bene- of address, and subscription orders, log on to service.townandcountrymag
.com or write to Customer Service Department, Town & Country, P.O. Box
which have wowed critics and consumers fits may be enough to convince some hard- 6000, Harlan, IA 51593. From time to time, we make our subscriber list
with their plant-based burgers’ remarkable core meat eaters. Suzanne Tracht notes that available to companies who sell goods and services by mail that we believe
would interest our readers. If you would rather not receive such offers via
resemblance to the real stuff, spent years fig- her restaurant in Los Angeles is “down the postal mail, please send your current mailing label or exact copy to Mail
uring out how to win over carnivores by rep- street from the heart clinic at Cedars-Sinai, Preference Service, P.O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593. You can also visit
preferences.hearstmags.com to manage your preferences and opt out of
licating the taste, texture, and aroma of meat. so I think there will be people interested” receiving marketing offers by email. Town & Country is not responsible for
One component of beef that is important to in cholesterol-free beef. While she’s skepti- unsolicited manuscripts or art. None will be returned unless accompanied
by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Canada BN NBR 10231 0943 RT.
the experience of both eating and cooking cal that cultivated meat will be as savory as POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS (see DMM 707.4.12.5). NON-POSTAL AND
it, they found, is myoglobin, a type of pro- the cuts she procures from small operations, MILITARY FACILITIES: Send address corrections to Town & Country, P.O. Box
6000, Harlan, IA 51593. Printed in the U.S.A.
tein found in muscle cells. Each company she’s curious.
needed to come up with a means of mim- “I’m looking forward to trying it with the VOL. 175 NUMBER 5473 MAY 2021
ESTABLISHED 1846 INCORPORATING CONNOISSEUR
icking myoglobin’s function in the sensory real thing, side by side,” she says.

I N VA L U A B L E
The
GROWING
SEASON
BY DANIELLE CHANG
can’t remember exactly when I stopped
I getting home at dawn from a night out

on the town and started getting up just
around then to get knee-deep in soil in my
rooftop garden. But the truth is I’ve always
liked getting down and dirty—as a way to
come clean. Gardening, for me, is a respite
from the distractions that hijack my peace
of mind and pollute my imagination. As I
seed, weed, and water on repeat, I’m like a
yogi about to attain Nirvana; my mind is
not exactly still, but it is pricelessly balanced,
as if in harmony with the environment.
This past year my plants kept me com-
pany when others couldn’t. I marveled at
how microgreens of every flavor and color
reached maturity in less than a week. I
savored the momotaro tomatoes that
ripened overnight, as if just for me! The
bulbs I planted in the spring blossomed
with delightful salmon-hued ranunculus
and rose-tinted dahlias that looked ripped
from the Renaissance canvases of Arcim-
boldo. Because they were too beautiful
for my eyes alone, I started leaving bud
vases filled to the brim in the elevator for
my neighbors.
That’s one of the secrets about an abun-
dant garden: It’s meant to be relished in
communion with others. It’s why I’m exalt-
ing the medicinal benefits of traditional
Chinese herbs through the Hao Life—my
new company launching this month with
T&C contributor William Li.
And it’s why Richard Christiansen, the
brilliant polymath aesthete behind the
agency Chandelier Creative, transmuted
his Flamingo Estate, a former Xanadu of
iniquity in the hills of Los Angeles, into a
botanical playground, one that bears pro-
CHRISTIAN HOGSTEDT FOR FLAMINGO ESTATE
duce as gorgeous as the bounty on this

page and that has inspired a whole range of
natural goods, from olive oil and honey to,
as of April, a Pink Moon rosé harvested in
Farm-to-table veggies like these California’s Central Coast. Beauty, we know,
are delivered in fresh batches ought to be shared. After all, the more you
weekly by Flamingo Estate (prices
start at $22.50 for a month’s sow, the more you reap. The pleasure that
subscription). There is one comes from the act of cultivation, however,
proviso: “Los Angeles only, sorry!” is all yours.
FLAMINGOESTATE.COM

The new Eau de Parfum
scan to see more
SISLEY-PARIS BOUTIQUES
Las Vegas • Miami • New York City
Bergdorf Goodman • Bloomingdale’s

$6:>2?#2C4FDL$@C5DEC@>L)2<D:ñ9G6?F6 sisley-paris.com

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M AY 2 0 2 1

The Tap Back

Our Secret Plan

who credits his late wife, fashion

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31 REAL ESTATE Who doesn’t need a little

MASCARA IN BLACK, ESTEELAUDER.COM. HAIR BY CHRIS MCMILLAN

O drome on Sixth Avenue, my beloved boss and mentor Richard

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Deputy Art Director CHIUN LEE Senior Designer MICHAEL STILLWELL

READY TO WEAR? Real clothes!

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A man once suffered a heart

Careful Not to FAINT

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THE AESTHETE’S DIET

Moon House by Me and General Design

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SHARED DREAMS, ANCESTRAL FUTURES: CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS OF BLACK FAMILY LIFE

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a small price for 4,000 square feet of

Beverly Hills CO-OP

A Hills. A modern glass box in the

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EAT LUNCH haps Jell-O. (Sadly, no pho-

in This the result.) What a lunch

P did it come from? According to the

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You Are ALMOST Here

BRIAN JANNSEN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (PORTOFINO); GETTY IMAGES (SIGN)

I Enchanted April, four women, despondent

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of what these shows might have to offer is

Out of This ters with sharp objects.