Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The New York Times Magazine 9 August 2020
The New York Times Magazine 9 August 2020
Aug
A
Auugu
ug ussstt 9,
ust 9, 20
2
2020
020
20
a n t s
a t p
sw e e r
r ev
f o
Even before the pandemic, the whole fashion industry had started to unravel. What happens
now that no one has a reason to dress up? By Irina Aleksander
August 9, 2020
7 Screenland Peer Review By Jason Zengerle / 11 Talk Padma Lakshmi By David Marchese / 14 The Ethicist Is It OK That I Haven’t Told My Parents I Was Fired?
By Kwame Anthony Appiah / 16 Letter of Recommendation Street-Casting By Jon Gluck / 18 Eat Rethinking Sourdoughs By Tejal Rao
28 Sweatpants Forever
By Irina Aleksander / Even before
the pandemic, the whole fashion
industry had started to unravel.
What happens now that no one has
a reason to dress up?
34 Solitary Soul
By Megan K. Stack / In 2013, Australia
sent hundreds of would-be asylum
seekers to a secretive offshore
detention center. Then one of the
detainees, a journalist named
Behrouz Boochani, told the world all
about it.
Photograph by Adam Ferguson for The New York Times
4 Contributors / 5 The Thread / 10 Poem / 14 Judge John Hodgman / 17 Tip / 41, 44, 46 Puzzles / 41 Puzzle Answers
Behind the Cover Gail Bichler, creative director: ‘‘In this week’s cover story, Irina Aleksander explores why this moment belongs to sweatpants and is
fundamentally changing the fashion industry. We feel the bold yellow type plays off the humorous spirit of the image of a sweatpants flag, flying triumphantly.’’
Photograph by Stephanie Gonot for The New York Times. Prop styling: Machen Machen Studio.
Irina Aleksander ‘‘Sweatpants Forever,’’ Irina Aleksander is a contributing writer for the Editor in Chief JAKE SILVERSTEIN
Page 28 magazine. Her last cover story was about Deputy Editors JESSICA LUSTIG,
BILL WASIK
Oliver Stone’s quest to make a biopic about Managing Editor ERIKA SOMMER
Edward Snowden. In this issue, she writes Creative Director GAIL BICHLER
Director of Photography KATHY RYAN
about the collapse of the fashion-industry bubble Art Director BEN GRANDGENETT
amid Covid-19 and one designer who saw it Features Editor ILENA SILVERMAN
Politics Editor CHARLES HOMANS
coming. ‘‘I wanted to write about fashion as if Culture Editor SASHA WEISS
it were any other industry in crisis, such as Digital Director BLAKE WILSON
Story Editors NITSUH ABEBE,
finance or film, and tell this incredible story of how SHEILA GLASER,
it all got out of hand,’’ Aleksander says. ‘‘Scott CLAIRE GUTIERREZ,
JAZMINE HUGHES,
Sternberg was so forthcoming about his own rise LUKE MITCHELL,
and fall in the fashion system that I realized DEAN ROBINSON,
WILLY STALEY
he was a compelling guide to take us through it.’’
At War Editor LAUREN KATZENBERG
Assistant Managing Editor JEANNIE CHOI
Susan Dominus ‘‘Doctor vs. Doctor,’’ Susan Dominus is a staff writer at The New Associate Editors IVA DIXIT,
KYLE LIGMAN
Page 20 York Times Magazine. She last wrote about the Poetry Editor NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
audiobook stardom of Eduardo Ballerini. Staff Writers SAM ANDERSON,
EMILY BAZELON,
RONEN BERGMAN,
TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER,
C. J. CHIVERS,
PAMELA COLLOFF,
Stephanie Gonot ‘‘Sweatpants Forever,’’ Stephanie Gonot is a Los Angeles-based NICHOLAS CONFESSORE,
Page 28 photographer and director known for her use of SUSAN DOMINUS,
MAUREEN DOWD,
vivid colors and playful style. NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES,
JENEEN INTERLANDI,
MARK LEIBOVICH,
JONATHAN MAHLER,
DAVID MARCHESE,
WESLEY MORRIS,
Megan K. Stack ‘‘Solitary Soul,’’ Megan K. Stack is an author and a journalist living JENNA WORTHAM
Page 34 in Washington. Her most recent book is ‘‘Women’s At War Reporter JOHN ISMAY
Digital Art Director KATE L A RUE
Work: A Personal Reckoning With Labor, Designers CLAUDIA RUBÍN,
Motherhood, and Privilege.’’ She last wrote about RACHEL WILLEY
Deputy Director of Photography JESSICA DIMSON
the coronavirus outbreak in Singapore.
Senior Photo Editor AMY KELLNER
Photo Editor KRISTEN GEISLER
Jason Zengerle Screenland, Jason Zengerle is a writer at large for the Contributing Photo Editor DAVID CARTHAS
Photo Assistant PIA PETERSON
Page 7 magazine. He last wrote about Joe Biden’s Copy Chief ROB HOERBURGER
running for president during the pandemic. Copy Editors HARVEY DICKSON,
DANIEL FROMSON,
MARGARET PREBULA,
ANDREW WILLETT
Head of Research NANDI RODRIGO
Research Editors ALEX CARP,
CYNTHIA COTTS,
Dear Reader: What Is the Best ‘Fast and Furious’ Movie? JAMIE FISHER,
LU FONG,
TIM HODLER,
The magazine publishes the results of a study conducted online in March 2020 by The ROBERT LIGUORI,
New York Times’s research-and-analytics department, reflecting the opinions of 2,250 LIA MILLER,
STEVEN STERN,
subscribers who chose to participate. MARK VAN DE WALLE,
BILL VOURVOULIAS
Production Chief ANICK PLEVEN
‘‘The Fast and the Furious’’ 30% Production Editors PATTY RUSH,
HILARY SHANAHAN
Managing Director, MARILYN McCAULEY
‘‘2 Fast 2 Furious’’ 4% Specialty Printing
Manager, Magazine Layout THOMAS GILLESPIE
Editorial Administrator LIZ GERECITANO BRINN
Editorial Assistant ALEXANDER SAMAHA
‘‘The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift’’ 7%
4 8.9.20
The Thread
Readers respond to the 7.26.2020 issue. sensitive article. I felt love for the place, I was part of the RELAMPAGO team
the people and the culture and sadness leading the hydrometeorological impacts.
RE: CLIMATE MIGRATION in thinking about the history, particular- You made me relive this amazing expe-
Abrahm Lustgarten wrote about how climate ly that the Tonga people were forcefully rience. Beautifully written article and
change is leading to a destabilizing migration removed from fertile land and made to amazing photographs!
of populations. resettle on infertile land that could not Francina, Champaign
support them. I hope and pray that a
This was a beautiful piece of writing, and workable solution can be found. THE STORY,
The best I have read on the subject of
it explains in great detail the impacts of Addy, Michigan ON INSTAGRAM ‘‘monster storms’’ because of the thor-
the choices we, as a country, make today. oughly diagramed layout of how these
I started reading this
I especially appreciated the graphics and and stopped, I got
storms form, how meteorologists are
RE: CÓRDOBA PROVINCE so sad. I will finish it. adapting to acquire and expand their
Noah Gallagher Shannon wrote about @ellejack01 predictive facility and the inclusion of
the fearsome thunderstorms in northern the effects of terrain in storm formation.
Argentina and the scientists who chase them. The photos perfectly support the article,
to where they merge with it.
Amazing article. We passed through the Allen, Philadelphia
area in February, on a double-decker bus
from Mendoza to Buenos Aires. Indeed, While I second the positive comments on
there were powerful storms to the north the article 100 percent, I’m struck by the
of us — in the direction of Córdoba. quality of the photography, in and of itself
Like Patagonia, it is a vast area of open and in its support of the concepts. Black
spaces where one learns to anticipate and and white was the way to go for emphasiz-
respect the weather. ing the sky over the land and for bringing
Dirk Durstein, Wilmington, Del. out the details of the cloud structure. I
love the composition that shows just how
I left the front page of the paper feeling
how well the writers explained that the depressed about the world, but this article
effects of climate change go far beyond has completely reinvigorated me. Science
sea-level rise. got us out of the darkness of superstition
Marie and religious overbearing. It will do so
again. Thank you for this wonderful piece!
RE: KARIBA DAM It is not a contradiction in terms to say,
Namwali Serpell wrote about the history of ‘‘Thank God for science.’’
the dam in the Zambezi River Valley. Amy Haible, Harpswell, Maine
An amazing article, thanks for doing it. Wonderful article. Well researched,
When I was a boy in Canada in the early informative and beautifully written. It was
’60s, we watched BBC films featuring the as if I were standing in the pampas look-
reclamation of wildlife as the waters rose ing at a foreboding storm on the horizon.
on this project. All these years later, as These dark tempests are an ominous sign
an adult, it’s good to explore the human of a changing climate.
and political past and especially futures Mark, El Paso vast the landscape can be — supporting
of the area. that scale as part of the equation.
John Arthur Feesey, Vancouver Bruce, Maine
advocate for many amorphous historical article also misstated the location of a future
misgivings that persist to this day. people and the dam. It will be on a tributary of the Zambezi
Russell, Lusaka, Zambia culture and River, not on the Zambezi River. And the
sadness in trees in Lake Kariba are dead trees; they
Beautifully written. My spouse and I do not continue to grow.
lived in Zambia for six years, 1972-78. I thinking about
enjoyed reading this very informative and the history.’ Send your thoughts to magazine@nytimes.com.
Peer Review
he seems at once eager and apprehen- that end, the group has curated an online ‘If Joe Biden it has been viewed more than a million
Getty Images; Joshua Roberts/Getty Images; Getty Images. Opening
sive. ‘‘Hi, my name is Josh. I live in North collection of more than 500 selfie videos times on the group’s Twitter account,
Source photographs (above): Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse, via
Carolina, and I voted for Donald Trump,’’ from Republicans, many of whom voted
drops out seen more than 100,000 times on its You-
he begins, in a tone of abject resigna- for Trump in 2016 and all of whom plan and the D.N.C. Tube channel and received plenty of
tion. He cocks his head and rolls his eyes. to vote against him in 2020. runs a tomato media attention.
‘‘My bad, fam,’’ he apologizes. ‘‘Not my Harrison recorded his confession in The Never Trump Republican adver-
proudest moment. I will not be voting June, sitting on his back deck around 2
can, I will tising space is a crowded one this cam-
for him again.’’ in the morning, after consuming some vote for the paign. The Lincoln Project releases new
The confession comes from Josh Har- White Claw and red wine. ‘‘It’s the first tomato can.’ spots seemingly every day — one blaming
rison, a 40-year-old exterminator from time I’ve ever voted for a Democrat,’’ he Trump for the pandemic, another claim-
page: Screen grab from YouTube.
the Raleigh area, and it appears on the says in the video. ‘‘But if Joe Biden drops ing that he’s seriously ill, yet another inti-
website and social media platforms of a out and the D.N.C. runs a tomato can, I mating that his genitalia are small. But
group called Republican Voters Against will vote for the tomato can, because I while the slick Lincoln Project ads ‘‘work
Trump. Created by the conservative writ- believe the tomato can will do less harm exclusively on the predispositions of the
er Bill Kristol and a handful of his fellow than our current president.’’ When Harri- faithful,’’ as Andrew Ferguson has written
Never Trump Republicans, RVAT, as its son sent the video, unsolicited, to RVAT, in The Atlantic, the bare-bones RVAT tes-
name indicates, is dedicated to defeat- he felt as if he were shouting into a void. timonials are intended to do that rarest
ing the president this November. Toward But since RVAT posted the video online, of things in politics these days: persuade.
9
Screenland
If you’re only familiar with Padma Lak- isn’t it a requirement in culinary school Below: Padma is unconscious racism and subconscious
Lakshmi with
shmi through her work as a host and to understand the Native foods of North racism and bias and favoritism because
other judges on
judge on Bravo’s long-running cooking America? And these chefs who have ‘‘Top Chef’’ in we are attracted to people like us. Look
competition ‘‘Top Chef,’’ then the 49-year- power now, usually white male chefs, 2009. Opposite: at the people who get things greenlit.
old’s new show might seem like a detour. they’re often mentoring people whom Lakshmi with For the most part, they’re white. That’s
Emiliano Marentes
Part food travelogue, part exploration of it’s easy for them to mentor. I would love in his El Paso
what it feels like. When I walk around
the benefits and blind spots of multicul- to see those chefs go into urban environ- restaurant on New York City or El Paso or Las Vegas,
turalism, Hulu’s ‘‘Taste the Nation’’ finds ments and high schools or colleges and “Taste the Nation.” I see a whole bunch of different kinds
Lakshmi cracking crab shells with South search for people to mentor who aren’t of people. There’s such a laziness — it’s
Carolina’s Gullah Geechee community, necessarily already in their universe, so not often malicious — about reaching for
partaking of brats and beer at Oktober- that when people want to come on ‘‘Top the thing that is most familiar. But it’s
fest in Milwaukee and comparing flour Chef’’ they’re trained properly and can not only ethical to be more inclusive; it’s
and corn tortillas along the border in El compete on equal footing. good for business.
Paso. It’s a long way from the glamour of There has been a ton of discussion and You’ve said elsewhere recently that over
‘‘Top Chef,’’ but as Lakshmi tells it, the controversy lately about race and cul- the years you’ve had trouble getting
show is the culmination of her aim to tural appropriation in food media. Did attention and coverage from certain
‘‘demystify foods that are part of our cul- you have much sense of the dynamics outlets and publications. Can you tell
ture but get othered by the greater Ameri- going on at a place like Bon Appétit? 2 me more about that? Listen, I pitched
can culture.’’ Pursuing that aim has been Or in food media more generally? I ‘‘Taste the Nation’’ to several networks.
the hidden throughline connecting her didn’t know to what degree they went I flew to Los Angeles on my own dime
three cookbooks, her pre-‘‘Top Chef’’ TV on at Bon Appétit. I certainly didn’t know two or three times, and everybody said
appearances on the Food Network and about the pay discrepancy. I don’t know no. When my agent told me that Hulu
even her well-regarded 2016 memoirs, Adam Rapoport socially beyond food- called and said they’d love to talk, I said:
‘‘Love, Loss, and What We Ate.’’ It is, she world things. That picture of him and his ‘‘I’m not flying to L.A. again. I’m done.’’
says, ‘‘something I’ve been thinking about wife dressed up is the least of the issue, I hated coming home after being away
for a long time.’’ in my opinion. I think Adam Rapoport from my kid, and she’s saying, ‘‘Mommy,
David Marchese
is a symptom of something much bigger is the magazine’s did you sell it?’’ and I have to look at this
An idea that’s implicit in ‘‘Taste the and more insidious, which is that there Talk columnist. 9-year-old and say, ‘‘No, I didn’t.’’ One
Nation’’ is that the more we know about
the cultural history of our food, the more
that leads to cultural openness. What
makes you believe that this idea is more
than just a platitude? Listen, I’m under
no illusions. I’m not one of these kum-
baya people. But I think the willingness to
break bread with someone shows a crack
of openness. I believe in that quote, ‘‘Tell
me what you eat, and I will tell you who
you are.’’ Through food, you can tell a lot
about not only a person or a family but
also a community. You can trace history
through foods. You can trace coloniza-
tion. Food can be a great instrument, and
that is how I try to use it.
The new show is really about diversi-
ty. ‘‘Top Chef’’ hasn’t necessarily had
the greatest track record in that area.1
Could the show be doing more? Every-
body should be doing more. I think that
we have gotten better. I think we have
a long way to go. As a producer, I have
power now that I didn’t have when I start-
ed on ‘‘Top Chef.’’ I think we’ve done well
in the last few years, but there has to be
a revolution from the ground up. What
I mean by that is: Why don’t we teach
African-American cuisine in our cook-
ing schools in this country? Why does it
always have to be French-centric? Why
12 8.9.20
entity — I won’t name names, but he’s no 1 In 17 seasons on
the air, ‘‘Top Chef’’
longer at the network — even wrote me a
has had five Asian-
long email about why he said no. I guess American winners,
he was trying to be respectful, but I don’t but only one Black
need a 900-word email about how my winner, Kevin Sbraga.
show idea is derivative. Especially when 2 In June, the food
there’s nothing that I can see on TV like it. writer Tammie
I’ve heard an Italian expression, ‘‘È come Teclemariam tweeted
essere schiaffeggiato nel buio,’’ which means a photo of the
magazine’s editor
‘‘It’s like being slapped in the dark.’’ You in chief, Adam
don’t know where it’s coming from, and Rapoport, dressed in
you don’t know why it’s happening to a racially insensitive
Halloween costume.
you. I have experienced this in a million
Employees of
ways. You have to remember, I’ve been color at Bon Appétit
on prime-time television for 14 years. I revealed that they
have a show that airs in countries all over were not paid for on-
camera appearances,
the world. I was well known before ‘‘Top but that white
Chef.’’ My show has been nominated for employees were.
an Emmy every single year that I’ve been Rapoport resigned.
doing it. And yet all these networks that I don’t think most Americans do, either. it. It has provided my daughter and me
3 In 2019, a recipe
claim they want diversity — and here for a chickpea-and- So I’m not saying that Indian food should with a great lifestyle. If I’m going to
was ‘‘Taste the Nation,’’ a show about coconut-milk stew by only be cooked by Indians. But it would take time out of my life, it’s got to be
the diversity of our country, and they the food writer be great if a recipe that went viral were something that I feel is worthwhile. And
and New York Times
said no. I started to think, Maybe I’m placed in the context of its own history. ‘‘Taste the Nation’’ is what I feel is most
contributor Alison
the only one interested in this stuff. It’s Roman went viral. It’s not taking anything away from cre- worthwhile. A lot of immigrants, we live
the same thing when I see other, white Critics argued that ativity to do that. It is acknowledging that in this weird in-between land; there is a
women being published constantly, and Roman’s recipe — these things didn’t come out of a vacuum. lot of code-switching that goes on when
a curry by any other
their books selling, and I know that their name — was an Aside from that, what might a more cul- you walk into your family home and then
recipe is a watered-down version of an example of cultural turally equitable food world look like to when you go to school. We have to navi-
Indian recipe or a Moroccan recipe. appropriation. you? I would like to see the food section gate that. So on ‘‘Taste the Nation’’ I want
Is that a reference to Alison Roman’s of papers like The New York Times not be to show a Thai grandmother making her
4 In an interview in
stew?3 I’m not going to comment on May, Roman made so white. I would like to see Condé Nast dish so that the Thai immigrant ver-
anybody specific, because I don’t think negative comments have more editors who are not white. sion of me6 who’s in elementary school
that’s productive. about the lifestyle That’s a real, concrete ask that I’m mak- now can see her and say: ‘‘Oh, OK. My
influencers Chrissy
Without commenting on individuals, Teigen and Marie
ing. You have to make sure you’re hiring grandma is not that weird, because this
what did the blow-up4 with her and Kondo, drawing writers who have a different perspective other grandma was on Hulu.’’ I know that
Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo sig- criticism for having than the rest of your staff, because that’s sounds like a little thing, but it’s not.
nify to you? I think she, like all of us singled out two good for your newspaper or magazine. This last question doesn’t have to do
women of color.
sometimes, suffered from a bad case of I would like them to consider balanc- with food: You’ve had a lot of traumat-
foot-in-mouth disease. It’s unfortunate. I 5 Lakshmi hosted ing whom they interview, even bending ic events7 in your life, and it seems as
Left: Kelsey McNeal/Bravo, via Everett Collection. Right: Dominic Valente/Hulu.
think all three of those women probably ‘‘Padma’s Passport’’ over backward a little bit, to even out if it would be easy for somebody who’s
want the story to go away. That’s all I will for the Food Network, our presence. had those experiences to end up cyni-
as well as two ‘‘Planet
say about it. Food’’ specials. ‘‘Top Chef ’’ excepted, the other cal or pessimistic. You’re not. How did
Has your thinking about cultural appro- food-related shows5 you’ve done have you avoid that? Yes, a lot of [expletive]
priation and food changed? There was a 6 Lakshmi was born been weighted toward non-European has gone down. I do have a bit of ‘‘the
in Delhi, India.
profile of you in New York magazine last food. Does that suggest biases about sky is falling’’; people who are close to
Her parents divorced
year, and in it you said — I’m paraphras- when she was 2. what television executives are com- me would say, ‘‘She’s always worst-case
ing — that if cultural appropriation gets She immigrated to fortable with you doing? Would it scenario.’’ But I remember something my
more people open to more flavors, then the United States give them pause if you pitched a show grandfather said to me. He said, ‘‘When-
two years later,
you’re OK with it. Do you still feel that following her mother,
about French cuisine? I don’t think so, ever you go to sleep, I want you to feel
way? Look, I’m not saying that you can’t who went ahead because I have 14 years on ‘‘Top Chef.’’ like you did something good today.’’ You
use turmeric on a menu or in a cookbook of her to find work. But I am a brown woman working in a have control over what you accomplish.
unless you do a doctoral dissertation on white, male Hollywood. It is very hard You don’t always have control over what
7 At 14, Lakshmi was
ayurvedic medicine. I’m just saying that seriously injured in for us to get a show to begin with, never happens to you, but you have control over
a couple of sentences at the top of a rec- a car crash. She has mind the subject matter. But it’s a good how you react. In spite of everything that
ipe would place it in context. I love the twice been a victim question. If you’re talking about my sit- happened to me, look where I am today.
of sexual assault, at
commingling of cultures. My cookbooks uation, I would never pitch a show like
ages 7 and 16. At
are not all Indian, because I don’t eat like 36, she found out she what you described. I already have a This interview has been edited and condensed
that. I don’t experience life like that, and had endometriosis. successful show. I’m very thankful for for clarity from two conversations.
13
The Ethicist By Kwame Anthony Appiah
work environment.’’ Instead, I steer It’s a sign of something morally odd I were to lose my job. That seems like a real
the discussion toward small triumphs about our attitude to employment that possibility: While layoffs may not To submit a query:
with my side job, which is now my you feel ashamed of having been fired, be imminent, the organization I work for, Send an email to
primary source of income. During this even though you think the firing was a nonprofit, was already on a shrinking ethicist@nytimes
.com; or send mail
economic turbulence caused by the unjust. (You say ‘‘embarrassed,’’ but that’s budget before the current economic shock. to The Ethicist, The
pandemic, both parents often verbalize usually a gentler way of saying the same Now the odds are even higher that they will New York Times
how blessed our family is that all of their thing.) If you’re right, the shame should have to let people go before the year is out. Magazine, 620
Eighth Avenue, New
children are still employed. I continue attach not to you but to the people who (I am actively looking for another position.)
York, N.Y. 10018.
to play along because I don’t want my fired you. And yet your response is entire- Should I lose my job, is it ethical (Include a daytime
octogenarian parents worrying about it. ly representative. People tend to think for me to claim unemployment benefits, phone number.)
Street-Casting
By Jon Gluck
I live in New York City, in downtown and in front of me, over and over again In pursuit of to do so. Or I thought I didn’t, anyway.
the elusive in
Manhattan, on the seventh floor of a while stepping in and out of the street troublesome times.
But then it occurred to me that a city
13-story apartment building. Two or three in sync with the traffic-light cycles to street — long, straight and, in my case,
times a week, I wake up early, ride the avoid passing cars, like some kind of relatively free of traffic — is actually
elevator down to my lobby and say good bastardized urban version of Brad Pitt quite suitable. Pretty great, even. Pecu-
morning to my doorman, in the custom in ‘‘A River Runs Through It,’’ God and liar is in the eye of the beholder.
of millions of city dwellers everywhere. Norman Maclean forgive me. This year, street-casting has taken on a
But on the particular days I’m describ- I’ve been practicing this peculiar new urgency. I typically fish 20 or so days
ing, my next move isn’t so familiar: I plant ritual for years. Some time ago, I was a year, everywhere from the Catskills to
myself in the middle of West 12th Street looking to shake off the rust and get my the Bahamas, but because of Covid-19, I
and commence fly-casting — essentially arm in shape to prepare for an upcom- haven’t managed to get out on the water
fly-fishing without the fish — slinging 30 ing fishing trip to Wyoming, but living at all. And yet, like many of us these
or 40 feet of thin nylon line behind me where I do, I didn’t have a suitable place days, I’m desperate to find pockets of
Illustration by Radio 17
Eat By Tejal Rao
It’s not that Bryan Ford didn’t love those for sourdough starters. He loved those Choco pan The slow, overnight fermentation
de coco.
tall, quintessentially crusty, flour-dust- breads! But Ford, a Honduran-American of dhokla leads to an airy, tangy batter,
ed, rustic French and Italian sourdough baker from New Orleans, also wondered steamed so it’s very tender. But until I
loaves — the kind you’ve seen cross-sec- why other breads weren’t valued in the read Ford’s work, it never even occurred
tioned and shot from every angle on same way, and why other doughs, espe- to me to refer to it, or to so many of the
bread blogs and in cookbooks and on cially doughs that predated the sour- other everyday fermented batters I grew
Instagram. The kind an algorithm may dough fad, and that went through their up making and eating as ‘‘sourdoughs.’’ I
have even directed you toward with a own processes of wild fermentations in couldn’t explain why, though maybe it’s
far higher frequency since the pandem- home kitchens all over the world, were because their techniques and their visual
ic pushed more home cooks to care left out of the conversation. languages were just so different from the
18 8.9.20 Photograph by Heami Lee Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Rebecca Bartoshesky.
wide, open crumbs and crackling edges bread, a subgenre of the baking world 2 tablespoons/30 grams softened unsalted
‘People get butter or coconut oil, plus 1 tablespoon
fetishized on Instagram. And maybe, if that isn’t known for being so inclusive
I’m being honest, it’s because I didn’t into baking and approachable. In the introduction,
for greasing pan
think I was allowed — sourdough, inten- bread with Ford writes that he wants bakers to 2 tablespoons/30 grams light brown sugar
tionally or not, has an exclusive Eurocen- change their expectations of bread. ‘‘I 2 teaspoons/10 grams kosher salt
an idea of what
tric definition as crusty bread built with really really mean it,’’ Ford said. ‘‘People
a starter. As a result, many of the world’s it’s supposed get into baking bread with an idea of what 1. To build the levain, in a large bowl, mix
the mature sourdough starter, flour and water
great fermented breads, from injera to to be, but when it’s supposed to be, but when you lose until incorporated. Cover, and leave in a
dosa, are often left out. But Ford didn’t you lose those those expectations, you can make a roti warm place for 3-4 hours, or until doubled in
wait for anyone’s permission to expand or naan or semita, and you can appreciate size. Use immediately, by going to Step 2,
sourdough’s definition. expectations, it just as much.’’ or refrigerate the levain to use the next day.
Ford grew up in New Orleans, a child you can make a The first recipe I made from the book
2. Prepare the final dough: Combine the
of Honduran immigrants. Once a week, roti or naan or was a version of Ford’s pan de coco, sweet, coconut milk and water, and warm gently
sometimes more often, his father picked mottled brown with cocoa powder and in a pan over low heat or in the microwave
up a bag full of pan de coco from a Hondu- semita, and you chocolate chips, the tin greased with until steaming. Transfer to a large bowl, and
ran bodega, and Ford would grab one or can appreciate coconut oil. As it baked, it filled my kitch- add 7 ounces/200 grams of levain (about
1 generous cup), along with all the remaining
two of the dense little rolls from the bag it just as much.’ en with the rich smell of coconut. It came dough ingredients. Using your hands,
and run off to eat them to tide himself out of the oven airy, pulling apart with squeeze everything together. Turn out onto
over before dinner. His parents sat on threads that let out puffs of steam, smear- a clean work surface, and knead, using
the porch to have theirs, dipping them ing my fingertips with melted chocolate. the palm of your hand to push the dough
forward and your fingers to pull it back.
in coffee, talking. Honduran pan de coco, But it cooled to a more dense and whole-
Repeat until the dough is mostly smooth.
traditionally made with coconut milk and some texture. I wasn’t sure if I got it right, Cover, and let ferment for 4 hours, then
some whole-wheat flour, might be used if my starter was in a good place when I refrigerate for 12 hours.
to soak up soup or sauce with a meal, or used it and if this bread was the way Ford
eaten plain as a snack. ‘‘It’s such a beau- intended it to be. Had I failed? I wanted 3. Coat a loaf tin with 1 tablespoon coconut
oil or butter, and set aside. Place the dough
tiful thing,’’ Ford said, ‘‘and for me, that to show him a photo of the bread, the
on a lightly floured work surface, divide
is good bread.’’ way it looked when it was risen, the way into 6 pieces and let rest for 20-30 minutes.
In 2018, when he was working as a it looked when I tore it open and ate it, Ball each piece: Flatten the dough, fold
baker in Miami, he changed the way he standing in front of the oven. But I didn’t the corners to the center and press down,
thought about sourdoughs, expanding need to. ‘‘When someone messages me then flip the dough to reveal a smooth
surface, and tighten the dough into a ball
it to include fermentations from all about a failure, I’ll always ask, well did you
by tucking the edges in with your palms.
over the world and applying the word share it? Did you like it, did your friends Repeat with the remaining pieces, then place
to breads that had most likely benefited and family like it? OK, then be proud of the pieces inside the tin, arranging in 2 rows
from natural leavening in warm kitch- making delicious bread!’’ of 3. Cover, and proof until dough rises by about
ens in the past. ‘‘Before, I’d been posting a third, for 3-4 hours at room temperature.
rustic loaves, baguettes, crumb shots, Choco Pan de Coco 4. To bake the bread, heat the oven to 375.
all the same-looking thing,’’ Ford said. Time: 2 hours, plus fermentation Bake for 35 minutes, or until lightly brown
‘‘I was getting trapped in that mentali- and shiny on top, turning the pan once in the
ty.’’ But when his mother came to visit, For the levain: middle of cooking. Let the bread rest in
the pan for 20 minutes, then remove from the
Ford baked pan de coco with a sourdough 2 ounces/60 grams mature sourdough
oven, and let cool an additional 30 minutes.
starter instead of yeast, complicating the starter
bread’s flavors and changing its texture. ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons/120 grams bread Yield: 1 (8- or 9-inch) loaf.
He documented the process with just flour
½ cup/110 milliliters warm water Adapted from ‘‘New World Sourdough,’’
as much care as he had before. ‘‘Peo-
by Bryan Ford.
ple saw I was proud to be Honduran.
My following grew.’’ Soon, Ford started For the final dough:
posting his bread recipes in English and ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons/200 milliliters
Spanish, fielding questions from home canned coconut milk
bakers all over the world about doughs Scant ½ cup/100 milliliters water
not rising properly, about caring for 7 ounces/200 grams levain
a healthy starter and about the abyss (about 1 generous cup)
between their homemade loaves and 1¾ cups/225 grams all-purpose flour
the ones posted by professional bakers 1⅔ cups/225 grams bread flour
on Instagram. 1⅔ cups/125 grams unsweetened
Ford’s cookbook, ‘‘New World Sour- shredded coconut
dough,’’ published in June, is full of deep ¼ cup/25 grams Dutch process
expertise that answers many of these cocoa powder
questions, but it’s also an unusually warm, Scant ⅓ cup/50 grams bittersweet
friendly invitation to making sourdough chocolate chips
19
Doctor vs. Doctor
How much
freedom should
physicians
have in treating
Covid-19
patients? The question
has opened up
a civil war in
some hospitals.
By
Susan
Dominus
Photographs
by Adam Ferguson 21
Mangala mask to enter the patient’s room when its elastic
snapped in two. There was no time to go to the
supply area to get a new mask. What was the right
Narasimhan,
thing to do? With a sense of dread, she found her
feet and moved toward the patient’s room. As she
prepared to enter, one of her fellows, whose mask
was intact, told her to leave — she could manage
it on her own.
Looking back, Tsegaye felt that the agony of
making those kinds of decisions all day long
an intensive-care-unit doctor, started feeling called for the higher dose, which could potentially compounded the grief she felt while treating so
impatient soon after the start of a meeting she require the patient’s removal from the trial. many patients she could not help. ‘‘These are the
attended at Long Island Jewish Medical Center Word made it back to a doctor working with decisions we have had to face,’’ Tsegaye said. ‘‘For
on May 13. She wanted to get back to the unit, Spyropoulos, and that doctor called Hahn to urge someone like me, who had been in that situation,
but instead she was sitting in a conference room her to reconsider, or at least to get more tests to have someone tell you that you have been prac-
with about a dozen colleagues. By then, the surge before acting. They exchanged heated words, ticing witchcraft is kind of giving no value to the
of Covid-19 cases, the waves of suffering that had as the colleague implored her to stay the course. sacrifice that I have made — that my colleagues
crashed down on her hospital for months, was Hahn pushed back: She had to rely on her clini- have made.’’
beginning, miraculously, to recede. The throngs cal judgment and believed that it was unethical to
of out-of-town health care workers who had wait for more information. How could researchers As doctors face new spikes of Covid-19 cases
come to New York City to help were also dimin- dictate care to a doctor right there at the bedside, around the country, they are also confronting a
ishing, heading home to regions whose own especially when a patient’s condition was so dire? harsh reality: The virus’s deadly secrets remain
times would come. Narasimhan and her team The point of contention would be discussed at largely intact. The medical community now has
now had fewer hands to oversee new patients the May 13 meeting. Dozens of doctors from the some research-backed drug treatments — rem-
coming in and the long-suffering ones on venti- Northwell system videoconferenced in, includ- desivir, an antiviral drug found to shorten hospital
lators who were still in need of meticulous care. ing Spyropoulos, who was seated in his home in stays, and dexamethasone, a cheap, readily avail-
Long Island Jewish, in Queens, had, at the time, Westchester. Hahn and her colleagues, a tightknit able steroid that seems to cut deaths of patients
treated more Covid-19 patients than any other unit who had seen one another through so much, on ventilators by a third. But six months after the
hospital in the country; the doctors there were sat together in the conference room, occasional- first patient tested positive on the West Coast,
still weary, still battered, their energy and time ly checking their phones or exchanging glances there is still no treatment that reliably slows
in need of careful rationing. as the meeting went on. As Spyropoulos recalls, progression of the illness, much less a cure. In
Narasimhan, who was in charge of more than 20 he talked to the group about the importance of July, the number of patients dying in this country
I.C.U.s across the Northwell Health system, knew high-quality, randomized trials in making scien- topped 1,000 five days in a row, according to the
heading into the meeting that it might be tense. tific progress, and the risks of trying experimental Covid Tracking Project.
Adey Tsegaye, a pulmonary-critical-care doctor treatments without them. ‘‘I stressed to the group In these early months, doctors have faced two
who was calling in remotely, shared some of Nara- that we should not abandon this principle, even in unknowns in trying to fight the devastation. The
simhan’s concerns. The meeting’s agenda includ- the very stressful environment of a pandemic that first is the virus itself: deadly, contagious and
ed time for remarks from Alex Spyropoulos, a lead was overwhelming our hospitals at Northwell,’’ he entirely novel. The standard of care for most
researcher at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical said. Relying on gut instinct rather than evidence, intractable illnesses develops over years, as doc-
Research — the research arm of Northwell — who he told them, was essentially ‘‘witchcraft.’’ tors build a body of research that tests various
was running a clinical trial. The research was try- For Tsegaye, the word landed like a blow. theories, compares and contrasts dosages, mea-
ing to determine whether a standard dose of an ‘‘There was a chill in the air,’’ said Tsegaye, who sures one drug’s power against another. Here
anticoagulant or a higher dose yielded better out- registered it even by videoconference. ‘‘Followed doctors were starting from scratch: Any treat-
comes for Covid-19 patients who were already on by rapid backpedaling.’’ Spyropoulos quickly ment protocol beyond supportive care — oxy-
oxygen or a ventilator and were at high risk of explained that he had so much respect for what gen, hydration, antibiotics and ventilation — was
organ failure and clotting. those doctors had done — he had not been in conjecture. The second, equally novel challenge
A doctor on Narasimhan’s unit had recently those critical-care units, in the emergency room, has been the sheer scale of the outbreak. Few
been at odds with a member of Spyropoulos’s which he knew were unlike any other he had ever doctors in this country had encountered the
research team. Stella Hahn, a pulmonary-critical- experienced. ‘‘But it was like a retraction sent to overwhelming volume of patients, the sense of
care doctor, arrived at work the day before the the newspaper the next day,’’ Tsegaye said. ‘‘The helplessness, the exhaustion and the despera-
meeting to find that a Covid-19 patient had gone headline says it all. The retraction the next day? tion to save lives. Hospital administrators found
into cardiac arrest. She knew that the patient It doesn’t have the same impact.’’ themselves plunging headlong into making diffi-
was enrolled in the clinical trial and had been In the days to come, whenever Tsegaye thought cult decisions in the absence of strong, unifying
randomly assigned to receive either the standard about what Spyropoulos said in that meeting, she federal guidance. Most did so without the bene-
dose of the anticoagulant or the higher one. As is felt appalled all over again. She knew that she had fit of perfectly parallel case studies or personal
always the case in the most rigorous trials, neither never extended herself on behalf of her patients experience in hospitals so overrun by suffering.
the patient nor Hahn was supposed to know to the way she had since March. She kept flashing When there is no precedent, when there is
which group this woman belonged. Double-blind, back to a day when she was told that a ventilated an information vacuum, decisions are inevita-
randomized, controlled trials — R.C.T.s — are con- patient’s endotracheal tube had fallen out, a sit- bly subject to challenge. In an already heated
sidered the gold standard in research because uation that can be fatal for the patient and is also environment, some of the worst of the tensions
they do not allow findings to be muddied by any dangerous for the physician: Replacing it requires played out between research-oriented doctors
individual doctor’s biases or assumptions. But the doctor to come into close contact with the and those who saw themselves primarily as
Hahn believed that the patient’s condition now patient’s breath. Tsegaye was putting on her N95 clinicians. Many treating patients on the floor
22 8.9.20
considered it axiomatic that, with so many dying
so fast and so little to go on, they would rely on
their experience to make judgment calls about
treatment options. They would try using medi-
cations that had been approved for other illness-
es but not yet for this one — what the medical
community calls off-label uses — if they felt they
had good reasons to do so. They would take into
consideration any information that was available:
the observations of doctors in Milan and China,
conversations among doctors in WhatsApp
group texts and in Covid-19 physician Facebook
groups, tidbits of research that made medical
sense but had not yet been peer-reviewed.
Other clinicians, and especially doctors more
heavily involved in research, were frustrated
that many of their colleagues were not suffi-
ciently invested in the importance of empirical
research to figure out which treatments worked
best and were safest. Kevin Tracey, president of
the Feinstein Institutes, tried to emphasize to the
doctors affiliated with the Northwell hospital sys-
tem that if they were going to try drugs off-label,
they should always be doing so in the context
of a clinical research trial: The drug might help
some patients but could hurt even more of them.
If that was the case, it was better to know than
to operate out of a mix of hope and conviction.
He understood, he said, the impulse for doctors
to try drugs off-label out of compassion — and
the ‘‘raw emotion of humans trying to help each
other survive and not knowing what to do.’’ But
he did not approve of it. ‘‘Emotions cannot carry
the day,’’ he said. ‘‘You need evidence-based med-
icine, and you need clinical trials. You don’t make
an exception in the middle of a pandemic.’’
Ethan Weiss, a cardiologist at the University of
California, San Francisco, who specializes in met-
abolic research, spent two weeks treating patients
at a hospital in New York and was also distressed
by how quickly doctors were trying untested ther- Adey Tsegaye, a pulmonary-critical-care doctor at Long Island Jewish
apies outside clinical trials. ‘‘I mean, it felt like it Medical Center in Queens. Opening pages: Alex Spyropoulos, a lead
wasn’t even World War I medicine,’’ he said. ‘‘It was researcher at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research.
almost like Civil War-level medicine.’’ He asked
that the name of that New York hospital be with-
held out of respect for his colleagues, whom he always existed. But during the early months of is the most likely one. Clinical equipoise is an
knows were not only risking their lives but were the pandemic, the disagreements — what one elegant characterization of a humble admission:
also overwhelmed by their clinical demands and critical-care doctor called, on his well-read blog, I have no idea which of these two choices is better.
had no research to rely on. He nonetheless was the profession’s ‘‘intellectual food fight’’ — provid- Equipoise gave way to unbridled enthusiasm
surprised to see many of them making decisions ed another layer of painful stress to some doctors among some physicians at Lenox Hill Hospital on
‘‘based on the sort of opinion or written protocol already near their limits. ‘‘It became like Republi- the Upper East Side of New York in April when the
of one or a couple of people that was based on cans and Democrats,’’ said Pierre Kory, a critical- city was in the thick of the surge. Many doctors
kind of nothing that I could see, other than just, care doctor who faced that tension himself at the there believed they were seeing great results by
‘This seems like a good idea.’ ’’ University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. ‘‘The providing tocilizumab, an anti-inflammatory drug
Many clinicians on the ground felt the urgen- two sides can’t talk to each other.’’ that tamps down the autoimmune response and
cy of treating the hundreds of patients dying in is used for rheumatoid arthritis. The doctors were
front of them; researchers, with their literal and As they prepare to evaluate a given medica- prescribing the drug, sometimes in conjunction
intellectual distance from the I.C.U., were pressing tion or procedure, researchers are expected to with a steroid, to Covid-19 patients, particularly
them to think about the thousands of patients who approach their task with a certain neutral mind- those who were not yet on ventilators but whose
were sure to follow — to slow down long enough set. The official term for that stance sounds both blood tests suggested that they were about to take
to build a body of evidence that they knew with scientific and strangely poetic: ‘‘clinical equi- a turn for the worse. In using it, doctors hoped
more certainty could help. The tensions between poise.’’ It’s a point at which a doctor’s curiosity to stave off what’s known as a cytokine storm, a
these two ways of thinking about medicine have is greater than her conviction that any one result potentially deadly immune-system overreaction
Photograph by Adam Ferguson for The New York Times The New York Times Magazine 23
Michelle Ng Gong, the director of critical-care research Mangala Narasimhan, a doctor who is in charge of intensive-
for the Montefiore Health System in New York. care units throughout the Northwell Health system.
in which a torrent of cytokines — proteins that who is affiliated with the Feinstein Institutes, told Northwell had established for administering toci-
can trigger infection-fighting forces — is released. me in late April. (Boockvar is one of the doctors lizumab, which was in short supply. Physicians
Tocilizumab, which blocks the pathway of a cyto- featured on the documentary series ‘‘Lenox Hill.’’) were frustrated that patients who they believed
kine called IL-6, might prevent that deadly storm ‘‘But there is clearly enough data to support its would benefit from the drug could not receive
from gathering force. But any anti-inflammatory use.’’ The doctors at Lenox Hill had also briefly it. Northwell wanted to be conservative about
carries risk, because in fighting inflammation, it participated in a randomized, controlled trial for the off-label use of drugs outside clinical trials.
can also hamper the body’s ability to clear the pri- another drug with a similar mechanism, called ‘‘There’s no proof that anything works!’’ Tsegaye
mary infection or others that follow; tocilizumab sarilumab. But to Boockvar, enrolling a patient in thought at the time. ‘‘Everything is experimen-
is also thought to carry some elevated risk of ana- that trial, which might result in a patient receiv- tal!’’ As for enrolling patients in a trial, as over-
phylactic shock and lower-intestinal perforation. ing a placebo, posed an ethical challenge when whelmed as she was, she hardly felt she was in a
Patients with extreme flu in the I.C.U. some- he could simply prescribe tocilizumab — doctors position to take that on.
times received tocilizumab; it is also used to treat refer to it as toci — instead. In April, he learned Tsegaye’s supervisor, Narasimhan, also knew
cytokine storms that some cancer patients expe- that Massachusetts General Hospital was starting researchers were concerned that in prescribing
rience as a side effect of treatment. Doctors at a randomized, controlled trial for tocilizumab. tocilizumab so readily, physicians were possi-
Lenox Hill did not believe it was a leap to think ‘‘If that was my loved one,’’ he said, imagining a bly hampering enrollment in the trial underway
that the drug could address cytokine storms in family member who might receive a placebo in at her hospital for sarilumab — a patient who
Covid-19 patients. They knew that doctors in that trial, ‘‘I’d be upset. I’d think, Why am I doing received tocilizumab could not also receive sari-
Milan were leaning heavily on the drug; they were this? If it’s an off-label use with an approved drug lumab. She and her team did not prioritize the
in conversation with doctors at Yale New Haven — give the damn drug to everybody.’’ trials, she said; they wanted to provide the drugs
Health, considered a fortress of research-heavy At Long Island Jewish, some doctors who they thought were needed. ‘‘We’ve always been
medicine, which also incorporated tocilizumab were hearing about the drug from colleagues at allowed to choose treatment, right or wrong,
into their protocol. In addition, some small stud- Lenox Hill, a part of the Northwell Health con- based on what we thought was best,’’ Narasimhan
ies showed support for the drug’s effectiveness, sortium, started clamoring for liberal access to it. said in May. ‘‘And that was gone. It was hard.’’
though none were randomized, controlled trials. And yet sometimes, when doctors placed orders In addition to fighting resistance from their
‘‘I understand that it has never been trialed,’’ with the hospital pharmacist, their prescriptions administrators, the doctors were sometimes
John Boockvar, a neurosurgeon at Lenox Hill were declined; those patients didn’t meet criteria also at odds with their colleagues, especially
infectious-disease doctors, many of whom calling for us to give it, just to give it, because found, as Aberg put it, ‘‘nada.’’ A few weeks later,
believed that anti-inflammatories like tocilizumab there were no other therapies,’’ Aberg said. At the pharmaceutical company Roche announced
and steroids could do more harm than good. first, a medical team that included Aberg agreed preliminary results of a tocilizumab trial that
‘‘You’re killing these patients,’’ one infectious- to put some patients who were on ventilators on was run on Covid patients with pneumonia. The
disease doctor told Hahn at Long Island Jewish. the drug — in those patients, it was obvious that drug’s effects were no better than a placebo. By
In the Mount Sinai Health System, tocilizumab systemic inflammation was already evident; also, then, Narasimhan was also starting to see pre-
was also in demand. Administrators felt the stress the closer the patient was to dying, the more the liminary reports of other research that showed
of making decisions in the absence of clear data. risk seemed justified. Eventually, the thinking at the drug could, in fact, be dangerous, increasing
Judith Aberg, the chief of the division of infec- Aberg’s hospitals and at others evolved to favor the risk of fatal secondary and fungal infections.
tious diseases for Mount Sinai, fielded demands use of the drug earlier, before systemic inflam- ‘‘My take-home is that I wish we had done
from doctors working on wards who wanted mation did so much damage that the patient was more randomized, controlled trials so we could
to use tocilizumab, early and often. ‘‘I have to already clinging to life. have some real answers, so that we could tell
give her credit; she was single-handedly fight- By May, doctors at Long Island Jewish and Florida and Texas, ‘This works, and this doesn’t
ing off a lot of pressure from hematologists,’’ Mount Sinai had stopped pressing for tocilizumab work,’ ’’ Narasimhan, who is now in charge of
said Keren Osman, a Mount Sinai oncologist — if it was effective, it was not such a miracle drug intensive-care units throughout the Northwell
and hematologist who was on some of those that they could see its effects clearly. Many had Health system, told me in July. ‘‘We could have
calls. As experts in blood cancers and diseas- started to pin their hopes instead on convalescent had so many more answers in a way that was
es, hematologists had experience working with plasma, another experimental treatment in which meaningful. We had this fixation that all these
tocilizumab to treat cytokine storms that were a sick patients are given plasma from recovered drugs were curative. And they weren’t.’’
side effect of some cancer treatments. ‘‘She was patients with antibodies, though its effectiveness
saying, ‘I’m not comfortable just giving patients is still unknown. ‘‘We did rush,’’ Aberg says now. The story of hydroxychloroquine will most likely
willy-nilly anything we have — we don’t know.’ ’’ ‘‘I mean, we were pushed. We were grasping for be recalled as a classic medical parable of the
Patients and their families, who heard through anything that we could possibly do.’’ pandemic. It was a drug that seemed so prom-
the news media about the drug, also started to In early July, the drug company studying ising that physicians were desperate to use it,
demand it, even for Covid-19 patients whose sarilumab, the drug similar to tocilizumab, and researchers were equally driven to see if it
inflammatory markers were normal. ‘‘People were announced that it was halting its trial; researchers actually delivered the hoped-for results. In the
P A N D E M I C , T H E W H O L E
F A S H I O N I N D U S T R Y H A D
S T A R T E D T O U N R A V E L .
W H A T H A P P E N S N O W T H A T
N O O N E H A S A R E A S O N T O
G E T D R E S S E D U P ? B Y I R I N A
A L E K S A N D E R P H O T O G R A P H S
B Y S T E P H A N I E G O N O T
S W E A T P A N T S F O R E V E R
29
success. No more fashion shows, no more sea-
sonal collections, no more wholesale accounts
that had become unreliable (R.I.P. Barneys) or the
I T ’ S D I F F I C U L T , markups required to pay for it all. (Band’s shirts
started at $220; Entireworld’s are $95.)
For years, Sternberg had been saying that
the fashion industry was a giant bubble head-
in retrospect, to pinpoint when exactly panic at his desk and began drafting an email: ‘‘Wow. ing toward collapse. Now the pandemic was
about coronavirus took hold in the United States, I mean, WTF.’’ just speeding up the inevitable. In fact, it had
but March 12 stands out. Stores ran out of canned He didn’t run the email by his staff. There was already begun. An incredible surplus of clothing
goods. Streets emptied of cars. Tom Hanks had just no meeting about it. He just sat down and wrote it. was presently sitting in warehouses and in stores,
tested positive for the virus. That evening, Scott ‘‘Am I sick already? Can I leave my house? What some of which might never reopen. ‘‘That whole
Sternberg, a fashion designer, was lying awake at do I tell my employees? Will my mom be OK on her channel is dead,’’ Sternberg said. ‘‘And there’s no
home in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Ange- flight home today? Can Zod’’ — Sternberg’s dog sign of when it’s turning on again.’’
les, thinking about Entireworld, a line of basics he — ‘‘get coronavirus? Did I buy enough T.P.? How In April, clothing sales fell 79 percent in the
founded two years earlier. Would people still buy long will this last? Who’s in charge? What’s next?’’ United States, the largest dive on record. Pur-
clothes? How much cash did he have to keep going? The email went out to the brand’s 30,000 sub- chases of sweatpants, though, were up 80 per-
When would he have to lay people off ? ‘‘My Band scribers on Sunday, March 15. It was, in a sea of cent. Entireworld was like the rare life form that
of Outsiders battle scars just opened wide,’’ he said. daily promotional emails, a distinctly human one. survives the apocalypse. By betting that the lux-
Band of Outsiders was Sternberg’s previous But this was still a promotion: for a sweatsuit, ury market would fail, Sternberg had evaded the
company. He founded it in 2004 as a line of slim the brand’s top seller, a ‘‘hero item’’ in indus- very forces that were bringing down the rest of
shirts and ties. (Remember the skinny-tie boom? try speak. Inspired by a French children’s film, the industry. ‘‘Because you could see the writing
That was Sternberg.) Eventually it grew into full Entireworld’s sweatsuits come in a prism of on the wall,’’ he said. ‘‘The Neimans writing on
men’s and women’s collections that won over cheery colors and, in Sternberg’s vision, ‘‘sort of the wall, the Barneys. . . . Listen, Barneys? That
the fashion world with self-consciously preppy make you look like a cross between a Teletubbie, was not a shock to anyone.’’
clothes. Sternberg took home two Council of Fash- Ben Stiller in ‘The Royal Tenenbaums,’ and a J. C.
ion Designers of America (C.F.D.A.) awards, the Penney ad from 1979.’’ IF THERE’S ONE image that I will remember from
industry’s equivalent of the Oscars. He posed for It wasn’t long before Sternberg’s employees the last days of the fashion industry as it has
photos with Kanye West. Michelle Obama wore began texting him happy-face emoji. On an existed for the last two decades, it’s Marc Jacobs
one of his dresses. He opened stores in Tokyo and average day, the brand — still in its nascent stage streaming live from the Mercer Hotel in New
New York. Then, in 2015, to everyone’s surprise, — sells 46 sweats. That day they sold more than York in pearls and perfect makeup. The broadcast
Sternberg announced that Band was going out of 1,000. When they ran out of sweatsuits, shoppers ran to 75 minutes in length over two different
business. An investment with some Belgians had moved through the T-shirts, socks and under- virtual events. It began on April 15, with Vogue’s
gone bad, but that didn’t feel like the whole story. wear. By month’s end, the brand’s sales were Global Conversations, a series the magazine
Sternberg knew the whole story. Every choice he up 662 percent over March the previous year. introduced to figure out how to fix the fashion
made at Entireworld was to prevent it from hap- The daywe met, April 24, was the highest-grossing industry, and continued a month later, on May
pening again. Now a global pandemic had hit. He day in the company’s history. A new shipment 15, with Business of Fashion, the industry’s go-to
couldn’t foresee that. No one did. came in that morning and promptly sold out again. news website.
Unlike other designers, Sternberg studied not Entireworld had now grossed more in two months ‘‘I’m in the process of grief right now,’’ Jacobs
design but economics, a major he chose in part than in its entire first year in business. told Vogue.
because the year he entered Washington Univer- By ‘‘met,’’ I mean that we were in Sternberg’s Why are you grieving, Marc? the moderator asked.
sity in St. Louis, the economist Douglass North, backyard in chairs positioned 20 feet apart, ‘‘Why? Because this is all very sad.’’
a professor there, won a Nobel Prize. Sternberg with a setup of disinfectant wipes between us. Then, later: How are you going to present your
graduated summa cum laude. His senior thesis At this point, Sternberg hadn’t been leaving spring/summer '21 collection?
was about the economics of actors in Hollywood, the house much, instead subsisting on deliver- ‘‘I’m not sure there will be a spring/summer
which is how he wound up in Los Angeles in the ies from BlueApron, the meal-kit service, and ’21 collection.’’
first place. This is all to say that Sternberg knew rationing the ingredients into multiple meals. Jacobs had come to see his fall 2020 show as a
what uncertainty does to consumer behavior. Entireworld’s managing director, Jordan Schiff kind of farewell. ‘‘I’ve said this to my psychiatrist,
‘‘What was going through my head was: Man, I — formerly of Dov Charney’s American Apparel, my lovely Dr. Richardson,’’ he told Business of
don’t know how big businesses are going to deal whose heyday Sternberg’s line openly pays hom- Fashion, after taking a long drag from his vape
with this,’’ he said. ‘‘But for a small business this age to — had just come down with Covid-19. But pen, ‘‘that I would be very happy if that were my
is enough to take all of us out’’ — he snapped his he was still tracking the numbers. Just a few days last show.’’ That collection would never be pro-
fingers — ‘‘in one shot.’’ before, Schiff reported that the company had duced. Buyers couldn’t place orders, and even if
As it happened, it was the giants who would fall sold out of 600 pairs of lavender women’s socks. they had, factories were shut down. Jacobs said
first. Over the next few months, J. Crew, Neiman Sternberg was in a good mood. This was obvi- he had to lay off ‘‘a bunch of people’’ and ask
Marcus, Brooks Brothers and J. C. Penney filed for ously not just because of an email. Nor was it sim- others to take pay cuts. Not that this began with
bankruptcy. Gap Inc. couldn’t pay rent on its 2,785 ply because America had settled into sweatpants the pandemic. Since 2013, Jacobs’s business had
North American stores. By July, Diane von Fursten- for the foreseeable future. He’d been laying down shrunk from 250 stores to just four. Speaking to
berg announced she would lay off 300 employees this groundwork since Band of Outsiders implod- Vogue, he said, ‘‘This has been a very difficult
and close 18 of her 19 stores. The impending dam- ed. Entireworld wasn’t a departure in name only, business to be in for a long time, I think.’’
age to small businesses was inconceivable. suggesting as it does the opposite of the in crowd. Things looked different in 2005. I’m choos-
The next morning, a Friday, Sternberg drove to It was also Sternberg’s rejection of the traditional ing that year somewhat subjectively, because
Entireworld’s offices in Koreatown. He sat down fashion system, the one that once vaulted him to that’s when I started as an intern at Women’s
30 8.9.20
Scott Sternberg, creator of the Entireworld clothing label.
Wear Daily. It was a thrilling time in American Along with brands like Thom Browne, Band as cruise) — became the norm, even for smaller
fashion. A new guard of young designers had joined the wave of the nerdy-preppy resurgence designers whose customers were not necessarily
just entered the scene, displacing the stars of — shrunken blazers, polos, boat shoes — or what among the small subset of people who jet off to
the 1980s and ’90s (Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Sternberg called ‘‘preppy clothes about preppy Capri or St.-Tropez for the winter months.
Michael Kors, et al.) and re-energizing the run- clothes.’’ Once he expanded into women’s wear, So designers went from making two col-
ways. Interns don’t see much, but occasionally the brand grew into a $15 million wholesale busi- lections a year to four. If you had a men’s line,
fashion week invites trickle down. My first show ness, sold in 250 stores worldwide. ‘‘It wasn’t by maybe it was actually six, and if you were Dior
was Zac Posen, in something like Row 8. My the end all that good for us, obviously, because or Givenchy, you were also doing couture. As
second was Proenza Schouler. Those designers, we weren’t building a sound business,’’ Sternberg fashion shows had grown into huge marketing
along with Alexander Wang, Derek Lam, Phillip said. ‘‘But it’s pretty incredible the power of what events because Rihanna or Anne Hathaway or
Lim, Rag & Bone, Rodarte, Jason Wu and later that global fashion system could do.’’ whoever was sitting in the front row, each of
Joseph Altuzarra, seemed to grow into global When Sternberg says ‘‘global fashion system,’’ those collections was also a show. Somehow this
brands overnight, with the help of store buyers he’s referring to the ecosystem of designers, fash- was all still going pretty well. Consumers were
and fashion editors eager to usher in a post 9/11 ion media and stores that puts us all in clothes. consuming, store buyers were buying more and
generation of American talent. Fashion week is where those entities meet. The designers produced more and faster. Business
Band of Outsiders was part of that. Sternberg reason spring collections are shown in the fall (and boomed. And everyone just kept growing.
was 29 when he started the brand in 2004. Like vice versa) is so they can be ordered, reviewed If there was a turning point, it might have been
the Rodarte sisters, who had no formal training and produced in time for the actual season. As fall 2008. That year, New York Fashion Week drew
and lived with their parents in Pasadena, Calif., with most things, this system was upended by an estimated 232,000 attendees and generated
Sternberg, a former agent at Creative Artists the internet. Once normal people could view $466 million in visitor spending. Three days after
Agency designing a line in what was then a fash- collections online — which, confusingly, they it ended in September, the economy collapsed.
ion desert, was an outsider instantly embraced. couldn’t buy until six months later — everything The luxury market was already oversaturated,
Within months he had a full-page photo of his ties began to accelerate. Now stores needed deliv- and now there was no one to buy the stuff. Stores
in GQ and was picked up by Barneys. ‘‘We were eries earlier to fill demand, and two deliveries panicked and marked everything down early. But
next to Dries, Balenciaga, Prada,’’ he said. ‘‘And simply weren’t enough. Suddenly midseason col- then they did it again the next year, and the year
‘we’ were . . . me, making shirts and ties in L.A.’’ lections — mainly, pre-fall and resort (also known after that, relying on markdowns to generate
Photograph by Stephanie Gonot for The New York Times The New York Times Magazine 31
collection, buyers requested slightly altered looks
— lengthen a hem here, add a sleeve there, take
the print from that dress and make it into pants
— that could then be exclusive to their customers.
This is still going on. ‘‘The amount of work you do
for exclusives is out of control,’’ Batsheva Hay, a
former litigator who started her namesake line of
off-kilter prairie dresses in 2016, told me. ‘‘ ‘I want
this, can you make this with a little this. . . . ’ Some
of it is because they think it might sell, but some
is just so they can say it’s exclusive.’’
Molly Nutter, a former V.P. for merchandising
at Barneys, worked for the department store for
19 years. ‘‘The system has been broken for a long
time,’’ said Nutter, who is now the president of
ByGeorge, a specialty store in Austin, Texas.
‘‘There was a lot of pressure on designers to
produce more collections, and therefore more
product. I would say it wasn’t a real demand by
the customer; I think it was just retailers trying
to grab market share. They thought, If I can get
more in, and earlier, then I can get more clients
through my door. But with everyone doing this,
it just compounds the problem. Then of course
all of these stores end up with too much inven-
tory, and this is where all of the promotional
activity starts to take place. You’re basically put-
ting luxury product out there and devaluing it
almost right away. It was just this vicious cycle.’’
This is what Jacobs would later be mourning
in his hotel room. While everyone seemed eager
to define fashion’s future, he was holding space
for its present. He was lucid, candid, somehow
smarter than everyone. (I was relieved when he
declined to be interviewed for this article.)
‘‘We’ve done everything to such excess that
there is no consumer for all of it,’’ Jacobs told
Vogue. ‘‘Everyone is exhausted by it. The design-
ers are exhausted by it. The journalists are
exhausted from following it.’’ He added, ‘‘When
you’re just told to produce, to produce, to pro-
duce, it’s like having a gun to your head and say-
revenue and training consumers to shop on sale. was suddenly sold everywhere, department ing, you know, Dance, monkey!’’
So now you had summer dresses arriving in Jan- stores looked for new ways to draw customers.
uary and being discounted before the weather Enter ‘‘novelty,’’ a term for the sometimes-literal sat down with the chief
I N 2 0 1 3 , ST E R N B E RG
would even allow you to wear them. bells and whistles that buyers increasingly asked executive at Barneys at the time, Mark Lee,
The fashion cycle stopped making sense. Despite designers to add to collections in order to entice who Sternberg says overpromised how much
dwindling budgets, thousands of people were still straying customers like cats. If in the last decade inventory the department store would be able
flying all over the world every two months for the you’ve gone looking for a simple cashmere sweat- to sell. ‘‘Barneys promised us the world and never
shows. Designers started to crack under the pace, er and instead encountered ones with zippers, delivered on any of it,’’ Sternberg said. (Lee did
most notably John Galliano, who attributed his 2011 giant animal faces, glitter shoulders or ‘‘dis- not respond to requests for comment.) ‘‘And it
anti-Semitic rant (and subsequent firing from Dior) tressed’’ anything — that’s novelty. If you found was stupid of us to listen to them. But we trusted
to work-related stress. And the clothes themselves yourself annoyed, you were not alone. ‘‘That was them. That was a complete killer. And you feel
got kind of weird. The sped-up calendar gave birth so we could sell to Saks, Neiman, Barneys, Nord- insecure, like, I need Barneys to be cool. And then
Prop Styling: Machen Machen Studio
to ‘‘seasonless dressing,’’ a trend of Frankenstein strom, Colette, and everybody could have their there are these things called R.T.V.s.’’
clothing items: toeless boots, sleeveless coats — own special thing,’’ Sternberg recalled. ‘‘I was basi- R.T.V. stands for ‘‘return to vendor,’’ which is
you get it. When you’re delivering fall in July, it’s cally making stuff I didn’t like because I thought a what it sounds like: If a collection — the one that
really not about the weather anymore. buyer wanted it, not even the customer.’’ the store has asked you to pad out with novelty and
This might have been the time to rethink It used to be that stores attracted shoppers with exclusives — doesn’t sell, the retailer can return it
things. Instead, everyone doubled down and the promise of an exclusively carried designer. and ask for its money back. According to Nutter, as
made more stuff. Once designers could no longer afford to remain stores struggled, the terms of this deal got worse. In
As online retailers like Net-a-Porter and exclusive to a certain store, the compromise some cases, stores asked designers to sell on con-
Matches Fashion gained traction, and everything was exclusive styles. In addition to a presented signment or to share costs if a certain percentage
Soul
In 2013,
Australia
sent
hundreds of
would-be
asylum
seekers
to a
secretive
offshore
detention
center.
Then one
of the
detainees,
a journalist
named
Behrouz
Boochani,
told the
world all
about it.
By
Megan
K. Stack
Photographs
by
Birgit
Krippner
35
It was hard, in the end, violence and rape. Days, weeks, months slipped Boochani didn’t have a passport, just a refugee
away while they waited for news of resettlement. travel document with his name spelled wrong
to figure out what to take and what to leave. Meanwhile, they were stuck. Or, to be precise, — there was no guarantee that he would even
Spread over the linoleum floor of Behrouz everyone but Boochani was stuck. make it to New Zealand. He needed to be care-
Boochani’s motel room were drifts of clothing, All the men had started out together in the ful, and also lucky. That’s why it was so startling
books in Farsi and ashtrays overflowing with shared misery of detention, but then Boochani when morning came and Boochani was late to
cigarette stubs. It was a November morning did something extraordinary: Letter by letter, the airport. Everybody arrived before him: the
last year in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua pecked out on contraband telephones while TV crew filming his departure for a documen-
New Guinea; outside, roosters screamed under locked up on Manus, he wrote his first book. tary, friends who came to see him off, the other
a stinging equatorial sun. Boochani’s room was ‘‘No Friend but the Mountains’’ was published passengers booked on the flight. By the time
cramped; the door propped open by a waste- in 2018, electrifying readers with its harrowing Boochani ambled into the departure hall, bleary-
basket stuffed with the remains of chicken din- and deeply humanistic rendering of life in the eyed and still wearing yesterday’s clothes, only an
ners. Everything he owned, all the objects and secretive and little-understood camp. The book hour remained before takeoff. It was cavalier; it
talismans gathered during six and a half years was an award-winning best seller; its beleaguered was incomprehensible. How could Boochani be
of imprisonment, were crammed into this small author became a cause célèbre. Now Boochani late to this flight, with its promise of long-elu-
room. Boochani had been an Iranian dissident was armed with priceless paperwork: an invita- sive escape? It was such an elaborate display of
and a boat person; a detainee and a refugee. In tion from a literary organization in New Zealand, insouciance that it was somehow wondrous.
the morning he would strike out again, hoping a one-month visa to cross the border and a ticket But this is the alchemy of Boochani’s persona:
to reach yet another new life. It didn’t matter, on a morning flight. an impervious, unbroken spirit that defies his
really, what stuff he carried along. ‘‘I don’t care But for now Boochani was troubled and oppressors and also, at times, his would-be sup-
about these books,’’ he said suddenly, though chain-smoking. He stayed up late the night before, porters. He projects the image of an undaunted
many of them contained Boochani’s own work. glumly replaying his own comments from an ear- bohemian and lets you forget — maybe he hopes
The motel loomed around him, a sealed, som- lier interview. He wished he hadn’t described you won’t notice — that he has also been a dis-
ber spot in the bustle of the port town. Everyone himself as independent; he regretted saying that placed and vulnerable man.
staying in Lodge 10 — every guest, although that’s he admired his own work. He was vexed by the As it turned out, Boochani was late to the
the wrong word — was a refugee awaiting reset- awkwardness of becoming a subject after all the airport for the most obvious and unbelievable
tlement. These men were brought into the coun- times he’d written about others. ‘‘I feel like I’m a reason: He didn’t know what time he needed
try against their will for the noncrime of seeking selfish person,’’ he said. With his haunting gaze, to show up. He had flown commercially exactly
political asylum in Australia. They were among unshaven jawline and mane of hair, photographs once before, when he fled political persecution in
hundreds of migrants locked up in an old naval of Boochani tend to draw comparisons to Jesus. Iran. At the check-in counter, understanding his
base on Manus Island, which lies off the north- In person, though, his swagger is unmistakably mistake, a look of unease came into his eyes. And
east coast of mainland Papua New Guinea. Now modern. In a polo shirt and tapered pants, Ray- when he finally — after tense debates and a flurry
they had been moved to this motel with its shared Bans perched to hold dark locks off his face, he of phone calls — got his boarding pass, he jogged
toilets and atmosphere of stultified trauma. Some looked as if he belonged at a sidewalk cafe in to the gate as if something were chasing him.
of the refugees hardly stirred from bed; medical Rome. He seized a wheeled duffel. ‘‘This bag is Once onboard, he collapsed into a window seat
contractors dosed them with sleeping pills and all right?’’ he asked. ‘‘It’s OK?’’ The suitcase was and squinted into the rising sun spilling across the
psychiatric drugs. They had survived Manus only old; a fading splash of paint stained its side along runway. ‘‘I’m so tired of this country,’’ he erupted,
to find themselves floundering like castaways in with a label: MEG45 — Boochani’s serial number voice sharp and loud in the hushed plane. ‘‘It’s
Port Moresby, one of the world’s most danger- at Manus. Nobody, I said, would pay attention to a very strange country.’’ The plane lifted off and
ous cities, notorious for armed robberies, gang his bag. He nodded, unconvinced. rose on a run of sky. The earth fell away below —
green hills veined with red dirt roads, small islands
Behrouz Boochani on the back porch of his house in Christchurch, New Zealand, in July.
speckling the vast spread of sea. Papua New Guin-
ea vanished from sight.
A few hours later we landed in Manila for a
21-hour layover. Because he had no passport,
Boochani was forced to pass the time in a dim,
drab lounge with stiff chairs, a water dispenser
and a TV blaring ceaseless loops of Philippine
Airlines commercials. Smoking was forbidden
inside, and no, Boochani was told, he didn’t have
permission to step outside. He slammed his bag
to the floor and cursed. Boochani was still mut-
tering about cigarettes when he was approached
by two Afghan refugees from Manus — they were
headed for resettlement in the United States. The
men exchanged pleasantries in Farsi, but Boochani
soon moved away and stared grimly at the floor.
‘‘Seeing these guys here, it made me so depressed,’’
he said quietly. ‘‘Even I come here, I see refugees.’’
The day ground past in slow circles on the
wall clock. One hour, another hour. The room
kept getting colder. With a flimsy airline blanket
draped over his shoulders, Boochani looked like a
38 8.9.20
Supreme Court declared the detention of asylum
seekers unlawful and ordered the camp closed.
Manus remains, however, as a cultural identity
shared by hundreds of asylum seekers who sur-
vived its barracks. They have their own history
and iconography; they carry a collective grief
for the seven men, at least, who were killed in
flares of violence, died by suicide or succumbed
to medical negligence.
It was on Christmas Island that Australian
officials began to taunt the asylum seekers with
lurid tales of cannibals and malaria-tainted mos-
quitoes. Boochani’s book describes the strange
day he was moved to Manus: ‘‘Guards came in
like debt collectors and heaved us out of bed,’’ he
wrote. The men were strip-searched and dressed
in ill-fitting clothes, marched past news photog-
raphers and loaded onto an airplane.
The miseries of offshore detention were meant
to pressure migrants to abandon their asylum
claims so they could legally be sent back whence
they came and — more crucial — to create a spec- The clock in Boochani’s kitchen in Christchurch stopped working.
tacle so chilling that ‘‘boat people’’ would stop He prefers to keep it there unmoving, suspended in time.
coming to Australia altogether. That was the first
and last point of this byzantine enterprise. be held or what fate awaited them afterward. The always imagined this — if a war happens, they’ll
Boats ferried the first white prisoners to Aus- men were pressed to go home or stay in Papua put us all on a ship,’’ he told me. ‘‘They could do
tralia in 1788, and today they float in the national New Guinea for good. Asylum cases were sel- this. People would talk about a Third World War.
imagination as symbols of unchecked immigration dom and sporadically heard. The detainees didn’t I thought, They’ll kill everyone.’’
and demographic change. ‘‘Sometimes I feel that understand whether Australia would eventually Self-harm provided a much-craved airing of
Manus and Nauru are like a mirror,’’ Boochani said. relent and accept them and, if so, how long they dark emotion. People swallowed razor blades;
‘‘Australia sees its real face on that mirror, and they needed to hold out. Meanwhile, they’d been sliced their wrists; hanged themselves; sewed their
hate it. Because we are boat people. They call us transported against their will over an interna- lips together. Detainees hurt themselves in reac-
boat people. But you are boat people, too.’’ tional border and held without trial or even the tion to even minor shifts or suggestions: a dawn
Arriving in Manus, Boochani found himself suggestion of a crime. Imprisoned, Boochani inspection, a change in Australian politics, a rumor.
among tents and rough buildings of lime and dirt thought. Taken hostage. After six months of misery and unanswered
that shed white powder onto the ground, sticking These problems were enormous and unan- questions, immigration officials appeared at the
to everyone’s feet. Drain pipes poked from bath- swerable, but in the daily slog of camp life, small camp and warned asylum seekers that they would
rooms and the kitchen, dripping ‘‘a potion of rot- objects and petty interactions dominated. Boo- be stuck in Manus for a long time yet. Enraged
ting excrement, the perfect fertilizer for the tropical chani wrote of the irrational rush of euphoria detainees rioted that night, lunging at the guards
plants.’’ The generator whose failures paralyzed the and pride he felt one night when, sleepless and and hurling chairs. Local police and Manus resi-
cooling fans was a never-seen, godlike presence, ‘‘a miserable with a toothache, he climbed onto the dents rushed into the compound to quell the unrest.
mind made of machinery and wires . . . that takes camp’s roof and reached a mango tree coveted by Dozens of detainees were injured, some suffering
pleasure in throwing the prison into disarray.’’ The the detainees. ‘‘I have made it up here, up into the broken bones and severe lacerations. One man lost
harsh sun was ‘‘in cahoots with the prison to inten- ether, up on top of the prison,’’ he wrote. ‘‘Witness- an eye; another’s throat was slashed, reportedly by a
sify the misery,’’ but when the sun set, the darkness ing the spectacle, witnessing the jungle and the guard. Barati, Boochani’s close friend, was viciously
was worse: ‘‘We are all transformed into dark shad- ocean, observing as I evaporate into the darkness.’’ attacked by a group that included an employee of
ows scavenging for scraps of light,’’ he wrote. ‘‘Humans are like this, after all,’’ he wrote. the Salvation Army, which had a $50 million con-
The asylum seekers at first stuck with the peo- ‘‘Even in unexpected situations they become tract from the Australian government to provide
ple they met on the sea voyage, but gradually, gripped by wonder.’’ counseling to the asylum seekers. The assailants
in what Boochani described as ‘‘a kind of inter- The men fought for a spot near the front of the killed Barati by dropping a heavy rock onto his
nal migration,’’ the men regrouped along ethnic line at meals, which left Boochani a ‘‘frail fox,’’ head. He was the first detainee to die on Manus.
and national lines: Afghan, Sri Lankan, Sudanese, because he was always at the back, subsisting As the years passed, the terms of the men’s
Lebanese, Iranian, Somali, Pakistani, Rohingya, on the last and worst of the food. He loathed confinement changed, but freedom never came.
Iraqi, Kurdish. They struggled against traumatic having to greet, over and over, the people who When they heard of the court order to close the
memories and boredom — even playing cards recurred constantly in the crammed yards. ‘‘The camp, they were jubilant with the assumption that
was banned. Somebody found a marker and drew distress caused by saying ‘hi’ is so intense that Australia would finally have to let them in — but
a backgammon board onto a plastic table; bot- when prisoners pass each other they pretend that this, too, was a false hope. They could come and
tle caps were gathered as checkers. But guards they don’t see anyone. It is like shadows.’’ go from the camp, but without travel documents,
defaced the board, scrawling ‘‘Games Prohibited’’ As weeks slid past, paranoia clouded their the men were still stuck on the island. They swam
over the table, leaving the men ‘‘just staring at minds. Boochani was haunted by a fear that the in the ocean, met women and played soccer by
each other in distress,’’ Boochani wrote. Australians might suddenly, one day, load all the the water — but they couldn’t leave. ‘‘Our prison
The camp was suffused with a dark, existential men onto a ship and push them out to sea to die. became bigger,’’ Boochani said. Tofighian, the
uncertainty. Nobody knew how long they would ‘‘For years I thought, Anytime, it’s possible — I translator, traveled to Manus with proofs so the
Photograph by Birgit Krippner for The New York Times The New York Times Magazine 39
pair could finalize the book in person. Novak, his truth, there is no queue to jump; governments are loan from the University of Canterbury. Boochani’s
agent, came to meet him, too. not obliged to consider wait time when choosing neighborhood looked as if Beatrix Potter had
In the end, most of the men clung to the people for resettlement. Most refugees will never painted it in watercolors: prim, ivy-laced cottages
camp. Traumatized and depleted, they balked get the fresh start they seek; they are far more and tidy beds of hollyhocks and lavender. It was
at moving to another detention center or start- likely to return to their home country or stay in nice, Boochani conceded. Too nice, sometimes.
ing life in an unfamiliar land. Medical services limbo until they die. ‘‘It’s too much, you know?’’ he said. ‘‘It’s too much
and food were withdrawn. Electricity and water Peter Dutton, Australia’s home affairs minis- peace and too much beauty. It’s hard to deal with
lines were cut. The police and guards attacked ter, frequently says the asylum seekers in Papua this. It’s like you go from a very cold place to a
them. Finally, the last holdouts were forcibly New Guinea include men ‘‘of bad character’’ — very hot place.’’
relocated to temporary lodgings in and around ‘‘Labour’s mess’’ that he has been forced to ‘‘clean Boochani had landed in New Zealand without a
the nearby town of Lorengau. up.’’ Pauline Hanson, a right-wing populist sena- credit card or bank account; he had no idea what
In 2019, most of the asylum seekers were tor, called the men ‘‘rapists’’ on the floor of Parlia- his book earnings were worth in real terms. The
moved to motels in Port Moresby because, ment this past winter. ‘‘These people are thugs,’’ Christchurch mayor and local Maori representa-
it seemed, nobody knew what else to do with she said. ‘‘They don’t belong here in Australia.’’ tives welcomed him as he stepped off the plane.
them. The Manus Regional Processing Center If any of this sounds familiar, that’s not a coin- He appeared before a rapt and sold-out crowd at
was closed for good; the buildings and fences cidence. The practice of ‘‘offshore processing’’ an event organized by Word Christchurch, the
mostly erased from the landscape. Now the Unit- can be traced to Guantánamo Bay, where the group that had invited him to the country. He was
ed States and Australia have new ambitions for United States housed tens of thousands of asylum constantly surrounded by people offering help.
the site: A joint naval base to counter Chinese seekers who fled by boat from Haiti and Cuba Somebody took him to buy clothes; somebody else
influence in the South China Sea. in the 1990s. Daniel Ghezelbash, an Australian drove him on a run for hair gel. He was shown to
legal academic who wrote a book about links a room in an upscale hotel, then later moved to
The first time I saw Boochani, he was still being between American and Australian refugee policy, a vacant apartment. The memories of detention
detained on Manus Island. It was a chilly, wind- has documented decades of advice and influence were still fresh, and Boochani struggled to adapt
scraped morning in 2019. Boochani was discuss- exchanged between the two governments. ‘‘The himself to an unfamiliar place and lifestyle. He kept
ing his book via video link at the annual writers goal is the same: Creating extralegal spaces which signing up for grocery-store discount cards, then
festival in Byron Bay, Australia. When his face you can exert control over but not be responsible losing them. His sleep was crowded with night-
flickered onto the screen, the overflowing crowd for,’’ Ghezelbash said. ‘‘Or ostensibly deny legal mares; his days were full of meetings and public
that jammed the seaside auditorium gasped and responsibility for what goes on there.’’ appearances. He had an idea to write a new novel,
burst into applause. Boochani looked haggard President Obama, during his final months in a contemporary Kurdish love story. He talked with
and detached; dangling hair framed his craggy office, agreed that hundreds of detainees from friends about starting a literary journal. More often
features. ‘‘Oh, God,’’ said a woman near me. ‘‘He Manus Island and Nauru could resettle in the than not, he drifted around in a kind of daze. ‘‘I feel
looks so alone.’’ United States. As part of the deal, Australia was empty,’’ he said. ‘‘Like I never read a book. But I’m
Once the clapping died down, Boochani spoke expected to grant asylum to an unspecified num- OK with that. And, I think, it will come.’’
with the urgency of a man who knows he might ber of refugees from Central America and Africa. During these early and disorienting weeks, Boo-
vanish at any moment. He told the Australian Ghezelbash calls the swapping of politically incon- chani got word that it was finally time to begin
crowd that their government had lied to them venient people ‘‘refugee laundering.’’ the final steps to resettle in the United States.
about Manus. He described the years he spent When President Trump heard about the trade- He’d been awaiting this news for months, but
trying to get Australian readers to pay attention. off he had inherited, he famously grumbled that it when his chance came, he backed out. Reports of
‘‘People didn’t listen to me,’’ he said. ‘‘This is part was a ‘‘dumb deal,’’ but he didn’t stop it. Gradually, tensions between the U.S. and Iran, immigration
of my struggle: to get my identity back.’’ The audi- quietly, refugees from Manus flew off to America. crackdowns and political tumult had eroded his
ence listened with a mood that approached grat- At least 785 people from Manus and Nauru have eagerness. ‘‘I don’t feel safe in America now,’’ he
itude. Some wept softly; others set their mouths settled in the United States; more are expected said simply. ‘‘I don’t mean that someone would kill
and nodded grimly. Invited to ask questions, sev- to arrive. me. But I don’t trust the American system. It’s like
eral audience members apologized to Boochani. All told, Australia has locked up thousands chaos there now.’’
Australian politicians sometimes cast the of desperate people, including children, in de Instead, Boochani took a bold gamble: He
problem of the boats in humanitarian terms: facto prisons on Manus and Nauru. The deten- applied for asylum in New Zealand. He accept-
Ruthless people smugglers, they say, must be tions have been harsh but effective, officials say: ed a fellowship with the university’s Ngai Tahu
starved out of business. At other times, the boats The flow of boats slowed and eventually stopped. Research Center, which specializes in Maori and
are discussed as a security threat, carrying an Asylum seekers are still stuck on Nauru; until Indigenous studies — a nod to his Kurdish iden-
unchecked flow of strange and potentially dan- last year, they included children. The Australian tity — although the post would remain a secret
gerous foreigners. Often these two strands of government recently spent about $130 million to while his application to stay in New Zealand was
thought — we don’t want those people here, nor reopen the detention center on Christmas Island pending. Neither his whereabouts nor his plans
do we want them to drown — are woven together — despite the lack of new arrivals to lock up. In were public knowledge. Conservative politicians
so tightly they are impossible to separate. other words, the policy is still unapologetically in both New Zealand and Australia were calling
At the same time, politicians have taken pains intact, ready and waiting for any boats that make for Boochani to be turned out. What would he do
to deflect attention from the human beings it to Australian waters. then, where would he go? He shrugged; he didn’t
aboard the boats. Former military spokespeo- answer; instead, he began to roll another cigarette.
ple have said they were expressly forbidden to It was a brilliant January day in Christchurch, The right to smoke had become a kind of index
humanize the asylum seekers or present them New Zealand. Screeching gulls wheeled in off the by which Boochani took stock of his own liberty.
as relatable to the Australian public. Politicians Pacific; swollen roses bobbed in the breeze. In the By that measure he was almost free, but not quite.
scorn boat arrivals as ‘‘queue jumpers’’ who have hydrangea-fringed garden of a spare, tidy house, He dreamed of owning a house and smoking with
greedily taken the spots of rule-abiding migrants Boochani sat smoking. He couldn’t smoke inside impunity. ‘‘I’ll put up a sign that says, ‘Smoking is
seeking to come to Australia ‘‘the right way.’’ In because the house wasn’t exactly his; it was on free.’ I’ll even say, ‘If you don’t smoke, don’t come.’ ’’
40 8.9.20
When he set eyes on this pretty cottage, with its Arriving in New Zealand just before the ear- Answers to puzzles of 8.2.20
two bedrooms and sensible kitchenette, he called liest coronavirus infections emerged in China, PUZZLIN’
one of his new friends in amazement: ‘‘You’ve got Boochani had freed himself as people around the I C E B E R G S H A R P T O N C U S S
to see this place, you’re not going to believe it!’’ The world were shut into quarantines. He sometimes M A T I N E E C O M E H E R E A S E T
friend, an Iranian-New Zealander named Donna thought that he had finally escaped detention S T A N D I N G R O O M O N L Y B E A R
E N T R A P S N A Y M E A D E
Miles-Mojab, laughed as she recounted this story and accidentally spread it all over the world. He
Z A N Y S L O P J E N S A L L O W
later. She rushed over, imagining a swimming wondered, too, whether this taste of extreme E P E E S E V E R L A S T I N G L O V E
pool, gleaming marble floors, elaborate gardens. isolation might help people imagine more clearly B I R T H S E R V I N E D E M O T E D
In those early months, Miles-Mojab became a the horror of being locked away. ‘‘People should R A D I O C A R T E I X E I R A
A S A O A R E R O S B O T C A A N
kind of guide and cultural translator to Boochani. understand now that life is not only food or hav- F A L L I N G R A I N M O M J A Y N E
Speaking in Farsi, she explained things to him in ing a bed,’’ he said. ‘‘We are nothing without peo- I M E A N T A R P S A O S I R E N S
a gentle, almost maternal tone. Boochani, she felt, ple. Absolutely nothing, you know?’’ S O R O S I I N P A R K I N G R A M P
H A T S D M S T R I X R A G Y E R
was oblivious to his own celebrity and the double The months slid past. Wait a few more weeks,
L E G A L A I D E A G L E E Y E
takes he provoked around town. For his part, he Boochani was told. And then a few more weeks, S C A P U L A O N E T O N S E N S E S
was offended by small and seemingly insignificant and still more. Boochani wrote some short sto- Q U A L I F Y I N G R O U N D S T I R S
exchanges, and he told these stories one night over ries. Bought some new clothes. Took up biking. U P L A S T N G O C U R E O R S O
I R A T E P L O A C H I E V E
whiskey in a pub. ‘‘Something happened to me Then, on July 23, Boochani’s birthday, he finally S O R T F E A R O F M I S S I N G O U T
here,’’ he leaned forward and lowered his voice. got word from his lawyer: His application had H U G E A N T I P O D E S T O O P T O
‘‘If this happened to you, you would cry.’’ He was been accepted. Boochani could stay in New Zea- Y S E R T H E A T E R S Y E S I S E E
walking alone late one night, he said, when he land. He was free. On the phone, he let out a wild
crossed paths with a group of young people. and incredulous laugh. Of course! When else? It KENKEN
Someone called out to him, ‘‘Aren’t you that writ- had been his birthday, too, the day he was lifted
er who was on TV?’’ Boochani replied, ‘‘Yeah.’’ He from the sea and taken into Australian custody.
paused. A tense silence gathered over the table, Hearing him laugh like that, I remembered one of
heavy with all the violent and demeaning conclu- his stories: When he was born, his parents asked a
sions this story might reach. visiting cousin who knew how to read to choose a
‘‘He took out his wallet,’’ Boochani concluded name for the baby. The cousin opened a book and
dolefully, ‘‘and he tried to give me $200.’’ There was poked his finger onto the page at random, strik-
a beat of silence. Miles-Mojab’s face twitched with ing the word ‘‘Behrouz’’ — Farsi for ‘‘fortunate.’’
smothered laughter. ‘‘Did you take it?’’ she asked. Literally, ‘‘good day.’’
‘‘No. I said: ‘Keep your money. Probably I am Boochani rode his bike from his house to the ACROSTIC
richer than you. My book is in many countries.’ ’’ sea. He looked at the expanse of ocean, these (PHIL) COUSINEAU, THE PAINTED WORD — The
This is the complication and the delicacy of Boo- waters that had almost killed him, the sea he sus- English language is studded with terrific group nouns,
chani: His most famous work was derived from the pected of absconding with years of his life, the . . . a crash of rhinoceros, a parliament of owls, a
considerable suffering he endured at the hands of waves that crashed now on the mineral grains of skulk of foxes, . . . a zeal of zebras. . . . [C]oinages include
. . . a couch of video game players and a cuddle of
the state. He is proud, even cocky at times. And yet this new land he called home. He looked at the homecoming queens.
this pride must wrestle with the dehumanization ocean, at all of that past and all of that future, the
he has endured. His existence was controlled by churn of time and destiny, and he smoked a cig- A. Colossus I. Umbrella Q. Traffic
B. Ozone hole J. Tomcat R. Engrossed
a hostile bureaucracy for years; now his days were arette. Just one cigarette. One cigarette and the
C. Unpacked K. High-low S. Deadlock
arranged by benevolent well-wishers. sea in his eyes. And then he rode home again. D. Sheriff L. Ex officio T. Wagons
E. Ideogram M. Philomel U. Orpheus
F. Nonesuch N. Assuaged V. Regatta
KENKEN
Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined
G.
H.
Equalizer
Avifauna
O. Infancy
P. Nuisance
W. Dodgers
box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as indicated in the box.
A 5x5 grid will use the digits 1–5. A 7x7 grid will use 1–7.
DOUBLE OR NOTHING GAS LINES
MA LI
FU LT ON
LI SA
SE QU EL
LA VA
GE OR GE
KenKen® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. © 2020 www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved. 41
Sweatpants paid at 90 percent now call us and say they’re the number of shows from five to two, doing away
(Continued from Page 33) closing,’’ she told me. ‘‘We have to completely rely with seasons and gender altogether. There has also
on our own selling, because at the end of the day, been talk of virtual reality and films accompanied
minimalism of countless Celine copycats; the I don’t know how many stores are going to be by fabric samples. In New York, the C.F.D.A. will
maximalism of brands like Gucci; the full gamut of able to carry the weight in another six months.’’ still be the official scheduler of New York Fash-
streetwear, from Supreme to Vetements. He want- Last November, just as everyone declared that ion Week in September, though it’s unclear why
ed to do something that felt like a palate cleanser. retail was dead, Bode opened her own brick-and- mostly digital shows would have to be scheduled.
Sternberg took meetings with Target and Ama- mortar store on the Lower East Side. The store, ‘‘I think fashion week is over,’’ Hay said. ‘‘I’m
zon fashion and pitched Superproduct, a line of which is sort of the old-school version of D.T.C., pretty sure it’s over forever.’’ If not the shows, then
well-designed basics that he hoped could be what ended up saving her. What she projected to sell certainly the collective circus that travels from
the Gap once was. When neither went anywhere, in a month she started selling in a day. ‘‘I don’t New York to London to Milan to Paris twice a year.
he decided to do it on his own. think we’d be here without the store,’’ she said. The more important question is whether peo-
Entireworld was born in 2018 as a D.T.C. Hay was also looking at store space just as the ple will buy clothes that aren’t sweatpants in the
(direct-to-consumer) line, with no seasons, no crisis began, and planned to again. ‘‘There’s going near future. Some are already designing with that
shows, no novelty. ‘‘I wanted complete freedom to be a ton of empty retail space,’’ she said, ‘‘I’m uncertainty in mind. Altuzarra, who makes the
from that,’’ he said. You probably know what D.T.C. sure I can find an amazing deal.’’ opposite of homebody clothes, told me he was
is even without knowing it. Reformation, Everlane, The pandemic has also forced a correction of adding softer fabrics and more relaxed silhou-
Outdoor Voices, Warby Parker, Allbirds — all those the calendar. With factories shut down and deliv- ettes to his spring ’21 collection. ‘‘Not necessar-
sans-serif, venture capital-funded brands that have eries delayed, many of this year’s fall collections ily like loungewear or athleisure,’’ he said. ‘‘But
proliferated so much in the last decade that you’re will, for the first time in a long while, actually I think after spending months in sweatpants,
probably wearing one of them right now. Have you arrive in season. Some in the industry have even people are going to want to feel comfortable.’’
ever bought clothes from an Instagram ad? That’s talked about pushing the unseen and unsold 2020 Hay, meanwhile, was pivoting from party dresses
D.T.C. Entireworld is sort of post-D.T.C., which is to collections to 2021 to avoid losses. ‘‘Which, by the to housedresses. ‘‘I’m just like, OK, we’re home
say that there is no Silicon Valley boardroom trying way, is not a bad idea,’’ Sternberg said. ‘‘It’s what more, but why does that have to be sweatpants?’’
to solve a problem for you. It’s just Sternberg, a the clothing industry has over the food industry: she said. ‘‘Can it be a dress? A housedress is com-
fashion-industry refugee, feeling his way through it. In the food industry, the aged inventory rots.’’ The pletely easy. You can throw it on, zip it off, what-
‘‘I’m incredibly business-minded,’’ Sternberg fascinating part is that in order to do that — to ever. Maybe I’m going too far imagining a future
said. ‘‘But we’re design-driven. I come out of fash- give that aged inventory value again — requires where we’re constantly in and out of quarantine,
ion. I’m not coming out of a PowerPoint deck.’’ literally killing fashion, that nebulous deity that but businesswise, I’m sort of preparing for that.’’
Most styles in his line are perennial. There are says something is ‘‘in’’ this year and not the next. And if that’s the case, what happens to design-
pleated trousers that are sort of the cooler version In May, two separate groups of designers ers like Jacobs? When asked about online shop-
of what your ’80s dad might wear, and a ‘‘Giant banded together to put forth proposals on how ping, Jacobs told Business of Fashion: ‘‘I love to
Shirt’’ inspired by Ralph Lauren’s ‘‘Big Shirt’’ of the to change the industry. Each essentially pushed go to a shop. I like to see everything. I like to
’90s. The sweatsuit, made of fabric that Sternberg for the same thing: later deliveries, delayed mark- touch it. I like to try it on. I like to have a coffee. I
developed from scratch, feels like the sartorial ver- downs, fewer collections. ‘‘I think a lot of us are like to have a bottle of water. I like to get dressed
sion of a hug. Something about its combination of aligned on this idea that seasons have to go back up.’’ He raised his eyebrows for emphasis. ‘‘But
color, fabric and fit makes it feel OK to wear not only to what they were,’’ Joseph Altuzarra, who signed ordering online, in a pair of grubby sweats, is not
to bed but also out. (In January, I saw a woman in both proposals, told me. The only person who my idea of living life.’’
New York wearing it under a Burberry coat.) Unlike didn’t think fashion had been moving too fast Incidentally, Jacobs’s fall 2020 show, in Feb-
Band’s slim fit, most things by Entireworld are was the designer Virgil Abloh, even though he ruary, was among his very best. The clothes ref-
roomy and wide. Its slogan is ‘‘The stuff you live in.’’ had to skip his own fashion show in Paris last erenced a pre-internet New York while modern
In recent years, the collapse of the fashion September, reportedly because of exhaustion. dancers charged at unsuspecting audience mem-
industry has pushed other runway designers, like (Abloh juggles his streetwear label, Off-White, bers seated at cafe tables in a way that now feels
Thakoon Panichgul and the shoe designer Tamara with Louis Vuitton men’s wear, as well as col- prescient. In 2008, Sternberg used to sneak into
Mellon, to redefine themselves as D.T.C. compa- laborations with Nike, Ikea, Evian, Jimmy Choo Jacobs’s shows at the Lexington Avenue Armory,
nies. Those who haven’t are now being nudged in and others.) ‘‘I work at the pace of my ideas, and as everyone did then. (‘‘I’m a huge Marc Jacobs
that direction. Take Batsheva Hay, for instance, those come often,’’ he told me. ‘‘The consumer fan,’’ he told me.) That was the year that Santigold
who in April had more than half of her whole- today is a hyper being. I’m not one to say, Let’s go and M.I.A. played on every runway, and there was
sale orders slashed and $100,000 owed to her by back to the old days when we had rotary phones a magic to the way that the music, the stomping
retailers. When I reached her, she was packaging or something.’’ He called revising the delivery models and the fabric in motion gave fashion
web orders from a lake house in upstate New schedule an ‘‘obvious fix, more so than a pro- its heartbeat. The incredible talent of someone
York and selling face masks via Instagram. She found idea or anything.’’ like Jacobs is that his clothes didn’t even have to
estimated that before the pandemic D.T.C. was What does all of this mean for the shows? be produced or worn to have influence. He’s all
about 10 percent of her business. ‘‘But now, it’s ‘‘There will definitely be something, but about starting a conversation that then threads its
kind of all my business,’’ she said. nothing resembling fashion week as we knew way through the system, eventually landing in a
Emily Adams Bode, a men’s-wear designer it,’’ Wintour told me. consumer’s hands via a perfume or an accessory,
who won a C.F.D.A. award last year, was until Abloh announced that he will no longer show if at all. ‘‘So what happens to Marc?’’ Sternberg
recently sold in 120 stores worldwide, with on a seasonal schedule, or base his shows in one asked. ‘‘Where does he end up?’’
e-commerce accounting for less than 10 percent place. The Belgian designer Dries Van Noten will He answered his own question. ‘‘I guess in the
of her sales. In May, Bode was at her fiancé’s par- not show until 2021. Chanel premiered a virtual Mercer Hotel wearing pearls.’’
ents’ home in Canada, rushing to put her spring/ resort show the week that the George Floyd pro-
summer collection online. ‘‘Stores that we’ve had tests began and came off as mostly tone-deaf. Ales- In June, I stopped by Sternberg’s garage, where
in our Excel sheets on the probability of getting sandro Michele, the Gucci designer, has reduced he keeps a personal archive of Band of Outsiders
42 8.9.20
designs. There are crates labeled ‘‘turbs,’’ for the Sternberg’s name. ‘‘Oh, I loved Band of Outsid- be investing any more money. ‘‘And it’s not like
turbans he sent down the runway for fall 2013 — ers!’’ he said. ‘‘My question is, where did he go?’’ we haven’t hit our numbers,’’ Sternberg said. In
a collection inspired by Billie Holiday and Atari By June, U.S. clothing sales rebounded, but a way, if it weren’t for the pandemic, this might
video games — and ‘‘SS12’’ for spring/summer they were still down overall from the year before. have been the end of Entireworld. When the pan-
2012, which referenced Peter Weir’s ‘‘Picnic at Market analysts predicted that with infections demic hit, he had maybe six weeks of runway
Hanging Rock.’’ There are also polos from his soaring again and stimulus money running out, left. The sales boom has extended that to at least
‘‘This is not a polo shirt’’ line; fur jackets (before that uptick might be temporary. The anomalies the end of the summer. Still, he had to get more
he got off fur) from the show that opened with have been mostly athleisure companies, like Lulu- product up on the website, and for that, he had
mountain climbers rappelling from the ceiling; lemon, the purveyor of bougie leggings, whose to pay his factories.
and bandage skirts stitched out of suspenders. ‘‘I shares have surged in recent months. He found the whole thing depressing. Here
made that, yay me,’’ Sternberg said flatly. ‘‘This Entireworld is still tiny. But in its second year, he was, perhaps the only one in fashion who
is some ugly print that Rashida Jones wore on Sternberg says its revenue is already eight times couldn’t sell merchandise fast enough in a pan-
‘Good Morning America,’ ’’ he said. (Sternberg that of Band of Outsiders by the same point, demic, and no one was interested in investing.
loves Jones; it’s his own work he’s ambivalent and that’s while selling much more product ($15 ‘‘It’s a slog,’’ Sternberg said. ‘‘It’s a constant series
about.) ‘‘What do you do with all this [expletive]? underwear and socks, $32 tees, $88 sweatshirts). of disappointing conversations.’’
You don’t want to throw it out. Give it away? Despite the recent good sales, Sternberg has still He thought it was indicative of where the
Should someone be wearing it? It’s not art, for had to scale back. In February, he expected to industry was now. Someone like Marc Jacobs
God’s sake.’’ get a round of financing from investors in Korea, would probably be OK, because he was backed by
Going through this stuff, Sternberg was a bit but then the virus hit there first, and that evap- LVMH. But what would happen to the upstarts?
like a musician revisiting the hits he made before orated. The same week that the sweatsuits were If the wholesale model could no longer be relied
he got sober. He loves them, he really does, but selling out, he laid off three of his nine employ- on to fund young designers, and private equity
the excess of it weighs on him — all those ideas ees and cut styles he planned to add in the fall. and venture capitalists pushed them to expand so
that never became anything, all those materials, Even before the pandemic, persuading investors quickly that they inevitably imploded, was there
all that waste. Like the shoes: lace-up Manolo to bet on clothing brands had become a drag. any hope for brands to grow slowly and thought-
Blahniks and golf-cleat Oxfords and platforms ‘‘This is the shmatte business,’’ he told me. ‘‘It’s fully over time? If not, fashion might go the way of
with watch bands as straps, all developed just no longer sexy. Investors want something dis- other industries, like film, in which there are the
for the shows, at 30 pairs per show, and never ruptive. When they’re with their investor friends blockbusters and the tiny indies and nothing in
even produced. ‘‘And it’s season after season,’’ they want to say they invested in, like, flavored between. ‘‘Band didn’t need to be a $100 million
he said. ‘‘It’s not like you’re making an iPhone, water or an operating system that changes the brand,’’ Sternberg said. ‘‘But is there a place for
where you’re going to mass-produce it and then way we walk.’’ a $30 million brand that can self-sustain and be
iterate on it.’’ Investors that do pump money into D.T.C. around year after year? Certainly not with big
Last year, Sternberg let his C.F.D.A. member- brands are after swift returns, pushing compa- backers, because that’s not interesting to them.
ship lapse. He saw it as a largely New York Fashion nies to grow big and fast in a way that’s unsus- Wholesale used to be able to support that, but it
Week-centric institution. ‘‘They don’t offer any- tainable. One such casualty was Outdoor Voices, also ultimately killed it.’’
thing for what I’m doing,’’ he said. ‘‘They should the athletic-apparel company that reportedly Fashion is, by definition, unpredictable. Peo-
be trying to figure out what all this is and how took in $60 million of venture-capital money and ple buy clothes for illogical, emotional reasons.
they could support it.’’ The C.F.D.A. subsequent- faltered in February, with its C.E.O. ousted and The challenge, as Sternberg saw it, was to build
ly reached out to Sternberg. ‘‘They were sort of its valuation plummeting. After what happened a brand that could be immune to trends and nov-
like, ‘What are you doing?’ And I just said: ‘This to Band, the last thing Sternberg wants is to elty and whatever dystopian disaster was coming
is what I’m doing. What are you doing? When grow too fast for his own good. ‘‘Investors are next. ‘‘The trick with fashion is that we’re not sell-
you’re in my zone, let’s talk.’ ’’ When I asked Kolb only interested in, like: ‘Billion-dollar company! ing toilet paper,’’ he said, ‘‘which of course during
if the C.F.D.A. could do more to support D.T.C. Unicorns!’ ’’ Sternberg said. Sternberg doesn’t Covid, toilet-paper sales go up. But ultimately it
companies, he said: ‘‘I think that’s a big question. want to be a unicorn. He just wants to be prof- will level out, because there’s only so many butts
That’s not an answer I have.’’ It was ultimately itable by next year. ‘‘The second Band tried to in the world. That hasn’t changed — people are
up to the board, he added. ‘‘But I know we have grow, that’s when we stopped being profitable,’’ just hoarding. Fashion is really different. You have
those conversations all the time.’’ he said. to assume the cycle will change even if you’re
Whatever tensions there may be, everyone I Sternberg wouldn’t remember this, but we doing commodity. And how will you keep up with
spoke to praised Sternberg’s reinvention, in the met briefly a long time ago, when I covered his that? How do you build a business that can sustain
way that fashion people praise things, which is spring show in September 2008, mere weeks those fluctuations over time?’’
to say with a tiny bit of shade. ‘‘Love Scott,’’ Anna before the financial crash. He seemed different That was his pitch, anyway. But so far, no one
Wintour said. ‘‘It seems very honest to me and now — sort of softer around the edges, which seemed to be listening. One investor suggested
very realistic. I understand not everyone can afford also happens to be how he describes his new that maybe Sternberg should turn Entireworld
Marc Jacobs or Chanel.’’ line. ‘‘I’m much lighter as a person,’’ he said. ‘‘I into a TV show that would advertise the clothes.
Kolb told me, ‘‘I think Scott is a brilliant mar- know that whatever I’m doing for work is not (Sternberg: ‘‘Sounds easy!’’) Another told him,
keter,’’ adding, ‘‘It works really well with a basics the end-all, be-all of my life. That doesn’t mean I ‘‘Wow, it’s great that you’re doing well, but I’m
brand.’’ But he also credited him with anticipating don’t emotionally invest in all this and want it to actually looking into distressed assets now.’’
this moment. ‘‘Whatever happened between him thrive. But my identity and sense of self-worth Instead of investing into a young business that
and the investors and however he got out of that isn’t tied to its success or failure. Would I like this was actually making money, the investor was
maybe at the time was painful, but it enabled him to work? Sure. But is it going to ruin me? No.’’ looking to swoop in and pick off bigger brands
to start over. I think brands that are in it now, it’s The last week, Sternberg admitted, had been that were now on the brink of bankruptcy. Reviv-
much harder to make that change.’’ rough. Though Schiff, his managing director, ing a corpse was easier than tending to a new-
Even Virgil Abloh, the designer of Vuitton had recovered from Covid-19, a billionaire seed born. As this investor saw it, that, in the end, held
men’s wear, was excited when I brought up investor informed Sternberg that he would not the promise of a bigger payoff.
Z M B
A A
R N
P
A
Our list of words, worth 21 points, appears with last week’s answers. B Next week: Introducing “Yin Yang”
CROSS TIES
By Will Shortz
Complete each miniature crossword grid with a set of words or names that are all in the same category. In the example, BLUE, GREEN, BEIGE, UMBER and TAN are all colors.
Some letters are given to start you off.
Ex. 1. 2. 3. 4.
B L U E S B T P
E M T E T R H I W
I B A D M D
G R E E N E F H A M L
E R F T N R
5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
P P M O
S L I I R
A N A E N B
K R P T C O I T
E T T T R
44
Doctors I.C.U. doctors had been advocating. At least when the possibility that it could be helpful, although of
(Continued from Page 27) administered to patients who were already on course that means it also left open the possibility
oxygen or ventilators, the drug saved lives. that it could do more harm than supportive care,
studies that the W.H.O. cited, for example, were Kory sees, in the Oxford results, a story of more harm even than steroids. Unlike steroids,
largely not randomized and controlled; other rel- triumph. He believes that he successfully treat- tocilizumab was not yet the devil he knew. Rubin
evant institutions like the Society of Critical Care ed patients with steroids and that the Recovery could see, months later, his decision-making pro-
Medicine, whose doctors treat the most ill patients, trial results prove it. And yet if patients did not cess with humility. ‘‘I can’t argue that I was super
and the European Society of Intensive Care Medi- respond, he would go further, increasing the rational either,’’ he finally said.
cine did recommend the use of steroids for venti- dose, in a few instances, to a level 10 times as
lated Covid-19 patients with ARDS. Also, in Kory’s strong as that in the trial. Did the higher dosage At the peak of the surge, Rubin was far from
own clinical experience, corticosteroids could be increase the risk? The answer to that question, a the only doctor whose usual commitment to
lifesavers. He did not see them as a wild-card drug research purist like Kevin Tracey would point out, evidence faltered. ‘‘There would be a physician
for this disease, like hydroxychloroquine; he used is still unknown. Despite the enthusiasm for the that would have said, ‘No, no, no,’ and all of the
them for non-Covid-19 patients who were facing Recovery trial, Tracey maintains that even one sudden, it’s his mother,’’ Aberg, the Mount Sinai
cytokine storms or ARDS. He was surprised by the stellar randomized, controlled trial does not set- doctor, told me. ‘‘All of a sudden, let me tell you,
heat with which colleagues challenged him when tle the question of the use of steroids for patients they wanted everything. We had some of our own
he made the recommendation, and he believed with Covid-19. ‘‘It needs to be replicated,’’ he said. physicians admitted, and people were just crazed
that his own leadership role in conference calls Given the long, complicated history of steroid about what they wanted to do to those individu-
subsequently diminished. He and Jarjour, he said, studies, he predicts that sometime down the als.’’ Kevin Tracey, the Feinstein researcher, says
had more disagreements in three days than they road another statistically powerful randomized, that overwhelming uncertainty was driving peo-
had in the previous five years. controlled trial will yield contradictory findings. ple’s reactions: ‘‘We just lived through a plague.
On April 7, Kory’s colleague Ellie Golestanian In Tracey’s reservations, Kory sees not rational It was life and death. Fear. Ignorance. You were
sent an email to Kory and others, at 1:32 a.m., in evaluation but bias. ‘‘That’s a 6,000-person trial seeing raw human behavior in survival mode, a
response to another colleague’s call for the use of he’s discrediting,’’ Kory said. ‘‘That’s a person who classic reaction to threat.’’
corticosteroids and anticoagulants: ‘‘In patients will never be convinced.’’ In recent months, a relative calm has set in.
with severe Covid-19, we are fumbling in the Kory is also part of a group of critical-care Since that tense mid-May meeting between the
dark, clutching at anything that might work. doctors who widely disseminated a protocol for researcher Spyropoulos and his colleagues on
But as you are well aware, just because a therapy treating Covid-19 that includes anticoagulants the ground at Long Island Jewish Medical Cen-
‘should’ work, or we desperately ‘want’ it to work and steroids but also other treatments — includ- ter, clinicians and researchers have forged more
— it does not follow that it ‘will’ work.’’ ing Pepcid and intravenous vitamin C — whose compromise through a series of conversations.
‘‘When I hear stuff like corticosteroids described efficacy is hotly contested among doctors. Looking back at that time, one critical-care doc-
as experimental and unproven, I want to jump out Should Kory and his colleagues have been tor mentioned that Spyropoulos, when he called
a widow,’’ Kory told me later that month. ‘‘They administering steroids when they did? Were in by videoconference that day, seemed tired
make it sound like we are experimenting on peo- they right? Kory thinks so. But Eric Rubin, the and stressed; perhaps, the critical-care doctor
ple. I want to be respectful of my colleagues, but I editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, thought, that accounted for why Spyropoulos had
feel like they are getting it 100 percent wrong. I’ve thinks it’s not so clear-cut. ‘‘You could also say spoken so harshly to the group.
never seen smarter people get a problem more he was lucky,’’ Rubin said. Spyropoulos, the director of the anticoagulation
wrong. Because they are running hypotheses in At times, over the course of several conversa- program at Northwell, had in fact been working
a lab and so many of them fail, they think when I tions, Rubin defended the bond between doctors 19-hour days to try to get the trial up and running
approach a patient, I am testing out a hypothesis. and patients, the need for physician autonomy, at breakneck speed. He also mentioned to me in
It’s not like a hypothesis, but more like a problem, the necessity of making judgments in the absence passing, during an interview, that both he and his
and I have to figure out how to fix it with a couple of of evidence, especially when mortality rates were wife had been sick with Covid-19, his wife more
decades of experience to back me up. It’s a stretch so high; at other times he seemed frustrated that so than him. Perhaps, like many doctors, he was
to call it a hypothesis. It’s just me doctoring.’’ doctors were still relying on treatments for which laboring under the additional stress of having not
Kory was so frustrated about the hospital’s there was no evidence, concerned that a lack of just a professional but a deeply personal struggle
approach that in May he resigned, taking a job equipoise had possibly muddled the course of with the power of the disease. In response to a
instead at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Mil- research. ‘‘I know I seem to be saying opposite text I sent asking about the extent of his wife’s
waukee. ‘‘Our differences were so far apart, I felt things,’’ he admitted. ‘‘And I agree with myself.’’ illness, Spyropoulos wrote back on July 11. ‘‘My
I couldn’t be a part of it,’’ said Kory, who foresaw, Rubin is an infectious-disease doctor at wife was very sick and bedridden for 3 days (I was
in April, a ‘‘catastrophe’’ if doctors at any hospital Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and mildly symptomatic) but she responded well to
could apply only supportive care. A colleague of like many doctors in that specialty, he had strong hydroxychloroquine,’’ he wrote.
his in New York, an I.C.U. doctor affiliated with reservations about steroids. He advised col- His casual certainty about the cause and effect
a major medical center, confirmed that he, too, leagues against using them. ‘‘And I was wrong,’’ of her recovery was surprising. His wife had been
resigned from his hospital, in part because of ten- he said. He also acknowledges that he was less ill, taken hydroxychloroquine and recovered.
sions around his decision to try an F.D.A.-approved opposed to the use of tocilizumab, although that, Whether the second event caused the third was
medication off-label and outside a trial. In May, too, was untested and could also increase the risk at best unknown but statistically unlikely, given
Kory, following his disagreement in Wisconsin, of infection. I asked him whether perhaps there the now-significant body of research showing that
spent several weeks in New York treating patients, was something about tocilizumab’s novelty, even the drug does not help. As if even Spyropoulos
often with steroids. its scarcity, its high price, that may have given it a recognized that his comment was less than ratio-
In June, Oxford posted a preliminary report for sheen of credibility? In the absence of evidence, nal, he went on to rehearse the argument he made
its Recovery trial of more than 6,000 patients who we are all susceptible to predictable irrational to his colleagues at Long Island Jewish about the
received either standard care or dexamethasone, biases. ‘‘We know less about toci,’’ is how Rubin importance of relying on research. Anything else,
a steroid similar to the ones that Kory and other said he thought about it at the time: It left open he repeated, was witchcraft.
CRAFT SHOW
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21
8/9/20
29 Beau, to Brigitte 99 Buff 120 121 122 123
30 Verbal stumbles 100 First Alaskan on a major
31 Baseball catcher U.S. party ticket
32 Ire 101 E-4, E-5 and E-6, in the 8 Painter of the ‘‘Four 44 ‘‘Ba-dum-tss’’ 81 Hoped-for response to an
34 Boy band with two U.S. Navy, in brief Freedoms’’ series, 1943 46 Education support grps. SOS
members who previously 102 Successors to LPs 9 Sound from a cheering 83 Lien holder, e.g.
48 ____ Paulo, Brazil
starred on ‘‘The Mickey 105 Part of Canada above Alta. crowd 85 Ahab’s father in the Bible
49 Sea route, e.g.
Mouse Club’’ and Sask. 10 Even 86 Desert’s lack
50 ‘‘Frozen’’ queen
36 Little suckers 106 One of the Gandhis 11 Pinnacle 89 Hogwarts professor who
52 Endless YouTube viewing,
37 Headgear for a tailgater 109 Where to get a mullet 12 ____ Chemical Company, was secretly a werewolf
trimmed e.g.
39 One of the Arnazes onetime maker of 91 ‘‘Awkward Black Girl’’
112 ‘‘____ get it now!’’ 53 French island off the coast
40 ‘‘… but it’s up to you’’ VapoRub creator and star
of Newfoundland
43 Famously green shampoo 113 Civic center 13 Writer Serwer of The 92 ‘‘Who cares?’’
Atlantic 57 Tropical yellow fruits
45 Rap’s Shakur 115 Colored ring 93 Slapstick silliness
14 Event planner’s need 59 Writer Rand
47 Pope after Benedict IV 116 Washington’s Sea-____ 95 Gary who created ‘‘The Far
Airport 15 Attempts 61 New York city with a Side’’
48 Winter vacation marina
destination 117 Non’s opposite 16 They’re listed by degrees 96 Award to be hung
118 Ban … or bandit 62 Suffix with tour or Tory 98 Start of a playground joke
51 Parades 17 ____ boom
119 By and large 64 ____-El (Superman’s birth 99 U.S. govt. bond
54 Barely beat 19 Struck, old-style
name)
55 Goals 120 College entrance exam 24 Bygone Apple messaging 101 Compass letters
org. 65 Conflict during which the
56 Silverback gorilla, e.g. app 102 Unisex fragrance
121 Hosp. V.I.P.s Lusitania was sunk: Abbr.
27 Members of a blended 103 ____ Street, Perry Mason’s
58 Moreno with an Emmy, 67 Fateful date
122 Author Zora ____ Hurston family secretary
Grammy, Oscar and Tony
123 Son of Aphrodite 68 What’s left at sea 104 Strong ropes used to
60 Drag-racing vehicles 33 Move, in Realtor jargon
35 Airport logjam 69 Dig in support masts
62 ‘‘____ trap!’’
DOWN 36 Rick, Ilsa and Victor had 72 Flat, round bread cooked 107 Verb preceder
63 Meager on a griddle
1 Compete in one leg of a one in ‘‘Casablanca’’ 108 Bad things on motorists’
65 Tired modern pentathlon 75 Noted congresswoman records, for short
37 First lady between Eleanor
66 In perfect order … or, as 2 Loud, as the surf from the Bronx, familiarly 110 ‘‘Dies ____’’ (hymn)
and Mamie
two words, what’s formed 78 After-bath application
3 Chills 38 Fanny 111 Curb, with ‘‘in’’
by applying the answers
for the five italicized clues 4 Not incl. 40 Accented cheer 79 Anatomical sac 114 The Jazz, on scoreboards
to the circled letters 5 Set the boundaries of 41 Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Puzzles Online Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles:
70 Dined at home 6 Perfect Andy, for two nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). For the daily puzzle
71 More skeptical 7 Smart ____ 42 Restricted zone commentary: nytimes.com/wordplay.
46