AMANDA

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 THE ONE SHEE T

AMANDA GORMAN
The poet, who caught the world’s attention with her inaugural reading, speaks about what
keeps her motivated, her literary influences and her hopes for the future.
ILLUSTRATION BY RYAN MCAMIS

What’s one goal you hope to accomplish?
In 30 years, one goal I hope to accomplish is to become
president of the United States.
What’s the one word you most often use?
LOL. I just say that in conversation a lot, because either I’m
laughing really loud or I’m laughing on the inside.
What’s the one phone call that changed your life?
The Zoom in which I was told by the inaugural committee that
I was going to be the 2021 inaugural poet.
What’s the one thing you’ve learned about yourself
during quarantine?
That there's nothing wrong with being alone. I started seeing
solitude as a real gift, because those moments of being
alone teach you how important it is to have people who love you.
What’s the one poem everyone should read?
One of the many poems I’ll say people should read is “I, Too,”
by Langston Hughes.
What’s the one role of the poet in today’s world?
To question and to investigate. If the poet can help us ask the
right questions, then that helps us get to the right destinations.
What’s the one thing about which you most often say,
“Well, maybe one day….”?
Oh, I often say maybe one day I’ll vacation. But I'm actually
making that someday a reality. So I’m getting very dedicated
to carving out time for myself to just break.
What’s the one piece of advice that changed your life?
The one piece of advice that changed my life was from my mom,
who was quoting Shakespeare. And in the play Hamlet, the
character Polonius says, “To thine own self be true.” And she
always said that to me in the car, on the way to school.
Every day I was being reminded to be my whole and fullest self.
Who’s the one person you’d love to have dinner with?
I would really love to have dinner with Maya Angelou.
She just lived such a remarkable and thorough career.
What’s the one thing you hope to see change in the world?
Understanding about the climate crisis as well as actions to
rectify it. I think it’s time to put the alarm up. It’s an emergency.
What’s the one thing that keeps you motivated?
To put it simply, I would say joy. There’s something inherently
joyous that occurs when I write. It’s some type of deep, inherent
pleasure that I can’t get anywhere else.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Visit wsj.com/gorman for a video featuring more of our conversation with Amanda Gorman.

38 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

 fall 2021
38 THE ONE SHEET Amanda Gorman
48 EDITOR’S LETTER
54 CONTRIBUTORS
56 COLUMNISTS on Endurance
59 THE WSJ. FIVE
179 STILL LIFE Virgil Abloh
The designer and artistic director shares a few of
his favorite things.
Photography by Victoria Hely-Hutchinson

What’s News.
69 A lush wallpaper collection from de Gournay and
designer Michael S. Smith

72 Armani introduces women’s made-to-order suiting;

shoulder-hugging hobo bags

74 Cheval Blanc opens in Paris; a ceramicist and jeweler

collaborate; a new moon-phase watch for women

76 Trend Report: Headscarves

77 The Download: Aidy Bryant; Southwestern style

78 A new book of Slim Aarons’s photography

80 Jewelry Box: Louis Vuitton’s Bravery collection

ON THE COVER Poet Amanda Gorman in Prada

turtleneck, photographed by Cass Bird and styled
by Jason Bolden; hair, LaRae Burress; makeup, Joanna
Simkin. For details see Sources, page 178.

THIS PAGE Gorman in Loewe sweater and pants,

Christian Louboutin heels and Mateo earrings,
photographed by Cass Bird and styled by Jason Bolden;
hair, LaRae Burress; makeup, Joanna Simkin.
For details see Sources, page 178.

FOLLOW @WSJMAG:
To purchase original single issues from WSJ. Magazine’s
130 archive and magazine merchandise, visit the WSJ Shop
at wsjshop.com.
 “[THE BANDAS HAVE]
A FABLED, FAIRY-TALE
QUALITY. THERE ARE
NUTMEG TREES
EVERYWHERE...WHICH
SMELL WONDERFUL.”
–GILES MILTON
83
Market report.
83 THE BOLD & THE
BEAUTIFUL
Stand out from the crowd in
mesmerizing monochromes, posh
pairings and tantalizing textures.
Photography by Markn
Styling by Ai Kamoshita
Left: Model Taira in Prada dress,
shawl, gloves and boots,
photographed by Markn and styled
by Ai Kamoshita; hair, Soichi
Inagaki; makeup, Crystabel Riley.
For details see Sources, page 178.
Right: The remote Banda Islands,
once the heart of an international
spice trade, are now an attractive
destination among Indonesia’s
charter yacht tours, photographed
by Frédéric Lagrange.
the exchange.
99 MY MONDAY MORNING
John Donahoe
The Nike CEO wakes up at 5:45 a.m. on
weekdays and drinks 33 ounces of
water before stretching, meditating,
training and practicing gratitude.
By Lane Florsheim
Photography by Kyle Johnson
101 MADE IN MILAN
Architects Fanny Bauer Grung and
David Lopez Quincoces’s 1920s
apartment is equal parts family home
and design gallery.
By Laura May Todd
Photography by Federico Ciamei
138
Women’s Fall fashion issue.
108 THE SECRET
TO ZARA’S SUCCESS
Marta Ortega Pérez, daughter of
Zara co-founder Amancio
Ortega, opens up for the first time
about the vision behind the
brand’s global future.
By Elisa Lipsky-Karasz
Photography by Steven Meisel
Styled by Karl Templer
116 KNITS & PIECES
Fall’s newest knits feature bright
colors, fuzzy textures and
crocheted patterns to heat up cold-
weather style.
Photography by Josh Olins
Styling by Ludivine Poiblanc

116
Women’s Fall fashion issue.
130 POETRY IN MOTION
Amanda Gorman believes in the
political power of words, and
she’s leaning into her talents to reach
her goal of becoming president.
By Clover Hope
Photography by Cass Bird
Styling by Jason Bolden
138 COME SAIL AWAY
The volcanic Banda archipelago is
one of Indonesia’s most storied
destinations—and a magical place to
tour by chartered yacht.
By Tony Perrottet
Photography by Frédéric Lagrange
148 CHANEL’S
COUTURE CLUBHOUSE
Behind the scenes at Le 19M, Chanel’s
new haute couture headquarters,
designed by Rudy Ricciotti.
By Alexandra Marshall
Photography by Jonas Unger
152 COMING ATTRACTION
This fall, L.A.’s long-awaited
Academy Museum of Motion
Pictures, designed by Italian archi-
tect Renzo Piano, finally opens.
By Jay Cheshes
Photography by Stephen Kent Johnson
158 MORE IS MORE IS MORE
Sequins, embroidery and punchy
colors recall the sirens of yesteryear.
Photography by Nadine Ijewere
Styling by Kate Phelan
Left: Model Laura Hagested in Raf Simons sweater,
Simone Wild socks and Bottega Veneta shoes,
photographed by Josh Olins and styled by Ludivine
Poilblanc; hair, Shon; makeup, Petros Petrohilos.
For details see Sources, page 178. Below: Intricate
work by the artisans in Chanel’s new “couture
clubhouse” in Paris, photographed by Jonas Unger.
148
170 FAMILY REUNION
Ahead of the release of their new
film, The Many Saints of Newark,
David Chase, Michael Gandolfini and
Alessandro Nivola discuss the
making of The Sopranos prequel.
By Alex Bhattacharji
Photography by Tyrell Hampton
174 MCARTHUR BINION PAYS
IT FORWARD
The 75-year-old artist has estab-
lished a residency in Detroit to give
other artists of color a chance at
the recognition that long eluded him.
By Howie Kahn
Photography by Gioncarlo Valentine

NOW, VOYAGERS
MRS. BRIGHTSIDE Usher in the positivity of the fall collections with a sunny Prada piece. Prada coat, bag and pants.
L
EADERSHIP DOESN’T necessarily mean fol-
lowing convention or adhering to a formula.
That’s one of the things Marta Ortega Pérez
learned from her father, Amancio Ortega, the
reclusive co-founder of the multibillion-dollar fash-
ion behemoth Zara. Like her father—who still comes
to the office nearly every day at age 85—Ortega Pérez
sits at a shared workspace among fellow employees at
Zara. Although she does not have an official title, our
profile makes clear she’s become an essential part
of the branding and style setting that has made the
company a standout among its competitors by being
so nimble and responsive to shifts in consumer tastes.
Long before fashion houses were massive
global businesses, the remote Banda archipelago,
48
EDITOR’S LE T TER
ILLUSTRATION BY ROSIE MC GUINNESS
among the many thousands of islands that make
up Indonesia, was at the center of an international
spice trade. The world’s original exclusive source
of nutmeg, these volcanic islands can make modern
visitors feel as though they’re voyaging back to the
distant past. As our story illustrates, owing to infre-
quent ferry service and a lack of a major airport, it’s a
place best explored by chartered yacht—with a tradi-
tional Indonesian schooner perhaps the ideal vessel
for taking in its scenic wonders.
Amanda Gorman is a trailblazer who has always
followed her own star. Having electrified audiences
at President Biden’s inauguration ceremony with a
dynamic performance of “The Hill We Climb,” she’s
since published a bestselling edition of the poem
with a foreword by Oprah Winfrey, while also com-
ing to terms with her sudden celebrity. Gorman has
always carried a certain aura of destiny about her:
She aspired early on to go to Harvard (she did), and
she became the fi rst National Youth Poet Laureate.
Now she’s working on a new collection of poetry
and has returned to voicing an ambition that she
fi rst dreamed of as a child, to one day be president
herself. “I think to make the impossible more proxi-
mate,” she says, “you have to treat it as if it’s in
reaching distance.”
Kristina O’Neill
k.oneill@wsj.com
@kristina_oneill
WSJ. M AGA ZINE
 Kristina O’Neill
EDITOR IN CHIEF

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Magnus Berger

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Chris Knutsen

MANAGING EDITOR Jacklyn Monk

DEPUTY EDITOR Elisa Lipsky-Karasz

DIGITAL DIRECTOR Sarah Ball

F E AT URE S P UBL ISHING

EXECUTIVE FEATURES DIRECTOR Lenora Jane Estes ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER & HEAD OF EMEAOmblyne Pelier
NEWS DIRECTOR Julie Coe EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LUXURY Richie Grin
DIGITAL EDITOR Myles Tanzer EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FASHION Chloe Worden

CULTURE EDITOR Cody Delistraty EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL

STAFF WRITER Lane Florsheim Katie Allen

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Natalia Barr SENIOR BUSINESS MANAGERVincent Shapiro
LUXURY DIRECTORS U.S.Niki Davis, Anne Ebani,
ART
Agnes Majewska, Jessica Patton, Alana Scharlop
DESIGN DIRECTOR Tanya Moskowitz
LUXURY DIRECTORS EU Tania Concialdi, Ludmilla Chala,
ART DIRECTOR Katie Field
Giuditta Incampo, Camille Ripley
P HOTOGR A P H Y
EVENTS DIRECTOR Scott Meriam
EXECUTIVE PHOTO DIRECTOR Jennifer Pastore
EVENTS MANAGER Liana Agredo
SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR Dana Kien
DIRECTOR OF INTEGRATED MARKETING/LUXURY
PHOTO EDITORS Sam Berg
James Clarizio, Noelle Lacombe
T HE WA L L S T REE T JOURN A L
ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Sara Morosi
EDITOR IN CHIEF Matt Murray
FA SHION
SENIOR EDITOR, FEATURES AND WSJ WEEKEND
FASHION MARKET AND ACCESSORIES DIRECTOR Michael W. Miller
Alexander Fisher
DOW JONE S
SENIOR FASHION MARKET EDITOR
Lizzy Wholley CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Almar Latour
ASSOCIATE FASHION MARKET EDITOR CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER Josh Stinchcomb
Kevin Huynh EVP & CHIEF MARKETING & MEMBERSHIP OFFICER

ASSISTANT FASHION MARKET EDITOR

Suzi Watford
Nathan Simpson EVP PRINT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES Frank Filippo
FASHION ASSISTANT CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER Kristin Heitmann
Jessica Gibbs SENIOR VICE PRESIDENTS Tracey Baldwin (LUXURY/
LIFESTYLE), Anna Foot (INTERNATIONAL), Sara Mascall
SOCI A L
(TELECOM & TECH), Katie Weber (FINANCIAL), Robert
SENIOR PLATFORM EDITOR Saira Khan
Welch (B-TO-B)
P RODUC T ION, COP Y & RE SE A RCH CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Scott White Colleen Schwartz
COPY CHIEF Ali Bahrampour Paul Cousineau
AD SERVICES, VICE PRESIDENT

RESEARCH CHIEF Randy Hartwell AD SERVICES, MAGAZINE MANAGER Don Lisk

COPY EDITOR Clare O’Shea AD SERVICES, BUREAU MANAGER Tom Roggina

RESEARCH EDITORS Laura Casey, Dacus Thompson NE WS CORP

EDI TORI A L BUSINE SS M A N AGEMEN T EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN Rupert Murdoch

BUSINESS MANAGER Rorna Richards CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Robert Thomson

CON T RIBU T ING EDI TORS

Alex Bhattacharji, Michael Clerizo, Kelly Crow, Jason Gay, Andrew Goldman,
Jenny Hartman, Howie Kahn, Joshua Levine, Nicholas Mancuso, Sarah Medford, Christopher Ross,
Katherine Stirling, Ruoji Tang, Fiorella Valdesolo, Joan Weinstein, Helios Xu
ENTERTAINMENT DIRECTOR Andrea Oliveri for Special Projects

CONTRIBUTING CASTING DIRECTOR Piergiorgio Del Moro

 fall 2021

CONTRIBUTORS
POETRY IN MOTION P. 130

When writer Clover Hope

interviewed Amanda Gorman
for this issue’s cover story, she
found the poet to be “sharp,
cerebral and intentional.” Hope
adds: “Almost every sentence
she speaks could be framed,
which is a very special gift.”
Going into their interview, she
wondered how Gorman was
navigating her newfound fame.
“There’s tension whenever
someone is christened as a new
voice, and I wanted to explore
that,” Hope says. Photographer

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: COURTESY OF CASS BIRD; COURTESY OF TYRELL HAMPTON; LIAM CUSHING; COURTESY OF FEDERICO CIAMEI; COURTESY OF AI KAMOSHITA
Cass Bird captured Gorman,
styled by Jason Bolden, at the
Stahl House, a midcentury Los
Angeles landmark designed
by architect Pierre Koenig. “The
location was the other character:
simple but bold,” says Bolden,
who works with Gorman
frequently. “This helped me lean
into simple yet strong frocks.”
On set, “the energy was vibrant
and fun,” Bolden remembers.
“Amanda laughed most of
the time when she wasn’t being
the DJ!”
—Natalia Barr

ALL SMILES
From left: Cover star Amanda
Gorman and photographer
Cass Bird on set in Los Angeles.

AI KAMOSHITA FEDERICO CIAMEI LAURA MAY TODD TYRELL HAMPTON

Stylist Photographer Writer Photographer
THE BOLD & THE BEAUTIFUL P. 83 MADE IN MIL AN P. 101 MADE IN MIL AN P. 101 FAMILY REUNION P. 170

54 WSJ. M AGA ZINE


WSJ. asks six luminaries to weigh in on a single topic. This month: Endurance.
KRISTIN
CHENOWETH
“Endurance is really
what you learn during
the crappy times. I
grew up with a dad who
sailed, and it wasn’t
the times when the wind
was perfect and the sails
were perfect [that he
endured], it was what
I saw him do in between.
There is a parallel to
the word perseverance,
right? But persever-
ance is not endurance.
Endurance is what you
build, how you handle
survival, how you pace
your life. It’s the tran-
sition time. That’s what
gives you endurance.
I have endured perform-
ing during strep throat,
broken limbs, sprained
limbs, a bad neck, injur-
ies, sickness, death,
birth, all of it. And I look
back on my life and I see
that’s how I built the
endurance I have today.
To me, when you learn
how to adjust your sails,
eventually you look
back and you say, Man, I
endured that. Sometimes
it’s really not easy.”
Chenoweth is an actor and
singer. She stars in the Apple
TV+ series Schmigadoon!
56
THE COLUMNISTS
DEAN
KARNAZES
“One time I ran 50 mara-
thons in all of the 50 U.S.
states for 50 consecutive
days. I’ll never forget
marathon 19. I couldn’t
get out of bed in the
morning. How am I going
to possibly run a mara-
thon, let alone 31 more 31
days after that? The trick
I learned is don’t think
about the future and
don’t reflect on the past.
Just be in the here and
now and the present
moment of time and do
the best you can do.
It takes some discipline
not to let your mind
wander, but it is almost
a Zen-like state where
you can endure almost
anything. Endurance
comes from enduring.
Throw yourself into
these insane conquests
and grovel through it
and endure—that’s how
you build endurance.
When you look inward,
you either say, I de-
serve to be here, I paid
my dues, or you say
to yourself, You know, I
spent too much time
on the couch. You can’t
fool yourself.”
Karnazes is an ultramarathon
runner and the author,
most recently, of A Runner’s
High: My Life in Motion.
SOAPBOX
ANGELA
DUCKWORTH
“I define grit as a com-
bination of two things:
one is having a sustained
commitment to some
goal that you hold dear.
The second thing is
endurance in your effort,
because you can care
about something and
not do anything about it.
When you ask [people],
‘Hey, can you do this
thing,’ they just say, ‘Oh,
yeah, I’ll try harder. I’ll
try to be gritty. I’ll just
have more willpower.
I’ll suck it up.’ In general,
that doesn’t work.
The more artful way to
do it is to find strategies
that gritty people
use that you can imitate.
Most people actually
struggle to figure out
[their] passion. If you ask
most 22-year-olds,
‘What’s the harder thing
for you, having a work
ethic or knowing what
the hell you want
to do with your life?’ So
many people are like,
‘Trust me, I’m a hard
worker. I just don’t know
what [I want] to do.’”
Duckworth is a professor
of psychology at the University
of Pennsylvania and the
author of Grit: The Power of
Passion and Perseverance.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
LONNIE G.
BUNCH III
“I look into history,
and that gives me the in-
spiration to endure,
recognizing that there
are people in my fam-
ily that started out
enslaved, [then were]
sharecroppers, and
yet through education
and sheer force of will
they basically changed
the trajectory of our
family. As a historian
I’m moved by John
Lewis’s career, moved
by people like Fannie Lou
Hamer who demanded
the country be fair,
at great personal risk. I
would think that some-
body will have a pic-
ture 100 years from now
of people wearing
masks going into the
Smithsonian. What
that’ll tell you is that the
Smithsonian was willing
to deal with the cards
it was dealt, grapple with
the complexities and
ambiguities of the day
in order to make sure we
could serve, educate
and, in essence, define
reality and give hope.”
Bunch is a historian and
the first African-American
secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution.
NANA
MENSAH
“The hustle is so real.
Unless you’re doing,
like, Hamilton or Harry
Potter, most theater does
not pay a living wage
in New York City, so you
need to be able to do
commercials. You need
to be able to go work
at a nonprofit so that you
have health insurance.
There is a real endur-
ance factor. You’ve got
to spin a lot of plates
and learn how to hang
in there. This is a game
of attrition. A lot of
people, when they start
out as actors, fresh out
of school, rosy cheeks,
think that all they need
to do is sit on a stoop
somewhere, and a direc-
tor is going to walk by
and give them a leading
part in the new Michael
Bay film. Endurance
is a muscle that you need
to exercise. Maybe
you do get that Michael
Bay film fresh out of
school, but then in five
years, 10 years, there’s a
drought, and you need
to figure out how to
be patient and how to
wait for water.”
Mensah is an actor, writer and
director. She recently starred
in the film Queen of Glory and
the Netflix series The Chair.
DANNY
ELFMAN
“In my world, endur-
ance really means the
constant ability to adapt
and reinvent. That’s
the difference between
composers who have
continuing careers and
those who have bright,
short careers but
disappear. To get com-
placent or comfortable
too long is a creative
death sentence. My first
orchestral classical
commissions were so
intimidating. I felt like I
was a little kid in the
playground of the big
boys. When I’m try-
ing to listen to stuff to
get myself inspired,
I’ll put on Bartók
or Shostakovich, and it
makes me want to
just give up. I’m never
going to be Bartók
or Shostakovich or
Prokofiev. Then at a cer-
tain point, you kind
of smack yourself in
the face and go, No, but
I’ll be what I’m go-
ing to be, and I’ll be
the best I can be. I won’t
ever be Shostakovich,
but that’s OK.”
Elfman is a composer, singer
and songwriter. His most
recent album is Big Mess.
WSJ. M AGA ZINE
 CO LLECTI O N

Women
©Photograph: patriceschreyer.com

NEW Y O R K · 6 9 7 FI FTH AV ENUE BETWEEN 54 TH & 55 TH STREET · 212 396 1735

LAS V EG AS · THE FO R UM SHOPS AT CAESARS PALACE · 702 369 1735
 FA LL 2021

the wsj. five

MODERN HEIRLOOMS
Ideal pieces from the fall collections
that will withstand the test of time.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAMUEL BRADLEY
STYLING BY CHLOE GRACE PRESS

1. THE BAG
Get the lock on chic with this deceptively simple purse. Celine
by Hedi Slimane bag, jacket, shirt and pants.

WSJ. M AGA ZINE 59

T HE WS J. FI V E

2. THE NECKLACE
Coin a new look in classical
style. Louis Vuitton x
Fornasetti necklace and Louis
Vuitton sweater.

60 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

T HE WS J. FI V E

3. THE HAT
A snug fit to top things
off. Chanel hat,
bodysuit, skirt and belt.

62 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

 loewe.com
Fall Winter 2021 2022 79 Greene Street, New York
T HE WS J. FI V E

4. THE SUNGLASSES
Barely there, ’70s-style lenses
are a subtle but stylish
statement. Saint Laurent by
Anthony Vaccarello sunglasses,
top, pants, choker and belt.

64 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

 How do you say Pink in French?

Photographer Iris Velghe - Conception Luma

The Pink Champagne from Pinot Noir. Chosen by the best.

champagnelaurentperrier www.laurent-perrier.com

P L E A S E E N J O Y R E S P O N S I B LY
T HE WS J. FI V E

5. THE BOOT
Step ahead with stream-
lined ease. Hermès
boots and dress and
Calzedonia tights.
Models, Evie Saunders
at Premier Model
Management; Grace
Musase at Elite Model
Management; hair,
Mari Ohashi; makeup,
Thom Walker; manicure,
Saffron Goddard.
For details see Sources,
page 178.

66 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

WWW.MANOLOBLAHNIK.COM
 FA LL 2021

what’s news.

PATTERN PLAY
Interior designer
Michael S. Smith has
created a series of
new wallpapers for de
Gournay, which tapped
five creative talents
to put them to good use.
BY MEGAN CONWAY

FLOWER POWER
De Gournay’s collaboration
MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA

with designer Michael S. Smith

includes the Nordic Garden
pattern, shown here in a space
designed by Amanda Brooks,
owner of the shop Cutter Brooks,
in the English countryside.

WSJ. M AGA ZINE 69

WH AT ’S NE WS

A
CCORDING TO INTERIOR designer Michael “IT’S ALL IDEAS I’VE BEEN
S. Smith, certain elements involved in deco- CARRYING AROUND IN MY
rating have the feel of magic. Among them HEAD, THINGS I’VE WANTED
he counts wallpaper, with its ability to lend
flat surfaces the illusion of depth. A new collection of
TO USE FOR A LONG TIME.”
five wallpapers of Smith’s own design launches this –MICHAEL S. SMITH
season in collaboration with de Gournay, a British
company that specializes in custom, hand-painted
panels. “It’s all ideas I’ve been carrying around in my
head, things I’ve wanted to use for a long time,” says
the Los Angeles–based Smith, who is best known for
redecorating the Oval Office and White House resi-
dential quarters for the Obamas. “To put them all
together as an arsenal or box of crayons is amazing.”
“Michael is one of our most longstanding clients,”
says Hannah Cecil Gurney, de Gournay’s director,
whose father, Claud Cecil Gurney, founded the com-
pany in the mid-1980s. “He came to us and said, Look,
if I’m wanting this particular kind of look and feel for
wall coverings that I can’t currently find, then it would
be silly not to offer them to the world.”
Each of the wallpapers in Smith’s series draws inspi-
ration from the natural world, be it the softly colored
stone of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia or the bird-filled trees
on the tiled murals at Lisbon’s Palácio dos Marqueses
de Fronteira. Smith took the idea for Botanical Studies
from 18th-century Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus’s
studio, which was hung with prints and engravings of
heliotrope, gardenia and other flora.
In the spirit of Smith’s polished eclecticism, de
Gournay invited five decorators, makers and curators
from varied backgrounds to each use one of the wall-
papers in the context of their own work. The English
antiques dealer Edward Hurst chose Botanical Studies
for the bedroom of a client’s Dorset manor house, pair-
ing the panels with a Chinese black-and-gold lacquer
cabinet set on a Chippendale-period stand and a neo-
classical George III canopy bed. “It sort of vibrates in
the room,” says Hurst of the paper.
Ceramic artist Peter Ting, co-founder of Ting-
Ying gallery, hung Pantheon, an intricate design that
recalls natural stone, at home, alongside his collection
of artworks and porcelain. He immediately noticed the
paper’s partial glazing, “as if it has been polished by
centuries of touching, like real marble would in a pow-
erful and spiritual place like the Pantheon.” entirely included in the creative process,” says Amanda
British-born Ghanaian furniture designer Kusheda Brooks, who used Nordic Garden, Smith’s interpreta-
Mensah used Uki Hana, a wallpaper inspired by the tion of a rococo-era Swedish wallpaper, to decorate a
chrysanthemums of Edo-period Japanese artworks, temporary retail space next door to her Oxfordshire
to create an immersive environment within a London home-goods shop, Cutter Brooks. “We changed the
creative space. Mensah set the wallpaper against her color of a couple of birds and some berries, moved
own curvilinear, modular furniture. The panels are motifs from one panel to another and altered the deep
gilded with a golden-brown copper leaf at the bot- teal color to better match my shop merchandise,” she
tom that gives way to a lighter aluminum-leaf toward says. British design dealer Jermaine Gallacher, mean-
the top, mimicking the soft, tarnished gleam of 17th- while, took Braganza, a wallpaper that references
century Japanese folding screens. Mensah says she porcelain tile, off the wall. He suspended the paper on
was surprised by de Gournay’s level of customization: movable panels in his London showroom, its tile-like
“One of the designers just got out her paintbrush and grid acting as a backdrop for sets of his own creation.
MIGUEL FLORES-VIANNA

literally started drawing flowers onto the wallpaper to
expand the pattern and print.”
“They’re game for anything as long as it’s grounded
in fundamental quality,” says Smith of de Gournay,
which gives clients the opportunity to collaborate
with its team of in-house designers and painters. “I felt
Smith says seeing the diversity of responses to his
designs was inspiring. He partly credits de Gournay’s
success with a broad resurgence of interest in wall-
paper. “After years of a kind of minimalist thing,” he
says, “people are realizing how pattern and color can
make a room so much more beautiful.”
OFF THE WALLS Clockwise from above: The new de
Gournay wallpaper Pantheon in artist and curator Peter
Ting’s home; the Braganza pattern installed by design
dealer Jermaine Gallacher in his London design showroom;
antiques dealer Edward Hurst’s use of Botanical Studies
at a client’s home; designer Kusheda Mensah’s furniture,
which she placed in front of the Uki Hana motif.

70 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

Elegance is an attitude

Kate Winslet

The Longines
Master Collection
WH AT ’S NE WS

THE SHIF T

A CUT ABOVE
Armani debuts a collection of made-to-order
suiting for women, a series of pieces meant to
form a well-crafted, timeless wardrobe.

I
THOUGHT it was time,”
answers Giorgio Armani
when asked why, 40 years
after his tailoring made
him the sartorial authority for
elegant men from Hollywood
to Wall Street, he’s fi nally
offering made-to-order suiting
for women.
No lessons of the Covid-19 years
have been lost on Armani. “The
pandemic has taught us how
much overproduction and throw-
away fashion are obnoxious,
for the planet as well as for
the system,” he says. “We have to
make more sensible and respon-
sible choices and value time-

The collection includes day
pieces, such as double- or
single-breasted jackets (with a
choice of peak lapels, shawl lapels
or mandarin collars), trousers,
skirts, shirts, a coat and a duster,
as well as two takes on tuxedos
and a tuxedo dress for evening.
It’s an edit of classic Armani
pieces, crafted from silk cady,
wool crepe, cashmere and velvet,
all intended to work together
as an interchangeable ward-
robe. Linings, pipings and buttons
can be selected for each style.
“I think my clients—women
with a strong personality and
FINE LINES a precise understanding of what
Armani’s customizable, they want—will particularly
made-to-measure
appreciate the stage in which they
women’s suiting. For
details see Sources, choose the details, because it’s
page 178. details that make the difference,”
says Armani.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY OF GIORGIO ARMANI; COURTESY OF PRADA; COURTESY OF TOD’S; COURTESY OF THE ROW; COURTESY OF CELINE; COURTESY OF ARMANI
lessness over fickleness. I decid-
ed to launch my MTO [made
to order] now because it is exactly
this: an expression of quality
and craft, made to last, perfected
according to individual desires.”
Suits have cycled in and
out, especially in women’s fashion,
but for Armani, the suit will
always transcend trends. “It
gives presence, authority, charm,
and in this sense it is an unbeat-
able ally to any woman,” he says.
“It is also extremely feminine,
in a nonpredictable way. It’s
been a pillar of my proposal and
always will be.”
At 87, Armani has seen his
share of fads come and go. Where
does he see fashion headed in the
future? “Fashion that is made for
life, not for a picture on social
media,” he says. —Jessica Iredale

CURVES AHEAD
Shoulder-hugging hobo bags, with their rounded silhouettes, range in size from petite to roomy.
From left: Giorgio Armani; Celine by Hedi Slimane; The Row; Tod’s; Prada. For details see Sources, page 178.

72 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

#AkrisFW21 a film by Anton Corbijn | www.akris.com
WH AT ’S NE WS
HOT PROPERT Y
SEINE SCENE
The latest hotel from LVMH’s Cheval Blanc group opens in
a historic building in the heart of Paris.
PARIS MATCH
A room at the Cheval
Blanc Paris overlooks
the Seine.
T
HE CHEVAL BLANC hotel opening in
Paris this month—a new flagship for
the LVMH-owned brand—features
the work of around 600 painters,
sculptors, furniture makers, lantern makers,
ceramicists and textile designers. New York
architect Peter Marino has transformed
the former La Samaritaine department store,
an art deco landmark, into a new showcase
for artists and craftsmen. “This hotel had to
symbolize French luxury,” he says.
LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault
purchased the department store’s two adjacent
buildings in 2001, shutting down its retail
operations four years later due to structural
issues with the sites. This past summer, after a
16-year hiatus, La Samaritaine finally returned
to its main Belle Epoque building behind the
74
Rue de Rivoli. Next door, the new 72-room hotel
features wraparound views of the city through
riverfront windows lining its restored his-
toric facade. “It’s the only hotel in Paris where
you are into the water, into the Seine, from
wherever you are in the building,” says Andrea
Guerra, LVMH’s head of hospitality.
Inside, the Dior spa features one of the long-
est hotel pools in Europe, and the four bars
and restaurants include the fi rst outpost
outside Italy of Langosteria, the fashionable
seafood restaurant whose Portofi no
location is frequented by the Arnault family,
says founder Enrico Buonocore. “In every part
of our restaurant you see amazing Paris,”
says Buonocore. “Sacré-Coeur, Notre-
Dame—the view is really, really incredible.”
chevalblanc.com. —Jay Cheshes
PARTNERSHIP
LUNAR ECLIPSE
Ceramic artist Young Sook Park is among the
artists credited with reviving the art of moon
jars, vases made with a milky-white Korean
porcelain, named for its resemblance to the
moon, that originated in the Joseon dynasty.
Park’s ethereal vessels caught the attention of
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: © ALEXANDRE TABASTE; SHELBY PINE PHOTOGRAPHY; COURTESY OF LONGINES
Charles de Viel Castel, whose jewelry brand,
CVC Stones, sets diamonds in common
pebbles. They have collaborated on a series
of moon jars and pendant necklaces set with
rippling patterns of diamonds that debuts
in September at Park’s YSP Gallery in New
York and on Moda Operandi. For details see
Sources, page 178. —Jill Newman
TIME MACHINES
Longines’s Master
Collection is adding a
moon-phase watch to its
women’s offerings. As
shown, the 34-millimeter
timepiece features
diamond hour markers,
a sunray blue dial and
a stainless-steel bracelet.
For details see Sources,
page 178.
WSJ. M AGA ZINE
WH AT ’S NE WS

TREND REP ORT

COVER
STORY
Headscarves are making
a resurgence this fall
in bright silks ready for
everyday wear.

HEADS UP
Top, from left: Chanel
scarf and shirt; Louis
Vuitton scarf, shirt and
earrings. Middle, from
left: Max Mara scarf,
Vince shirt and Machete
earrings; Dior scarf and
shirt; Hermès scarf,
Maria McManus shirt,
Machete earrings and
Uncommon Matters ring.
Left: Gucci scarf and
shirt and Ale Bremer
earrings. Right: Ulla
Johnson scarf and The Row
shirt. Model, Ravyanshi
Mehta at Elite Model
Management; hair, Shin
Arima; makeup, Mert
Nazlim. For details
see Sources, page 178.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CIHAN ÖNCÜ

FASHION EDITOR LIZZY WHOLLEY

76 WSJ. M AGA ZINE


FAVORI T E
EMO JI: “ T HE
BE A N SP ROU T.”
COURTESY OF HERMÈS; COURTESY OF AKRIS; COURTESY OF MAX MARA; COURTESY OF MISSONI; COURTESY OF GABRIELA HEARST; COURTESY OF ISABEL MARANT; COURTESY OF HERNO; COURTESY OF ETRO
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ALESSANDRA OLANOW/ILLUSTRATION DIVISION (PHONE ILLUSTRATION); AGNES SOMOGYI/SHUTTERSTOCK (BACKGROUND); COURTESY OF LORO PIANA; COURTESY OF CHLOÉ;
THE DOWNLOAD
AIDY BRYANT
The actor and comedian, 34, who stars in Saturday
Night Live and Shrill, shares what’s on her phone.
Number of unread emails
One. It is my greatest achievement.
Funniest text you’ve received this week
My friend sent me a video of a large anima-
tronic poodle, and I liked that very much.
Biggest time-wasting app
Instagram.
Most recent car-service ride
Lyft from my friend’s dinner party in
Brooklyn to my apartment in
Manhattan. $59.95. Normally I would take
the train but tequila was flowing.
Most-essential app while traveling
Notes app. I always write down my favorite
spots or recommendations, and then when
I’m there I have them all ready to go. My
Portland [Oregon] list and my London list
are two of my most prized possessions.
App you wish existed
A way to text with my dog.
Alarm setting
Well, this is probably the greatest proof
that I work at SNL; I have a lot of alarms
set, but my earliest is 4:15 a.m. and my lat-
est is 11:55 p.m. Haunting.
WSJ. M AGA ZINE
WH AT ’S NE WS
P ERSON YOU
FACE T IME
MOS T:
DESERT DRESS
“ M Y MOM.” Fall fashions embrace Southwestern
style with turquoise earrings, poncho
coats, silver buckles and more.
HERMÈ S
NUMBER
OF CON TAC T S:
5 89
Most recent call
Three minutes with my doctor to talk
about my current cold. Glamorous, right?
Most listened-to artist
Ty Segall.
Favorite entertainment app and show
I stream a lot of WNYC on my NPR app.
I listen to The Brian Lehrer Show every
morning, but I listen to WNYC all the time
in my dressing room.
MISSONI
Times when you stay off your phone
Usually an hour or three a day I’ll leave my EARTH TONES
phone in a different room. Clockwise from top: Chloé poncho;
Akris skirt; Isabel Marant earrings;
Favorite shopping app Gabriela Hearst blanket; Max Mara
shoe; Herno coat; Etro belt; Loro
Honestly, Instagram. I recently bought
Piana bag. For details see Sources,
some vintage pillowcases from page 178.
@ramonasmarket and ceramics from
@claudiafrolova.studio.
Favorite podcast
Las Culturistas is my all-time favorite.
Bowen [Yang] and Matt [Rogers] are so
funny, and they interview tons of my favor-
ite comedians. They always ask, “What
moment in culture made you know culture
was for you?” The answers are incredibly
varied and always weirdly compelling.
77
WH AT ’S NE WS

BUY THE BOOK

PRETTY AS A
PICTURE
A new book of photographer Slim Aarons’s
work, featuring dozens of unpublished
photos, highlights his unerring eye for style.
BY DARRELL HARTMAN

T
HE PHOTOGRAPHER Slim Aarons summed
up his subject matter best: “Attractive
people doing attractive things in attrac-
tive places.” His images were for decades
a mainstay of Life, Holiday and other magazines and
more recently have filled coffee-table books. Slim
Aarons: Style (Abrams, $85) is the latest of these; out
this month, it contains 40 previously unpublished
images.
After serving as an Army photographer dur-
ing World War II, Aarons, who died in 2006 at age
89, turned to more sparkling subjects. He endeared
himself to the rich and fashionable: Jackie Kennedy,
Audrey Hepburn, Nan Kempner, Babe Paley and glam-
orous members of European aristocracy. And yet
Aarons often made the castles, villas, townhouses,
ballrooms and ski resorts of this privileged class as
big a part of a story as the people he captured.
Other posthumous Aarons volumes have confined the inescapable fact that the map has changed. The
themselves to specific realms of aspiration: pool beach scenes here are in Newport, not the Hamptons
scenes, Italy. Edited by Shawn Waldron, a curator at or Nantucket. Long before yoga in Tulum, there was
Getty Images, this book is the first to focus declara- poolside backgammon in Acapulco.
tively on style. Though designers and their work (the The heretofore-unpublished images in Slim Aarons:
long list includes Versace, Lilly Pulitzer and Oscar Style are mostly from his early fashion work in black-
de la Renta) were a recurring theme for Aarons, he and-white: model Liz Pringle in 1953 at Round Hill, the
never thought of himself as a fashion photographer. Jamaican resort she founded with her husband, John
“[He got] that style is about so much more than what Pringle; a 1950s New York debutante having her hair
you’re wearing,” says fashion editor and consultant done. These photographs expand the book’s scope to
Kate Betts, the book’s co-author. “It’s about how you nearly a half century. Aarons hung up his camera in the
speak and stand, who you know, how you entertain early ’90s, just before celebrities started monopoliz-
and set the table. Those details are so formative, in ing the fashion spotlight. His Kodachrome images of
terms of actually seeing the fashion.” And they often la dolce vita are now back in style, and not just because
came more easily to the chic socialites Aarons photo- they resemble some venerable Instagram ancestor.
graphed (most famously, C.Z. Guest) than to others, They hail from an era before influencers and from
including movie stars. a photojournalistic tradition that saw little need for
WIDE FOCUS
The book is arranged by season, like the social cal- retouching. “The fact that he did it in real time and Clockwise from above: Snowmass Village, Colorado,
GETTY IMAGES

endar by which Aarons organized his work and travel. real places, with real people, was the most impressive
SLIM AARONS/

1968; from left: Domiziana Giordano, Francesca

Spring galas and horse events give way to the yacht- part,” Betts says. “Fashion designers try to re-create Sanvitale, Dino Trappetti and Umberto Tirelli at Il
Canile, Tirelli and Trappetti’s Capri villa, 1980; socialite
ing and hunting seasons, followed by ski holidays [the Aarons world] with models, but it just doesn’t Charley Weaver at Mexico’s Las Brisas resort, 1972; the
and winter balls. A timeless quality rubs up against have the same authenticity.” book’s cover; Bahamas Speed Week, Nassau, 1963.

78 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

WH AT ’S NE WS

JE WELRY BOX

HAUTE
HERITAGE
Louis Vuitton’s new
Bravery collection marks
the 200th birthday
of the house’s founder.

Louis Vuitton’s new

high jewelry Bravery
collection pays
tribute to the brand’s
eponymous founder on
his 200th birthday
with 90 unique pieces
designed by Francesca
Amfitheatrof, artis-
tic director of jewelry
and watches. The
Le Mythe necklace,
shown here with
the Le Mythe brace-
let, is composed of
thousands of specially
cut stones, including
sugarloaf-cut sap-
phires and diamonds
arranged in the
brand’s signature
Damier pattern. It’s
a nod to the checker-
board design that
first appeared
on Louis Vuitton’s
canvas luggage in 1888.
For details see Sources,
page 178.
—Jill Newman

PHOTOGRAPHY BY
BENJAMIN SCHMUCK
FASHION EDITOR
ALEXANDER FISHER
SET DESIGN
LAURE-ANNE KAYSER

80 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

 HOME. NO PLACE LIKE IT.

A beacon of timeless glamour, The Towers of the Waldorf Astoria New York has
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are not owned, developed, or sold by Hilton and Hilton does not make any representations, warranties or guaranties whatsoever with respect to the residences. The developer uses the Waldorf Astoria brand name and certain Waldorf Astoria trademarks (the “Trademarks”) under a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license from
Hilton. The license may be terminated or may expire without renewal, in which case the residences described herein will not be identified as a Waldorf Astoria branded project or have any rights to use the Trademarks.
 FA LL 2021

market report.

THE BOLD
& THE
BEAUTIFUL
Stand out from
the crowd in
mesmerizing
monochromes,
posh pairings
and tantalizing
textures.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
MARKN
STYLING BY
AI KAMOSHITA

CLIMB HIGH
Cream-colored pieces
are offset by bright
florals. From left:
Alexander McQueen
dress and boots and
Jennifer Behr veil;
Balenciaga dress and
boots; Oscar de la
Renta shirt and pants
and Jennifer Behr veil.

WSJ. M AGA ZINE 83


Better Normal For All
Samsung NEO QLED is
Opening Windows to the World
- For Everyone
TVs have evolved dramatically
over the past 70 years, from small-
screened black-and-white sets
to brilliant 8K flatscreens with
pristine surround sound. But not
everyone has been able to enjoy
these innovations. Now, Samsung
is using advanced artificial
intelligence to remove barriers for
those with different needs
T
he television set has for
decades provided a window
to the world for millions,
and today offers instant access to a
limitless range of entertainment and
information that plays a key role in
defining our culture. But while the
sights and sounds delivered over TVs
have improved dramatically, those
with different vision and hearing
needs have largely been left behind.
This is about to change.
TV manufacturers such as Samsung
are using artificial intelligence
(AI) to make visual and sound
improvements and introduce
accessibility features previously
not possible on a home screen.
AI-powered “brains” in the latest
smart TVs enable the devices to
understand what is happening
on and around the screen and to
process and share that information
in different ways, allowing those
with vision or hearing difficulties
to enjoy the content others take for
granted.
Special Advertising Feature
Such advances will help open that
window to the world for billions who
are unable to fully access TV content
today. According to the World
Health Organization, an estimated
2.2 billion people worldwide have
impaired vision, while more than
466 million have substantial hearing
loss.
“Entertainment is an important part
of culture,” says Chris Danielsen,
director of public relations at the
National Federation of the Blind.
“Around the water cooler, people
discuss TV shows, movies, or
sports. It’s really a conversation.” He
explains that accessibility features
“help us integrate because we’re
talking about the same experiences
as everybody else.”
Artificial intelligence is already used
to provide intuitive accessibility
functions such as voice commands,
adding a new level of convenience
while providing a variety of
advanced experiences for users with
different needs and preferences.
There are also many other
innovative applications that enable
those with varied vision and hearing
abilities to participate in shared TV
experiences.
For instance, Samsung’s Smart
TVs come with powerful software
features that are designed for those
who are deaf or hard of hearing. Sign
The Wall Street Journal news organization was not involved in the creation of this content. This article was commissioned by Samsung.
Language Zoom, for example, allows
viewers to enlarge the sign language
area up to 200% of its original
size. These TVs also automatically
analyze and adjust certain
frequencies within a scene to ensure
that the voice tracks remain audible
even amid increasing background
noise, removing the need to
manually turn up the volume.
AI and deep-learning neural
networks have also added realistic
and colorful details to the visuals,
vastly improving the viewing
experience for everyone. Samsung’s
researchers have developed an AI-
powered video engine that analyzes
upcoming scenes and enhances
content using 16 different neural
networks. Each network specializes
in a specific content type with
distinct characteristics—taking into
account a variety of factors including
resolution, edges, details and noise
level—to make enhancements in
real time. This means an immediate
boost in clarity and realism for video
streaming and playback, even on a
slow internet connection.
Cutting-edge innovations are found
in the audio as well. Samsung’s
Object Tracking Sound+ technology,
for example, allows the TV to follow
the on-screen movement so the
direction of the sound matches the
action. This scene analysis means
that when a car moves from left to
right on-screen, so will the sound.
And when a heavy object drops from
the top to the bottom of the screen,
the audio will do the same.
Samsung’s engineers say further
breakthroughs are on the way. The
company is currently perfecting AI
that will allow TVs to recognize sign-
language commands in the same
manner that voice commands work
today, as well as a sign-language
avatar that can guide people through
TV functions. Advances such as
these are of vital importance to
people who cannot easily interact
with traditional remote or voice
commands—there is no point in
having a top-of-the-range TV if the
controls don’t work for you.
“Samsung has made substantial
investments in AI, and as a result
has made great strides in removing
the barriers for those with different
needs,” says Yong Hoon Choi,
executive vice president of visual
display business at Samsung
Electronics. “We are continuing
our research and development to
provide every consumer with equal
access and experiences.”
At the core of the broader trend is
the concept of universal design,
which has been driving companies
to build in accessibility from the
very beginning. “Universal design
aims to create products and services
that can be used by everyone,” says
Dr. Joseph Murray, president of the
World Federation of the Deaf.
All users can benefit from this
concept. “Universal design
recognizes the common needs
shared by people with varying
degrees of abilities,” Dr. Murray says.
“For example, the use of captions
not only provides information to
the deaf and hard-of-hearing, but
also to those who are not proficient
in a particular language, those
with learning and intellectual
disabilities, and even those in a
noisy environment.”
Mr. Danielsen agrees: “When you
design for accessibility, it improves
the product overall, and makes it a
better one for everybody.”
M A RK E T REP OR T

CHANGING TIDE Annie Costello Brown

Clever layers create necklace, Rebecca
statement styles. Jeffs hat and Wolford
Above: Louis Vuitton tights; Brunello
jacket, sweater, Cucinelli shirt, Akris
skirt, sunglasses and skirt, Chanel boots,
boots. Right, from Jennifer Behr headband
left: Dolce & Gabbana and Ming Yu Wang
suit and Valentino earrings; Brunello
shoes; Tod’s shirt and Cucinelli suit, Valentino
pants and Jennifer turtleneck and shirt,
Behr headband; Dior Jennifer Behr headband
top, skirt and boots, and Saint Laurent by
The Row mockneck, Anthony Vaccarello shoes.

86 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

 SEPTEMBER 16 – 28, 2021

LE RENDEZ-VOUS
LIGNE ROSET
Once a year. 20% off the entire collection*
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M A RK E T REP OR T M A RK E T REP OR T

LOOKING and boots; Saint

FORWARD Laurent by Anthony
Unexpected acces- Vaccarello top and
sories add a new twist necklace; Dior dress
to cocktail attire. and boots and Rebecca
Clockwise from above: Jeffs belt; Balenciaga
Burberry jacket, dress dress and boots.

BLACK PINK top, bra, skirt and

Evening attire is re- pants; Dries Van Noten
energized with jolts of jacket, skirt and shoes;
fuchsia, red and Kwaidan Editions
sweet rose. From left: top and pants; Saint
Kwaidan Editions top; Laurent by Anthony
Burberry coat, dress Vaccarellotop, shorts,
and boots; Supriya Lele necklace and boots.

88 WSJ. M AGA ZINE WSJ. M AGA ZINE 89

M A RK E T REP OR T

RIDE THE WAVE

Big frills lend a delicate
touch to any look.
Giorgio Armani top and
vest, Versace shorts,
tights and shoes.

92
TRUE COLORS Collection suit and
Head-to-toe color can shirt; Fendi jacket,
transform ensembles shirt and pants and
from simple to daring. Valentino boots;
From left: Bottega Salvatore Ferragamo
Veneta feathered top suit and shoes; Chanel
and pants; Michael Kors suit and sandals.

WSJ. M AGA ZINE

ALL DESIG NS © PAU L MORELLI 20 21 PH OTO: WAYNE MAS ER
M A RK E T REP OR T
MIDAS TOUCH
A night out isn’t complete with-
out some shimmer and shine.
From left: Valentino cape,
sweater, shirt and skirt and
Molly Goddard boots; Celine
by Hedi Slimane cape, sweater,
shirt and pants and Bottega
Veneta boots; Hermès top, skirt
and boots, Miscreants gloves
and Annie Costello Brown
bracelet; Schiaparelli dress,
96
earrings and rings and Giuseppe
Zanotti shoes; Prada dress,
shawl, gloves and boots. Models,
Taira at Storm Management,
Akuol Deng at Milk Management,
Seohyun Kim at Select Model
Management, and Kitan
Sogo and Fabio Rosario at IMG
Models; hair, Soichi Inagaki;
makeup, Crystabel Riley; set
design, Afra Zamara. For details
see Sources, page 178.
WSJ. M AGA ZINE
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the exchange.
CHIEF MINDFULNESS
OFFICER
Donahoe, who incorporates
meditative reflection into his
morning routine, pictured at
Nike HQ in Beaverton, Oregon.
WSJ. M AGA ZINE
MY MONDAY MORNING
JOHN
DONAHOE
The Nike CEO wakes up at
5:45 a.m. on weekdays and drinks
33 ounces of water first thing
before stretching, meditating,
training and practicing gratitude.
BY LANE FLORSHEIM
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KYLE JOHNSON
E
ARLY IN HIS career, Nike President and CEO
John Donahoe heard a speaker at a Bain &
Company training program make an obser-
vation that immediately clicked with him:
Elite athletes tend to view getting help as a sign
of strength. “He was talking about [how] Michael
Jordan didn’t only have Phil Jackson as his bench
coach, but he had a personal chef; he had a psycho-
logical coach,” says Donahoe, 61. “And he said, ‘You
people in business, you act like getting help is a sign
of weakness. You act like you have all the answers. If
you want to perform at a world-class level, you’ve got
to feel comfortable consuming help.’” In the decades
since, Donahoe has worked with multiple leadership
coaches; seen his therapist, Jill Mellick, for 30 years;
and established his own board of personal directors—
trusted friends he turns to for advice.
Donahoe, who was born in Evanston, Illinois, is
both a father of four with his wife, Eileen, and a four-
time CEO, having led Bain & Company, eBay and the
digital workflow company ServiceNow. In January
2020, after having been on Nike’s board of direc-
tors since 2014, he moved to Oregon when he became
the company’s fourth chief executive, following co-
founder Phil Knight, William Perez and Mark Parker.
Since taking Nike’s top job, Donahoe has had his
work cut out for him. Before he became CEO, there
had been negative reports in the media on Nike’s
treatment of female employees and female athlete
partners. Donahoe has set a target of filling 45 per-
cent of roles at the vice president level and higher
with women by 2025. He also aims to have 30 per-
cent representation of racial and ethnic minorities
at the director level and above in Nike’s U.S. work-
force. He had planned to go on a 100-day global
“listening tour” that, due to the pandemic, he had to
complete virtually.
“In many ways, Nike’s viewed as a real leader in
advocating for diversity externally,” he says. “We
want to make sure we’re also a leader internally.” >
99
T HE E XCH A NGE
What time do you usually wake
up on Mondays?
I’m a creature of habit. I wake up at
5:45 every weekday morning. The
fi rst thing I do is drink 33 ounces of
water and two cups of coffee, and then
I stretch using the Hyperice Hypervolt
[a massage recovery device]. I med-
itate for 10 minutes and then I have a
Nike personal trainer—his name’s
JC Cook. I work out from 7 to 8, four
mornings a week with him.
What day do you take off ?
That varies. I have learned a lot from a
guy we have at Nike, Ryan Flaherty,
who is an elite trainer and has looked
at the data about what elite athletes
do. And he talks about the five facets of
sport, which are movement, sleep,
nutrition, mindset and recovery,
recovery being really important. So we
just kind of gauge how my body’s
feeling any given week, or sometimes
I have early meetings—that tends to
dictate it too.
How many hours of sleep do you
get per night?
I’ve accepted that I need sleep. Earlier
in my career, I told myself I don’t really
need that much sleep. And the reality
is sleep’s really important. And so I
target getting seven-plus hours a night.
Sometimes that’s unrealistic, so I
target getting 70 hours every 10 days.
What do you eat for breakfast to
start the week off right?
I have a protein shake, and then
once I get to the office I’ll have a Cho-
bani yogurt and a banana.
5
HYPERICE
HYPERVOLT
Monday “Every morning,
Must-Haves I stretch using
the Hyperice for 20
minutes.”
100
Is there a time of day or the week
that you’re most creative?
The morning would be my best time.
There are some mornings where I’ll
stay home for the first couple of hours
with no meetings, either to reflect
or to collect my thoughts or if I have
to write something. On a Monday
morning, you have to have a plan for
the week, so usually on Sunday, I’ll
sit down and look at my week and try to
just for a few moments reflect on what
are the most important things I want to
get done for the week. I’ve learned
over my career to be more conscious of
where are the moments I’m going to
prepare for things, and schedule those
in, legitimize those things—including
the times I want to be creative.
When you’re reflecting, what does
that look like for you?
I took a year off, a sabbatical so to
speak, in 2015, and I did a 10-day silent
Buddhist retreat up at Spirit Rock
[a meditation center in Woodacre,
California] with [author and Buddhist
practitioner] Jack Kornfield. Jack’s
been a wonderful spiritual counselor
and adviser. What I’ve been doing a lot
lately is gratitude practice. What we
know from brain sciences and Bud-
dhism teachings is you can, in fact, train
your brain. Your brain becomes more
negative over time because negative
experiences stick in our brains. So you
can counteract that by being more
conscious of things you’re appreciative
of, of the good things in your life. And
so I just think, What am I grateful for in
the broad sense of my life? What am
I grateful for in the previous day? What
am I looking forward to that I’m going
to enjoy in the coming day? It’s a
INSIGHT TIMER
“I have an app on my
phone...even commuting
into work, I’ll just do
gratitude practice, which
in this moment in
time is a really helpful
and useful thing.”
good exercise. For so many years, I
was very diligent about physical work-
ing out. But what I’ve learned in my
sort of later years, the last five to
10, is the importance of what you might
call a workout of the mind. It’s that
notion of mindfulness, and it needs
the same kind of discipline and focus
that the physical side needs.
What changes have you made as
Nike CEO so far?
Digital is infusing every element of
our consumers’ lives. So whether
it’s a Nike Training Club, Nike Run
Club, our activity apps or the SNKRS
app or the Nike mobile app, consum-
ers have led us to that and we’ve tried
to make sure we’re right there with
them in all aspects of their lives.
Do you have a guiding philosophy?
I’m an advocate of servant leadership.
When I understand that everything
I’m doing is in service to a purpose, in
service to others, I have a wellspring
of motivation and inspiration even
through periods of adversity. Just stay-
ing connected with this notion of,
we’re on earth to serve others. My lead-
ership role models have always been
head coaches—you think about Phil
Jackson, Coach K [Mike Krzyzewski],
John Thompson, Tara [VanDerveer],
who just won the NCAA [women’s bas-
ketball] championship—they’re leaders
that lead from almost behind, serving
their players, serving their programs,
serving a broader cause. The power
of service has been a recurring lesson
throughout my life, my career.
This interview has been edited and
condensed for clarity.
NIKE SPACE VITAMINS
HIPPIE SHOES
“The Space Hippie
“A multivitamin, vitamin
B, vitamin D or curcumin.…
takes trash (literally!)
and transforms it into
I almost don’t even know
what’s in the handful
a great shoe with of things I take; I’m willing
a unique aesthetic.” to try anything.”
M Y MONDAY MORNING T HE E XCH A NGE
“EVERYTHING Scandinavian minimalism. The
couple’s latest project, their own
I’M DOING IS apartment, is the most refined
IN SERVICE TO expression of their style to date.
A PURPOSE, With the windows open and
IN SERVICE neighborhood chatter wafting in,
Bauer Grung and Lopez Quincoces
TO OTHERS.” describe an ordinary evening at
–JOHN DONAHOE home. “I’ll be cooking—lately I’ve
been making paella—and someone
will be sitting on the counter drink-
ing wine,” says Lopez Quincoces,
referring to the canaletto wal-
nut and black granite island they
designed. He hadn’t cooked in
almost 15 years because in other
apartments the kitchens were too
dark or separate from the din-
ing areas. This place, on a quiet
street in the city’s Chinatown,
is different. The ceiling’s plaster
moldings are the only remnants of
the walls the couple tore down to
create a single, roomy living area.
“Now we have this space, it comes
pretty naturally,” says Lopez
Quincoces. “You want to cook
FAMILY STYLE
and share; invite friends and
The kitchen in David
Lopez Quincoces and have dinners.”
Fanny Bauer Grung’s Depending on the company,
Milan apartment is
conversations can be peppered
anchored by a walnut
and granite island with Spanish, English, Italian
the couple designed. or French. Connecting the dots
On the shelf are
among every place Bauer Grung
photographs by Karl
Blossfeldt. and Lopez Quincoces have lived,
the lines would roughly inter-
sect in their adopted city. Born in
Paris to Norwegian parents, Bauer
T
Grung was raised in Rome and edu-
STUDY IN DE SIGN HE ISSUE WITH running a design gal- cated in London. She arrived in Milan in 2012 to take
HOOP DREAMS
MADE
Nike’s president and CEO has lery, according to architect Fanny Bauer a job at the design firm Lissoni & Partners, where
lately been practicing gratitude, Grung, is eventually having to part with she met Lopez Quincoces. Originally from Madrid,
“what you might call a work- the furniture. “This chair has been the he studied interior architecture at the Politecnico di
IN MILAN
out of the mind,” Donahoe says.
source of problems,” she says, pointing to a simple Milano, then joined Lissoni, where over 13 years he
wooden seat with angular armrests and a woven climbed from interior architect to partner.
FROM LEFT: COURTESY OF HYPERICE; COURTESY OF INSIGHT TIMER; COURTESY
For more of our conversation
OF NIKE; OLEKSII BILYK/SHUTTERSTOCK; ANDREY KUZMIN/SHUTTERSTOCK
with Donahoe, go to wsj.com/ back. A flea-market find, it now sits next to the white In 2008, while at Lissoni, Lopez Quincoces
donahoe.
marble fireplace in the Milan apartment that Bauer opened Quincoces-Dragó (the name combines his
Architects Fanny Bauer Grung Grung, 32, shares with fellow architect David Lopez grandparents’ surnames). At first, it was just a
and David Lopez Quincoces’s Quincoces, 41, her partner in life and work. The chair nights-and-weekend project, but when Bauer Grung
used to be on display in the couple’s design space, Six signed on, she soon took it full time, and Lopez
1920s apartment is equal parts Gallery, where it caught the eye of a client. It wasn’t Quincoces joined her in 2017. By now, the couple
design lab and family home. for sale, though, and the client left the gallery nearly have designed countless projects together—homes
in tears. “It’s a piece that is so dear to me,” Bauer from London to Rome, a private club in Tuscany and
Grung says, “so it had to come home.” Dr. Smood cafes in New York and Miami. Their own
BY LAURA MAY TODD
PHOTOGRAPHY BY FEDERICO CIAMEI
Bauer Grung and Lopez Quincoces, who together home was the easiest. “We can take a week to discuss
run the design firm Quincoces-Dragó & Partners, whether an armrest should be white or ochre, but on
opened Six Gallery during Milan Design Week in the big picture things we have the same instinct,”
2018. The space, in a former monastery in the city’s says Bauer Grung.
H2O Navigli district, soon got the attention of trend She says the gallery plays an important role in
“A Monday morning, it’s
not that different than watchers and high-end collectors alike. While the that process: “It’s like a laboratory for us.” A typi-
many others: Start with
33 ounces of water.”
private homes that the couple’s firm designs can be cal mise-en-scène will include vintage Scandinavian
glimpsed only on the pages of shelter magazines, the and Italian furniture, anonymous pieces picked up
gallery allows an up-close look at their approach, abroad, contemporary glass from up-and-coming
a mix of sophisticated Italian glamour and loose artists and collections the couple has created >
WSJ. M AGA ZINE WSJ. M AGA ZINE 101
 The Corcoran Group is a licensed real estate broker located at 590 Madison Ave, NY, NY 10022

The Corcoran Group is a licensed real estate broker located at 590 Madison Ave, NY, NY 10022
be body
be mind

be spirit
be home.

F I N D YO U R H O M E AT CO R CO R A N .CO M
T HE E XCH A NGE S T UDY IN DE SIGN

“WE CAN TAKE A WEEK TO DISCUSS WHETHER AN ARM-

REST SHOULD BE WHITE OR OCHRE, BUT ON THE
BIG PICTURE THINGS WE HAVE THE SAME INSTINCT.”
–FANNY BAUER GRUNG

together. (Lopez Quincoces also designs for brands says, “small things Uma will remember when she
like Living Divani, Salvatori and Acerbis.) grows up. I have similar memories of my childhood.
“Fanny’s design sense represents the essence of I wanted her to have the same.” One thing he didn’t
Scandinavian aesthetic, with pure and clean lines anticipate, though, was how much time they would
and a sense of harmony and order,” says Marie-Rose spend inside. “The last piece of wood was put in
Kahane, the designer behind Yali Glass and a co- four days before the first lockdown,” he says, of the
founder of Venice’s Le Stanze del Vetro exhibition renovation. “I never expected our wardrobe would
space, who shows her work at Six and often accompa- become Uma’s playground,” recalls Bauer Grung.
nies Bauer Grung on research trips to the glassmaking Now they are eager to return to the gallery to play
factories of Murano, Italy. “When [her design sense] out ideas that have been percolating in their time
meets up with Milan, and the Italian tradition of away. For next year’s Salone del Mobile, they will
design, something extraordinary comes out.” launch their latest furniture and objects. “We’re
In the couple’s apartment, the glamour of 1930s excited to show some collections that we haven’t
Milan, particularly the Villa Necchi Campiglio and shown before,” Bauer Grung says. “When we design
its architect, Piero Portaluppi, was a major influ- for ourselves, it’s always the best result.” •
ence. “We wanted to have old-school moments—in
between the Orient Express train or, like, a big old
elevator,” Lopez Quincoces says. The home’s previ-
ous owner was an elderly woman who was selling off
her vast portfolio of apartments and donating the
proceeds to the Catholic Church. She was happy to
get rid of what she considered a fixer-upper: a run-
down, century-old walk-up. What the couple saw,
instead, was a jewel in the rough: an untouched
1920s apartment in all its original splendor.
Many of the home’s furnishings—a pair of Gio
Ponti armchairs, lamps Marcel Breuer designed for
the 1925 Paris expo, a centuries-old Mauritanian rug,
a pair of Ingo Maurer Uchiwa appliqué lamps—found
their way there through the gallery or were repur-
posed from their previous apartment. The curved
metal Piero Lissoni dining table, for example, was
stripped of its matte-green paint, revealing a reflec-
tive raw steel. “We took it to a craftsman to remove
the paint, but when it was returned it was still too
dark,” Bauer Grung recalls of the process. “David is
a perfectionist, so he stripped the rest of it by hand.”
They reshuffled the apartment’s original cloister-
like layout, while keeping its turn-of-the-century
details, like herringbone parquet floors and art deco–
HOME TEAM
inspired doorframes. “We needed the space for our
Clockwise from top: Lopez
growing family,” says Lopez Quincoces, referring to Quincoces and Bauer
the arrival of their daughter, Uma, in 2019. Grung in their kitchen; an
Where the hallway once ran, three vestibules— antique Japanese screen
hangs over their
two closets and a central office space—now act as Piero Lissoni for Living
buffers between public and private zones. “There Divani bed, flanked by
is no passage in the house that isn’t used for some Marcel Breuer lamps; the
living area features
purpose,” Bauer Grung says. Each vestibule is hewn Tom Lovelace works over
from solid walnut and lacquered a glossy burnt the fireplace, a Paolo Piva
umber. All along the office’s concave ceiling, fine coffee table, a Gio Ponti
side table, an Ingo Maurer
strips of inlaid brass sketch geometric patterns in wall lamp, a sculpture by
the grain—a complicated carpentry feat. The pair David Murphy on
credit their studio’s decadelong relationships with a custom-made pedestal
and a pair of Gio Ponti
artisans in the woodworking hub of Brianza for the armchairs; a Pietro
expertise. “There is no machine that does that,” says Russo sconce is mounted
Lopez Quincoces, describing how they rendered the next to a vintage mirror
reflecting an artwork by
softly rounded corners. “It was all made by hand.” Lopez Quincoces’s mother,
“I wanted a house full of detail,” Lopez Quincoces Susanna Dragó.

10 4 WSJ. M AGA ZINE

 PURCHASE ORIGINAL APPAREL AT WSJSHOP.COM
ARNO FRUGIER
 Mitchell Johnson
Digital catalog by email request / mitchell.catalog@gmail.com
Follow on Instagram / @mitchell_johnson_artist

At top: Four Chairs (Umbrella), 2021, 58 x 75 inches, oil/canvas, $65,000. © 2021 Mitchell Johnson.
Above: From Russian Hill, 2021, 56 x 86 inches, oil/linen, $100,000. © 2021 Mitchell Johnson.

In September, the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill in Massachusetts will present the exhibit Mitchell Johnson: Sixteen Years in Truro. Johnson’s paintings are
known for their unique approach to color and shape and have been exhibited in New York (Tatistcheff), San Francisco (Campbell-Thiebaud), and Los Angeles (Terrence
Rogers Fine Art), as well as in group shows at Ogunquit Museum of Art, Jundt Art Museum at Gonzaga, Tucson Museum of Art, Bakersfield Museum of Art, and New
Mexico Museum of Art. The most recent museum acquisitions were by Museo Morandi in Bologna, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome, Tampa Museum of
Art, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Johnson moved to the Bay Area in 1990 after finishing his MFA at Parsons in New York where he studied with many former
students of Hans Hofmann: Jane Freilicher, Paul Resika, Larry Rivers, Nell Blaine, Wolf Kahn, and Leland Bell. Numerous art writers and critics have written about
Johnson’s work including Jennifer Samet, Peter Selz, John Seed, W.S. Di Piero, Alexander Nemerov, Peter Campion, Martina Corgnati, Bonnie Gangelhoff, Chris Busa,
Gerrit Henry, Susan Emerling, and Marilena Pasquali. A complete bibliography is available at www.mitchelljohnson.com. Johnson is married to the author Donia Bijan.
 STYLE
MATTERS
Marta Ortega Pérez, who started at Zara
14 years ago, has been instrumental in
helping to shape the brand’s egalitarian
image. Photographed by Steven Meisel
and styled by Karl Templer. Zara jacket.
For details see Sources, page 178.
 The
Secret to
Zara’s
Success
Marta Ortega Pérez, daughter of
Zara co-founder Amancio
Ortega, opens up for the first
time about the vision behind the
brand’s global future.

BY ELISA LIPSKY-KARASZ
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVEN MEISEL
STYLING BY KARL TEMPLER

H
OW DO THEY DO IT?” is the first thing many fashion insiders ask
about Zara, the multibillion-dollar international retail brand
that’s made shopping for on-trend styles as easy—and nearly as
affordable—as going to the store for groceries. Anyone looking for
clues to the company’s success might start by considering where
Marta Ortega Pérez works every day: at a shared industrial-style
table, with black standard-issue swivel-and-roll chairs. 
Just a few yards away in this white, open-plan office on the outskirts of La
SHINE ON
Coruña, a port town in Galicia, Spain’s northwesternmost region, is the same “[Marta is] very humble. But at the
kind of chair and desk, used by her father, Amancio Ortega, a reclusive billion- same time, of course, she has strong
aire whose net worth ranks him among the world’s wealthiest individuals. Ortega opinions about many things,” says
Inditex chairman Pablo Isla. Massimo
is the co-founder and controlling shareholder of Inditex, the conglomerate that Dutti jacket and Ortega Pérez’s own
owns seven clothing companies, including Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Zara. In jewelry (worn throughout).

109
 UNIFIED THEORY grandmother, an enterprising woman who supported
“I think it’s important to build her eight children by working as a seamstress and
bridges between high fashion
and high street, between the a cleaner.  
past and the present, between “Not only a few people should be able to have access
technology and fashion, between to high quality. We want all our customers to be able to
art and functionality,” says
Ortega Pérez. Zara turtleneck. [have that],” says Ortega Pérez, who in 2018 oversaw
the introduction of Zara’s limited-edition, high-style
SRPLS line: biannual collections of utilitarian and
streetwear-inspired pieces for men, women and chil-
dren in cotton, wool, linen and silk, priced up to $250,
with most items under $100. Ortega Pérez attended
a presentation in Paris, acting as an ambassador for
both Zara and her hometown, doling out invites to La
Coruña and chatting about its local charms. 
Fabien Baron, an independent creative director
who has counted Dior, Calvin Klein, Burberry and
Louis Vuitton as clients, admits that when Ortega
Pérez attended a Zara team meeting in 2017 at his
offices in New York, “I didn’t even know who she was.
I just thought she was someone who worked at Zara,”
he says, laughing. He came to appreciate her unas-
suming approach as he helped develop Zara’s new
cosmetics line and worked on brand campaigns with
top fashion photographers such as Steven Meisel.
“[Marta] is like the undercurrent voice of the brand,”
says Baron. “She brings a layer of sophistication to
Zara that maybe Zara didn’t have before.... Her father
built a business, and [Marta] is building a community
that will help the company go to another level.” 
In recent years, Ortega Pérez had arranged for
Piccioli and Elbaz to visit La Coruña, where they spoke
to the design staff. Within two months of Elbaz’s
death in April 2021, Ortega Pérez had produced a
linen-bound memorial book that included an essay
she wrote, along with tributes by fashion journalists
and photographs of Elbaz at work. Folded around the
book is a poster of one of Elbaz’s drawings, on which
he wrote: “The biggest revolution of Zara is to bring,
introduce, create, the dreams to the world. We love
you. Alber.” 

recent decades, Zara has blazed into 96 countries,
where some of its 1,854 stores sit on premium bou-
levards near luxe brands such as Dior, Louis Vuitton,
Cartier and Chanel. But while a cropped, tailored
tweed jacket from Chanel might be $8,550, one with
similar vim from Zara sells for around $120.  years ago, when she took a job as a sales associate in
In keeping with Zara’s egalitarian vision of how
the world can dress up, Ortega—or “The Boss,” as he’s
called at home and at work—has never bothered with
an office. Rather than isolating himself in a hushed
corporate tower on the campus he built as Inditex’s
headquarters, Ortega prefers to sit on the floor of
Zara’s women’s department. At 85, and technically
retired from an executive role, he still comes to work
nearly every day but has always kept a low profile:
He’s never given an interview and avoids events and
public photographs. (Ortega is now chairman of
Pontegadea, a holding company that has diversified
his assets in recent years, and of a self-named chari-
table foundation.)  ent things,” says Inditex chairman Pablo Isla, who
Ortega Pérez, 37, started working at Zara 14
London’s King’s Road store after graduating from uni-
versity. “The first week, I thought I was not going to
survive,” she says. “But then you get kind of addicted
to the store. Some people never want to leave. It’s the
heart of the company.” She now visits Zara stores
almost weekly, as part of an expansive, somewhat
open-ended role (she does not have an official title)
in which she mostly helps to oversee womenswear
designs and merchandising as well as managing
the brand’s image. “I will always be wherever the
company needs me most,” she says.  vendors and suppliers across locations in Morocco,
“[Marta is] very humble. But at the same time, of
course, she has strong opinions about many differ-
stepped into that position in 2011 when Ortega retired.
Isla says that he anticipates her role to become more
significant as the company increasingly focuses on
sustainability over the next decade. Ortega Pérez,
meanwhile, says she has no plans to take on a formal
leadership role. “You never know your future, and I’m
open to it. But to be honest, I would like to stay close to
the product. I think that’s what my father always did.”  menswear and children’s clothing, home goods, per-
Zara’s famously well-honed system for apparel
manufacturing includes nine factories and nine dis-
tribution centers in Spain, plus another distribution
center in the Netherlands, as well as around 2,000
Turkey, India and China. Its supply chain is set in
motion by the company’s reaction to customers’
desires—part of a long-held strategy to keep inven-
tory low and design timelines short. International
high-street competitors such as H&M, Topshop and
Aritzia struggle to match its breadth of product
and depth of reach. Zara sells more than 450 mil-
lion items per year of womenswear alone, and new
items arrive twice a week at Zara stores and online,
including a dizzying carousel of bags, shoes, lingerie,
fume and Zara’s recently launched bridal wear and
cosmetics lines. A luxury-world counterpart, such as
Giorgio Armani, which offers a similarly wide array
of categories under the Armani Group umbrella, had
a consolidated net revenue of $1.9 billion in 2020.
Zara’s consolidated net revenue for the same year was
$16.7 billion.
“I think it’s important to build bridges between
high fashion and high street, between the past
and the present, between technology and fashion,
between art and functionality,” says Ortega Pérez.
As someone who embodies the extremes of the
fashion industry, she is helping Zara batter down
the traditionally unquestioned divide between
luxury fashion and mass apparel. A fashion client
herself, she is a regular at Valentino Couture shows,
a fangirl who delights in the artistry, craft and wit of
designer friends like Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli,
Narciso Rodriguez and the late Alber Elbaz. She also
grew up under the watchful eyes of her maternal
A
SLENDER BLONDE with a modish blunt
bob, her mother’s bright smile and
her father’s owlish eyes and thick
brows, Ortega Pérez wasn’t fully
aware that her parents ran a fashion
empire when she was growing up in
La Coruña—she knew just that her parents worked in
fashion and traveled a great deal. Tamara Sanchez, a
former ballet classmate who now heads Zara’s knit-
wear department, recently reminded her that she’d
once asked why Ortega Pérez wore Zara every day.
Unaware that was the case, Ortega Pérez shrugged
and said, “Oh, really? Is that the brand? My mom buys
me everything.” 
These days, Ortega Pérez dresses with pragmatic
chic, typically opting for draped pieces from Zara,
flat Celine sandals, soft leather Hermès bags and
exquisitely casual diamonds from Marie-Hélène de
Taillac. Home is a duplex in La Coruña that she shares
with her husband, Carlos Torretta, a former model-
ing agency executive from Madrid; their 1-year-old
daughter, Matilda; and her 8-year-old son, Amancio
(from Ortega Pérez’s first marriage to professional
equestrian Sergio Álvarez Moya). To her chagrin, she
is something of a celebrity in Spain, with magazines

110 111
like ¡Hola! running paparazzi photos of the family,
though, she notes with relief, in La Coruña she walks
the streets in peace.  in mid-June, reacting to trends and demand three
Besides SRPLS, Ortega Pérez works closely with
women’s designer Beatriz Padin on Zara’s Studio col-
lection, which showcases high-end design within the
larger Zara ready-to-wear line. (There are two other
lines: TRF, aimed at younger, trend-driven shoppers,
and Basic, which features classic staples.) Several
times in conversation, she emphasizes Zara’s non-
hierarchical structure, which in practice creates the
peculiar dynamic of Ortega Pérez showing deference
to staff members who are ostensibly her employees.
“This is not about one person doing a good job. We’re
a team,” she says. “I think [my father] was never the
best at anything in particular, but he was the best at
finding the best person to do each thing.”
Amancio Ortega began working for a local shirt-
maker at 13 to supplement income from his father’s
railroad job and his mother’s work cleaning houses.
La Coruña, where locals often speak the Galician lan-
guage, Gallego, juts into the Atlantic Ocean; it has long
had a thriving fishing industry as well as something
of a textile trade. By 1963, Ortega, then 27, launched
his own textile business, and soon enough his own
clothing business with his then-wife, the late Rosalia
Mera, selling cozy, quilted robes to ward off the chilly
Atlantic fog. The local housewives snapped them up,
along with the fashionable lingerie Mera designed. In
1975, they opened Zara, which they originally named
Zorba. Realizing that a nearby bar already had the
same name, and with the letters for the sign already in
production, Ortega and Mera played around until they
came up with Zara. (Their other daughter, Sandra, and
son, Marcos, are not actively involved in Inditex.)  streetwear, Instagram trends and often each other—
Today, Inditex employs 5,500 people in La Coruña,
many of them locals, others international arrivals
who may start off living in one of several apartment
buildings the company owns downtown. Nearly all
of Zara’s inventory flows through the distribution
centers in and around La Coruña, per Ortega’s belief
in unifying the stock management system. “I think
[remaining in La Coruña] has been part of the success
of the company, as perhaps it gives us a different per-
spective, instead of being in the thick of it elsewhere,”
says Ortega Pérez.
Every morning after dropping off her son at
school, Ortega Pérez gathers with the company’s CFO,
Miguel Díaz, and other top staff around an industrial
table out on the open floor to review global rankings
for such bestselling pieces as a minimalist black
spaghetti-strap summer dress, or a rococo printed
pajama-style blouse with matching shorts. Orders
heading to stores are constantly adjusted, an anomaly
in an industry that typically plans merchandise drops
well in advance. (Zara’s operations are supported
by an in-house technology product team that uses
Netflix as a measuring stick for both consumer-facing
and back-of-house innovations, including a mock ful-
fillment center floor set up to study the movements of
a box-moving robot.)
Roughly 140 patternmakers and a hundred seam-
stresses work at the La Coruña headquarters to help
turn the various design teams’ ideas into reality.
Each piece ultimately gets a fitting on a model, an
unusual practice at the mass-fashion level. Zara’s
112
efficiency and flexibility in executing production
means that it can plan its fall/winter collections
months faster than companies that require the tradi-
tional six months’ lead time (some items are created
in as little as six weeks, others are planned months
out). On a recent visit, Ortega Pérez visited the fash-
ion team to review “fantasy” winter coats in rich,
ornate fabrics as well as lamé and sequined dresses
that anticipate a return to nightlife when they begin
to hit stores later this month.
Ortega Pérez is one of the company leaders who
encourage Zara’s design teams to take leaps of faith
on what are termed “emotional” novelty pieces. These
might include an impractical, intricately beaded teal
sheer robe-dress with elaborate (and costlier) embel-
lishments, which turned out to be a huge June seller.
Zara’s immense scale and long-held relationships with
suppliers allow it to purchase more-expensive fab-
rics for less. Brands at a similar price point—Banana
Republic or Club Monaco—tend to be more risk-averse,
while mass retailers like Target and Walmart, whose
size means they must plan far in advance, are unlikely
to feature such fashion-forward styles.  Magazine to take her portrait for this article), as
This is why walking into a Zara feels more like
entering a department store with diverse offerings
than a brand with a single aesthetic—a strategy that
reduces the risk that you’ll walk out because, say,
you encounter a sea of neutrals that aren’t your look.
Instead, each sleek Zara rack hosts a trove of fresh,
vivid styles—a kaleidoscope of constantly chang-
ing fashions. Inevitably, accusations of copying
abound. Given the industry’s penchant for wringing
inspiration from vintage clothing, cultural motifs,
and in the absence of strong intellectual property laws
protecting design—such suits are hard to win. In 2011,
Christian Louboutin alleged that Zara’s use of red
shoe soles, which Louboutin considered a signature
brand motif, constituted trademark infringement.
Louboutin lost the suit and a subsequent appeal in
French court.   you want to do something really spectacular but you
“We try to look for the best quality, the best
design. We respect people’s work,” says Ortega Pérez,
who points out that over 50 percent of the company is
dedicated to design in some capacity. “I think we have
our own identity. And we have been developing new
products from scratch for a long time.”  In Lindbergh’s honor, Ortega Pérez recently
Zara’s identity is based, in part, on its imagery,
which Ortega Pérez focuses on closely. The brand is
notable for forgoing print advertising and instead
relying on its stores and social media for marketing.
Zara is also known for its practice of buying mar-
quee properties in luxury retail areas, an unusual
tactic among its competitors, who typically lease
less expensive spaces. In a similarly ambitious strat-
egy, the brand’s photo shoots are comparable in tone
and pedigree to those of a high-end designer like
Miuccia Prada—and often use the same top models
and photographers.  daily [work] it’s not something we are worried about,”
Ortega Pérez first fell in love with the image-
making process when she was a teenager and visited
the Barcelona set of a Zara shoot featuring Kate Moss.
At the time, she was a serious equestrian competing
at the Grand Prix show-jumping level, spending many
weekends away from her Swiss boarding school—her
“MARTA IS LIKE THE DESIGN IN FOCUS
“I think we have our own identity,”
UNDERCURRENT Ortega Pérez says about Zara’s
VOICE OF THE range of offerings. “And we have
been developing new products from
BRAND. SHE BRINGS scratch for a long time.” Massimo
Dutti jacket and Zara pants.
A LAYER OF Hair, Guido Palau; makeup, Pat
SOPHISTICATION.” McGrath; manicure, Jin Soon Choi.
For details see Sources, page 178.
–FABIEN BARON
father allowed her to continue to compete as long
as she kept up her grades—and later running from
her Zara day job to training and horse shows. But
she knew that being a professional rider was not for
her. The pull of the family business was too strong.
Her mother, Flora Pérez, was a longtime Zara design
staffer, and several of Pérez’s family members, includ-
ing a younger brother, Óscar Pérez Marcote, work
alongside Ortega Pérez. 
In recent years, Ortega Pérez has collaborated
with Meisel, who shoots images for a biannual Zara
campaign (and who was commissioned by WSJ.
well as other well-known photographers, including
David Sims, Craig McDean and Zoë Ghertner. The
late Peter Lindbergh became a sort of mentor friend
(and took photos of her 2018 wedding to Torretta).
Torretta works alongside his wife in what the com-
pany calls “online communications,” keeping his desk
in a cavernous on-site studio where on any given day
multiple shoots with top editorial models, such as
Edita Vilkeviciute and Rebecca Longendyke, might be
underway for the brand’s site and social media feeds.
Despite its seemingly insatiable appetite for mar-
keting imagery, the brand allows the creative talents
it hires a great deal of latitude. “Zara is a commercial
company that sells at a certain price point, but…they
weren’t, like, ‘We need to sell this garment,’” says
photographer Mario Sorrenti, who started working
with Zara in 2016. “Usually you have a great idea and
don’t have the budget—they were not only open to
great ideas but also to making those things happen.”
Sorrenti and Ortega Pérez have become friends. “It
feels like you are working with a family,” he says. “It’s
a family brand.” 
organized a tribute collection, with unisex T-shirts
in black and white that feature some of his most
famous photographs, curated by Baron. Proceeds
are being donated to the Franca Sozzani Fund for
Preventive Genomics, founded in memory of the late
Italian Vogue editor, who was a longtime friend of
Lindbergh’s. An exhibition of Lindbergh’s work in La
Coruña is in the works. 
“Obviously we’re a big company, but I feel like it’s
not so big—I don’t know anything about the big fig-
ures. We don’t even want to talk about them. In our
she says. “It’s big, but it’s smaller.” 
This reminds her of a lesson she learned from her
late friend Elbaz, which he in turn had learned from
his mother. “I hope you are big in the world and small
in life,” his mother had told him. Ortega Pérez says,
“It’s one of the best things I have ever heard.” •
113
KNITS & PIECES
Fall’s newest knits make for forward-thinking ensembles, with bright
colors, fuzzy textures and crocheted patterns to heat up cold-weather style.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSH OLINS

STYLING BY LUDIVINE POIBLANC

PILED ON
Make things interesting
with experimental
layers. Ralph Lauren
Collection dress and Isa
Boulder bra and pants.
Opposite: Dior vest,
Mugler shirt, Coperni
top, Isa Boulder pants
117
and Jil Sander sandals.
 TEST PATTERN
Mix things up for cool
results. Celine by
Hedi Slimane sweater,
Isa Boulder sleeve,
Ottolinger pants and
Bottega Veneta shoes
(worn throughout).
Opposite: Etro sweater,
Molly Goddard top,
Blumarine briefs,
Ajaie Alaie hat and Isa
118 Boulder boots. 119
PERFECT MATCH
Blending in is the
new standing out.
Chloé dress and bag
and Savage X Fenty
socks. Opposite:
Balenciaga sweater
and pants.

121
CANDY LAND
Sweeten the day with
bubble-gum-pink
and electric-green
ensembles. Acne
Studios cardigan
and pants. Opposite:
Kenzo sweater,
Isa Boulder bustier,
Priscavera dress
(worn underneath),
Miscreants gloves
12
and2 Ugg socks.
CRAFT WORK
Striking makeup com-
pliments the clothes,
such as this whimsical
hand-crocheted top,
made and worn by model
Laura Hagested. Chanel
jumpsuit and Laura
Hagested sweater and
socks. Opposite: Louis
Vuitton hooded sweater.

12 4 12 5
IN THE LOOP
Crafty crochets now
look anything but
old-fashioned. Marni
sweater and pants
and Apujan hat.
Opposite: Miu Miu
jacket, sweater, hat
and scarf, Priscavera
pants and Savage X
Fenty socks.

127
ITTY BITTY
A tiny mohair top puts
a cozy twist on a
sheer ensemble. Fendi
sweater, KNWLS top
and pants, Darner socks
and Jil Sander sandals.
Opposite: Isa Boulder
sweater, Self-Portrait
skirt and Darner socks.
Models, Miriam Sanchez
and Awar Odhiang at
Ford Models, Louise
Robert at DNA Models,
Laura Hagested
at Scoop Models; hair,
Shon; makeup, Petros
Petrohilos. For details
128
see Sources, page 178. 129
 “Looking at her,
I see someone
who can help us
draw even closer
to a better, more
inclusive America,”
says Michelle
Obama of poet
Amanda Gorman.
Valentino dress
with collar, Mateo
earrings and
Roger Vivier shoes.

POETRY IN MOTION
Amanda Gorman believes in the political power of words, and she’s leaning
into her literary talents to advance toward her goal of becoming president.

BY CLOVER HOPE PHOTOGRAPHY BY CASS BIRD STYLING BY JASON BOLDEN

130
A
MANDA GORMAN is out on her patio in Los Angeles,
scrutinizing a poem I wrote when I was 17. The 23-year-
old poet has agreed to review my decades-old work and
is taking it seriously. It’s a bright summer day, and she’s
wearing a simple white tee, her braids in a high fishtail
falling over one shoulder. As I recite lines over Zoom,
reading from a tattered pink notebook, Gorman offers an affirmative
“Mmm” after each line. “Dewdrops dancing. Silly smiles,” the poem,
called “Dreaming,” begins. “Miracles creating sunshine for miles.”
Afterward, we evaluate.
“There’s something about dew at the beginning that was a really
striking image,” she says. She comments on another line, “Butterflies
believing in love at first flight.” “Was it ‘first sight’ or ‘first flight’?” (It
was the former.) To her, it’s a writing choice both abstract and purpose-
ful. “I might use the word flight,” she says. “But if your project, say, was
to connect nature to optics, then sight works quite well.”
This sort of close reading is part of Gorman’s own self-editing dia-
logue. When she would workshop her poetry in college, some fellow
writers said she rhymed too much. But she’s a lyrical storyteller, and
rhythm is her instrument. She wants it to be too much. “For me, rhyme
and sound are a mnemonic device,” she says. “It highlights how impor-
tant it is that this be the verse that sticks with the audience’s mind.”
The poem she wrote for President Joe Biden’s inauguration, “The Hill
We Climb,” wasn’t just the one that stuck; it instantly made Gorman into
a cultural, political phenomenon. The final three lines alone served as
an exhortation for a traumatized nation: “For there is always light / if
only we’re brave enough to see it / if only we’re brave enough to be it.”
It was First Lady Jill Biden who recommended Gorman to be the
inaugural poet. Biden had seen Gorman read at the Library of Congress
in 2017, when the then 19-year-old had just become the country’s first
National Youth Poet Laureate. In late December, when the inaugural
committee invited Gorman to give the reading, she knew the moment
would require a level of depth and clarity. President Biden was taking
office after a drawn-out vote tabulation, and for the first time, a Black
woman, Kamala Harris, would become vice president. Then came the
January 6 attack on the Capitol building. Afterward, Gorman felt that
her task had shifted to what she calls a “cleansing by way of words.”
“The only way I could show up as myself in that space was to recog-
nize that darkness and light aren’t mutually exclusive,” she says. “There
was no way I would have been able to write and then read a poem if I felt
like I wasn’t speaking truthfully about what we had seen happen.”
For Gorman, the reading was “an out-of-body experience.” In the
moments after, former President Bill Clinton told her it was the best
inaugural poem he’d heard since Maya Angelou delivered “On the Pulse
of Morning” at his own 1993 inauguration. “That was when it clicked
for me that I had just stepped into history,” Gorman remembers. “We
weren’t talking about something that was erasable in any way. It had
become its own new page.”
Former First Lady Michelle Obama was among those struck by
Gorman’s conviction and composure during the reading. “I knew
we were in the presence of someone special,” Obama says via email.
“Looking at her, I see someone who can help us draw even closer to a
better, more inclusive America—someone who will use her identity as a
Black woman and her ability to connect with others to help reshape and
repair the world around us.”
Gorman’s next appearance was a prerecorded reading at the Super
Bowl, on February 7, of the original poem “Chorus of the Captains,”
which she’d written before “The Hill We Climb.” Anxious about having
to top her earlier performance, she gave herself a pep talk. “I had to let
go and tell myself, ‘Listen, it’s already written. You take the spirit of
poetry into whatever you do. Have faith in yourself,’” she says.
Then, on March 30, Viking Books released her book, The Hill We
Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country, with a million-copy print
order. It became an instant bestseller. Gorman has since been at work
on a new poetry collection, Call Us What We Carry, which she describes
as “an interrogation of country, of pandemic, of promise, of change.”
132
“WRITING FEELS LIKE HOME TO ME
FUNDAMENTALLY, EVEN WHEN
EVERYTHING ELSE FEELS LIKE A
HURRICANE.”
–AMANDA GORMAN
As part of her research, she’s been studying the 1918 flu pandemic. This
September, she’ll also release a picture book, Change Sings: A Children’s
Anthem, with illustrator Loren Long, who created the art for President
Barack Obama’s Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters. Both of these
books will have million-copy print runs as well.
With Call Us What We Carry set to publish in December, Gorman
now finds herself in a pivotal season. “I’m in a chapter of my life where
everything is changing, meaning that I’m writing a collection while
I am figuring out what it means to be Amanda Gorman, with this vis-
ibility and this microphone,” she says. “Writing feels like home to me
fundamentally, even when everything else feels like a hurricane.”
WHEN CHILDREN declare they want to be president—not just of their
class but the entire United States—it’s usually a fantasy. Gorman com-
mitted to the idea at age 11 after her sixth-grade math teacher jokingly
suggested she should run. Gorman recalls responding to him in ear-
nest, saying, “You’re right. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” She’s
shared her plan to run in 2036 many times over the years: She wrote
it as her career goal on a questionnaire for the L.A.-based WriteGirl, a
mentorship program that pairs girls with women writers. She’s said
it in interviews and had it mentioned in her alma mater’s newspaper,
the Harvard Crimson, in 2018. When she confirms on the record again
that, yes, she seriously wants to run for president, she makes it seem
entirely feasible. “I think to make the impossible more proximate,” she
says, “you have to treat it as if it’s in reaching distance.”
“When you’re 14, you don’t know what you want, so you want many
things, but this one stays through every stage in her life,” says Michelle
Chahine Sinno, one of Gorman’s former WriteGirl mentors who saw
her quickly fall into a role as a spokesperson after she became the Los
Angeles Youth Poet Laureate in 2014. “Some teenagers want to make
a difference. But with her, it felt more specific. She’s trying to find the
steps to get there as opposed to some idealistic thing.”
Gorman’s thousands of new social-media followers will find no com-
promising tweets or photos. She has been scrupulous about her social
media for this one purpose: campaigning for the presidency herself
one day. And she plans on fulfilling this goal through poetry. “I used to
think about it in the more traditional sense of, OK, we’re going to do this
poetry thing for a little bit, and then you’re going to put the pen down
and switch over to politics,” she says. “Being able to talk to people like
Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, I realized I don’t have to change who
I am to be a leader. If anything, those qualities will be what become my
strength when I bring them into my field.”
As the expectations for who can actually become president have
changed, with Harris, Clinton and Barack Obama serving as pathbreak- RISE AND SHINE
“Being able to talk to
ers, Gorman’s childhood ambition has become more attainable. She people like Hillary
knows the job brings chaos. “I’ve always understood the potential of Clinton and Nancy
the presidency or political office to both be terrific and also toxic and Pelosi, I realized I
don’t have to change
terrible,” she says. She envisions herself not as the next Alexandria who I am to be
Ocasio-Cortez or Stacey Abrams, but as a new political hybrid merging a leader,” Gorman
Shirley Chisholm’s unyielding activism with the vitality of poet Audre says. “If anything,
those qualities will
Lorde. She is committed to issues of climate change, sexual assault and be what become my
human trafficking. strength when I bring
Gorman sees language as a unifier of art and politics. “That’s what them into my field.”
Louis Vuitton dress,
happened at the Lincoln Memorial when Martin Luther King Jr. stepped Wolford leggings
up on it and started speaking. Just words—vibrations in the air—but and vintage earrings.
to completely revamp the American image with his speech,” she says,
stopping short of a direct comparison. “I wasn’t trying to be the next
Martin Luther King. I was just trying to understand my duty as a poet,
to bring honor back to that space and bring honor back to what we want
from our country.”
For reference, Gorman cites Lorde’s “Poetry Is Not a Luxury,” which
sees storytellers and poets as those who define revolutions through
language. “It’s often language makers who create a rhetoric for move-
ment,” Gorman says. “They create a new type of dialect in which people
can communicate shared dreams even if those shared dreams have yet
to be realized.”
Mellon Foundation president, scholar and writer Elizabeth
Alexander, who read her own original poem “Praise Song for the Day” at
President Obama’s 2009 inauguration, notes Gorman’s potency as both
a writer and a speaker. “What we have in Amanda is a fine poet and a fine
performer. You see her use of her body, her controlled gesture, the way
she uses her hands and her arms,” she says. “She was the right choice
to kind of burst like a meteor through the darkness and help light the
way forward.”
Gorman has found creative and personal solace in mentors like
Oprah Winfrey, who gave her a “caged bird” ring to wear at the inaugu-
ration, in tribute to Maya Angelou. “It’s meant a lot to have her type of
advice and wisdom. Because a lot of people can tell you what it’s like to
be a celebrity, but very few people can tell you what it’s like to be Oprah,”
Gorman says. “What it’s like to be a Black woman in the public sphere
who’s also seen as a type of cultural high ground. She’s able to help me
better understand what’s going on with my life and with my, as you
might call it, celebrity.”

G
ORMAN’S MOTHER, Joan Wicks, an English teacher,
raised her and her twin sister, Gabrielle, on L.A.’s
Westside. (Gorman declines to talk about her father.)
At age 5, Gorman would wake her mom up before dawn
to bug her to let her write, not realizing that what she
was doing was poetry. She treated books like treasures,
frequenting the library up the street from her home and another
in Santa Monica near New Roads, the private school that she and
Gabrielle attended. Gorman immersed herself in fantasy fiction, like
the Warriors adventure cat series, Artemis Fowl and the Harry Potter
installments. Gorman still reads books three times: the first time for
pleasure, the second to analyze the writing and a third time to assess
how she might write it in her voice.
At 14, Gorman signed up for WriteGirl, which paired her separately
with two writers: Sinno and Dinah Berland. Two years later, Gorman
launched One Pen One Page, a community project designed to help teen-
agers develop their creativity. When then 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai
won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, Sinno recalls Gorman feeling inspired
and vowing to achieve the feat, too. She says Gorman was always think-
ing ahead: How could she get into Harvard? How could she become the
L.A. Youth Poet Laureate? And then the National Youth Poet Laureate?
“I could see that she had a social purpose as well as a personal one,”
Berland says. “She was interested in making the world better. That’s
very characteristic of gifted children.” Berland witnessed Gorman
immerse herself in the works of poets like Elizabeth Alexander,
Gwendolyn Brooks and Rita Dove; Gorman would not only dissect their
work but wanted to know how they became so renowned.
Gorman brought her poetry to Harvard University, where she
majored in sociology. She remembers the first week of school when she
felt students of color suddenly “carried with us the privilege and entitle-
ments of what it meant to be a Harvard student,” she says. Eventually,
she stopped saying the name Harvard altogether: Gorman has an audi- RIPPLE EFFECT
“I was immediately struck with her
tory processing disorder that makes it difficult for her to pronounce
charisma,” Miuccia Prada says.
the R sound. She kept a small Harvard key chain on her backpack so she “I could recognize, at first sight,
could point to it if anyone asked where she went to school. talent and intellect.” Bottega
Veneta dress and Mateo earrings.
She noticed, too, how people would change when she mentioned
Harvard in conversation. “Especially if you’re a woman, especially if

13 4
 WITHIN REACH
“Something I’ve learned is, it’s OK to ask
people ‘Why?’ if they give you a compliment,”
Gorman says. “Not in a judgmental or
patronizing way, but to see what is it that
they gained or did not gain from this poem.”
Bottega Veneta dress and Mateo earrings.
you’re a person of color,” Gorman says. “People feel like you’re belittling
them. So a lot of times…we downplay it.” Over time, she transitioned to
using the Harvard name to others’ benefit. “If it meant that I could get
into more rooms, if it meant that I was more listened to,” she remembers
thinking, “how can I then use that to give a voice to other people?”
Gorman recalls a moment in her sophomore year at Harvard when
a white male student in a poetry workshop told her that her voice was
“too confident.” The comment felt coded, so she challenged him to inter-
rogate what he said until he admitted it was stupid. “Something I’ve
learned is, it’s OK to ask people ‘Why?’ if they give you a compliment,”
she says. “Not in a judgmental or patronizing way, but to see what is it
that they gained or did not gain from this poem.”
For a Black poet with a speech impediment, the microaggression of
being called articulate or eloquent is a specific discomfort. “When peo-
ple used to say to me that I spoke well, I thought they were joking a lot
of times. Either this is a jab at my race, or it’s a jab at my disability, and
I don’t know which it is,” Gorman says. “I think that comments on my
ability with words do come from a genuine place for most people. In my
case, I was projecting a lot of my insecurities into people’s compliments.
It wasn’t until I grew confident enough in myself that I could hear people
praise me for my language and say, ‘Thank you. I know.’ I’ve been work-
ing a lifetime at this. I would hope I would be good right now.”
136
THE IMAGERY of Gorman on the steps of the Capitol on January 20
struck a contrast with the photos of people desecrating the grounds
two weeks earlier. Gorman wore a bun of braids with a bright-red Prada
headband as a crown and a vibrant yellow Prada coat seemingly visible
from space. “What impressed me most is the impact she made as she
appeared on stage: fresh spontaneity,” designer Miuccia Prada says via
email. “To share such a moment with her was incredible.” Prada first
met Gorman in 2019 when Gorman was invited to one of the brand’s
shows in Milan. Gorman later spoke at a Prada conference on fashion
and sustainability. “I was immediately struck with her charisma,”
Prada says. “I could recognize, at first sight, talent and intellect.”
In September, Gorman will co-chair this year’s Met Gala, the annual
party honoring the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
It’s another arena for her to blur the personal and political. “All art is
political. I would say especially fashion,” she says. “I think about what
it meant for the Black Panthers to wear tilted berets, what it meant for
African-Americans to show up in their Sunday best while marching
during the civil rights movement. And what it’s meant to wear rainbow
colors in terms of queerness. What it’s meant to wear white as a femi-
nist. I love getting to find more superpowers in what I wear.”
Superpowers aside, Gorman isn’t looking to be anyone’s savior.
She doesn’t want to speak for an entire generation, and she’s wary of THINK PINK
tokenism, of becoming the latest Black figure to be lionized for what she “It wasn’t until I grew
confident enough in myself
represents. “We’re often not just looking for the person of color that’s that I could hear people
going to save us. We’re also looking for the young girl who’s going to praise me for my language
rescue us,” she says. “We spend a lot of time thinking about Malalas and and say, ‘Thank you. I
know.’ I’ve been working
Greta Thunbergs—both people I admire deeply. But what that tells me is a lifetime at this,” says
that it’s partially my job to remind people that I cannot save you.” Gorman. Saint Laurent by
Gorman seems to be speaking not only to me but also to an audience Anthony Vaccarello dress
and tights, Mateo earrings
she envisions, perhaps her future constituency. “All that I can hope from and Christian Louboutin
GXTTXR CRXDXT
my poetry is that it will give people the language or the hope by which heels. Hair, LaRae
they begin a self-rescue,” she says. “The magic that everybody else has, Burress; makeup, Joanna
Simkin; manicure, Yoko
including me, is our actions. When we put them to work, that’s when the Sakakura. For details see
sorcery exists.” • Sources, page 178.
137
 Come Sail Away
The volcanic Banda archipelago, once the heart of a global spice trade,
is one of Indonesia’s most adventurous and storied destinations—and
a magical place to tour by chartered yacht.
BY TONY PERROTTET PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRÉDÉRIC LAGRANGE

EAST OF JAVA
The Dunia Baru, modeled on
a traditional Indonesian
phinisi—and seen here gliding in
front of the active Gunung
Api volcano—is one of about
two dozen charter yachts
that sail to the Banda Islands.
 V
ISITING THE Banda archipelago in Indonesia’s Spice
Islands is no easy proposition, thanks to the islands’
tiny airstrip and infrequent ferry service. Arriving
by yacht means weighing anchor at the sleepy port of
Banda Neira, where the Gunung Api volcano looms as
symmetrical as a child’s drawing. As improbable as it
seems, these remote islands were on track to become a hot destina-
tion for jet-setters in the 1990s. As you wander into the lobby of the
islands’ largest hotel, the Maulana, you’ll find a fading snapshot of a
visitor from the fall of 1996: Mick Jagger, wearing what looks like a
Panama hat and a white linen shirt.
“I was only 9 years old when he visited, so I didn’t know who he
was,” says a third-generation owner of the hotel, Mita Alwi. Her fam-
ily recalls that the British rocker stayed for a leisurely tea and bowl
of kua trang pala, fish soup with nutmeg. Alwi has more vivid mem-
ories of another celebrity guest whose snapshot also hangs on the
wall, Jacques Cousteau, who arrived on his research vessel Calypso to
explore a recent lava flow via heli-
copter. The ocean explorer gave her
a present of a soft stuffed animal,
a mouse lemur. And she was fas-
cinated by the famed underwater
cinematographer Valerie Taylor,
who in the ’70s had been hired by
Steven Spielberg to shoot the shark
scenes for Jaws. (Taylor developed
a friendship with a spotted eel in
Banda she named Honey; the two
can be seen swimming together in
a clip on YouTube.)
From 1999 to 2002, a spasm
of religious violence between
Muslims and Christians put a hold
on tourism in the archipelago.
Today, after nearly 20 years of rela-
tive peace, a yacht charter industry
is tentatively putting the Bandas
back on the map. Once pandemic
restrictions ease (at press time,
the CDC advised against any travel
to Indonesia), visitors will again be
able to discover a world of majes-
tic reefs, Dutch colonial ruins and
dreamy nutmeg plantations.
One of the more romantic ways
to explore the Bandas is aboard
the Dunia Baru, a yacht modeled after a traditional Indonesian
phinisi, a two-masted schooner with seven curtain-like sails, earlier
versions of which have plied the Spice Islands for hundreds of years,
with elegant lines like a floating sculpture silhouetted against the
dramatic landscape.
The Indonesian archipelago’s roughly 17,000 islands arc across
3,000 miles of tropical waters and a tectonic fault line, part of the
Pacific Ring of Fire, which sprouts 147 volcanoes, 76 of them active.
The most notorious, Krakatoa, erupted devastatingly in 1883, while
an underwater earthquake in 2004 caused a catastrophic tsunami
in Sumatra. A seven-day journey between the ports of Ambon and
Sorong crosses some of the world’s most fertile marine habitats,
including the relatively well-known Raja Ampat archipelago (“Four
Kings”). The 11 small volcanic islands of the Bandas are at the heart of
an expanse referred to as the Coral Triangle, and sometimes as “the
Amazon of the ocean,” home to some 600 types of reef-building cor-
als, more than 2,000 species of reef fish and six of the seven species
of marine turtle. The three main islands—Banda Neira, Gunung Api
and Banda Besar—ring the harbor and main town, also called Banda
Neira. A mix of nature and history gives the archipelago its allure,
14 0
placing it on Unesco’s Tentative List, in consideration for World
Heritage status.
The rise and fall of the Bandas’ celebrity in the 1990s is a faint echo
of their cyclical fortunes over the past four centuries. In the 1600s,
as the only place where nutmeg grew, the islands were in traders’
crosshairs, inspiring acts of greed and savagery. “The Bandas are
in the middle of nowhere,” says Giles Milton, author of the definitive
account of the islands’ colonial history, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg. “They
were incredibly famous as the fast route to riches. If you could get to
the islands and make it back alive, you were made.”
The tiny specks have “a fabled, fairy-tale quality,” he says, that
make visitors feel they’ve returned to another era. “Every island has
a crumbling fort and dungeons and rusty cannons lying in the sand.”
Locals joke that visitors are free to carry them off as souvenirs, if they
can lift them. “There are Dutch planters’ houses in tropical decay, old
churches and nutmeg trees everywhere, which are very beautiful and
smell wonderful.”
For centuries, nutmeg from
the islands was shipped to mar-
kets in Venice. In the 16th century,
Portuguese naval powers decided
to cut out the middlemen, thus giv-
ing the Banda Islands the dubious
honor of being the site of one of
the earliest Western imperial ven-
tures in Asia. A club of voracious
merchants in Amsterdam joined
forces in 1602 to create a prototype
multinational corporation, the
Dutch East India Company (VOC),
which also created history’s first
IPO and stock market. There was
no shortage of takers: Nutmeg’s
markup in the 16th and 17th cen-
turies is estimated by historians
to range as high as 60,000 percent.
A VOC force arriving in 1621 was
supported by Japanese mercenar-
ies who proceeded to behead much
of the populace. Of about 15,000
islanders of Melanesian origins,
all but 1,000 or so were executed
or sold into slavery. After the
genocide, the Dutch repopulated
plantations with enslaved people
and laborers from elsewhere in
Indonesia; modern Bandanese are descended from a mix of the indig-
enous Moluccans, immigrants and slaves who arrived from various
other countries.
One episode in the nutmeg wars had a lasting impact on the United
States. In 1616 an English gentleman-adventurer, Captain Nathaniel
Courthope, seized the remotest specks of the archipelago, Run and
Ai, in an attempt to break the Dutch monopoly. He made a treaty with
the islanders, who in exchange for protection became subjects of King
James I; the monarch was then officially known as the king of England,
Scotland, Ireland, France, Ai and Run. “An English courtier quipped
that Run would be far more profitable a possession than Scotland ever
would be,” Milton says.
The colony was a quixotic failure. Courthope’s 38 men and native
supporters resisted a Dutch force of about 1,000 soldiers for 1,540
days, before he was killed, the English survivors fled, and the island’s
buildings were destroyed. But the treaty Courthope signed endured as
a legal basis for an English claim to the Bandas.
A few decades later, the Dutch agreed to make a swap with the
BLUE HEAVEN
English, gaining the Bandas in 1667 in return for the island of The Raja Ampat (“Four Kings”) archipelago off West Papua is one gateway to the so-called Coral Triangle, containing some
Manhattan. “The Dutch got their nutmeg monopoly; the Brits got New of the world’s richest marine habitats. Opposite: A chart detailing a section of Indonesia’s roughly 17,000 islands.
 GO WITH THE FLOW LOCAL CUSTOM
A fisherman steers his boat near the port of Banda Neira, a main entry point to the islands. The Bandas’ infrequent ferry service, Clockwise from top left: Nutmeg and mace drying on the island of Banda Besar; a woman seated on colorful tiles on Pulau Run;
tiny airstrip and limited hotel options have made visiting by chartered yacht an appealing alternative. the day’s catch at the market at Banda Neira; a villager relaxing by the island’s waterfront.

14 3
 SHIP SHAPE MOVABLE FEASTS
Crewmen folding a sail on the deck of the Dunia Baru; three of the 18 workers on board were shipwrights who had helped build Guests on the Dunia Baru are served meals prepared by Chilean-born chef Jorge Valderrama. From top: Treats served
the majestic schooner in the village of Sangkulirang and decided to stay on as part of the crew. on the deck of the ship while underway; a beachside repast on the island of Ai.

14 4
 York,” Milton says. The story is one modern Bandanese love telling
New Yorkers today. “Would you like to trade Run back for Manhattan?”
Mita Alwi asked me with a laugh. Her late grandfather Des Alwi once
sent a telegram to New York’s then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani proposing
Run and Manhattan become sister islands.
The Dutch nutmeg monopoly lasted until the early 1800s, when
British ships smuggled seedlings from the islands to Sri Lanka,
Malaysia and the Caribbean. The former cradle of globalization had
fallen into obscurity by the time Indonesia became independent from
the Dutch in 1945. For most of the 20th century, only a handful of
intrepid backpackers made a pilgrimage. Even today, ferry services
are slow, and while a small airstrip allows Cessnas to land, flights are
limited. According to the hotelier Alwi, arrivals had climbed to a few
thousand visitors per year before the Covid crisis hit and the numbers
spiraled to “about zero.” Elizabeth Pisani, the author of Indonesia Etc.:
Exploring the Improbable Nation, says that’s just as well: “The islands
are relatively untouched, and the tourist infrastructure is simply not
there. There would be nowhere to
put people if they arrived.”
Over the past decade or so,
a charter-boat industry has
expanded across Indonesia, with
more than 20 luxury yachts based
in the country, says Catherine
Heald, CEO of the New York–based
Remote Lands. Outfitters have
added adventurous destinations
to the most popular routes from
Komodo and Raja Ampat, with
rates from $4,000 to $20,000 a day.
The Bandas take Indonesia’s allure
to an extreme: A yacht can weigh
anchor in a solitary cove every
night, or cruise an entire week
without spotting another ship.
The schooner Dunia Baru has a
strong connection to Indonesian
tradition, as well as an unusual
history. When its current owner,
Jing-Yi Wee—a Singapore-based
real estate developer and an avid
scuba diver—first chartered the
boat from Komodo in 2014, she fell
in love with its antique grace. The
Dunia Baru (“New World” in Bahasa
Indonesian) is as far removed from
the common image of a “super yacht” as a Frank Lloyd Wright home
is from a Hudson Yards skyscraper. For Wee, the love affair was con-
firmed when she made a second charter with her brother Teng Yuan
Wee and friends in 2017. “We were just super surprised at how beauti-
ful it was,” she says. “It was a work of art.”
The siblings flew to Bali to look into building a similar schooner,
but were dismayed to find it was impossible. The Dunia Baru’s hull and
much of its interior framework had been crafted from ironwood that
grows in the jungles of Kalimantan, the Indonesian side of Borneo, at a
rate of half a millimeter a year. The boat’s original owner, an American
businessman based in Java named Mark Robba, had taken eight years
to build the vessel, in large part because each piece of timber was
sourced in the jungle. Robba hired members of the Konjo community,
multigenerational shipwrights who work by hand in the village of
Sangkulirang, to craft the hull, which took three and a half years to
complete. It was then towed to Bali, where it took another four years to
outfit the seven cabins, including a master cabin in the aft with a four-
poster bed, before launching in 2013.
Robba agreed to sell the yacht in 2019, and the Wee siblings hired
a Cape Town– and Singapore-based designer named Deirdre Renniers
14 6
to refurbish the interior. “It wasn’t so much a redesign as an upgrade,”
Wee says. “We didn’t want to rip out the amazing ironwood; those
massive planks can never be replaced.” After adding new upholstery,
artworks and Indonesian textiles, the Dunia Baru 2.0 was ready for its
first outing in late 2020.
Even today, a sailor can smell the Spice Islands before seeing them.
The Bandas are covered with nutmeg plantations where the fruit of the
glossy-leafed trees are harvested by farmers using a toothed basket
attached to a bamboo pole, then dried in trays. The golden skin of the
fruit peels when ripe to reveal the shiny brown nut, which after drying
is cracked open to yield nutmeg. The seed is coated in a delicate crim-
son sheath that produces a second spice, mace, when dried.
Today, the archipelago’s main town, Banda Neira, maintains a
dreamlike serenity. A trail leads from the waterfront fish market to
a colonial church whose aisle is paved with worn tombstones, each
engraved with Dutch names. A few cafes and guesthouses serve nut-
meg jam and nutmeg-flavored drinks. Crowning the hilltop is the
imposing Fort Belgica, offering
panoramic views across the shim-
mering waters to the still-active
Gunung Api volcano. On the other
islands, fishermen glide between
villages in small boats. Run, the
isle swapped by the Dutch for
Gotham, sits about 15 miles west
of Banda Neira, with a tiny village
set among rolling hills. On its even
tinier neighbor, Ai, a white-sand
beach is used by yachters as a set-
ting for torchlit dinners.
The ongoing pandemic remains
a wild card for the local charter
industry. Indonesia has been slow
to roll out vaccines. In spring 2021,
boats were returning as quaran-
tine restrictions eased, but a surge
in the Delta variant this summer
put the recovery at risk, with the
country experiencing an India-level
crisis. Once it becomes possible
to travel to Indonesia again, the
51-meter Dunia Baru can accom-
modate 14 passengers, with 18
crew including a Chilean-born chef,
Jorge Valderrama. Scuba and snor-
kel gear allows guests to explore
marine life, while above the waves there are Sea-Doos, kayaks and
paddleboards. (Rates start at $120,000 a week, booked through Y.CO, a
full-service yachting company.)
The crew includes three of the original carpenters who stayed with
the boat after completion. “It was a source of immense pride for the
families in the village,” Wee says. On its first cruise in 2013, the ves-
sel toured other shipbuilding villages and at one was given a festive
three-day christening.
Today, the trio of craftsmen contributes local expertise. “They are
three friends who grew up together.... We consult with them [about
renovations], asking about every woodwork adjustment, waterproof-
ing, making sure the huge pieces of ironwood don’t crack,” Wee
says. “They knew they were building one of the most beautiful boats
in Indonesia.”
One of them, Jamaluddin, a fifth-generation shipwright, says that
building the boat was a satisfying way of showcasing his ancient mari-
time culture. Staying on as part of the crew, he adds, “gave me a new
opportunity to take care of Dunia Baru, her team and her legacy.” One
LAVA LIFE
day, the trio’s efforts will be enjoyed by international travelers again. A villager on Banda Besar takes in the view of the Gunung Api volcano, whose eruption in 1988 lured Jacques Cousteau to study
Mick Jagger might even consider another visit. • the rapid recovery of marine life on the lava flow. Opposite: Colorful clothes hang out to dry in Banda Neira.
 CHANEL’S
COUTURE CLUBHOUSE
Behind the scenes at Le 19M, Chanel’s new haute couture headquarters,
designed by renegade French architect Rudy Ricciotti.
R
UMORS OF haute couture’s death have
swirled since the rise of machine-
made clothing turned fashion into an
engine of profit about 200 years ago.
Nevertheless, the art of entirely hand-
made, often one-of-a-kind design has
persisted, sustained by privileged clients who want
pieces no one else can have. More recently, haute
couture has relied on the business acumen and deep
pockets of one couturier in particular: Chanel.
Traditionally, much of the most technical workman-
ship in couture’s rarefied fashion domain—including
absurdly intricate embroideries, waterfalls of sequins
and feathers, painstakingly constructed silk flowers,
painted fabric or complicated pleating, much of which
is done by hand—has been created by just a few inde-
pendent ateliers in Paris. (Haute couture itself is a
term that is tightly controlled by France’s Fédération
de la Haute Couture et de la Mode.) Starting in the
1980s, Chanel embarked on a buying spree of these
artisanal businesses, called maisons or métiers, which
now include the embroiderers Montex and Lesage, the
feather and flower specialist Lemarié, the shoemaker
Massaro and the costume jeweler Goossens. Chanel
gathered them under an umbrella company called
Paraffection (meaning something akin to “for the love
of” in French), which provides back-office services,
strategy and human resources. Since 2013, there has
also been a centralized headquarters for four of the
BY ALEXANDRA MARSHALL
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JONAS UNGER
PATH AHEAD
“If it’s a boring place, it will never work,” says
Chanel’s president of fashion, Bruno Pavlovsky, of the
brand’s newest building, Le 19M (above). Opposite:
Tweed fabric created by Lesage atelier, which has its
new home at Le 19M.
38 companies now on the Paraffection roster, a nearly
54,000-square-foot space in Pantin, a northeastern
suburb of Paris.
This spring, Chanel made a new and much splashier
declaration that haute couture will not simply sur-
vive, but thrive. This summer, it opened Le 19M, a new
building inside the Paris city borders with five times
the floor space of the Pantin location, designed by the
swaggering architect Rudy Ricciotti, who is based
in the South of France. For the first time, Chanel will
house 11 maisons in one place, along with Eres, the
swimwear brand it owns.
“Haute couture is small, but big,” says Bruno
Pavlovsky, president of both Chanel Fashion and
Chanel SAS. “Small because it’s only a few customers,
but it’s active everywhere.” The creative brain trust of
the company has always had a special reverence for
this comparatively small arm of its business. Chanel’s
current artistic director, Virginie Viard, began her
career as the liaison between the fashion house’s
creative director, Karl Lagerfeld, and the various mai-
sons. And Lagerfeld was so in awe of their work that
in 2002 he created the first Métiers d’art, a kind of
demi-couture collection with a special emphasis on
workmanship that has shown more or less once a year
ever since.
“If we want this savoir faire to continue to exist,
and to keep a strong design capacity in Paris for
Chanel and the other brands, then we have no choice
149
 “IF WE WANT THIS SAVOIR FAIRE TO CONTINUE TO EXIST, AND TO KEEP A
STRONG DESIGN CAPACITY IN PARIS FOR CHANEL AND THE OTHER BRANDS,
THEN WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO INVEST IN SUCH A LOCATION.”
but to invest in such a location,” says Pavlovsky. “We
wanted to have an impactful window for this craft,
to show how important it is for Chanel and fashion
with an emblematic location…. If it’s a boring place,
it’ll never work.”
On a July tour of the recently finished spaces, at
least half of the 600-person workforce was, from the
looks of it, under the age of 40. Says Pavlovsky, “For
me the final objective is to be able to recruit 100 new
people a year, both full- and part-time. It’s too early
to say, but I’m confident about it.”
In ensuring the maisons’ sound health, Chanel
ensures its own supply chain, as well as that of the
rest of the couture world (including designers like
Fendi and archrival Dior). The maisons are all free
to work with any company that comes to them;
Paraffection is owned by Chanel, but it is not Chanel.
“The métiers bring something difficult to replicate,”
says Pavlovsky. It’s why they also do production work
for ultra-high-end ready-to-wear. “Haute couture
isn’t enough to keep design strong in Paris,” he adds.
“Every company has a business plan. My job is to find
the best way to pay the rent.”
Sometimes this can get awkward. During our
interview, I recounted the sight of 10 petites mains,
as the artisans are called, at feather specialist
Maison Lemarié, sitting in a circle around an ice-
blue Fendi ball skirt, building up a layer of ostrich
feathers from its hemline. Pavlovsky pantomimed
shielding his eyes. “I never look at what else they’re
doing,” he says. “I don’t want to be involved in the
competition. If they’re happy with what the maisons
are doing, then we’re happy.”
Like one of the heavily sequined Lesage embroidery
samples held in the company’s 150-odd-year-spanning
archives, Le 19M itself is far from subtle. Sitting just
off the off-ramp of the Porte d’Aubervilliers, one of the
access routes into Paris on the city’s northern border,
it presides over a busy roundabout, next door to the
glass-walled headquarters of BNP Paribas. Even for
such a rapidly transforming big-business hub—new
buildings housing Ministry of Justice offices and
the Paris 2024 Olympic organizing committee are
nearby—the building’s gawk factor is high.
A compound of two cubelike structures covered
1 50
–BRUNO PAVLOVSKY
in an exoskeleton of attenuated, almost-80-foot-tall
white concrete pylons that Ricciotti jokingly calls spa-
ghetti, Le 19M comprises nearly 270,000 square feet
of floor space. It includes a 27,000-square-foot garden,
a subsidized canteen and a soon-to-come gallery that
will be open to the public and will showcase, among
other things, joint endeavors between the Métiers
d’arts ateliers and local art and design schools.
Pavlovsky says the company took no finan-
cial assistance from the city of Paris or the city of
Aubervilliers—Le 19M actually straddles the border
between the two. Chanel, a privately held company,
does not release earnings on a regular basis, though
it did recently state that its operating profit has grown
double digits since the company reopened after global
Covid-19 shutdowns.
One of Ricciotti’s most prominent buildings is
Marseille’s Museum of the Civilizations of Europe
and the Mediterranean (Mucem), which opened in
2013; its elaborate, severe concrete screens come flush
up against the sea’s edge, dramatically transform-
ing the city’s Old Port. “This one took a lot of effort,”
Ricciotti says, seated in Le 19M’s garden, gesturing
at the pylons, which consist of concrete reinforced
with stainless-steel fibers and took months to pour
into specially-made molds. No mere ornament, they
provide heat exchange and shade from the sun, and
help bear the weight of the building itself. They
were engineered for vertical installation. When laid
down they’re exceptionally delicate, so their jour-
ney by truck from Marseille, where they were made,
in a special convoy in the dead of night, was a nail-
biter. So was tipping them up into place without
breaking them.
“All architecture is a narrative,” Ricciotti says,
and the story he wanted to tell here was the meeting
of skill sets, both in the practice of architecture and
in the making of haute couture. The latter was a field
foreign to Ricciotti until this commission.
“I don’t like the consumerist character of fashion,”
he says, “but I am realizing there’s a massive proxim-
ity between the profession and the way I work. I’m
like an orchestra conductor with pianists and first
and second violins, and I have to listen and under-
stand. We can’t be architects alone, and I know all
the supporting jobs by heart. Lagerfeld knew all the
métiers of fashion too.” (Lagerfeld was enthusiastic
about the planning of Le 19M, according to Pavlovsky,
though he didn’t live to see the building’s completion.)
Ricciotti was informed by Chanel’s decades of
expertise in building fashion workshops to come
up with a modular interior, easy to arrange and
rearrange according to the need for open space, but
also privacy. For Pavlovsky, a step up in working condi-
tions was nonnegotiable. “Looking at the old locations
of Lemarié and Lesage—oof,” he says. “They were
charming but disconnected to the needs of today.
I’m not against old buildings, but it’s very difficult to
keep this kind of production inside Paris and offer the
right comfort.”
When working in thread, fiber, feathers and leather,
air filtration is key. The systems installed in the build-
ing filter incoming air, and refilter circulating air to
remove the vast majority of particulate matter from
the environment. Light is crucial too. It bathes Le
19M’s workshops on all sides. “The first time I visited
[the finished building], one of the people told me it was
the first time they saw the actual, true color of what
they were working on,” says Ricciotti, who included
computer modeling of the existing ambient light and
how it interacted with the pylons as part of his pro-
cess. “The level of definition of that light reached a
level I’d never before achieved in my career.”
“All these métiers, we have to break down the walls
around us today, mentally and physically,” says Maria
Roques, CEO of the embroidery house Montex and its
home design research arm, Studio MTX, whose atelier
is on the fourth floor of Le 19M. “All these open spaces
and this light are amazing [not only for the work], but
also for your mind.” •
GOLD STANDARDS
“Haute couture is small, but big,” says Pavlovsky.
Clockwise from top left: Spools of thread at the ready;
fabric with embroidery that mimics inlaid stones; a
scene from a workroom; hand-sewn sequins; architect
Rudy Ricciotti designed airy workrooms with natural
light; intricate gold beading; the archive room of
Lesage; handiwork destined for the fall/winter Chanel
couture show. At center: The Chanel logo gets the
couture treatment.
MUSEUM QUALITY
The Academy Museum
of Motion Pictures,
designed by architect
Renzo Piano, features
the Saban Building
(right) and a 26 million–
pound orb (left) that
houses the David Geffen
Theater as well as the
Dolby Family Terrace.

COMING
ATTRACTION
This fall, Italian architect Renzo Piano’s ambitious plans for the long-awaited
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles finally become a reality.
BY JAY CHESHES PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN KENT JOHNSON

152
 “THIS WASN’T ABOUT ANYONE’S LEGACY.
IT WAS ABOUT THE LEGACY OF THE
BUSINESS THAT WE’VE CREATED, AND
WE’VE WORKED IN, AND HAS BEEN
SO GOOD TO US—A WAY TO GIVE BACK.”
–TED SARANDOS
I
N MID-JUNE , three months before the Academy
Museum of Motion Pictures will open its doors
to the public for the first time on September
30, the museum’s director and president,
Bill Kramer, is touring the site with his boss,
Dawn Hudson, CEO of the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences. Major construction largely
wrapped a year ago on the $482 million complex,
designed by Renzo Piano. The Italian architect trans-
formed the former May Company building, a 1939
streamline moderne landmark on a corner of the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art’s Miracle Mile cam-
pus, erecting an enormous domed theater behind it,
a levitating orb attached by glass bridges and topped
with a canopied terrace with panoramic views of the
Hollywood sign in the distance.
The museum opening, years behind schedule, was
postponed yet again last year when the Covid-19 pan-
demic hit. Now exhibits are weeks away from being
installed across the 300,000-square-foot museum.
The historic May Company building, renamed the
Saban Building in 2017 after a $50 million gift from
entertainment mogul Haim Saban and his wife,
Cheryl, is filled with unpacked boxes. Near the
entrance, off the Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby, named
for the first Black man to win an Academy Award,
154
in 1964, exposed wires inside the MOVIE MAGIC additions to the LACMA campus, the concert hall complex, among other monumental proj- Fidler (who as conservation director at English of being a problem to have those two buildings talk-
Spielberg Family Gallery await dou- “This will probably be Broad Contemporary Art Museum ects—doesn’t do modest proposals. His ambitious Heritage once oversaw the upkeep of Stonehenge). ing to each other, it was a great opportunity to work
the best movie theater
ble-sided monitors that will project in the world for a while,” and the Resnick Pavilion, located next plans for the Academy’s film museum, a longtime “I’m the other famous architect on the project,” jokes on this like you normally work on a movie, like a
a 10-minute montage on the history says Piano of the door and completed a year earlier. pipe dream, may have been the key to finally getting Fidler, who moved to Los Angeles from London in sequence from light and shadow.”
of cinema, featuring cuts from 700 state-of-the-art domed “I guess at that time we had a more the project done. 2006. Replacements for 40 percent of the 365,000 The David Geffen Theater (funded by a $25 million
David Geffen Theater,
films. Bruce, a 1,200-pound model which seats 1,000. modest idea of this museum. We could “It feels like something that is going to outlive all glass tiles on the building’s distinctive gold cylinder, gift from David Geffen), with a thousand plush red
from the original mold of the great Opposite: The 288-seat hardly convince Renzo to do a reno- of us,” says Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix and chair once a perfume-bottle-shaped beacon for shoppers, seats inside the orb, will have projection capabilities
white shark from Steven Spielberg’s Ted Mann Theater vation project, but maybe he would of the museum’s board of trustees, “which is some- were sourced from the original supplier in Italy. for the most historic and cutting-edge types of film,
in the Saban Building.
Jaws, dangles from the ceiling. Soon because he had done these other thing everyone I’ve talked to involved in this project Piano stripped the interior of the building, which from early-20th-century nitrate to the latest digital
objects from Spike Lee’s Brooklyn projects,” says Hudson. “We went to has had in mind. This wasn’t about anyone’s legacy. had been converted into office space over the years, laser productions. “This will probably be the best
studio will be installed for a yearlong exhibition dedi- Genoa. We had a little wooing. It seemed like he was It was about the legacy of the business that we’ve cre- and replaced the stucco and stone back wall with movie theater in the world for a while,” says Piano. A
cated to the director’s work. Elsewhere glass cases entranced by the idea. He said, ‘It’s a very photogenic ated, and we’ve worked in, and has been so good to a glass curtain wall covering a spine connecting second smaller theater in the Saban Building, named
will be filled with Star Wars droids, iconic Oscars will project’ and then, in June, very quickly he unveiled us—a way to give back.” gallery floors. “You see the light through the esca- for the late movie theater entrepreneur Ted Mann,
be displayed in gold-framed alcoves, the Dude’s bath- [his] model. Hollywood has been through big shifts in the 10 lators,” he says, “so you see people moving, like a has 288 seats.
robe from The Big Lebowski and Claudette Colbert’s “And I had a heart attack,” she continues, laugh- years since the Academy Museum project finally pinball that goes up and down.” The Geffen Theater is designed to heighten the
Cleopatra dress will be draped in costume galleries, ing out loud. “I’m not a weak-stomach person, but I got off the ground. Streaming services now turn out And he razed a rundown extension behind the communal moviegoing experience, as L.A. hopefully
Dorothy’s original ruby slippers arranged on a back- remember feeling sick, because I thought, This dome, Oscar contenders, predatory producers face a reck- original building, added in 1946, installing in its begins welcoming back indoor crowds. “We have a
drop of the Yellow Brick Road. this building, this other theater—this isn’t exactly oning, Twitter hashtags reverberate, calling out place his 26 million–pound orb of concrete, glass thousand people coming there not just to watch a
The Academy’s pursuit of a movie museum, after the renovation we talked about.” #OscarsSoWhite. The exhibitions inside Piano’s big- and steel—a “spaceship,” he calls it—connected by movie, but also, probably, to listen to the filmmaker,”
nearly a century of false starts, seemed hopelessly “We couldn’t go backwards,” says Kramer. budget museum will grapple with all of that. three translucent bridges and balanced on vanish- says Piano. “And also they come there to embark on
stalled as recently as 2010. The following year, after “You knew it instantly, didn’t you?” says Hudson. “We’re capturing, I think, the history of this art ing plinths, invisibly rocking on exposed earthquake a spaceship for a different dimension...because this is
another failed bid to build a museum from scratch, “You knew both it had to be this and, Oh, my God, form as it’s changing so rapidly,” says Hudson. supports. “You have a building that belongs to the what the movie is; it takes you in another dimension
the Academy’s directors were offered the May what was the board going to say?” The facade of the former May Company depart- history of the city, and you have something that for a couple of hours.”
Company building as a relatively low-cost renova- Renzo Piano—the 83-year-old architect behind ment store, designed by the local firm AC Martin and belongs to the future,” says Piano. “Then you start Piano first burst onto the world stage in the early
tion. Hudson, new on the job at the time, reached Osaka’s Kansai International Airport, the London landmark-protected on three sides, has been meticu- to think about how you connect those two things, 1970s when he won a competition, with his then-
out to Piano since he’d designed the most recent skyscraper the Shard and Rome’s Parco della Musica lously restored by British restoration architect John and then you start to think about bridges…. Instead partner Richard Rogers, to design the Centre Georges
155
Pompidou in Paris. Their proposal for a radically
accessible cultural institution was a reaction, says
Piano, “to the idea of a museum [as] a dusty place.”
“We were young bad boys but not that stupid,
because the idea was if we make a space that is not
intimidating, people will come,” he says.
Piano has since built a career on cultural proj-
ects that welcome the widest possible audiences.
His firm, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, based
in Paris and Genoa, Italy, has worked on some 30
museums—from the Beyeler Foundation Museum
near Basel, Switzerland, and the Menil Collection
in Houston to the California Academy of Sciences in
San Francisco and the Whitney Museum of American
Art in New York. The public plazas at the Academy
Museum, beneath the Geffen Theater and above it,
on the Dolby Family Terrace, were designed to be
open to all, with no admission fee. (However, terrace
access will be limited to ticket holders initially, due to
pandemic concerns.)
“If you make a museum like [Pompidou] with a
piazza that looks like a funny ship, a vessel, in the
middle of the city,” he says, “if you make a museum
like Beyeler, with lawn all around and a lake, you cre-
ate a place where people come, even if they have little
to do with art. They come because they are attracted
secretly, silently, without really knowing they are
attracted by something.”
None of his museums, he says, have been like any
other, though there’s a through-line connecting them
all. “You have something that you keep in yourself,”
he says. “And this is what I call coherence, integrity,
le fil rouge. This is something you have inside, but this
is not what they call style. The style is a golden cage.”
Among the earliest recorded references to the
Academy launching a movie museum is a letter in
its archive from 1927, the year it was founded. By the
early 1940s, a detailed prospectus for a Museum of
the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences proposed an
initial contribution from the Academy of $1,000 a
month. Charlie Chaplin’s shoes and Mary Pickford’s
curls were among the objects the museum hoped to
1 56
display in its proposed home in the former Trocadero
nightclub on Sunset Boulevard.
A Hollywood Motion Picture and Television
Museum came closer to being realized in the early
1960s when a consortium of Hollywood leaders, in
partnership with Los Angeles County, settled on
about four acres across from the Hollywood Bowl.
Architect William Pereira, famous in Hollywood
circles for designing the original Motion Picture
Country House—a retirement community for the
industry—drew up plans for a sprawling complex
with soundstages, a library and a theater that would
seat about 300 at an estimated cost of $16 million (the
equivalent of over $140 million today). Jack Warner,
Rosalind Russell and Gene Autry attended a ground-
breaking ceremony in 1963. But the project sputtered
after a well-publicized showdown with a heavily
armed homeowner, whose refusal to move stood in
the way of construction. The Academy inherited a
trove of objects from the unbuilt Hollywood museum.
The idea of building a serious movie museum
in the world capital of film continued to percolate
for decades. And the museum project remained a
hot topic when Kathleen Kennedy, a prominent film
producer (currently president of Lucasfilm) whose
credits include E.T., Schindler’s List and the Back to
the Future franchise, among others, first joined the
Academy board of governors 27 years ago.
“I feel like almost as long as I was on the Academy
board…the conversation around whether or not we
could create an Academy museum was always on the
front burner,” she says. “And I think for many years
there was tremendous frustration: Why in the world
does Los Angeles, of all places, not have a motion pic-
ture museum that is the preeminent museum in the
world for the celebration of movies? It seemed kind
of crazy.”
By 2006, the project finally appeared to be ready to
go. The Academy had found a site in Hollywood, pur-
chased for $50 million. And producer Sid Ganis, then
president of the board, had narrowed the search for
an architect to a few big stars, including Sir Norman
Foster, the Norwegian firm Snøhetta and Frenchman The museum broke ground in BEHIND THE SCENES opening next year. world. Movies have captured his imagination since
Christian de Portzamparc. October 2015. Early reports pro- From far left: Piano, Many items displayed at the he was a young boy—the son of a builder—growing
Italy’s most celebrated
The commission went to de Portzamparc, a Pritzker jected an opening two years later. living architect; the Pedro museum are on loan from the biggest up in Genoa in the 1950s and spending Sunday after-
Prize winner who seemed especially open to ideas By the summer of 2019, major con- Almodóvar exhibition in names in the business. Spielberg noons watching matinee westerns. “At that time the
from the board. In the fall of 2008 de Portzamparc was struction was nearing completion. the Rolex Galleries; the loaned Rosebud, the child’s sled movie was a miracle,” he says.
Dolby Family Terrace, which
in Los Angeles presenting his plans for a $400-million- An opening date was set for winter has panoramic views of from Citizen Kane that he purchased As he started his career in architecture in the
plus museum, a series of minimalist boxes with giant 2020. And then the pandemic shut L.A.; the Behold exhibition, at auction in the 1980s. Leonardo 1960s, after finishing his studies in Milan, he often
outdoor screens. An immersion room filled with shad- down all of L.A. “We pulled the con- a part of the Inventing DiCaprio offered choice pieces from thought of the parallels between filmmaking and his
Worlds & Characters
ows and light, suggested by Steven Spielberg, would struction teams out of the building section of Stories of Cinema.
his vintage poster collection. Martin chosen profession. “When you make a good movie you
explain the origins of the projected image, “when men while we figured out what was going Scorsese and his team created mon- have the perfect condition to move people and to touch
moved the shadow of their hand on the wall of a rock,” on here,” says Kramer. They soon tages for a survey highlighting the the profound core of people,” he says. “Well, architec-
as de Portzamparc’s website describes it. “And while postponed the opening, and then postponed it again. work of his longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. ture is not that bad, honestly…[but] I have a couple of
[Christian] was presenting,” recalls Ganis, “that very With the film world on lockdown, Sarandos and his Pedro Almodóvar co-curated an exhibition in the jealous relationships. One is with the filmmaker, the
day the stock market dropped 750 points or some- wife, Nicole Avant, organized a virtual fundraiser for Rolex Galleries on the third floor devoted to his nearly other one is with musicians, because I tried to play the
thing like that. And that was the end of it.” the Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby last year, hosted by 50 years making films. trumpet when I was young. I was so bad that I gave up.
After the recession hit, the project seemed dead for Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey. “What was supposed The official opening kicks off on September 25 And then what I did is that I built quite a good number
a while, until Michael Govan, the director of LACMA, to be our cocktail party turned out to be a pretty with the first of what will become an annual gala, of concert halls. So you go out from the door, and you
suggested launching a more modest version on his fancy Zoom,” says Sarandos. “Dave Chappelle came, atop the Dolby Family Terrace and in the Tea Room come back in from the window.”
campus instead. “On Wilshire Boulevard, the equiva- and Chris Rock. I mean, people showed up.” on the top floor of the Saban Building, which are con- Through the Pompidou project Piano met film
lent of Fifth Avenue, you’d have art and film—how The exhibitions opening this fall, designed by nected via the Barbra Streisand Bridge. The work of director Michelangelo Antonioni, and the two became
cool would that be,” he says. “There was just beautiful Los Angeles architect Kulapat Yantrasast, of wHY Hayao Miyazaki, the reclusive Japanese animation close. Years later, just before Antonioni fell ill, he had
poetry to that.” Architecture, in conjunction with the museum’s cura- auteur—subject of the museum’s first special exhibi- planned to shoot a film starring Sophia Loren in the
By the fall of 2012, Piano had traveled to L.A., tors, will be arranged thematically, covering the tion—will inform the aesthetic theme for the gala. cultural center Piano designed on the Pacific islands
sketches in tow, to meet with the Academy board. breadth of the moviemaking experience—cinema- The evening will honor Sophia Loren and Ethiopian- of New Caledonia. Piano also got to know director
Longtime supporters of the museum effort were tography, costumes, screenwriting, sound—in spaces American filmmaker Haile Gerima. Loren, the first Roberto Rossellini, shortly before his untimely death,
quick to embrace his ambitious plans for the site. designed for easy reconfiguration. performer to win an Oscar for a foreign language film while he was shooting his last film, a documentary
“When you’ve got an artist like that, who has a clear “I think a film museum should change—the subject for her role in the 1960 war drama Two Women, has on the Centre Georges Pompidou, shot on its opening
point of view as to what the potential of that space matter, the social issues, the museum exhibits should her name inscribed on a fifth-floor pillar, as part of a day, January 31, 1977.
could be, I think that really galvanized everybody to be able to address that,” says Yantrasast. campaign co-led by Laura Dern honoring pioneering While Piano followed Rossellini around the build-
start moving forward, and it felt like a reality again,” The displays will focus on a mix of iconic and for- women in film. “To think that it will be there forever ing, the director shared some insights with the young
JEREMY LIEBMAN/TRUNK ARCHIVE (PORTRAIT)
says Kennedy, who was active on the project since gotten film history, addressing the dark legacy of the is very humbling,” writes Loren via email. architect. “He told me, ‘Look, you should stop watch-
the beginning and became chair of the Academy’s film world and recent controversies around race and Dern, who has been active on the museum board— ing the building; you should watch the eyes of the
Museum Committee when it launched in 2015. gender at the Oscars. “Doing that work is necessary and whose annotated Blue Velvet script will be on people watching the building, you should watch the
Fundraising took off after Piano’s presentation. for drawing the audiences we want to reach,” says film display—toured the project, in progress, with Piano faces of people that look at the building,’” recalls
“Initially the hardest part, the hardest thing that I historian Jacqueline Stewart, who this past winter over the years. “Watching his passion, his process Piano. “And you know what? Since then I [never]
faced was, ‘Oh, the Academy is trying this again,’” started as the museum’s new chief artistic and pro- and his commitment,” she writes, by email, recall- watch the building when I finish something. I hide
says Bob Iger, who was CEO of Disney when he signed gramming officer. “It’s not just about some superficial ing her time with Piano, “not only to hold a space that myself behind a column and I watch people watching
on to lead the museum’s capital campaign. “Anybody correcting of the record; people rightly expect to have tells the story of film, but create space that is about the building, and you see the reaction in their eyes,
in L.A. who you wanted to raise money from was fuller histories narrated. And people want to see them- community, collaboration and a place for people you see the reflection and you understand. And this is
aware of the history of this, and there were a lot of selves reflected, and we’ve been working really hard to to congregate.” what I will do in Los Angeles. We have so many good
skeptics…. Until I had drawings, people didn’t believe make sure that happens.” Stewart helped organize the Piano, meanwhile, has been thrilled, he says, columns. I will hide behind one of those columns
it was actually going to happen.” special exhibit Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971, to have spent so much time immersed in the film watching people.” •
157
 DREAM SEQUINS
Oversize paillettes reflect
a childlike sense of joy.
Gucci top, skirt and gloves,
Salvatore Ferragamo
shoes and vintage earrings
(worn throughout).

MORE IS
MORE IS
MORE
Mark a welcome return to glamour with
sequins, embroidery, embellishment
and bright colors, cut in ladylike silhouettes
that recall the sirens of yesteryear.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY NADINE IJEWERE STYLING BY KATE PHELAN

1 59
SURE LINE
A ball skirt or a trumpet
hem have never-ending
appeal. Dior dress,
Mark Davis bangle and
Gabriela Hearst shoes.
Opposite: Loewe top and
skirt and Jil Sander bag.

161
 MERMAID TALES
Sleek, sleeveless options
get major oomph from
vivid adornments.
Versace top and skirt,
Serpui bag, Mark Davis
bangle and Lizzie
Fortunato cuff bracelet.
Opposite: Bottega
Veneta dress and bag,
Aurélie Bidermann
bangle and Salvatore
Ferragamo shoes.

162
ROCK STEADY
Fifties-style cuts can be
dazzling or sweet, but
they’re always flatter-
ing. Dolce & Gabbana
bodysuit. Opposite:
Alexander McQueen
dress, Falke socks and
Totême shoes.

165
 INTO VIEW
A bare face and fiery
red lips are a strong
counterpoint to
sophisticated styles.
Louis Vuitton dress.
Opposite: Prada dress
and stole.

166
FOLLOW THE SUN
Bask in relaxed beauty.
Saint Laurent by
Anthony Vaccarello top,
shorts and belt.
Opposite: Giorgio
Armani top and skirt,
Lizzie Fortunato
necklace and vintage
belt. Model, Shivaruby
at Storm Models; hair,
Shiori Takahashi;
makeup, Lucy Burt.
For details see Sources,
page 178.

169
 FAMILY
REUNION
Ahead of the release of their new
film, The Many Saints of Newark,
David Chase, Michael Gandolfini
and Alessandro Nivola discuss the
making of The Sopranos prequel.
BY ALEX BHATTACHARJI
PHOTOGRAPHY BY TYRELL HAMPTON
TRIPLE THREAT
“It’s a stand-alone film
with new characters
and new relationships,
and things that transcend
[The Sopranos],” says
actor Michael Gandolfini
(center) of The Many
Saints of Newark, which
was co-written and
produced by David
Chase (left) and features
Alessandro Nivola (right).
Grooming by Jamie
Taylor, Kristen Shaw and
Barbara Guillaume.
17 1
W
E’VE NEVER DONE
this,” says actor
Michael Gandolfini,
settling into his chair
in a suite at the Beverly
Hills Hotel. “We’ve
never sat down, the three of us, and talked
about the film.”
“I feel like we should all toast or some-
thing,” says actor Alessandro Nivola, raising
a glass of white Bordeaux.
“Where’s my wine?” asks David Chase, the
screenwriter, showrunner, director and pro-
ducer, as he takes a seat.
All three are in Los Angeles for what
Gandolfini refers to as “a family reunion” to
discuss their forthcoming film, The Many
Saints of Newark (in theaters October 1).
Ostensibly a mob movie, the film is, at its
core, a story about familial bonds and
the cyclical nature of father-son relation-
ships. Chase, 76, is the paterfamilias—the
movie’s co-writer and producer and the
Emmy-winning writer-creator of The
Sopranos, the HBO series on which the film
is based. Nivola, 49, portrays mafia boss
Dickie Moltisanti (who was referenced but never
seen in the series). He is a mentor, uncle and surro-
gate father figure to a young Tony Soprano, played
by 22-year-old Gandolfini—a student at New York
University’s Gallatin School whose first major role
is the same one made famous by his late father,
James Gandolfini.
Between production delays and the pandemic,
nearly two years have passed since these close col-
laborators have all been together in person. The last
time they saw each other was in July 2019 at the wrap
party for the film, which also features Vera Farmiga,
Ray Liotta, Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll and Leslie Odom
Jr. The intervening months were punctuated with
rewrites and reshoots, all slowed and complicated by
Covid-19. The film’s release date moved, then moved
again. For years, Chase had resisted requests to
revisit the world of The Sopranos, and after the elder
Gandolfini died suddenly of a heart attack in 2013,
Chase said he’d never recast the part of Tony. When
he decided to reconsider, he did so on his own terms.
The result is not simply a glorified two-hour episode
of the series but a stand-alone cinematic work that
also serves as a prequel.
The Soprano name is conspicuously absent from
the title, which does, however, reveal the film’s central
figure (Moltisanti means “many saints” in Italian) and
location (the streets of the inner city). The film opens
against the backdrop of the 1967 Newark Riots—also
called the Newark Rebellion—which left 26 people
dead and more than 700 injured over five days. Those
events have long fascinated Chase, who witnessed
them as a young man growing up in northern New
Jersey. His decision to explore racism and the police
brutality that sparked the riots and the tension
between the Black and Italian-American communities
makes the film feel timely despite its delayed release.
In a free-flowing conversation, the three collaborators
discuss the issues that underpin the film, the process
of making it and its long journey to the big screen.
17 2
Alex Bhattacharji: This film has had false
starts and false finishes. One factor was Covid. Do
you remember when you realized it was going to
impact shooting?
Alessandro Nivola: Yeah, because my first day of
pickups was March 13, 2020. I was talking to Michael
and I was saying, “We’re not getting through this.”
Michael Gandolfini: And I was like, “No. It’s just a
flu. It’s going to happen.” He’s like, “No, it’s not.”
AN: I was the voice of reason. But no...you have
to understand it was very strange just to be getting
back into costume and everything a year later, and it
was like my same trailer and my same jewelry and my
same—
David Chase: Your same sharkskin.
AN: The sharkskin suits. So, I had just put every-
thing back on for the first time in a year, and there
was a knock on my trailer door, and they told me,
“Go home.”
DC: What day was that? F—ing
Friday the 13th.... The camera crew
just didn’t show up. They said, “F—
this,” right?
AN: We didn’t know when we would
shoot again, so I was just sitting there.
I couldn’t cut my hair, and I was sort of
just still living in this character, wait-
ing to be told I could finish. For me,
this was probably the biggest oppor-
tunity of my career, and I’d prepared
for such a long time, and there was so
much pressure leading up to the shoot.
We got into the filming, and I couldn’t
really believe how well it was going. I
was sure something had to go wrong.
MG: It’s Alessandro’s fault, hon-
estly. Covid-19.
AN: We got through the main
shoot, and nothing had gone wrong,
and I couldn’t believe it. It just seemed
impossible. Then David had these ideas for a few
scenes he wanted to add, which when I read felt just
totally fundamental to the story and the emotion of
the story.
MG: Yeah, I think I told David when I read those
reshoot scenes, I cried. It moved me so much.
AB: How much did those scenes—which I know we
can’t describe because of spoilers—affect the impact
of the final film?
DC: For me, the additional scenes really helped.
I like the movie now, and I’m proud of it now, but
I wasn’t before. I didn’t like it, and I wasn’t proud of
it. I just thought, It’s OK. But after we added those
scenes I had a completely different view of it. For me,
it was a whole different process…. We were working
on it. And it was getting better, but then this one idea
hit, and that made it. I thought, All right, this movie’s
finished, and this is really working.
AB: What was it like for you, Michael and
Alessandro, to see the finished film for the first time?
MG: Well, I think Sandro had seen a cut before.
I stayed away completely from it. I had been asked
if I wanted to see it before reshoots, and I knew how
much the reshoots meant, and I didn’t want to get in
my head with watching my performance and then try-
ing to do something on set or any of that bullshit. So, I
was like, I’ll watch it when it’s done. And then me and
Sandro watched the final cut...two, three months ago?
AN: Yeah, a masked screening room.
MG: I was kind of nervous about watching it alone.
I just didn’t know how the hell I was going to feel.
There is this amazing moment that I treasure. We got
out of the theater.... We didn’t want to talk about it
too much. We were just letting it ruminate. It was still
in our body, and...I think [John] Magaro [who plays
a young Silvio Dante] had a packet of cigarettes, or
maybe I did, and we just all smoked this cigarette in
silence on the corner.
AN: Afraid to look at each other.
AB: How much did the script change during shoot-
ing? Were there any improvised elements?
DC: No, there was no ad-libbing. Right?
AN: No, not a word was changed.
MG: Not an O or an A.
ROLE MODEL DC: But how much
“I had known there did they bring it up with
isn’t a world where I’m
going to make my dad their performance? It’s
proud—because I can’t,” impossible to even quan-
says Gandolfini (below), tify it…. The case with
who was cast opposite
Nivola (right) by Chase Michael was everybody
(left) in the new film as was saying, “Oh, well, it’s
a young Tony Soprano, going to be a gimmick,
originally played by his
late father. “But I wanted he and his father….” And
to make David proud, then it worked out so
and I wanted to make my great that it was the right
fellow actors proud.”
thing to do.
AB: There’s the series’
legacy and a fan base that’s rabid and studies The
Sopranos canon with as much fervor as the Star Wars
or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Were you ever con-
scious of those pressures and fan expectations?
MG: One thing that I definitely felt is important
is that David and Lawrence [Konner] wrote a movie
that transcended The Sopranos. It’s a stand-alone
film with new characters and new relationships, and
things that transcend the show. I mean, the racial
divide in America transcends The Sopranos.
DC: Despite what some people may tell you.
AN: I think that...the choice to tell the story
through a character who hadn’t existed in the show
was a surprising one and one that ensured that the
movie would stand alone. Tony is viewed through this
other character who had a kind of mythology around
him in the show but was dead before the series began,
and so, that in itself just sort of set it apart and made
it an entity unto itself.
AB: You already have fan Twitter accounts that
are asking if the prequel can just become a new must-
watch Sunday night series. So, clearly, making a
two-hour feature film hasn’t stopped that clamoring.
DC: I mean, audiences think what they think. It’s
not a good idea. It just isn’t. That would just wear it
out. I mean, there’s been The Sopranos, now there’s
this movie. And now another series? Come on.
MG: There’s now been, what, 88 hours of Tony
Soprano? No. I mean, it’s got to be about something
new, or it’s going to beat a dead horse.
DC: It’s interesting if you go online to see what
people are expecting, and then you say to yourself,
You know what? If we gave that to you, you’d bitch
and moan…. I understand; people get very possessive
about it. It’s their show, and they don’t want to see you
take a turn because they hold [on to] what they had.
AN: I see this movie as a Trojan horse in the sense
that you’re not allowed to make this movie, a studio
drama, anymore. This movie was allowed to be made
because of the success of the series and the brand-
ing of the series. That is a beautiful thing—it allowed
them to tell a self-contained family drama, which is
what the movie is.
MG: I remember when I watched it, one of the
things I told people was, “It’s a movie. This is a movie.”
DC: That’s it. It’s a movie. What did Bertolucci say?
Going to a movie is like going to a cathedral. I’m not
saying we made a cathedral—don’t get me wrong.
This didn’t take hundreds of years, but it took four.
AB: The film touches on a lot of issues, often simul-
taneously—Oedipal themes, Faustian bargains, racial
politics, mental health and so on. What stood out to
you as the focus of the story?
AN: Fathers and sons is kind of the big theme.
Cycles of the father-son relationship, which just con-
tinues to drag men down generation after generation
after generation. Dickie was like, My father beat me
up when I was a kid, and I can’t respond to stress
without violence. It’s been beaten into Dickie from a
very young age, and really, the same thing happens
with Tony.
MG: Well, I think that [Tony’s] father is definitely
aggressive and violent and absent. “Am I going to
make my dad proud? Am I going to play football? Am
I going to do this thing? Am I going to make Dickie….”
Making the men in his life proud was such a big thing
for Tony, and I think their absence also shows the
divide that it’s creating for him as he grows up to be
a distant father.
AB: You bring up the tragic elephant in the room,
Michael: your father and his passing. David, after you
said there was no way you would cast anyone else as
Tony Soprano, was Michael the only person you were
willing to have play the part?
DC: Yeah, I had no plan B.... I will say this—I think
I’m correct about this: I was the one who really
wanted him. I mean, the studio wants somebody that
everybody knows. I wanted him.
MG: Well, the way it started was I had heard
there was going to be this movie and there would be
a younger Tony Soprano. I was like, Great. I’d never
seen the show. Sounds good. I’ll root him on. Then
it came through my reps. They were like, “All right,
well, do you want to tape?” At first, I was like, “I just
don’t know.” My manager at the time was like, “Look,
you’re starting off. You’re not going to not audition for
a great casting director.” I was scared. Really scared.
I mean, what if I suck? It was a double thing of: What
if I get this? What do I do? And also: What if I don’t get
this? What do I do? I was like, “All right, I’m just going
to focus on the audition.”
AB: As you said, you had never even watched The
Sopranos. How did you prepare? What was that like
for you?
MG: Once the audition process started, I started
watching the show…. The audition process was the
hardest part. Just watching for the first time. Seeing
my dad and seeing how good my dad was—which
pissed me off in some regard and made me feel so
proud. I was so happy for him and also thinking back
to growing up on the set. And then having to just clear
all…the junk. All the crap…, laughing so hard and cry-
ing. It felt so good to get it all out.
My dad has this beautiful vulnerability on
the inside of Tony and this aggression on the
outside. David’s writing here kind of flipped
that. I was like, All right. What if I make the
vulnerability the surface and the rage slowly
grows in him, right? Because of his parents.
Then it was just about that.
I had known there isn’t a world where
I’m going to make my dad proud—because
I can’t. I understand that. But I wanted to
make David proud, and I wanted to make my
fellow actors proud and learn as much as I
can—that was a goal I could set.
AN: I’ll sum it up. This movie’s about fate,
and your fate is inescapable. Your fate was to
play this part. There was no getting out of it.
MG: There are a billion reasons why I
wanted to do it, but one of the main ones is
Tony isn’t a gun-wielding Goodfellas wan-
nabe kind of mobster nor should he be. He’s
a really sensitive, curious, funny, sweet kid
and gets whittled down by his parents and
opportunities—seeing cool people wear
cool suits—and thinks that the mob’s cool.
Goodfellas is the young kid being like, “As
far back as I can remember, I always wanted
to be a gangster.” That’s not Tony. Tony
is—I mean, I guess that’s one of the ques-
tions, right? Is Tony forced into the life, or is
he not?
AB: On the one hand, there’s destiny, and
we know from the series what path Tony
follows. On the other, Dickie tries—in his
way—to let Tony make his own decision. Is that a
genuine choice?
AN: Well, the funny thing with this relationship
is he’s this kind of surrogate father figure who’s just
totally ill-equipped to be a parent. He really loves
Tony, and he really cares about him. In fact, he’s prob-
ably the only person in the world that he really cares
about, and he would like to steer him right. He just
isn’t capable. It’s sentimental in the best sense of the
word—an expression of paternal love—and a contract
with the devil all at the same time.
MG: Yeah, all in one. Totally. He seals his fate, but
it’s beautiful. •
This interview with David Chase, Michael Gandolfini
and Alessandro Nivola has been edited and condensed
for clarity.
17 3
 McArthur Binion
Pays It Forward
The 75-year-old artist has established a residency in Detroit to give other artists
of color a chance at the recognition that eluded him for so long.
M
cARTHUR BINION, 75, is standing
over a work in progress, holding
three oil paint sticks between the
fingers of his left hand. With his
right hand, he plucks the red one,
draws a line on paper and tucks
the stick back where it started. Binion repeats the
move with the yellow stick, the blue stick and then
the red again. A familiar motif from his decadeslong
investigation of modernism, minimalism, autobi-
ography and identity—a grid—begins to take shape
on the paper. Binion, in a groove, doesn’t look up. “I
have to finish what I started,” he says. He shuffles his
oil sticks, creating lines with urgency. “This is a big
moment for me. I set up here this morning—my first
studio as a mature artist in Detroit.”
Though Binion has worked as an artist since
the early 1970s, it’s only in recent years that
sales and acclaim have become abundant. The
2017 Venice Biennale marked a turning point.
Binion’s work—seven paintings selected by curator
Christine Macel—caught the eye of gallerist Rachel
Lehmann, whose gallery, Lehmann Maupin, repre-
sents an elite roster of artists in eight locations on
three continents.
“The work was so courageous and powerful,”
Lehmann recalls. “I completely fell in love.” Two
174
BY HOWIE KAHN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GIONCARLO VALENTINE
days after leaving Venice, Lehmann flew to Chicago,
where Binion had maintained a studio practice and
a position teaching art at Columbia College since the
early ’90s, to offer representation. “I’d never heard of
Lehmann Maupin,” Binion says. “I don’t follow that
stuff. Once you think it’s about that and not the work,
you’re lost.”
Lehmann signed Binion in 2018, and the gallery
began showing his paintings the following year.
Suddenly, he had solo shows in Hong Kong, Seoul and
New York, as well as representation on the art-fair
circuit—Switzerland’s Art Basel, London’s Frieze.
Lehmann Maupin now sells his paintings at prices
ranging from $300,000 to $900,000, a stark contrast
from the many years in which Binion acted as his
own sales rep. “If you liked me, you’d write a check,”
Binion says, describing his sales approach. Now the
Obamas started collecting his work. (They own five
pieces; Binion says he plans to give them a sixth.) An
animated version of Binion’s painting Rutabaga: In
the Sky even made a cameo as apartment décor in the
2020 Pixar movie Soul. In real life, the work is in the
permanent collection of the Smithsonian National
Museum of African American History & Culture in
Washington, D.C.
Binion’s new show, Modern:Ancient:Brown,
opens at Lehmann Maupin’s 24th Street gallery in
FROM LEFT: VISUAL:EAR, 2021. INK AND GRAPHITE, 16 INCHES x 16 INCHES; VISUAL:EAR, 2021. INK AND OIL PAINT STICK, 16 INCHES x 16 INCHES
Manhattan on September 9. Each of its 11 large-scale
works has been reserved months before the show’s
opening. Binion’s new paintings feature his signa-
ture oil stick grids mapped out over washes of ink in
a variety of hues. He says these works explore a wider
range of color than any works prior.
Beneath the ink and oil stick lies what Binion
calls each painting’s “underconscious,” images sig-
nificant to him—or about him—that he reproduces
on 4-by-4-inch squares of paper before affixing
them to a larger wooden board. Over the course of
Binion’s career, these images have included like-
nesses of his own hands, photocopies of his birth
certificate, found photographs of lynchings and,
most frequently, photocopies from the pages of
an address book Binion used to store his contacts
from the 1970s through the 1990s. The document
is a deeply personal chronicle of his life during that
period: every number he dialed, address he visited,
relationship he maintained or blew up. (Binion has
been married twice. He has a daughter with his for-
mer partner, the late playwright and author Ntozake
Shange, and a son and a daughter with his second OFF THE GRID
wife, the writer Carla Jean Mayer.) The artist with two
Binion’s late-career success has inspired his 2021 works, both
titled Visual:Ear.
return to Detroit, the city where he grew up, put-
ting him in a position to contribute to the city’s arts

community by establishing the Modern Ancient
Brown Foundation in 2019. The organization sup-
ports Detroit artists through grants, seminars and
residency programs. This fall, eight visual artists
will participate in MAB’s inaugural residency. It will
last three months, with materials stipends intended
to get the artists through a calendar year. The resi-
dents will also receive instruction and critique from
Binion and select guest mentors. Binion says he
intends to develop the program into one of the pre-
mier arts residencies in the country. “Detroit has the
energy for it,” he says.
Binion first moved to Detroit with his family from
rural Macon, Mississippi, in 1951, when he was 4
years old. He grew up with his 10 brothers and sis-
ters in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house on the
city’s northwest side. His father, Earl Binion, worked
in a Cadillac automotive plant for three decades and
as the associate pastor of a neighborhood church.
Binion’s mother, Martha Binion, cleaned houses for
white families. “We were the first Black family on our
block,” Binion recalls. “I knew I didn’t want to be a
musician. I didn’t want to be a pimp. I didn’t want to
be a drug dealer.”
Binion enrolled locally at Wayne State University,
declaring a major in creative writing, concentrat-
ing in poetry. “I’m attracted to hard things,” he says.
His paintings still reflect a dedication to the physi-
cal line that parallels the concerns of a poet. At 19,
he dropped out of college to move to New York to
work for a publication sponsored by Harlem Youth
Opportunities Unlimited and Associated Community
Teams (HARYOU-ACT), a federally funded youth and
community empowerment program.
Working as an editorial underling, Binion often
ran errands for the publication’s editor. One day
Binion was sent to drop off a package for the presi-
dent of the Museum of Modern Art, a delivery that
changed his life. It marked his first ever trip to a
museum and his first experience seeing a painting.
He remembers seeing works by abstract expression-
ists and noticing that the only piece by an artist of
color, Wifredo Lam, hung next to the coat check.
In that moment, Binion went from not knowing
that painting was a possible path to feeling that it was
the only path. He re-enrolled at Wayne State, where
he registered for a drawing class and poured himself
into the work, drawing upward of 40 hours a week for
two years, both to catch up with the skills of his peers
and to answer a kind of emotional calling. An under-
graduate art professor of Binion’s told his class that,
most likely, none of them would succeed as artists.
Ultimately, Binion became one of the first Black artists
to graduate from the prestigious M.F.A. program at
Cranbrook Academy of Art in nearby Bloomfield Hills,
Michigan. After that, he left Detroit for New York City.
In November 1973, having moved to Manhattan
only three months earlier, Binion participated in a
group show curated by Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre and
Ronald Bladen at Artists Space, a downtown gallery
that launched the careers of a number of notable
contemporary artists. Soon, though, conceptual,
figurative and multimedia work surpassed abstract
painting in popularity. Binion recalls being warned
that his style represented “an old man’s game,” that
he should change his approach. By the early ’80s, he
176
also began to feel that New York’s art establishment
was willing to embrace only one Black artist at a time,
with Jean-Michel Basquiat filling his era’s single slot.
“How did it take that long to have a Black artist emerge
way up high?” Binion says. “It was totally absurd.”
Still, Binion refused to be dissuaded. He remained
in New York, making work for two decades, some-
times driving a cab to supplement his income. In
1992, he moved to Chicago, becoming an influential
professor at Columbia College and a mentor to stu-
dents like Rashid Johnson while also continuing to
paint. “Having conversations with a Black artist who
faced the same obstacles I would was central to how I
understood my own role as an artist,” says Johnson.
He remembers Binion’s instruction centering around
the development of an unwavering kind of painting
practice. “He told me to go to my studio instead of
YORK, HONG KONG, SEOUL AND LONDON; McARTHUR BINION, MODERN:ANCIENT:BROWN, 2021. INK, OIL PAINT STICK AND PAPER ON BOARD (TBC), 84 x 84 x 2
MODERN:ANCIENT:BROWN, 2021. INK, OIL PAINT STICK AND PAPER ON BOARD, 96 x 144 x 2 INCHES. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND LEHMANN MAUPIN, NEW
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: McARTHUR BINION, DNA: STUDY: ZERO, 2014. OIL PAINT STICK AND PAPER ON BOARD, 84 x 84 x 2 INCHES. THE JOYNER/
GIUFFRIDA COLLECTION. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND LEHMANN MAUPIN, NEW YORK, HONG KONG, SEOUL AND LONDON; McARTHUR BINION,
INCHES. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND LEHMANN MAUPIN, NEW YORK, HONG KONG, SEOUL AND LONDON
coming to class. I took from him the quality of a work
ethic.” Johnson admired Binion’s sense of resolve,
too. “He always knew this kind of success was on the
horizon,” Johnson says, “and I always believed him.”
“McArthur has real rigor. He’s fought hard to
make his work both in and out of the studio,” says
the artist Stanley Whitney, who has known Binion
since they were both newly arrived in New York
City in the early ’70s. Whitney too has stayed the
course, for decades, as an abstract painter and
has also enjoyed a surge in popularity and sales in
recent years. “What is happening now with Black
artists is a correction,” says Binion, speaking of
the recent rise in prominence of a group of Black
abstractionists that includes Whitney, Sam Gilliam,
Charles Gaines, the late Jack Whitten and others.
The Modern Ancient Brown Foundation is Binion’s wants to be in Detroit,” Anthony Curis says. “He
own way of helping Black, Indigenous and people of could be doing this anywhere.”
color (BIPOC) artists gain leverage and institutional The rectory is part of a larger proposed cultural
support at a much earlier point in their careers than development spearheaded by the Curises. Both of
he himself was afforded. “I basically want to fi nd the foundation’s spaces are in neighborhoods where
people like me and help them understand that they new cultural and community developments are rare.
LIFE’S WORK can be a full-time working artist,” he says. Choosing lots in southwest Detroit and the East
“I’d never heard of Lehmann Maupin,” Modern Ancient Brown will operate across two Village, rather than in the city’s more developed
says Binion, of the gallery, which debuts a
show of the artist’s latest work this month. properties. In southwest Detroit, Binion will teach downtown neighborhood, represents an idea about
Opposite, clockwise from bottom: The at the same studio where he’s applying his oil sticks Detroit’s future that’s important to both Binion and
former rectory in Detroit where residents of to paper throughout our interview. He’s bought the Curises. “For Detroit, which is a 139-square-
Binion’s Modern Ancient Brown Foundation
will stay; a 2021 Binion work titled three adjacent lots to construct a modernist-style mile city, to thrive, these neighborhoods need to be
Modern:Ancient:Brown; DNA: Study: Zero, home where he’ll live while in the city. (He will main- supported. McArthur is from here and deeply under-
from 2014; another Modern:Ancient:Brown, tain his Chicago residence, too, continuing to make stands those needs,” Anthony Curis says.
also from 2021; Binion’s Detroit studio.
his larger works there.) Modern Ancient Brown’s At around 6:30 p.m., Binion puts down the oil
residency recipients, on the other hand, will live in sticks. His working hours echo the factory shifts his
Detroit’s East Village neighborhood in a renovated father once clocked: on the floor for long hours with
rectory leased to the foundation by husband-and- frequent overtime. Binion leans back into a chair and
wife gallerists Anthony and JJ Curis, whose Library lights a joint. “A lot of artists go through a personal
Street Collective gallery and its related public art kind of war,” he says. “You’re lucky if you get to my
projects have helped shape Detroit’s surging con- age and have anything left.” For Binion, the opposite
temporary arts identity. “It says a lot about the holds true. “I’m ready for all this,” he says. “I think
strength of the arts community here that McArthur I’m beginning to make my very best work.” •
17 7
SOURCE S
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pants, $1,190, and shirt, $990,
michaelkors.com; Fendi jacket,
shirt and pants, prices upon
request, fendi.com, Valentino
boots, $1,270, Valentino boutiques;
Salvatore Ferragamo jacket,
$4,300, pants, $3,000, and shoes,
price upon request, ferragamo
.com; Chanel jacket, $6,900, pants,
$6,700, and sandals, $1,100, select
Chanel boutiques
PAGE 96
Valentino cape, $3,900, sweater,
$2,900, shirt, $1,400, and skirt,
$1,500, Valentino boutiques,
Molly Goddard boots, $740,
mollygoddard.com; Celine by
Hedi Slimane cape, $2,550,
sweater, $1,050, shirt, $770,
and pants, $2,350, celine.com,
Bottega Veneta boots, $690,
bottegaveneta.com; Hermès top,
$1,700, skirt, $4,250, and boots,
$1,975, hermes.com Miscreants
gloves, $92, miscreantslondon
.com, Annie Costello Brown
bracelet, $260, anniecostellobrown
.com; Schiaparelli dress,
earrings and rings, prices upon
request, Schiaparelli boutiques,
Giuseppe Zanotti shoes, $995,
giuseppezanotti.com; Prada dress
and boots, prices upon request,
shawl, $4,800, and gloves, $950,
select Prada boutiques
STYLE MATTERS
PAGE 107
Zara jacket, $169, zara.com
THE SECRET TO ZARA’S
SUCCESS
PAGES 108–109
Massimo Dutti jacket, $399,
massimodutti.com
PAGES 110–111
Zara turtleneck, $50, zara.com
PAGE 113
Massimo Dutti jacket, $249,
massimodutti.com, Zara pants,
$89, zara.com
KNITS & PIECES
PAGE 116
Dior vest, price upon request, Dior
boutiques, Mugler shirt, price
upon request, mugler.fr, Coperni
top, $180, coperniparis.com, Isa
Boulder pants, $420, ssense.com,
Jil Sander sandals, $1,150, Dover
Street Market, 160 Lexington
Avenue, New York
PAGE 117
Ralph Lauren Collection dress,
$2,290, ralphlauren.com, Isa
Boulder bra, $170, and pants,
$440, ssense.com
PAGE 118
Etro sweater, $1,120, etro.com,
Molly Goddard top, $400,
mollygoddard.com, Blumarine
brief, $240, blumarine.com,
Ajaie Alaie hat, $135, ajaiealaie
.com, Isa Boulder boots, $440,
brownsfashion.com
PAGE 119
Celine by Hedi Slimane sweater,
price upon request, celine.com,
Ottolinger pants, $593, ottolinger
.com, Isa Boulder sleeve, $220
for pair, ssense.com, Bottega
Veneta shoes, price upon request,
bottegaveneta.com
PAGE 120
Balenciaga sweater, $1,450, and
pants, $995, Balenciaga, 620
Madison Avenue, New York
PAGE 121
Chloé dress, $1,950, and bag,
$1,750, chloe.com, Savage X Fenty
socks, $33, savagex.com, Bottega
Veneta shoes, price upon request,
bottegaveneta.com
PAGE 122
Acne Studios cardigan, $580, and
pants, $470, acnestudios.com
PAGE 123
Kenzo sweater, price upon request,
kenzo.com, Isa Boulder bustier,
$340, isaboulder.com, Priscavera
dress, price upon request,
priscavera.com, Miscreants gloves,
$92, miscreantslondon.com, Ugg
socks, $18, ugg.com, Bottega
Veneta shoes, price upon request,
bottegaveneta.com
PAGE 124
Chanel jumpsuit, $6,500,
select Chanel boutiques, Laura
Hagested sweater and socks,
prices upon request, instagram
.com/laurameierh, Bottega
Veneta shoes, price upon request,
bottegaveneta.com
IN THE NE X T
WS J. MAGA ZINE
MEN’S STYLE
ON SALE
OCTOBER 2, 2021
PAGE 125
Louis Vuitton hooded sweater,
price upon request, select Louis
Vuitton stores
PAGE 126
Miu Miu jacket, $3,800, sweater,
$2,650, hat, $655, and scarf,
$510, miumiu.com, Priscavera
pants,$330, priscavera.com
Savage X Fenty socks, $33,
savagex.com, Bottega Veneta
shoes, price upon request,
bottegaveneta.com
PAGE 127
Marni sweater, $950, and pants,
$1,250, marni.com, Apujan hat,
$380, apujan.com
PAGE 128
Fendi sweater, $950, fendi.com,
KNWLS top, $635, and pants,
$1,060, ssense.com, Darner socks,
$40, darnersocks.com, Jil Sander
sandals, $1,150, Dover Street
Market, 160 Lexington Avenue,
New York
PAGE 129
Isa Boulder sweater, $630,
brownsfashion.com, Self-Portrait
skirt, $255, self-portrait-studio
.com, Darner socks, $40,
darnersocks.com
POETRY IN MOTION
PAGE 130
Valentino dress with collar, $6,700,
Valentino boutiques, Mateo
earrings, $275, mateonewyork
.com, Roger Vivier shoes, $695,
rogervivier.com
PAGE 133
Louis Vuitton dress, price upon
request, select Louis Vuitton
stores, Wolford leggings, $260,
wolfordshop.com
PAGE 135
Bottega Veneta dress, $16,500,
bottega.com, Mateo earrings,
$275, mateonewyork.com
PAGE 136
Bottega Veneta dress, $16,500,
bottega.com, Mateo earrings,
$275, mateonewyork.com
PAGE 137
Saint Laurent by Anthony
Vaccarello dress, $6,400, and
tights, $210, ysl.com, Mateo
earrings, $275, mateonewyork
.com, Christian Louboutin heels,
$745, christianlouboutin.com
MORE IS MORE IS MORE
PAGE 159
Gucci top, $3,000, skirt, $13,000,
and gloves, $1,750, gucci.com,
Salvatore Ferragamo shoes, $895,
ferragamo.com
PAGE 160
Dior dress, price upon request,
Dior boutiques, Mark Davis
bangle, $4,200, markdavis.com,
Gabriela Hearst shoes, $1,090,
gabrielahearst.com
PAGE 161
Loewe top, $1,200, and skirt,
$2,800, loewe.com, Jil Sander bag,
$2,990, Mameg, 9970 South Santa
Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills
PAGE 162
Bottega Veneta dress, $25,000,
and bag, $19,000, bottegaveneta
.com, Aurélie Bidermann bangle,
$273, aureliebidermann.com,
Salvatore Ferragamo shoes, $895,
ferragamo.com
PAGE 163
Versace top, $29,750, and skirt,
$31,100, versace.com,Serpui bag,
$389, neimanmarcus.com, Mark
Davis bangle, $15,400, markdavis
.com, Lizzie Fortunato cuff
bracelet, $150, lizziefortunato.com
PAGE 164
Dolce & Gabbana bodysuit, price
upon request, select Dolce &
Gabbana boutiques
PAGE 165
Alexander McQueen dress, $4,640,
alexandermcqueen.com, Falke
socks, $35, falke.com, Totême
shoes, $620, toteme-studio.com
PAGE 166
Prada dress, price upon request,
and stole, $4,800, select Prada
boutiques
PAGE 167
Louis Vuitton dress, $6,900, select
Louis Vuitton stores
PAGE 168
Saint Laurent by Anthony
Vaccarello top, price upon request,
shorts, $4,190, and belt, $1,050,
ysl.com
PAGE 169
Giorgio Armani top, $1,795, and
skirt, $2,195, Giorgio Armani
boutiques, Lizzie Fortunato
necklace, $320, lizziefortunato
.com
 STILL LIFE

VIRGIL ABLOH
The designer and artistic director shares a few of his favorite things.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTORIA HELY-HUTCHINSON

“TO ME, THE APEX of an object is that it figuratively—
but literally—can give you power. Watches, like the
Patek Philippe in the front center, are a quintessen-
tial object that says you’ve made it, and I’ve made a
habit out of buying and customizing them. I blacked
this one out and took all the numbers off. Brands
don’t love when I do stuff like that, but sometimes
it’s for the larger conversation, and I do it with
respect. The new Louis Vuitton Nike Air Force 1s on
the right, that’s almost chemical—that took me 40
years to figure out how to do. It transcends a shoe;
it’s an art object to me. It says something about our
human history, about our current times. Behind the
shoes is one of two Hermès HAC Birkin bags that I
had custom-made in alligator in an insanely big size,
and you pay without any assurance of when, or even
if, you’ll receive your order, which is a wild concept.
It took me so long to get them. Those are aspira-
tional objects at the end of the spectrum of things
that I always idolized to have as a sense of accom-
plishment. The earliest memory I have of ‘art’ is
African sculptures that my parents had around the
house; the piece to the left represents an important
epicenter and reminder of art for me. Now I live with
those sculptures as well. Below it is a stuffed animal
I made from fabric in my studio to send to children’s
hospitals, so they not only exist as high fashion but
as objects with purpose. To the right of that is a jew-
elry piece I made in the lineage of [rapper] Slick Rick.
It’s embedded in hip-hop [history] and Black cul-
ture, this idea of wearing a chain around your neck
made of diamonds. It’s a candle figure, almost of the
Disney variety, and I’m going to have other chains
hang off the chain. ‘Lighting the way’ is very much a
metaphor for my art practice, which is a descendant
of hip-hop history. It sort of ‘scribes’ a new chapter
in an art practice that is largely not acknowledged
by the institution as valid, and that’s me.”—As told
to Amanda Randone

This interview has been edited for length. To read a Q&A with Abloh, go to wsj.com/abloh.

WSJ. M AGA ZINE