Last May, Ell & Nikki, an obscure duo from Azerbaijan, won the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest. The country’s President, Ilham Aliyev, treated the musical win like a military triumph, describing it as “a victory for the people of Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani state.” By winning the pan-European singing contest—which, kitschy as it is, unites the [...]
If Christian Louboutin weren’t wearing a gray-and-neon-yellow hoodie, he might disappear into the bric-a-brac that clutters his dimly lit Paris office. There’s a faux-cheetah rug with a decorative head staring up from the floor. A dingy Snoopy doll slouching on the bookshelf behind his desk. A massive painting of nearly naked boxers standing ringside. And [...]
Emma Hill, creative director of British fashion house Mulberry, prefers quirky over austere, and friendly over froid—characteristics that shone through at her London Fashion Week show in February. Inspired by the furry critters of Maurice Sendak’s children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, she dressed her models in fulsome coats made of long-haired Mongolian goat fur [...]
As the countess of Highclere Castle, the grand home that is also the set of the lavish Edwardian TV drama Downton Abbey, Fiona Carnarvon needs to demonstrate grace under fire. In the spring, about 120 crew members descend on her 6,000-acre (2,400 hectare) estate. They drag miles of black cables across her lawns, place hot [...]
In November 2006, as ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko lay dying of radioactive poisoning, his wife Marina held a bedside vigil. At first doctors at his London hospital blamed an E. coli infection for Litvinenko’s yellowing skin, sunken eyes and dramatic weight loss. But Marina sensed something more sinister. “We asked many times for them to check [...]
If lunch at the Institut Villa Pierrefeu (IVP) often feels like a rehearsal, that’s because it is. Under the watchful eye of Rosemary McCallum, a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and expert on table manners, 13 female students practice the skills they’ve studied in courses on European etiquette and table service. As the meal unfolds in a [...]
In the aftermath of last year’s BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Franca Sozzani did more than ruffle feathers. She drenched them in oil. For the August 2010 issue of Vogue Italia, the audacious fashion editor interpreted the crisis by dousing model Kristen McMenamy in crude. Body splayed on a polluted beach, McMenamy gasped [...]
It took 140 years to build up the House of Reeves furniture store, but only a few hours to destroy it. On Aug. 9, the morning after arsonists left the Croydon landmark in ruins, its owner put on a brave face for reporters. “It’s been there since 1867, survived two wars, a depression. Yet the [...]
How you feel about Kim Clijsters doing a split in a frilly orange skirt probably depends on your reaction to a well-oiled Caroline Wozniacki serving a tennis ball into a wind machine. Then again, these provocative scenarios, which form part of the Women’s Tennis Association’s new Strong Is Beautiful advertising campaign, seem tame compared with [...]
The grand dame of British fashion doesn’t do small talk. But I don’t know that when I see her gawking at a 10-ft. high urn of flowers, delivered to a private dinner party to celebrate her runway show at London Fashion Week. “Are you into flowers?” I ask, naively expecting a smile from a woman [...]
Sometime past 10 p.m., on a dimly lit street north of Bucharest’s Gara de Nord train station, a dozen prostitutes stake their ground in front of an abandoned building. When a van pulls up to the curb, a Roma teenager quickly puts out her cigarette, straightens her miniskirt, steps inside the vehicle and slams the [...]
The seagulls begin squawking at 6 in the morning and the cigarettes cost too much, but Lars, 41, knows there are worse places to call home. On Bastoy, an island 46 miles (74 km) south of Oslo, he and 124 other residents live in brightly colored wooden chalets, spread over one square mile of forest [...]