Town & Country Summer 2019

2017 WORKING ROYAL When T&C spent a week in Africa with Prince Harry for our February 2017 cover story, we found his commitment to wildlife restoration both passionate and personal. This spring he announced a new project, a documentary series about mental health with Oprah Winfrey. Harry has been candid about his emotional struggles after the death of his mother, Princess Diana, and seeing him once again draw from his own life experience to help others is a lesson in making “What can I do?” work.…

The phrase above was needlepointed on a Lingua Franca pillow that was given out after one of the events at Christie’s to celebrate the landmark Rockefeller family sale last May. Almost a year later the pillow remains exactly where I placed it when I got home, and its message speaks to me over coffee every morning. I often wish I had come up with it myself—what better way to explain what we are trying to do here? For Town & Country, from the very beginning (that’s 1846, to be clear), the good life has meant travel and beautiful clothes and jewelry and art and culture and civility, but always with a clear imperative that the enjoyment of those riches be grounded in a responsibility to give back—in time, in money,…

JOHN LEGEND The musician and criminal justice activist (whom T&C has highlighted for his own good works) had much to talk about with Melinda Gates for “SHE RULES FOR GOOD” (page 128). “I’ve always looked at her as an example of how to do philanthropy in a way that’s responsible, impactful, and lifesaving.” ALEX BHATTACHARJI As a teen growing up in New York in the 1980s, the writer remembers how the city was gripped by the infamous Central Park Five case. Three decades later he interviewed the five men alongside Ava DuVernay, creator of a new series about the case, for “SHE RULES FOR JUSTICE” (page 124). “Seeing them lift one another up was incredibly poignant.” KONSTANTIN KAKANIAS The Athens-born illustrator, whose work appears in “WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE PAROS” (page…

New Yorkers were willing to overlook a lot about Claus von Bülow, but for all the free passes he received, including an acquittal in 1985 after he was accused of trying to kill his wife with an overdose of insulin, society drew the line at indulging him at his old haunts while Sunny remained in a coma. Despite his desperate attempts at rehabilitation in the media, the Danish-born dandy became an object of derision on the jetset’s unforgiving restaurant scene, a banishment possibly worse to the bon vivant than prison food. “We would see Claus at Mortimer’s,” recalls Paul Wilmot, the sagacious publicist who once tended the reputations of Calvin Klein and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. “People used to point at him—he was a tourist attraction!” If yesterday’s ruling class clutched its…

In a city where boldface names are part of the furniture, gawking is always on the menu. But there are rules, even with personae non gratae: ZIP YOUR LIP Do you really want to be remembered for cussing out Mario Battali’s Crocs? Discretion, gentle reader, is the better part of glamour. WHEN THEY GO LOW, GO HIGH-CONCEPT The sight of Harvey Weinstein in your favorite joint bringing you down? Instead of storming out, send him a latte with “Time’s Up!” written in foam. DO NOT RUSH TO FLUSH Their careers may be in the toilet, but that doesn’t give you the right to follow even a social leper into the restroom. Ever. BE ALL EARS Just as we dress to make the scenery more pleasant for others, it’s our social…

In November 2015, Joe Zee and Rob Younkers planned a trip to the Resort at Pedregal in Cabo San Lucas to celebrate Joe’s birthday. The two had met four years earlier on Joe’s TV show, All on the Line—Rob is a fashion designer and professor, while Joe is a fashion expert, journalist, and television producer whose latest project is the new Netflix documentary series 7 Days Out. As Rob was coordinating with the hotel about the birthday party, Joe was secretly planning to propose in Cabo. “I knew he’d be so focused on my birthday he wouldn’t suspect anything,” Joe says. “We were both driving the hotel crazy!” Three years later, in October 2018, they got married at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, the restaurant and farm in Pocantico Hills,…