Town & Country November 2020

1993 sister, sister

Many designers have walked the halls of Fendi, including Maria Grazia Chiuri, Virgil Abloh, and, of course, the late Karl Lagerfeld. But for decades Fendi was truly a family affair. At the time of this shoot the six Fendi daughters (clockwise from top left: Maria Teresa Venturini, Federica Formilli, Silvia Venturini, Simona Saracino, Maria Ilaria Venturini, and Alessia Caruso) all worked with their mothers, the five Fendi sisters: Carla, Franca, Anna, Paola, and Alda. Now, with Kim Jones of Dior replacing Lagerfeld as artistic director, one imagines that creative director Silvia Venturini—designer of the Baguette bag and the only Fendi still at the company—will remain a maternal guide, the keeper of the family flame. ANDREA BLANCH FROM THE MARCH 1993 ISSUE OF TOWN & COUNTRY…

who wears the crown?

Soon after the period of collective grief, the texting of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg quotes began. “My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent” was frequently cited. Several married fans of RBG sent this: “In every good marriage, it helps sometimes to be a little deaf,” advice she said she also followed “in every workplace, including the Supreme Court.” That weekend a post with the words “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you” was probably the second-most popular image in my Instagram feed, after portraits of the justice herself. My personal favorite? “What’s the difference between a bookkeeper in the Garment District and a Supreme Court…

the secret cocktail party in the cloud

Every Saturday, at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, the San Francisco philanthropist Felicia Horowitz throws a dinner party. Only it’s not a dinner party as you recall them, from before lockdown. There’s no RSVP, dress code, or polite chitchat before the entrée. There is no dinner, as a matter of fact, except the one you make yourself. That’s because this party doesn’t happen in person but in the palm of your hand, in an exclusive app that’s still in beta but is already valued at $100 million. The Clubhouse is Davos in your phone, a social audio app where movers and shakers from Silicon Valley, the media, and Hollywood can log in and mouth off. Those of us in their orbit can drive by, eavesdrop, clutch our pearls, have a laugh (Jared…

just keep going

Earlier this year, journalist Cynthia McFadden and her son Spencer took their relationship quite literally to new lengths, when they drove from their Connecticut home to California and back. The trip was ostensibly to collect Spencer’s belongings from his Los Angeles apartment (and teach the New York native how to drive), but over the course of 7,000 miles it became something else entirely, as they stepped outside their comfort zones to learn about each other and themselves, strengthening their bond (and nerves behind the wheel) along the way. Here are selections from their travel journal. DAY 1 SPENCER: What if the car breaks down? What if we get in an accident? What if we have a catastrophic fight? What if I let Mom down? The possibility of failure has kept me from trying…

listen to your mother

It isn’t unheard of for filmmakers to cast their children in their movies. Directors from John Huston to Francis Ford Coppola to Richard Linklater have bestowed plum parts upon their offspring. What is somewhat less common is when it happens the other way around—and for seemingly good reason. “When I did my first movie with my mother, one of my main concerns was what I was going to call her,” says Edoardo Ponti, the filmmaker son of Sophia Loren and the late producer Carlo Ponti. “Am I going to call her the character name, or Sophia, or Mammina, which is what I call her normally? I resolved that I was going to call her the character name, but the first day on set the first word that came out of my…

why go home again?

Americans, as citizens of the world’s military, economic, and cultural superpower, have long been scrutinized and stereotyped. We are either brash and bossy or easy and informal, with an alluring, “Singin’ in the Rain” optimism. But there is universal agreement on one national trait: We take the world’s shortest vacations. Europeans have that month-plus summer shutdown; Americans worship at the altar of the summer Friday. No wonder: The United States, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation time or paid national holidays. What days off we do get are at employers’ discretion, and so they are taken with at least a subliminal sense of anxiety, as if we weren’t in compliance with our country’s…