Before the war and during the Occupation, Arletty and Chanel were part of an extraordinary social set from across the arts and political spectrum. Right-wing and antisemitic views dominated the politics of this group. The French journalist Boulos Ristelhueber reported in 1940 that Chanel had gone into “into a long tirade against the Jews” during…
Louis Vuitton’s watchmaking division has doubled down on its ambitions to sustain rare artisanal handicrafts with the introduction of the Escale Cabinet of Wonders, three upscale métiers d’art watches. They were aesthetically derived from an extensive collection of Japanese tsuba, or sword guards, that were owned by Gaston-Louis Vuitton, the third generation Vuitton, who ran…
When Lyndsey Ingram hosts dinners at her namesake gallery in the Mayfair district of London, the art on her walls initially grabs her guests’ attention. But by the time they are seated at the table, it is her Saint Laurent goldtone metal cuff with a cutout heart that fascinates them. “I often find myself taking…
There is one model who walked in more fashion shows than any other in 2023. Yilan Hua is from China. She stands 5-foot-11, with a sweep of shoulder-length jet black hair, full lips and pointed nose and appeared on a staggering 89 runways last year, according to the fashion search engine Tagwalk, outpacing her nearest…
Since the late 19th century, more than a third of the work force in the Swiss watch industry has been women, according to statistics from the Swiss government. Yet you wouldn’t know it from exploring the Musée International d’Horlogerie, a brutalist architecture monument with wavelike walls in the watchmaking city of La Chaux-de-Fonds. Four women…
For more than two decades, Yeana Ahn, a co-founder of a lifestyle publicity company in New York City, has worn the same watch every day: a 36-millimeter Rolex Datejust in stainless steel and 14-karat gold with an Oyster bracelet. Strictly speaking, however, it isn’t her watch. It belongs to her husband, James Ahn, who received…
Awards season is prime time for brands to reveal showstopping creations, and the British Academy Film Awards last month certainly provided a stage for the new Cartier Libre Polymorph collection, jeweled timepieces and accessories themed around movement and transformability. Paul Mescal, a supporting actor nominee for “All of Us Strangers,” accented his look with a…
If the 20th century could claim an It girl, she probably would be Marlene Dietrich: movie star, nightclub chanteuse, fashion and jewelry icon, and a German celebrity who supposedly told Hitler to get lost. Born in 1901, she went from obscure Berlin chorus girl to international star in the 1920s and ’30s, shaking up the…
“I have anger against everything in the world, especially against myself.” Such was the explanation by Rei Kawakubo for a Comme des Garçons collection that was an explosion of chaotic femininity — bows and bustles and puffs and flounces — all in black, scarified by prints of barbed wire and chains, legs bound by ribbons….
When she was 5 years old Kia Schwaninger designed her first piece of jewelry, a refined necklace of royal-blue polymer clay beads that was for her mother. “I guess that was my first commission,” the Swiss-born designer who now lives and works in Brooklyn said as a joke. Her mother still has the necklace. Ms….
