Vanity Fair UK - 11 2019

UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.
me/whatsnws
UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws
the new eau de parfum

AVAILABLE ON CHANEL.COM
Contents Issue No. 711
106
Unsportsmanlike
Conduct
B Y M AY J E O N G
NFL owner Robert Kraft was charged

with soliciting a prostitute after
he visited a strip mall massage parlor.
Then the story got interesting.
112
136
142
Features
94
B R AC E L E T S B Y CA R T I E R ( R IG H T ) A ND S OP H I E B I L L E B R A H E ; R I NG S B Y M A R L O L A Z
H A S A N M I N H A J ’ S S U I T B Y DIO R M E N ; S H I R T B Y L O U I S V U I T TON M E N ’ S ; WATC H B Y
Fame & Phoenix

ROL E X . E M I LY W E I S S ’ S C L OT H I NG B Y I S A B E L M A R A N T ; S HOE S B Y JAC Q U E M U S ;
( R IG H T ) A ND S OP H I E B I L L E B R A H E . F O R D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S
BY JOE HAGAN
PHOTOGR APHS BY
ETHAN JAMES GREEN
Joaquin Phoenix went dark—very

dark—as the troubled comic-book
villain in Joker. It just might earn
him an Oscar.
Joaquin Phoenix wears a shirt and tie by Saint Laurent

On the
MONSTER HITS, INC.
by Anthony Vaccarello. Hair products by Kevin How Pixar revived Disney (P. 130)
Cover Murphy. Grooming products by Beautycounter.
$ 16.9B
Grooming by David Cox. Set design by Marcs Goldberg. Price paid for
Produced on location by Joy Asbury Productions. Pixar in 2006
Styled by Tom Guinness. Photographed exclusively
$7.4B
$ Disney’s animated
for V.F. by Ethan James Green in Beverly Hills. box office since then
For details, go to VF.com/credits.
10 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

79
Special Section
79
With power brokers and politicians in turmoil from
Silicon Valley to Washington, it’s time once again for Vanity
Fair’s annual ranking of tech moguls, financial wizards,
political heavyweights, and cultural icons, reimagined to
reflect a changing world. Plus: Jodi Kantor and Megan
Twohey on #MeToo’s past and future.
Features (continued)
118 130
Their Tube Once Upon a
B Y R I C H A R D L AW S O N Time in Burbank
PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
PHOTOGR APHS BY BY BOB IGER

ETHAN JAMES GREEN
In an exclusive from his new book,
I L L U S T R AT IO N S : F RO M L E F T , B Y K L AU S K R E M M E R Z ,
T H E R E I S ST U DIO , Y U KO S H I M I Z U , A NDR É CA R R I L HO .
In 15 short years, YouTube has CEO Bob Iger recalls the deal
redefined the nature of fame and with Pixar—and an ailing Steve Jobs—
entertainment. Meet the online that reanimated Disney.
stars who are riding the wave—and
racking up subscribers.
After he got a “massage,” Kraft HER TUBE

Emma Chamberlain’s influential rise (P. 118)
called his friend. “You won’t believe
what happened to me,” he said. 870,806,913*
* YouTube views in first two years
“UNSPORTSMANLIKE CONDUCT,” P. 106

31
136
Face Value
BY MARISA MELTZER
PHOTOGR APHS BY
MARTIN SCHOELLER
Emily Weiss’s beauty company,

Glossier, has turned online fervor into
a billion-dollar real-life empire.
142
112
Vanities
31
Opening Act Actress Camila Morrone
had the Cannes audience on its
( M IDDL E F I NG E R ) A ND R E T RO U VA Í . I L L U ST R AT ION B Y R I S KO . F OR D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S

feet and her buzzed-about boyfriend
CA M I L A MOR RON E ’ S G OW N B Y M IC H A E L KOR S C OL L E CT ION ; R I NG S B Y C H A N E L F I N E J E W E L RY

behind the camera
Trending From bold polka-dots
to fine florals, this season’s prints are
meant to be mixed
Culture Astrologically approved C Y N T H I A E R I VO ’ S H AT S B Y M I U M I U ; E A R R I NG S B Y PR A DA ; S L I P B Y A R A K S .
fragrances, a T-shirt for the greater good,
and an L.A. fashion bible
My Stuff Melina Matsoukas, the
director behind Beyoncé, Rihanna, and
a new film, shares her favorite things
Style When it comes to fine jewelry, the
best kind of gold is green
Fairground On the scene at
the Venice Film Festival and V.F.’s
Best-Dressed List party
“My favorite journey is 20

26
Behind the Issue
Contributors
the one I am on now: living in 28 Editor’s Letter
curiosity and wonder.” 164 Proust Questionnaire
JUDITH LIGHT, P. 164

Agenda By Annabel Davidson

@vanityfairlondon
Cinema
The One that you Want

Whether it’s Judy Garland in the
original A Star Is Born or Olivia Newton
John in Grease, your favourite all-
singing, all-dancing actresses in
beloved musicals are set to reappear on
the big screen for BFI Musicals!
The Greatest Show on Screen—a
blockbuster season running at cinemas
Rose Dior Pop Emerald ring, POA nationwide from October 2019 to La Prairie’s new Skin Caviar Eye Lift
Anniversary January 2020. Start practising those toe Beauty
Blooming Marvellous taps now. bfimusicals.co.uk Eye Opener

Twenty years of Dior Joaillerie is There’s no need to juggle multiple
synonymous not just with the maison’s products for the eyes with La Prairie’s
namesake, Christian Dior, but the new Skin Caviar Eye Lift for the entire
woman who has helmed its fine and eye area. Based on cutting-edge
high jewellery ateliers since its birth: biotechnological research and infused
Victoire de Castellane. The Rose Dior with the Swiss brand’s updated version
Pop collection is a vibrantly hued take of the original Skin Caviar, this super-
on the now iconic Rose Dior design, indulgent serum promises to tackle
with lacquered petals enveloping upper lids, crow’s feet, the under-eye
gemstone hearts in an ode to Monsieur area and even the brows. £360 at
Dior’s favourite bloom. dior.com A still from Grease, courtesy of BFI Harrods. laprairie.co.uk
Exhibition
Something Blue
If you’re in Shanghai, you’ve still got a
chance to catch the multi-faceted Vision
and Virtuosity exhibition celebrating
over 180 years of Tiffany & Co. (until
November 10) at the Fosun Foundation.
Divided into six chapters, the exhibition
looks at everything from important
Argyle pink diamond Camilah ring by Calleija
historical diamonds to the iconic
Audrey Hepburn film, Breakfast at Jewellery
Tiffany’s. tiffany.co.uk In the Pink
Embroidered silk pyjamas by Olivia von Halle
Launch The famed Australian Argyle mine

Bird Watching produces some of the world’s most
valuable pink, purple and red
Blue velvet robes and green silk pyjamas diamonds, but is set to close in 2020,
with a Studio 54 twist are only ever making its stones highly sought after by
going to be sumptuously luxurious in collectors. Australian jeweller John
the hands of Olivia von Halle, queen of Calleija is one designer who specialises
high-end nightwear. The 13-piece Birds in these pretty pinks, creating pieces
of Paradise collection is exclusive to like the Camilah ring replete with
Harrods and available online. them. It’s an investment piece in the
Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) oliviavonhalle.com truest sense. calleija.com
NOV E M B E R 2 0 1 9 VA NIT Y FA IR 17
From the Editors Behind the Issue
Making
Waves
It’s fitting that the latest actor to
take up the mantle of the Joker,
the comic book villain who has been
played by Jack Nicholson, Heath
Ledger, and Jared Leto, would insist
on being fooled to get a good shot.
“Just trick me—just trick me,” Joaquin
Phoenix urged Ethan James Green,
whose portraits of the actor for this
month’s cover story, along with
his portfolio of YouTube’s brightest
stars, are his first as a Vanity Fair
contributing photographer.
ON SET
As Green recalls it, the shoot wasn’t Left: Stylist Tom Guinness and V.F.
going well. He was trying to craft contributing photographer Ethan James
scenes; Phoenix was looking, as he does Green in Beverly Hills; Joaquin Phoenix,
this month’s cover subject and star
in all his roles, for authenticity. “He of the new film Joker.
pulled me aside and was like, ‘This is
stupid,’ ” says Green, who embraced
the critique as an invitation to simply
capture their day together. “So I said,
‘Okay, let’s do something low-key.’ ”
Low-key suited the actor perfectly.
Phoenix is vegan inside and out— SOON-TO-BE
he doesn’t wear cashmere, silk, Engaged couple Rooney Mara and Phoenix on the way to the Venice Film Festival.
P HOTO G R A P H S : F ROM TOP, B Y E T H A N JA M E S G R E E N , N IC K R A PA Z , G R E G W I L L I A M S

Read Richard Lawson’s VFF dispatches at vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019
wool, or leather, opting instead for his /09/on-the-scene-at-the-venice-film-festival. See Greg Williams’s snapshots of
own Converse sneakers. On the the festival’s best parties in Fairground on page 40.
day of his cover shoot, there was a
single rack of clothes, in cotton
and linen. “For a timeless picture, it
works great,” says Green. “You can
get away with more black and white.”
The monochrome palette proved
particularly striking against the
opalescent swimming pool, which
reminded Green of a favorite photograph
by his mentor, David Armstrong.
And then Rooney Mara, Phoenix’s
longtime girlfriend, arrived. “Joaquin
just lit up,” Green recalls. “So I had
Rooney sit out of frame and make him
laugh.” A few weeks later, news
came that the couple was engaged.
— MARY ALICE MILLER

The Poetry of Time

Pont des Amoureux Collection
Automatic movement, retrograde
and on-demand animation.
Haute Joaillerie, place Vendôme since 1906
9 NEW BOND STREET - HARRODS - SELFRIDGES

www.vancleefarpels.com - +44 20 7108 6210
Editor in Chief Radhika Jones
Deputy Editor Kira Pollack

Creative Director Chris Dixon Director of Editorial Operations Caryn Prime
Executive Editors Eric Bates, Claire Howorth, Daniel Kile Executive Hollywood Editor Jeff Giles Editor, Creative Development David Friend
Executive Fashion Director Samira Nasr Market Director Nicole Chapoteau Accessories Director Daisy Shaw-Ellis
Entertainment Director Alison Ward Frank Legal Affairs Editor Robert Walsh Director of Special Projects Sara Marks Research Director David Gendelman
Beauty Director Laura Regensdorf Design Director Justin Patrick Long Senior West Coast Editor Britt Hennemuth
Production Director Mia Tran Copy Director Michael Casey Associate Editors Mary Alice Miller, Louisa Strauss, Keziah Weir
Associate Legal Affairs Editor Simon Brennan Research Editor Mary Flynn Reporter-Researchers Brendan Barr, Michael Sacks
Copy Manager Michael Quiñones Editorial Finance Manager Geoff Collins
Senior Visuals Editors Tara Johnson, Cate Sturgess Entertainment Editor Caitlin Brody
Special Projects Manager Ari Bergen Copy Production Director Anderson Tepper Production Manager Susan M. Rasco Assistant to the Editor Daniela Tijerina
Accessories Editor Alexis Kanter Research Manager Taylor Smith Editorial Assistants Arimeta Diop, Danielle Walsh Assistant Fashion Editor Alexandra Delifer
Special Correspondents Nick Bilton, Anthony Breznican, Bryan Burrough, William D. Cohan, Amy Fine Collins, Joe Hagan, Maureen Orth,
Mark Seal, Gabriel Sherman Writers-at-Large Marie Brenner, James Reginato
vanityfair.com
Executive Digital Director Michael Hogan
Editor Matthew Lynch Deputy Editor Katey Rich Digital Managing Editor Kelly Butler Senior Visuals Editor Chiara Marinai
Audience Development Director Kia Makarechi
Projects Editor Alyssa Karas Line Editor Katie Commisso
Senior Hollywood Editor Hillary Busis Chief Critic Richard Lawson
TV Correspondent Joy Press Senior Feature Writer Julie Miller Senior Staff Writer Joanna Robinson
Film Critic K. Austin Collins TV Critic Sonia Saraiya Staff Writers Dan Adler, Laura Bradley, Kenzie Bryant, Yohana Desta
Associate Editor Erin Vanderhoof Associate Line Editor Rachel Freeman
Executive Producer Traci Oshiro Supervising Video Producer Christopher Klimovski
Video Producers Justine Del Gaudio, Ella Ruffel Lead Producer Jarondakie Patrick
Visuals Editor Lauren Margit Jones Assistant Line Editor Cynthia Orgel Senior Social Media Manager Daniel Taroy
Senior Manager, Analytics Neelum Khan Social Media Manager Sarah Morse Associate Producer Maham Hasan
Editorial Assistant Sarah Shoen
The Hive
Editor John Homans Deputy Editor Benjamin Landy Senior Editor Claire Landsbaum
Senior Media Correspondent Joe Pompeo National Correspondent Emily Jane Fox
Politics Correspondent Bess Levin Writer-at-Large T.A. Frank
Staff Reporters Tina Nguyen, Abigail Tracy
Communications
Vice President and Head of Communications, Culture Division Corey Wilson
Senior Manager Rachel Janc
UK Emily Hallie
Contributors
Social Contributor Jeffrey Tousey Production Manager Roberto Rodríguez
Special Projects Consultant Matt Ullian Architecture Consultant Basil Walter
Summit Contributing Producer Graham Veysey Special Projects Art Director Angela Panichi Associate Editor S.P. Nix
Assistant Visuals Editor Allison Schaller Art Assistant Justine Goode
Special Projects Assistant Charlene Oliver Fashion Assistants Valerie Butler, Samantha Gasmer
Contributing Photographers
Annie Leibovitz
Jonathan Becker, Larry Fink, Ethan James Green, Collier Schorr, Mark Seliger
Contributing Artists
Hilary Knight, Robert Risko
Contributing Editors
Kurt Andersen, Suzanna Andrews, Lili Anolik, Carl Bernstein, Peter Biskind, Buzz Bissinger, Derek Blasberg, Christopher Bollen,
Patricia Bosworth, Mark Bowden, Douglas Brinkley, Alice Brudenell-Bruce, Michael Callahan, Adam Ciralsky, Rich Cohen,
Sloane Crosley, Lisa Eisner, Bruce Feirstein, Nick Foulkes, Ariel Foxman, Alex French, Paul Goldberger, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Michael Joseph Gross, Bruce Handy,
David Harris, Mark Harris, Carol Blue Hitchens, A.M. Homes, Uzodinma Iweala, Sebastian Junger, David Kamp, Sam Kashner, Jemima Khan,
Wayne Lawson, Fran Lebowitz, Dany Levy, Monica Lewinsky, David Margolick, Bethany McLean, Anne McNally, Nina Munk, Fiona Murray,
Katie Nicholl, Evgenia Peretz, Véronique Plazolles, Maximillian Potter, Lisa Robinson, Mark Rozzo, Nancy Jo Sales, Elissa Schappell, Michael Shnayerson,
Richard Stengel, Diane von Furstenberg, Elizabeth Saltzman Walker, Benjamin Wallace, Heather Watts, Ned Zeman

Naturally beautiful hair

doesn’t always happen naturally.
But it can happen by appointment.
We provide personalised solutions to hair loss and hair thinning. Using our exclusive surgical
and non-surgical procedures, we have the unique ability to restore your hair with unparalleled results.
For a private consultation call + 44 (0) 20 7823 2020
Making hair restoration an art for more than 30 years.
10 Grosvenor Place, London SW1X 7HH www.meshkati.co.uk contact@meshkati.co.uk

Publishing Director Kate Slesinger
Associate Publisher Clare Schifano

Head of Partnerships Lucie Burton-Salahuddin Senior Advertisement Director Emma Heuser Jewellery Advertisement Director Emma Samuel
Fashion Client Manager Emily Elliott Health and Beauty Client Manager Octavia Saugman
Account Managers Emily Goodwin, Natasha Gresh Acting Fashion Client Manager Caroline Hall
Events Sales Manager Victoria Furse Events Coordinator Saffron Altmeyer-Ennis Executive Assistant to Publishing Director Imogen Agnew
Supplements: Managing Editor Holly Ross Agenda Editor Annabel Davidson
Art Director Scott Moore Deputy Art Director Anja Wohlstrom Acting Deputy Art Director Tereza Jichova
Art Editor Lou Macleod Designer Samantha Totty Picture Editor Tanjya Holland Parkin Chief Copy Editor Sarah Edworthy
Copywriter Jessica Burrell Junior Subeditor Rose Washbourn Junior Managing Editor Chloe Smith
Partnerships Project Manager Hazel Byrne Partnerships Executives Hara Mavrogiorgi, Caroline Sillem
Business and Promotions Manager Charlotte Taylor Classified Director Shelagh Crofts Classified Advertisement Manager Emma Alessi
Acting Classified Sales Manager Alice Winters Senior Classified Sales Executives Alicia de Pedro, Isabelle Gifford
Associate Publisher, U.S. Shannon Tolar Tchkotoua Director, Paris Helena Kawalec Manager, Italy Valentina Donini
Manager, India Rachna Gulati Manager, Dubai Prasad Amin Regional Sales Director Karen Allgood
Head Of Management Accounts Bijal Khatri
Marketing Manager Ella Simpson Senior Data Manager Tim Westcott
Circulation Director Richard Kingerlee Newstrade Marketing Manager Olivia Streatfield
Subscriptions Director Patrick Foilleret Direct Marketing and Events Manager Lucy Rogers-Coltman
Assistant Marketing and Promotions Manager Claudia Long
Production Director Sarah Jenson Commercial Production Manager Xenia Dilnot
Commercial and Paper Production Controller Martin MacMillan Senior Production Controller Helen Crouch
Acting Production Controller Leonie Kellman Acting Production Coordinator Lottie Smith
Director of Editorial Admin and Rights Harriet Wilson Editorial Business Manager Caroline Martinez
Communications Director Emily Hallie Chief Digital Officer Simon Gresham Jones
Digital Commercial Director Malcolm Attwells Digital Operations Director Helen Placito
Chief Operating Officer Sabine Vandenbroucke Head of Finance Daisy Tam H.R. Director Hazel McIntyre
Managing Director Albert Read

Chairman Nicholas Coleridge
Vanity Fair is published by the Condé Nast Publications Ltd., Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S IJU (Tel.: 020 7499 9080)
Directors Nicholas Coleridge, Shelagh Crofts, Edward Enninful, Simon Gresham Jones, Dylan Jones, Albert Read, Sabine Vandenbroucke
Chief Executive Officer

Roger Lynch
In the USA
Artistic Director Anna Wintour
Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Self, GQ, GQ Style, The New Yorker, Condé Nast Traveler, Allure, AD, Bon Appétit,
Epicurious, Wired, Teen Vogue, Ars Technica, Pitchfork, Them, Iris
International
President Wolfgang Blau
London HQ, Vogue Business, Condé Nast College of Fashion & Design
Britain Vogue, House & Garden, Tatler, The World of Interiors, GQ, Vanity Fair, Condé Nast Traveller,
Glamour, Condé Nast Johansens, GQ Style, Love, Wired
France Vogue, Vogue Hommes, AD, Glamour, Vogue Collections, GQ, AD Collector, Vanity Fair
Italy Vogue, Glamour, AD, Condé Nast Traveller, GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired, La Cucina Italiana, Experienceis
Germany Vogue, GQ, AD, Glamour, GQ Style
Spain Vogue, GQ, Vogue Novias, Vogue Niños, Condé Nast Traveler, Vogue Colecciones, Vogue Belleza, Glamour, AD, Vanity Fair
Japan Vogue, GQ, Vogue Girl, Wired, Vogue Wedding, Rumor Me
Taiwan Vogue, GQ, Interculture
Mexico and Latin America Vogue Mexico and Latin America, Glamour Mexico, AD Mexico, GQ Mexico and Latin America
India Vogue, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller, AD
Published under joint venture:
Brazil Vogue, Casa Vogue, GQ, Glamour Russia Vogue, GQ, AD, Glamour, GQ Style, Tatler, Glamour Style Book
Published under license or copyright cooperation:
Australia Vogue, Vogue Living, GQ Bulgaria Glamour
China Vogue, AD, Condé Nast Traveler, GQ, GQ Style, Condé Nast Center of Fashion & Design, Vogue Me, Vogue Film
Czech Republic and Slovakia Vogue, La Cucina Italiana Germany GQ Bar Berlin Greece Vogue Hong Kong Vogue Hungary Glamour
Iceland Glamour Korea Vogue, GQ, Allure, Middle East Vogue, Condé Nast Traveller, AD, GQ, Vogue Café Riyadh
Poland Vogue, Glamour Portugal Vogue, GQ Vogue Café Porto Romania Glamour Russia Vogue Café Moscow, Tatler Club Moscow Serbia La Cucina Italiana
South Africa House & Garden, GQ, Glamour, House & Garden Gourmet, GQ Style, Glamour Hair
The Netherlands Vogue, Glamour, Vogue The Book, Vogue Man, Vogue Living Thailand Vogue, GQ Turkey Vogue, GQ, La Cucina Italiana Ukraine Vogue, Vogue Café Kiev
Chairman of the Board of Directors

Jonathan Newhouse
Vanity Fair is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (which regulates the U.K.’s magazine and newspaper industry). We abide by the Editors’ Code of Practice [www.ipso.co.uk/editors-code-of-practice]
and are committed to upholding the highest standards of journalism. If you think that we have not met those standards and want to make a complaint please see our Editorial Complaints Policy on the Contact Us page of our
website or contact us at complaints@condenast.co.uk or by post to Complaints, Editorial Business Department, The Condé Nast Publications Ltd., Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU. If we are unable to resolve
your complaint, or if you would like more information about IPSO or the Editors’ Code, contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit www.ipso.co.uk.

Contributors
4 5
1 2 3 4 5
Sl oane Marisa Richard May Charl otte

CROSLEY MELTZER LAWSON JEONG RUTHERFORD
“The Lion Tamer,” p. 142 “Face Value,” p. 136 “Their Tube,” p. 118 “Patriot Act,” p. 106 “Opening Act,” p. 31
“Hasan and I both Meltzer calls Emily Successful “I had been wanting The British
speak fluent Weiss, the founder of YouTubers “go from to do something photographer and
suburbia,” says Glossier, “ambitious kids recording on sex work for director calls Camila
Crosley, whose latest and determined. in their bedroom to a while but hadn’t Morrone “super
P HOTO G R A P H S B Y L AU R E L G OL IO (1) , P E T E R H A PA K (3 ) , D U DL E Y
book of essays, But she has a dreamy seasoned pros quite managed sweet and playful.
R E E D (4 ), C H A R L OT T E R U T H E R F OR D (5 ), S A R A H S H AT Z (2)
Look Alive Out There, quality as well. very quickly,” says V.F. to find a way into the I wanted to make
is out in paperback. Like you could leave chief critic Richard story,” says Jeong, images that felt
“He’s also pointed her in a room alone Lawson, who has who served as a war classic, confident,
out the cultural and an hour later she been documenting correspondent in and feminine, with a
similarities between would have an YouTube culture Afghanistan. “When focus on Camila’s
Jews and Indians, outline for a novel since he reported the news about movement and
so allow me to say: or for an improved from VidCon in 2015. Robert Kraft broke expression. I really
He’s a mensch. Barbie dream home.” “YouTube may seem down in Florida, enjoyed shooting
It’s this ‘leveling’ that Meltzer’s book silly, and often is, I knew this was my her. She’s naturally
makes him such an about the founder of but these people take chance.” very warm and
effective performer— Weight Watchers, it very seriously— makes everything
everyone feels This Is Big, will and so should we.” look effortless.”
kinship.” be published in April.

Captured outside
Blakes Hotel,
Kensington London.
THE FULLY ELECTRIC ROLLS-ROYCE CLOUD BY LUNAZ. SILENTLY ARRIVING AT THE RIGHT PLACES.
OLD WORLD STYLE. NEW WORLD SUBSTANCE.
WWW.BLAKESHOTELS.COM I WWW.LUNAZ.DESIGN
Editor’s Letter November 2019
The Power
and the
Glory
The Establishment can seem like a concept HAPPENINGS his accompanying essay, navigating success
out of sync with our times. Those 20th-century in new ways now that YouTube celebrity has
Above: Priyanka
titans of industry who amassed supremacy Chopra Jonas and begun to resemble establishment celebrity—not
and sway based on tangible things—iron, steel, Radhika Jones at something we might have imagined when
V.F.’s Best-Dressed List
celluloid images; those guys whose names were party at L’Avenue in the age of user-generated content began and the
chiseled onto banks and libraries; they read New York City. For platform’s stars tended to be, as Richard writes,
more pictures from the
like fossils of an earlier epoch—the Stone Age party, see page 41.
“earnest kids on the edge of their beds.”
of influence. Not that people in our century Below: Vanity Fair’s And in an excerpt from his new book, Bob
don’t slap their family crests on buildings, but Women on Women, Iger, the CEO of Disney, reflects on his
a new anthology
the gesture is less everlasting—ask any board that gathers our best friendship and partnership with Steve Jobs.
member debating, privately or publicly, whether writing about women, Jobs died eight years ago this fall, and as
by women, to be
the name Sackler or Epstein remains capable of published October 29. I read Bob’s story, I wondered how our world
heralding artistic achievement or scientific might be different if he were still here—if he
inquiry when they’ve become synonymous with were bringing his exacting, perfectionist point
abuse, epidemic, and scandal. of view to our stormy seascape of technology,
But the idea of an establishment remains media, and entertainment. There are people on
helpful, as long as it can contour and flex with our New Establishment list right now whose
the moment. It’s good to get a handle on presence on earth holds great import; what they
who’s calling the shots on our money, our votes, do will determine whether the planet remains
our eyeballs. We live in their world, whether livable for humans, whether our elections will be
we celebrate, fear, or loathe them. The cultural tampered with, whether a kid aspires to start a
elite is more fluid these days, thankfully; the business or go into comedy or pick up a tennis
political elite more mercurial; the financial elite… racket because he or she sees that it can be done.
P HOTO G R A P H S : TOP, B Y L A ND ON NOR D E M A N ; B OT TOM , B Y J O S E P H I N E S C H I E L E

kinda sorta mostly the same, but let’s see how The Establishment isn’t a collective colossus
the economy is doing 12 months from now. For anymore, nor does it rely on institutional power.
our annual New Establishment list this fall, now It is individual, unexpected, and far-reaching,
in its 25th year, our team of editors, led by John and that’s what makes it new.
Homans, Ben Landy, and Claire Landsbaum,
made some structural changes: They broke
down our group of 100 into 10 categories, the
better to show how the establishment itself has
fractured, even as it intertwines.
Throughout this issue, power manifests in
myriad forms. Hasan Minhaj pokes at the
lions’ den from the stage of Patriot Act, his Netflix
show, which is in its fourth season. Emily Weiss
invented Glossier, the beauty company valued
at $1.2 billion that doubles as a way of life.
Emma Chamberlain, the rising Gen-Z siren
of YouTube, leads our portfolio of famous
creators, who are, as Richard Lawson writes in
RADHIKA JONE S, Editor in Chief

CALIBER RM 07-01
RICHARD MILLE BOUTIQUE LONDON

4-5 OLD BOND STREET, MAYFAIR
+44 207 1234 155
www.richardmille.com
P I N K P O N Y
Hopeful
in Pink
JOIN US IN THE
F I G H T AG A I N S T C A N C E R
I n E u r o p e , 1 0 0 % o f t h e n e t p u r c h a s e p r i c e f r o m t h e “ L i v e / L o v e ” p i n k t- s h i r t
and 2 5% of the net purchase price of the Pink Pony collec tion
will be donated to a European net work of c ancer charities .
B E PA R T O F T H E CO N V E R SAT I O N AT R A L P H L AU R E N .CO. U K / P I N K P O N Y
You either
die a hero or you live
M A N I C U R E B Y A L E X JAC H NO ; S E T D E S IG N B Y M IC H A E L
WA NE NMAC HE R; FOR DETA I LS, G O TO VF.COM/C REDITS
long enough to
H A I R B Y PR E STON WA DA ; M A K E U P B Y J O ST R E T T E L L ;
become an Instagram
boyfriend.”
Gown by Oscar de la
Renta; earrings
by Ana Khouri; rings
Camila Morrone, 22, stars
by CHANEL Fine
Jewelry (right
in Mickey and the Bear
hand) and Retrouvaí;
hair products continued on page 3 2
by Kevin Murphy;
makeup and nail
enamel by CHANEL.
P HOTO G R A P H B Y CHARLOTTE RUTHERFORD

NOV E M B E R 2 0 1 9 ST Y L E D B Y NICOLE CHAPOTEAU VA NIT Y FA IR 31
Vanities Opening Act
Earlier this year, Camila Morrone sent Trust. “It costs 50 bucks a year to keep
shivers through South by Southwest them rehabilitated. It makes for a great
and jolted a standing ovation at the Christmas present.”
Cannes Film Festival with her SHE INSISTS she’s rarely hit on, but
performance in Annabelle Attanasio’s film Al Pacino, a the worst pickup line she’s ever received
Mickey and the Bear. Her breakout is “You have the most beautiful
role as the daughter of an opioid-addicted stepfather figure, once eyes.” She retorts, “They’re not—they’re
veteran reaches audiences nationwide
this month, and now the American actor
told her: ‘You can brown and shitty.”
HER IDEAL DATE involves: “A great
and model, who happens to call mess it up and still be movie, an Italian dinner, and my glass
Leonardo DiCaprio her boyfriend, is of house Cab. That’s the only thing
taking the lead. Here, some insights
fine. Just act.’ ” I know how to order at a restaurant because
gleaned from an evening at home with I don’t know anything about wine.”
Hollywood’s newest heroine. SHE DEFENDED the 22-year age gap
thoughts to the first-time director. (The between her and DiCaprio by posting
SHE WAS BORN in Los Angeles to two edits were made.) an archival photo of Lauren Bacall
Argentinian actors—“growing up THE INDIE FILM is being hailed for its and Humphrey Bogart (whose own age
in Hollywood, you can’t really run from poignant closing scene. When reflecting difference was four years more) for
it”—and attended Beverly Hills High on famous cinematic finales, she insists her nearly 2 million Instagram followers.
School. “Our apartment happened to be Rick should have gotten on the plane “I’ve been starting to show my sense
in the school district. It was very weird in Casablanca and that there was enough of humor more,” she says.“People will
when my classmates were getting room for Jack to fit on the Titanic door always have awful things to say because
hundred-thousand-dollar cars because that saved Rose. there’s a sense of entitlement and
that was so not my reality.” SHE RECENTLY FINISHED Conversations safety behind the screen, but trust me,
SHE EARNED her role as the titular With Friends by Sally Rooney in less you don’t need to be that angry.”
Mickey from a self-tape audition shot in than 48 hours. She calls it “the best book SHE CRINGES when revisiting a private
her mother’s kitchen. A day after her ever” but isn’t rooting for a screen moment captured by paparazzi at the Hotel
callback, she flew to the film’s location in adaptation. “I can’t play either character, du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes: DiCaprio
remote Montana, where “fast food was so I’m not interested.” diligently snapping iPhone photos of her
the norm.” She favors McDonald’s YOU’D BE SURPRISED by the “amount of posed arabesque. “I saw the meme: You
chicken McNuggets, extra-large fries, Spanx” in her closet, as well as the fake either die a hero or you live long enough
and an Oreo McFlurry, “vanilla always.” diamond tiara she wears every birthday. to become an Instagram boyfriend.
SHE CALLS Al Pacino, who dated her HER HAPPY PLACE is her bed, next Poor thing, he’s being called an Instagram
mother for years, a stepfather figure. He to which hangs a picture of an elephant boyfriend—he’s an environmentalist
watched an early cut of Mickey and named Zongoloni, which she adopted and a movie star and it doesn’t mean
the Bear and sent along his “helpful” through Kenya’s Sheldrick Wildlife anything.” — BRIT T HENNEM U TH
Sweet Spot Milk Bar, a magical dessert mecca by Christina Tosi, opens a New York flagship
Build-a-Cookie-Pie Bar Ship Station

Build a care package with birthday cake
Riff on the signature Compost Cookie, made
of potato chips, ground coffee, and pretzels, truffles or the Break Up Bundle,
decorated with stickers and stamps
with a choice of dough and three mix-ins, at
one of three DIY dessert stations. to send overnight.
I L L U ST R AT ION S B Y P E T E R O U M A N S K I
Mini Mart The Flagship Classroom

Sweet swag is for sale at the bodega, from a Inside the Ace Hotel New York, the 17th Milk Bar location is the Pastry chefs teach students how to layer funfetti,
Milk Bar skateboard and status totes to bakery’s largest to date, with an empire that extends to frosting, and crumbs into a birthday cake,
cookie mixes and bottles of dry cereal ready Toronto, D.C., Las Vegas, and L.A. Flagship specialties include and share secrets behind the addictive Milk Bar
to turn into Tosi’s famous cereal milk. apple-pie-flavored soft serve and a pepperoni pizza roll. Pie (formerly known as Crack Pie).

ACCESS IS EVERYTHINGOne year print + Free gift

+ Exclusive content on vanityfair.com
+ Complete access to the Vanity Fair archive since 1982
+ Free access to digital editions
FREE
GIFT
RRP £35
FULL
ACCESS
VANITYFAIR.COM
& DIGITAL
EDITIONS
FREE MÁDARA RE:GENE VOLUME REBUILD LIFTING MASK, RRP £35*

This luxurious, natural and non-invasive treatment delivers visible lifting, plumping and
wrinkle-smoothing results to give your skin back its youthful contours. Apply the divinely
comforting cream twice a week or whenever your skin craves nourishment. Not only does
the mask fi rm and support the skin and its underlying tissue, it also improves the
production and structure of the collagen network leaving skin smooth and silky soft.
For further information, visit madaracosmetics.co.uk
ALL FOR ONLY £39

CALL 0844 848 5202 (QUOTING REF CVF18503) OR VISIT
WWW.MAGAZINEBOUTIQUE.CO.UK/VANITYFAIR/CVF18503
* Offer is limited to UK addresses only and subject to availability. The gift is subject to availability and will be sent to the donor on a first come,
first serve basis. Subscriptions will begin with the first available issue. Overseas mail: Europe, £80; USA, £99; rest of world, £99.
Offer closes 8 November 2019. For The Condé Nast Publications Ltd’s privacy notice and permission details, visit www.condenast.co.uk/privacy.
Vanities Trending
THE FINE
PRINT
REM I X
Marni shirt, £720.
(marni.com)
V I V I D DR E A M S
Coach 1941 patchwork quilt, £835. (coach.com)
A RT C L A S S
Sally Hansen Miracle Gel nail polish
MOCA’s new in Street Flair, Byte Blue, and Sweet Tea, £7

each. (sallyhansen.com)
exhibition salutes
maximalism—when it
comes to patterns,
more is more
Above: from MOCA’s “With Pleasure:
Pattern and Decoration in American Art.”
SW EE T SP OT
Michael Kors Collection skirt, £1,650. T IE-DYE GU Y
(selected Michael Kors stores) A look from the Dries
PA RT Y FAVO R Van Noten fall 2019
Givenchy 4G Face & menswear collection.
Eyes palette, £48.
(givenchybeauty.com) A IR FOR C E
R+Co Dry Volume
Spray, £25.
(randco.com)
C OL L E CT ION / H E S S E L M U S E U M OF A RT , C E N T E R F OR C U R ATOR I A L ST U DI E S / B A R D C OL L E G E ;
PR ADA, ULL A JOHNSON). ROBERT KUSHNER’S FAIRIES (1980) FROM THE MARIELUISE H ES S E L
S A L LY H A N S E N ); B Y J O S E P H I N E S C H I E L E , ST Y L E D B Y C L A I R E T E DA L DI ( M A R N I ,
P HOTO G R A P H S B Y J O S E P H I N E S C H I E L E ( C OAC H , G I V E NC H Y, M E MO PA R I S ,
P HOTO G R A P H B Y C H R I S K E NDA L L . F OR D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S
ON T HE S CE NT
Memo Paris Marfa travel perfume case,
£132. (memoparis.com)
IN A CINC H
Ulla Johnson blouse, £245.
(modaoperandi.com)
C HA SING RA INB OWS

Hermès sandals, £770.
(Hermès stores nationwide)
PE T T IC OAT J U N CT IO N
Prada dress, £2,135.
(selected Prada boutiques)

For your weekends

News at a civilized pace
A I R MA IL
F O R T H E W O R L D T R AV E L E R
For your travels

The global cultural search engine
AIR
A R T S I N T E L R E P O R T
Both delivered with authority and wit to your

in-box every Saturday morning
Start reading now at
airmail.news/222
Vanities Culture
E A RT H
Notorious Oud
by D.S. & Durga
What luck, to be the lover of an Earth
sign (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn). They
will lavish you with creature comforts,
such as a trip to a sauna shaped like an
amethyst geode. Repay their sensual
care with a headwind of Bulgarian rose,
blended with saffron and oud.
They’ll want to wear it under a (fake)
fur blanket. You’re invited £ 8
(dsanddurga.com)
AIR
Coeur Battant
by Louis Vuitton
An Air sign (Gemini, Libr SOUL
makes every day a pa
perfume honors their spa
Nourishment
with overtones of crisp pea
almost chaotically with jasm “Food is sustenance, it’s
patchouli, and moss. Expect a heady
sillage as you drive away with the top
nurture, it’s connection,”
down for the weekend getaway they says Michael Kors, who,
suggested 20 minutes ago. £185. since 2013, has helped provide
(uk.louisvuitton.com) 19 million meals worldwide
through his philanthropic
venture Watch Hunger Stop,
which works in tandem
STAR POWER
with the U.N.’s World Food
Programme. This year’s tote
and T-shirt aim to amplify
Dorothea Lasky and Alex Dimitrov, the writers the message of
T-shirt, £32.
behind the Twitter phenomenon and new All proceeds ending world
book Astro Poets, play matchmaker between fall’s benefit hunger with one
J O S E P H I N E S C H I E L E ( F R AG R A NC E S ) . F OR D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S
the WFP.
standout scents and the astrological elements (michaelkors
encapsulating
.com) word: love.
I L L U ST R AT ION S B Y C H R I STOP H E R D E L OR E N ZO . P HOTO G R A P H S B Y

O OH L. A ., L. A .
Beyond red carpets
WAT E R
and boardwalks,
Little Flower Los Angeles has
by Régime des Fleurs exploded as a capital
and Chloë Sevigny
n to be romantic, a Water sign
on the global fashion
r, Scorpio, Pisces) is the type map. Fashion in
exts from 2012 or send flowers LA, by Tania Fares
ut occasion. Tap that feeling
macy with this collaboration. and Krista Smith
gine bodega roses mixed (Phaidon), celebrates
santo, which hints at the
side of water. £164. more than 40
medesfleurs.com) designers steeped in
California cool.
FIRE
Libre
by YSL Beauty
em ant thing to a Fire
gittarius) is personal
xpect to fit into their
iCal too easily. This scent is similarly
carefree yet intense, skirting feminine
and masculine tropes with notes of
vanilla and salty ambergris. It also has
day-to-night flexibility: coffee date
or six-course dinner. £78.
(yslbeautyus.com)
36 VAN I T Y F A I R
Vanities My Stuff
FINAL CUT The director behind Beyoncé and Rihanna

videos, and this month’s Queen & Slim film, Melina Matsoukas
proves that personal style is just another form of her artistry
11
5
Pajamas: I got my
9 “T-shirt & my panties
on….” Shout-out, Adina
Howard. Favorite/
least favorite trend:
Bucket hats are my
favorite. I abhor stretch
denim. Designers:
Mowalola, Proenza
Schouler, Acne
Studios, and Prada.
10
I’m not good at
7
choosing favorites.
Style icon: Sade.
BEAUT Y
3
Essential:
My Epicuren skin care
routine. Lipstick:
APPRECIATIONS Vaseline. Daily
Currently 2 makeup: Glossier
listening to: Slauson Brow Flick. Shampoo:
Malone’s A Quiet Whatever is there.
P HOTO G R A P H S F ROM B O U L E 13 / G E T T Y I M AG E S ( 2 ) , B Y I A N DIC K S ON / R E DF E R N S ( 4 ) ,
Farwell, 2016–2018. Home scent: Le Labo
Currently watching: selling my old clothes. 1 4 Santal 26 (9).
PAT R IC K R ID E AU X / P ICT U R E P E R F E CT / CA M E R A PR E S S / R E D U X ( M AT S O U K A S ) ,
Years and Years on It’s a real addiction.

HBO. An insanely Cocktail: Prosecco (2). ST YLE TRAVEL
realistic peek into what Restaurant: My Two Jewelry: Zohra Hotel: GoldenEye
J E S S ICA S A M PL E ( 3) ; F O R D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S
the near future could Cents, in L.A. Flower: Rahman (5) and or Strawberry Hill (10)
look like. Director: Any floral arrangement Panconesi. Bag: in Jamaica. Luggage:
Hype Williams always. from my friend Opening Ceremony Rimowa (11). Late-
I can get lost in his Maurice at Bloom & mini laundry-bag night room service
imagery. Book: A Brief Plume (3). Necessary tote (6). My everyday order: Chicken
History of Seven Killings extravagance: for years. Sneakers: soup. Stamp on your
by Marlon James (1). Vacations. Dream Union x Air Jordan passport you’re
Podcast: The Read. dinner party guests: kicks. Special snakeskin boots (7). proudest of: Egypt.
App: Poshmark. My Assata Shakur and Fela occasion shoe: Most recent And Cuba, but
cousin got me secretly Kuti (4). Secret talent: Brother Vellies purchase: Acne they don’t stamp.
I’m a chef living Studios sunglasses (8).
in a director’s body. Denim: Y/Project.

Vanities Style
Chopard Haute
Joaillerie necklace,
price upon request.
(Chopard boutiques
nationwide)
GOLDEN DAYS New ethical-sourcing mandates make it easier to buy

green—and make a statement By Alexis Kanter
A
s the worldwide demand remorse. NGOs like the World Wide practices. Chopard’s necklace—
for gold and diamonds Fund for Nature have issued fashioned from 64.34 carats of
rises, so too does the watchdog reports that highlight much- Responsible Jewelry Council–certified
consumer understanding needed policy changes, and fine diamonds, set in 18-karat white
that even the most beautiful jewelry, jewelers across the board are making Fairmined gold—is one realization of the
when paired with environmental strides to apply their exacting 21st-century notion of true luxury:
irresponsibility, is a recipe for buyer’s quality standards to their sustainability extravagant pleasure without eco-guilt.
P HOTO G R A P H B Y K E I R N A N MO N AG H A N A ND T H E O VA M VO U N A K I S 39
Vanities Fairground
4
tical.
CINEMA
PARADISO
Awards buzz began
on speedboats and private
palazzos at the Venice
3
International Film Festival
The rad
5
of Netflix’s
Story S
Johansson
the premi
film, for wh
earned
Cate Blanchett
attended this year’s festival as
an ambassador for Armani,
T E X T B Y R IC H A R D L AW S ON
the fashion and lifestyle brand

that is one of the great
prides of Europe’s beautiful boot.
No stranger to festival trophies,
Blanchett, who won the
Volpi Cup in 2007 for I’m Not
There, caught the premiere
of Joker, which took home
this year’s top prize.
1. Ruth Negga 2. Nicholas Hoult
3. Zazie Beetz 4. Scarlett Johansson 5. Jude Law 6. Lily-Rose Depp
and Joel Edgerton 7. Cate Blanchett
40 VAN I T Y F A I R P HOTO G R A P H S B Y GREG WILLIAMS

Cohost
Mackenzie
Davis
Jordan Roth
and Zac Posen
TO THE
NINES
Jeremy O.
Harris
Nicky Hilton
V.F. and Saks Fifth Avenue

Rothschild
celebrated the power

of style during the
Best-Dressed List party at
L’Avenue in New York Tory Burch
Cohost and
Saks president
Marc Metrick
Suki Waterhouse
and Poppy Jamie
Christian
Louboutin
Cohost Priyanka
Chopra Jonas
Hilary Rhoda
and Damaris
Lewis
NOV E M B E R 2 0 1 9 P HOTO G R A P H S B Y LANDON NORDEMAN VA NIT Y FA IR 41

Travel OH, THE PL ACES YOU’LL GO...
“
When you travel,
you step back from
your own days,
from the fragmented
imperfect linearity
of your time.
Lucia Berlin,
Evening in Paradise
Makay massif,
Madagascar
UN TITL ED F I LMWORKS
CONTINUED ON PAGE 70
A S P E C I A L S E CT IO N W I T H T H E U K E D I T IO N
E D I T E D B Y M IC H E L L E JA N A C H A N VA NIT Y FA IR 45
Editor’s Letter
There’s something about crossing a border. The ON THE JOB

Michelle (left)
frisson, that feeling of a new adventure unfolding, reporting in
the blast of freedom. Madagascar
(page 70)
In 2004, I travelled the entire length of the EU’s
eastern boundary for a story, just before 10 more
countries joined the union. By train and bus, I
journeyed from Estonia to Latvia to Lithuania to
Poland, and so on. The only reason I knew I was
in a new country was the beep-beep of my Nokia
notifying me that the network had changed.
But there were other trips when everything
changed at a border. In the 1980s at Victoria Falls,
I remember looking across from the bright lights of
Zimbabwe to Zambia in darkness; 10 years later, the
reverse was true. How fortunes flip. I spent a New
Year’s Eve in West Berlin; at midnight, I could trace
the route of the Wall because half the city was ablaze
with fireworks, the other half pitch black. Recently I rented a car in Prague to explore the
Perhaps my favourite border—in more peaceful western borderlands of the Czech Republic, the
times—was between Lebanon and Syria. Nothing region that my family had fled through in the dead
JON ATHA N Z LE E/JONATHAN ZL EE.COM (MICHEL LE WI TH JULI EN N E R A HA RI SOA); CANDL ENUT SI NGAP ORE (CANDLE N UT); SHA NGRI-L A B A RR A L J I SSA H
was more romantic than the road to Damascus. The of night. Nowadays it is hard even to find a trace
memories fill me with heartache. of a border; the road just rolls on into Germany. I
RES ORT & SPA (TURTLES); DATO I MAG ES/B RID GE MAN IMAG ES (BOAC P OSTE R, L EF T); A RCHI VART/A L AMY STO CK P HOTO (B OAC POSTER, RIGH T)
For much of the world, a border is a barrier to studied the map again trying to locate the former
another life, to a dream, to freedom. That the U.K. “no-man’s land”, the buffer zone between East and
is considering hardening the politically sensitive West. At a nondescript village called Pled, I followed
Irish border is troubling. So, too, that U.S. President an unsealed lane into woodland. There I found an
Trump wants to spend billions on a wall along its abandoned sentry post. A hundred metres on was
southern border. a sign: Pozor Státní Hranice, Caution State Border.
Next month it will be 30 years since the fall of the Behind, another notice: Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Until 1989 I stopped the car. Nobody was around. A farm
my grandmother and mother had been in exile for building in the distance would have once represented
40 years. Some of the family back in Czechoslovakia freedom. Childishly, I darted back and forth across
were thrown into prison as a punishment for their the invisible border, just because I could.
escape. I know about families, about continents,
ripped apart by borders. MICHELLE JANA CHAN
Celebrating 100 route from London It’s the best of resident ranger on In Singapore’s leafy the “Ah-ma-kase”
years, British City airport to J.F.K. wake-up calls. +968 9678 7554 Dempsey Hill, chef menu includes lamb
Airways has painted The all-business One of the five turtle and he’ll fire off an Malcolm Lee is satay, pork
aircraft in retro class flight refuels in nesting areas in alert—day or night— spreading magic at lemongrass curry,
livery, recalling a Shannon where Oman is the beach if he spots a his Candlenut and blue swimmer
more romantic era of customers clear U.S. of the Shangri-La hatching or a female restaurant. The crab turmeric lemak;
travel. How we long Immigration, allowing Barr Al Jissah Hotel laying eggs. The cuisine is finish with buah
for those simpler them to arrive in New in Muscat. At check luckiest time of year Peranakan, a mix of keluak ice cream
days—of shorter York as a domestic in, send a WhatsApp is from January indigenous Malay with chocolate
queues, less passenger. to Mohammed Al to August. and Chinese and chilli.
disruption. Try BA’s @british_airways Hassani, the @shangrilahotels diaspora cooking; @comodempsey
46 VAN IT Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

Travel Worth Travelling For
FIELD NOTES
Wanderings / wonderings—
what we’re thinking about
Rock of Ages
Uluru (known to some
as Ayers Rock) will be
closed to climbers from
October 26—forever. The
hope is that visitors will
seek more respectful ways
to explore the Australian
landscape and understand
the sacred sites of the
Aboriginal community,
such as via the Larapinta
Trail (above), about
MUSIC TO YOUR EARS FROM RUSSIA
200km from Uluru, in the
rugged West MacDonnell
abelled the unfriendliest of the royal court—will be WITH LOVE Ranges.
L place in Switzerland,
Andermatt is shedding
its tag as only a military garrison
celebrating its 250th birthday
this season with a new
production of André Grétry’s
Sara Wheeler’s
new travelogue
Mud and Stars:
Travels in Russia
with Pushkin and
In South Australia,
there’s the Arkaba Walk
in the Ikara-Flinders
town to become a seat of culture, heroic Richard the Lionheart, and Other Geniuses of Ranges (below), led by the
including a new concert hall a contemporary first for the the Golden Age illuminating Pauline
(Cape) is a
(above) that holds an intimate venue with John Corigliano’s journey around
McKenzie, one of the
audience of 650 and a 75-strong The Ghosts of Versailles in surely the biggest Adnamatna people, and
orchestra, but is probably most the perfect setting. country in the in north-east Tasmania
world—from
ROL AND HAL B E (A NDERMAT T); EPV/DIDI ER S AUL NI ER (V ERSA ILL ES);
ideal for chamber music. Mark Mikhailovskoye to the wukalina walk

POSNOV/GE T T Y I MAGES (L A R A PI NTA); HEL IV I STA FROM A RKA BA
the programming by the team Chukotka—with takes in the Aboriginal

its greatest
behind The New Generation writers as tour culture of the Palawa,
Festival in Florence; this season, guide. There’s who’ve evolved in
never sugar-
they’re luring the Chamber coating with
isolation for more than
Orchestra of Europe Wheeler, who 10,000 years.
CON SE RVANCY (I KA R A-FL I NDERS R A NGES)
conducted by Daniel here anatomises

the despair of
Harding, hypnotic soprano ordinary Russian
Anush Hovhanissyan and life in a mash-up
with literary
the inimitable Daniel criticism of
Barenboim. Tolstoy, Gogol,
Dostoevsky and
Meanwhile in Paris, the Turgenev, the
ravishing Royal Opera at masters of
exploring the
Versailles (right)—built hopelessness
originally only for the of humanity.
pleasure

THE HEIGHT OF
Luxury
The new Excellence Class aboard Switzerland’s Glacier Express
sets a standard as high as the mountain peaks that line this unique
train’s legendary route
Words by J E S S I C A B U R R E L L
VANITY FAIR PARTNERSHIP
ver the last 10 years or so,
O train travel has enjoyed

something of a resurgence.
Environmental concerns
paired with the irresistible romance of
railway travel have made it the transport
mode du jour—especially if the scenery
that surrounds the train’s route is
particularly spectacular. There are few
journeys more tempting in this regard
than that of the Glacier Express, which
has taken passengers on unforgettable
trips through the heady heights of the
Swiss Alps since 1930.
The slowest express train in the world,
there are certainly faster ways to travel
Idyllic mountains,
rugged rock faces,
deep gorges and
remote valleys await
around every bend
than this—but speed would be a waste
here. From Zermatt and the Matterhorn,
the route crosses 291 bridges and passes
through 91 tunnels across the Swiss Alps
to St. Moritz in the Engadin lakeland.
With the help of rack-and-pinion
technology, the Glacier Express climbs
to great heights with ease—the highest
point is the Oberalp Pass, 2,033 metres
above sea level. Idyllic mountains,
rugged rock faces, deep gorges, remote
valleys and the Express’ namesake
The Glacier Express
on the spectacular glaciers await passengers around every
Landwasser viaduct bend and the train offers an unrestricted
between Thusis
and St. Moritz view of everything. Highlights of the
route include the Rhine Gorge, also
Clockwise from above: Excellence Class—“the most sought-after seats in

Switzerland”; the Glacier Bar with its fascinating golden compass; the Glacier
Express at the Oberalp Pass with a view over Andermatt and the Hospental valley
known as the “Swiss Grand Canyon” information about the landscape passing
and the Landwasser Viaduct (142 metres by the crystal clear windows, the highly
in length and 65 metres in height), an experienced crew ensures that guests are
impressive structure on five masoned comfortable and content throughout the
pillars which leads directly into the entire journey. A special on-board
Landwasser Tunnel. From Thusis, the entertainment system, including an
train climbs up the A lbula Valley individual tablet with comprehensive
through tunnels and across viaducts information about the route, will keep The Right Track
towards St. Moritz. Harmoniously even the most inquisitive passengers From Zermatt to St. Moritz, the route
embedded into the striking landscape, occupied for the duration of the trip. of the Glacier Express is legendary
this part of the line is a monument to the In fact, the only element that may
1 Zermatt to Brig 1,435m to 585m
pioneering days of railway-building and rival the endless entertainment and (45km, 1,604m to above sea level,
is even part of the UNESCO World unique views is the world-class dining 670m above sea 2.5 hours)
level, 1.5 hours) At 2,033 metres
Heritage site “Rhaetian Railway in the opportunities. Somehow, delicate The steep Matter above sea level, the
Albula/Bernina Landscapes”. amuse-bouche and fine champagne Valley offers an Oderalp Pass is the
incredibly varied highest point of the
As well as the remarkable scenery, the taste even better when they are taken journey. It’s a border in
landscape: perpetual
train is equally known for its culinary overlooking sights like the Matterhorn. ice, deep gorges, several respects: a
triumphs and five-star feel—and these As the train journeys along, the crew jagged rock faces, watershed between
blooming Alpine the rivers Rhône and
tempting qualities have increased with will ser ve a refined regional and meadows, historical Rhine as well as a
the arrival of Excellence Class, a new seasonal five-course meal including bridges and the division between the
highest vineyard cantons of Wallis, Uri
sta nda rd i n lu x u r y t ra i n t ravel. accompanying wines from the cantons in Europe. and Graubünden.
Passengers in this exclusive class can of Graubünden and Valais. Following 4 Chur to St. Moritz
2 Brig to Andermatt
enjoy a guaranteed window seat with the meal, coffee and a coffret of (70km, 670m to (85km, 585m to
unbeatable panoramic views and chocolates are served—it truly feels like 1,435m above sea 1,775m above sea
level, 1.5 hours) level, 2 hours)
ultimate comfort thanks to supremely being in a five-star restaurant. The Goms is very There are many
relaxing lounge chairs. Excellence Class For a welcome drink or aperitif, popular for hiking in castles and
the summer and fortifications to be
also offers a concierge service; the Excellence Class also contains the seen in the
cross-country skiing
pleasure of this begins as soon as guests exclusive (and always well-stocked) in the winter. Domleschg, many of
step onto the platform, where they will Glacier Bar, which makes a strong claim Traditional wooden which were built in
houses on wooden ancient times to
be greeted at a welcome desk that takes to the best view on board. Thanks to a stilts create an control the Alpine
care of check-in and handles all luggage. giant golden compass on the bar’s idyllic backdrop. passes. In the Albula
Valley, the train goes
Whether it’s champagne and salmon ceiling, guests won’t miss a single turn 3 Andermatt through a UNESCO
souff lé or anecdotes and insider while sipping on their favourite tipple. to Chur (90km, World Heritage site.
The Glacier Express at the highest point on the legendary route,

the Oberalp Pass, which is 2,033 metres above sea level
As the trip continues, afternoon tea— A feast for the senses and one of the
including delicious frandises and other most exciting tourist opportunities in
delicacies—is served. As if that were not
The seats in the world, the Glacier Express is a must-
enough, tea, coffee and soft drinks are Excellence Class see addition to any traveller’s bucket
available throughout the entire journey. list—particularly in Excellence Class.
Next year marks the 90th anniversary are already being Thanks to their incredible comfort,
of the Glacier Express and to honour the unrivalled views and uniquely luxurious
occasion, first and second class will be
referred to as “the offering, it’s no surprise that the spaces
overhauled between 2019 and 2021. The most sought-after in Excellence Class are already being
car interiors will be refreshed with a new referred to as “the most sought-after
state-of-the-art design and equipped seats in Switzerland” seats in Switzerland”.
with a new infotainment system. Keen
photographers can look forward to windows on the doors and in the bar car To book your journey on the Glacier Express
another eagerly anticipated change: to allow for f lawless photos of the Excellence Class, please call Switzerland
before long, it will be possible to open the stunning scenery—all with no glare. Travel Centre on 020 7420 4934
Travel Imaginings
Picture your perfect hotel with staff

FANTASY HOTEL poached from around the world.
Here is our dream team...
1Roberto Wirth 3 Arnaud Baumard Vanessa Glain

5
GE NERAL MANAGER CONCIERGE F&B DIRECTOR

The Hassler, Rome Hotel Beau-Rivage, Geneva Eden Rock, St Barths
We are on the seventh-floor terrace With classic Swiss service, he can do the “When my staff are having a bad day,
overlooking the Spanish Steps. big stuff: one guest wanted a leather I say, ‘Hey, look at the view from your
Someone knocks over a coffee. Born jacket only found in Shanghai. Sorted. A office’”— and she points towards the
deaf and with the accident out of sight, former guest wanted the hotel’s house Caribbean Sea. Originally from close to
Roberto can’t hear the breaking china Chat-Botté chocolates dispatched to him in St.Tropez, Vanessa has had an ongoing
but he notices my eyes, my expression, perfect condition (by private jet, it love affair with this enchanted island,
and he signals to his team to remedy turned out). Sorted. But it’s the tiny working on and off at Eden Rock for
what’s unfolding behind. It gives some touches that make Arnaud shine. When the last 12 years, moving from waitress
indication how in-tune this man is. guests want to explore Lake Geneva, he to leading the charge at the new-look
“Deafness is not a disability,” he tells gives them ferry tickets free of charge; Martin Brudzinski-designed Sand Bar
me. Born in 1950 into one of Rome’s he replaces a torn 200 Swiss franc note restaurant. She credits some rigorous
great hotelier families, he was not with a crisp new one (“it’s easier for me to training at Zuma in London. “And
anointed as the next in line. But after pop to the bank later,” he tells the maybe because I’m not a party girl, I
learning to speak and lip-read—in guest); in the restaurant, he discreetly turn up to work,” she says. “Oh, and I’m
Italian and English—he took on The shifts the cigar-smoking Cuban a perfectionist.” She likes the breakfast
Hassler and made it his own. He cuts ambassador away from a family with shift most: “It’s my chance to make
an impressive figure, using his eyes “to kids. All done almost unnoticeably. guests happy for the whole day.” It’d be
play, to communicate” with those hard not to be happy here. Two years
around him. “I couldn’t do it without 4Jirapa Kaosarang after Hurricane Irma, Eden Rock’s fresh
my team,” he says, and that’s no false CHEF new incarnation is a total blow away.
modesty. But who in the world works Soneva Kiri, Thailand
alone? Perhaps it’s Roberto’s other Dominique Caubel
6
heightened senses that make him so More than 20 years ago, a couple THERAPIS T
perceptive, so knowing. stopped by Phang Nga Bay and had Malabar Retreats, Zimbabwe
a low-key rudimentary dinner on the
2 Clair Ratcliffe-Speakman beach. The cook Jirapa Kaosarang, He’s not saying it’s easy but this master
DOORMAN known as Khun Benz (the nickname of Lu Jong, a traditional slow-moving
Coworth Park, U.K. comes from being driven home from exercise from Tibet, promises this
hospital as a baby in a Mercedes), was practice will heal body, head and heart.
Friendly but not effusive, down-to-earth barbecuing on a half-cut oil drum, and “But only if you do 15 minutes a day,”
and “not frightened of hard work” (her making Hor Mok, steamed fish with he pleads. Dominique, of the Comoros
words), Clair makes a refreshing first red curry paste. “It was the best Thai Islands, has a way with language, with
impression. She knows instantly meal Eva and I ever had,” says Sonu the way he moves. He also laughs a lot.
whether a guest needs to fast track to Shivdasani, the co-owner with his wife He makes it fun although the physical
their room, or prefers to linger and of the five-star Soneva properties. They training, the breathing practice, is
mention the family of ducklings that offered her a job at their flagship hotel tough. His dedication makes his job
just crossed the road. “It’s about reading in the Maldives; a decade later, when seem more like public service than a
the guest,” she says, noticing even a they opened a property in Thailand, she private class. “I love people and want
sniffle; she’s been known to send hot returned home to launch the resort’s them to be happy,’’ he says, and I believe
honey and lemon to rooms of guests restaurant. She uses locally caught fish him. Then the pain starts, because he
who might be unwell, extra pillows if and ingredients from the hotel’s organic has developed a complementary body
someone has an injury, and soft slippers garden, cooking signatures such as treatment combining Chinese and
to women returning from nearby Ascot Mieng Kam in a betel-nut leaf wrap and Ayurvedic techniques, as well as Reiki
after a day at the races wearing heels. Panaeng Gai chicken curry. and Karuna therapies. It’s an epiphany,
54 VAN IT Y F A I R I L L U ST R AT IO N B Y K A S IQ J U NG WO O NOV E M B E R 20 19
albeit an excruciating one, as his

hands discover your weaknesses and
what you need to work on. Based in
the South of France, he leads Malabar
Retreats in Zimbabwe, Mozambique,
Andalusia and beyond.
7 Karim Hamadouche
BARTE NDER
7
Hotel des Grands Boulevards,
2 Paris
3
With a signature slow-fast-slow dance

each time he picks up a shaker, Karim
keeps his cocktails simple with only a
few ingredients. “If you’re going to put
in fennel, then you want to taste fennel,”
he says. Classics get a tweak: lavender
to a gimlet, coconut to a daiquiri. Karim
started behind the bar as a kid in his
Algerian father’s Parisian brasserie,
before shifting to clubs. Hotels are more
civilised, he says, “now I have a baby
boy”. Gotta love him. When Karim is
at the rooftop bar, choose the De Notre
6 Potager cocktail influenced by what’s
been picked from the hotel’s terrace
8
garden; at The Shell bar downstairs, a
Caffe Corretto with a hint of absinthe.
Like all pro bartenders, Karim is all
about the chat—and still knows the Paris
scene (rue Frochot is hot, he says).
8Kris Helgen
GUIDE
TCS Worldwide
He has extraordinary credentials,

having identified new species such as
the Skywalker hoolock gibbon, the
5
Greater monkey-faced bat, and the
olinguito of the Andes Mountains, as
4 well as 100 or so other new mammal
species. He’s also charming, erudite
1 and funny. Formerly the Head of
Mammalogy at the National Museum
of Natural History in Washington D.C.,
Kris is now teaching in Adelaide, and
occasionally leaves his books to lead
round-the-world private-jet tours. He’s
also hard-hitting on climate change and
the biodiversity crisis, and aware he’s in
a unique position of influence given the
(powerful, wealthy) types of travellers
he guides. “I’m just a nice guy, so people
tend to listen,’’ he says. Not only a nice
guy. He’s a total inspiration. M.J.C.
VA NIT Y FA IR 55
Travel Changing Your Mind

By Michelle Jana Chan
Call of the Wild A journey
deep into Europe’s greatest
wilderness in Romania
National Park, a European

“Yellowstone”, as they call it.
With the support of The European
Nature Trust, the EU and individual
philanthropists, the Foundation has
been buying hundreds of small farms
and homesteads to jigsaw together the
dream of the National Park, securing
22,500 hectares already and with the
aim of a quarter of a million. “I’m
optimistic,” she said. “We’re getting
more funding, more grants, more
opportunities.”
The following day Barbara and I took
a helicopter flight to gauge the scale of
the landscape targeted for
safeguarding. The mountains are
staggeringly beautiful: sharp rock faces
thrusted and folded with snow gathered
on the lee sides, and alpine pastures at
higher altitudes where we spotted a
small herd of chamois, a mountain goat
with short hooked horns. Barbara
I
had been holed up in the hide of Europe’s most ambitious pointed out healthy virgin forest: a
for a couple of hours and conservation projects. A few hours’ disparate tableau of colours, textures
almost given up on a sight of drive north of the capital Bucharest lie and differing heights of trees—beech,
wildlife. But I was continuing to tiptoe more than half of the continent’s virgin birch, fir, sycamore, elm, mountain
about the wooden cabin, binoculars still forests, a third of its plant species and its ash—offering the richest of habitats.
dangling around my neck, camera biggest populations of large carnivores. Over a ridge, we saw the scarring of a
poised. Still nothing. As well as brown bear, there are wolves, logged zone, a total shredding of the
I’d trekked here after a drive along a wild boar, lynx and soon, bison. The last forest and everything that lived there.
road so rutted it had been difficult to bison was shot in the Carpathians about But then we headed north and Barbara
stay upright in the car seat; at one point, 120 years ago, but this month 10 gestured at the expanse of green ahead,
we’d had to alight and drag away a tree animals are being reintroduced to perhaps expecting to impress me with
crashed across our path. It felt remote, Romania in the hope their offspring will the size of what they hoped to save. I
deep in the Făgăraș Mountains, the go on to roam these woods. didn’t let on, but privately I was
southern reaches of Romania’s Until recently, the southern saddened if that amounted to about all
Carpathians. Through the trees I had Carpathians were being logged and we have left in Europe…
caught sight of the blue of Pecineagu hunted into extinction. It took a couple Yet if anyone has written off the notion
Lake, the only lucidity, hemmed in by of outsiders, academic researchers of wilderness on this continent, it is still
the darkness of old-growth forest. Barbara and Christoph Promberger, here in glory. How long we will keep it
Then, as I was fiddling with my who originally came here to study wolf depends on how acutely we listen and
camera settings, I noticed a movement populations, to highlight what locals respond to the call of the wild.
behind a bush. Could this be my first didn’t realise was so exceptional. “This The European Nature Trust
European bear? It snuffled at some is the largest unfragmented forest area (theeuropeannaturetrust.com) can
STEFA NO UNTERTHI NER
roots, then moseyed into the open in Europe,” Barbara told me, “and we organise four-night trips, staying at
ground, before flopping on to its side, have to save it.” Ten years ago they Amfiteatrul Lodge and Bunea hide,
having an itch. I smiled to myself, glad created the Foundation Conservation full-board from £1,950, including airport
to be watching a wild animal this way, Carpathia to try to halt illegal logging, transfers and a donation to Foundation
seemingly undisturbed, untroubled. while purchasing forest and hunting Conservation Carpathia (carpathia.org).
My sighting was a telltale sign of one rights. Their ultimate goal is to create a Flights to Bucharest with WIZZ Air.

www.londolozi.com
YO U R SAFARI
h a s th e power to protect.
The Langham, London

Celebrate the Everyday
When The Langham, London opened its doors in 1865, it set a new standard
in luxury. That spirit of innovation and celebration endures today.
From sipping cocktail creativity in Artesian to indulging in the finest dishes

at Roux at The Landau, one of the capital’s most beautiful dining spaces,
you really don’t need an excuse to visit us. To meet, to eat or to relax –
whatever your reason, celebrate the everyday with us.
1c Portland Place, Regent Street, London, W1B 1JA

T 44 (0) 20 7636 1000 F 44 (0) 20 7323 2340
langhamhotels.com/london
MIDDLE
GROUND
Against the backdrop of Brexit, we explore the
lives, landscapes and lasting divisions that
define the Irish borderlands
By T I M O T H Y O ’ G R A D Y
Photographs by ROB STOTHARD
LAY OF THE LAND

Barnesmore Bog in
County Donegal,
Republic of Ireland
he border in Ireland loops and staggers over
T 300 miles of countryside like a plotline full of

digressions, slicing through towns and farms
and, it is said, the kitchen of an old man’s cottage.
It was drawn by the British government in the
early 1920s to comprise the largest amount of Ulster that
Unionists could then dominate. Unionists were told it was
permanent, Nationalists that it was provisional. In practice it
removed from British politics the question of how the people
of Ireland might live together.
I first met it over 40 years ago coming in from Donegal on
the Letterkenny-Omagh bus. There was a checkpoint. Tense
British soldiers with fingers on triggers and a Rolodex full of
mugshots moved along the aisle peering into our faces. One
brush of a feather, it seemed, and they’d go off like landmines.
Finally, they stepped down. We crept on. Strabane was in
flames. Sirens wailed. People ran for cover. It was an ordinary
day in Northern Ireland, but I’d never seen anything like it.
The border was marked by watchtowers, dynamited roads
and hovering helicopters. Farmers were forced to make
long detours to get to their fields. Towns were cut off from
hinterlands. Economies faded; smugglers thrived. Then came
the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the whole apparatus
came down like the stages and tents at the end of a festival.
I drove along the border over a few late spring days and
couldn’t find it. Sometimes the satellite navigator exclaimed
“CAUTION: BORDER CROSSING”. There might be an old
customs shed covered in vines and with an oak growing from
the office. Signs pointed out whether the speed limit was in
kilometres or miles. But otherwise the border appeared to
have evaporated.
Tourists generally visit Ireland for the graces or hooleys

of Dublin or the Technicolour splendours of the West.
The borderlands tend to be overlooked. But there is great
beauty here, of forest and glen, mountain and wild windy
coast. It’s still emphatically rural in a way that most of the
western world has forsaken. And it has that allure I was
first introduced to by a Belfast taxi driver whose card read
“Tours—Scenic and Political”.
From the east the border comes in as the Vikings did,
up Carlingford Lough (ford from the Norse fjord), the blue
BOARDER PATROL
Mourne Mountains flowing down to the sea in County Down, Above: Surfer Cian
the Cooleys on the left in Louth. In the Cooleys you’ll find Logue after riding a
wave at Bundoran,
Medb’s Gap, where the warrior Cúchulainn defended Ulster a popular seaside
against the raging forces of Medb, Queen of Connacht, resort in County
Donegal, close to
lashing himself to a rock to stay upright. Myth, as elsewhere the border with
in Ireland, is tangible in the borderlands, if you are so minded: Northern Ireland.
Balor of the Evil Eye, the Red Branch Knights, the entrance Right: the County
River follows the
to the Underworld through the Cave of Cats in Roscommon. line of the border
You can touch the indistinct intersection of myth and between County
Fermanagh,
archaeology at Emain Macha, the remains of a gigantic Iron Northern Ireland,
Age temple dedicated to the goddess Macha and noted by and County Leitrim,
Republic of Ireland
the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy. Long horns, gold
ornaments and the skull of a Barbary ape were excavated
here. Beside it is the informative and entertaining Navan
Centre, where you can banter with actors playing ancient
Celts who will show you their houses and gardens and
pretend to know nothing of Taylor Swift or Gerry Adams or

You can touch the indistinct

intersection of myth and
ARCHAEOLOGY at Emain Macha
GREEN AS GRASS
Left: the border the arrival of Christianity. Macha gave her name to Armagh,
between County towards which all eyes in Ireland turned when it was the capital
Derry, Northern
Ireland and County of Ulster, last redoubt of the Gael until Hugh O’Neill fell to the
Donegal, Republic forces of Elizabeth I and the Protestant Plantation was set in
of Ireland is marked
by a hedgerow.
motion. Saint Patrick established his most important church
Right: farmer John here. Brian Boru, last high king of Ireland, is said to be buried
Sheridan with his in its walls. It remains the island’s ecclesiastical capital for
Land Rover and dog
Pip in Cuilcagh high church Protestants and Catholics.
Mountain Park, I headed west, crossing the boundaries of Monaghan,
County Fermanagh,
Northern Ireland Armagh and Cavan so frequently it seemed I was suturing
closed the porous border, the satellite navigator calling out
her warnings. The Clones (Monaghan) – Cavan train used to
cross the border six times in eight miles, with a customs check
each time. There were yapping dogs, old men in suits driving
tractors, red-cheeked girls with ice cream cones, Gaelic games
grounds, Presbyterian chapels, I.R.A. memorials, fireworks
huts, oak forests and barley fields, then soft warm rain
followed by dappled light among the trees.
I got into Enniskillen on a Sunday morning. Churches of
different stripes were letting out. Caps were ecumenically
tipped, heads nodded. I passed the constituency offices of
D.U.P. leader Arlene Foster and Sinn Féin’s Jemma Dolan and
went on to the war memorial where the Remembrance Day
I.R.A. bomb went off, the Sisters of Mercy to one side and the
Clinton peace centre on the other.
Out on the road to Belleek, where the pottery is made,

lies the Lough Erne Resort. Former U.K. Prime Minister
David Cameron hosted a G8 summit here. The renowned
Noel McMeel, a former step dancer from Toomebridge,
cooked for Putin, Obama and the others, and now for me.
After lunch—hake and fresh red berries—and a chat about
his garden and his bees, he volunteered to drive me to Monea
Castle, touchingly delicate and alone in the mist, and then on
to Magho Point in the Lough Navar Forest, where you can see
the Sperrin Mountains to the north and the Blue Stacks and
Donegal Bay to the west. It’s one of the most breathtaking
spectacles I’ve seen in this country, which has many.
I dropped down into Leitrim and shaded the border past
Sligo and Drumcliffe, where the poet Yeats is buried. Just
above Ballyshannon, the Republic cinctures in like a cruelly
corseted waist between Fermanagh and the sea, and then
opens grandly into the wild beauties of Donegal.
Derry was at the end of my road. It stands with Prague,
DRAWING THE LINE
From top: mural in homage to Irish republican Paris and Selma, Alabama in the annals of protest. Protestants
women by Danny Devenney and Marty Lyons with just a third of the population ruled over Catholics with a
in the Bogside neighbourhood of Derry,
Northern Ireland; the border on the road to tone that mixed triumphalism with paranoia, denying votes,
Clones in Clonagore, Republic of Ireland jobs and homes, and constructing imperial monuments
NOV E M B E R 20 1 9 VA NIT Y FA IR 63
that looked down at the impoverished TOUCH WOOD

Above: Barnesmore
Catholics in the Bogside below. Protests Bog in County
met with state violence, culminating in Donegal.
Right: Favour Royal
the shooting dead of 13 civilians on Bloody and Derrygorry
Sunday, 1972. Millennium forests
I checked into the Bishop’s Gate on the Republic of
Ireland side of the
Hotel, a former gentleman’s club. Next border
door is a blue plaque to the philosopher
Bishop Berkeley, who with John Lennon
declared, “It’s all in the mind”. Then I
Derry stands with
went out for a walking tour with Charlene McCrossan, starting
with the city walls, the best preserved and most complete in
Paris, Prague and Selma in the
annals of PROTEST
Europe, going on to the “No surrender” Protestant murals
and the People’s Uprising Catholic ones (both funded by
the city council) and finishing at the Guildhall, a symbol of
Protestant hegemony where even Catholic cleaners weren’t
allowed. Now they hold céilís.
I was often in Derry in the 1980s. Those who weren’t in

a fury were diplomatically mute, nervous of stirring the
sectarian cauldron. There isn’t a stone here that doesn’t
exhale a tortured political history. But Charlene McCrossan
and my guide the next morning at the Tower Museum spoke
with a candour and empathy that allowed them to inhabit
the minds of whatever sector of the population they were
speaking about. Derry was like a family suddenly relieved
of a rancorous secret.
COUNTRY MILES
Before I f lew away, I drove to Bellaghy, where there is Above: a view of rural
a museum devoted to Seamus Heaney. His voice drifted County Donegal from
the top of Grianan of
through the rooms. He’s known for his avuncular amiability Aileach, a sixth-century
and caressive words. But you can see in the photographs of hilltop fort.
Left: farm buildings on
his cattle-dealing father a canniness, a flintiness, that were the Northern Irish side
smuggled to the son. Border qualities, I thought. As Heaney of the Middletown
border crossing
wrote: “History says, Don’t hope / On this side of the grave. /
But then, once in a lifetime / The longed-for tidal wave / Of
justice can rise up, / And hope and history rhyme. / So hope
for a great sea-change / On the far side of revenge. / Believe
that a further shore / Is reachable from here. / Believe in
miracles / And cures and healing wells.”
More at Tourism Ireland (ireland.com).

CONDENASTJOHANSENS.COM
TIVOLI CARVOEIRO, ALGARVE, PORTUGAL
CROSSING THE LINE

The indomitable Irish adventure cyclist recalls
furtive and comical border incidents
By D E R V L A M U R P H Y
In the early 1930s one of Ireland’s

finest novelists, Kate O’Brien, foresaw
that globalisation (a term not yet
invented) would drain much of the
excitement out of “going abroad”. This
process partly explains why my
generation is special; many of us
octogenarians have been uniquely
exposed to temporal-cum-spatial
culture shock. Growing up in rural
Ireland—Lismore, County Waterford—
I had several classmates who walked
three or four miles in bare feet to and
from primary school. That small town
remains my home and those
classmates’ descendants now regularly
fly intercontinentally on business or for
holidays. Seventy years ago most
families had never even undertaken the
130-mile journey to Dublin.
I first saw an aeroplane at the age of
14 on a day trip to what would soon
become Shannon Airport. Watching it
take off, the notion of air transport
excited me more than space travel now
excites my grandchildren. Five years
later, when planning a month-long
European journey, the Cyclists’ Touring
Club magazine offered a thrill; for less
than the Dover-Calais ferry fare, a
12-seater plane would wave-hop me
from Lydd to Le Touquet in 25
minutes—and bicycles travelled free. A view across Lough Slug in Barnesmore Bog, County Donegal, in the Republic of Ireland.
Yet I still remember my first border The invisible border with Northern Ireland lies beyond
crossing as a rather shabby anti-climax;
the French had underinvested in Le travelling from any part of Ireland to way back to South Africa to rejoin the
Touquet’s Customs and Immigration. Britain. Which is why it is so bicycle which a year earlier had taken
Then came an unexpected challenge; disconcerting to think, 70 years later, me from Nairobi to Cape Town. My
my frugal father had disinterred a wad that to-ing and fro-ing between the daughter Rachel met me in Harare,
of 1920s French francs, saved from his Republic of Ireland and Northern being on a week’s leave from her work
student days, and these were mocked Ireland might, if Brexit happens, as a U.N. volunteer in Beira,
by a short-tempered elderly man in the become rather (or very?) problematic. Mozambique. We had planned that her
“Exchange” prefab at the airfield. The decades following my first partner Andrew would drive up from
Luckily my mother had foreseen this overseas trip provided many border the coast of Mozambique to collect us at
possibility and provided a backup. incidents—irritating, amusing, the border town of Mutare. But
ROB STOTHA R D
For me this arrival in France ranked thrilling. Among the more comical was bureaucracy can stymie the neatest
as a “first” because one didn’t then a furtive 1994 entry into Mozambique plans. In Harare we found out that my
think of crossing a border when from Zimbabwe. I was on a roundabout Mozambican visa would take at least
66 VAN IT Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 20 19
two weeks to process. And my flight another fence, lower and semi- where the path joined the motor road
from Maputo to Cape Town was booked collapsed. Then I was in a new country those hazards were far behind me. No
for only 11 days later. where the path climbed steeply towards one took any notice of the illegal
“Never mind,” said Rachel. the base of the escarpment. Here I had immigrant on her way to Manika, the
“Everyone knows there’s a smugglers’ to discard my walking-stick; both hands first little town in Mozambique. At noon
path over the mountains. You can cross were needed to pull myself up with the my accomplices collected me from the
before dawn and we’ll pick you up aid of strong, ancient tree roots, ramshackle hotel’s verandah—Rachel
beyond the two customs posts. Just polished by the hands and feet of looking unsurprised to find me where I
remember the landmines and stay on generations of smugglers. In colonial was supposed to be.
the path, even to pee.” times, trade was quite brisk between This jolly little episode had a squalid
From Harare we took the night train Portugal’s Mozambique and Britain’s sequel. Entering Mozambique illegally
to Mutare, then spent several hours Rhodesia. On the flattish cliff-top, was easy but how to depart by air
sussing out where this path began. gigantic water-smoothed boulders lay without an exit visa? During a happy
Viewed through binoculars, it seemed between a few tall conifer trees. Coca- 10-day Beira interlude I made several
more of a scramble than a walk. At one Cola cans, condoms and cigarette anxious enquires. Had the promised
point it ascended a high escarpment packets littered the short brown grass of regional bureaucracy been established?
and Rachel wondered: “Should we this rest area. I was recovering from the If so, where were its offices, who were
rethink?” Her hesitation came too late; testing climb when voices drew me back its officers? I was advised to consult two
by then that path had hooked me. to the cliff edge. Below, five men were senior policemen who assured me: “For
At sunset Andrew arrived after an setting down formidable head-loads: going on to South Africa you need no
exhausting drive only to be told that at boxes square and round and oblong, chits or documents. You have a ticket?
four o’clock the next morning he must wrapped in blankets. Swiftly their OK, just find your plane, no problem”.
deposit his mother-in-law-to-be a mile leader ascended, let down a rope and At Maputo airport the few visible
or so from the start of the path. For officials thought otherwise. Near the
security reasons, a noisy motor vehicle check-in desk a friendly trio approached
could go no closer. Observing the ease me. They were intrigued by my
with which he adjusted to this situation, I discovered the passport’s record of sub-Saharan
I recognised a suitable son-in-law. wanderings; then came the standard
My trek began on a ridgetop two smugglers had questions. Why was I travelling alone?
miles from the invisible Zimbabwean wire-cut an easy Where was my family? And where,
border. For a moment I stood still, while amid so many colourful stamps and
my eyes adjusted to starlight—a magical opening in the high seals and illegible signatures, was my
moment that was, the silence broken visa for Mozambique?
only by busy little stirrings in the bush.
fence ahead All three nodded knowingly when I
Soon after came the dawn, quiet pastel confessed that a staff shortage at their
light seeping through tangles of dwarf shouted advice to each man as he Harare consulate had forced me to
acacia and euphorbia. guided his load upwards. The quintet break the law. Yes, such delays were
From afar this had looked like a fairly greeted me politely, apparently very usual and annoying and they
distinct path across a narrowish valley. unsurprised to find an elderly white wished they could help. But alas! I must
Close up, it wandered to and fro, this woman sharing their path. “You have buy a new air ticket, return to Beira and
way and that, up and down, too often lost your passport?” suggested one, in there apply to the relevant regional
meeting other paths. At each junction I sympathetic tones. “Yes,” said I. office for a facsimile of the visa that
hesitated and soon enough began to feel I longed to ask what were they should have been issued in Harare.
twitchy. Would a wrong turning expose smuggling but tact must be two-way so I begged for mercy, explaining that
me to the full fury of some vigilant instead we talked about the weather. As crucially important appointments had
border patrol? Rachel had anticipated my companions generously shared their to be kept in Cape Town. Could I not
this scenario; after a lifetime of shared Cokes, they lamented their crop and contact some Maputo office?
travels she lacked illusions about her cattle losses during the 1992 drought. Then wordless communications took
mother’s sense of direction. On her Then, before reloading each other, they place, impossible to describe but silently
advice I was carrying only a walking sought to provide me with a substitute eloquent. Even for a newcomer to this
stick. No camera, no binoculars, no for my discarded stick—while warning game, its rules seemed not complicated.
passport, no notebook, no food nor me never to put a foot off the path. One Slinking into the loo, I opened my
water. If detected, I would seem an man’s cousin had been blown up nearby. money-belt to withdraw a $50 bill. And
innocent expat granny who enjoyed Slowly I followed them, down and so it came about that, on September 14,
walking in the cool of the morning and down, through thin forest or bushy scrub 1994, my copybook was blotted after
foolishly strayed into a border area. between cultivated slopes where clusters four decades of bribe-free travelling.
I relaxed when I glimpsed a high of round thatched huts replaced the I wonder, in our increasingly cashless
wire-mesh fence ahead, and discovered Westernised dwellings around Mutare. society, how such delicate transactions
the smugglers had wire-cut an easy At intervals, in the distance, both at border crossings might be conducted
opening. Thirty yards beyond came border posts were visible on my left but moving forward?
Travel The Edit Sweet Spot A hotel doesn’t have

to be new for us to love it
FOUR SEASONS RESORT BALI

JIMBARAN BAY INDONESIA
Even as it buckles under the weight of
hotel developments and choking traffic,
there are, happily, still places to find the
Bali we all fell in love with decades ago.
Jimbaran Bay, dating back 30 years, has
become a classic on the south coast
atop the promontory known locally as
the Bukit, with its dramatic cliff-top
views of the Indian Ocean. Built along
traditional lines, like a Balinese village,
the rooms are scattered along winding
lanes leading to sculpted entrances and
high-walled stone courtyards adorned
with statues and shrines. More recently,
the late and lauded Indonesian designer
Jaya Ibrahim refreshed the larger villas,
echoing the local vernacular with
hand-dyed ikat textiles, stone panelling
and wood carvings. There are 35 acres
of lush leafy grounds here and three
miles of beachfront—with low-key
Clockwise from top:
eateries, known as warungs, at the far Looking out from the
end of the stretch serving up chilli Belmond Hotel Splendido;
BEL MOND (SPLEND ID O); CHRISTIA N HOR A N (JI MB AR A N B AY); OE TK ER COLLE CTION (JUM BY B AY)
villa entrance at Jimbaran
prawns and spicy barbecue chicken. Bay; ocean view from
Bali might be busy now, but this place Jumby Bay Island
retains its slow beat.
superyachts. By the water is the smaller even keys here), let the kids run free and
BELMOND HOTEL SPLENDIDO Splendido Mare hotel, and the lovely have plenty of room to roam. Across
PORTOFINO, ITALY Chuflay restaurant and San Giorgio Jumby Bay’s 300 acres is a network of
“No, no,” says the general manager gelateria. But then withdraw up the hill pathways to be explored by electric
Ermes De Megni, as effervescent as a to the original Splendido, a converted buggy or bicycle, where you can spot
glass of prosecco, “this isn’t about la Benedictine monastery which was grazing sheep, stop for a swim or delve
dolce vita, it’s about la dolce far niente” anointed as the most beloved European into the organic garden (followed by a
(which roughly means “the art of doing retreat in the 1950s and 1960s by stars fresh salad at the farm-to-table
nothing”). And that just about sums it such as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren restaurant). It’s old-school Caribbean—a
up. While one goes to Venice, Florence Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard relief given that some of the shiny new
and Rome to explore, one comes to Burton. With its unrivalled beach resorts are more like Miami than
Portofino to eat, drink and lie in the Mediterranean light and luminous the West Indies. Not that this property
sun. And there’s no better place than la water, it’s no less glamorous now. has stood still. Closed for a year after
terrazza of the Splendido, set against the Hurricane Irma, it has upped its game
hotel’s carmine and ochre facade JUMBY BAY ISLAND with soft tropical interiors by Brazilian
softened by tangles of wisteria, and ANTIGUA designer Patricia Anastassiadis, a water
overlooking a saltwater pool ringed by There’s something special about a sports centre and a sailing school that
loungers facing the teeny-tiny harbour private island where you leave the front salutes Antigua’s yachting status, with
of Portofino with its sailboats, Rivas and door unlocked (actually, there aren’t its regatta and steady trade winds.

WINTER
Blues Escape seasonal stress and head for a place where the only blues in
sight are the turquoise tones of the Indian ocean: Milaidhoo Island,
a Maldivian hotspot that’s nothing short of paradise
Words by J E S S I C A B U R R E L L
T
here’s something particularly magical about prides itself on offering an authentic experience that embodies
escaping to somewhere tropical during the festive the culture, spirit and heritage of the Maldives—as well as the
period. Perhaps it’s the contrast; the sense of impossible glamour that this destination has come to represent.
excitement that comes from trading the frenetic hustle and Hidden among the tropical greenery and set on stilts over the
bustle for serene sun-drenched shores. crystal lagoon are 30 opulent over-water villas, as well as 20
To experience this contrast at its peak, head for Milaidhoo more on the beach. All feature large private pools, plus an island
Island. Easily accessible via a 35-minute seaplane journey from host to attend to guests’ every whim. Each individual villa has
Malé, the 13-acre resort is set in the heart of a UNESCO been designed by a skilled local Maldivian architect, created
Biosphere Reserve in the Baa Atoll region. Encouraging guests with responsibly sourced natural materials to seamlessly fuse
to ditch their iPhones, this Maldivian-owned (and run) island indoor and outdoor living while ensuring minimum impact on
the precious land and coral reef surrounding the resort.
For a personalised approach, the island is also home to an
innovative “mood dining” concept, which invites guests to
choose from five different “moods” (including Sunrise
Awakening and Deep Sleep) consisting of specially curated
menus served across the island. Some are paired with spa
treatments, taken at Milaidhoo’s intimate Serenity Spa.
Families are welcome, although no children under nine
years of age are allowed on the island, making it the perfect spot
for couples—whether it’s a honeymoon or simply a special
escape à deux. There’s even the opportunity to spend a night
under the stars like castaways on a private sandbank.
For more information, please visit milaidhoo.com

TERRA
INCOGNITA MICHELLE JANA CHAN immerses herself in
the Makay, an uncharted wilderness in Madagascar

S een from 36,000 kilometres above

the earth, Madagascar looks as if it
is bleeding. At the mouths of the
country’s biggest rivers is a smear
of rust-red, moving with the
currents, which turns out to be the
country’s distinctive laterite soil
leeching into the blue Indian Ocean.
Extreme deforestation, and thereby soil erosion, is impacting
the country so heavily that the damage is visible from space.
On the ground, driving through the night, I watched the
glow of bushfires crackling through the undergrowth, the air
acrid with smoke. Deliberately ignited by subsistent farmers,
this behaviour is not easy to extinguish; communities clear
the land to cultivate smallholdings of rice and manioc or to
allow the growth of new green shoots to feed their cattle, or
perhaps because of superstition. All of this is hard to say no to.
But Madagascar’s natural landscape is vanishing; the country
has lost more than 90 per cent of its original forest. Travel
companies in the capital now refer to the patches of primary
forest as “pockets”; they told me they were “seriously worried”
about the future of their business and their homeland. I heard
tourists call the parks “disappointingly small”.
A few hours east of the capital I stood in one of these pockets
of forest. The compressed Andasibe National Park is the only
place in Madagascar—and therefore the world—where visitors
can see the largest species of lemur, the critically endangered
indri. Our guide had located a family and we veered off the
path, weaving down a steep hill in light drizzle, while craning
to look up into the canopy to spot a movement. There was one,
then another, instantly recognisable by their fuzzy coats and
graphic black and white markings; then through binoculars,
seeing their piercing pearly eyes, their delicate fingers
curled around branches. One lay stretched out, legs akimbo;
another balanced between two trees, its body drooping like a
hammock. The pair pulled at leaves and twitchily stole glances
down to the forest floor where I stood.
There are not many wildlife

encounters that make you sob,
AS I DID THAT MORNING
Then, in the distance, I heard my first indri calls. A loopy The wider context is also impressive: from 1999 to 2010,
high-pitched haunting wail that might suddenly drop an scientists discovered 615 new species in Madagascar, including
octave; at times it sounds as uplifting as an aria, yet mournful, 41 mammals and 61 reptiles. There is still much to unearth.
too, full of anguish, even heartbreak. Their call can be heard We left the capital Antananarivo southbound on a road
up to four kilometres away. winding around hills denuded of trees, the land chopped into
I could never have prepared for what happened next—when rice terraces. Chickens scratched on the verge beside vendors’
the pair of indri in the trees immediately above me began trestle tables laden with pyramids of tomatoes, small plastic
to call, too. Their proximity, the power of their voice, the bottles of fuel and carved Madonna figurines. Humped cattle,
emotion that they stirred, was suddenly too much to bear. called zebu, loitered on the road, accompanied by herders who
There are not many wildlife encounters that make you sob, probably hadn’t yet reached their teens, each with a scythe
as I did that morning. It’s true it did sound, as some have said, tucked into their belts. I watched an extended family washing
as if the animals might be lamenting their demise. The word colourful clothes in a silty river, which my guide pointed out
lemur comes from the Latin lemures meaning “spirits of the wasn’t just domestic chores; he recognised it as the ritual
dead”; it’s as if they were named presciently. sasa, when everybody comes together to rinse the clothes of
When a plant or animal dies out in Madagascar, it usually a recently deceased relative.
becomes extinct from the planet. Three-quarters of the It was two full days of driving before we arrived on the
island’s estimated 200,000 species are found nowhere else. edge of the Makay. I met the rest of the group—scientists,
The story began when Madagascar, the fourth largest researchers, crew, porters, trackers—as well as the tour
island in the world, broke away from India some leader, Evrard Wendenbaum, the French founder
80 million years ago, allowing it to evolve in of NGO Naturevolution, which is trying to secure
relative isolation. Humans didn’t arrive until a few official protection for the area. Evrard first came to
EARTHLY
hundred years AD making it one of the last land DELIGHTS the Makay in 2004 but, without any mapping, he
masses to be settled. And that is what makes the Opposite page, didn’t manage to penetrate the area. “There were
clockwise from
country so distinct. Madagascar has some of the top left: bandits, big crocodiles and people talked about
An indri, the world’s
highest biodiversity anywhere. spirits everywhere, so we got a bit scared,” he said.
PRE VIOUS PAGE: UN TI TLED FI L MWORKS. FACI NG PAGE: W ILL B OLSOV E R (I NDR I, SP IDER’S WEB); J ONATHAN Z L EE/
largest species of
Yet it takes a considered eye to appreciate what’s lemur; cobweb in the “But after Google Maps was invented, we returned.
light; a Boophis Bright
here. The creatures are small, rather quirky, Eyed Frog; a young male And then we drew our own maps.”
Parson’s Chameleon;
sometimes inexplicable. Such as the Brookesia three Verreaux’s sifakas
I ate some rice, downed a bottle of water,
chameleon, an inch long, which, when worried, sit high in the trees repacked my bag, and then we headed off across
plays dead, pretending to be a leaf; the Malagasy the high plateau under a hot sun. There was a single
giant rat can leap a metre into the air; and the Aye- wisp of cloud in the sky. Out here, clouds take on
aye lemur employs a technique called percussive significance. At the very least, you notice them
foraging, using an extended middle finger to tap on wood, to because they offer momentary shade.
search for larvae. The spectacular Madagascan moon moth, Up on the plateau, the vegetation is known as dry forest, a
which seems so robust with its vibrant eyespot markings, twin mix of grass, thorny bushes and deciduous trees. We tried to
tails up to 20cm in length and an intimidating flap, lives for keep apace, pausing only to rehydrate, or to study a scorpion
J ONATHA NZ LE E.COM (FRO G, C HA MEL EON, V ERRE AUX’S SI F AKAS)
only a week. By contrast, the towering Tahina palm is a self- we encountered, while picking hundreds of spines out of our
destructing tree that flowers once every 100 years and then trousers and our punctured skin. Some of the group were
dies, despite its size; it was new to science just under a dozen wilting, some were sick. It was not a fortuitous start.
years ago. One of my favourites, the leaf-tailed gecko, is hard But then the massif appeared ahead, a panorama of smooth
to see even when pointed out, motionless and unsettlingly sandstone domes, carved up by ravines. The pattern of
well camouflaged. I also loved the Parson’s chameleon with random geometrics repeated until the horizon, like a caustic
its whorled tail and saccadic eye movement. This is the kind network of reflections and refractions. At this dusky time of
of wildlife that makes you pause, look closer, unconsciously day, the play of shadow accentuated the uneven terrain, the
hold your breath. sense of perspective.
I had come to Madagascar to explore a region called the It was dark by the time we reached the lip of the canyon; we
Makay in the central western part of the country. There are abseiled down relying on head torches. Then we swiftly set up
few places like this left in the world: little known, mostly camp, and I fell asleep to the barking hoot of a Madagascar
unexplored, with few people living here, and astonishingly Western Scops-owl. In the morning, having slept with my
still notching up new discoveries. In the past 10 years, more head outside my tent flaps, not wanting to miss a thing, I spied
than 100 species here have been recorded as new to science. a Madagascar harrier-hawk circling above. The early angles of

STARRY, STARRY
NIGHT
Clockwise from above:
The Milky Way; Madame
Berthe’s Mouse Lemur,
the smallest primate in
the world; the diverse
terrain of the Makay.
Opposite page: water
cuts through a gorge
When the fire went out, I had my

epiphany. The night skies of the
MAKAY ARE OTHERWORLDLY
sun shifted down the rock face, casting light on the euphorbias He’s not the only one on a mission. Some say low-impact
and pachypodiums in the clefts and fissures. tourism is part of the solution, like Will Bolsover, founder of
Down here in the ravines, cleaved by meandering streams, Natural World Safaris, who was on the trip. He’s been coming
the running water became our guide. We waded, knee-deep, to Madagascar for 20 years and wants to open up the Makay, in
through the current that was chiselling the landscape, the spite of the logistical challenges. “There are some trips we do
rock sometimes scalloped, sometimes pocked, with the for the sake of the destination,” he said, “not for the business.”
sedimentary layers taking on hues from vanilla to flesh-pink to For the sake of the destination. That is reason enough.
cinnamon. We clambered over boulders covered in moss and It was here in the Makay that I found my favourite campsite:
lichen, circling the trunks of Ravenea palms and tree ferns. in a dry river bed of soft powdery sand flanked by soaring
There was the occasional fiery-coloured bluffs. In the
call of a bird, such as the distance, there was the white
high-pitched whistle of the f lash of three Verreaux’s
Madagascar grey-headed sifakas, one of the most
lovebird or a caw-caw-caw endangered lemurs. They
of a Madagascar crested ibis. were only rea lly v isible
Butterf lies, crimson, then t h rou g h bi noc u la rs but
yellow, seemed to follow I cherished seeing them
me. Above, there was only among dense tropical forest.
a sliver of light, of blue sky. After setting up camp,
This was the flow of days we headed to a stream for
in the Makay. Time passed a wash. Later, around a
slowly. Always to the sound campfire, we ate one of the
of running water. two live ducks we had carried
That tempo meant I could with us, before taking our
spend hours at a time with flashlights for a night safari
various members of the to spot Madagascar cat-eyed
group, trying to learn more snakes and luminous tree
about the region, the local frogs, as well as seeing the
communities, their hopes, red eyes of tiny Gray mouse
FACI NG PAGE: JONATHA N Z L EE/JONATHAN ZL EE.COM (ALL). THIS PAGE: WI LL BOL SOV E R (G OR GE)
their dreams. I spoke with lemurs in the branches. But

Fiakara Jean Ferlin, a 35-year- it was when we returned to
old tracker who happens to camp, when the fire was out
be the son of a king (which and I looked up at the sky,
turned out to be a rather lofty that I had my epiphany. The
title for being the head of a night skies of the Makay
small village, Antsakoazato). are otherworldly, literally,
“When I ask my father what conjuring images taken by
he is going to do—as king— the Hubble telescope. The
to protect the Makay, his smear of the Milky Way was
eyes glaze over,” Fiakara almost opaque, its brightness
said, shaking his head. “He casting diffuse shadows on
is doing nothing. So it is hard the ground. I could see a
for me to believe in a future.” tinge of colour in the stars,
But perhaps Fiakara and his generation are the future. the nebulae, even the clusters, from rose to tangerine to
“Since I began working with foreigners,” he continued, electric blue. I ditched my tent that night, sleeping outside,
“I became aware of the importance of the forest. Not that counting shooting stars until my eyes shut against my will,
I want to take orders. We want to solve our own problems, making numerous wishes to safeguard the future of this place.
to understand the connection between upstream and Natural World Safaris (naturalworldsafaris.com) organises
downstream, to look after our own people. If this area is bespoke and small-group journeys to Madagascar. “The Lost
destroyed, it will impact the lowest-income families the World of the Makay” trip departs in 2021, one of a series of
hardest. We cannot let that happen.” philanthropic departures called “Expeditions for Change”.
Wish You Were Here The Dhofar Mountains, the Empty Quarter and the Arabian Sea
ending at the elbow of the Arabian coastline, craggy and wild and barren, down to the border with
B Peninsula, Oman was once a

powerful seafaring nation—
Yemen and the region of Salalah, whose moonscape flourishes
into meadows a few months a year—when the monsoon gets lost
and clips the Arabian Peninsula. “We travel here hoping to stand
in rain,” one Omani told me.
with its long, rugged coastline and When I finally made this trip, I came during Ramadan when
boat-building heritage. This is where life takes on a different complexion. Days are slow, languorous,
sometimes like a still life. And secreted away on this astonishing
Sinbad the Sailor dropped anchor after coastline is the hideaway hotel, Al Baleed Resort Salalah by
navigating the Strait of Hormuz, and Marco Polo wrote in Anantara, on a long beach so empty it feels like another era of
WI LL BOLS OVE R (DHOFA R MOUN TA I NS)
amazement about the bustling ports, from where dhows left to travel. In the shoreline I spied starfish, which surfaced with the
course trade routes to Zanzibar or Goa, and beyond. ebbing waves like treasure. I swam in the warmth of the Arabian
Decades ago, I remember coming out of the desert, parched, Sea and made footprints, unmuddled by anyone else’s.
desiccated by sand. I chanced upon the old shipbuilding port of Now the property is launching journeys around these southern
Sur, where the hulls of rotting dhows were stacked on the shore, reaches, making it the perfect base for camel treks on ancient
ribs exposed like skeletons of beached whales. I drove on, frankincense trails into the foothills of the Dhofar Mountains
stopping at Fins, a dazzling contrast of azure water and white with the Mahra tribe; camping in the dunes, or on beaches
sand. Nobody was about. I tore off my dusty clothes and ran into between rocky headlands to awaken and spot spinner dolphins,
the sea. From that moment, I longed to travel the length of this green turtles and humpback whales. M.J.C.

WANT TO BE LED ASTRAY?
Find and book your next escape at mrandmrssmith.com

Power shifts, flows, recombines—and so too does Vanity Fair’s billion-dollar beauty empire. Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars.
annual ranking of tech moguls, tastemakers, financial wizards, And Jeff Bezos is disrupting Hollywood.
and cultural icons. After 25 years, we’ve divided our traditional This year has also been notable for the Establishment’s
list into 10 groups of 10, illuminating more tribal aspects of the conspicuous failings. In Silicon Valley, the #MeToo movement,
influence networks that define our world. Of course, modern and the Jeffrey Epstein saga, we find glaring indictments of
power, catalyzed by technology, tends to transcend its catego- ruling-class values. There’s nothing more fascinating than
ries. The Obamas have a Netflix deal. Rihanna is building a power—and nothing more dangerous.
I L L U ST R AT IO N B Y THERE IS STUDIO
Menlo Park and Sunnyvale, Facebook and Google employees

are raising their kids tech-free.
This is the world the smartphone has built. In 1994, Vanity Fair
inaugurated the New Establishment list to celebrate the rise of
a new entrepreneurial class that promised—how young we were
then!—to “make the world a better place.” They were digital-
age whiz kids challenging the old boy’s club, rebels and hack-
ers getting their first taste of real power. Twenty-five years later,
the upstarts are now the establishment, the undisputed titans of
America’s second gilded age.
How quickly it all changed. Twitter, which aided the Arab
Spring, now abets America’s culture civil war, and its cofounder
Jack Dorsey is more concerned with going on silent retreats than
silencing Nazis. Mark Zuckerberg, who dreamed of bringing
free internet to Africa, spends his days dodging questions about
the genocide in Myanmar. Dara Khosrowshahi has righted the
amoral culture of Uber but is struggling to squeeze profits from
its gig-economy workforce. (For SoftBank leader Masayoshi Son,
self-driving cars can’t come soon enough.) Even Slack, which was
going to save us from the drudgery of work, has merely insinuated
drudgery deeper into the fiber of our lives.
Unwinding the problems these entrepreneurs have wrought is
difficult, as anyone on the 2019 New Establishment list can attest.
YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki has spoken passionately of “trying to
strike a balance” between removing hate speech and cultivating
free expression but is quick with excuses when pressed on the spe-
cifics (“If we were to take down every video…”). Poor Zuckerberg
couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to rid Facebook of anti-
vaxxers or Russian bots—at least until regulators began threatening
Death to
multibillion-dollar fines and high-profile tech insiders (including
Tristan Harris and Roger McNamee) began speaking publicly about
breaking up the company. “Fish don’t see water,” one tech investor
the New explained when I asked how Silicon Valley sees itself in this age of
cultural backlash. Another senior-level tech employee, who has
Establishment
worked in the industry for more than a decade, wasn’t so kind. “I
don’t think they smell their own shit,” she said.
There is still a sense of wonder: Elon Musk is planning a Mars
(Long May colony; Satya Nadella is pouring money into artificial intelligence;
Larry Page has invested in flying cars. Wojcicki’s younger sister,
They Reign!)
Anne, is building a genetic database that is already being used to
design new drugs (with a $300 million investment from Glaxo-
SmithKline) and fuel cutting-edge academic research. Jeff Bezos
has teamed up with titans of the financial industry to lower health
SO MUCH FOR MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE.
care costs, while Brian Armstrong’s cryptocurrency exchange,
AFTER YEARS OF SCANDALS, OUR NEW MASTERS
Coinbase, aims to disrupt the financial industry altogether. In
OF THE UNIVERSE APPEAR EVEN MORE RUTHLESS THAN
Hollywood, technology has forced the studios to compete with
THE OLD GUARD THEY DISPLACED BY NICK BILTON
Netflix and Amazon, fueling another golden age of video.
Meanwhile, venture capital is flowing outward, remaking the
I
n San Francisco, the crown jewel of Silicon Valley, there world for better and worse. There are start-ups growing flaw-
are no poor neighborhoods, just poor people. Squeezed less diamonds with plasma reactors, plant-based meats that
between million-dollar apartments and Michelin-starred “bleed” beet juice, shoes made from eucalyptus fibers. One
restaurants is a rising tide of homelessness: vagrants beg- start-up founder I recently met is growing genetically modified
ging for scraps from the tech zillionaires on Market Street, mushrooms that can be turned into imitation leather for belts
families who couldn’t afford the rent after the latest IPO, Uber and shoes, reducing the need for cows and helping slow climate
drivers sleeping in their cars in the Safeway parking lot. The change. (A thousand artisan villages in India won’t know what hit
nouveau wealth capital of America is a land of decadence them.) Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape and one half of
and irony, where Juul (banned from selling e-cigarettes in the the eponymous V.C. firm Andreessen Horowitz, used to say that
county) just bought a $400 million office tower and Vinod “software eats the world.” These days it feels more appropriate to
Khosla thinks he owns the beach. Farther down the 101 in say that “Silicon Valley eats the world”—or has eaten it already.
80 I L L U ST R AT IO N B Y KLAUS KREMMERZ
500 10,000 24
$2.5B
Bird’s Soaring human moderators hours it took YouTube to
$400M Valuation hours of video uploaded the company says block all video uploads of the
March 2018–July 2019 to YouTube every minute it employs New Zealand shooting
VALLEY
GSK for a four-year exclusive
THE partnership to share data
and identify new drug targets.
Visionaries and venture capitalists transforming the
tech industry. (See also: “The Moguls,” page 83.) Top Venture
8
Capitalists
JACK DORSEY
NEIL SHEN
Cofounder and CEO of
Now it’s a world leader in cloud Sequoia Capital China Twitter and Square; digital
computing, and, at nearly LEE FIXEL monk AGE: 42
$1.1 trillion, bigger than Apple. Tiger Global Management Dorsey, a Vipassana practitioner,
Who would have guessed? JEFF JORDAN wants to “consciously
Andreessen Horowitz observe that all pain and pleasure
aren’t permanent, and will
3 MARY MEEKER
Bond ultimately pass and dissolve
ANDY JASSY ALFRED LIN away.” If only.
Sequoia Capital
CEO of AWS AGE: 51
The most powerful Amazon BRIAN SINGERMAN
Founders Fund 9
executive not named Jeff runs the
company’s web services division, R AV I MH ATRE TRISTAN HARRIS &
the hyper-profitable core of
Lightspeed Venture Partners
ROGER M C NAMEE
Bezos’s e-commerce empire. It SNOOP DOGG Ethicists, Center for Humane
might also be one of the most Casa Verde Capital Technology AGES: 35, 63
valuable businesses in the Fighting the tide of technology.
world—if Bezos ever spun it off. Harris says Big Tech is
Ê
Facebook “downgrading” humanity.
Revolving Door McNamee, an early Zuckerberg
Most Feared Regulators 1. Margrethe Vestager 2. Elizabeth Warren 3. Ro Khanna 4. Josh Hawley 5. Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo
4
adviser, fears the problem
MARY MEEKER is “bigger than Facebook.”
Venture capitalist
AGE: 60 WEAPON OF CHOICE:
IN
10
Susan LinkedIn SlideShare JENNIFER NEWSTEAD,
Wojcicki Digital Nostradamus and key who helped draft the JOHN FOLEY
Patriot Act
adviser behind investments JOHN PINETTE, flack
Peloton CEO, boutique fitness
in Airbnb, Uber, and Slack. After for billionaires Paul Allen addict AGE: 48
1 and Bill Ackman
building a global following Foley is betting he can convince
SUSAN WOJCICKI with her Internet Trends report, Wall Street that cultlike
CEO of YouTube, the world’s Meeker secured $1.25 billion OUT fitness company Peloton isn’t just
largest video platform AGE: 51 for her debut fund, Bond Capital. stationary bikes—it’s a tech
With global scale (and 2 billion platform. The potential payoff?
monthly users) comes world- KEVIN SYSTROM and An IPO that could value
5 MIKE KRIEGER,
historical problems. “Everybody Instagram cofounders the brand at more than $8 billion.
P HOTO G R A P H S : F ROM L E F T , B Y P H I L L I P F A R AON E , A L E X A ND E R TA M A R G O ,
is angry at you all the time,” ZHANG YIMING JAN KOUM and
BRIAN ACTON, who
Wojcicki has said of her battle to CEO of TikTok, the cofounded WhatsApp
rid YouTube of extreme content. new anti-Facebook AGE: 36
In August, she reaffirmed that NET WORTH: $16.2 billion
G I L L E S S A B R I E / B L O OM B E R G , A L L F ROM G E T T Y I M AG E S
YouTube will remain an “open TikTok, the crown jewel out on a $100 million post-IPO
platform”—even if she offends of Zhang’s $75 billion ByteDance bonus, but he’s sanguine in the
some people along the way. empire, may be the first genuine face of multibillion-dollar losses.
new social media phenomenon, His new mantra? “Scale, scale.”
on a global scale, since Snapchat.
2
7
SATYA NADELLA 6
CEO of Microsoft, the world’s ANNE WOJCICKI
most valuable public company DARA KHOSROWSHAHI CEO of 23andMe; Susan
AGE: 52 EMPLOYEES: 130,000 Uber CEO and turnaround Wojcicki’s sister AGE: 46
Microsoft had missed the boat on artist AGE: 50 Has collected more than
mobile and was a drifting The canary in the self-driving 6,500 gallons of human saliva. Zhang
Yiming
also-ran when Nadella took over. coal mine. Khosrowshahi missed Inked a $300 million deal with
Unof ficial Private Equity Power Ranking

Ê 1. The Blackstone Group 2. The Carlyle Group 3. KKR 4. Warburg Pincus 5. Bain Capital 6. Apollo Global Management 7. TPG Capital
THE
MONEY CROWD
The rising generation of bankers, fintech pioneers,
5
ANTHONY NOTO
CEO, SoFi AGE: 51
8
PAUL SINGER
Activist investor,
and other masters of the financial universe Brought on to fix SoFi’s “frat Elliott Management AGE: 75
house” culture, Noto used Elliott, which has $35 billion
his experience as an ex-Goldman under management,
banker and Army Ranger went on a spending spree in
to whip the lending start-up into 2019. In August, Singer poached
2
shape. In May, SoFi closed Goldman’s top activism
MARIANNE LAKE & a $500 million funding round at banker, Steven Barg. Now he’s
JENNIFER PIEPSZAK a $4.3 billion valuation. laid siege to AT&T.
JPMorgan heirs apparent
AGES: 50, 49
6 9
There’s a running joke at
JPMorgan Chase that JAMES GORMAN CHRISTINE LAGARDE
it’s always “another five years” CEO, Morgan Stanley, wealth European Central Bank
until CEO Jamie Dimon management rainmaker president AGE: 63
retires. But Lake, who runs the AGE: 61 SALARY: $29 million In a world of plunging interest
bank’s consumer lending Gorman, an ex-McKinsey rates, the incoming ECB
business, and Piepszak, now management consultant, president is another enemy in
CFO, are very much in the continues to fortify Morgan Trump’s bellum omnium

Jerome running to succeed him. And Stanley by growing its asset- and contra omnes. But the former
Powell rumor is Dimon wants to wealth-management business, IMF chairwoman has experience
shake things up—if he ever leaves. surfing a rising market that has scrapping on the world
been a bonanza for the 0.1 percent. stage. “Whenever the situation
1
is really, really bad,” she
3
JEROME POWELL 7 says, “you call in the woman.”
DAVID SOLOMON
A NDR E W H A R R E R / B L O OM B E R G , A NDR E W H A R R E R / B L O OM B E R G , PA S CA L L E S E G R E TA I N , F ROM G E T T Y I M AG E S ( A L L E XC E P T P I E P S Z A K )

Federal Reserve chair AGE: 66
The man Trump has labeled an President and CEO, Goldman BRIAN ARMSTRONG 10
“enemy” is bent but not broken, Sachs AGE: 57 AKA: DJ D-Sol CEO, Coinbase AGE: 36
P HOTO G R A P H S : F ROM L E F T , B Y B I L L C L A R K / C Q ROL L CA L L , F ROM J P MOR GA N C H A S E & C O ., B Y A B H I J I T B H AT L E K A R / M I N T ,

and he may be the only person After Solomon beat out NET WORTH: $1.3 billion ALLEN PARKER
standing between the U.S. copresident Harvey Schwartz to When the rest of us were trying CEO, Wells Fargo AGE: 64
economy and a global recession. succeed Lloyd Blankfein, he to figure out what bitcoin Parker may be just the guy
set out to pivot the investment was, Armstrong was building to clean up the legal scandals
Most Assets bank toward Main Street,

rolling out consumer-lending
the world’s most popular
cryptocurrency exchange
at the nation’s second
largest bank. Insiders wondered
Under product Marcus and a credit card operator. With 20 million users if the interim executive was
Management with Apple. Solomon also and more than $1 billion in up to the task, but an impressive
happens to be the only bank CEO revenue, Coinbase is designed to showing at the bank’s
to moonlight as a DJ. “He’s not thrive in good times and bad; shareholder meeting has some
$6.8 trillion
your grandmother’s banker,” last year, it raised $300 million at board members talking
says Joanna Coles. “He’s funny.” an $8 billion valuation. about keeping him permanently.
$5.2 trillion

4 Jennifer Marianne
Piepszak Lake
DAVID M C CORMICK
Co-CEO, Bridgewater AGE: 54
$2.81 trillion
$2.72 trillion
POWER SPOUSE: Dina Powell

$2.5 trillion
$2.46 trillion
McCormick has a rough-and-

tumble résumé: Ranger school,
Iraq, Princeton, McKinsey.
And then there were the Bush
BLACKROCK
VA N G U A R D
S TAT E S T R E E T
JPMORGAN
C H A R L E S S C H WA B
FIDELITY
years. But taking over

Bridgewater Associates, with
$160 billion under management,
under the watchful eye
of founder Ray Dalio, may be David
McCormick
an even bigger test.
82
THE OLD NEW ESTABLISHMENT

Big men on campus (yes, they are all men) who are
still masters of their domains
RUPERT Murdoch clan paterfamilias,

MURDOCH chairman of Fox Corporation.
Sold half his empire to

AGE: 88 Disney for $71.3 billion.
Jeff
Bezos
TIM CEO of Apple. Still flirting with

COOK a market cap of $1 trillion while
focusing on recurring revenues. Elon
Musk
AGE: 58 Slow and steady goes the ship.
L A R RY
FINK
AGE: 66
Billionaire Blackrock chief with
more than $6 trillion under
management. Recently opened
an office in Saudi Arabia.
THE
MOGULS
Titans, empire builders, and wannabe monopolists
disrupting the world on a mass scale
JA M I E The Mad Dog is now the Big

DIMON Dog. Said in January 2018 that
he won’t retire from JPMorgan
If there’s a bubble in Silicon Valley,
AGE: 63 for at least “another five years.” 1
blame Son, whose landmark
JEFF BEZOS Vision Fund has injected about
Amazon founder, media baron, $70 billion into the tech industry
D AV I D The Discovery boss was the
moon colonizer AGE: 55 since 2016. His investment
ZASLAV highest-paid executive in
the country last year, with a NET WORTH: $100 billion+ strategy? “I have only one belief,”
AGE: 59 package worth $129 million.
The world’s richest man may he says: an A.I. “singularity.”
be having a midlife crisis,
but his e-commerce empire shows
LORNE O.G. television mega-producer, 4
no signs of slowing. Amazon
MICHAELS career maker, and Cannes
Lions Entertainment Person made $11.2 billion in profit last RANDALL STEPHENSON
AGE: 74 of the Year.
year and paid $0 in federal Texan, CEO of AT&T, former
taxes. How’s that for a dick pic? Boy Scout AGE: 59
With its $85 billion Time Warner
R AY The hedge fund titan turned
acquisition, Ma Bell is no
2
DALIO self-help guru is somehow even
more omnipresent since longer just a bunch of dumb
AGE: 70 initiating his succession plan. BOB IGER pipes. But winning an antitrust
Disney CEO AGE: 68 battle with Trump was
LAST YEAR’S SALARY: just the beginning of a larger
L A R RY Mega-gallerist, Zwirner rival, $65.7 million war with Iger, Reed
GAGOSIAN and contemporary art
dealer. Recently launched an art Not content with Marvel Hastings, and Paul Singer.
AGE: 74 advisory firm in New York. and Lucasfilm, Iger dropped
$71.3 billion to acquire
5
Fox’s film and television assets
BILL Pershing Square founder, in a megadeal that will MARK ZUCKERBERG &
ACKMAN comeback king. Bet $500 million
on his own struggling fund allow Disney to rival Netflix SHERYL SANDBERG
AGE: 53 and scored a nearly 50% return. when it rolls out its own CEO and COO of Facebook
streaming platform, Disney+. AGES: 35, 50 COMBINED NET
WORTH: $71 billion
STEVE One of the best traders of After years of scandals,
3
COHEN all time until a run-in with the
SEC. Now back to managing
Zuckerberg and Sandberg are
AGE: 63 outside money for a hefty fee. MASAYOSHI SON trying to move forward with
SoftBank founder AGE: 62 a global cryptocurrency called
NET WORTH: $21.3 billion Libra and plans to conjoin
Elon Musk wants

to colonize Mars.
Musk vs. Bezos

Space Race
Trying to save Earth, but will settle
for nuking Mars. Sixty percent #MeToo and
What Came After
visionary; 40 percent crazy.
ELON MUSK JEFF BEZOS

8
Falcon Heavy New Glenn THE REPORTERS WHO HELPED IGNITE A MOVEMENT
STEVE SCHWARZMAN
70m 82m
ROCKETS
REFLECT ON ITS STUNNING SUCCESS—AND THE ENORMOUS

Blackstone CEO
WORK THAT REMAINS BY CLAIRE LANDSBAUM
and Trump homie AGE: 72
(230 ft.) (269 ft.)
NET WORTH: $17.3 billion
W
Schwarzman may be in a reflective ith their explosive story on Harvey Weinstein, New York
Starlink Project Kuiper
mood as he hands the reins of his Times reporters and New Establishment veterans Megan
SATELLITES
has received hopes to

FCC approval launch 3,236 private-equity behemoth Twohey and Jodi Kantor planted a grenade in the cul-
for more satellites, to his successor, Jonathan Gray, tural psyche and pulled the pin. They pursued scraps of whispers
than 12,000 according to
satellites. the FCC. but he remains a giant on Wall and convinced very unwilling sources to speak out against one
Street and in Washington, where of the most powerful men in Hollywood, all the while butting up
he has established himself against a legal system—white-shoe lawyers, corporate obfusca-
SpaceX Blue Origin
L AUNCHES
as Trump’s “China whisperer.” tion, nondisclosure agreements—designed to protect him. The
78 11 9
resulting exposé divided the modern world into two distinct
epochs: before the Weinstein story broke, and after.
There’s definitely been a palpable shift in institutions and
OPRAH mores and minds. Workplaces have installed entire new rule
Instagram, WhatsApp, and America’s talk therapist, books; media outlets are much more responsive to sexual scan-
Facebook into one inseparable multibillionaire AGE: 65 dal; and powerful men are on notice as to how they should behave.
blob. Ingenious, a little “I don’t want to run,” she Yet on a deeper level, the effects of the #MeToo movement are
sinister, and perfectly on brand. protested. “I am not trying to test harder to quantify. Women are still fighting for their place in poli-
any waters, don’t want to go tics and industry. Donald Trump remains in the White House
6 in those waters.” It’s okay, she’s despite multiple allegations of sexual assault. When writer E. Jean
bigger than the presidency. Carroll recently wrote, very believably, of being raped by Trump
SHARI REDSTONE in a department-store dressing room in the mid 1990s, the New
Vice-chairwoman, CBS
10 York Times hardly treated it as news. (Trump has denied the
and Viacom AGE: 65 allegation.) Meanwhile, men who have acknowledged sexual
Redstone seized control of her ADAM NEUMANN harassment and worse, who apologized and went underground,
father’s empire, ousted Moonves, WeWork cofounder and CEO, are now attempting to resurface.
P HOTO G R A P H S : L E F T , B Y K E V I N W I N T E R ; R IG H T , B Y M I K E M A R S L A ND / W I R E I M AG E ; B OT H F ROM G E T T Y I M AG E S
and may soon recombine magical thinker AGE: 40 Kantor and Twohey chronicle some of this paradigm shift in
CBS and Viacom, fulfilling a Neumann, the master salesman their new book, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story
$30 billion bid for renewed and creative accountant behind That Helped Ignite a Movement, which presents a ticktock of
relevance as a media kingpin. “community-adjusted EBITDA” their efforts to unmask Weinstein, as well as their reporting on
and “space-as-a-service,” is now Christine Blasey Ford’s agonizing decision to testify against
7 the largest landlord in New York Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. They go deeper on the
City and London. He also loses topic here, parsing the systems that have failed, the movement
ELON MUSK about $219,000 an hour. Says that’s picked up the slack, and the new reality it has left in its wake.
Serial entrepreneur behind Adam: “We do not lose money,
#METOO’S UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Tesla and SpaceX AGE: 48 we invest money in the future.”
Megan Twohey: Our article in October 2017 felt like it was
just the beginning. We had been able to connect some of the
dots about Harvey Weinstein’s decades of alleged predation
and those who helped him, but there were still so many press-
ing questions. There was the question of the women who faced
wrenching decisions as they debated whether or not to come
forward and share their stories. There was the question of the
machinery in place to silence those women and try to block
our investigation.
We wanted to pull the curtain back on that machinery. And
we wanted to get into the question of complicity. One of the
most pressing questions when it comes to these individual
¡ predators is, this was somebody who was engaged in this behav-
Shari
Redstone

Oprah
ior for decades. Who were the individuals and institutions that
glimpsed that wrongdoing, and what did they do about it?
84 NOV E M B E R 2019
Jodi Kantor: We say in the beginning of the book, “Thank you

for witnessing what we witnessed, and hearing what we heard.”
We wanted to bring readers to ground zero and say, go through
this process of examining this with us so you can have your
own conversations.
JOURNALISM’S POWER—AND ITS LIMITS
JK: At a time when the president of the United States talks about
journalists as enemies of the state, at a time when we’ve all been
figuring out what the new financial model is for journalism, at
a time when it feels like the truth is fracturing, I think Megan’s
and my response is to show our work. We are totally transpar-
ent about what goes into this, and this is an example of facts
driving social change. The reaction to this story was so outsize,
and #MeToo has become both an example and a test of social
change in our time. We feel that we lived the experience of
careful information actually moving the needle and having an
impact on people’s lives.
Since October of 2017 we’ve been flooded with messages
from women who want to tell us their stories. And there have
been times when we’ve felt overwhelmed, because there’s no
way that any publication, even a publication with the resources
of the Times, could ever get to every one of the stories. So many
systems have failed, and of course we want journalism to step
in and do what it can. But journalism can’t compensate for an
entire system that’s broken.
THE FUTURE OF A MOVEMENT
JK: Like everyone else, we have been staggered by the size and For instance, secret settlements with restrictive clauses helped
durability of this movement. It doesn’t feel like a news story any- conceal the conduct of Harvey Weinstein for years. Those types
more—it feels like a way of being. I think we all experienced it of settlements are still being signed every single day.
this summer with the Jeffrey Epstein story, which brings up a lot JK: It’s confounding because everything’s changed and nothing’s
of the same questions as the Weinstein story: How could this changed. On the one hand, we’ve been through a seismic social
have gone unaddressed or inadequately addressed for so long? shift and a change in attitude, and things that were accepted, tol-
How could so many people have been complicit? What is behind erated, dismissed a couple of years ago are now taken much more
this seemingly prestigious world that is clearly masking some- seriously. I do think that, on a corporate level, people are aware
thing much darker? Epstein, like Weinstein, is a sprawling story that the reputational risk of protecting a predator is much greater
that’s shocking in the sheer number of allegations, the number than the reputational risk of doing something about it. The cal-
of women who appear to have been hurt. We feel that you can’t culus has changed. On the other hand, our basic systems for pre-
solve a problem you can’t see, and all of us collectively are still in venting and dealing with these problems have barely changed at
the process of seeing that problem clearly for the first time. And all. Nothing has happened that says to us, legally and structurally,
clearly we all have a lot of work to do on that. the United States is taking a new approach to this problem.
We also understand that #MeToo has become controversial. I do think there’s a private reckoning that’s taken place along-
Basically, there are three questions about #MeToo issues that side the public one, and in some ways the private one has been
are totally unresolved. One: What kind of behaviors are under much more powerful. The public conversation about #MeToo
scrutiny? Are we talking about Aziz Ansari? Yes or no? Two: How has been loud and fractious and controversial. But in private
are we evaluating this information? What are the tools we’re conversations, whether they’re in offices or in bars or among
using to figure out what actually happened? And three: What’s old friends, I think what you hear is a much more searching and
the punishment or accountability that we’re going to use? Each delicate reevaluation of old behavior. You hear people allowing
of those three questions is a matter of huge debate. themselves to be vulnerable and to question things that hap-
pened years ago that they accepted that no longer seem right.
H O W M U C H H A S # M E T O O C H A N G E D , R E A L LY ?
Sometimes I think that, as reporters, we can never capture the
MT: There’s no question that some of the secrecy around sexual true power of what’s happened because one function of the
harassment and sexual assault has been shattered. For so long, as news reporting and the public conversation is to drive these real-
reporters looking to uncover these types of stories, we were the ly significant private ones that most of us will never hear about.
ones having people slam the door in our face. To have this rever- MT: We can’t necessarily predict how systemic change will
sal—in which tips and victims are now coming to us—is massively work, and how these reforms will come about and what they’ll
significant. At the same time, there hasn’t been the type of system- look like, but we can continue to do our jobs every day as report-
ic reform that both the accusers and the accused are looking for. ers, which is to unearth and publish the facts.
I L L U ST R AT IO N B Y YUKO SHIMIZU VA NIT Y FA IR 85

Streaming Wars Disney+ November 12, $6.99 per month | Apple TV+ November 1, $4.99 per month | HBO Max Spring 2020, $14.99 per month | Peacock April
Ê 2020, $12 per month | Quibi April 6, 2020, $4.99 per month (with ads), $7.99 per month (ad-free) | Discovery/BBC Studio 2020, less than $5 per month

Ryan Ted
Murphy Sarandos

Phoebe
Reese Ava Waller-
Witherspoon DuVernay Bridge
THE
NEW HOLLYWOOD
In a world dominated by streaming, old Hollywood has gone high-tech
“It’s about truth…and

1 3 5
honesty and, to be frank,
TED SARANDOS SHONDA RHIMES & PHOEBE entertainment.”
Netflix chief content officer, RYAN MURPHY WALLER-BRIDGE
Hollywood disruptor AGE: 55 Showrunners who hit the Writer, actor, fashion icon, and
6
In the streaming wars, Netflix jackpot AGES: 49, 53 professional wit AGE: 34
GREGG D E GUIRE/WIREIMAGE, RACHEL MURRAY, PAUL BRUINOOGE/PATRICK M C MULL AN, CHRIS DELMAS/AFP,
Sarandos is a general Murphy turned FX into an From Fleabag and Killing Eve J.J. ABRAMS
under siege, but with 151 million anthology factory. Rhimes to rewriting the next Star Wars and Star Trek director,
A M A NDA E DWA R D S , J E A N B A P T I ST E L AC ROI X , ST E V E G R A N I T Z / W I R E I M AG E , M I K E C OP P OL A ,

P HOTO G R A P H S : F ROM L E F T , B Y J E N N Y A ND E R S ON , A NDR E W L I P OV S K Y / N B C U P HOTO B A N K ,
paid subscribers, his position once owned ABC’s Thursday- James Bond movie. “It’s about mega-producer AGE: 53
B I L LY F A R R E L L / B F A .C OM , JA M I E M C CA R T H Y, F ROM G E T T Y I M AG E S ( A L L E XC E P T R H I M E S )
appears to be strong and night lineup. No wonder fucking surprising people With footholds in two
defensible—for now. “We’re Netflix offered an unprecedented and doing the thing that they’re of Hollywood’s most lucrative
betting in all the areas of $300 million for Murphy and not expecting,” she’s said. franchises—not to mention
content that our consumers love,” $150 million for Rhimes. Rhimes’s Mission: Impossible—it was simple
he has assured investors. first series for the streamer Highest-Paid arithmetic for Warner to
begins filming in October. Actors of 2019 offer Abrams and his wife, Katie
McGrath, a nine-figure
2
BOB GREENBLATT
4
D WAY N E
JOHNSON $89.4M production deal worth between
$250 million and $500 million.
WarnerMedia Entertainment KATHLEEN KENNEDY & CHRIS
HEMSWORTH $76.4M
chairman AGE: 59 KEVIN FEIGE 7
Richard Plepler’s successor
has promised to “increase the
Guardians of the Star Wars and
Marvel universes AGES: 66, 46
ROBERT
DOWNEY JR. $66M REESE WITHERSPOON
volume” without spoiling
HBO’s secret sauce. Can he please
The queen and king of America’s
two favorite franchises are
A K S H AY
KUMAR $65M Actor, producer, media
entrepreneur AGE: 43
corporate boss John Stankey
without unnerving the creatives?
responsible for lifetime receipts
of $40 billion. Next up? Going
JACKIE
CHAN
Credit: Forbes
$58M Witherspoon’s production
company, Hello Sunshine,
Greenblatt says he’s “bullish.” multiplatform with Disney+. is crushing the Bechdel test with
86 NOV E M B E R 2019

Kevin Janet Kathleen Bob Jordan
Feige Mock Kennedy Greenblatt Peele

J.J. Shonda
Abrams Rhimes
M&A Power
Ranking
1 Disney
Marvel (now including
2 WarnerMedia
DC Comics, Harry Potter,
3 Amazon
The Lord of the Rings,
4 Netflix
The Chronicles of Narnia,
5 Comcast
Fast & Furious, Shrek,
Which media Deadpool and X-Men), Game of Thrones, The Wheel of Time, The Stranger Things, The Jurassic Park, Minions,
conglomerate is holding Star Wars, Avatar, Westworld, Watchmen, Dark Tower Witcher, the Roald Dahl Universal Classic
the best hand? The Simpsons, Toy Story His Dark Materials library, Cowboy Bebop Monsters, The Purge
TV projects like Big Little Lies, the way Hollywood looks at A former P.R. person, she came out
10
podcasts, a book club, America: “I want to see of the indie world as the first black
and a mentorship program for a black family on the beach, woman to direct a $100 million JANET MOCK
women filmmakers. goddamnit!” he told movie and now presides over a Writer, director, trans rights
Vanity Fair. “That happens. And sprawling mini-empire. (Her drama activist AGE: 36
we’ve never seen it.” Queen Sugar, which she executive- Transgender icon, former sex
8
produces with Oprah, was worker, best-selling memoirist.
JORDAN PEELE 9 just renewed for a fifth season.) In June, Mock signed a three-year,
Horror impresario, Twilight DuVernay made the award- multimillion dollar deal
Zone revivalist AGE: 40 AVA D UVERNAY winning Central Park Five series with Netflix that still allows her to
The genius behind Get Out Filmmaker, activist, member of When They See Us as a reminder continue as a writer-director
and Us is already changing the Twitterati AGE: 47 of “how far we’ve not come.” on Ryan Murphy’s FX series Pose.
Streaming Dealmakers The SVOD arms race has given rise to the latest envy-inducing indicator of Hollywood status
$250-500M $150M
J.J. ABRAMS J O N AT H A N N O L A N
WarnerMedia & LISA JOY
Amazon Studios
$400M $150M
GREG BERLANTI SHONDA RHIMES
Warner Bros. TV Netflix
$300M $100M
R YA N M U R P H Y K E N YA B A R R I S
Netflix Netflix
$200M $100M
D AV I D B E N I O F F JOHN WELLS
& D.B. WEISS Warner Bros. TV
Netflix
VA NIT Y FA IR 87
Highest-Paid
Athletes $127
(in millions, 2019) Lionel Messi
$109
Cristiano Ronaldo
$105
Neymar
$94
Canelo Álvarez
$93.4
Roger Federer
$89.5
Russell Wilson
$89.3
Aaron Rodgers
ARENA
Epochal superpower, feminist role
THE Top Streaming model. Still working to surpass
Artists of 2019 Margaret Court’s all-time record
Total streams (in billions)
Musicians, athletes, and executives remaking the of 24 Grand Slam singles titles,
entertainment industry in the mobile-first era DRAKE 5.53 all while redefining motherhood
and unveiling a new fashion
5 collection. “I’m not necessarily
Kardashian Clan Power Ranking 1. Kris Jenner 2. Kylie Jenner 3. Kim Kardashian West 4. Kendall Jenner 5. Khloé Kardashian 6. Caitlyn Jenner 7. Kanye West 8. Kourtney Kardashian 9. Rob Kardashian
BILLIE EILISH
chasing a record,” she says. “I just
P HOTO G R A P H S : TOP, B Y I A N W E ST / PA I M AG E S ; C E N T E R , C L O C K W I S E F ROM TOP L E F T , B Y K E VOR K D JA N S E Z I A N , B R I A N ROT H M U L L E R / IC ON S P O RT S W I R E , S C OT T VA R L E Y / M E DI A N E W S G RO U P / DA I LY B R E E Z E , M A DDI E M E Y E R ,

1 ARIANA GRANDE 4.82 got to keep fighting through it.”
BEYONCÉ & JAY-Z 4.06 8
L AC H L A N C U N N I NG H A M , W E S L E Y H I T T , VAU G H N R IDL E Y, S C OT T VA R L E Y / M E DI A N E W S G RO U P / DA I LY B R E E Z E ; B OT TOM L E F T , B Y NOA M G A L A I ; B OT TOM R IG H T , B Y A L L E N B E R E ZOV S K Y ; A L L F ROM G E T T Y I M AG E S

POST MALONE
AGES: 38, 49 COMBINED NET
RICH PAUL
WORTH: $1.4 billion
Undisputed American royalty,
NBA YOUNGBOY 3.49 NBA power broker AGE: 37
they’ve made great art
and more money out of their
JUICE WRLD 3.38 More than just the super agent
representing James, Anthony
marriage troubles. As Jay-Z Courtesy of Nielsen Music Davis, and Ben Simmons. In
put it: “I’m not a ‘Business-Man’! August, the NCAA instituted the
I’m a Business…man!”
NBA so-called “Rich Paul rule,” a
requirement that NBA agents hold
Power Couples bachelor’s degrees. (Paul didn’t
2
graduate from college.) Hours
In the era of free agency, players
ARIANA GRANDE are signing shorter contracts after Paul pushed back in an op-ed,
Pop’s current crown princess, and orchestrating trades to team up it was hastily repealed.
with their friends. Below, the four
Nickelodeon alum, biggest power couples of the summer
Pete Davidson ex, social media
9
savant AGE: 26 L.A. LAKERS
“I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it.” on Jam ony Da
BILLIE EILISH
Br th
vis Teen queen, Instagram
An
Le
es
pied piper, emo icon AGE: 17

3
Jay-Z and
“I’m not going to say I’m cool,
L E BRON JAMES Beyoncé
L.A. CLIPPERS
because I don’t really feel that.
Arguable hoop GOAT AGE: 34 I just don’t care at all, and I guess
i Leona l Georg
In the world as on the court, and getting a tattoo about it, wh au that’s what people think is cool.”
P
Ka
e
rd
James can play multiple positions: Drake transcended the

surprisingly talented actor; music industry. Now there’s the
10
empire-building businessman; Drake industry: hit TV show
athlete-activist role Euphoria; an e-sports team; OVO B R O O K LY N N E T S SCOOTER BRAUN
model, Taco Tuesday enthusiast. Fest; his partnership with in Dura e Ir v i n Star manager to the stars, Justin
ev yri
Scooter Braun; and a star turn Bieber discoverer. Regular on
K
nt
g
K
on the NBA sidelines. David Geffen’s yacht AGE: 38

4
Top-tier pop feuds aren’t supposed
MEGAN RAPINOE 6 HOUSTON ROCKETS
to involve managers. But when
President Rapinoe, World Cup Braun acquired record label Big
all-star, celesbian icon AGE: 34 TAYLOR SWIFT se
ll Westb
me
s Hard
Machine—and with it, to
en
ro
Ja
Rus
Rapinoe plans to leverage her Comeback kid, angst Swift’s consternation, the rights
ok
transcendent World Cup triumph weaponizer AGE: 29 to her back catalog—there he

to make political change. “I just When the internet turned against was sharing the headlines with her.
think she’s the perfect person at her, Swift went underground—
the perfect time,” says pro- and came back stronger. “I think
Billie Rich
choice activist Cecile Richards. a lot of people…would have Eilish Paul
perceived that I had torn down the
house,” she explained. “Actually,
5
I just built a bunker around it.”
DRAKE
Pop behemoth;
7
unlikely fashion icon AGE: 32
Somewhere between blowing SERENA WILLIAMS
Ê
past The Beatles’ chart records Tennis GOAT AGE: 38
$89
LeBron James
$79.8
Stephen Curry
$65.4
Kevin Durant Credit: Forbes
Jeffrey Epstein’s
THE ROCKEFELLERS
In the age of social capital, philanthropy is Meritocrat Grift
the ultimate power trip HE HELPED BROKER THE ’90S MARRIAGE BETWEEN MONEY
AND SCIENCE. AND IN HIS EXTREME ENTITLEMENT
AND HEEDLESSNESS, HE MIRRORED ESTABLISHMENT VALUES
M AC K E N Z I E Signed the Giving Pledge soon
BY GABRIEL SHERMAN
BEZOS after divorcing the world’s
richest man. Wants to combat
cancer and homelessness.
J
AGE: 49
effrey Epstein once told a billionaire that he’d invented the
derivatives market—a claim that is totally false. But with-
BI L L & M E L I N DA Davos regulars. The original out question, he helped create one of the signal trades of
GATES Big Tech bad guy now uses tech
and science to attack global
the last few decades. He came to prominence in the 1990s, as the
AGES: 63, 55 problems: malaria, ebola, polio. modern meritocracy was taking shape in the collision between
the cult of technology and the burgeoning class of billionaires.
Epstein played a role in this marriage. He was one of the people
MICHAEL The perennial presidential who figured out how to arbitrage the particular needs, desires,
BLOOMBERG aspirant spent more than
anyone on Democrats in 2018
and vulnerabilities of these groups. He recognized, long before
AGE: 77 and could do the same in 2020. others, that Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Park Avenue, and the
Academy were converging around a new salon culture embodied
by TED Talks and “billionaires dinners.” Genius wanted to ride
L AU R E N E P OW E L L Jobs’s Emerson Collective on a private plane—it deserved to travel by private plane. And bil-
lionaires wanted to certify their own genius by conversing with
JOBS (named for Ralph Waldo) aims
to save journalism (buying the
other geniuses. MIT and Harvard were brand names the super-
AGE: 55 Atlantic) and reform education.
rich wanted to associate with, a fact that dropout Epstein under-
stood innately. Science was sexy, a way to beat the markets. He
once told an academic that he gamed the stock market by study-
TOM Impeachment enthusiast and
ing mating patterns of termites. Epstein grasped that, for the new
STEYER 2020 candidate. Promised $50
million to fight Trump but could meritocrats, genius and great wealth were two sides of the same
AGE: 62 spend twice that on himself.
PRISCILLA Zuck’s wife is donating their vast

CHAN fortune not quite as fast
as they earn it. Structured their
AGE: 34 family foundation as an LLC.
R O B E R T F. The wealthiest black man in the

SMITH U.S. has stepped up his giving
game with gestures like wiping
AGE: 56 out student debt at Morehouse.
SHELDON In 2018, the casino magnate

ADELSON poured $113 million into
supporting the GOP—and may
AGE: 86 spend even more in 2020.
GEORGE To the fringe, he’s a lefty villain.

In the real world, his $18 billion
SOROS foundation is a critical voice
AGE: 89 against the rise of the far right.
REID The cofounder of LinkedIn

is spending upward of
HOFFMAN $200 million to disrupt electoral
AGE: 52 politics using tech principles.
NOV E M B E R 2 0 1 9 I L L U ST R AT IO N B Y ANDRÉ CARRILHO 89

coin, and that the health of capitalism inevitably required both. Scientists were the central currency in this social trade, sup-
The girls—he always called them girls—were there too. For many plying intellectual heft while certifying him as a man of science,
in his glittery circle, they were decoration, seen but not heard or which he wasn’t, though he had no shortage of loopy ideas, which
touched. None of them raised alarms about this situation—a per- reportedly included a plan for Epstein to impregnate dozens of
son of means did not have to live by the rest of the world’s rules. women at his New Mexico ranch to improve humanity with his
Epstein’s own Brooklyn accent and lack of a college degree, his DNA. Epstein began courting academics in the early 1990s at a
idiosyncratic background, were no hindrance here but somehow moment when geek culture was rapidly gaining power. This was
a badge of his special gifts. He was mysterious, boundary push- due in large measure to the promotion of Epstein’s friend, the
ing, living in that strange house, as big as an embassy, the former New York literary agent and entrepreneur John Brockman, who
Birch Wathen school on 71st Street. transformed academics like Jared Diamond, Daniel Dennett,
Then and now, no one knew exactly how he made his money. Richard Dawkins, and Steven Pinker into best-selling authors.
Beyond his having managed money for the apparel billionaire Les With Brockman’s imprimatur, Epstein spent heavily to buy into
Wexner, Epstein’s only public client, who knew what to believe? the Academy, becoming known as a “science philanthropist” with
The former Bear Stearns CEO Jimmy Cayne told people Epstein a Cheshire smile and a baggy Harvard sweatshirt. He pledged $30
made a killing trading foreign currencies. Apollo Global Man- million to Harvard, fêted academics at Champagne-fueled dinners
agement cofounder Leon Black told colleagues Epstein was the at his 21,000-square-foot townhouse, hosted science conferences
smartest tax adviser he’d ever met. Epstein was said to run money on his private Caribbean island, and jetted them around on his 727.
for the Rockefellers and the Bronfmans, though both denied it. Not every scientist bought Epstein’s lines. Dennett recalled
A longtime Epstein employee confided in friends that she still being summoned to a private meeting at Epstein’s townhouse and
has no idea what her boss actually did for a living. “He’d call the thinking he was a phony. “He asked me manipulative questions,
office and say he wanted her to find a $10,000 umbrella he saw in as a conversational gambit. I remember he said, ‘Suppose I gave
Paris and she’d have to buy it. He was very, very demanding. But you you a billion dollars, what would you do with it?’ I said I would
weren’t allowed to ask questions. It was not a normal coworker rela- fund an independent news organization for the whole world, and
tionship,” a source, familiar with how Epstein’s office ran, recalled. we’d hire the best reporters and give away the journalism. He had
Epstein’s glib confidence was validating to a cohort that craves no interest in my answer. It was about showing off his wealth.”
sure things. In this way, he had some resemblance to figures like Pinker recalled a flight on Epstein’s plane to a TED confer-
Donald Trump, Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes. Jonathan Far- ence: “At one point I was summoned for an audience with Epstein
kas, an heir to the Alexander’s department store fortune, recalled in his ‘office’ on the plane, which included an incongruous big
meeting Epstein in the Hamptons during the recession of 1982 and wooden desk and executive chair. I had been told that Epstein
being buoyed by Epstein’s absolute certainty that he knew where had a brilliant mind and was interested in the cutting edge of
the economy was going. “I’ll never forget this. The stock market science—consciousness, genetics, evolution, cosmology—and
had dropped to around 700 points from 1,000. And one day Jeffrey that he wanted to discuss my work with me. He would ask me a
just said, ‘You’ll never see it below 1,000 for the rest of your life. It question, get bored with my answer after a sentence, interrupt
will never go down,’ ” Farkas told me. “He was right.” me, ask another question, impatiently interrupt me again, and so
And in those circles, he was clubbable. “He’s incredibly glib. He’s on, in a conversation that lasted perhaps 10 minutes before I was
charming. He’s quick,” one acquaintance, a Wall Street player, re- dismissed and could return to the more satisfying conversations
called. His casualness—the sweatshirts, the jeans—were an aggres- at the back of the plane,” Pinker said. “Epstein’s ADD and intel-
sion, keeping his people off-balance. “Epstein treated the fanciest lectual laziness led me to conclude he was a kibitzer who liked to
people in the world with complete irreverence in a way they were un- hang out with intellectual celebrities he had bought, and I wanted
accustomed to. He let it be known he called Prince Andrew ‘Andy,’ ” no part of him, though could not avoid him entirely because he
the Wall Streeter told me. He presented his interest in women as would pop up at events he’d partly funded. This was years before
another noble eccentricity—he never hid it. Epstein reportedly once anyone knew about his sexual crimes.” Most of Epstein’s friends
told an academic he only had two interests: “science and pussy.” and acquaintances did not abuse the women in his world. But
almost no one (including journalists) pointed out the oddness of
E
pstein had an arsenal of self-presentations, depending on a middle-aged man traveling with several young women. It’s as if
his audience. “He was one of these people who didn’t talk his wealth—and this was what he thought—justified this behavior.
much. He wanted you to think he was thinking profound Epstein’s suicide while imprisoned at one of the world’s most
thoughts. You always wondered if there was any there there,” a secure jails—El Chapo, Bernie Madoff, and the 1993 World Trade
private equity executive who dealt with Epstein told me. Center bombers were housed there—will provide him with a per-
But a constant was his social braggadocio, both vanity and fect elitist afterlife of conspiracy theories: Did Mossad kill him, to
part of his method. “He name-dropped like crazy. You’d be cover up that Epstein was an agent running an underage honeypot
with him and he’d say things like, ‘I just got off the phone with operation designed to gather kompromat on intelligence targets,
Zuckerberg. I just got off the phone with Rothschild. I just got people asked. Was it superrich friends, for whom he’d outlived
off the phone with Gates,’ ” recalled another Wall Streeter who his usefulness? Was it…Hillary Clinton? Trump, not surprisingly,
did business with him. Epstein boasted about buying yachts and retweeted a theory to that effect.
planes and setting up arcane tax shelters for the superrich. “You But the truth may be simpler, and uglier. In his staggering
didn’t know if any of it was true. But then you’d be meeting at his entitlement, his narcissism, his heedlessness, his numerous self-
townhouse several days later and Gates would be there. Jeffrey justifications, unapologetic elitism, Epstein is a mirror of the mod-
had a way of making these people materialize.” ern establishment. When the grift stops working, why stay alive?
90
34
21 18 13 17 21 22 “Fake News” Mentions
6 in Trump Tweets
Januar y–August 2019
FOURTH ESTATE
Both men are considering
Ê
THE

exits after 2020 but Susan
Zirinsky
remain the two most important
The Digital Media

Bubble Goes Pop
Broadcast, print, and digital media barons fighting editors in America, having led
to make journalism at scale their institutions to new heights
(and, in some cases, lows)
during the Trump era. Let the
succession drama begin.
1 3
7
NOVEMBER Mic goes bust

SUSAN ZIRINSKY JULIE K. BROWN
President of CBS News AGE: 67 Miami Herald journalist, BOB BAKISH &
Zirinsky’s first moves as president Jeffrey Epstein exposer, voice JOE IANIELLO
of the news division were locking for victims AGE: 54 CEOs of Viacom and CBS,
down Gayle King at CBS This If it weren’t for Brown’s stunning corporate stepsiblings
Morning and elevating Norah Miami Herald investigation, AGES: 55, 51
9
O’Donnell to the anchor chair of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes Bakish has emerged as king
the Evening News. But, she might not have landed of the corporate media RACHEL MADDOW &
shuts down
DECEMBER Rookie magazine
says, “We’re nowhere near done.” back in the national spotlight. reunification that almost wasn’t. TUCKER CARLSON
“Julie did a great job publicizing Ianiello didn’t get the The most influential names in
how we battled through top job, but he did manage cable news AGES: 46, 50
2
many obstacles and ultimately to retain stewardship Maddow remains queen bee at
BARACK & MICHELLE OBAMA prevailed,” said Brad Edwards, an of CBS. In the words of one of MSNBC despite a slip in the
Former president and first lady, attorney working on the case. Ianiello’s colleagues, “He ratings. Carlson is hemorrhaging
nonprofit leaders, and checked his ego at the door to advertisers but might
Netflix producers AGES: 58, 55 make this deal work.” have stopped a war with Iran.
4
With seven- and eight-figure
announces layoffs
JANUARY BuzzFeed
deals with Netflix, Penguin JOHN STANKEY & 8 10
Random House, and Spotify, JEFF ZUCKER
the Obamas have officially CEO of WarnerMedia; chairman LACHLAN MURDOCH PATRICK SOON-SHIONG
P HOTO G R A P H S : TOP, B Y M A N N Y CA R A B E L / W I R E I M AG E ; B OT TOM B Y M AT T M C C L A I N / T H E WA S H I NG TON P O ST / G E T T Y I M AG E S
gone multiplatform—and, soon, of WarnerMedia news CEO of Fox Corporation, Aspiring savior of the
multiplatinum. “They are very and sports AGES: 56, 54 Rupert’s heir apparent AGE: 48 Los Angeles Times AGE: 67
ambitious in terms of the impact Stankey’s ascent, from little- Rupert Murdoch’s chosen “There’s definitely a perception
Nine Media discuss merger

MARCH Refinery29 and Group
they want to have,” says longtime known telecom exec to media successor has control of in town that the L.A. Times is
friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett. power player, coincided with the Fox broadcast network, 28 back,” says a seasoned Hollywood
an exodus of top talent from the local affiliates, Fox Sports, journalist, referring to the new
Cable News Time Warner firmament, and of course, Fox News. “We regime of Patrick Soon-Shiong,
with one key exception: Zucker. continue to be obviously the relatively enigmatic new
Wars number one,” Lachlan recently money man behind the struggling
boasted of the network’s paper. But, says one editor, “Does
Top prime-time anchors’ ratings 5
(millions of viewers) ratings, “and expect to continue he really realize how much it
Sean Hannity Tucker Carlson DANIEL EK that run for quite some time.” will take to turn the place around?”
Rachel Maddow Vice valuation
Spotify CEO; podcasting MAY Disney slashes
empire builder AGE: 36
3 Barack &
With podcasting journalism’s Michelle
current frontier, Ek has expanded Obama
his streaming audio empire

with a series of acquisitions:
Gimlet ($230 million),
Anchor ($110 million), and
2.5
Parcast ($56 million).
6
MARTY BARON &
2 DEAN BAQUET
Rival editors in chief of the
APR MAY JUN JUL AUG
Washington Post and the New
Courtesy of Nielsen and TVNewser
York Times AGES: 64, 62
The Juul JOHNNY D E STEFANO Now an outside

Ê Lobby Worked for Trump consultant at Juul
¤
Jared
THE TASTEMAKERS
Kushner
Influencers who are redefining the relationship

between consumers and brands
£
Ivanka
Fenty mastermind, the first Trump
RIHANNA black woman to head an
LVMH brand. “She’s fucking God,”
AGE: 31 says model Luka Sabbat.
VIRGIL Fashion visionary. “I’m sure that

ABLOH you’re trying to challenge
yourself to invent something
AGE: 39 new. That’s impossible.”
KY L I E Kardashian-Jenner MVP,
JENNER “self-made” billionaire. Spun off
Kylie Skin from her $900 million
AGE: 22 start-up Kylie Cosmetics.
GWY N ET H Actress, lifestyle guru, yoni egg

purveyor. Turned weekly
PALTROW lifestyle newsletter Goop into
AGE: 47 a $250 million business. ¢ ¢
Donald J. Alexandria
Trump Ocasio-Cortez
SWAMP
STELLA Pushing the boundaries of
environmental ethics in fashion.
MCCARTNEY Sold a minority stake to THE
AGE: 48 luxury conglomerate LVMH.
Politicos, power brokers, and other wetland

creatures doing battle in Trump’s Washington
D AV I D Art world puppet master,
super-gallerist. Gagosian’s
ZWIRNER longtime rival continues
AGE: 54 to expand his global footprint.
“I’m not a superhero. I’m

1
not a villain,” she says. “I’m just
JA M E S Streetwear trailblazer. Pioneered
the “drop” as a business DONALD J. TRUMP a person that’s trying.”
JEBBIA strategy. “Our formula is that POTUS, very stable genius,
AGE: 56 there’s no formula.”
Sharpie meteorologist,
3
media critic, aspiring autocrat
AGE: 73 NET WORTH: NANCY PELOSI &
JOSÉ Celebrity chef, humanitarian,
tapas aficionado. Sued Trump
Fluctuates with his feelings MITCH M C CONNELL
ANDRÉS and now runs aid missions House Speaker and Senate
AGE: 50 to Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. Majority Leader AGES: 79, 77
2
Old masters. Pelosi, a world-
ALEXANDRIA historical congressional
E M I LY Glossier. Turned her blog, Into OCASIO-CORTEZ strategist, has Trump’s number;
the Gloss, into a $1.2 billion
WEISS direct-to-consumer beauty Congresswoman, McConnell, a world-historical
AGE: 34 empire. (See page 136.) democratic socialist, “the strategist, has Trump’s back.
Squad” founder,
Green New Dealer AGE: 29
4
Art collector, hip-hop The social media master
SWIZZ BEATZ impresario. Created an art sales
platform, No Commission,
and former bartender ELIZABETH WARREN
AGE: 41 that’s upending the art industry. invented a new way to be a Senator, Democratic agenda-
Congressperson—and to setter AGE: 70 POLICY
beat Trump at his own game. PROPOSALS: 34 and counting
92 P HOTO I L L U ST R AT IO N S T H RO U G HO U T B Y J U ST I N PAT R IC K L O NG
JOSH RAFFEL Now works on REBECCAH PROPP Now communications

Worked for Javanka communications at Juul Worked for Mike Pence director at Juul

Mitch Marillyn William Brian Elizabeth
McConnell Hewson Barr Ballard Warren

Letitia “Tish” Nancy
James Pelosi
In the Democratic primary, she’s

7 9
Eight Furious
P HOTO G R A P H S : TOP, F ROM L E F T , B Y S A M I R H U S S E I N / W I R E I M AG E ( I VA N K A A ND JA R E D ) , C H R I ST I A N H A R T M A N N / A F P, S A M A N T H A B U R K A R DT ,
number two or three with a

CA ROL I N E B R E H M A N / C Q ROL L CA L L , C H R I ST I N N E M U S C H I / B L O OM B E R G ( H E W S ON ) , A NDR E W L IC H T E N ST E I N / C O R B I S , C H I P S OMOD E V I L L A ,
MARILLYN HEWSON Exits From IVANKA TRUMP &

W I N M C N A M E E , A NDR E W H A R N I K / A . P. I M AG E S , Z AC H G I B S ON / B L O OM B E R G , C H E R I S S M AY / N U R P HOTO , OL I V I E R D O U L I E RY / B L O OM B E R G ,
bullet. But no one in Washington,

R A NDY HOL M E S , A NDR E W H A R R E R / B L O OM B E R G , E T H A N M I L L E R ; B OT TOM , C L O C K W I S E F ROM TOP L E F T , JA M E S D E VA N E Y / G C I M AG E S ,
not even Bernie, has done CEO, Lockheed Martin Trump’s JARED KUSHNER
as much to bring progressive AGE: 65 TRUMP NICKNAME:
Inner Circle Trump advisers,
politics into the mainstream. “Marillyn Lockheed” prime nepotism beneficiaries
As the CEO of the country’s largest On a long enough time line, AGES: 37, 38
defense contractor, she’s a swamp the survival rate for everyone The first daughter and son-in-law,
5
P E T E M A ROV IC H / B L O OM B E R G , C L I F F OW E N / A . P. I M AG E S ; F ROM G E T T Y I M AG E S ( A L L E XC E P T D U B K E , WA L S H )
drops to zero
superpower. Though Lockheed’s the only permanent powers
WILLIAM BARR F-35 has been a troubled program, ny
Scara
ich
ael Fly
behind the throne, are often out
m
o
nn
M
Anth
U.S. attorney general turned Hewson sweet-talked Trump, of town when trouble hits.
u c ci
White House lapdog AGE: 69 rescued the contract, and But both billionaire scions
Trump’s Roy Cohn. Gamed the boosted the company’s valuation 11 DAYS 23 DAYS harbor dynastic dreams. “She’s
Mueller report and is using the to more than $110 billion. not going anywhere,” says a
Justice Department to stonewall ati
e Wals ael Dub source close to the first couple.
ch
investigations into the president.
K
8
ke
M
10
6 BRIAN BALLARD
President of Ballard Partners,
70 DAYS 74 DAYS
STACEY ABRAMS
LETITIA “TISH” JAMES RNC fund-raiser,
cFarla Ricard
Voting-rights activist and
.M ira
New York attorney general, king of the swamp AGE: 58 Democratic V.P. short-list
K.T
M
nd
el
Trump nemesis AGE: 60 After stints on Trump’s transition inhabitant AGE: 45

While Democrats in D.C. pull team and inaugural committee, Abrams lost the Georgia
their punches, James has Ballard revolving-doored at 80 DAYS 114 DAYS gubernatorial race but vaulted
unleashed a flurry of legal action hyper speed, adding dozens of herself into the national
n Spice e Prieb
targeting the Trump businesses clients—and a reported ea inc spotlight. “We want to change the
S
Re
us
r
and foundation—not to mention $28 million—to his lobbying firm overarching conversation about
the Sacklers, the NRA, and since 2016. Rivals dismiss it who is electable,” she has said.
Facebook. “No one is above the as a pure Trump play, but Ballard 184 DAYS 191 DAYS
“And we do that by electing
law,” she says. Is Albany next? says he’s planning for the future. people who look like America.”
For more on the power players on this year’s New Establishment List, visit VF.com. 93
FA M E & P H O E N I X
By J O E H A G A N
His brother Rive r’s death
is one of his Rosebuds,
Joaquin says,“but it’s
not a Rosebud in the way
that people think.”
He says his gift for
dark roles like the Joker
is “prenatal,” and he can
leave them behind
on set. “I fucking love
my life,” he says.
Photographs by Styled by
ETHAN TOM
JAMES GREEN GUINNESS
NOV E M B E R 2019
CLOWNING
GLORY
Joaquin Phoenix,
photographed in
Beverly Hills.
Suit by Wacko
Maria; shirt and tie
by Saint Laurent
by Anthony
Vaccarello; sneakers
by Converse.
95
dawned on him that the fish his parents narcissism, and latent rage. Directed
had been feeding him back in Venezuela, by Todd Phillips as an homage to grimy
where they lived in a beach house and sang 1970s and ’80s classics, especially those
praise songs to God on the streets, were made by Martin Scorsese with Robert De
actually these helpless, flapping creatures Niro (who costars), the film’s artful depic-
being tortured to death on deck. tion of an alienated white man perform-
“It was so violent, it was just so intense,” ing acts of nihilistic savagery has already
he recalls. “I have a vivid memory of my rekindled the conversation over the rela-
mom’s face, which—I have seen that tionship between Hollywood violence and
Not long before we drive to his favorite same face maybe one other time, where the real-life kind seen last summer in El
sushi bar in Los Angeles, Joaquin Phoe- she was completely speechless because Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
nix, the actor, tells the story of how he we yelled at her. ‘How come you didn’t After the Venice Film Festival, where
became a vegan. tell us that’s what fish was?’ I remember Joker premiered, a fiery debate erupted
It was October 28, 1977, his third birth- tears streaming down her face.… She over the movie’s nuanced depiction of
day, and Phoenix and his family were didn’t know what to say.” a character not unlike the “involuntary
aboard a cargo ship bound for Miami from Two months later, after moving to celibates,” or incels, behind recent mass
Venezuela. His parents had just aban- Winter Park, Florida, the entire fam- shootings. Suddenly, the film’s likeness
doned their lives as followers of a noto- ily converted to veganism. In 1979 they to Taxi Driver reminded those with long
rious religious cult, the Children of God, piled into a station wagon—with a new last memories that Scorsese’s 1976 film par-
which was led by a charismatic former name, Phoenix—and drove to Hollywood, tially inspired the would-be assassin John
preacher named David Berg, who called where they reinvented themselves as an Hinckley Jr., who shot Ronald Reagan in
himself Moses. Phoenix’s parents, who unlikely troupe of child actors and singers 1981. Variety called Joker “the rare comic
spent much of the late 1960s wandering who appeared in TV shows like Family Ties book movie that expresses what’s happen-
the West Coast in a VW microbus, had and Hill Street Blues, espoused veganism ing in the real world,” but Richard Lawson,
become missionaries, traveling around and animal rights, and featured a beautiful writing for Vanity Fair, expressed another
the southern U.S., Venezuela, and Puerto eldest son, the shooting star River Phoenix. common sentiment, that it might be “irre-
Rico, and giving birth to Rain, Joaquin, sponsible propaganda for the very men it
and Liberty along the way. To sing about When Joaquin Phoenix unsheathes his pathologizes.” In Venice, Joker took home
God, Rain and first-born River went busk- chopsticks for the seaweed salad at Asane- best film, which likely would have been
ing on the street. The organization made bo, the Japanese restaurant in Studio City, more controversial had Roman Polanski
Phoenix’s parents “the archbishops” of this story adds to the queasy feeling that not won the Grand Jury Prize. “I didn’t
Venezuela and Trinidad. the actor may be offended by the platter imagine that it would be smooth sailing,”
In those years, Children of God had of raw mackerel that shows up at the table. Phoenix says of the press reaction. “It’s a
not descended fully into the darkness and “Dude, do your thing,” he shrugs, difficult film. In some ways, it’s good that
perversion for which it became infamous, casual in a black T-shirt and rolled-up people are having a strong reaction to it.”
including the use of sex for recruitment pants, graying hair slicked back. “Not Phoenix mostly wants to let the film
and allegedly introducing children to sex everyone is as evolved.” speak for itself. “There’s so many differ-
at a young age. The family was far from He’s kidding. Maybe. With an impish ent ways of looking at it,” Phoenix says of
Berg’s orbit. When they realized what smile, he lets the comment hang. “It’s the Arthur Fleck/Joker character. “You
was happening, the Phoenixes, whose up to you,” he says, and then bursts into can either say here’s somebody who, like
last name was then Bottom, left the cult, maniacal laughter: “It’s so fucked up!” everybody, needed to be heard and under-
disillusioned, penniless, and expecting a Later, he tells me to “enjoy your swas- stood and to have a voice. Or you can say
fifth child, Summer. tika” before stepping out for a cigarette. this is somebody that disproportionately
The freighter was carrying a container Phoenix’s moral intensity and sense of needs a large quantity of people to be fix-
with Tonka toys, and the crew gave Phoe- comedy—that laugh—define his talent ated on him. His satisfaction comes as he
nix a truck and made him a birthday cake. as an actor, along with a sense of vulner- stands in amongst the madness.”
“I vividly remember this cake, and I think ability. In his latest role, as Arthur Fleck Phoenix has always had an intuitive feel
it was probably the first cake that I ever in the psychological comic book drama for the dark side of the human psyche. In
had, like a proper cake,” Phoenix says. “I Joker, he transforms himself into a tor- Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really
remember the toys. I had never gotten a tured and mentally unstable loner driven Here, from 2017, he played a damaged hit
new toy before, and really the most jar- to highly inhumane acts of violence— man who kills rich men who rape under-
ring and intense memory was what led against humans—in pursuit of a quixotic age girls by hitting them with a ball-peen
to our veganism.” stand-up comedy career. On camera his hammer. Before that, in Spike Jonze’s
He and his older siblings, River and cackling laughter, sheepish grin, and Her—during which he met his fiancée,
Rain, were watching flying fish leap out slow-blinking eyes channel unexpected costar Rooney Mara—he was a lonely
of the water when Joaquin observed some heartbreak and humanity in a DC Comics depressive who finds love in his comput-
fishermen pulling their catches off their villain from Batman—in fact, erasing any er’s operating system. In 2010, he flum-
rods and throwing them violently against trace of comic books and instead present- moxed everyone by playing a semifictional
nails that had been pounded into the wall ing a character study of a fevered vigilante version of himself as a self-destructive
of the vessel. At that moment, he says, it suffering from mental illness, alienation, actor trying to build a hip-hop career for

the mockumentary I’m Still Here—a movie The public memory of his brother has
that further complicated the line between faded enough that Joaquin is now the most
reality and fiction when director Casey familiar Phoenix, but the tragedy is never
Affleck was sued for untoward behavior far for Joaquin himself. In part that’s
by two female crew members—before because reporters never stop asking him
returning with a bravura performance in about it. But he was also deeply influenced
The Master, as the unhinged devotee of an by his brother, and by his death, even if he
L. Ron Hubbard–like quasi-religious lead- remains reluctant to draw a straight line
er. That began a run of finely wrought indie between his unusual background and his
performances. “From a very young age, I private tragedy and his talent for inhabit-
had an allergy to—what’s the word?—to ing the morose, damaged, violent, and
just frivolous, meaningless kids’ stuff,” he otherwise anxiety-riddled characters he
says. “From an extremely young age. And takes on—roles he seems vividly made for.
I don’t know why. I’m sure you want some “I try not to fucking think about that,”
Freudian explanation, perhaps there is.” he says, with that half-comic ambiguity.
Observing the darkness in his work, it’s “Why am I doing this fucking interview?
tempting to look for its source in his per- You’re going to ruin my acting.”
sonal history. It wasn’t long ago that he
was still being referred to as “the second
most famous Phoenix,” his name associ-
ated most closely with the death of his Hoodie and
cult-legend brother, River, in 1993, which T-shirt by
Saint Laurent by
Joaquin witnessed, along with sister Rain, Anthony
in front of the Viper Room on Sunset Bou- Vaccarello;
pants by
levard, then co-owned by Johnny Depp. Wacko Maria.
RIVER RUNS
THROUGH IT
Phoenix was
deeply influenced
by his brother,
and by his death,
though he’s
reluctant to draw
a straight line
between that and
his work.
white pit bull mix he rescued from eutha- A FLECK OF

HIS FORMER SELF
nasia 13 years ago. Soda has an allergy to Phoenix went on
direct sunlight, which means she must be an extremely
restrictive diet and
kept out of the sun from nine to five. Phoe- lost 52 pounds to
nix bought her a specially made suit to go play Arthur Fleck. He
later gained back 25.
to the beach. “She looks so fucking cool
but she doesn’t like it,” he says.
He lives with Mara, who in addition to
playing his ex-wife in Her was Mary “Go try to be funny nowadays with
Magdalene to Phoenix’s Jesus Christ in this woke culture,” he says. “There were
the Garth Davis–directed Mary Mag- articles written about why comedies don’t
dalene. (“Obviously it’s a part I was just work anymore—I’ll tell you why, because
born to play,” Phoenix says dryly.) He all the fucking funny guys are like, ‘Fuck
believed Mara despised him during the this shit, because I don’t want to offend
making of Her but later learned she was you.’ It’s hard to argue with 30 million
just shy and actually liked him too. “She’s people on Twitter. You just can’t do it,
the only girl I ever looked up on the inter- right? So you just go, ‘I’m out.’ I’m out, and
net,” he says. “We were just friends, you know what? With all my comedies—I
email friends. I’d never done that. Never think that what comedies in general all
looked up a girl online.” have in common—is they’re irreverent.
Phoenix has recently undergone hyp- So I go, ‘How do I do something irrever-
nosis to quit smoking, a habit he took up ent, but fuck comedy? Oh I know, let’s
as a teenager, but it doesn’t seem to be take the comic book movie universe and
working out. His fingernails are chewed turn it on its head with this.’ And so that’s
to nubs and he keeps two packs of Ameri- really where that came from.”
can Spirits and several lighters close at The result is a drama that doubles as a
hand. “I eat really healthy,” he says. “I critique of Hollywood: an alienated white
don’t really like junk food. I don’t like pro- guy whose failure to be funny drives him
cessed foods. Right? But I still can—like, into a vengeful rage. With co-screenwriter
I’ll fuck up a bag of chips. Like a fuckin’ Scott Silver, Phillips conceived an origin
Subway sandwich and shit.” story for the Joker as a for-hire party
For Joker, he went on an extremely clown and mentally ill loner in a late ’70s/
restrictive diet—advised by the same doc- early ’80s Gotham, drawing from the
tor who helped him lose weight for The filmic palette of classics like Taxi Driver,
Master—and lost 52 pounds. After the film, The King of Comedy, and One Flew Over
he gained back 25, but the oily image of his the Cuckoo’s Nest. He says he conceived
severe, wraithlike body in the trailer for the character with Phoenix in mind and
Joker arrived like a shock last spring, evi- gave him the script in late 2017. What fol-
dence that Phoenix had once again gone lowed was four months of conversations
all in on a role. As Arthur Fleck, Phoenix at Phoenix’s canyon house. Phoenix que-
leans into his physical features, from the ried Phillips endlessly before he joined
scar on his upper lip (not a surgically fixed the film—part of his process, it turns out,
cleft, he says, but a nonsurgical scar he which also included asking his mother to
was born with) to his leonine gaze, sad- examine the script. In pitching the movie
sack grin, and distended shoulder, which to Phoenix, Phillips told him he needed to
he was also born with. Phillips told him he think of the film as a heist movie.
looked like “one of those birds from the “What are you talking about?” Phoe-
Gulf of Mexico that they’re rinsing the tar nix asked, confused. “There’s barely any
off.” “He’s got the most interesting form,” action in it.”
he says. “He’s so beautiful.” Phillips cracked, “We’re gonna take
Phillips, who directed the comedies Old $55 million from Warner Bros. and do
School and the Hangover series, pitched whatever the hell we want.”
the idea of a Joker movie to Warner Bros. For Phoenix, the decision was more
as a kind of anti-superhero film, with prac- personal.
tically no CGI effects or cartoonish plots, “To me, there was a period of time when
but instead a dark realism drained of we think about all those great films from
heroics. Phillips had found it increasingly the ’70s, it wasn’t a genre,” says Phoenix.
difficult, he says, to make comedies in the “It wasn’t like, this is a drama. It was just
new “woke” Hollywood, and his brand a movie. Like Dog Day Afternoon is, like,
of irreverent bro humor has lost favor. intense, heartbreaking, and fucking funny.
And those are the movies that I love. And

those are the movies that I pursue.”
To develop the character of Arthur
Fleck, Phoenix did research on narcis-
sism and criminology and studied the
movements of Buster Keaton and actor
Ray Bolger, the scarecrow from The
Wizard of Oz, which inspired the highly
creepy dance that so acutely expresses
Fleck’s private madness. During one
scene, the screenplay called for Fleck
to shut himself in a bathroom after sev-
eral murders, looking for a place to hide
his gun. Phoenix and Phillips decided
it didn’t feel right, and while they dis-
cussed the scene, Phillips played Phoe-
nix some newly composed music for
the movie. Phoenix began dancing, an
elegant, tango-like movement, and Phil-
lips asked the cameraman to start filming
with a handheld camera, just the three
of them in the room while a crew of 250
waited outside. The scene became part
of an eye-popping trailer, set to a Jimmy
Durante tune, “Smile.”
The muse of the movie, in many ways,
is one of its costars, Robert De Niro, who
plays a late-night talk show host mod-
eled in part on Johnny Carson. “He is
my favorite American actor,” Phoenix
says of De Niro. “I got the impression
from him that he did things in [a] scene,
“I FELT
LIKE,
YEAH,WE
SHOULD
EXPLORE
THIS
VILLAIN.
THIS
MALEVOLENT
PERSON.”
VA NIT Y FA IR 101
103
certain behaviors, certain gestures or much combed back as yanked into sub-
movements, whether the camera was mission. Just back from practicing karate,
on him and registering it or not.” he goes immediately into the foyer of the
“For me, I always thought that acting nearby hotel to ask the manager for help
should be like a documentary,” he contin- finding where the car was towed, and a
ues. “That you should just feel whatever it few minutes later we’re driving to Hol-
is that you’re feeling, what you think the lywood Tow Service, a fluorescent-lit
character is going through at that moment.” garage on an empty street, talking about
Ironically, the two barely spoke on the Ray Bolger and Phoenix’s recent expe-
set, in part because of their similar act- riences with cryotherapy, where you
ing methods and artistic superstitions. expose your body to subzero tempera-
“I didn’t like to talk to him on set,” says tures (“It’s amazing, you gotta try it”).
Phoenix. “The first day we said good In 1991, River famously told Details
morning, and beyond that I don’t know magazine that he lost his virginity at age
that we talked much.” four, which seemed to cement a narra-
“His character and my character, we tive about what happened inside the cult.
didn’t need to talk about anything,” says “You really believe that?” says Phoenix.
De Niro. “We just say, ‘Do the work. “It was a complete and total joke. It was
Relate as the characters to each other.’ just fucking with the press. It was literally
It makes it simpler and we don’t [talk]. a joke, because he was so tired of being
There’s no reason to.” asked ridiculous questions by the press.”
There was nonetheless some dis- “My parents were never negligent,” he
agreement on the method to the meth- says. When Joaquin and his siblings were
od. Before shooting his scenes, De Niro children, his family was living in Venezu-
wanted the cast to do a read-through of ela, apart from the Children of God com-
the script, a practice he considered stan- munity in the United States. In 1977 they
dard. Phoenix, however, has often dis- received a letter from the leader describ-
liked doing read-throughs, part of his ownn ing a new practice of “flirty fishing,” using
mercurial “let it happen” style. Recalls sex to bring in followers. “They got some
Phillips: “Bob called me and he goes, ‘Tell “Where are you?” he asked, offering to letter, or however it came, some sugges-
him he’s an actor and he’s got to be there, come to my aid. There was an uncomfort- tion of that, and they were like, ‘Fuck this,
I like to hear the whole movie, and we’re able moment as I told him the location. In we’re outta here,’ ” Phoenix says. “I think
going to all get in a room and just read an uncanny and unfortunate coincidence, they were idealists, and believed that
it.’ And I’m in between a rock and a hard it was directly behind the Viper Room. they were with a group who shared their
place because Joaquin’s like, ‘There’s no Phoenix paused, then said: “I know that’s beliefs, and their values. I think they prob-
fucking way I’m doing a read-through,’ on Sunset, but what’s the cross street?” ably were looking for safety, and family.
Having just seen Phoenix in his har- Leaving a country that had assassinated
rowing role, it was hard not to think of a president and any number of civil rights
that grim night, October 31, 1993. It was leaders within a few fucking years, which
“IT’S three days after Joaquin Phoenix’s 19th is so hard for me to fathom, right?”
G RO OM I NG B Y DAV ID C OX ; S E T D E S IG N B Y M A R C S G OL DB E R G ; PROD U C E D ON L O CAT ION

birthday. He had accompanied River and His mother, who changed her first
GOING Rain to the club, which was frequented by

the Hollywood brat pack of the era, includ-
name to Heart, later said “it took several
years to get over our pain and loneliness”
TO BE ing actors Keanu Reeves and Christina

Applegate. One version of the story is that
after leaving the cult.
After the family arrived in Florida,
B Y J OY A S B U RY PROD U CT ION S ; F OR D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S
OKAY,
a well-known guitar player handed River a the singing and dancing continued, with
Dixie cup containing a liquid concoction of River and Rain forming a brother-sister
BUBBELEH,”
heroin and cocaine, and he drank it—well act, winning talent contests and gaining
over a lethal dose, the coroner later deter- the attention of local media. When Phoe-
mined. As River convulsed on the sidewalk nix’s father stopped working because
DE NIRO outside the club and Rain looked on, Joa-
quin made the heartbreaking 911 call. The
of an old back injury, his mother took
charge: She sent an article about the kids
SAID TO transcript of his panicked words—“Please

get to him. Please! Please!”—would be
to an old acquaintance from the Bronx,
Penny Marshall, who was then starring in
PHOENIX. printed in newspapers around the country.

Now, 26 years later, Phoenix drives up
the ABC sitcom Laverne & Shirley. Mar-
shall’s office wrote back to say the family
in a beat-up old black Lexus, warm and should stop in if they were ever in L.A.,
smiling in a pair of white karate pants and but hastened to warn them not to move
well-worn Converse sneakers, a cigarette there if they weren’t already coming. The
dangling from his lip and his hair not so family, having C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 4 8

After he visited a
massage parlor near
Palm Beach, NFL
owner Robert Kraft
was charged with
soliciting a prostitute.
What happened
next was not what
anyone expected
Patriot Act
By May Jeong
ILLEGAL CONTACT
Robert Kraft at this year’s
Super Bowl in Atlanta.
“You won’t believe
what happened,” he told a
friend after getting
a massage at a strip mall.
plastics tycoon who also lives in Palm

I. THE RAID Beach. Bernon offered to drive Kraft in
his 2014 white Bentley to a place he knew
On July 6, 2018, a health inspector named in Jupiter, 20 miles up the Treasure Coast.
Karen Herzog visited a massage parlor in
£ South Florida for a routine inspection. She
noticed that the spa worker, a young Asian
At Orchids, according to the Jupiter
police, Kraft paid cash to the spa’s co-
owner, Lei Wang, who goes by Lulu, and
received a hand job from her and another
woman, was “dressed provocatively,” spoke worker, later identified as Shen Mingbi.
“little English,” and appeared “nervous.” Herzog also not- After Kraft ejaculated, Mingbi wiped his
penis with a white towel. Then she and
ed suitcases, clothes, a fridge full of food, and condoms, all
Lulu helped him get dressed.
of which, according to the training she had received, could As Kraft left the spa in the white Bent-
be signs of human trafficking. She reported her findings ley, Officer Scott Kimbark, nicknamed
to the Martin County sheriff ’s office. Bark, stopped the car for a minor traffic
violation. Kraft asked the officer if he was
a Miami Dolphins fan and showed him
Over the next eight months, Detective search the spa’s trash, and on November his Super Bowl ring, explaining that he
Mike Fenton launched an investigation 14 and 19, his team found semen among was the owner of the Patriots. Kimbark,
into what he believed was a large-scale the refuse. Last January, he requested having accomplished his mission, let
prostitution ring engaged in human traf- what is colloquially known as a sneak- Kraft and Bernon go with a warning.
ficking. Because one of the massage and-peek search warrant. Later that day, Kraft called his friend.
parlors, Orchids of Asia Day Spa, fell on The warrant is a holdover from 9/11. “You won’t believe what happened to
the other side of the county line, in Palm Issued under the Patriot Act, it was ini- me,” his friend recalls him bragging.
Beach County, Fenton’s office notified tially designed to temporarily expand Kraft explained how he had gone for
Detective Andrew Sharp of the Jupiter surveillance and investigative powers of what he thought was a regular massage,
police, who began his own investigation law enforcement agencies in domestic but that the masseuse had given him a
in October 2018. terrorism cases. Since then, however, hand job instead.
Orchids is located off U.S. 1, in a strip both the act and the warrant have been The friend excoriated Kraft for getting
mall anchored by a Publix supermarket. routinely used in cases that stray far from a “rub and tug.” Kraft, seemingly hurt,
Jupiter is a three-bar town that is home to their original intent. insisted that it “wasn’t like that.” He said
what one local calls “old and quiet mon- Sharp received the warrant on January he had felt a real connection with Lulu
ey.” Like most spas in the area, Orchids 15, and two days later his team returned to and Mingbi.
charged $59 for a half hour massage and Orchids, where they evacuated the prem- Later that evening, Kraft received
$79 for a full hour. Like many spas in the ises, telling workers that a bomb threat had a call from Orchids, asking him to visit
United States, it’s staffed by women of been called in. While the women waited again. (At the time, Kraft’s number in
Asian descent. outside, officers placed hidden cameras in Palm Beach was publicly listed.) Kraft,
For seven days in early November the ceilings of the massage rooms. according to his friend, was thrilled. He
2018, Sharp and his team staked out the Over the next five days, Sharp and his did not seem to understand that the spa
spa. Almost everyone they saw enter was team watched, via a live feed, as more was merely soliciting repeat business.
a man. One day, a group of eight men who than 20 men received manual sex, oral The next day, Kraft returned to Orchids,
arrived in a golf cart made touchdown sex, and anal play. When the johns left this time with a driver in a 2015 blue Bent-
gestures before entering, their arms the spa, an officer would follow them and ley. He arrived before 11 a.m., qualifying
PAG E S 106 –7 : P HOTO G R A P H B Y D O U G M I L L S / T H E N E W YOR K T I M E S / R E D U X
flung up to indicate that they were about initiate a traffic stop as a pretext for iden- for the early bird special: $15 off. He
to score. “At that point I understood this tifying the men. received a hand job and a blow job from
was not just a regular massage parlor but Among the patrons who turned up on Lulu, and left after 14 minutes. That after-
one that was an illicit massage business,” the surveillance video at Orchids was noon he flew to Kansas City, to watch his
Sharp later testified. Robert Kraft, the 78-year-old owner of team play the Chiefs in the NFL playoffs.
Sharp asked Herzog if she could sur- the New England Patriots. Kraft, who The Patriots won.
vey the parlor, and on November 14, she visited the spa on the afternoon of Janu-
complied. ary 19, spends part of the year in a dou- II. THE SEX RING
Herzog later testified that the spa ble oceanfront apartment he owns on
workers appeared agitated by her visit Breakers Row, among the most coveted n February 19, after stag-
O
and failed to make eye contact. “As the addresses in Palm Beach. Earlier that ing dramatic raids on
inspection progressed, I began to feel day, according to a man I spoke with who nearly a dozen massage
more and more uneasy,” she recalled. asked to be identified only as Kraft’s “best parlors in South Florida,
Herzog noted an “excessive amount of guy friend,” Kraft had gone to the hotel Sheriff William Snyder
food in the refrigerator.” She also noted spa for a massage. When he was unable held a press conference. Local officers,
bedding, clothing, and a flatiron. Her- to get an appointment, he conferred with he announced, working alongside Immi-
zog’s report gave Sharp sufficient cause to his old friend Peter Bernon, the dairy and gration and Customs Enforcement and

the Department of Homeland Security, themselves was, plainly, why? Why would can hold parties of 175, and two pools—
had busted a $20 million sex trafficking a man worth $6.6 billion risk getting a $59 one to catch the sun in the morning, the
ring with tentacular reach to New York hand job at a strip mall massage parlor? other to catch it in the late afternoon.
and China. Many of the women, he said, Many year-round residents of Palm Rembrandts hang in guest bathrooms.
had been tricked into coming to the Unit- Beach attempted to distance themselves Breakers Row—home to mostly Jew-
ed States and had been working to pay off from the “nasty Krafty” scandal by dis- ish residents, including Robert Kraft—is
debts to traffickers before being rescued. missing the Patriots owner as nothing but referred to by the island’s WASPs as the
“I don’t believe they were told they were a seasonal resident—one of the 20,000 or Gaza Strip. The clubs are so exclusive,
going to work in massage parlors seven so who come to the island from Thanks- local legend has it, that Burt Reynolds was
days a week, having unprotected sex with giving to Easter—and therefore not an once turned away at the door on account
up to 1,000 men a year,” Snyder said. actual member in good standing of the of his dark skin color. Even Joseph Kenne-
Sex trafficking, under law, involves Palm Beach community. Others prof- dy Sr. was reportedly spurned on account
recruiting and transporting women by fered the heat defense, typically reserved of his Catholic faith. Besides, his money
force or fraud, and coercing them to for explaining away acts of insanity, such was deemed too new. “It’s new if it was
work as prostitutes. The traffickers, Sny- as first-degree murder or third marriages. made in the past century,” explained
der continued, had covered their tracks The reasoning is deterministic: the feel- Debi Murray, chief curator of the Histori-
by moving the women every 10 to 20 days ing that Florida itself—especially South cal Society of Palm Beach County.
to different spas, where they were forced Florida—propels men to strange deeds. Some residents, when I asked them
to sleep on massage tables and cook on Florida has always played an outsize about Kraft, appeared puzzled that a man
hot plates. Some were unable to leave, role in the national psyche, a shorthand of such immense wealth would feel the
the sheriff said, because the traffickers for a specific aspect of the American need to leave his valeted residence for a
confiscated their money and passports. dream. Florida is where you go when massage, let alone sexual services. What
Snyder announced that as many as you don’t want to be found, or when you horrified these residents most was that
300 men who went to the spas for sex have something to hide, or to escape bad Kraft had gone “over the bridge.” Over
would be charged with soliciting prosti- debt and scandal, as did Charles Ponzi, the bridge is West Palm Beach, a service
tution. “Many of the men are married,” the original defrauder. Palm Beach is town on the mainland, where the support
the sheriff said, adopting the moralizing the place where William Kennedy Smith staffs live: maids, gardeners, doctors,
tone common to faith-based groups that was acquitted, in 1991, of raping a wom- judges—anyone who has to work for a
consider the sex industry an affront to an he met at a bar alongside his uncle, living. It is where you go when you can’t
Christian values. “Many of those men Senator Ted Kennedy. Where financier send someone else, when you have to
are in ongoing relationships.” Jeffrey Epstein was given a “sweetheart show up in person at the hospital, or the
Three days later, on February 22, Palm deal,” in 2008, for soliciting minors courthouse, or the charity photo oppor-
Beach County State Attorney Dave Aron- for prostitution. Where Bernie Madoff tunity. The Publix supermarket on Palm
berg announced that Kraft would be preyed on wealthy investors before plead- Beach island sells Marcona almonds; the
charged with two misdemeanor counts ing guilty, in 2009, to bilking his clients Publix in West Palm Beach only stocks
of soliciting prostitution. “Human traf- of nearly $65 billion. the standard California variety.
ficking is evil in our midst,” Aronberg South Florida as we know it began Men like Kraft, after all, can have the
told reporters. “Modern-day slavery” in 1886, when Standard Oil cofounder help come to them. J’Anine, who used to
can “happen anywhere, including in the Henry Flagler started building railroads work on the island as a high-end escort,
peaceful community of Jupiter, Florida.” over recently drained swampland. It was told me about the many famous johns she
Flagler who built the Breakers resort, to had worked for, a list that includes best-
III. THE ISLAND accommodate passengers on his rail- selling authors and rock stars and titans
ways, at a time when land was going for of industry. As a professional, J’Anine
hen I arrived in Palm Beach $1.25 per acre. (Now land goes by the charged $1,000 an hour—about 13 times
W
last spring, the weather square foot.) Flagler was also known for more than Orchids. But the high price did
report was threatening convincing the state legislature to allow not always ensure discretion. There had
rain. The sky hung low him to divorce his second wife, whom been one incident, J’Anine shared, when
and the air was loamy. If he had committed to an insane asylum, she took too much cocaine on the job and
you are the 1 percent, you can opt out of so he could remarry. ended up locking herself and her crack
most things in this world, including the The island of Palm Beach, 16 miles pipe in the bathroom. The client’s daugh-
weather. Many of the island’s residents long and less than a mile wide, remains ter, desperate to get rid of her, had called
were packing up prior to hurricane sea- among the most economically and the police for help. Two officers managed
son; covered trailers lined driveways, socially segregated towns in America. to restrain J’Anine, but not before using a
waiting to transport art back to Aspen or Apart from the occasional titled Euro- Taser and a choke hold.
Connecticut or Long Island. pean, many Palm Beach residents have Jeff Greene, a Palm Beach resident
Hearings on the sex charges were been heirs to various fortunes: the Singer who ranks 232nd on the Forbes list of rich-
ongoing; Kraft, who had pleaded not sewing machine, the Watson computer, est Americans, told me that he could not
guilty, was vigorously fighting them in Jell-O, Listerine. Ninety-seven percent of understand why any man would want to
court. The question that the wealthy residents are white, and the median age pay for sex, but that he did understand
residents of Palm Beach were asking is 67. Houses come with living rooms that why Kraft had chosen to go across the

many reasons. In fact, he told me, he

was heading to one himself in a few
days. If I liked, I would be welcome to
accompany him as his guest. (The trip
did not take place.)
At a bar in Jupiter, a Patriots fan named
Billy told me that he is a regular at
Orchids, and had visited the spa only two
weeks before the raid. His father and
uncle had served in World War II, he
explained, at a time when the U.S. mili-
tary tacitly endorsed prostitution as good
for morale. Over the years, many soldiers
returned from Japan and Korea and Viet-
nam with a highly sexualized view of the
women they met.
“Marry an Asian woman,” Billy recalled
STRIP-MALL SERVICE
being told. “You’ll be happy for the rest
After Florida police raided of your life. Asian women know how to
Orchids of Asia Day Spa take care of a man. You come home and
(above), co-owner Hua Zhang
(right) was charged with she cooks dinner, takes your shoes off,
procuring prostitution. Zhang never complains.”
started as an esthetician
in China (below). Billy was 42 when he was first taken
to a “jack shack” on his way to a Patriots
game in New England. After moving to
South Florida, friends he made at a local
bar told him about Orchids.
“A lot of my friends think Asian wom-
en are very attractive,” Billy said. “That’s
P HOTO G R A P H S : L E F T , F ROM TOP, B Y B A R RY C H I N / T H E B O STON G L OB E / G E T T Y I M AG E S , F ROM P B S O / M E GA , C O U RT E S Y OF Z H A NG H UA .

what I think myself. The girls are beauti-
ful. They are thin, in shape. That’s why
American guys like that.”
Indeed, on one of my first nights on
the island, I was sitting at a hotel bar,
working up the courage to crash a recep-
R IG H T , TOP, T H E PA L M B E AC H P O ST / Z U M A PR E S S .C OM ; B OT TOM , B Y A L DR AG O / T H E N E W YOR K T I M E S / R E D U X

tion for alumni of the Harvard Business
School, Kraft’s alma mater, that had
already begun out on the deck. An older
gentleman approached me and asked
where the function was. I pointed to the
bridge. Everyone in Palm Beach attends IV. THE MEN deck. He told me he couldn’t hear what I
the same parties, Greene explained, and was saying. I suggested he try the deck.
wakes up the next morning to read about henever I encountered He became upset and walked away.
W
the selfsame parties in the town newspa- men of Palm Beach in Later, the man approached me
per, printed on glossy paper so as not to their natural habitat, in again, this time to apologize for having
smudge the gloved hands of its readers. hotel lobbies, inlet tiki behaved rudely. By way of explanation,
“Palm Beach is a small town,” Greene said. bars, and private clubs, he told me that he had thought I was a
“I imagine if you want to do something you they were exceedingly eager to share member of the hotel’s service staff. I
shouldn’t be doing, you go out of town.” stories of their visits to spas like Orchids. introduced myself as a reporter in town
Luxury items—champagne, caviar, In midtown Manhattan, at a smoke- on a story, and we began chatting about
truffles—have no inherent value. They filled club frequented by seasonal Kraft and Jupiter. Suddenly, he leaned
are made desirable through scarcity. But residents like Rudy Giuliani, I fell into toward me—this older man who only
for the tiny stratum of society for whom conversation about Kraft with a man at moments earlier had treated me with
nothing is unattainable, the common- its mahogany bar. I explained that after disdain—and began making sexually
place, paradoxically, can attain a luster of many months of working on this story explicit comments. “I had all these fan-
its own. If calling up an escort like J’Anine for Vanity Fair, I still could not figure out tasies about you,” he confessed.
is akin to ordering Wagyu beef from room why Kraft had acted with such abandon. On the island, there were only two
service, then visiting Orchids is like swing- The man, who identified himself as the preordained roles for a young woman of
ing by the McDonald’s drive-through. son of a famous politician, explained Asian descent. Being a reporter was not
Sometimes you just want a burger. that men go to massage parlors for one of them.

V. THE MADAM moved to Los Angeles, Zhang learned
ulu, the co-owner of

One neighbor there weren’t many opportunities for a
middle-aged woman with no profession-
said the raids
L
Orchids who allegedly al expertise. A friend Zhang made from
attended to Kraft, lives a
world away from her cli-
were part of her English as a second language class
suggested she go to work at a massage
ents. From Palm Beach,
you drive through West Palm Beach, past
a complex global school run by Jet Li’s personal masseuse.
At the school, Zhang made another
the South Dixie Highway, past laundro- conspiracy friend who later moved to Florida to work
mats advertising weekday deals and
pawn shops after your gold. If you hang a
involving Trump, at a massage parlor there. The friend soon
began calling Zhang, pleading with her to
right and drive north until the turnpike
narrows, past billboards advertising plas-
the details of join her. Zhang was reluctant, but by that
time her son was grown, and she and her
tic surgery and personal injury lawyers, which were husband were filing for divorce. Florida
past state prisoners performing hot,
humid labor, you enter Martin and Port
impossible to is the land of second acts, and in 2010,
Zhang moved to Jupiter to begin her life
St. Lucie and Indian River counties, follow. anew as Mandy.
where the rest of Florida lives. Mandy packed light; she knew
There, upstream from the source, the everything would be provided. Busi-
story of Kraft and the massage parlor raids nesses owned by Chinese Americans—
has grown muddied. Flora Vera and Sean laundromats, C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 5 0
Williams, who live next door to Lulu, told
me they had heard the sex workers had
been kept naked so they wouldn’t run
away. Another neighbor chimed in, tell-
ing me it was all part of a complex global
conspiracy involving President Trump,
full of byzantine connections that I found
impossible to follow.
Flora laughed. “Next thing you know,
we are saying I saw a UFO,” she said.
“Well, I did see a UFO,” her husband
said.
He told me that it had appeared above
a Kmart parking lot at dusk, “hovering
above the pines,” on his way to church.
He had been 12 years old. Later, Flora told
me that she has precognitive dreams.
Lulu, who had been arrested at home
and released after posting a cash bail
of $75,000, declined my request for an
interview. She has pleaded not guilty to COUNTRY-CLUB LIFE
The Breakers (above), the Palm
all charges, including soliciting others to Beach resort where Kraft
commit prostitution. But her business has an apartment. In 2017, Kraft
partner, Hua Zhang, who owns the other joined President Trump and
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
half of Orchids, agreed to speak to me. Abe at Mar-a-Lago (below).
Zhang was born into a “not rich but
respected” family in Guangzhou, China,
in 1960. After marrying and giving birth to
a son, Zhang applied for a U.S. visa in 2001.
Five years later, the visa came through.
Zhang hesitated. She was making a good
living in China as an esthetician. She knew
every bend of every road in Guangzhou.
The new country would be full of unfa-
miliar roads, and strangers who wouldn’t
know how to pronounce her name.
But Zhang was a mother before she
was anything else, and she decided to
emigrate for her son. After the family
NOV E M B E R 2 0 1 9
VOICE OF
AN ANGEL
Cynthia Erivo,
photographed
at Glynwood
in Cold Spring,
New York.
Dress by
Giambattista
Valli; earrings by
Pomellato.
Cynthia Erivo
stunned Broadway in
The Color Purple—but it’s a star
turn as Harriet Tubman,
YOH A N A DE S TA
writes, that’s helped her
truly find her voice
Photographs by Styled by
MICAIAH SAMIRA
CARTER NASR
VA NIT Y FA IR 113
W
question: “Why would you look any- INTO THE WOODS

The Tony-, Emmy-,
where else?” Then there are the 20 ear and Grammy-winning
piercings and a floral tattoo on her thigh, Erivo will next tackle
the big screen.
one of dozens covering her midsection.
“I like the mystery of it,” she says, sotto Coat by Max Mara;
apron and shorts by Vera
voce. “I like that nobody knows it’s there Wang; earrings
except me.” by Prada; bracelets
by Dior.
Erivo grew up in London, in a proud

Nigerian household where Igbo and Pid- Erivo, who grew up admiring Tubman,
gin bounced off the walls. Her father was can understand the criticism—“I can’t
just barely in the picture until he disowned say that I’m not surprised”—even if she
Erivo when she was 16. Her mother and didn’t quite see it coming.
We’re 52 minutes into lunch when Cynthia younger sister, who are both in the health Director and cowriter Kasi Lemmons
Erivo remembers she has to call someone field, have always been supportive of her had an inkling the casting might cause a
to sing them “Happy Birthday.” creative career; her mother knew her stir, but says she saw undeniable upside.
“I’m the singing friend,” she explains— Cynthia would be a performer because, “I thought, Okay, here’s a petite woman
a mildly amusing declaration because, as a child, she hummed as she ate. who’s very strong, who can sing, who’s
well, have you heard Erivo’s voice? It’s a Erivo’s Hollywood climb was precipi- West African…I found a lot of similari-
soft, clear soprano that can stretch until tated by The Color Purple. McQueen was ties,” Lemmons says.
it’s a hundred feet tall, even though it a fan; Harriet producers Gregory Allen Erivo researched Tubman’s life and
belongs to a five-foot-one-inch woman Howard (who also cowrote the script) employed a dialect coach. Lemmons
whose own friends occasionally mistake and Debra Martin Chase scouted Erivo loaded her up with material, deter-
her for a child. It is as if silk had a sound. during her run as Celie on Broadway. mined to create a portrait of Tubman that
Erivo, 32, formally honed her gift at the Harriet is the first major biopic to be included both her heroic deeds and her
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; after released in theaters about the abolitionist less known personal life. The rough cut
graduating, she landed a starring role who freed hundreds of enslaved people, of the film I saw this summer included
in the London production of The Color led an armed regiment in the Civil War, sequences depicting Tubman’s parents,
Purple in 2013. She stuck with the produc- and fought for women’s suffrage. As such, her doomed marriage, and the head
tion for its Broadway revival, collecting the film is burdened with so many expec- wound that gave her seizures, sleeping
a Tony, Emmy, and Grammy along the tations that even Erivo’s casting received spells, and religious visions. In Erivo’s
way. In other words, unless Erivo is only backlash. Detractors wondered why a hands, Tubman is humble but steely, a
”
friends with Beyoncé clones, there’s no Brit should play an African American quick and quiet speaker who rises as a
way she couldn’t be the singing friend. icon; some skeptics have even gone so determined, formidable leader.
“I’m careful about how I use it; my far as to call Erivo’s casting disrespectful. The experience has made Erivo an
voice has given me so much over the ardent Tubman fan and scholar. Between
years” she continues, speaking a hair bites of her pho bowl and soy nuggets,
TA I L OR , M A R I A D E L G R E C O ; S E T D E S IG N B Y S H E L L E Y B U R G ON ; F OR D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S
above a whisper—but not actually whis- she swipes open her phone to show me
pering, because that can harm the larynx Tubman-inspired signet rings and pen-
Erivo’s voice
and Erivo would never do that. dants she just purchased from Brooklyn
Erivo’s career has come to a boil in jewelry designer Sewit Sium. They’re
H A I R B Y C OR E E MOR E NO ; M A K E U P B Y C H I HO OM A E ; M A N IC U R E B Y G I N A E DWA R D S ;
is a clear
recent years. After landing support- thick and gold, depicting Tubman sur-
ing work in the noir Bad Times at the El rounded by swirling stars and moons.
soprano that
Royale and opposite Viola Davis in Steve It’s not lost on Erivo that Tubman’s
McQueen’s Widows, she’s moved into legacy—with its moral clarity and lit-
can
lead roles in the upcoming HBO series eral heroics—makes her a ready subject
The Outsider and a sweeping Harriet for such 21st-century iconography and,
Tubman biopic, Harriet. regrettably, our current culture wars.
If you were to play Find the Breakout
Movie Star among this Brooklyn vegan
stretch until it’s Tubman’s portrait was to appear on a $20
bill redesign announced by the Obama
restaurant’s lunch crowd, you’d land on
Erivo in about a second. She’s wearing a hundred administration. Trump treasury secretary
Steven Mnuchin delayed it six years, cit-
a black denim minidress with a long-
sleeve white shirt tied in front. A black feet tall; it ing technical difficulties.
“It annoys the hell out of me,” Erivo said.
baker-boy hat caps her snow-blond hair.
The look is generously speckled with is as if silk had “I don’t understand how he can do that.”
Erivo is generally frustrated by the
color: chunky orange Nikes, acid green
glasses, bright blue nails. Taken together,
the ensemble doesn’t scream “Look at
a sound. current political climate. She tries, when
she can, to shut Trump out of her mind:
“What he’s doing is not remotely new at
me” so much as it posits a matter-of-fact all. It’s just loud.” She is even more critical

115
of Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson.

“He’s just so unintelligent,” she says.
For the most part, though, Erivo is opti-
mistic and ebullient, willing to engage on
any topic. When asked about her love life,
she again produces her phone to show off
photos she took with her boyfriend, Mario
Martinez. “He chased me,” she says. He’s
not in the industry, but he’s adjacent
enough that they saw each other often;
whenever they did, he would ask her out
even though she was dating someone (her
ex, the actor Dean John-Wilson).
“Then the last time, I was not with my
ex anymore—except this time he did not
ask,” Erivo recalls. “He just walked up to
me and gave me a kiss.” They’ve been
together for two years.
She’s open about her life and forthright
about her career goals. She’s got an album
on the way. It’s her dream to play Serena
Williams in a biopic one day. When she
mentions career idols she goes straight
for the juggernauts: Barbra Streisand and
Whitney Houston.
But it took time to build that resolve.
Erivo wouldn’t change going to RADA,
but she says that there were times it was
frustrating to be one of a handful of black
students at a school that felt ill-equipped
to handle people of color. When she was
cast in a small role in one big musical, for
instance, one of the leads lost her voice.
Erivo was asked to go behind the curtain,
Singin’ in the Rain–style, and perform so
the other actor could lip-synch.
“To this day I’m still like, Why did I do
that?” she says. “It still feels a bit yuck, to
be honest”—to think about loaning out her
voice, considering how far it’s taken her.
SING OUT
Erivo isn’t afraid to
speak up about
her ambitions—or her
political opinions.
Dresses and bracelets

by Dior; earrings by
Pomellato. Throughout:
hair products
by Schwarzkopf
Professional; makeup
and nail enamel
by Chanel.
VA NIT Y FA IR 117
NOV E M B E R 2019
YOUTUBE HAS HELPED TO FUNDAMENTALLY REMAKE

THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT FAME,
CLOUT, AND THE VERY IDEA OF ENTERTAINMENT.

AS IT PREPARES TO TURN 15, RICHARD LAWSON
SURVEYS A GENERATION OF CREATORS

DISCOVERING THEIR CULTURAL
THEIR
POWER AND (SOMETIMES) THEIR LIMITS
TUBE Photographs by
ETHAN JAMES GREEN
E M M A Chamberlain
AGE 18 GENRE Lifestyle & comedy FIRST POST June 2017 SUBSCRIBERS 8.43 million
“It’s like you’re doing 10 people’s jobs Chamberlain’s rise on the platform has
at once,” says Chamberlain of the YouTuber been meteoric, though hopefully with less
grind. Filming, editing, and, of course, flaming out than that term suggests.
being the on-air personality. “It’s a crazy “There are multiple stages of burnout for
amount of work.” And yet Chamberlain sure,” Chamberlain says. “I’m surprisingly
always seems to be having fun, even when not in one right now. I’m actually kind
tired or stressed or dealing with the latest of enjoying the process right now, which
zit. That energy has proven infectious— is amazing and rare for creators.”
VA NIT Y FA IR 119
E
mma Chamberlain is 18 years old and grew The Third Epoch
up watching YouTube videos. Over the past This July, I traveled to VidCon, an annual convention
two years, she has entered the fray herself, held in Anaheim for digital creators, to survey the scene,
becoming one of the most dynamic contrib- as I had done four years ago, when YouTube stardom was
utors to Google’s video-hosting behemoth, a newer and stranger thing, and was met with an even more
posting prosaic videos documenting her mis- skeptical eye than it is now. The idea that one can earn a
adventures as a nascently independent adolescent. She vlogs living posting videos on the internet has inured itself to our
trips to Coachella and fashion hauls and tours of Los Angeles’s economy. With that has come feelings of satisfaction and
many coffee shops. Her subscriber count hasn’t yet topped stability, for some. For other creators, it’s led to new stresses
9 million, but her videos regularly earn 5, 6, 7 million views and concerns.
each—an engagement rate that’s proved enticing to Louis Vuit- VidCon was flashier and sleeker this year than it was in
ton, which commissioned a video from Chamberlain for its 2015. More major media outlets covered the event. The brands
2020 cruise collection—and contribute to a very healthy teen- were bigger. YouTubers exist in a strange liminal spot at the
age income. Though an imprecise science at best, the tracking moment, then, both hugely famous and not famous at all,
company Social Blade estimates her revenue from views alone depending on the age bracket you talk to.
to be as high as six figures some months. She is as au courant As YouTube has gotten bigger, the broader and less high-
as one can get on YouTube: cool, self-deprecating, exuberantly minded appetites of the public have elbowed out the softer,
youthful (slightly world-weary), and utterly of the platform. gentler content of old. “YouTube used to be a place where
When I spoke to her on the phone this summer, Chamberlain the weirdos and the outcasts would go to find comfort and
was chipper and sanguine about her life and career online, rel- find their community,” says Joey Graceffa, a veteran cre-
ishing in the continuing evolution of a still-new concept she’s ator who now stars in YouTube Premium’s Escape the Night.
always known. “I didn’t have cable, so YouTube was my car- “Now…it’s almost like the popular kids kind of infiltrated
toons,” she told me of her childhood. our secret hideout.”
What Chamberlain has witnessed in her life span is the bur- He meant, I think, the kind of big, noisy, brash Vine-to-You-
geoning of an enormous medium, one that encompasses so Tube émigrés who have come to define the latter site’s roughly
many forms, genres, and styles that to describe it is, in essence, third epoch. There are so many clearly staged prank videos
to talk about the whole planet. “It’s like you have the little and “look at my fancy cars” flexing videos now that it’s easy to
hometown that just has one-story buildings and little ice cream forget that YouTube celebrity began with earnest kids on the
shops and stuff,” Chamberlain says of the earlier, quainter edge of their beds. This new class of creators has infected You-
YouTube. “But now there’s like malls and apartments.” New Tube with a witless braggadocio that has, on occasion, given
names and tropes pop up overnight like mushrooms. way to real offense, such as the video Logan Paul posted after
Throughout my own metastasizing addiction to the plat- encountering the scene of a suicide. The mix of the (maybe)
form, it’s taken many shapes. I’ve watched the sudden rises accidentally obscene and the silly has become a hallmark of
and gentler falls of so many sunny YouTubers, Brits and Ange- the current YouTube. Paul got a lot of views, but they came
lenos and people beaming in from God knows where. I love with the revulsion of millions—especially when the story went
commentary videos, and food videos, and aviation vlogs cov- mainstream. The outside world was suddenly paying atten-
ering first-class flights I’ll never take. tion, and it didn’t like what it saw.
YouTube fame is a fickle, mercurial thing; it’s entirely pos- While a lot of YouTube content is fun and eminently con-
sible that Chamberlain will be passé by year’s end. But I doubt sumable, a lot of it is flimsy—at best. Sifting through all the
that. She’s uniquely trained, through the osmosis of nearly life- pranks and rambling “story times,” the boyfriend challenges
long fandom, to maneuver the platform with preternatural ease. in which no one’s actually dating each other and the end-
“I feel like if I start to calculate too much and strategize too less stream of person-tries-food videos, YouTube looks pretty
much, I’ll just lose who I am in it, and I’ll lose my career also,” she weak next to the output of most traditional media. The lazi-
says. “If I’m making videos I’m proud of, the rest doesn’t matter. ness of many of YouTube’s biggest stars makes a viewer feel
Worse comes to worst, everyone stops caring but I’m still making frustrated and helpless about the future of entertainment.
All subscriber numbers are based on data through September 2019.
videos that I love. And I’ll get a job somewhere else.” “We don’t get to decide what’s quality,” says Chris Wittine,
That sense of uncertainty, optimism, and fatalism com- an agent at CAA who represents popular creators. That was
mingling in a very Gen-Z way pervades pretty much any con- a chilling sentiment to absorb amid the clamor of the Hilton
versation one has with a YouTuber these days. The creators Anaheim, where the biggest talent was cordoned away from
seem restless. the masses and the riot of the convention. Wittine and many
YouTubers are now, nearly 15 years after its inception, enjoy- others insisted to me that the line between video content
ing what could be called the beginnings of finally bestowed and TV or movies is ever blurring. That seems like more of a
legitimacy, the first indications of real longevity. That’s not just talking point than a reality when one compares YouTube to,
because, say, Lilly Singh, a stalwart YouTube star, debuted her say, Netflix’s output. But there is an undeniable sense of it as
own NBC late-night show in September. The YouTube-to-TV a soon-to-be totalizing force.
conversion has been happening for a while now, with folks like
Colleen Ballinger (aka Miranda Sings) and Grace Helbig hav- Eyeballs —and Burnout—at Scale
ing spells in more traditional entertainment. Really, the digital Ashlee Margolis runs The A List, a marketing company that
creator class’s legitimacy is arising out of the passage of time. connects brands with social media influencers. We spoke in
YouTube fame isn’t novel to Gen-Zers. It simply is. her sprawling Beverly Hills showroom, skylighted and stuffed

ETHAN & G R A Y S O N Dolan

AGE 19 GENRE Lifestyle & comedy FIRST POST July 2014 SUBSCRIBERS 10.4 million
If there’s anything YouTube likes, it’s that’s now under water. A little slicker
cute boys and brothers. The Dolan than the Dobre Brothers and a little
Twins satisfy both interests. The pair are less crass than the Paul brothers, the
part of the large contingent of current Dolans don’t really put much art
YouTubers who migrated from Vine, the into their videos, but they possess that
now-shuttered microform video app rare alchemical quality that converts
and meme factory, crossing a land bridge basic being into ardent fandom.
N A T A L I E Wynn
AGE 30
G E N R E Social commentary
F I R S T P O S T April 2016
S U B S C R I B E R S 733,000
“I didn’t want to be the person

who was just making videos about
social justice videos on YouTube,”
says Wynn, aka ContraPoints, about
the genesis of her channel. “To
me it was like, I may as well be lecturing
again. I tried that and I hated it and
I don’t want to be that person.” Wynn is
an escapee from academia, now
enjoying the freedom and levity allowed
by self-employed content creation.
She still covers serious topics, though,
and is often credited with leading
some viewers out of the darkness
of the far right: “I thought that I could
find a place for myself as…a sort
of unexpected counterbalance to the
reactionary stuff.”
M A R K Fischbach
AGE 30
GENRE Gaming
F I R S T P O S T May 2012
S U B S C R I B E R S 24.3 million
Gaming is huge on YouTube,

perhaps the most dominant category
on the platform. Fischbach—aka
Markiplier—is a stalwart star, a king
of the “let’s play” genre. The
uninitiated may wonder why anyone
would want to sit at their computer
and watch someone else play a video
game. But Fischbach and his ilk
make a case for it, infusing their videos
with a hyper sense of drama, playing
every bit like it’s the final of the
World Cup. Fischbach has parlayed his
gaming success into comedy
and charity, the latter initiative raising
hundreds of thousands of dollars
for various worthy causes over the years.
G L O Z E L L Green
AGE 47
G E N R E Comedy
F I R S T P O S T January 2008
S U B S C R I B E R S 5 million
Green is one of the O.G. YouTube

stars, an aspiring comedian who
saw the potential in digital video before
a lot of others did. Her status as
a pioneer once got the attention of the
Obama White House, which invited
her to interview the president
for her channel. As new generations
of creators have emerged, though,
Green has felt a little left out in
the cold. “It would be nice if [YouTube]
were like, ‘Oh, you’ve been here for
a while? Let me help you out with
this and that, because it is so saturated
and you’ve been loyal.’ That would
be nice. But, that’s with any company.”
K A T Blaque
A G E 28
GENRE Social commentary
F I R S T P O S T 2005
S U B S C R I B E R S 135,101
In a video from earlier this year titled

“Why is ‘Left Tube’ So White?”
Blaque expressed frustration that her
commentary is often ignored in
favor of white creators who are making
the same progressive points. That
issue may be institutional. “It’s always
felt ironic to me how YouTube will
do this song and dance about
supporting the marginalized creators,
and wanting to create all these spaces,”
Blaque sighs. “But then YouTube
as a space doesn’t feel welcoming,
truly, to a lot marginalized creators.”
Still, she says, “When it comes to
YouTube as a website, I’m more happy
with it than I have been before.”
VA NIT Y FA IR 123
J A C K I E Aina
AGE 32 GENRE Beauty & fashion FIRST POST August 2009 SUBSCRIBERS 3.14 million
“There’s one thing that I think every creator glamorized genre have grown ever more
sometimes needs to hear,” Aina says of fabulous. Aina, who got her start in beauty
the YouTube racket. “Excuse my French, but, while stationed in Hawaii as an Army
nobody owes you shit.” Aina has operated reservist, is noticing a distinct shift in status
with that ethos in mind while navigating her as the platform evolves. “Five, seven
own online career, maintaining a strain of years ago, your favorite YouTuber was like
humor and humility even as the opportunities the homie next door. But I feel like…it’s
arising from her work in YouTube’s most going to become, ‘Oh, she’s a YouTuber.’ ”
with products—shoes, dresses, bespoke cannabis parapher-

nalia—that creators will tout to their legions of followers.
YouTube fame
“Some clients don’t want YouTubers,” Margolis says.
“But we have slowly been convincing them: Trust us, the
isn’t novel to Gen-Zers.
eyeballs are huge here if you want to convert to sales. If your
demographic is the millennials, then this is where you have
It simply is.
to be.” Therein may lie the answer to any existential ponder-
ing of this whole enterprise—like so much else that’s pre-
ceded it, the utility of YouTube can be boiled down to what
it’s able to sell. Many top-tier creators are becoming extraor- than a decade later, at age 29, he’s off the platform entirely. “I
dinarily wealthy under the gaze of all of those eyeballs. (Some feel like I didn’t really know how I wanted to present myself
buy Lamborghinis. Others just let their new, nicer homes hang on YouTube,” he says. “To be someone who was more fun and
in the background, a subtle acknowledgment of what digital interesting than I was in real life, which is what I think every
fame has afforded them.) YouTuber does.… I realized I liked who I was in real life more
During VidCon, I sat down with Krystal Hauserman, senior than the guy I was being onscreen.”
director of marketing and communications for the digital tal- McDonnell recalls, wistfully, the bygone days, when a cre-
ent agency Fullscreen, in a Hilton conference room the com- ator could directly email the guy who ran YouTube’s homepage.
pany had done up to look like a trendy enchanted forest. I asked These days, nearly every creator I spoke to seemed haunted
her a vexing question for any industry that relies on the fleeting and awed by the platform’s fabled algorithm. They spoke of it
attention of young people: How do you foster longevity for a as one would a vague god or as a scapegoat, explaining away
YouTuber’s career? Is it even possible, considering how many the fading of clout or relevance.
once-huge YouTubers have since been relegated to arcana?
“We don’t want that life cycle to be 24 months,” she says. “It’s Double-Edged Agnosticism
something we’re really focused on, growing with clients.” The sleepy channels of once-white-hot YouTube legends
A big topic at VidCon this year was the concept of burnout, like Tyler Oakley or any number of Brit squad folks like Mar-
a feeling of creative exhaustion and frustration. That stress is cus Butler offer ample proof that YouTube fame is fleeting. But
often a product of not knowing what to do with one’s chan- while talk of sustainability animates so much conversation in
nel once it’s achieved a certain degree of visibility. How does the YouTube space, there is something darker threatening, or
one feel secure in a forever scaling and demanding industry? overshadowing, the whole shiny economy so proudly on dis-
“I’ll get comments from people and they’ll be like, you should play at events like VidCon.
have way more subscribers, you should be bigger,” says Jackie Thanks to the tech libertarian streak that governs YouTube
Aina, whose beauty and fashion channel has a solid but not (and much of Silicon Valley), there is a lot of noxious material
mega-size fan base. “And I’m like, at what point is 3 million on the platform, and it has gained traction in direct propor-
gonna be success?” tion to the sunnier stuff, particularly videos promoting white
Smaller channels—and, yes, 3 million subscribers is relative- supremacy, misogyny, and other grim ideologies. What works
ly small—can still be lucrative. But the busier YouTube has got- so well for the daylight side of YouTube—its inviting intimacy,
ten, the harder it is for the stranger and more interesting stuff to its conversational ease, the algorithmic nudges down rabbit
gain any real attention. Many such YouTubers have forgone ad holes—is chillingly effective for the bad stuff too.
revenue, earning a living from donations. On YouTube, “fame” YouTube is moderated to some extent. There is some vague
has almost become a stand-in term for “existence”—a certain shape to it, the borders of which can be seen in the distance.
number of subscribers means you can stay, that there’s a point Up close, it’s infinite chaos, a clamoring reflection of our dispa-
to all your uploading. But then you have to figure out how to rate needs and interests. It is clearinghouse and shelter, a place
sustain—and profit—from it. that doesn’t so much directly challenge and destroy orthodoxy
Plenty of other YouTubers are happy to be obsessed with as much as flatten it into nothing. In that way, there’s a direct
numbers. Collins Key, who makes loud and antic videos line connecting some kid’s earnest coming-out video and
involving slime and food for a rapacious audience of (mostly) neo-Nazi content.
children, has close to 20 million subscribers. His videos, on Carlos Maza, a 31-year-old producer and writer who makes
average, garner about 29 million views, he says. Paying atten- political YouTube videos for Vox, has had direct, and galling,
tion to those stats is a core part of Key’s business. “There’s no experience with the platform at its worst. Maza is gay and
need to take unnecessary creative risks,” he tells me, his pale Latino and politically progressive, a trifecta that has earned
blue eyes and intense bar mitzvah hype-man energy boring him the angry attention of an insidious and highly active
into me. “With a TV show, you create a season and then it group of users. He’s been so harassed for calling out what he
goes out and then you find out how it does. For us, we’re get- sees as pervasive—and, in his situation, personal—bigotry
ting weekly feedback.” that he had to leave his house for several days earlier this
Such industrialization has proven too much for some of year amid threats.
YouTube’s older guard, the version 1.0 or 2.0 stars—who gen- Throughout that ordeal, Maza says he saw a callousness
erously built the infrastructure that many less techy, less wonky from YouTube that began to seem downright irresponsible,
creators now enjoy—who have faded from or abandoned the he told me in a knotty, intense conversation over lunch this
platform. Charlie McDonnell, a retiring, science-minded Brit, June. “I realized that there’s no appealing to YouTube’s bet-
was once the biggest YouTuber in the United Kingdom. More ter angels,” he says. “They only react to crises. No one in that

K I R S T E N Dirksen
AGE 49
G E N R E Lifestyle
F I R S T P O S T January 2007
One of the safest, most pleasant

corners of YouTube is the one occupied
by people who use the platform
to do wholesome things like DIY
projects and exploring tiny homes. Few
do that with as much laid-back
watchability as Dirksen. Her channel
has been around since 2006 but really
caught fire when tiny living and
existing off the grid became a
fashionable topic of fascination a few
years ago. Dirksen matches her
curiosity with our own, creating inviting
videos that soothe as they inform.
Would that all of YouTube could be so
productive and comforting.
L I Z A Koshy
AGE 23
GENRE Comedy
F I R S T P O S T July 2015
One of the current queens of YouTube

comedy, Koshy has her own scripted
YouTube series, Liza on Demand.
She directed an episode for the second
season, for which she earned her
Directors Guild of America card. She’s
also set to appear in a Netflix romantic
comedy—perhaps the only genre
of content as hot as YouTube at the
moment. But Koshy’s sticking to
her original YouTube channel too.
She hasn’t gotten too big for that.
Anyway, she sees all these platforms
fusing into one big thing anyway.
“We’re all melting into this giant space,”
she says. “Where we’re
sharing and being more candid.”
M I L E S Jai
AGE 26
G E N R E Beauty
F I R S T P O S T January 7, 2007
S U B S C R I B E R S 793,563
YouTube, for all its imperfection,

has been a vital outlet for many in the
LGBTQ+ community; to connect,
commune, console, and encourage. Jai,
whose channel features makeup
and hair makeovers with a good dose
of comedy, is one of the more
prominent voices in that chorus. He’s
had his channel since 2008, making
him a veteran’s veteran, and his videos
have been viewed more than
94 million times. Jai has flourished on
YouTube, even if YouTube hasn’t
always offered sturdy infrastructure to
queer creators. Despite YouTube’s
public expressions of pride, many queer
creators say—and a pending
lawsuit alleges—the company has
quietly restricted their content.
N I C H O L A S Ashbaugh
AGE 43
GENRE Spirituality
F I R S T P O S T September 2013
S U B S C R I B E R S 151,000
For those seeking some kind of

cosmic solace on their journey
through YouTube—isn’t everyone?—
Ashbaugh is here to help. Using
astrology and tarot, he gives his viewers
lengthy forecasts for each month,
indicating what joys and obstacles
could await them. Whether or not
you believe in all this stuff, Ashbaugh’s
videos have an undeniable allure.
Maybe it’s the way he so plainly states
what could be viewed (by some!)
as out there and woo-woo. Or it could
be how pleasingly thorough Ashbaugh
is in his predictions. Whatever the
reason, his is a calm and rejuvenating
niche on a platform that so
often feels sick with stress and noise.
VA NIT Y FA IR 127
How does one That’s not a satisfying response to the question of how a
public company is going to handle the rampant and danger-
feel secure in a forever ous ideology on its platform—one that’s accessible for young
people, even those who innocently came to the site in search
scaling and of, say, video game content. Faville says YouTube is working
to address this stuff in a methodical, thorough way, mostly
demanding industry? through enforcing increasingly stringent terms-of-use poli-
cies. Still, I thought about something that Blaque said to me:
“My thinking was, well isn’t YouTube going to feel guilty if
they allow white nationalism to incubate on their platform?
But, I’ve learned they have no legal responsibility. They only
organization, at the top, is asking what’s the right thing to do. care so much.”
They’re asking what’s the least we can do to avoid this crisis.”
Maza suggested to me that he doesn’t think the platform Attention-Seeking Introverts
can be saved; our conversation made me think the real issue Before traveling to VidCon I spent some time in Baltimore
is whether humanity can be. Therein lies the problem of You- with Natalie Wynn, an apostate of academia whose Con-
Tube and other social media platforms. When you invite the traPoints channel is a fount of funny, hard-hitting, gorgeously
world in, it’s hard to be retroactively selective. YouTube has articulated political discourse dressed up in drag-world fabu-
gotten a bit stricter with its content policies, mostly in the lousness. She showed me her windowless basement studio
wake of P.R. disasters like Maza’s situation. But there’s still a filled with lighting equipment, wigs, and other flair. Wynn
continent of gray area—gray as far as YouTube’s rules are con- is often labeled, along with Blaque and others combating
cerned, at least—that makes the platform a pretty treacherous far-right content, as a member of “LeftTube.” It was funny,
place. What are slime videos doing next to people peddling then, that this great campaign is partially launched from such
race science, anyway? a humble space.
Kat Blaque is a sharp, insightful YouTuber who addresses Wynn is reticent to give herself too much credit, or even
white supremacy and other urgent topics in spoken essays. to accept the burden. Her growing following—which funds
When I met her at VidCon, she was both energized and ener- her through Patreon—means that she can live as a full-time
vated, explaining that the platform’s agnosticism is double- YouTuber. That’s essentially her ambition at the moment,
edged. “On one hand, it allows people like me to be able to and I found her enjoying a sense of artistic fulfillment. If she
speak up for themselves and to be heard and be seen in a changes a heart or mind here and there along the way, well,
way that they wouldn’t have been in regular media,” she that’s nice too. Despite all the rancor she has received, Wynn
says. “But, it also allows people like white nationalists to says she still loves her platform of choice. “YouTube is kind of
organize and speak out in a way that, again, they wouldn’t in the perfect thing for me,” she told me in her soothing, instruc-
regular media.” tive tone. “I don’t know what I would do without it. My par-
Over breakfast one morning in Anaheim, I asked Andrea ticular needs as a person are met very well by YouTube. The
Faville, YouTube’s corporate communications head, about its self-deprecating way to put it is, YouTube is the perfect venue
strategy for mitigating all this troublesome content. “When for attention-seeking introverts.”
you have creators who have very large fan bases that can kind That’s a refreshingly honest assessment. As was the con-
of take on a life of their own, in terms of going after someone, versation I had with Randy Sharp, a Manhattan theater direc-
how do you take action, but also not hold creators account- tor who makes appealing, generous cooking videos for her
able for something they might have no control over?” she channel, Dinner Party Tonight. It has (for now) only 8,000
asked in return. Which seemed a bit shifty, because of course or so subscribers. We had a long meal together a few months
creators are not immediately responsible for what their fans ago, during which Sharp told me about the intense feeling of
do, but they are still the ones inspiring those fans into action, connection she shares with some of her fans. “I had one lady,
S E T D E S IG N B Y M A R C S G OL DB E R G ; S P E C I A L T H A N K S TO DA R A A L L E N
indirectly or not. oh my God, [she] wrote me, she’s probably 40 or 45. She says,
I pushed Faville for how YouTube positions itself as an ‘My husband died unexpectedly and I’ve been holed up in my
editorial entity. Clearly, it champions certain creators as shin- house for two years. And I started watching your videos. My
ing beacons of the platform when the opportunity is conve- husband and I used to entertain all the time, and it made me
nient, in marketing campaigns and whatnot. She gave me a sick to think about having people over.’ And—this sent me
careful answer, and more questions: “I think about it less as over the moon—she says, ‘I just had some people over for the
an editorial decision. It’s about our responsibility. There’s the first time in two years.’ ”
video hosting side of [YouTube], but it’s also a community. And I like what that says about YouTube’s purest possibility.
the question is, as a platform, what is our responsibility to that Reporting on the digital world is taxing, because it can make
community? How do we do this responsibly, while also keep- one feel so irreducibly old and out of touch and alarmed about
ing this as an open platform where there are going to be a lot of the future. But YouTube stretches out with long arms, and
different opinions, a lot of different perspectives, a lot of differ- some of them do, somehow, reach good-enough places. When
ent types of speech? It’s tricky. I wouldn’t necessarily say we’re I got home from my dinner with Sharp, I made myself a drink
Switzerland, but I think the vision is definitely that YouTube is and opened YouTube yet again, expectant and spent, and went
always going to be a place where lots of different communities exploring. There was that planet, entire. Messy, roiling, and
have an opportunity to share their perspective.” lively in all its risky enthusiasm to be seen.

T A T I Westbrook
AGE 37 GENRE Beauty FIRST POST November 2010 SUBSCRIBERS 9.77 million
The beauty space on YouTube is, for a that don’t normally cover YouTube picked
variety of reasons, a breeding ground for up the story, a sign that digital stars will soon
drama. Feuds, clapbacks, and outright be part of the gossip industry the same as
cancellations have happened en masse in the any other celeb. But as happens with all these
genre in recent years. None knows that things, the sorta-scandal blew over quickly,
better than Westbrook, who called out her and now Westbrook is on to other things, she
former protégé James Charles in a long and other beauty gurus now all the more aware
video that went mega-viral in May. Outlets of the social peril lurking around every corner.
ONCE
UPON A
TIME IN
BURBANK
A $7 billion deal with Steve Jobs
and Pixar ushered in a new era
of prosperity for Disney. In an
exclusive from his new book, CEO
Bob Iger opens up about how an
unlikely friendship made magic
DOUBLE
VISION
Bob Iger and Steve
Jobs in 2006,
eight months after
the Disney-Pixar
deal. “Look what we did,”
Jobs later said.“We
saved two companies.”
130 NOV E M B E R 2019

VA NIT Y FA IR 131
I
you the right, given this knowledge, to Pixar’s films, starting with the enor-
back out of the deal.” mously successful Toy Story, the world’s
It was 12:30, only 30 minutes before we first full-length digitally animated fea-
were to announce. I wasn’t sure how to ture. Toy Story represented a seismic
respond, and I was struggling to process creative and technological leap—and it
what I’d just been told, which included grossed nearly $400 million worldwide.
asking myself whether what I now knew It was followed by A Bug’s Life in 1998 and
would trigger any disclosure obligations. Monsters, Inc. in 2001. Taken together,
He wanted complete confidentiality, so those three movies grossed well over a
it would be impossible to do anything billion dollars worldwide and established
except accept his offer and back away Pixar, at a time when Disney Animation
from a deal I wanted badly, and we need- was beginning to falter, as the future of
ed badly. Finally I said, “Steve, in less animation. Over the next 10 years, Dis-
than 30 minutes we are set to announce ney released five additional Pixar films,
a seven-plus billion-dollar deal. What including the hugely successful Finding
would I tell our board, that I got cold Nemo and The Incredibles.
feet?” He told me to blame him. I then But the relationship between Steve
asked, “Is there more that I need to know and my predecessor, Michael Eisner,
about this? Help me make this decision.” started to falter. Attempts to renegoti-
He told me the cancer was now in his ate the terms of the deal or to extend the
liver and he talked about the odds of relationship met with failure, frustra-
In January 2006, I joined Steve Jobs in beating it. He was going to do whatever tion, and rancor, and in January 2004,
Emeryville, California, to announce Dis- it took to be at his son Reed’s high school Steve made a very public, in-your-face
ney’s acquisition of Pixar, the acclaimed graduation, he said. When he told me that announcement that he would never deal
animation studio chaired by Steve. I was four years away, I felt devastated. It with Disney again.
had become CEO of Disney just three was impossible to be having these two The end of the Pixar partnership was
months prior, and the deal represented conversations—about Steve facing his a huge blow, from both a financial and
an enormous opportunity—and risk—for impending death and about the deal we a public-relations standpoint. Steve was
the company and me personally. The plan were supposed to be closing in minutes— one of the most respected people in the
that day was to release the announcement at the same time. world, and his rejection and withering
after the stock market closed at 1 p.m. PT, I decided to reject his offer. Even if I criticism of Disney had been so public
then hold a press conference and a town took him up on it, I wouldn’t have been that any mending of that fence would
hall meeting with Pixar’s employees. able to explain why to our board, which be seen as a big early win for me as Dis-
Just after noon, Steve pulled me aside. not only had approved it, but had endured ney’s brand-new CEO. Plus, Pixar was
“Let’s take a walk,” he said. I knew Steve months of my pleas to do so. It was now 10 now the standard-bearer in animation,
liked to go on long walks, frequently minutes before our release was to go out. I and while I didn’t yet have a complete
with friends or colleagues, but I was had no idea if I was doing the right thing, sense of just how broken Disney Anima-
surprised at the timing and suspicious but I’d quickly calculated that Steve was tion was, I knew that any renewed part-
about his request. I wondered whether not material to the deal itself, although he nership would be good for our business.
he wanted to back out of the deal or rene- certainly was material to me. We walked I also knew that chances were slim that
gotiate its terms. in silence back to the atrium. That night I someone as headstrong as Steve would
I looked at my watch. It was 12:15. We took my wife, Willow Bay, into my confi- be open to something. But I had to try.
PAG E S 130–31: P HOTO G R A P H B Y K I M B E R LY W H I T E / B L O OM B E R G / G E T T Y I M AG E S
walked for a while and then sat on a bench dence. Willow had known Steve for years, I called Steve when it was announced
in the middle of Pixar’s beautiful, mani- since long before I knew him, and instead I would succeed Michael as CEO, and
cured grounds. Steve put his arm behind of toasting what had been a momentous while the call was hardly an icebreaker,
me, which was a nice, unexpected gesture. day in my early tenure as CEO, we cried we agreed to talk down the road. Two
He said, “I’m going to tell you something together over the news. No matter what months later, I reached out again. My ulti-
that only Laurene”—his wife—“and my he told me, no matter how resolved he mate goal was to somehow make things
doctors know.” He asked me for complete would be in his fight with cancer, we right with Pixar, but I couldn’t ask for that
confidentiality, and then he told me that dreaded what was ahead for him. initially. Steve’s animosity toward Disney
T
his cancer had returned. was too deep-rooted.
“Steve,” I said, “why are you telling me hat Steve and I were I had an unrelated idea, though, that I
this now?” “I am about to become your standing on that stage thought might interest him. I told him I
biggest shareholder and a member of together at all was some- was a huge music lover and that I had all
your board,” he said. “And I think I owe thing of a miracle; before of my music stored on my iPod, which I
I became CEO, Disney’s used constantly. I’d been thinking about
Adapted from The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons relationship with Pixar—and Steve— the future of television, and believed
in Creative Leadership by Robert Iger, was in tatters. it was only a matter of time before we
published September 23, 2019 by Bantam In the ’90s, Disney struck a deal would be accessing TV shows and movies
Press. Copyright © 2019 by Robert Iger. to coproduce, market, and distribute on our computers. I didn’t know how fast

mobile technology was going to evolve

(the iPhone was still two years away), so Steve had I saw three possible paths forward.
The first was to stick with current man-
what I was imagining was an iTunes plat- all of the agement. The second was to identify
LEVERAGE
form for television, “iTV,” as I described new talent, but I’d scoured the anima-
it. Steve was silent for a while, and then tion and moviemaking world looking for
finally said, “I’m going to come back to people who could do the job at the level
you on this. I’m working on something I
want to show you.” IN THE we needed, and I’d come up empty. Or,
we could buy Pixar, which would bring
WORLD.
A few weeks later, he flew down to Bur- John Lasseter and Ed Catmull—Pixar’s
bank. “You can’t tell anyone about this,” visionary leaders, along with Steve
he said. “But what you’re talking about Jobs—into Disney. The board was some-
with television shows—that’s exactly He never what incredulous when I raised this idea
SEEMED
what we’ve been imagining.” He slowly at the very beginning of my tenure as
withdrew a device from his pocket. “This CEO, but they were intrigued enough to
is our new video iPod,” he said. It had a allow me to explore it, perhaps because
screen the size of a couple of postage
stamps, but he was talking about it like WORRIED it seemed so far-fetched.
About a week and a half before our
it was an IMAX theater. “This is going to
allow people to watch video on our iPods,
about announcement about the video iPod, I
summoned the courage to call Steve and
not just listen to music,” he said. “If we
bring this product to market, will you WALKING say, “I have another crazy idea. Can I come
see you in a day or two to discuss it?” I
AWAY.
put your television shows on it?” I said didn’t yet fully appreciate just how much
yes right away. Steve liked radical ideas. “Tell me now,”
Steve responded to boldness. Among he said. I thought Steve would likely say no
his many frustrations was a feeling that immediately. He might also be offended
it was often too difficult to get anything at what he perceived as the arrogance of
done with Disney. Every agreement the idea. Even if he told me where I could
needed to be vetted and analyzed to shove it, though, I’d be left exactly where
within an inch of its life, and that’s not I already was. I had nothing to lose.
how he worked. I wanted him to under- “I’ve been thinking about our respective
stand that I didn’t work that way, either, futures,” I said. “What do you think about
that I was empowered to make a call, and the idea of Disney buying Pixar?” I waited
that I was eager to figure out this future for him to hang up or to erupt in laughter.
together, and to do so quickly. The quiet before his response seemed
That October, five months after that endless. Instead, he said, “You know,
first conversation (and two weeks after I that’s not the craziest idea in the world.”
A
officially became CEO), Steve and I stood
onstage together at the Apple launch and couple of weeks later,
announced that five Disney shows— Steve and I met in Apple’s
including two of the most popular on TV, It was around this time that I had a boardroom in Cuperti-
Desperate Housewives and Lost—would radical idea: Disney should buy Pixar. no, California. It was a
now be available for download on iTunes, In my first board meeting as CEO, I long room, with a table
and for consumption on the new iPod. explained that it was imperative for me nearly as long down the middle. One
The ease and the speed with which to figure out how to turn Disney Anima- wall was glass, looking out over the
we got the deal done, combined with tion around. Throughout the late ’80s entrance to Apple’s campus, and the
the fact that it showed an admiration for and early ’90s, the division had pro- other featured a whiteboard, probably
Apple and its products, blew Steve’s mind. duced hit after hit: The Little Mermaid, 25 feet long. Steve said he loved white-
He told me he’d never met anyone in the Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The board exercises, where an entire vision—
entertainment business who was willing Lion King. But then, amidst a number of all the thoughts and designs and
to try something that might disrupt his high-profile management conflicts, the calculations—could be drawn out, at the
own company’s business model. unit began to falter. The next several whim of whoever held the felt pen.
Those months spent talking with Steve years would be dotted by a slew of expen- Not unexpectedly, Steve was the
began—slowly, tentatively—to open up sive failures: Hercules, Atlantis, Treasure holder of the pen, and I sensed he was
into discussions of a possible new Pixar Planet, Fantasia 2000, Brother Bear, quite used to assuming that role. He
deal. Steve had softened, but only a little. Home on the Range, and Chicken Little. stood with marker in hand and scrawled
He was willing to talk, but his version of any Others—The Hunchback of Notre Dame, pros on one side and cons on the other. I
new agreement was still very one-sided in Mulan, Tarzan, and Lilo & Stitch—were was too nervous to launch in, so I ceded
Pixar’s favor. The reality was, Steve had modest successes, but none came close the first serve to him. “Okay,” he said.
all of the leverage in the world. He never to the creative or commercial successes “Well, I’ve got some cons.” He wrote
seemed worried about walking away. of the prior decade. the first with gusto: “Disney’s culture

BLOOD
BROTHERS
Jobs and Iger
announce
their first of many
deals, 2005.
MAN OF
CHARACTERS
Iger at Toy Story 3’s
world premiere
in Hollywood, 2010.
FUN AND
FRAMES
Director John
Lasseter and Jobs at
Pixar, 1997.
will destroy Pixar!” I couldn’t blame him few of them, in my estimation, were quite be too great. Many people thought Steve
for that. His experience with Disney so petty. I felt dispirited, but I should have would be impossible to deal with and
far hadn’t provided any evidence to the expected this. “Well,” I said. “It was a nice would try to run the company. They
contrary. He went on, writing his cons idea. But I don’t see how we do this.” “A worried that I was barely into my tenure
in full sentences across the board. “Fix- few solid pros are more powerful than doz- as CEO and I was already putting my
ing Disney Animation will take too long ens of cons,” Steve said. “So what should future—not to mention the company’s
and will burn John and Ed out in the pro- we do next?” We agreed I needed to learn future—on the line by pursuing this.
cess.” “There’s too much ill will and the more about Pixar and to see it firsthand. But my instinct about Pixar was pow-
healing will take years.” “Wall Street will If I had to name the 10 best days I’ve erful. I believed this acquisition could
© L E E ROT H / CA P I TA L P ICT U R E S , B Y DI A N A WA L K E R / S J / C ON TO U R / G E T T Y I M AG E S
hate it.” “Your board will never let you ever had on the job, that first visit would be transform us. It could fix Disney Anima-
do it.” There were many more, but one high on the list. What I saw that day left me tion; it could add Steve Jobs, arguably the
in all cap letters, “DISTRACTION WILL breathless—the level of talent and creative strongest possible voice on issues of tech-
P HOTO G R A P H S : C L O C K W I S E F ROM TOP, B Y PAU L S A K U M A / A . P. I M AG E S ,
KILL PIXAR’S CREATIVITY.” I assumed ambition, the commitment to quality, the nology, to the Disney board; it could bring
he meant that the whole process of a deal storytelling ingenuity, the technology, the a culture of excellence and ambition into
and the assimilation would be too much leadership structure, and the air of enthu- ours that would reverberate in much-
of a shock to the system they’d created. siastic collaboration—even the building, needed ways throughout the company.
It seemed pointless for me to add to his the architecture itself. It was a culture Not long after, I flew to San Jose and
list, so we moved to the pros. I went first that anyone in a creative business, in any met with Steve at Apple’s headquarters.
and said, “Disney will be saved by Pixar business, would aspire to. And it was so I knew going in that I didn’t want the
and we’ll all live happily ever after.” Steve far beyond where Disney Animation was process to be drawn out. Steve was con-
smiled but didn’t write it down. “What and beyond anything we might be able to stitutionally incapable of a long, com-
do you mean?” I said, “Turning Anima- achieve on our own that I felt we had to do plicated back-and-forth, and I feared
tion around will totally change the per- all we could to make this happen. that if we got bogged down on any one
ception of Disney and shift our fortunes. When I got back to my office in Bur- point, he would sour on the whole thing
Plus, John and Ed will have a much larger bank, I met immediately with my team. and walk away. So as soon as we sat
canvas to paint on.” It’s an understatement to say they didn’t down, I said, “I’ll be straight with you.
Two hours later, the pros were meager share my enthusiasm. There were too This is something I feel we have to do.”
and the cons were abundant, even if a many risks, they said. The cost would Steve agreed, but unlike in the past,

he didn’t use his leverage to demand a board had been through over the past few business. He claimed to have never read
wildly impossible number. Wherever years, it seemed likely that risk aversion a comic book in his life (“I hate them more
we landed was going to be very good could rule the day. The first four mem- than I hate video games,” he told me), so
for them, but he knew it needed to be in bers voted yes, and the fifth also voted I brought an encyclopedia of Marvel char-
the realm of possibility for us, too, and yes but added that he was doing so only acters with me to explain the universe to
I think he appreciated my frankness. out of support for me. Of the remain- him and show him what we would be buy-
Over the course of the next month, we ing five, two voted against, bringing the ing. He spent about 10 seconds looking at
went over the possible financial struc- final tally to nine for and two against. The it, then pushed it aside and said, “Is this
ture in great detail and arrived at a price: deal was approved, and the fortunes of one important to you? Do you really want
$7.4 billion. Even if Steve stopped just the company began to improve, almost it? Is it another Pixar?”
short of being greedy, it was still a huge right before our eyes. Steve and I had become good friends
S
price, and it was going to be a tough sell since we’d made the Pixar deal. We
to our board and to investors. teve became a Disney socialized on occasion and talked a few
I realized my best shot was for the board board member and our times a week. We vacationed at adjacent
to hear from Steve, John, and Ed directly. largest shareholder, and Hawaiian hotels a few times and would
So, on a weekend in January 2006, we all whenever I wanted to do meet and take long walks on the beach,
convened in a Goldman Sachs confer- something big, I talked it talking about our wives and kids, about
ence room in L.A. Several members of the over with him. In 2009, after our very suc- music, about Apple and Disney and
board were still opposed, but the moment cessful acquisition of Pixar, we were inter- the things we might still do together.
the Pixar team started talking, everyone ested in acquiring Marvel, so I met with Our connection was much more than a
in the room was transfixed. They had no Steve and walked him through the business relationship. We enjoyed each
notes, no decks, no visual aids. They just other’s company immensely, and we
talked—about Pixar’s philosophy and felt we could say anything to each other,
how they worked, about what we were that our friendship was strong enough
already dreaming of doing together, and that it was never threatened by candor.
about who they were as people. You don’t expect to develop such close
As for Steve, it’s hard to imagine a bet- friendships late in life, but when I think
ter salesman for something this ambi- back on my time as CEO—at the things
tious. He talked about the need for big I’m most grateful for and surprised
companies to take big risks. He talked by—my relationship with Steve is one
about where Disney had been and what it of them. He could criticize me, and I
needed to do to radically change course. could disagree, and neither of us took
He talked about me and the bond that it too personally.
we’d formed already—with the iTunes Plenty of people warned me that the
deal, but also in our ongoing discussions worst thing I could do was let Steve into
about preserving Pixar’s culture—and the company, that he would bully me and
his desire to work together to make this everyone else. I always said the same
We felt we
crazy idea a success. For the first time, thing: “How can Steve Jobs coming into
watching him speak, I felt optimistic that our company not be a good thing? Even
it might happen.
The board was scheduled to meet for could if it comes at my expense? Who wouldn’t
want Steve Jobs to have influence over
a final vote on January 24, but word of a
possible deal soon leaked. Suddenly I SAY how a company is run?” I wasn’t worried
about how he would act, and I was confi-
ANYTHING
was receiving calls from people urging dent that if he did do something that was
me not to do it. But my confidence never out of line, I could call him out on it. He
TO EACH
wavered. I was on a mission as I addressed was quick to judge people, and when he
the board and spoke with as much fire as I criticized, it was often quite harsh. That
could muster. “The future of the company said, he came to all the board meetings
is right here, right now,” I said. “It’s in your
hands.” I repeated something I’d said back OTHER. and actively participated, giving the kind
of objective criticism you’d expect from
in October, in my first board meeting as
CEO. “As Disney Animation goes, so goes Our friendship any board member. He rarely created
trouble for me. Not never but rarely.
the company. It was true in 1937 with Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs and in 1994
was never When it came to the Marvel ques-
tion, I told him that I wasn’t sure if it was
with The Lion King, and it’s no less true threatened another Pixar, but they had great talent
BY
right now. When Animation soars, Disney at the company, and the content was so
soars. We have to do this. Our path to the rich that if we held the IP, it would put
future starts right here, tonight.” some real distance between us and every-
When I was done, the room went very
quiet and a vote was taken. After all the CANDOR. one else. I asked him if he’d be willing
to reach out to C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 5 2

FACE
VALUE Founder and CEO Emily Weiss
has taken Glossier from millennial catnip
to billion-dollar juggernaut.
Five years in, MARISA MELTZER goes
deep on the beauty brand’s boom
America met Emily Weiss in a tiny conference room—Weiss deemed

in 2007, halfway into the sec- a larger one too cold—to review plans for
ond season of MTV’s The P h o to g ra ph s b y an upcoming pop-up store in Boston
Hills. As the camera panned (open through October 6).
M A RT I N S C H O E L L E R
up from a pair of high heels, we saw a “Did I show you guys the tweet?”
college-age Weiss striding through a Los Weiss asks brightly, taking out her iPhone
Angeles office, dressed in a short flared for show-and-tell. “This is the line out-
Sty l e d b y
skirt and a black turtleneck. “Emily: New side Glossier Seattle on the last weekend.
York Intern” flashed on the screen. With A N AT O L L I S M I T H It’s a full city block long.”
her pin-straight brown hair and a binder Weiss pauses over renderings of the
in hand, she looked like some wildly con- section devoted to their lipstick, Gen-
fident apparition who had come to show OWNING IT
eration G. It’s a sheer formula, the kind
the laconic stars of the series what work- Emily Weiss, photographed at Glossier’s you can swipe on in the back of a Lyft
ing at a magazine really takes. (In this flagship store in New York City. or midway through a Hinge date. “You
case, efficiently MapQuesting directions Jacket and pants by could be 15 or you could be, like, 60, but if
and discussing chinoiserie with noncha- Bottega Veneta; T-shirt by Three Dots; you believe what we believe, then you’re a
jewelry by Sophie Bille Brahe.
lant authority.) They called her, with part of Generation G,” she says. “We can
begrudging awe, the super intern. really own that here.”
Twelve years later, Weiss is the CEO “Maybe we can add some text,” sug-
of Glossier, the paradigm-shifting beauty gests Adriana Deleo, the head of design.
brand she founded in 2014, and she still “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Weiss
has the same command, as seen on an ear- agrees, tapping her fingers on her mouth.
ly summer morning in Manhattan. At the “Instead of ‘You Look Good’ ”—the tag-
company’s SoHo headquarters, a meeting line already emblazoned across the com-
of the in-house brain trust has convened pany’s mirrors—“maybe it’s…”

“ ‘I’m Generation G,’ ” creative direc-

tor Marie Suter answers, sipping a ginger
ale with a paper straw. Weiss nods.
Weiss has on a loose floral dress and
Birkenstock look-alikes. Her low-key
ethos could be mistaken for that of a
hoodie-sporting tech bro, but a close
observer will notice that those sandals
are Chanel. Despite heading a beauty
company, Weiss, 34, appears practically
barefaced—in early hashtag parlance, she
#WokeUpLikeThis. That’s the prevailing
Glossier aesthetic, one admittedly best
suited to the age group that needs no
cosmetic help at all. But making things
look convincingly effortless, in business
or in makeup, is a special feat. Weiss’s
brushed-up arches are no doubt held
in place by the cult pomade Boy Brow.
(The $16 product debuted in 2016 with
a 10,000-person wait list.) Her skin’s
fresh-from-the-sauna glow suggests a
cocktail of the vitamin-boosted Super
Pack Serums, a trio priced at the relative
bargain of $65. And her cheeks—dabbed
with rosy Cloud Paint, perhaps—tele-
graph the kind of flush that follows a light
jog. Or a $1.2 billion valuation.
That is what has catapulted Glossier
(pronounced like “dossier”) into the
pantheon of unicorns, the tech-speak
term for start-ups worth a cool 10 figures.
(Never mind that it’s also an apt descrip-
tion for pastel packaging bedecked
with the occasional hologram.) In the
$500 billion global beauty industry—
one that’s anecdotally recession-proof as
the economy seems to teeter—Glossier
is hardly the only power player, with
a name that still goes unrecognized in
more analog corners of the country. It
might be tempting to align Weiss with
the pioneers of yore (Estée Lauder,
Mary Kay Ash) or the boldface bosses of
today (Fenty’s Rihanna, Kylie Jenner).
But Weiss fits best among a cohort of
millennial founders—including Audrey
Gelman of the women’s co-working
space and social club The Wing and shop. The brand doesn’t need sticker As the financial market has taken notice,
Outdoor Voices’ Ty Haney—whose real- shock to make a status object. One of so have the next-level fans. In July,
world savvy and third-wave-feminist its early signatures—the pink bubble Michelle Obama showed up at Essence
bent grant them a gods-among-women mailer—elevated ho-hum shipping sup- Festival in New Orleans, her lips glisten-
stature. The message is understood: plies to marketing genius. (You can spot ing in a soon-to-launch shade of Glossier
With the right work ethic and brow them repurposed as toiletry cases in air- Lip Gloss; later that week, some members
grooming, you can have it all. port X-ray bins; Glossier even gave the of the U.S. women’s soccer team stopped
In some sense, Glossier devotees can name Bubblewrap to its recent eye-and- by the Manhattan flagship the day before
have it all, with a slogan that reads like lip formula, with a matching pink cap.) their ticker-tape parade. It’s only a matter
a breezy to-do list (“Skin First, Makeup This kind of in-crowd sensibility brought of time before Ruth Bader Ginsburg hits
Second, Smile Always”) and pricing that in a million new customers last year, to the bench with a slick of Haloscope shim-
falls between drugstore and concept the tune of $100 million–plus in revenue. mering across her cheekbones.

GENERATION G
Weiss with
the store’s “offline
editors”: Ernest
Brockenberry,
Allie Walsh, Sean
Fitzgibbons,
Born to an executive father show best known for mascara Maggie Dunleavy, editor in the beauty department
Jaitra Raju,
and a stay-at-home mom, tears and an alleged object of and Anjie Pitre. and now Instagram’s director
Weiss grew up mostly in a desire named Justin Bobby.) of fashion partnerships—Weiss
Weiss’s clothing
small enclave of Connecticut, Out of the gate, Weiss proved by Isabel Marant; “had that X factor. She was a
a precocious fashion obsessive in a land to be indefatigable, balancing a shoes by college student who clearly had
Jacquemus; earrings,
of lacrosse players and manicured lawns. full course load at New York bracelet, and ring a plan, so pulled together and
by Sophie Bille Brahe.
The first step toward her future life was, University and part-time work focused, which was so differ-
fittingly, a glossy: Condé Nast’s Teen at Chanel with her magazine ent from me at that age.” (High
Vogue, where she super-interned during duties—behind the scenes and, often, in praise from Chen, herself an early bloom-
college. (When I bring up The Hills, Weiss the pages. To Teen Vogue readers, she was er who was tapped to edit Lucky at 33.)
groans, and I don’t blame her. I too would the pretty brunette who wore a vintage By the summer of 2010, Weiss—then a
cringe at being associated with a reality dress to prom. To Eva Chen—at the time an fashion assistant at Vogue—was relaxing

on a Connecticut beach with her family go into her bathroom, spend two hours Ventures in San Francisco. Nine months
when she dreamed up a beauty blog called with her, and, in turn, make her feel later—after 125 teaser posts on Instagram—
Into the Gloss. Back at the office, in search really seen and heard—because she reads she launched Glossier with four univer-
of a sounding board, she asked Chen if she the article that I painstakingly edited sal products: moisturizer, facial spray,
could have a word. “She closed the door, from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m.” sheer foundation, and a lip and skin salve
and I was like, ‘Oh, this is serious,’ ” Chen More than that, as Into the Gloss called Balm Dotcom. “The way I was
recalls. Weiss wanted to start a website drew an avid readership, it also amassed thinking about it is, How do you make an
that would show the real-world beauty potential customers: beauty obsessives entire beauty company based on acknowl-
routines of fashion insiders and celebri- who were all too willing to discuss what edging that everyone is their own expert?
ties—stuff that she learned on shoots, like kind of products they longed for. In other You have an opinion about beauty that
Karlie Kloss’s devotion to Bag Balm oint- words: prime market research. Weiss actually someone else will probably ben-
ment on her lips. Weiss bought a $750 used noticed that the beauty conglomerates efit from,” Weiss says. “The fact of the
camera and the domain for intothegloss had a top-down way of communicat- matter is, the majority of women today
.com, and by September the first post went ing—via celebrity ads or department make a beauty purchasing decision based
live, with publicist Nicky Deam sharing store placements. She knew, from the on a stranger on the internet’s content.”
her Fashion Week survival items. flood of comments on social media, She stops short of taking any credit, but I
The site’s Top Shelf column gained an that her largely millennial fans pre- catch a hint of a knowing smile.
immediate following. In it, a famous or at ferred a more conversational approach.
least cool person chronicles their groom- Before the phrase “direct-to-consumer” In July, Weiss invites me
ing routine in sprawling detail, striking rolled off the tongue, that’s exactly what to her SoHo apartment to
a tone that feels voyeuristic, useful, and Weiss had in mind. make a frittata. The message
democratic. Jenna Lyons may have had a It was far from easy to secure funding. is relayed via one of her pub-
makeup-artist friend bring her back Can- After nearly a dozen rejections, Weiss licists, an omnipresent retinue that
make Cream Cheek from Japan, but she raised $2 million for her new project in always seems to hover within reach,
also praised Blistex Medicated Lip Balm. 2013, led by Kirsten Green at Forerunner guarding the company narrative. It’s the
(This summer, before her best-selling
essay collection debuted, Jia Tolentino
mock-cursed Tatcha’s cleansing oil in her
Top Shelf: “It’s so nice, and it’s so expen-
sive. Kill me.”) By early 2012, the site had
more than 200,000 unique visitors per
month. By May 2016, that number had
swelled to 1.3 million.
“I got a master’s in the state of beauty
through Into the Gloss,” Weiss says,
describing “all the weird hang-ups people
have about beauty, and the double stan-
dards.” She has spent a lot of time reflect-
ing on its broader role: “how beauty can
start conversations, how beauty can break
down walls, and how beauty is something
that every single person everywhere in the
world deals with. It’s really foundational
to who you are and how you relate.” In
2012, she tapped former Elle
staffer Nick Axelrod to be the REFLECTING
WELL
site’s editorial director, anchor- Weiss in the
ing its place in the crowded Instagram-ready
new-media landscape. (Axelrod showroom.
split with the company shortly Sweater by

before Glossier launched. He Max Mara; skirt
by Hermès.
demurred when asked to com-
ment—but, then again, he’s Throughout: hair
products by UNITE
busy with his own Insta-bait and R Session
Pro Tools; makeup
body-care line, Nécessaire.) and grooming
Weiss had plenty of fashion products by Glossier.
types on board, but she soon

learned that Into the Gloss was an all-
access pass to powerful people. “I could
not only meet Arianna Huffington, but
first time, I am told, that a journalist has a tech company? Are you a beauty com-
seen where she lives. I arrive a few min- pany?’ And I say, ‘Yes, we are.’ ” Still, she
utes before our appointment on a Friday “People often ask, adds, “Women are so hungry to have
afternoon, and her doorman—make that
super doorman—waits until the precise
‘Are you a more role models who have achieved
what they want in their careers.”
time to let me onto the elevator. Weiss tech company? Are Her trajectory could have followed
greets me with a hug, wearing an over- you a beauty a different course. In her Into the Gloss
sized blouse, a knee-length skirt, and days, she modeled in Derek Lam’s look
slippers. Her assistant, Stacy, is answer-
company?’ And book and kept up her signature platinum
ing email at a long table festooned with I say, ‘Yes, we are.’ ” hair. Since then, she has mostly stopped
the same sculptural floral arrangements going to fashion events and no longer has a
found at the company headquarters. dye job that requires laborious touch-ups.
There is no publicist. We talk about the parallel universe where
From the windows of Weiss’s living Weiss is an influencer instead of a CEO. “I
room, you can see the Glossier office. would be at the Valentino dinner right now
That doesn’t bode well for work-life pregnant. I gained 10 pounds during a with [Danish stylist] Pernille Teisbaek and
balance, but she swears the proximity three-week period,” she says. all those girls, who I love.” She smiles a
allows her to sleep in (she’s not a morn- This is a very different bodily state of little dreamily, or maybe in relief.
ing person) and walk to work. It’s a rental affairs from the much-talked-about There’s a vulnerability to Weiss’s
apartment, heavy on natural light, with beauty guide that she posted in 2016. transformation away from fashion dar-
the same white, pink, and red palette “The Little Wedding Black Book” revealed ling to a woman in her mid-30s trying
as one of her thronged pop-ups. In the the depths to which she had gone—colon- to figure out her life, like so many of us.
bedroom, laundry is air-drying on a rack ics, microcurrent sessions to lift her face, Of course she doesn’t have it all. The
in the corner. Over her low-slung bed, “subtle” lash extensions—to look her third part of the Glossier slogan (“Smile
there’s a Glossier photograph of lips that best for her destination wedding in the Always”) is the hardest one to master,
looks like a Marilyn Minter; outside in Bahamas, attended by 37 guests. The especially when you’ve made it to the
the living room, there’s a real Marilyn fallout of her short-lived marriage to top. Besides, is that mandate of perpetual
Minter—a painting of a woman’s face photographer Diego Dueñas is far less cheer setting the bar too gratingly high?
behind steamed-up glass. Weiss shows talked about than the post itself, which The brand’s sheen of optimism can occa-
me the tiny guest room where she has has been lampooned as an apotheosis sionally give off a saccharine aftertaste.
painted the lower half of the walls a of extremes—which is both true and But, in the right light, “Smile Always”
shade of buttery yellow, in homage unfair, considering that testing beauty isn’t a denial of real-life complexity (girls
to chef Frederik Bille Brahe’s Apollo treatments is part of her job. “I actually who tag Glossier in their moody selfies
Bar in Copenhagen. loved the dialogue,” she says. “That’s prove as much) but an upbeat allowance
The long table is where Weiss likes exactly the conversation around beauty to fake it till you make it. It’s the wellness
to have people over for brunch, mostly that we should be having: Does this make era’s version of dressing for the job you
bagels she picks up from the old-school you frivolous? Does this mean you’re not want. Weiss is doing her own dabbling on
delicatessen Russ & Daughters. (“I did a caring person or a socially conscious the self-care front. She disappears into
try keto, but it made me feel kind of dead person?” She pours the frittata mixture her bedroom to fetch a gratitude journal
inside.”) She tells me she has “basically into a pan, deeming it a little smaller than she writes in for five minutes each day. I
five friends,” who met in Florence while she’d like. “There’s no level of mainte- imagine super intern Emily would have
studying abroad. “Even when you’re a nance that’s actually okay.” stifled a laugh if the words gratitude jour-
student, it’s still such a rat race as soon Weiss doesn’t mention her ex-husband, nal had ever come up.
as you get to the city. Every single person but she moved into the SoHo apartment But Weiss knows where her young
who comes here is like, ‘I’m a tiny adult. alone and started tagging Will Gaybrick, audience is going. She has personally
I want to work and get an internship.’ ” her current boyfriend, on Instagram invested in the Co-Star astrology app—
“Including me,” she acknowledges. this past January. Even though she posts an addictive thrill in this second age
H A I R B Y K E V I N RYA N ; M A K E U P B Y YAC I N E DI A L L O ; TA I L OR ,
M A R I A D E L G R E C O ; F OR D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S
Weiss doesn’t cook a whole lot, but as frequently as you would expect of a of Aquarius. She is also nurturing the
today we are making a salmon and goat young CEO (another topic she won’t next generation of Emilys, investing in
cheese frittata from an Ina Garten recipe. discuss: how much of the company she Supersystem, a political-platform start-
It’s for one of those five friends, who just owns), her 500,000 followers glean up from her former assistant, Morgan
had a baby. “And I’m freezing my eggs,” very little about her inner world from Von Steen. It seems inevitable that a
she says with a self-deprecating laugh, as her vacation selfies and broad support Glossier book—part self-help, part suc-
she starts to heat the onions in butter. I of reproductive rights. She sees her cess tale—could be on the way. Weiss
half wonder if she’s invested in an egg- privacy as a kind of political stance. “If has plowed through the genre over the
freezing start-up as the next millennial you’re reading stories about male found- years (they helped, she says, but no
frontier (the ads on my Instagram sug- ers, it’s rare to have as much intrigue book can tell you how to be a CEO), and
gest a booming industry), but her review around what they’re wearing,” she says, I scan the shelves of her color-coded
of the experience suggests not. “I was explaining that she sees herself between library. (In the white section: Small Fry,
super bloated and looked four months two worlds. “People often ask, ‘Are you Sensemaking, C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 5 3

With Patriot Act,

Hasan Minhaj
jabs pitch-perfect
humor at some
serious foes—and
the crowd roars
By
SLOANE
CROSLEY
Photographs by
MARK
SELIGER
MANE
ATTRACTION
Hasan Minhaj,
photographed in
New York City.
Clothing by Hermès;
boots by Dior Men;
watch by Rolex.
ST Y L E D
B Y
A N ATO L L I
SMITH
142
bidet,” Minhaj explains. “We’ve been And he means it. Lots of celebrities won’t
on butt hygiene for a minute”) that reads post pictures of their kids’ faces on social
“SHIT HAPPENS!” It’s the opening day of media, but Minhaj asks that his daugh-
artist Maria Qamar’s first solo exhibition ter’s name be off the record. Instead, he
on the Lower East Side. Qamar, a Paki- chooses to talk about his youth. Thus,
stani Canadian artist (aka @hatecopy), by rooting personal details in the past,
came to Minhaj’s attention via “brown Minhaj can trick an audience into think-
Twitter,” he says; Mindy Kaling has fea- ing he’s sharing more of his current self
tured her work on sets as well as on a per- than he actually is.
sonal holiday card. Much of Qamar’s work
is inspired by Indian soap opera heroines, inhaj grew up in Davis, Cali-
and the effect is that of a subversive Lich-
tenstein. It’s easy to see why Minhaj feels
M fornia, near Sacramento: “the
punching bag of the state—
a kinship. While you’re busy appreciat- everyone thinks everything north of the
ing how stylish it is, the political soul of it Bay Area is just fields and sadness.” This
comes straight for you. In one painting, is also the artistic terrain of Joan Didion
a woman slaps Trump across the face as and Greta Gerwig, so—white. Minhaj’s
Hasan Minhaj got a 1310 on his SATs. she shouts “Bidaai!” which means “Fix father immigrated in 1982. He was born
While this may seem like an arbitrary yourself!” more or less. here and raised by his father for eight
introduction to the 34-year-old host of “What I like most about her work is years while his mother completed her
Netflix’s Patriot Act, one designed to that it puts brown female leads front and medical degree in India. In Homecoming
make him cringe—it is—it’s also one of center. She just goes for it,” says Minhaj. King, he refers to himself as “the only
the most salient points about him. First “There’s a lot of brown dudes out there brown kid” in his class. He was brought
of all, he brings it up all the time. He right now—we’re taking up a lot of space.” up in a conservative Muslim home; unlike
brought it up when he was a correspon- He has a point, albeit one that some- with other comedians, you can sense the
dent for The Daily Show. He brought it what undermines his previous point. With eternal good kid in him, the one who will
up in his Peabody Award–winning stand- increased representation comes diverse still drop his wife’s hand in public if he
up special, Homecoming King (“not good preoccupations. One thing you can say passes an “auntie or uncle, like, we are
for an Indian kid!”). He brought it up about, say, Aziz Ansari (who opened his married!” He also grew up with fleeting
on the inaugural episode of Patriot Act, latest special with a good-natured Minhaj exposure to television, which meant even
a show that received an unprecedented name-drop) is, that guy has made a career less exposure to comedy. So no early
32-episode order before it aired. He’s out of “Dating’s hard.” But the expecta- idols—no Simpsons, no nothing.
in on the self-infantilizing nature of the tions for Minhaj are different. He started “They didn’t get to me early enough,”
joke, of the ridiculousness of holding on as a stand-up, but broke out as a satirist on says Minhaj. “I remember in college every-
to suburban disappointments, but therein Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, doing segments one being like, ‘Oh, my God, Dave Letter-
lies the core of Hasan Minhaj. “When I on the Muslim ban and equal pay in wom- man is my god,’ and I’m like, ‘That’s nice.’ ”
was developing Homecoming King, we had en’s soccer. To seal the deal, he played the UCLA (premed) was the dream, but
some really heated conversations where notoriously tough ballroom of the White then he ran into someone he knew who
my cocreator was like, ‘Dude, come on, House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2017, warned him of the rigor of the classes, so
your first love didn’t want to go to prom months after Trump took office. “Nobody he decided to go to U.C. Davis, where he’d
with you. Your spine isn’t getting shat- wanted it,” says Minhaj of the job. But likely get a better GPA. “I got scared,” he
tered in the back of a police car.’ But I his friend, the comedian John Mulaney, says. “Then I lied to all my friends and
pushed back. Why does the collateral was moved by the reality of the thing— said I went to Davis because I got a schol-
damage always have to be death in order Minhaj, the son of Muslim American arship. I know people laugh at this now,
for the story to be valid? Why does our immigrants, “was going to make fun of but it’s what it represents for me.”
story have to be steeped in poverty porn the biggest worst sonofabitch that ever This is a man who, after devoting a
in order for it to matter?” got to be president ever.” Patriot Act episode to Mohammed bin
He continues on what’s clearly a famil- Now, with Patriot Act in its fourth sea- Salman and the Saudi royal family, had
iar path, widening his eyes, which are son, Minhaj does “woke TED talks,” or to contend with death threats and hang-
already fairly puppy-dog, even when he’s what he describes to me as “more story- up calls. (“If this person is calling my cell
not being sarcastic. telling in the same vein as Colin Quinn phone, it means they know my area code,
“ ‘Oh, my name’s Hasan Minhaj, I or Mike Birbiglia.” This means the com- it means they know where I live.”) Can
grew up in the gullies of Mumbai and edy about his personal life—he and his we really be dwelling on the wounds of
never thought I’d make it to America!’ ” wife and college sweetheart, Beena Patel, college admissions past? I was wait-
he mocks. “Like, we can’t get Lena Dun- recently welcomed a baby girl—has faded listed and rejected from my first-choice
ham freedom? We can’t just say ‘Dat- to the background. Not that it was ever school, but you don’t see me bringing it
ing’s hard’? ” particularly pronounced. “I respect the up 22 years later in a celebrity profile.
We are standing in front of a 10-foot privacy of the people who I love,” he “I self-sabotaged and I was like, I’m
inflatable red lota (“This is the O.G. says, “and they didn’t sign up for this.” never letting this happen again. So by
144 NOV E M B E R 2019

the time I started driving to open mics like, Oh, yeah, you should totally sepa- in the first season “was actually an analy-
in San Francisco”—his peers included rate from the EU.” sis of the Carlyle Group and the intrinsic
Ali Wong, Maria Bamford, and Moshe He is aware that there is an Indian value of hype. It started with hoodies and
Kasher—“I told myself I just had to go woman in Boris Johnson’s cabinet—“I allowed me to talk about bomber jets.”
for it. I really think it’s informed the deci- know! Sleeper cell. It’s so much easier to A season four segment on the unioniza-
sions I make now.” take down the British Empire from with- tion debate within the $139-billion-a-year
While most of us just guess at what in.” Then he smiles and turns to inspect video game industry took six months to
made us the way we are, Minhaj is hyper- some of Qamar’s silk-screened T-shirts, jell. As for how the stories are chosen,
aware of what motivates him. There’s a satisfied he’s nailed the point. Minhaj says that sometimes it starts as
precision to his personality, an intellectual a news story that needs a personal hook
calm that comes through when the camer- t first, the comparisons to and sometimes it’s a personal story just
as turn on. It’s beyond what happens when
a performer delivers a piece of rehearsed
A fellow Daily Show alum John
Oliver were obvious, if superfi-
waiting for the data points to reveal
themselves. After a friend overdosed
writing. The effect is not just that of a cial. (It’s like Last Week Tonight but brown! on fentanyl, he felt “the urgency with
stand-up comedian (the NSA, amirite?) And standing!) There’s also substantive the words,” and devoted an episode to this
playing to the energy of a crowd, but a overlap when it comes to shedding light wave of the opioid crisis. In September,
storyteller playing directly to an indi- on complex global issues, and in verbal Minhaj put his face on the student-loan
vidual. Even when the cameras are off, flourishes when it comes to describing the issue—the focus of a standout season two
Minhaj speaks in whole paragraphs, par- players. (“ ‘Noncriminal arrests’ is such episode—when he testified before Con-
ticularly when it comes to his community. an oxymoron. It’s like ‘Chatty Clarence gress, singling out predatory lenders.
“Yes, hate crimes happened to our Thomas’ or ‘Remorseful Louis CK.’ ”) But “The common denominator among all
house on 9/11, but the other 364 days, we Minhaj has given himself a unique feat to comedians is we are mining our own lives
Some friends said, “Just imagine saying

The Daily Show With Hasan Minhaj.
How is Doritos gonna put ads up
against that?”
live as this new group in America. The pull off: He has approximately six times for jokes,” says Mulaney. “I really admire
race discussion in this country, the cogni- the lead-story real estate as Last Week that Hasan can personalize the news, or
tive framework, has always been a black- Tonight, during which he has the task of make the news more personal through
white conversation, but post-1970s you making just one news story funny. metaphor, night after night.”
have an influx of immigrants from South “I’m struck by how much my two When it comes to means of personal-
Asia, Iran, the Middle East, Latin Ameri- daughters like his show,” says Fareed izing his material, second only to meta-
ca, a group of children coming of age who Zakaria, who bonded with Minhaj dur- phor is Minhaj’s jones for technology.
are able to put their spin on what America ing a hike at a tech conference last year. He has acknowledged and embraced
is. But at the same time, in India, there’s “They’re 16 and 11 and they don’t watch screens, both within the format of the
still this even wider generational divide.” much political television at all. They don’t show and how viewers are watching it.
He asks if I’m familiar with Section watch my show, for example. But my As executive producer and showrun-
377, a law in the Indian Penal Code that 11-year-old and I once watched three of ner Steve Bodow says, “Hasan, Prash-
criminalized homosexuality until it was his shows back-to-back—at her request.” anth [Venkataramanujam, cocreator
ruled unconstitutional last year, though Patriot Act episodes run the gamut, and executive producer], and the team
it was a relic from British colonial rule. topically, but Minhaj usually waits for made it a priority to integrate all these
“They took everything from us, and some kind of back door into a story, both complex animated graphics into every
we decided to keep their homophobia? to differentiate it from a 60 Minutes piece moment of the show’s onscreen pre-
It’s also why Indians are loving Brexit. and to give him enough meat on the sentation.” Bodow, who was also a
The way they divided us all up? We’re bone. The takedown episode of Supreme showrunner on The Daily Show during
VA NIT Y FA IR 145
Minhaj’s run, adds, “It doesn’t look like screen? Shouldn’t you be at a desk with of the Muslim world. In that episode,
anything else on television, or whatever a single image over your shoulder?’ And Minhaj identifies Saudi Arabia as “the
it is we’re calling it now. Hasan is deeply I’m like: Do you realize how fast and how boy-band manager of 9/11—they didn’t
tuned into that storytelling style. Con- many taps we’re doing per second, just write the songs, but they helped get the
stantly in motion.” in our day-to-day lives?” group together.”
As Minhaj says, “Netflix is like elec- He had been working on the Saudi “With Saudi Arabia, they don’t take
tricity at this point. Or water—it’s just Arabia episode for a long time when dissidents lightly. Also 1.6 billion Mus-
this constant flow of content. The medi- the murder of Jamal Khashoggi “put lims around the world have to pray towards
um is the message,” he says. “When we everything into hyperdrive.” Sud- this place,” he says. “My sister was like,
first designed the set, some of the older denly, the world was watching. What You’re gonna say that onstage? You are
critics would be like, ‘Isn’t there too came out was a cannily pop explana- going to call out a country that we all pray
much information happening on the tion of the brutal regime at the center to but you feel does not represent our
146 NOV E M B E R 2019

inhaj’s immediate commu-

M nity has been a mix of support
and, unwittingly, part of the
problem. He was never up for Jon Stew-
art’s gig, but several comedian friends,
under the guise of “genuine leveling,”
offered up their opinion, unprompted,
that he would never get it.
“They were like, ‘They couldn’t give
it to you, man. Just imagine saying The
Daily Show With Hasan Minhaj. How is
Doritos gonna put ads up against that?’ ”
This, in particular, stung. There’s a
lot in a name, especially for Minhaj, who
grew up around enough Chads and Codys
that they remain his go-to dude names for
a joke. When he appeared on Ellen earlier
this year, he tried to get her to nail the
pronunciation (she never
quite did). He argued that Watch more
if America can get “Bene- with
Hasan Minhaj
dict Cumberbatch” and at VF.com.
“Timothée Chalamet”
right, they can handle Hasan Minhaj.
What America heard was charming repar-
tee between host and guest, but Minhaj’s
father, who was in the audience along
with his mother, heard something else.
“I got a big lecture in the car afterwards
on ‘Why do you do this stuff? Why do you
make a scene?’ But this is the assimilation
argument, that we should just be grateful
to be at the party at all,” he says. “I know
it’s Ellen and I know this is a big deal—but
can we do it on our terms?”
There’s “our” terms and then there’s
Hasan Minhaj’s terms. He asks me, ear-
SCREEN SAVER nestly, if I think you have to be “fucked
Minhaj, in NYC. up” to be funny. This is a long-standing
Coat and suit by
debate he’s had with other comedians. I
Alexander ask him to define fucked up.
McQueen; shirt
by Prada. “Any of it. Comedians like Rock and
Louis talk about it, but I’m like: Is this the
Throughout: hair
products by cost of doing comedy? I don’t want this.”
Oribe; grooming I tell him I can’t speak to comedians,
products by
Forest Essentials. but I can speak to writers. I know that peo-
ple glorify David Foster Wallace, or leave
values? It’s the crown prince of Saudi Ara- there’s no such thing as a sacred cow, nips of whiskey on Hemingway’s grave
bia. What do you think he does to people took the opposite position. even though Hemingway never wrote
who question his power?” “They’re like, ‘But you’re saying the drunk. Even our most revered depressives
PROD U C E D ON L O CAT ION B Y C O C O K N U D S ON ;
G RO OM I NG B Y E R ICA S AU E R ; TA I L O R , W E ND E L
Both his sister and his wife asked truth, man.’ But I’m like, ‘Yeah, man, and hedonists finished their thoughts
J OH N STON ; S E T D E S IG N B Y G I L L E M I L L S ;
him to take a step back, to make sure he but I’m also trying to live to see these before they succumbed to them. Or else
F OR D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S
truly understood what he was about to retweets.’ ” In the end, the compulsion we never would have heard of them.
do. They worried he was being stubborn to speak up, to “go for it,” won out. “That’s true,” he says, seeming uncon-
and selfish and “it was beyond just get- “Comedians have this platform. Espe- vinced.
ting the episode pulled.” Did he really cially right now and especially the plat- “What did you get on your AP exams?”
want to live with the consequences of form I have. You can be a provocateur. “You know?” he asks, his face brighten-
this? Did he want to ever make hajj in his You can say crazy shit for crazy shit’s sake. ing. “I don’t remember. I actually don’t
life? His comedian friends, for whom Or you can aim that towards something.” remember. That’s probably a good sign.”
VA NIT Y FA IR 147
continued. “He loves fried tofu. He wants grappling with his budding sexuality. Heart
Joaquin Phoenix
more people to care about world peace.” remembers her son’s intense emotional com-
Phoenix says he first understood the power mitment to the part, especially in a scene
of acting while playing a role in Hill Street Blues where Joaquin’s character trashed his father’s
in 1984. While being briefed at the police sta- dental office and broke down crying. After-
tion about his mentally unstable father, Phoe- ward, she says, “I had to come on the set and
nix wallops a victim’s advocate in the face and hold him, because he just inhabited what he
then kicks and screams while being restrained. believed that young child felt.”
“After they said ‘cut,’ I remember the other Phoenix says that he and his siblings were
people and the other actors, I could feel that not frequent denizens of clubs like the Viper
they went, ‘Oof,’ ” he recalls. “There was this Room. His brother had gone there in 1993,
moment and I felt it too, like my body was fuck- and reportedly stayed in hopes of playing
ing buzzing. I’ll never forget this feeling. It’s music. “I don’t think it was typical. To be hon-
CON TIN U ED FROM PAGE 104 changed their like the first time you drink or smoke a joint or est, I don’t think it was really—I don’t think it’s
last name to Phoenix, packed their station something. You’re like, holy fuck, my whole what he would have wanted to have done with
wagon and moved to L.A. “We said, ‘Well, body is aware of it in a way that I’ve never been his night. He’d, just before that, spent time
that’s good enough,’ ” says Heart Phoenix. aware. It felt incredible. It was an incredible just playing me new songs that he’d written.”
“It turned out that we never did meet them.” feeling, and I think the organism went, ‘Oh, After River’s death, the family retreated to
Heart got a job as a secretary for an execu- well, huh, we’re tapping something.’ ” Costa Rica to escape the media glare as the
tive at NBC and met a high-profile child agent He pauses to consider his own story. tragedy metastasized into a cautionary tale of
named Iris Burton, who got the children into “Does that seem believable? Really? Because young Hollywood and became a never-ending
commercials and bit parts on TV. To supple- if somebody told me that, I’d be like, ‘You’re stream of myth and conspiracy. “We just
ment their income, the kids sang their origi- 7 years old [in fact, he was 10]. You really had walked away from everything,” says Heart. “It
nal songs like “Gonna Make It,” written by a knowing of what the fuck you were?’ ” was horrendous. The newspapers, we didn’t
River, and busked for money in matching Dissatisfied with life in Los Angeles, the see any of that, we just walked away.”
yellow shirts and shorts. They studied dance; Phoenixes moved back to Florida, settling in The family grieved in private for months.
Joaquin became an avid break dancer. Gainesville, and River bought the family a The first time any of the Phoenixes emerged
The Phoenix family were both morally ranch in Costa Rica. from the Costa Rica compound was when
rigid—the children would not appear in soda As River’s fame grew with Running on Emp- Joaquin and his mother flew to New York so
or fast food commercials—and totally free- ty, about a family of ’60s radicals on the run, Joaquin could try out for a part in Gus Van
wheeling: When Joaquin asked his mother if and an Indiana Jones movie, playing a young Sant’s latest film, To Die For, starring Nicole
he could change his name, she told him yes, Indy, Joaquin wasn’t getting any appealing Kidman. (The casting assistant on the film,
and he went to see his father, who was in the offers and took a break to hang out on a beach Meredith Tucker, still says his audition was
yard raking leaves. A moment later his new with his dad in Mexico, learning Spanish and the best she has ever seen.) When he arrived
name was Leaf. riding motorcycles. After he returned to the in New York, Phoenix hadn’t acted in three
In some ways, his early roles as Leaf Phoe- States, his brother was shooting the indie clas- or four years. “As soon as I saw him, I started
nix set the tone for his career. In an episode sic My Own Private Idaho with director Gus crying,” Van Sant says. “I didn’t realize that
of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, for instance, Van Sant. River began tutoring his younger would happen but it was pretty sad.”
he played a deaf rich boy who witnesses a brother about cinema. “My brother came In Phoenix’s first scene as an adult actor,
murder and hatches a plan to blackmail the home and he was like, ‘We need to watch he appears in a prison uniform, his head
murderer. He also costarred with River in an this movie called Raging Bull.’ And I’m like, shaven, as a mumbling criminal with a coal-
ABC Afterschool Special called “Backwards: ‘What?’ Prior to that, I watched Caddyshack dark gaze and the suggestive scar above his
The Riddle of Dyslexia.” and Spaceballs. And Woody Allen comedies.” lip. He has a primal power that radiates vul-
With the success of the Rob Reiner– Not long after, he recalls his brother mak- nerability and a kind of tragic presence.
directed boyhood drama Stand by Me in ing a strange prediction. “He suggested Or was that just how we viewed it because
1986, River was catapulted to stardom and I change my name [back to Joaquin] and he was River’s brother?
the family became a minor media sensation. then, I don’t know, six months later, what- A few years later, when he transformed
In 1987 they were featured in Life magazine ever it was, we were in Florida, we were in the completely for a career-defining role as
(“One Big Hippy Family”), which featured a kitchen, and he said, ‘You’re going to be an Johnny Cash, whose own brother had died
photo of River pretending to break Joaquin’s actor and you’re going to be more well known when Cash was 12, the number one question
nose with a pair of pliers. than I am.’ Me and my mom looked at each Phoenix seemed to get asked was how his
other like, ‘What the fuck is he talking about?’ brother’s death informed his acting—a ques-
In the late ’80s, Phoenix was getting roles “I don’t know why he said that or what he tion he resented at the time, expressing anger
in middlebrow kid films like SpaceCamp knew of me at the time. I hadn’t been acting at being cast as the “mourning brother.”
and Russkies, which didn’t necessarily meet at all. But he also said it with a certain weight, Smoking a cigarette on the shaded patio
his high standards but earned him his own with a knowing that seemed so absurd to me behind his home, his dogs running in and out
press. He came off as eccentric and hyperac- at the time, but of course now, in hindsight, of the dog door, he considers his response
tive. “During the course of an interview, he you’re like, ‘How the fuck did he know?’ ” to those inquiries over the years. “Because
could not stay still,” went one profile in the When he was 16, Phoenix says, he was sent I came out publicly as an actor at that time,
Orlando Sentinel, written when he was 14 and a dead frog in the mail to dissect for his biol- I suddenly was confronted with having to
known as Leaf. “He rocked back and forth in ogy studies, which prompted him to discon- talk about something that already was very
his chair, sometimes half out of it. He took a tinue his studies. When his parents protested, public, in the public sphere,” he says, “where
brief ride on a motorized skateboard and once he dared them “to have me arrested.” (His you’re in a five-minute interview, every five
fell to the floor to examine a tiny black bug.” mother says she doesn’t recall this.) Around minutes and everything, at a fucking junket.
“Leaf believes in animal rights (tuna that time, he appeared in Ron Howard’s Par- “It felt like, ‘Well, I’m not sure this is the
harvesting often kills baby dolphins),” it enthood as a brooding, inarticulate adolescent right place and it feels insincere to be talking

about this and I can hear in your voice that didn’t make the news. “Suddenly, there’s a told Xan Brooks from The Guardian that he
you’re trying to sound like somebody who lot of holes in your research,” he says. “I was was sympathetic to victims of power imbal-
really cares and is interested, but let’s be going to say I wouldn’t joke about that, but ances and expressed regret at not having
fucking frank about what’s happening here.’ I actually would joke about something like been more vocal about abuses of power he
It was just much easier to go, ‘Fuck you,’ that. But I’m not joking.” witnessed in the past. While he wouldn’t elab-
which is an easier thing for me for whatever But he considers the entertainment value orate on specifics with a reporter, he makes
reason, than to explain it.” of maintaining the ruse. “That would be so clear that he was not speaking specifically
Nonetheless, his role as Cash defined fucked up!” he laughs. “I could also just keep about the Affleck case, and that he himself did
him as an actor with an uncanny power to it up—‘I’m just fucking with you!’ ” not witness sexual misconduct. What is clear
subsume himself in a role. “I think I had this Later, in the parking lot waiting for the is that Affleck’s subsequent divorce from Joa-
realization that the experiences I was hav- valet to swing the Lexus around, he gives it quin’s sister had personal consequences for
ing as an actor were deepening, becoming another go: “I was just kidding before. He’s Phoenix; he hasn’t spoken to Affleck “in many
more profound to me,” he says of that role. still alive.” years,” he says. “My sister and him divorced.
“There is this revelatory feeling, and it feels I wait a beat. “Really?” And I haven’t spoken directly to him or indi-
like every step you’re dancing closer and “No, he’s dead. Sorry.” rectly in a long time. Three or four years.”
closer to the thing.” (In fact, he did die.)
Phoenix emphasizes that “the thing” is It’s that blurring of reality and fiction that Nowadays the line between fiction and real-
not his brother’s death, not some Rosebud, Phoenix enjoys so well, like a little glimpse ity has never been more porous. Last sum-
as in the childhood sled that unlocks the psy- from 2010’s I’m Still Here, which mixed Phoe- mer, Universal Pictures canceled the planned
chic secrets of Charles Foster Kane in Citizen nix’s real-life public persona with an invented release of the film The Hunt, a “satirical social
Kane. “It’s one, it’s one of the Rosebuds,” he caricature of himself as a dilettante hip-hop thriller” about a fictional human hunting
says, “but it’s not a Rosebud in the way that artist, a role he developed as a send-up of ground, after the recent mass shootings in
people think. At all.” Hollywood celebrity, complete with scenes El Paso and Dayton. Though it’s based on
Instead Phoenix speculates that his affin- depicting “Joaquin Phoenix” pawing a naked a comic book character, Joker is uncomfort-
ity for characters like Arthur Fleck or Johnny prostitute and snorting drugs. To this day, ably close to current events as well: the story
Cash derives from something more ineffable, some people believe he went through a person- of a lone gunman with his own righteous
a “cosmic angst,” possibly something “prena- al meltdown a few years ago. “I did the junket rationale. Phillips is sensitive but fatalistic
tal.” “I think there is a combination of nature yesterday and a Brazilian guy said, ‘Are you still about the topic of copycat violence. “We’re
and nurture, obviously,” he says. “For whatev- doing good music or are you still rapping?’ ” making a movie about a fictional character
er reason—and some of it is my upbringing.” says Phoenix. “I said, ‘Are you serious?’ ” in a fictional world, ultimately, and your hope
But the topic of River remains sensitive. The line between fiction and reality in is that people take it for what it is,” he says.
Not even Phillips, who became good friends I’m Still Here became even blurrier, how- “You can’t blame movies for a world that
with Phoenix over the course of making Joker, ever, when in 2010 two women, a producer is so fucked up that anything can trigger it.
ever felt comfortable enough to bring it up. and a director of photography on the movie, That’s kind of what the movie is about. It’s
At one point, after I ask a question about the sued the director, Casey Affleck, for claims not a call to action. If anything it’s a call to
Viper Room incident, Phoenix says, “You’re that included sexual harassment and emo- self-reflection to society.”
such a great, decent human being. That tional distress, with the women saying they When he took on the role, Phoenix says,
sounds like I’m being sarcastic. I am.” were told that Phoenix, along with Affleck, he had to determine whether he could bring
This year, on the anniversary of River’s used their bedroom during filming in Costa complexity and humanity to an ostensibly
death, Rain (to whom Joaquin affectionately Rica to engage in “sexual activity” with two evil person.
refers as a “fucking hippie”) will release an women. For a scene in the Palazzo hotel “I was going through [the script] and I
album called River, inspired by his memory in Las Vegas, the suits claimed there were realized, I said, ‘Well, why would we make
and legacy. Before recording the album, which “several prostitutes, including male trans- something, like, where you sympathize or
includes a duet with Michael Stipe, she sought vestites,” present at an evening shoot, with empathize with this villain?’ It’s like, because
the blessing of the family, including Joaquin, plaintiffs being told “none of the conduct that’s what we have to do. It’s so easy for us
whom Heart calls the “patriarch” of the fam- that occurred in the hotel suite is in the to—we want the simple answers, we want to
ily, to address their private tragedy in public. version of the film that will be released to vilify people. It allows us to feel good if we
He understood her need to communicate her the public,” and claiming the behavior was can identify that as evil. ‘Well, I’m not racist
experience. “She was right there, also, and so purely for Affleck’s “gratification.” ’cause I don’t have a Confederate flag or go
I think there was a lot that was put on me,” he Phoenix and Affleck were brothers-in- with this protest.’ It allows us to feel that way,
says. “Then I was like, don’t fucking put that law at the time (Affleck was married to his but that’s not healthy because we’re not real-
on me. Just fucking—I’ll let you know if there’s youngest sister, Summer), and the lawsuits ly examining our inherent racism that most
anything on me that we’re talking about.” seemed to puncture an uncomfortable hole white people have, certainly. Or whatever it
in the film’s fictional conceit, bringing up the may be. Whatever issues you may have. It’s
At the sushi joint, the magazine writer question of whether Phoenix is more like too easy for us and I felt like, yeah, we should
makes an uncomfortable error, inquiring the self-involved dude-bro depicted in the explore this villain. This malevolent person.
about Phoenix’s dad: Where’s he living movie than one would like to believe. The “There’s no real communication,” he con-
nowadays? two had met on the set of 1995’s To Die For, tinues, “and to me that’s the value of this. I
“He lives in heaven,” Phoenix says flatly. and before Affleck married Phoenix’s sister think that we are capable as an audience to
Wait, where’s that? Costa Rica? in 2006, they lived in the same building in see both of those things simultaneously and
“No one’s ever been there,” he says. New York, enjoying Manhattan nightlife experience them and value them.”
He’s alive, right? together, and once got matching tattoos in For now, Phoenix and Phillips are satis-
“Oh is he? Oh cool, great,” he says sarcas- Italy, a black circle under the right arm. fied that they’ve slipped something that feels
tically. “Let’s talk to him.” Phoenix says his lawyers advised him not like auteur cinema under a tentpole usually
In fact, Phoenix adds, his father died four to discuss the allegations against Affleck, who reserved for blow-’em-up teenage fare—they
years ago of cancer, a development that settled the suits in 2010. Last year, Phoenix pulled off the heist. Phillips tears up when he

In the past, Phoenix wasn’t able to play an There’s “Joaquin Phoenix,” the actor, and
Joaquin Phoenix
all-consuming role like Arthur Fleck without then there’s Joaquin Phoenix, who’s getting
grappling with some personal emptiness and married and who quit smoking the week after
describes how Phoenix screened the final cut neurosis after the experience. There was the I saw him. “It was the hypnosis,” he says. Then
at Phillips’s house and emerged satisfied with insecurity of making the movie and the inse- he lapsed, in Venice. “I failed,” he confesses.
the risk he had taken. “I started crying,” Phil- curity of promoting it. He was often uneasy “I’ve always had a hard time,” explains
lips says. “And I’m crying again retelling it.” about his performances and typically didn’t Phoenix. “And, I think only recently, as you get
“Rooney said to me the other night, ‘Do watch them. After filming the Cash movie, older or whatever, you’re okay. You go, ‘Maybe
you realize how many great opportunities about the alcohol- and drug-addicted coun- it is going to be a bad experience’ or ‘Maybe
you’ve had? These films?’ ” recounts Phoe- try star, Phoenix famously went into real-life I’m not going to enjoy it. And maybe I won’t
nix. “I said it’s true, I’ve been so fortunate, so rehab. At 44, he’s finding it easier to separate have any of those connections, maybe I’ll feel
many movies where I was like, I don’t know himself from his characters and simply go just hollow afterwards.’ That’s okay. Because
if I’ll ever be able to top this experience. The home. On a table in his house, he displays a I know that I have meaning in other parts of
experience of making this movie. It was white Styrofoam head adorned with a fake my life. And that’s really what sustains me. I
incredible that I found another one.” beard and moustache he wore in I’m Still Here. enjoy it. I love my life. I fucking love my life.”
Robert Kraft
As the co-owner of Orchids, Mandy was In 2010, Myra, referred to by some as the
charged with a second-degree misdemeanor “smartest Kraft,” fell ill with ovarian cancer.
for “maintaining a house of prostitution.” During the NFL lockout in 2011, Kraft spent
She was also charged with 26 counts of solic- his days negotiating with union representa-
iting others to commit prostitution, as well tives, then came home each evening to rub
as a second-degree felony for deriving sup- Myra’s feet. She died later that year, and
port from prostitution, a crime punishable Kraft’s life became a boat you forgot to tie up.
by up to 15 years in prison. She has pleaded The following year, at a party in Los Ange-
not guilty to the charges. A police affidavit les at the home of New York Giants co-owner
lists the “victim” of her crime as the state of Steve Tisch, Kraft met Ricki Noel Lander,
Florida. “Because it’s our society as a whole an aspiring actress 38 years his junior. The
that has been victimized by this prurient two began seeing each other: on, then off,
CON TIN U ED FROM PAGE 111 restaurants, behavior,” explains Robert Norvell, a West then on again.
massage parlors—frequently provide room, Palm Beach attorney who represents one of Kraft reveled in his newfound status as
board, and transportation for newly arrived the defendants in the case. “I shit you not.” a single rich guy. Owning a winning foot-
workers, who often lack the means and con- After a few weeks, Mandy was released on ball team in America gave him access to a
nections to buy or rent a place on their own. bail. Unable to return to the condo, where two world that money alone can’t buy. He was
After a few years of hard work, Mandy of her employees were being detained, she seen at the Met Gala and the Grammys and
raised enough money to buy Orchids in was placed under house arrest in a home that the Vanity Fair Oscar party, and sometimes
2013. She hired workers from Chinese immi- a cousin of hers had put on the market. The appeared at events alongside young women
grant communities across the country, plac- house, on a quiet street in a gated subdivision, who remained uncredited in photos.
ing ads in Chinese-language newspapers. had not been lived in for some time, and was Kraft hadn’t gone to Orchids on that Janu-
Mandy also provided day care for children infested with vermin. Mandy spent six weeks ary day because the Florida heat had driven
while their mothers were at work. By then, scrubbing its floors. Her ankle monitor pre- him mad, or because he was in search of ano-
her son had moved to Florida, and word got vented her from taking out the trash or pick- nymity, or because he had served his country
out that a Chinese woman and her English- ing the ripe mangoes in the backyard, so she in the Far East. Born the year of Pearl Harbor,
speaking son would take in your kids for a stared at the falling fruit from the window. he was 13 when the Vietnam War began. He
reasonable fee. Soon, Mandy was looking went to Orchids, in his relatively new status
after as many as 11 children. VI. THE MOGUL as a single rich guy, to get a massage. And
In 2017, Mandy signed over half of the spa it was in his part as a single rich guy that he
to Lulu, one of her steadiest workers. She The men who were arrested for avail- came to believe he had done nothing wrong.
began devoting most of her time to her grand- ing themselves of Mandy’s services faced According to his best friend, he thought there
son, Michael—named after local resident no such restrictions. After his arrest, Kraft had been something between him and Lulu.
Michael Jordan, who owns a 28,000-square- was free to live his best life. He reportedly He thought she liked him. He thought that
foot mansion on three acres in Jupiter. donated $100,000 at a charity dinner at the what had transpired between them had no
On the morning of February 19, Mandy Breakers in Palm Beach, attended the annual business being discussed in a courtroom.
was making coffee at a condominium near pre-Oscar brunch at the Beverly Hills home “If you are affluent, rules loosely apply to
the spa that she had rented to house her of Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, you,” says Norvell, the lawyer representing
workers. Suddenly, there was banging at and watched Rafael Nadal defeat Dominic one of the defendants. “You wear it like a
the door. Six police officers swarmed in, Thiem in Paris to win the French Open. loose garment.”
handcuffed Mandy, and booked her into Kraft was born in 1941, in the affluent Bos- As the owner of a six-time Super Bowl
the Palm Beach jail. ton suburb of Brookline. In 1963, he married championship team, Kraft understood that
“At the time I thought: They must have Myra Hiatt, an heiress to a paper box fortune sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
made a mistake,” she says. “It’s so funny— whom he met at a Boston deli. They had four To represent him in court, he hired William
they treat me as a treacherous criminal. I children. In 1994, he purchased the New Burck, who withheld sensitive documents
can’t believe what kind of system it is. Why England Patriots, growing the team into from Congress during Brett Kavanaugh’s con-
do you make such a big move against a fam- one of the most valuable franchises in the firmation hearing; Alex Spiro, who defended
ily woman?” National Football League. former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez

after he was charged with murder; and Jack by spurious statistics, the Florida legislature to her account? “Did you feel like you had a
Goldberger, the Palm Beach attorney who passed a sweeping new law to combat pros- choice to come down and work, or did you
helped broker a plea deal for Jeffrey Epstein. titution. The measure creates a statewide feel like you were forced to?”
Epstein himself, in his twisted worldview, “anti-prostitution registry” that is intended “No one forced me,” Yoyo insisted. It was
saw Kraft as a kindred spirit. A few months to list men like Robert Kraft, should he be the terrible winter of 2018 back in Pennsyl-
after Kraft was charged, a Fox Business convicted, as a john. But critics worry that the vania, where she was living at the time, that
reporter asked Palm Beach’s most notori- registry, which is vaguely defined, will also inspired her to move to Florida.
ous sex offender if he knew that the girls he wind up including sex workers like Lulu and The interrogator pressed harder. “Did you
had lured to his mansion for massages and Shen Mingbi. In doing so, the anti-prostitu- feel like you had to do this?”
sex were underage. Epstein insisted that his tion law could effectively end up functioning Yoyo shook her head.
own crimes weren’t “that much different as an anti-immigration law, targeting poor “Then why did you do it?”
than what happened to Bob Kraft. Only he women of color, many of them from Asia. The inquiry continued along these lines
went somewhere, and they came to me.” Florida’s new sex registry is the latest in for several more hours. It was somehow
Kraft’s legal team bombarded the court a long line of similar laws. One of America’s easier for law enforcement officers in South
with motions, pushing to bar the public first laws against prostitution, in fact, was Florida to believe that the women had been
release of the surveillance video from Orchids the 1870 Act to Prevent the Kidnapping and sold into sex slavery by a global crime syn-
as an invasion of their client’s privacy. “It’s Importing of Mongolian, Chinese, and Japa- dicate than to acknowledge that immigrant
basically pornography,” Burck told the court. nese Females for Criminal or Demoralizing women of precarious status, hemmed in by
On March 28, the state attorney’s office in Purposes, intended to protect the public from circumstance, might choose sex work.
Palm Beach offered Kraft a plea bargain. If “scandal and injury.” The law was a precursor to In the end, Yoyo told police that her boy-
he admitted his guilt, the charges would be the Page Act of 1875, which aimed to “end the friend had confiscated her passport, locked
dropped and his record expunged. Prosecutors danger of cheap Chinese labor and immoral it in a safe, and threatened her with a gun. He
extended the same offer to the other defen- Chinese women,” which in turn was a precur- was the one, she intimated, who had forced
dants in Palm Beach, a county that, despite sor to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—the her into sexual slavery.
being the home of Mar-a-Lago, votes blue. first law to bar all members of a specific ethnic- Later, during a hearing conducted after
Next door, in the Trump-supporting Martin ity or nationality from immigrating. she had managed to retain a lawyer, Yoyo
County, no plea deals were forthcoming. The raids on Orchids and other massage recanted the story about her boyfriend. She
Kraft rejected the plea deal. parlors in South Florida were conducted in told the court that she had said what she felt
America’s criminal justice system relies the name of rescuing women from sex traf- the police wanted to hear, in the hopes of get-
on defendants taking plea deals: More than ficking. But the only people put in jail were ting a lighter sentence.
90 percent do so. The system was not built the women themselves. A few, like Lulu Within weeks of the raids, the state’s case
to indict rich men, and so it was not prepared and Mandy, managed to post bail and were had evaporated. There was no $20 million
for a rich man to reject an offer of leniency. placed under house arrest. But others were trafficking ring, no women tricked into sex
The case would have gone away quickly had transferred to the custody of ICE. Women slavery. The things the state had mistaken as
Kraft not decided to devote his tremendous who migrated to America in search of work— markers for human trafficking—long work-
resources to destroying the state’s case. who chose the least bad option available to ing hours, shared eating and living arrange-
them—were being punished for what one of ments, suspicion of outside authorities, ties
VII. THE RESCUE INDUSTRY their lawyers calls “the crime of poverty.” to New York and China—were, in fact, com-
The New York Times and other news out- mon organizing principles of many Chinese
Florida, perhaps more than any other state, lets, quoting investigators, initially presented immigrant communities. As an assistant
has been a leader of the Christian right’s cam- the raids as a clear-cut case of sex traffick- state attorney in Palm Beach told the court
paign to “rescue” those they consider victims ing. Women at the spas, the media reported, on April 12: “There is no human trafficking
of a globally syndicated criminal human traf- were working “14 hour days” and “sleeping that arises out of this investigation.”
ficking ring. The first comprehensive human on massage tables.” After “surrendering”
trafficking act passed in 2000, but it wasn’t their passports to spa owners, they were not V I I I . T H E M I X- U P
until three years later, when President George allowed to leave the premises without an
W. Bush pledged $50 million to support anti- escort. The “wretched” women in “strip- Democrats have tried, so far without suc-
trafficking organizations, that the campaign mall brothels” were not sex workers, but cess, to tie the Orchids scandal to Donald
became a full-fledged industry. rather “trafficking victims trapped among Trump. Kraft, after all, was a close friend of
Human trafficking is a serious problem: South Florida’s rich and famous.” the president. He had attended Trump’s wed-
The Department of Health and Human Ser- But as police subjected the women to ding to Melania in 2005, and gave $1 million
vices calls it the world’s “fastest-growing hours-long interrogations, those claims to his inaugural fund. (Trump once reportedly
criminal industry.” But some anti-trafficking began to unravel. The only woman alleged to tried to set up Ivanka with Tom Brady, hop-
groups, in search of funding, routinely over- have been locked up and forced to live on the ing to make the Patriots quarterback his son-
state the scale of the commercial sex trade. premises was Yong Wang, who went by the spa in-law.) Li “Cindy” Yang, the former owner
They frequently claim that 300,000 minors name Nancy. In fact, like many other employ- of the Orchids spa, also donated to Trump’s
are “at risk” for being sold into sexual slav- ees, Nancy had been hired from out of state, campaign, and ran a consulting firm that
ery in America each year—a number that so her boss drove her back and forth from the promised Chinese business executives access
has been debunked by researchers as wildly job. When the owner fell ill, Nancy was asked to Trump and Mar-a-Lago.
overinflated. (The Washington Post dismisses if she wouldn’t mind sleeping at the spa. On March 15, congressional Democrats
it as a “nonsense statistic.”) In 2018, the FBI The one woman whose passport had alleg- on the intelligence and judiciary committees
confirmed a total of 649 trafficking cases in edly been taken away was Lixia Zhu, or Yoyo. asked the FBI, the director of national intel-
America, adults included. During questioning, the police repeatedly ligence, and the Secret Service to open an
Even more alarming, the exaggerated grilled Yoyo, looking for evidence of human investigation into Yang and her alleged ties to
numbers about sex trafficking have come to trafficking. Did anyone else set up her bank Trump. I emailed Nancy Pelosi’s office to ask
inform public policy. On May 3, driven in part account for her? Did anyone else have access why she wanted Yang to be investigated by a

she illegally funneled money from China themselves in court. And “madams” who
Robert Kraft
into Trump’s reelection campaign. Federal profit from the prostitution of others—the
prosecutors sent subpoenas to Mar-a-Lago, charge leveled against Mandy and Lulu—
top intelligence agency. The speaker’s press demanding that it turn over all records relat- can be convicted of money laundering if the
officer, Ashley Etienne, pointed me to news ing to Yang. proceeds are deposited in a bank, or used to
reports about Yang “bypassing security” at pay rent, or buy milk.
Mar-a-Lago. “This was before it broke that I X . T H E D OU BL E S TA N DA R D While Kraft’s legal team fights to have
she’s a likely spy,” Etienne added. the charges against him dismissed, one of
Etienne appeared to have misidentified Kraft, aided by the best defense team mon- the alleged sex workers arrested in the raids,
Yang. I asked her if she was referring to a ey can buy, seems likely to beat the charges Lei Chen, remains in ICE custody. Under
separate probe involving a Chinese woman against him. Last May, a judge threw out civil forfeiture proceedings, the state seized
named Yujing Zhang, who had allegedly the video evidence that had been gathered her J.P. Morgan Chase account, which held
breached Mar-a-Lago security. “I am not at Orchids, ruling that the warrant had been $2,900. Until August 21, when she was trans-
sure what you mean,” Etienne wrote back, “seriously flawed.” The judge also threw out ferred to another immigration facility, Chen
referring me to the FBI for “more details.” evidence from Kraft’s traffic stop, calling it was held at the detention center in West Palm
I also emailed Senator Dianne Feinstein, “the fruit of an unlawful search.” The state Beach, a half mile from a strip club where
who had signed the letter requesting an is appealing the ruling. Stormy Daniels performed, and across from
investigation. Her press person also respond- Even if he is found guilty, however, Kraft the Trump International Golf Club.
ed by citing the case against Zhang. has little to fear in the way of punishment. Another alleged sex worker, Yaping Ren,
“This is political prosecution with no In Florida, as in most other states, the pur- was also held for five months, waiting to be
evidence,” Cliff Yi, executive director of chasing of sex is a misdemeanor. The few handed over to ICE, before being released
the National Committee of Asian American first-time johns who wind up being convicted in July. Her status remains uncertain: Her
Republicans, told me. “It reminds us of our typically pay a fine and perform no more than attorney told me that he has been unable to
experience in China. It reminds us of how 100 hours of community service. The selling determine whether she is going to be deport-
we were scared, how we were oppressed.” of sex, however, is policed far more severely. ed. The county has only two court-certified
On September 11, Zhang was convicted Sex workers are more likely than johns to face Mandarin interpreters, who charge $400 an
of trespassing and lying to federal agents. repeated arrest, increasing the odds that they hour—a prohibitively high fee for his clients.
The FBI has also opened a public corruption will be charged with a felony and sentenced Under Florida law, it would appear, happy
investigation into Yang, focusing on whether to prison, and have fewer resources to defend endings are the exclusive property of men.
Disney Deal
were still alive, we would have combined our gathered in a tight square around his coffin,
companies, or at least discussed the possibil- and Laurene asked if anyone wanted to say
ity very seriously. anything. I hadn’t prepared to speak, but the
In the summer of 2011, Steve and Laurene memory of that walk we took on Pixar’s cam-
came to our house in L.A. to have dinner with pus years earlier came to mind.
Willow and me. He was in the late stages of I’d never told anyone other than Alan
cancer by then, terribly thin and in obvious Braverman, our general counsel, and Wil-
pain. He had very little energy, and his voice low, because I needed to share the emotional
was a low rasp. But he wanted to spend an intensity of that day. I thought the moment
evening with us, in part to toast what we’d captured Steve’s character, though, so I
done years ago. We sat in our dining room recalled it there at the cemetery: Steve pull-
and raised glasses of wine before dinner. ing me aside; the walk across campus; the
CON TIN U ED F ROM PAGE 135 Ike Perlmutter, “Look what we did,” he said. “We saved two way he put his arm around me and delivered
Marvel’s CEO and controlling shareholder, companies.” the news; his concern that I should have this
and vouch for me. All four of us teared up. This was Steve intimate, terrible knowledge, because it
Later, after we’d closed the deal, Ike told at his warmest and most sincere. He was might affect me and Disney and he wanted to
me that he’d still had his doubts and the call convinced that Pixar had flourished in ways be fully transparent; the emotion with which
from Steve made a big difference. “He said you that it never would have had it not become he talked about his son and his need to live
were true to your word,” Ike said. I was grateful part of Disney, and that Disney had been long enough to see him graduate from high
that Steve was willing to do it as a friend, really, reenergized by bringing on Pixar. I couldn’t school and begin his life as an adult.
more than as the most influential member of help but think of those early conversations After the funeral, Laurene came up to me
our board. Every once in a while, I would say to and how nervous I was to reach out to him. It and said, “I’ve never told my side of that sto-
him, “I have to ask you this, you’re our largest was only six years before, but it seemed like ry.” She described Steve coming home that
shareholder,” and he would always respond, another lifetime. He’d become so important night. “We had dinner, and then the kids left
“You can’t think of me as that. That’s insulting. to me, professionally and personally. As we the dinner table, and I said to Steve, ‘So, did
I’m just a good friend.” toasted, I could barely look at Willow. She you tell him?’ ‘I told him.’ And I said, ‘Can
had known Steve much longer than I had, we trust him?’ ” We were standing there with
With every success the company has had going way back to 1982, when he was one of Steve’s grave behind us, and Laurene, who’d
since Steve’s death, there’s always a moment the young, brash, brilliant founders of Apple. just buried her husband, gave me a gift that
in the midst of my excitement when I think, I Now he was gaunt and frail and in the last I’ve thought about nearly every day since.
wish Steve could be here for this. It’s impos- months of his life, and I knew how much it I’ve certainly thought of Steve every day. “I
sible not to have the conversation with him pained her to see him that way. asked him if we could trust you,” Laurene
in my head that I wish I could be having in He died on October 5, 2011. There were said. “And Steve said, ‘I love that guy.’ ” The
real life. More than that, I believe that if Steve about 25 people at his burial in Palo Alto. We feeling was mutual.

a snapshot of the night with the caption so many women begin overhauling their
Glossier
“Bossed up with @emilyweiss.” (Ohanian, beauty routines with health in mind. What
meanwhile, was a prime candidate for happens when the Glossier girl grows up and
@glossierboyfriends, among the several starts thinking about a family, or the cryo-
meme accounts on Instagram. This one— genically frozen possibility of one? When I
showing supportive, often bored partners raise the subject of natural beauty, Weiss’s
at the stores—is run by 29-year-old Dani labyrinthine response includes the fact that
Barrett. “I get a lot of DMs asking, ‘How do Glossier creates experiences.
I find a Glossier boyfriend?’ ” she says. Her This fall marks the brand’s fifth anni-
response: “You don’t just find them. You versary. Weiss’s team is tight-lipped about
have to work to shape them.”) future plans—even launches as soon as
The Manhattan boutique—winning hearts, this very month. But there are clues to how
generating content—is a microcosm of the far her ambition goes. During the Glossier
CON TIN U ED FROM PAGE 141 Grit, and The company’s success. The air is lightly scented Boston meeting, Weiss describes the per-
Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies with Glossier You (a perfume that sounds like fume room as “an experiment toward being
Cause Great Firms to Fail.) Meanwhile, she millennial pandering but smells like warm able to create a whole branded world of
has recently whittled down the accounts she musk), and the mood is buoyant by design. Glossier You that you could then take into,
follows on Instagram to a lean 555. One that “The beauty industry historically won dol- like, Heathrow.” Another time, Weiss shows
made the cut is Blue Zones, which rounds up lars by making women feel like they weren’t me a DM that she got on Instagram from a
“happiness secrets from the most extraor- enough,” Weiss tells me. “When Glossier girl who said—only maybe joking—that she
dinary populations on earth.” Like all good launched, we made people feel good about wanted a Glossier razor, a Glossier tampon,
tech CEOs, Weiss is interested in longevity. themselves and want the products.” Part a Glossier condominium. Weiss tells me
of that shift stems from Glossier’s cast of she’s always wanted to design a hotel. So
The Glossier flagship on a Saturday after- models: diverse in every way, some with what would hers look like? “I’m not allowed
noon is a real scene. Since the permanent gap teeth or bushy brows. More prescient, to think about that right now. That’s not
location in SoHo opened last November, by crowdsourcing imagery from its 2 mil- what the Series D [funding] is for,” she says,
some 50,000 visitors pour through its lion followers—regramming selfies of cute ever responsible. “Mainly our business will
doors each month. Today, in high summer, 20-somethings in face masks or Glitter be beauty for the foreseeable future. It’s
the line to get in is running halfway down Gelée, part of the experimental makeup col- just about reaching more people. We have
the block. Editors, as the store employ- lection called Glossier Play—the brand has very, very low brand awareness, even in the
ees are called (customer-service reps are elevated its eager fan base to the (unpaid) United States, but we’re still young.” (This
online editors), mill about on the sidewalk, position of campaign star. You might as well sounds like a slip of her perfectionism:
dressed in light pink jumpsuits with stick- call it a propaganda machine. A glittery and Relatively low seems more like it. But then
ers that declare their preferred pronouns. pink and pleasurable one. again, Weiss doesn’t strike me as someone
They are offering hits of Invisible Shield Still, those dutifully abandoning plastic who grades on a curve.) “If you look at a
SPF 35 and Soothing Face Mist to help ease straws can’t help but frown at the ubiquitous company like Nike, I mean, that’s what is
the wait. Weiss hugs editor after editor as pink bubble mailers, though customers can possible for our future,” she continues. “It’s
we make our way inside, where a whole- now recycle them at retail shops. And in this just about how quickly can we get there, and
some scene is playing out: tweens teach- era of all-natural everything (ahem: Goop), in what order?”
ing each other how to apply mascara, a Glossier has resisted jumping on the so- Weiss is lord of her rosy kingdom, that
mother-daughter pair comparing swatches called clean-beauty bandwagon. Given that much is clear. But the surprise in tagging
of eyeliner on their wrists. some see ingredient vetting as a feminist along with her to the flagship isn’t the fan-
The interior was designed to incite issue as much as an ecological one, what fare—it’s the lack. A few customers, like
maximum Instagram engagement, with does it mean to put brand fervor first? Plenty the trio of teens studying at the School of
eight-foot-tall tubes of Boy Brow and an of companies tout their fair-trade shea but- American Ballet, recognize the brunette in
undulating banquette in the shape of red ter, while Balm Dotcom’s bedrock ingredi- the black dress and shyly ask for a selfie. Yet
lips. At the opening party, Weiss, wearing ent is petrolatum (a staple of Vaseline and most people seem not so much to politely
a tuxedo with no shirt underneath, led Ser- doctor-prescribed ointments but avoided by leave her alone as to have no idea who she is.
ena Williams and her husband, the Reddit green-minded shoppers). It’s telling that the Weiss takes that as a very good sign, survey-
cofounder Alexis Ohanian, on a tour of the brand’s core demographic is years away from ing the room and smiling at her anonymity:
space. The next morning, Williams posted planning for motherhood—a time when “It’s more than me.”
VANITY FAIR IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. IN BOTH THE U.S. AND THE U.K.
THE U.K. EDITION IS PUBLISHED BY THE CONDÉ NAST PUBLICATIONS LTD. UNDER LICENSE.
COPYRIGHT © 2019 BY THE CONDÉ NAST PUBLICATIONS LTD., VOGUE HOUSE, HANOVER SQUARE, LONDON W1S IJU. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. PRINTED AT WALSTEAD ROCHE.
Vanity Fair November 2019, No. 711. The magazine is published monthly by The Condé Nast Publications Ltd., Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU (telephone: 020 7499 9080; fax: 020 7493 1345).
The full subscription rate to Vanity Fair is £59.88 for one year (12 issues) in the UK. Overseas Airmail per year: €99 to the EU, £90 to the rest of Europe, $99 to the US and £99 to the rest of the World.
Enquiries, changes of address and orders payable to Vanity Fair, Subscriptions Department, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough, Leics LE16 9EF. To subscribe on the Internet,
visit www.magazineboutique.co.uk/vanityfair or e-mail vanityfair@subscription.co.uk, quoting code 7223. Subscription hotline +44 (0)844-848-5202 open weekdays 8 A.M. to 9 P.M.
Saturday 8 A.M. to 4 P.M. Manage your subscription online 24 hours a day by logging on to www.magazineboutique.co.uk/youraccount.
VANITY FAIR is not responsible for loss, damage, or any other injury to unsolicited manuscripts, unsolicited artwork (including, but not limited to, drawings, photographs, or transparencies), or any other
unsolicited materials. Those submitting manuscripts, photographs, artwork, or other materials for consideration should not send originals, unless specifically requested to do so by Vanity Fair in writing.
Manuscripts, photographs, and other materials submitted must be accompanied by a self-addressed overnight-delivery return envelope, postage prepaid. The paper used for this publication is based on renewable
wood fibre. The wood these fibres are derived from is sourced from sustainably managed forests and controlled sources. The producing mills are EMAS registered and operate according to highest environmental
and health and safety standards. This magazine is fully recyclable-please log on to www.recyclenow.com for your local recycling options for paper and board.
TO FIND CONDÉ NAST MAGAZINES ONLINE, VISIT www.condenet.co.uk ; TO FIND VANITY FAIR, VISIT www.vanityfair.co.uk.

Vanity Fair adVertising Feature
Sartorial Style
reza nadimi mOnOsuit Camille deFagO
Tehran based On 6th September 2019
designer Reza emerging fashion brand
Nadimi takes Monosuit presented its
inspiration from the new 2021 collection
world surrounding during the official New
him, he creates York Fashion Week at
self-portraits using Pier 59 Studios. Designed
different fabrics as for women by a woman,
his canvas. The this avant-garde brand
strength of his of one-pieces has finally
heritage and culture found a killer solution for
combined with the the eternal dilemma of
tremendous wealth all jumpsuit lovers.
of lineage forms the Comfortable zippers on
very unique base for the back of the jumpsuit,
his work. Visit which make a woman’s life easy during her visit of
rezanadimi.com a restroom. Visit monosuit.com and follow
(IG) @rezanadimi IG @monosuit
Hera COnCept rima CHerFane

From breakfast to the RIMA CHERFANE is a
streets – The “Goddess bespoke, sustainable label,
Breakfast Coat” is a created in Lebanon.
unique piece launched Designed and hand
by the label that has a crafted to embody all the
comfort consideration passions of a woman, from
concept. It encourages her most contagious
all women to let their laughter to the deepest of
inner power of a her despair, under the
goddess shine umbrella of infinite
through, even if they sensuality and genuine
are working at home, self love and acceptance. Designer and fashion brand Camille Defago
strolling the streets or These pieces are timeless, focuses on quality over quantity. Her unique and
catching a flight at the elegant and instantly extrovert designs empower creativity in each
airport. “Comfy” is key vintage. Modelled by @zaradurrani and wearer and will make you stand out from the
this season! Visit Photography by Feruz Ruztamo @ruztamo. crowd. Further collections and designs launching
hera-concept.com Visit couturerepublic.com or follow soon. Visit camilledefago.com and follow on
(IG) @hera.concept @rimacherfane on IG. IG @camilledefago
seBastien ami senKO eleni Bantra

SEBASTIEN AMI Emerging Eleni Bantra is a
generates an designer, Lesley luxury accessories
artistic approach Senkow of luxury brand inspired by
of storytelling brand, SENKO is the delicate and
through textile definitely on the sheer patterns
selection and “ones to watch that can only be
construction list” this season. seen through a
– creating Striking prints, microscope.
timeless design bold silhouettes, The collection
with a traditional and elevated showcased is
outlook of an classics are part designed based on
heirloom. THE of the brands the human body
MON AMI BIKER core identity. under the
JACKET bridges Based in microscope,
both American and European biker jacket design, Vancouver, featuring distinctive
creating a new tailored style. Visit Canada and shapes and colours in their elegant and timeless
sebastienami.com or follow @sebastienami available pieces. Visit elenibantra.com
on IG. globally. Visit senko.ca and IG @senkostudios (IG) @eleni.bantra
Beat OutdOOr gear gOreea Faun studiO

Be unique. Be exciting. Faun by designer
Don’t let your Marisa P. Clark
activewear hold you presents her line ‘The
back. Beat Outdoor Collectors’ as an ode
Gear offers multi- to the human
purpose activewear that experience and
reflects a sense of reflection on our
empowerment, existence. Her designs
creativity and pairs simple, modern
movement. Pictured silhouettes with wild
here is their Mirna High tropical patterns,
Waist leggings and designed whilst
Agnes Bra. Visit travelling in Vietnam.
Founded by Rodika Goreea, GOREEA is a
beatoutdoorgear.com Timeless, understated
women’s ready to wear fashion brand. Strong,
(IG) @beatoutdoorgear and playful reflects
bold and feminine designs with sophisticated yet
the brand’s ethos.
playful silhouettes that represent the European
Visit faunstudio.com
chic mixed with the Canadian urban style.
(IG) @faunstudio
Visit goreeadesigns.com (IG) @goreeadesigns
miyuki studiOs giOa ® JOyce yOung

Miyuki sTudios is
a Japanese clothing
and home goods
brand based in los
angeles. The
founder Miyuki
Bowles brings
antique kimonos to
modern life, carrying
over traditional
techniques and
fashions into Gioa picciurro is a sicilian fashion designer.
contemporary Gioa® is a brand of high-quality fashion
luxuries. every piece accessories, made in italy. The art nouveau
is a one-of-a-kind, stained glass is transformed into luxurious bags.
true work of art. The Baglass collection is 100% leather,
handcrafted and silk- screen printed by skilled
visit miyukistudios.com and follow on artisans. visit gioafashiondesigner.com
iG @miyukistudios (iG) @gioa_fashion_designer
emuska danielle Fichera

a “Bijou de col” The holiday-minded line,
gives character to danielle fichera is a luxury
an outfit and shows collection of sustainable
a unique particular resort wear inspired by
style. emuska want travels in the côte d’azur,
to highlight the influenced by treasured
know-how of finds from the les puces
haute couture market in paris and
embroidery, portobello road in london, special occasion outfits, individually made
through distinctive and crafted in new york to measure and exclusively available from
and exceptional from the world’s finest Joyce young showrooms in london and
pieces. she creates sustainably sourced Glasgow. established over 26 years this
these from her materials from italy. award-winning designer is a best kept secret
studio in Their eclectic, impeccably among her discerning clients worldwide who
switzerland with made garments are a covet the luxurious fabrics and elegant and
love and fullness. unique interpretation of global style. unique designs.
visit emuska.ch iG @emuskacollection visit danielle-fichera.com visit joyceyoungcollections.co.uk
photo credits: denis antoniazzo. (iG) @daniellefichera_official Glasgow 0141 942 8900
london 020 7224 7888
mOndame alyki Jugu

MondaMe boldly alyki is a young Jugu produces fashion
reinterprets the knitwear brand, accessories made at the
To adverTise please conTacT classvaniTyfair@condenasT.co.uk or 020 7499 9080 x3705

effortless parisian look created exclusively foot of the Himalayas
through a unisex and with cashmere and by local minority
minimalist collection. natural fibres, women using their
Mixing street designed by luisa de traditional techniques
influences and finesse, palma. Her mantra is of shibori and batik
léakhéna oum and quality and region, with natural indigo dye.
angélica estrada play with a strong focus on They support
with contrasts between colour and detail. Her local sustainable
chic and urban, collection offers soft development by
masculine and feminine and oversized styles encouraging the
: they break down dress that allow freedom of continuation of these
codes and offer a movement and handicrafts. The
sense of individuality. comfort. visit alyki.it pieces are a blend of
visit mondame.fr or (iG) @alyki_cashmere traditional motifs and modern design giving
follow on iG @mondame_official them a chic and timeless quality. visit jugu.co.uk
photographer: Johanna sallem. (iG) @juguindigo
thaBer BOrBOleta Bags seW rOmantic

Born and produced Borboleta Bags are
in new york, chic and thoughtfully
THaBer is a designed for your
luxury athleticwear needs. useful functions
driven by an include a back zipper
appreciation for and upright cardholder.
timeless designs, Their durable vegan
and a commitment leather bags are
to sustainable waterproof, cruelty-
fashion. an free and very
emerging chic lightweight. you will
brand you will be love the functions and
happy you spotted also you’ll feel good
first! visit using because a part of
thaberwear.com their profit helps fund breakfast and educational sew romantic designs is based in portland, or
or follow programs for underprivileged students in where sarah hand designs & photograph’s each
@thaberwear Thailand. visit borboletabag.com dress. each dress is unique and never exactly
on iG. (iG) @borboletabag the same. visit sewromanticdesigns.com or
follow @sewromanticdesigns on iG.
Sartorial Style
haBur ChÀnta no syMPathy sWiM
CHÀNTA No Sympathy Swim is a
celebrates revolutionary swimwear
conscious brand dedicated to
luxury and old empowering women to
savoir-faire. The make environmentally
excellence in conscious purchases.
craftsmanship Crafted from
translates into a abandoned fishnets and
collection of plastics found in the
opulent world’s oceans, these
handbags show stopping pieces
handcrafted in were designed to
Italy. The inspire sustainability
architectural in the fashion
silhouettes are created to maintain relevance industry. Visit
and quality over time. Visit mychanta.com and nosympathyswim.com
follow on IG @chanta.official or follow
IG @nosympathyswim
jenah st. Chany Venturini Couture

High- Maria Venturini is a Latin
performance American designer who
vegan leather embarked on a fashion career
meets Italian and developed a line called
luxury for a Venturini Couture showing
cleaner and her latest collections during
HABUR was born with the vocation of fulfilling cruelty-free fashion weeks around the
the ambitions to be different and prescient. It industry. Jenah world. The romantic style of
encourages you to freely, fashionably express St. cultivates a her design has become a
yourself. “Happy Cashmere” is not only a “consume less, signature inspired by
concept but also a promise to your experience consume better” high-end ateliers in Paris
of grace. Follow them on IG @haburcashmere or mindset with and Milan. Her soft
visit habur.co long-lasting and sensual styles, fascinating details and
purposeful exceptional tailoring is what makes Venturini
designs made in Couture the go-to destination for high-end
Italy with an gowns and evening wear.
Ecolabel certified Visit venturinicouture.com or follow
material. Visit jenah-st.com (IG) @jenah_st @venturinicouture on IG.
taMar Kate suMMer dreaMs sWiMWear

Eco-friendly Summer Dreams
brand TAMAR Swimwear is a
KATE is boutique New
designed and Zealand brand
manufactured creating affordable,
in Vancouver, high-end designs.
Canada. Each Each piece is made
piece is made to express the
from organic individuality of the
fabrics and is woman who wears
designed for a it. Designed by
relaxed and effortlessly stylish fit. Pioneering hand and limited
slow fashion, TK is about things that last and edition, swimwear
maintains an uncompromising commitment to by Summer Dreams
the highest standards both in fabric quality and sets you apart.
craftsmanship. Their fabrics are not only good
for you, but good for the planet. Visit summerdreamsswim.com and follow on
Visit tamarkate.com (IG) @tamarkate IG @summerdreamsswimwear
aMBra Castello antoninias helejanÉ

Ambra Castello HELEJANÉ by Nigerian
preserves the crafts and fashion designer,
proposes innovative Dolapo Deji-Torey is
handmade products, carving a niche in the
using fishing wire, Teflon luxury leather space.
and own print fabric, She simultaneously
born from continuous celebrates Nigeria’s rich
research and cultural heritage and is
experimentation. You unabashedly feminine
can choose between in her expression. Her
reproduced products on latest collection, ‘Le
Antoninias is an ethical and sustainable resort Cheval’, represents the
request and unique
brand that embraces the essence of the carefree strength and
pieces. The brand policy
powerful woman, her purpose to be different drive of the horse while celebrating strong
assures high-quality
and unique. All pieces in their collection are beautiful women achieving success. Quality,
items and protects the
limited edition and their multi-garment approach elegance and artistic style are all portrayed in
environment from the overproduction of articles.
supports the idea of an ever-shifting, Helejané’s collection. Visit helejane.com/ebook
(unused >< recreated) Visit ambracastello.com
fashion-conscious swimsuit. antoninias.com (IG) @thehelejaneofficial
and (IG) @ambracastello
(IG) @antoninias
Opulent Jewels
1. Michellia is a premium fine jewellery brand committed to celebrating the 1 2
unique beauty of every love story. Handcrafted with only the finest materials and
gemstones, their jewellery balances modern and vintage aesthetics to bring
unique individuals together and unforgettable moments to life.
visit michellia.com or @michelliafinejewelry on iG.
2. anklita’s anklets and charms are perfect as a christmas gift

to yourself or a loved one. Be inspired by the personalised
possibilities and stacking ideas, for that sentimental, memorable
and long-lasting gift. follow @anklitaofficial on iG.
3. ricciardi designs minimalist, gold, diamond and turquoise jewels

for any occasion. raphaella ricciardi created this socially conscious brand in 2019 3
with the purpose of conserving the ocean by donating a portion of proceeds. shop
her unique and timeless pieces at ricciardijewelry.com or on iG @ricciardijewerly 4
4. ayu house is an emerging Barcelona brand that’s inspired by and made for
thriving women. its limited edition collections are handcrafted in spain. They are
sleek, divine, and suitable for any occasion. Be it a casual brunch date or an elegant
day out at royal ascot. shop the latest iconic collection at ayuhouse.com and
follow on iG and fB @ayuhousejewelry
5. loa is a Montreal artist who works with pearls all around the world. pictured is an
akoya pearl (from Japan) set with 925 sterling silver and rose gold plated chain.
she can create custom pieces, simply let her know what you desire at
loa-boutique.com and follow @theloaboutique on iG.
6. nilaÏ Paris is a french designer jewellery brand enhancing the ‘mix and 5
match’ concept with grace and elegance. all pieces and designs are 24k
gold-plated and natural semi-precious stones. Browse the collection at nilai.fr and
follow on iG @nilaiParis
7. neso – Jewellery inspired by all deep sea creatures and nesō [Νησώ], the natural
satellite of neptune. nesō.studio traces its own, highly eccentric orbit in the world 6
of modern jewellery design. inspired by magical creatures and deities of the Greek
seas, it surfaces to be reunited with its true owner, the one yearning to hear its story.
visit nessostudio.com or follow @neso.studio on iG.
8 . QP Jewellers promotes the organic beauty of natural gemstones in an array

of handcrafted designs featuring the finest cuts, hues and settings. explore
Qp’s exclusive collection at qpjewellers.com or follow on iG @qpjewellers 7
8
9. Brilliance and kindness merge with the chic, refined collections of
twinkle links. not only does the company donate 10% of every
sale to charities that empower women and children, but the 9
high-quality, stylishly modern pieces that brilliant designer sally
leung creates are guaranteed to level up your style game. check out
twinklelinks.com or @twinklelinks on iG to start turning heads and
filling hearts.
10. arbalia studio is a london-based design workshop that investigates

natural patterns and organic processes of formation to identify new aesthetics
in contemporary design and to define new challenges within the context of our 10
society. The studio started in 2017 with aliya, Gabriele and Giulio: friends, makers
and passionate designers. shop arbaliastudio.com (iG) @arbaliastudio
11. la based seVen saints has inspiring and unique jewellery to activate
your spiritual self and divine feminine energy. founded and designed by new
Zealander and reiki master, kaliah shil’ee, the jewellery uses stones and
symbols as a healing reminder of our own inner power. find them at
sevensaints.life or @sevensaintslife on iG. 11
12. wicken Jewellery is designed by kim Mackay and hand crafted in new 12
Zealand. The Wicken Jewellery collection is about empowering your inner
Goddess. Wicken harnesses the symbols and knowledge of Wicca, combined with
protective and positive crystals. The purpose is not only to adorn the body, but to
inspire the soul and invigorate the spirit. shop at wicken.co.nz and follow on
iG @wickenjewellery
13. constellation earrings by Mosaico Jewellery. Mosaico

14
focuses on the beauty of natural gemstones with a modern and
sleek spin to each design. The pieces are colourful and exclusive.
visit mosaicojewellery.co.uk iG @mosaicojewellery
13
14. los angeles based Priscilla Ford designs each ring from
her family’s native Brazil to be unique and one of a kind. ethically 15
sourced and double dipped in yellow gold, the hottest celebrities
have found her adjustable rings to be the perfect accessory.
visit priscillaford.com or follow on iG @priscillaford
15. sondr london was created by london born shamim

vorajee. a brand aimed at creating jewellery inspired by life’s
journeys, experiences and adventures. The pieces are modern treasures designed to
celebrate that everyone has a story to tell. visit sondrlondon.com or follow
@sondrlondon on iG.
16. lisa young lee offers canadian-made luxury healing jewellery that vibrates
positive energy. Their gemstones and pearls—supercharged with reiki healing and
good intentions—can help you attract love, luck, calm and so much more.
16
visit lisayounglee.com or follow on iG @lisayounglee
Opulent Jewels
17 17. Megan Wilson JeWelry is a Texan brand which features handcrafted
18 jewellery designed by Megan Wilson. Offering one of a kind jewellery, Megan
Wilson Jewelry is inspired by Earth’s natural treasures. Visit meganawilson.com
or follow @meganwilsonjewelry on IG.
18. From México to the world. luZia JeWerly presents feminine, fresh and exquisite
pieces inspired by the special moments of life. These rainbow rings are made with
Mexican 925 silver with a touch of gold. These pieces are part of their everyday jewellery
19 collection. Follow @luziajewelry on IG.
19. Kindness geMs, a California-based brand, offers the perfect minimalist,

bohemian look. This handcrafted statement ring features the finest 14k Gold and
ethically sourced Indian Rubies. 20% of every purchase goes directly to charity.
Visit kindnessgems.com and IG @kindnessgems
20. Nicole de Gale lovingly creates charming collections for her luxury jewellery
brand niKKiBiedes. Featuring one-of-a-kind pieces inspired by her Caribbean
lifestyle, Founder Nicole has an af finity for natural freshwater pearls and
20 semi-precious stones emanating a high-end island chic look for the day or night.
For orders: nicole@nikkibiedes.com (IG) @nikkibiedes
21
21. Petra totH is a Slovak jeweller and designer. In her production she uses
original Slavic ornaments and transforms them into sophisticated
contemporary form. The Fledgeling collection is tied with nature by its
emerald green colours. The centrepiece of the collection is a little bird
which symbolizes the struggle for inner freedom. Visit petratoth.sk and
follow @petratothjewellery on IG.
22. BeneatH tHe BarK is a sustainable wood jewellery brand. They

believe in quality and purpose. Nearly all the wood used to make their
jewellery comes from a recycled source. They take pride in handcrafting one
of a kind wears everyone can enjoy. (IG) @beneaththebarkjewelry
beneaththebarkjewelry.com
22 24 23. Pauline PesKoFF is an award-winning jewellery designer based

23 in Ontario, Canada, who creates meticulously hand-stitched designs
that accentuate feminine energy and strength. This “Nebula” bracelet
features Swarovski crystal center-stone and Japanese glass beads.
Visit paulinepeskoff.com and follow @PaulinePeskoff on IG.
24. BergMan JeWels. Designer Isabelle Bergman

from Antwerp, the famous ‘city of diamonds’, designs
colourful jewellery for women to express a special touch
to their style. Isabelle uses exceptional semi-precious
stones and high-quality diamonds processed in 18-carat gold.
Visit bergmanjewels.com and follow on IG @bergmanjewels
25. Introducing delicora. High quality, lightweight, delicate. Personal

jewellery as unique as the woman who wears it – designed with simplicity
and timeless style. Founder Sandra Martinelli creates every unique
collection for all skin types using hypoallergenic 14k gold filled and sterling
silver materials. From classic to bohemian to sophisticated styles, the collection
includes a wide range of semi-precious stones intended to capture a woman’s
27
25 confidence, natural beauty and individual style. Visit delicora.com
(IG) @shopdelicora
26. cHrissy liu JeWelry offers bold yet wearable

26 jewellery. Her collections are carefully handcrafted with mixed
sterling and gold metals and unique stones and textures.
Shop her line and discover a one of a kind piece, to express
your confidence. Use code ‘VFUK’ for a 10% off (exp. 01/01/2020).
Visit chrissyliujewelry.com (IG) @chrissycliu
29 27. Faceted Ethiopian 14k rose gold ring by del PoZZo JeWelry.
Opal’s reflective nature is thought to pick up your own thoughts,
28 amplify and return them right back to you. Draw in a positive light
with this unique Ethiopian Opal Ring made special with sprinkled
diamonds. Visit delpozzojewelry.luxury (IG) @delpozzojewelry
28. saraH MurPHy challenges the standard of perfection in

jewellery making and the value of the materials being used. She
creates her own ‘gems’ by recycling discarded plastic from her
family’s factory. Discover more at sarahmurphyjewelry.com and on
IG @sarahmurphyjewelry
29. esteVana, by Mexican sisters and architects Estefania and Silvana Barrios,
are sweet jewels that immerse the person who wears it into a world of
sophistication and magic. By using a delicate design of 18k gold and precious
stones, the pieces aim to produce an explosion of sensations, leaving you
mesmerised. Timeless and fearless, Estevana is bound to become part of your life.
Discover the full collection online at estevana.com and follow on
IG @estevanajewelry
30. Pierre d’aleXis, jeweler-designer, presents the new and very rare Swiss
precious stone “Rose de Mine” with its natural intense pink, highlighted in the “Gaia”
suite, with pendant and earrings, in red and white twisted golds, set with diamonds.
30 Unique creation, entirely handcrafted – (photo credit: Alain Pitteloud) – To find out
more visit pierredalexis.com or follow on IG @pierre_d_alexis
31. amy Wells designs. Amy Wells is an

amazing designer from the southern United 33
States with a passion for rustic gemstone 31
jewellery that is incredibly unique with a
boho-chic flair. To see her breathtaking designs
32
visit amywellsdesigns.com
32. Jag neW york is a high-end jewellery brand
created by designer Roland Krainz. All jewellery is
handcrafted specializing in one of a kind creations such
as this butterfly python cuff. To view more JAG New
York collections, visit Jagnewyork.com or follow on
IG @Jagnewyork
34
33. Kerie Tonkin from solder in the Adelaide Hills,
Australia, designs and hand makes bespoke jewellery inspired by natural
forms. This Wrapped Oxidised Sterling Silver Ring explores
metamorphosis and beauty that emerges from within. Visit solder.net.au
or follow IG @solder_studio
34. Verticesedge creates a collection of bold and timeless pieces.
Jewellery designer John Robertson is known for his impeccable
craftsmanship. This design was inspired by a Berkeley shape
algorithm. John creates exquisite and organic designs to give that
outstanding look whatever the occasion. Visit verticesedge.com to 35
view the full collection or email contact@verticesedge.com
37
with enquiries.
35. Frances was founded by Meredith Blacker Isacoff, a New 36
York-based jewellery designer by passion and trade. She was
inspired to create the timeless pieces she had been unable to find:
sophisticated accessories with a touch of edge. Meredith
founded Frances Curated in 2019, an edited collection of pieces
from her favourite brands, which includes her eponymous line as
well. Pictured are her Half Starburst earrings. Visit
Francescurated.com and follow on IG @Francescurated
36. cecescroWns make handmade uniquely embellished headbands,
perfect for special occasions, nights out or daywear if you want to stand 38
out from the crowd. The he adbands range from heavily embellished to
more subtle designs, so you can find the perfect one for any event. View
collection online at etsy.com/shop/cecescrowns or on the Asos
Marketplace and follow @cecescrowns on IG.
37. As snakes shed their skin through sloughing, they are symbols of
rebirth, transformation, immortality and healing. If you connect to these 41
symbolisms, the “Coral Snake” ring by rosa Van Parys in 18K yellow
Gold, white + black Diamonds, Rubies and Emerald eyes can be your 40
perfect amulet. Visit rosavanparys.com or follow on 39
(IG) @shoprosavanparys
38. susana lang makes semi bespoke jewellery pieces, including a
selection of gold and precious stones, which you can tailor to your taste.
Visit susanalang.com or follow @susana_lang on IG.
39. mac and ry JeWelry is handcrafted by designer Cindy in
TO ADVERTISE PLEASE CONTACT CLASSVANITYFAIR@CONDENAST.CO.UK OR 020 7499 9080 x3705

Southern California. The beautifully unique and classic designs are made
with 14k gold fill, sterling silver and semiprecious stones. Available at
selected US boutiques. Visit macandryjewelry.com or follow on
IG @macandryjewelry
40. negiaBani is a San Francisco brand with modern designs for
modern girls and women. This simple yet elegant necklace adds a glam
flavour to your everyday look. Create your own unique necklace by 42
picking your chain length and your choice of material! Shop on
negiarabani.com and follow on IG @negiarabanisf
43
41. soliloquy JeWelry is designed and handcrafted by
Boston-based artist Kerin Scales. She harnesses inspiration from her
studies in literature, Irish heritage, and knowledge of myth and lore,
and forges one of a kind symbolic tales told in metal and stone.
Visit soliloquyjewelry.com (IG) @soliloquyjewelry
42. sara yo sPirit JeWels. A doctor-created healing bracelet makes
a statement with stunning shades of blue colours and beautiful sparkles.
The healing elements of the centre stone were formed underground
millions of years ago. Learn more at sarayoJewelry.com or on
IG @sara.yo.spirit.Jewels 44
43. dana Busch designs. One-of-a-kind sculptural works of art for

the body. Precious, semi-precious and rare materials are harmoniously
combined and meticulously hand fabricated, guided by nature’s beauty
and Dr Busch’s intuitive aesthetic. Visit danabuschdesigns.com and also
available at medicinemangallery.com (IG) @danabuschdesigns
44. scatter JeWellery creates pieces inspired by line drawings of
architecture and natural form. Modern colours and textures are
incorporated resulting in playful but sophisticated jewellery. 45
Shop at scatterjewellery.com or follow on IG @scatter_jewellery
45. treasureBay offers unique and high-quality jewellery, turning 925
Sterling Silver, Natural Gemstones and Cultured Freshwater Pearls into
lifelong treasures. Carefully handcrafted pieces that captivate and
celebrate the individuality of those wearing them, discover more at
treasurebay.co.uk and @treasurebayuk on IG.
The Vanity Box

1 1. Natural, wild crafted and vegan. This one versatile product will do it all. Lunah LiFe
sandalwood exfoliant and mask, is an infusion of active botanicals and gentle clays.
2 Used daily will help to give the appearance of brighter skin. Visit lunahlife.com for
3 more or follow on IG @Lunahlife
2. LiPstuK is the new, innovative lip tool to the beauty
industry that helps to keep lipstick off your teeth and is
easy to use. The tool has been specifically created to
remove excess lipstick from inside your lips while the
curved tip perfectly fits the lips for blending your favourite
lip product. Dishwasher safe. Visit lipstuk.com and
IG @lovelipstuk
3. MytiMe MineraLs is a luxury body and bath range.
‘Face – Rejuvenating Mask’ is their indulgent 3-in-1
complete facial in a jar. Rich in jojoba oil and balanced with
antiseptic peppermint oil, it will help to not clog pores.
Suitable for all skin types it’s particularly amazing during
cold and dry months. It helps to give the appearance of a
glowing, smooth and younger look. Shop their range of
products mytimeminerals.com and follow on
IG @mytimeminerals
4. Based in Canada, nat’s Organic Lab is carefully crafting a line of
lip care products using 100% organic ingredients. They help to restore
and nourish your lips naturally! Find out more at natsorganiclab.com and
4
get the latest news by following @nats.ol on IG.
5. basZicare. Nature is a muse. baszicare has relied
on nature to create Artius eye vital supreme. Artius, an
unprecedented eye cream, targets puffiness and dark
5 circles for a firmer and more refined appearance. Visit
baszicare.com and follow on IG @baszicare
6. yangu beauty is a vegan skincare line that uses
African oils and herbs. Their award-winning Gel-To-Milk
Cleanser leaves your skin feeling soft and supple, whilst
their Cleansing Whip helps to minimise the appearance of
pores and is suitable for sensitive skin. Their Even Tone
6 Serum helps reduce the appearance of dark spots. It
7
contains luxury ingredients such as Rooibos Tea.
Visit yangubeauty.com and @yangubeauty (IG).
7. Achieve the appearance of fuller, plumped lips, nourished
with moisture from teOXane’s latest innovation: [3D] Lip,
proven Shop now and get 20% off your order with the code
VFOLIP (Exp. 1/12/19) at teoxaneshop.com – further
details online . Follow on IG #oneinabillion *In-vivo test +
Self assessment carried out on 22 volunteers by an
independent laboratory (study 18E2449 – 2019).
8. Experience the indulgence of the rich runes 100%
vegan and cruelty free face and body butter. The uplifting
essential oils from orange, cucumber and avocado enhance
the benefits of the body butter providing a fast absorbing,
non greasy feel to the skin. Making their body butter a true
pleasure to use and an easy fit into your daily routine.
#Do something for you everyday runesskincare.com
(IG) @runesskincare
9. KOquette bOX contains a luxurious
selection of carefully-curated, cruelty-free
and clean skincare. Every two months the
brand makes a difference by partnering
with small, ethical brands and businesses
to provide you with a relaxing at-home
9 10 experience. Indulge in a carefully-selected
skincare routine delivered straight to your
home! Visit koquettebox.com or follow
them on IG @koquettebox
10. uPFrOnt cOsMetics was born out of a
8 need for transparency in the cosmetics industry,
committed to being transparent in what is in their
products and how their products are made.
Their solid shampoo bars are free from plastic
packaging and each bar diverts up to three
plastic bottles from the landfill. Leaping
Bunny certified and free from sulfates,
parabens and synthetic fragrances.
Visit upfrontcosmetics.ca and
11 IG @upfrontcosmetics
11. LuMin is a Los Angeles male skincare
brand rapidly winning customers worldwide.
The simplistic need-based regimens and highly
effective formulas are perfect for any man,
skincare novice or expert, to look and feel his
best. Visit luminskin.com and use code
LUMIN20 for 20% off your first purchase.
VANITY FAIR ADVERTISING FEATURE
12. YAYFOREARTH is a zero waste business with an all

purpose se nsitive skin face moisturiser that was created by
climate activist, Stevie Van Horn, to prove a product can 15
support nature as well as our faces and bodies. Apply anytime
to balance and calm the skin. Email info@yayforearth.com
Website yayforearth.com IG @stevieyaaaay
13. ELIZABETH MOTT. This face primer is a real-life selfie
14
filter. It’s a lightweight, cruelty-free primer that minimizes the
appearance of pores and mattifies. It’s working overtime to
make sure your makeup doesn’t move an inch. Don’t worry,
you can thank me later. Visit elizabethmott.com
(IG) @elizabethmott 12
14. VITACLEAN. Transform skin and hair with a Vitaclean
Vitamin C shower head. It’s the perfect solution to hard water
as it softens water, neutralises chlorine and leaves skin and hair feeling soft
and silky all whilst creating a spa-like aromatherapy effect! Visit vitacleanhq.com 13
(IG) @vitaclean_official
15. LUXE HEAVENLY BODIES is a clean beauty brand you need to try, and their
Mature Skin Serum is not to be missed. Light and long lasting, this serum is packed
with active peptides. This helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. 16 17
Includes Oils of Jasmine, Macadamia Nut, Squalene & Golden Jojoba, Hyaluronic,
Aloe, Rose and several powerhouse botanicals. Shop online at Lhbskin.com
or follow on IG @Lhbskin
16. BEAUTYTECH COSMETICS is the beauty brand making waves in the
skincare world and we’re sold. With the first-ever personalised tinted serums
and glow sprays infused with probiotics, collagen, peptides, topical botox and
more, your skincare is your makeup. With 14 shades and Nobel-prize
ingredients, their products hydrate and nourish with moisture leaving your
skin glowing. Visit beautytechcosmetics.com (IG) @beautytechcosmetics
17. LOTTE NATURALS delivers the freshest in skincare, providing skin with
the nutrients and vitamins it needs. A gluten free, vegan friendly, cruelty free,
chemical free and completely toxic free brand. To see their full range visit
lottenaturals.com or follow @lottenaturals on IG.
18. ROSÉ TORONTO believe in clean beauty. Their products revolve 20
around safe, sustainable and organic ingredients. Their Organic Face Oil 18
contains Rosehip, Pomegranate and Jojoba. It is cruelty-free and
suitable for all skin types. This oil helps to reduce the appearance of
fine lines and redness. Visit rosetoronto.ca and @rosetoronto.ca (IG).
19
19. SA SANTÉ is a new brand for feminine beauty, which produces
artisanal small batch production of feminine moisturiser. Owner
Michelle Han is a full time working mother who has teamed up with
a world-renowned Beverly Hills OBGYN and expert herbalist, to
create an innovative yet personal organic lotion that contains
natural ingredients, that promote general feminine wellness.
Discover more at saante.com and @sa_sante on IG. 21
20. Say goodbye to anxiety, nerves, stress, racing heart, agitation
and irritability with MARRO PRODUCTS’ 100% natural,
plant-derived CBD + therapeutic terpene blend. This roller bottle
has a pleasant citrus aroma and convenient roll-on applicator to
TO ADVERTISE PLEASE CONTACT CLASSVANITYFAIR@CONDENAST.CO.UK OR 020 7499 9080 X3705

make you feel at ease anytime, anywhere. Relax. Release. Unwind.
Visit marroproducts.com and follow @marroproducts on IG.
21. VALLEY MIST founder and creator Jo is on a mission to reduce single use plastic within
the cosmetic industry, built from the ground up as a sustainable business Valley Mist offers
either 100% plastic free, reusable or refillable premium cosmetics and wellness products. 22
Shown here the 2-in-1 Cleansing and Moisturising cream with Neroli and Rosehip oil.
Visit valleymist.co.uk and @myvalleymistsmile on IG.
22. KAMILA AUBRE. Eco-luxe botanical fragrances made of 100% natural, vegan
and sustainable ingredients. Inspired by poetry, minimalism and slow living, the
highly concentrated perfumes are designed and made in Belgium. The famous
Villanelle perfume made its breakthrough in 2018. Visit kamilaaubre.com
or follow @Kamila Aubre
23. SISTER SEOUL K-BEAUTY presents Primera – Meet the new plant-based,
worry-free skin care that proves going clean doesn’t mean trading down. By pairing
nutrient-dense seed extracts and oils with innovative K-beauty technologies and 23
textures. These formulas housed in eco-packaging are pure and planet-friendly.
Visit sisterseoul.com or follow @sisterseoulbeauty on IG.
24
24. ANNABELLE MINERALS Pretty Neutral Primer consists of multi-
coloured clays and is the perfect base before applying makeup. The satin
formula leaves the appearance of a sleek matte look. Follow them on IG
@annabelleminerals_uk or visit eshopannabelle.com/eu/en to see more
25
of the collection.
25. URBAN JUVE presents Ayurveda-inspired wellness skincare. Made
in Canada, the brand’s Skin Awakening Anti-Aging Serum has been
carefully formulated with sea buckthorn oil and their signature hemp root
oil. Apply 1-2 drops twice a day to a clean face and neck to reduce the 26
appearance of fine lines and to leave skin feeling nourished with
moisture and appearing glowing. Visit urbanjuve.com
and IG @urbanjuve
26. BELOVED BEAUTY promotes veganism and self-love through
100% organically derived products that are gentle to your skin. All
products are cruelty-free and designed to help your skin while
preserving the nature around us and all its inhabitants. Visit
shop.belovedbeauty.de and follow on IG @belovedbeautyofficial
On Art
1. andy Farr is an award-winning British painter. His work is
1 2 3
often issue-based, most recently focusing on the experiences of
people recovering from post-traumatic stress. He uses a variety
of mediums, oil, acrylic, graphite and collage to contribute to the
storytelling. Find out more at andyfarr.com and IG @andyfarrart
2. Pullman editions designs striking original limited-edition posters
4 that capture the enduring appeal of Art Deco. Their posters feature winter
sports, glamorous resorts around the world and historic automobiles. Over
100 designs available at £395 each. Call 020 7730 0547 or view and buy
online at pullmaneditions.com
3. Justine Foord is the first solo female artist from the UK to exhibit in
modern times in Cuba, her artwork “Trinidad to Havana” is currently in the
British Embassy art collection in Havana, Cuba. ‘Candela’ was her first
international travelling exhibition that opened in Madrid and then onto
5 Cuba, which has been featured in British Culture Week hosted by the British
6 7 embassy in Havana. Foord’s signature method of painting directly on
photographs is on full display in this body of work, with gorgeous, moody
colourful landscapes partially obscured with surreal clouds of smoke and soot.
Featured here is “Trinidad to Havana” artwork that is in the British Embassy art
collection in Havana, Cuba. Visit justinefoord.com (IG) @justinefoord
4. audrey summers smitH’s art explores the essential and expansive
vitality of animals using a vibrant, graphic style that expresses boldness and
intimacy. A self-taught artist, she lives on Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula.
Featured in Grand Rapids ArtPrize IX. Visit audreysummerssmith.com or
email audreysummerssmith@gmail.com
5. melissa ayr, born in New York, is an abstract painter with clients all over
the world. Ayr was selected as one of ten artists represented by Ruinart
8 Champagne, a brand of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey. Pictured: “It’s Beautiful”,
9 acrylic on canvas – painted using a leaf blower. Web:
10 melissaayr.com IG: @melissaayr Email: info@melissaayr.com
6. Cora green is a self-taught artist born and raised in
Nolensville, Tennessee. She started her art journey at the age of
four. Her artwork reflects the emotions we face in everyday life.
She finds the love of monochromatic in most of her paintings.
She works in all mediums, but her favourite are watercolour and
acrylic. Search @artist_called_cora on IG or
email coracolors@gmail.com
7. American contemporary artist raCHel tribble’s award-
winning dream-like paintings are recognised for their meditative
11 12 13 quality as experiments in space, colour and light. To learn more visit
racheltribble.com or email the studio at hello@racheltribble.com
8. georgia steele is a Melbourne based artist and a recent graduate
from RMIT University. She works predominately with photographic print
techniques. Exploring ideas of escapism creating formations and
recreating landscape. Georgia is planning on postgraduate study next
year. georgiasteeledesign.wordpress.com (IG) @georgiasteeledesign
9. gina Plunder creates innovative, unique art that aims to draw the
viewer into an imaginary world of fantasy and visionary architecture.
Her work, often featuring figures and iconic buildings from around the
world aims to catch the light and appear to break it into crystal prism
creating an abstract style. Visit ginaplunder.com and follow on
14 15 IG @ginaplunder
10. Using the natural world as her guide, Kim roberts creates colourful works that
represent the relationship between our everyday world and the supernatural. See
Kimrobertsart.com or @Kimrobertsart for more information.
11. Each symbol illustrates an emotion. tim grosJean can transfer the feeling he has
for one person into a piece of art called symbol. The purpose of his work is to combine
art and human relation by sharing emotions and visions. Follow @tim.nicolas.grosjean
on IG to find out more.
12. Swedish artist Caroline rexborg is creating art with a mission to empower
people to recognize their own strength and power, hoping her paintings will
16 17 cause self-reflection and in turn greater self-love and appreciation.
Pictured is “In my feelings”. For more, visit IG @artbycarolinerere
carolinerexborg.com or email caroline.rexborg@gmail.com
13. samar Kamel is an Egyptian artist, curator and author known for
works that examine cultural attitudes towards women and aim to transform
stereotypes through vibrant depictions of the modern woman. She has
over 64 international art exhibitions and art fairs across the world and has
been assigned recently as World Art Dubai curator for the year 2019. Visit
samarkamel.com and email samarkamel22@gmail.com to find out more.
14. bo song is an artist from Seoul, Korea. Her beautiful, colourful art is
exhibited around the world. Bo incorporates circles and shapes into her unique peices, signifying the
connected natures of past and present. Visit bksong.com follow @bo.songg on IG to see more of her
work or email song682455@yahoo.co.kr for more information.
15. KenCH lott is an American artist residing in Savannah, Georgia. He received his Bachelor of Fine
Arts at Savannah State University and a Master of Fine Arts at Georgia Southern University. Primarily a
three-dimensional artist, he creates art across many disciplines. His work challenges the viewer’s sense of
space and depth. Visit kenchlott.com or follow @kench.art on IG.
16. Fine little sPaCe. Trine Lund (DK) works with mixed-media and every day excerpts obtaining an
aesthetic expression arising from new correlations. She has been an established artist for more than 10
years, is represented in Danish galleries, and has been admitted three times to the juried international
Artists Easter Exhibition, Denmark. Visit Finelittlespace.dk (IG) @finelittlespace_art
17. marCus Callum is a multiple award-winning artist trained in New York and Sydney who has been
described as a master of contemporary portrait painting. Charged with immense beauty, his paintings are
designed to invoke an emotional response and convey a profound sense of psychological insight.
Commission a portrait by contacting the studio at info@marcuscallum.com or visiting
marcuscallum.com Follow on IG @marcuscallum
Most Wanted
1. Pi-ret is the jewellery brand for women who love timeless pieces with a little
3
twist. designed with longevity in mind, their minimalist jewellery is made with the
finest materials, specialising in pearls. To find out more visit pi-ret.com or
follow on iG @piretjewelry
2. Backyard candles offers all natural soy/coconut wax
candles perfect for every home! We have over 50 fragrances to
choose from, such as The Holidays, evergreen, pumpkin spice latte,
cinnamon sugar and more. Best of all, our candles come in up-cycled
coconut shells that float! shop online at backyardcandles.com or
@backyardcandles on iG. 2 4
1
3. White & green is the bed linen that “feels so good, it’s like sleeping
on clouds”. The softest, silkiest organic cotton that’s easy to wash and
iron, and lasts a lifetime. your special discount for 15% off is vaniTyf
at whiteandgreenhome.com until January 30th 2020.
4. Mèka offers a wide range of carefully sourced and expertly
curated tea blends, from classics to speciality teas. High-quality
whole leaf tea in biodegradable pyramid bags and eye-catching box
design, making it the perfect gift as well. shop at meka.life or follow
on iG @mekalifeuk
5. a Muk BarcelOna phone case is a must-have. you can 5
7
customise any case with your name, initials or a personal design or
image. Muk Barcelona believes that your phone case is a fashion
accessory. visit mukbarcelona.com and follow on
iG @mukbarcelona 6
6. sally Blair ceraMics produces contemporary ceramics vessels.
each piece is a canvas for a one-of-a-kind painting. inspired by the Bauhaus, these 8
architectural objects are aiming to blend art, life, and craft. discover more at
sallyblairceramics.com and follow on iG @sallyblairceramics
7. artist karl J. kuerner (grandson of andrew Wyeth’s subjects karl and anna
kuerner) continues the artistic heritage of the celebrated “Brandywine valley”.
karl’s lifelong mentorship with neighbours andrew Wyeth and carolyn Wyeth
infused his artwork with the magic of the Brandywine Tradition. His highly sought
10
after imaginative paintings are exhibited and collected worldwide. look for karl’s
feature in Glenn Holsten’s american Masters documentary “Wyeth”.
visit karljkuerner.com
8. cate BrOWn bespoke sustainable cushions are crafted from beautiful
repurposed vintage garments, our atelier range uses end-cycle vintage garments
from luxury fashion houses such as chanel, louis vuitton, dior, and Hermes to name
a few. sustainable luxury without compromise. visit cate-brown.com 9
(iG) @catebrown_official
9. Making MindFul Manna presents its almond cranberry Granola.
a delectable combination of dried cranberries and organic almonds mixed 12
with nuts and seeds. We’ll leave it to your taste buds to do the rest.
shop online at makingmindfulmanna.com or follow on 11 13
iG @makingmindfulmanna
10. VOeu du cOeur, creates bespoke ring boxes from luxury
italian, french and British silk velvets. Manufactured in europe,
every box is completely artisan made, such as this ring box which

has been hand embroidered with 185 pearls. They are more than 14
simply a box and are designed to wow! visit voeu-du-coeur.com or
follow @voeu_du_coeur on iG.
11. easy liVin’ products offer luxury, relaxation and detachment
from the pursuit of everyday life. The brand believes that our skin does
not need chemistry or artificially crafted substances to look fresh. Take
time, massage your face and give yourself moments of self-love without 15
remorse with their high-quality rollers. visit easylivin.com.pl
12. a sWiVlit is an insulated, microwavable and leakproof flask, which keeps
food hot or cold for up to 5 hours. it can even be used to slow cook delicious meals on the move. a
swivlit is the perfect gift for professionals, busy parents, students and gym-goers alike! available in
various colours at swivlit.com and follow @swivlit on iG.
13. tahi new Zealand’s Beelicious honey tastes just... bee-autiful! Made especially for kids by honey
bees that forage on native new Zealand wildflowers, it celebrates our love of bees, birds and the land, so
it’s a perfect way to connect children to nature. visit tahinz.com or follow @tahinewzealand on iG.
14. Plantethics is an ethical, sustainable, vegan brand by Budapest-based designer Barbara denes,
creating elegant, minimalist, nature inspired jewellery for the conscious customer. all pieces are made of
responsibly sourced and recycled precious metal, wood, glass and real plants adding a sophisticated
touch to your outfit. visit plantethics.eu or follow @plantethics (iG).
15. dscent candles are formulated with essential organic oils and soy wax that’s healthy for
17
the environment. a lit candle not only aromatises your room and relaxes your environment, but it
doubles as a therapeutic treatment that can moisturise dry skin. spoil yourself the dscent way
and visit dscentcandles.com (iG) @dscentcandles
16. the WOOd liFe PrOJect is a family-run lifestyle brand that aims to replace 16
everyday plastic items in the home and workplace with innovative, beautifully designed,
eco-friendly, British-made and British-sourced wooden products. find out more at
thewoodlifeproject.com or iG thewoodlifeproject 18
17. choose your perfectly fitting fitness fashion from MOVi actiVeWear. Their
elegant and simple designs allow for maximum performance whilst flattering you
during your work out. Their main focuses are on performance, design, and care
which means each of their pieces are carefully designed so that their function is not
compromised by their stylish form. shop their full collection online at
moviactivewear.com and explore their iG @moviactivewear
18. 303 Face | BOdy Organics. allow your days to begin with the lovely
scents of english rose and your evenings to end with the calming aromas of
lavender. Herbal, organic skincare; built for self-care by 303 face | Body.
visit 303facebodyorganics.com
Proust The actress, who’ll next

Questionnaire appear in Netflix’s The Politician
and Amazon’s Transparent,
on activism and sweets
Judith
Light
W hat is your idea of perfect happiness? Having the opportunity to contribute

and serve. What is your greatest fear? Fear. What historical figure do you
most identify with? Anyone who has worked to make a difference in the world.
Which living person do you most admire? Bryan Stevenson. What is the trait you
most deplore in yourself? I dislike my impatience. What is the trait you most deplore
in others? Bigotry and cruelty in any form. What is your greatest extravagance? Ice
cream—particularly Vivoli gelato in Florence and Van Leeuwen vegan ice cream in New
York City. What is your favorite journey? The one I am on now: living in curiosity and
wonder, risk-taking, and deep connection to others. What do you consider the most
overrated virtue? Trying to make everyone happy. On What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
what occasion do you lie? I lie responsibly when there is Futility. Where would you like to live? Where I do,
the need to be kind. What do you dislike most about between New York City and Los Angeles; would add
your appearance? The wings beneath my arms. What is Europe. What is your favorite occupation? Working on a
your greatest regret? I do my best to live in the present. character and producing powerful stories. What is your
Regret is always in the past. Who or what is the greatest most marked characteristic? Perseverance, resilience,
love of your life? My husband and my work. When and discipline, and commitment to uncovering the truth.
where were you happiest? Anywhere in New York City, What is the quality you most like in a person? Integrity,
with my husband in our garden in L.A., and wherever I get gentility, listening, respectfulness, truthfulness, self-
to work. Which talent would you most like to have? awareness, kindness, generosity of spirit, humility, empa-
Speaking multiple languages fluently. What is your cur- thy, grace, and compassion. What do you most value in
rent state of mind? Deeply concerned for our country, our your friends? Humor, fun, connection, trust. Who are
freedom, our safety, our environment, and what we leave your favorite writers? My husband, Robert Desiderio;
to the next generations. If you could change one thing Anton Chekhov; Tennessee Williams; Eugene O’Neill;
about yourself, what would it be? Don’t save every- William Shakespeare; Paul Monette; Maya Angelou;
thing—throw out more stuff! What would you consider Oliver Sacks; Alice Hoffman; Edna St. Vincent Millay;
your greatest achievement? Thirty-eight years of mar- Søren Kierkegaard. Who are your heroes in real life?
riage, and advocacy for HIV/AIDS and the LGBTQ+ com- Elizabeth Taylor, Helen Keller, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela,
munity. If you were to die and come back as a person or Eleanor Roosevelt, Greta Thunberg, Malala Yousafzai,
thing, what do you think it would be? I’ll let the universe Stephen Hawking, Buckminster Fuller, Ella Baker, the
handle that. Evolution is continually surprising me. What LGBTQ+ community. What is it that you most dislike?
is your most treasured possession? The first ring my Lying, worry, undermining, lack of empathy. How would
husband gave me and the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award. you like to die? Peacefully.
164 VAN I T Y F A I R I L L U ST R AT IO N B Y RISKO NOV E M B E R 2019

Free with the December issue

PHOTO GR A PH: LUC B R AQUET
On sale 31 October
Haute Joaillerie, place Vendôme since 1906
9 NEW BOND STREET - HARRODS - SELFRIDGES

www.vancleefarpels.com - +44 20 7108 6210
Rubis flamboyant
transformable necklace
White and pink gold, diamonds,
one cushion-cut ruby of 25.76 carats,
18 oval-cut and cushion-cut rubies
for 30.40 carats.
Enjoy responsibly. Over 18s only.

drinkaware
Contents On Art 2019
Private View
17 State of the Arts

See the big picture with V.F.’s annual art
briefing: News, Bluffer’s Guide, Books,
Instagram Top 10 and Auction Report
Features
Pandemonia
42 B Y M A R YA M E I S L E R
What inspires the “Post-Pop” artist

behind this seven-foot plastic blonde?
Mirror Image
44 BY MAJA MARKOVIC, JUDE HULL
A N D A N D R É Z L AT T I N G E R
Christie’s specialists trace the evolution

of self-portraiture from the early 15th
century to our present social media age
Gilbert & George

48 B Y M A R YA M E I S L E R
The renowned duo discuss the sacred

and profane in their East End studio
The King of Pop

51 B Y N A T A S H A F R A S E R - C AV A S S O N I
AND S IMON DE BURTON
An insider reflects on the life and work

64
of Andy Warhol, while V.F.’s auction
Mates Portraits
aficionado considers his enduring appeal
Jonas Burgert
74 B Y M A R T I N G AY F O R D
Uncovering Francis Bacon and
58 BY ARSALAN MOHAMMAD
P H O T O G R A P H E D B Y PAT R I C K WA C K
Enter the dark world of this Berlin-

Lucian Freud’s colourful friendship
Derek Fordjour
based artist’s soul-searching works
The Unflinching Eye

80 BY FABIEN FRYNS
PHOTOGR APHED BY WINNIE AU
Vibrant colours and rich textures belie
60 B Y C AT H E R I N E F A I R W E AT H E R
Sir Don McCullin’s unlikely friendship

the harsh truths in this U.S. artist’s work
Portrait of the World

with like-minded artist Jason Brooks
Kehinde Wiley
82 B Y T E S S A L O R D , E V E LY N L I N
AND ASIA CHIAO
64 B Y D O R I A N M AY
Talking portraits, politics and pop

icons with this year’s cover star
A one-way ticket around the globe
courtesy of three Christie’s experts
Portraits and Sitters

Now You See Me 88 Tate Britain’s Director analyses Sir
66 B Y WA L D E M A R J A N U S ZC Z A K
The leading art historian reveals why

Peter Blake’s Self Portrait with Badges
while On Art’s editor, the director of the
CHRISTOPHER STURMA N (WIL EY)
Serpentine and Lucian Freud’s daughter

we can’t take portraits at face value examine their time in the hot seat
Yukimasa Ida On the

72
10 Editor’s Letter
BY FABIEN FRYNS
Cover 14 Contributors
P H O T O G R A P H E D B Y O G ATA 96 Desert Island Art
Cristian Albu
Meet the Japanese rising star with Kehinde Wiley
an astronomical commission photographed by
Christopher Sturman
8 VAN IT Y F A I R O N A RT NOV E M B E R 20 19
Editor’s Letter
The
Portraiture
Issue
“From today, painting is dead”—that is what painter
Paul Delaroche is supposed to have said when
seeing his first daguerreotype in 1839. All I can say
is that it is a good thing he did not tell our cover the great Waldemar Januszczak tells us in his piece:
star Kehinde Wiley as we would have been robbed, what you and I may see as pieces of fruit painted by
not only of a memorable cover image (if only more Picasso, is, so Waldemar was informed by the late Sir
artists wore suits of armour), but also of a body of John Richardson, actually a lascivious portrait of the
work that includes the epochal painting of President painter’s mistress .
Obama—a work that has done much to rehabilitate Elsewhere in this issue we visit Gilbert & George
the sometimes maligned genre of portraiture, the in the East End and Yukimasa Ida in his studio in
subject of this year’s Vanity Fair On Art. Japan—very different artists, at different stages in
As it happens, painting and photography their careers, on opposite sides of the earth, and
get on rather well these days as Lady McCullin yet each showing that portraiture is thriving and
demonstrates in her memoir of her husband Sir evolving. And I am very proud to be able to say that
Don’s unlikely bromance with Jason Brooks. Sir Peter Blake, everybody’s favourite MBA (Mature
Indeed, from time to time painting colludes with British Artist), agreed to be photographed next to
photography, as Hans Ulrich Obrist explains in his self-portrait in the Tate, a portrait by the way that
his fascinating essay on being painted by the great was photographed for the first issue of the Sunday
German master Gerhard Richter. Times Magazine back in 1962. This multiple layering
We are also very fortunate in having one of of photography and portraiture says much about the
Lucian Freud’s sitters, his daughter Susie Boyt, modern relationship between canvas and camera.
write about being painted three times by her father. As ever, all that remains for me to do is to thank
Freud painted many portraits and it is the theft our friends at Christie’s for their support, without
of one in particular—of his mighty contemporary which Vanity Fair On Art would not exist.
Francis Bacon—which is the departure point for
Martin Gayford’s riveting examination of their
extraordinary relationship.
Freud was famous for the unflinching truth of his
work and the unforgiving depiction of his subjects,
but portraiture need not be representative at all as NICHOLAS FOULKE S, Editor
VANITY FAIR On Art

YUKI MAS A IDA (PORTR A I T OF NICHOL AS FOUL KES)
Editor Nicholas Foulkes

Managing Editor Holly Ross
U.S. Editor Dorian May
Art Director Scott Moore Acting Deputy Art Director Tereza Jichova Art Editor Lou Macleod Designer Samantha Totty
Photo Editor Tanjya Holland Parkin Assistant Photo Editors Zoe Gahan, Monica Roche
Chief Copy Editor Sarah Edworthy Copywriter Jessica Burrell Junior Sub-Editor Rose Washbourn
Associate Publisher Clare Schifano
Head of Partnerships Lucie Burton-Salahuddin Senior Advertisement Director Emma Heuser Jewellery Advertisement Director Emma Samuel
Account Managers Emily Goodwin, Natasha Gresh Business & Partnerships Manager Charlotte Taylor
Partnerships Project Manager Hazel Byrne Partnerships Executives Hara Mavrogiorgi, Caroline Sillem
Events Sales Manager Victoria Furse Events Co-ordinator Saffy Altmeyer-Ennis
Senior Production Controller Helen Crouch Acting Production Controller Leonie Kellman Acting Production Co-ordinator Lottie Smith
Publishing Director Kate Slesinger
Copyright © 2019 The Condé Nast Publications Ltd, Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. Not to be sold separately. The publisher has endeavoured to
ensure that all information is correct at the time of going to press, but does not accept any responsibility for errors and omissions.
10 VAN IT Y F A I R O N A RT NOV E M B E R 2019

ABBOTT & BOYD • ALTFIELD • ALTON-BROOKE • ART RUGS GALLERY • ARTE • ARTERIORS • ARTISANS OF DEVIZES • BAKER • BAKER LIFESTYLE •
BEAUFORT COLLECTION • BELLA FIGURA • BESSELINK & JONES • BRUNSCHWIG & FILS • C & C MILANO • CECCOTTI COLLEZIONI • CHASE ERWIN
• CHRISTOPHER HYDE LIGHTING • CHRISTOPHER PEACOCK • COLE & SON • COLEFAX AND FOWLER • COLLIER WEBB • COLONY • DAVID HUNT
LIGHTING • DAVID SEYFRIED LTD • DAVIDSON • DE LE CUONA • DECCA • DEDAR • EDELMAN LEATHER • ESPRESSO DESIGN • FLEXFORM • FOX LINTON
• FRATO • GALLOTTI&RADICE • GEORGE SPENCER DESIGNS • GLADEE LIGHTING • GMR INTERIORS • GP & J BAKER • HARLEQUIN • HOLLAND & SHERRY
• HOULES • IKSEL – DECORATIVE ARTS • INTERDESIGN UK • J. ROBERT SCOTT • JACARANDA CARPETS & RUGS • JASON D’SOUZA • JEAN MONRO •
JENSEN BEDS • JIM THOMPSON • JULIAN CHICHESTER • KRAVET • KVADRAT AT HOME • LACAZE LONDON • LEE JOFA • LELIEVRE PARIS • LEWIS & WOOD •
LINCRUSTA • LIZZO • MARVIC TEXTILES • MCKINNEY & CO • MCKINNON AND HARRIS • MILES X BOOKSHOP • MORRIS & CO • MULBERRY HOME •
Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 0XE | +44 (0)20 7225 9166
ACCESS THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS NAMES

IN INTERNATIONAL DESIGN
design centre LONDON
120 SHOWROOMS
OVER 600 INTERNATIONAL BRANDS
ONE ADDRESS
NADA DESIGNS • THE NANZ COMPANY • NINA CAMPBELL • NOBILIS • OFICINA INGLESA FURNITURE • ORIGINAL BTC • PAOLO MOSCHINO FOR
NICHOLAS HASLAM LTD • PERRIN & ROWE • PHILLIP JEFFRIES • PIERRE FREY • POLIFORM • PORADA • PORTA ROMANA • POTTERTON BOOKS • ROMO
• RUBELLI/DONGHIA • SA BAXTER DESIGN STUDIO & FOUNDRY • SACCO CARPET • SAMUEL & SONS • SAMUEL HEATH • SANDERSON • SAVOIR BEDS •
SIBERIAN FLOORS • SIMPSONS • STARK CARPET • STARK SCALAMANDRE • STUDIOTEX • SUMMIT FURNITURE • SUTHERLAND PERENNIALS STUDIO •
TAI PING • TH2 • THREADS AT GP & J BAKER • TIM PAGE CARPETS • TISSUS D’HELENE • TOLLGARD POP-UP • TOPFLOOR BY ESTI • TUFENKIAN ARTISAN
CARPETS • TURNELL & GIGON • TURNSTYLE DESIGNS • TURRI • VAUGHAN • VENTURA • VIA ARKADIA (TILES) • VICTORIA + ALBERT BATHS •
VILLEROY & BOCH • WATTS OF WESTMINSTER • WEST ONE BATHROOMS • WHISTLER LEATHER • WIRED CUSTOM LIGHTING •
WOOL CLASSICS • ZIMMER + ROHDE • ZOFFANY
www.dcch.co.uk
Contributors
1 2
5
3
1 2 3 4 5
Natasha Martin Catherine Maryam Susie

FRASER- GAYFORD FAIRWEATHER EISLER BOYT
L AUR A F RI ESE R (FR ASER-CAVASS ONI); J OSEP HI N E GAYFORD (GAYF ORD); D ON MCCULL I N
CAVASSONI “Mates Portraits”, “The Unflinching Eye”, “Pandemonia”, p. 42 “Susie Boyt by Lucian
(FA I RWEATHER); PAUL I NA KOROB KI EWIC Z (E ISL ER); CHA RLI E HOPKIN SON (B OY T)
“The King of Pop”, p. 74 p. 60 “Gilbert & George”, p. 48 Freud”, p. 94
p. 51
The art critic of The A much-travelled The London-based Susie Boyt is the author
Natasha Fraser- Spectator is also the former editor for Hearst author and photographer of six acclaimed novels
Cavassoni is a Paris- author of books on and Porter, now a co-chairs the Middle including Love & Fame,
based expert on luxury Michelangelo, journalist/writer/travel East acquisitions as well as the classic
and lifestyle. Her books Constable, Van Gogh, and culture consultant, committee at the Tate, memoir of love, loss and
include Sam Spiegel: the David Hockney and Catherine juggles her is a trustee of the hero-worship, My Judy
Biography of a Hollywood Lucian Freud among curated “Fairweather’s Whitechapel Gallery, Garland Life, which was
Legend (2003), Tino others. In 2016 Martin Friends” journeys and sits on the advisory Book of the Week on
Zervudachi: A Portfolio published A History of abroad with London board of Photo London. Radio 4, shortlisted for
(2012), Monsieur Dior: Pictures, co-written with forays and life in a Maryam’s photography the PEN Ackerley Prize
Once Upon a Time David Hockney. He was Somerset longhouse is represented by Tristan and staged at the
(2014), Vogue on Yves painted by Freud. His which she shares with Hoare in London and Nottingham Playhouse.
Saint Laurent (2015) latest book, The Pursuit her husband, the Harper’s Books in New Susie is on the board of
and the memoir After of Art, is published this photographer Sir Don York. She has authored directors at Hampstead
Andy: Adventures in autumn by Thames & McCullin, and teenage a number of books, Theatre in London and
Warhol Land (2017). Hudson. son Max. including Voices East also works part-time as a
London. bereavement counsellor.
14 VAN IT Y F A I R ON ART NOV E M B E R 2019

Ai Weiwei neugerriemschneider, Berlin

7 September – 19 October
Roots Lisson Gallery, London

2 October – 2 November
Private View VA N I T Y F A I R O N A R T 2 0 1 9
Oswald Birley paints

his wife, Rhoda Vava
Mary Lecky Pike.
By Cecil Beaton, 1935
CECI L B EATON / CONDÉ NAST ARC HI V E
A British Boldini or Boutet de Monvel, Sir Oswald Birley was arguably the pre-eminent society portrait painter of the first
half of the 2oth century. A former First World War intelligence officer, he was a man of style as well as talent, who painted
plutocracy, nobility and royalty galore. Among his many sitters were George V, George VI, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth
the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Sir Winston Churchill, Eisenhower and Gandhi. He transmitted his fondness for
the finer things in life to his son Mark Birley, founder of the historically significant nightclub, Annabel’s, and uncrowned
King of Mayfair. Some of the best of Sir Oswald’s work is to be seen on the walls of 5 Hertford Street, the Mayfair members
club founded by his grandson Robin Birley, who opened a dining club named Oswald’s in honour of his grandfather. N.F.
NOV E M B E R 20 1 9 VA NIT Y FA IR ON A RT 17
Private View Art News

By Cristina Ruiz
1993); © B EN TUR NB ULL (MA DE I N A MERICA, 2019); © J OH N RU SSO (MCQ U EEN); CO U RT ESY OF T H E ESTAT E OF JA M ES ROSENQU I ST (YEL L OW A PPL AU SE, 1966)
DAV ID YA RROW, 2019 (‘J UD GE A ND J URY’, ‘R A JAST H A N’); A RCH I VE GA L ERI E M A X H ET Z L ER, B ERL I N | PA RI S © A L B ERT OEH L EN (OH NE T I T EL, 1989; OH NE T I T EL,
LONDON CALLING Head to the
capital for the cream of the contemporary crop
Eye of the
TIGER
TRUMP CARD
Love him or loathe him, Donald
Trump’s effect on artists is
undeniable, inspiring more protest
art in mainstream art spaces than
we’ve seen in decades. British artist
Ben Turnbull has created a portrait
of Trump (above) composed entirely
of cutouts of Alfred E. Neuman, the
fictitious cover boy of the U.S.
Ê Man with the Mirror humour magazine MAD. It goes on
The endlessly inventive German artist Albert display at the Bermondsey Project
Oehlen has spent four decades shifting from style Space (October 15-November 2)
to style in an ongoing investigation of painting and
its possibilities. Although he is little known in
alongside collages of Native
Britain, the Serpentine Gallery is hosting a long American chiefs assembled from
overdue survey of the artist’s work from the last comics and pulp novels which told
two decades (October 2-January 12, 2020) while stories of cowboys vs “Indians” to
Galerie Max Hetzler on Dover Street is showing disguise the reality of widespread
t took wildlife photographer and Oehlen’s mirror paintings, dating from 1982 to slaughter of indigenous peoples.
I conservationist David Yarrow 11

trips to the mountains of Rwanda
to capture the perfect shot of a
silverback gorilla. Earlier this year he had
another close encounter in India, when
1990 (until November 16).
Back to School
Ê
he met a massive male tiger cooling off at If you’re in
the entrance to a cave in Rajasthan. To London at the
see these and other spectacular images beginning of
by Yarrow, head to Pride Rock at the November, art will be
all around you.
Maddox Gallery in Mayfair and
Photographs of classes of
Westbourne Grove until October 23. schoolchildren, aged seven and
eight, by the artist and
Oscar-winning director of Twelve
Years a Slave, Steve McQueen
(above), will be plastered on
SWINGING SIXT IE S hundreds of billboards throughout
the city. The photos, more than
James Rosenquist started off as a painter of commercial 1,500 in total, will then go on display
billboards before becoming one of the key figures of at Tate Britain (November 12-May 3,
Pop art. Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Dover Street, 2020) as part of a project organised
which represents the Rosenquist estate, is now with the non-profit arts production
exhibiting the artist’s paintings from the 1960s, Pop agency Artangel and the educational
art’s heyday, as well as preparatory works for some of charity A New Direction.
his most celebrated canvases (until November 9).
Nate Lowman
October 1, 2017
2 October–9 November 2019

Nate Lowman, Picture 1, 2019 (detail)
David Zwirner
London

By Cristina Ruiz
A MUSEUM BOUCHE
Whet your cultural appetite with this
round-up of international openings
ROUND THE TWIST

2019’s most spectacular new
museum building is “The Twist”
at Norway’s Kistefos museum.
Designed by the Bjarke Ingels
Group, the aluminium-clad space
is ostensibly a bridge straddling
Reality CHECK the Randselva river to connect an
industrial museum in a former
wood pulp mill with a sculpture
ublic museums have reacted slowly to the rise of park on the opposite bank. The
P virtual reality (V.R.), but private collectors are bridge also functions as a display
AND FL UOR ES CEN T L IGHTS, ACQUI RED IN 1980); © JE FF KO ON S STUDIO (N E W HO OV ER CON VERT IBL E, 1980, VACUUM CL EA NER, PL EXIG L AS, A ND
WEI WEI); RUBY C IT Y (R UB Y CI T Y EX TERIOR); © JEFF KO ONS ST UDIO (N E W HO OVER DE LUX E RUG SHA MP O OER, 1979, RUG SHA MPO OER, ACRYL IC
COURTES Y OF AC UTE A RT AND B JARN E MEL GA A R D (ST ILL FROM MY TRIP, 2019); HÉL ÈN E BIN E T (T WI ST GALL ERY); F ILI P VA N ROE/EYEVI NE (A I
embracing the technology in their own galleries. space for contemporary art; the
A new V.R. exhibition programme is launching at opening show pairs works by the
the Julia Stoschek Collection in Berlin (October 12-December late British painter Howard
15) in collaboration with Acute Art, the London-based Hodgkin with the conceptualist
producers of virtual reality art. First up is a piece by the Martin Creed (until November 17).
Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard (above).
RUBY RED
Power Couple Ê
When she was battling breast
Ê cancer, the late Texan collector
Miami property developers Don and Mera Rubell are and hot sauce heir Linda Pace
moving their contemporary art collection from Wynwood, an asked the British-Ghanaian
area they helped revitalise with the private museum they CURTAIN UP
architect David Adjaye to design a
founded there in 1993, to Miami’s Allapattah district. Opening on The artist and activist gallery for her contemporary art.
December 4, the new gallery will house the couple’s extensive Ai Weiwei, known for Following her death in 2007, her
collection which now numbers 7,200 works by 1,000 artists his searing critiques foundation has shepherded her
of the Chinese
including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons (below), government, is vision forward and her collection
Rashid Johnson, Yoshitomo Nara and Cindy Sherman. exchanging the will finally open to the public in
museum for the opera San Antonio on October 13 in a red
house as he directs a concrete museum called Ruby
production of
Giacomo Puccini’s City. The inaugural show, Waking
Turandot for the Dream (until 2022), includes works
Teatro dell’Opera in by British sculptor Rachel
Rome (March Whiteread, Korean artist Do Ho
25-April 5, 2020). He
is also designing the Suh and American artist Glenn
FL OR ES CEN T L IGHTS, ACQUI RED IN 1987)
sets and costumes for Ligon, among many others.

this twisted love tale,
which is set in China
and features the
beloved aria “Nessun
Dorma”. “This
Turandot…will be
immersed in the
contemporary world,
the present cultural
and political
struggles,” the artist
explains.

JAMES ROSENQUIST
VISUALISING THE SIXTIES
LONDON
SEPTEMBER – NOVEMBER 2019

By Cristina Ruiz
NE W YORK. GI F T OF CANDAC E KI NG WEI R THROUGH THE MODER N WOME N’S F UND, AND COMMIT T EE ON PAIN TI NG AND S CUL PTURE FU ND S. © 2019 B ET YE SA A R, CO U RT ESY T H E A RT I ST A ND ROB ERT S PROJ ECT S, L OS A NGEL ES. DIGI TA L I M AG E © 2018 T H E
A RTIST AND STEV EN SON GAL LERY © Z A N ELE MUHOL I (N TOZ AKHE I I, PA RKTOWN 2016); COURTESY OF THE ARTI ST, A NDR EW KREPS GA L L ERY, NEW YORK A ND EST H ER SCH I PPER, B ERL I N (H I TO ST EYERL, RED A L ERT, 2007); T H E M U SEU M OF MODERN A RT,
THE BA LTI MOR E MUSEUM OF A RT: B EQUEST OF MA B EL GA RR ISON, I N ME MORY OF HER HUSB AND, GE OR GE SI EMONN. B MA 1964.11.13. © T H E G EORG I A O’K EEFFE M U SEU M/A RT I ST RIGH T S SO CI ET Y [A RS], NEW YORK (PI NK T U L I P, 1926); COU RT ESY OF T H E
A WOMAN’S WORLD
Time’s up for the male-dominated art scene
useums were admit it or not, this has had a
M already diversifying
their programming
to better represent
contemporary and modern art
when activist movements such as
galvanising effect on institutions
and we are now seeing an
unprecedented focus on art by
women, particularly
older women, with many trail-
“Me Too” and “Decolonize this blazers finally getting the
Place” burst into the art world recognition they deserve
with calls for them to do much alongside already acclaimed
more, much faster. Whether they female artists.
LIVING LEGEND
Betye Saar, 93, a
major African-
American artist who
emerged in the Civil
Rights era, is best Pride
known for her
assemblages
exploring race and
OF PLACE
racism, gender,
identity and Growing up in South Africa, Zanele Muholi (above)
memory. Although
she has been
found few representations of black lesbians like herself.
seriously under- To put this right, she spent years photographing the
represented in art black South African LGBT community. The resulting
museums, the tide is
slowly turning and series, Faces and Places, goes on display at Tate Modern
the Museum of next year in a show which also explores Muholi’s
MUSE UM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK, PHOTO B Y ROB GE RHA RDT (B ET YE SA AR, B L ACK GIR L’S WIND OW, 1969)
Modern Art in New
York reopens this tireless work as an activist highlighting violence
month in its newly towards LGBT people (April 29- October 18, 2020).
expanded home with
The Legends of
Black Girl’s Window
(October 21-January 4,
Force for Change 2020), a show
focusing on prints
ART CRITICISM
Ê made by Saar Ê
Speaking at the opening of her spring exhibition at the
Last year the Baltimore Museum of Art leading up to her
1969 sculptural Serpentine, Hito Steyerl spoke out against major gallery donor
took the radical step of selling seven works
collage Black Girl’s the Sackler family, due to allegations that their company Purdue
from its collection by Andy Warhol, Robert
Window (below). Pharma has fuelled the U.S. opioid addiction crisis. Such open
Rauschenberg and other 20th-century white
criticism of the art world has made her one of the most influential
male artists to raise money for the purchase
artists today. This month, the Art Gallery of Ontario opens a
of contemporary work by women and
display of her video installations including key works such as Red
artists of colour. Now it’s launching an entire
Alert (below) and Duty Free Art. (October 24-February 23, 2020).
year of programming devoted to female
artists which will encompass 13 solo shows
by the likes of the American Abstract
Expressionist Joan Mitchell and the South
African video artist Candice Breitz, as well
as seven thematic exhibitions. First up is By
Their Creative Force: American Women
Modernists, which includes works by Georgia
O’Keeffe, such as her famous Pink Tulip
(above), and Elizabeth Catlett, the
American-Mexican artist best known for her
depictions of African- American life
(October 6-July 5, 2020).

C OURTESY THE A RTIST AND L ESLI E TON KONOW A R AT WORK S + PROJ ECTS (AG NES DE NES, T HE HUMAN AR GUMEN T I V - L IGHT MATRI X, 1987/2012); © YAYOI K U SA M A. CO U RT ESY DAVID ZWI RNER, NEW YORK; OTA FI NE A RT S, TOKYO/SI NGA PORE/SH A NGH A I;
(MA RI NA A BR A MOV I Ć, A RTIST PORTR A I T WI TH A CANDL E (C), FROM THE SER IES PL ACES OF P OWER, 2013); JASON W YCHE © KA R A WA L K ER (K A R A WA L K ER, A SU B T L ET Y OR T H E M A RVEL O U S SU GA R B A B Y, D OM I NO SU GA R REFI NERY, B RO OKLYN, NY, 2014);
C OURTESY OF THE ARTI ST, S A LON 94, N EW YORK, A ND JESSICA SI LV ERMA N GA LLE RY, S AN FR ANCI SCO © JUDY CHICAG O/A RTI STS RIGH T S SO CI ET Y, NEW YORK. PHOTO G R A PH CO U RT ESY OF T H RO U GH T H E FL OWER A RCH I VES. I M AGE COU RT ESY OF T H E
Don’t Sugar
FI N E ARTS MUSEUMS OF S AN FR A NCI SCO (JUDY CHICAGO, IMMOL ATION, FROM ‘WOMEN AND SMOKE’, 1972. F I RE WOR KS PERFORMA NCE, PERFORM ED I N CA L I FORNI A DESERT); CO U RT ESY OF T H E M A RI NA A B R A MOVI Ć A RCH I VES © M A RI NA A B R A MOVI Ć
THE PILL
This month, the U.S. artist Kara Walker takes
on the challenge of filling Tate Modern’s
Turbine Hall (October 2-April 5, 2020). Details
ELECTRIC of the installation are under wraps, but a clue
DREAMS
might be found in her massive sphinx-like
Queen of performance sculpture from 2014 (below), which addresses
art Marina Abramović
(above) will be the first slavery and the history of sugar production.
woman to take over Might she return to this theme at Tate, a
the Royal Academy’s
main galleries with an museum founded by a man who made his
exhibition next fortune in the sugar trade?
autumn. Reports
suggest that the
HEY JUDY Serbian artist, who

V ICTORI A MI RO, LOND ON/VE NICE (KUSA MA PICTURED WIT H LOVE IS CA LLI NG, 2013 DUR ING HER EXHIB I TION ‘I W HO HAV E A RRI VED I N H EAVEN’ AT DAVID ZWI RNER, NEW YORK, 2013)
favours extreme acts

Ê of endurance, is
Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party (1974-79), a triangular working on creating a
table with 39 place settings commemorating women from history, truly spectacular
is a keystone of feminist art. Despite this, Chicago has never been performance for her
London show which
honoured with a museum show which explores the entire span of involves charging
her 50-year career. Next year, San Francisco’s de Young Museum herself with one million
is rectifying this with a full-blown retrospective (May 9-September volts of electricity to
5, 2020). Meanwhile, the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, snuff out a candle with
a wave of her finger.
Gateshead, is hosting the first major U.K. exhibition of Chicago’s Expect to be shocked
art, including her early Women and Smoke series (above) (November and awed.
16-April 19, 2020).
LEFT FIELD
In 1982 the
Hungarian-born artist
Agnes Denes planted
a two-acre field of
wheat on a landfill
site in lower
Manhattan. The
installation which, in
the words of the
artist, “referred to
mismanagement,
waste and world
hunger”, established
her as a visionary
figure in the
conceptual and
environmental art
movements. Denes,
Infinity and Beyond now 88, has been
largely forgotten
outside the art world,
Ê but The Shed, a new
While many of her female peers have struggled for recognition, the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, 90, is the most
multi-disciplinary arts
popular artist in the world by number of exhibitions, quantity of visitors they attract and multitude of social media posts. space in New York,
The public’s favourite pieces are the artist’s trademark “Infinity Rooms”, small spaces which intimate an endless universe will help restore her
through mirrors and lights. A brand new “Infinity Mirror Room” goes on show next month at Kusama’s New York gallery, reputation with an
David Zwirner (November 9-December 14) where you can expect timed tickets and competitive instagramming. Meanwhile, exhibition of around
150 works including
in Boston, the ICA has just inaugurated a two-year display of its own “Infinity Mirror Room”, Love is Calling (above, with new pieces (October
Kusama), complete with polka-dot inflatable tentacles (until February 7, 2021). Outdoors, more Kusama polka dots, pumpkins 9-January 19, 2020).
and mirrored environments go on display across the New York Botanical Gardens next year (May 2-November 1, 2020).
NOV E M B E R 20 1 9 VA NIT Y FA IR O N A RT 23
WATCHES
VIEWING
Rare Watches
7–10 November
Four Seasons
G E N E VA , 1 1 N OV E M B E R 2 0 1 9
Hotel des Bergues
H O N G KO N G , 2 7 N OV E M B E R 2 0 1 9 33 Quai des Bergues
1201 Geneva
Important Watches
22–27 November
Hong Kong Convention
and Exhibition Centre
No.1 Expo Drive
Wanchai, Hong Kong
CONTACT
Rare Watches
Sabine Kegel
skegel@christies.com
+41 (0) 22 319 17 26
Important Watches
Alexandre Bigler
abigler@christies.com
+852 2978 6759
PATEK PHILIPPE PATEK PHILIPPE

The Henry Graves Jr. 18K gold An exceptionally rare 18K pink gold
tonneau-tortue minute repeater, 1927 double crown world time wristwatch,
CHF 3,000,000–5,000,000 Ref. 2523, 1953, retailed by Gobbi
Rare Watches, 11 November US$7,000,000–14,000,000
Important Watches, 27 November
Auction | Private Sales | christies.com/luxury
Other fees apply in addition to the hammer price. See Section D of our Conditions of Sale at the back of the Auction Catalogue

By Cristina Ruiz
PAST MASTERS
LE T TE R AT A N OP EN WI ND OW, C. 1657-1659); © SKD, FOTO: WOLF GANG KREI SCHE (VER ME E R IN IN TER ME DIAT E STATE OF RESTOR ATION, M AY 7, 2019); M A DRID, M U SEO NACIONA L DEL PR A D O (FR A NCI SCO DE Z U RB A RÁ N, AGNU S DEI, 1635–1640)
THOMSON COL L ECTION AT THE A RT GA L LE RY OF ON TA RIO. © 2018 ART GA LLE RY OF ON TA RIO 2014/1581 (P ETE R PAUL R UB ENS, THE M ASSACRE OF T H E I NNO CENT S, C. 1610); © SK D, FOTO: K L U T/EST EL (J OH A NNES VERM EER, GI RL REA DI NG A
From Leonardo to
DUKE OF WE LL INGTON COL L ECTION © STR ATFI EL D SAYE PR ESE RVAT ION TRUST (T ITI AN, DAN AE, PROB A BLY 1554–56); © RMN-GR A ND PA L A I S [M U SÉE D U L O U VRE]/M ICH EL U RTA D O (L EONA RD O DA VI NCI, SA I NT J OH N T H E B A PT I ST); T H E
Rubens—these golden oldies are sure to draw a crowd
Da Vinci MODE
The Louvre’s highly
anticipated Leonardo da Vinci INNOCENT PARTY
exhibition (October
24-February 24, 2020), to mark The Art Gallery of Ontario in
Toronto has assembled an
the 500th anniversary of the impressive array of loans to
artist’s death, is likely to be survey the early output of
POETRY IN the blockbuster show of the

season. Ten years in the
Peter Paul Rubens, the great
Flemish artist so beloved of
kings and noblemen (October
making, it is organised around
MOTION the five da Vinci paintings in
the Louvre’s collection, including the Mona Lisa and
12-January 5, 2020). At the
centre of Early Rubens—
highlighting the work he
ne of the most Saint John the Baptist (above) and will present produced between 1609 and
O spectacular painting
cycles in the history of
art is to be reunited almost in its
information gleaned from new research and archival
documents. There will be numerous loans from other
museums and collections but, at press time, it was
still unknown if the Salvator Mundi, the painting of
1621—is the museum’s own
painting, Massacre of the
Innocents, which was gifted to
the institution by the late
billionaire art collector
entirety for the first time in 300 Christ with right hand raised in blessing, which sold Kenneth Thomson who bought
it at auction for £49.5million
years. In 1551, Philip II of Spain for a record $450million in 2017 at Christie’s New in 2002, then a record for an
commissioned Titian to create York, would be among them. old master painting.
six large-scale mythological
paintings based on Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, known as the DUTCH COURAGE
“poesie”. Two of these—Diana
The greatest works of the
and Actaeon and Diana and Dutch and Spanish Golden
Callisto—are now owned jointly Age will be shown side by
side at Amsterdam’s
by the National Gallery in Rijksmuseum in Rembrandt-
London and the National Velázquez (October
Galleries of Scotland and will 11-January 19, 2020),
marking the 350th
be shown first in the former anniversary of Rembrandt’s
institution alongside Danaë on death and the 200th
anniversary of Madrid’s
loan from Apsley House; Venus Prado Museum. Canvases by
and Adonis from the Prado Dutch artists will be paired
with works by their Spanish
Museum, Madrid, and The Rape counterparts to explore
of Europa from the Isabella surprising artistic dialogues Love at First Sight
Stewart Gardner Museum, between two countries at Ê
war. Francisco de Earlier this year, conservators at Dresden’s
Boston. Visitors to the National Zurburan’s Agnus Dei (below), Gemäldegalerie announced a sensational new
Gallery’s Titian: Love, Desire, depicting a bound lamb
awaiting its slaughter, will be revelation. While restoring Vermeer’s Girl Reading
Death exhibition (March placed alongside Pieter a Letter at an Open Window (c. 1657), one of
16-June 14, 2020) can then head Jansz. Saenredam’s painting
around just 36 paintings attributed to the Dutch
of the stark interior of a
to the nearby Wallace Dutch reformed church—two artist, they discovered that a large picture of
Collection to see the final dramatically different Cupid hanging in the background of the
compositions, both of which
painting in the series, Perseus “express profound religious composition, which was overpainted centuries
and Andromeda, which never sentiments,” explains curator ago, was not concealed by the artist himself as
leaves its home due to the terms Gregor Weber.
had been thought but was covered after Vermeer’s
of its bequest. The other five death. It is therefore likely to have been intended
Titians will then travel to the by the artist as the key to an erotic reading of the
Scottish National Gallery, canvas. The fully restored painting with newly
Edinburgh (July 11-September uncovered Cupid is due to go back on display at
27, 2020), Madrid and Boston. Dresden’s Gemäldegalerie in summer 2020.

Giuseppe Santomaso: Animated Painting

Curated by Francesca Pola
6 September - 26 October 2019

Private view: 30 September, 6 - 8.30 pm
Cortesi Gallery London
Heinz Mack: The Breath of Light

Curated by Francesca Pola
12 September - 15 November 2019

Catalogue presentation in the presence of the Artist: 24 October
Cortesi Gallery Milan
__________________________________________________________________________________
41 & 43 Maddox St Corso di Porta Nuova 46/B Via Nassa 62

W1S 2PD London 20121 Milano 6900 Lugano info@cortesigallery.com
United Kingdom Italy Switzerland www.cortesigallery.com
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Giuseppe Santomaso, Palude in Grigio, 1959, oil on canvas, 124 x 114 cm (detail). Courtesy Private Collection.

By Cristina Ruiz
SHOW BUSINESS The commercial

openings and exhibitions in the spotlight this season
PACE MAKER
ace, already one of
P the largest galleries

in the world with
spaces in seven
cities on three continents,
has just expanded further
Window
DRESSING
with the September opening
STUDIO (TE TR I S WIND OW RONG S’ R ESIDENCE 2018-19, TE TR IS WIND OW ASI ATIC SO CI ET Y 2019); COURTESY GO ODMA N GA L L ERY A ND WI L L I A M K ENT RID G E (L EXICON PA R AG R A PH I I
© L OI E HOL LOWEL L, COURTESY PACE GA LL ERY (STA NDING I N B LUE, 2018); PHOTO GR A PHY B Y T HOMAS LO OF, COURT ESY PACE GA L L ERY (GA L L ERY B U I L DI NG); CO U RT ESY L I QI NG
2018); © FL ORENT DRI L LON, C OURTESY PARI S PHOTO (PA RI S P HOTO); P HOTO B Y JAS ON SCHM IDT. COURT ES Y DAV ID ZWI RNER, NEW YORK/L OND ON/HONG KONG (ZWI RNER 2017)
of a new, eight-storey, Prada presents an exhibition of work by POPPING THE
75,000-square foot flagship gallery at 540 West 25th Chinese artist Li Qing (featured in On CORK
Street in Chelsea, Manhattan. The new building Art 2016) at Shanghai’s Prada Rong Despite the
(below), designed by Bonetti/Kozersi Architecture, Zhai (November 7-January 19, 2020). uncertainty of
includes five large galleries as well as an outdoor Rear Windows will be an immersive Brexit, the Goodman
Gallery from South
display space with panoramic views of the city and a exhibition revealing the building’s Africa, which has
tailor-made area for performance art and new media history and its connection to modern spaces in Cape
Town and
works. The gallery’s inaugural shows are devoted to Shanghai, all inspired by the voyeuristic Johannesburg, is
works by the 20th-century mobile maker Alexander Hitchcock thriller after which the show opening its first
overseas branch in
Calder, the veteran British painter David Hockney, is named. Li Qing is known for London at 26 Cork
the acclaimed American artist Fred Wilson and the exploring both the role of painting Street. “It is time for
a gallery from the
younger New York-based painter Loie Hollowell beyond mere representation and African continent to
(Standing in Blue, 2018, above). pacegallery.com contemporary anxieties, so expect to be play more of a front-
thrilled—and perhaps a bit disturbed. line role in shaping
international arts
discourse,” says the
gallery owner and
director Liza Essers,
who represents
leading South
African artists
including William
Kentridge (Lexicon
Paragraph II, above)
and the late
photographer David
Goldblatt. An
opening date has not
been announced, but
it is hoped that visitors
will be welcomed
this autumn.
Picture Perfect
Ê
VIVE LA FRANC E In 2016, Paris Photo axed its Los Angeles event after only three editions
due to poor sales. The French organisation is now attempting to crack the
In 2012, New York dealer David Zwirner (left) opened U.S. market once more with the launch of its first fair
his first European outpost in a Mayfair townhouse in New York, on Pier 94 in Manhattan,
where he has presented shows of market heavy hitters in collaboration with the Association
such as Luc Tuymans and Kerry James Marshall. But of International Photography
“Brexit changes the game,” Zwirner recently told the Financial Dealers (April 2-5, 2020). Organisers
Times. “After October, my London gallery will be a British gallery, hope that it will “create a
not a European one.” So, on October 16, Zwirner is inaugurating a transatlantic hub between the two
new space in Le Marais, Paris, with an exhibition devoted to U.S. historic centres for photography—
artist Raymond Pettibon. “In recent years, Paris has become one Paris and New York”.
of the most vibrant cities for the visual arts in Europe,” says Zwirner.

Private View Bluffer’s Guide

By Cristina Ruiz
IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME

Brush up on your Trojan history with this cheat sheet
exhibition Troy: Myth and destroying much material

Reality at the British Museum from later settlements and
explains that “it’s a small found evidence of several
incident which might have cities built on top of one
escalated”. More likely, she another and a cache of gold
says, Troy’s strategic location and silver objects which he
at the entrance of the called Priam’s Treasure. We What e lse is the
Dardanelles appealed to now know that these objects British Museum
the Greeks. are over 1,000 years older
Why is Troy famous? than the supposed date of
showing?
the Trojan War. An
The story of Troy was evocation of Schliemann’s The exhibition will explore
immortalised by the Greek trench will be at the heart how stories from the Iliad
poet Homer in the Iliad, of the British Museum’s and Odyssey were retold
which was composed in the exhibition. throughout history. One
8th century BC. This spectacular object, on loan
recounts the final days of a from the National Museum
10-year siege of the city by So the Trojan War of Denmark, is an ancient
Greek armies under the Roman silver cup found in
command of Agamemnon, really happened ? the tomb of a Northern
king of Mycenae. This epic chieftain who died in the
and its sequel (of sorts), the There are ancient historical first century AD. This shows
Odyssey, which charts Greek references to a conflict one of the key scenes from
king Odysseus’ homeward involving Troy in the Iliad: Priam sneaking
journey, have resounded modern-day Turkey and the into the enemy encampment
Is Schliemann’s city
throughout the ages. Greeks e.g. on cuneiform at night, kneeling at the feet
tablets from the Hittite definitely Troy? of the great warrior Achilles
Empire in Anatolia, dating and begging for the return of
Why did Greece
from the 13th century BC. “Schliemann did not find an the body of his son Hector
attack Troy? Archaeological evidence at inscription saying ‘This is whom Achilles killed in
the ruins of Troy suggests Troy, city of Priam’, but we battle and whose body he
According to the Iliad, on a that the city was burned know that the city he dragged through the dirt.
visit to the Greek city of around 1200 BC and “it excavated was abandoned Impressed by Priam’s
Sparta, Paris, son of Trojan looks as though this was as for hundreds of years, bravery and moved by his
king Priam, fell in love with a result of conflict” because possibly after a major grief, Achilles declared a
Helen, wife of the Spartan armour and arrowheads conflict—which could be the temporary truce to allow
king Menelaus, and were found in the ruins of war recounted by Homer— Priam to bury his son with
kidnapped her. Seeking that period, says Villing. and that once it became the proper ceremonial rites.
IL LUSTR ATIONS B Y DAV ID SPA RSHOT T/HAND SOME FR A NK
vengeance, Menelaus wealthy again those who

persuaded his brother So we have lived there believed this was What can we say
Agamemnon to lead an the site of Homer’s Troy. Of for sure about the
army against Troy.
found Troy? course, they might have
made this up because it Trojan War?
Did the Greeks Self-taught archaeologist would have increased the
really go to war Heinrich Schliemann spent prestige of their town,” says Almost nothing. To find out
much of his later life trying Villing. In short, there is what we know from history
over a woman? to prove the Iliad’s accuracy; very strong circumstantial and what we know from
he started excavations at evidence to suggest that Homer, visit Troy: Myth and
There is no historical record, Hisarlik in Turkey in 1871. Schliemann did find Troy, Reality at the British
but it is possible. Alexandra He dug an enormous trench but it wouldn’t necessarily Museum (November
Villing, curator of upcoming at the centre of the site, stand up in court. 21-March 8, 2020).
30 VAN IT Y F A I R O N A R T NOV E M B E R 2019

Down
to a
FINE
ART
David Yarrow, Pride Rock, 2019
It’s just three and a half years since

the first Maddox Gallery opened its
stylish doors in Mayfair, yet the group’s
reputation for showcasing the best in
contemporary art is already indisputable
ince 2015, a stroll down Led by Creative Director Jay Rutland,
S Maddox Street in Mayfair

(if you’ve the luxury of time
for so flâneur-esque an
activity) has been greatly enhanced
the group’s dedication to supporting
and showcasing the work of established
and emerging artists has earned it a
reputation for exhibiting the cutting-
Keith Haring, Fertility Suite, 1983
by one particular addition: Maddox edge in contemporary art. The likes of

Gallery. In three and a half years, Banksy, Coco Dávez, Jerkface, Haris
this contemporary art destination Nukem and David Yarrow have graced
has become something of a hub for the expertly curated walls. And it’s not
collectors, artists and art lovers. So only London enjoying the sights; since
broad is its appeal in the capital that two 2017, art fiends swishing off to Gstaad or
further West London-based galleries— to the boulevards of L.A. have also been
in Westbourne Grove and Shepherd able to get their fix in Maddox’s latest
Market—have also opened their doors. international openings.
For more information, visit maddoxgallery.com

@maddoxgallery Andy Warhol, Moonwalk Suite, 1987
Private View Books
A THOUSAND WORDS Irrepressible voices, overlooked

artists and whispered conspiracies: the new titles speaking volumes by Honey Luard
1 3 4
Magdalene Odundo: 7
The Journey of Things is an
example of the very best in book
design. Outmanoeuvring perceived
notions of the catalogue format, this book
enlivens Odundo’s choice of ceramics,
presented earlier this year at The Sainsbury
Centre, Norwich. Modest in size and held
together by elastic, the loose binding
allows for pages of varied opacity, so
that the reproductions often find
each other in surprising ways.
5 6
1. Charlotte Posenenske: Work in Progress (Dia Art Foundation and Koenig Books) 2. Cindy Sherman (National Portrait Gallery Publications)
3. Rose Wylie by Clarrie Wallis (Lund Humphries) 4. Appearance Stripped Bare: Desire and the Object in the Work of Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Koons, Even (Phaidon)
5. Louise Bourgeois and Pablo Picasso: Anatomies of Desire (Hauser & Wirth) 6. Pablo Picasso: Blue and Rose Periods (Fondation Beyeler and Hatje Cantz)
A
rt publishing trends reflect American museum Dia Art Foundation catalogue authored by Paul Moorhouse.
society’s wider concerns, and Koenig Books to accompany Dia’s The standalone monograph on the
driven by exhibition recent show is a long overdue tribute to formidable 85-year-old painter, Rose
programming in museums this important sculptor. Similarly, Wylie, penned by Tate curator Clarrie
and galleries across the world, for often Cindy Sherman’s summer exhibition Wallis, is a much-awaited homage to
it is these institutions that produce the at the National Portrait Gallery in the artist’s years of unwavering
landmark publications that re-route art London was the opportunity for a commitment to her métier.
D ON STAHL (P OSE NE NSKE COVE R)
history. Unsurprisingly therefore, a celebration of a masterful image-maker One benefit of walking away with an
number of the best recent titles take up who, from the very outset, has exhibition catalogue, other than the
the challenge of repositioning and challenged perceptions of identity, fact that you can revisit the show after
honouring some of the many gender, age and status. The many you’ve left, is the opportunity for
overlooked women artists of past years. personalities that come to life in greater revelations and exploration of
The minimalist German artist Sherman’s self-portraits—which span the corners beyond the gallery walls.
Charlotte Posenenske is one such 40 years—are the subject of this Published to accompany the universally
example, and the book produced by the elegantly designed and authoritative praised exhibition at the Fondation

Christopher
Anderson’s record of New Press is an equally covetable object. A
York City police officers
following 9/11, the Wall Street pleasure to hold in the hand, it reminds
occupation and Trump’s election,
Cop is a response to the traumatised you that the art of making a book is a
city. Originally conceived as a project craft, not solely a means to convey
“surveying the surveillance”, the
resulting portraits are surprisingly content. An investigation in words and
tender and compassionate. Using
paper as the white walls in which to photographs of a bizarre secret
frame the pictures, it allows the American society, the book traces a
reader to rest with each one
without interference. dark journey characterised by
concealment and conspiracy.
8
In compiling this list, I often find
myself pondering the parameters of the
art book. Here, titles can slip out of
view. Moonlight Travellers is a
collaboration between virtuoso
illustrator Quentin Blake and
wordsmith Will Self. The two are well
11
A pleasure to
hold in the hand,
9
it reminds you
that the art of
making a book
is a craft, not
solely a means to
convey content
loved for their sharp, inquisitive
perspectives, and the pairing provides
10 12
pages of layered meaning. They are a
harmonious match in their ability to say
so much through exactitude of line and
wash and perfectly crafted narrative.
7. Magdalene Odundo: The Journey of Things (InOtherWords) 8. Parliament of Owls by Jack Latham (Here Press)
9. Moonlight Travellers by Quentin Blake and Will Self (Thames & Hudson) 10. Harland Miller: In Shadows I Boogie A pleasingly pared-down offering is
(Phaidon) 11. Cop by Christopher Anderson (Stanley/Barker) 12. Jack Davison: Photographs (Loose Joints) Jack Davison: Photographs. This
young but already highly regarded
British photographer creates surreal
images, often disquieting and
Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland, Pablo and Pablo Picasso: Anatomies of suggestive of a past era. This title is
Picasso: Blue and Rose Periods Desire. Each brings together iconic truly a curated exhibition in book form.
contains a wealth of additional material figures of 20th- and 21st-century art, It seems fitting to end this round-up
CHRI STOP HE R A NDE RSON, MAG NUM P HOTOS (C OV E R)
that further enriches the work of these making use of the open book to create by recommending a monograph
two seminal periods in Picasso’s career. an immediate “compare and contrast” published by Phaidon earlier this spring,
In art books, it is not solely the format. The former offers the masterful on the work of an irrepressible British
images and the words used to describe output of Duchamp alongside the artist and writer—Harland Miller: In
them that come together, but the high-octane sculptures of Koons. The Shadows I Boogie. Miller’s paintings
images themselves, which can speak to latter suggests parity in subject matter are predominantly based on book covers
each other from across history, medium in the work of two greats, Picasso and and here, the book as a painting is
and gender on the page. Two such Bourgeois, though their sensual returned to the printed page. A
examples are Appearance Stripped handling of the human form is, one beautifully produced monograph, it has
Bare: Desire and the Object in the suspects, determined by gender. two cover designs and a book block that
Work of Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Jack Latham’s Parliament of Owls mimics the unwieldy edges of a canvas.
Koons, Even and Louise Bourgeois by the independent publisher Here Humour and poignancy abound.
Private View Top 10

By Jeremy Morrison @morrisonmodern
Head of Design, Europe at Christie’s
SOCIAL SKILLS These creatives have Instagram down to a fine art

1 James Zemaitis @james_zemaitis 6 Southern Guild
TRUST. GET T Y RESEA RCH I NSTITUTE, LOS A NGE LES (2004.R.10) 5. FL OR A BHAT TACHARY, JE WE LL ERY. THE N E W CR AFT SMEN 6. PORKY H EFER, B U L L. PHOTO B Y H AYDEN PH I PPS, PA D L OND ON 7. ÉM I L E REI B ER A ND CH RI STOFL E
A PA RTMENT P OP-UP STORE, COPEN HAGEN. THE APA RTM ENT.DK 4. JULI US SHULMA N P HOTO G R AP HY AR CHIV E, SER IES I II, PROJ ECTS (1936-1997). A RCH I T ECT PI ERRE KOENIG, T H E CASE ST U DY HO U SE #22, L A. © J. PAU L GET T Y
James, whom I have known for nearly @southernguildgallery
1. MARTIN E ISL ER, RE VER SÍV EL AR MCHA I R (C. 1956), MA NUF ACTURE D B Y FOR MA. PHI LLI PS 2. ROSE UNI ACKE E DIT ION S, THEATRE CHA I R A ND WRI T I NG DESK I N PI M L ICO SHOWRO OM, L OND ON. PHOTO B Y A L EX JA M ES 3. T H E
PA N AMA DA NCE RS (1910-11). NORTH CA ROL IN A MUSEUM OF ART, R A L EIGH, B EQUEST OF W. R. VA LE NTIN E R /P HOTO: BR ID GEMA N I MAG ES 10. PRI VAT E HO U SE I N TOK YO FEAT U RED I N A XEL VERVO ORDT’S U PCOM I NG B O OK
20 years, is the Director of Museum Trevyn and Julian McGowan run their
& CO, D OUB L E FISH VASE (1874). © JACQUES PE PION / © MUS ÉE D’OR SAY, DI ST. RM N-G R A ND-PA L AIS / PATRICE S CHMIDT 8. 1954 MERCEDES 300 SL R. M ERCEDES-B ENZ CL ASSIC A RCH I VES 9. ERNST L U DWIG KI RCH NER,
Relations at R and Company in New cutting-edge African contemporary
York (@RandcompanyNYC)—and has design gallery in the vibrant Silo
recently moved to a fabulous new District of Cape Town. The artists
immersive space showcasing historical whom this dynamic duo represent and
and contemporary design on Franklin exhibit globally are bold and powerful.
Street. Instagram has become the For those looking for something fresh
perfect vehicle for James to for their home, which is outside of the
disseminate his unique mix iconic/classic designs of the 20th
of immense passion and insider century, the McGowans’ artists create
knowledge on global design, with a pieces which are striking in their
personal favourite of his being innovation. Definitely a pair to watch as
1 American mid-century and craft works. this new market develops. 6
2 Rose Uniacke @roseuniacke 7 Oscar Graf @oscargrafgallery

Founder of the eponymous gallery on Since setting up as a dealer in Paris in
Chelsea’s Pimlico Road, Rose’s 2011 at the age of 24, Oscar has
effortlessly elegant interiors are widely consistently offered a refined group of
sought-after. Showcasing her real flair late 19th-century and early
and eye for design, Rose offers a 20th-century design, showcasing
diverse collection of stylish works, of works by the masters of design of the
varying styles and periods, era at the world’s most prestigious art
complemented by the range of and design fairs. The leading member
furniture and lighting which she of the upcoming generation to focus on
designs and produces herself. She is a this specific era, he recently opened a
huge presence in both the London and second space in Mount Street, London.
the global interior design field and in His works appeal to collectors,
2 7
the design-themed Instagram world. museums and private clients seeking
rare masterworks by the leading
19th- and 20th-century designers. It’s
3 The Apartment @theapartmentdk
great to see the global flag being flown
Tina Seidenfaden Busck launched
for this period of art and design.
her unique gallery in an 18th-century
apartment in a residential area
of Copenhagen. With each room fully 8 Julian Treger @juliantreger
furnished, it feels as though you are In a period of just a few years Julian
stepping into a private home, one filled has amassed more than 22,000
with Tina’s very personal vision for followers who are caught up by his
mixing colours and styles, at all price curation of sleek global art, design,
levels. She has recently opened a fully interiors, architecture and photography
furnished residence above her gallery, —a potent mix. With a background and
providing the perfect place for design day job in finance, outside of the art
3 fans to stay while visiting the city, and world sphere, his eye for shape and line 8
has also launched a summer unify his creative vision.
pop-up gallery.
9 Neue Galerie @neuegalerieny
4 Alice Rawsthorn @alice.rawsthorn This is the home of German and
A hugely respected author and Austrian art and design of the early
commentator, Alice Rawsthorn’s 20th century, from blockbuster
Instagram roves widely across the paintings by Klimt and German
design, architecture and art fields but Expressionist art to the delicate silver
her images are united by a focused and creations of Koloman Moser and Josef
in-depth analysis of a topic, and offers Hoffmann at the Viennese workshop
a complete introduction to subjects as Wiener Werkstätte, established by the
diverse as Charles Rennie Mackintosh two artists in 1903. Located in an
and the design of Game of Thrones. elegant Upper East mansion—with a
great Viennese restaurant on site—this
4 museum is a must-visit for me on every 9
5 New Craftsmen
trip to New York.
@thenewcraftsmen
With their gallery in Mayfair, The New
Craftsmen represent a coterie of 10 Axel Vervoordt @Axel Vervoordt
British craftsmen and artisans. From One of the leading visionaries of the
P ORTR A I TS (FL A MMA RION, 2019)
furniture and textiles to glass and last 50 years, Vervoordt’s interiors are
ceramics, their carefully curated roster a seamless mixture of mercurial talent,
of artists, designers and craftspeople various era and styles, a synthesis of
produce an impressive range of art and design, and a respect for
bespoke pieces. The New Craftsmen historic architecture. Axel’s business is
ethos appeals to the market’s now a real family affair with his wife
increasing interest in and demand for and sons playing active roles across
considered, hand-made works, with an the Vervoordt portfolio, which includes
honesty of production which is both a gallery and a cultural foundation. An
luxurious and deeply personal. ideal for many, and an inspiration to all.
5 10
Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar
Extremis
18 October to 23 November 2019
info@setareh-gallery.com +49-211-82827171
Königsallee 27 & 31, 40212 Düsseldorf, Germany
Body
LANGUAGE
Through her surreally sensual images of women, artist Aida Emelyanova
constructs a photographic dialogue that’s impossible to ignore
Words by JESSICA BURRELL
A

ida Emelyanova says the London-based Kazakh- places the female subject at the
is softly spoken. Russian artist. “I want to bring out empowered centre of each opulent,
Her celebrated women’s power and strength—our highly stylised scene once again—
photography speaks warrior strength—and show that we though this time she has used models.
in a bold, vivid tongue, but the artist no longer have to follow old rules or “Previously, it was very important
herself—striking, angular and radiant conform to stereotypes.” for me to portray the subject matter
—seems rather more reserved. On the This is a theme to which Emelyanova myself,” she says, “but this time I
subject of her latest undertaking, a is returning. Her 2015 exhibition I Do decided to take it to the next level by
photography exhibition entitled I Do Whatever You Animals Do explored using different women with different
Whatever You Humans Do, however, the objectification of women in a stories. The casting was so important. I
Emelyanova found the more assured striking and surreal series of tableaux, could tell immediately when somebody
voice I had expected. “I have no featuring the artist herself as the was perfect for a particular shot.”
interest in merely making pretty, subject. Provocative and sometimes This skill of observation serves as a
aesthetically pleasing images,” controversial, her latest collection source of inspiration for Emelyanova.
that in my art I can make any fantasy subject matter: strong/weak,

“I think of my work come to life. I put a great deal of energy acceptable/forbidden, male/female,
as an intermission, into each concept,” she says. And it is
in transforming these concepts into
black/white and I love combining
them, experimenting and expanding
a break from her characteristically striking sets that limitations,” she says. “You can’t just
the artist thrives. “I can start on the pass by without noticing the contrasts.”
stereotypical set at seven o’clock and be there until Viewers of her upcoming exhibition
BEAUTY” midnight easily,” she says. “It’s the best during London’s iconic Frieze week
place I can be: within my art. I love it.” will undoubtedly attest to this.
“I like to see people, especially women, Getting the set-up exactly right is
and notice the connections between essential to minimise retouching. “I
them, the different personalities. treat each photograph as a sculpture, I Do Whatever You Humans Do will be
Certain words and actions in day- something I’m creating there and on show on October 3 at the Socialista
to-day life—they stay on my mind. then,” she says, “and with sculpture, Members’ Club, Mayfair.
I love noticing something different, there’s no retouching.” This lends
something special, even in the most the images a striking immediacy, For more information, visit
mundane, everyday situations.” befitting the artist’s purpose. “In the aidaemelyanova.com or email
Though it can be sparked by the photographs, I’m trying to capture cosmina@belsta.co.uk
mundane, her work often evolves into something loud and strong. I like
the realm of the surreal. “I love the idea seeing the clash between opposing @aidaemelyanovaofficial
Private View Auction Report

By Simon de Burton
TIME TRAVELLERS Shooting stars,

medieval players, modern masters and celluloid gold
Soccer Star
monumental
A painting by Russian-
born abstract artist
Nicolas de Staël is
tipped to fetch up to £22.7m when
it crosses the block at Christie’s in
SWAN SONG
Paris during the FIAC The contents of the Paris and New
international art fair. Parc des York homes of the late socialite Lee
Bouvier Radziwill (top) are expected
Princes (right), which measures
to attract enthusiastic bidding when
200cm by 350cm, has remained in de Staël’s family since his death in 1955 at the young age of they are auctioned at Christie’s New
41. It depicts a soccer match that he was inspired to paint soon after he and his wife attended a York on October 17. The sale will
game between France and Sweden held in March 1952 at the famous Paris stadium. It is include jewellery, furniture, art and
considered to be the zenith of a series of similar works which, combined with its provenance, photographs amassed by Radziwill,
could help it to achieve a world record price. The painting will be on view from October 11 who was the sister of Jackie Kennedy
and among the world’s most
until the sale at 7pm on October 17 at Christie’s Paris, 9 Avenue Matignon.
photographed faces. She was one of
novelist Truman Capote’s “Swans”,
his inner circle of wealthy, beautiful
women. Radziwill died in New York
SWEET Surprise in February this year, aged 85.
GA LEL L A/RON GA L ELL A COL LECTION/GET T Y I MAGES (LE E BOUV IE R R A DZIW ILL); S OTHE BY’S (LE WI S CHESSM AN, CA NA L ET TO);
© CHRI STIE’S I MAGES L I MI TED 2019 (DE STA ËL ‘PA RC DE PRINCES’, R ADZI WIL L’S L IV ING RO OM AND DI NI NG RO OM); © RON
L UC IE N PAR IS (ME TEOR I TE); CATHERI NE SOUTHON AUCT ION E ERS & VAL UER S L TD (WON KA B AR, GOL DEN TICKET)
MOVER AND
SHAKER
A
Golden Ticket and Wonka Bar, two props used in Drawing Master
A medieval chess
piece, bought for £5 the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Ê This work in pen, ink, wash
by an Edinburgh Factory, fetched a sweet £15,000 between them when they and chalk depicting The
antique dealer in Presentation of the Doge in San
1964 and kept in a crossed the block in July at Catherine Southon Auctioneers
Marco became the most
drawer for 55 years, in Bromley, Kent. The items were given to the vendor by expensive Canaletto drawing
fetched a record
£735,000 when it
actress Julie Dawn Cole, who played the part of spoiled brat ever sold when it fetched £3.1m
at Sotheby’s. It was from a series
came under the Veruca Salt in the first film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s of a dozen drawings by the
hammer at Sotheby’s children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Gene 18th-century Italian master
London in July. The depicting the Feste Ducali, or
walrus-ivory “warder” Wilder starred as the zany Wonka. festival of the doges, and one of
was deemed to be the few still in private hands.
one of the famous
Lewis Chessmen, a
hoard of 59 pieces
found among 93
assorted objects on RO C K OF AGE S
the Isle of Lewis, in earth in 1994 as part of an even larger lump of rock
the Outer Hebrides in Paris auction house Lucien is set to sell the third weighing up to a ton. The largest known complete
1831. Scholars believe largest meteorite ever found on French soil. The 364kg meteorite to have fallen in France weighs 626kg and is
the chess pieces Météorite de Mont Dieu (right)—which is
were made in
kept in the Museum of Natural History in Paris. The
Trondheim, Norway named after the tiny commune in Mont Dieu rock will be on view at Drouot auction
during the 12th or Ardennes where it was discovered nine halls in Paris on October 19-20, prior to being
13th century and years ago by meteorite hunter Jean-Luc offered in Lucien’s Apollo 1969-2019 space sale on
were buried in the Billard—is believed to have plunged to
sands of Uig Bay
October 21. lucienparis.com.
after a shipwreck.

Private View Auction Report

By Simon de Burton
PLAY IT AGAIN
More sales like these, please
Small CHANGE
ormer Yankees baseball star Alex
F Rodriguez—better known as “A-Rod”—is
consolidating his contemporary art collection in
advance of his impending nuptials to singing
superstar Jennifer Lopez. A-Rod, whose Florida
home is said to be bedecked with valuable works,
consigned Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Pink Elephant
with Fire Engine (above right) from 1984 and
MONEY, I T ’S A HI T
Richard Prince’s Mustang Painting (above left) from
PHIL L IP S/© THE ESTATE OF J EA N-MICHEL B ASQUI AT/ADAGP, PA RIS AND DACS, L OND ON 2019 (BASQUI AT); R ICHA RD PRINC E COURTESY OF PH I L L I PS (PRI NCE);
BRUUN R ASMUSSE N AUCTION EE RS (HA MMER SHØI); ISTO CK (HA MM ER); © DI X NO ON AN WE BB (COIN S); JON KOPA L OFF/WI REI MAGE (RODRIGU EZ A ND L OPEZ)
One hundred and twenty guitars owned by David 2014-16 to Phillips’ 20th Century and Contemporary
Gilmour (above) of Pink Floyd became the most Art sale in London this summer. However, the
© C HR ISTI E’S I MAGES LI MITED 2019 (GUI TAR); AN TONIO PAGANO/A L A MY STO CK PHOTO (DAVID GI L MOUR); J EA N-MICHEL B ASQUI AT CO U RT ESY OF
expensive collection of musical instruments ever Prince didn’t sell and the Basquiat scraped by at a
sold at auction when they fetched £17m at Christie’s premium-inclusive £2.6m, £400,000 below the
New York in the summer. The star of the sale was low estimate. Never mind, the happy couple are
Gilmour’s black Fender Stratocaster that he played on reputed to be worth $750m between them.
albums including Dark Side of the Moon and The
Wall—it was bought for a record £3.13m by Jim Irsay,
the American football tycoon (he owns the GOLDEN
Indianapolis Colts) and rock memorabilia collector. WONDER
Gilmour donated the entire proceeds of the sale to
ClientEarth, a charity that tackles climate change,
famine and homelessness.
Get the Bugs A coin discovered

by a metal
Ê detecting
A Samsung laptop enthusiast during a
computer infected with 45-minute sweep of ST ILL LIVE S
the six most a Kent field has
fetched £552,000 A rare painting by Vilhelm Hammershoi
dangerous computer
at auction—more
viruses of the 21st than five times its could set a record for a work by the Danish
century has sold to estimate. The tiny artist when it crosses the block at Bruun
an anonymous coin was made from
24-carat gold and Rasmussen auctioneers in Copenhagen
bidder for £1.07m.
bears the portrait of following almost 50 years in the same
The work of Chinese Allectus, a finance
conceptual artist minister who
ownership. Interior from Strandgarde 30
Guo O Dong, Persistence assassinated the shows the painter’s wife, Ida, reading beside a
ruling Emperor window in the couple’s Copenhagen
of Chaos was created
Carausius 1,700
to “materialise the abstract threats of the digital world”. years ago. It is one apartment. In typical Hammershoi style, the
The laptop was sold using a dedicated website where of only 24 known room is devoid of furniture and depicted in an
the effects of the malware could be seen in action Aureus coins in the
world and had been ethereal light using minimal colour. The 52cm
without risk of infecting the viewer’s own device. The six
estimated by by 54cm work is estimated to fetch up to
included ILOVEYOU, MyDoom and WannaCry—the London-based
latter being the ransomware virus that caused chaos auctioneer Dix
£3.6m—but similar Hammershois have
throughout much of the U.K.’s National Health Service Noonan Webb to achieved considerably more of late, with
computer system in 2017. sell for no more Interior with Woman at Piano making a record
than £100,000.
£5.1m in New York two years ago.
Baltic Beauties
ouse sales are becoming AUCTION CALENDAR
H rarer, but this month
Bonhams will auction the entire October
4 Christie’s, Post-war and Contemporary
contents of a Latvian villa on the
Art (evening) London
shores of the Baltic Sea. Everything must Christie’s, Thinking Italian, London
go from the Riga property, which has been Phillips, 20th Century and
described as “palatial”, including one of the finest Contemporary Art (evening), London
collections of 19th-century revivalist furniture in private hands, a cellar Sotheby’s, Contemporary Art, London
full of Dom Perignon and Petrus wines, and a pair of vast Russian 7 Sotheby’s, Magnificent Jewels and
chandeliers. And there’s no need to travel to Latvia to see it all, Jadeite, Hong Kong
10 Bonhams, Impressionist and Modern
because Bonhams has carefully installed the entire collection in its
Art, London
Bond Street galleries, where it 10 Bonhams, Contents of a Virginian
will be sold. The Country House, Los Angeles
Contents of a 19th 15 Bonhams, Prints and Multiples, Los
Century Baltic Angeles
Villa is on view Sotheby’s, Modern and Contemporary
African Art, London
from October
16 Bonhams, Scottish Art, Edinburgh
14-16 (day of sale). 16 Christie’s, Design, London
bonhams.com 17 Phillips, Design, London
Sotheby’s, Impressionist and Modern
Art, Paris
24 Christie’s, Art of the Islamic and Indian
Winning Hand Worlds, London
Ê Bonhams Hong Kong has sold what it describes as 25 Phillips, Editions and Works on Paper,
“the rarest collection of Japanese whisky” for New York
£753,000. The Hanyu Ichiro Full Card Series Phillips, Photographs, London
comprised 54 bottles, each labelled with the image of
29 Sotheby’s, Gold: The Midas Touch,
a different playing card and filled from individual
casks of premium whisky produced by the acclaimed London
Hanyu distillery. Bonhams became the first auction 28 Christie’s, European Art, New York
house to sell a Full Card Series in 2015 for £403,000 and Sotheby’s, Pre-Columbian
established a record for a Japanese whisky collection. It is
Treasures, Paris
thought that only four sets of the Full Card Series exist. The
Hanyu distillery was established in 1941, but closed in 2000, with the contents sold
to businessman Ichiro Akuto, who saved 400 casks of single malt. November
7 Bonhams, Fine Chinese Art, London
11 Bonhams, African, Oceanic and
Pre-Columbian Art, New York
12 Bonhams, Impressionist and Modern
Art, New York
BON HAMS (VI L L A, CHA NDELI ER, ENC OIGN URE, RODI N, AUCTION S CENE, WHI SKY BOT TLES)
12 Christie’s, Magnificent Jewels, Geneva

14 Phillips, 20th Century and
Contemporary Art (evening), New York
20 Bonhams, Modern British and Irish Art,
London
NOT GONE YET 20 Christie’s, American Art, New York
21 Christie’s, Modern British, London
25 Christie’s, Important Russian Art, London
Peter Wallman, the former CEO of RM Sotheby’s, has
26 Sotheby’s, Russian Works of Art and
launched a website called LastBid that is designed to give
Pictures, London
buyers another chance to compete for unsold auction
Sotheby’s, Fine Jewels, London
lots. The site features thousands of items across all
27 Bonhams, Important Design, London
collecting categories—from wine to jewellery and classic
27 Bonhams, The Russian Sale, London
cars—that have failed to find buyers in auction rooms
around the world. LastBid users can bid for them online,
with five opportunities to increase their offer. Successful December
bidders will be contacted directly by the relevant auction 4 Sotheby’s, Contemporary Art
house to arrange payment and collection. “It’s a bit like a (evening), Paris
trove of missed opportunities,” says Wallman. “Buyers 4 Bonhams, Jewels, London
can find all sorts of items under one 9 Phillips, Jewels, New York
roof, everything from fine art 9 Bonhams, Jewels, New York
to cars, wine and 10 Sotheby’s, Asian Art, Paris
jewellery.” lastbid.com 17 Phillips, Design, New York
NOV E M B E R 20 19
Artists in their Studios
Pandemonia
Plastic fantastic, maybe, but behind the
seven-foot, ageless, post-Pop art latex
characterisation lies a creative genius
Photograph and words by M A R Y A M E I S L E R
hy post-Pop? Because Pop alone is just “pastiche and

sham” as Pandemonia is sure to declare. Her art uses
W the Pop art genre but is digital in its inception. As a
concept, the work “interacts with culture” and is
able to jump mediums and styles. The identity behind the mask
also purposefully remains a secret: “A nom de plume gives me
vital space to observe the world. In our digital age, we still need
mysteries. Not everything should be available on Wikipedia!”
The artist began Pandemonia during the burgeoning signs of
social media. In a world of 24/7, the old art world paradigm no longer
stands. “Art needs to flow across space and place; it’s about creating
a new vision, one which is no longer locked up in the confines of
the gallery walls,” she says. A misunderstood artist? Perhaps.
Pandemonia’s oeuvre can pose as one thing but be another,
“a modern-day Trojan Horse of some sort,” as she puts it. The
work has a good dose of situationalism in its genes. “Some people
take what I do at face value, and others may think about it. But that
is the very idea of art, is it not? It lies in the eye of the beholder.”
Why the name? A direct descendant of pandemonium, a cross
between confusion and destruction, culminating in creative
combustion. “When I first started, I was going out and looking
for cracks in the pavement of society; I went ploughing through
them. Things shift around us all the time, and it is important to see
how people react to these shifts. That is the true function of art.”
An artist on the cusp of advertising, art and people, Panda believes
that the line between the commercial and the private worlds are
now blurred. She’s also a firm advocate of the artist’s own hand
at work. “There is something promethean about making art. One
is bringing something out of nothing. Furthermore, the act of
creation affects and informs one’s ideas; those come through in
original work. Part of art’s charm is that it is made by artists. It’s the
human touch reaching out to us across the centuries. It is always
the painting that was actually painted by Rembrandt or by da Vinci
that is the most sought-after, is it not?”
Her new adventures in painting are led by the utopian idea of
absolute freedom: “Painting,” she says, “offers freedom from the
physical world. Passing through the picture plane, Pandemonia is
LIVING DOLL unshackled from the here and the now, cast adrift to explore
Pandemonia photographed on new realms of ideas.” Pandemonia is now a powerful brand, an
July 21, 2019 in London among her
movable sculptures and in front of opinion maker, an influencer in the form of a three-dimensional
her latest painting Lost in Toothpaste drawing, a “myth” as she likes to refer to herself, which she
has fully inhabited, operated and experienced from all sides.
To her, Panda represents “the Other, the unattainable”. What is
for certain is that the character reflects our times, one who has
the ability “to write her own story across the media”, from the
real to the virtual, and vice versa.
VA NIT Y FA IR ON A RT 43
Mirror
IMAGE
Centuries before the first “selfie”, artists were
experimenting with the most personal art form:
self-portraiture. Today, the genre continues to evolve
By Maja Markovic, Jude Hull and André Zlattinger
hen Ovid described Narcissus pining for his own reflection experimented with the optical play of a small glass convex
in a pool of water, little did he know that the myth would be mirror in his Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1524), intended
perpetuated by countless artists gazing in mirrors, trying to to showcase his artistic skill in the hope of gaining papal
capture what Narcissus could not. Since antiquity, there has patronage. His Florentine contemporary Jacopo da Pontormo
been a fascination with the personality and status of the artist, seemingly had a more private audience in mind for his semi-
yet until the final decade of the 15th century, self-portraits nude study pointing at a mirror (c. 1522-25), not unlike the 13-year-
were confined to the margins of illuminated manuscripts and old Albrecht Dürer, who drew himself (fully clothed) in 1484.
paintings, often among the crowds in religious narratives. But there were few painters as fascinated with reflective
The earliest known independent self-portrait was painted in surfaces as Jan van Eyck. His diminutive self-portrait in The
1433 by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, a work of both sublime Arnolfini Portrait (1434) demonstrated the legendary depth
artistry and clever self-promotion. By the end of the 15th and detail of his illusionism in one of the most famous mirrors
century, a new self-awareness had elevated the spasmodic in art history. This later inspired one of the most complex
and marginalised self-portrait into a new genre as artists and enigmatic pictorial constructions of Western art: Diego
immortalised themselves in paint, on paper and in stone, Velázquez’s group portrait Las Meninas (1656), in which
redefining what it meant to be an artist. the viewer is placed in a silent dialogue with the artist who
NATIONAL GAL L ERY, LO NDON, UK / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES (VAN EYCK); GR APHISCH E SAMMLU NG ALB ERTI NA,
An artist in front of a mirror made for the most patient model. confronts them from behind his easel.
Mirrors became the mythological pools through which artists By surrounding themselves with the paraphernalia of their
observed themselves. The Mannerist painter Parmigianino profession, artists like Velázquez underscored their special
VIEN NA, AUSTRIA / BRIDGEMAN I MAGES (DÜRER); © THE TRUST EES OF THE BRITIS H MU S EUM
(DA PO NTORMO); PR ADO, MADR ID, S PAIN / B RIDGEMAN IMAGES (V ELÁZQ UEZ)
BY JAN VAN EYCK BY ALBRECHT DÜRER BY JACOPO DA PONTORMO BY DIEGO VELÁZQUEZ
Portrait of a Man, Self-Portrait at the Age of 13, Self-Portrait, Las Meninas,
1433 1484 c. 1522-25 c. 1656

BY SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA BY ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI BY REMBRANDT BY ÉLISABETH LOUISE

Self-Portrait at the Easel, Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of HARMENSZOON VAN RIJN VIGÉE LE BRUN
c. 1556 Alexandria, c. 1615-17 Large Self-Portrait, 1652 Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat, c. 1782
place in society. It was only at the beginning of the 16th the mind and their brushstrokes as visual confessions of their
century that painters began to affirm their position as “liberal” inner and outer selves. No artist made as many confessionals
artists of the mind, rather than simply manual labourers. The as Rembrandt, who recorded his journey through life from
biographer Giorgio Vasari, dubbed the father of art history, youth to maturity in an extraordinary number of paintings,
filled the pages of his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors drawings and etchings. Appearing in his own historical and
and Architects (1550) with anecdotal tales of artists’ personality mythological paintings, studies, tronies (a popular category
quirks, mythologising masters like Michelangelo, Raphael of half-length figures in different guises) and intimate self-
and Leonardo da Vinci as the mortal gods of artistic genius. portraits, he epitomised the tradition of expressive self-
In Northern Europe, no one spread the idea of the artist as representation that endures to this day, leaving something
genius as successfully as Dürer, who evolved from his Self- of himself in each artwork—his style, his mark and his legacy.
Portrait at 13 to Self-Portrait at 28 (1500), visually likening
himself to Christ in a less-than-subtle declaration of his f mirrors were the mythological tool of self-portraiture
divine artistry. The Bolognese painter Annibale Carracci,
meanwhile, associated himself with the Ancient Greek
I from the 16th century onwards, it was the camera that
took over in the 19th century, redefining representations
MUZEUM Z AMEK, L ANC UT, PO L AND / B RIDGEMAN IMAGES (ANGUISSOL A); © THE NATIO NAL GAL LERY, L ONDO N
painter Parrhasius, who painted a curtain so realistic that of the self and portraiture at large. The camera could capture
it fooled viewers into attempting to lift it, by setting his the exact likeness of a person, place or thing; painters were no
(GENTIL ES CHI); KHM-MUS EUMSVERBAND (VAN RIJ N); © TH E N ATION AL GAL LERY, LO NDON (LE BRUN)
Self-portrait at the Easel (1604-5) against the backdrop of a longer relied upon to depict the “truth”. The camera obscura
trompe l’oeil curtain so inconspicuous that it has evaded art enabled, and necessitated, a new way of seeing.
historical attention. From the late 16th century, artists like Almost immediately after Joseph Nicéphore Niépce succeeded
Titian, Rubens and van Dyck elevated themselves to the in permanently fixing the first recorded photographic image, it
rank of their aristocratic patrons, achieving financial success is understood that Robert Cornelius, an amateur chemist and
and celebrity status in their lifetime, with ostentatious self- photography enthusiast, captured the first self-portrait in 1839.
portraits laden with pomp and circumstance. Notable early practitioners included Joseph-Philibert Girault
By the mid-16th century, women began to occupy a more de Prangey in 1841–2, Francis Frith dressed in Turkish summer
visible place as artists and sought to assert their position by costume in 1857 and Lady Hawarden in 1862. The early days of
depicting themselves engaging with their trade. Sofonisba photography were marked by a collective desire to create portraits.
Anguissola, one of the first great female artists and a prolific Carte-de-visites, in the form of an albumen print, became the
self-portraitist, declared her mastery of her image and her popular calling card of the wealthy, traded among friends and
medium by working at an easel in her self-portrait of 1556. visitors. Today, these images can feel somewhat staged and
Artemisia Gentileschi followed suit with her Self-Portrait as unfamiliar, but their importance cannot be underestimated.
Saint Catherine of Alexandria (c. 1615-17) and Self-Portrait as
the Allegory of Painting (c. 1638-9). This topos endured well
into the 17th and 18th centuries, from Judith Leyster’s recently
discovered second self-portrait (c. 1653) to Élisabeth Louise
Vigée Le Brun’s Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat (1782).
No artist made as
As new sciences emerged in the 17th century, the world was
in a state of flux. René Descartes forced people to re-evaluate
many confessionals
the relationship between mind, body and soul, describing the
painter’s studio as a model for the mind. No longer content
with mere imitation, artists viewed the hand as an extension of
as Rembrandt
BY ROBERT CORNELIUS BY EL LISSITZKY BY CLAUDE CAHUN BY MAN RAY

Self-Portrait, Self-Portrait (“The Constructor”), Self-Portrait, Self-Portrait,
1839 1924 1927 1932
hroughout the 20th century, photographers and the publicity shots taken on film sets. Though categorically not
T artists increasingly turned the lens on themselves.
Frequently, the camera itself played a principal
self-portraits, Sherman’s images have nonetheless influenced
the genre, exploiting a portrait’s capacity to obscure the self
role in these depictions; one calls to mind a young Edward by recasting the identity of the artist subject. The works
Steichen’s Self-Portrait of 1901, in which the artist holds a simultaneously initiated much debate around the presence of
brush and palette in comparison to his later portrait of 1917, the “male gaze”. Robert Mapplethorpe, another 20th-century
in which a camera dominates. In Man Ray’s solarised self- icon, created a body of work that is most recognisable from his
portrait of 1932, his gaze is fixed not upon the viewer, but on self-portraiture. His exploration of the unseen demanded that
the camera. These images share a connection with those of open sexuality was represented in art. In his self-portraits he
Rembrandt, Manet, van Gogh and Oehlen, who depicted explored numerous roles, dressed in drag, in militant gear, or
themselves as artists armed with the tools of their trade. as the devil. Mapplethorpe took pleasure in donning different
El Lissitzky’s Self-Portrait (“The Constructor”) of 1924 proverbial masks to emphasise the elasticity of the self.
(LISS ITZK Y); ©J ERS EY HERITAGE CO L LECTION S (CAH UN); © 2019. PHOTO S MI TH SO NIAN AMERICAN ART M US EUM/
remains one of most important works in the medium, marking As the 20th century progressed, one could argue that
a shift from the purely documentary to the constructed photography freed artists from their obligation to document.
ART RESO URCE/SCAL A, F LORENC E / © MAN R AY 2015 T RU ST/ADAGP, PAR IS AND DACS, LO NDO N 2019 (R AY)
image. A powerful symbol of the artistic, political, cultural Instead, it allowed for greater abstraction, provided
UN IVERS AL HISTORY AR CHIVE/UIG VIA GET T Y IMAGES (COR NEL IU S); © 2019 CH RI STIE’S I MAGE LI MI TED
and societal sea-changes of the time, it draws together the opportunities for performance and enabled the production
ideologies of the Russian avant-garde, Bauhaus, Dadaism and of images that countenance a multitude of readings.
modernism. Using montage to create what he referred to as his
“great piece of nonsense”, Lissitzky combined self-referential n the aftermath of the Second World War, self-portraiture
symbols with the overarching theme of artist as architect and
engineer, as evidenced by the compass and hand serving
I took an increasingly existential turn. For Francis
Bacon and Lucian Freud, painting one’s own likeness
as his eyes. It is a masterpiece of the period and became a was less a means of self-promotion and more a vehicle for
symbol of 1920s avant-garde, when creativity was seen as a contemplating the human condition. Freud’s self-portraits
combination of human intellect and modern technology. are rendered with unflinching scrutiny, charting the passage
The advance of the camera has allowed artists to of time across his own visage. Bacon, too, used the genre as
assume alternative roles; indeed, the performative aspect a means of confronting his own mortality: a concern made
of photography has been integral to the medium since its all the more profound by the death of his lover in 1971. While
foundation. In 1840, Hippolyte Bayard captured himself Freud observed the transience of human flesh in immaculate
as a drowned man, in protest of the crediting of Talbot and detail, Bacon expressed it in raw, visceral terms, enacting a
Daguerre as the founders of photography. F. Holland Day destructive pictorial violence upon his own image. Into these
starved himself in preparation for The Seven Words (1898), a visions, both artists wove acts of homage to their forebears:
re-enactment of the life of Christ. Claude Cahun’s surrealist Rembrandt, Titian and Velázquez, who set the genre in
self-portraits of the 1920s used the genre to explore her own motion. For Bacon and Freud, as for many who followed,
identity: she shaved her head and transformed herself into self-portraiture became an opportunity to lay bare their own
ambiguous roles, among them a man and a Buddha, as a artistic DNA; to record their heritage in the stark and brutal
means of questioning her sexuality. knowledge of their own impermanence.
Among the most dedicated explorations of the performative As painting itself drifted in and out of vogue during the
potential of photography is Cindy Sherman’s highly celebrated 1970s and ’80s, certain artists took a more conceptual
Untitled Film Stills, taken between 1977 and 1980, which evokes approach to self-por traiture. A ndy Warhol—master

a self-portrait unlike any other: a snapshot of a moment of

personal crisis, rebuilt like a crime scene in extraordinarily
Self-portraiture was intimate detail. Though the artist’s own image is absent,
her presence is painstakingly clear. Jenny Saville, though
more closely indebted to painterly tradition, adopted a
an opportunity to similarly confessional approach, exposing her own body with
unflinching candour. Shot through with the lessons of the Old
lay bare artistic DNA Masters, Saville’s work has less to do with exploring her psyche
than with interrogating the properties of naked flesh. Though
deliberately devoid of narrative and personal anecdote, her
of disguise—positioned himself among depictions of self-portraits nonetheless demonstrate the unabashed,
Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. Grappling with the revelatory qualities that defines much of the art of this period.
explosion of mass-produced imagery, Warhol became the
self-proclaimed mirror of his age, aping the aesthetics of n the 21st century—a world of virtual reality and social
reproduction in order to shed light on its dark implications.
Unlike Bacon and Freud, his self-portraits seemed to reveal
I media—the notion of self-portraiture seems more
relevant than ever. Yet for a number of artists, the
nothing: even the haunting skull-like appearances of his genre has, in many ways, come full circle. Njideka Akunyili
later “Fright Wig” paintings were tantalisingly vacant. Crosby’s self-portraits are powerful assertions of identity and
Through very different means, Martin Kippenberger also cultural heritage, layered with photographs, talismans and
hid from the viewer in plain sight. His self-portraits were fabrics from her personal family archives. Adrian Ghenie,
rooted in a startling cast of tragi-comic alter egos: from meanwhile, has cultivated a form of self-portraiture that—
the crucified “Fred the Frog”, to the anthropomorphic much like that of his forebears—raises important questions
“Eggman” and, somewhat bombastically, Pablo Picasso. For about the role of the artist in society. Like a time traveller,
Kippenberger, much like Warhol before him, to be an artist Ghenie journeys through history, painting himself in
was to perform to an audience. In his self-portraits, he wore a the guise of figures who changed its course, for better or
set of masks—prophet, martyr, genius, comedian, prankster— worse. Dressed as Darwin and Van Gogh, or alone amid the
that concealed his true identity. crumbling ruins of the Third Reich, he inserts himself into
With the 1990s came the birth of the “Young British the very fabric of history. Ghenie believes that the artist has
Artists” whose work took a very different direction. Tracey the power to rematerialise the past: to look beyond the flat,
Emin, whose oeuvre might be viewed as one extended self- glossy images through which it is transmitted and, through
portrait, placed autobiography at the core of her practice. the carnal, physical substance of paint, to restore a sense of
Taking inspiration from Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele, she lived reality to its narratives. In an age that has seen the mirror
RES ER VED, DACS 2019 (SAVILL E); © TH E L UCIAN F REUD ARCH IVE / B RIDGEMAN IMAGES (F REUD); © ADRIAN GH ENIE,
© CH RISTIE’S IMAGES / B RIDGEMAN IMAGES / © 2019 TH E ANDY WARHOL F OUNDATIO N FOR TH E VI SUAL ART S, I NC.
wrote her inner monologue (sometimes literally) into every replaced by the screen, it is a pertinent enquiry. The future
/ L ICENS ED B Y DACS, L ONDON (WARHOL); © 2019 CHRISTI E’S IMAGE LI MI TED / © J ENNY SAVI LLE. ALL RIGH TS
fibre of her work. While some are obviously self-portraits, of self-portraiture will ultimately hinge upon the question of
such as the notorious I’ve Got It All (2000), others operate how we come to define ourselves—and, by extension, the act
metaphorically. Her seminal installation My Bed (1998) is of art-making—in the digital era.
BY ANDY WARHOL BY JENNY SAVILLE BY LUCIAN FREUD BY ADRIAN GHENIE

Self-Portrait, Self-Portrait, Self-Portrait (Reflection), Self-Portrait as Vincent Van Gogh
1986 1992 2002 2012
CO URTESY PACE GALL ERY (GH ENIE, O IL ON CAN VAS, 47.6 X 31.1CM)
48 VANIT Y F A I R O N ART NOV E M B E R 2019

Gilbert
& George
The dynamic duo of the British
contemporary art world continue to
create a pilgrim’s journey through life
Photograph and words by M A R Y A M E I S L E R
n showcasing their new Paradisical series this winter

at Sprueth Magers (November 15 to January 25), the
I artists have chosen a most unlikely, yet appropriate

location: Los Angeles, aka the City of Angels, sacred
home to “fake religions”, according to Gilbert and
George. Humans wish to reach paradise, in one guise or another.
“When they go to a nightclub, they want paradise. When they go
on holiday, they want paradise. When they go out to eat, they want
heavenly food and divine cocktails,” says George. While Gilbert
continues: “They’re all searching for paradise, not in the afterlife,
but right here on earth. The human god is right here.” The other
God, the artists proclaim, is “done and dusted with!”
Enlightenment can only be reached when we liberate ourselves
from these “horrible religions”. Which is why the duo’s hero is Dar-
win, with Alan Turing a close second—because the latter “invented a
modern world which allows us to liberate ourselves from our brains”.
For Gilbert and George, paradise lies on the doorstep of their home
and studio in London’s East End. Since the 1960s, the artists have
witnessed vast transformations to do with a plethora of faiths, di-
vergent ethnic backgrounds, super-fast economic development,
discordant politics and a multi-coloured cultural flux. The East
End has been home to exiled communities from the French Hu-
guenots in the 17th century, the Eastern European Jews in the
18th and 19th centuries and the Irish silk weavers in the early
20th century to the Bangladeshi Muslim community of today—a
multicultural reality which has led to a unique spirit of enterprise.
“If we think cosmologically, we’re within a tiny walking dis-
tance of the tomb of William Blake who invented Humanism. In
the same cemetery, you have John Bunyan’s gravestone—the man
who wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, the most famous yet least read
book on that subject. Across the street, there are the Wesley Broth-
ers who invented Methodism. And then you think of Brick Lane,
with a German church and a Russian vapour bath—where they
also had the Chinese opium dens frequented by Oscar Wilde.”
The iconoclastic artists feel that their art is a pilgrim’s journey
through life in its entirety—confronting real, multicultural,
multidimensional lives every time they open their front door.
Seeing, smelling, hearing and experiencing life, glitz and grits
LOVE ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS outside the confines of their home and studio walls. It’s all hap-
Gilbert & George photographed on July 31, 2019, in their East End
studio in front of a detail of “Lion Teeth” from the Paradisical series. pening around them. And in the act of creating, they have man-
The artists are sitting on their favourite green male/female chairs, bought aged to create a modern language that is entirely their own: one
in the 1960s and for a long time their only furniture. A uranium-glazed
vase by Candy Art Pottery sits on the table to the left; a charger and that speaks about the mass of humanity, to a spectrum of fellow
cider mug by Lauriana Art Pottery are displayed on the right Londoners and beyond, in the most accessible way possible.
Lead Supporter
Until 3 December
Friends of the RA go free
Generously supported by
A L A N DAVID SON/SH U T T ERSTO CK
THROUGH THE LENS

Andy Warhol and Natasha
Fraser-Cavassoni at a
party held in Warhol’s
honour at Regine’s
nightclub, London, in 1980
The King of Pop

Hired at the artist’s studio days ndy Warhol’s memorial was my first New
York Society event. I knew the guest list
before his death, one writer
captured a unique snapshot of
“the Sargent of the jet set”,
A in advance because I was working at the
Warhol Studio. Hired four days before the
Pop artist died, I became the last person
to be employed during Andy’s reign. His
memorial, held six weeks later, took place at St Patrick’s
Andy Warhol Cathedral on April 1, 1987. The New York Times described
the attendees as “glittering” and some of “the world’s most
By NATASHA FRASER-CAVASSONI droppable” names in “art, fashion, society and entertain-
ment”. However, they forgot to mention that many such as
Halston, Debbie Harry, Liza Minnelli, David Hockney and
Roy Lichtenstein had actually posed for one of Warhol’s
iconic portraits. After the service, as everyone poured out
onto Fifth Avenue, I recognised socialites São Schlumberger
and Lynn Wyatt and designer Diane von Furstenberg from
their Warhol portraits. That morning, Schlumberger appeared
buttoned-up and stately—the artist had caught her looking
seductive and relaxed—whereas Wyatt remained an
ever-smiling Texan rose with her signature cloud of blonde
curls, and von Furstenberg summed up dynamic and
determined—both on and off the canvas.
NY DA I LY N EWS AR CHI VE V IA GET T Y I MAG ES (FRONT PAG E); CATHER IN E MCGAN N/GE T T Y I MAGES (J ONES);
RON GA L ELL A/RON GA LEL L A C OLL ECTION VI A GET T Y IM AGES (A LL OTHE R I MAG ES)
THE WORLD’S MOST DROPPABLE NAMES

Centre: Daily News front page from February 23, 1987. Clockwise from top left: Tama Janowitz and Debbie Harry; St. Patrick’s Cathedral in
New York; Lynn Wyatt and Jerry Zipkin; Franco Rossellini and Bianca Jagger; Raquel Welch and her husband André Weinfeld; Grace Jones;
Yoko Ono; Keith Haring; Liza Minnelli and Halston; Kelly and Calvin Klein and Diane von Furstenberg and her brother; São Schlumberger and Bob
Colacello, all during the memorial services for Andy Warhol on April 1, 1987

Several years later, after moving to Paris, I

admired Schlumberger’s four Warhol portraits in
pride of place in her salon and would encounter
the equivalent when meeting Hélène Rochas and
dining with Florence Grinda, French Vogue’s society
editor. Small wonder that Bob Colacello, Warhol’s
former employee, referred to him as “the Sargent Debbie Harry
1980
of the jet set”. When writing my memoir, After
Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land, I interviewed
von Furstenberg and others, such as the Farah Diba
Pahlavi, Eric de Rothschild and Suzanne Syz, about
their Warhol portrait sessions, all of which began
with a Polaroid. Whereas von Furstenberg was
snapped in the kitchen of her Park Avenue apart-
Bianca Jagger POP A BOTTLE
ment—“he (Andy) needed a white wall”—the former 1981 Above, from left to right: Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol,
empress of Iran was painted in the grandeur of the Jerry Hall and Lorna Luft at New York’s Studio 54 in 1977.
Left: rarely seen without his trusted camera, Warhol would
Niavaran Palace, Tehran. “We’d already met at the often use blown-up Polaroid photographs as a starting
White House at a state dinner given for my husband point for his painted portraits
by President Ford,” she remembered. “I was excited
to talk to Andy but he kept on running away from
me. He was scared that I was going to ask him to Regarding his career, it was so obvious that
dance.” Rothschild sat for Warhol in the nude—“I Grace Jones Warhol was one of those geniuses who was
1984
was inspired by a portrait of Louis XV at Versailles motivated by curiosity and instinct, as opposed
and he needed $20,000 to finish the film Trash,” to a “mighty me” ego. There was genuine won-
he says—while the jeweller Suzanne Syz dared to derment. Colacello, his biographer, referred to
complain that he had made her look sad. “He was him as “the Matisse of Acrylic Paint”. He was. To
surprised, I don’t think every sitter was as frank,” quote Jacques Grange, France’s leading interior
she says. Two weeks later, Warhol did her portrait designer, Warhol was “an exceptional colourist”
in three different colours and gave them all to her. Yoko Ono but there was also “the freshness of the work”. In
1971 the opinion of Sir Norman Rosenthal, who curated
ountless people have insisted that a show of his portraits at the Ashmolean Museum in
Warhol was impossible to commu- Oxford in 2016, “his magic comes down to honesty”.
C nicate with. Not in my experience. Katharine Arnold mentions the importance of
A RT WOR K © 2019 THE A NDY WA RHOL FOUNDATION F OR THE VI SUAL A RTS, I NC. / LICENSE D B Y DACS, LOND ON. PHOTO
A KG-I MAGES / P ICTURE A LL I A NCE / KPA (STUDIO 54); © THE ANDY WA RHOL F OUNDATION FOR T HE V IS UA L ARTS, INC./
THE VI SUAL ARTS, I NC. / LICEN SED BY DAC S, L OND ON. PHOTO © CHRISTIE’S IMAG ES LIM ITED 2019 (ONO; HAL STON);
DACS/ A RTIMAGE 2019 (HA R RY; J ON ES; HA RI NG; MI NNE LL I); A RT WORK © 2019 THE A NDY WA RHOL FOUNDAT ION FOR
When initially introduced to him in Warhol’s Catalogue Raisonné, first published

1980, he tried to set me up with an in 2002. “It gives a sense of how handcrafted
Armani model. “You should meet him,” he said Keith Haring
and premeditated his work was,” she says. And
with a sly smile. It was fairly outrageous. He was 1986 like many, von Furstenberg views the artist as
the major artist mentioned in a David Bowie song prophet-like. “Andy guessed and predicted it all,”
© COLL ECTION OF J IM HED GES, C OURTESY HED GES PROJE CTS (JAGG ER; VON FURSTE N BE RG)
(“Andy Warhol”), yet there he was playing cupid to she says, “the era of fame, icons, branding.”
my 16-year-old self. Accompanied by Fred Hughes, From the late 1970s onwards, Warhol was over-
his business manager, we were having lunch at the looked by the American art world. “Unlike his
Chester Square home of Marguerite Littman. contemporaries Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper
Warhol became famous for making high art Johns, Andy was a swish gay,” says gallery owner
out of low art—Campbell soup cans—while his Liza Minnelli Larry Gagosian. “He wasn’t locked in his studio,
1978
iconic 1960s portraits of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and having dinners with German curators and going to
Elizabeth Taylor created a new language. As the bed at 9.30pm.” Serious collectors were confused
Pop artist’s career continued, his portraits evolved by his late nights spent at Studio 54, photographed
into different series including celebrity and society alongside his celebrity friends like Minnelli and
subjects. Joseph Beuys—a Warhol subject himself— Bianca Jagger. And the 40-by-40 celebrity and
claimed that “if the first half of the 20th century societ y portraits weren’t considered. Start-
belonged to Picasso, the second half belonged to ing around 1970, they were invented by Bruno
Halston
Warhol.” Certainly, his prices have soared. A 1974 Bischofberger, Warhol’s Zurich-based dealer, and
Triple Elvis portrait went for $400,000 in 1987 Thomas Ammann, his then assistant. “Later, we
but now goes for $81 million—or it did at Christie’s called them ‘les Must de Warhol’ (les Must be-
Contemporary Sale in November 2014—and the ing a play on Cartier’s famous campaign),” says
Italian collector Annibale Berlingieri privately sold Bischofberger. Robert Hughes, Time magazine’s
his Eight Elvises for $100 million in 2008. Accord- revered art critic, dismissed them as “fatuous”.
ing to Katharine Arnold (the co-head of Christie’s Still, regarding the body of work that included
Post-War and Contemporary Art in London), “the Diane von Gianni Agnelli, Brigitte Bardot, Willy Brandt,
Furstenberg 1984
1980s society portraits have appreciated.” Aretha Franklin, Mick Jagger, Yves Saint Laurent,
Famous
FACES
Debbie Harry
Date painted 1980
Diane von
Furstenberg
Date painted 1984
WA RHOL FOUNDATION F OR THE V I SUAL A RTS, I NC. / LICE NSE D BY DACS, LOND ON. P HOTO © CHR ISTI E’S I MAGES / B RID GEMA N I MAGES (M I NNEL L I); © T H E A NDY WA RHOL M U SEU M,
WA RHOL); © THE A NDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VI SUA L A RT S, INC./ DACS/ A RTI MAG E 2019 (HARRY; W YAT T; COLLI NS; VON FURST ENB ERG); © A RT WORK © 2019 T H E A NDY
GET T Y IMAGES (WARHOL); RON GA LEL L A/WI REI MAGE /GE T T Y IM AGES (HAR RY AND WARHOL; HA LSTON AND WARHOL; MI NNEL L I A ND WA RHOL); J OH N VA N B EEK U M (W YAT T A ND
WA RHOL FOUNDATION F OR THE V I SUAL A RTS, I NC. / LICE NSE D BY DACS, LOND ON. P HOTO © SE PT 1974 VO GUE / COND É NAST A RCHI VE (H A L STON); A RT WORK © 2019 T H E A NDY
WA RHOL); B UD STR AUS S/GL OB E P HOTOS/ZUMA PRESS (B ERE NSON A ND WA RHOL); BE T TMAN/GET T Y I MAGES (COLL I NS AND WA RHOL); JA NICE RU B I N (VON FU RST ENB ERG A ND
Halston
Date painted 1974
Joan Collins
PI T TSBURGH; F OUNDI NG C OLL ECTION, C ON TR IB UTION THE ANDY WA RHOL FOUNDATION F OR THE VI SUAL ART S, INC. / LICENSED B Y DACS, L OND ON (B ERENSON)
Date painted 1985
Marisa Berenson
Date painted 1983
Liza Minnelli
Date painted 1978 Lynn Wyatt
Date painted 1980
Dolly Parton and the Shah of Iran, it’s hard not to agree with Our next meeting was at a benefit dinner. After discuss-
Arnold that “Warhol had an amazing ability to capture a ing various British upper-class families, he suddenly said,
sense of the times.” This is illustrated in his 1985 portrait of “Natasha, you should write a Mommie Dearest book about
Joan Collins, who was then playing Alexis in Dynasty, TV’s your childhood.” Somewhat surprised, I replied, “You mean
most memorable villainess. “He never spoke other than to describe how my mother (Antonia Fraser) hit my siblings
say ‘more hair, more hair’,” Collins recalls. “He liked the and me over the head with her books as opposed to wire coat
backcombed hair to be as high as the sky.” hangers?” He laughed, closing his eyes and tipping his head
back. Dining with him at Mr. Chow’s restaurant in Los
eing judgemental about Warhol was miss- Angeles (along with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring,
B ing his point—way ahead of the game, he was

leveraging his own identity—and missing out
on all the fun he inspired. When he was in
Hockney and Julian Schnabel) felt different. It was August
1985 and Andy had attended Madonna’s wedding to Sean
Penn. The paparazzi photographers were hanging out of
London to promote his photographic book Andy helicopters to snap the private yet high-profile event and he
Warhol’s Exposures, there was a brilliant society bash given was delighted that they recognised his white wig. He had just
at Regine’s by its French owner and the interior designer started making Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes, a television
Nicholas Haslam. The paparazzi f lashed the artist’s programme featuring interviews with the art, fashion and
every move as I remained hot on his heels. Andy didn’t rock-and-roll world. Eighteen months later, Fred Hughes
mind, he was busy holding his camera to the side and approached me about coming on board. After lunching with
aimlessly clicking at the jeunesse dorée crowd. Being my him and securing a contract, I found Andy. Although friend-
no-nonsense self, I did say, “Andy, shouldn’t you be ly, his complexion was flushed and he was frantically going
looking through the lens?” My suggestion was ignored. through bags, becoming agitated. I was unaware that he was

WARHOL’S RISING STARS

By S I M O N D E B U R T O N
T
he rise of social media has made true Andy in value over the past 20 years, with the artist’s popularity
Warhol’s now clichéd prediction that “in the receiving a further boost in 2019 as a result of the Whitney
future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 Museum’s recent retrospective—the first of its kind in 30
minutes.” However, while Warhol might well years. The exhibition has now moved to the Art Institute
have revelled in the celebrity opportunities provided by of Chicago (on show from October 20, 2019 to January
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, he didn’t need 26, 2020). The report also highlights the huge growth in the
any of them to achieve a level of fame that’s made him the popularity of acquiring art for investment that has occurred
most bankable artist of his era. during the past decade. As a result, many advisors have
And much of that fame is down to the famous—the great recommended Warhol prints as buys that are not only likely
and the good whom he captured in the fizzing colours of his to rise in value but are also easy to “understand” and will serve
screen print portraits. These have come to be regarded as as fun, instantly recognisable, kudos-boosting wall-fillers.
the very quintessence of the Pop art movement and have Many people are baffled, however, by the seemingly
achieved the status of blue-chip collectables. unstoppable rise in value of Warhol artworks that were
Warhol’s “lipstick and peroxide” images of Marilyn produced in huge numbers. The artist is believed to have
Monroe, Chairman Mao, Liz Taylor and Jackie O will be created 448 separate editioned prints, each in an average
familiar to all but, while these are the portraits that steal run of 190 examples. That’s more than 85,000 pieces, not
the show at auction, there are numerous others for buyers to counting the further thousands of unsigned, unnumbered
choose from. The wide-ranging subjects include everyone images produced for two years after Warhol’s death in 1987
from Yves-Saint Laurent to Beethoven; from General by his favourite screen printer, Rupert Jasen Smith.
Custer to Ntombi Twala, former Queen of Swaziland. But despite the quantity of prints made—both signed
According to the first Andy Warhol market report and unsigned—the fact that they were regarded as relatively
produced this year by the Los Angeles-based Revolver disposable when first available during the 1960s (prices
gallery, which specialises solely in his works, 1,064 prints ranged from $100–1,500) means that many are thought
were sold in 2018 for a combined value of $43m (more than to be in the hands of owners who are allowing them to
43 per cent up on the previous year). The images of Marilyn deteriorate. This may be eroding the supply of top quality
and Mick Jagger were named among the 10 most valuable. examples in a market where demand continues to rise.
Revolver claims Warhol prints across the board (not just This, at least, is something the shamelessly commercially
portraits) have shown an average 12.5 per cent yearly growth minded Warhol would have likely very much appreciated.
A RT WOR KS © 2019 THE A NDY WA R HOL F OUNDATION FOR THE V IS UA L A RTS, I NC. / LICE NSE D BY DACS, L OND ON;
THE POP CHARTS: Lesser-known Warhol portraits

120,000
110,000 Muhammad Ali.

$116,500, Christie’s
New York
100,000
90,000
COURTESY OF B ONHA MS; S OTHEB Y’S; C HRI STI E’S IM AGES LT D. 2019
80,000 Lenin. $62,500,

Christie’s New York
70,000
Jane Fonda. £13,200,
Bonhams London
60,000
Ingrid Bergman.
$43,750,
50,000 Sotheby’s
General Custer. New York
$37,500, Christie’s
40,000 Beethoven. £34,850, New York Mick Jagger.
Christie’s London
£43,750,
Teddy Roosevelt. $27,500,
30,000 Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s New York
London
20,000
Lillian Carter. Louis Brandeis. $6,000,

10,000 $1,912, Bonhams Christie’s New York
San Francisco
0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
came dressed in pyjamas

while Basquiat, a former
Wa r h o l c o l l a b o r a t o r,
had need le ma rk s a l l
over his hands. Marisa
Berenson def i ned Pa-
risian chic, even if her
Warhol portrait height-
ened the drama of
her 1987 divorce. Her
PRESS FOR SUCCESS
lawyer husband Richard
Above, from left: The Independent on G olub cla i med t hat it
Sunday reports the sale of Eight Elvises, was half his.
2009; the Evening Standard reports the sale
of Triple Elvis Presley 2014 Brigid Berlin—a.k.a.
Brigid Polk, one of
Wa rhol ’s S up erst a rs —
about to go to hospital to have his gallbladder removed. Four officially manned the phones. Most attention was paid to
days later, he would be pronounced dead. the pug dogs, Fame and Fortune, that lay at her feet. She
As opposed to being groomed for the cameras, my first and I would fight tooth and nail about the air conditioning.
day at the Warhol Studio meant fielding calls about his shock Often it became childish. Privately, I was highly amused
demise. And so my two-and-a-half-year career began at the when Brigid, an heiress, declared, “Natasha is the sort of
newly named Andy Warhol Enterprises. I became the last woman who takes books out of the library.” A huge roll of
person to be hired by Andy and the final “English muffin” in Elvis portraits—cut according to demand—was upstairs
what Vincent Fremont, once the vice-president of Andy War- in Andy’s former gym. I had no idea of its worth, nor did I
hol Enterprises, described as “a great cycle of women” that be- realise that he refused to insure anything. Staggering when
gan with Lady Anne Lambton in 1971. In spite of being “a real The New York Times stated that the estate’s art inventory
liability” by her own admission—“I wouldn’t let Lou Reed and included 700 paintings, 9,000 drawings, 19,000 prints
Bob Dylan into the factory, I couldn’t take messages and sobbed and 66,000 photographs, as well as works by contemporary
because I didn’t know how to work the Xerox machine”—Anne’s artists. According to Fremont, “Andy never wanted people
humour came in handy when Warhol and Hughes wined to know what he had.” He thought about insuring his “rainy
and dined potential portrait candidates. day paintings” (his invaluable 1960s portraits) but abruptly
A RT WOR K © 2019 THE A NDY WA RHOL FOUNDATION F OR THE VI SUAL A RTS, I NC. / LICENSE D B Y DACS, LOND ON. PHOTO
My social skills were also clocked, even if the overworked stopped when “he realised that he would have to reveal what
© COLL ECTION OF J IM HED GES, C OURTESY HED GES PROJE CTS (CHOW); B EN BUCHA NA N (WARHOL A ND CHOW)
Vincent would occasionally hiss, “Natasha, what do you he had.” This is even more extraordinary considering the
J OHN FROST N EWSPA P ERS © THE A NDY WA R HOL FOUNDATION F OR THE V IS UAL A RTS, INC. (N E WSPAP ERS)
do exactly?” Having been raised in politics—my late father fire hazard attached to every working studio. Jay Shriver,
was a Conservative MP—I excelled at meeting and greeting Andy’s chief assistant, was bossy but honest. However, I
people. Many arrived with their Warhol works, eager for a wondered about some of the others. One certain individ-
certificate that was stamped then signed by Fred, the exec- ual kept on crying, insisting that he had seen his ghost. It
utor of Warhol’s estate. There was also the appearance of sounded intriguing until I noticed his pupils were pinned.
Halston, the fashion designer. Years later, he tried to sell an iconic 1960s portrait,
Movie star handsome, as de- claiming that the artist had given it to him.
picted in Warhol’s portrait, he When I f irst arrived, my desk had been a
gave an impression that his body brass-and-marble 1930s marvel that Andy had
was f luid and faultless. Julian picked up on one of his European trips. Albeit
Schnabel, on the other hand, outlandish, I was sad when it was taken away for
the Sotheby’s sale. Ten thousand of his items were
being sold in order to finance the Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts in 1988. Breaking all
estimates, it made $25 million. Happy as I was
for Fred, my favourite moments in the studio
were his “Frederick of Union Square” sessions
when he used to perform Sellotape nose jobs and
face-lifts to anyone who was standing nearby.
The aesthetic improvements happened late in
CHOW FOR NOW
t he a f ter noon . “Fraser, t h is reaaa l ly does
Left: Warhol and Mr. Chow at AREA wonders,” he would say, giving me a piggy snout.
nightclub in New York, 1985.
Above: a Polaroid photograph of
I think A ndy would have been amused and
Chow taken by Warhol, 1980 might even have taken a Polaroid—even if a
portrait was way beyond my reach.

A n d y Wa r h o l S e l f- P o r t r a i t 19 8 6 Ta t e P r e s e n t e d b y
J a n e t W o l f s o n d e B o t t o n 19 9 6
JOIN TODAY
FREE ENTRY TO
ANY E XHIBITION
ONE TIME
MANY TIMES
Jonas
BURGERT
Through his dark, grotesque explorations
of the human condition, we find our
souls—says ARSALAN MOHAMMAD
Photograph by P A T R I C K W A C K
onas Burgert’s paintings, in which surrealistic land-
J scapes and figures exist in clashing, blaring neons

and murky greys and blacks, have slithered into the
global art market like dreadful bad dreams, estab-
lishing themselves as some of the most collectable and compelling
art to have emerged from Germany in recent years. These vast
canvases see grotesque figures writhe and pop in the gloom, either
in chilling isolation or frolicking in surreal mise-en-scène. As with
Bosch, Brueghel and Bacon, to encounter a Burgertian scene is to
enter a world in which dreadful chimeras of our nightmares come
to life. “We are, as humans, failing all the time,” he says. “So, at the
end, we have the dirt that comes from scratching, you know? The
scratching of your soul. That’s what I’m trying to show.”
In the past decade, demand for these brilliantly dark works
has grown in line with size of his paintings, and the artist is
working at a steady clip in his studio complex in Weisensee, in the
industrial hinterlands of former East Berlin. It’s also the venue
for Ngorongoro, a sporadic mega-exhibition staged during Berlin’s
Gallery Weekend and curated by Burgert and like-minded artists
John Isaacs, David Nicholson, Christian Achenbach and Andreas
Golder who work within his studio complex.
When we meet, the artist is preparing for a multigenerational
show with work by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Gerhard Richter
at the me Collectors Room (until November 3) and a solo show
at the ARP Museum in Remagen in February 2020. It’s this latter
commitment that preoccupies him, as eight canvases sit in varying
states around the sunny hangar, amid mangled bits of sculpture,
dog-eared art books, ashtrays, beat-up sofas and spattered stereos.
Burgert’s complex, disturbing renderings of his fears and
observations on religion, society, death, sex and violence contain
few spiritual fire escapes. Yet through his prism, we find our stupid
souls in all their dumb honesty. “The endless struggle of humans...
it’s been this way for thousands of years,” he laughs. “Artists try
to make solutions, a religion of it or something. But I think, the
only thing we can do is to live with the ambivalence of grey.”
When the Wall fell in 1989, he found himself in the midst of an
epochal social, political and ideological uprising. It was in this post-
Wall euphoria that he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in West
Berlin, where a new, emotional and highly subjective approach
placed emphasis on conceptualisation over representational fig-
uration. For Burgert, this created a lifelong distrust of conceptual-
ism: “I was bored hiding behind this avant-garde cool… I wanted to
look at the honest struggles we have with our souls, our spirits.”

STRANGE BEAUTY
Jonas Burgert
photographed on
July 12, 2019, in his
studio in Berlin
THE UNFLINCHING EYE

Don McCullin and Jason Brooks

W
hen I visited the solitude became too much. He was the disturbing, if poignant, arrangements of
photographer Don McCullin only man with whom he would consider horse mushrooms, a bronze Heinemann
in his remote Somerset sharing his stash of PG tips in the jungle, figure and a goblet; the other a vase
longhouse on an assignment for Harper’s his cashmere Armani coat and the details of fainting tulips in an evening light,
Bazaar some 18 years ago, it was his sense of his heartbreaks. set against the distressed wall of his
COURTESY OF THE A RTI ST A ND MA R LBOROUGH GALLE RY,
of solitariness that struck. Here was a man Otherwise, he would blast Elgar ruined lean-to. They seemed to me to
rattling around alone in a five-bedroom through the sound system for company. be quintessential expressions of the
house to the soundtrack of hooting owls He said he passed his time poring over loneliness of a sensitive man. So reader,
and a distant rushing stream, trying to the images of the wars and conflicts he I married him.
come to terms with a failed marriage, had witnessed over the previous half As Don and I got to know each other,
and with separation from a teenage child century, foraged the hills and hedgerows it was a challenge to winkle him away
N EW YORK AND LOND ON (D ON)
(the youngest of his four) from another for mushrooms and blackberries, and from his sanctuary and break his solitary
relationship. He told me that he didn’t need roamed the Somerset Levels with his carapace. It took a lot of cajoling to get
friends—friendship required commitment camera, waiting for fingers of sunlight him to enter into the spirit of the circus
that took him away from his work. There to part the cloudy skies. of my busy London social life. So when
was always his best man and adventuring His first gift to me would be a pair of my editor Lucy Yeomans suggested a
partner-in-crime, Mark Shand, a valley or black-and-white still lives which he had dinner to introduce us to the new man
two away who he could call on when the printed in his darkroom: one depicting in her life, the artist Jason Brooks, Don

When two solitary masters of portraiture were introduced by their

wives, an unlikely but intensely felt friendship was born
By CATHERINE FAIRWEATHER
was initially reluctant. Dinner with and Peter and Chrissy Blake, Daisy Bates found its subtle intimacy, if unsettling,
“the boss” and the forbidding figure of and her mother Virginia—and the wine to be an indication of prodigious talent.
a man who towered over six foot with a flowed. Always a man’s man, I could see The dinner also left its mark in other
close-shaven head made him wary. “You Don respond to Jason’s self-contained, ways. On the train back to the country
have too many friends,” muscular presence, their the next morning Don complained of a
grumbled Don, “and I’m similar social diffidence tingling in his left arm and a numbness
expected to remember all TWO OF A KIND and shy ness capsized in the lip. “It’s called a hangover,” said I.
Opposite: Don by
© D ON MCCUL L IN (P HOTO GR A PH OF B RO OKS)
their names.” But if the by a shared and equally But the local doctor, a photography
Jason Brooks, 2017-8,
definition of being young at acrylic on giant deadpan sense of humour fan, came straight round and packed
heart is having the capacity watercolour paper, and a predilection for the Don off to Yeovil hospital for tests,
122 x 152.6cm.
and the will to embrace Above: photograph of absurd. One of Brooks’ which confirmed a stroke. Jason jokes
the new, it applied to my Jason Brooks by paintings displayed on that, years after emerging physically
Don McCullin
husband, curmudgeon or Lucy’s wall, a woman in a unscathed from conflict zones, it was
not. The dinner in Lucy’s landscape, captured Don’s Lucy’s cooking that did Don in.
West London studio turned eye—the fact that, if you Despite the 30-something age
out to be fun–filled, with like-minded look closely you realise it’s a woman difference, despite the fact that both the
creative spirits he had crossed paths caught in the act of urinating, was men secretly resent anything and anyone
with over the years; Mary McCartney inconsequential, Don later confided. He that takes them away from their work
NOV E M B E R 2 0 1 9 VA NIT Y FA IR O N A RT 61
intellectual referencing of past masters,

his command of a multi-disciplinary
process and materials from airbrush to
trompe l’oeil, demands you stand closer,
look and look again, to re-evaluate
what it is that you think you see. The
seemingly artless drip of paint, for
instance, may not be a drip at all, but a
trompe l’oeil version of a drip—nothing
is what it seems.
Brooks’ striking portraits—giant
monochrome acrylics on watercolour
paper—of people he calls his favourite
© D ON MCCUL L IN / CON TACT PRESS IMAGES (I RI SHM AN); COURTESY OF T HE A RTI ST AND MAR LBOROUGH GA L LE RY, N EW YORK A ND L OND ON (ERDEM)
visionaries, including Sir Terence
Conran, Erdem or Kate Moss, are
presented with all their pores and flaws,
inviting you to “see” the person behind
the mask that is generally presented
to the world. Brooks explains, “I get
excited about what skin looks like close
up, the small imperfections.” He has
even collaborated in the design of the
new fashion gaming app DREST—the
brainchild of his partner Lucy, adding
freckles and asymmetrical features to
the avatars to make them look more real.
“For me, it is always about
and the creative process (“Holidays are detached f ig ure of not airbrushing out the
a problem,” says Brooks . “I’m constantly Brooks, immacu lately FACE VALUE detail, the imperfection,
Above: The Homeless
struggling with the idea of wasting be-suited, standing head Irishman “Neptune” by but about airbrushing
time—plus, I’m physically too big to be and shoulders above the Don McCullin, London, them in,” he says. “My
1971 and (right) Erdem
comfortable in planes”), and despite quiet, rugged silver-fox by Jason Brooks, 2017,
series of por traits, in
Don’s claims that nobody could fill the octogenarian. 122 × 152.6cm. the end, are all about
hole left by Mark Shand’s untimely death On an artistic level, they Opposite: Brooks and celebrating what it means
McCullin at Marlborough
some six years ago, a mutual admiration are united in their rejection Gallery, New York, 2015 to be human.”
society was born. The sense of solidarity of the frenzied social “I don’t know about
as observers and outsiders “married” media age that is hung up human; I look almost
to plugged-in editors is indeed fanned on celebrity culture with its compulsion monster,” deadpans Don in reaction to his
by long phone calls and the occasional to airbrush reality. At 84, Don’s refusal portrait by Brooks for the artist’s much-
holiday. Both men work alone for hours to switch on a computer or engage in acclaimed Marlborough Gallery 2018
in their studio/darkroom and, in Don’s any digital form of communication exhibition, The Subject is not the Subject.
case, an old-fashioned conversation on is perhaps unsurprising. But Brooks It is a presentation of an informal, open-
the landline offers welcome respite. doesn’t get it either, as he believes that shirted Don, his gaze direct, if weary
At celebrity parties for Harper’s his work doesn’t convert or translate well and wary. “I knew with Jason’s skill and
Bazaar, and later for Porter magazine, onto a screen. “Instagram simply flattens application he would uncover hidden
where I followed Lucy as a senior out the world,” he explains. Whether depths,” Don continued, “but here I
editor, Don and Jason struck an odd creating a portrait, still life or landscape, look dangerous, like someone you would
pairing of bystanders: the imposing, Brooks’ textured painterliness, with its want to avoid. It makes me think, is this

what I really look like? Has my work done of the direct gaze demanding urgent as hyperrealist or photorealist; Don as
this to me, battered me so?” engagement from the viewer—but the war photographer. They don’t want to
The same unflinching eye, the sense intention is not art. be straightjacketed thus.
of darkness visible, of course, defines “As a documentary photographer of “War photographer: it’s like saying
Don’s own famous pictures of shell- war and conflict, and of the street, you’re I work in an abattoir,” says Don, while
shocked marines in Vietnam, homeless there to catch a fleeting moment, make Brooks points out that hyperrealism is
men and women in Whitechapel or an immediate statement, and there is what happened in the 1970s when artists
Spitalfields (the most famous being no second chance,” Don says. “Your turned their attention on mundane
the homeless Irishman, or “Neptune”, function is to bear witness to people’s everyday objects and gave them iconic
which has mistakenly been taken as suffering. Jason, as an artist, has greater status: “The artistic dynamic, for me,
a McCullin self-portrait, before he license, greater freedom. His works are is the potential to be part of the wider
“scrubs up”). But, however much Don his own interpretation of the world as he conversation, and that conversation is
is influenced by the artists whom he sees it, developed over months, and he art history.”
most admires—Caravaggio, Goya (the doesn’t have to walk the moral tightrope. Over the years, the acquaintanceship
resonance and similarities between I put myself in these desperate situations between these two solitary creative
the two was the subject of a recent and I cannot be emotionally neutral as individualists has grown into the most
Christie’s debate)—and despite the fact an artist can. It has to be unflinching. unlikely and gentle of bromances. They
that he describes the homeless series of Briefly, there’s an exchange between me continue to commiserate with each other
portraits as his Hogarthian period, he and the subject, a flare of recognition, an about being hitched to women whose
nevertheless insists that if these images exchange of trust.” work constantly takes them abroad, “and
have become timeless icons in some Both Jason and Don resist the labels what about all those high heels we trip
way, then this is purely accidental. He that the media has tried to impose over at night, and the towels we have to
may be “Goya with a camera”, to borrow on them, labels that somehow deny pick up off the floor?” jokes Don. They
Cartier-Bresson’s phrase—the visceral their roving romantic curiosity and are indeed both neat freaks, and despite
rawness of the image, the intensity complicated sense of purpose: Brooks all macho appearances (Jason calls Don
the Doc Savage of the photographic
world), they share a penchant for scented
BOTH JASON AND DON RESIST candles, fine linen and a well-made bed
in the morning.
THE LABELS THAT THE MEDIA “It’s nice to have a friend who is an
HAS TRIED TO IMPOSE ON THEM artist with whom I can share creative
horizons,” Don confides. “I understand
the excitement he has about going into
his studio every day, not knowing where
the artistic process is going to take him
next. I admire the achiever in him and the
single-minded dedication to his work.
Jason is fastidious, immaculately turned
out as a person, and you could eat off
the floor of his studio—that personality
comes out in the extraordinarily careful
clarity and complex luminous detail of
his painting.”
Meanwhile, Brooks laughs aside the
curmudgeonly tendencies of his friend:
“There is sensitivity and humanity,
laughter and a sense of fun: Don shows us
the world in its truest form, he is a total life
force, and his work is testament to that.”
See Jason Brooks’ work at the Van Gogh
Museum, Amsterdam, in an exhibition
A NN A HUI X (BRO OKS A ND MCCULL I N)
dedicated to his landscapes, October 17

to January 2020, and at the Marlborough
Gallery, New York, May – June, 2020.
Don McCullin’s photographs are on view
at the Howard Greenberg Gallery, New
York, until November 16; at Hauser &
Wirth, Somerset, January 25 – May 3,
2020, and at Tate Liverpool, June 5 to
September 27, 2020.
VA NIT Y FA IR O N A RT 63
Kehinde
WILEY
Obama’s official portrait artist aims to create
a marketplace of ideas. By DORIAN MAY
Photograph by C H R I S T O P H E R S T U R M A N
ize always matters,” laughs Kehinde Wiley, although

his studio is surprisingly modest given the magnitude
S of his works and the messages which accompany
them. In the last 48 hours alone, the American artist
has been celebrating the opening of his inaugural Senegal Artist in
Residence programme with Naomi Campbell and Alicia Keys, then
helping Michelle Obama deliver a surprise birthday gift to Barack:
a nine-foot portrait of daughters Sasha and Malia. Though he de-
scribes the canonisation of Obama as an epic moment, Wiley often
declines requests for commissions and has dedicated his career
to addressing the absence of black men and women from cultural
narratives. His blend of intellect and irony have given birth to the
now unmistakable cool, colourful, mostly macho modern master-
pieces that invite a deeper dialogue. “My paintings are beautiful on
purpose—to sugarcoat a jagged little pill,” he explains.
Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, one of six children to
a single mother who promoted the arts, Wiley recalls wandering
around museums and noting that none of the people hanging in
the galleries looked like him. By the age of 12, his talent had won
him a coveted invitation to an art programme in St. Petersburg.
But it was as an artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem
that Wiley’s now distinctive portrait-making style took shape after
stumbling on a discarded New York City mugshot of a black man.
“Portraiture in its capital P version is a fine art term, but in a much
more philosophical way has to do with how we fashion ourselves
and the way we see something of virtue in the world,” he says. “A
portrait functions as a mirror saying this is what we choose to hold
as a portrayal of our better selves.”
Wiley considers his body of work to be his own self-portrait;
black, gay, rich, poor, invisible and invincible all at once. It was
Michael Jackson who roused his interest in the metaphor of armour
when he commissioned him to paint what would be the last portrait
of the controversial pop icon’s life. “Michael spoke about armour
that is at once designed to keep something out as much as it is to
hold something in, and I think that metaphor gets problematised
when thinking about race as well,” he says. As America continues to
grapple with a climate fuelled by division, Wiley’s first monumental
public sculpture, Rumors of War, was installed in Times Square, New
York as a counterpoint to the myriad of Confederate sculptures that
populate the United States. Wiley does not think that history
should be erased. “In the future, I would imagine instead of tear- ARMOUR CHAMELEON
ing them all down, creating a response that sits across from them… Kehinde Wiley
photographed on August 2,
a sort of stare down,” he explains. “Instead of censorship, it’s about 2019, at his studio in
creating a marketplace of ideas—may the best idea win!” Brooklyn, New York City
64 VAN IT Y F A I R ON ART
NOV E M B E R 2 0 1 9 VA NIT Y FA IR ON A RT 65
Abstract portraiture is no modern

phenomenon. In fact, it is the
oldest form of representation we
have. From the earliest cave
paintings and throughout the
story of art, artists have relied
more upon powerful signs and
symbols to evoke the living
presence of a person than
an accurate representation of
their appearance
See Me
Now You
MUSEE PICAS SO, PA RI S, FR A NCE/BRID GEMAN I MAGES @SUCCESSION PICAS SO/DACS, LOND ON 2019 (STI LL LIF E WI TH P EDESTA L TA B L E)
here’s a go o d stor y sir, in painting your beautiful portrait,”
T about Abraham Lincoln

told by Francis Bicknell
Car penter, t he hack
A merican portraitist
who painted the famous First Reading
of the Emancipation Proclamation. This
important picture hangs in the Capitol
retorted Lincoln, “you took your idea of
me from my principles, and not from my
person.” Cue hearty guffaws all round.
What Lincoln—who knew a lot about
many things, but not much about art—
would not have realised is that in dis-
playing this trademark modesty about
and shows Honest Abe seeking to abolish his appearance he was hitting an import-
slavery. To prepare for it, Carpenter spent ant aesthetic nail bang on the bonce. In
six months hanging out with the presi- some small corners of its kingdom, por-
dent. One day, during an adjournment in traiture is concerned only with capturing
the Baltimore Convention, Lincoln was a likeness, but that is a lowly ambition,
introduced to a young enthusiast from and good artists aim higher. For good
Philadelphia who had recently painted artists, you need also to evoke the larger
By WA L D E M A R a “beautiful portrait” of him which was presence of your sitter: their character;
JANUSZC ZAK on show in the state rooms. “I presume, their soul; their big picture.

I’ve been prompted into these mus- ANYONE YOU KNOW?

ings by events at the National Portrait Opposite: Large Still Life with a Pedestal Table,
Gallery in London. In an effort to rev- 1931, by Pablo Picasso. Right: Weeping Woman,
1937, and Tenora and Violin, 1913
olutionise its own presence—or at least
to update it—the NPG has, in recent
years, undertaken a series of scrump-
ing raids on unexpected corners of the art
world. An assortment of high-achieving
artists, whom I would never usually
suspect of being portraitists, have been
secreted into the gallery and unveiled as
face-painters, manqué. A couple of years
ago, Bridget Riley, Mrs Hard-Edged Op
art, premiered some early portrait draw-
ings. It turned out that in her student
days, she admired Renaissance portrai-
ture and sought to emulate it. And that
—get this—the rhythms and structures
of her portraiture are still playing a part
today in her Op art. “Abstraction for her
was not a break; it was the culmination
of hundreds of hours working on the
human form.” Hah! You need to
SMI TH); N ATION AL GAL L ERY OF V ICTOR IA, ME LB O URN E, AUSTR A L IA/BR ID GEMA N I M AGES ©SUCCESSION PICASSO/DACS, LONDON 2019 (WEEPING WOMAN); THE
Also popping up recently at the NPG
evoke the
©N ATION AL PORTR A I T GA L LE RY (CO C HR A NE BY HOWARD HOD G KI N); ©THE ESTATE OF JACK SMI TH, COURTES Y OF FL OWERS GA L L ERY (COM PO SER B Y JACK
was Howard Hodgkin, the Walt Disney

of British abstraction, whose Bambi-
coloured mood-pieces were presented
the larger
STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM, ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES ©SUCCESSION PICASSO/DACS, LONDON 2019 (TENORA AND VIOLIN)
as the climax of a fuzzy, career-long
presence
of your
sitter; their
character;
their soul; fondness for presences and people.
Best of all, Jack Smith, the grim kitch-
en-sink realist who became such a hap-
their big py and jazzy abstractionist, was never

happy and jazzy! No! Instead, the NPG
picture
has shown that he never abandoned
his kitchen-sink tendencies and re-
mained a determined portraitist. The
black picture with the broken spine of
crosses and S-shapes—that’s a self-por-
trait. The constructivist dart board,
pinned with rectangular darts and
flanked by trombone twists, is a portrait
of Harrison Birtwistle.
None of this ought to surprise us. If
art depends on anything it is the retrieval
and pleasuring of retinal memories. So, of
ON THE FACE OF IT course, the people and faces we have en-
countered must play a role. As Giacometti
Above left: Peter Warren Cochrane, 1962,
by Howard Hodgkin. Left: Portrait of a once explained when asked about the
Composer I, 1987, by Jack Smith wafer-thin figures he kept in a match
n St. Petersburg, in the Hermitage,
I there’s a Cubist still life from 1913

of a violin: a fragmented musical
instrument reduced to its essence—the
The image
usual Cubist set-up. Except that one day,
a Hermitage curator happened to be ex-
amining the picture in raking light when
of Julius
he noticed microscopic letters scratched
into the broken outlines of the fiddle.
He peered closer. And found the word
Caesar they
“Eva”, written secretly in the recesses of
the picture, where no one could notice it.
sent around
Eva Gouel was Picasso’s woman behind
the arras at the time. To film her hidden
name, we unleashed our biggest lenses
the world
box, the sensitivity of human vision is
on the miniscule calligraphy, and still
had a hell of a job seeing it.
feels like
so remarkable that it allows us to recog-
nise a familiar presence from hundreds
of yards away by tiny shifts in its stance.
More overtly, the 1931 painting
known as Large Still Life With Pedestal
Table, now in the Picasso Museum
someone
And the information gained by these tiny
shifts is as intimate as any close-up.
in Paris, shows a perky jug on a table
surrounded by a cornucopia of ripe
and colourful fruit—melons, apples,
real.
icasso is not principally thought peaches. The moment you look at it, you But it isn’t
P of as a portraitist, yet portraiture
was his most insistent subject.
He was also a sneaky so and so, who
feel its sexual tingle. I’ll never forget the
glee on John Richardson’s face as he
cupped and rounded his hands in fruity
enjoyed playing games with his viewers, approximation of the gorgeous bulg-
and the insistent portraiture is easy to es sported by Marie-Thérèse Walther,
miss. When I was making the Channel Picasso’s nubile mistress of the moment,
4 documentary series Picasso: Magic, Sex whom the sneaky matador was evoking
and Death with John Richardson, the as a sun-ripened bowl of fruit, while he
great Picasso scholar, I was constantly himself was, of course, the pert jug with
surprised by the hidden portraiture we the big spout.
were encountering. That Dora Maar was This inbuilt playfulness in matters
the tragic Weeping Woman was familiar of portraiture is discussed, fascinat- TOUCHED BY YOUR PRESENCE
knowledge, but it was Richardson who ingly, in Françoise Gilot’s indispensible
Top left: Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 1910, by
pointed out to me that Picasso’s other memoir, Life With Picasso, republished Pablo Picasso. Below: The Creation of Adam,
sign for her was a hairy armpit. recently by the New York Review of Books. 1508-12, by Michelangelo

PORTR A IT); A KG/JOHN PA RROT/STO CK TR EK IMAGES (CRE AT ION OF ADA M, SI STI NE CHAP E L, T HE VATICA N, ROME). THI S PAGE: A L A MY (R A M SES I I, L U XOR M U SEU M, EG YPT); PHOTO 12/U NI VERSA L I M AG ES GROU P VI A GET T Y
OP POSI TE PAGE: THE A RT I N STI TUTE OF CHICAGO, IL, USA/GIF T OF MRS GIL B ERT W. CHA PM AN IN MEMORY OF CHAR LES B. GO OD SPEED/B RID G EM A N I M AG ES ©SU CCESSION PICASSO/DACS, L OND ON 2019 (KA H NWEI L ER
I MAGES (ROMA N COIN); RO GER COUL A M/AL A MY (B RONZ E HE AD OF E MPE ROR HADRI A N, B RIT ISH MUSE UM); B ET T MA N/G ET T Y I MAGES (M AO T SE-T U NG); PRI SM A A RCH I VO/A L A M Y (ROM A N TOM B STONE)
HEADS UP
Clockwise from left: statue of Ramses II;
a Roman coin depicting Julius Caesar; bronze
head of the Emperor Hadrian; Mao Tse Tung;
a Roman tombstone with monogram of Christ
Gilot, the mother of Claude and Paloma,

was an artist herself, with a particular
insight into his methods. Her own
destination in his art was to end up as
the Woman-flower, a busty plant with a
sunflower face.
A conversation with Picasso she re-
cords about his famous Cubist portrait
of his dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler,
is especially revealing. It turns out that
in its earliest stages, the portrait was
an abstract swirl of greys and browns
“that looked as if it were about to go up
in smoke”. So Picasso added, as he said,
“a suggestion of eyes, a wave in the
hair”, at the last moment, and turned the
abstraction into Kahnweiler. These
identifying features were his gift to the
viewer. “It’s like giving a long and difficult
explanation to a child: you add certain
details that he understands immediately.”
It would be wrong, however—very
wrong—to understand these abstrac-
tionist impulses in portraiture as a
modern phenomenon. In truth, they
are as old as art itself. This is no place to
discuss in detail the hand prints that are
such a universal presence in prehistoric
art. I have no doubt there were important
magic-making reasons for leaving them.
But their power to create a moment of
NOV E M B E R 2 0 1 9 VA NIT Y FA IR ON A RT 69
of the empire. Chairman Mao would lat-

er adopt the same approach.
None of the Roman emperors left be-
hind likenesses we can trust. I remember
filming some busts of Hadrian once in
Naples. They all looked slightly differ-
ent, but the curator was certain it was
him because the fail-safe sign of Hadrian
was a tiny incised line on his earlobe. No
other Roman emperor had it.
In the early days of Christianity, a
similar process forwarded the evolving
face of Jesus through various stages. To-
day, we happily assume that the swarthy
Jesus with long hair and a beard is the
unmistakable face of Christ. But the first
Christians would not have had a clue
tangible contact with our ancestors is who he was. Their Jesus was a symbol, a
just as unarguable. The fact that a hand large P crossed with an X, the Chi Rho,
is all there is doesn’t decrease the inti-
macy of the contact. It increases it, as
A nasty from the first Greek letters for Christos.
But worshipping a symbol is counter-
Michelangelo was later to emphasise
when he dangled the hand of Adam so
close to the hand of God on the Sistine
spike intuitive, and unlikely to garner floating
voters, so the next Christian generation
flagrantly stole the likeness of Apollo
Ceiling. From the beginning—long be-
penetrating from the Romans, and began carving
PE NN SYLVA NI A, USA/PURCHASED WITH FUND S CON TR IBUT ED B Y C.K. WI L LIA MS, I I, 1999/BRID GEM AN I MAGES ©ADAGP, PA RI S A ND DACS, L OND ON 2019
fore we began rolling down the low-road him onto the sides of their sarcophagi
of description—signs, marks and sym-
bols had been set the task of representing a delicate as a curly-haired youth—blond, beard-
less and happy—complete with halo and
(TA N NI NG); COURTESY OF THE A RTI ST A ND MA RL BOROUGH GALL ERY, N EW YOR K AND LOND ON ©CHR IST IE’S IMAGES L TD 2019 (AUERB ACH)
THIS PAGE: A KG/MP ORTF OLIO/EL ECTA (CA R AVAGGIO); PE TER HORREE/A L AMY (DR EI ER). OP POSI TE PAG E: P HIL ADE LP HIA MUSEUM OF A RT,
us. Do you think Ramses II really was sunbeams. That worked for a while, but
a Flash Gordon lookalike with a hipster
beard, like the 60-foot statues of him hole. it didn’t speak across the sexes, so, brief-
ly, a boy-girl Jesus made his appearance,
Yup, that’s
left behind by the Egyptians? Of course blond and youthful, but with girlish
not. The task of Egyptian statuary was swellings on his chest.
to evoke his presence, not to describe it.
The ancient Romans, cunning col-
onists that they were, preferred the
Picasso approach of giving their au-
Marcel N
ot until most of the millennium
had passed did Christian artists
finally come up with the tradi-
dience something human to cling to. tional image of the Byzantine emperor,
The image of Julius Caesar they sent long haired and bearded, and recast him
out around the world, and relentlessly PRICKLY CHARACTER as the all-powerful Jesus. Later still, they
repeated, feels like somebody real. But hung him up on a cross and made him
Above: The Beheading of St John, 1608, by
it isn’t. He’s a fabrication whose mass- Caravaggio Below : Abstract Portrait of Marcel
suffer like a common criminal, and that,
produced task is to mark the boundaries Duchamp, 1918, by Katherine Dreier perversely, is the image that proved to
have the longest legs. One of the reasons
we can be certain the Turin Shroud is a
medieval fake is because the Jesus it
shows was such a late invention.
My point is that the evocation of a
presence has only recently relied on
the accurate recording of appearances.
For most of the story of art it has been,
rather, a case of prompting strong as-
sociations in the mind of the viewer.
Caravaggio included his own face in
several of the crowds gathered around
his sweaty religious scenes, but his
most resonant moment as a portrait-
ist was to scrawl his own name in the
pool of blood spi lli ng f rom t he
severed neck of John the Baptist, in the
The little
monster at
her feet is
Max Ernst
monumental Beheading in Malta. It’s his
only signed work.
Further down the line, the 20th
century put lots of energy into evok-
ing presences, but also into disguising
them. Duchamp was constantly hiding
people in his art. Although his notorious
Fountain, the upturned urinal signed
R. Mutt, was meant to be a porcelain
vagina rather than a human somebody,
it was aimed cunningly at Katherine
Dreier, one of the judges who rejected
the work from a 1917 exhibition. Dreier
became a reliable patron of Duchamp—
he always knew how to charm ladies who
lunch—but not before she had produced
her own snippy 1918 portrayal of him as
a nasty spike penetrating a delicate hole.
Yup, that’s Marcel.
When the feisty American surrealist,
Dorothea Tanning, sought to memorialise
her own presence in art, she presented
herself as a topless Amazonian in a sea-
weed dress, attended by a befuddled little
monster cowering at her feet. Only when
I went to the big Dorothea Tanning show
at Tate Modern did I recognise the little
monster as a prefiguration of Tanning’s
paramour, Max Ernst, made recognisable
by his interesting haircut.
Funnily enough, these flighty con-
ceptual allusions end up feeling more
direct than the more recent and more
numerous efforts at portraiture by
Francis Bacon or Frank Auerbach. By
giving their sitters initials and names, we
might assume that Bacon and Auerbach
THE REAL ME had specific ambitions to record specific
Above: Birthday, 1942, by
sitters. But the opposite seems to happen.
Dorothea Tanning, is a Surrealist Auerbach may have painted Catherine
self-portrait depicting the artist Lampert 60 times, but none of his repre-
as a topless Amazonian in a
seaweed dress, with a winged sentations of her feels like a portrait. It’s
creature at her feet that feels an insistent paradox. Auerbach’s heads
suspiciously like Max Ernst, the
man she would go on to marry. are real people, but don’t feel like it. Lots
Right: Catherine Lampert Seated, of art through the ages is not a record of
1990, by Frank Auerbach. He
painted her 60 times, but her real people, but feels as if it is.
presence proves elusive And you wonder why we love art!
72 VANIT Y F A I R O N ART NOV E M B E R 2019

Yukimasa
IDA
Spontaneous, gestural and bold: it’s all
about the “now” for the Japanese artist.
FABIEN FRYNS celebrates his dynamism
Photograph by O G A T A
t is 9pm in Marbella, the sun is setting over the

Mediterranean and I am having a chat over a glass of
I Mauro Godello with Yukimasa Ida, my house guest

for a few days. Since we first met at Art Basel Hong
Kong in March 2018, following a conversation on
Instagram, we have had two sell-out shows together: one at Asia
Now in Paris in October 2018 and one at Temple Beijing in March
2019. Due to the huge demand for his work, Yukimasa has been
pushing himself to the limits to produce masterpieces of the future,
leaving him in need of a break and seeking inspiration. Spain was
an obvious choice. After visiting the Miró Foundation and the
Museu Picasso in Barcelona, followed by Madrid’s Prado and
Reina Sofía, home to Picasso’s monumental Guernica, it’s time for
some R&R on the Costa del Sol. Nearby Málaga has been investing
in culture thanks to a concerted effort by its mayor and visits to
the Contemporary Arts Centre, the Pompidou and yet another
Picasso Museum, located in the artist’s birth town, are a must.
Born in Tottori in 1990, Yukimasa took an early interest in art
and graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 2015. The
son of the celebrated sculptor Katsumi Ida, Yukimasa’s painting
style is diverse, and he works on several series at the same time.
The guiding principle in his work is the concept of ichi-go ichi-e,
meaning that each moment is a precise moment in time and once
passed, it is gone. At first drawing inspiration from his immediate
surroundings, painting portraits of his wife and friends, he recently
started to make tribute portraits of artists whose work he respects,
including Picasso, Bacon, Warhol and Basquiat. Starting a new
large painting without any preparatory drawing, he attacks the
canvas by applying the paint generously in spontaneous, gestural
and bold strokes, often smearing some areas while applying
more paint on others. The resulting paintings are of tremendous
dynamism and intensity—in contrast to the artist’s relaxed and
good-humoured nature.
Ida’s current priority lies in finishing a monumental commission
from Yusaku Maezawa, the flamboyant collector who splashed out
$167.5m on just two works by Basquiat, while booking the first
private ride around the moon on SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket, in
the company of several artists. Ida’s work measures 3.5m by 11m
COSMIC CAREER and will be one of the centrepieces of the museum Maezawa is
Yukimasa Ida opening in 2020, just in time for the Olympics—and well before
photographed on
July 21, 2019, in his Space X’s planned Moon excursion in 2023. Whether Ida goes to
studio in Tokyo the moon or not, his career is already well on its way.
Mates
PORTRAITS
Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud’s portraits

of one another reveal one of the most
notable friendships in modern art history—
and one of its greatest unsolved mysteries
By M A R T I N G A Y F O R D
BY HARRY DIAMOND
Francis Bacon (left) with Lucian Freud
in London, 1974
000
74 VAN IT Y F A I R ON T IRM
A TE N OA
VUET
MUBM
ENR 2019
one of the guards noticed it was missing. It still leaves a

ast May a 66-year-old man from painful art-historical gap. From the vantage-point of the
West London was sentenced to a second decade of the 21st century, Bacon and Freud seem like
twin pillars of British art—equivalent in stature to, though
suspended prison sentence at different from, Turner and Constable a century before. In
Isleworth Crown Court. His November 2013 at Christie’s, New York, Bacon’s Three Studies
of Lucian Freud (1969) went under the hammer, eventually
offence was offering fake goods on fetching $142.4million (around £117million)—then the
highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction.
eBay. Neither of these facts, you
might think, is unusual T he reason this triptych reached that—still astonishing—
record must have been, in part at least, because of the
(particularly the second). It was subject. Here was a portrayal by one of the towering
figures in postwar London painting of the other. Yet Bacon’s
what the man was purporting to three-part depiction was not as famous nor as memorable as
sell that made this story national that stolen Freud, which was a testament to the earliest and
closest phase of their relationship.
news: a lost portrait of Francis This was the time when Henrietta Moraes—Bohemian
fixture of Soho drinking spots and failed cat burglar—
Bacon painted by his friend and encountered Freud and Bacon. Moraes was drawn to these
fellow artist, Lucian Freud, in 1952. two “young, not particularly well-known painters”; she was
attracted by “Lucian’s hypnotic eyes and Francis’ ebullience
and charming habit of
The fraudster, a man buying bottles of
named Vincent Dyer, champagne”. One evening,
claimed his father had been while dancing with Freud,
given this picture by the she announced, “I want you”,
artist himself. In fact, it which resulted in a chaotic
turned out it was only a copy, affair and a fine picture:
bought in 2012—though such Girl in a Blanket (1952).
a good facsimile, the judge Moraes was not quite
pointed out, that experts accurate, however, in her
were asked to check if it was description. It was true that
authentic. The price tag was Freud was still young in the
a modest £3,000; but the early 1950s. But Bacon, born
genuine work would be in 1909, was already in his
worth tens of millions. This 40s, although—partly
little portrait is the missing through intensive, if
masterpiece of 20th-century idiosyncratic use of
British art. cosmetics, slathered around
THI S PAGE: © THE L UC IAN FREUD ARCHIVE/B RIDGEMAN IMAGES (WANTED PO STER)
On May 27, 1988, someone his face like brushstrokes on

reached up and lifted it off a canvas, plus boot polish
O PPOS ITE: © HARRY DIAMOND/NPG PHOTO CO L LECT ION (FREUD AND BACO N)
the wall of the Neue applied to his hair—he

Nationalgalerie in Berlin, appeared far more youthful
where it was on exhibition. than he actually was.
The portrait is—or was —a Everything about Bacon’s
tiny thing, only five inches by career, as he said himself, was
seven, small enough to slip strangely “delayed”.
into a pocket or a bag. The Although he was the elder by
alarms were not set and the some 14 years, Bacon’s full
picture was hanging from a emergence as a leading
hook rather than screwed by painter was several years later
plates to the wall. Eventually, than Freud’s. He had made a
debut as an artist—a sort of
false start—in the early 1930s.
For a short while Bacon’s
work was exhibited and
POSTER BOY praised, then—spooked by a
Freud’s 2001 appeal for the return
of his portrait of Bacon hostile review in The Times
and intensely self-critical
BY FRANCIS BACON
Three Studies of Lucian Freud, 1969
A sequence of drawings by Freud

evokes Bacon as the Lord of MISRULE
BY LUCIAN FREUD
Francis Bacon, Francis Bacon (II), Francis Bacon (III), 1951

—abruptly withdrawn from public view. He did not exhibit he Colony was a sort of informal salon—“an enormous
again until 1945; but when he made this reappearance the T bed with drinks”, as one habitué termed it. At the
effect was sensational. As Frank Auerbach put it, Bacon Gargoyle things might well get wilder. Bacon looked
stepped on stage and “the whole scene changed”. back—happily because he was a man who relished a bit of
Freud was one of those who felt that impact most directly. aggro—at the arguments which took place there. “Probably
Precociously brilliant, before he reached his 18th birthday because people were so drunk,” he remembered the Gargoyle
he had been talent-spotted by taste-makers such as the “was really made for rows”. These were nightly, and went on
poet Stephen Spender and Cyril Connolly, editor of the not just for hours, but for days on end, like soap operas.
influential magazine Horizon. At that stage, and for some On one occasion, a rumbling disagreement between Freud
time afterwards, Freud was essentially a draughtsman and the critic Philip Toynbee erupted onto the dance floor
rather than a painter. His oils were far fewer in number where Burmese dancers were performing. According to a
than his graphic works, and mainly small-scale. witness, the two men continued to take “drunken lunges at
Freud’s art, and life, were changed by the unexpected each other amongst the exquisitely graceful formal gestures
appearance of Bacon—a master painter at the height of his of the little Asians”.
game. And Bacon’s personality and attitudes were as
galvanising as his work. He believed there was no point in
mediocrity; you aimed at the highest standards—Velázquez
quality— and, inevitably, most of the time you failed. His The Colony was
ruthless criticism—of his own work as much as anybody
else’s—was itself stimulating, Auerbach remembers. “If
anybody was not absolutely in the first rank, Francis would
an informal salon—
O PPOS ITE: © THE ESTATE O F F R ANCIS BACO N. ALL RIGH TS R ES ERV ED, DACS/ARTIMAGE 2019. PHOTO: PRUDENCE CU MI NG ASSOCIATES L TD (THRE E STU D IES); PRIVATE
simply spurn them.”

“an ENORMOUS
CO L LECTIO N/© TH E LU CIAN FREUD ARCHIVE/BR IDGEMAN IMAGES (FR ANCIS B ACO N, II, II I). TH IS PAGE: © PET ER STARK/NPG PHOTO COL L E CTION (BACON A ND
reud was one of the first to feel the exhilaration of

F Bacon’s art—and his company. As he told the story, bed with drinks”
one day—“rather rudely (I was young, not that that
is any excuse)”—he asked Graham Sutherland who was the
BEL CHER); DAILY MAIL/S HUT TERSTOCK (GARGOY LE CL UB); © H ARRY DIAMOND/N PG PHOTO CO L LECT ION (F REUD, BACON AND AUE RBACH)
greatest painter now working in Britain. Not at all offended

by the implication that the answer wasn’t himself, Sutherland GOING SOHO
replied: “Oh, someone you’ve never heard of. He’s like a cross Clockwise from below: Francis Bacon
and Muriel Belcher at the Colony Room,
between Vuillard and Picasso. If he ever does a painting he 1975; the Gargoyle Club, 1959; Lucian
generally destroys it.” This mystery man was Francis Bacon. Freud, Francis Bacon and Frank
Auerbach, 1975
Thereupon Freud made it his business to seek him out in
his studio on Cromwell Place, near the Natural History
Museum, a place of decayed Victorian grandeur. The first
work Freud saw there was “that marvellous one with an
umbrella”: Painting (1946), one of the few works Bacon
himself was pleased with. It was subsequently purchased by
the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Their friendship did
not develop at this point, however, since Bacon soon departed
for the Côte d’Azur—where he spent several years at the
roulette tables of Monaco. It was not until Bacon returned to
London towards the end of 1949 for his first solo exhibition
that the most intense exchange of aesthetic DNA between the
two men began.
For the next 25 years, Freud claimed—doubtless
exaggerating a little—he saw Bacon at least once every day.
This was an extraordinarily close alliance for two talents,
both so powerful—and, in many ways, so opposite. Always a
remarkably slow worker, taking many months over a single
work, Freud was impressed by Bacon’s productivity. He would
go to Bacon’s studio and there would be an extraordinary
painting, “and he’d done it all that day!”
Alternatively, the two painters might meet at the Colony
Room, a private drinking club on Dean Street in Soho, and
later at the nearby Gargoyle Club. In such places there
flourished a social scene over which Bacon presided—
anarchic, waspish and recklessly generous, ordering
champagne for his circle, and occasionally pouring it over the
heads of those of whom he disapproved.
NOV E M B E R 20 19 VA NIT Y FA IR ON A RT 77
sequence of drawings by Freud from 1951 evokes Bacon Bacon’s artistic effect on Freud was considerable, but slow
A playing the lord of misrule. At the beginning of the sitting acting. The older artist would talk “about packing a lot of
Bacon had apparently eased his trousers down to reveal things into one single brushstroke”, which “amused and
his hips, with the words, “I think you ought to use these!” The excited” Freud—but was, he realised, “a million miles from
results were—unlike Freud’s other works of the time—quick anything” he could do at that time. It took him many years to
action drawings of Bacon reeling and posing, half undressed, absorb the lesson of how to use rich, loose oil paint in a way
which must have been executed at speed because the poses that suited his own idiom. But this was the source of the later
could not have been held for more than a few minutes. style for which he is now so famous.
The wildness of Freud’s own behaviour was a reaction

from the intense concentration and constriction of his nexpectedly, however, another work from 1951 shows
working routine. In the early 1950s he painted many portraits U influence flowing in the opposite direction. Up to that
from life, seated so close to the subject’s face that even now point, Bacon’s work had been created from memory,
looking at them can seem a little intrusive. The effort of imagination and the compost of crumpled photographs clipped
peering so hard, almost motionless, for hour after hour was from magazines and books that he kept in his studio. It must
causing problems with his eyes and violent headaches. have been from observing his younger friend that Bacon got
Understandably, when he put down his brushes and palette, the idea that he might paint portraits of a handful of people he
he abandoned all inhibitions. All his patience, he used to knew intimately well as Freud’s work already mainly consisted
muse, went into his work leaving none for his life. of pictures of the “people in his life”.
Indeed, it was that restlessness that Bacon caught in his From this point onwards, Bacon too made many portraits
Three Studies of Lucian Freud. His life was certainly far from of his circle, including Muriel Belcher, the owner of the
soothing in the late 1940s and early 1950s, a period during Colony Room, plus his fellow drinkers Henrietta Moraes,
which he was married twice, had numerous affairs, and Isabel Rawsthorne, and Freud.
perhaps even more brawls (one promising portrait ended Bacon’s Portrait of Lucian Freud (1951) was his very first
when the artist had a fist fight with the sitter). picture of a named individual. He found it embarrassing to
BY FRANCIS BACON BY FRANCIS BACON

Painting, 1946 Portrait of Lucian Freud, 1951
78 VAN IT Y F A I R ON A RT NOV E M B E R 20 19
Bacon’s artistic
effect on Freud
was considerable
but SLOW acting
and went to see Peter and said, ‘This is really too much!’ and
so on. Then they were both very angry and wouldn’t speak to
me.” Bacon’s picture of Freud, however, lacks any hint of
HENRIETTA MORAES
turmoil and violence (perhaps he didn’t feel the younger
Lucian Freud’s Girl in a Blanket, 1952 (left) and artist exuded it, for all his hell-raising).
Francis Bacon’s Study for Portrait of Henrietta Moraes,1964
n contrast, Freud’s 1952 portrait of Bacon is packed with

I the sitter’s extraordinary personality. For many years, this
distort his subject’s feature in the way he wanted while he was Freud’s best-known painting (and on public view as
was in their presence. Accordingly, his later portraits were part of the Tate collection). It seems Bacon also valued it. In
done from photographs. Bacon did, nonetheless, arrange a 1989, a year after it was stolen, he received a call from a man
O PPOS ITE: © THE ESTAT E O F F R ANCIS BACO N. ALL RIGH TS R ES ERV ED, DACS/ARTIMAGE 2019. PHOTO: PRUDENCE CU MING ASSOCIATES L TD (PA INTING 1946
AND 1951 PORTR AI T O F F REU D). THI S PAGE: © THE LUCIAN FR EUD ARCHI VE/BRIDGEMAN I MAGES (GIRL IN A B L ANKET); © THE ESTATE OF FR A NCIS BACON.
sitting for this first portrait of Freud. But when he turned with an East End accent—perhaps an associate of his friends,
up, Freud found the canvas was already almost finished. the Kray twins—demanding £100,000 if he wanted to see the
Bacon had used a photograph of the writer Franz Kafka as a picture again. This might well have been a scam; nonetheless,
guide to the face (which explains why it is not much of a Bacon got the ransom ready and was disappointed that this
likeness). This painting is also uncharacteristically criminal did not get in touch again.
low-key. What turned Bacon on, Freud recalled, was “an In 2001 Freud himself designed a “wanted” poster of the
atmosphere of threat”. This sense of menace fuelled his missing portrait, offering a reward of £100,000 for its
AL L RIGH TS RES ERVED,DACS/ARTIMAGE 2019 (HENR IET TA MOR AES); JO HN F RO ST NEWS PAPER S (DAILY MAIL, INDEPENDENT)
greatest works. In the early ’50s, many of these were return, but to no avail. As a mark of mourning, he asked that
inspired by the love of Bacon’s life, Peter Lacy, an ex-fighter it should be reproduced in black and white only. Rumours
pilot and alcoholic in whom drink released sadistic rage. about its return continue to circulate, not only on eBay. More
Once Lacy threw Bacon through a plate-glass window, and than 30 years after it disappeared, the fate of Freud’s
the painter almost lost an eye. marvellous little picture remains one of the greatest
Naively, Freud tried to intervene. “I made a stupid mistake unsolved mysteries of the art world.
BRING HOME BACON

The Daily Mail (left) describes
Dyer’s eBay con, June 2019;
the Independent’s coverage (below)
of Freud’s appeal, June 2001
IN ALL FAIRNESS
Derek Fordjour photographed on
July 24, 2019, in The Bronx, New York
80 VANIT Y F A I R O N ART
Derek
FORDJOUR
A visionary communicator, the Bronx-based
artist depicts cultural vulnerabilities with
verve and sincerity. By FABIEN FRYNS
Photograph by W I N N I E A U
fter 20 years of quietly cultivating his studio prac-

tice and accumulating college degrees (including
A a Masters in Education at Harvard), New York-

based Derek Fordjour (born 1974, Memphis)
made an explosive arrival on the contemporary
art scene recently. The vibrancy and intensity of his solo show
with London’s Josh Lilley at Art Basel Miami Beach 2018 caused
a sensation among critics and collectors alike. The booth con-
sisted of seven paintings placed in a riotous, entirely incongru-
ous environment complete with milk-crate furniture, rusting
corrugated-steel walls and a crunchy, five-tonne carpet of pea
gravel. His work in general, and his paintings in particular, deal
with the realities of mass shootings, violence, racial inequal-
ity and the ever-changing identity of a Trump America, con-
veyed in vibrant, colourful and richly textured compositions.
Fordjour, through his persona and his work, has an uncanny
ability to draw his viewers close to his subject; to their inner
lives, their ambitions and their struggles.
Following this roaring success, Fordjour, who is of Ghanaian
descent, was commissioned by New York’s Whitney Museum to
create a new work, Half Mast, a painting eight metres in length,
a vinyl reproduction of which filled the billboard opposite the
museum. The original painting, the eighth work in the series of
public art installations, entered the Whitney’s permanent col-
lection, thereby propelling Fordjour’s work further onto the top
end of the wish lists of the world’s contemporary art collectors.
Josh Lilley attended Fordjour’s talk at the Whitney lecture
hall in May 2019. “Everybody in the room was struck by the
sincerity of his message, his obvious generosity, and this
irresistible desire he has to be seen as a significant artist,”
he recalled. “It was electrifying; a sense that this experience
of him was as crucial as that of standing in front of one of his
luminescent paintings. Derek is a visionary, and a great com-
municator. If he wasn’t a painter, I feel he would have a defined
role in education, in activism, in mentoring. People queued for
20 minutes at the end of his talk just to say thank you.”
Next year brings a solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art
Museum St. Louis and a New York debut at Friedrich Petzel Gal-
lery, as well as a series of talks and events. Luckily, at the time
of publishing, one can continue to follow this shooting star’s
relevant work at Josh Lilley’s Fitzrovia venue as he continues
to tell his story across the gallery’s recently expanded space.
82
VAN IT Y
F A I R
Portrait of
ON
ART
By T E S S A L O R D
portraiture
Christie’s resident
the World
experts paint a global
picture of contemporary
The
USA
AMERICAS
Wiley, 2018
President Barack
Obama by Kehinde
NOV E M B E R
20 19
COL LECTION A LB R IGHT-KNOX ART GA LL ERY, B UFF A LO, N EW YORK; BE QUEST OF A. CONG ER
GO ODYEA R, 1966 (1966:9.10). / © B A NCO DE MÉXICO DIE GO R IV ER A FR IDA K AHLO M USEUM S
TRUST, MEXICO, D.F. / DACS 2019. IMAGE COURTESY A LBR IGHT-KNOX ART GA LLE RY (OIL ON
MAS ONITE, 16 X 12 I NCHES/40.64 X 30.48CM)
Kehinde Wiley
U.S.
n February 2018, when Barack Obama’s portrait was
I ceremoniously revealed at The National Portrait

Gallery, Washington D.C., it was as much an artistic
event as a political one. The bold illumination of the
painting’s tropical background flanking a relaxed,
seated president marked a seismic departure from historical
presidential portraits. If portraiture is designed to represent
a sense of self in the world around you, Wiley’s depiction
of Obama signalled a new chapter in the history of western
portraiture and a monumental development in American
presidential portraits—a canon perhaps previously considered
sacrosanct. In the artist’s own words, “This painting stands out
as a game changer.” Although in many respects this is true,
overt symbolism that refers back to traditional political portrait
styles remains. African blue lilies are a nod to Obama’s father’s
home country of Kenya, jasmine represents his birthplace of
Hawaii and chrysanthemums are the official flower of the city
of Chicago. Although Wiley’s portrait represents a deliberate
shift in style from its predecessors, the nuances of the painting
only seem to confirm that identity will never exist in a vacuum
and that a sense of the self can never truly be shown in isolation.
Frida Kahlo
LATIN AMERICA
egarded as one of the most significant artists of the
R 20th century, Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits exemplify
the isolation of an individual marked by a life-changing
event, while simultaneously representing an invincible sense
of self and spirit. Severely injured in her youth, Kahlo took up
“I paint painting when confined to her bed. Wrapped in a whole-body

plaster cast, she began to paint lying down, aided by a special
myself frame and a mirror above her. With underlying insight into
national identity and the plight of the poor, Kahlo extended
the history of Mexico into her art, thus building on a patrimony
© 2018 KEHI NDE WI LE Y / COURTES Y: N ATIONA L P ORTR A IT GALL ERY, SMI THSONI A N
because I of cultural ideals, artistic techniques and social values, as

important today for her country as the art she created.
Unconventional and free-spirited, the artist is revered as a
am so often female role model who broke taboos. Kahlo has become a mythic
I N STI TUTION (OIL ON CA NVAS, FR A MED: 92 1/4 X 65 3/4 I NCHES)
figure, her likeness printed on T-shirts and souvenirs around
alone” the world. Her groundbreaking depiction of the female form

together with the trademark intensity of gaze arrest the viewer,
while she celebrates her heritage with traditional Tehuana
outfits and hairstyles. Kahlo explained, “I paint myself because
Self-Portrait with
Latin I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best.” She
was often joined in her self-portraits by her pets, including Self-
Monkey by Frida
Kahlo, 1938
AMERICA Portrait with Monkey (1938), commissioned by MoMA president
A. Conger Goodyear. No arbitrary choice, the monkeys were
believed to symbolise the children Kahlo was unable to bear.
Achieving cult-like status, fascination with the artist has
continued over the decades: from the first U.S. retrospective
in Chicago in 1978 and a biography by Hayden Herrera in 1983,
to the 2002 biopic starring Salma Hayek and last year’s hugely
popular V&A exhibition, Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up.
David Hockney
U.K.
n 2016, David Hockney presented a new body of work at
I the Royal Academy in London entitled 82 Portraits and
1 Still-life. Capturing an intimate snapshot of the L.A.
art world, with individuals ranging from family members
to art dealers, the 83 canvases were uniquely presented as a
single, immersive work. Hockney utilised the uniformity of
Above, from left: Barry
the canvases to highlight both the singularity of the sitters and Humphries, 26th, 27th, 28th
his own distinctive style. Each of the 82 portraits are the same March 2015; Jacob UK
size, painted in the same timeframe of three days, and show the Rothschild, 5th, 6th February
sitter in the same chair, against the same vivid blue background, 2014; Rita Pynoos, 1st, 2nd
March 2014, all from 82
illuminated by the bright light of southern California. In these
Portraits and 1 Still Life by
works, the artist seems to be inviting comparison across the David Hockney
individual canvases, arguably reminiscent of his celebrated,
almost life-size double portraits, including Henry Geldzahler
and Christopher Scott (1969).
In doing so, as the Guggenheim museum describes, “the
installation permits another psychological study: that of the
artist himself”, where “his own emotional state seems to lighten
throughout the series, as does his conviction in the format
and medium.” Across these 83 canvases, Hockney created an
intense, captivating installation that re-examines “the role of
the painted portrait in an age when selfies and photo-portraits
have proliferated in social media”. The superficial uniformity
of the images is deliberately exploited to capture the nuances
of sitter, artist and a form being lost in the age of mass imagery. EUROPE
Obvious
FRANCE
very different approach to portraiture can be found
A coming from Paris-based collective Obvious, and it’s
not the product of a human mind. Obvious, consisting
© DAVID HO CKNEY, PHOTO CREDI T: RICHAR D S CHMIDT (HO CKN EY PORT R AI TS: ACRYL IC ON CAN VAS,
ONE OF A N 82-PA RT WORK, 48 X 36 I NCHES); COURT ESY OF OB VIOUS / @ OBV IOUS_ART (BE L AM Y)
of Hugo Caselles-Dupré, Pierre Fautrel and Gauthier Vernier,
explores the interface between art and artificial intelligence
using image-generating algorithms called “generative
adversarial networks”, which recently created a portraiture
series referred to as La Famille de Belamy. Composed of two
parts, “the generator” and “the discriminator”, the system
was fed a data set of 15,000 portraits from various periods in
art history. The generator made new images based on the set
and the discriminator reviewed all outputs until it deemed it
impossible to deduce the source—human hand or algorithm.
Edmond de Belamy is the “youngest” member of the family
created by the algorithm. The portrait depicts a gentleman,
quite possibly French and—to judge by his dark frockcoat and
plain white collar—a man of the church. The work appears
unfinished: the facial features are somewhat indistinct and
there are blank areas of canvas. This is one of the group of 11
unique portraits in the fictional Belamy family. The A.I. artwork
went on to realise $432,500—over 40 times its high estimate of
$7,000-10,000—as Christie’s became the first auction house Above: Edmond de Belamy,
to offer a work of art created by an algorithm. “We found that created by an algorithm FRANCE
portraits provided the best way to illustrate our point, which formed by Paris-based
is that algorithms are able to emulate creativity,” remarked collective Obvious, 2018
Hugo Caselles-Dupré of Obvious.

Barzdžiukaitė, Grainytė & Lapelytė

LITHUANIA
his year, in an usually inaccessible part of Arsenale
T Nord, the stage was set for a captivating performance:
a portrait of a society in decline told through opera. From
a second-floor balcony, viewers congregate and peer down
at an artificial beach, where performers splay out on towels
Above: Sun&Sea (Marina), under beach umbrellas, scrolling through their iPhones and
LITHUANIA an opera-performance by
Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva
thumbing through magazines. The sounds of seagulls and ice
cream trucks echo in the distance. One by one, the individual
Grainytė, Lina Lapelytė in vacationers sing alone and in chorus. Nestled within operatic
the Lithuanian Pavilion at
the Venice Biennale, 2019 tales of sunburn and future holidays, a tide of fear for an
impending environmental catastrophe slowly forms, spinning
a cautionary tale for the age of climate emergency.
Awarded the prestigious Golden Lion, a recognition
of the Biennale’s best national pavilion, Lithuania’s Sun
& Sea (Marina) is the combined vision of director Rugilė
Barzdžiukaitė, writer Vaiva Grainytė, and artist and composer
Lina Lapelytė. Armed with a bathing suit and towel, members
of the public can become part of the beach scene for three-
hour pre-booked time slots, making this powerful work as
This is as much a living portrait as a portrait of the future. The scenes
in Venice were so disturbingly relatable that one couldn’t help
much a living but think about the future threat posed. Sun & Sea (Marina)
boldly holds a mirror up to society and brings to light, albeit
an artificial sunlight, the human tendency to fail to recognise
portrait as the cumulative effects and associated threats of our actions.
a portrait of Maurizio Cattelan

the future ITALY
reated in 1999 by the enfant terrible of modern art
C Maurizio Cattelan, La Nona Ora showcases Pope John
Paul II as an ultra-realistic, life-size wax figure struck
down by a meteor. He lies on the ground in a pool of shattered
OF MAURI ZIO CATA L AN’S A RCHI VE / PHOTO BY Z ENO ZOT TI (L A NON A OR A, I NSTA L L ATION AT
glass, face clenched with pain and hands clutching the Papal
PHOTO B Y A NDR EJ VASI L ENKO A ND L AI MA STASI UL IONY TĖ (S UN & SE A M ARI NA); COURTES Y
Cross with palpable suffering. Part of a sequence of sculptures

by the artist that places contemporary figures such as President
John F. Kennedy and Adolf Hitler in situations that provoke
contemplation or debate, La Nona Ora exemplifies the power
of portraiture as a trigger for broader controversy.
The work featured in Sacred Noise, a major exhibition curated
by Christie’s in 2018 exploring religion, faith and divinity in
artworks. These themes have pervaded art throughout the
centuries and across the world. The means of expression are
THE Z ACHETA NATIONA L GA LL ERY WARS AW, POL AND)
many and varied, and a work such as La Nona Ora shakes the
canon. If divinity was once the anchor of existence, its artistic
mooring has repeatedly opened new interpretative horizons.
It was supposedly created with no messaging in mind.
When asked about the sculpture in 2001 during an interview,
Cattelan responded, “Messages are for advertising, not for art:
I always thought that art is not about explanations. It’s about
opening up possibilities. Advertising, just like religion, tries
ITALY Above: La Nona Ora, the
controversial sculptural
to tell the truth. Art, instead, should try to tell lies.” While
portrait of Pope John Paul II it may seem unusual to align portraits, which in their very
by Maurizio Cattelan, 1999 nature are representational, with “lies”, here Cattelan seems
to deliberately trouble the bridge between reality and fiction.
ASIA Below, clockwise from left:
By E V E L Y N L I N & A S I A C H I A O
CHINA Society no. 1 (Mask Series 2001
no. 1) by Zeng Fanzhi, 2001;
Daydream by Liu Ye, 1997;
n Asia, attitudes towards portraiture have traditionally Amnesia and Memory No. 16 by
I
Zhang Xiaogang, 2002
been very different from those of the West. While in
Europe the hierarchy of genres championed by the art
academies placed history painting and portraiture at the
very pinnacle of artistic achievement, in China and Japan
the landscape was considered the most revered subject for the
gentleman artist and scholar. In general, artists were far more
interested in depicting scenes from nature than capturing the
human form, and portraits created in the physical likeness of
specific individuals were few and far between. Figures often
played a symbolic role in the context of painting, either adding
a sense of human scale to a landscape, or a solitary subject to
a character study that focused on the personality of the figure.
European influence throughout Asia from the 19th century
onwards brought dramatic changes to the artistic landscape, yet
approaches to portraiture across the region remain distinct from
those of the West. Many Asian artists seek to capture a sense of
zeitgeist rather than physical likeness, using the format of the
portrait as a means to reflect upon society at large.
Zhang Xiaogang,
Le Pho, Affandi,
Zeng Fanzhi, Liu Ye
Fernando Amorsolo
CHINA
uring the 1980s, as China emerged from the social and
SOUTH-EAST ASIA
D political upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese
artists began to seek new ways of documenting their S
outheast Asia has an artistic heritage and
tradition that evolved in parallel to that of east
experience in a rapidly modernising nation. The Political Pop Asia, but remained firmly separate. While some
movement that gained traction during the 1990s revolved countries such as Vietnam experienced frequent cross-
largely around images derived from popular media, including pollination of artistic styles with China, other countries
248 X 175C M); © LI U YE. COURTES Y OF THE ARTI ST AND DAV ID ZWIR NER (DAY DREA M); © ZHANG
© Z ENG FA NZ HI / I MAGE COURTES Y OF HAUSER & WI RTH (SO CIE T Y NO. 1, OI L ON CA NVAS, 2001,
images of Mao Zedong. Just as Andy Warhol transformed such as Indonesia and Thailand evolved distinct styles of
XI AO GA NG, C OURTESY OF PACE GA LLE RY (A MNESI A, OI L ON THICK CAN VAS, 110 CM × 130CM)
celebrity portraits into works of art, Chinese artists such as figurative depiction that have persisted into the contemporary
Li Shan and Yu Youhan found inspiration in reinterpretations space. Artists such as Affandi developed distinctive styles of
of Mao’s image, borrowed from propaganda and transformed portraiture that challenged what was taught in traditional
into gaudy pieces that critique his prevalence as a national icon. painting academies, infusing their works with a distinct sense
Rather than borrow images or capture individual likenesses, of identity. Affandi created numerous self-portraits, but rather
leading Chinese contemporary artists Zhang Xiaogang and than paint using a brush, he would smear paint directly from
Zeng Fanzhi painted portraits that capture the psychological the tube onto the canvas, creating wild, energetic portraits.
realities of life in modern China. Zeng’s portraits of masked The first generation of Vietnamese artists to study Western
figures are painted with expressionistic force, each figure styles of painting during the 20th century were strongly
characterised by large hands and feet, and faces hidden influenced by French academic styles of painting, yet their
behind identical masks with exaggerated features. Zhang’s work retains a strong Vietnamese character. Artists such as
haunting Bloodline series is inspired by old photographs from Le Pho and Vu Cao Dam painted tender portraits of Asian
the Cultural Revolution, featuring people standing in solemn women in romantic, idealised settings. In Le Pho’s work,
groups, emotions hidden behind expressionless gazes. These mothers embrace their children, and elegant women are clad
portraits capture the social realities of life in post-Mao China, in traditional Vietnamese áo dài. Despite being trained to paint
suffusing politics with a distinctly human quality. with oil on canvas, many painters persisted in their use of ink
Recently, Liu Ye’s cartoon-like portraits (often portraying his and gouache on silk, using traditional Vietnamese mediums
own childlike form) have gained a resurgence of international to further reinforce a connection with their culture. Fernando
attention. Daydream presents us with the artist asleep at his Amorsolo was another example of a painter who sought ways to
desk; the atmosphere feels dreamlike, yet the cup (a relic from express his heritage in his work, using portraits to capture the
the Cultural Revolution) roots the work in China’s history. native beauty of his homeland as well as his sitters.
86 VAN IT Y F A I R ON ART NOV E M B E R 20 19

Below, clockwise from left: Untitled by

JAPAN Yoshitomo Nara, 2019; Neutron by
Tomoo Gokita, 2008; Kaikai Kiki, DOB,
Self-portrait, and My Various Complaints
by Takashi Murakami, 2019
Gokita’s“anti-
portraits”
CA NVAS MOUNTED ON A L UMI NUM FR A ME, 1500 X 1500 X 50.8MM). © 2014 CHRISTIE’S I MAGE LI MIT ED A ND AF F ANDI F OUNDATION (A FFA NDI); © COPYRIGH T OWNED B Y T H E FERNA ND O C.
TOKYO (N EUTRON, GOUACHE ON CA NVAS, 259.5 X 194.5CM); © 2019 TAKASHI MUR A KA MI/KA I KA I K IKI CO., L TD. A L L RIGHTS RESERVED (K A I K A I K I K I, ACRYL IC A ND PL AT I NU M L EA F ON
©YOSHI TOMO NA R A, 2019 COURTES Y OF PACE GA L L ERY (UN TI TLE D, ACRY LIC ON CAN VAS 87 × 77 I NCHES/221CM × 195.6C M); © TOMO O G OK I TA / CO U RT ESY OF TA K A I SH I I GA L L ERY,
obscure the
A MOR SOL O A RT FOUNDATION, I NC (FER NA NDA DE J ESUS, OI L ON CA NVAS, 82 X 53CM, PR IVATE COL LE CTION); © ADAG P, PA RI S A ND DACS, L OND ON 2019 © 2016 CH RI ST I E’S I M AG E
faces of those Takashi Murakami,

Yoshitomo Nara, Tomoo Gokita
depicted JAPAN
eginning in the 17th century, ukiyo-e woodblock prints
B became an important part of Japanese artistic and visual
culture. Ukiyo-e prints were mass-produced, featuring
images meant for people of all social classes and backgrounds
to enjoy, leading to widespread popularisation of certain images
and forms. Portraits of beautiful women, sumo wrestlers,
and kabuki actors were popular subjects for these woodblock
prints. While clothing and hairstyles were depicted in detail,
facial features were typically stylised and non-specific. The
flat, graphic style of illustration would become a source of
inspiration for the Impressionists, while also giving rise to
visual forms that would later evolve into manga and anime.
Japanese popular culture was an immense source of
inspiration for Takashi Murakami, who pioneered the concept
of Superflat, a term that describes both the flattened forms that
characterise Japanese art and the shallowness of consumer
culture. Murakami often chooses to depict himself in cartoon
form, or as an illustrated avatar, lampooning himself even as
he appropriates the visual styles that dominate manga and
anime. Yoshitomo Nara is another artist who has cited the great
influence that ukiyo-e prints had on his work. Nara’s paintings
L I MI TED (L A J EUNE FIL L E, C HRI STI E’S HONG KONG)
and drawings typically feature wide-eyed children, depicted

with exaggerated facial features that enhance their distinct
personalities. While Murakami’s works are overt in their
surface appeal, Nara’s are romantic and mysterious, suggesting
Above, from left: Self- hidden depths in the simple forms of his painted figures.
Portrait by Affandi, In recent years, some artists have sought to distance
SOUTH-EAST 1975; Portrait of themselves from the bright colours and cartoon-like
ASIA Fernanda de Jesus by
Fernando Amorsolo,
characteristics often associated with Japanese contemporary
1915; La Jeune Fille Aux art. Tomoo Gokita’s “anti-portraits” intentionally obscure the
Pommes-Cannelle by faces of those depicted, using black and white gradients to
Le Pho, 1938 create a machine-like quality that is reminiscent of both old
photography and modernist works by 20th-century painters.
PORTRAITS
SIR PETER BLAKE

By Sir Peter Blake
This 1961 work shows the young artist embracing two cultures:
Britain’s rich artistic heritage and America’s vibrant pop scene.
By ALEX FARQUHARSON, Director of Tate Britain
eter Blake’s Self-Portrait with Badges (1961) is a of a magazine the artist holds in his right hand. Blake’s denim
P wonderfully coherent painting based on a play-

ful series of contradictions. On one level, it’s a
traditionally painted, conventional, art historic
jacket and jeans were rare in Britain at that time (Blake had the
jacket made) and would have appeared radically contemporary.
Like the basketball boots he wears, Blake’s wardrobe signals
motif: the artist appears as a full-length, almost life-sized figure a fascination with the new consumerist culture aimed at the
in a landscape, painted in a manner that evokes a genealogy American teenager in the wake of Elvis and rock ’n’ roll. But
that reaches back from postwar realism to the Pre-Raphaelites while this new iconography would soon become associated
(their close attention to detail in nature), and back to late with Pop art, the true subject of the painting is not the idol (Elvis
18th-century portraiture (Gainsborough’s loose painterly sug- or a famous cola brand), but instead a new kind of devotee,
gestions of woods and clothing, especially). Blake appears in the young fan, a far cry from the cultural standing of an artist.
the middle of the picture: he stands straight, but with sloping Blake, however, is on the brink of turning 30 in the paint-
shoulders, looking directly out at us without expression. ing, and the inference of arrested development is surely gently
It’s a deadpan, self-deprecating way of presenting oneself, self-mocking and ironic. His goatee (which he grew to hide
and Blake was probably evoking Antoine Watteau’s Pierrot in extensive scarring from a cycling accident) underscores his
the Louvre. That melancholic clown adulthood and seems to signify the
from Italian commedia dell’arte would more grown-up and intellectual con-
have appealed to Blake, who had al- temporaneous milieu of jazz, beat
ready by then developed a life-long poetry and the emergent Greenwich
love of traditional popular entertain- Village folk scene. Blake is a lifelong
GRO OMI NG B Y TA NI A ROD NE Y USI NG SHU UE MUR A; JOHN FROST NE WSPAP E RS (SUNDAY TIM ES M AGA ZIN E)
ment: circus acts, wrestlers, English admirer of American popular culture,
music hall. Watteau’s entertainers but always evidently at a remove—
exist in timeless, otherworldly gar- generationally, geographically and
dens, but in Self-Portrait with Badges culturally. The American motifs pres-
nature is cut short by the appear- ent in this painting and his work in
ance of a garden fence immediate- general is filtered through an earlier
ly behind Blake’s back. The scene antiquated history of popular culture
is the artist’s small back garden in MAN OF THE MOMENT that Blake both inherited and lived
The very first Sunday Times Colour Section,
London, not a wooded glade. There published on February 4 1962, captured the spirit
through; Blake’s love of this culture
are moments of lyricism—a minutely of the era with a major feature on Peter Blake as a derives as much from Victorian and
observed apple at his feet, a small pink “Pioneer of Pop Art”, and used Self-Portrait with Edwardian entertainments (music
Badges as a full-page illustration
flower of some sort—but otherwise hall songs, strongmen, tin toys, sign
the garden is dingy and nondescript paintings), as it does from American
and as such suggests the repertoire of “kitchen sink” storylines postwar culture (movies, pop stars, pin-ups and advertising).
and the atmosphere of the novels, plays and films made in That convergence of popular cultures—new and American with
Britain around the time it was painted. historic and British—would become widely known from his
But this is a self-portrait in a landscape with, of all things, cover design for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
badges. Circular, primary-coloured and commercially designed, Band (1967). A close look at the badges on Blake’s jacket reveals
they sing out against the Constable-esque shades of green imagery relating to boy scouts, nurses and Great War top brass,
and brown of the garden. Numerous, and proudly pinned like an older England he was born into.
medals onto the artist’s denim jacket, they evoke collage and Blake, as Pierrot in a featureless back garden in London in
collecting, which are strong attributes of Blake’s wider practice. 1961, appears poised between two worlds: that of austerity and
A Pepsi-Cola logo, the Stars and Stripes and the Union flag tradition on one side and the transatlantic youthquake on the
are discernible among the mass of imagery. The largest badge other. Blake, as a precursor and protagonist of Pop art in Britain,
bears a portrait of Elvis, who recurs in the painting on the cover would play a leading role in ushering in that bright new culture.
88 P ORT R A I T B Y JA K E WA L T E R S NOV E M B E R 20 19
TOP OF THE POPS

Sir Peter Blake
photographed
beside Self-Portrait
with Badges at
Tate Britain on
August 21, 2019
PORTRAITS
NICHOLAS FOULKES
By Richard Orlinski
French Pop artist Richard Orlinski is known for his streamlined,
high-gloss sculptures of ferocious animals. Here, he captures a
rather more complex being. By NICHOLAS FOULKES
is hard-edged, faceted, diamond-like simplified means. Although devoid of anatomical
H animal sculptures have been exhibited

on the Grand Canal and at the
Palace of Versailles; his galleries are
detail, the giant red five-metre Kong that towered
over Courchevel last season demonstrated this
perfectly. The difference is that we humans,
becoming a feature of the great shopping streets certainly his current human anyway, is vainer
of the world; he has collaborated with brands as than your average cartoon gorilla. The sculpture
diverse as Disney and Hublot; and now French had to be recognisably me (only better looking)
Pop artist Richard Orlinski has completed his first and recognisably Orlinski. Neither I nor the artist
portrait bust… a sculpture of my head. realised how tricky this would be.
“I am very proud of it—in fact I am a little bit Sitting for Orlinski is, as one would imagine, a
surprised to have made something so good because digital process. A photographer arrived at my house,
it is so hard.” His tone of heartfelt relief leaves me cleared my kitchen and then laid out a radius of taped
with the unmistakable sense that he is more than points on the floor at the centre of which I perched
happy to be able to return to what he is famous for. on a stool. The camera was kept in the same position
Highly recognisable, highly commercial, highly and I was asked to rotate incrementally, facing
accessible and highly highly successful, the sort of each marker in turn as if I were some sort of human
work for which the 53-year-old sculptor is famous gnomon. The process was repeated several times with
relies on instant recognition, a recognition that slight variations in the camera angle and height to
gains in power with every reproduction. Just as one enable an accurate image to be constructed.
recognises a Kaws or a Koons, so it is impossible to Naively I, and I suspect Orlinski, thought that
mistake the Orlinski oeuvre for anyone else’s. would be it—feed these images into a computer, chisel
He is a contemporary paradigm of the artist a cheekbone here, sharpen a jowl there, strengthen
as corporation. With around 200 people working the jaw, straighten the nose I broke in a fist fight, and
for him, and five studios using either robots or the then off to the robots for sculpting and painting—job
human hand to realise a vision that begins with done, or, et voilà as they say in Orlinski’s land.
a 3-D computer image, he has developed—and Weeks passed, spring turned to summer and then,
shrewdly copyrighted—what he calls the Born hours before I was about to embark on my annual
Wild concept. Part manifesto, part slogan, part pilgrimage to the Marbella Club, I received a slightly
brand, Born Wild© manifests itself in polished, agitated call asking whether I would
faceted sculptures, often executed in industrial mind just popping to a 3-D
materials: concrete is a favourite, “but I can work scanning studio—it wouldn’t
on everything”. Typically, his works are finished take more than a few hours.
in a high-gloss, vampish, nail polish red, but they “As long as it is in Andalucía,”
are available in any colour you want, including a I joked. An hour closer to
polychrome Pollock-like finish. Subjects tend to departure time I received
be ferocious animals at the top of the food chain: another, now decidedly
bears, wolves, crocodiles, the occasional T-Rex and agitated, call asking if I would
of course his Kong—to Orlinski what Campbell’s mind if a specialised 3-D
Soup was to Warhol. “He can talk for me, he can photographer came to set up a
say what I want to say, he’s a good ambassador, so makeshift studio in my house, and
that’s why I work a lot with King Kong.” But when HEAD FIRST before I could say I was packing I
it comes to the very top of the food chain, we homo Above: 3-D was told that he would be on my
computer
(so-called) sapiens, things get a little tricky. renderings in doorstep in about half an hour.
Orlinski’s work is reductive; the goal is to progress. Thus, I found myself back on
Right: a bronze
achieve maximum effect with streamlined, rendering
my stool, sitting statue-still, as a
90 P ORT R A I T B Y A L E X A NDE R JA M ES NOV E M B E R 2019

serious looking man slowly moved something THAT’S ALL difficult because you know how we feel about our faces—it is
FOULKES
that looked like a cross between a Philippe very specific. There are billions of people in this world and
COURTESY OF RICHA RD ORLI NSKI (S CULP TUR E I MAGES); HUBLOT-ORLI NSKI (ARTI ST P ORT R AI T)
Above: Orlinski’s
Starck showerhead and an elaborate joystick completed we’re all different. To do something realistic, with my art and
sculpture of
across my face, head, neck and shoulders. Nicholas
my way of working… it is the hardest thing I have ever made.”
It was a curious, not to say eerie, Foulkes. “One part of the face may take 10 hours because the
experience. The first draft that appeared Below: the work has to be very fine. It takes a really long time because
artist, Richard
on the computer screen looked a little Orlinski everything has to be perfect.” Even the paint had to be
like a remarkably well-preserved Ancient applied more thinly than usual so as not to
Roman death mask of myself—only I was obscure the finer details. “Compare that to
still alive. However, after a couple of hours the face of Kong, which can take maybe 10
and numerous passes with the showerhead/ minutes. Two eyes, one mouth, two teeth—a
joystick, something else began to emerge on few shapes and that’s it.”
screen, something worthy of the Terminator Hearing myself talked of in the same
franchise: a metallic blue, mercilessly breath as King Kong is a first for me and
detailed version of myself; furrowed brow, it ignites the spark of an idea. What about
quizzical eyebrow, simian lines linking nose placing my features on Kong?
to mouth and all. Flattering it was not, but its The spark is swiftly extinguished. “I
accuracy was indisputable. think I will continue with whatever is easy
But even with this digital copy of my for me to do,” laughs Orlinski. “It’s been a
head, plus the Budd shirt and knotted good experiment, but sculpting humans
Charvet tie, it was tough for Orlinski. “It’s really takes a lot of time and resources. Three
just very, very complicated. I don’t like to do or four of my guys were working on your
it because it’s so complicated. With animals sculpture. I am very happy with it but I think,
it is so easy, but the human face is the most for the moment, we will stop with you.”
COATS OF MANY COLOURS

Seven overpainted portraits of the curator and Serpentine Galleries Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist by Gerhard Richter. The portraits, dating
from 2007, highlight his technique of overpainting photographs, creating a tension between the original underlying image and the surface one
PORTRAITS
HANS ULRICH OBRIST

By Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter, the artist famed for his overpainted photographs,
subverts the traditional relationship between sitter and painter, says
HANS ULRICH OBRIST, Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries
here are many accounts of people who And then I just did the same thing artificially.” Richter has
T have been portrayed by artists. Friends and

acquaintances of David Hockney, for example,
developed several techniques of overpainting throughout the
years: at times, he pulls the photograph across the oil paint
describe the experience of being painted by on the squeegee, leaving streaks on its surface. Sometimes
him as anything from frightening to spiritual. The writer the photograph is placed on the paint and lifted off again, as
James Lord wrote a book about sitting for an artist (Alberto though making a monotype. Some photographs only contain
Giacometti), as did the art critic Martin Gayford, who posed a little paint, while others are almost entirely covered. As for
for Lucian Freud over the course of 18 months. The common the portraits, the photographs are spattered with paint. The
ground of these accounts appears to be the intimacy and overpainted photographs usually make use of snapshots:
intensity of the encounter, the ways in which one is observed landscapes taken on holiday, architectural observations,
so closely—examined almost. images of Richter’s wife Sabine Moritz, his children and
Lord described the experience of modelling for sometimes his friends. At the time of the Sils exhibition,
Giacometti as producing “a sense of exceptional intimacy in Richter also took a picture of me—one that would become
the almost supernatural atmosphere of give and take that is the first overpainted portrait he would do of me and which I
inherent in the acts of posing and painting. The reciprocity later used on the cover of one of my books.
at times seems almost unbearable. There is an identification Nearly 20 years after the Sils exhibition, Richter and I met
between the model and the artist, via the painting, which in London. We went for dinner and he took a few snapshots
gradually seems to become an independent, autonomous of me in front of the restaurant. We didn’t see each other for
entity served by them both, each in his own way and, oddly a while afterwards and when we met again, I learned that,
enough, equally.” Such an intimate act can go awry, as it to my surprise, he had made dozens of overpainted portraits
famously did in the case of Graham Sutherland painting from these pictures. These led to his book Obrist/O’Brist,
Winston Churchill: the statesman detested the portrait so published in 2009, which is made up of the overpainted
much that this wife, Clementine, had it destroyed. photographs and fragmented texts of mine. The texts appear
My experience with Gerhard Richter making my portrait nonsensical since they were reassembled through a random
differed greatly from these examples. It began when I was 17 generator, a subversive act of deconstruction. This non-
years old, and I attended Richter’s solo show at the Kunsthalle linearity and the element of chance—controlled chance—are
in Bern. Seeing him there, I expressed my admiration for his important elements of Richter’s overpainted artworks.
© GERHA RD RIC HTER 2019 (12092019) (P ORTR AI TS OF HAN S ULR ICH OBRI ST)
work and asked if I could visit his studio in Cologne. Seven Thus my experience differed greatly from the tradition of
years later, in 1992, we collaborated on Sils, Richter’s first having one’s portrait painted, which is a prolonged process,
comprehensive exhibition of his overpainted photographs. requiring the subject to sit still and the painter to prove his
At the time, we often used to meet in Sils Maria, Switzerland. mastery and attention to detail. The aforementioned intimacy,
Since my first show, which was staged in my kitchen, I have the intensity of the encounter between the portrayer and the
always sought to create exhibitions in unexpected places, and portrayed, didn’t happen between Richter and the life model,
thus Richter and I chose the famous Nietzsche-Haus in Sils as but between Richter and the photograph. There is a parallel
the exhibition location. The works shown there were largely here with the history of literature: texts overwritten on sheets
comprised of photographs of the area: a series of Alpine of paper used by earlier writers are known as palimpsests. The
landscapes in postcard format. new text covers the old one, which never entirely disappears.
Richter started painting on photographs in the mid- Similarly, the oil paint in Richter’s overpainted images is
1980s, a technique he had come upon by chance decades applied over a pre-existing motif. But the paint does not simply
before, through his reflection on the realistic qualities within conceal it, and the way we interpret the new composite image
photography and abstraction. He says: “When I was painting is influenced by the areas around the now-invisible motif. In
representational compositions after photographs, I would the viewer’s eyes the oil paint and the photograph are always
dab a little paint on the photograph to check if the colour seen in relation to each other—sprinklings of paint over the
was right. In the end the photographs had numerous dabs portrait appear like fragments of the face. In this way, the
of paint and in fact looked more interesting than before. overpainted photographs have become palimpsests.
PORTRAITS
SUSIE BOYT
By Lucian Freud
A giant of 20th-century art, Lucian Freud is famed for his intimate
portraits of those closest to him. Here, the artist’s daughter,
SUSIE BOYT, lays bare her experience of sitting for her father
put on quite a bit of make-up the first time I I washed our dishes and we went into the studio. There
I went to sit for my father, possibly more than I

had ever worn before. There is something about
trying to be strongly yourself, to look entirely
was never any question I would take off my clothes. I didn’t
have that kind of strength. “Why would he want to paint
you?” a teacher at school had said. I had brought with me
you-shaped and you-flavoured, which is bound to make you an old bias-cut black silk velvet dress from the 1930s in a
feel a bit spurious or fraudulent, if not spark a full-blown supermarket carrier. It had two strange padded panels of
identity crisis. I was 18, living on my own on the top floor of fabric like black doves flying off from the shoulder straps.
a house in Kilburn that had no heating, It was my idea and he went along with it.
hot water or electrics, but I had three large “I’ve never painted anyone in evening
rooms and a camp bed—it was summer dress before,” he said. He was wearing
and I felt free. blue and white chefs’ checks which he
“I need to leave home tomorrow,” I had always used to paint in then. He had a
said to him on the telephone the day piece of torn sheet tucked into his belt like
I finished my A-levels, three weeks an apron on which he wiped his brushes.
earlier. I knew he liked the maxim “never There was the smell of turps and paint and
apologise, never explain”, so I didn’t a faint hint of cigar smoke. I sat down on
bother saying why. He phoned back after a bed underneath the covered skylight. A
a few minutes. He had a friend with an smallish canvas was already on the easel.
empty house where building works had When you are being painted, the
been delayed. I could stay there. He loved picture itself makes a strong third presence
pulling off feats for people. The beat of in the room. If you are tired or out of sorts
the hooves of the cavalry. I thought of you might experience a sort of sibling
it as his Frank Sinatra side. Terrified, a rivalry with it—why must it be the most
couple of years later in a flat people said important thing?—but when things go well
was haunted, I used to wake in the night it eases the atmosphere. Everyone has a
convinced I was about to be attacked. I role that is clear. I was keen to be a good
© THE LUCI A N FRE UD ARC HI V E/B RID GEMA N I MAGES (PORTR AIT S OF SUSI E BOY T)
asked if he could get me a gun. Of course, sitter which meant keeping still for as long
came his answer. In the end I talked him as possible without asking for a break.
out of it, I think. I liked him having to ask me for one. Ha!
On the appointed day I went to his flat I heard him say once when I was little,
in Holland Park and climbed the four or “I find not painting much more of a strain
five flights to the top floor. It was 7.30am. than painting and I find painting quite a
There was a powerful smell of sour meat. strain”—and it had stayed with me.
In the kitchen were two white enamel I had the sense, even as a teenager, that
plates, each with a piece of toast on which sat a roasted bird being exceptionally good at something makes life difficult
with a long beak piercing its breast. The meat was bitter, the for people. Over the coming weeks and months there was
kind of food you wanted to console more than consume. It sometimes a sharp tension when the picture wasn’t going
was woodcock. There was lapsang tea which I did like, smoky well. He would start by addressing the painting with a
and exhilarating. There was mild disapproval of the make- “No, no, I don’t think so”, as though gallantly refusing a
up I was wearing. A light complaint about “painting paint”. I compliment, then suddenly something more violent would
remember thinking of the scene in A Star Is Born when James come into his voice or he might stamp his foot and the room
Mason comes to visit Judy Garland on set during her screen would shake. There was another source of disquiet in the
test and wipes off her eyebrows with cold cream, undoes her room. I hadn’t seen that much of him growing up, and I was
wig, peels off the little slip of rubber on her nose, claiming sore about it and I knew I wasn’t allowed to be and there was
she sat an hour too long in the make-up chair. making up to do which took time and ingenuity.
I had a place at Oxford to study English HER FATHER’S narrowed and darkened significantly. I used to lie there and
DAUGHTER
the following year and we talked about what Opposite page: cry and I felt a great weight of sympathy from him—a sense
I was reading. His literary criticism was Freud’s first two that he was trying, in his way, to make things better for me.
portraits of
acute and often highly visual. I remember Susie, 1988 (top) I started singing to him halfway through the picture. I’m not
discussing a late novel by Iris Murdoch. and 1988-9. very good but I’m keen. It soothed the atmosphere greatly.
Above: the third
“But it’s so muddled, it’s like a drawer and final portrait,
I sang old tunes: Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and
with socks and shoes and even feet in it,” Susie’s favourite, Hart, introducing notes of wistful Broadway romance into a
he said. We talked about Hardy’s poetry, 1989-90 scene that might have been austere. From then on, I always
which we preferred to the novels, and of sang to him while he was painting me. It was something
John Berryman, Brecht, Kipling, Saul Bellow and Keats. His we did together at the end of his life too—in the corners of
prejudices have stayed with me forever. He didn’t much like restaurants, in taxis, crossing the road. He was always word
Beckett, said he had a forced intensity, that it wasn’t about perfect: “My Defences are Down”, “One for my Baby”, “Two
anything, and it has taken me almost 30 years to disagree. Sleepy People”, “I’ve Still Got my Health, So What do I Care?”
We did three paintings back-to-back in two and a half Susie Boyt’s memoir of love, loss and hero-worship, “My Judy
years. The last one is my favourite. It was a difficult time; I’d Garland Life”, has been reissued with a new preface this
had a sudden bereavement at university and my world had autumn. (Virago, £9.99)
Desert Island Art Never mind music—paintings that sing sensuous songs
and play off their natural surroundings are the artistic
Cristian Albu company of choice for this Christie’s castaway
Co-Head, Post-War
and Contemporary Art, Europe
laces where art, nature and

P architecture coexist in perfect
symbiosis are rare. One is Château
La Coste in Aix-en-Provence, France,
where Louise Bourgeois’ 2003 Crouching
Spider sculpture hovers over a pool
designed by Japanese architect Tadao
Ando, overlooking miles of vineyards.
Another is the Chichu Art Museum on Noashima Island in
Japan, where one is transfixed by five Water Lilies paintings
by Claude Monet—again in an Ando building—illuminated
only by natural light. These places give the art a platform
to create stories so that we, the viewers, can dream.
Over the past seven years at Christie’s, I have had
some unforgettable encounters with art. In Romanian
Transylvania, where I grew up under the Communist
regime in the 1980s, we were only allowed to listen to
certain musicians. One of them (uncensored, strangely SOUL SURVIVOR
Cristian Albu photographed at Christie’s,
enough) was George Michael. His lyrics were so King Street, London on June 26, 2019,
in front of Blonde Eating Birds
poignant, so daring, with hidden messages of rebellion (2011-2012) by Cecily Brown
and possibility. This year in March, Christie’s was
entrusted to sell the contemporary art collection from
Michael’s estate. I quickly realised there were only two turning points. His subjects are figures who, for better or
degrees of separation between my musical idol and a for worse, have changed the course of human history:
visual artist I have always been drawn to: Cecily Brown. Charles Darwin, Vincent Van Gogh, Fascist dictators
STE VE SC HOF IE LD (PHOTO GR AP H OF A LB U); © C ECI LY B ROW N (BL ONDE E AT ING BI RD S)

Michael collected Brown’s work, and I feel that her and—in his most recent series of portraits, shown during
approach to painting is mirrored in much of his music. this year’s Venice Biennale—Donald Trump. In a world
Like many of his lyrics, her canvases reflect the ecstasy, increasingly mediated by digital screens, Ghenie uses
fragility and instability of the human condition, paint as a means of rematerialising the past, highlighting
translating physical sensation into paint. They are bold, the way in which glossy broadcast imagery has a
seductive riots of colour and texture, where hints of tendency to neutralise our gut reactions. His figures are
naked human flesh glimmer among abstract swirls of raw and visceral, as if made of flesh and bone: we are
pigment. They are sensual, erotic and filled with forced to look them in the eye. I was thrilled to oversee
suspense, eliciting a response similar to that expressed the sale of the virtuosic 2008 canvas Nickelodeon, which
by Michael in the 1987 hit “I Want Your Sex”: It’s playing made the world record auction price for Ghenie when we
on my mind / It’s dancing on my soul. sold it at Christie’s in 2016 for £7.1m.
Another artist whose work deals with human sensation Works by these two extraordinary artists would
is Adrian Ghenie, a fellow Romanian who also grew up accompany me to my desert island. Together, they would
under the Communist regime. Like Brown, his works bridge the gap between my past and my present. And as
celebrate the physical power of paint, delving deep into in the places I most admire, their works would sing in
the lessons of art history to weave vast cinematic harmony with nature, their writhing, sensuous surfaces
tableaux. Yet where Brown captures abstract, non- echoing the tangled undergrowth of the desert island.
specific moments, Ghenie looks to concrete historical There, I could dream under the stars.

Discover masterpieces from

antiquity to the 20th-century
Frieze London & Frieze Masters

3–6 October 2019
Tickets at frieze.com
Celebrating London’s architecture, Cumberland Terrace. Photograph: Dan Tobin Smith.

Vanity Fair UK - 11 2019

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Vanity Fair UK - 11 2019

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.

the new eau de parfum

Contents Issue No. 711

NFL owner Robert Kraft was charged

Fame & Phoenix

Joaquin Phoenix went dark—very

Joaquin Phoenix wears a shirt and tie by Saint Laurent

10 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

Contents Issue No. 711

PHOTOGR APHS BY BY BOB IGER

After he got a “massage,” Kraft HER TUBE

14 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

Contents Issue No. 711

Emily Weiss’s beauty company,

( M IDDL E F I NG E R ) A ND R E T RO U VA Í . I L L U ST R AT ION B Y R I S KO . F OR D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S

CA M I L A MOR RON E ’ S G OW N B Y M IC H A E L KOR S C OL L E CT ION ; R I NG S B Y C H A N E L F I N E J E W E L RY

“My favorite journey is 20

JUDITH LIGHT, P. 164

16 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

Agenda By Annabel Davidson

The One that you Want

Blooming Marvellous taps now. bfimusicals.co.uk Eye Opener

Launch The famed Australian Argyle mine

From the Editors Behind the Issue

P HOTO G R A P H S : F ROM TOP, B Y E T H A N JA M E S G R E E N , N IC K R A PA Z , G R E G W I L L I A M S

20 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

The Poetry of Time

Haute Joaillerie, place Vendôme since 1906

9 NEW BOND STREET - HARRODS - SELFRIDGES

Editor in Chief Radhika Jones

Deputy Editor Kira Pollack

22 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

Naturally beautiful hair

But it can happen by appointment.

For a private consultation call + 44 (0) 20 7823 2020

Making hair restoration an art for more than 30 years.

10 Grosvenor Place, London SW1X 7HH www.meshkati.co.uk contact@meshkati.co.uk

Publishing Director Kate Slesinger

Associate Publisher Clare Schifano

Managing Director Albert Read

Chief Executive Officer

Chairman of the Board of Directors

24 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

Sl oane Marisa Richard May Charl otte

26 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

OLD WORLD STYLE. NEW WORLD SUBSTANCE.

Editor’s Letter November 2019

P HOTO G R A P H S : TOP, B Y L A ND ON NOR D E M A N ; B OT TOM , B Y J O S E P H I N E S C H I E L E

28 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

RICHARD MILLE BOUTIQUE LONDON

P HOTO G R A P H B Y CHARLOTTE RUTHERFORD

Vanities Opening Act

Build-a-Cookie-Pie Bar Ship Station

Mini Mart The Flagship Classroom

32 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

ACCESS IS EVERYTHINGOne year print + Free gift

FREE MÁDARA RE:GENE VOLUME REBUILD LIFTING MASK, RRP £35*

ALL FOR ONLY £39

MOCA’s new in Street Flair, Byte Blue, and Sweet Tea, £7

P HOTO G R A P H B Y C H R I S K E NDA L L . F OR D E TA I L S , G O TO V F.C OM / C R E DI T S

C HA SING RA INB OWS

34 VAN I T Y F A I R NOV E M B E R 2019

For your weekends