TEAMING UP WITH DR. JANE SALMON TO FIGHT AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE

cause that hairstylist Lisa Chiccine is passionate about is research on autoimmune disease, which has afflicted both of her parents. She has worked for many years with Dr. Jane Salmon, a worldrenowned research scientist who treated Lisa’s mother, helping to raise funds to advance treatment options.

“I am just so grateful, she gave my mom her life back,” Chiccine says of Dr. Salmon, who is the Collette Kean Research Chair and Director of the Lupus and APS Center of Excellence at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. “I can’t even express how much Dr. Salmon means to me.”

Because of her mother’s life-threatening systemic autoimmune disease, Chiccine learned about the challenges that patients face from the medications used in treatment, which dramatically alter the body. “Their hair gets very thin, they gain weight in places they might not want to gain weight, and they get acne. They have profound fatigue and struggle to effectively manage their lives,” Dr. Salmon explains. “And as their disease remits and the inflammation of the organs resolves in response to their treatments, the physical side effects of the drugs that helped remain.”

Chiccine put her professional training into action, organizing beauty gatherings for patients at HSS in Manhattan. She rallied colleagues who would fix their hair, apply makeup, and talk to them about their body image and how to find clothing that minimizes the changes in their bodies. She brought gifts for patients. “ That was Lisa’s concept, to help people understand they were beautiful, even if their body had changed as a result of their medication,” Dr. Salmon says.

Her mother’s condition also spurred Chiccine to develop her line of hair care products, which are all geared toward thickening and giving greater volume to thinning hair.

Later, Chiccine decided she needed to do more, and realizing money is the key, she created an endowment to fund trainee scientists to work in Dr. Salmon’s research laboratory. Over the course of her career, Dr. Salmon has trained 35 investigators who have worked in her laboratory to further her goal to improve the lives of women with autoimmunity and to develop effective therapies with tolerable side effects.

Over the years, Chiccine and Dr. Salmon have become close friends, and they have found they have many things in common. “When Lisa was emerging in her field, there were very few women,” says Dr. Salmon, adding that her own experience was similar. “I was the first woman in the MD PhD program at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and we were both able to move forward despite not looking like anyone else in the room.”

Chiccine believes that we have a job in life, and then we have a purpose. “My job is cutting hair, but my purpose is definitely bringing attention to this cause and making people beautiful.” P cellar master auditions wines to be used in creating each year’s new edition, a music room contains the reserve wines, and the Krug Yurt, in the garden, is where you’ll experience immersive “echoes” tastings, where wine is paired with music. krug.com

Veuve Clicquot House & The Ghost

Founded in 1772 by trader Philippe Clicquot-Muiron and taken over in 1798 by his son, François. However, this renowned Champagne house truly blossomed with a woman at the helm. When François unexpectedly died, his wife, Barbe, took over the business, “Veuve” meaning “widow” in French, and proved to be a passionate winemaker, introducing innovations including the rosé Champagne recipe, which is used by most modern champagne houses today.

The house’s history is noteworthy. Their fifteen miles of chalk cellars date back to the Middle Ages. A faded Red Cross sign on the chalk walls is a reminder of when the cellars were used as an infirmary during World War I. One of 46 antique Veuve Clicquot bottles found in 2010 in the 19th-century Föglö wreck at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in Finland is on display. Madame Clicquot’s original house is still used by the company for visiting VIP guests. I encountered Barbe’s charming ghost when I slept in her bedroom. Have you ever? veuveclicquot.com

House of Taittinger

Pierre Taittinger bought a Champagne house in the 1930s and relaunched the business, offering elegant sparkling wines under the Taittinger name. The family’s third generation still runs the house today. The Taittinger House, which includes the ruins of the 13th-century SaintNicaise Abbey, destroyed during the French Revolution, and UNESCO-listed Roman-era chalk caves, is undergoing a 2-year renovation, so tastings have been detoured to the delightful Residence of the Counts of Champagne in Reims.

Owned by Taittinger, the 13th-century Gothic-style pile Demeure des Comtes de Champagne in French its name derives from the fact that it served as the residence of the Counts of Champagne when they came to Reims for the coronation of the kings of France at the Cathedral of Reims. After being partially destroyed during WW I, Taittinger bought it and restored it, and it is used for cultural events. taittinger.com

The Saint James Hotel: Paris

We drove back to Paris for a round of stylish parties. I checked into one of my favorite Parisian hotels, The Saint James, in the heart of the quiet, leafy 16th arrondissement and mere steps from the elegant Avenue Foch. This is Paris’s only chateau hotel boasting its own enchanting gardens. The Saint James just debuted a complete renovation encompassing all 50 guest rooms and suites, the addition of an indoor pool, and an expansion of the sublime Guerlain spa. The new swimming pool offers views of the distinctive Paris sky, and you can steam any tension away in the hammam and have a relaxing massage. The Saint James’s signature treatment, the Dédicace Guerlain, with 90 minutes of blissful body and facial treatments, is not to be missed.

Landscape architect Xavier de Chirac refreshed the lush gardens, and Michelin-starred chef Julien Dumas launched a new restaurant, Bellefeuille, at the hotel. French interior designer Laura Gonzalez retained all that was wonderful about the stately 19th-century former mansion and enhanced and livened its grandeur, mixing Versailles parquet flooring, geometric patterning, Japanese style panoramic wallpaper, Art Deco accents, frescoes by local craftsmen, and custom rugs, bien sûr. The whole feels like a swank English country estate with chic Parisian flair.

In the Bellefeuille restaurant, chef Julien Dumas whips up inventive, nature-inspired fare using seasonal and local ingredients. Indeed, fruits and vegetables come from The Saint James’s own organic gardens located just outside the city. Whatever Chef Dumas doesn’t make inhouse is sourced from providers with similarly eco-responsible methods. The restaurant’s breads and pastries are from renowned chef/baker Julien Duboué, a former Daniel Boulud protégé.

St. James Paris: A Relais & Chateaux & J.MAK .com Member

The Saint James has an interesting history. Built in 1892 at the behest of the widow of former French President Adolphe Thiers, the mansion was originally used to house a small number, only 15 at a time, of France’s most promising students on scholarships. The estate was the site of the first-ever hot-air balloon airfield, hence the bucolic 50,000-square-foot garden in the middle of Paris.

The Saint James’s Library Bar, where nowadays lunch, tea, and cocktails are served, is a real library dating from the property’s student housing era. The leather-bound books and comfy, deep armchairs are not just décor. In the 1980s, the building was turned into a private club, and in 1991 became a hotel, now part of the Relais & Châteaux collection. saint-james-paris.com

Avenue Montaigne

It made no sense to go to Paris and not shop, so we headed to the Avenue Montaigne and directly to Dior. Although you enter through the same discreet door that was once a small and tres chic boutique, the emporium is now an entire block of dreams. Men’s clothes, women’s clothes, baby clothes, jewelry, and homeware. A Dior Mall.

The Ritz, Dior, Balenciaga, Yayoi Kusama & Louis Vuitton

I crossed the street to have tea at the Plaza Athénée , another of my favorite Paris hotels. Once fortified with tea and pastries, we headed to Louis Vuitton, which is as much an art installation as a store. Yayoi Kusama’s trademark “silver balls” bedeck the outside, and once inside, it’s an Infinity mirror of red and white dots that festoon the entire collection. Tres chic. I hit the Balenciaga store and bought an oversized denim jacket emblazoned with black beads before heading to the brand’s haute couture shop, where I picked out a black blazer with the sleeves rolling well past my fingers from the 2023 runway show. Afterward, we headed to the Ritz Bar for drinks. balenciaga.com P