Winter 2023/24 Fashion & Holiday Issue

ELYSIAN Women Inspiring Women

DISPLAY UNTIL FEB. 20, 2024

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Two models pose at Helen Yarmak’s fashion presentation during New York Fashion Week at The Crown Building, New York.

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ELYSIAN

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60 The City in

VOLUME 9 • ISSUE 4 • THE HOLIDAY & FASHION ISSUE / ÉDITION VACANCES ET MODE • HIVER 2023/24

Bette Davis

Winter

The splendor of New York City. BY KATE MCMULLEN

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BY LAURIE BOGART WILES

The History of New York Fashion Week

112

BY BRENNA KEHEW SCULLEY

Timeless

126

The Magnificent Jewelry of Piaget. BY SAMANTHA PAIGE

Inspiring Women Amy Green page 128 Dr. Christina Rahm page 140 INTERVIEWED BY KAREN FLOYD

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18 fashion&history They called her the “Queen of Fashion. BY CORA WALDEN

architecture&interiors Organized & Elevated: Luxury closets fit for a queen. BY CHRISTY NIELSON

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58 shopping

Judith Leiber Couture. BY SINDIE FITZGERALD-RANKIN

holiday&tradition

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184

The Nutcracker: A ballerina’s journey. BY HELEN ARDEN

food&dining The queen of couture chocolate. BY NORAH LAWLOR

fashion&culture Merci Beaucoup. BY PEARL LUSTRE

fashion&influence Van Lear of Palm Beach. BY KATHLEEN PARKER

194 philanthropy

Bridging style & social responsibility. BY CAROLINE RYAN

back story

Team ELYSIAN and the ELYSIAN Circle celebrate an unforgettable Autumn magzine launch in New York City.

on the cover

Philanthropist and former Sportscaster Amy Green photographed by Michael Paniccia.

Hair and makeup by Daniel Rabenou. Earrings (Red Carpet Collection set in 18k white Fairmined-certified gold featuring 17.11-carats of diamonds) and necklace (Haute Joaillerie Collection set in 18k white gold featuring 14-carats of heart-shaped emeralds and 43.77-carats of diamonds) by Chopard. Chopard.com

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travel&adventure Enchantment in the Alps. BY MARCY DUBROFF

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w w w . r e a d e ly s i a n . c o m ELYSIAN Magazine is published four times per year by Palladian Publications LLC., 113 W. Main St., Spartanburg, SC 29306.

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ELYSIAN STRIVES TO EXCITE THE IMAGINATION …TO BE ASPIRATIONAL AND EXPERIENTIAL. MAY ELYSIAN BE THE VOICE AND NOT THE ECHO.” — KAREN FLOYD

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Karen Floyd Publisher

PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL PANICCIA

ELYSIAN’s eighth year draws to the end, this Winter issue celebrates those women that dare, dream, risk, and imagine what many others deem impossible. We believe that every woman has her own story, value and ability to make a difference. Who would have thought years ago that the ELYSIAN story, our successes and hardships, would represent the idea that together we can create, connect and change the world?

ELYSIAN did not happen overnight; it took years in the making. As a twenty-four-year-old prosecutor of crimes against women and children, I recognized early in my career what would be a lifelong passion; to give a voice to the silent and to share stories that inspire. As my fortieth birthday approached, the second half of my life would be dedicated to fulfilling that vision. Anecdotal stories that encourage others to do and be more, was the “starting line “of this quiet journey.

Nine years ago, we formally launched the print version of ELYSIAN, a folio size, luxury publication . . . culminating in February 2015 on a drizzly evening in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Our community came together celebrating the milestone by closing Main Street and allowing us to literally unroll a twenty foot banner of the first issue of ELYSIAN’s cover, scrolling downward from the top of our historic building’s facade.

Suffice to say, only a few . . . with incredible imaginations I might add . . . would ever have dreamed we could create the ELYSIAN ecosystem. Today the print/publication serves as our memory, our gold standard, beacon of light and example of the excellence we seek. As the years passed and the publication grew, it was a complete surprise when we were acknowledged as Ozzie and Eddies winners for both best design and editorial content.

If we could create a magazine from literally nothing but an idea, what opportunities might await? One word, one thought, one idea at a time, the ELYSIAN ecosystem was built . . . It was not easy. We innovated, failed, struggled and eventually eked out concepts that we grew over time. When COVID arrived and print distribution was limited, we pivoted, expanded our outreach and created a weekly newsletter that now boasts 6 million sends monthly. Simultaneously we focused on retooling our ELYSIAN Connect App that is currently piloting AI through our concept, “Ask E”.

From the very first publication, philanthropy was central to our ethos. Led by Kimberli Scott the Director of ELYSIAN Impact, today over 14M has been raised to benefit children, women, pets, environment and service. This year, ELYSIAN’s signature philanthropic event CatWalk FurBaby was launched. The project was activated two years earlier from an interview I had with Cathy Bissell, the CEO of Bissell Family Pet Foundation. As she spoke about the challenges animal rescues face, I took the liberty of mentioning an idea that had been percolating in my mind for years called CatWalk FurBaby. Cathy is a visionary capable of seeing what others might not. It was her ability to grasp the concept and agree to partner that ignited our creative engine. For readers that are not aware, CatWalk FurBaby kicks off New York Fashion Week by raising money and awareness for rescues worldwide. The idea is simple, our inspiring women choose a rescue, model and designer. The model and dog then walk the runway at iconic Sony Hall, with prize money going back to the winning recues. And every participating rescue wins by receiving much needed grant money.

But imagine if you will . . . it was an idea . . . we had no inspiring women/sponsors, no pet rescues, no designers, no models, or animals . . . When Consuela Vanderbilt joined the movement, she opened the portfolio of designers through SOHO Muse. The final piece of the puzzle and perhaps the most critical was Dr. Christina Rahm. Much like Cathy, Christina is instinctual, self-actualized and understood immediately the challenges, risks and opportunities. Through both her companies, DRC Ventures and the Root Brand, the equation was complete. She simultaneously launched an environmental line, Merci Dupre Clothier, carrying the second half of the production and accomplishing an ELYSIAN philanthropic dream, benefiting animals worldwide.

It was a privilege to narrate our unique journey from the footage both the ELYSIAN team and the production partner Runway 7 captured. The story is a true David and Goliath tale. Originating from Main Street in a small southern town to kicking off New York City Fashion Week on Broadway, this small and mighty group of women made a difference in animal rescue welfare. We were humbled beyond words and so very appreciative to have this accomplishment recognized by winning the Best Film Documentary at the New York City International Fashion Film Festival. While the documentary is granular, the production sets the stage and expectations for the second annual CatWak FurBaby scheduled for September 2024, again kicking off New York Fashion Week.

Whether through our award-winning magazine, robust newsletter, App integrating AI, or recent film accolades, ELYSIAN’s intention is quite simple—to inspire. In this complex and messy world ELYSIAN shows the “what if ” to the seeker.

In this season of gratitude, we thank you . . . and believe that by sharing our very own story of overcoming, persevering and conquering, you too might feel empowered, encouraged and hopeful. I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday. May every dream you can imagine become a reality.

Thank you for taking the journey.

With much love,

D C SERIES N274, 2023

mixed media on canvas

by Marta Estrems

EVEY FINE ART / PALM BEACH artevey.com

fashion&history

They Called Her the

“Queen of ” Fashion

BY CORA WALDEN

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Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli (1890 - 1973), March 6th, 1936.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SASHA/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

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S HE WAS PRACTICAL, constructing the first built-in bra for bathing suits. SHE WAS SENSIBLE, pairing jackets with evening gowns to keep out the night chill—another first.

SHE WAS OUTRAGEOUS—applying feathers, sequins, embroidery, and oversized buttons to her creations with utter abandon; and SHE WAS WHIMSICAL, appliqueing fabric lobsters, hands, bees, music clefts, and playing cards on the sheaths of her dresses.

Demure was not in her vocabulary or her aesthetic. She was ELSA SCHIAPARELLI, a creative visionary whose wild imagination was only bound by the horizon.

Paris,1927.

French designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (18831971) has designed tailored, elegant fashion for society’s elite since she opened her atelier, the House of Chanel, at 160 Boulevard Malesherbes, in 1909. Exploding onto the scene is Italian expatriate Elsa Schiaparelli, 37, who has designed a sweater knitted with a trompe-l’oeil bow that, overnight, has become all the rage. These two women became lifelong rivals. Both emerged as

originators of modern European haute couture. This is extraordinary considering the diverse backgrounds from which they came. Though the Chanel brand is worth a staggering $15 billion today, it was the innovative, daring Elsa Schiaparelli who was crowned “Queen of Fashion.”

Chanel was born into poverty, in rural France, in a charity hospital, to a laundress and itinerant street vendor. Elsa was born into a life of privilege, in Rome, at the Palazzo Corsini to an aristocratic Neapolitan family. Their beginnings would determine their objectives in life, in love, and business. For Chanel, access to high society and money was the measure of success; Elsa, who wanted for nothing, considered creativity and self-expression through fashion as art the measure of hers. Chanel, who was seven years Elsa’s senior, had been experiencing a decade-long dry spell when Elsa entered the fashion scene. Chanel loathed her, and called her “that woman who makes dresses,” and one story has it that Elsa’s gown caught fire when Chanel pushed her into a fireplace during a party. The two remained lifelong enemies.

“What one has to understand about her was, that she had a very, very unpromising facade,” author Meryle Secrest wrote in her book, Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography. “She really didn’t crack a smile. She really didn’t show a frown. She was impassive on the surface. But underneath were all kinds of emotional needs. She had been starving for love and affection and encouragement. And underneath all of this is someone who’s daring, has tremendous intellectual ability, and who has a kind of wonderful, crazy talent.”

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ELSA DRAPING FABRIC ON THE BODY: “A dress has no life of its own unless it is worn,” Elsa wrote in her autobiography, “and as soon as this happens another personality takes over from you and animates it, or tries to, glorifies or destroys it, or makes it into a song of beauty. More often it becomes an indifferent object, or even a pitiful caricature of what you wanted it to be—a dream, an expression.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY KEYSTONE-FRANCE/GAMMA-KEYSTONE VIA GETTY IMAGES

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22 • hiver 2023/24 • édition vacances et mode • readelysian.com Elsa Schiaparelli antique jewellery on model—necklace, earrings, and head piece.

VICTOR WATTS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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E

LSA LUISA MARIA SCHIAPARELLI was the daughter of Giuseppa Maria de Dominicis, a Neapolitan aristocrat, and Celestino Schiaparelli, a noted Piedmontese scholar and Dean of the University of Rome. Despite her many advantages growing up, she was cloistered as a child and spent a good deal of time alone.

Craving love and attention, she frequently lashed out, becoming resentful, obstinate, and uncontrollable.

Elsa herself discloses one telling incident in her autobiography, Shocking Life. One evening, her parents hosted a formal dinner party at home. Elsa was told she was too young to join the adults. Instead, she hid under the table and unscrewed a large jar filled with fleas. The evening ended abruptly.

Growing up, Elsa studied under her uncle, the noted astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, discoverer of the Martian canals, and his and Celestino’s cousin, Ernesto Schiaparelli, the noted Egyptologist who discovered the tomb of Nefertari. Enthralled by the universe and ancient history, Elsa’s imagination took flight. She poured her time and energy into writing poetry, particularly a volume of poems entitled Arethusa, inspired by a water nymph in ancient Greek mythology. Living, as it were, in a fantasy world troubled her parents, so they sent Elsa away to a convent boarding school in Switzerland, hoping the nuns would purge her of her nature. Instead, she rebelled under their strict supervision by staging a hunger strike and was sent home, where she would study philosophy at the University of Rome.

In 1914, at the age of 23, on the recommendation of a family friend, Elsa took a post taking care of a family of orphaned children at a large country house in England.

Deciding this sort of life was not for her, she soon fled to Paris. There she was ardently pursued by a wealthy Russian nobleman, who was known to her parents and who pressured her to marry. But Elsa felt nothing for him and again she bolted—this time, for London. There, while attending a lecture on a new occult movement called theosophy, she met a charismatic man named Wilhelm de Wendt—one of the many and varied names the Polish con man called himself while variously passing himself off as a criminal psychologist, detective, lecturer, and “The World-Famous Dr. W. D. Kerlor,” an alleged psychic and fortune-teller with a talent for defrauding gullible, wealthy widows. Elsa, who had long been fascinated by psychic phenomena, was fascinated by de Wendt. The day after the lecture, they became engaged and married.

For the next three years, Elsa accompanied her husband all over Europe, facilitating his fraudulent schemes in Cannes, Nice, and Monte Carlo, until 1916, when de Kerlor was caught and convicted of fraud, and deported to America. There the couple rented an apartment on Central Park West

and continued to live off of Elsa’s plentiful dowry. De Kerlor opened an office nearby for his new business, the “Bureau of Psychology,” however his scheme was reported to the Bureau of Investigation (forefather of the FBI.) Further interrogation revealed him to be a Communist revolutionary and German sympathizer, and to avoid prosecution, he abandoned Elsa shortly after she gave birth, in 1920, to her first and only child.

She named her daughter Maria Luisa Yvonne Radha, called her “Gogo” and legally changed her surname to ‘Schiaparelli’ to thwart any effort her estranged husband might have attempted to gain legal custody of the child. When Gogo was 18 months old, she contracted polio, and in 1922, mother and daughter moved to Paris, after the death of Elsa’s lover, opera singer Mario Laurenti, who died unexpectedly at the age of 32. (Elsa and de Kerlor were legally divorced in 1924 and four years later, he was murdered in Mexico.) She would never remarry. In Paris, thanks to the generous allowance provided by her family, she let an expensive and fashionable apartment and hired a cook, a maid, and servants fitting to her family’s social position.

“In Paris, life for me was rather dull,” she wrote, “with a great deal of solitude. Real youth and gaiety had not yet been mine. I was to know both, curiously enough, in later years.”

Through her close friend, Gabrièle “Gaby” Buffet-Picabia, wife of Dada/Surrealist artist Francis Picabia—whom she had met on board ship on their transatlantic crossing in 1916—she embarked on a business venture that failed. Her whole life would change, however, when Gaby introduced Elsa to French mast couturier Paul Poiret. “Schiap,” as she was called by her friends, had been making her clothes and wearing them to parties. Poiret saw hidden talent. With no training or skills in pattern-making or tailoring, Poiret—whom she would call “a generous mentor, dear friend”—took Elsa under his wing and encouraged her to start her own business. Elsa wanted to be financially independent from her family and she was encouraged.

She started simply—with a sweater. The Armenian refugees she hired to knit for her had developed a unique, double-layered stitch around which Elsa designed a trompe l’oeil bowknot motif that was knitted into the sweater itself. An instant “must have” on both sides of the Atlantic, expanded into a collection of knitwear, followed by her “pour le Sport” collection of sportswear, ski wear, bathing suits, and linen dresses. In 1927, she opened an atelier on the rue de l’Université to fill orders and expand her knit line, and in 1931, stepped into the realm of eveningwear with designs that catapulted her into the stratosphere of high fashion.

T

he 1930s was the first decade of emancipation for women. Drawn to the Paris circle of Dada and Surrealist artists, Elsa socialized and collaborated with Jean Cocteau, Leonor Fini, Alberto Giacometti, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, who would become her lover, and photographer Man Ray, with whom she had a long personal and professional relationship.

“Once or twice, I had thought that instead of painting or sculpture, both of which I did fairly well, I could invent dresses or costumes.

The “Lobster Dress” (1937), a modest silk evening dress featuring a giant lobster painted by Salvador Dalí.

Sometime collaborator, sometime lover, though married, he was 14 years Schiaparelli’s junior. Their combined talents would combust when together; they designed gowns, shoes, hats, and jewelry. One gown, was even created as a political statement against the Spanish Civil War. Elsa would predecease Dali by 16 years.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DOMINIQUE MAÎTRE / WWD / PENSKE MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

Opposite: Elsa Schiaparelli’s Fashion Salon, 21 Place Vendome, Paris, gouache on paper by Ludwig Bemelmans.

IMAGE COURTESY HERITAGE AUCTIONS / HA.COM

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‘’Wedding Dress and Train, ‘’ 2015, designed by Sabine Getty with Schiaparelli Paris at the ‘’In Daring Fashion: Dali and Schiaparelli’’ exhibition at the Dali Museum, 100 Dali Blvd., St. Petersburg, Russia.Wednesday, The exhibition highlights the collaborations and friendships between Dali and couture designer, Elsa Schiaparelli.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ZUMA PRESS INC / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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Dress designing, incidentally, is to me not a profession but an art. I found that it was a most difficult and unsatisfying art because as soon as a dress is born it has already become a thing of the past. As often as not too many elements are required to allow one to realize the actual vision one had in mind.

The interpretation of a dress, the means of making it, and the surprising way in which some materials react—all these factors, no matter how good an interpreter you have, invariably reserve a slight if not bitter disappointment for you. In a way, it is even worse if you are satisfied, because once you have created it the dress no longer belongs to you. A dress cannot just hang like a painting on the wall, or like a book remain intact and live a long and sheltered life.”

Couture, she reasoned, is wearable art. Elsa experimented with fabrics (one dress she designed for legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland was made of cellophane, and when Vreeland took it to the dry cleaner, it melted.) She was the first to take functional elements and design garments with visible zippers and large buttons. She designed the wrap dress that decades later would bring fame to Diane Von Furstenberg. She designed dresses with broad shoulders, heart-shaped lines, and her collections had themes: “Stop Look and Listen” in 1935, “Music” and “Paris 1937” in 1937, “Zodiac,” “Pagan,” and “Circus” in 1938, and “Commedia dell’arte” in 1939. But her most famous collaboration was with Spanish Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí on a white evening gown with a sexually suggestive, giant red lobster painted down the full skirt, from waist to floor-length hem. It was a “must have” for the Duchess of Windsor, who posed provocatively in it on her honeymoon.

“Schiaparelli and Dalí adored each other because they were both daring and risk-takers,” biographer Meryle Secrest wrote. “And Dalí’s theme of the lobster . . . comes up over and over again in his symbolism. He has many symbols, but the lobster is really sort of sexual in theme, I suppose. And at some point or other, they both, he and Elsa, concocted this idea that the lobster should be a dress.”

By 1932,

Elsa was employing 400 seamstresses who produced 8,000 garments a year and had to move to a larger atelier, at 4 rue de la Paix.

Ready-to-made orders streamed in, thanks to enormously successful commercial arrangements with American department stores and specialty shops. Two years later her production exceeded 10,000 garments a year and in 1935, she relocated yet again, this time to the prestigious heart of Paris, at 21 Place Vendôme, the distinguished, 98room, 17th-century Hôtel de Fontpertuis, which she converted into her salon and work studios.

In 1936, Elsa launched her first perfume, “Salut des Schiaparelli,” and then “Shocking,” after her signature color, shocking pink. The bottle was created in the shape of a curvaceous woman’s torso by her friend, Argentine-Italian Surrealist artist Leonor Fini, who was inspired when she saw the tailor’s dummy of one of Elsa’s best clients—Hollywood bombshell Mae West. She expanded her collections to include hats, furs, accessories, and—coveted today by collectors, magnificent costume jewelry. She catered to a devoted, exclusive private clientele that included the new, notorious Duchess of Windsor, and likewise designed for silver screen goddesses Greta Garbo, Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, and Marlene Dietrich. She was the first designer to use velvets, rayon, and Lurex. She created the wrap dress and—though credited to Chanel—the “little black dress,” and designed the first see-through raincoat. And she named her trademark color, a vibrant rose, “shocking pink.”

Elsa had forged strong ties in the United States during her six years living there and as the storm clouds of World War Two gathered upon Europe’s horizon, she decided to leave Paris and return to New York in 1940. The Paris atelier remained open, throughout the war, under the capable hands of her young apprentice—an up-and-coming designer by the name of Hubert de Givenchy. While in New York, Elsa devoted her time to the war effort as a nurse’s aide at Bellevue Hospital. After the War, she returned to Paris to resume business but by now, a younger generation of designers led by Cristobal Balenciaga and Christian Dior had taken over the fashion limelight. Dior proclaimed his style the “New Look” even though the new designers’ collections were far more conventional than Elsa’s. Nonetheless, the new generation in fashion overtook Elsa’s creations in popularity and sales. Unwilling to adapt to changes, the House of Schiaparelli declared bankruptcy in 1954 and Elsa retired to the home she had built in Tunisia. She died in 1975 at the age of 83. But her label did not.

In 2007, Italian businessman Diego Della Valle acquired the Schiaparelli brand. Through a carefully constructed revival and hyper-exclusive business strategy under the direction of Marco Zanini, The House of Schiaparelli was nominated for a return to the most elite of elite trade associations, Le Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in January of 2014. Her vision and imagination now, as in her lifetime, are only bound by the horizon. ■ Elsa Schiaparelli dominated Paris couture in the 1930”s and became a star in the social and artistic firmament. She made her reputation through the unique ability to shock and surprise, ever mindful nonetheless of the golden rule of couture that invention must be underpinned by supreme quality and by an indisputable rightness of line and proportion.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SCOTT HOUSTON / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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architecture&interiors

Organized & Elevated: Luxury Closets Fit for a Queen

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BY CHRISTY NIELSON

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PHOTOGRAPH BY MEL YATES / KELLYHOPPEN.COM

woman’s closet is an essential part of her home, but the humble closet has evolved into much more than simply a place to store belongings. Today’s luxury closets—sometimes room-sized retreats—are bespoke boutique spaces that exude opulence and allure while at the same time showcasing individual style, organizing belongings, and even functioning as a private and personal retreat from the stresses of everyday life.

“The whole idea of luxury closets is that women want to be surrounded by beauty,” explains Polly Lestikow, President of Closet Factory Colorado. “They love their clothes, love their shoes, and they want to be surrounded by things they love.” Lestikow says that as women’s lives have gotten more complex and stressful, an organized closet space provides a sanctuary. “Women fill multiple roles—as a mom, a professional, a volunteer—and need different wardrobes for each one. Especially for women, their closet might be the only place in the house that really belongs to only them.”

Strategically placed mood lighting, decorative hardware, colorful wallpaper, ultrafeminine chandeliers, plush rugs, comfortable seating, a lighted vanity, mirrors that adjust to every angle, a sound system, an island for folding, packing, and displaying—the sky is the limit when designing a dream closet. But no matter what “extras” get infused into a dream closet, our design experts agree there is one paramount element: organization.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY MEL YATES / KELLYHOPPEN.COM

The large closet and dressing area is a highlight of this London Duplex designed by British Interior Designer Kelly Hoppen.

For multi-award-winning UK designer Kelly Hoppen CBE, the focus on orderliness is a consistent request from her luxury clients who prioritize organization and customization. “They want ample storage space for their extensive wardrobes, including specialized compartments for shoes, bags, and accessories,” she explains. “High-quality materials and finishes are also crucial, as they seek a sense of opulence and sophistication in their closet designs.”

Getting the proper organization solutions in place starts with an inventory of the wardrobe. The perfect closet will improve efficiency, increase storage capacity, and be laid out with a focus on how you dress. The size of the closet, materials used, and the number of features—think sunglass storage, hat organization, shoe racks, loads of racks for hanging clothes of various lengths, velvet-lined jewelry organizers, divided drawers, and more—obviously impact the budget.

Designer Hayley English of Hayley English Interiors has this sage advice when tackling a closet makeover. “Determine the three most important uses of the space, and then let those drive the functionality first and design later,” she suggests.

“Also, the way a client uses their closet may change from season to season, as opposed to a kitchen or bedroom, so the design should accommodate future changes. We always recommend adjustable shelving and rods to ensure flexibility.”

Los Angeles interior designer and TV personality Breegan Jane says that while organization is where she starts with her clients’ luxury closet designs, their wish lists extend beyond functionality. “My clients want boutique-worthy closets.

They want a space or slot for everything, and they want them to exude luxury and allure,” she explains. “That means not only do these spaces have to be useful, but the clients also care about the paint color, the materials, and the overall look of the space. They want them to feel luxe and impressive, but they also don’t want to sacrifice the practical aspects either. I balance the design in those ways to create closets that are a dream to use each day.”

Many women want their closet to feel like an extension of the primary suite—a private space to enjoy. “Closets have become more significant in our post-Covid world,” notes Erika Volkmer, principal and founder of Evensen Design.

“With more people working from home, every piece of real estate in a person’s house has become important. Secondary areas such as primary closets are valued and celebrated as an added sanctuary and a glorification of one’s tastes.”

Some people—especially empty nesters – opt to take over full rooms of their homes and transform them into overthe-top dream closets. But what about those on the other end of the spectrum who have smaller square footage? “A luxury closet can be achieved even in a limited space by focusing on clever and efficient storage solutions,” suggests Hoppen. “Utilizing vertical space with wall-mounted racks, custom shelving, and multi-functional furniture like storage

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Closet Factory Colorado has provided homeowners with the highest-quality, personalized storage solutions for over 30 years.

They have a 26,000 sq.ft. showroom to inspire ideas for your custom closet or organization system.

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ottomans can maximize the available area.” She adds that strategic lighting and mirrored surfaces help create an illusion of more space and enhance the overall luxurious feel.

“For our clients without the luxury of square footage, we focus on their style and taste, starting with storage design and lighting,” says Volkmer. “We then consult with the client to add personality, treating the space as their own boutique. Adding color, wallpaper, and a gorgeous mirror in a well-organized closet instantly elevates a small space.”

All-white closets that don’t compete with wardrobe pieces are a classic and popular option, but many designers are also getting creative with color. “Whether it be through paint, wallpaper, rugs, furniture, or all of the above, we have started adding a lot more color,” explains Volkmer. She says one of her favorite closet projects has deep green cabinetry, Hermès wallpaper, brass hardware, and some incredible rugs. “We installed a tall custom dresser to free up the central space. In place of an island is an antique French rosewood table used for display, folding, and packing. At first glance, the space seems impractical, but with careful planning, the storage is designed to easily accommodate our client’s wardrobe.”

The most important thing about luxury closets is tailoring them to the life you live and the needs you have. “Of course, we all want our closets to be attractive, but if you design a space that remains hard to use, the luxurious elements will pale in comparison to the challenges that have been created,” Jane concludes. “You should always take note of the amount of square footage you have to work with to take full advantage of organizational factors. Decide what parts of the closet you will use the most, and then prioritize the design with that in mind. Remember that a closet doesn’t have to be huge to feel luxe. Little things like gorgeous lighting fixtures and stunning hardware really can transform the most modest of closets.” ■

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARCO CORSO / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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travel&adventure

Enchantment in the Alps

BY MARCY DUBROFF

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N I KEPT DREAMING OF SNOW AND BIRCH FORESTS. WHERE SO LITTLE CHANGES YOU HARDLY NOTICE HOW TIME GOES BY. THIS IS, YOU WILL SEE, A MAGIC MOUNTAIN.” —CZESLAW MILOSZ

POLISH-AMERICAN POET, PROSE WRITER, TRANSLATOR & DIPLOMAT

estled amid the stunning, snow-capped Swiss Alps is the lovely town of St. Moritz. The charming destination is bustling and vibrant in the summer, but it is when the first snowflakes begin to fall that St. Moritz becomes truly breathtaking. And, at the center of it all, you will find The Carlton Hotel—an enchanting, fairytale, five-star hotel perched high above the shores of the serene lake that gives the town its name. A haven of elegance and timeless luxury, the Carlton, which bills itself as the world’s most glamorous winter resort, offers visitors a stay that is both cozy, exceptional, and utterly unforgettable. Adding to its allure, the hotel is open for just a few short months, December through March, making its ephemeral beauty even more prized by those who visit.

The Carlton Hotel is a part of the Tschuggen Collection, a Swiss hotel group that celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. Set in some of Switzerland’s most striking locations, the Tschuggen Collection experience is firmly rooted in nature, local culture, and all the beauty Switzerland has to offer. As a result, the designers of The Carlton have taken full advantage of the hotel’s location in the heart of the Upper Engadin region—all sixty suites and junior suites overlook the shimmering Lake St. Moritz, and feature balconies so guests can view the magnificent scenery. The rooms are a true reflection of luxury and comfort, exquisitely decorated, and designed to create an atmosphere

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The Carlton Hotel sits high above lake St Moritz, offering some of the most spectacular views of the Engadine Valley.

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visit to The Carlton usually means that visitors have at least a passing interest in the winter sport of skiing —after all, St. Moritz is known as the home of Alpine winter tourism. According to the Tschuggen Collection’s Director of Public Relations Constanze Grossmann, St. Moritz benefits from a long ski season, typically running from late November to early May thanks to its high altitude and reliable snowfall.

“The scenic beauty of the surrounding mountains and the Engadin valley adds to the charm of the destination,” says Grossmann, and St. Moritz has a history of hosting prestigious skiing events, including the Winter Olympics (1928 and 1948) and various World Cup races.

The ski resorts in St. Moritz are equipped with modern and efficient lift systems, reducing waiting times and ensuring quick access to the slopes. “And the Carlton Hotel offers one of the few true ski in/ski out experiences in the Engadin Valley, says Grossmann, making this a dream destination for skiers of all levels who enjoy the pristine pistes (trails) and charming town below.

Those wishing for other sorts of cold-weather excursions are also in luck. The Carlton Hotel St. Moritz features the services of an experienced Outdoor Butler, Aleksandra, who serves as a guide in supporting guests’ al fresco itineraries. The concept of an outdoor butler was created so that guests could be accompanied by someone who knows the region well. According to Grossmann, Aleksandra assists with outdoor activities and special experiences outside the hotel, making for unique and tailored experiences. Some particularly popular/memorable experiences guided by Aleksandra include: • Skijoring - A less well-known winter sport that originated in St. Moritz in 1906, skijoring means to stand on skis while being pulled by a horse.

The high alpine landscape of guaranteed snow makes the Engadin in

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St. Moritz the perfect location, and the accompaniment by Aleksandra ensures fun and safety for all participating in this unique sport.

• Winter Canyoning - Expert instructors teach guests the ropes of this adrenaline-packed pastime before heading off into the gorges of the Engadin for climbing, hiking, and gliding on ziplines past frozen waterfalls. Aleksandra’s expert guidance and local knowledge of the area ensure nobody gets wet on this excursion.

• Rent a mountain - A piste all your own - For an entire evening, the slopes of the Corvatsch can be yours alone: 4.2 kilometers of pure piste entirely at guests’ disposal, while ski instructors and outdoor butlers remain on hand to ensure things run smoothly for those indulging in this once-in-a-lifetime experience of skiing on a private mountain in the Swiss Alps.

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Carlton Hotel is also sensitive to the needs of families. Some outdoor activities might not be appropriate for younger children and the hotel makes sure that the littlest members of the family have as grand a time as the adults. The Carlton Kids Club at the hotel was redesigned in 2022, introducing a Swiss childhood hero, Schellen Ursli. The character from the classic Swiss children’s storybook “A Bell for Ursli,” makes an appearance in the Kids Club for the smallest of guests, and provides a relaxing time-out for teens. Every day from 10 AM to 7 PM, children aged 3 and up are encouraged to play in the Kids Club by trained, multilingual caregivers. Natural materials are used to stimulate imagination and creativity. On request and for an additional charge, babysitters also take care of the smallest of the hotel’s guests. Schellen-Ursli is now the star of the show in the hotel’s Kids Club and is loved by all kids wherever they come from.

This very traditional story about a young boy living with a farmer’s family has its origin in Engadin, and highlights Stephanie Lehnort, General Manager at The Carlton Hotel.

For a more adult in-hotel experience, the hotel’s Moving Mountain Spa beckons. Spanning three floors, the spa is an oasis for guests seeking pampering and wellness. Visitors can swim from

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The hotel, which has been in operation since the early 1900s, was recently refurbished by Swiss architect Carlo Rampazzi, and each guest room, individually decorated in different color palettes, features high-quality linens, Venetian stucco ceilings, Murano glass lamps, and every room at The Carlton has unforgettable views of Lake St. Moritz.

of comfort, light, and relaxation. The hotel, which has been in operation since the early 1900s, was recently refurbished by Swiss architect Carlo Rampazzi, and each guest room, individually decorated in different color palettes, features high-quality linens, Venetian stucco ceilings, and Murano glass lamps. Amenities are plentiful, and include rainfall showers, large-screen televisions, and Nespresso machines.

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Inspired by nature, backed by science—natural healing sits at the core of The Carlton Hotel’s holistic spa journeys, rooted in cutting edge science and medical research.

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The Carlton Hotel’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant. World-renowned Cerea brothers’ authentic Italian dishes also earned 18 Gault Millau Points.

the indoors to a steaming outdoor pool, partake in saunas and steam rooms, and choose from various treatment rooms that offer facials, massages, and other beauty treatments. All treatments are preceded by in-depth consultations to create the perfect well-being plan for each guest. The spa’s concept follows a holistic approach based on restoring vitality, immersing in nature, and celebrating life, with a goal of sustainable relaxation through the harmony of body, mind, and spirit. Only 100% organic or certified natural products created

by Methode Physiodermie, a brand by Geneva-based Laboratoire Sintyl, are used. These products offer the perfect synergy between natural ingredients and cutting-edge Swiss technology and guarantee flawless quality in every bottle. The Methode Physiodermie brand has held ECOCERT certification since 2019 in recognition of its commitment to ecological sustainability.

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inally, the dining experience at The Carlton Hotel St. Moritz is certainly one of the highlights of a stay. The Restaurant Romanoff features modern interpretations of the world’s finest foods. Renowned nutritionist Rhaya Jordan works with the restaurant’s chefs to create delicious plant-based dishes such as Risotto Valle Maggia and Paccheri di Gragnano. And executive chef Salvatore Frequente has returned to the Tschuggen Collection properties for both the Hotel Eden Roc and The Carlton Hotel St. Moritz. Frequente was already part of the Tschuggen Collection between 2009 - 2019, during which time he passed through various positions within the group. Now, the Sicilian-born Frequente is taking on a dual role at two of the Swiss premium hotel group’s four properties. In winter, he will move to The Carlton Hotel, where he will be responsible for the epicurean delights offered on the menu. “I am happy to be back in my old habitat - having the chance to be present both at the lake during the summer and also nearby my family, as well as being in the mountains during winter season,” he says.

Also at the hotel is the award-winning restaurant, Da Vittorio, owner of two Michelin stars and 18 Gault Millau points. The creative dishes of the renowned Cerea family and the unmistakable flair of The Carlton Hotel have settled into a beautiful symbiosis, featuring a caviar menu, a 7 or 10-course tasting menu, and dishes ranging from veal fillet and lavender-glazed duck to Parmesan gnocchetti, with asparagus and caviar and lobster poché, turnip, and pears.

Whether you are a winter sports enthusiast, or simply yearning for a tranquil retreat amidst nature’s beauty, The Carlton Hotel St. Moritz offers a truly magical winter experience, one made of gently falling snow, glistening lake views, outstanding service, cuisine, and timeless luxury. For more information, visit tschuggencollection.ch/en/hotel/carlton-hotel. ■

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Breathe in the mountain panorama and stunning lake vista and some of the best views in St Moritz while you enjoy a coffee or relax with a good book.

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shopping

JUDITH LEIBER COUTURE

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BY SINDIE FITZGERALD-RANKIN

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1. Judith Leiber Couture BIG BUBBLES CHAMPAGNE CRYSTAL CLUTCH BAG - ($4,695). 2. Judith Leiber Couture CROWN ALLOVER CRYSTAL MINAUDIERE - ($5,995). 3. Judith Leiber Couture WILLOW ROCKING HORSE CRYSTAL MINAUDIERE - ($6,295). 4. Judith Leiber Couture LET’S ROLL ROLLER SKATE CRYSTAL MINAUDIERE ($7,295). 5. Judith Leiber Couture TV TEST SCREEN CLUTCH BAG WITH REMOVABLE CHAIN STRAP - ($7,995). All items available at Bergdorf Goodman /bergdorfgoodman.com

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Bette Davis in a studio still from Fashions of 1934, starring William Powell, Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert, Verree Teasdale, and Reginald Owen.

All About Bette

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by Laurie Bogart Wiles

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In

a career that spanned six decades and more than 100 performances, she did it all— heart-rending melodramas, rousing historical spectacles, arousing romances, and psychologically disturbing horror movies. Dubbed the “Empress of Hollywood,” she was the first thespian nominated for ten Academy Awards. But her long road in life was daunting and rife with detours, and she fought every inch of the way for her career at the expense of four husbands and the betrayal of a daughter. Were it not for her Yankee perseverance, inimitable talent, and those eyes, Bette Davis would not have realized her destiny as one of the most important actors of the 20th century.

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UTH ELIZABETH DAVIS was the first of two daughters born to Ruth Augusta Davis (née Favór; 1885–1961) and patent attorney Harlow Morrel Davis (1885-1938) of Lowell, Massachusetts. She entered the world on April 5, 1908, in the midst of a violent storm. “I happened between a clap of thunder and a streak of lightning,” she’d attest. “It almost hit the house and destroyed a tree out front. As a child, I fancied that the Finger of God was directing the attention of the world to me.”

The disparity between her doting mother and apathetic father widened with Harlow’s extramarital affairs and in 1915, the couple separated. In an effort to level the imbalance of a one-parent household, Ruth smothered her daughters with love. Unlike her easy-natured younger sister, Barbara “Bobbie” Harriet, Betty was tough, complex, and demanding. “I became an absolute despot at the age of two… through sheer terror, Ruthie surrendered,” Bette later acknowledged. “I sensed her weaknesses early and pounced on them. She was made up of so many things, my mother. Brutal honesty and silly deceits; self-indulgence and endless sacrifices; love and loyalty and that abundance of joy of living.”

The girls’ maternal grandmother paid for Betty and Bobbie to attend Crestalban, a small, “progressive” girls’ boarding school in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Hills.

To “build character,” students slept in screened porches in summer and bathed

Bette Davis was cast as ferociously clever, unwaveringly stubborn, connivingly clever, assertive, independent women— like herself. Hollywood took the doe-eyed, buxom Yankee who refused to wear a bra and dressed her in man-tailored, shoulder-padded skirt suits and elegant gowns.

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Above: Film Still/Publicity Still of Bette Davis with sister Barbara Davis, Circa 1922.

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Ex-Lady, directed by Robert Florey, stars Bette Davis, Gene Raymond, Frank McHugh, and Monroe Owsley. Feeling social pressure to make their union legal, happily unmarried couple Helen (Bette Davis), a successful illustrator, and Don (Gene Raymond), an ad man, wed. After their honeymoon, Don’s business flounders and the lovers begin quarreling, each finding solace in the arms of another. While Don turns to the married Peggy (Kay Strozzi), Helen begins dating ladies’ man Nick (Monroe Owsley). When Helen suggests she and Don live apart, the couple must decide whether to call the marriage quits.

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The Hollywood Years

Bette did not fit the Hollywood mold. Neither classically beautiful nor sexily alluring, there was no softness in her sharp demeanor nor her clipped New England accent. Those “Bette Davis eyes” were huge, piercing, and haunting; she didn’t need words when she flashed that ‘look.’ These things made her extraordinary, an enigma, and Hollywood didn’t know what to do with her. And as a result, she failed her first screen test.

After standing in as the love interest for a

Bette Davis in The Man Who Came to Dinner, a 1942 American screwball comedy film directed by William Keighley, and starring Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan and, as the titular character, Monty Woolley.

PICTORIAL PRESS LTD / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

succession of fifteen actors who were making their own screen tests, the studio decided to give Bette one more try, this time for the film, A House Divided (1931), directed by William Wyler. The three-time Academy Award winner for Best Director was underimpressed. “What do you think of these dames who show their chests and think they can get jobs?” he roared when Bette, big-breasted and braless, appeared for her audition in a dress that exposed her ample assets. After studio production chief Carl Laemmle, Jr. watched her test, he commented, “She has about as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville,” referring to a gaunt comedic actor. Yet another studio executive declared Bette was the “unsexiest looking woman I have ever seen in my life.” And when Hungarian-American, Oscar-winning film director and cinematic pioneer Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) directed her in The Cabin in the Cotton, he ‘whispered’ loudly, “Goddam lousy actress!” every time Bette played a scene. (In that film, she gushed one of her favorite lines: “I’d like ta kiss ya but I just washed ma hair.” Curtiz grew to recognize Bette’s unique talent and raw emotion, however.

A year and six unremarkable films later, Universal decided not to renew her contract.

“They never really understood that there was something very peculiar about me that they could use,” Bette would remark.

Her Big Break

She was packing her bags to return to New York when out of the blue, Bette received a phone call from George Arliss, one of the most celebrated performers of his day and the first British actor to receive an Academy Award. He wanted her to play opposite him in The Man Who Played God (Warner Bros., 1932.) Suspecting a prank, Bette cockily replied, “Of course, Mr. Arliss. How jolly decent of you!” When he convinced her otherwise, she immediately went to meet him. For the rest of her life, Bette would credit Arliss as the first person in Hollywood to give her the opportunity to prove herself as an actress— and his gamble paid off. “She is not only beautiful,” wrote The Saturday Evening Post of her performance, “but she bubbles with charm.” Warner Bros. signed Bette to a fiveyear contract that proved a rocky relationship but nonetheless would last two decades.

She appeared again with Arliss in their next film together, the comedy, The Working Man (1934), and for the very first time, Bette received top billing.

Four years and twenty film roles since arriving in Hollywood, Bette got the role that would catapult her to fame: the vile vixen Mildred Rogers in the film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s celebrated novel, Of Human Bondage. Actresses depended upon their beauty, sex appeal, and allure to further their careers. The part of Mildred, the trashy temptress whose sensual good looks deteriorate from illness, was too risky. But Bette saw this as an opportunity. “The last stages of consumption, poverty, and neglect

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naked in the snow in winter (“my greatest delight,” Bette fondly recalled.) She was patrol leader of her Girl Scout troop (“I worked my patrol like a top sergeant”), won school debates, took the lead in school plays, and played Santa every Christmas.

The sisters spent the holidays with their mother, who moved to New York to study at the Clarence White School of Photography and now worked as a professional portrait photographer.

Betty decided to become an actress at 13 after watching Mary Pickford in the 1921 silent film, Little Lord Fauntleroy. She changed the spelling of her Christian name to the protagonist’s in Honoré de Balzac’s novel, La Cousine Bette, and after three years at Crestalban, transferred to Cushing Academy, a coed prep school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, which offered acting classes. After graduation, she lived with her mother in an apartment on 144th Street and Broadway and set her sights on Broadway after attending a production of Henrik Ibsen’s, The Wild Duck. (“The reason I wanted to go into theater was because of an actress named Peg Entwistle,” she said of the female lead.) At 18, she auditioned for the Civic Repertory Theatre under Eva Le Gallienne, but the acclaimed acting coach dismissed Bette as “insincere” and “frivolous.” Instead, she enrolled in the John Murray Anderson School for Dramatic Arts where another aspiring star, Lucille Ball, also studied. At 20, Bette was hired by the Cukor-Kondolf Stock Company, a summer stock troupe in Rochester, New York, and cast as a chorus girl in the crime drama, Broadway. The director, George Cukor, who himself would catapult to fame (The Women, The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam’s Rib, My Fair Lady) fired her after just one season. “Her talent was apparent, but she did buck at direction,” he said. “She had her ideas, and though she only did bits and ingenue roles, she didn’t hesitate to express them.” Cukor refused to work with Bette again.

After a brief stint in 1929 in the Provincetown (Massachusetts) Players’ production of Virgil Geddes’ The Earth Between, Bette returned to New York to play Hedwig, Peg Entwistle’s role, in The Wild Duck, followed

by Broken Dishes—and then, in 1930, her big chance.

Now 22, Bette was appearing in the Broadway comedy, Solid South, when she caught the eye of a Universal Studios talent scout and was offered a Hollywood screen test. Chaperoned by her mother, she got off the train in Los Angeles to find no one from the studio waiting to meet her. A studio employee was waiting but when he saw “nobody who looked like an actress,” he left, leaving Bette and her mother to find their own way in that strange new land called “Tinsel Town.”

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Now, Voyager is a 1942 American drama film starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains, and directed by Irving Rapper.

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are not pretty, and I intended to be convincing-looking,” she explained. “Hollywood wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realism.”

“I let Bette have her head,” said director John Cromwell. “I let her use her instincts.”

Of Human Bondage met with both critical and popular acclaim. Life magazine claimed Bette gave “probably the best performance ever recorded on the screen by a U.S. actress.” When she was not included among the nominees for a Best Actress Oscar, the “Queen of MGM,” film star Norma Shearer and wife of MGM producer Irving Thalberg—who herself was nominated for Best Actress that year—led a campaign to correct the omission. Thus, for the only time in the history of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences, an actor’s name was allowed to be added as a write-in. The following year, Bette was nominated for—and won—the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Dangerous (1935).

Lauded by the New York Times as “becoming one of the most interesting (actresses) of our times,” Bette was preparing for her next role—Gabrielle Maple, in the 1936 major motion picture The Petrified Forest, co-starring English actor Leslie Howard, fresh from his appearance on Broadway as Alan Squier. For the film, the John Dillinger-inspired role of Duke Mantee was slated for Edward G. Robinson, but Howard refused to sign a contract unless the little-known, 36-year-old actor who played Duke on Broadway reprised his role on film. His name was Humphrey Bogart . . . and the rest is history. In 1937, Bette and Bogart were reunited in Marked Woman, a pivotal film for both.

Bette won her second Oscar for Best Actress as the strong-willed Southern belle in Jezebel (1938), and for five consecutive years thereafter and ultimately, a total of ten, Bette received Best Actress nominations: Dark Victory (1939), again with Bogart; W. Somerset Maugham’s The Letter (1940), opposite Herbert Marshall; The Little Foxes (1941), again with Marshall; with Paul Henreid and Claude Rains in Now, Voyager (1942); again with Rains in one of her best, Mr. Skeffington (1944); All About Eve (1950), with Anne Baxter, George Sanders, and the man who would become her fourth and last husband, Gary Merrill; though a critical and commercial failure, The Star (1952); and opposite her nemesis Joan Crawford, the film that would define all psychological horror thrillers, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962).

“She used everything that she had. She used her eyes; she used her vocal instrument; she started doing things that people never imagined. She just hit that screen and it was magic,” actor Robert Wagner commented.

“She had wonderful character and stamina and tremendous resilience. She could be difficult. But she was in a very difficult business,” her friend, actor Roddy McDowell, attested. fter Davis became a star, Ruthie settled into the life of a grand dame at her home in Laguna Beach, California. “She, who had worked for me, like a demon—had known no sacrifice great enough—now relaxed into luxury,” Bette said, of the comfortable life she afforded her mother in her later years. Until she died in 1961, Ruthie never stopped supporting her difficult daughter, and Davis was grateful.

The dedication for her first autobiography, The Lonely Life, reads: “FOR RUTHIE Who Will Always Be in the Front Row.”

Superstardom

Now under contract at Warner Bros., Bette made it known she wanted only quality roles. Studio chief Jack Warner at first didn’t comply, but as the young actress proved herself, he not only gave her the quality parts she desired but refused to loan her out to other studios. Bette was a perfectionist. If a scene wasn’t played how she wanted, she’d fight till she got her way. “She took great risks,” said actor Robert Wagner. Things came to a head on September 9, 1936, when Warner Brothers filed a legal injunction against Davis preventing her from working for other studios without their consent. Warners had refused to loan her to RKO to make Mary of Scotland—and Bette refused to work for Warners. Contending she was an “underpaid slave held under a life sentence,” Bette went to England and, defying the injunction, signed a contract with a British studio to make I’ll Take the Low Road with French actor Maurice Chevalier.

On October 14, 1936, the injunction was heard in British court and five days later, Justice Sir George Branson ruled Bette was in breach of her contract to Warners “for no discoverable reason except that she wanted more money,” and ordered her to pay Warner Bros.’ legal fees and $80,000 in restitution. Bette publicly rebuked the judgment. “It was self-preservation,” she claimed. “I would never realize my goal for good scripts and good directors, so I walked. It wasn’t money. It was the material.” Bette reluctantly returned to Warner Bros., but she had made her point—and gained the respect of Jack Warner.

Aware of her value to the studio as consistently a Top 10 Box Office draw, he raised her salary and got her the roles she had demanded. For the next 12 years, Bette made some of Warner Bros.’s—and her—most memorable films.

Personal Life

Bette was 39 when she gave birth to B.D., her only natural child from her third marriage to William Grant Sherry (1945-1950.) Bette and fourth husband, Gary Merrill, adopted Margo and Michael. Margo was diagnosed as an infant with severe mental disabilities and was institutionalized.

Bette Davis “Margo” costume sketch by Edith Head for All About Eve. Opposite: Theodora Van Runkle costume sketch of Bette Davis for Myra Breckinridge.

IMAGES COURTESY HERITAGE AUCTIONS / HA.COM

“It’s very possible I would have chosen children to bring up. If I had chosen to have children that young, at this age, if I had never tried to do what I wanted to do, I would be a pretty disappointed woman,” Bette reflected.

As a mother, “She was always very concerned with Hollywood being a place, not a way of life,” B. D. said in happier days when she was interviewed as a teenager, “and she worked very hard to have a home in Maine, which was way out in the country on the seacoast, and to bring us up in the country. My mother was never a star at home. She was in blue jeans and work shirts. She was a working mother when she was at home. She was in the kitchen, she was cleaning up the house, she was weeding the garden, planting bulbs—she was a mother.” But work got in the way of family. “She wanted to work all the time,” B.D. later said. “She was a workaholic. If she wasn’t working, she wasn’t happy.”

After B.D.’s marriage, at 16, to a man 15 years her senior, mother and daughter drifted apart. Matters worsened when B.D., now a born-again Christian, attempted to bring Bette into the religious fold. In 1985, B.D. wrote a callous “tell-all” memoir in which she accused her mother of being an overbearing drunk. Bette’s friends rallied around the actress’ defense, claiming, “So much of (B.D.’s) book is out of context.” Even Bette’s ex-husband, Gary Merrill, supported her publicly in a CNN interview, attesting that B.D. was motivated by “cruelty and greed.” In 1987, Bette addressed her daughter’s accusations in her own (second) memoir, This ‘n That: “I am still recovering from the fact that a child of mine would write about me behind my back, to say nothing about the kind of book it is. I will never recover as completely from B.D.’s book as I have from the stroke (a series of four strokes she suffered in 1983, two weeks after undergoing a mastectomy for breast cancer). Both were shattering experiences.”

Bette refused to discuss B.D. in the press or in television interviews. Mother and daughter remained estranged till the end of Bette’s life while her relationship with her son, Michael Merrill, remained extremely close and happy. Bette would leave Michael half her estate—and nothing to B.D.

Second Act

After the War, a queue of young actresses lined up for coveted leading roles, among them Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, and Audrey Hepburn. The character of an aged spinster, Miss Moffat, in the screen adaptation of The Corn is Green (1945) proved a poor choice. The public was not willing to see Bette don a grey wig and wear padded dresses. “I’ll play anything,” she said. That was my basic theory It has been my experience that one cannot in any shape or form depend upon human relationships for any lasting reward. It has only been the work that truly satisfies. That stands by you. As a permanent thing, that’s the least disappointing relationship you can have.”

Her next film, A Stolen Life (1946), in which she played twins, received poor reviews, and Deception (1946) marked the first of her films to ever lose money. Nonetheless, her star power remained intense. In 1949, she negotiated a four-film contract with Warner Bros. that paid $10,285 a week—about $130,000 in today’s money, or $6.8 million a year—making Bette the highest-paid woman in the United States. None of the four films were a success.

At 42, Bette’s career should have been waning had it not been for All About Eve. She didn’t play the lead role of Margo Channing; Bette was Margo, the aging Broadway actress whose career and private life are usurped by an ambitious young woman named Eve Harrington (played by Anne Baxter.) All About Eve was the best script Bette had read in five or six years, and she was thrilled. Originally, the role of Margo Channing was to be played by Claudette Colbert but the actress had suffered an accident and broke her back. American film director and producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz asked Bette to step in—and she made the part her own. In the film, Margo Channing was neither sympathetic nor kind. Consumed by jealousy and fraught with problems, Bette sympathized with her character and used all her skills to bring her to life. “It was the greatest break that happened in my career,” she said. All About Eve premiered in New York on October 13, 1950, to critical acclaim and was a box office smash, receiving a record 14 Academy Award nominations (winning six), including Best Picture. After 73 years, All About Eve remains the only major motion picture in Oscar history to receive four nominations for the top female roles—two for Best Actress (Bette and Anne) and two for Best Supporting Actress (Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter.) In 1990, All About Eve was one of twenty-five films chosen for preservation in the United States Library of Congress’s National Film Registry and continues to be ranked among the 100 Best American Films of all time.

Her fans were extremely important to her. As she told talk show host, Mike Douglas, “Without my fans, I have nothing.” Throughout the Sixties, Bette continued to work nonstop. “I will not retire while I’ve still got my legs and my make-up box,” she said. She appeared twice again on Broadway—first, in The World of Carl Sandburg with her ex-husband, Gary Merrill (whom she had met on the set of All About Eve and was married for 10 years, the longest of any of her four husbands), then as Maxine Faulk in The Night of the Iguana, by playwright Tennessee Williams, giving 316 performances, from September 1962 through March 1963. She appeared on television, in popular series such as The Virginian, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, and Wagon Train, and on variety shows such as What’s My Line and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane established a niche for Bette in horror films. Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), again directed by Robert Aldrich, had an all-star cast: her longtime friend, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotton, Agnes Moorehead, Mary Astor, George Kennedy, and Bruce Dern, and reunited her with Victor Buono, who appeared with her in Baby Jane. The film opened to rave reviews and was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Song, by Frank De Vol and Mack David, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard 100.

In 1977, Davis became the first woman to be honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award. Of the seven

Crowds wait outside the Rivoli Theater at 1620 Broadway for the world premiere of the movie John Paul Jones, starring Bette Davis, Robert Stack, and Marisa Pavan, on June 16, 1959 in New York City, New York. It was the last movie directed by Mia Farrow’s father John Farrow, and it gave Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones his stage name.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID ATTIE / GETTY IMAGES

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74 films Bette made in the Seventies, Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (1978)—with an incredible cast that included Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, and Maggie Smith—was the only standout. In 1983, after filming the pilot episode for the television series, Hotel, Bette was diagnosed with breast cancer, and the woman who never wore a bra in her life underwent a mastectomy. Over the next two weeks, she suffered four strokes, leaving her paralyzed on her left side. In her first second autobiography, This ‘n That, she wrote, “To one old and close friend I confided, ‘After a stroke, you have a very ‘short fuse’ with people.’ “My friend said, ‘Bette, you’ve always had a ‘short fuse’ with people. Don’t blame it on your stroke.’”

Determined to recover, she engaged in a long period of physical therapy while maintaining her lifelong diet of 100 cigarettes a day and through sheer determination, managed to stabilize her health.

“Old age ain’t no place for sissies,” she said. For the next six years up until the week before her death, Bette appeared in numerous television specials and talk shows, and among her numerous awards was one of five honorees at the 1987 Kenney Center Honors, presented by her old friend, President Ronald Reagan, who had played with her in Dark Victory (1939), almost a half-century before.

Final Curtain

In 1989, Bette was guest of honor at the Gala Tribute by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York when she suddenly collapsed. Her cancer had returned, but that didn’t stop her from traveling to Spain to receive the Donostia Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. In France on her way home to the United States, Bette became ill and was admitted to the American Hospital in Neuillysur-Seine, where she died on October 6, 1989. “I want to die with my high heels on, still in action.” And she did. Bette was 81 years old. She rests between her mother, Ruthie, and sister, Bobbie, in Forest LawnHollywood Hills Cemetery, and chiseled on her tombstone is, “She did it the hard way.”

“I survived because I was tougher than anybody else,” she once observed, but in truth, it was so much more: “To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.” ■ Bette Davis in a publicity still for 20000 Years in Sing Sing. Davis had a film career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical films, suspense horror, and occasional comedies, although her greater successes were in romantic dramas. She was a recipient of two Academy Awards, and she was the first thespian to accrue ten nominations.

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The City inWinter

by Kate McMullen

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Christmas is one of the best times to visit New York City if you enjoy festive activities & shows, holiday markets, ice skating, holiday lights, and of course, all the usual New York City sights.

PHOTOGRAPH BY CLAY LECONEY / UNSPLASH.COM

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a New Yorker what they love about New York City in the snow, and they’ll probably say—nothing. They’ll tell you about the cold, the wind, and how the snow turns to sad gray slush in the streets in a matter of hours. That the slush piles up taller than most pedestrians in the streets after it’s plowed. (By the way, plowing can take a while.) But eventually, they’ll tell you something else. They will tell you about the first time they took their youngest daughter to the American Ballet Theatre to see The Nutcracker. That the best shopping is at the holiday markets, where thousands of local artisans are selling jewelry, food, and gifts at Union Square and Bryant Park. That they love to bring visitors to 5th Avenue to see the high-end shops decorated for Christmas. That if museums aren’t as busy, they’re a great way to escape the cold. That they love Central Park’s Promenade when the trees are bare; that when snow is falling there, it looks like a movie.

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the heart of winter, when the icy winds blow and the cityscape is transformed into a glistening wonderland, New York City, often called the “concrete jungle,” undergoes a magical metamorphosis. The cacophony of busy streets and the city’s relentless pace momentarily hush as snow blankets the avenues and buildings. The streets become a canvas of white, painting a picture of enchantment that captivates locals and tourists alike. New York City in the snow is a sight to behold—a unique blend of urban charm and winter whimsy that brings a touch of magic to the bustling metropolis. The snow not only

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A serene view as snowflakes fall onto the magestic Brooklyn Bridge. The bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

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Central Park, located between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, containing 843 acres, and the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 42 million visitors annually.

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With a retail space of over 2,136,600 ft² spread over 10+ floors, Macy’s, the largest department store in America, is a leading attraction among tourists to New York City every winter.

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changes the city’s appearance but also brings out a spirit of camaraderie among New Yorkers. Strangers help each other shovel snow from sidewalks, and the sense of unity in facing the winter weather together is palpable. Snow brings out a shared experience, as everyone navigates the slippery streets and mounds of snow with a touch of resilience and humor.

Even the gruffest city dweller will tell you that New York City’s first snow of the year is an exciting time. There’s no denying that the lights of the city are beautiful in the winter, and there’s something truly transformative about a dusting of snow on the Washington Square arch, especially if the Christmas tree beneath it is up, circled in the warm glow of fairy lights. Temperatures in New York City can plummet to around 20 degrees in the winter, but if you’re willing to brave the wind and cold, even reluctant New Yorkers will tell you that the city takes on a different vibe in the snow. Visiting a snowy New York City can feel downright magical. The yellow taxis are like bright golden sleds cruising the streets, the hustle and bustle dimmed, just a bit, by the weather—even in the cold, New York City is the place to be. Some locals will even tell you the best time to visit is in December.

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largest snowstorm in New York City’s history was the “Great Blizzard of 1888.” This historic snowstorm occurred from March 11 to March 14, 1888. The storm brought significant snowfall and strong winds to the city, resulting in immense snowdrifts and severe disruptions to transportation and daily life. During the Great Blizzard of 1888, snow accumulations reached 40 to 50 inches in some areas, and wind gusts exceeded 40 miles per hour. The combination of heavy snowfall and strong winds got pretty dangerous and led to massive snowdrifts that blocked roads, and railways and caused widespread damage to property and infrastructure. The gridlocked traffic caused by this incredible storm started talks on how to improve public transit, and these first meetings eventually led to the building of the New York subway. If you can avoid the scary version of snow in New York City, though, you’re in for a treat.

Winter spectaculars like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade tend to run rain—or snow—or shine. Except for three years during World War II, the parade has run every year since 1924. In 1989, a snowstorm hit NYC on Thanksgiving Day for the first time in over 50 years. In a true testament to New York toughness, parents and kids huddled in the gray slush on the streets to watch the floats, balloons, dancers, singers, and bands walk by. The winds were so strong that year, they popped the Snoopy balloon’s nose. Next year will be the parade’s 100th year, and even if it snows, the balloons will be floating down the two-mile route the same as they have since Calvin Coolidge was president.

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Well-known for its arch, honoring George Washington, the man for whom the park is named, for nearly two centuries the Square has been a place to linger, to play, to celebrate, or demonstrate.

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Amidst a blustery snowstorm, Times Square’s neon pierces the gray sky. With fewer folks on the streets in the cold, the towering screens and flashing lights look otherworldly, like a Bladerunner set dressed up for the season.

The tops of the buildings are hardly visible through the haze, and the snow is still falling. The crowds are thinner everywhere. As the wind blows the snow through the city, plenty of the city’s famous bridges are almost empty. In the dreamy weather, the Manhattan Bridge appears to float. The high arches of the Brooklyn Bridge disappear in the breeze. In Soho, on Stone Street, or in the East Village, the cobblestone streets and slate sidewalks in the snow seem like a quaint European town from a storybook. At Christmastime, garlands are strung across the streets overhead, and windows are lit up with warm lights and decorations. Over in the West Village is to this writer the site of one of the most iconic photos of New York City in wintertime: the cover of Bob Dylan’s breakout album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

New Yorkers adapt to the winter wonderland with grace and style. The fashion scene embraces the snow with an array of chic winter wear, from stylish coats to elegant boots. Street vendors offer hot chocolate and warm pretzels to passersby, their carts adorned with fairy lights that twinkle like stars against the snowy backdrop. The aroma of roasted chestnuts wafts through the air, evoking a sense of nostalgia that makes the cold weather more bearable.

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nother thing New Yorkers will tell you is if you can, get to a roof. From up high, you can watch the snow fall peacefully over the busy city, far above it all. The city’s iconic landmarks take on a new identity in the snow. The Empire State Building, usually a beacon of light in the night sky, is now adorned with a halo of frost, its silhouette standing tall against the winter sky. The Brooklyn Bridge becomes a mesmerizing vision, with its cables outlined in snow and its arches framing a picture-perfect view of Manhattan. Tourists flock to Times Square, not just to witness the dazzling lights but also to experience the surreal beauty of snowflakes cascading down from the neon-clad billboards. The endless buildings catch the snow as it falls, and after a while the whole city begins to look like a black-and-white photograph. No matter where you are in Manhattan, or even over the bridge in Williamsburg or Brooklyn, a rooftop will give you the best view of the oncoming snow you could imagine.

Some of the fastest snow shovelings that happen in NYC are up on the famous High Line Park, where maintenance workers blow as much snow as they can to keep the traffic moving. A brisk almost 2 miles on the renovated abandoned freight line is the perfect time to soak in the magic of New York City in the snow.

As the first flakes descend from the heavens, the city awakens to a palpable sense of excitement. It’s as if the snow has the power to cast a spell, and everyone falls under its enchantment. The muted footfalls of pedestrians, wrapped in thick coats and scarves, echo against the facades of iconic skyscrapers, creating a serene soundscape in contrast to the usual cacophony of horns and sirens. Children and adults alike venture out, and laughter and joy fill the air as snowball fights ensue.

All across the city, trees are coated white. One of the most visited urban parks in the world, Central Park, is now new under the cover of fresh snow. Seeing all 55 acres (only a fraction of the park’s 843) of the Great Lawn after snowfall is a special sight. During the winter, Central Park offers two ice skating rinks: Wollman Rink and Lasker Rink. The Wollman Rink is located near the southern end of the park and is particularly famous. Recreate your favorite scene from Serendipity (or Elf, if that’s more your speed) at Wollman if it’s not too crowded. Ramble the Central Park Ramble with fewer people around, or snap a gorgeous photo of Bow Bridge or the Sheep Meadow in the snow. You don’t even have to go to the Central Park Zoo to make a new animal friend. In 2021, hundreds of New Yorkers gathered in Central Park’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir to try and catch a glimpse of a snowy owl, the first time the species had visited the area in over 130 years. You can spot blue herons on the frozen lake and ponds, too, if you’re patient.

If you’re wondering what the kids of NYC are up to in the snow, the answer is usually snowmen. If there’s enough snow on the ground, almost everyone I talked to who lives in the city told me it’s the thing their kids look forward to the most. If you’re walking around a neighborhood in the snow, there are snowmen standing guard. Last year, to the dismay of both parents and their kids, the New York school system declared that since virtual learning became so possible and seamless during the pandemic, snow days would no longer be called.

If you had to name one magical thing about snow, the snow day is perhaps the first thing that comes to mind.

Plenty of teachers disagree too, and many schools call snow days anyway, thank goodness, so you can keep an eye out for snow angels and snowmen on NYC streets.

One of the most iconic winter spectacles in NYC is the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. When the snow adorns its branches, the towering tree seems even more magical, illuminated against the night sky like a beacon of hope and joy. Skaters twirl gracefully on the ice rink below, surrounded by towering skyscrapers and the city’s

Ney York City has long been synonymous with delicious eating. Among its most noted; bagel with cream cheese and lox, cheesecake, cheese steak sandwich, cronut, General Tso’s chicken, and mutton chop, to name but a few.

However, many agree that the top food staple in New York is its signature pizza. One theory is that the main reason for New York City’s high-quality pies is that they are baked at very high temperatures in decades old ovens.

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Known for its delictable Asian cousine, New York City and Chinese food have had a longtime love affair dating back to the late19th century.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KHACHIK SIMONIAN / UNSPLASH.COM

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enchanting skyline. The delicate snowfall adds an extra layer of romance to this already dreamlike setting, leaving visitors and locals spellbound.

Beyond Manhattan, the snow also transforms the other boroughs of New York City. In Brooklyn, the historic brownstones wear a crown of snow, and Prospect Park becomes a picturesque oasis for sledding and snowshoeing. In Queens, Flushing Meadows Corona Park becomes a wonderland of white, offering panoramic views of the Unisphere and other iconic structures. Even Staten Island, often overlooked, showcases its hidden beauty when blanketed in a layer of snow.

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the winter sun sets, painting the sky with hues of orange and purple, the city’s lights shimmer against the snowy backdrop, creating a mesmerizing tapestry of colors. The snow reflects the glow of street lamps and the city’s skyline sparkles as if draped in diamonds. Central Park, usually a lush green oasis, transforms into a monochromatic dreamscape of white and gray, with only the occasional touch of green peeking out from the evergreens.

Amid this winter magic, time seems to slow down. New Yorkers pause to appreciate the beauty that surrounds them, momentarily forgetting the frenetic pace of city life. The snow offers a reminder that, even in the heart of one of the world’s busiest and most modern cities, nature has the power to enchant and captivate.

New York City in the snow is a breathtaking sight to behold. The winter magic brings out the city’s softer side, revealing a whimsical charm that juxtaposes with its urban intensity. The snow-covered streets, the bustling energy, and the vibrant city lights all blend to create an unforgettable experience. Whether you’re a local or a visitor, witnessing NYC in the snow is an invitation to embrace the season’s enchantment, experience the city’s magic at its finest, and fall in love with the winter wonderland that is New York City. On a winter evening, the lights of the city glow orange and red, and the street lights turn the snow-covered streets a wintry, icy blue. Before the slush appears, the whole city is bathed in powdery white. The buildings rise from the snow banks. The city that never sleeps is, for a while, a little quieter, a little slower, under a blanket of snow. ■

The150-year old tradition of ornately-decorated holiday window displays began with the windows in Macy’s Herald Square and has proliferated through the spirit of New York Christmastime shopping ever since. Arguably, the best holiday window displays are on Fifth Avenue.

However, one does not need to travel far to experience a winter wonderland peering from behind nearly every storefront window.

Left & opposite: Nearly every part of Bergdorf’s windows is filled with elaborate props and intricatelypainted background scenes.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY VICTORIA LIPOV / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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93 The elaborate windows at Saks Fifth Avenue have become one of New York City’s major spectacles, attracting thousands of New Yorkers and visitors every year.

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The History of New York Fashion Week

by Brenna Kehew Sculley

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Kim Kassas Couture’s Siren Call and Deep Blue collections are inspired by the beauty and mystery of siren mermaids.

The fantastical gowns are influenced by the splendor and lure of the feminine nature. Soft and delicate at first glance, but bold and beguiling in spirit just like the sirens, the collection captures the essence of the seductive sea creatures emerging from the water to enchant and captivate.

by Samantha Paige

Models on the catwalk during Fashion Week in New York, New York.

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oday, New York Fashion Week features more than 300 shows and is attended by an estimated 230,000 people. This iconic event, which takes place over nine days, happens twice a year—once in February to feature the Fall/Winter collections, and again in September to feature the Spring/Summer collections.

The historic moments are enumerable, from Kate Moss to Isaac Mizrahi, Project Runway to Marc Jacobs, Helmut Lang to Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty. But without two women in particular, these might have been moments that only fashion buyers and insiders enjoyed, rather than become universal cultural touchstones for us all.

The New York Fashion Week story started in an effort to put attention on American designers and away from the dominant French fashion scene, which was inaccessible and at a standstill during World War II. Eleanor Lambert, a renowned art and fashion publicist, developed “Press Week.” This first week showcase was held at the Plaza Hotel in 1943 and was an immediate success, with Vogue recognizing the designers featured and establishing American fashion thought leaders.

Lambert was a true leader and had a sharp mind beyond fashion.

Born in Indiana, she made her way to New York City and innovated on behalf of the art and fashion industries. She was responsible for developing the International Best Dressed List, establishing the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), and helped with founding the Museum of Modern Art. In 1965 she was appointed to the National Council on the Arts, and in 1959 and 1967 she led presentations of American fashion in Russia, Germany, Italy, Australia, Japan, Britain, and Switzerland on behalf of the U.S. State Department.

Throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, while American designers still had credibility and high-quality shows attended by celebrities and

Models prepare backstage for the Desigual fashion show during the Spring/Summer 2016 New York Fashion Week at The Arc, Skylight Moynihan Station.

PHOTOGRAPH BY OVIDIU HRUBARU / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: A model walks the runway at the Nina Athanasiou show during Nolcha Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2014 at Pier 59 in New York City.

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Designer garments are numbered and labeled as they hang backstage, awaiting the model who will wear them during their moment in the spotlight of the big show.

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0 1 1 covered by news outlets, the schedule was individualized for each designer and without an international recognition of excellence. At the time, it seemed as though London, Paris, and Milan were more dominant, coordinated, and impactful.

Seeking to change this narrative and bring order to the American fashion designer showcase chaos, the CFDA made a concerted effort to have the fashion unfolding across New York City make a more powerful impression on the global stage in 1993. Led by their executive director, Fern Mallis, CFDA created the backdrop for designers to showcase their wares in a state-of-the-art way. With iconic large tents and high-quality production teams at the ready in Bryant Park, CFDA coined this centralized effort as 7th on Sixth. For the first time, the fashion shows on display were international news.

Dedicating resources and using collective bargaining to elevate the fashion runways was—and still is—more important than just putting on a good show. As Mallis said at the time, “Fashion is the largest manufacturing industry in New York and the largest employer . . . I shudder to think what would happen to the New York economy without Seventh Avenue.”

A model prepares backstage for the Pamella Roland Fall 2017 fashion show during New York Fashion Week at Pier 59.

PHOTOGRAPH BY OVIDIU HRUBARU / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: A model walks the runway for Dennis Basso’s Fall 2015 show at the Lincoln Center theatre, Manhattan, during New York Fashion Week.

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A model getting ready backstage at the New York Life fashion show during New York Fashion Week at Lincoln Center.

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A model prepares for walking the runway at the general fashion rehearsal before the public performance for Elliott Evan.

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Opposite: Models walk the runway wearing Dennis Basso’s Fall collection during New York Fashion Week.

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Born in Brooklyn, Mallis worked her way from a guest editor contest at Mademoiselle magazine into a career shaping the New York fashion scene. She was senior vice president of IMG Fashion from 2001 to 2010, has served as a guest host for leading fashion television programs like America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway, and is still making waves, currently as the president of her own international fashion and design consultancy, Fern Mallis LLC. Back in 1993, Mallis and CFDA were able to confirm fashion heavy hitters, immediately bringing confidence in their endeavor. Calvin Klein, Donna Karan and more were featured on the big stages across Bryant Park.

Vogue, MTV and other media outlets and fashion buyers all bought into the event of the season and crowned New York Fashion Week as one not to miss.

New York Fashion Week is now a well-oiled machine, producing highquality shows, iconic moments, and daring fashion designs season after season. With pandemic lockdowns preventing fashion shows from taking place, there was a momentary sway to virtual fashion showcases, and an unknown future for in-person fashion features.

Without Fern Mallis and Eleanor Lambert, there would be no Project Runway. There would be no headlines and memorable moments, no thriving American fashion leadership.

These women did not just inspire an industry; they inspired the world. ■

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Models are prepared for the catwalk during New York Fashion Week.

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Models walk the runway for the Australian Fashion Palette show by Steven Khalil during New York Fall/Winter 2014 Fashion Week at Pier 59.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY LEV RADIN / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Models walk the runway for J. Mendel Fall/Winter 2012 presentation in Lincoln Center during New York Fashion Week.

FASHIONSTOCK.COM / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Timeless The Magnificent Jewelry of Piaget.

by Samantha Paige

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115 Piaget‘s new cuff watches make the ornamental stone dials look asymmetrical, another Piaget signature, peeking out from the cuffs abstract, spontaneous design—and further accentuating each stone’s elusive beauty and mystique.

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Altiplano Skeleton

Piaget‘s Altiplano Skeleton High Jewellery collection combines the maison’s mastery of ultra-thin mechanics and high Jewellery with audacious levels of creativity, incorporating an array of diamonds and sapphires that bring the Altiplano Skeleton to life in a magical gradient of blue.

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Limelight High Jewelry Watch

Case in rhodium finish 18K white gold set with 8 brilliant-cut emeralds (approx. 0.48 ct). Dial set with a black opal base plate (approx. 1.14 cts). Rhodium finish 18K white gold snowdecoration bracelet. 356P Manufacture quartz movement.

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Opposite: Limelight High Jewelry watch, 27 x 22 mm. Case in 18K rose gold set with brilliant-cut diamonds. Dial set with a white opal base plate. 18K rose gold “Decor Palace” bracelet.

356P Manufacture quartz movement.

Bracelet watch G0A48254.

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Piaget pays homage to its goldsmithing expertise with daring and flamboyant sautoirs fashioned from twisted gold chains that wear like a second skin, where gold has been molded, sculpted, woven and braided into supple, silk-like fabrics.

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Limelight Gala High Jewelry Watch

Limelight Gala High Jewelry watch, 22.9 x 27.9 mm. Case and bracelet in 18K rose gold set with brilliant-cut diamonds, marquise-cut rubies and marquise-cut spessartites. 18K rose gold “Decor Palace” dial. 356P Manufacture quartz movement.

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Palace Decor Necklace

Twisted gold starts with a single strand of wire that’s wrapped around a mandrel to create a coil, then meticulously hand-twisted one by one and shaped into harmonious, homogenous links, before final assembly.

The entire process takes no less than 130 hours, with each chain utterly unique. One vivacious, tassel-style sautoir is set with a 25.38ct oval cabochon Zambian emerald to match an oval-shaped dial, a signature Piaget shape from the 1960s. The other encircles twisted gold around the dial, which further comes to life from Palace Decor—the epitome of Piaget’s gold craftsmanship.

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THE WOMEN WHO INSPIRE US INTERVIEWS

BY KAREN FLOYD

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Women Inspiring Women . . .

* Copy edited for length and clarity. * Interview videos are available to watch at elysianwomen.com

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LYSIAN was the result of Karen Floyd’s personal quest to tell and listen to stories about exceptional women. From her early twenties as a young prosecutor . . . to the women she has interviewed over the past eight years as ELYSIAN’s publisher and editor, Floyd shares insights that are intended to encourage and move our readers.

On the surface, Floyd’s interviews are about women succeeding, overcoming, persevering, and enduring.

As the number of years and interviews have grown, Floyd no longer asks, “Is it timing, virtue, luck, funding, perseverance, faith, endurance or passion?”

Instead, she concludes, “While there is no one roadmap to achievement, these remarkable women have similar attributes. At some point, each woman ‘went against the grain’ and as a result they share qualities like courage, passion, steadfast persistence, hard work, un-deterring focus, strong loyalty, self-awareness, and independence.

Though some led . . . others built, created, and changed the world. Their interviews reveal a sense of self and a belief in something greater, many call faith.”

With the thousands of interviews, Floyd emphasizes, “Their journey was often lonely, but their hardships created inner strength, enlightenment, and ultimately an intention to uplift others.”

It is that purposeful determination that Floyd mirrors in the women she interviews as she shares their inspiring stories.

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Interview Date: September 20th, 2023

Amy journalist, and one of New York’s most fashionable women. She was born in California and attended Ohio State University. After graduation, she was offered a job at (Wyeth ) and went to work with (Chiron) before seizing an offer from FOX (Sports) Network to have her own show. She attracted national attention—and the attention of the man she would marry: American businessman and entrepreneur Gary M. Green, CEO of Alliance Building Services. The couple founded the Green Vision Foundation, a philanthropy that brings together like-minded organizations to collectively support conservation and humanitarian global initiatives. These include Tusk, an innovative conservation action in Africa under the patronage of the HRH Prince William, The Prince of Wales; ACCF (the African Community and Conservation Foundation), an umbrella organization for initiatives such as the Rwanda Project and the Malilangwe Trust in Zimbabwe; and here in the United States, Habitat for Humanity, UNICEF, and the 100 Billion Meals Challenge.

The couple regularly hosts star-studded galas at their homes to support these, and other, causes. ELYSIAN publisher Karen Floyd met Amy at her family’s home in midtown Manhattan, high atop One Vanderbilt, Manhattan’s newest skyscraper, near Grand Central Station.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL PANICCIA / HAIR AND MAKEUP BY DANIEL RABENOU

AMY GREEN is a wife, mother, philanthropist, global ambassador, former (sports)

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Amy, thank you for inviting me to witness this breathtaking view. What a breathtaking view! What floor are we on?

We are on the 50th, but the building itself has ninety-three stories.

Can you tell our readers about the building?

This is One Vanderbilt, at the corner of 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, and it is Manhattan’s newest high-rise. It opened just three years ago, in 2020, and it’s the fourth tallest building in the city. It was developed by SL Green Realty, which my father-in-law, Stephen L. Green, founded in 1980. He’s retired now but serves as Chairman Emeritus, so he stays very much connected to things. The company is the largest owner of office buildings in the New York metropolitan area and One Vanderbilt is the architectural jewel in our family’s crown. I feel very proud to be a part of the SLG legacy and Green Family.

I am also grateful for my daughters to grow up knowing their Grandfather Stephen Green and Grandmother Nancy Green built such an incredible legacy from hard work and unwavering dedication. It’s absolutely gorgeous, isn’t it!

Yes, it is. Who was the architect?

Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates designed the building. They’re one of the largest international architectural firms and have been around for a long time—since 1976. The firm is based in New York, but they design buildings all over the world. The simple lines of One Vanderbilt make me think of Picasso in his Cubist period. But what excites me most about KPF is its commitment to sustainability and the environment. Take One Vanderbilt, which was designed to harmonize with Grand Central Terminal, and is immediately to the east. One Vanderbilt has an entrance to the station and the subway. There is an observation deck on the top floor and a beautifully landscaped, lit pedestrian plaza on the ground floor. There also is a tremendous amount of glass, which allows for sunlight and gives a feeling of airiness.

You know, Amy, I have interviewed thousands of women over 30 years and one of the questions I always like to start with is, ‘Tell me something about your first job?’

My first job, I worked in a chocolate shop, as a teenager in high school. It was an amazing chocolate shop near where we lived, and I worked on weekends and during summer break. They made

these fantastic chocolates, baked cupcakes, and catered chocolate parties, which was a new thing back then. Working there really appealed to my creative side. Besides, I love chocolate.

Are you originally from New York?

No, I was born and grew up in West Hollywood, California.

Tell me about your parents.

My dad was an orthodontist and my mother was a stay-athome mom. They were divorced, though, when I was very young. My Mom remarried and in fact, she and my stepfather have been married for thirty years.

Was your parents’ divorce traumatic for you?

I cannot say it was traumatic. I was fairly young and my family on my mother’s side is very large and very loving. My grandparents always made sure I knew that I was loved. They are Italian, and Italians show love through food, so I have many happy memories of wonderful family dinners, lots of food, and lots of laughter.

Are your grandparents still alive?

I wish they were. No, my grandmother passed away just before my older daughter was born. She lived long enough to know that I named her great-granddaughter after her—Giada Viola. You see, my grandmother was a very special person. She was beautiful, inside and out. Giada—she’s my firstborn—has her eyes.

So, your grandmother came from Italy?

No, her mother came from Italy. My grandmother was a first-generation Italian-American. Her family came from Positano. My grandfather was also a first-generation ItalianAmerican. His family was from Sicily.

Family is important to you, isn’t it . . .

Absolutely. Growing up, not only did I spend a lot of time with my maternal grandparents, but with my aunts, uncles, and cousins, too. When we had family dinners, there were always 50 or 60 of us.

We never measured wealth in money; we measured it in love.

Did you go to college in California?

No, we moved around a lot. I had always wanted to go to a big ten school with my great love of football when I was a young girl. Ohio State university had a fantastic Bio Chemistry program which I also had a great interest in. That is my nerdy side.

What did you study?

I graduated with honors from high school in biology and science and was interested in biotech, so that’s what I majored in

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YOU MUST HAVE DEALT WITH SO MUCH, PHYSICALLY, MENTALLY, AND EMOTIONALLY.

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New Year’s dinner celebration at Amy’s home in Aspen, Colorado.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY AMY GREEN

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YES, I GOT SO EMOTIONAL, ESPECIALLY SEEING MY FRIENDS WITH HAPPY, HEALTHY BABIES . . .

FINALLY, I DECIDED TO GIVE IN TO THE UNIVERSE AND ACCEPT THAT IT WAS OKAY THAT I WAS NOT GOING TO BE A MOM.

in college. After college, I was offered a job at Pfizer and later went to work at Wyeth. My specific area was pediatric vaccines. I was excited by the science behind it and the advances in technology.

Did you pursue postgraduate education?

I did not because I felt the amazing job I was offered right after graduation, in my area of interest, would be an education in itself— and it was. When I started, I was the only woman in a division of sixty men. Being sort of a trailblazer helped build my self-confidence.

So . . . sports journalism . . . how did that come about?

I have always been interested in sports. My father used to take me to games. When I lived in Denver, I attended all the Colorado Avalanche NHL home games and, of course, the Denver Broncos’ football, and the Denver Nuggets’ basketball games. That is actually how my profession in broadcasting started. I would talk about sports all the time with my friends, and finally, they said, “You know, you should start a podcast.” So, I did and began interviewing friends who were professional athletes in between working my regular job. Then Fox Sports got wind of my podcast and asked me if I wanted an on-air job and that turned into my own show. I wasn’t married back then, and Fox was offering me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so although I loved my job, I said yes.

Did you really love it?

Yes, I certainly did. But I didn’t just want to report on the games. I wanted athletes to tell their personal stories and for fans not to just see them as athletes, but as “real” people who happen to lead extraordinary lives. That is the direction I took my show. It was amazing how they opened up about their lives and talked about what was important to them apart from the game. Some of the stories were truly inspirational.

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Anyway, my show became very popular.

So fast forward. What is your life like today?

You know the saying . . . you can have it all but not at the same time. Looking back now, I do have it all and I am so very grateful for the long and winding road.

How did you meet your husband?

I was living in Los Angeles at the time and of course Gary lived in New York. He had just acquired his first baseball team, and I was doing my show. A mutual friend who worked for ESPN called me up one day and said, “I want to introduce you to Gary,” and I replied, “I don’t want to date someone who lives on the other side of the country,” and she said, “Amy, I promise you, you have so much in common. You’re both professionals, you both love sports, you are both really good-looking, and I think you would be perfect together.” So, she introduced us by phone and we talked for about three weeks before we actually met face-to-face. The first time we met was at Super Bowl XLVIII. That was 2013 and my home team, the Denver Broncos, was playing the Seattle Seahawks at the Meadowlands, just across the Hudson from New York City, in New Jersey. I will never forget our first date!

When you saw him for the first time, did you know he was “the one?”

No, not at first. Remember, we were not teenagers. I did know immediately that he was going to be something special in my life. We had this wild chemistry.

You mentioned before we started this interview that Gary had been married before . . .

Yes, he was divorced when we met and had two teenage children from his previous marriage. They were good kids, and we worked hard to create a happy home.

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Global Ambassador Amy Green at the Tusk Conservation Awards at Hampton Court Palace in London.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY AMY GREEN

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Aspen Family Holiday—Gary and Amy Green with daughters, Giada Green and Gemma Green with beloved pets Scarlett and Simba.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY AMY GREEN

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What is the age difference between you and your husband and how does that play in your marriage?

Gary is ten years older than I am and it is a real asset. He is an incredible man who has done so much already with his life and has achieved a lot. We are fortunate. Coming into our marriage as mature adults with professional backgrounds, and with the experience of dealing with all sorts of people, helped us understand one another and support one another.

I don’t think we could have achieved as much as we have as a couple and individually if we had not been able to build such a solid foundation for our marriage. What is most important is the respect we have for one another. I am a firm believer that when you respect your partner—like I do Gary, and he does me—then the world is your oyster. You have a companion who you can enjoy life with, and is there, by your side, to help you over the hurdles that life puts in your way.

You and Gary have two beautiful daughters together. You told me you had difficulty carrying children. Can you tell our readers about that?

I was already in my late thirties when we decided to start a family. I always wanted children. But the first time we tried I suffered a miscarriage. We were devastated. The doctors examined me and said, among other factors, that I had a tipped uterus, and it might be difficult for me to get pregnant and carry a baby to term. They suggested I undergo in-vitro fertilization. I was so excited and hopeful when I had my first IVF, but it did not work. Then I got pregnant again on my own about two months later and suffered another miscarriage. We really wanted children together and I desperately wanted to be a mother, so we did not give up. We tried IVF seven times before we accepted that having a baby naturally was just not going to happen for us.

You must have dealt with so much, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Yes, I got so emotional, especially seeing my friends with happy, healthy babies. Several didn’t have babies until they were in their forties. Whenever I attended a baby shower, I had to convince myself that expecting a baby was their happiness, and because they were my friends, their happiness was my happiness. At least, that is what I tried to tell myself.

Finally, I decided to give in to the Universe and accept that it was okay that I was not going to be a mom.

Did the Universe respond?

It did. It really did. Unexpectedly, I produced two healthy embryos. The doctors told me it had a lot to do with my change of attitude, and that I had embraced acceptance. But my body had gone through so much that the doctors worried whether I could carry a baby full-term. They said, “Why don’t you have a ‘gestational carrier,’ find another woman who is willing and able to carry your baby?” Someone else carrying my baby? At first, I did not welcome the idea, but I knew I had to get over it if I was to have children at all.

We were very fortunate. We found a beautiful, beautiful gestational carrier. But when the doctors examined her, they discovered she had a dermoid cyst. More tears. We started interviewing again but did not feel the strong connection we had with the first woman. I was in a dark place when suddenly the phone rang. It was the clinic administrator. She said “our” gestational carrier had the cyst removed, it was benign, and she was ready to move forward. We were overjoyed.

Those nine months were incredible and even now, after almost three years, we have retained that special bond. She and her lovely husband have three boys and we stay in touch.

When she handed me my daughter within moments of her

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birth, she gave the gift of birth to me. This beautiful person, going through nine months of pregnancy and delivery, and all she cared about was giving me happiness.

What would you tell other women that are going through similar difficulties?

I would say, if you truly desire to be a mother, then explore all your options. There are many available. If you can not carry your own baby, a gestational carrier—a woman you have carefully vetted and feel a connection with—can be a beautiful experience. Never give up hope! Unthinkably good things can happen, even late in the game.

What about your second daughter?

I have a deep connection with my first child. She is everything I ever wished for. But when she was about a year old, Gary and I said, look, we have one more, healthy, embryo.

Should we try one last time? We really wanted to give Giada a sibling. We decided to do it. The doctors said we might have a fifty-percent chance—and it worked. My entire pregnancy went perfectly and after nine months, out she came! Gemma is eleven months and Giada is three.

And you have these two lovely children because you opened up to the universe?

Yes, for sure. I can not tell you how much I believe in opening up. If you ask for something that truly matters to you and completely let go, the universe will take over.

You have to accept the universe with your whole self, soul, heart, and your head. I am a very spiritual person, and I believe.

You are blessed. Now let’s pivot, and can you tell me about the 100 Billion Meals Challenge?

Yes, of course. In the fall of 2022, Gary and I met Tony Robbins, the motivational coach and speaker, at the 10th Annual Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy. Bill and Melinda Gates, Jon Bon Jovi, Warren Buffet, and Oprah were there, among others, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine was presented with the Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Entrepreneurship in honor of the frontline workers of Ukraine. In 2014, Tony formed the 100 Billion Meals Challenge, an initiative meant to bring together individuals, corporations, and organizations to fund 100 billion meals for American families by the end of 2025 and help them from struggling with hunger. Gary and I jumped on board.

As of right now, the Challenge has supplied 935 million free meals.

Gary and I recently bought a home in Aspen and in March, and we hosted the inaugural “Fire and Ice” benefit gala to support the 100 Billion Meals Challenge & The Future of Food Initiatives at the ASPENX Mountain Club. It was an enormous success. I enjoyed involving the Aspen community and helping local food banks such as Lift Up. Aspen has such an incredible community.

I am so proud to be a part of it. I enjoyed doing this event but my true passion is conservation, biodiversity and saving our planet and the wildlife that roams among us.

Tell me about The Green Vision Foundation.

I can’t imagine my girls waking up one day and all of our national resources are diminished and the animals extinct. It is our obligation to protect our planet for future generations. Our family foundation supports initiatives that are committed to conservation and humanity for the greater good. It has become a passion for me. I am a global ambassador for Tusk, and ACCF—the African Community & Conservation Fund, which was set up in 1990 in response to the poaching crisis in Africa, specifically East and Southern Africa, in Tanzania, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, where tens of thousands of elephants and black rhinos are in danger of becoming extinct.

Last year, Gary and I hosted the Karibu Africa Gala at our home in Bridgehampton, Long Island. Paula Abdul was the celebrity hostess. And last month, on September 1st, we hosted

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Carrying on the Green family generations; the Green girls. Giada Viola Green, Gemma Jade Green, and Amy Green.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY AMY GREEN

the Inaugural Footprint of Life Gala there, at our Hamptons home, too. The gala was designed around a jungle theme and called “Fifty Shades of Green.” Paula Abdul was our celebrity hostess and Jan Blomqvist performed. The gala raised more than $500,000 for critical conservation projects. This has been my dream for a while to bring together like-minded people and organizations who share a commitment to global conservation and community enhancement—magical things can happen.

As a mother, I understand the importance of this for the next generation. I consider the climate crisis, escalating stats, and irrevocable damage that is being done to our planet and I must be mindful of the world my daughters’ inherit. We cannot continue to ignore the crisis.

You live a very full life. What do you think it takes to live an abundant life?

It starts with taking care of yourself, and that means loving yourself, being happy with who you are, being joyful, and always being grateful. That is not easy in today’s society. We deal with social media, balancing family with work, and an unstable world, and we juggle so many demands. You have to make time for yourself, or you can get lost in the chaos.

How do you take care of yourself ?

Well, first I take care of my body. I exercise five days a week—Pilates, yoga, cardio, and I swim. I take care of my hair and my skin and watch my weight. I listen to myself and follow my intuition. I never forget where I came from and who I am. I work hard as I have during my career, to have a family, to ease my husband’s strenuous life, and to make sure our beautiful children are happy and healthy, and I work hard to maintain stability in my life, which allows me to work on things that matter to me by helping others through our family foundation.

The final question I always ask the ELYSIAN Inspiring Women is, if you were to give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be?

Stay focused on your goals, and never lose sight of what is most important to you. Try to overcome your fears, stay strong.

Never hesitate to ask for help, if you need it; or give help, if you are asked. Most important, be kind and compassionate.

It is amazing how one small kindness can open up someone’s locked heart and brighten their day. Showing people you care about them can change lives—and when you do, it can definitely change yours. ■

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Interview Date: October 31st, 2022

Christina

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOY MARIE PHOTOGRAPHY / JOYMARIEPHOTO.COM

In Part 1 of our Inspiring Woman interview with DR. CHRISTINA RAHM, she discussed her multifaceted life as a scientist, entrepreneur, psychologist, and humanitarian. In an unprecedented Part 2 of that interview, she talks about how she “sees herself.” For example, Dr. Rahm calls herself a “fashion engineer,” rather than a fashion designer, and as an “artist,” when it comes to applying her skills to formulating beauty and skin care products. In this second part of her interview, Dr. Rahm discusses her “trifecta” of companies: Under the Red Chandelier, Merci Dupre Clothiers/Enviremware, and Ella Pure. And she ponders the one question so many of us have faced, and that is how to apportion your time and energies to family, household, and community while forging a career path and growing a business. Christina holds patents with multiple claims approved in areas of human, animal, and environmental sciences; she is a scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, psychologist, and humanitarian. It is fitting, then, that she uses art in all that she does—the creative process, sparked by a dream, and fueled by a desire to give to others, is intertwined in her more technical endeavors. She views art as transient, yet her work’s impact on countless lives is more enduring.

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Christina, thank you for allowing the ELYSIAN readers into your life.

Over the past three decades, I have interviewed hundreds of women. Your interviews cumulatively, took place in three geographic locations. Because of length, the interviews span two publications; the previous ELYSIAN Art, fall issue focused on your formative years and inherent creativity through your art and innovations.This winter ELYSIAN Fashion issue delves more into your professional life with the many businesses you have built.

Your career is multi-dimensional and complex, so I thought we might begin with fashion . . . In 2023 you kicked off New York City Fashion Week, showed in both the Hamptons and Times Square NYC . . . and on October 19th will kick off LA Fashion Week. What incredible accomplishments . . . and what is the story behind the story?

People may think I am a fashion designer when in reality, I am a fashion engineer. Bioscience engineering is really my background.

I am an artist who believes in people and in beauty. I am not ashamed that I like nice, artistic, and beautiful aesthetics. I want to touch the lives of women and show them uniquely beautiful textiles and designs. But also, how do we make them better? How do we make them cleaner? Merci Dupre Clothiers was much more than a fashion brand to me. It was a way to empower and provide a better life for people and our children. The fabric textiles embedded with our proprietary processes will make major changes to this world.

Where did DRC Ventures originate?

DRC is either a derivation of Dr. Christina, or Deeply Rooted Causes. Clayton and I came up with 10 concepts, each led back to the name DRC Ventures.

When did the idea begin?

The idea was developed throughout my entire career. We have many verticals that are constantly changing and evolving, focusing on environment, pets, and people. We interface with industries, corporations, governments, philanthropies, and more. DRC Ventures runs and manages multiple brands and companies aimed at bringing solutions to the world.

Do you consider DRC your career pinnacle?

Throughout my entire career I have worked overseas in 87 countries, soon 88. I operated in different capacities with their governments or corporations… from environmental, military science, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and animal health. Typically for corporations, I worked on patents, patent-pending processes, and formulations. From as early as 1995 to 2009 I authored papers and dissertations aimed at cleaning our environment and protecting our world.

Under DRC there are many verticals, but I want to first focus on “the trifecta:” Under the Red Chandelier, Merci Dupre Clothiers, and Ella Pure. Can you explain to our reader the relationship between these companies?

The three entities are tied together . . .

Tell us about Under the Red Chandelier and what was the genesis for creating that entity?

The genesis for Under the Red Chandelier was a desire to touch women through art, music, fashion, food, travel… all that we love, right? Everyone in the office made fun of me, and my business partners said there was no need. I also have a magical closet with a huge red chandelier. But my goal was not the closet or the chandelier, it was to touch people.

You most certainly do touch people through the clothing line Merci Dupre.

How did that happen?

I knew the way to touch the most people was through creativity.

Because clothing is universal…some of the more powerful and influential people in the world are drawn to fashion. Merci Dupre Clothiers was created to bring solutions to one of the most toxic industries in the world, the textile industry. Rather than get rid of it, why not improve it, and make it better.

How can that be accomplished?

Merci Dupre Clothiers created Enviremware whose purpose is to protect people’s bodies from environmental toxins. The way in

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which we create fabric, refurbishing it and making it sustainable, is hugely impactful to this world. Making textiles more beautiful also reflects the evolution of people to be more beautiful, powerful, and healthier. I think of Merci Dupre Clothier as a healthcare company for fashion because the fabrics are embedded with multiple layers of a protective barrier. The clothing company also utilizes Ella Pure’s skin defense aimed at protecting skin from environmental toxins.

Where and how did you come up with the Enviremware?

From 2010 through 2014, I was looking at different approaches to help our environment and protect humanity. I worked on projects in graduate school where we contemplated living in outer space, on Mars, or the moon. I thought why not focus on our world with the issues we face and create something here? I studied the astronauts and what kind of fabric they were wearing because interestingly, when they leave our atmosphere, their pH becomes balanced, and

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ELYSIAN Publisher Karen Floyd interviews internationally sought-after scientific leader, spokesperson, and innovator in health and wellness, Dr. Christina Rahm.

ELYSIAN Publisher Karen Floyd interviews internationally sought-after scientific leader, spokesperson, and innovator in health and wellness, Dr. Christina Rahm.

it appears they are anti-aging. It was while I was attending classes at Harvard, that I worked more diligently on this process.

I also wanted to create protective clothing for both infants and families.

Every time you talk about a mask (post covid) or clothing that protects you in an event of a tragedy, it looks boring and/or even scary. I wanted to approach this differently, create something fun where people understand that our world is changing, and we can adapt too. We are innovators, so let’s innovate and in so doing, make our bodies even healthier.

I developed a clothing brand that I was able to incorporate my pharmaceutical and biotech background, as well as my education, into skin wear and clothing wear.

That is amazing . . . Alright, how long does the Enviremware process take for fabric to be properly treated? And what is the protective coating?

It takes 96 hours to impact fabric by using hydrogen, aloe vera, silver ions, iodine, baking soda, zeolites, silicon dioxide, magnets, heating, freezing, fracking, and more. The process is created so that the application is permanent. Hypochlorous acid is typically a pharmaceutical-grade product, but I made it naturally into nutraceuticals so that people could spray this on their skin or on their clothes and really protect their bodies. For example, by spraying blankets, we can aim at protecting our children while simultaneously making something beautiful.

What is the end game or goal for Merci Dupre Clothiers?

That the brand will last throughout history and be known for its collaboration and partnerships. Merci Dupre Clothiers is a standalone fashion company, though that was not the intended goal . . . which was to provide solutions and include as many partners and collaborators as possible. We want to work with multiple fashion brands. It goes far beyond sustainability, beyond refurbished clothing, and much further than what is happening in the manufacturing arena because we touch everything by providing solutions that no one has provided before. It is perhaps our most essential company, in my opinion. It is a vertical that goes back to my education in science. Behind environmental toxins that enter our body and cause autoimmune disorders and aging and are destructive, my interest is to provide a basic cover for us so that we emerge like butterflies from environmental damage. I want us to progress in a positive way. Our skin is our largest organ; we need to protect our skin and bodies better.

The basis for Merci Dupre Clothiers is the evolution of people and the quest to be something even more beautiful than we were before.

Where and how did you come up with the Ella Pure?

Ella Pure is skincare, dental care, haircare . . . everything aesthetic with physical beauty, which is important to me because again, our skin is our largest organ.

I authored patents on the reversal of aging and regeneration.

Why can’t we have the best lives we can until we are 130 years old? And I always say this, if we live to be 130, why can’t we look and feel good? Every time someone made fun of an idea it propelled me forward . . . I decided to just do it.

I don’t want to go off-topic, but can you describe skin wear and how it came to fruition?

At Harvard, I did a project called Super Skin Coating and then filed the patents. I really wanted to protect children because when children are born, they enter a world with heavy metals and environmental toxins. As they leave the hospital, they are exposed to our environment.

I created SuperSkin coating so that people could protect their skin and their bodies. I made it bioavailable, so it could go onto their bodies to protect but also provide a barrier, and to help heal. I use a lot of ingredients that have a 99.9% efficacy to get rid of staph, strep, viruses, fungus, and bacteria. We launched a spray called Skin Defense; a magical combination that can help people like me who travel all over the world or the homebound, scared to venture out to the grocery store. I wanted solutions. It is not about money. You can make money doing anything But, we have an obligation to provide the world with a better place and leave a legacy to make a difference.

Now, let us talk about the relationship between The Root Brands and DRC Ventures.

The Root Brand is really the foundational piece of our business model because it was created to help launch different brands focused on wellness through a proprietary FinTech system. We wanted to prove that we could penetrate different global markets and countries and ultimately, we will be in over 100 countries worldwide. The Root Brand has been a successful venture producing supplements that people need to help the body clean and then support itself.

It was a spontaneous progression because when you are looking at changing the planet, people, and pets, your catalyst begins with

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Although seen by many as a business woman and researcher, Dr. Christina Rahm’s love will always be art, music, and fashion. Her Under the Red Chandelier brand gives her the perfect environment to express her artistic side.

people because people take care of the planet, people, and pets. We started with the most natural components and the easiest way to help the most people throughout the world as quickly as possible. We launched TRB during COVID and rapidly changed the landscape of the supplement world, so people have better health and wellness.

They experience more complete, beautiful lives so they can enjoy their families and their own purpose on this earth.

Which came first, The Root Brand or DRC Ventures?

Which came first . . . that is hard to say because the formulas came first. But the mechanism or the ability to get products out into the public’s hands was developed by Clayton. When he launched TRB he rapidly grew the company’s footprint globally. When Ted Baker and I stepped in, we were able to bring the vision to fruition by launching the various brands.

You must evolve to change, and I said this earlier, things mutate.

I think one of Clayton’s gifts is he is willing to do things that people are scared to do. He launched Root when COVID was here. Most people (in fact, I said, “I have to be honest, Clay, I do not think it will work”) but he persevered. During COVID we even had difficulties sourcing products, not to mention supply chain issues. I was really scared for him to be honest, but he had no fear. As a businessperson, being fearless is what it takes. I give him a lot of credit. We also understood that there was something bigger . . .

What is the actual structure of TRB and DRC Ventures?

Although TRB is structurally under DRC ventures, it is the main sales channel. TRB is where we launch the products for the TRB community, and we are heavily invested in that community. We communicate constantly whether through Zoom calls, interviews, or podcasts. We have 1000s of people we talk to weekly. It requires more than constant travel worldwide. We invest in people and their networks, all of which matter.

Clayton invented TRB’s innovative FinTech system, with many components similar to the business model of Amazon Prime. He developed the system to give individuals sustainability as well as a path to improve their financial health and well-being. The energy of the TRB community and our people is what makes the difference.

You mention FinTech, can you explain how TRB evolved in that space?

The Metaverse, Web3, and so many more tech disruptors are important to understand. These technological innovations are changing constantly and generationally so to be relevant; they must be taken seriously. People are constantly interacting through nontraditional approaches, anything from social media communication . . . to cryptocurrency like Bitcoin financially. All these different technologies are coming into play.

Clayton wanted to develop a system that could accommodate all types of transactions throughout the world and do it legally and compliantly. He was able to develop a system and platform that could do this all over the world which made expansion easier, of course, to go from one country to over 80 countries because you have

a platform and fintech system. I started speaking at Metaverse events about our proprietary FinTech backend, a system that worked, which has been an integral part of our success. TRB is not just the products, which I think are amazing, but the emotional, mental, psychological, spiritual, energetic, and economic components of what we bring to the community at Root through our platform.

Root is trying to create a circular economy system in all 76 countries so we continue to give back economically to all these countries.

Rahm Group Purchasing was an essential piece of the business. How did that come about?

Earlier in my career, I was the CEO of a healthcare company and contract research organization located in almost every state in the United States. We were responsible for intraoperative monitoring and oversaw improvement of quality and cost of initiatives, as well as patient registries.

It was one of the toughest professional environments and I grew up quickly. I became a healthcare CEO that not everyone liked who was constantly dealing with finances, P&Ls, acquisitions, and mergers.

It was a personal and professional turning point. I had four small children, and acrimony amongst business partners and investors.

Meanwhile, I was traveling and speaking all over the world as we made advancements in spine and head trauma injuries. We maintained registries that now are still guiding the insurance companies in some parts of the world for standard of care and continue to provide data and information for spine and head injuries.

There was a lot on my plate. I look back now, and I think gosh, we were able to accomplish a lot but not enough.

There were many notable industries, the pharmaceutical industry, the medical device industry, the healthcare industry, and the insurance industry. But where are the natural supplements? What can be directed to the side effects? Where did we teach people that your body is in your control, and there is a natural path as well? We simply missed that point and did not do it. But during that tenure, I learned the value of group purchasing. I understood what hospital conglomerates could do together when they work together, through group purchasing.

Tell me about being a single mother and some of the lessons you learned during that time of personal and professional growth.

Being a single mother was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done. It is lonely and exhausting. I don’t even know what

TELL ME ABOUT BEING A SINGLE MOTHER AND SOME OF THE LESSONS YOU LEARNED DURING THAT TIME OF PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH?

Only when you put the mind of Dr. Christina Rahm and Clay Thomas together can you create greatness with The Root Brands.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOY MARIE PHOTOGRAPHY / JOYMARIEPHOTO.COM

to compare it to. Now that I have someone like Clayton in my life who helps me, and I have business partners who are there for me, I wonder what was wrong with me. I was in bad relationships.

I chose the wrong partners. I made major decisions because I wanted to change someone and to love them enough so that they would be better. Now I realize I should have chosen an equal partner, someone who brought both strengths and weaknesses, but we could work together and become better together.

As a single mother, I did not have the capacity really for a relationship. I did not have the ability to talk to someone; it was all on my shoulders. My children did not understand. I think they thought I wanted to work constantly. I will say this, whether you are serving coffee at a restaurant or working in a corporation as a single mother, it is hard. I was working in healthcare and traveling everywhere for work; I developed an understanding of women’s hardships. Through that experience, I developed a love and a passion for all women and single mothers.

I remember thinking how hard it is to stay on your feet for 16 hours and serve people or to hold two to three jobs to provide for your family.

I was always juggling different jobs to provide for my kids, and they were angry because I was working all the time and not at home. I was the only one bringing money in, so I had to make it work. One particular time when I had 5 types of cancer, I remember laying in my bed and covering my head and crying and saying, “ I’m staying in bed all day.” I was so upset. That lasted for probably 45 minutes, to an hour and then I got up. I remember thinking if I don’t get up, I may never get up. I remember thinking I did not have an option. I needed to be stronger and better for the kids. But I also remember the nagging feeling of the kids being upset and my not having the patience to

deal with their anger. I don’t know if they knew that, but I felt sorry for myself. I just had to find the inner strength and eventually, the understanding there were other women like me.

There is also shame associated with being a single mother. I have to say this to women, I hope they hear me. If someone mistreats you or if a relationship is bad, get out. Who cares what the rest of the world thinks, it really doesn’t matter. You are responsible for your life. I have one person to answer to, and that person is not on this earth. I constantly prayed and did my best to be a better person and to be stronger for my kids. Eventually what happened was instead of feeling sorry for myself every day, I stepped up more. And that is how I have conducted my life.

And you stepped up in every way… Let’s pivot back to your initiative, Rahm Group Purchasing What makes RGP unique and why is it important to the healthcare industry?

Rahm Group Purchasing is extremely important. I want the pharmaceutical industry and companies (as well as any other healthcare industry) at the table for everyone in healthcare.

How do you do that? And how does the International Science Nutrition Society play into the equation?

I look forward to meeting with CEOs of hospitals and insurance companies worldwide, much like I did previously. I also look forward to distributing amazing products to help as many people as possible.

We are also looking at both traditional and nontraditional care.

We have a partnership with the International Science Nutrition Society, which is a society all over the world where doctors are entering patients in a patient registry.

We track TRB products, other supplements, and surgeries per diagnosis. How might a patient be helped if the patient is having side effects from pharmaceuticals? Can nutraceuticals work in tandem with the medication for better outcomes? We look at all the outcomes across populations throughout the world. I am unaware of any other patient registry being launched in 80+ countries. I am also unaware of another group purchasing taking the path we are on. Our approach is backed with research, data, and significant statistics that matter to the healthcare industry. That is a huge game-changer.

How do you do that?

Honestly, it comes from a lot of failure . . . learning tough lessons of how to deal with a system that takes time to change. I know we are at a tipping point in our lives because people want what is good for their bodies. People are starting to understand they must care for their own health every day and not just when they feel sick, go to the doctor, and get a prescription. Every day you should take care of your body. You take your trash out every day. Why aren’t you cleaning the inside of your body out every day? Why is it so complicated to selfcare? For me it is not complicated, it is quite simple. So go back to what is simple and bring solutions to the people of the world.

Verticals under DRC include a pet line Bill and Coo and now a coffee line Rahm Roast which has an 85% rating, which is unheard of for Coffee. How did that happen?

We are testing right now for approval so we can post the actual rating because yes, it is an anomaly to have this high of a rating. I traveled and studied coffee beans everywhere. My goal was to give a portion of every bag sold to charities in the United States and throughout the world, which we will do. Our cleaning process is the differentiator, a process I developed again in 2015. People are unaware, but coffee beans have mold, parasites, fungi, and bacteria. The goal of our process is to release toxins, amplify the beans’ antioxidants, and create amazing coffee that is very smooth and tastes amazing. So far the analysis and lab results have been phenomenal.

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BEING A SINGLE MOTHER WAS PROBABLY ONE OF THE HARDEST THINGS I HAVE EVER DONE. IT IS LONELY AND EXHAUSTING . . . AS A SINGLE MOTHER, I DID NOT HAVE THE CAPACITY REALLY FOR A RELATIONSHIP. I DID NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO TALK TO SOMEONE; IT WAS ALL ON MY SHOULDERS . . .

I REMEMBER THINKING HOW HARD IT IS TO STAY ON YOUR FEET FOR 16 HOURS AND SERVE PEOPLE OR TO HOLD TWO TO THREE JOBS TO PROVIDE FOR YOUR FAMILY . . . I JUST HAD TO FIND THE INNER STRENGTH AND EVENTUALLY UNDERSTANDING THERE WERE OTHER WOMEN LIKE ME. Every one of your innovations has an element of collaboration. Talk to me about collaboration.

I think collaboration is the biggest part of DRC Ventures’ success.

I do not think it could be what it is or what it will be without these collaborations and partnerships. I was raised in the athletic home on sports teams. My dad was a coach for a while. As a single mom, there were seasons when I coached my kids.

I approach all business with teamwork. I am not a person that achieves success. In fact, I know the opposite. The only time I have ever been successful is by working with great leaders, great people, and great companies. I believe in imperfection. But I also believe in the power of unification in that imperfection because we are all imperfect pieces to a perfect puzzle. We wouldn’t be anywhere without collaborations with hospital systems, governments, key leaders, and corporations. When people ask me if I am into politics I answer, “I am if that helps the world.”

Your fundamental mission. When you get up every day, what do you say to yourself right away?

First, I do not get up right away every day. I meditate and pray for hours. I do the same thing at night. This is probably a bad practice, but I first think of what I did wrong the day before. Maybe something I said hurt someone’s feelings or what action I didn’t take could have healed or helped someone in another country. I really think of all those things. I am very hard on myself, to be honest. I ask God for guidance because I believe there is someone much greater than me. I am just a small part of a piece of something much larger. I start by trying to correct the things I might have done the day before or the week before because it always comes into my mind when I am sleeping.

Then I focus on what I am going to do to have the best day ever in case I don’t live for two more days, right? Because you never know.

I think traveling everywhere has taught me the value of life and I understand and have seen death a lot. I want each day to be the best day ever. I want to focus on other people. I had to learn that I have to take care of myself too. I really have a lot to do so that mission propels me to get a lot done in a 24-hour period. I may only sleep for five hours but I don’t have a lot of time to sleep in my opinion because there’s so much to be done right now in the world.

Philanthropy plays a big part in your life and your business. How long has the Global Rahm Foundation Philanthropy been in existence?

The Rahm Foundation came into play when Duquesne, our eldest, was four or five. He wanted to raise money for a school fundraiser, so I sponsored it. The focus was on children and teaching them to give back, but also how to be leaders. I connected children with community leaders who taught them how to build a business, how to ask for money, how to give, how to serve . . . we did huge

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projects all over the United States actually.

We have grown internationally through our mentorship program and internship program where we bring people in from all over the world and teach leadership and mentoring. We so often focus on what we are receiving and not what we are giving.

One of the things that TRB does to further the mission is to coalesce top ambassadors, to mentor other women or men.

We wanted the ambassadors to serve as advisors so we would understand, know, and relate to our communities in 80+ countries.

I think as you grow a company, you can start becoming arrogant, particularly if you start being successful. I did not want that to happen with this company. I wanted to listen to the leaders.

But we did not want people on an advisory board if they were not going to be leaders. We wanted mentors who could help others give back. Once we saw who wanted to serve, be a mentor, and give back, those were selected to be the advisors. Just making a lot of money for the company was not our objective.

I am interested in a better way of life for our communities, and in the evolution of people so we become better human beings. This takes work and that takes sometimes doing things for free, it takes love even when you feel angry. All those things that are important to me.

Philanthropy is a huge part of my life. The Rahm Foundation has helped so many children, from physical paralysis to those who suffer from mental illness, to educational assistance, college tuition, and surgeries. We have a robust giving for pets, environment, adults and the military with donations to the VA, CatWalk FurBaby, Rahm Foundation, Tennessee Voices, Chic Awareness, Ted Turner’s Captain Planet, and animal rescues worldwide.

But for me, our internship program is one of our most important initiatives because it requires someone to give their time, which is the most valuable resource you have. Using your time and your energy to train someone to become a better human being, to serve and help others is a cycle that I love the most because it hopefully never ends.

Service. What does that mean?

Service means taking care of other people to make the world a better place. I ask my children, if you are not doing something good for the world and helping others, then why are you here?

We are not here for happiness. If you think you will be happy every day and that is your goal, you will be sadly disappointed and a miserable person. We were not placed here to have a perfect life either, or for everything to go right all the time. We are here to learn lessons, to serve others, and to make this world a better place.

We have a greater calling which is to help our children’s children and our species evolve and to be smarter no matter what we could go through. ■

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Dr. Christina Rahm with husband, Clayton Thomas.

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holiday&tradition

The Nutcracker:

A Ballerina's journey

BY HELEN ARDEN

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A scene from The Nutcracker, a story that is synonymous with the holidays, adorns the window of Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship store in New York City.

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have a surprise for you,” the mother said, handing her nine-year-old daughter a glossy white dress box with a long-stem red rose and “Lord & Taylor” in red script printed on the lid. The excited child untied the red satin ribbon. Carefully folded in layers of white tissue paper was a beautiful, powder blue velvet dress with a hand-pleated bodice and a white, cotton pique, scalloped-corner collar. It was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. “As a surprise, your grandparents are taking you to Lincoln Center to see the New York City Ballet perform The Nutcracker and you must have something special to wear!”

This was a dream come true! She loved to dance! When she was three years old, she took tap dancing classes, and at seven, studied ballet at the Fred Astaire School of Dance. She was five when she watched the Balanchine “Nutcracker” on the 121/2-inch screen of her family’s black-and-white Philco TV. And last Christmas, Santa brought her the Columbia Masterworks recording of the “Nutcracker Suite,” narrated by Peter Ustinov, which she’d play over and over again on her Mickey Mouse portable record player and dance to the wonderful music.

I was that little girl and like so many little girls, I dreamt of being the Sugar Plum Fairy. I will never forget that magical moment when the prima ballerina made her grand entrance. And yet, the Sugar Plum Fairy plays no major role in the story, comes at the ballet’s end, and her dance lasts only 10 minutes. “Sugar Plum is just bizarre,” explains choreographer Christopher Hampson. “Every other ballerina role is essential to the action, but she comes out of nowhere to dance her big number, and that’s it.” He continues, “The whole ballet leads up to it (the pas de deux between the Prince and the Sugar Plum Fairy). It comes like a magical surprise, rising above everything else—it’s the jewel in the crown.”

Every ballerina aspires to dance the role, and every prima ballerina considers her repertoire incomplete unless she does. As Belinda Hatley of the Royal Ballet concedes, “You sit out nearly two acts while everyone is busy on stage. And then, without having established any relationship with the audience, you have to come on and do this incredibly difficult dance. This is one of the longest in the repertory and it’s exhausting on the muscles because it’s technically so clipped, sharp, and repetitive.

In some roles you can use the tiredness and the stress to feed the character. But here you can’t let anything show. You are just pure dance.”

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Students at third year of education dance during rehearsal of the Waltz of the Flowers, the part of the Nutcracker ballet scored by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, in Bishkek choreographic school of Bazarbaev, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

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A banner promoting the Christmas performances of The New York City Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center. PHOTOGRAPH BY RICHARD LEVINE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO Opposite: New York City Ballet performing The Nutcracker in 1962. The first performance of this production was on February 2, 1954, in New York City, and George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker® has been an annual holiday tradition ever since. New York City Ballet usually presents 47 performances of the ballet annually.

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he Nutcracker has long been a highlight of the Christmas season and a mainstay of every major ballet company around the world. But what today is universally considered the most popular ballet of all time had a very rocky beginning. The Nutcracker, Op. 71, was born of the Romantic Period by Russian composer Pyotr Illich Tchaikovsky, who reluctantly accepted the commission to score the ballet in 1892 at the behest of Ivan Alexandrovich Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theatres. Choreographed by the most influential ballet master and choreographer of his day, Marius Petipa had worked with Tchaikovsky three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty. Tchaikovsky was unenthusiastic at first, but soon the great composer conceded in a letter to a friend, “I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task.”

The ballet was inspired by the short story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, written in 1816 by E.T.A. Hoffman, a German author of Gothic novels, which may explain the macabre tone of his storyline. Hoffman died in 1822, at the age of 46, from syphilis, which may have contributed to his fantastical machinations.

Some years after his death, when the story was chosen to be adapted into a ballet, French novelist Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo) was hired to write the libretto.

Today The Nutcracker is considered one of ballet’s ten greatest scores (along with Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.) It only took the composer nine months to write

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Ballet dancers taking a pause backstage during the performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker in St. Petersburg, Russia.

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EVERY YEAR, WHEN THE GRAN PAS DE DEUX—THE SUGAR PLUM FAIRY AND HER PRINCE—BEGINS, THE AUDIENCE’S EYES FILL WITH TEARS. THOSE SHIMMERING SOUNDS OF THE CELESTA, LIKE BELLS CLEAR AND PURE, AND WE ARE FLUNG BACKWARD. TIME IS CONQUERED FOR A BRIEF, LUMINOUS MOMENT.” —MEGAN ABBOTT AMERICAN AUTHOR

the two-hour, two-act ballet, including the month he took off to travel to New York City to conduct his “Marche solennelle” for the grand opening of Carnegie Hall, in May 1891. Tchaikovsky was enthralled with the fantasy, the settings, and such a large ensemble of dancers, so he settled for nothing less than a full, 44-piece orchestra, and added a rattle, cuckoo, quail, castanets, a tam-tam, tambourines, a triangle, and a glockenspiel for whimsey.

Opening night of The Nutcracker on December 18, 1892, at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was met with a lukewarm reception by the audience. The libretto was called “lopsided.” Despite five curtain calls, Italian prima ballerina Antonietta Dell’Era, who danced the Sugar Plum Fairy, was called “corpulent” and “podgy.” Tchaikovsky’s score, however, was a veritable triumph: “Astonishingly rich in detailed inspiration,” wrote one critic, while another said, “from beginning to end, beautiful, melodious, original, and characteristic.”

In 1919,

Russian ballet choreographer Alexander Gorsky, a contemporary of Petipa, restaged The Nutcracker to achieve “greater naturalism, realism, and characterization.” In 1927, the ballet was shortened

by Austrian choreographer Ede Brada. It was not until Christmas Eve 1944 that the San Francisco Ballet resurrected the complete version, and it has been performed that way ever since. In 1954, George Balanchine, who co-founded the New York City Ballet and served as director for 35 years, reworked The Nutcracker. Prima ballerina Maria Tallchief danced the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Critic Walter Terry wrote, “Maria Tallchief, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, is herself a creature of magic, dancing the seemingly impossible with effortless beauty of movement, electrifying us with her brilliance, enchanting us with her radiance of being.

Does she have any equals anywhere, inside or outside of fairyland? While watching her in The Nutcracker, one is tempted to doubt it.”

Why, then, is Sugar Plum important to every ballerina’s journey? “Laura Morera of the Royal Ballet, said, “When you’re younger you don’t think, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to do Sugar Plum Fairy.’ You don’t want it like you want Sleeping Beauty. But listening to the music, the role comes into its own. It’s so beautiful and you can play with it. You can be radiant and warm and subtle. I see myself almost as an instrument.”

The Nutcracker has captivated artists, performers, and audiences all over the world for over 120 years, and I think its immortality has much to do with the purity of childhood, the openness of imagination, and the talents of choreographers, librettists, dancers, musicians, technicians, and crew—all who brought and bring this ballet to life. From time to time, I take out the memories I keep in a special compartment of my heart and shine in their gold glow. I see the Christmas tree get bigger and bigger, the dancers twirl and leap, and the orchestra fills the air with Tchaikovsky’s extraordinary music. Whenever I do, no matter the time of year, it’s always Christmas. ■

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Dance of the Snowflakes performed by dancers from the English National Ballet during dress rehearsal for the ballet The Nutcracker, at the London Coliseum. Set to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the traditional Christmas ballet is choreographed

by Wayne Eagling based on a concept by Toer von Schayk and Wayne Eagling. The English National Ballet Philharmonic orchestra accompanies dancers from the English National Ballet and students from the English National Ballet School.

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food&dining

The Queen of Couture Chocolate

BY NORAH LAWLOR

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167 • hiver 2023/24 • édition vacances et mode • readelysian.com MarieBelle New York’s signature Aztec Hot Chocolate was featured as one of “Oprah’s Favorite Things.” At the Cacao Bar, four different flavors of hot chocolate are served; Aztec, Milk Hazelnut, Spiced Chocolate and White Chocolate.

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ieberman emigrated to the U.S. and studied at The Parsons School of Design where she developed her innate sensibility for luxury goods, fine food, and elegant fashion. She launched her entrepreneurial career in the 90s with Maribel Gourmet Cuisine, an idea born from her hobby of entertaining and creating gourmet meals for friends. These meals always went far beyond expectation thanks to her experimentation with international cuisine ranging from France to Asia, to South America, eventually serving high-profile clients, U.S. Diplomats, and a U.S. President. “I have discovered over the years that people love to be presented with something luscious, something that delights every one of the senses,” explains Maribel, “and that has been an easy inspiration for developing every aspect of my business.”

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COURTESY MARIEBELLE NEW YORK / MARIEBELLE.COM

Opposite: From her first chocolate shop in Soho, Maribel’s passion for discovering and sharing new flavors, has seen her continually reinvent how we enjoy chocolate.

arieBelle New York founder and CEO Maribel Lieberman is undoubtedly a culinary luminary in the world of chocolate. Her journey comes from humble beginnings, born and raised near the cacao fields of Honduras. As a young girl, she made and sold sweets to the local community, a natural entrepreneur. This spirit along with dedication and passion are what drives her to this day. When Maribel thinks about success, she thinks as much about the past as she does about the future. “My family taught me so much about passion and perseverance, and about wonderful food,” says Maribel. “Today, I can hear both my mother and my grandmother guiding me as I imagine what step I want to take next.”

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The Cacao Bar by MarieBelle is a fusion of classical and modern—the Cacao Bar will transport you to another era, as you enjoy a stress-free time in a space surrounded by antiques and the scents of chocolate and espresso.

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— MARIBEL LIEBERMAN

TODAY, I CAN HEAR BOTH MY MOTHER AND MY GRANDMOTHER GUIDING ME AS I IMAGINE WHAT STEP I WANT TO TAKE NEXT.”

Maribel attributes her good fortune to forging the right relationships and to good old-fashioned hard work and motivation. Her ever-evolving route led her to discover her lifelong passion for chocolate and to her first storefront, Lunettes et Chocolat, in 2000. This was an eclectic boutique offering designer eyewear and handmade chocolates. Shortly after, in 2001, Maribel saw the promise and demand for her delectable creations and opened her first “MarieBelle New York” in the heart of Soho. This trajectory truly established her as an icon in the chocolate industry.

MarieBelle New York is not just a chocolate brand; it’s a whimsical and magical world crafted by Lieberman’s creative genius. Her chocolates are as sweet as the dreams she has brought to life. This shop is not merely a place to buy chocolates; it’s a haven for tranquility and romance, reflecting Lieberman’s old-school charm and sophisticated sensibilities. Upon entering one is transported to another place and time indulging every sense, with aromas, enchantment, and desire to partake in everything chocolate. If on that rare occasion, chocolate isn’t your fancy, there are many other enticements in the “Cacao Bar”, a space in the back of the shop with a speakeasy feel where you can enjoy Afternoon Tea and seasonal light bites. It is here that Maribel also finds inspiration feeling the “pulse” of the guests and lively atmosphere.

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ieberman’s chocolates are renowned for their superb taste, artistic packaging, and the memories they create. Each piece is not just a sweet treat but a work of culinary art. The beauty and sumptuous taste reflect a lifestyle centered around the appreciation of chocolate. Her world-renowned collection of handmade ganache combines the finest single-origin chocolate paired with carefully selected natural flavors.

The artistry of each piece is not only pleasing to the palate but also a treat for the eyes with rich colors and designs decorating the ganache, known as “edible art”. The collection boasts over 20 recipes with notes of different cacaos, fruits, nuts, florals, and spices. The presentation is just as enticing with each ganache hand-placed in an illustrious blue box delighting all the senses.

What sets Lieberman apart is not just her chocolate creations but also her unwavering commitment to quality and ethics. She sources cacao from her native Honduras, staying true to her roots and ensuring that her chocolates are made from the very best ingredients. Her dedication to preserving the origins of chocolate and sharing its rich history sets her apart in the industry.

Her success has extended globally with the openings of a second NYC location, MarieBelle at The Kitano Hotel, and three stores in Japan, further solidifying her status as the Queen of Couture Chocolate. Her accomplishments have not gone unnoticed, as she has been recognized by “Inc. Magazine” for owning one of the fastest-growing private companies in America, and even Oprah Winfrey recognized MarieBelle’s Aztec Hot Chocolate as one of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” in 2012.

What shines through in Maribel Lieberman’s story is not just her business acumen but also her passion for chocolate and her genuine love for her customers and staff. Her Brooklyn factory is a testament to her commitment to creating luxurious handmade gourmet ganache with the finest ingredients and natural flavors.

Maribel remains humble and always believes there is more to do. Her next undertaking includes a first-time book on something she knows all too well, entertaining and cooking. The recipes, from sweet to savory are Maribel’s favorites as she explored and created an eclectic mix of flavors enjoying the beauty and satisfaction of everything culinary.

In essence, Maribel Lieberman is not just a chocolatier; she is a storyteller, an artist, and a visionary who has turned her love for chocolate into a magical experience for people all over the world. Her journey is a true inspiration, reminding us that with passion, dedication, and a touch of magic, we can turn our dreams into reality. ■

Editor’s Note: For more information on MarieBelle chocolates, MarieBelle, or MarieBelle at The Kitano Hotel, please visit mariebelle.com.

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merci beaucoup

BY PEARL LUSTRE

With the motto “Don’t let your clothing be something that passes you by; make it an armor against the challenges of modern life,” Dr. Christina Rahm introduces her Merci Dupre line of Enviremware Clothing at LA Fashion Week, October 2023.

COURTESY MERCIDUPRECLOTHIERS.COM / BFA IMAGES

erci Dupre Clothiers of The Root Brands, Nashville, Tennessee, is revolutionizing fashion with their new line of Enviremware clothing.

The lifestyle-based company has pioneered Super Skin Coating©, a ground-breaking, patentpending technology developed by Dr. Christina Rahm, the company’s founder, CEO, and formulator, which infuses a specially formulated solution into fashion textiles that shield and defend the skin against harmful environmental toxins, pollutants, and contaminants. Called Enviremware (patent pending), it is unique.

And it is the exclusive fabric in Merci Dupre Clothiers, a new line of couture fashion for women designed by Dr. Rahm.

“Environmental pollutants are harmful toxins that we are exposed to daily, leading to longterm health effects such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, and neurological disorders,” she explains. There is a serious need to educate people to the adverse effects of these toxins on our bodies, and what steps can be taken to limit exposure.” The progressive step Dr. Rahm has taken is the initiative to develop Enviremware.

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garment made of Enviremware serves as a defensive shell that protects the wearer’s skin from the sun’s harmful UV rays, and toxins, viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites, as well as damaging airborne heavy metals, including lead, cobalt, mercury, arsenic, chromium, and cadmium—all highly toxic—which can contribute to autoimmune disorders, diabetes, heart disease, cognitive function issues, and adversely affect mental health. Dr. Christina Rahm’s groundbreaking Super Skin

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WE BELIEVE IN OFFERING OUR CUSTOMERS THE CHANCE TO TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR HEALTH AND PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM THE DEVASTATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTANTS AND CONTAMINANTS,” SAYS CEO DR. CHRISTINA RAHM. “DON’T LET YOUR CLOTHING BE SOMETHING THAT PASSES YOU BY; MAKE IT AN ARMOR AGAINST THE CHALLENGES OF MODERN LIFE.” —DR. CHRISTINA RAHM

CEO MERCI DUPRE CLOTHIERS

Coating© is the solution used to galvanize Enviremware like an invisible suit of armor. Nanotechnology is utilized in a specially engineered, low-impact, minimal-energy, multistage manufacturing process that immerses natural fibers in a bath of deionized water to which natural- and organicbased vitamins and minerals have been added, including shungite, orthosilicic acid, bioavailable silica, and Vitamin C. Enviremware fabric is organic, sustainable, and produced using ethical, Fair Trade manufacturing practices.

“Fashion possesses the extraordinary ability to empower, to evoke a sense of individuality, strength, and beauty enabling you to embody whatever persona you desire. We firmly believe that by shifting the fashion and the textile industry’s focus towards health and well-being, we have the power to ignite a transformative revolution that will shape a better future for generations to come.”

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erci Dupre is the only clothing company that has taken the initiative to design fashionable, comfortable, elegant clothing made from this unique textile that protects your health and ensures your well-being. “Josephine Kimono” is inspired by the traditional Japanese kimono with a long, self-fringed pelmet cut on the bias. “Cleo Faux Bow Top” is a daring, self-tied, baremidriff sari; the “Echo” Shirt is a barely-there, transparent derivation of the boyfriend shirt; and the “Sieko Kaftan Dress” is one of those fabulous wardrobe essentials that you can dress up or down with jewelry for evening or daytime. “Heaven Hill Linen Jumpsuit” in 100% organic linen features puffed sleeves, a smocked back, and a deep scoop neckline. If Jane Austen was alive today, she’d pick this.

Order Enviremware Spray to easily apply Super Skin Coating to your own clothing and get the benefits of unparalleled protection for your skin—and your peace of mind. ■

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fashion&influence

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Van Lear of Palm Beach

BY KATHLEEN PARKER

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS JORIANN / CHRISJORIANN.COM

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Terry Van Lear holds a magazine featuring Büyükada, the island where she and Ali spend August and part of September each year. Ali’s family has long owned Abdullah Pasha Villa on the island, which is about an hour’s boat ride from Istanbul.

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS JORIANN / CHRISJORIANN.COM

erry Van Lear Yates swanned into the pedicure salon like a Persian Queen, her spiky, crimson hair a crown atop a heart-shaped face that is both guileless and knowing. In her wake, a checkered cotton garment billowed behind a slender, girlish figure, betraying a disciplined life, as well as a palpable worldliness informed by culture, travel, and, indeed, centuries of style.

Already seated in my pedicure chair, my toes tingling in warm, sudsy water, I chirped at this regal apparition: “Oh, I love your coat!”

“It’s a duster,” she smiled dimly in my direction. “I designed it.”

Waltzing away from me, she chose a chair two seats away, indicating an unmistakable lack of interest in further conversation, and whipped out a pen and pad. But I was interested in further conversation.

“So, tell me about your duster,”

So

began a decade-long conversation that opened with the revelation that we both had attended Converse College, a small women’s college in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

My jaw dropped when she told me. “You did not,” I objected. “I’ve never run into anyone else who went to Converse.”

Suffice it to say, Terry was like no other Converse girl I’d ever known. During the era of our attendance ten years apart, Converse was a school for young ladies who could earn a degree while pursuing equestrian and musical interests, as well as, perhaps, a husband. Not just traditional, Converse was archaic by today’s standards. We had to wear a dress to enter the dining room and were seated at white linen-draped tables of eight, set with sterling flatware. Local gals not much older than we served us from large, family-style bowls. On Sundays, we were required to wear gloves. Pants were strictly verboten on the front campus without a full-length coat and could be worn on the back campus only until 6 p.m. when the boys from nearby Wofford College, then all-male, would be arriving to collect their dates.

To be sure, neither Terry nor I fit the mold, then or thereafter. Even Terry’s mother didn’t expect her to last. “When we arrived in Spartanburg and took a look around, my mother stayed for several days because she was sure I’d want to go back to Middleburg with her,” Terry explained. But Terry stayed on and kept the same roommate for the next four years.

Among other deviations from the norms of her day, Van Lear never wed or had children. “Too claustrophobic,” she says. Instead, she became a globetrotting couture designer with a discreet clientele and a dance card that reflected the stamps in her passport. She isn’t shy about sharing her escapades and affairs but won’t drop a syllable about her clients, whose identities are strictly off-limits.

I did manage to discover one of them when I inherited a portion of my mother-

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in-law’s wardrobe upon her death. One item was a black-andgold knit suit with fancy buttons and a hand-sewn tag inside that read, “Van Lear of Palm Beach.”

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Love At First Sip

Terry and Ali met through Terry’s inimitable mother, Virginia Yates, who was first to make Ali’s acquaintance when she insisted that he serve as her valet. Mrs. Yates, driving a 1985 Lincoln Town car, had just pulled to a stop in front of her daughter’s Washington, DC, apartment building. Stepping out of her carriage, she walked to the rear of the vehicle and gazed at the trunk as though she might have a hostage locked inside.

At that moment, a handsome young man with black hair leaned out of his second-floor window and called out: “Would you like some help with your bags?”

“Well, you’re a man, aren’t you?” she replied.

AMERICAN WOMEN DON’T UNDERSTAND, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS THROW ON A SCARF AND, SUDDENLY, YOU’RE DRESSED. YOU LOOK LIKE SOMEBODY.” (I GO NOWHERE WITHOUT A SCARF.).”

—TERRY VAN LEAR YATES

have come to know Terry in dribs and drabs through the years. After a few more chance encounters and the discovery that we lived on the same street in Washington—not to mention that her DC apartment building was directly across the street from the building where my grandparents had lived— we figured that fate wanted us to be friends.

Much has happened during the ten years since that first meeting. Like Cinderella’s fall from grace at the stroke of midnight, Terry’s life bears little resemblance to the movie she starred in for most of her life. Her couture design business and the contents of her destination Palm Beach shop are stashed in a half-dozen storage units. Her beautiful dresses, dusters, pantaloons, and jackets fill every available space in the onebedroom Palm Beach apartment she shares with her companion of 30 years—Turkish Economist Ali Safyurtlu. And her gilded coach, more lemon than pumpkin, is in the shop after a recent accident left her bruised and broken.

All temporary, she would say with her customary optimism.

Such is life. But what Terry has suffered would send most people to the sanitorium. In just the past three years, she’s had to close her Palm Beach shop, the House of Van Lear on the Via Parigi, owing to a prohibitive rent increase. She also has sold her two Washington apartments. Her Palm Beach apartment, stuffed with several layers of favorite relics, is all that’s left of the life she can’t quite believe is gone.

Or, nearly gone. The current chapter isn’t finished yet—she’s rather emphatic on this point—and she is hoping for a fresh start, or at least a good home for her treasures. For now, her Florida apartment is a museum of her curated life. Persian and Moroccan rugs, layers upon layers of exquisite Italian fabrics crowd exotic garments and bolts of old-world fabrics waiting for the right body to adorn. Two huge Moroccan vases stand vigil atop a heavy Spanish table. Other tabletops are filled with statues, carvings, heavy books, and framed pictures.

Among her prized possessions is an array of stuffed animals, including two oversized specimens that hold court in the living room—a cheetah named Sultan and a lion named Suleiman the Magnificent. Terry refers to them as her “children”— “something to love and squeeze”—which, coming from her, somehow doesn’t seem strange at all.

Van Lear borrows a hat from Suleiman the Magnificent, one of her beloved stuffed animals, and clowns for the camera while sipping a mid-day champagne.

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Why not a diamond as a bookmark? This one’s not real, obviously, but treasures abound in the couple’s sumptuously decorated, Palm Beach apartment. A coffee table is stacked with gorgeous books, including this one about Ali’s native Turkey.

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Soon after, she arranged for Terry and Ali to meet over cocktails and Ali has been carrying the Van Lear luggage ever since. He also has managed Terry’s life, keeping her ledgers, paying accounts, and managing investments so that she could focus on the creative side of her business. She did very well. Ali, who holds a doctorate in economics, was no stranger to wealth or the wealthy clients Terry attracted. His great-grandfather was Zeynalabidin Taghiyev (1823-1924), an oil baron and philanthropist, whose accolades and accomplishments are celebrated across several continents. Among other exploits, he was ahead of his time in recognizing the importance of educating women and built the first boarding school for Azeri girls in Baku, Azerbaijan.

When I ask Terry what year she and Ali met, among other important dates, she bats the question away with a heavily bangled wrist. “I don’t remember years. I’m not a chronological person,” she says, batting her heavily mascared lashes. Such is the privilege of a woman without children and a good manager.

When you have children, everything is chronological.

Terry takes the current dip in the action with a grain of Dead Sea salt. If she’s worried, she doesn’t let on. She wears a preternatural calm like a cloak of feathers. She does worry about her future and tears up talking about her lost shop and the world that once was her oyster. Her discretion slips long enough to mention a name, the French diplomat who for four years courted her between Paris and Washington via multiple trips aboard the now-defunct Concorde.

She models several outfits during our interview and even dresses me in one of her dusters, bedecking every part left showing with necklaces, bangles, and jewels. Her designs are, like Ali’s island, otherworldly – grand, intricately made by hand, and designed with an eye that is rare in today’s torn-jean and tee-shirt culture. Her designs, once highly sought after, deserve a museum of their own. They’re not costume-y, I should say, but they are for very special occasions. A royal event, for instance, or one of the many charity events in Palm Beach or New York. A typical duster runs about $7,000 but is worth every thread. It’s all in the details, from grosgrain ribbon along inside seams to bejeweled buttons that can’t be found except at special haunts in Florence and Istanbul. Every stitch is a tribute to Terry’s perfectionism.

Though it helps to have deep pockets when standing still for a Van Lear fitting, wealth isn’t essential to style, she would be the first to say. The secret to looking chic or fashionable is a simple accessory –a scarf, she suggests. Whether running to lunch or the hair salon, Terry always wears a scarf.

“American women don’t understand,” she told me years ago.

We were standing on Worth Avenue chatting. She was wearing capris pants, a tight-fitting black-and-white striped t-shirt tucked in with a belt, and ballet slippers on her feet. Adjusting the scarf at her neck, she said, “All you have to do is throw on a scarf and, suddenly, you’re dressed. You look like somebody.” (Ever since I go nowhere without a scarf.)

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erry doesn’t literally run anywhere these days, I should say. Though it doesn’t seem possible given her energy and spunk, Terry has “Stage 10 cancer,” as she puts it—in her spine and lungs. She’s already had a double mastectomy and in mid-July underwent surgery to remove cancer from two of her vertebrae. I mention these health concerns only to highlight the miracle of her stamina and perseverance. By some

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Terry Van Lear is lost in her vision of what this future garment will become, while attending seamstresses follow her eye and instructions with pins and stitches.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KATHLEEN PARKER

HER DESIGNS ARE, LIKE ALI’S ISLAND, OTHERWORLDLY— GRAND, INTRICATELY MADE

BY HAND, AND DESIGNED WITH AN EYE THAT IS RARE IN TODAY’S TORN-JEAN AND TEE-SHIRT CULTURE. force unknown to modern medicine, she keeps going, pinning fabric around her clients’ bodices, instructing her seamstresses, and styling as she goes.

While she was still in her shop, I’d stop by now and then.

Once I was allowed to watch Terry in the act of creation. Two seamstresses assisted as she took a piece of fabric and draped it one way, then another, pinned it, and instructed the women how and where to stitch. She did the same with another piece of fabric and so on. I couldn’t see what Terry was seeing. It was like watching a sculptor chipping away at a block of marble or a painter adding layers of pigment to a blank canvas. What she does is art. And she is unquestionably an artist.

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onverse College has produced plenty of accomplished women, but Terry would be a rare bird on any campus. If her classmates were often ladiesin-waiting, Terry was never one to perch upon a tuffet. She was an adventurer in the spirit of the British explorer Gertrude Belle (a.k.a. “the desert queen,”) who dedicated her life to exploring and writing about the Near East. Her knowledge of the area and the tribal leaders guided British authorities in establishing the Kingdoms of Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Terry may not have been instrumental in mapping out kingdoms but she created a world of glamour, beauty, and high fashion out of whole cloth and personal grit.

It’s a shame the filmmakers who made the panned 2015 movie about Belle—“The Desert Queen,” starring Nicole Kidman—didn’t know about a redhead named Terry Van Lear Yates. She would have been a natural for the role. When I mention this idea to her, she does not demur. ■

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philanthropy

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Bridging Style & Social Responsibility

BY CAROLINE RYAN

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in the dynamic world of fashion, where trends come and go and creativity knows no bounds, a new movement has emerged that goes beyond aesthetics—one that weaves the world of style with the ethos of social responsibility. And at the heart of this phenomenon is The Fashion Foundation, led by visionary entrepreneur Amanda Munz.

Munz has created a platform that uplifts communities, promotes sustainability, and redefines the industry’s role in society by making a positive change in both the fashion landscape and the lives of those in need.

Now entering its 10th year, The Fashion Foundation is a thriving non-profit organization that turns unused, excess merchandise from top-of-the-line fashion designers into a funding stream that helps schoolchildren in New York City get much-needed supplies.

The principles behind The Foundation are simple—By working with some of the fashion industry’s leading designers and retailers to fill the foundation’s online shop with products, the foundation is then able to resell items to generate revenue that goes toward helping schools obtain items that they need but cannot afford.

Brands like Calvin Klein, Rebecca Minkoff, Marchesa, Amanda Uprichard, Komar, Show Me Your Mumu, Gorjana, and more donate samples and any other products they no longer need to The Fashion Foundation. Their resale generates revenue so that the foundation can help students and schools by providing them with clean uniforms, backpacks, art supplies, gym equipment, and learning tools throughout the year so that students and staff have the exact supplies they need to succeed.

Additionally, through its practices, The Fashion Foundation helps promote sustainability by ensuring that all donated items find a home and don’t end up in a landfill. By recognizing the environmental impact of fashion, in particular, the waste of unwanted items, the

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foundation encourages the reuse and recycling of clothing and drives the movement toward a more eco-conscious and environmentally friendly industry.

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unz, the 32-year-old brains behind the foundation who also serves as its CEO, has always been interested in fashion. Since her teens, she found ways to immerse herself in the industry, whether it was through her schooling at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Baruch College (the latter where she earned her master of public administration degree) or a series of hands-on internships. By the time she was 21, she had extensive experience to succeed in the world of fashion but also noticed that there was a great deal of waste that pervaded the business. From that observation, The Fashion Foundation was created to bridge the gap between style and social responsibility and channel the power of fashion for the greater good.

“I was just about to graduate from FIT,” recalls Munz, “and I had this epiphany in one of my internships. I thought, ‘I just can’t make shoes for the rest of my life.’ I told my parents that I was going to get my master’s and start a nonprofit.”

Munz acquired the know-how to do just that during her time at Baruch and it was the marriage of her passion and her education from which The Fashion Foundation was born.

In an interview on Consumer Trends with Lucy Norris,

she described the experience of seeing designers throwing samples in the garbage and witnessing unwanted merchandise pile up in designer showrooms.

How does something like this happen? “It’s about overproduction,” she explained. Designers want to create the perfect sample to put on the market, and often, they produce items in multiple colors and patterns to get things just right. “The castoffs pile up and no one knows what to do with them. Sometimes, there’s a sample sale, or items are given to friends and family, but more often than not, at the end of the day these items just end up in a landfill,” she said.

“It’s not costing the designers a dollar to donate to The Foundation, because these items are already made and unwanted. They love this foundation because they are getting rid of items that they no longer want. And the customers love it because they now get to buy these pieces at a fraction of the retail cost.”

Pieces on The Fashion Foundation website can be purchased for up to 98% off the actual price, and the prices for the items start at $5. “Anybody can afford to shop here,” said Munz.

As a result of selling all of these unwanted items, The Fashion Foundation has been able to benefit more than 34,000 children throughout New York and has received more than 200,000 pounds of unwanted, donated fashion pieces including clothing, jewelry, hair accessories, shoes, and other merchandise to support its work. Munz said that the foundation works directly with each school’s staff to

provide the students with the exact supplies they need and ship those supplies as the needs arise. “Many of the children we serve are in difficult situations and often they don’t have the tools they need to start their school day,” says Munz.

“We provide students with whatever educational tools they need to flourish in their education.”

O

ne project that The Fashion Foundation is particularly proud of is a community closet it helped to create in Queens, NY. The foundation completely transformed an empty storage room into a fun space, fully stocked with free clothes for children to take whenever they needed. They also painted the room, provided the fixtures, and stocked it with an initial 800 pieces of clothing in various styles and sizes so that there were plenty of options for the kids to choose from. The Fashion Foundation’s goal is to replenish this closet as needed so that it is continuously stocked with these resources. According to The Fashion Foundation’s website, “This Community Closet is a safe space for kids to go to when they need something and not feel embarrassed. It was created to be an inviting, fun, colorful experience so that children for years to come have access to clean clothing.”

Other projects sponsored by the foundation include filling a school library in Brooklyn with more than $10,000 of brandnew books, hand-selected by a librarian to meet the needs of the various age groups and demographics that the school

serves; helping to turn a Harlem playground that was once bare and empty into a space filled with color and joy by providing playground equipment and working with The Animation Project to create a 300-foot hand-painted mural around the perimeter; and creating a Holiday Heroes initiative to provide students with backpacks filled with school supplies, holiday gifts, winter hats, gloves, scarves and more during the holiday season. Finally, in 2022, The Fashion Foundation launched a nationwide campaign for people to nominate a deserving teacher to win $1,000 in new supplies for their classroom.

In response to that call for nominations, they received more than 500 submissions from around the country and were so impressed by the responses and the inspiring teacher stories they received that they decided to increase their impact and give 10 teachers $1,000 in new supplies.

Munz told Forbes Magazine that “every time I receive a donation of samples from a fashion brand, it pushes me forward because it means that my vision to reduce fashion waste is helping local kids in need.” And thanks to Munz’s vision, The Fashion Foundation stands as a testament to the potential of merging creativity with social responsibility. By transforming an industry that she loves into embracing a movement that addresses needs in the community, Munz has woven together the threads of entrepreneurship and sustainability, not only transforming the lives of those the foundation helps but also challenging the fashion industry to reimagine its role in shaping a better world. ■

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PHOTOGRAPH BY FLORAL DECO / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Art & History The Perfect Touchstones to Any South Carolina Experience.

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MUSEUM OF ART - COLUMBIA

ROB GENTRY POTTERY - PENDLETON

South Carolina’s art and history provide the perfect touchstones for any visit. Entwined like the strips of the palmetto leaves that make up beautiful sweetgrass baskets, artisans of today reach through the generations to bring their visions to life, tapping into traditions influenced by the still-prominent Gullah and Geechee cultures in the state’s Lowcountry.

South Carolina’s vibrant history is showcased throughout the state, with attractions like the striking International African American Museum in Charleston, the Columbia Museum of Art in the Capital City, and the Catawba Cultural Center in the Upstate. From the mountains to the sea, South Carolina’s landscape is adorned with museums and artisan centers that weave a rich tapestry of narratives, honoring the heritage of South Carolina’s earliest inhabitants while highlighting the artistic journey passed down through generations.

The Catawba Indians’ pottery techniques date back more than 4,000 years, a practice called “the oldest traditional form of art east of the Mississippi.” The Catawbas polish their work using river rocks rather than firing them in a kiln. Learn more at the Catawba Cultural Center in Rock Hill, or visit the “SC6: Six South Carolina Innovators in Clay” exhibit at the Columbia Museum of Art. Many claysmiths still call South Carolina home. In Pendleton, be sure to stop by Rob Gentry Pottery. Gentry remembers watching the “magic” of clay being spun at an early age, and today he crafts pieces unique to each individual who enters his studio.

On the opposite side of the state, just off Interstate 95, you’ll find Southern face jugs—which stem from an African tradition—and more at the South Carolina Artisan Center

SOUTH CAROLINA ARTISAN CENTER - WALTERBORO

in Walterboro. This collection spans the centuries, from indigenous folk art to modern crafts and two-dimensional art.

The South Carolina Artisan Center is housed in a restored eight-room Victorian cottage built in the late 1800s, and its collection features works by more than 300 South Carolina master artisans selected in a two-stage juried process. The center features pottery, paintings, jewelry, quilts, vases and, among other items, sweetgrass baskets made by well-known Gullah artists.

The Gullah Geechee who live in South Carolina’s Lowcountry and Sea Islands have preserved more of their heritage than any other African-American community in the United States. The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, a 12,000-square-mile federal National Heritage Area that stretches from North Carolina to Florida, honors that tradition.

Build your trip around a visit to the International African American Museum, which opened this summer in Charleston. Built on Gadsden’s Wharf, where countless enslaved Africans were brought into the United States, the museum showcases the pivotal roles African Americans played in shaping U.S. history and society. The stories of struggle and resilience, tragedy and triumph paint a picture of the AfricanAmerican experience, which is supplemented with immersive displays, interactive installations and a wide range of artifacts.

Be sure to visit the African Ancestors Memorial Garden, a quiet and reflective space beneath the building. Designed to honor enslaved Africans who passed through Gadsden’s Wharf, the garden’s multifaceted design links Charleston to a network of global sites connected by the legacy of inhumanity.

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SWEETGRASS BASKETS

DARRYL STONEWORTH - CHARLESTON - GULLAH ARTISAN

The garden is home to the Tide Tribute, a series of relief figures that represent men, women and children who were inhumanely kept in ships anchored in nearby Charleston Harbor.

From there, to the islands: The two-hour Gullah Heritage Tour on Hilton Head Island is brought to life by fourthand fifth-generation Gullah guides, whose ancestors survived for generations in relative isolation by passing down their traditions and lifestyle. This tour includes several historic sites, including Mitchelville, the first freedman’s village in the United States.

On Daufuskie Island, renowned Gullah chef Sallie Ann Robinson leads a bus tour to a dozen historic landmarks, including Mary Fields Elementary School, where acclaimed author Pat Conroy taught in the 1960s. Robinson was one of the schoolchildren Conroy taught and was featured in his book The Water is Wide.

The Penn Center on St. Helena Island, a National Historic Landmark, is a former school for freed slaves. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference used it as a meeting place and retreat in the 1960s.

Today, the center offers cultural performances, workshops,

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CHARLESTON - INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM

CHARLESTON - INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM

walking and island tours, and historical presentations.

McLeod Plantation, once part of a 1,700-acre Sea Island cotton plantation, tells of the story of plantation life before and after the Civil War. Several 45-minute interpretative tours are included with admission; topics range from cotton cultivation to the transition to freedom for generations of African Americans who called the plantation home.

The Gullah Museum in Georgetown, founded by a Gullah quilt artist and scholar, Vermelle “Bunny” Smith Rodrigues, who has lectured extensively on the African Diaspora, reveals how slavery served as the backbone of the rice and indigo industries in South Carolina’s Lowcountry.

Once a career training center and hub of Charleston’s African-American community, the Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture develops new exhibits each year from its extensive art and manuscript collections. Now part of the College of Charleston, the former Avery Normal Institute also hosts temporary exhibits featuring prominent and emerging artists who document the history, traditions, legacies, and influence of African Americans.

(Advance registration is required for self-guided tours.)

Board a bus for a two-hour Gullah Tour of Charleston, where you will visit Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the original Catfish Row neighborhood featured in Porgy and Bess, and a hiding spot along the Underground Railroad.

Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet offers an audio tour of a quarter-mile Lowcountry Trail that overlooks

a restored rice field of the former Brookgreen Plantation.

Built in 1859, the Old Slave Mart located between Chalmers and Queen streets in downtown Charleston is the last surviving slave auction gallery in South Carolina.

Informative displays, photographs and posters shed light on this horrific chapter of U.S. history.

Throughout your Lowcountry and Sea Islands adventure you are likely to spot basket stands. Sweetgrass basketweaving is a sacred art that the Gullah share only amongst their families, passing the tradition down through the generations. These baskets aren’t just art; they are a piece of a family’s history.

You may also find artisans selling Palmetto Roses. The Palmetto Rose originally was a homemade keepsake given to a family member going off to fight in the Civil War. If you run into Corey Alson at the Charleston City Market, he will show you how to make one yourself.

No trip to South Carolina is complete without the one thing we all make with our hands: food. The Gullah Geechee Corridor is packed with restaurants offering cuisine rooted in centuries-old traditions. Buckshot’s Restaurant in McClellanville and The Gullah Grub on St. Helena Island are among the most popular.

There is always something more to discover in South Carolina. The basket, bowl, or canvas you discover on your trip becomes a part of your home, your family, your heritage— one small snapshot of time that you can hand down to, and possibly inspire, the next generation.

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my Green has dedicated her life to protecting our planet and the animals that call it home.

Active with anti-poaching organizations such as the African Community & Conservation Foundation (ACCF ) and Tusk, Green also has a flair for design – hosting trunk shows in London, Paris, and Ibiza, among other places. She has built her reputation on cruelty- free, luxury items constructed with natural products.

After a decade-long journey, Green today is the mother of two young girls who have opened her heart and mind. She began to use design as a way to teach them about being mindful of the planet and its inhabitants.

KNOW THAT THE SAME SPARK OF LIFE THAT IS WITHIN YOU IS WITHIN ALL OF OUR ANIMAL FRIENDS." – AMY GREEN

PHILANTHROPIST, MOTHER, DESIGNER

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“I’ve had this passion ever since I was a young girl,” Green said. “I’ve always been working for animal organizations, protecting animals of all sorts… I’ve always had a firm belief in not destroying life for material things. I love fashion, but there’s a way to do it that doesn’t harm animals. I think today we forget how many wonderful natural resources we have. Designers are starting to get on board, but it’s taken a long time.”

Green is a natural fit for the ELYSIAN Circle, praising our signature CatWalk FurBaby event that marries fashion with philanthropy to support animal rescues across the world.

Her new line – Giada, named after her oldest daughter – will launch in Aspen in February with a series of faux leather shearling vests for mommy and daughter. Her products use raw materials such as bamboo, sugar cane, pineapple leaf, apple skin, cork and tree bark that remarkably replicate real leather.

She says her designs embody what it means to feel beautiful in our own skin and feel good about the choices we make.

“When I look into the eyes of an animal, I do not see an animal. I see a living being. I see a friend I share this planet with,” she said. “It feels so good to know that I can help every woman look and feel gorgeous without harming our beautiful world and the amazing creatures that live among us.”

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eady, Set… Jet!

Want all the benefits of a private luxury jet without the headache of owning, maintaining and storing it in a hanger?

Scottsdale, Arizona-based Set Jet allows you to buy a seat, not the jet. The membership-based luxury private jet charter company services some of the West Coast’s most frequently traveled destinations, including Cabo San Lucas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Scottsdale and, as of this summer, Aspen, Colorado. Future expansion plans call for adding the Texas market, New York, Miami and West Palm Beach – and beyond that, Europe and the Middle East.

Set Jet CEO Tim Smith got his pilot’s license in 1985 and has always had a passion for aviation. Over the years, he began to wrestle with how someone who doesn’t want to spend millions on buying their own jet can still have that experience at a cost comparable to first-class commercial ticket. He and his team have been conceptualizing Set Jet for over 20 years.

“Millennials and Gen Z have greatly shifted the perspective on leisure travel for all generations and their markets.

They truly live up to the adage, ‘It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.’ We’re seeing an uptick in the value of luxurious travel experiences and the desire travelers have to start their vacation clocks as soon as they begin their travel,” Smith said.

“We’re proud to not only offer an incredible travel experience to our members, but also what we call ‘a community in the sky’ – a network of affluent business owners, CEOs, entrepreneurs, jet setters, and celebrities where they build lasting relationships. We certainly underestimated the value of networking in this space when we started Set Jet, and our members truly enjoy traveling with like-minded individuals where there’s a story in every seat.”

Since its inaugural flight in December 2019, Set Jet has flown more than 33,000 passengers on more than 6,300 flights on its exclusive fleet of Bombardier Challenger 850 aircraft, providing an ultra-luxurious flying experience.

Each aircraft carries 13 to 16 passengers.

Prospective members are asked to complete an application at https://setjet.com and pay a one-time security check fee of $99.95. The monthly membership fee is $99.95, and domestic flights start at $750 one-way; international flights start at $1,550. More than 5,200 members have joined so far.

Set Jet makes air travel stress-free. Members praise the ease and comfort of traveling, the convenience of getting on and off the plane, the spacious seating, and the hospitality and professionalism of its staff.

Pets are welcome on Set Jet flights, with no added fees for furry friends under 20 pounds.

“Set Jet’s revolutionary new approach to facilitating private jet travel allows our members to enjoy the journey without the inconveniences of advanced notice for booking flights, price premiums for last-minute travel, excessive time allowance for traveling through airports, extensive check-in requirements, security delays, parking expenses, and even dynamic pricing,” Smith said.

“Whether you book your seat four months in advance or an hour before departure, your seat costs will always remain the same.”

back story

T

he National Arts Club in bustling New York City was the perfect setting to reveal the fall cover of the ELYSIAN 2023 Art Issue, featuring the enigmatic, beautiful, and talented Dr. Christina Rahm. The club represents the essence of America’s rich art tradition, and its long history of including women as equal members goes back to its founding in 1898.

Our fall issue also celebrates the designers, models, and charities who made the inaugural CatWalk FurBaby a success earlier this year. It was a privilege to have many of these same participants join us in New York to mark the milestone of our CatWalk FurBaby documentary winning Best Fashion Documentary at the New York City International Fashion Film Festival. ■

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Top row, from left: Lizzie Asher and Brigitte Segera; Ashley Fosterand Rich Kane; Amy Williams and Tammy Kovar; Sheri Biggs, Ann Bible; Jordan Byrd; Jimmy and Ann Hunt. • Second row, from left: Sarah Smith, Ben Powell, Shannon Powell, Ann Bible, Thomas F. Batson; ELYSIAN Publisher CEO/Founder Karen Floyd and Sarah Smith reveal the cover of the Atumn 2023 issue; Dylan Craven, Aleah Harris, Rikki Harris, Duquesne Cook. • Third row, from left: Carla B. Groh, owner of Evey Fine Art in West Palm Beach; Jeffrey Bradford and Norah Lawlor: Vikki Scott and Tanya Ward; Karen Floyd and Edwina Sandys. • Bottom row, from left: Jean Shafiroff displays the Autumn issue of ELYSIAN; Duquesne Cook, Clayton Thomas, ELYSIAN cover model Dr. Christina Rahm, Patrick Moen, Ted Baker; Christiana Purves and Kayla Drury.

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