You need a strategy when the thermometer in Florence, Italy, creeps close to 100 and pedestrians hug the Renaissance buildings seeking a sliver of shade. These three gents attending the Pitti Uomo men’s wear fair — back in full force after two all-but-furloughed years — found ways not only to stay cool, but also to…
Jerry Mitchell was a 32-year-old Broadway hoofer causing a sensation each night by dancing nearly naked in “The Will Rogers Follies” when he had an idea: To shake his bare bum for a good cause. It was 1992, near the height of the AIDS crisis. Mitchell recruited seven fit fellow dancers from other Broadway shows,…
Since 1986, American Girl dolls like Molly McIntire, recognizable by her braids and round glasses, and Josefina Montoya, dressed in a long red-and-blue skirt and moccasins, have transported children who played with them to Illinois during World War II or to what is now New Mexico, during the early 19th century. Books like “Samantha Helps…
My wife and I have been married for eight years. We’re in our 30s and have two children. I love her; she’s my best friend. Unfortunately, I made a big mistake: I got drunk at a conference last month and slept with another woman. I swear it was a one-time thing and meant nothing to…
Ty Sunderland was pacing, his head bent intently over his phone. It was 5:52 p.m., eight minutes before 500 guests were expected to board the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises boat where he was hosting a party on June 18, and the sound system had yet to be tuned. Mr. Sunderland, 32, a D.J. and event…
Next came the trip I made with my first boyfriend to Montreal. Three decades later, I recall that on that long-ago summer morning we proceeded north from Pittsfield in his Volkswagen, crossed the Canadian line and drove into the city. We climbed Mount Royal for a view of its namesake metropolis and wandered through the…
Everybody has a personal Elvis. He is there for us all, lodged in the collective unconscious, one of few humans who can legitimately be termed an icon, although it is not always certain of what. There is musical Elvis and race-reckoning Elvis and sex symbol Elvis and Las Vegas Elvis and Mississippi Elvis and rockabilly…
When a new Yves Saint Laurent perfume came out in 2001, Tom Ford, the creative director of the house at the time, threw a sensational party at the Paris Stock Exchange, where he put a gaggle of practically nude models on display in a giant plexiglass container. The fragrance was called Nu, French for “nude.”…
Speaker Nancy Pelosi had just urged Brown University graduates to stay resilient and summon their “better angels” on Memorial Day weekend when she was forced to turn her attention to a less uplifting situation: her husband’s arrest in California. The details emerging from the incident were not especially flattering. The night before, May 28, Paul…
MILAN — Conjuring the pleasures of being “well, but simply, dressed” is how Brunello Cucinelli describes a design brief that has turned him, the son of an Umbrian farmer, into a self-made billionaire. It goes without saying that simplicity at the Cucinelli level does not come cheap. For an impeccably tailored cotton Cucinelli blazer —…