With last night marking the end of award season, celebrities and fashion insiders were in a celebratory spirit, which translated into posting up a storm on Instagram. From a close-up of Daisy Ridley's stunning Chanel gown to candid after-party fun, these are our favorite Instagrams from the night. Keep scrolling to see them all!
MILAN — It was 9:30 p.m. on a chilly Sunday in an industrial area on the outskirts of Milan, and rain had been pounding down for 48 hours. The Missoni show had just ended, and Angela Missoni, the brand's creative director, was welcoming around 120 guests for supper.
"We are a family business, and we have been built upon decades of family dinners," she said as the restaurant space in a converted warehouse near the Fondazione Prada swelled with guests, all kissing one another and erupting in loud, happy chatter. "So I wouldn't have this celebration any other way ."
Mountains of melt-in-the-mouth antipasti lined a wall of each room, with slightly heavier dishes — pasta bowls, roast lamb and artichoke soufflé — passed around by smiling young waiters. Gallons of prosecco and crisp white Italian wines sat in giant ice buckets kept discreetly in corners.
Photo The after-party scene. Credit Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times"You should have seen this place hours earlier," Ms. Missoni said, laughing. "The rain was dripping down onto the buffet tables — and onto my catwalk over at the show venue. At one point, I was trying to convince myself that colorful reflections from all the big puddles of water would be a nice addition to the night."
She continued: "But I am a problem solver, always have been. That's my job in this family, I think. We each have our own role. But we are all unanimous about what tonight has to be about: enjoyment and informality. This is just what we do."
Until last year, the Missoni dinner had been held in the famil y apartment in the heart of Milan, but security required a change in venue as the party numbers swelled, one guest said. Still, the company had done its best to recreate the original, welcoming ambience.
Each of the large, spacious rooms was bathed in warm light from candles in the shape of large balls of yarn, with dozens of statement sofas dotted around and surrounded by expansive bouquets of flowers in signature Missoni hues — magenta pinks and burned oranges — not to mention a small army of actual Missonis, all wearing the brand's signature knits.
Photo Rosita Missoni, left, who founded the brand with her husband, and guests. Credit Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York TimesMs. Missoni's daughter, Margherita, who recently introduced her own children's wear line, was holding court in one corner, while her son Francesco was chatting in another, his English bulldog, Johnny, waddling among the guests as he had during the show.
Ottavio Missoni Jr., the brand's sales director for North American operations — the son of Vittorio, Ms. Missoni's brother, who had been the brand's marketing director until his death in a 2013 plane crash — held a glass of red wine in one hand and a bowl of ravioli in the other. Rosita Missoni, 84, who founded the company with her husband (also named Ottavio) in 1953, questioned a barman at length about the contents of her fresh-ginger cocktail.
"My grandmother is so Italian; she always insists that the food has to be as good as the food we eat in her kitchen, near the factory, and she makes sure of it, too," Mr. Missoni said. "Nothing will stop her. Sharing meals all together — with her at our center — is still the beating heart of this family."
While we're huge proponents of shopping online from the comfort of home, the big drawback is that without being able to try a purchase on, there's a sizable chance that it won't fit. And we're all familiar with the excitement of getting a package in the mail followed by the sad face staring back at us in the mirror when a new highly-anticipated purchase doesn't fit. With the size variations among clothing and shoe brands and styles, it's not unusual to feel perplexed when placing an order, especially if it's a brand that you haven't tried before. But alas, we have a handful of solutions that will make you a smarter online shopper and likely lessen the chances of having to make a return or exhange.
Scroll down to see our tips for choosing the right size, and to shop cool pieces from a few sites with easy, free returns!
It may not be the trend you expected, but socks are back in a major way in 2016. Fashion girls are getting cheeky with their choices, flaunting pairs with sparkles, bold prints, and lace details. Styled with simple sneakers or an eye-catching pair of heels, these accessories add something special to any outfit.
Check out some major inspiration below, and then shop a few of our favorite pairs!
The most intriguing stars seem to appear from out of nowhere.
Take Lupita Nyong'o, the Mexican-Kenyan actress who had not even graduated from Yale School of Drama before landing her star-making role as Patsey in "12 Years a Slave," for which she won an Academy Award for best supporting actress in 2014.
Or Trevor Noah, the comedian from Johannesburg, who had appeared on "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central a scant three times before being named Jon Stewart's successor last March.
Ms. Nyong'o, 32, has since appeared in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and lent her voice to "The Jungle Book," which will open in April. She has also acted on stage in an Off Broadway production of "Eclipsed," about the struggles of a group of women during the Liberian Civil War. ("Eclipsed" will open on Broadway next month.) Ms. Nyong'o quickly became a fashion darling, too, as the first black face of Lancôme. She has appeared on the cover of Vogue twice.
Before taking the reins of "The Daily Show" in September, Mr. Noah, also 32, had hosted a number of television and radio programs in South Africa, starred in several comedy specials and toured widely as a stand-up comedian. He was the first South African comic to appear on "The Tonight Show" (2012) and "Late Show With David Letterman" (2013).
Photo Ms. Nyong'o, in 2014, accepting her Oscar for "12 Years a Slave." Credit Lucy Nicholson/ReutersThe pair met recently for brunch at the Dutch in SoHo. Over beet salads and a cheese omelet (for Ms. Nyong'o) and a bagel with smoked salmon (for Mr. Noah), they discussed the subtler challenges of diversity, childhoods lived under oppressive governments and a new spin on "The Ugly Ducking."
Philip Galanes: Let's start with #OscarsSoWhite, since we have the last actor of color to win one.
Trevor Noah: He makes you sound like an endangered species.
PG: Isn't she? There hasn't been an acting nominee of color in two years.
TN: But as a Hollywood outsider, can I say that asking, "Whose stories are being told?" is a cop-out. Look at the history that's being taught. People of color have a limited berth in those stories. To a certain extent, we all went through the same thing.
PG: Enslavement?
Lupta Nyong'o: In a film like "12 Years a Slave," race is of the utmost importance. But there are stories outside the race narrative that everyone can participate in. But we don't. It's about expanding our imagination about who can play the starry-eyed one.
TN : Exactly!
LN: We also have to ask ourselves what merits Oscar prestige. Often, they're period stories. And for people of color, they end up being about slavery or civil rights. A blockbuster won't do it. Do I have to be in a big Elizabethan gown?
Continue reading the main storyTN: It's always been a joke about the Oscars: If you want to win, lose weight, gain weight or get ugly, like Matthew McConaughey in "Dallas Buyers Club" or Charlize Theron in "Monster."
LN: Those big leaps of courage.
PG: But even those films were based on true stories.
LN: "True" is a definite advantage.
TN: But also a limitation. We have to keep going back to Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. My qu estion is: Can't we remove "true story" and go for "amazing story"?
PG: But wouldn't there still be barriers to diversity? I bet when Lupita told her theater producers that she wanted to do "Eclipsed," a play about victimized women in Africa, no one yelled hurray.
LN: There'd been talk of bringing that play to New York since 2009, when I understudied in it at Yale. But Lynn Nottage's play "Ruined" was on then. And there was a feeling that there wasn't room for two plays about Africa and war to exist at the same time.
TN: God, that's weird.
LN: I had never seen five African women on stage telling their story — ever! It's so specific that it captures the universal. I was obstinate about doing it. And when the "12 Years" whirlwind hit, people started to approach me. And the Public Theater took me up on doing it.
Continue reading the main storyPG: So powerful people — like Oscar winners — can make diversity.
LN: I'm hardly a powerful person.
PG: If you say so. This reminds me of the contretemps at "The Daily Show" before Jon Stewart left — about the lack of diversity on the writing staff. Have you been working on that?
TN: When it comes to diversifying, I had never realized how ingrained people's mentality can be. It's not even conscious. When I was looking for new people to try on the show, the network sent out all their tentacles. And people se nt in audition tapes. And 95 percent of them were white and male. I was like: Does nobody else want to be a part of this show? Does nobody else even want a job?
PG: What did you do?
TN: I said, "I want more diversity." And they said, "But this is what we're getting." So I said, "Then I will go out and look for it in the street."
LN: However they were reaching out was not reaching into diverse communities.
TN: So I went to all the young comedians I knew — black, Hispanic, female, whatever — and I said, "Are you interested?" And they all said: "Are you crazy? Of course, I'm interested." So I asked, "Why didn't you audition?" And they said, "We didn't know about it." But they told me they'd sent it out to all the agents and managers. And they all went: "Oh, that's where you made the mistake. We can't get agents or managers." We can say we want diversity, but there's this little roadblock that no one tells you about.
LN: The gatekeepers.
Photo Mr. Noah became host of "The Daily Show" last September. Credit Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy CentralPG: The employer may not be racist, but the institution still is.
LN: We're at this interesting moment when prejudice is in the subconscious a lot of the time. Where prejudice occurs before you've even had a conscious thought. The laws have changed, but now the battle is with the mind. And that's much harder to get to.
TN: Especially when people feel attacked. People are always asking me, "Why aren't you angry?" Because I grew up in a world where being an angry black person got you nowhere. It got you shot or arrested. There's a place for anger, but you can get so much further with diplomacy and empathy. You have to feel for the other person, even if you think they're completely wrong. And they think the same about you.
PG: But it seems unfair: being discriminated against and having to point it out gently.
TN: Freedom is hard work.
LN: And change only comes when the conversation is happening in all forms at all times. Not just one tactic is going to do it. It's got to be a convergence.
PG: Not like the way we only talk about #OscarsSoWhite in February? Or gun violence after a mass shooting?
TN: That's a function of the way we consume information. The media needs to move on or people won't click. When I talk to journalists about how they get rated now, it's not how good they are, it's how many people click on their stories. You can't write about an important issue every day because people will click on it less and less. It's, what's next?
LN: And sensation sells.
Continue reading the main storyTN: But you know the irony of #OscarsSoWhite? If you were talking with two white people, they would get to discuss their achievements, their hopes and dreams, maybe a passion project. But we can't not talk about the Oscars, or we get, "Don't you care?" But if we do, we get, "Is that all you talk about?" It's a vicious cycle.
LN: I feel like clapping and singing right now! You said that just right. It cuts down on human experience.
PG: Then let's turn to your work: In "12 Years" and "Eclipsed," you played characters that were truly pitiable. But I never pitied them; you took me someplace else.
LN: What attracted me to both projects was the agency of those characters. At first glance, they look like victims. But the writing offers them complexity. They're deep. They have likes, strong dislikes, needs, fears. And as an actor, I'm always looking for that. Those are the things I need to hook onto. Because sympathy is not nearly as interesting as empathy. There's so much more to learn by stepping into someone's shoes than by saying "poor you" from a safe distance.
PG: It's the same in comedy. You say some awful things, but we're right there with you. Is it the laughter?
TN: It's the reason doctors use laughing gas. It's your body protecting you.
LN: From the pain.
TN: You laugh until you cry. People understand that once you step into a comic space, there is complete honesty — without judgment. And there are fewer and fewer places where we can be honest without repercussion. People are afraid of being attacked for their opinions. But what comedy does is bring us together: "Here's the truth. Here's how I feel." And all of a sudden, you feel the audience going: "Yes, yes. I thought I was the only one."
PG: Growing up under apartheid, were you in a big rush to tell the truth?
Continue reading the main storyTN: Not really. We just love making people laugh. It's an African thing: sitting around, talking as much trash as you can, getting people to laugh hard.
PG: But, Trevor, you had an extreme setup: a black mother and a white father who weren't allowed to mix — legally.
TN: My story isn't a pity story. It wasn't a world of pity. We were in our lives.
LN: That's the way you preserve your dignity.
TN: I thought I was lucky because I knew who my dad was. I knew kids who didn't know their dad. True, I didn't have access to him, but I knew how he felt. My mom was like: "Jesus didn't have his dad, either. You have a stepdad." People always make it seem like there's one experience that's the gold standard to aim for. I didn't grow up that way.
LN: Neither did I. I think it came from watching TV from around the world. I knew there was my way and all the other ways.
TN: Did you ever see kids running upstairs in sitcoms and wonder what that was like?
LN: What I loved was when they walked in the front door and took off their coats. I loved those coats.
TN: Coats and stairs. I couldn't believe a second floor was a real thing.
Photo Ms. Nyong'o has added stage credits; Mr. Noah is diversifying a writing staff. Credit Malin Fezehai for The New York TimesPG: You were born in Mexico, Lupita, while your family was in political exile. You all went back to Kenya when you were a baby. But was there a lingering fear?
LN: My parents shielded us from a lot. It would be dangerous for us to know things because then we could be a target. So they raised us with a semblance of normalcy. There were times when we were under house arrest and couldn't go to school. I knew we were in a different situation than my friends.
PG: How did you just say that like it wasn't a big deal?
LN: Even when things were out of sorts, my mother ran the house like always. You were in that bathtub at 6; you were in bed at 7. I remember my father being gone for long stretches when he was under house arrest. But I was optimistic enough to hold onto my mother's saying, "He'll be back." I wasn't allowed to lean into it.
TN: One of the best things I ever learned was boxing. My trainer kept drilling into me: "Understand that I'm going to hit you in the face. You can't get angry about it because then you'll stop thinking rationally. I'm not trying to hurt you; I'm trying to win." It's a fantastic mind game. You have to think.
LN: You can't let your emotions get the better of you. And if you're on a winning streak, the last thing you want to do is pat yourself on the back.
TN: Not too happy, not too sad.
PG: But you're both describing a world where you control your emotions. How about when your feelings get hurt or you feel jealous?
TN: Then you work harder.
Photo Ms. Nyong'o and Mr. Noah discuss diversity, political oppression and #OscarsSoWhite. Credit Malin Fezehai for The New York TimesLN: And we have a creative outlet. I get to be a drama queen when I'm acting, so I can take a break from that in my life.
TN: Comedy is literally my therapy. I can get onstage and tell my deepest, darkest secret. And not only do I not feel like I've overshared, the audience doesn't judge me for it. Because someone in the audience is going, "Yeah, that happened to me, too."
PG: Let's end with something surreal: You were not considered beautiful as children.
TN: God, no! I was the most nerdy, strange-looking kid. Big f eet, ears sticking out. No question of girls. There was no question of asking one to the prom.
LN: I got stood up at my prom. He didn't show up.
PG: And not beautiful?
LN: I was always confident, but I shed my tears. They told me I was too dark for TV. But I came to accept myself. And a lot of that had to do with Alek Wek, the way she was embraced by the modeling industry. Oprah telling her how beautiful she was. I was like, "What is going on here?" It was very powerful. Something in my subconscious shifted. That's why this conversation is so important — because it burns possibility into people's minds.
TN: I wish I could rewrite "The Ugly Duckling." Because after the ugly duckling becomes a swan, people go around dumping on the swan, saying, "Oh, you swan, you don't know what it's like to be an ugly duckling."
LN: I used to be teased and teased. They called me whack mamba, awful names.
TN: Now they act like we've had it easy all our lives. I can't help that my face fixed itself.
LN: You know what I gained? Compliments never grow old. They're delightful every time.
During the '90s, Kate Moss was the woman who inspired the world to take the slip outside of the bedroom. But in 2016, a new group of style stars is reinventing the slinky staple once again, transforming it from a nighttime-only piece to something you can actually wear during the day. Paired with simple shirts, cozy toppers, and laid-back accessories, the slip finally feels appropriate around the clock. Read on for some major inspiration for taking your slip to the streets then shop a few of our favorites!
My first serious relationship ended a week before I started my summer job at the zoo. Every morning as I drove my parents' Toyota to work, I'd put on a Dar Williams CD and cry. I felt as tragic as it was possible to feel while wearing an oversize blue T-shirt with gorillas printed on the front.
I had taken the job not because I wanted to work with animals but because I needed money and liked children. As a counselor at the zoo's day camp for precocious animal-lovers ages 6 to 12, I spent most of my time mediating disputes over popular crayon colors, assuring anxious parents about peanut allergies, and asking my campers, "Is it an emergency?" in a voice that carried the proper ring of adult authority.
The job also brought me — a bookish, city kid — closer than ever before to nature. Much of nature, I learned, was disgusting. I had to learn to do demonstrations with pythons, a tarantula and a Madagascan hissing cockroach the size of my palm. As I held each alien-textured animal in my bare hands, proffering it for the children to touch ("Gently, please, gently!"), I masked my unease. All creatures, adorable or nasty, deserved our interest, did they not? Couldn't they all inspire wonder?
Continue reading the main storyOur classroom bordered the silverback gorilla exhibit, separated only by a glass partition. When the children arrived the first day, a heavy curtain obscured it. During lunch, one of us counselors would slowly draw the curtain back and watch as the expansive-looking gorilla "habitat" revealed itself.
Once the children noticed what was happening they would rush to the window, abandoning their juice boxes and carrot sticks, and press their hands and faces against the glass. Sometimes the gorillas went indifferently about their business. Other times they hammed it up, doing tricks or putting their palms against the children's, prison-visit style.
There was a new baby gorilla that summer, and once I saw the father lie on his back and airplane the baby above him, balancing its stomach on his wide flat feet. My heart caught, watching them. In a way I couldn't explain, observing this recognizable human gesture made me feel a little less alone.
My boyfriend and I had fallen in love in high school and stayed together through freshman year of college. We went to different schools, five hours apart. I chose to study literature at an Ivy League university I couldn't really afford, while he went the more practical route of studying engineering at a state school.
He sometimes joked, with a cautious bitterness, about the new life I was building for myself with my "int ellectual" friends. "Those guys in the bathroom were discussing Aristotle," he said while visiting my dorm, "while brushing their teeth!"
I wasn't worried. I loved his masculine groundedness, his unshowy integrity. I couldn't imagine exchanging him for one of the effete, pretentious, loud-voiced boys in my philosophy seminars.
But when we returned to our hometown for the summer, I discovered that I felt utterly lonely around him, even — especially when he was being loving toward me. It was a terrifying kind of loneliness I hadn't experienced before.
Why did I suddenly feel mute and const ricted around this person I adored? It wasn't that I wanted to talk about Aristotle all the time; it was that I didn't know how to talk about anything we hadn't talked about already. We paced the same steps, over and over, as if caged. Nothing helped.
Leaving him was like cutting off part of my body, but doing so felt necessary to survive. I never doubted the decision to break up, but sometimes I felt feral with grief. The Dar Williams line that most frequently dampened the blue sleeve of my gorilla T-shirt was: "I'm resolved to being born, and so resigned to bravery."
The zoo required bravery of a different kind. I knew the python wouldn't hurt me, but it still felt threatening in my arms, a cable of squirmy muscle with teeth at one end. Every ti me I touched the cockroach I told myself, "This being will not hurt or invade you."
But soon I lost my fear of both animals and even began to feel a kind of kinship with them. There was something hard and private about them that appealed to me, something I could relate to — in the cockroach's brittle exterior, the python's restless wiggle, the spider's defensive crouch. The snake, like me, had to shed things to stay alive. My breakup might have taught me a new variety of loneliness, but here was a new kind of connection, silent and perhaps entirely imagined, but a connection nonetheless.
This was what it meant to leave a comfortable shelter: You had to encounter everything. My boyfriend had given me the kind of absolute, totalizing love whose rarity I now fully appreciate. When we were apart that first year of college, I had felt confident, buoyed by his faith in me, free to explore.
Then that all-encompassing love had come to feel like confinement. I needed something spikier, more difficult, less certain. That's how I started to explain it to myself, anyway, this decision to exile myself from a dependable source of nourishment. On my own, uncertain of the new terrain, I would have to apprentice myself to other, riskier kinds of connection.
I had no idea how. People seemed, more than ever, like just another species of animal, and I was unsure of my place among them. In the group of 10 zoo camp counselors there was a definite alpha male, tall and blond and a bit of a jerk. It helped my heartache to imagine him yanking me into the snack closet and asserting his silverback privilege.
There was also a girl who loved to flash us her nipple rings (a form of peacocking?) and one who claimed to enjoy tongue-kissing her dog (no classification for that one). None resembled my other friends or anyone else I knew, but I found myself going out with them after work for dinner or dancing, one time ending up at the pied-à-terre of a counselor's suburban parents to watch a pornographic movie. ("You'll like it, Amy," she said to me, "because it has a lot of plot.")
Even though the movie was relatively classy — it was set in 18th-century France and the actors wore powdered wigs and had sex on top of grand pianos — I couldn't help thinking about the gorillas and lions, the matter-of-fact ways they mounted each other, and the ways in which it was all so different and yet so much the same.
I couldn't help watching us watching it, too. Half the group had a crush on the other half, and each of us sported a different form of camouflage, of plumage. Some of us affected a studied indifference to the sexual images and some blushed, and some tried to mask the hidden bent of our sexuality by crowing over scenes that could not possibly have interested us.
We were all so flamboyant, so fumbling. The next day, watching through the glass as the gorillas messed around with each other, I realized I had begun to take myself and my pain a bit less seriously. I was just an animal like any other, rooting around for nourishment, seeking a new habitat when my old one had become depleted. Unlike these gorillas stuck behind glass, I would get to move on.
And I have. I don't like zoos anymore. The last time I visited one, a decade after my summer at the camp, I thought the animals all looked like William S. Burroughs: simultaneously jumpy and depressed, as if they were mumbling dark pronouncements under their breath and might shoot each other for laughs if given the chance.
Maybe, having come to appreciate wildness over the years, its values and its dangers, I could only see in those animals a confinement they had not chosen. I, meanwhile, have been able to select and shed habitats. I have fallen freely in and out of love, again and again.
No subsequent love of mine has ever felt as inn ocently sure and safe as the one I left behind that summer, and some part of me still mourns that loss. But each new love has expanded my sense of what I might encounter, what I might claim. It seems to me that freedom is both its own lesson and reward, and I have come to accept and even to welcome the rawness that change brings, the sting of new skin meeting the world.
The zoo, in retrospect, seems like the perfect place to learn that if you're going to outgrow your old self anyway, you may as well learn to value alien experience, to not recoil from new sensations, and to respond with supple curiosity, not rigid fear, when some scaly or feathered gift crawls into your open palm.
Have you ever wondered why those two-tone Chanel pumps that everyone has been wearing lately are so flattering? Or what piece Coco Chanel wouldn't go to work without wearing? Or what inspired her to create the very first tweed jacket? You can find all of that out and more thanks to the short video below that Chanel released this week, "The Vocabulary of Fashion." Given its long history, there are a number of classic trademarks of the fashion house, and there's a fascinating reason or story behind all of them. Click below to watch the fashionably educational video!
MILAN — Proceedings kick off bright and early on Thursday with the 9:30 a.m. show by Max Mara, an Italian label long known for its steadiness, reliability and sartorial conservatism, which, as of late, has been trying to move beyond that reputation. From there, it is on to Costume National and then to Fendi at 12:30 p.m., where Karl Lagerfeld will, no doubt, offer up lashings of leather and fur for its latest fall extravaganza.
After a quick pick-me-up espresso or three (the fashion week version of lunch), and a flurry of accessories appointments around town, it will be time for Emilio Pucci and a second collection from its Bright Young Thing designer, Massimo Giorgetti. Mr. Giorgetti, formerly of MSGM, made waves with his debut collection shown last fall, packing it with multicolored sequins, fluffy sandals and geek-chic glasses while staying true to the brand's heritage — think quirky modernist shapes and eye-popping prints. Let's see what he comes up with next.
Come 6 p.m., it is Prada's time to shine, and the pressure is mounting on one of the biggest luxury houses in Milan. The show comes weeks after the company reported a second year of flatline sales, hurt by a slowdown in China, a strong American dollar and the November terrorist attacks in Paris. Can Miuccia Prada pull it out of the bag?
A prosecco pit stop is next at Pomellato, which calls itself the world's first prêt-à-porter jewelry brand. It is hosting an interactive presentation at Bar Jamaica (perhaps there will be takeaway sparklers?). And the day ends with Jeremy Scott, fresh from showing his own collection this month in New York, as he unveils his latest flashy and unashamedly trashy offerings for Moschino at 8 p.m.
You can learn a lot about yourself based on your lingerie drawer. The bras you choose spell out what you find sexy, and, more important, comfortable. But no matter if a demi or sports bra is more your style, taking care of your intimates is crucial, and no one knows this better than a Victoria's Secret model.
So when Martha Hunt stopped by our office to talk about the new Body by Victoria collection, we jumped at the chance to ask her for some organizational tips. "I tuck them one in front of the other," she said. "Never overstuff them, because it's very important to take care of your bras. You don't want them falling out of your drawers." And to avoid having a mad tangle in your drawers, "make sure to fasten the clips in the back so they don't snag."
Martha also shared tips for cleaning your bras, including the fact that when it comes to intimates, the dryer is not your friend. "It's good to hand-wash your bras, but if you don't have the time, you can wash them and then lay them flat to dry. You want to take really good care of your bras. They're the main thing touching your body, and they can't fall apart."
Read on to check out Martha modeling and to shop a few of the bras from the new Body by Victoria collection!
And so to Milan, where a jam-packed week of shows begin Wednesday afternoon with a new collection from Alessandro Michele for Gucci, the onetime accessories designer hailed as the man with the Midas touch for his role in a turnaround of fortunes for the Italian luxury powerhouse owned by Kering.
The fashion elite has applauded his romantic, eclectic styles — as have customers, judging by the latest sales figures — so all eyes will be on Mr. Michele com e 2:30 p.m. to see what he delivers this time. After the blockbuster curtain raiser comes Fay at 3:30 p.m., then, an hour later, a parade of floaty femininity from Alberta Ferretti.
At 6:30 p.m., Fausto Puglisi, the flamboyant Italian with an unabashed love for kitschy Americana, will show his label's latest offerings (he also is creative director of Ungaro, but that show isn't until March 4 in Paris). Afterward, there should just be time to get to the Palazzo Morando for the Next Talents cocktail reception for new designers, hosted by Franca Sozzani, editor of Vogue Italia, and Federico Marchetti, chief executive of the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group.
Then, rounding off the day is Roberto Cavalli, in a new 8:30 p.m. time slot. Peter Dundas will show his second collection for the house, just days after it announced it would be opening its first store in Iran.
Correction: February 24, 2016An earlier version of this article misstated the location of Roberto Cavalli's new store. It is to be in Iran, not Milan.
It's Tuesday, so you know what that means—it's time to talk shoes. Today's topic? Chanel-inspired shoes! To enable (and honor) our love for footwear, we've dedicated a weekly post to highlight and share our must-have picks! Be sure to come back every Tuesday to check out the week's featured style and shop the shoes sure to keep your wardrobe fresh and covetable.
Scroll down to shop our picks!
LONDON — London Fashion Week comes to an end on Tuesday, with the biggest buzz surrounding the noon show from Marques'Almeida, the 2015 winner of the LVMH Young Designer's Prize. The Portuguese pair, who are based in East London, have been making waves with their radical reinventions of denim in recent seasons, so all eyes will be on the brand.
Early birds will be drawn to the 10:30 a.m. presentation by Christopher Raeburn, who recently unveiled a collaboration with Woolmark, and then to the 11 a.m. show by Amanda Wakeley, the evening wear favorite of Chelsea ladies who lunch.
One of the afternoon slots, at 1:30, is taken by Ashley Williams, a much-hyped up-and-comer now stocked in both Selfridges in London and Colette in Paris. And with that, the fashion crowd decamps to Milan for Round 3.
Remember the front-row mantra: It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Recently, there has been one little stone having a major moment in the jewelry world, and we could not be more excited about it. Opals have been popping up in jewelry designers' collections left and right, and fashion superstars like Eva Chen have expressed their obsession with the gem as well.
Since we have high hopes that opals are making a comeback, we wanted to inform you of the trend so you can stay fashionable and ahead of the curve, per usual, by rounding up some some of the most adorable opal jewels found on necklaces, rings, and ear crawlers alike.
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LONDON — It took 15 years, but Alexander McQueen the brand finally came home.
On Sunday, more than a decade after Mr. McQueen the designer traded London for Paris as a show setting; his status as a wildly talented, personally complicated boy from the East End for membership in a luxury conglomerate (Kering); and six years after he killed himself, and Sarah Burton, his longtime No. 2, became creative director (and the Duchess of Cambridge became a loyal client), Ms. Burton returned to the R oyal Horticultural Halls in Westminster, the site of Mr. McQueen's spring 1997 show La Poupée, which also happened to be the first show she worked on for the brand, when she was still at Central Saint Martins.
The symbolism was hard to ignore.
It took a pregnancy (Ms. Burton's third child is due in two weeks) and an imminent new fragrance launch to bring the collection back to the British capital, if only for one season. The result was a moment of grace. If there was less associated fanfare and drama than some might have desired, that was itself a reflection of how far the brand has come since it left (and, indeed, of how far the fashion industry, not traditionally sensitive to issues such as childbirth, has come) and of how much Ms. Burton has made it her own.
Continue reading the main story Slide Show Alexander McQueen: Fall 2016 RTWCreditGuillaume Roujas/Nowfashion
During the first McQueen show in this space, inspired by the German artist Hans Bellmer, the women sloshed through water, and a black model was shackled to a giant piece of jewelry. It inspired shock and protest as well as applause. This time around, the set was a simple wood floor, divided by misty curtains, and the idea, Ms. Burton said backstage, was to explore the dreamscapes between fantasy and nightmare, where beauty ends and vanity begins.
She did it via precisely tailored white tuxedo jackets over slick black trousers inset with lace on the side and buckled at multiple points around the legs; buttery black leather coats and dresses embroidered with butterflies or hand-painted with roses, the aggression leeched out ; filigree knit lace dresses and satin bed jackets trimmed in marabou reminiscent of Jean Harlow. There was also a series of evermore elaborate chiffon and tulle gowns, the fabric like a wisp of memory under the embroidery, replete with references to the moon and the stars, unicorns and time, moths, eyes, fish — the characters and objects that live behind our eyelids.
"A tender spirit finds light in the darkness," the show notes said, and it was a fair (if implicit) description of the evolution of McQueen under Ms. Burton. What was sharp and seductive in its pain and triumph has become softer and more forgiving. Which does not mean it is any less tempting.
Indeed, in a season of rumors, one of the strongest is that Christian Dior, whi ch has been without a designer since Raf Simons resigned in October, is courting Ms. Burton. Judging by this show, you can understand why.
But: "I don't listen to rumors," she said backstage, shaking her head. "I can't." Besides, before Paris intrigue comes maternity leave. It's the right order.
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LONDON — "I have always liked a challenge," said Johnny Coca, the new creative director of Mulberry, as he sipped a green tea last week, deep in the heart of the brand's headquarters on Kensington Church Street here.
It's lucky he feels that way. Mulberry is in the midst of one of the biggest turnaround efforts in British fashion history. Mr. Coca's first mainline collection, to be unveiled Sunday at London Fashion Week, is also the brand's first major show in 30 months, after facing a share-price collapse and a string of unfashionable profit warnings.
The worlds of fashion and finance are both looking at the 40-year-old Mr. Coca, the brand's creative director since July, to see what he can deliver.
"Five years ago, two British luxury labels ruled the roost: Burberry and then Mulberry, its cooler, quirkier and less intimidating little sister," said Richard Gray, the Sunday Times Style magazine fashion director.
"It had carved out a distinct and lucrative identity for itself before it all went horribly wrong," Mr. Gray said. "It will be a very big ask to get Mulberry back to the position it had in the handbag market before. Two and a half years out of the game in the fashion world is a very long, long time."
Continue reading the main storyDespite the mounting pressure surrounding his debut, Mr. Coca, the onetime LVMH wunderkind, appeared sanguine.
"I'm not nervous," Mr. Coca said, resplendent in a black and white kilt, oversize knit, large silver hoops and spectacles. "I don't get nervous. It's important that I stay calm, both for me and my team."
Still, he was not an obvious choice for the role. Mr. Coca, a diminutive Spaniard with a shy yet relentlessly cheerful mien, was educated in Paris at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and École Boulle, and began his career designing store windows for Louis Vuitton.
Then came stints in the design studios at Bally and most recently Céline, where he was in charge of accessories, and created such "it" bags as the "trapeze," garnering a reputation as a behind-the-scenes hitmaker.
Mulberry will mark not just Mr. Coca's first step into the spotlight, but also his first venture into ready-to-wear. And though other accessory designers have successfully made the transition (Alessandro Michele at Gucci, for example, and Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri at Valentino), success is not guaranteed.
"The truth is that sometimes I like to take risks and to push myself," Mr. Coca said. "I don't always want to work in a company where there is no improvement to be done and where everyone is on cruise control. I don't see myself as a star. But I do like the process of making things right."
Mulberry was founded in 1971 in Somerset, where it still has its two factories. It has endured a stormy few years.
Five years ago, the fortunes of Mulberry, Britain's largest luxury leather-goods manufacturer, were buoyed by booming sales of its high-quality accessories at accessible luxury prices, bags swinging from the arms of a cool coterie of British "it" girls. The oversize Bayswater tote, favored by Kate Moss, became a fashion status symbol, while the Alexa satchel — named after th e model and TV presenter Alexa Chung — was a runaway best seller.
But a disastrous push upmarket led by Bruno Guillon, a new chief executive from the French luxury house Hermès, began in 2012. The company cut out wholesalers, rolled out flashy flagship stores and hiked prices, alienating its core customer base, particularly in its crucial domestic market.
The creative director Emma Hill quit in 2013, sales collapsed and Mulberry was forced to repeatedly issue profit warnings before parting company with Mr. Guillon.
"They got stuck in the middle: too expensive for their former clients, not credible enough for the clients they aspired to," wrote Luca Solca, chief lu xury goods analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, in a report after Mr. Guillon was ousted. "What a pity Mulberry went on an overambitious journey to nowhere, while the accessible handbags market was booming."
After reversing the missteps, the chairman, Godfrey Davis, started looking for Mulberry's saviors, finding them (after a protracted search) in the form of Mr. Coca and the chief executive Thierry Andretta, the former chief executive of Lanvin and Buccellati, who arrived in March.
And the tide appears to be turning. In December, the company announced it had returned to profit, making £100,000 — or about $143,000 — in the half year to Sept. 30, 2015, versus a loss of £1.1 million (nearly $1.6 million) in the same period a year earlier.
"We know exactly what we need to do from this point on," Mr. Andretta said, "and I am positive that we will do it."
First moves are a revised retail price of £500 to £995 (about $717 to $1,425) for handbags, featuring both old favorites and new products, and a focus on the British market (which still constitutes over half its sales).
Last week, in a move that suggested Mulberry sees growth potential beyond its core product line, the company announced a new manufacturing and licensing deal with the Onward Luxury Group, a Japanese-controlled Italian-based company, for worldwide distribution of its ready-to-wear and footwear collections.< /p>
Lastly, digital platforms are a priority. Mulberry has been trailing snippets of the coming collection on Instagram and Snapchat in the run-up to its debut. As for Mr. Coca, he pointed to Britain's punk and rock scenes, weekends in the country and traditional floral prints as inspirations.
The coming collection, he said, would have a foundation in a strong and classic palette of khaki, navy, burgundy and black, with silhouettes occasionally broken by pops of bright orange and pink.
Florals would be a recurring theme, he said, as would signature military finishings and hardware, especially poppers, which would provide a dash of 1980s King's Road p unk attitude.
"It's about capturing an attitude that exists here, a fusion of tradition, modernity and underlying rebellion, that is palpable when you walk around," Mr. Coca said. He harked back to the original Mulberry logo and brand font after discovering it in the archives, a nod to both the company's '70s roots and its fresh start.
"I am not interested in change for change's sake," he said, "but I also want us to be distinguishable from the rest of the market. This is an important chance to prove that in my eyes, product does not have to be expensive to be luxurious. This is not couture. I am making products for people that they can use every day. If you understand the proportions and technicalities of accessories inside out, it will help you elsewhere and make you a success."
The truth of that statement will be put to the runway test on Sunday.
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At Chookie's Luncheonette in the 1950s, a teenage David Geffen used to hang out with his pals from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, drinking egg creams and gizmos, listening to Bobby Darin and Paul Anka on the jukebox.
Mr. Geffen, 73, who later became a billionaire mogul who championed Joni Mitchell and the Eagles and ran a Hollywood film studio with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, was a member of the high school drama club and served on the prom committee. Classmates predicted he would campaign for president in 1975. But his most memorable high school moment (or so he wrote in his 1960 senior yearbook) was as chairman of a talent competition.
Tony Visconti, a New Utrecht alumnus and a music producer who worked frequently with David Bowie, was the musical director of "Juniors de Paris," the revue produced by Mr. Geffen. "We were like the Beatles of New Utrecht," Mr. Visconti said. "We were a power team."
Mr. Geffen took care of the budget. "All $15 of it," Mr. Visconti said.
In those days, Mr. Geffen was besotted with show business and the idea of escaping to the Technicolor world of blue skies, beaches and gaudy homes he had seen in Hollywood depictions of California. He couldn't wait to get out of his home borough, he said in an interview he gave for a 2012 "American Masters" documentary, "Inventing David Geffen," and he said he left home the day he graduated from high school.
Photo David Geffen, with extensive ties gained through his years as a music and film executive, moves comfortably amid the stars. Mr. Geffen in West Hollywood, Calif., with Joni Mitchell in 1973. Credit Julian Wasser/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty ImagesNow, after decades spent amassing a $6.5 billion fortune (according to Forbes) as one of the most powerful moguls in Los Angeles, he has sold his house in Malibu (asking price: $100 million) and has come back to New York, where he is expected to give away a large chunk of his fortune.
Mr. Geffen is using his wealth to put his stamp on his home city, much as he did with the music business. He has come a long way from Borough Park, a mostly Italian and Jewish enclave where he lived with his family in a six-story brick apartment building on 15th Avenue.
In 1970, with his business partner Elliot Roberts, Mr. Geffen founded Asylum Records as a safe haven for the musicians he loved; in 1972, he sold it to Warner Communications. He was perhaps the quintessential baby-boom executive, with a casual style, in manner and dress, that matched the Southern California singer-songwriter scene and belied his ability to drive a hard bargain.
"Free Man in Paris," written and recorded by Joni Mitchell for her 1974 album "Court and Spark" (on the Asylum label), was a character sketch of Mr. Geffen in those years, and it captured him in all his contradictions.
In 1980, after an affair with Cher followed by his coming to terms with being gay, Mr. Geffen founded his second label, Geffen Records, which he sold a decade later for $550 million. He co-founded the film studio DreamWorks SKG in 1994. Mr. Geffen left that company for good in 2008, parting ways with his partners Mr. Spielberg a nd Mr. Katzenberg.
Photo From left, Cher, Mr. Geffen, Steve Rubell and Yves St. Laurent in New York in 1978. Credit Ron Galella/WireImageIn recent years he has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Los Angeles institutions that bear his name, among them the Museum of Contemporary Art Geffen Contemporary gallery and the David Geffen School of Medicine at U.C.L.A. He has also supported AIDS research. But with few ties to connect him emotionally to his adopted city anymore, he is shifting his gaze back to his familial home.
"David got bored with Los Angeles a long time ago," said Tina Brown, the magazine editor and a founder of The Daily Beast, who has known him 25 years.
Last year, before selling his beach-front home, Mr. Geffen sold the Malibu Beach Inn, the luxury hotel he bought in 2005, for almost $80 million. And while he owns a 10-acre estate in Beverly Hills that was commissioned by the movie mogul Jack L. Warner, he spends more time in New York or on his 453-foot yacht (reportedly one of the largest in the world), the Rising Sun.
Photo Quincy Jones, left, and Michael Jackson join Mr. Geffen at a party in Los Angeles in 1982. Credit Brad Elterman/FilmMagicWith no heirs to speak of, he has publicly pledged to give away his fortune. In September, New York began to see tangible results, when Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center became David Geffen Hall. The new name appears prominently in the plaza, the Univers typeface backlit in neon at night, above the main entrance.
The renaming resulted from Mr. Geffen's gift of $100 million, which will cover 20 percent of the estimated cost to renovate the symphony hall, which was built in 1962.
As a philanthropist, Mr. Geffen has shown the same dealmaking skill that served him well as he moved from the mailroom at the William Morris Agency to become a tycoon. In the Lincoln Center deal, he demanded that his name remain on the building in perpetuity. (Avery Fisher's name lasted 42 years, from the time of his $10.5 million donation in 1973 until the recent change. His heirs received $15 million from Lincoln Center to go away.)
"Like men of a certain age, he is looking at his legacy and how he will be remembered," said Diane von Furstenberg, a longtime friend. "There is a maturity when you re alize you are no longer mortal."
Photo Mr. Geffen, second from right, helps unveil David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. Credit Christopher Lane/Invision, via Associated PressMr. Geffen declined requests to be interviewed, saying in an email, "Write what ever you want." He has kept a low profile since making his 20-room Fifth Avenue penthouse his home base, eschewing the Upper East Side cocktail circuit and charity events. (According to his Facebook page, he has been in a relationship since September.)
He bought a house on Georgica Pond in East Hampton, N.Y., two years ago, which is getting an architectural makeover. And he is in the last throes of renovating his grand apartment, for which he paid $54 million in 2012, with its view, across Central Park, of (what else?) Lincoln Center.
"David doesn't go out a ton," said Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, who is a friend. "My guess is that he's just not interested in making new friends. He has a broad circle of friends, and he sticks to that."
Wendi Deng Murdoch, the ex-wife of Rupert Murdoch, has known Mr. Geffen for 15 years and lives nearby on Fifth Avenue. She said she and Mr. Geffen watch first-run movies in his large screening room or take walks in Central Park. They saw "Cabaret" on Broadway last year, she said, and in 2013 attended the Met Ball. For lunch or dinner they go to the Polo Bar or Marea, one of Mr. Geffen's Central Park South haunts.
Ms. Murdoch recalled a conversation with Mr. Geffen about his scrappy upbringing in Brooklyn, where his mother, a seamstress who had emigrated from Ukraine, ran a corset shop and his father, an intellectual with not much taste for work, read a lot but made little money. "He said his clothes never fit him because they bought a size bigger," Ms. Murdoch said.
Mr. Geffen's older brother, Mitchell, a lawyer who attended U.C.L.A., died in 2006. The younger Mr. Geffen wrote in his high school yearbook that he wanted to be a lawyer, like his brother, but he ended up dropping out of college.
As an agent, manager and recor d executive in the early 1970s, he nurtured the careers of Laura Nyro, the Eagles, Jackson Browne and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. In the "American Masters" documentary, David Crosby said they hired Mr. Geffen because they wanted a "shark."
His bite was just as fierce when turned on colleagues. In 1983, Geffen Records sued Neil Young, saying he had violated his contract by delivering an album, a rockabilly effort called "Everybody's Rockin'," that was "unrepresentative" of his prior work and "not commercial." (Mr. Geffen later apologized to Mr. Young.) A decade later, Mr. Geffen got into a yearslong legal spat with the Eagles co-founder Don Henley.
In the 1980s, Calvin Klein owned a house in the Pines on Fire Island, which became a summer retreat for waifish models, bronzed adonises and fashion machers on the rise. Mr. Geffen was a regular, photographed by Andy Warhol reclining on a chaise longue in a Speedo. "He would say, 'You get all the beautiful people,'" Mr. Klein said. "'I get all the people who haven't taken a shower.'" Years later, Mr. Geffen bought the house and planted a tall hedge around it.
"I asked David, 'Why did you do that? You are ruining the view,'" Mr. Klein said. "He said he wanted the privacy."
When Mr. Geffen is not in New York, he is often sailing the Caribbean aboard the Rising Sun, seated in a deck chair, legs propped up on an ottoman, reading. He has a voracious appetite for biographies and thrillers. (Ms. Murdoch said he recommended that she read "The Path to Power," the first volume of Robert Caro's four-volume "The Years of Lyndon Johnson.")
He acquired the yacht from the Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison. It is built to accommodate 18 guests and a staff of about 50. Because of its size, it is tracked online by maritime websites (it was recently docked at Carriacou, one of the Grenadine Islands).
Peggy Siegal, the doyenne of New York publicists, had lunch aboard the vessel with Mr. Geffen in St. Barth's over the New Year's holiday. "He likes to greet each guest himself," she said. She was asked to climb several flights of stairs to the top deck, despite the elevator onboard. "He is waiting for you," she said, "arms outstretched, while you are gasping for air."
Simply put: Mr. Geffen imports his own entertainment. Last August, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King were photographed sunbathing aboard the Rising Sun near Ibiza, along with the record producer Jimmy Iovine and Bob Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney Co. On another trip, Bruce Springsteen was shoo ting hoops on the ship's full-size basketball court, while Tom Hanks strummed a guitar, friends said. And Ms. Murdoch said she heard Steve Martin sing and play the banjo after supper.
Ms. Brown said, "David enjoys being able to invite the world on his own terms."
Among his favorite guests was Nora Ephron, the writer and film director who died in 2012. "She and David were very close," said the writer Nicholas Pileggi, who was married to Ms. Ephron for 25 years. "They would talk once or twice a day. They were on the same gossip level and knew everything between the two of them."
Ms. Ephron was part camp counselor, part onboard hostess. She planned menus and organized charades after dessert. She set up day trips to port towns and insisted that Mr. Geffen go. "She would order him off the boat and , on some occasions, he would fight," Mr. Pileggi said. "At that moment, he would be in the middle of a book and the last thing he wanted to do was go to town."
"I do think David likes solitude," said Eric Eisner, who has worked with him. "While people are a great source of information for him, they are also a great source of distraction."
On Dec. 31, Mr. Geffen attended a dinner party in St. Barth's given by the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and his wife, Dasha Zhukova, on their yacht, Ms. Siegal said. Prince was flown in to play for the large crowd. But by the time the singer finally appeared, Ms. Siegal said, Mr. Geffen had gone back to his own yacht.
The Rising Sun affords the billionaire privacy he may not have otherwise. In 2014, Mr. Geffen filed a restraining order against Jamie Kuntz, a 20-something former college football player from North Dakota, whom Mr. Geffen is said to have briefly dated, according to news reports. Mr. Kuntz was later ordered to stay 200 feet away from the billionaire for 10 years.
On Sept. 24, when a red velvet curtain unfurled to reveal the words "David Geffen Hall," Mr. Geffen, wearing a black suit, greeted guests including Steve Martin, George Lucas, Alec Baldwin, Diane Sawyer and Woody Allen.
Some of them may not have known that the guest of honor was born and raised a subway ride away. "He may see himself as a New Yorker, but we all think of David Geffen as from Los Angeles," said Barbara Walters, who brokered the introduction between Lincoln Center and Mr. Geffen and was seated next to him at the ceremony. "Now, this establishes him in New York."
Critics of the arrangement have characterized Mr. Geffen as a self-aggrandizing interloper, mostly because his donation hinged on the heirs of Avery Fisher capitulating to his demand. The incident even sparked a plotline in an episode of the Showtime drama "Billions," where Bobby Axelrod, the rag s-to-riches financier, makes a similar move to exact revenge on a blue-blood preppy who snubbed him as a boy.
Reynold Levy, the president of the Robin Hood Foundation, who knows Mr. Geffen, said making a donation in exchange for naming rights is nothing new. "It is essentially a form of biography and expression of self," he said. And Mr. Geffen's return home is something he understands. "People born in New York can't shake it," Mr. Levy said. "When they are finished with whatever else they are doing, they want to return."
We're used to seeing Blake Lively draped in Chanel; she's one of the fashion house's biggest fans. But her Chanel bag of choice while in New York yesterday made us do a double take. The star was seen with one of the brand's standout bags from its 2014 cruise collection—the pearl-shaped plexiglass minaudière, which basically looks like a giant pearl flanked by the signature Chanel chain strap. What struck us even more is that Lively wore the decidedly fancy evening bag with a T-shirt, embroidered coat, leather pants, and ankle boots. Our verdict? She looks glamourous and cool at the same time, and we're newly inspired to pair a fancy evening bag with a more casual outfit à la Lively.
Scroll down to see Lively with the pearl Chanel bag and to get a close-up view of it!
The room where I'll spend the day, if I am lucky, is fluorescent-lit, lined with hard plastic chairs, and has a reminder on the wall concerning the importance of hand sanitizer. Though friends offered to accompany me, I am here alone.
On the opposite side, a family has gathered: a man in his early 60s, like me, and four young people around the ages of my children. They are engaged in cheerful-sounding small talk about their jobs, the Red Sox. As for me, I don't feel like talking to anyone.
I arrived a little after 6 a.m., after kissing my husband goodbye before they wheeled him into surgery. The surgery is expected to take 12 hours, though somewhere around Hour 3 the surgeon will have gotten to the place in Jim's abdomen where he can see the tumor, known to us only as an innocuous-looking gray area on Jim's CT scans. Sometimes this turns out to be the moment when the surgeon discovers the tumor is not operable after all, in which ca se they stitch everything up and say, "We tried."
The tumor in question (I haven't allowed myself to call it "Jim's tumor"; I don't want to see him take ownership) is 2.5 centimeters in diameter and located in the head of Jim's pancreas. For my husband to survive — to have a shot at survival — this tumor must come out.
The operation calls for the removal of part of Jim's pancreas, his gall bladder, his duodenum and parts of his small intestine and stomach. "Picture gutting a fish," Jim, a fly fisherman, said to a friend. "That's roughly the idea."
It's odd to say of an operation like this that a person is lucky to be receiving it, but Jim and I do feel lucky. Seven months earlier, when we went to the doctor, anticipating gallstones, we learned the tumor was probably inoperable.
"There's a surgery that gives you a shot," Jim's doctor told us. (A shot. Just that. But suddenly a shot was everything.) "It's called the Whipple Procedure."
From that moment, our focus had become shrinking the tumor to where Jim could get the Whipple. And after eight rounds of chemotherapy and two of radiation, the day has come.
The Whipple is brutal surgery in the best of circumstances, "the best" being a strange phrase to employ when discussing a form of cancer with a two-year survival rate of around 5 percent.
"Don't Google it," they told us that first day, but we did.
The day we learned the news, just 15 months had passed since our wedding on a New Hampshire hillside with friends and children gathered, fireworks exploding and a band backing us up as we performed a duet on a John Prine song and talked about the trips we would take, the olive trees we would plant. Each of us had been divorced almost 25 years. How lucky, everyone said, that we had found each other when we did.
Continue reading the main storyNow, luck means having this operation. In four hours, luck will mean getting a call from a nurse who says: "They've reached the tumor. They're going in for it."
I have a book, but I keep reading the same sentence. On the other side of the room, the father and the four young people are unwrapping sandwiches and laughing. The 20-somethings are telling funny stories about their mother. If not for the institutional décor, you might think they were enjoying a family reunion.
My children and Jim's are nowhere near. I'm 3,000 miles from home. In those terrible weeks after the diagnosis, I lived with a p hone on either ear, calling hospitals and researching treatments that might offer what the first doctor had not: the possibility of a future. When a program looked promising, we got on a plane. It was in this city, at this hospital, where we found the surgeon who said, "I believe I can get your husband's tumor out."
Not even 18 hours earlier we marked this moment with a day game at Fenway Park, and afterward we celebrated the Red Sox win with oysters and a martini each. Jim bought a cap. Bald for many months, his hair was back. He was thin, but handsome.
It was about two years before that Jim had asked me to marry him on the deck of his Oakland, Calif., home with a couple of martinis and a plate of oysters. Never a skillful liar, he had pointed me toward a particular oyster and suggested I try it. Tucked into the shell: a diamond ring.
I had been single for 24 years. Just putting that ring on my finger felt odd, almost embarrassing, as later it would be difficult to say "my husband" or refer to myself as Jim's wife. To me, marriage had meant trouble. Failure. Pain. Why risk that again?
Only I did. We bought a house. Made big plans. Then came the diagnosis.
I think it was then (not the day of our wedding) when the words "wife" and "husband" entered my vocabulary — the first time I could speak them without awkwardness. They slipped into my speech over the weeks and months I spent navigating the world of cancer treatment, searching for the bobbing scrap of hope in an ocean of trouble: drug trials, immunotherapy, extreme diets.
I express-mailed our scans to facilities as far away as Germany, and when we were told the next appointment was three months out, I said, "My husband needs to see the doctor now."
My husband.
At some point I realized I no longer spoke of "Jim's treatment" or "Jim's scan."
"We're on Folfirinox now," I would say. "We're getting CyberKnife radiation." And then: "We shrank the tumor by 50 percent. We're getting surgery."
For years after my divorce, I had called myself a solo operator, but I had longed for a big romance, and with Jim I found it.
The summer after we met, we saw a 1982 Chrysler LeBaron convertible on Craigslist in Maine and bought it, then flew from California to pick it up. For the first time in 38 years of practicing law, Jim took the summer off. We put 4,000 miles on that convertible, mostly on New England back roads. We ate lobster rolls and danced and talked about riding Jim's motorcycle across the country.
Ali MacGraw and Ryan O 'Neal might have made it look otherwise, but cancer is not romantic. Always a lean man, Jim dropped 30 pounds. I had admired the way he dressed, conservative but sharp. Now he wore his suit like David Byrne in the Talking Heads video of our youth. When it looked as if a recurrent C. difficile infection might kill him (he was down to 108 pounds and dropping), I persuaded him to have a fecal transplant. Donor: me.
He had been, since 13, a bass player, a rock 'n' roll guy. (Also an Eagle Scout. I loved that about him.) Now, as the chemo ate away at him and his Triumph gathered dust, it seemed important that he keep playing, so one day I made paella for the whole band and their wives.
But the morning of the party, the neuropathy kicked in from the chemo, leaving Jim's fingers numb, unable to play. That night I stood at the edge of our silent yard and dumped five pounds of seafood. No rock 'n' roll that day, or that season or the one that followed.
In the waiting room, the family across from me has brought in food for dinner. The y are just opening their Styrofoam containers when a woman approaches, bends to speak with the father, a hand on his shoulder. The daughter leans in, and the son, and the two others I realize must be their partners.
Suddenly, the room is spinning. The food drops to the floor. The father just sits there, hands to his face, shaking his head, but the children are weeping, then wailing. Someone stands, staggers, drops to the floor. They all rush out, food wrappers and bags abandoned.
It can happen that swiftly, the end of life as we know it. Then, too, time can creep so slowly, even a minute seems endless.
It's close to midnight when the surgeon calls. "This was the toughest Whipple I ever performed," he said. They got the tumor and took 38 lymph nodes. It will be another few days before the pathology report, but things look good.
In the recovery room I find the bed with Jim in it, though he is much changed from the person I met not even four years earlier, on a Match.com date at a restaurant in Marin County, Calif., where I kept waiting for him to suggest that we order something, but he never did. Later, he explained, "I was just so knocked out by you, I forgot."
There are tubes coming out of him. His eyes are closed, mouth open. He looks 100 years old, but he is alive.
"I'm his wife,� �� I tell the nurse, and take my place by the bed.
