Modern Love: Modern Love: The Podcast | Broken, Not Bound

In this episode of Modern Love: The Podcast, the actress America Ferrera ("Ugly Betty," "The Good Wife") reads "Broken, Not Bound, by an Intimate Tie," about a young American woman on a date in the Tanzanian countryside that, with a bus accident, takes a life-altering turn.

Afterward, the writer of the essay Mara Gordon will talk about her experience and what has happened since the column was published.

Visit America Ferrera's Facebook page and follow her on Twitter. To read past Modern Love columns and hear past podcast episodes, click here and follow Modern Love on Facebook. We'll continue to publish brand-new columns on Fridays.

Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion, and Vows), and Instagram.

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Is This the Next Big Skinny Jeans Trend?

We've been seeing the slit trousers trend crop up more and more this season. These Trademark pants, anyone? Well, it appears this look has made its way into the denim realm, too. Kendall Jenner recently stepped out in a unique pair of skinny jeans featuring a side slit. We love how this small detail gives the classic skinnies a fresh twist.

Keep scrolling to check out Kendall's look featuring the new skinny jeans—and shop an inspired pair if you're looking to jump on this trend early.

Unbuttoned: Lady Gaga Defines a New Role: Fashion Enabler

Slide Show From Flank Steak to Saint Laurent

CreditYana Paskova for The New York Times

What is going on with Lady Gaga?

I've been wondering this ever since fashion's erstwhile most outrageous influencer, the woman who accepted her CFDA Fashion Icon award in a spiked Thierry Mugler bustier, thong and sheer bodysuit (with a train so heavy it led to a peekaboo wardrobe malfunction), decided to celebrate her 30th birthday in a gold Saint Laurent minidress pretty much straight off the runway of the label's most recent is-it-couture-or-is-it-not Paris collection. (Those of us who were there never quite figured it out.) And not just the dress, but the entire look, from the red lipstick to the upswept hair.

It shouldn't have been entirely surprising: Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, has been dressing straight from the pages of Vogue for a while now, from her Balenciaga at the Met Ball to her black velvet Versace bombshell gown at the Golden Globes, her red sequined Gucci pantsuit at the Super Bowl and her royal blue Marc Jacobs embroidered David Bowie "tribute" at the Grammys.

But placed in context, over the trajectory of her career, the Saint Laurent look was nevertheless a shock. It is about as far from the meat dress of the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards as one celebrity can get. (You remember: the frock made of raw beef, complete with matching boots, by the designer Franc Fernandez that was chosen as Time's fashion statement of the year.)

Think of this way: from flank steak to Saint Lau rent in six years. That's quite a trajectory.

Though it seems to have provoked a flood of nostalgic slide shows along the lines of "Lady Gaga's Most Outrageous Outfits," as if in acknowledgment that what we once saw we may no longer see again — that perhaps, on entering her fourth decade, she is all grown up now, or at least all dressed up — instead of thinking her voice has been silenced by fashion, perhaps it is worth listening a little harder to what it is saying. After all, she is a woman who built her career in part on understanding how image can bolster and reflect the power of her music and her message. There's no reason to think that has changed.

All pop stars — all stars, for that matter — need to transform their images, or at least need to try (otherwise they risk, like Madonna, becoming a parody of themselves), but Lady Gaga's journey from adolescent rebel in armadillo shoes and latex, forcing viewers and fans to wrestle with their own ideas about beauty and received ideas, to designer doppelgänger has been one of the more striking transformations.

She still has her moments of wardrobe extremis, it is true, last year sporting a see-through net dress on a trip to London, and wearing a bra and panties over ripped tights to the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction and awards last year, but the critical mass of her recent public appearances and even the pictures on her Instagram feed have been awfully polished and apropos.

Though peers like Rihanna, Beyoncé and Adele have all worked with various designers at different points (Adele, for example, is being dressed by Burberry for her "25" world tour), I can't think of another who has gone from outré to establishment with quite the same level of commitment — and without using her appearance as a vehicle to introduce her own fashion brand, or at least a collaboration with a fashion brand, but rather as an instrument for other fashion brands.

On the one hand, you could see this as simply assuming a new costume for a new career stage, playing another role, especially since it can be traced to the rollout of her fourth album, "Cheek to Cheek," a compilation of jazz standards made in collaboration with Tony Bennett, or even as yet another example of the way fashion co-opts its own theoretic antitheses, be they ripped jeans or down jackets, and adapts them into its own version of the same. But I think something more subversive is going on. Rather than suddenly becoming conventional, Lady Gaga is, in fact, turning a certain convention on its head.

Because in hewing so closely to the industry line, she is actually doing something kind of radical — potentially even more radical than the early-career look-at-me stuff of hatching from an egg in yolk-colored latex at the 2011 Grammys, or playing the piano in a coat made of plastic bubbles. She is challenging a dearly held convention of celebrity that says that whatever you wear, you must be the dominant brand in the relationship: Your look must trump anyone else's look.

It is not insignificant that despite all the hoo-ha about her appearance on Marc Jacobs's runway during New York Fashion Week in February and the expectation that something major was about to happen, all that did occur was that she walked the room like every other model in the show. If she hadn't been so much shorter than the rest of the cast, it would have been impossible to pick her out of the lineup. (As it was, most of the guests were left scratching their heads and whispering to one another, "Was that her?" She wasn't saying.)

The point was pretty clear: that designers are legitimate artists with their own specific aesthetic, and it would be disrespectful to try to do what they do, or to alter it. It is in a sense a continuation of her campaign to elevate the outcast — believe it or not. For while fashion may be famous for its elitism, it has long been seen, and often sees itself, as the stepchild of the art world; the less worthy creative form. We all have our complexes.

Whatever you think of that, Lady Gaga, it seems, would beg to differ. She has cast herself not in the role of "muse," a cliché these days if there ever was one, but rather as an enabler of fashion. Both for already existing designers, and those who would be, like Lady Gaga's former stylist Nicola Formichetti, founder of his own label, Nicopanda, and artistic director of Diesel, and her current collaborator, Brandon Maxwell, who introduced a namesake label in 2015, is currently a finalist for the LVMH young designers prize, and whose ivory jumpsuit/gown she wore to the Oscars in February.

She's playing their tune. Crazy.

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Hate Flying? You Need This Smart Suitcase in Your Life

When we think about our least favorite places on the planet, the airport might just be one of them. From dealing with the TSA to the prospect of lost luggage, it's not exactly relaxing. So when we hear about something that makes getting door to door a little easier, we're on board. 

Meet Raden, a suitcase that manages to tackle all our biggest airport issues. It has a built-in phone charger, GPS, and scale, which means no more lost luggage or hidden fees—yes, really. So, if you've got a vacation on the calendar in the coming months, this may be just the thing you need to fly in style.

Check out the suitcases and accompanying app below and breathe a sigh of relief—jet-setting just got way easier.

Social Capital: Visiting the World of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen: On The Row’s Instagram

Photo Credit Illustration by Other Means. Photo: Pacific Coast News. Screenshots from Instagram.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have been famous since before they could talk. In the three decades since, they've never identified as any one thing, choosing instead to market themselves as two golden girls who might, under the right circumstances, show up at your slumber party.

They were never really actresses, despite sharing the role of Michelle on "Full House" — cast because they stayed quiet when held by strangers — and starring in a slew of direct-to-VHS and theatrical releases. They were never really singers, despite albums like "Brother for Sale"; never really writers, despite the 2008 release of "Influence," a coffee-table book that compiled interviews with people they deemed inspirational. And despite a 2001 clothing licensing deal with Walmart, they weren't really fashion d esigners until 10 years ago.

For the first 18 years of their lives, they didn't require a particular medium to succeed; their mere existence was enough to persuade children, myself included, to buy anything they were selling. Books, headbands, monthly newsletters that arrived in the actual mail: I threw all my babysitting money at children my own age. They were a special kind of American royalty — princesses who, as if by birthright, commanded a paycheck.

As adults, they've retained their skill for silence. For the most part they no longer act. They rarely give interviews, and though they're still hounded by paparazzi, the images are mostly of them walking between offices and cars, hands in front of their faces. They've embraced being behind the scenes of fashion, with a stable of lines for diffe rent price points. Their prized collection, The Row, was founded in 2006. Since then, the Olsens have won CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year — the highest award available to American fashion designers — twice, in 2012 and 2015.

Given that they are among the most famous and wealthiest members of my generation, it's striking that they also share few of the trademarks commonly associated with our cohort. They don't tweet (at least not on Twitter accounts we know about). They don't use Facebook (that we know of). If they party, it's not at clubs we've ever heard of; if they have unfortunate political views, well, they're keeping them to themselves. The Olsens don't use social media because they can't — there is nothing they can share that their audience doesn't already think they know.

Instead, their social media presence comes through the Instagram account for The Row. It's doubtful that the Olsen twins have any direct contact with the Instagram account; it's most likely a task for an employee who studies their seasonal mood boards and picks from a list of approved inspirations. When it was created, it had the look of a teenager decorating her locker, full of pride over being so precociously sophisticated: A still image of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Marilyn Monroe wrapped in a knit sweater, Jean-Luc Godard filming Jean Seberg. Interspersed with these conventionally aspirational ideas of beauty, elegance and power were images of clothes in various stages of production. Their very first post showed bolts of fabric, stored and cataloged inside a shelving unit, with a rosy filter and the simple caption "office decor." A few weeks later, the same filter and a slight blurring effect was used to show scissors and measuring tape artfully strewn across a drafting table, with the caption "Made in #America #therow."

As the brand grew in prominence, its Instagram began to show a more refined sensibility, one that prized artists with aesthetics similar to The Row's own. There are Alfred Stieglitz's sepia-toned portraits of Georgia O'Keefe's neck, as well as O'Keefe's landscapes. Richard Serra, Henri Matisse and Yves Klein became recurring figures. The photos of clothes also evolved: An image from the Spring 2016 collection, a model in a white dress walking through a garden toward a bright blue pool, is particularly evocative. Their accessories are shot with instructional details — sunglasses on hardwood tables, a tumbler of clear liquid in the background. White leather boots sit beside a minimalist white coffee table, and cream cashmere slippers next to what looks like a very soft couch.

We're meant to see what these clothes are for: sipping afternoon cocktails on our way to a quick dip in a pool, after which we'll sit on a very nice piece of furniture. It's the epitome of understated, adult indulgence, at least as seen by someone (read: me) who only recently started thinking of herself as an adult. The days of safe adolescent icons, banal beloved heroines of eras recently past, are gone. The Instagram has caught up to the Olsens; as they grew into their work as fashion designers, they grew more confident in showing their evolving values, and used this account to do it.

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This Under-$250 Spring Bag Won't Be in Stock for Long

Found: the spring bag you've been searching for. If it's a fun, unique look you're after, you've met your match. The accessory in question is a bucket-style shoulder bag made of fique grass, designed by Muzungu Sisters (check out their colorful Instagram account), and available in three versatile shades on Matches Fashion. With such a reasonable price ($220 each), it's safe to say that these will be snapped up quickly. The colorful pom-adorned bag has an organic feel to it, which might have something to do with the fact that all of the line's bags are artisan-crafted. In the designers' words, their offerings are "ethically sourced handmade luxury." The bags, adored by Leandra Medine of Man Repeller, are the ideal accompaniment to spring and summer's breezy looks. Get one while you can!

Keep scrolling to shop the bag in every color.

A Celebrity Lesson in Wearing Lingerie Outside the Bedroom

Lingerie dressing is a tricky trend to try: On the one hand, you're taking inspiration from the bedroom, and on the other, you don't want to look like you belong there. But with powerhouse brands like Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, and Alexander McQueen deeming this sultry trend a must for spring, there's no better time than the present to master this look. Here's the good news: Fashionable ladies like Ciara and Karlie Kloss are here to show you the way. Plus, there's a slew of great pieces, from your classic slip dress to your lacy bralette, sure to suit any style and personality. Keep reading for all the goods!

From Kendall to Olivia, the Best Dressed Celebs of the Week

From Kendall Jenner to Olivia Palermo, we've seen quite the round of stunning celebrity looks over the past seven days. And as we update our shopping carts to grab these must-have pieces, we want to take a minute to look back at some of our favorite style moments of the week. Even better, we want to know which look was your favorite. Tell us which celebrity was best dressed by casting your vote below.

Keep scrolling to see the best celebrity outfits from this week and vote for your favorite!

Night Out: Sally Field on the ‘Newest Stage’ of Her Life

Photo Sally Field at the Whitney Museum. Credit An Rong Xu for The New York Times

If Sally Field nursed a hope of dodging notice at the Whitney Museum of American Art this month, that hope was crushed when she stretched her 5-foot-3-inch frame on an outsize banquette, its cushioned surface an apparent invitation to relax.

It was no such thing, as Ms. Field soon discovered. The outline of her body had left a thermal impression captured in Day-Glo green on a nearby video screen, part of an interactive installation exploring mass surveillance by the artist and filmmaker Laura Poitras.

"This is seriously disturbing," Ms. Field murmured and moved on. She was pretty well camouflaged for her outing in a well-worn plaid J. Crew shirt and Bo ttega Veneta black leather jacket, her garb a kind of youthfully understated urban armor.

Ms. Field, who first captivated a mass TV audience in the 1960s in "The Flying Nun," has been long accustomed to a kind of informal surveillance. Blithely ignoring the gapes of passers-by, she headed toward the museum terrace, a favorite retreat of the actress, who routinely shuttles between her homes in Los Angeles and New York.

And a refuge as well from prying eyes. What do all those strangers make of her?

"I can't tell," Ms. Field said evenly. "They don't treat me like a human being. They're giving me different energy than if I had just been some older woman sitting next to them on a bus or riding in an elevator ."

Her fame, she said, has left her a bit conflicted. "I've known some form of being celebrity my entire life," said Ms. Field, who was the gamine surfer Gidget on the TV show of that name at 18. "But I still want to go to the market and have my little old lady cart behind me."

During such routine excursions, "I put blinders on," she said. "I don't want people to see me, or to not see me."

All eyes were on her earlier that week when Ms. Field stepped elastically from her car to attend the premiere of "Hello, My Name Is Doris," hosted by the Cinema Society at the Metrograph, a ne w downtown theater on Ludlow Street.

Among the guests were Michael Showalter, the film's director, and cast members, including Natasha Lyonne and Tyne Daly, as well as Paul Rudd, Emily Mortimer and the columnist Cindy Adams, who flaunted her trademark beehive as she interviewed Ms. Field in a dim corner, scribbling old-school style in a reporter's notebook.

As the film's title character, an endearing if slightly unhinged accountant in her 60s, Ms. Field finds herself lusting obsessively over a handsome co-worker decades her junior. Left mostly to her own devices after her mother dies, she is surprised to discover an engagingly eccentric, adventurous side.

Not only is Doris capable of entertaining humid fantasies about a much younger man, but of venturi ng into uncharted terrain, posing for rock album covers and dancing at subterranean clubs garbed in a garish caution-yellow jumpsuit.

Doris's exotic escapade is "part of becoming new, of coming-of-age," Ms. Field said. "But it's hard to be new and awkward and to open up to your vulnerabilities."

At 69, she can relate. "I'm moving on to the newest stage of my life, my 70s," she said gamely. "There are things waiting for me that I couldn't have found without getting here."

Including the Harold-and-Maude scenario suggested by Doris? Not out of the question, it seems.

Ms. Field, who has been married twice and had a much chronicled long-term relationship with Burt Reynolds, said on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" recently that she wouldn't object to acquiring a boy toy.

"If he wants to step forward and say 'How about me,' I will judge the situation from that," she said.

She returned to the topic the other day at the Whitney. "Sex is in everybody's relationships with everybody," Ms. Field said, hopping good-naturedly onto her soapbox. "It underlines human beings. It� �s part of a package, no matter where in life you are or who you're with."

"Sure, society sees as part of that package being very, very young and very, very thin," she added. "But I don't think there is an expiration date, like on a carton of milk."

Correction: March 26, 2016

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of one of the guests at the premiere of 'Hello, My Name is Doris.' It is Tyne Daly, not Daily.

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Editor Secrets for Finding the Best Stuff Online

As you'd expect, we Who What Wear editors do the majority of our shopping online, and we have a few tricks up our sleeves that always lead us to the good stuff. Some of our hacks are so effective (and a tad obscure) that we thought we'd let you in on them. Keep scrolling to learn our most effective online shopping tips, and to shop special pieces we've unearthed online.

Table for Three: When Washington Met Hollywood: At Lunch With Cory Booker and Susan Sarandon

CB: My father and [maternal] grandfather both grew up not knowing who their fathers were. It left a stigma on them. I can still remember my grandfather's anguish when he confessed it to me — and the word he used, "bastard." It turned out that a white doctor had impregnated his mother when she was 14. That's a common story in the twisted history of African-American families. Skip Gates [Henry Louis Gates Jr., the host of "Finding Your Roots" on PBS] explained to me that most African-Americans have some white blood in them. Same with white folks. There was lots of mixing in those family trees.

SS: And I had always been told that my grandmother, my mother's mother, had been such a terrible parent that her kids were taken away from her and put into foster care. But it turned out that she was knocked up at 12 by my grandfather, who was in his 20s and lived next door. She pretended to be 15 so they could get married. Pretty amazing, right? Then she disappeared and got connected with the mafia. She went to the track in limousines, and jazz clubs, and dated Frank Sinatra. But not a kind thought was given to the fact that she was just a kid.

PG: It's a big moment in our relationship with our parents, when we see how deeply affected they were by their parents.

CB: And it shows how connected we all are in ways we don't understand.

PG: Which brings me to the big similarity between you: seeing others with compassion, whether they're film characters, like prostitutes or death-row inmates, or citizens held down by generations of poverty.

SS: We're all afraid of the same things. We all need the same things, too. I'm lucky to be in a business that's almost forced compassion. I get to show you that you can identify with someone you never thought you'd be able to feel for. That's what "Dead Man Walking" is about. We all make mistakes. But by connecting with th e divine in each other, we can be redeemed.

CB: And as I get more decades under my belt, I see how small acts of decency ripple in ways we could never imagine. How could the civil rights marchers in Selma have predicted that by crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they would trigger a bunch of lawyers in New Jersey to fight for fair housing for black families — one of them being mine? That connectivity inspires me every day. I take my job in the Senate very seriously. But there's an old saying: Change doesn't come from Washington, it comes to Washington.

Photo Cory Booker is sworn in as senator by Vice President Joe Biden in 2013. Carolyn Booker, the senator's mother, holds the Bible. Credit Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times

PG: Have you always felt the need to speak up, no matter the cost?

SS: Even as a kid, I rotated my dolls' dresses so every one got a chance to wear the good one. I think it's innate. Or maybe it's about being the oldest kid in the family, the caretaker? But I suffer more from having an opportunity to speak up, and letting it pass, than I ever have from losing a role or being threatened or having people say nasty stuff about me.

PG: Were you ever tempted to take a high-priced job in a big law firm?

CB: I reject the idea that the guy who comes out of Yale and goes to work in the projects in Newark is good, and the guy w ho goes to work for a white-shoe law firm is bad. We're all mountain rangers. We all have peaks and valleys. I know a lot of people who work at nonprofits with men and women coming out of prison. But I also know lawyers at major law firms who help tremendously through pro bono work. Let's not judge. Let's draw inspiration from each other's stories — successes and failures — and realize we're all connected.

SS: I knew Sister Helen [Prejean] for about a year before Tim [Robbins] started working on "Dead Man Walking." She didn't come to the death penalty like Arnold Schwarzenegger in an action movie. She started by simply writing a letter to a man on death row. It was a small act of kindness, nothing heroic.

PG: That reminds me of the character in your new movie, "The Meddler": a "smother mother" whose little acts of kindness change her life after her daughter tells her to back off.

SS: I have to admit, it's completely self-serving. I do what I can to help, mostly by drawing attention to issues. But the people I see working in the grass roots, for years and years, they're the people who give me hope, who show me the goodness in human beings.

PG: Let's shift to an issue you're both involved with: the mass incarceration of black men and boys. Cory wrote a moving chapter in his book about disproportionate arrests and sentencing, and the challenges of post-prison life. It's a scary problem.

SS: What are you afraid of? You're a privileged white guy. You'll get off.

CB: That's actually a good question. What are you afraid of?

PG: The scale of the problem: the number of inmates, the racial bias, the years in the making.

CB: But mass incarceration has only been a problem since 1980. Since then, our prison population has grown about 800 percent, 500 percent at the federal level. Before that, we expected our prison population to shrink. This problem is the result of policies we made in our lifetime.

PG: The hars h drug laws?

SS: Not to mention privatizing prisons that let companies and lobbyists make money by rounding up a population without a voice.

CB: I don't want people to think, "It's such a huge problem, what can I do about it?" We can't allow our inability to do everything undermine our determination to do something.

Photo Ms. Sarandon accepting the Academy Award for best actress for "Dead Man Walking." Credit Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

SS: Well said.

CB: In California, they've gotten rid of "three strikes and you're out" laws that were giving people life sentences for minor crimes. And it's saved California taxpayers millions of dollars. We have states that have banned the death penalty. We can make big differences. We just can't surrender to cynicism or feeling overwhelmed.

SS: It's amazing that some of these guys, who made a mistake when they were 16, are getting out now. They're telling their stories in documentaries and articles. Boys who learned to shave in prison. Because when you take a person and turn him into a concept, be it "the incarcerated" or "the refugee" or whatever, you're denying his humanity. An d that's an act of violence. These are people, just like us.

PG: Can we take a stab at "political correctness," a popular topic lately? The idea that people feel inhibited from saying what they think because it's not socially acceptable. Is it better to have the ugly thing out in the open?

SS: Give me an example.

PG: When I was in school, I was almost relieved when someone called me a "fag." I mean, I hated it, but I knew exactly where we stood.

SS: But that's just normalizing hatred.

PG: But the hatred is already there. It's not going away because they're not saying it.

SS: Words are powerful. And whether we're talking about kids in school or people running for president, slurs affect not only the person they're aimed at, but also the person saying them and the people who hear them. When you had Trump being laughed at for making fun of people at rallies — and not being called on it for months — I blame our corporate media for a lot of that. It should have been talked about.

CB: There are always going to be people with hateful words in their mouths, and worse. Between 20 and 30 transgender Americans were killed last year for who they were. We had a church in South Carolina where someone walked in to kill black people specifically. But what concerns me more are all the good people who sit silent in the face of what's going on. We all have a choice. We can do nothing and accept things as they are, or we can stand up and take responsibility for changing them.

SS: "Politically correct" is almost as good an expression as "right to life." There's nothing political about hatred, and there's nothing correct about it, either. We need to have a dialogue about where the hatred comes from.

CB: To me, being silent in the face of injustice is the greatest threat we have.

PG: O.K., last question: As you may know, Susan is the co-founder of Spin, a Ping-Pong club in New York City and elsewhere.

CB: What?

SS: You have to come. It's fun.

PG: But in a matchup with Cory, without a cast on your foot, would you beat him?

SS: Probably not.

CB: You sure?

SS: Maybe if we drank some tequila first.

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Where to Shop for Vintage Levi's

We know from experience that discovering the perfect pair of vintage Levi's takes a lot of research and can involve a lot of hits and misses on the way to finding your dream pair. It's an especially tricky business, given that sizing has changed so much throughout the years, and many vintage pairs were actually originally men's styles. Luckily most sites list the measurements of the pair in question (so keep yours handy), and several brands (i.e. RE/DONE) take it upon themselves to recut and resew vintage pairs to reflect today's denim trends and sizing standards.

While we've discussed vintage denim shopping in the past, since vintage Levi's are gaining in popularity these days, we thought it a good time to share with you our current favorite sources for the aforementioned jeans (and cool pairs from their current stocks). From a Los Angeles–based boutique with a well-edited collection to one of our favorite Etsy shops for Levi's jeans and shorts, this is where your search begins. And just in case you're more in to unworn Levi's, we have you covered below, too. Scroll down to see them all! 

Brighter Lights, Bigger City: Odeon’s Second Act

The writer Dirk Wittenborn, who often accompanied his good friend John Belushi there, said, "No place was open that late." (And it no longer is, closing down no later than midnight these days, reflecting the new lock step of affluent Manhattanites to the Google calendar.) Many longtime customers recall Mr. Belushi taking over the kitchen one night, although getting the particulars is about as likely as explaining the Cuban missile crisis.

There were other actors as well, like Harvey Keitel, who went there with a date early on, using the occasion to try out a long-coveted belted leather trench coat like the ones he used to see in movies about World War II but was nervous to wear himself.

"I thought 'Now's the perfect time, because no one's around on the street,'" Mr. Keitel said. "So I put on the trench coat, I go down to the Odeon, and there's a guy sitting there in a booth on the opposite side of the bar, and he looks at me and he says, 'Harv.' Real slow. I peer down and it's Jack Nicholson. And the next thing out of his mouth is 'You're wearing a leather trench coat?' That was the first and last time I ever wore it."

Another evening that didn't end so well was a party celebrating the gallerist Mary Boone's 30th birthday, with the sort of crowd that she described in New York glitterati shorthand as "everybody."

This meant a pile of big artists, among them David Salle, Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Sometime during the course of the evening, Mr. Schnabel and Mr. Basquiat went downstairs to the bathrooms and decided to do a little art project of their own, soaking all the toilet paper in the toilet bowls, after which they threw them up on the walls.

"Like snowballs," Ms. Boone said, describing perhaps the duo's only creative efforts from that time not to be sold later on by her or Mr. Gagosian, another super-gallerist regular at the Odeon, for millions of dollars.

"Keith just threw us out," Ms. Boone said. "We didn't get to have birthday cake."

Photo The artist and critic Edit DeAk, center, and Andy Warhol, right, discuss Polaroids that had just been taken at the table, with New York City Ballet dancer Ulrik Trojaborg, left, in 1986. Credit Paige Powell

Over the next few years, the Odeon's supremacy ("a downtown Elaine's," is how the publisher Morgan Entrekin put it) only seemed to increase. Keith Haring began coming in, as did Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe and Calvin Klein.

But by the publication of Mr. McInerney's first novel, "Bright Lights, Big City" in 1984, which had a picture of the Odeon on the cover and scenes set there, the relationship between Brian and Keith was beginning to fray.

"Keith was the driving pulse of the place," Brian McNally said. "I was, by definition, less responsible." (Keith said at first that he would prefer to answer questions about the Odeon over email. When asked for a little more than that, he said he 'd like not to be interviewed at all.)

Brian left the operation and went on to start a number of restaurants, including 150 Wooster Street, the Canal Bar and, most successfully, Indochine. During the aughts, he moved to Saigon, Vietnam, where he still spends part of the year.

Keith and Lynn began colonizing the rest of the city, heading first to the Upper West Side with their second successful update on the French bistro Café Luxembourg (Odeon for the Central Park set). After that came Nell's, a dinner spot and nightclub on West 14th Street that Ms. Wagenknecht ran until 2006. In 1989, the couple opened Lucky Strike on Grand Street.

Photo Gus Van Sant, the filmmaker, left, and the fashion designer Stephen Sprouse. Credit Paige Powell

Following the couple's divorce in the early '90s, Ms. Wagenknecht bought Keith out of Café Luxembourg and the Odeon, both of which she operates today; Keith kept Lucky Strike. "She deserved it," Brian said. "Why not?"

After a brief detour in film direction, Keith began building his empire. Many of his restaurants have been remixes of the original concept: Balthazar (which one might think of Hard Rock Odeon) in SoHo, Pastis ("Sex and the City" Odeon) in the meatpacking district, Schiller's Liquor Bar (hipster Odeon) on the Lower East Side and Minetta Tavern (hedge-fund Odeon) in Greenwich Village. There is also Pulino's on the Bowery, an upscale pizzeria recently refashioned as, you guessed it, yet another French bistro (Bowery Odeon).

Meanwhile, the original was changing in profound ways.

AIDS killed many of the restaurant's loyalists, as well as its employees. "I can't tell you how many waiters died," Brian McNally said. Others overdosed (see Mr. Belushi 1982) or moved away, particularly as the city and the economy changed.

Photo Dinner in 1989 with Heather Watts, left, principal dancer with the New York City Ballet; Tim Hunt, center, Andy Warhol's estate curator; and the author Tama Janowitz. 1989. Credit Paige Powell

Out went the artists. In rolled the bankers and their blond wives, their bodies honed at nearby Flywheel, followed by Bugaboo strollers. "TriBeCa became what it is today, and I left," Mr. Bleckner said.

And though the McNallys and Ms. Wagenknecht remained and even capitalized on the transformation of the city, they are smart and introspective enough to feel somewhat conflicted about it.

Looking out a packed dining room, Ms. Wagenknecht offered that even now, when creative people have returned to the fold, she can barely identify anyone eating there. The expression on her face was actually a little sad, like a person who appears to have gotten over the death of a loved one decades ago and then finds the pe rson's picture buried at the bottom of a desk drawer. Later this year, Keith is opening a new restaurant near ground zero in the coming Beekman Hotel and Ms. Wagenknecht is aware it will take some of her new customers away.

But with Elaine's gone and the idea of a convivial lunch in New York increasingly old-fashioned, the regulars at the revivified Odeon seem merely grateful it's still here.

They chalk up its success over the years — including as a local refuge after 9/11 and through two financial crises — to its excellent service (no one at Odeon seems to wait more than 15 to 20 minutes for anything, and that's on a bad day) and a broadly appealing menu that now includes a kale salad ("In the '80s it was kiwi," Ms. Wagenknecht said of the ingredient du hour) along with ye olde reliabl e oysters and soft, perfect omelets.

Speaking of the food at Elaine's, Mr. Entrekin said, "If you did a steak or a veal chop, you were O.K.," adding, "The food at Odeon is better."

Photo The current scene at the Odeon. Credit Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times

Ms. Regan is particularly partial to the frisée with chopped egg. "The crowd waxes and wanes, but the truth is, it makes no difference," she said. "It's like the boyfriend you're still friends with. The one you like even after you broke up with him."

She praised the service, yes, but also the lighting.

"That amber lighting, which becomes more important to you as you get older," Ms. Regan said. "It's home."

Correction: March 24, 2016

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misidentified a diner at The Odeon. He is Gus Van Sant, not Jim Jarmusch.

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Vogue Gave Kendall Jenner Her Very Own Special Edition

The cover the fashion world has been speculating about is finally here! While Rihanna is the cover star for Vogue's April 2016 issue, Kendall Jenner is the cover star for Vogue's April 2016 special edition issue, shot by Mario Testino and focusing on all things Kendall, from her life goals to her top Instagram tips. Jenner wore one of our favorite designers for the cover (edited by Tabitha Simmons)—a crop top and bikini bottom by Proenza Schouler.

While Jenner has previously graced the cover of Vogue in Paris, Brazil, China, and Japan, this is Jenner's first for American Vogue. Jenner models looks from the S/S 16 runways in the spread and sits down with Tory Burch for a social media–centric interview. Jenner's best social media advice? She tells Burch that an Instagram post "has to be organic." When asked to define an organic post, she says, "It means you can't totally plan it out." She also says that selective posting is key, telling Burch, "You don't want to do too many posts." She continues, "You want to leave them wanting to come back." She sums it up with her mantra for social media success: "Mystery!" With 52 million Instagram followers and counting, it must be working.

The issue will be packaged with Vogue's New York and Los Angeles subscribers' April issues, but you can see it all on Vogue.com in case you don't fall into that category. 

Scroll down to see Jenner's gorgeous cover for the special edition!

On the Runway: Brioni Announces Its Own Unconventional Hire

Photo Justin O'Shea, the new creative director at Brioni.

Justin O'Shea, former fashion director of the German e-commerce giant MyTheresa, has been appointed creative director at Brioni, the latest unorthodox hiring by a luxury brand as the sector strains for innovative approaches in an ever more competitive environment.

Mr. O'Shea, a bearded and heavily tattooed Australian, is a front-row fixture at fashion shows with 80,000 Instagram followers. He had joined MyTheresa, owned by Neiman Marcus, in 2011.

He will start in his new role at Brioni, an Italian men's wear brand owned by Kering, on April 1.

Gianluca Flore, the chief executive of Brioni, said in his announcement on Wednesday: "I am very confident Justin's new artistic direction for Brioni will be instrumental in strengthening our core values and continuing to drive dynamism and innovation into the brand heritage.

"Justin has shown an accurate understanding of the company's DNA and historic roots and an assertive approach on how to make those values relevant for the brand today."

Last month, Brioni and its former creative director, Brendan Mullane, announced that they would not renew their collaboration, calling the move a joint decision. A number of other prominent changes have rocked the fashion world in recent months, notably the dismissal of Alber Elbaz at Lanvin and, most recently, the departure of Ennio Capasa from Costume National, as slow sales and an increasingly demanding global consumer place new pressures on the relationship between the boardrooms and design studios of the world's biggest brands.

Mr. O'Shea is a leading industry buyer who took the role of fashion director at MyTheresa, based in Munich, in January; he has no formal experience or training as a designer. His appointment echoes that of Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, the retailers of Opening Ceremony, to the helm of Kenzo, owned by LVMH, in 2011. Other unexpected high-profile hires at major design houses in recent seasons, including the accessories designers Johnny Coca to Mulberry and Alessandro Michele to Gucci, have had executives looking at a new kind of candidate to revive the vision of a brand.

Grita Loebsack, the chief executive of Kering's luxury couture and leather goods division, said of Mr. O'Shea's appointment: "An unconventional profile for such a position, Justin brings a holistic approach and strong understanding of business. I believe his vision will accurately translate into this role and add a distinctive signature to the house."

Mr. O'Shea echoed that excitement and appeared to relish the prospect of his new role.

"I am deeply honored to undertake this new challenge for such prestigious and celebrated men's wear house," he said. "It is with great enthusiasm that I look forward to writing a new chapter in the story of Brioni."

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#TuesdayShoesday: 5 Western-Inspired Shoes for Spring

It's Tuesday, so you know what that means—it's time to talk shoes. Today's topic? Western-inspired boots and heels. 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! 

Critical Shopper: French Lit, Stripes and Cigarettes at Sonia Rykiel

Photo The new Sonia Rykiel store on the Upper East Side. Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times

Like procreating or planting flowers or even just exfoliating your skin with a washcloth, spring cleaning is a process of renewal that is available, in some form, to every human on earth.

It's also a shared experience that can be profoundly solitary: We clean and declutter alone, even if we do it alongside friends or family. Only you, after all, are equipped to make a decision about the memorabilia that haunts your closet — the striped shirt swiped from a college boyfriend 10 years ago, the vintage Mongolian fur hat that makes you look demented or fanciful depending on your coat, the questionable brogues.

I cleaned out my closet last week and, in a torrent of frenzied decontamination, went overboard with the purging and donating.

Photo Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times

When I finished, every streak of color was gone. The remaining clothes were white, beige or black. My closet looked like a hotel lobby bathroom. It had a soporific effect. It needed seasoning.

What to do?

Why, add a few spicy morsels, of course. The new Sonia Rykiel store uptown seemed like a potential source of invigorating agents. The French label is known for its kicky striped knitwear, a look popularized by Ms. Rykiel in the early 1960s.

In 2014, Julie de Libran was appointed artistic director after the label waffled in the wake of its founder's departure as creative director. Ms. de Libran has injected fresh life with her playful, print-happy collections.

Photo Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times

Now she has opened a store on Madison Avenue — and not just a store, but a grand gesture: 2,000 square feet of stomping ground on one of the ritzier blocks in Upper East Side shopping territory, right across from Lanvin and Dolce & Gabbana.

With its apple-red lacquered walls and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the store is eye-catching in a way that makes passers-by halt, whip off their sunglasses and peer inside. The air is scented with a rosewater-tinged infusion ("It comes in through the air-conditioners," a saleswoman whispered), and the shelves are stocked with vintage paperbacks by Françoise Sagan, Stendhal, Victor Hugo and André Malraux.

A custom carpet is woven with cartoonish books, pencils, eyeballs, lips and cigarettes, which is the first time in years that I've seen a non-cigarette brand acknowledge the existence of cigarettes. (An American version of this carpet would feature an iPhone, a green juice and a turmeric supplement. I like Rykiel's rendition.)

Photo Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times

The clothing stands up to its environment. I zoomed in on a rack of grapefruit-size pompoms made from turkey feathers dyed in acid-trip hues: banana, fern, cerulean ($220). The pompoms were affixed to either a silk ribbon or an oversize safety pin. They weighed nothing.

"How would a person wear this?" I asked a saleswoman.

"On the runway, they wore them on the wrist," she said, demonstrating the accessory's placement like a flight attendant miming safety procedures. "Or you can wear them in your hair" (she mimed this, too), or on a bag (mimed) or — this is my favorite place — right on your shoulder."

In theory the shoulder seems like an odd place for a single pompom, but the saleswoman's demonstration was compelling.

Photo Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times

"I love fuzzy things," she said.

Me, too.

Other items offered a similarly multisensory experience, like a pair of glitter-encrusted tennis shoes ($425) and a fluttering pleated dress ($2,190) in creamsicle polyester (though it should have been chiffon, at that price).

A tweedy cropped jacket with rainbow stripes ($1,490) looked edible on the rack — like precisely the right element to wear with jeans or to work over a silk dress — and the saleswoman slid it onto my shoulders. I had been semiconsciously shedding layers and she had correctly interpreted the momentum of my stripping. I looked in the mirror. Oh, dear. On a taller person, the fit would have been slouchy. I looked like a garden gnome.

"Maybe with slimmer pants, it would work," I thought. "Maybe with some tailoring." But the tailoring would need to be intensive. I bid goodbye to the jacket and assured myself that I could always return to it online. You can find most of the store's items online, though Rykiel's e-commerce presentation is a low-fat plain-yogurt version of the store's ice cream sunda e.

"Sonia Rykiel has made uncomplicated clothes for the complicated modern woman," a writer said in a 1982 profile in The New York Times. This is still true (a buffet of fine-knit striped Rykiel sweaters would sate any traditionalist), although the target woman may skew younger in 2016. A well-financed woman could buy a lot of fun but not-inappropriate gifts here for her teenage daughter or niece.

This occurred to me as a woman and her teenage daughter wandered inside. The teenager moved pompomward. Her mother gazed at the store's vast array of books.

"There must be thousands," she murmured.

"There are," a saleswoman confirmed. "Feel free to borrow anything you'd like to read."

"Really?" the woman squawked.

(I squawked, too. Mentally. When is anything offered on sheer trust in New York?)

"Really," the saleswoman replied. "Why not?"

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13 Pieces From Tibi's Sample Sale That Are Sure to Sell Out

There's a reason street style stars like Olivia Palermo love fashion brand Tibi. It's cool, sleek, and sophisticated while still feeling so easy to wear. Now the brand is offering up key pieces—including runway favorites—for up to 80% off! With plenty of pieces under $100, you can bet everything is going to sell out pretty darn fast. Check out a few of our favorites below, and then see the rest on Tibi's site.

The Popular Jeans That Flatter Your Curves and Celebrate Your Body

The Internet practically exploded when news hit of Levi's new Wedgie jeans—a pair inspired by the brand's classic '60s 505 vintage offering that makes use of strategically placed seams to flatter, lift, and show off your bum. I was immediately intrigued. But, truth be told, I'd barely even tried a pair of Levi's on, save for a depressing experience in the flagship dressing room. I could wiggle them to just below my butt before giving up.

I'm certainly a jeans and a tee type of girl, it's a combination that feels the most like me. But over the years my penchant for casual-cool clothing has turned into somewhat of a stagnant uniform. I spent years solely wearing stretchy, high-waisted skinny jeans because that was the only thing that fit comfortably. Now, let me be clear. I know that my particular body is not the only shape that has difficulty—not by a long shot. But somewhere along the line there became this divide in fashion and fit, where you're either meant to slip into a sample or shop plus size. Which is why the launch of these jeans felt really important.

A Song of the Sea, in Gold and Gems

Photo Massimo Izzo works on the lost-wax cast of a bracelet with seahorses and single piece of raw aquamarine from Brazil. Credit Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

SIRACUSA, Italy — When the jeweler Massimo Izzo sat down to dinner with a visitor one day in January, the waiter suddenly appeared with an appetizer that hadn't been ordered: sea urchin linguine.

"See! This is what inspires me, this is where I draw from, these people, these surprises!" Mr. Izzo exclaimed.

And one of his most recent creations, part of the Jewels of the Sea collection, is a sand-treated 18-karat gold pendant in the shape of a sea urchin surrounded by coral branches and a diamond- encrusted grouper fish.

Mr. Izzo's designs are an ode to his native Sicily, Hellenic beauty and a life spent along the Medi terranean. "Underwater life enchants me," he said. "That is why elements such as sea horses, octopuses, starfish, crabs and corals take center stage on my jewels."

And the jewelry world is well aware of it. Carol Woolton, jewelry editor of British Vogue, said: "Massimo's work brings Sicily alive using vast vibrant gemstones, coral and gold work which are redolent of the rich fruits, flowers and coastlines. He's working in the tradition of the great master jeweler Fulco di Verdura creating visual effects that bring to mind the bright sights of the Italian island."

Photo Mr. Izzo works on a 18-karat gold ring with sea motifs and a coral starfish from Sardinia. Credit Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

The designer, 49, son of an officer in the Italian military and an executive at the Italian department store group La Rinascente, was born in Messina but grew up in Siracusa without a sense of pressure about his future. "At 14, I already loved jewelry design, but I also had a thing for the hotel industry," Mr. Izzo said.

The year he graduated from middle school, the state art school in Siracusa began an experimental program in gold and metal smithing. There he met his first mentor, Totò Canigiula, a professor of embossing and engraving techniques, and in the early '80s he became assistant to Salvatore Cassone, then the oldest jeweler in Siracusa, who persuaded him to go out on his own.

It was 1994 when he received his first major commission. "It was my 'aha' moment," Mr. Izzo said. "Pope John Paul II was slated to inaugurate the Shrine of Our Lady of Tears in Siracusa, and the City Hall asked me to create a gift for him" — an embossed silver plate detailing the history of the Catholic Church.

Another career-defining momen t was designing the jewels worn by Monica Bellucci in the 1999 romantic drama "Malèna." Mr. Izzo worked with the director, the Academy Award winner Giuseppe Tornatore, to ensure the character's twisted behavior was matched by the spirals, volutes and curls of the pieces she wore. "The beautiful yet dramatic scenes asked for sober jewels which I borrowed from popular tradition: rosé or yellow gold crosses and black onyx-embedded pink gold earrings," he recalled.

In 2007, to celebrate the first 20 years of his career, he moved his atelier to the vibrant Archimedes Square, an area popular with tourists in Siracusa. The ground floor of a 17th century palace was transformed into a boutique and a glass-walled workroom, so customers could see pieces being made while they shopped.

Mr. Izzo says one his greatest accomplishments has been untethering himself from the rigid style of traditional Sicilian jewelers: "I wanted to experiment with new methods, materials and shapes." Over the years, his travels from the diamond-cutting rooms of Valenza in northern Italy to remote gemstone quarries have led him to innovations.

Photo In Mr. Izzo's atelier in Siracusa, Italy, from left, a bracelet from his Sicilian Lace collection in 18-karat gold with lapis lazuli, periodot and diamonds; and a necklace and bracelet made of 19th century coral from southern Sicily. Credit Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

"I have coined the term 'cut noncut' — that is a stone hewn only on one side to fit the shape of the jewel," he said. "The rest is in the hands of Mother Nature."

As examples, he referred to an 18-karat gold double ring with diamonds that he created in the shape of coral branches, and a seahorse piece topped by an irregularly cut aquamarine from Brazil.

Mr. Izzo's clients come from around the world; some have seen his work at the Elsa Vanier and the FD Art galleries, in Paris and New York. He also has had exhibitions and trunk shows in locations like Jeddah and San Francisco, and in 2011, he opened what he calls a jewelry gallery in Milan.

"My pieces are made to order, unless the arrival of a new season inspires me to be creative — that's when I start sketching ideas," he said. He dislikes working on collections and disdains logos. "My handicrafts differ from fashion elements as they don't have a short shelf life; they're created to be perpetuated, just like Berber jewels, endlessly bequeathed to younger generations."

Santo Versace, president of the fashion house, has some of Mr. Izzo's pieces. "Massimo's haute jewelry represents a constant dialogue between masterly techniques, outstanding execution and knowledge of the Mediterranean past," he said in an email. "The latter is something we both share."

Tim Burton actually sailed i nto town on Johnny Depp's yacht. "He came back and forth three times and acted like a big kid inside a toy store," Mr. Izzo said. "In the end he bought jewels for his family and the boat crew members." J.K. Rowling, however, asked the designer to come onboard her boat off Riposto, on the eastern side of the island.

In his workshop, Mr. Izzo pulled out two green turquoises from Iran to show a guest the almost surrealist patterns inside the gems. "It's as if the stones hold my hands and accompany me through a creative and inspirational voyage," he said. "The jewel itself is the journey's end, not the point of departure."

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7 Splurges Our Editors Have Never Regretted

We've all had that item, the one we've kept in our online carts for months or made eyes at as we walked by it sitting in the window. While it can feel intimidating to finally pull the trigger on a major purchase, sometimes treating yourself to something you've been coveting is absolutely the right decision.

So what won't leave you feeling like you made a major mistake post-purchase? We asked our editors to share the splurges they sprung for and have yet to regret. Their answers range from closet staples to of-the-moment stunners, but they've all stood the test of time! 

Check out their choices below and shop similar styles!

A Mother’s Death, a Daughter’s Life: Remembering Natalie Wood

Photo Natalie Wood with her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner in the 1970s. "I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I am different from her and how I am similar," Ms. Gregson Wagner said. Credit Ron Galella/WireImage

LOS ANGELES — The home that Natasha Gregson Wagner shares with her husband, his sons and their daughter in Venice, a seaside neighborhood here, smells clean in a non-antiseptic way and, on a recent visit, faintly of the lilacs that rested in a vase on the kitchen countertop.

Scent matters to Ms. Gregson Wagner, 46. It's an emotional trigger and conjurer of memory. In every home that she has lived in as an adult, she says she has planted a gardenia bush, because the smell of gardenias reminds her of her mother. "The smell is what I remember, the comfort of the smell," she said as she sat on a banquette in her kitchen, wearing jeans and a flowered, billowy blouse. "I knew when she was home because I would smell her perfume. She would waft through the house."

Her mother was Natalie Wood, who appeared in "Miracle on 34th Street" as a little girl, "Rebel Without a Cause" as a teenager and "Splendor in the Grass" and "West Side Story" as a young woman. Beginning at the age of 4, and over the next four decades, Ms. Wood starred or appeared in more than five dozen films and television shows and was an emblem of Hollywood glamour and beauty, wholesome but sensual — a good girl growing up in front of American moviegoers during the squeaky-clean 1950s and the sexual revolution and era of women's liberation that followed.

She died in 1981, when she was 43, having drowned Thanksgiving weekend somewhere off the coast of Catalina Island, Calif., where she had been staying on a boat with her husband, Robert J. Wagner, and a friend, the actor Christopher Walken.

At the time, Ms. Gregson Wagner was 11 and her sister Courtney Wagner was 7. Ms. Gregson Wagner was on a sleepover at the Hollywood Hills home of her best friend, who had a new clock radio. The girls went to sleep with the radio on. The news was broadcast as they slept. "I woke up and I was like: 'Is this real? Is this really what's happening?'" Ms. Gregson Wagner recalled. "They said, 'Natalie Wood drowned off the coast of Catalina.'"

Photo Natasha Gregson Wagner at her home in Los Angeles. Credit Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York Times

Then she got home. "It was all real," she said. "I remember all these adults, my dad was just in bed, he was in bed not able to function at all. Daddy Gregson was there the next day and my stepmom, Julia. My mom's three best friends: Mart Crowley, who is a playwright; and Howard Jeffrey, who passed away and was assistant choreographer on 'West Side Story'; and then Delphine Mann, who is still alive. They were really taking care of us, and of course our nanny. It was kind of like a Fellini movie with people coming in and out. It was very extreme. Very bizarre."

As any daughter would be, she was devastated and scared. "Her bed and her sheets smelled like her," said Ms. Gregson Wagner, who is petite at 5-foot-2 and with almond-shaped brown eyes, bears more than a passing resemblance to her mother. "I slept there for a lot of nights. Especially with one of her pillows, it just smelled like her in the days after."

More than 30 years later, the memory of that death — and the decades-long controversy that surrounded it — remains a powerful one for Ms. Gregson Wagner, one that she has rarely spoken about publicly. An actress who has appeared in films such as "High Fidelity" and "Two Girls and a Guy," Ms. Gregson Wagner has chosen, over the years, to reserve most of her remembrances and reflections about her mother's life and death for conversations with close friends and loved ones.

But there are reasons that she recently chose to invite a reporter into her home, which is decorated minimally with nods to her family history: a needlepoint pillow bearing her mother and stepfathe r's initials here, a photo of her mother holding her as a days-old baby in the front seat of a Mercedes there.

Photo Natalie Wood, left, and Lana Wood. Credit Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images

Working with her mother's estate, she has decided to embark on a commercial project. She has created (and is planning a major rollout for) a perfume to honor her mother, called Natalie. It is a gardenia-based fragrance in a square glass bottle adorned by Ms. Wood's signature. Next fall, there will be a coffee-table book she is contributing to, to be published by Turner Classic Movies and Running Press, with essays as well as vintage film studio and family photographs.

The occasion has led Ms. Gregson Wagner to speak about her mother's death — and, of greater importance to her daughter — her life.

She has spent years talking to therapists while trying to extr icate the mother who died from the celebrity whose legend lived on. The process, at times, was confusing and isolating, she said, and left her feeling insecure: the overshadowed daughter of a movie star who died young, rather than Natasha, daughter of Natalie.

But raising her daughter, Clover, 3, with her husband, Barry Watson, has shifted her perceptions. "When you grow up with a mom who is so enigmatic and gorgeous and full of charisma and power," she began, "well, because I was 11 when she died, I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I am different from her and how I am similar, to help me have my own individuality."

Photo A bottle of the perfume Ms. Gregson Wagner has created to honor her mother, along with jewelry that belonged to her, including a Van Cleef & Arpels butterfly. Credit Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York Times

Ms. Gregson Wagner's very name suggests the complications of a Hollywood childhood. At the time of her death, Ms. Wood had been married for nearly a decade to Mr. Wagner, whom she first married in 1957, then divorced in 1962 before marrying him again in 1972. It was between Ms. Wood's marriages to Mr. Wagner that Ms. Gregson Wagner was born, in 1970, a product of a brief marriage to the English agent and producer Richard Gregson.

Ms. Wood remarried Mr. Wagner (whom Ms. Wood called R J) when Natasha was 2, and then appended her new husband's name to her daughter's. "She added his name without talking about it to my real dad, which she shouldn't have done; but that was my mom's style," Ms. Gregson Wagner said. "She didn't think she needed to ask permission to do anything."

After her mother's death, Ms. Gregson Wagner was raised by her stepfather ("Daddy Wagner") in the Pacific Palisades, spending summers with her real father ("Daddy Gregson") in Wales. (Courtney, Natasha's younger sister, is the child of Ms. Wood and Mr. Wagner. Katie, Natasha's older sister, is the daughter of Mr. Wagner and Marion Donen, whom he wed between his two marriages to Ms. Wood; Katie lived with her father and sisters.)

"There were no lawyers," she said. "My dads just sat down and my Daddy Gregson said, 'I feel like Natasha should come live with me because she's my daughter,' and my Daddy Wagner said, 'I know, that would make sense, but she's grown up with me,' and then they said, 'What's the best thing for Natasha?'" She added: "And they were right. The best thing for me was to live with my stepdad and see my Daddy Gregson over the summer."

Photo A charm necklace that belonged to Ms. Gregson Wagner's mother. Credit Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York Times

Ms. Wood's death was declared a drowning, but some of the details around it remain unknown. The tragedy has long been a favorite focus of conspiracy theorists, and caused something of a family rift. Recently, Lana Wood, Natalie's younger sister and Natasha's aunt, approached Mr. Wagner in a hotel lobby in view of a videographer, asking him to answer questions about the night Natalie died. The video ended up on RadarOnline.com and kicked up a little dust on the web.

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This Is How Gigi Hadid Elevates a Casual Look

Gigi Hadid may have been casually running around New York City, but she did so in style. The model was seen wearing comfy leggings, a loose-fitting top, and sneakers while out and about, but her oversize statement coat elevated her laid-back outfit. A furry coat like hers is cozy enough to keep your outfit relaxed while giving it street-style cred. If you ask us, it doesn't get simpler than that. We're big fans of this faux-fur moment.

Check out Gigi's chic look below and keep scrolling to shop the style.

Modern Love: A Slow-Motion Demise, a Fast-Forward Repair

My boys were in high school by then, their lives filled with friends and sports and girls, and my marriage was starting to come apart. During the day, I was able to put that out of my mind. But at night, before I fell asleep, I had the creeping awareness that in a few years, when my sons left for college, they would take every last shred of happiness in our home with them.

Thanksgiving was approaching. It had been nearly a year since Charley had moved away, and I missed him. We had celebrated this holiday together for nearly a decade, so I invited him to come to Austin for a long weekend and spend it with us. He said he would.

After he and I made these plans, I mentioned his coming visit to my sister-in-law, Libby , who lives in San Francisco. "Just so you know," she said, dropping her voice to a whisper, "I think he's stopped washing his hair. He's grown this awful mustache. He locks himself in his room and doesn't talk to anyone. I'm seriously starting to worry he's writing a manifesto in there. You won't recognize him."

She was right, I didn't. And it wasn't just the hair or mustache. Charley wasn't Charley anymore. For the four days of his stay, he was terse and dour and didn't smile once, let alone laugh.

On Sunday morning, determined to cheer him up, I took him for a walk around Town Lake, peppering our conversation with witty snark and clever puns, two of his favorite things. No response. In desperation, I said, "Just look at the beautiful colors of the sycamore trees."

He turned to me sadly. "Stop," he said. "Just stop."

Charley's broken heart was breaking mine.

Later that week, I was in the marketing team's communal space at work when a new hire popped in to say hi. Her name was Regan; she had just transferred to the Austin office from our company's Northeast region. She decided to introduce herself by sharing cookies and stories of her struggles adjusting to Texas living: the culture, the weather, the flora and fauna — if you can call gigantic flying cockroaches "fauna."

"What are those?" she asked with comic indignation as the rest of us stuffed our faces with stroopwafels. "They're not bugs. Bugs are small and run away when they see you. These things are huge, and they are not shy. I swear, I was watching TV last night and one marched right past me and waved, like, 'Hey, just getting some cereal.'"

Everyone laughed, and suddenly I saw a vision of Charley sitting in the corner, laughing with us. Once again handsome and well groomed, with his legs crossed and arms folded over his chest, he was looking at Regan with his eyes lit up. And then the vision disappeared.

"You should meet my brother Charley," I blurted out.

"Why, is he bald?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," she went on. "It's just that every guy people have set me up with lately has been bald. It's a trend, apparently."

"Here he is," I said, showing her an old picture I kept on my desk. "He lives in California."

She let out a low whistle.

As soon as she left, I sent Charley an email telling him that I had just met the woman of his dreams and that he should move back, marry her and live happily eve r after. On a whim, I included her company email address.

Ten minutes later, Regan reappeared at our office door, hands on her hips. "What did you write to your brother?" she asked.

"Uh, why?"

"I just got an email from him asking me to marry him."

The office became quiet. Everyone was looking at me.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, my face flushing. "He can be kind of — I should have — oh, gosh. What did it say?"

She replied, "It said, 'My sister says you're perfect for me and I trust my sister, so will you marry me?'"

"Did you answer?" I asked meekly.

"Yes! I said: 'Sure, I'll marry you. I'm not doing anything else this weekend.'" Then she walked away, laughing.

Over the next several months, I would go through my own divorce and find my own true love, David, who two years later stood by my side at Charley and Regan's wedding.

To make a short story even shorter: Charley and Regan kept emailing after their first exchange until eventually they decided to board planes and meet. During their first get-together, Charley proposed and Regan said yes.

In their wedding pictures, we all look incredibly happy.

One night not long ago, after I had finished reading their three boys a bedtime story, I was lying down with them for a while in the dark, listening to their breathing, until a small voice sliced through the quiet.

It was Sam, the middle brother. "Aunt Maddy?"

"Yes, honey?"

"I just want to thank you for the idea of my mom and dad meeting," he said. "Because I really love my mom and dad, and I'm really glad they met, and that I'm here."

I recently learned about "kintsugi," the Japanese art of using powdered precious metals to repair broken pottery. It's based on the belief that breakage is part of an object's life, and that when mended with gold, platinum or, in my case, the tender love of a beloved middle child, unsightly cracks are transformed into something uniquely sublime.

"I'm really glad too," I said.

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You're Going to Want Everything From This Designer Collaboration

After debuting her S/S 2016 collection via Instagram last September, designer Misha Nonoo announced the launch of her latest collaboration with Aldo Rise on the social media platform. The collection—inspired by the 1960s minimalist art movement—launched yesterday and marks the third time the womenswear designer has partnered with the brand. Mod mules, sexy strappy sandals, and flatform sneakers make up the shoes in the range, while the color palette of red, white, and denim lends itself to the retro vibes of the line. There is also an everyday crossbody bag in two bold yet playful colorways to compliment the stylish footwear. 

Keep scrolling to check out and shop the entire collection.