Town & Country articles from May 2006

Town & Country archives from May 2006

A modern life.(EDITOR'S LETTER)
May 1, 2006... I'VE ALWAYS LOVED historic houses, and for a couple of years I lived in one. It was a graceful 1798 Colonial in Connecticut, situated on the crest of a hill, overlooking cow pastures in the front and acres of protected land in the back. It had...

A cairn in the wind.(In Your Own Words...)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I was so impressed with the photo of the cairn terrier taken by Petography founder Jim Dratfield and featured in "Doggone With the Wind" ["In the Country," March] that I wanted to share a similar shot. Here's Merritt-Louise--my own cairn...

All together abroad.(In Your Own Words...)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... Thank you for Melissa Biggs Bradley's wonderful article "Costa Rica With Kids" ["Traveler's Notebook," December]. As an expatriate American family living in Singapore, we enjoy traveling around the region together. These trips are a great...

The 26th treatment?(In Your Own Words...)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I couldn't wait to see which items would be chosen for "The 25 Best New Treatment Products" [February], sure that my own discovery would be there. However, either the testing was done before the release of the Patricia Wexler, M.D., line, or...

A sparkling soiriee.(PARTIES: The Gem Awards)
May 1, 2006... Perfect Setting: With beautiful baubles adorning the women in attendance, New York City's Cipriani 42nd Street was even more aglitter than usual for the Gem Awards, the Jewelry Information Center's annual event celebrating the best and the...

For the love of dance.(PARTIES: San Francisco Ballet)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Triumphant Troupe: The San Francisco Ballet can take pride in being the oldest professional ballet company in America, as well as in giving the nation's first performances of Swan Lake, in 1940, and The Nutcracker, in 1944. The group also hosts...

Divine debut.(PARTIES: Opera Carolina's Georges Bizet)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... The Scene: Opera Carolina, founded in 1948, is one of the oldest opera companies in the South. This year, for the first time, it celebrated its season opening with a spectacular gala, held at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, in Charlotte,...

A bright idea.(PARTIES: Idea Center at Playhouse Square)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Forward-Thinking: Cleveland's new Idea Center at Playhouse Square brings the city's public television and radio stations and the Playhouse Square Foundation's arts-education programs together in one high-tech broadcast and teaching facility....

A palm beach ball.(Norton Museum of Art fund raising event)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... French Connection: In honor of its French Impressionism exhibition, Palm Beach's Norton Museum of Art brought a bit of the Left Bank to the shores of Florida for its annual "Bal des Arts." Black-and-white polka-dotted tablecloths and...

Buon appetito!(Food Allergy Initiative's annual ball charity event)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... On the Map: There is nothing bland about the Food Allergy Initiative's annual ball. In each of the past eight years, the relatively new organization has held a fundraiser to generate support for finding treatments for life-threatening food...

L.A. time.(Christian Dior S.A.)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Dinner at the Getty: Dior celebrated the launch of its steel-and-sapphire Christal watch with an intimate dinner at the Richard Meier--designed Getty Center, in Los Angeles. The decor was a perfect match for the building's architecture, with...

Five super-sleek structures: these new buildings will change the way you think about shopping and eating, working and worshipping.(ON THE TOWN)
May 1, 2006... NEW YORK STRUCTURE: Hearst Tower ARCHITECTURE FIRM: Foster and Partners COST: $500 million STORIES: 46 It took eighty years, but the squat edifice once known as the International Magazine Building has been transformed from pudgy kid to...

Grow with the flow.(IN THE COUNTRY: The Modern Garden)
May 1, 2006... Most landscape architecture of the 20th century is rooted in the traditions of the English garden, where man first tamed nature and then imposed his planting schemes on it. But the gardens of KATHRYN GUSTAFSON--one of the most admired landscape...

Margherita Maccapani Missoni.(FASHION & STYLE)(Cover story)
May 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: Muse and ambassador for her family's fashion-and-lifestyle company, the twenty-three-year-old Margherita, Italian born and bred, is the eldest daughter of designer Angela Missoni and the granddaughter of Missoni founders Tai and...

The innovators: six progressive designers who are ever paving the way to fashion's future.(FASHION & STYLE: News)
May 1, 2006... Narciso Rodriguez After working as design director of TSE, Loewe and Cerruti, Rodriguez launched a signature collection in 1997, and he has wowed us ever since. His continuing focus: elongating the silhou-ette with clean lines and color....

Classic contrast.(FASHION & STYLE)
May 1, 2006... Black-and-white accessories look fresh Again. From top, left to right: PIERRE HARDY striped peep-toe pumps ($560). NANCY GONZALEZ hand-woven-crocodile clutch ($2,100). FENDI B bag ($875). MANOLO BLAHNIK Morisa ($565). BRUNO FRISONI ribbon-bow...

Gold rush.(FASHION & STYLE)
May 1, 2006... Caption: Let metallic bags bring luster to your wardrobe. From top: VIVRE woven gold-plated sterling-silver Basket minaudiere ($300). CHANEL brass clutch ($1,925). DEVI KROELL gold-enamel Disco bag ($1,490).CALVIN KLEIN COLLECTION gold box...

The future is now.(FASHION & STYLE)
May 1, 2006... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: Modern life's new necessities get smarter, smaller and--if we're lucky--simpler to use with every passing second. Here, some of the latest high-tech highlights. 1. Lightweight and pocket-sized, the SANYO HD1...

Go for the bold.(JEWELRY)
May 1, 2006... Caption: A gold ring needn't be adorned with stones to have maximum impact. We love the clean, modern look of these oversized rings with distinctive, statement-making textures. From top: CHRISTIAN DIOR FINE JEWELRY Nougat ($3,900),...

Light as a flower.(JEWELRY)
May 1, 2006... Caption: Don't be foxed by the heavy look of these floral gems--they are set entirely in titanium, a light metal that's relatively new to the world of high-end jewelry. "What love about titanium," says designer Vera Wang, "is that it is so...

Downright digital.(WATCHES)
May 1, 2006... Digital-display watches have come a long way since they were introduced in the early 1970s. Today's top luxury brands combine their signature styles with the latest technology to create impeccably modern time-pieces. Clockwise from top: LOUIS...

High-tech skin.(BEAUTY & HEALTH)
May 1, 2006... Today's skin-care products sport streamlined containers in keeping with the cutting-edge formulas stored within. 1. DIOR's new whitening line, DiorSnow Pure ($30-$85), prevents dark spots and tackles existing ones while its anti-inflammatories...

The ultimate luxury.(BEAUTY & HEALTH)
May 1, 2006... Empress Eugenie inspired Guerlain's legendary Eau Imperiale, made just for her in the 19th century. Although you no longer need to be an empress to enjoy such a treasure, an empress-sized wallet does help. Like a couture gown, a custom scent...

Beauty in the Bahamas.(India Hicks's Island Beauty )(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... In her book Island Beauty (Stewart, Tabori & Chang; $27.50), former model India Hicks invites you to her home on Harbour Island, in the Bahamas, and how can you resist? She unveils a world in which you exfoliate dry skin with coconut rinds,...

The proactive patient.(Hyman Fead in her books I Can Do This: Living With Cancer, Tracing a Year of Hope )(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... BEVERLYE HYMAN FEAD received a brutal diagnosis in September 2002: her abdominal area was riddled with advanced, malignant tumors from a rare cancer called leiomyosarcoma. Her doctor predicted that without treatment she'd live only two more...

Simply organic.(BEAUTY & HEALTH)
May 1, 2006... Be both glamorous and environmentally conscious with Patyka's collection of organic perfumes ($96) and skin-care products ($24-$52). All are made from pesticide-free botanicals, thus earning organic certification from the USDA and the...

A new kind of doctor.(BEAUTY & HEALTH)(DR. MARK HYMAN)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... The quintessential 21st-century doctor doesn't treat your symptoms. And he is not a specialist. Instead, he is a family-medicine physician trained to get at the underlying cause of your disease. Meet DR. MARK HYMAN, of Lenox, Massachusetts....

Mystery scent.(BEAUTY & HEALTH)
May 1, 2006... Designer Giorgio ARMANI based his new women's fragrance, Armani Code ($38-$73), on the orange blossom, but don't expect a citrusy-sweet composition. It's as elegant as you'd imagine any Armani design would be. Layers of ginger and woody notes...

Customers first.(BEAUTY & HEALTH)
May 1, 2006... Finding natural alternatives to synthetic ingredients in cosmetics is no easy task. So in response to consumer demand for purer products, some companies, rather than discard their original formulas altogether, are phasing out a few of the more...

Makeup maestro.(BEAUTY & HEALTH)
May 1, 2006... Color NOUBA happy: the Italian cosmetics company has garnered fans in Europe with more than 2,000 shades of lipstick. For its Stateside debut, we're relieved that the brand's makeup artists selected a smaller collection of colors ($10-$40) for...

A jolt for your skin.(BEAUTY & HEALTH)
May 1, 2006... ESTIEE LAUDER Perfectionist Power Correcting Patch for Deeper Eye Lines and Wrinkles ($50 for three sets) does indeed deliver power--with a tiny, flat 1.5-volt battery--through gel pads that are composed mostly of water. When you position the...

Boosting your color.(BEAUTY & HEALTH)
May 1, 2006... Color shampoos and conditioners carry blonde, brown or red cosmetic dyes and deposit them on tresses. But certain areas of your hair can pick up more dye than others. To avoid streaks, use New York-based stylist Oscar Blandi's two-part...

Try a new tea.(BEAUTY & HEALTH: Must-Dos for May)
May 1, 2006... Bulgari has followed up its ever-popular green-tea and white-tea scents with Au The Rouge ($57-$82), an eau de cologne spray that highlights spicy red teas from South Africa and China. Orange and bergamot add surprising, soft layers to the...

Cover up.(BEAUTY & HEALTH: Must-Dos for May)
May 1, 2006... Masking skin conditions that range from chronic undereye circles to post-surgical redness has never been easier: the new pigment-dense foundation COVER FX ($37) provides ample, creamy coverage in forty shades. At selected Nordstrom stores. ...

Use a body serum.(BEAUTY & HEALTH: Must-Dos for May)
May 1, 2006... What's true for your face is also true for your body: serums penetrate the skin more deeply than moisturizers do. So apply JUVENA OF SWITZERLAND's Juvedical body serum ($85) to improve elasticity and keep skin hydrated, and save the buttery...

Drink for your skin.(BEAUTY & HEALTH: Must-Dos for May)
May 1, 2006... BORBA Skin Balance water ($2.50) delivers a variety of supplements, such as pomegranate and green-tea extracts, to kick-start the skin-enhancing mechanisms that remove toxins, neutralize free radicals and decrease inflammation. At Nordstrom...

Tone with rose water.(BEAUTY & HEALTH: Must-Dos for May)
May 1, 2006... Dip into the haute-natural trend and spritz on the alcohol-free, sweet-smelling DUCHESS MARDEN Damascena rose water ($24-$38). At Aedes de Venustas, NYC, 888-AEDES-15. N.J.J. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Modern, then and now.(evaluation of modernism)
May 1, 2006... Modernism was the cultural revolution of the 20th century, as important to those times as Romanticism was to the 19th century and the Enlightenment was to the 18th. But when we describe something today as "modern," are we referring to that...

A modernism timeline.(ARTS & CULTURE)(Chronology)
May 1, 2006... 1907 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, by Pablo Picasso. This revolutionary, near-Cubist painting, depicting whores in Barcelona, is arguably the most important of the 20th century. 1910 Robie House, Chicago, by Frank Lloyd Wright. The house was...

Brave new world.(Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939 exhibitions)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... After revolutionizing architecture and design--not to mention contemporary life--as it swept though Europe, Russia and America in the early 20th century, the modernist movement in the 1960s and '70s was attacked in some quarters for its...

Music: composers in harmony.(ARTS & CULTURE)
May 1, 2006... The aim of the great 20th-century modernist composers from Schoenberg to Stravinsky was to free music from traditional formulas of harmony so that the tones produced could be heard entirely on their own. Composers have been wrestling with...

Built for speed.(ARTS & CULTURE)(American Streamlined Design: The World of Tomorrow," - art exhibition)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Streamlined Design, of the 1930s and '40s, was as American as jazz, baseball and apple pie. It's back again, thanks to "American Streamlined Design: The World of Tomorrow," appearing through June 11 at New York City's Bard Graduate Center for...

Ballet: movers and shapers.(ARTS & CULTURE)
May 1, 2006... In the first half of the 20th century, the Russian-born George Balanchine moved to New York and helped found the company that was to become the New York City Ballet. In the process, he reinvented classical ballet by stripping it down to its...

Photography: the sky's no limit.(ARTS & CULTURE)
May 1, 2006... Although his earliest images are rooted in the 19th century, Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) became a modernist pioneer. With close-ups and cropped compositions, he transformed the traditional genres of portraiture, cityscape and landscape. A...

Collectors: the early birds.(Walter and Louise Arensberg 's Rubell Family Collection)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Back when European modernism wasn't shown in any American museum, Walter and Louise Arensberg brought masterpieces like Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 (1912) and Henri Matisse's Mlle Yvonne Landsberg (1914) to their New York...

Fiction: the experimenters.(David Mitchell works)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... The great innovators of modern fiction--Proust, Joyce, Faulkner--were as much concerned with how to tell a story as with the story itself. Remembrance of Things Past, Ulysses and The Sound and the Fury were grand experiments in language in...

Architecture: the form givers.(ARTS & CULTURE)
May 1, 2006... Long before tourists journeyed to downtown L.A. to gaze in wonder at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, architects trekked to Notre-Dame du Haut, Chapelle de Ronchamp, Le Corbusier's graceful hilltop sanctuary in northeastern France. The church...

Shanghai's new sheen: China's most populous and dynamic city dazzles with its imposing sky-scrapers and stylish new hotels, restaurants and shops. It's a metropolis for the modern age.(TRAVELER'S NOTEBOOK)
May 1, 2006... JAW-DROPPING AWE--that's the invariable reaction of first-time visitors to Shanghai upon witnessing the city's futuristic skyline and experiencing its seething streets, vibrant atmosphere and breakneck speed. If there is a dollar to be made or...

A group effort.
May 1, 2006... In Madrid, the HOTEL PUERTA AMERICA gives new meaning to the term "design hotel." Nineteen celebrated architects and interior designers, including David Chipperfield, Marc Newson and Ron Arad, each produced either a floor of guest rooms or one...

Terminal style.(TRAVELER'S NOTEBOOK)(airport design)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... After the 1962 opening of Eero Saarinen's now-famous TWA terminal at New York City's JFK Airport (then called Idlewild), modern airport architecture took off. In recent years, some of the biggest names in architecture have continued to...

South African getaway.(Knysna)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... South Africa's fashionable set has long spent holidays in Knysna (pronounced NIZE-na), a laid-back coastal town located on the Garden Route. Now that the world-class PEZULA RESORT HOTEL & SPA has opened there, it is sure to attract an...

San Diego heats up.
May 1, 2006... These days, one of the hottest places to spend a San Diego night is Jbar, the poolside bar atop the city's HOTEL SOLAMAR, where guests relax on a 13,000-square-foot terrace flanked with canvas cabanas, firepits, potted palms and cushioned...

How to be hip.(TRAVELER'S NOTEBOOK)
May 1, 2006... Looks can be very seductive, as two new book series from the German publishing house teNeues show. The COOL SHOPS collection covers gorgeous contemporary stores in such cities as Hong Kong, Tokyo and Hamburg, while the COOL RESTAURANTS series...

The green house: it's taken a while, but high-style design and environmental sustainability are finally coming together.(DESIGN TRENDS)
May 1, 2006... The Memphis-based AMY HOWARD COLLECTION creates and finishes its furniture and accessories by hand. Ingredients for gessoes and stains range from natural chalks and eggs to walnuts--but never toxic chemicals. Minerva round mirror, $1,518....

It's a mod, mod world.(DESIGN TRENDS: Bookshelf)
May 1, 2006... Race right into the pages of Carlo Mollino: Architecture as Autobiography, by Giovanni Brino (Thames & Hudson; $44.95). The book is an incisive profile of the visionary architect, designer and photographer (1905-1973), whose work is rare and...

Color-coded.(DESIGN TRENDS: Bookshelf)
May 1, 2006... One of the myths of modernism is that it all happened in black and white. This spring, seminal books on the color theories of Le Corbusier and Josef Albers have been reissued, reasserting the influence of 20th-century color concepts on art and...

Curves ahead.(DESIGN TRENDS: Bookshelf)(Oscar Niemeyer )(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... CURVES AHEAD Oscar Niemeyer may be best known in the United States for his contribution to the U.N. headquarters (1949-1953), but it's the architect's work in Brasilia, and elsewhere in his home country of Brazil, that has defined his career....

A good man is hard to raise: even when boys are simply being boys, they should know how to be on their best behavior.(SOCIAL GRACES)
May 1, 2006... MY THREE SONS and I are going down in our elevator, which features a nondescript, one-person bench. According to the boys, sitting on that bench is the only way to travel in style-it's on a par with a ride at Disney World. And whichever son...

Sweet and low: Architect Tadao Ando builds a subtle but stupendous home deep--literally--in the Italian countryside for Alessandro Benetton and his family.
May 1, 2006... TAKE A HIGH-PROFILE Italian couple with a desire for a low-key lifestyle. Add one of the brightest comets in the architectural firmament working today. Mix in a flat cornfield in the Veneto region of northern Italy, and come up with a...

Let there be light: East Coast modernism got off the ground in New Canaan, Connecticut, in the 1950s. Today a few committed homeowners are helping to keep it aloft.
May 1, 2006... PHILIP JOHNSON'S brick-and-glass Boissonnas house is inviting and crisp-a linear composition of linked volumes and white trellises that evokes the symmetry and grand proportions of a Palladian villa. When Bill Matassoni and his wife, Pamela...

Consummate grace: architecture, art and nature meet seamlessly in the Seattle house Jim Olson has designed for collector Barney Ebsworth.
May 1, 2006... SAILING ACROSS Lake Washington from downtown Seattle, you hardly notice the ground-hugging lakefront house that Jim Olson has designed for Barney Ebsworth, even though it extends 230 feet among the trees. Ebsworth wanted an unobtrusive home for...

Modern must-haves.(Directory)
May 1, 2006... If we're lucky, the future will hold as many transcendent design objects as we've seen created over the last hundred years. Here are T&C's favorites, chosen from what's in production today--brilliant ideas made even more so by their...

The right setting: with the help of some talented friends, the owners of Bird Haven Farm transform a jumble of buildings into a harmonic whole.
May 1, 2006... Janet Mavec and her husband, Wayne Nordberg, hired Spanish landscape designer Fernando Caruricho to make sense of almost two hundred years' worth of architecture on their New Jersey farm. A serene gravel courtyard and a pool now knit the...

Weddings.
May 1, 2006... Mr. and Mrs. Randy Lawrence Abend (Ruth Rebekah Rozenholc) New York, New York Mr. and Mrs. Andrew I. Murray (Kristin S. Moses) Charlottesville, Virginia Mr. and Mrs. James P. Vanderbilt (Amber L. Freeman) Montecito, California ...

Horoscopes.
May 1, 2006... May Taurus April 21-May 21 May appears to be particularly merry for Taureans--not just because it's your birthday, but because almost everything seems to be going your way. Jupiter in Scorpio indicates that you're positively golden in...