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Edwina McCann’s editor’s letter: June 2019

May 27, 2019 | News | No Comments

27th May 2019

At , we’re privileged enough to travel all over the world to photograph our exclusive covers – whether it’s the French countryside for Emma Watson, New York to shoot Lily-Rose Depp on a fire escape, or London for Rihanna, as was the case for last month’s issue. But occasionally, thanks to a little scheduling magic and luck, some of the world’s biggest celebrities touch down on our shores for a change. Such was the case when Kendall Jenner recently flew to Australia for a whirlwind 24 hours as part of her new campaign with Tiffany & Co.

In that short time frame, and showing no signs of jet lag, the American model managed to pose for this month’s cover story, plus attend the opening (and after-party) of the brand’s new flagship store in Sydney, all while keeping her boyfriend – basketball player Ben Simmons – updated on FaceTime.

Like others in her family, Jenner is a consummate professional with a reputation for getting on with the job. As she reveals from page 118, irrespective of her family’s reality TV fame, becoming a successful model was the one thing she always wanted to do. Jenner loves proving people wrong, and the fact many said she wouldn’t make it as a model only made her more determined.

You can read about other ambitious women in this issue, too: Jennifer Rubio from Away (on page 76), and Alex Moss from Canaria (see page 78), who we profile ahead of this month’s fourth Codes Summit.

From our first event in 2016, held over just two days in Sydney, this year’s Codes – thanks to our presenting partner Westpac and our supporting partners Audi and Estée Lauder – is hitting four Australian states for the very first time. We’ll be hosting 12 events, including a Penfolds Visionary Women Dinner in Adelaide and an in-conversation breakfast in Brisbane, in addition to the many other Live, Kids and Summit dates on the schedule for Sydney and Melbourne.

It’s always been our aim to shine a light on how worthwhile (and fashionable) a career in technology can be, and with more inspiring women participating in and attending Codes than ever before, we are proud to say progress has been made.

Vogue ia’s June

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By GETAWAYTHEBERKSHIRES

Can Data Be Human? The Work of Giorgia Lupi

May 27, 2019 | News | No Comments

The designer Giorgia Lupi was born in 1981 and believes that she is part of a special bridge generation. “I was raised in a completely analog environment,” she says. “I was a teen-ager when all of the awkward connection and human connection needed to be made in real life. But, at the same time, because I started to use technology as a teen-ager, I’m fluent in both worlds.” This week, Lupi joins the graphic-design firm Pentagram as the only partner who has a focus on information design. Her work, consistent with her upbringing, brings a tactile feel to computer code, and her appointment is an occasion to assess information design—a field located between graphic design and data science—and the possibilities it holds.

Sitting in Pentagram’s crisp quarters, on Park Avenue South, Lupi cuts an extremely organized figure: petite and black-clad, with a looping black necklace and round black glasses, accented by a cap of red hair. Born in Modena, Italy, and trained as an architect, Lupi had her first brush with information design while in college via an exercise in urban mapping, inspired by the planner Kevin Lynch. In his landmark book, “The Image of the City,” published in 1961, Lynch asked people to draw their city for a visitor, paying attention to their own everyday paths and major landmarks, without reference to geography. Of course, each person’s map, both in Lynch’s book and Lupi’s exercise, was different—but that did not mean that one map was more accurate than another. Rather, each person was telling a different story through cartography.

Today, Lupi describes her profession as “telling stories with data,” which sounds like an oxymoron, until you see her work. For the Milan Design Triennial, Lupi and her previous design studio, Accurat, created a so-called data tapestry, made up of horizontal bands crosshatched with vertical lines, that wraps around three sides of a gallery, titled “The Room of Change.” Each horizontal band represents a different data set, ranging from world population to animal extinctions, alcohol consumption, and technology access. Each vertical slice represents a moment in time. The wow factor comes when you step back and realize that all those numbers—all that data—look from afar like the sketch for a Bauhaus tapestry, done in colored pencil. The installation works as both visual art and a narrative of environmental decline.

Lupi calls what she does “data humanism,” a reaction against the computer-generated, harsh-toned bar graphs, pie charts, and rows of tiny humans that leapt from corporate reports into mainstream media in the nineties. In a manifesto of sorts that was published in Print magazine, Lupi writes how “ ‘cool’ infographics promised us the key to master this untamable complexity.” When that did not work out, “we were left with gigabytes of unreadable 3D pie charts and cheap translucent user interfaces full of widgets.” The ostensibly neutral visual language of these graphics suggested authority, but they could easily mislead or be misread. What was needed was a more honest, approachable, graspable way to present data.

Many people outside of the design world first encountered Lupi’s work through a side project: her year-long correspondence with the London-based data designer Stefanie Posavec, “a friendship in 52 weeks of postcards,” collected in the 2016 book “Dear Data.” When Lupi and Posavec met, they realized that they had a common interest in collecting, organizing, and, most of all, drawing. But Lupi lived in New York, and Posavec in London. They decided to get to know each other better through their preferred medium, data. Each week for a year, they set themselves a new research question: How often did they give or receive compliments? How many times did they check their phones daily? How many dresses were in their closets? They logged that information and then drew it on a postcard and sent it across the Atlantic.

There’s really no better evocation of data humanism than a flip through the book. The two women’s data are visualized as carefully drawn flowers, asterisks, and whorls. It’s touchable in a way that the bossy bar chart has rarely been. Lupi believes that collecting and visualizing your own data is a form of empowerment. The corporations and Internet companies that take information from us should be encouraged to share it, so that we, too, can use it. “Ultimately, data is human made,” Lupi says. “Actually, I don’t like to talk about data in singular. To me data is plural.” In Lupi’s hands, data can have personality, shape, warmth. Her increasing prominence (which includes the obligatory stop on the TED stage) has created its own hand-drawn trend in the field of information design. Her work speaks to a generation that is overwhelmed by input, that wants to tame the surveillance state and make it understandable. For a Gen Xer like me, Lupi’s craft aesthetic makes the comprehension of data seem more possible, but I can also see myself being lulled into a false sense of security when my online shopping habits are rendered as pastel flowers.

But my attention snags on the question of power: Who really controls the data and how they get displayed? For example, the Alphabet subsidiary Sidewalk Labs is planning a new, smart neighborhood, in Toronto, and critics are concerned about what it will mean, datawise, to walk its sidewalks. The same sensors that tell a smart streetlight that you are waiting to cross are tracking your location. How does one opt in to a neighborhood? Lupi doesn’t really want to touch the question of when data should or shouldn’t be collected. Like most information designers, she works in the space between that collection and the public. Her interest is in levelling understanding, so that we citizens can have access to, and develop an imagination about, all the information that’s already being collected. This could extend even to the gatekeeping: If Apple’s terms of service, say, were more intuitive, more designed, would we actually read them? What if, she suggests, there were tiny visualizations in the wall of text, guiding us through the legal maze?

Two of Lupi’s upcoming projects do, in fact, grapple with the questions of power and how data visualization might help, in different ways. Her next book, currently in the proposal stage, intends to function as a way “to rethink our relationship with the data we consume and produce.” She’s hoping that the book will appeal to the same audience as her TED talk: younger adults who would like to understand both the biases and the potential of information design. She’s also working with The New Yorker staff writer Sarah Stillman on a database that documents cases of asylum seekers who were deported and then killed upon return to their home countries, building on Stillman’s reporting. “After the piece was published, she received many requests to actually publish a database of these stories,” Lupi says. Through this project,” the general public will understand the human toll that immigration policies will have, but, at the same time, we’re building a searchable database that can be expanded for immigration lawyers or people who need to access all of this information for the greater good.” Data, humanity, shaking hands.

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By GETAWAYTHEBERKSHIRES

Charging Julian Assange Under the Espionage Act Is an Attack on the First Amendment

May 27, 2019 | News | No Comments

It’s a sad day in America when the most appropriate thing to say is the line often misattributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” When basic rights are under attack from the government, the arguments that are called for are neither original nor subtle. On Thursday, the Justice Department announced that it was charging the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange under the Espionage Act, for his connection to the leak of some seven hundred and fifty thousand confidential military and diplomatic documents, in 2010. The indictment of Assange is an offensive on the First Amendment that is as banal as it is blunt.

Let’s get the “I disapprove” part out of the way first. Assange is a fundamentally unappealing protagonist. He keeps terrible political company. He is, apparently, terrible company himself. In his writing and interviews, he comes across as power-crazed and manipulative. Most important, when he published leaked classified documents, he shared information that exposed people to danger. He is the perfect target precisely because he is unsympathetic. One has to hold one’s nose while defending Assange—and yet one must defend Assange.

The use of the Espionage Act to prosecute Assange is an attack on the First Amendment. Carrie DeCell, an attorney with the Knight First Amendment Institute, summed up the threat in a Twitter thread on Thursday. “The government argues that Assange violated the Espionage Act by soliciting, obtaining, and then publishing classified information,” she wrote. “That’s exactly what good national security and investigative journalists do every day.”

The government has argued that Assange is not a journalist. Most journalists would probably agree: the indiscriminate publication of classified information (or any other information, for that matter), with neither a narrative nor regard for people’s safety, is not journalism in any conventional understanding of the word. But journalism—unlike, say, medicine, law, or architecture—is a profession that any person can practice. There are no licensing or education requirements, and we journalists generally think that this is a good thing: the public can decide which journalists are worth reading or watching, and the law can intervene in those rare cases when journalism causes harm. The last thing we want the U.S. government, or any government, to do is to start deciding who is and who is not a journalist. “For the most part, the charges against him broadly address the solicitation, receipt, and publication of classified information,” DeCell tweeted. “These charges could be brought against national security and investigative journalists simply for doing their jobs, and doing them well.”

Like many Trumpian attacks on democracy, this one is novel but rooted in a long devolution of American institutions—it is a leap, but from a running start. Government use of law against speech goes back at least to the George W. Bush Administration. Prosecutions ramped up under Barack Obama. Prosecutions, however, focussed on whistleblowers and leakers; journalists, who, like the Times reporter James Risen, could be called up as witnesses, were targeted indirectly. But journalism has not been collateral damage in this battle—it has been the target. The Trump Administration has made that clear by jumping the fence that the Obama Administration had merely approached and charging Assange, under the Espionage Act, for practices typical of journalists.

It stands to reason that an Administration that considers the press an “enemy of the people” would launch this attack. In attacking the media, it is attacking the public. The First Amendment, after all, doesn’t exist to protect the right of Assange, or me, or anyone else to say whatever we want. It exists to protect the public’s access to whatever we have to say, should the public find it of interest.

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The Victims of Larry Nassar Who Dared to Come Forward First

May 27, 2019 | News | No Comments

In the summer of 2016, Rachael Denhollander was scrolling through Facebook at her home in Louisville, Kentucky, when she happened upon the cover story of the day’s Indianapolis Star. It was an investigation into U.S.A. Gymnastics, one of the nation’s most prominent Olympic organizations, concluding that for years the federation’s top officials had mishandled allegations of sexual abuse. Denhollander, a lawyer, a devout Christian, and a mother of four, had competed as a gymnast during her high-school years in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as she explains on “Believed,” a podcast from Michigan Radio and NPR that was released last fall. In 2000, when she was fifteen, her mother managed to nab her physical-therapy sessions with Larry Nassar, the celebrated physician for the women’s national team. During their visits to his clinic, Nassar would drape a sheet over Denhollander’s body and, standing so as to obstruct his movements from her mother, slip his hands beneath the teen-ager’s bra and shorts. Denhollander eventually told her mother about Nassar’s actions; both women agreed that no one would believe a club-level athlete from Kalamazoo over an Olympic doctor. Over the next sixteen years, though, Denhollander assembled her own makeshift case file, saving diary entries from her youth alongside medical records from her visits to Nassar, notes from her therapist, and research from pelvic-rehabilitation practitioners about the proper protocol of the doctor’s invasive treatments. When Denhollander finished reading the Indy Star article, she noticed that it included the number of a tip line.

It wasn’t until the next month, when Denhollander went public with her story, in a follow-up article in the Indy Star, that law enforcement started to take action against Nassar. Since 1997, Nassar’s employer, Michigan State University, had received complaints about him from numerous women, all of which were eventually dismissed. In 2014, during a Title IX investigation that ended up clearing Nassar of wrongdoing, he sat in a cramped interview room at the university’s police department and defended the integrity of his medical treatments. “I do this on a regular basis,” he insisted, suggesting that if he ever “did something wrong,” the news would spread “like wildfire.” Nassar’s crimes did not capture national attention until January of 2018, when more than a hundred women, including the two-time Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, testified against him at a live-streamed sentencing hearing in Michigan. He is now serving forty to a hundred and seventy-five years in prison, in large part because of those testimonies. Media coverage during the trial emphasized the collective courage of his victims, whose cathartic, excoriating chorus coincided with the height of the #MeToo movement. In the time since Nassar’s imprisonment, a number of journalistic investigations—among them “Believed,” the podcast, and “At the Heart of Gold,” a new HBO documentary by Erin Lee Carr—have shifted the public’s focus to the stories of his lesser-known victims, exposing the culture that enabled Nassar’s abuse from the perspective of those who dared to come forward first.

Carr’s best-known documentaries, including “Mommy Dead and Dearest” and “I Love You, Now Die,” have brought context and clarity to true-crime narratives of abuse. She began filming “At the Heart of Gold” in 2017, consulting journalists who had covered early reports of Nassar’s transgressions and travelling to Michigan to interview his survivors themselves. The subjects of Carr’s film are athletes who range in age from their teens to their thirties. They often appear on screen beside their mothers, describing with preternatural composure the admiration they once felt for Nassar. Many of them recall the doctor as a “friend,” a “confidant,” a “guardian angel,” a “God-fearing Catholic man,” or, at the least, a kindly foil to the coaches who worked them to exhaustion. Chatty and personable, Nassar smuggled candy to gymnasts during gruelling practice sessions, disbursing single Skittles from his duffel bag. He iced their bruises and taped up their shin splints. He lent them his cell phone when theirs were prohibited at a remote training camp in Texas. He brought back gifts from his stints at international competitions: water bottles, Olympic jackets, photographs signed by stars of the sport. “At the Heart of Gold” examines the misplaced trust that allowed so many children to rationalize their own suffering. Trinea Gonczar, a former gymnast whose lawyers estimate that she was molested eight hundred and forty-six times, used to justify Nassar’s treatment with reasoning that now sounds like a perversion of the #MeToo movement’s rallying cry. “He does that to me all the time,” Gonczar remembers reassuring teammates who confided in her. “You’re good. You don’t have to worry. It’s not weird. You’re not the only one.”

For decades, Nassar’s status allowed him to exploit the physical contact essential to his profession. One of the most disturbing sequences in “At the Heart of Gold” is a montage of gymnastics highlights from years past. In each snippet, Nassar appears on the sidelines as an unassuming figure in a polo shirt—practically invisible to the casual viewer until summoned to action during crises on the floor. He was there in Atlanta, at the 1996 Summer Olympics, reaching a hand behind the injured Kerri Strug as her coaches carried her toward a stretcher. He was there in Boston, at the 2000 Olympic trials, helping Shannon Miller to her feet after a weak block off the vault scuttled her attempt to qualify for the Sydney Games. Carr’s documentary also includes grainy excerpts of instructional videos that Nassar recorded to model his techniques. They show Nassar moving his palms in swift, assured motions over many anonymous bodies, demonstrating how to knead the muscles under leotards and cinch Kinesio tape around the upper thighs. It was these videos, along with a series of PowerPoints Nassar presented at medical conferences, that he used to legitimize his treatments on the rare occasions when authorities decided to question him.

Not all of Nassar’s abuse, in the end, could be justified as medical treatment. The finale of Carr’s film features the testimony of Kyle Stephens, who grew up in East Lansing, Michigan. Her parents were close friends of the Nassars. In the late nineties, they congregated at the doctor’s house for weekly Sunday dinners. As the adults cooked upstairs, Nassar would offer to entertain Stephens and her brother in his basement, where he’d initiate games of hide and seek to separate the children before masturbating in front of Stephens. On other occasions, he molested her beneath a blanket as they all watched television on the couch. The abuse began when Stephens was six or seven. After six years, Stephens told her parents, but they did not believe her. Her father demanded she apologize to Nassar; the ensuing conflict eventually estranged her from her family. On “Believed,” which includes interviews with Stephens, she recalls that it was Nassar who phoned her at college to inform her that her father had suffered a stroke. In 2016, after reading Rachael Denhollander’s story in the Indy Star, Stephens finally called the police, who were able to obtain a search warrant for Nassar’s house. What they discovered there—thirty-seven thousand images and videos of child pornography, on several external hard drives stuffed in the trash—allowed them to make an arrest.

Since Carr wrapped filming, last year, U.S.A Gymnastics has continued to contend with the fallout of the Nassar scandal. The organization has appointed four presidents since 2017. The most recent, a sports executive and former gymnast named Li Li Leung, left a post at the N.B.A. to take the job in March, out of a “personal calling.” So far, her handling of the issue has instilled little confidence. Last month, on the “Today” show, she described seeing Nassar for clearance on an injured knee when she was sixteen years old. He was not able to abuse her then because her coach was present, she explained, revealing a profound ignorance of the circumstances around much of Nassar’s abuse. (She has since apologized, sort of, acknowledging that her comment might have seemed “insensitive to the survivors and their families.”) Earlier this month, Leung announced the hiring of Edward Nyman, the organization’s first full-time director of sports medicine and science; the next day, U.S.A. Gymnastics reversed course, citing an unspecified “conflict of interest.” It was later revealed that Nyman had failed to disclose allegations of misconduct against a gym owned by his wife and that he is facing misconduct allegations of his own. (Both Nyman and his wife have denied the charges against them.)

The sport’s top athletes, meanwhile, continue to serve as fierce advocates against abuse, in gymnastics and beyond. In April, Raisman joined students from the University of Southern California in a rally, at the state capitol, supporting a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for sexual-misconduct allegations against doctors at student-health centers. Dozens of the women there were victims of George Tyndall, a former gynecologist at U.S.C. who, in 2017, was allowed to retire quietly, with a financial package, after a nurse reported him to the campus rape-crisis center. Tyndall’s first victims, like Nassar’s, had come forward as early as the nineties. By the time the Los Angeles Police Department announced an investigation, the list of his accusers had grown to include hundreds.

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The best of the amfAR Gala red carpet in Cannes

May 24, 2019 | News | No Comments

Each year, celebrities, models and actors alike descend on France’s French Riviera to take in the most anticipated films set for release in the coming months at the annual Cannes Film Festival. While the occasion is reason enough to discover the industry’s most promising new talents and exciting cinema projects, the annual Cannes Film Festival has also become one of the most stylish red carpets around the globe to look to for fashion cues. Each year, the festival rounds out with the annual amfAR Gala: a yearly event dedicated to raising money and awareness for AIDS research. And every year, the event draws celebrity support in droves, as the best in the business come out to support the charity and deliver their finest fashions simultaneously.

This year, the 2019 amfAR Gala red carpet was no exception. Sara Sampaio dazzled in Armani while Kendall Jenner (above) debuted the latest installment from H&M—a collaboration with Giambattista Valli. Rebel Wilson, Kris Jenner and Winnie Harlow were also in attendance, while Victoria’s Secret Angels Martha Hunt and Jasmine Tookes made appearances as well. Gowns were cut in high slits as per Adriana Lima and Mila Jovovich, shaped in voluminous silhouettes with tiers of tulle as seen on Chiara Ferragni, and accessorised with feathered embellishments and frills as seen on Dua Lipa. Below, see every look at the 2019 Cannes amfAR Gala red carpet, from Shanina Shaik to Coco Rocha.

Elsa Hosk wearing Redemption at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Dua Lipa waring Maison Valentino at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Stella Maxwell wearing Atelier Versace at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Rebel Wilson wearing Sachin and Babi and Nigora Tabayer at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Coco Rocha wearing Ashi Studio at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Chase Carter at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Sara Sampaio wearing Armani at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Chiara Ferragni wearing Giambattista Valli X H&M at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Natasha Poly wearing Atelier Versace at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Jasmine Tookes wearing Georges Chakra at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Noel Capri at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Karolina Kurkova wearing Gabriela Hearst at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Izabel Goulart wearing Julien MacDonald at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Adriana Lima waring Ester Abna at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Eva Longoria wearing Alberta Ferretti at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Luka Sabbat at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Jordan Barrett at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Josephine Skriver wearing Alberta Ferretti at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Luna Bijl wearing Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Martha Hunt wearing Monique Lhuillier at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Winnie Harlow wearing Richard Quinn at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Valery Kaufman at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Tommy Hilfiger and Dee Ocleppo at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Shanina Shayk wearing Georges Hobeika at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Pamela Anderson wearing Ingie at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Milla Jovovich wearing Celine at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Carine Roitfeld at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

Chris Lee wearing Giambattista Valli X H&M and Giambattista Valli at the 2019 amfAR gala red carpet in Cannes.

By GETAWAYTHEBERKSHIRES

All the photos from the Fenty launch cocktail party

May 24, 2019 | News | No Comments

On Wednesday evening, Rihanna revealed her LVMH-backed Fenty collection to the fashion world, namely industry veterans including Maria Grazia Chiuri, Olivier Rousteing, and Simon Porte Jacquemus.

Held at the new Fenty-pop up boutique in Paris’ Marais district, guests were able to view the new luxury maison, scheduled to drop on May 29.

The fashion line, as we now know, will be a direct-to-consumer model, with the ready-to-wear clothing and accessories dropping online and in pop-up stores every six to eight weeks.

Naturally, the signer-cum-make-up-and-beauty-entrepreneur wore one of her own designs to the event: a structured white blazer – in true Fenty style – worn without pants.

There had been speculation for some two years that Rihanna was working on the luxury label, and given the wild success of her makeup line, Fenty Beauty, and her lingerie label, Savage X Fenty, we can expect to see big things from the maison.

Rihanna is also the first woman to create an original brand with LVMH, and the first woman of colour at the helm of an LVMH maison.

For all of the images from the cocktail party, see below.

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Watch supermodel Mariacarla Boscono give Vogue a tour around Rome

May 24, 2019 | News | No Comments

24th May 2019

If you’ve ever been to Rome, you know that Italy’s capital is a maze-like museum of a city, often difficult to navigate without a well-versed tour guide. Enter: 38-year-old Italian supermodel, Mariacarla Boscono.

The Rome born and bred beauty took the time out of her busy schedule to give Vogue a tour of the city she recently moved back to, after spending a total of 15 years in New York. From the Colosseum, which she says is “where everything happens, where everything begins”, to the picturesque Pincian Gardens, Boscono’s guide is one you’ll want to bookmark.

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“I’ve always felt incredibly blessed to be a Roman. There are these specific things and vibes that we have. You know, we’re, let’s say, a little bit different,” she says, confessing she comes from “the most beautiful city in the world.”

Watch as Boscono, who has graced the cover of countless magazines and walked for the likes of Chanel, Valentino and Versace, takes you inside Settimio Al Pellegrino, the trattoria she’s been visiting since she was an infant, before picking up flowers at her favourite market, Campo de’ Fiori.

“In Rome, there’s so many hidden places, secret streets [that] nobody really knows,” she shares. “Sometimes, I drive around and I feel like… I’m driving around in a museum.”

The model go-karts through the Pincian Gardens, marveling at the various Pincian Hill Statues, visits the mysterious Passetto Del Biscione, and introduces viewers to Via della Poesia, a place people often go to donate their books.

“It’s like, a little bit like a poem exchange,” she explains. “Everybody gathers together and reads together, spends time together.” The model admits she spent a lot of her teenage years there, “losing myself” she laughs.

If you’re heading to the Italian capital sometime soon, or want to know more about how and where Boscono grew up, see the full video below for the supermodel’s complete guide to Rome. Directed by Elena Petitti di Roreto, the film saw Alessandro Ubaldi assume the role of director of photographer, and MAI Ltd.’s Neela Quagliola take charge of production.

By GETAWAYTHEBERKSHIRES

Giambattista Valli is H&M’s new designer collaboration—and his limited-edition dresses are dropping this Saturday

May 24, 2019 | News | No Comments

24th May 2019

The Cannes amfAR Gala is a famously glittering affair, with top designers squiring actresses and supermodels in haute couture against the sensational backdrop of the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc and the Mediterranean behind it. If this year’s gala is more glamorous than in the past, it’s thanks to Giambattista Valli and H&M, which are announcing a collaboration at the black-tie affair tonight.

The Paris-based, Italian couturier has designed a limited-edition line of party dresses for his Valli girls, and, in a first, tailoring for Valli boys. The flash collection will drop in select H&M stores around the world and on the H&M website on Saturday, May 25. (A larger collection is to come November 7.) This evening, Kendall Jenner, Chiara Ferragni, Bianca Brandolini, Chris Lee (Li Yuchun), H.E.R., and Ross Lynch are wearing the new designs, transforming amfAR’s red carpet into a veritable runway.

Valli called from Paris earlier this week in the midst of preparations, not just for his H&M launch, but also for a July couture show and a resort 2020 collection before that. He dressed 14 women for the Met Gala, and he has two of his trademark fluro tulle couture confections in the Costume Institute’s Camp: Notes on Fashion exhibition. “I was very surprised and flattered,” he said of H&M’s interest. “The idea is to bring the Valli DNA of extraordinary, of one-of-a-kind, of uniqueness, of couture. We have our fans and they see all these beautiful moments on the red carpet, Valli girls at official events. It’s a nice way to share this flavor with them.”

Ann-Sofie Johansson, H&M’s creative advisor, is accompanying Valli and his models at the gala. “Giambattista is really a master when it comes to beauty and glamour and sophistication, we’re really happy to be working with him,” she told Vogue.com. “We always want to have different takes on the collaborations. This is different compared to Moschino last year. It’s the first time we’re working with someone doing couture.” Couture at H&M prices. Ranging from USD$17.99 to USD$649, Saturday’s pre-drop features clothes and accessories, including an interpretation of the gobstopper-size natural pearl necklace Valli never takes off.

Kendall Jenner poses for photographers upon arrival at the amfAR, Cinema Against AIDS, benefit at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, during the 72nd international Cannes film festival, in Cap d'Antibes, on Thursday, May 23, 2019. Image credit: Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP

“We called this project ‘Project Love,’” the designer said. “The thing that makes me most happy in life is if I can make someone happy. It’s beautiful if I can do that for a wider group of Valli girls and Valli boys.” He continued: “It was very fun to do men’s for the first time. You know, girls pick up things from men’s wardrobes. The Valli boys get prints, some shapes, some materials, and some embellishments from girls—they took it from her wardrobe.”

Speaking of firsts, never before has H&M released a designer collaboration so close to the announcement; typically there’s been six months between the news breaking and the clothes arriving in stores. “It was a matter of finding a new way of doing things,” Johansson explained. “These collaborations have been going on forever [since Karl Lagerfeld in 2004, for the record], and we wanted a little bit of a surprise. We’re trying to be closer to the customer.” With Kendall Jenner’s 111 million Instagram fans watching, the company is off to a good start.

Valli was raving over his red carpet dates. “I love each character,” he began. “Kendall . . . she’s not just a supermodel, she’s a superstar. She has that kind of allure. She’s an icon. Chiara . . . she’s a pioneer of the influencers. Bianca is my original Valli girl; every time I sketch I think about her. Chris Lee, I love that she’s so androgynous, but at the same time so fragile and feminine, and such a strong artist. Ross Lynch, he’s fun. I love to be in that moment getting ready, having fun, having a good time. Lee Radziwill used to say to me, ‘You know, Giambattista, happy times are very few in life. You must enjoy them.’”

This article originally appeared on Vogue.com.

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By GETAWAYTHEBERKSHIRES

Move over Prince George, it turns out Princess Charlotte has the cutest nickname of all

May 24, 2019 | News | No Comments

24th May 2019

Back in January, Prince George revealed to a dog walker while out on a rendezvous with his grandmother, Carole Middleton, that his nickname was Archie. Since then, speculation has surfaced that Prince George was in fact revealing the name of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s first child, who we know to be Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. Either way, it was a good reminder that the royals are just like us in a way – they have nicknames too.

This week it’s been revealed that Princess Charlotte actually has a nickname aside from the one we know about (the shortened version of her name, “Lottie”). In case you missed it, the Cambridges had a family outing to the Chelsea Flower Show, with Kensington Palace releasing a number of images and videos of the family playing in a garden co-designed by the duchess.

One of the videos shows a very happy Prince George giving his mother a “20 out of 10” for her efforts but if you keep watching, it seems Princess Charlotte’s nickname is revealed in the clip.

Prince William, making use of the treehouse swing, calls out to his four-year-old daughter with what sounds like the word “mignonette.” In French, the term “mignon” means cute but the full translation of “mignonette” is equivalent to “cutie” or “little darling” in English.

In the video, Princess Charlotte responds to “mignonette” saying “yes” and then Prince William adds, “give me a push!”

While some cynical Twitter users believe he’s saying “have you been on here” really quickly, it’s a bit of a stretch – also, Princess Charlotte’s response in the video is more akin to being summoned. Also, Prince William is actually fluent in French, which is a skill we’re certain he’s trying to impart to his children too. (We already know Prince George and Princess Charlotte are both learning Spanish with their nanny, Maria Teresa Turrion Borrallo).

You can watch the video and decide for yourself above. See our full list of the royal family’s secret nicknames here.

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By GETAWAYTHEBERKSHIRES

Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West's wedding album

May 24, 2019 | News | No Comments

Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West tied the knot on May 24, 2014 in a show-stopping fairy tale ceremony in Italy.

However, the couple didn’t just celebrate with a ceremony and a reception, they made an entire extravagant weekend out of their nuptials, beginning with a trip to Paris where the bride-to-be held an epic bachelorette party with her sisters and friends at the Hôtel Costes.

The following day, May 23, the couple and their then almost one-year-old daughter, North West, along with the Kardashian-Jenner family and a handful of close friends, had a pre-wedding lunch hosted by Valentino Garavani at his and Giancarlo Giammetti’s house, Château de Wideville, just outside of Paris. The bride-to-be wore Valentino of course.

That evening the couple hosted a rehearsal dinner for around 600 guests in the Palace of Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors. Kim Kardashian West wore Maison Margiela and the guests were treated to a fireworks display and a surprise performance by award-winning artist Lana Del Rey.

On the day of the wedding, May 24, the wedding guests were flown on private chartered jet to Florence for the wedding itself. The bride wore custom Givenchy haute couture designed by Riccardo Tisci and was accompanied down the aisle by Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner. Italian singer Andrea Bocelli performed as Kardashian West walked down the aisle towards the most incredible flower wall and her husband-to be. The groom and the couple’s daughter, North West, both wore custom Givenchy to the ceremony.

Following the ceremony, presided over by Pastor Rich Wilkerson Jr., 200 guests including Kardashian West’s famous family and the couple’s celebrity friends, attended an evening dinner reception.

Scroll on to see inside Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West’s 2014 wedding weekend.

Pre-wedding

Kim trying on the Balmain mini-dress, designed by Olivier Rousteing, which she later wore for her Parisian bachelorette party.

Pre-wedding

Kim and Kourtney leaving L’Avenue restaurant on Avenue Montaigne, Paris, in Balmain shirt and skirt and Saint Laurent sunglasses.

Pre-wedding

The bachelorette party was held at Hôtel Costes.

Pre-wedding

Kim posted this photo of her with her grandmother MJ captioned: "Her 1st time in Paris".

Pre-wedding

The group of girls included Kim’s sisters and closest friends.

Pre-wedding

Khloe Kardashian and Kendall Jenner veil up for a night at the famed cabaret club Crazy Horse Paris.

Lunch hosted by Valentino

Kim, Kanye and baby North seen leaving Kanye’s Paris apartment on Rue de Rennes. The rest of the Kardashian-Jenner family set up camp at the Four Seasons King George V hotel.

Kim is wearing a Valentino dress.

Lunch hosted by Valentino

Guests arrived in a motorcade at Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti’s Château de Wideville, just outside of Paris. Only family members and a few close friends were invited.

Lunch hosted by Valentino

Some may remember the lavish chateau from the film ‘Valentino: The Last Emperor’. It was once the home to one of King Louis XIV’s maîtresse d’amour.

Lunch hosted by Valentino

The family arrived with their film crew to document the lunch.

Kris and Khloe also wore Valentino, while Kourtney was in a white Alexander McQueen leather biker jacket and long white lace Valentino dress.

Lunch hosted by Valentino

The couple the day before they became Mr and Mrs West.

Lunch hosted by Valentino

The lunch went from 1p.m. to 3.30p.m.

Kendall is dressed in a jumpsuit by Australian designer Anna Quan, which is available for pre-order.

Quan tells us exclusively: “It’s an absolute honour to have Kendall in one of my pieces, it definitely came as a shock to have her select something from my range! When I saw the photo of Kendall with Signor Valentino I thought she looked very elegant and confident in the Tommy jumpsuit. She looked every bit the Anna Quan woman – understated yet striking, elegant and graceful.”

Lunch hosted by Valentino

Andre Leon Talley, who attended, wrote about the lunch for Vogue.com. “I would love to toast these two beautiful people here before me,” said Valentino. “And I also want to thank Kris Jenner for having these beautiful girls. These girls make my dining room even more beautiful.”

In Italian, Valentino toasted Kim and Kanye: “I wish you much success, a lot of love, and a long life.”

Kris Jenner toasted the host: “I first want to toast Kim and Kanye, who love each other, and I say for all of us, this is the most beautiful place we’ve ever been.”

Lunch hosted by Valentino

Dessert was a Valentino special – fraisière, a cake made of green apples and strawberries with no sugar and using Xyla as a substitute. “It’s my dietetic cake,” said Valentino. It was decorated with arrows and hearts and the letters K.