Friday 29 March 2024

Inside the Garrick, the Elite Men-Only London Club Rocked by Criticism / I’m a Garrick member. The exclusion of women is the opposite of liberal. It is out of date and wrong

 



Inside the Garrick, the Elite Men-Only London Club Rocked by Criticism

 

Founded in 1831, the opulent private club has long guarded its membership list closely. A leak this month caused a scandal.

The Garrick Club in London’s theater district counts among its roughly 1,300 members judges, actors, Britain’s deputy prime minister and King Charles III.

 

Mark Landler

By Mark Landler

Reporting from London

 

March 27, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/world/europe/garrick-club-london.html?searchResultPosition=1

 

On a side street in Covent Garden stands an imposing palazzo-style building, strangely out of place amid the burger joints and neon marquees of London’s theater district. It houses the Garrick Club, one of Britain’s oldest men’s clubs, and on any given weekday, a lunch table in its baronial dining room is one of the hottest tickets in town.

 

A visitor lucky enough to cadge an invitation from a member might end up in the company of a Supreme Court justice, the master of an Oxford college or the editor of a London newspaper. The odds are that person would be a man. Women are excluded from membership in the Garrick and permitted only as guests, a long-simmering source of tension that has recently erupted into a full-blown furor.

 

After The Guardian, a London newspaper, put a fresh spotlight on the Garrick’s men-only policy, naming and shaming some of its rarefied members from a leaked membership list, two senior British government officials resigned from the club: Richard Moore, the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, and Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, who oversees nearly half a million public employees.

 

Only days earlier, under questioning at a Parliamentary hearing, Mr. Case defended his membership by saying he was trying to reform an “antediluvian” institution from within rather “than chuck rocks from the outside,” a line that provoked derisory laughs. Mr. Moore’s membership seemed at odds with his efforts to bring more racial and gender diversity to the British spy agency, known as MI6.

 

Now, the club’s 1,300 members are debating the future of the Garrick over lamb chops in the dining room, after-dinner drinks in the lounge under the main staircase and in a WhatsApp group, where they swap fretful messages about the latest developments. Some welcome the pressure to admit women as long overdue; others lament that doing so would forever change the character of the place.

 

“The Garrick Club has an absolute right to decide who its members are,” said Simon Jenkins, a columnist at The Guardian and a former editor of The Times of London who is a longtime member. “That said, it is indefensible for any social club these days not to have women as members.”

 

“Judi Dench, for God’s sake — why shouldn’t she be a member?” he added.

 

Or Jude Kelly, an award-winning former theater director. Ms. Kelly, who now runs the charity Women of the World, said that excluding women from membership in the Garrick deprived them of access to an elite social circle where professional opportunities inevitably flowed with the brandy.

 

“We’re in 2024,” Ms. Kelly said. “These are incredibly senior people. Many of them are espousing diversity and inclusion in their professional lives. Being on the inside for a long time makes you complicit.”

 

The Garrick Club is not the only private club in London that does not admit women: White’s, Boodle’s, the Beefsteak Club and the Savile Club are also men only. But what makes the Garrick unique is its star-studded membership list, which ranges across the worlds of politics, law, arts, theater and journalism.

 

Members, based on The Guardian’s leaked list, include the actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Brian Cox and Stephen Fry; Mark Knopfler, the guitarist of the rock band Dire Straits; Paul Smith, the fashion designer; the BBC correspondent John Simpson; Oliver Dowden, Britain’s deputy prime minister; and, yes, King Charles III (on an honorary basis).

 

The boldfaced names have lent the dispute extra piquancy, especially since many of them would seem the kind of bien-pensant progressives who would abhor any kind of discriminatory policy. Indeed, Mr. Cox, Mr. Fry and Mr. Simpson are among those who have come out publicly in favor of admitting women.

 

The last time the members voted on the question, in 2015, a slender majority — 50.5 percent — said they supported it. But the club’s bylaws require a two-thirds majority to change the policy on membership, and a new vote, if it were scheduled, would not be held until the summer. A club official declined to comment on the matter.

 

For all the misgivings that members have about not admitting women, some predict they would still fail to reach the two-thirds threshold. The dispute has, perhaps inevitably, turned bitter, pitting a handful of committed campaigners against a larger, older group, many of whom are fine with women as guests but are reluctant to rock a boat that has sailed grandly since 1831.

 

In New York City, private clubs like the Union League and the Century Association began admitting women in the 1980s, often under the pressure of legal judgments. But in London, where clubs like the Garrick are more zealous about being social rather than professional networking institutions, defenders argue that the case for preserving male-only membership is more justifiable.

 

These members say they go to the Garrick to drink wine, unwind and enjoy themselves. They crack jokes they wouldn’t make in mixed company. They are not allowed to conduct business; even pulling papers out of a briefcase is looked down upon.

 

Some dismissed it as a tempest in a teapot. Jonathan Sumption, a lawyer and former justice in the Supreme Court, said he supported the admission of women, but added that those who opposed it were entitled to their opinion.

 

“The Garrick Club is not a public body and the whole issue is too unimportant to make a fuss of,” Mr. Sumption said. “It is still a pretty good club.”

 

Mr. Jenkins, the columnist, agreed, suggesting that some of the news coverage had caricatured the Garrick as a vaguely sinister place where men gather to plot against women. Women, he said, were welcome at the communal table in the dining room, perhaps the club’s most hallowed place.

 

The only room off limits to women is the members’ lounge, known as Under the Stairs, where men gather after dinner. Yet, as Ms. Kelly and other women note, the most valuable relationships are often formed in such informal settings.

 

To that extent, the Garrick is different from White’s, an even more exclusive men’s club in St. James’s, where Queen Elizabeth II was the only woman ever invited as a guest. When President Donald J. Trump’s ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, held lunches there with his senior staff, he could not invite his own political counselor because she was a woman. Female employees at the embassy complained to the State Department, and he was urged to end the practice.

 

But White’s and its old-line, Conservative-friendly brethren “tend to be high Tory places, where the question wouldn’t arise,” said Alan Rusbridger, a former editor of The Guardian, who resigned from the Garrick more than a decade ago.

 

“The Garrick membership is more a mix of actors, journalists and lawyers,” he said. “Thus, it’s a more pertinent question.”

 

Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades. More about Mark Landler




I’m a Garrick member. The exclusion of women is the opposite of liberal. It is out of date and wrong

Simon Jenkins

I feel strongly that any association of citizens in a free society should be allowed to make its own rules. But this ban is absurd

 

Wed 27 Mar 2024 12.09 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/27/garrick-club-member-women-ban

 

Do clubs matter? Yes, to their members, and clearly to those they exclude. When Alexis de Tocqueville compared American democracy with British, he said America’s roots were in the mob and Britain’s in the club. Americans vote for a president who doesn’t sit in Congress. Britons vote for a member of parliament, a tight-knit Westminster club.

 

The revived argument over London’s Garrick Club would have been music to De Tocqueville’s ears. Here we go again, a gang of London elitists ruling the land from a Covent Garden palace untainted by plebs or women. And this in the 21st century. Give us a break.

 

Places where those of like mind can meet and enjoy each other’s company are valuable. They enrich leisure and guard against loneliness. As guilds, lodges and associations, they exist in every community – including some for men and women separately. London’s clubs are a case in point. The Garrick, where I am a member, is not some fiendish hotbed of influence. Its average age is about 70 and those who frequent it are overwhelmingly retired. In my view, it cannot be regarded as a significant centre of power, but rather a good place to eat and entertain. It is popular and certainly livelier than traditional clubland haunts.

 

The Garrick was named after the actor David Garrick, as the club for London’s theatrical and arts community. Its “affinity” was no different from the military clubs’ exclusion of certain classes of soldier or the university clubs’ restriction to Oxbridge. All originally excluded women. Many clubs such as Brooks’s, Boodle’s, the Travellers and the Savile continue this exclusion of women, or exclusion of men in the case of the University Women’s. The Savile kept its cool in 2017 when it allowed a member to stay after they transitioned to become a woman. Margaret Thatcher was made a member of the men-only Carlton Club in 1975, largely because no one dared exclude her.

 

What makes the Garrick different – and has attracted media attention – is that some of its members are prominent in public affairs, including, apparently, the king. He is not known to have used the club. Membership seems to confer networking power beyond its walls. In particular, the Garrick has long been favoured by senior lawyers, with a profusion of senior judges. The judiciary is a largely self-governing profession and many lawyers – not only women – have come to regard membership as divisive and potentially a kind of freemasonry. Earlier this week a number of judges were pressed into resigning. It is within the legal world these concerns are concentrated. I really do not think such a charge could be directed at other professions at the club. It is merely absurd, not career-damaging, that Stephen Fry can belong to the Garrick, but not Judi Dench.

 

In truth, the Garrick’s problem over women attracts publicity because, unlike the other all-male clubs, it contains a large number of progressive members who want women in and who have been fighting for it for years. In the last two votes on women, in 2015 and last autumn, a clear majority was in favour, but the rules stated that two-thirds was required to carry. Legal opinion has since been sought, and it is plain that there is no actual rule opposing female members. There is therefore no rule that has to be changed. The membership committee can simply allow women to join.

 

I feel strongly that any association of citizens in a free society should be allowed to hold its own opinions and make its own rules, from political parties to London clubs. But for me, the exclusion of women from havens of civilised conversation and debate is the opposite of liberal. It is out of date and wrong.

 

In the case of the Garrick, this is not a purely private matter. The club has become a symbolic institution on London’s cultural scene, its exclusivity a practice that should long ago have ended. The majority of its members clearly want that discrimination to end. I sense it is about to happen. I look forward to celebrating it.

 

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist


Garrick Club asked to consider membership for seven leading women

 



Garrick Club asked to consider membership for seven leading women

 

A group of men at the club who hope the male-only rule will change have nominated a set of possible new members

 

Amelia Gentleman

Thu 28 Mar 2024 19.58 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/28/garrick-club-seven-women-nominated-membership

 

Seven women with leading positions in the British establishment have been nominated as prospective female members of the Garrick in the event that the club agrees to change its rules so that women are able to join.

 

The classicist Mary Beard, the former home secretary Amber Rudd, Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman and the new Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika are among the first names to have been put forward to the club as possible future members.

 

Also on the list are the actor Juliet Stevenson, Margaret Casely-Hayford, who chairs the trustees of Shakespeare’s Globe and is chancellor of Coventry University, and Elizabeth Gloster, formerly an appeal court judge.

 

A group of Garrick members who hope the rules on female members will change have tentatively proposed these names to the club’s administration seeking confirmation that they would, in theory, be eligible for admission to the club.

 

Stephen Fry, the broadcaster Matt Frei and the opera singer Ian Bostridge were among the signatories proposing these women as potential future members. After securing confirmation from the women that they were happy in principle to be put up as club members, the proposers sent their names to the Garrick chair on Wednesday, asking for guidance on how to proceed.

 

The release of the women’s names marks an attempt by members to initiate a damage limitation exercise to protect the Garrick’s battered reputation, after a string of high-profile resignations from the club after controversy over the Guardian’s publication of a long list of names of senior figures from Whitehall, politics, the arts and the judiciary as members of a club that has repeatedly blocked the admission of women since the 1960s.

 

Last week the head of MI6, Richard Moore, and the head of the civil service, Simon Case, resigned from the club, after deciding that membership was incompatible with their organisations’ commitment to improving diversity. By Monday, at least four judges had tendered their resignations from the Garrick.

 

On Thursday the Bar Council, the professional body for barristers, warned that exclusive members’ clubs created “the potential for unfair advantage” for lawyers seeking to become judges. “Closed doors and exclusionary spaces do not foster support or collaboration between colleagues,” the organisation’s chair said.

 

Made public for the first time by the Guardian, the club’s closely guarded membership book includes dozens of judges, dozens of members of the House of Lords, the deputy prime minister, the secretary of state for levelling up, the chief executive of the Royal Opera House, at least 10 MPs, heads of influential thinktanks, law firms, private equity companies, academics, prominent actors, rock stars and senior journalists.

 

Mary Beard said: “I have enjoyed my visits to the Garrick and would love to become a member. If they won’t have me, there might be many reasons – I won’t be suing them, but it will have been worth a shot.”

 

Another of the new nominees said she was reluctant to be quoted publicly at this stage, but added: “My view is that when I was approached I thought it was a bit hypocritical to decline the invitation after spending years railing against all-male bastions.”

 

The club’s managing committee is considering a new legal opinion given by the David Pannick KC, who led the successful Brexit article 50 case against the government, advising that the current rules at the men-only do not in fact bar women from being members.

 

The club’s chair, Christopher Kirker, wrote to members last week, informing them that in light of the “very unpleasant publicity which we all deplore” the club’s management was urgently considering the new legal advice, to see whether women should be admitted immediately.

 

“We are aware that there are strong views. But let us not be hasty. All is being carefully considered,” he wrote, adding that he would contact members again with further thoughts on 4 April.

 

This is not the first time that women have been nominated to the men-only club in the face of regulations prohibiting women from joining. In 2011 Hugh Bonneville proposed fellow actor Joanna Lumley; his decision to write her name in the book of proposed candidates triggered such anger among some of the club’s 1,500 members that the page was ripped out from the nomination book. Some members scrawled expletives on her nomination page, and one wrote: “Women aren’t allowed here and never will be.”

 

Mary Ann Sieghart, the author of The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, warned that nominating women was no guarantee that the club would allow them to join. The leading human rights lawyer Anthony Lester had hoped to propose her as a member in the later 1990s, but the then club chair blocked the suggestion (and took her for lunch in the club instead).

 

Responding to widespread bemusement about why there has been such an outcry about whether membership of a club for men in elite roles should be extended to women in similarly elite positions, she said: “The Garrick may be an elite club, but its membership matters precisely because it’s elite. Its members hold powerful positions in government, the judiciary, the media and the arts. These are people who run the country, and if women are excluded from this elite, then the establishment will remain overwhelmingly male. And that matters for all of us.”

REMEMBERING Sat 16 Sep 2023 : Garrick Club could admit women

 


Garrick could admit women after barrister U-turns on club rules

 

Michael Beloff KC judged in 2011 that reference to ‘he’ excluded women but has now concluded opposite

 


Clea Skopeliti

Sat 16 Sep 2023 18.24 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/16/garrick-could-admit-women-after-barrister-u-turns-on-club-rules

 

One of London’s last remaining gentlemen’s clubs, the Garrick, may be edging towards admitting women after a barrister performed a U-turn on a previous legal judgment ruling that they were ineligible for membership.

 

Michael Beloff KC first concluded that women could not be proposed under the club’s rules after Joanna Lumley was denied membership in 2011. He ruled then that although the rules do not explicitly preclude women from joining, they state that “no candidate shall be eligible unless he be proposed by one member and seconded by another”.

 

The use of the masculine article led Beloff to conclude that the rule could be interpreted as referring to men only, while he also said the club’s objectives also refer to “gentlemanly accomplishment and scholarship”.

 

But the rule could now be scrapped in the club, which was founded in 1831 and counts Benedict Cumberbatch and Sir Kingsley Amis among its members, after the KC wrote a new legal opinion, concluding the opposite.

 

Beloff prepared a new legal opinion in November last year, the Times reports, stating that there was “now a cogent argument” that the Law of Property Act 1925 means “he” and “she” can be used interchangeably in contracts.

 

“If so, there is no legal obstacle to the proposal of a woman for membership of the club by one member, seconded by another; nor, if she obtains the support required under the rules, any legal obstacle to her admission as a member of the club,” the newspaper quotes Beloff as writing. He reportedly warned that the club was “likely to provoke an expensive lawsuit” if it continued to exclude women from membership.

 

Although the opinion was delivered in November, many members only became aware of it recently, as the committee had not shared the news of Beloff’s revised judgment, the Times reports. Club members will share their views on women joining in a survey next month.

 

Emily Bendell, the chief executive and founder of a successful underwear brand, launched legal action against the club in 2020, arguing that its men-only membership rules are a breach of equality legislation, while Cherie Booth KC joined a campaign to force the club to admit women the following year.

 

Members including Stephen Fry, Damian Lewis and Hugh Bonneville have said they were in favour of extending membership to women, as has Michael Gove, the former justice secretary Ken Clarke, and broadcasters Sir Trevor McDonald, Melvyn Bragg and Jeremy Paxman. Three former Conservative MPs and 11 KCs were among those who said they would vote to continue to exclude female members.

 

The club, which was founded in 1831, last voted on whether to include women in 2015, when a majority of 50.5% voted in favour of introducing female membership. However, the introduction of a new rule at the Garrick requires a two-thirds majority.

 

The Garrick has been contacted for comment.





 


The Garrick Club was founded at a meeting in the Committee Room at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on Wednesday 17 August 1831. Present were James Winston (a former strolling player, manager and important theatre antiquarian), Samuel James Arnold (a playwright and theatre manager), Samuel Beazley (an architect and playwright), General Sir Andrew Barnard (an army officer and hero of the Napoleonic Wars), and Francis Mills (a timber merchant and railway speculator). It was decided to write down a number of names in order to invite them to be original members of the Garrick Club.

 

The avowed purpose of the club was to "tend to the regeneration of the Drama".[2] It was to be a place where “actors and men of refinement could meet on equal terms” at a time when actors were not generally considered to be respectable members of society.

 

The club was named in honour of the actor David Garrick, whose acting and management at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in the previous century, had by the 1830s come to represent a golden age of British drama. Less than six months later the members had been recruited and a Club House found and equipped on King Street in Covent Garden. On 1 February 1832, it was reported that the novelist and journalist Thomas Gaspey was the first member to enter at 11am, and that “Mr Beazley gave the first order, (a mutton chop) at ½ past 12.”

 

The list of those who took up original membership runs like a Who’s Who of the Green Room for 1832: actors such as John Braham, Charles Kemble, William Macready, Charles Mathews and his son Charles James; the playwrights James Planché, Theodore Hook and Thomas Talfourd; scene-painters including Clarkson Frederick Stanfield and Thomas Grieve. Even the patron, the Duke of Sussex, had an element of the theatrical about him, being a well-known mesmerist. To this can be added numerous Barons, Counts, Dukes, Earls and Lords, soldiers, parliamentarians and judges.

 

The membership would later include Charles Kean, Henry Irving, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Arthur Sullivan, J. M. Barrie, Arthur Wing Pinero, Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud. From the literary world came writers such as Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, H. G. Wells, A. A. Milne (who on his death in 1956 bequeathed the club a quarter of the royalties from his children’s books),and Kingsley Amis. The visual arts has been represented by painters such as John Everett Millais, Lord Leighton and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

 

 The club in 1864

The club’s popularity at the beginning of the 1860s created overcrowding of its original clubhouse. Slum clearance being undertaken just round the corner provided the opportunity to move into a brand-new purpose-built home on what became known as Garrick Street. The move was completed in 1864 and the club remains in this building today.

 

All new candidates must be proposed by an existing member before election in a secret ballot, the original assurance of the committee being “that it would be better that ten unobjectionable men should be excluded than one terrible bore should be admitted”. This exclusive nature of the club was highlighted when reporter Jeremy Paxman applied to join but was initially blackballed, though he was later admitted, an experience he shares with Henry Irving who despite being the first actor to receive a knighthood had himself been blackballed in 1873.

 

When the club was founded in 1831 Rule 1 of the Garrick Club Rules and Regulations called for the "formation of a theatrical Library, with works on costume". At a General Meeting on 15 October 1831, the barrister John Adolphus suggested that members should present their duplicate dramatic works to the club, and that these should go some way towards forming a Library. A very valuable collection has thus come together over the years, and its special collections are particularly strong on eighteenth and nineteenth-century theatre.

 

James Winston, the first Secretary and Librarian of the club, was one of the principal early benefactors and his gifts included minutes from the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, as well as his own Theatric Tourist. These presentations formed the nucleus of a Library which now holds well over 10,000 items, including plays, manuscripts, prints (bound into numerous extra-illustrated volumes), and many photographs.

Thursday 28 March 2024

L'appartement parisien de Karl Lagerfeld aux enchères le 26 mars | AFP / Karl Lagerfeld’s futuristic Paris apartment sells for €10m


Click to Watch on You Tube

Karl Lagerfeld’s futuristic Paris apartment sells for €10m

 

The late fashion designer lived at the flat overlooking the Seine River for a decade

 

Agence France-Presse in Paris

Tue 26 Mar 2024 16.50 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2024/mar/26/karl-lagerfelds-futuristic-paris-apartment-sells-for-10m-euros

 

The futuristic Paris apartment of the late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has been sold for €10m (£8.5m) at auction.

 

The final price, €11m including notary fees, was roughly double the guide price, set at €5.3m. No details were given of the buyer.

 

Located in a 17th-century building on Quai Voltaire, the three-room home has a view overlooking the Seine River and the Louvre museum.

 

The apartment of 260 sq m has a 50 sq m dressing room and was completely refurbished by Lagerfeld “in a futuristic style with a concrete floor and sections of sandblasted glass”, according to the notary.

 

German-born Lagerfeld, whose spectacular creations and shows for Chanel, Fendi and his own brand had a profound impact on the fashion world, lived there for about 10 years until his death aged 85 in February 2019.

 

His office and library is now open to the public as a bookshop and event space in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

 

A series about his life, Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, starring Daniel Brühl, is due to stream on Disney+ in June.

 

In an interview with AFP earlier this month, Bruhl said he had tried to emulate Lagerfeld’s extreme aesthete tastes.

 

“I tried my best … but the furniture, the posters, the photographs, the paintings, the books … to be such a perfectionist in aesthetics is something I absolutely share, but obviously I’m useless in comparison,” Brühl said.


Wednesday 27 March 2024

Beyond Chic – October 22, 2013 by Ivan Terestchenko (Author)


 

Beyond Chic – October 22, 2013

by Ivan Terestchenko (Author)

Some of the most important people in fashion—Chanel, Alaïa, Yves Saint Laurent, Pucci, Kenzo, and Missoni—are known for their public image and their iconic designs. But what kind of world have they cultivated behind closed doors? From France to Italy, from England to Morocco, come along on a private visit to the remarkable homes of couturiers, stylists, muses, and fashion personalities. Photographer Ivan Terestchenko shows the décor, works of art, and the personal collections of these legendary designers. Some interiors, such as Chanel’s apartment at 31 rue Cambon, are mythic, while others like those of Giorgio Armani’s châlet or Vanessa Seward, Azzaro’s head designer, are completely unconventional. From minimal (Nicole Farhi) to exotic (Franca Sozanni), to a deceptively simple French apartment (Loulou de La Falaise), this book explores the spaces and places created by some of fashion’s biggest names.

 

Praise for "Beyond Chic"

 "Photographer Ivan Terestchenko traveled the globe--from Ottavio Missoni's Venetian Manse to Christian Louboutin's adobe home in Luxor, Egypt--to capture the more than 200 images in this lush and inspiring bit of voyeurism." -- Details "Photographer Ivan Terestchenko is known for his work photographing the homes of some of fashion's most notable names. Their iconic designs are well known, but what kind of style do they have behind closed doors? Take a peek into some seriously fashionable houses." -MarthaStewart.com

"Manolo Blahnik's house is like a pair of his shoes: elegant, well-proportioned and far more comfortable than it might appear. And it is appearances that are often at stake in Mr. Terestchenko's 19 beautiful photo essays on the homes of designers as varied as Azzedine Alaia, Vittorio Missoni, and Reed Krakoff." - Wall Street Journal

"Terestchenko opens doors to the homes of an extended collection of notable names in fashion....Beyond Chic: Great Fashion Designers at Home invites readers into the private homes of these very public tastemakers and a lustrous list of equally-inspiring courteriers, stylists, muses, and fashion personalities." -Veranda

"Terestchenko draws parallels between the aesthetics of renowned fashion companies and their creators' interior stylings. The visual study is more than just a discussion about decor." -Lonny

"Beyond Chic: Great Fashion Designers at Home by Ivan Terestchenko may just be the most beautiful book of the past few years." -From the Right Bank to the Left Coast

"People love to see the homes of fashion designers. In Beyond Chic: Great Fashion Designers at Home...Ivan Terestchenko takes readers into the private spaces of the late designers Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, as well as Azzedine Alaia and Vaness Seward, to name just a few." -Habitually Chic

 

"A fascinating look into the private residences of some of fashion's most influential designers, tastemakers, and stylists from photographer Ivan Terestchenko. This volume of eye candy spans both the globe and a wide array of décor styles, highlighting the diversity of the residents and their corresponding brands." --Domainehome.com

Monday 25 March 2024

REMEMBERING : The exhibition at Drexel University, Citizen, Soldier, Diplomat: An Exhibition on the Life and Career of Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., chronicles the extraordinary life of the great grandson of Drexel University’s founder, Anthony J. Drexel.





The Stylish Millionaire Diplomat, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle Jr.

 

The patriotic scion of several prominent Philadelphia families is the subject of an intimate exhibition.

BY DAVID NASHPUBLISHED: JAN 2, 2020

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a30272166/anthony-drexel-biddle-jr-exhibition-drexel-university/

 

Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr. could easily lay claim to being one of the most fascinating—though often forgotten—figures of the 20th century. Now a new exhibition at Drexel University, Citizen, Soldier, Diplomat: An Exhibition on the Life and Career of Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., chronicles the extraordinary life of the great grandson of Drexel University’s founder, Anthony J. Drexel.

https://drexel.edu/drexel-founding-collection/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/AJDB-Jr/

 

 

The prominent Philadelphian was a favorite subject of society columns, receiving regular recognition for his personal style and athleticism. In 1937 Biddle was named among the best-dressed by the National Association of Merchant Tailors of America, and by Flair in 1950, and Esquire in 1960. He was also a founding member of the Palm Beach Bath & Tennis Club, and as a court tennis champion won the Racquet d’Argent in France in 1933. But it’s perhaps his service to the United States during the course of two World Wars, and several administrations, that should be remembered as Biddle’s most meaningful contribution.

 

Born in 1897, Biddle was the son of the eccentric and wealthy Colonel Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, whose unconventional life was immortalized in the 1967 Walt Disney musical film The Happiest Millionaire, itself based on the book My Philadelphia Father written by Biddle’s sister Cordelia. In 1955, in response to the book’s publication, the New York Times reported that “What the Cabots are to Boston the Biddles are to Philadelphia, and if the Biddle position with respect to Deity is not quite as clearly defined as the Cabots, they have a distinction of their own; they are known for their charm.”

 

Biddle graduated St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire in 1915 and married his first wife, tobacco heiress Mary L. Duke, a cousin of Doris Duke. In 1917, at age 20, he enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army. After leaving the military in the early 1920s, Biddle engaged in a number of ventures and was, at one time, a director of 11 corporations simultaneously.

 

The stock market crash of 1929 curtailed most of his earlier business interests, and his marriage to Duke ended shortly after in 1931. Biddle married his second wife, copper mining heiress Margaret Thompson Schulze, that same year. President Roosevelt first appointed him minister to Norway in 1935, and then Ambassador to Poland in 1937.

 

“In addition to the many personal objects in the exhibition, we have a number of pieces Biddle used in the U.S. Embassy in Poland including the desk he used, the official embassy seal removed when he fled Warsaw in 1939, and a lot of rare occupation documents,” says Lynn Clouser, director of the Drexel Collection.

 

This second appointment also led to his London-based commission in 1941 to the governments-in-exile of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Yugoslavia–making Biddle the ambassador to more countries at once than any other person in history. The prior year he had also served as the interim ambassador to France.

 

After leaving the State Department in 1944 Biddle re-enlisted in the army, rose to the rank of Brigadier General, and served in various high-level positions under General Eisenhower until retiring in 1955. In 1946 Biddle married his third wife, Margaret Atkinson Loughborough, a major also serving under Eisenhower. The couple raised their two children between France, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania.

 

“He passed away when I was 12-years-old–it was a short but memorable period,” recalls Biddle’s son, Anthony "Tony" J. Drexel Biddle III. “I remember being two or three on the front lawn [of our house] in Paris and he stood me underneath an apple tree, then stepped around back and shook it so hard that apples were raining down on me–that was the first trick he pulled that I can remember,” he laughs.

 

In January 1961 Biddle reluctantly took his final State Department appointment as Ambassador to Spain under President Kennedy. “America and Western Europe were having a difficult time with [Spanish dictator] Francisco Franco over possibly losing [the territory of] Gibraltar,” says Tony. “So, Jack [Kennedy] implored my father to return to the diplomatic core though, initially, he respectfully declined.”

 

Kennedy then approached Biddle’s close friend, General James Gavin–who Kennedy had just appointed Ambassador to France–to help convince him to take the job. “Gavin said to my father, ‘if you go to Spain, I’ll go to Paris–but if you don’t, I won’t.’ Then, suddenly we were in Spain,” Tony remembers. “We must have landed there a week after Jack was inaugurated and in a remarkably short period of time Dad nullified the problem, and Franco was absolutely in love with him.”

 

Biddle maintained three strong political relationships throughout his life and nearly 30-year career—those with Presidents Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. “Ike [Eisenhower] was being drafted to run for president and he asked my father to consider running as his vice president,” says Tony. “Dad accepted that as an enormous compliment but declined.”

 

When pressed, Biddle offered two reasons: First he wasn’t cut out for campaigning, and second he was a Democrat, to which Eisenhower replied, “Who cares!” According to Tony, at one time both the Democratic and Republican parties in Pennsylvania were after his father to run for governor.

 

Biddle’s relationship with Kennedy began when the future president was a student at Harvard. “Joe [Kennedy] was in London at the time and called up Dad in Warsaw to say, ‘I have this vision my son is going to be Secretary of State one day, and it would be good if he learned some of the ropes early.’”

 

The younger Kennedy would spend a summer in Poland with Biddle, and the pair became fast friends. “Jack always depended on him a lot for the rest of his life,” says Tony. “When Jack ran for the nomination the first time—and didn’t get it—my Dad was a very important morale-boosting supporter. He encouraged Jack to stay the course, and the next time he won.”

 

By the time they arrived in Spain, Tony recalls having, at 11-years-old, a “young person’s understanding” of what his father did. “We were there basically a year, then Dad became ill and died that November.” At the end of his life, Biddle spent a month at the Airforce base outside Madrid before being transferred to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC, and ultimately succumbed to lung cancer at age 64.

 

“One of the most important things in life to Dad was a sense of humor,” says Tony. “Today that would translate into not taking yourself too seriously. He loved people, and the more he loved you, the more likely he was going to do something funny.”

 

Located in Drexel University’s Rincliffe Gallery and A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery, the exhibition runs through May 1, 2020.



Sunday 24 March 2024

Princess of Wales cancer treatment: reaction after weeks of speculation


The Observer view on The Princess of Wales: calm and courage amid a family already beset by crises

Observer editorial

Catherine’s moving message revealing her treatment for cancer showed a candour that the monarchy has often lacked

 

Sat 23 Mar 2024 15.39 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/23/observer-view-on-the-princess-of-wales-calm-and-courage-amid-a-family-beset-by-crises

 

The video recording in which Catherine, Princess of Wales, revealed she is undergoing treatment for cancer will be remembered as a moving personal testament and a public profile in courage at a time of great challenges for the monarchy. Catherine’s demeanour was calm, her clothes and appearance ordinary, her voice steady, although the strain showed behind her eyes. Yet most of all, it was Catherine’s bravery that shone through as she described the “incredibly tough” two months that she, her husband and children have endured since her illness, so shocking and unexpected, was first diagnosed.

 

All those people across Britain who are afflicted by cancer – the total is about 3 million, with about 1,000 new diagnoses each day – and relatives and friends whose lives are upended by the disease will identify closely with the feelings Catherine expressed or intimated. Fear for the future, present pain, the often distressing side effects of modern treatments, worry about the impact on the children: such thoughts besiege and oppress the mind even as the body struggles. Catherine spoke vicariously for all who suffer.

 

This ability – to speak for and to speak to all of this country’s less exalted, less heard, less fortunate “ordinary” people – is a quality that the monarchy, in its uncertain, slightly anachronistic national leadership role, needs badly and has often lacked. It is essential to its continued relevance and popular support. Kate Middleton, the middle-class girl from the home counties whose very surname smacked of ordinariness, has occupied that treacherous common ground from the moment she and William married at Westminster Abbey in 2011.

 

Catherine’s positive, smiling personality, obvious commitment to her role as a mother and lack of airs and graces have helped make her the most popular younger royal since Princess Diana. Her normalising presence has proved especially important as the royal family experienced a string of difficulties. In hindsight, the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 and the close of the second Elizabethan era triggered a period of turmoil. It has brought a cancer diagnosis for the late queen’s son and successor, King Charles III, further disgrace of Prince Andrew and damaging ructions over the maverick behaviour of Prince Harry.

 

Catherine’s key role in keeping “the Firm” afloat means her prospective absence from public duties for the foreseeable future will be all the more deeply felt in Buckingham Palace. With the king also out of action – like Catherine, the type of cancer he is suffering from has not been revealed – and with two princes in self-imposed or enforced exile, an already supposedly “slimmed down” monarchy begins to look depleted, overstretched and vulnerable. Yet this is not the moment for republicans to re-open the debate about its future. That must come, in time. But not now.

 

Right now, Catherine and her family deserve and must be afforded the privacy, time and personal space for which she has asked, in order that she completes a full recovery. Cancer charities have rightly praised her openness about her condition. Catherine has been laudably candid after weeks of unfair, sometimes malicious, speculation on social media and the international press. We wish her well over the difficult weeks and months ahead.

 

Catherine became a fairytale princess – the girl with everything. And yet, so it turns out, hers was not a charmed life after all. Her challenge is everywoman’s and everyman’s.



 

Princess of Wales ‘enormously touched’ by messages of support after cancer diagnosis

 

Kensington Palace says Catherine and Prince William are ‘extremely moved by the public’s warmth and support’

 

Guardian staff and agencies

Sun 24 Mar 2024 04.09 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/24/princess-of-wales-enormously-touched-by-messages-of-support-after-cancer-diagnosis

 

The Princess of Wales and her husband, Prince William, have been “enormously touched” by the messages of support received since she announced her cancer diagnosis, a Kensington Palace spokesperson has said.

 

Catherine said on Friday she was undergoing preventive chemotherapy after tests done following her major abdominal surgery in January revealed cancer had been present.

 

The 42-year-old wife of the heir to the throne called the cancer discovery a “huge shock”. The news came as a fresh health blow to the British royal family: King Charles is also undergoing treatment for cancer.

 

Kate’s statement via a video message, which was filmed at Windsor Castle on Wednesday, triggered an outpouring of support from well-wishers.

 

“The prince and princess are both enormously touched by the kind messages from people here in the UK, across the commonwealth and around the world in response to Her Royal Highness’s message,” the Kensington Palace spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday.

 

“They are extremely moved by the public’s warmth and support and are grateful for the understanding of their request for privacy at this time.”

 

It is not known how long Kate will be receiving treatment but it is understood she may be keen to attend events as and when she feels able to, in line with medical advice, although this will not indicate a return to full-time duties.

 

William will continue to balance supporting his wife and family and maintaining his official duties, as he has done since her operation.

 

The prince is due to return to public duties after his children return to school following the Easter break. He and his wife will not attend the royal family’s traditional Easter Sunday service at Windsor Castle’s St George’s Chapel, which the king is hoping to go to with the queen if his health allows.

 

It is not likely to be a large family gathering or service, according to the Telegraph, as Charles has paused public-facing royal duties.

 

The palace said Catherine started her chemotherapy treatment in late February. It is understood her public announcement of the news was timed to coincide with the children breaking up from school for the Easter holidays.

 

The palace said Catherine had wished to provide a medical update in order to put an end to the speculation sparked by her admission to the London Clinic on 16 January for major abdominal surgery. At the time, the palace refused to confirm what Catherine was being treated for, but said the condition was non-cancerous.

 

The speculation was only fuelled when the first official photograph of the Princess of Wales to be released after her surgery was recalled by some of the world’s biggest picture agencies earlier this month over claims it had been manipulated.

 

With Reuters and Press Association


Analysis

Burden falls on Prince William to steer monarchy through next few months

Harriet Sherwood

With his father and wife diagnosed with cancer, and himself estranged from his once beloved brother, the blows have come thick and fast

 

Sat 23 Mar 2024 16.05 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/23/burden-falls-on-prince-william-to-steer-monarchy-through-next-few-months

 

For the Prince of Wales, the blows have come swiftly one after the other. First his father, King Charles, revealed that he had been diagnosed with cancer, and then came the news from doctors that his wife, Catherine, the Princess of Wales, also has cancer.

 

The stress on the heir to the throne will be considerable. Not only must he support his wife and father, he must also shepherd his young children through a family medical crisis in the glare of global media coverage. And he must shoulder much of the responsibility of steering the monarchy through challenging months ahead.

 

In her video statement released on Friday, Kate acknowledged her husband’s role in her recovery from surgery and treatment for cancer. “Having William by my side is a great source of comfort and reassurance,” she said.

 

Immediately after Kate’s abdominal surgery in January, William took time off to support his family. But on 6 February, he returned to royal duties as Kate recuperated at home in Windsor.

 

Three weeks later, he suddenly pulled out of attending a memorial service for his late godfather, King Constantine of Greece, citing unspecified “personal reasons”. That triggered frenzied speculation on social media. It is thought that Kate’s diagnosis landed about this time.

 

King Charles also missed the service, leaving Queen Camilla and Prince Andrew to lead the royal party.

 

Now Kate is undergoing chemotherapy, it is unlikely she will perform any official duties for the foreseeable future. The king has resumed limited engagements in the past month, such as an audience with Rishi Sunak and a privy council meeting, but is not expected to travel or undertake arduous engagements.

 

William’s priority over the next few weeks will be his family. The prince is able to take as much time as he needs without financial worries or fear of losing his job. Many spouses or partners in a similar position have to make hard choices.

 

“Balancing working and caring” for someone with cancer “can be difficult”, says the charity Macmillan Cancer Support. It advises trying to find a “balance between the support you want to give and what you are able to do”, and talking to employers about possible flexible working arrangements.

 

Many people depend on the support – practical and emotional – of close relatives. Not for the first time, William may be reflecting on the breakdown in the once close relationship with his brother Harry, now living thousands of miles away and largely estranged from his family.

 

While many families pull together in a crisis, and strengthen mutual bonds, this seems unlikely for the royals.


Analysis

Apologies for Kategate – but will the spirit of restraint on social media last?

Vanessa Thorpe Arts and media correspondent

The Princess of Wales’s cancer diagnosis has put a stop to the internet’s wilder conspiracy theories, but it could be temporary

 

Sat 23 Mar 2024 19.02 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/23/princess-of-wales-social-media-apologies-for-kategate-will-restraint-last

 

After Friday’s filmed statement from the Princess of Wales, it is now TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X, formerly Twitter, who are in the dock. This weekend thousands of individual users have expressed contrition over the conspiracy theories they aired and the boss of X herself tried to reposition her platform by urging compassion.

 

“A brave message delivered by Princess Kate with her signature grace,” CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, posted, adding, “Her request for privacy, to protect her children and allow her to move forward (without endless speculation) seems like a reasonable request to respect.”

 

Speculation about the whereabouts and wellbeing of Catherine, in the face of repeated contradictions from Kensington Palace, took place chiefly on social media in this country. While British newspapers showed restraint, phones lit up with conspiracy theories – and foreign print and TV news journalists joined in.

 

“Kategate became a cottage industry of clickbait online because it was a mystery, which invites audience participation,” said writer Helen Lewis of the Atlantic. “One of the rules of the internet is that people like to put themselves into the narrative, and here, everyone got a chance to be the lead in their own version of CSI.”

 

Rosie Boycott, a crossbench peer and former editor of the Independent and the Daily Express, sees it as “a very shabby episode”. “I hope people feel quite ashamed because the internet hit a real low with poor Kate,” she said. “There may have been a briefing for some British newspaper editors, telling them to take it seriously, but we have zero control over social media – and then that viral outbreak itself becomes the story.”

 

Forensic analysis of the princess’s clothes was conducted online by amateur sleuths arguing the edited royal Mother’s Day photograph was a total composite, while others disbelieved the farm shop video of the couple that became public last week. Although some of this spurious detective work was driven by misplaced concern for Catherine, it also demonstrated a current distrust of “legacy” media.

 

“It is the wild west online, partly because of the anonymity,” said Boycott. “But Kategate has been horrid and I don’t understand it, except that it reveals this strange thing we have about feeling we own celebrities.”

 

Lewis watched as the vacuum of real news spawned online content: “There was just enough truth among all the speculation to make the conspiracy theories not entirely absurd. By accident, Kensington Palace fed the fire rather than quenched it,” she said.

 

“So you could watch videos explaining how the photo of Kate and the children was suspiciously edited – which it was. That legitimised the wilder stuff about body doubles and AI generation. I even saw a 3D animated reconstruction of one of the photos taken of Kate in the car.

 

“Some people were doing all this with self-aware irony, but other people presented themselves as trying to ‘save’ Kate, in a way that was reminiscent of the stories around Britney Spears – and again, that’s someone who apparently was sending coded messages about her conservatorship through her Instagram captions. So the idea isn’t completely ridiculous.”

 

The new tone of online sobriety might last a while, given the gravity and sensitivity of the princess’s situation, even on digital forums that are built to discourage moderate voices. But the appetite for status updates on her health will not go away.

 

“What this proves is that Kensington Palace can still control the British press to some extent,” said Lewis. “But they can’t control the internet, or the American media, who are hugely interested in our royal family but have very different standards on privacy and libel.”