Spectator Life

Donatella Versace was never supposed to be a fashion designer. She had no formal fashion education and was happy working on the business and styling of Versace as her brother, Gianni, built his house into Milan’s most opulent. But, in 1997, a madman brutally murdered him — and someone had to keep his legacy and brand alive. And so Donatella did. Over the almost 30 years that followed — struggling through grief, business troubles and addiction — she has released more than 100 collections, grown the brand into a multi-billion-dollar giant and did so aggressively, without selling out its style or quality. Her recent Fall /Winter 2025 collection was an eccentric, fabulous celebration of those decades, pulling exuberantly from the Versace archives.

The Democrats are hellbent on handing President Trump win after win when it comes to the issue of biological men competing against women in sports.  Their desire to die on this hill is baffling especially considering Trump’s November mandate. Generous souls that they are, now progressives are ensuring their arch nemesis can make the most of his winning message during his presidency.  During his joint address to Congress last night, Trump introduced Payton McNabb, a former volleyball player who, in 2022, suffered a traumatic brain injury after a man was allowed to compete against her in a match. She received a standing ovation from Republicans as Trump vowed to protect female athletes. He didn’t stop there.

Most of the people in my feed spent their weekend talking about how ashamed they are of their country. That’s a sentiment I don’t share. But a very specific shame was still very much on my mind because of the Trump-Zelensky press conference: suit shaming.   The suit shaming of President Zelensky started as soon as he arrived at the White House looking like one of the henchmen from Anora. As Zelensky stepped from an SUV, Trump commented on his outfit: “He’s all dressed up today,” a power-player rhetorical cue to make Zelensky appear poor and small.   At the press conference, the media itself got in on the suit-shaming.

It’s been almost 100 years since Arcady Fixon, a refugee from the Russian Revolution, opened the doors of Caviar Kaspia on Place de la Madeleine in Paris, and began beguiling his fellow exiles and the crème of Paris society with the exotic flavors of his homeland: shiny black caviar, served with blinis or potatoes, and ice-cold vodka. After being passed down through family hands, Caviar Kaspia is now owned by the charismatic entrepreneur Ramon Mac-Crohon, who has ensured that the place has lost nothing of its prerevolutionary charm: Nicolas II’s seal sits alongside antique porcelain in a display cabinet, and Nicolas Swertschkoff’s Troika, depicting a Russian horse-drawn sledge moving through snow, still hangs in the dining room.

“You just missed Chris Hoy. He was here leading cycle rides over the summer,” the Peligoni Club’s receptionist informed me breezily as he lugged my suitcase down the gravel path to my villa. Lively Greek music drifted on the (non-existent) breeze, thick air seeming to press down on us despite the late hour.  I’d come to Zakynthos seeking some solo restoration — and sure, even self-improvement. I hadn’t pictured puffing up a rock-strewn hill behind a six-time Olympic gold-medal-winning medalist, in 90-degree heat. But that’s how they roll, here; this family-run, members-only beach club regularly flies in experts to add star quality to the pared-back, luxurious spaces.

Biohacking, one of the more bearable buzz words of recent times, refers to the practice of using science, technology and self-experimentation to improve the body’s function and performance. When I was recently invited to experience the Alpina Gstaad’s new three-day wellness program — designed to “biohack your ski trip for improved performance and mood” — I didn’t hesitate. Here was not only a chance to improve my disastrous skiing but also to restore my pitiful liver, which had taken a particularly heavy beating in the festive run up to 2025. What better place to kick off “Dry January” than a five-star spa tucked away in the Bernese Highlands?

It’s easy to not quite get the Super Bowl. What exactly is it: a sporting event, a music show, a fashion parade for the world’s coolest pair of shades, a new version of the Chippendales with the hunks wearing tight trousers and skid lids? Or, in its latest incarnation, a chance for the world’s most frenetic lawmaker to sink his last putt in a round of golf with Tiger Woods, board Air Force One and say: "Fly me to New Orleans." Or is it a chance to watch several vast and amiable black guys bulging out of their suits and bantering away about a possible three-peat, while Trombone Shorty plays a touching version of "America the Beautiful" and an announcer calls for a moment’s silence to mark the importance of "faith, family and football"?

The US Senate narrowly confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human Services (HHS) secretary in a 52-48 vote. Democrats voted along party lines — against former Democrat RFK — as did Republicans, with the exception of Senator Mitch McConnell. Expressing his view of RFK’s appointment, McConnell said in a statement: I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles... a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle Mr.

Minus a few big plays, the Super Bowl match-up between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs itself was a bit of a snoozer. But everyone knows the main event is not really the main event at the Super Bowl. Prior to kickoff, there’s the panning of the cameras to show the famous folk in attendance. Taylor Swift was mercilessly booed, and she didn’t seem to know how to react to the derision. In her defense — who would? Say what you will about Swift, but having your face appearing on a jumbotron elicit jeers loud enough to be heard from inside your swanky private box must be soul-shattering, no matter how many billions you have in the bank. President Donald Trump’s appearance had the opposite effect: the crowd goes wild!

File this under sentences that shouldn’t have to be written, but President Donald Trump just signed an executive order barring biological males from participating in women’s sports. The Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports order, reports ESPN, “gives federal agencies, including the Justice and Education departments, wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration's view, which interprets ‘sex’ as the gender someone was assigned at birth.” The move seems like a no-brainer, and most Americans will likely roll their eyes, turn on the Super Bowl this weekend to watch the most testosteroned of muscley, macho men bash each other to the ground and not give the chromosomes a second thought.

Last Friday afternoon, amid the menswear shows for Paris Fashion Week, a crowd of influencers, shoppers, celebrities and fashion journalists waited for Dior’s latest collection. Attendees, however, weren’t chatting about what they expected from the clothes, or the staging, or the state of the brand, or what they were hoping to see. Instead, it was all about the fate of its designer. The show received strikingly positive reviews, with critics raving over Dior Homme’s return to simple form and immaculate craftsmanship. But before, throughout, and after, one question saturated the air: would this be the last show by its men’s creative director, Kim Jones?

It was the first day of the spring semester when masked individuals burst into the classroom, shouting and throwing posters at students. As they yelled, the professor asked the protestors calmly, and in Arabic, to leave. The class was on the History of Modern Israel, the campus was Columbia University, and the protestors were part of the highly engaged and increasingly extreme “Palestine liberation” movement. It transpired that the masked students did not speak Arabic, that they did not intend to engage in a dialogue, and their primary concern was causing disruption and documenting that disruption for social media.

My friend Dan Foster voiced a theory about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today that strikes me as particularly accurate. In response to a comment from the New York Times’s Ross Douthat giving credence to RFK’s belief that Lyme disease could be the result of a materially engineered bioweapon, he noted: “The reason I think Kennedy gets confirmed is because every single American agrees with him on one of his fringe things. He’s like the Captain Planet of kook.” This is the ultimate expression of voter antipathy toward traditional politicians, laid atop suspicions that everyone holds about something on the edge of appropriate discussion. It goes like this: “Well, yeah RFK’s probably wrong about X, and definitely about Y, but Z? He’s the only guy who tells the truth about Z!