Ralph Lauren

Friday

Gage Klipper

How to maintain the equestrian aesthetic

From our US edition

“We know what art is! It’s paintings of horses,” Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy says from his elegant top-floor office in 30 Rock. George Stubbs’s masterpiece “Whistlejacket”;  “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” on his rearing warhorse Marengo, by Jacques-Louis David; English hunt scenes. Horses are a quintessential subject in European, and especially English, art. They evoke palatial country estates passed down over the centuries and the breeches, boots and hunt colors of the men who ride for sport and leisure. Yet the equestrian aesthetic is now synonymous with Ralph Lauren, who deconstructed the WASPish polo style into something modern and American, only to have his own discerning innovations copied to an endless, commercial degree.

Friday

Jane Stannus

Who stands to gain in the pistachio wars?

If you’ve ever lived in Marseille – where the habit of exaggeration is imbibed with mothers’ milk – you’ve heard about the sardine that blocked the port. But that’s nothing compared to the pistachio that took over the world. In late 2023, Dubai chocolate, a new kind of chocolate bar filled with pistachio cream, tahini and crunchy, toasted phyllo pastry, went viral. Chocolate brands, bakeries and purveyors of fine foods were quick to jump on the trend. Coffee chains began offering pistachio chocolate drinks (iced Dubai-chocolate matcha, anyone?) and delectable pistachio bomboloni – soft donuts filled with pistachio cream – came back on the menu in Italian restaurants.

pistachio wars

Saturday

Kara Kennedy

Prep isn’t ‘back’ — it never left

From our US edition

Open up any social media and type in the word “prep.” I just did it: to my horror, I was met by a soft-voiced, big-lipped TikTokker dressing herself in bright, monogrammed clothes and topping the look off with a Tommy Hilfiger bucket hat and matching socks. I then called my friend Peter York, co-author of The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, otherwise known as Britain’s answer to The Official Preppy Handbook and the Ten Commandments for an entire generation of preppy dressers in the United Kingdom.  “Prep is minimal,” he reassured me. “That’s the whole point, preppy clothes are a staple in everybody’s wardrobe.” But, as York told me, the younger generations’ take on this timeless trend “doesn’t sound remotely like what prep actually is.

Prep

Thursday

Mark Mason

The marvels of the Connaught Hotel

From our US edition

You may have noticed the Connaught Hotel a little more since 2011, when ‘Silence’, the steamy fountain by Japanese ‘architect philosopher’ Tadao Ando, was installed outside the entrance. But actually the hotel doesn’t want to be noticed. It prides itself on guaranteeing famous guests their privacy. Eric Clapton added his own layer of protection by checking in as ‘Mr W.B. Albion’ (he’s a fan of the soccer club West Bromwich Albion). Alec Guinness valued its discretion, and was annoyed when Jack Nicholson’s stay during the filming of Batman attracted the paparazzi. The hotel in turn had its own issues with Jack and his entourage. As the star put it to a friend: ‘They have a shit fit every time we walk through the lobby with jeans on.

connaught