I’ve been meaning to recommend the story of Clemantine Wamariya for a long time. “Everything Is Yours, Everything Is Not Yours,” written by Clemantine with Elizabeth Weil, is best described by its own introduction: “At age six, I ran away with my sister to escape the Rwandan massacre. We spent seven years as refugees. What…
In the News
Recommended Reading: The Best Donald Trump Story
Donald Trump is terrifying, but the story that Drew Magary wrote about Trump and his fans for GQ Magazine is laugh-out-loud funny. It starts with … “The bus tells you everything you need to know because the bus is a piece of shit. You would expect a Donald Trump campaign bus to be MOST LUXURIOUS,…
Throwback Thursday: The Right Way to Shoot Lions
If you want to shoot a lion, shoot him with your camera. That’s what I did when I visited South Africa’s Thornybush Game Lodge in 2013. Look at this handsome fellow with the huge balls and silky mane! This dude’s hair was so on fleek. I mean, he was on fleek a full year before…
The Financial Times on Consignment Practices
Big thanks to a gorgeous jewelry-industry friend for sharing a Financial Times article by Elisa Anniss called, “Retailers seem happy to let designers take the financial strain.” (You may need to create an FT ID in Twitter to read this.) The article, which explains the retail practice of selling fine jewelry on consignment, came out…
Told You So … You Need Leg Jewelry!
Last month, when I officially introduced my 18K gold and platinum barbed wire ankle bracelets, I said it was time for leg jewelry to heat up. I wrote: “While anklets have been around since ancient times and are still a perennial in some cultures, in the U.S. they’ve gone in and out of fashion. I…
Things I’ve Read: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Several recent articles have grabbed my attention for various reasons — sometimes, unpleasant reasons. Starting out on the bright side, I enjoyed the Wall Street Journal’s story about how Janis Joplin came to write the acapella song, “Mercedes Benz.” CLICK HERE TO READ THE WSJ STORY ABOUT JANIS JOPLIN. As a designer, I’m always interested…
Soccer, Ticker Tape and Sexism
I’m pleased that the women’s U.S. soccer team will get a Manhattan ticker-tape parade next week Friday in celebration of its World Cup win. View image | gettyimages.com On the other hand, if I were on the team, I might be thinking, “Fuck the ticker tape … where’s my money?” As has been widely reported,…
Things I Didn’t Expect To See in This Lifetime
I honestly doubted that I would live to see something like last week’s Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. View image | gettyimages.com I remember the summer of 2000, when Vermont legalized “civil unions,” which allowed gay and lesbian partners to reap the legal benefits of marriage, albeit without using the word marriage. Some people…
Throwback Thursday: Mary Ellen Mark and Tiny
Photographer Mary Ellen Mark died in Manhattan on Monday at age 75. She had myelodysplastic syndrome, a disease that affects bone marrow and blood. Mark did everything from documentary photography to fashion photography and ad campaigns, but her best-known project was about homeless teens in Seattle. It began as a 1983 LIFE magazine photo essay,…
Mom, Linda Evangelista, and the Week in Review
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there! Believe it or not, Mother’s Day wasn’t created by Hallmark. It wasn’t even created by a mother. A child-free woman named Anna Jarvis organized the first Mother’s Day services with her own mother in mind in 1908. Activist Julia Ward Howe had proposed a similar idea…