Tomas Maier joins fight to save Hotel Okura.

As the creative director of Bottega Veneta, Tomas Maier has consistently sought to protect the brand’s heritage of craftsmanship. In this same spirit, Maier is now taking on a new kind of preservation project. In partnership with the Japanese publication Casa Brutus, Maier and Bottega Veneta have launched an initiative to raise awareness of the potential destruction of numerous significant Modernist buildings in Japan due to economics, politics and the preparation for the 2020 Olympics.

Maier, the son of an architect and a lifelong architecture enthusiast, became interested in Japanese Modernism in the mid-1980s when he first visited the Hotel Okura, a 1962 landmark designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi. (Supporters of the campaign are encouraged to use the hashtag #mymomentatokura to document their favorite details of the building on social media.) In the video shown here, Maier discusses the campaign and explores the hotel’s unique features, which continue to inspire his work. “It would be a great loss for the next generation to be unable to embrace the beauty of these icons for themselves,” he says. via: tmagazine

Golshifteh Farahani-Persian beauty.

Golshifteh Farahani (born July 10, 1983 in Tehran) is an acclaimed Iranian actress. She is the daughter of actor/theater director Behzad Farahani and sister of actress Shaghayegh Farahani.Golshifteh Farahani started studying music and playing the piano at the age of 5. At 12, she entered a music school in Tehran. After graduation, she was accepted at the Vienna Conservatory. At the age of 14 she was cast as the lead in Dariush Mehrjui's The Pear Tree for which she won the Crystal Simorgh for Best Actress from the International Section of the 16th Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran. The win contributed to her decision to stay in Iran and choose a career in film over music. She never boarded the plane to Vienna. Since then she has acted in 16 films, many of which have received international awards. For Boutique she won the Best Actress award from the 26th Nantes Three Continents Festival (France). In recent years she has acted in movies by some of Iran's best directors: Dariush Mehrjui's controversial film the Santoor Player, Bahman Ghobadi's Half Moon (winner of the Golden Shell at the 2006 San Sebastian Film Festival) and the late Rasool Mollagholipoor's M for Mother (Iran's nominee for the 2008 Academy Awards for the Best Foreign Language Film category) for which she won the special prize of the jury for the Best Actress from the 37th Roshd International Film Festival.

DIVINE SAO SCHLUMBERGER.

 Back in the late eighties, I was Mrs. Denise Barry de Longchamps' assistant at Yves-Saint Laurent's haute-couture salon. Among a prestigious clientele, we had the great privilege to take care of Sao Schlumberger's orders for her haute-couture wardrobe. The Fall 1988 yellow jacket with Lesage embroidered grapes  was one of her orders. We knew she was already ill with Alzheimer, but she carried herself with such elegance during Monsieur Jean-Pierre Derbord's fittings , she made us forget about it...

Read more  about Sao Schlumberger via Vanityfair

Chez Ann Getty in San Francisco.

"On the release of her new book, style doyenne Ann Getty throws open the doors to her treasure-filled San Francisco house.

On a recent Friday afternoon, Ann Getty, porcelain skin delicately touched with a dash of rouge and her Titian-red hair swept back, is sitting in the mirrored and gilded dining room of her San Francisco house, under a tiered ormolu chandelier originally owned by the famed fashion maverick Daisy Fellowes. Getty is finalizing the schedule for an upcoming trip to Paris with her eldest granddaughter, Ivy. "I'm planning it the way we used to do Paris with the boys—lots of walking," says Getty, who is dressed in taupe Loro Piana slacks, a pale-blue cashmere sweater, and an artfully knotted green-and-cream cashmere gauze scarf. "We have long lists of restaurants from Francophile friends. We'll be going everywhere on the Métro, changing trains, crisscrossing Paris. Of course, we'll go to the Musée d'Orsay to see my Pierre Bonnard portrait of pianist Misia Sert that I've loaned them. That will be exciting."

The only Parisian delicacy Getty won't be tasting, however, is couture. "I used to attend the couture shows, but they told me I was the most impatient client they ever had," she says. "I never enjoyed fittings, standing for hours with pins sticking into me. But I did Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino, and I loved Balmain in the era when Oscar de la Renta was there."

Tall and lithe with regal posture, Getty has worn gilded Emanuel Ungaro gowns and showstopping JAR jewels with panache all around the globe: St. Petersburg, London, New York, and San Francisco. But these days, though she still appreciates a sartorial splash, she's more likely to be found hard at work in her design studio in a white Gap button-down—exquisitely hand-ironed, of course—and tailored Levi's jeans. ("For years, Hermès was the only company that made pants long enough for me," before she switched to American denim.)

"I find it rather amusing when I'm described as a socialite," she says, laughing. "It's no longer my focus. I go out once a month, barely, just to maintain my so-called status." Happy to leave the late nights to others, Getty has turned her full attention to her clients, and her team, led by her senior designer of close to 20 years, Maria Quiros."

Read more: Via Harpersbazaar

DEEDA BLAIR -THE ELEGANCE OF CONVICTION.

"Most scientists are astonished by Deeda Blair’s style, and the style mavens are surprised by her scientific expertise. That is obvious to even the most casual observer of her life. If one penetrates those disparate worlds, however, one soon finds that neurobiologists credit her with helping them think through difficult questions, and that fashionistas must employ metaphors from 18th-century France to describe the impeccable way she dresses and entertains. The word “elegant” is in regular use in both fashion and science; it can describe a certain understated self-assurance manifest in a choice of shoes or an arrangement of furniture — and, equally, the underlying structures of the universe or the transcription of RNA. It perfectly describes Deeda. Her couture is severe and simple, the kind that only the knowing eye can identify as couture. Her trademark bouffant has not changed in 50 years, but it does not feel dated; it feels Deeda. Her apartment, all pale gray, is like being inside a pearl; it is a study in discipline. The work she does with scientists has a similar urgent deliberateness. Pretension lies in striving to be who you are not; Deeda, rather, tries to be even more of who she is. And who she is outstrips what she says or does; her gentle way of insisting on people’s best selves enables their accomplishments."

More via: Tmagazine