September 10, 2022
The Best
of
The
News
from
Abroad
No. 165
Weekend
Edition
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In This Week’s Issue
Portraits of a Lady

From London, George Pendle details how Cecil Beaton’s carefully composed photographs of Queen Elizabeth II played a crucial role in creating the image—and our memories—of the monarch …

Scandal

From France, John von Sothen details the twisted crime that riveted the country: a retired business executive who had molested his daughter and granddaughter, and then murdered the therapist who was set to expose his sexual abuse …

Red Skies Ahead

From the cockpit, Sam Kashner recounts the cloak-and-dagger Cold War maneuverings that allowed the U.S.S.R. to create the “Concordski,” a Soviet-era version of the Concorde …

Inspector Gadget

From London, our tech-and-gear editor, Jonathan Margolis, delivers everything you need to get fit (and keep fit!) …

Senatorial Privilege

From Hollywood, James Kirchick digs into the political machinations behind a boundary-breaking movie masterpiece all about D.C.’s political machinations, Otto Preminger’s Advise & Consent …

Prison on a Mountaintop

From Colditz, Ben Macintyre on the Nazis’ most legendarily formidable P.O.W. camp …

But First …
Issue No. 165

The View from Here Dandyish Cecil Beaton was an unlikely choice for royal photographer. But his portraits of Elizabeth gave a nation in crisis the monarch it needed

By George Pendle
Read On
A Queen’s Favorite Subjects

Elizabeth II and Her Horses Remembering Britain’s longest-reigning monarch in her most beloved pastime

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Princess Elizabeth of England representing the King at Trooping the Colour (the annual celebration of the British Sovereign’s official birth date) in 1951. She would be crowned Queen a year later.
An eight-year-old Princess Elizabeth strokes one of the prize-winning horses during a visit to the Richmond Horse Show in 1934.
Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in 1968.
Princess Elizabeth rides in Windsor Great Park on her 10th birthday, 1936.
Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in 1979.
Queen Elizabeth II canters up to the start of a five-furlong outing at Royal Ascot, 1961.
Queen Elizabeth II in the stands at New Plymouth Raceway, in New Zealand, top, and during a visit to the Longchamp Racecourse, in Paris, above.
Queen Elizabeth II arrives for the first day of the Royal Windsor Horse Show in 1952, her first year as monarch.
Queen Elizabeth II reviews the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery during their 70th-anniversary parade in Hyde Park, 2017.
Queen Elizabeth II watches her colt High Veldt leave his box in the paddock for the parade ring at Kempton Park, during the second day of the Ascot races in 1956.
The portrait of Queen Elizabeth II released by the Royal Windsor Horse Show to mark the occasion of her 96th birthday, this past spring.
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
Crime and Scandal

When Family Secrets Turn Deadly A pedophilia-fueled murder in an idyllic town shocks France

By John von Sothen
Read On
Tales of Aviation

The Flight of the “Concordski” The espionage and secret history behind the Soviets’ attempt to build their own Concorde

By Sam Kashner
Read On
Air Supply

A Matter of Taste

Survey your culinary landscape and fill in any gaps with this menu of delicacies for gourmets, gourmands, bon vivants, and those who love them
Shop
Painting: Paul Cézanne (still life)
Guest Edit

My Favorite Things Erik Torstensson launched Frame in 2012 with a single aim: to create the perfect pair of skinny jeans. Now, as the supermodel-beloved brand celebrates its 10th anniversary, the Swedish co-founder shares the items he can’t live without

By Erik Torstensson
Shop
Photo: Guy Aroch (Torstensson)
Style

Tie One On! AIR MAIL teams up with Chez Dede on a trio of scarves

By David Foxley
Read On
Small Talk
“Aw, Rex is chasing cats in his dreams again.”
“Aw, Rex is chasing cats in his dreams again.”
Inspector Gadget

Landing Gear Everything you need to keep—or get—fit, stay in the saddle, subdue your fear of flying, and more

By Jonathan Margolis
Read On
Muskapades

Mother Knows Best She escaped domestic abuse and poverty. Now, at 74, Maye Musk is a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and the mother of the richest man in the world

By Anna Murphy
Read On
Small Talk
“And it looks like the Bitcoin toss has left everyone confused.”
“And it looks like the Bitcoin toss has left everyone confused.”
Air Mail Diary

The Glorious Collapse of Truth Social, Trump’s Social-Media App And other strange news about these curious days …

Read On
Yellow and Blue

New York or Bust Ukrainian designer Svitlana Bevza scrambled to finish her new collection. As she prepares to show it at Fashion Week, the stakes are higher than ever

By Laura Neilson
Read On
Best
Read The Amazing Baby Name Book If you’d like to save your fetus from the eventual humiliation of sharing a name with several of his or her classmates… Sparkle Bea Bongiasca Bea Bongiasca’s brightly colored and oh so Instagrammable jewelry have captured the attention of millennial starlets like Dua Lipa and Bella… Cook The Gourmandise School In 2011, chef Clémence Gossett, a former assistant at Twentieth Century Fox, teamed up with Sabrina Ironside… Eat The Holland There’s no shortage of Sunday roasts in London. But the overpriced, overcooked slabs of beef at even the best-rated spots around town… Wear The Row Well, here we are: it’s barely September, and we’re already recommending a coat that costs more than a gently used Kia Rio… Watch Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist Here’s a documentary that combines two of America’s favorite pastimes… Read The Amazing Baby Name Book If you’d like to save your fetus from the eventual humiliation of sharing a name with several of his or her classmates… Sparkle Bea Bongiasca Bea Bongiasca’s brightly colored and oh so Instagrammable jewelry have captured the attention of millennial starlets like Dua Lipa and Bella… Cook The Gourmandise School In 2011, chef Clémence Gossett, a former assistant at Twentieth Century Fox, teamed up with Sabrina Ironside… Eat The Holland There’s no shortage of Sunday roasts in London. But the overpriced, overcooked slabs of beef at even the best-rated spots around town… Wear The Row Well, here we are: it’s barely September, and we’re already recommending a coat that costs more than a gently used Kia Rio… Watch Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist Here’s a documentary that combines two of America’s favorite pastimes…
Listen

Remembering Queen Elizabeth II Whether one spent time with her in person or knew her only through her portraits, her warmth was always present

Read On
Film

Love and War Advise & Consent is rightly remembered as a classic Washington movie. It was also an important—if complicated—moment in gay history

By James Kirchick
Read On
Small Talk
Eight Questions

The Nazis’ Most Formidable P.O.W. Camp Ben Macintyre, author of a new book on epic escapes from the German stronghold Colditz, discusses everything from Truman Capote to dream dinner-party guests

By Jim Kelly
Read On

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Don’t Miss
New York

Fifty years young: David Zwirner and Fraenkel Gallery come together to commemorate MoMA’s 1972 Diane Arbus retrospective …

Paris

Blue period: the Palais Galliera features more than 200 objects from the Casa Azul, where Frida Kahlo was born and brought up …

Birmingham

Owls and the pussycats: paintings from the limerick master Edward Lear go on display at Ikon Gallery …

New York

Side gig: murals made by Charles-Édouard Jeanneret—better known as the architect Le Corbusier—go on view at Almine Rech in New York …

Online

Ancient history: John Adams takes on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra at the San Francisco Opera …

Highlight
A Jakob Schlaepfer lace collar from 2021 (top) and a Chantilly-lace shawl from 1860 (above) are on display in “Threads of Power” at the Bard Graduate Center, in New York.

Straight Lace

My mother’s white lace wedding dress lived in the basement of my grandparents’ suburban-Detroit home. My childhood summers were spent in that house, and soon after arriving I would scurry downstairs to the fragrant, cedar-lined closet to gaze again at the stark purity of the threads, a snowflake pattern that was wildly delicate yet forever unmelting. Like all lace, it radiated both earthly treasure and pristine transcendence. One summer I arrived to find it was gone—the basement had flooded and the dress was among the casualties. I have mourned it ever since. READ ON

A Jakob Schlaepfer lace collar from 2021 (top) and a Chantilly-lace shawl from 1860 (above) are on display in “Threads of Power” at the Bard Graduate Center, in New York. Read On
Highlight

Open House The James Rose Center, a modernist home in New Jersey, hosts an exhibition of art and furniture that align with the architecture’s Zen ethos

By Sophie Kemp
Read On
Small Talk
“Vacation’s over.”
“Vacation’s over.”
Close-up

Lashana Lynch The actress, who has played an Olympic athlete, a James Bond spy, and now a 19th-century warrior, credits her upbringing for her resilience

By Bridget Arsenault
Read On
Books
Daphne Merkin On

Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self

by Andrea Wulf
Read On
Tom Scocca On

The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World

by Max Fisher
Read On
Open Book

Into the Wild A charming new coffee-table book and upcoming exhibition celebrate the stories and illustrations of Maurice Sendak, of Where the Wild Things Are

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A poster for Higglety Pigglety Pop!, an opera based on Where the Wild Things Are. Maurice Sendak often claimed he’d envisioned the characters as horses but switched to big, furry monsters because they were easier to draw.
Sendak’s studies of “Rosie and Buttermilk, her cat,” for his 1975 animated television special, Really Rosie. Carole King, who voiced the title character, would go on to collaborate with Sendak on a stage version of Really Rosie, which premiered Off Broadway in 1980.
A pair of Sendak’s watercolors for Where the Wild Things Are, 1963.
One of Sendak’s drawings for Higglety, Pigglety, Pop!, a 1967 book about his dog Jennie.
A cover mock-up for Sendak’s 1962 book Nutshell Library.
Sendak did the illustrations for Else Holmelund Minarik’s “Little Bear” books, including this one from 1957.
Read On
David Downton’s Sketchbook
A platinum portrait, commissioned by Claridge’s, for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926–2022).
Is Edited By

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Deputy Editors

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OUR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER ARE

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Financial & Business Operations

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In Memoriam

Richard David Story Peter Bogdanovich André Leon Talley

Issue No. 165
September 10, 2022
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Issue No. 165
September 10, 2022
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