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      Pharrell Williams on His New Role at Louis Vuitton

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      Earlier this month, Pharrell Williams was in the men’s atelier on the second floor of Louis Vuitton’s corporate office in Paris, sunglasses on, surveying his new perch.“Listen,” he said conspiratorially. “This window is different.”The window by his desk looks out over the small plaza on the north side of the Pont Neuf, where in just a couple of weeks, his first show as Louis Vuitton men’s creative director would take place. A 50-foot statue of the artist Yayoi Kusama, a Vuitton collaborator, hovered just outside. The rapper Pusha T and the streetwear innovator Nigo were milling about.Since Mr. Williams’s appointment was announced in February, he has spent a great deal of his time here, in this office and in the workshops that abut it, getting accustomed to holding the reins of the huge business he had been put at the creative helm of — the first time a musician has been given such a grand platform in luxury fashion.“I pinch myself every day,” he said. “This is the equivalent of a castle to me. I mean, the Seine River right there — it’s like the moat.”The long path from his childhood in Virginia Beach through hip-hop producer stardom to streetwear design impact to pop music ubiquity to here was very much on his mind. “I’m a Black man — they have given this appointment to a Black man,” he said. “This is the crown jewel of the LVMH portfolio. It’s everything, and I was appointed to rule in this position. So No. 1, a ruler of a position is usually like a king. But a ruler of this position for me is a perpetual student. It’s what I intend to be.”A little bit later in the afternoon, Mr. Williams, 50, slipped off his blazer and slipped on a brown motorcycle jacket in full LV monogram print leather. Emblazoned on the back, in studs, were the words “PUPIL” and “KING.”His appointment to the helm of Vuitton’s men’s business is, depending on your perspective, a full-throated acknowledgment of the power of Black cultural capital on a global stage and a watershed moment in the absorption of hip-hop class politics into luxury fashion. Or it’s a bellwether of challenging times to come for traditionally trained clothing designers who aspire to top posts, and a suggestion that global celebrity moves the needle more than directional design, even for the most successful luxury brands.Either way, Mr. Williams did not apply for the job — he was chosen.In December, Alexandre Arnault, a scion of the LVMH dynasty and a longtime friend, sent Mr. Williams a text: “Please call me. The time has come.”Mr. Williams at the Vuitton men’s atelier with Nigo, the innovative streetwear designer with whom Mr. Williams founded Billionaire Boys Club.Sam Hellmann for The New York TimesMr. Williams thought Mr. Arnault was perhaps going to run some name options by him for the Vuitton job. “I had been pushing somebody else,” he said. “I had been pushing Nigo. My brother, always.”Nigo — the founder of the brands A Bathing Ape and Human Made, the co-founder with Mr. Williams of Billionaire Boys Club and one of the most significant streetwear innovators — had already been named artistic director of Kenzo, another LVMH brand.Instead, Mr. Arnault extended the offer to Mr. Williams. “I had always wanted to work with him, in any way, shape or form since I started working in the group, which is already 10-plus years ago,” Mr. Arnault said. “And it was just never the right time because either the companies were too small to work with someone as big as him, or there were already people in charge, or he was working with Chanel. And stars were so aligned now, finally.”Mr. Williams said, “I’m not calling it fortune — I’m calling it favor.”Hiring Mr. Williams was one of the first decisions overseen by Pietro Beccari, a longtime LVMH executive, who was announced as chairman and chief executive of Louis Vuitton in January. “After Virgil, I couldn’t choose a classical designer,” Mr. Beccari said. “It was important that we found someone having a broader spectrum than being a very fantastic designer, which is great for the industry and we have many of them. But for that particular place, at Louis Vuitton, after Virgil, I thought we needed something more. Something that went beyond just pure design.”Mr. Williams signed the contract on Valentine’s Day and soon relocated his wife and four children and much of his team. “Listen, I miss my house in Miami,” he said. “And my house in Virginia. I really do. But right now, Paris is the center of the earth for me.”Playing the Game, or NotHis skin is as good as you think it is — the additional pressure, or labor, or scrutiny of his new position has left no creases.There was ease in his silhouette, too: a tight black double breasted vintage Vuitton blazer and well-worn white LV Trainer Snow Boots peeking out under bunched-up, flared dark bluejeans embroidered with faces derived from paintings by the Black artist Henry Taylor. The pants — one of a few pieces Mr. Williams has deployed Taylor’s work for — will appear in the spring-summer 2024 collection, which will be shown in Paris on June 20.He requested a tailor to come take a look at the hem of the jeans, which was a smidge too long on one side, and then sauntered over to the main conference table in the room, where he asked some colleagues to pull up images from his first ad campaign. It featured a pregnant Rihanna clutching multiple Louis Vuitton Speedy bags in primary colors, one of the first playful tweaks Mr. Williams is bringing to the company’s heritage. The Speedy, one of Louis Vuitton’s most recognizable designs, dates to 1930 and resembles a doctor’s bag.“I am a creative designer from the perspective of the consumer,” he said. “I didn’t go to Central Saint Martins. But I definitely went in the stores and purchased, and I know what I like.”Mr. Williams’s first ad campaign for Vuitton stars Rihanna, who clutches multiple Speedy bags.Louis VuittonHe told Mr. Beccari something similar. “He said, ‘I don’t feel like a creative director here, I feel like a client,’” Mr. Beccari recalled, adding that he trusted Mr. Williams’s natural instincts despite his never having managed a business of this scale. “I didn’t even have to speak to him about the commercial importance of what he does and the importance in terms of turnover and volume of sales, but just the importance in terms of impact.”Mr. Williams looked at his Rihanna ads the way one might pose after a particularly athletic dunk. He pointed to one and said, “That’s the golden ratio.” For emphasis, he had an associate pull up the same image overlaid with the long golden spiral, the center of it landing directly on Rihanna’s belly.“What I love about this is, it’s the biggest fashion house in the world, and that is a Black woman with child,” Mr. Williams said.Sarah Andelman, the founder of the pioneering Paris retailer Colette, and a collaborator of Mr. Williams’s, said he makes creative choices “not just for the sake of doing things. There is a story and, I would say in French, profondeur, a meaning to what he will do.”Mr. Williams basked in the refracted shine from the screen full of Rihanna images.“I know there’s a game,” he said. “I’m just not here to play it.”Mr. Williams at the men’s atelier. “A ruler of a position is usually like a king,” he said. “But a ruler of this position for me is a perpetual student. It’s what I intend to be.”Sam Hellmann for The New York TimesThe Two-Decade Crash CourseAlmost since the beginning of his career in music, Mr. Williams had found ways to incorporate, and create, fashion. In 2003, he founded Billionaire Boys Club with Nigo, perhaps his closest creative ally in style. Explaining the creative kinship between the two men, Nigo, through an interpreter, said, “The first time I went to Pharrell’s house in Virginia, when I looked in the wardrobe, everything was the same as what I owned.”In 2003, Mr. Williams met Marc Jacobs, then the men’s creative director of Vuitton, who invited him to collaborate on a pair of sunglasses. The result, known as the Millionaires, became a hip-hop luxury staple in the mid-2000s and an updated version of them is still sold today.“He was just so incredibly generous to give me that opportunity when nobody had ever given any of us an opportunity to be creative,” Mr. Williams said of Mr. Jacobs. (The Millionaires were designed by Mr. Williams, with Nigo.)“I thought the way forward for Louis Vuitton was to collaborate with other creatives,” Mr. Jacobs said. “It didn’t matter to me whether they were from music or art or other fashion designers, whether it was Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami or Pharrell.”Back then, when Mr. Williams arrived in Paris, Mr. Jacobs gave him vouchers to shop in the stores. “I was very nouveau riche at that time,” Mr. Williams said, tilting his head down and offering just the tiniest hint of a knowing smirk. Mr. Williams also designed jewelry for Vuitton a few years later.Other collaborations followed: Moncler, G-Star, Moynat, Reebok, a long partnership with Adidas and an almost decade-long affiliation with Chanel and Mr. Williams’s close friend Karl Lagerfeld.Mr. Williams met Marc Jacobs in the early aughts, when Mr. Jacobs was the men’s creative director at Vuitton.Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty ImagesMr. Williams and Karl Lagerfeld shared a close friendship and had a decade-long collaboration at Chanel.Swan Gallet/WWD, via Getty ImagesBut none of those gigs had the complexity, or stakes, of his current assignment.“Over the past several weeks he’s had a crash course in design and how to run a studio and how to manage a team of 40, 50 people and how to take criticism and work with the people at the top because, you know, it’s a blend of creativity and also running a business,” said Matthew Henson, who has been a personal stylist for Mr. Williams for the last couple of years.Mr. Henson is also styling the show, along with Cynthia Lu, Mr. Williams’s former assistant who is now a quiet powerhouse of idiosyncratic streetwear with her brand Cactus Plant Flea Market.When Mr. Williams walks through the studios, his awe for the specialized design teams appears genuine. “Presto, things get turned around so fast,” he said. “I’ve had more resources than I’ve ever had in my entire life. They just don’t miss. Like at all. None. Nobody.”That was something he was prepared for, in part, by conversations he had with Virgil Abloh, after Mr. Abloh was hired for this same job in 2018. In the three years at the helm of Vuitton’s men’s wear before his sudden death in late 2021, Mr. Abloh upended ideas about how a luxury house might function, and what story it might be able to tell in dialogue with those who had long been held at arm’s length from luxury fashion. Just outside the atelier hangs the crucial, defining image from Mr. Abloh’s first ad campaign for Louis Vuitton: a Black toddler draped in a “Wizard of Oz”-themed sweater, one of Mr. Abloh’s first signature pieces.Mr. Williams recalled Mr. Abloh’s awe at the scale and efficiency of the atelier. “He would always talk about how they never say no, which they don’t,” he said. “So that’s a responsibility not to abuse them.”Mr. Williams is now the second consecutive Black American in the role. “Over here, they lift us,” he said. “They appreciate what we do. They see the talent that we have.”Mr. Williams, in 2016, with Virgil Abloh, who as artistic director of Vuitton upended ideas of how a luxury house might function,Amy Sussman/WWD, via Getty ImagesThe Arnault family, he said, understands how crucial the Black American dollar and aesthetic has been to the growth and cachet of Louis Vuitton: “One hundred percent they know it,” he said. “We’ve had some conversations about how important the community is to them, and how being supportive to them is a natural and a prerequisite.”He is looking to expand the house’s brand ambassador program beyond the usual musicians and actors to Black academics, Black authors, a Black astrophysicist, even a Black bass fishing champion.“They have to be supportive of the culture because the culture contributes to the bottom line,” he said.A New HumilityThere are some things that Mr. Williams simply will not say. In public settings, at least, he speaks with the deliberateness of someone who wants no word to be misapprehended. His sunglasses stay on. (“I need something for myself,” he said.) Rhetorically, he returns to familiar narratives and motifs — the seismic changes in his life every 10 years, the eternal quest for learning, the continuing practice of gratitude.“He never speaks the truth of himself, and I hate it,” said Pusha T, who has known Mr. Williams for three decades. “It’s my pet peeve about him. He knows he’s great at things, but he wants that to walk him through the door versus him saying, ‘Hey guys, come on. Let me through.’”Squint hard, though, and you may see the faintest flickers of the mid-2000s Pharrell Williams, a more boisterous and boasty person. A whiff of the old self popped out in a video Mr. Williams posted in late January, backstage at the Kenzo show with Nigo, when he knew he was on the verge of signing his contract. “You know what rhymes with 2023? Money money tree,” he said into his phone camera, nodding intensely. He didn’t lick his lips, but he might as well have.When the appointment was announced, Tyler, the Creator, a longtime acolyte and style guru in his own right, FaceTimed Mr. Williams. “He just has this look he gives me where he kind of just goes like, ‘Yeahhhh, I did that.’ He didn’t say anything,” Tyler said. “And then he gave me the praying hands.”Mr. Williams performing at Roseland in New York in 2004. Rahav Segev for The New York TimesOn his 2006 mixtape “In My Mind: The Prequel,” a dizzying display of Dionysian ostentation, a peacock at the peak of his peacocking, Mr. Williams rapped, “We wanted this life, we salivated like wolves/ Blow a hundred grand on LV leather goods.”Mr. Williams almost flinched at the memory: “I was greeeeeasy on that.”Now, he said, “I promise you I really love being humble.” But luxury fashion is not a business built on humility, and Mr. Williams is keen to make a splash.The theme of his debut show, Mr. Williams said, will be “lovers.” The first inklings of his vision emerged in April, at a Virginia festival that Mr. Williams organizes called Something in the Water, for which Vuitton made merch. It was received coolly.Of potential negative criticism, Mr. Williams pleads equanimity. “I’m a student — students learn,” he said.Mr. Henson said he didn’t think Mr. Williams was expecting any “grace or favor” because of who he is. “He’s expecting even more criticism and harsh critique,” he said.Mr. Williams shrugged. “It’s not where my mind is, just because I think I err on the side of working with master artisans, and we’re just literally working on the details,” he said.Staying CuriousAn afternoon with Mr. Williams in creative director mode is a little bit like playing a first-person shooter. Requests pop in from unexpected directions, at erratic rhythms. Just when things get calm, someone emerges from around a corner with a mood board, or a vintage garment and a swatch of fabric it might be reimagined in. After being shown a hood with a novel but useful zipper, Mr. Williams nodded. “I don’t want anything to be just for aesthetics,” he said. “Everything has to have a real function.”For the second day in a row, he was wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt by Human Made, this time underneath a soft black leather biker jacket, and his flared jeans were in a Damier pattern.A tailor brought out a mock-up of a double-breasted blazer for Mr. Williams to try on. One of the designers asked if he wanted “a very sartorial pocket” added to the design.“Sartorial,” Mr. Williams said. “Do you follow that guy on Instagram? The Sartorialist?”At the Louis Vuitton workshop in the days before his debut collection is unveiled. Sam Hellmann for The New York TimesFor his first collection, he is leaning heavily on the checkerboard Damier print but reworking it in clever ways — digital camo or, in Mr. Williams’s parlance, “damouflage,” and tweaking the colors away from the familiar browns and grays.“Every season it’s going to be a different colorway,” he said, likening the playfulness to Takashi Murakami’s neon monogram print during the Jacobs era. The soles of various shoes will be a modified Damier pattern. On a conference table were a pair of damoflage sweatsuits set aside for his parents (“My dad is a player,” he said.)Mr. Williams, who made waves in 2007 with his oversize purple crocodile Hermès Haut à courroies bag, is most tickled by the opportunity to innovate on the Speedy, which he is remaking in several primary colors, and also in an exaggerated, oversize silhouette. A yellow Speedy in meltingly soft leather sat on the pool table that serves as an impromptu work space in the atelier, almost slumping under its own very light weight.“I want to give you that same experience that you get when you go to Canal Street, a place that has appropriated the house for decades, right?” Mr. Williams said. “Let’s reverse it. Let’s get inspired by the fact that they’ll make some colorways that the house has never made. But then let’s actually make it the finest of leather.”The day before, Mr. Williams had taken a moment to chat about designing a custom look for Naomi Campbell, including a zipped sports bra and zipped miniskirt, all in monogrammed leather (“’60s vibes, go-go”), and debating skirt lengths. “It’ll work, but I don’t know if it’ll be as sexy,” he said.He also surveyed a pair of ship-shaped bag options, one steamer-like, one a bit shorter, and picked from various trim color and font options. “This seems to be the crispiest,” he said, pointing to a white trim. He held one bag in each hand, then handed them to Nigo, who stomped off down the office in a mock model walk.What Nigo did for Mr. Williams two decades ago, Mr. Williams is now doing for those who grew up admiring him.“Me and him have a 20-year difference in age and man, what that does for me at my age is like, oh, it’s still no ceilings,” Tyler said. “To see someone at his age with his milestones, with his résumé, to not only still strive for a new world, stay curious, look for something new and something to challenge himself and let his creativity bleed into something else aside from just a drum pattern. And then actually get it. He not only strived for and did it, but actually nailed it — it means so much to me.”Mr. Williams’s new designs include printed leather jerseys and rugbys, quilted denim, Mao-neck blazers and ghillie camo with LV logo cutouts. He was excited to walk to the back of the studio, where the footwear designers work, and go over some eccentric ideas: Mary Janes and bowling shoes, a stone-encrusted snowboard boot, a design that initially scanned as a soccer sneaker but is actually a hard-bottom shoe. “I ain’t even gonna lie,” he said. “I was trying to do that at Adidas for years.”A little earlier, he was in front of his window, where he’d set up a small studio, and while fiddling with his Keystation 88 — a keyboard and sound controller — he asked his engineer to cue up a new song, tentatively called “Chains ’n Whips,” that he was considering using as part of the show’s soundtrack. Over a fusillade of psych-rock guitar flourishes, Pusha T rapped along to a pointed line in the chorus: “Beat the system with chains and whips!”“That was made in this room,” Mr. Williams said. “We just start walking around and looking out this window and you just see all of this. I mean, we beating this system, bro.” More

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      in Movies

      Twenty Years Later, ‘Irreversible’ Still Shocks

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      A look back at Gaspar Noé’s brutal told-in-reverse drama, which has been rereleased in a “Straight Cut” version.In bed with her lover, Alex (Monica Bellucci) recounts a dream: “I was in a tunnel. All red. And then the tunnel broke in half.” In any other thriller, this uncanny vision would play like a warning for things to come. But in “Irreversible,” the moment arrives toward the end, well after Alex enters the red tunnel and is brutalized by a random man — an indelible scene at the heart of Gaspar Noé’s infamous rape-revenge film, released 20 years ago this week.“Irreversible” envisions the night of Alex’s assault in reverse chronological order. First, her boyfriend, Marcus (Vincent Cassel), goes on a rampage through the streets of Paris in search of the culprit. Then the tunnel. Then the party that Alex will decide to leave by herself. Then the couple’s cozy, Edenlike apartment — a space that will never be the same.“By reversing the formula, ‘Irreversible’ strips away the unspoken logic that dominates these kinds of films. It forces us to question the entire relationship between rape and revenge,” Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, a critic and the author of numerous books on rape-revenge movies, wrote in an email.Though the film was always conceived as a story in reverse, it was shot chronologically, which allowed Noé to assemble a new version, the “Straight Cut,” that flips the order of events into linear time. “Irreversible: Straight Cut” is currently playing in theaters in the United States, and will be released, along with the original cut, on Blu-ray in July thanks to the cult distributor Altered Innocence. “In a way, the new version is both more sentimental and darker,” Noé said in a video interview, explaining that it emphasizes the pointlessness of Marcus’s vengeance-seeking.When “Irreversible” came out in 2003, Noé had already made a name for himself as a provocateur who liked his films mean and loud. His debut feature, “I Stand Alone” (1998), revolves around an incestuous horse-meat butcher with a murderous streak. Noé’s films — like “Enter the Void” (2010) or “Climax” (2019) — are descents into gruesome hells featuring extreme body horror, abrasive techno-tunes, and delirious whirligig camera movements.The Projectionist Chronicles the Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.The Tom Cruise Factor: Stars were starstruck when the “Top Gun: Maverick” headliner showed up at the Oscar nominees luncheon.An Andrea Riseborough FAQ: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why her nod was controversial.Sundance and the Oscars: Which films from the festival could follow “CODA” to the 2024 Academy Awards.A Supporting-Actress Underdog: In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” don’t discount the pivotal presence of Stephanie Hsu.With “Irreversible,” Noé took several of his formative influences — taboo titles like “Deliverance” and “Taxi Driver,” which hinge on the male crusade for retribution — and cranked them up to match the immersive feel of reality-bending epics like “2001: A Space Odyssey.” For Noé, some acts of violence are as equally capable of shattering worlds as glitches in the space-time continuum.Vincent Cassel in “Irreversible: Straight Cut.” A wild-eyed, macho intensity — the actor’s trademark — is on full display in the film.Emily De La Hosseray/Altered InnocenceSet in then-modern-day Paris, the film also starred some of the country’s biggest talents. Bellucci and Cassel, a couple at the time, were like the French equivalent of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman; Albert Dupontel — who plays Pierre, Alex’s bookish ex-boyfriend, witness to Marcus’s spiraling rage — was beloved for his popular comedies. Without their involvement, Noé noted, the film wouldn’t have received funding.Plus, their participation bolstered the movie’s shocks — who could imagine the steely Italian supermodel-turned-actress so graphically pulverized? Dupontel snapping and beating a man to a pulp? Cassel — well, his unhinged Marcus made sense. In “La Haine” (1996), the modern classic about police brutality in the Parisian banlieues, Cassel played a wannabe gangster, in one scene pointing a finger-gun at himself in the mirror à la Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver.” This same wild-eyed, macho intensity — the actor’s trademark — is on full display in “Irreversible.”“The film is testosterone-phobic. It shows men as beasts,” Noé said. Indeed, the world of “Irreversible” is one of primitive brutes. In one scene, Marcus enters Rectum, a hardcore gay club, tumbling down a crimson rabbit hole filled with leather-clad men, bondage swings and chain restraints, maniacally searching for the assailant. His madness is infectious, inciting Pierre into action, which results in an innocent man’s face turned to bloody mush. They’re in a B.D.S.M. club — a real one whose clients served as extras — so the onlookers watch in fascination and shout excitedly as the two men attack. It’s an unforgettably sinister moment, one that the director Damien Chazelle pays homage to in his latest film, “Babylon,” when Tobey Maguire’s drug-addled criminal kingpin leads a tour through a cave of depravities. “He told me he needed to meet me because he copied me!” Noé said, referring to an encounter with Chazelle in Paris.But for many people, nothing in “Irreversible” surpasses the horrors of its most talked-about scene. Shot on location in a real underpass frequented by prostitutes at the outskirts of Paris (the passage has since been demolished), the rape sequence is like the eye of a storm in a film distinguished by its frenzied visuals. “Moving the camera around would have felt like it was participating in the violence, like it was the ghost of some other complicit man,” Noé said. The rapist (Jo Prestia) puts a knife to Alex’s throat, forcing her to comply over the course of nine excruciatingly long minutes. The mostly static camera makes us hyper-aware of our passivity as spectators; but unlike the faceless figure in the distance whom we briefly see stumbling upon the rape and choosing to walk away, we’re forced to watch.No intimacy coordinators were involved on set — in the early 2000s, the profession was nonexistent — but the scene was actively rehearsed, with all the actors’ movements mapped out to create the illusion of a beating. “It was kind of like a dance,” Bellucci said over the phone, emphasizing how empowering it felt for her to be able to enact the experience from a place of total control.The cinema of toxic masculinity long precedes the current era, though discourses around gender and the various institutional reckonings with sexual violence allows us to consider films like “Taxi Driver,” and, indeed, “Irreversible,” with fresh eyes. Recent films like “The Northman” — a brutal Viking thriller keenly aware of the delusions that underpin the hero’s quest for vengeance, and Patricia Mazuy’s “Saturn Bowling,” a serial-killer movie in which femicide is treated like a sport — seem to have taken up the mantle, critiquing the patriarchy by presenting it at its most monstrous.“I couldn’t make ‘Irreversible’ today,” Noé said, adding that he believes financiers are more inclined to support movies about sexual violence by women filmmakers. Noé praised up-and-comers in the art of subversion, namely the Swedish director Isabella Ekloff. Her film “Holiday” is an unconventional rape-revenge film itself, its centerpiece also a disturbingly lengthy assault.“I grew up watching transgressive movies because I saw them as a challenge from men to see if I was tough enough,” Heller-Nicholas wrote. “Now, I’m blown away by the number of sexual assault survivors I’ve encountered who find these movies cathartic.”Rape-revenge movies like “Irreversible” show that there can be more to the depiction of gendered violence than the easy thrill of looking at brutalized female bodies. Nothing about the “Irreversible” rape scene feels exciting or titillating; and nothing about Marcus’s actions feels powerful or heroic.“Today, the new generation feels more comfortable talking about issues like rape and violence,” Bellucci said, adding that her days of acting in transgressive movies are behind her now that she’s a mother. “‘Irreversible’ is about our reality in a very painful way, and you don’t have to like it, but like the best films, you watch it and you come out a different person.” More

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      A Conductor’s Battle With a Classical Music Gender Barrier

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      Claire Gibault has spent a lifetime fighting sexism and forging a path in a male-dominated profession. Her next targets: pay gaps and age discrimination.This article is part of our Women and Leadership special report that profiles women leading the way on climate, politics, business and more.The baton-waving bully conductor played by Cate Blanchett in “Tár” has earned a series of Oscar nominations and captivated audiences worldwide. That may be, in part, because of her novelty: Until recently, conducting was almost exclusively a male profession.The French conductor Claire Gibault has spent a lifetime battling that gender barrier. In 2019, she co-founded La Maestra, a biennial international competition for female conductors in Paris that draws more than 200 contestants from some 50 countries.“Giving confidence and visibility to the talented women who are emerging as orchestral conductors is a cause La Maestra will continue to champion with commitment and passion,” said a news release inviting contestants for the next competition, in March 2024. The competition, founded with the Philharmonie de Paris, awards prizes of 5,000 to 20,000 euros ($5,300 to $21,400) to finalists who are provided numerous musical opportunities, too. Ms. Gibault also founded the Paris Mozart Orchestra in 2011, one of France’s few female-led orchestras.Born in 1945 and raised in Le Mans in northwestern France, where her father taught music theory at the conservatory, Ms. Gibault was studying violin when she discovered conducting and persuaded the conservatory to teach it.She went on to make classical music history by becoming the first woman to conduct a performance at La Scala in Milan (where she was an assistant to her mentor, the late conductor Claudio Abbado, who was then La Scala’s music director). She also was the first woman to conduct the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.The Run-Up to the 2023 OscarsThe 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12 in Los Angeles.Asian Actors: A record number of actors of Asian ancestry were recognized with Oscar nominations this year. But historically, Asian stars have rarely been part of the awards.Hong Chau Interview: In a conversation with The Times, the actress, who is nominated for her supporting role in “The Whale,” says she still feels like an underdog.Andrea Riseborough Controversy: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why the “To Leslie” star’s nod was controversial.The Making of ‘Naatu Naatu’: The composers and choreographer from the Indian blockbuster “RRR” explain how they created the propulsive sequence that is nominated for best song.Ms. Gibault, 77, has been busy and much in the news lately, especially with the Academy Awards on March 12. She discussed her career, her views on “Tár” and sexism in classical music in a phone interview from Paris. The conversation was translated from French, edited and condensed.Why did you decide to set up the La Maestra competition?In 2018, I was the only female jury member of a conducting competition in Mexico. There were such sexist attitudes on the part of certain jurors that I was shocked. One man on the jury even said that women were biologically incapable of being conductors, because their arms were naturally turned outward to hold babies. Whenever a female contestant came up in the competition, this man would cover his face with his jacket, close his eyes and plug his ears. One female finalist who was very musical and very talented received as many votes as a young man to whom the jury gave the first prize. I found that very unfair.The competition in Mexico was a trigger for me. I was furious. When I got back to Paris, I met with a patron, Dominique Senequier, [founder and] president of the private investment company Ardian. I told her that a lot of female talents were invisible, and that it would be interesting to do something for them. She encouraged me to set up a prestigious competition for female conductors and said she would finance it.The International Conductors Competition La Maestra, at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2022. The three finalists, with bouquets from left, are Beatriz Fernández Aucejo (3rd Prize, ARTE Prize), Joanna Natalia Ślusarczyk (2nd Prize, French Concert Halls and Orchestras Prize, ECHO Prize) and Anna Sułkowska-Migoń (1st Prize, Generation Opera Prize).Maria Mosconi/Hans LucasWhat impact has the competition had?The impact has been extraordinary. Female conductors are now viewed as a very modern phenomenon. Yet we have to be careful and very vigilant: make sure that it’s not just the young and attractive conductors who are being recruited. There is a flagrant degree of age discrimination in the world of classical music. For that to change, we need more women in management positions.What was your own experience as a young female conductor in a profession with almost no women?Audiences took it very well. The problem was the condescension of colleagues — of certain male conductors and of the male managers and directors of orchestras and cultural institutions. For them it was fine to hire women as long as they were assistant conductors, especially if they were very good assistants. I worked on pieces that the men didn’t want to work on, such as new compositions. I knew that this was a battle I had to wage with a smile, never complaining, never whining. That’s the way it worked.Why did you set up the Paris Mozart Orchestra?In my career, I experienced aggressive behavior on the part of musicians who made my job very hard, orchestras that didn’t want to play at my tempo. It was sometimes very difficult. I wanted to be able to choose the program. And I didn’t want to wait to be chosen.What did you think of the movie “Tár”?I found it disturbing, yet fascinating. What I like about the movie is that it’s a fable about power: how power can transform human beings, be they men or women. It’s like a Greek tragedy.Ms. Gibault co-founded La Maestra, a biennial international competition for female conductors in Paris that draws more than 200 contestants from some 50 countries.Maria Mosconi/Hans LucasDid you feel that it was about you?I don’t think we should be egocentric about it. It’s not because I’m a woman conductor that I felt directly concerned. It’s true that when you’re fighting for the cause of female conductors, it’s disturbing to see a woman who accumulates so many reasons to be hated: who takes advantage of her power, who takes drugs, who flirts with the young women in the orchestra. Of course, if a man behaved in that way, it would be a lot less shocking because we’re used to it.That kind of male behavior in classical music is now being called out. I think it’s high time for that behavior to stop. Not only is there abuse of power and sexual misconduct, but male conductors are also overpaid. That’s unacceptable given the economic crisis that the world of culture is going through.You mean the pay gap between male and female orchestra conductors?Yes, but also the pay gap with the musicians in the orchestra. And this incredible disdain that some male conductors have for the musicians that they’re conducting. We need to revolutionize this world from the inside. We need a different set of values.What do you need to revolutionize?The economics of culture. And the fact that careers are being built on notoriety, so the focus is on boosting people’s fame. There are people who are very famous and who are extraordinary artists, and others who are a little less so. I know extraordinary artists who are not famous at all.So there’s a cult of personality?Yes — for purely economic reasons. More

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      in Theater

      Review: In ‘With No Fanfare,’ Things Fall Apart

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      The play, a hit at the Avignon Festival, explores the twists and turns of a breakup through a whimsical mix of musical numbers and dreamlike vignettes.While romantic drama fuels much of the theatrical repertoire, what happens after a catastrophic breakup isn’t nearly as easy to translate onstage. In “With No Fanfare,” a French musical theater production directed by Samuel Achache, it takes a set that literally falls apart to establish the slow process of picking up the pieces.The metaphor is transparent, but it isn’t overblown. “With No Fanfare” (“Sans Tambour”) centers on a nameless couple, a man and a woman who have already reached their breaking point when the play starts. The man (Lionel Dray) frantically washes the dishes in a small sink; the woman (Sarah Le Picard) accuses him of caring only about clogged drains. As they trade barbs, they punch the kitchen walls, or whack household items at them. One by one, the walls collapse like a house of cards.And that’s just the first 15 minutes. What comes next — mourning and rebuilding — is told through a whimsical mix of musical numbers and dreamlike vignettes. One character lands at an imaginary clinic for broken hearts. Later, the cast re-enacts the medieval story of the star-crossed Tristan and Isolde. The process is unpredictable, tragicomic, slightly messy — and thoroughly touching.“With No Fanfare” first made a splash at the Avignon Festival last summer, and it has now reached the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, where it feels right at home. When the director Peter Brook brought this dilapidated music hall back to life in the 1970s, he didn’t hide the visible wear and tear on the walls. The set, a two-story house designed by Lisa Navarro, has a similarly ramshackle quality, with peeling paint and a hazardous stairwell.Lisa Navarro’s set suggests a ramshackle, two-story house.Christophe Raynaud de LageOver the past decade, Achache has developed a quirky brand of musical theater, often in tandem with a co-director, Jeanne Candel. The company he founded in 2021, La Sourde, employs both musicians and actors, and “With No Fanfare” takes advantage of that as it weaves compositions by cast members and the musical director, Florent Hubert, on top of a series of lieder by Schumann.The soprano Agathe Peyrat sings many of these numbers, and acts almost as a shadow for the actors, expressing their grief-stricken feelings. Along with her, five musicians are onstage nearly throughout, and they also take smaller acting parts.More on N.Y.C. Theater, Music and Dance This SpringMusical Revivals: Why do the worst characters in musicals get the best tunes? In upcoming revivals, world leaders both real and mythical get an image makeover they may not deserve, our critic writes.Rising Stars: These actors turned playwrights all excavate memories and meaning from their lives in creating these four shows, which arrive in New York in the coming months.Gustavo Dudamel: The New York Philharmonic’s new music director, will conduct Mahler’s Ninth Symphony in May. It will be one of the hottest tickets in town.The back-and-forth between drama and music lends “With No Fanfare” much of its power, because the show’s dreamlike logic can be hard to follow. The part in which characters play Tristan and Isolde doesn’t quite land, for instance: A relationship built on a mythical love potion isn’t an ideal point of comparison for a modern couple.“With No Fanfare” is stronger when Achache and his cast (who all get a writing credit) let their imaginations roam freely. Once the central relationship has crumbled for good, the woman suddenly reappears at a treatment center where doctors offer remedies for heartbreak.There, the woman meets a third character, a writer named Spinel. Played by the actor and singer Léo-Antonin Lutinier, Spinel is a test patient for the clinic’s offbeat, metaphorical procedures. On doctors’ orders, he swims in his own tears. Later, he has surgery to remove the last remaining traces of love from his brain.“With No Fanfare” weaves a series of songs by Schumann into the narrative, as well as additional compositions by cast members.Christophe Raynaud de LageLutinier brings a dryly burlesque quality to the proceedings, and Spinel is in some ways the most affecting character, even though his relationship with the others isn’t fully fleshed out. Many scenes in “With No Fanfare” rely on plain physical comedy, as when Spinel tries to reach a piano that is hovering above the stage. He looks at it, and then brings a ladder that doesn’t reach; when he tries to climb it despite this, the steps give out under him, a Buster Keaton-style digression.Yet even the most absurd scenes have a melancholy quality to them. Achache somehow connects them to the long, frustrating process of rebuilding a life when the world you had imagined with someone collapses. As the nameless central man, Dray — an actor with over-the-top energy — spends much of the show standing precariously on a half-destroyed stool, a hammer in hand.It makes little sense on paper, yet onstage what you see is a man struggling to re-establish a sense of normalcy. Achache doesn’t aim for a tidy narrative. The characters don’t get a happy ending, or any real ending at all, but that lack of resolution rings true.At the end, Dray sits alone on the upper level of the set, dangling his legs over the edge, and surveys the ruins underneath. “And still, I coped with it,” he says, looking bemused. Mourning is a mental journey, and “With No Fanfare” makes a fitting visual and musical response to its twists and turns. More

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      in Movies

      ‘A Radiant Girl’ Review: Coming of Age in Paris, 1942

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      This Holocaust drama could have easily passed for a blissful teen romance; instead, it’s an awkwardly rendered portrait of a young Jewish woman in denial.With its swoony pop music and soft summertime twinkle, “A Radiant Girl” could have passed for a blissful coming-of-age romance. Irene (Rebecca Marder), a bubbly, motor-mouthed 19-year-old, seems convinced she’s in one. But this deceptively warm drama — the directorial debut of the French actress and chanteuse Sandrine Kiberlain — is as much about the darkness that creeps at the edges of Irene’s life as it is about her rose-tinted moments of self-discovery.It’s Paris, 1942, and German officials and the French police are deporting Jews to concentration camps in increasing numbers. Things are changing quickly: Irene’s well-to-do Jewish family is forced to hand over a radio, a telephone and their bicycles. Neighbors and shopkeepers are beginning to act weird, even aggressive.These developments are sprinkled throughout the film like a trail of bread crumbs. Though Irene’s family — her anxious father (André Marcon), a flutist brother (Anthony Bajon), and her freethinking grandmother (Françoise Widhoff) — can feel those changes, Irene barely seems to notice as she prepares for a conservatory audition, breaks hearts, and eyes her family doctor’s cute assistant.Irene is the epitome of a theater kid — a talented one at that, and an expert fainter — but her ability to sustain an illusion seems to extend to her worldview as well. Is she tragically naïve or in denial?Fantasy, performance and the discovery of hard truths intermingle in several coming-of-age films set in Europe during World War II, including Louis Malle’s “Au Revoir les Enfants” and Roberto Benigni’s “Life Is Beautiful.”Clearly Kiberlain had these movies in mind, but the film’s conceptual intentions are betrayed by its mishandled idiosyncratic flourishes. In Marder’s overly affected performance, Irene comes off as a precious idiot rather than a buoyant young woman concealing hidden depths. At points, the contrast between Irene’s joy and the encroaching horrors is jarring and eerie, but “A Radiant Girl” seldom hits these notes — the rest is deflating and awkward.A Radiant GirlNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

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      in Music

      A Decidedly French “Hamlet” Returns to Paris

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      Starting in March, Ambroise Thomas’s version of the Shakespearean tragedy will be revived at the Opéra Bastille for the first time since 1938.Ambroise Thomas’s “Hamlet” had all the elements to become a blockbuster at the Paris Opera in the 19th century. With a gripping plot that unfolds over five acts, a leading baritone in the title role and innovative orchestration deploying newly invented instruments, the work had an enduring hold at the box office after its 1868 premiere.Like so many “grands opéras” that were born and bred for the company, “Hamlet” fell out of repertoire around the turn of the 20th century. Only since the 1980s has the work received a revival on stages worldwide. From March 11 to April 9, Thomas’s Shakespearean adaptation will return to the Paris Opera for the first time since 1938, in a new production directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski and starring Ludovic Tézier at the Opéra Bastille (a pre-opening for viewers under 28 takes place on March 8. Thomas Hengelbrock conducts).The company’s general director, Alexander Neef, has made it a goal to create a more specific identity for the Paris Opera by commissioning research and programming the French grand opera that once flourished there. Having experienced and admired a production of “Hamlet” at the Metropolitan Opera some 20 years ago, Mr. Neef said that the work “came up rather naturally” after his appointment.Mr. Tézier, whom he considers “not only the leading French baritone but maybe the leading baritone in his repertoire,” was also a natural choice. The singer, who is particularly coveted in the music of Verdi, in turn suggested Mr. Warlikowski as director following their collaboration on a 2017 production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos” at Opéra Bastille.For both lead performer and director, the production provides an opportunity to deepen their interpretation of a work that has played an important role in their respective careers. Mr. Tézier made debuts in both Toulouse, France, and Turin, Italy, in the title of role of Thomas’s “Hamlet” about two decades ago, while Mr. Warlikowski staged the original play by Shakespeare in Avignon, France in 2000 (he had first learned the drama as an apprentice of the late director Peter Brook in Paris).The director Krzysztof Warlikowski, who staged the original play by Shakespeare in 2000 in Avignon, France. “For me, the essential thing that clinches the drama is of course the apparition of the specter,” he said.Louisa Marie Summer for The New York TimesThis operatic version of “Hamlet” takes an unexpected turn before the curtain falls: The protagonist survives and is crowned king. The liberties taken by Thomas’s librettists, Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, met with criticism after the premiere; a Covent Garden version of the opera first mounted in 1869 restores the work’s original, more tragic ending.For Mr. Warlikowski, Thomas’s protagonist shares a great deal in common with the mythological figure of Orestes. “He also rebels against hypocrisy and the ills of this world,” he explained on a video call.The director will also hone in on the scenes in which the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears. “For me, the essential thing that clinches the drama is of course the apparition of the specter,” he said.Mr. Tézier noted that Thomas deployed some of his most dramatically effective music for the ghost by knowing how to pare down the orchestra. The baritone drew a parallel to another Shakespearean opera, Verdi’s “Macbeth,” and the title character’s hallucination of a dagger.“Thomas creates an atmosphere that is favorable to the text and the emotion of the moment,” he said by phone.The composer was exploring orchestral colors with new instruments by the musician and inventor Adolphe Sax at the same time as the composer Hector Berlioz, who held Thomas in great esteem. For example, the second-act banquet scene in which Hamlet accuses Claudius of murdering his father features a solo for alto saxophone. Thomas also wrote for bass saxhorn and six-keyed trombones.An ardent defender of French music against Germanic influence (specifically that of Wagner), Thomas in 1877 stated that every country “should stay faithful to its style and maintain its distinct character,” rather than submit “to the caprices of the time.” In a sign of his patriotism, he volunteered for the National Guard during the Franco-Prussian War before assuming the directorship of the Paris Conservatory in 1871.His “Hamlet” has been noted for its specifically French qualities. In addition to mitigating tragedy by allowing the protagonist to survive and avenge the death of his father, romantic intrigue and sensuous instrumentation often set the tone.Ludovic Tézier has a long history with Thomas’s “Hamlet,” having made debuts in Toulouse, France, and Turin, Italy in the title role. He noted that the work “allows the audience to spend a night in the opera in a state of suspense and meditation.”Jeff Pachoud/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesParis was at the time the center of classical musical life, not just in Europe but worldwide. “Hamlet” premiered at Salle Le Peletier, the same theater that mounted such works as Giacomo Meyerbeer’s “Robert le Diable” and Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” before Palais Garnier opened in 1875.The baritone Jean-Baptiste Faure, who was at the height of his fame, was captured in portrait as Hamlet by none other than Manet. The role of Ophélie, whose fourth-act mad scene helped ensure the work’s popularity, has also been an important role for sopranos from Christina Nilsson to Mary Garden (the new production stars Lisette Oropesa and, starting in April, Brenda Rae).But by 1891, Wagner’s “music of the future” became something of a game changer. “Lohengrin,” “Die Walküre” and “Tannhäuser” remained in repertoire at the Paris Opera through 1910, while of Meyerbeer’s four major operas, only “Les Huguenots” persisted.Mr. Warlikowski expressed his wish to champion “Hamlet” by “provoking questions and creating a spiritual journey through this timeless story.”Mr. Tézier emphasized that the work was not “second-rate.”“It most of all allows the audience to spend a night in the opera in a state of suspense and meditation,” he said.He compared the infrequent programming of such neglected classics to the unpredictable sightings of the Loch Ness monster: “There is no real explanation. But with each appearance of the monster, you have to see it because it’s a rarity. From the beginning to the end, something really happens in the music.” More

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      in Music

      A Paris Opera House’s History and the Phantom

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      The architecture and location of the Palais Garnier are intertwined with the history of France and Paris (and a famous phantom).Showcasing more than 400 performances of opera, dance and music each year, Charles Garnier’s Paris Opera, inaugurated in 1875, is a true cathedral of culture. A promenade through its rooms is a theatrical experience itself, revealing ornate marble columns, bronze statues, crystal chandeliers, and paintings and frescoes. But the Palais Garnier, as the building is known, also holds secrets, from design quirks to haunting tales. Here are some facts about the building.Charles Garnier, the architect, was the last one shortlisted for the project.  Emperor Napoleon III started a competition for an “Imperial Academy of Music and Dance” in December 1860. Five finalists were chosen from more than 170 proposals. They were ranked, and Garnier came in last. With little to lose, he changed his plans, creating a monumental structure layered with imposing arcades, colonnades and flanking pavilions, crowned with a dome and a pedimented tower. “He was using a classical language, but in an eclectic, much freer, and much more expressive way,” Christopher Mead, author of “Charles Garnier’s Paris Opera: Architectural Empathy and the Renaissance of French Classicism,” said in an interview. Garnier’s win shocked the establishment, Mr. Mead said, but worked with the emperor’s effort to cast himself as a reformer.Charles Garnier, second from right, circa 1865 with his partners during construction of the opera house, which became known as the Palais Garnier.adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty ImagesThere is a “lake” under the opera house.When digging the foundations, workers hit a hidden arm of the Seine, causing water to flood the site. It was impossible to remove all the water, so crews had to contain it with a massive concrete reservoir with a vaulted ceiling from which water is still pumped today. The so-called lake was dramatized by Gaston Leroux, author of “The Phantom of the Opera,” who made it the stomping grounds of the Phantom. Mr. Mead was mesmerized by a visit. “You can see why it inspired Leroux,” he said. “You could invent a whole world there.”The falling chandelier in “The Phantom of the Opera” was based on a real event.In 1896, during a performance of Étienne-Joseph Floquet’s opera “Hellé,” a short-circuit caused a counterweight from the chandelier to fall, killing a woman in the audience and injuring several more people. Reporting on the event was Leroux, then a journalist with a Paris newspaper. In “The Phantom of the Opera,” it is the Phantom who dislodges the chandelier from the ceiling. The current ceiling of the Palais Garnier, painted by Marc Chagall. The house’s chandelier, which was involved in a deadly accident in 1896, inspired a plot point in “The Phantom of the Opera.”Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSo was the Phantom (sort of).Leroux first published his novel as a serial in 1909 and 1910. In an interview, Isabelle Rachelle Casta, author of “The Work of ‘Obscure Clarity’ in ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ by Gaston Leroux,” said its characters and story were invented but drew from real-life elements in addition to the lake and the falling chandelier. The Phantom himself was inspired by a pianist who was disfigured after an 1873 fire at the Palais Garnier’s precursor, the Salle Le Peletier, and from an assistant to Garnier who disappeared during construction. “Leroux took all of these stories and he created one of the most important stories of the 20th century,” Ms. Casta said. An attack partly inspired the construction. In 1858, Napoleon III and his wife, Empress Eugènie, went to the Salle Le Peletier for a concert. As they arrived, three bomb blasts threw their carriage onto its side, hurled spectators into the street and blew out windows in the opera house and surrounding buildings. Eight people died, but the emperor and empress survived. The mastermind of the plot was Felice Orsini, an Italian revolutionary who had been critical of Napoleon III for not supporting his pro-republican cause. The emperor, already hoping to replace the Salle Le Peletier, decided to build a new opera house in a more open area with a secure entrance. But he never saw it completed: He died in 1873.Garnier requested that no trees be planted on the main road to the building.Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who oversaw Napoleon III’s transformation of Paris, lined all his Grands Boulevards with trees, except for one: the Avenue de l’Opéra, a half-mile stretch from the Louvre to the opera house. Garnier asked for this to maximize his building’s sense of monumentality and to not block views of it. “He wanted a building that announced itself to the public,” Mr. Mead said. “This was a building for them.” More

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      in Television

      ‘Emily in Paris’ Star Would Like Your Paris Tips

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      Lily Collins explores the city, and the world, with the help of Monocle, word searches and Norwegian coffee.Lily Collins has been “Emily in Paris” for so long that she’s expected to be a Parisian authority. Three seasons into her run as Emily Cooper, an American marketing executive on assignment in the City of Light, she spends large portions of the year in France and is constantly asked for recommendations. But she’s there to work.“I don’t have as much free time as I wish that I had to explore,” she said in a phone interview, which she conducted from her car, parked next to the road in Los Angeles before an appointment. “I’m constantly discovering new places and asking for people’s lists because I like the non-tourist spots.”Collins, 33, has been building her own list by scootering along the Seine, making regular visits to Canal Saint-Martin, and getting to know the side streets around the Clignancourt flea market. But, she admits, one of the best sights in the city is still its most famous.“Whenever I’m in the city and I look up and I see the Eiffel Tower, it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, I still get giddy,” she says. “It’s such a feat.”Season 3 of “Emily in Paris” began streaming on Netflix last month. Collins spoke with us about Five Minute Journals, the concept of hygge and other things she gravitates to at home, in Paris and beyond. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Greeting Cards I have a box where I keep cards that I’m saving for people. Some are over 10 years old. I have people in mind and I’ll get them cards knowing that one day they’re going to have a 25th birthday and they will need this card. I love the idea that a single piece of paper can say so much about how you’ve been thinking of someone.2. Self-Portraits It’s so interesting when an artist or a photographer paints, draws or takes a self-portrait because it’s such an inside look into how someone views themselves. The late photographer Vivian Maier is a really beautiful example.3. The Five Minute Journal It gives you easy prompts to answer and helps you be aware of how you can view things in multiple different ways. Instead of saying the crap that happened to you that day and how you were so upset about something, you get to look at how you could have handled certain things throughout the day better, what you were grateful for, what you’re excited about and what’s good in your life. You also write daily affirmations and things that you would like to accomplish. It’s beautiful to look back to previous journals and see how far you’ve grown.4. Treehotel One of the bucket-list places that I’d been wanting to stay in was the Treehotel in Swedish Lapland, which is basically a collection of beautiful tree houses. Each tree house looks like something different — a bird’s nest, a U.F.O., a steel dragonfly. My husband booked us one during our honeymoon that’s high in the trees. Staying there, you get to feel like an adventurer and you get that little kid feeling that I’ve always loved.5. Word Searches I have always carried a word search book with me on flights. It’s a way to turn my mind off. They put me in a kind of meditative trance. Also, I get a weird sense of accomplishment when I complete one.6. Dried Flowers When we go to farmers’ markets, I always end up finding amazing dried flowers. I sometimes keep them for years so I can look at different flowers and remember where I got them. If I get them from a farmers’ market in a different city or in a different country, I push them in books and bring them back. They’re such romantic mementos.7. “Van Go” On the Magnolia Network show “Van Go,” Brett Lewis converts things like vans and sprinters into homes, stores, food trucks — whatever people want. It’s an interesting way to see what people need, what they want and what their aesthetics are. It’s also a look at what the core necessities are when you pare things down and what can be done in such a small space.8. Hygge I’ve always been someone who loves being cozy: cozy socks, my grandma’s cozy sweater, a fire going, playing a game with friends or family — being cozy in an environment is so important to me. When I learned about the Danish concept, hygge, I felt seen, like, oh my God, someone gets me.9. Coffee I look for coffee shops everywhere I go. In a foreign city, they can provide a sense of home and a sense of comfort. There’s a Norwegian coffee brand called Tim Wendelboe that I’ve discovered on our many trips to Denmark. It’s probably the most incredible coffee I’ve ever had.10. Monocle When we’re traveling, we sometimes schedule our trips around things we read about in Monocle magazine. Art, fashion, you name it, they have the places where residents go and that celebrate local artisans. It also can help dictate where we go next. If there’s a place that is so cool and has all these amazing places to visit that we didn’t know about, maybe that’s the next destination. More