She was the most elegant Frenchwoman of her time. The finest designs and the costliest materials were lavished upon her breathtaking form. Her beauty seduced men on both sides of the Atlantic. But after reigning for four short years, she met a tragic end. When launched in 1935, the SS Normandie was the most […]
Great memoirs bring you into the heart of a life and a time. These extraordinary books offer five very different perspectives on the time. Meet a cocky writer challenging norms, a cosmopolitan sensualist, a passionate roving reporter with an uncanny prophetic sense, and a Paris-based writer who witnessed Paris descend into tragedy. Henry Miller, The Paris […]
I once visited the Priory of Notre-Dame d’Orsan in the Loire Valley. Some years earlier, two young architects had left Paris and bought the medieval ruins set in a fertile farming landscape. Laboriously they renovated old stone buildings and created an extraordinary series of gardens inspired by the MIddle Ages. From the utiliarian kitchen garden, […]
Behind its elegant façades Europe was a violent battlefield. Warmongers harangued against pacifists, fascists attacked socialists, workers fought for their rights. In March, Hitler defied all treaties, sending his troops into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. As the Luftwaffe swooped over Cologne, its citizens cheered, church bells rang, military bands played a song whose refrain […]
On May 20, 1936, a young college girl boarded the SS Manhattan and, waving excitedly to her family on the pier, sailed out of New York harbor, bound for Paris. She was to spend eight months studying art and design at the Ecole des Arts Appliqués. The charming, lively Gladys Goodman was 21 years old, […]