We Found an Italian Villa
Plus, the latest snore from Vogue, and you can buy Karl Lagerfeld's old Diet Coke!
No reason, but… should we chuck it all and move to Italy? Because I’ve found an excellent new DWB HQ. It is a lakefront villa on Lake Maggiore and it is eccentric/spectacular! The listing notes that it boasts “a magnificent mosaic floor in the lake-facing courtyard bordered by a nymphaeum and statues from the seventeenth century,” all of which are obviously must-haves for us. Who buys an Italian headquarters without a nymphaeum? Idiots, that’s who. Couldn’t be me! There is also a swimming pool, a tennis court, a dock for the boat we’re clearly going to get, a wealth of ceiling frescos, and some seriously exceptional views. The grounds look unbelievable. There are no photos of the kitchen or any of the bathrooms but I’m sure that’s FINE, and yes, of course, it is “price on application,” but whatever! We can swing it. It will be worth it. Think of the aperol spritzes!
– Jessica
Oh, Vogue, Part Infinity
After a kicky December 2024 newsstand edition with Kaia Gerber that they promptly undercut with underwhelming nonsense for a digital cover, I was curious to see what trajectory Vogue would take with its Winter 2025 issue (a mash-up of January and February). Apparently the answer was “underwhelming seriousness.”
Bland backgrounds. Joyless, energy-free setups. Vogue seems to love Angel, up there on the right — she announced her entry into the WNBA with them, and attended the Met Gala — but you would not know it from this cover shot, in which she looks bored and, at best, mildly inconvenienced. Because modeling is hard, it is a skill, and she might need some help honing it. (Most people do!) She did not seem to receive any. Besides which, if you are making the argument that athletes are really getting into fashion, or Fashion, or “fashion,” then the cover ought to have… SOME FASHION. This should be fun and over the top and a little glamorous and special; this should have even a fraction of the joy and whimsy of the Kaia Gerber cover. They’re supposed to be having FUN with clothes, right? But Angel looks like she’s very unhappy in a run-of-the-mill red dress from Bloomies.
On the left, we have gold medal track athlete Gabby Thomas. Would you have known, if it didn’t say so on the cover? Probably not, which is, helpfully, why they put the names on the covers. But look at this woman:
Yes, DEFINITELY avoid putting her face on your magazine! I understand emphasizing her legs, which are at the core of her athletic performance, and I like that there’s a semblance of a feeling. But there isn’t much fashion here either, and that shot completely anonymizes her. This is not your cover; this is an interior photo as part of a spread demonstrating her love of interpretive dance.
British Vogue went with a February 2025 cover celebrating Renée Zellweger and the forthcoming Bridget Jones sequel, Mad About the Boy:
This cover photo is all of the happiness you’d love to see on a magazine — standing in front of what looks like a wall in an empty aircraft hangar, but whatever — but at an angle that really kind of messes with Renée’s face. She looks like she got numbed with Novocaine at the dentist and it hasn’t totally gone down yet. Photos are a game of angles, and this one is juuuuust a tad off, which is a shame. Many if not all of the photos of Renée inside look so retouched as to be A.I., so it’s tough to get super excited about a lot of the visuals here, but don’t skip out on the interview, which is conducted by the erstwhile Daniel Cleaver, Hugh Grant. It is that rare star-on-star chat where you don’t actually care if you learn anything new about a person, because the fun is in the interplay. And Renée seems like a genuinely nice person, which plays so beautifully off Hugh Grant’s Hugh Grantness. He seems fascinated that a person could even BE as genuinely nice as she is.
What you can’t tell from this cover photo is that Renée actually does have short hair right now, which she did specifically at/for this shoot — Page Six referred to it as a “Bowie-esque pixie cut,” but I think of “pixie cut” as Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, or Michelle Williams 95 percent of the time. Pixie is short short. This is just pretty short, more so in the front than in the back — like, say, a classic Emma Thompson coif. A lady could do worse.
— Heather
Do You Need Some Famous Fingerless Gloves?
BIG NEWS. Sotheby’s is hosting an auction of a bunch of Karl Lagerfeld’s stuff, beginning today and running through the end of the month. I didn’t have time to do a super deep dive on it but even the most cursory eyeballing is entertaining, with the necessary caveat that Lagerfeld, like many famous people, was of course a noted asshole. (If Sotheby’s refused to sell items once owned by an asshole, they’d suddenly have much less to auction.) All the sketches, of course, are amazing; I love this one. There are a lot of clothes — this “total look” would have been useful for Heather the year she was Karl Lagerfeld for Halloween1. There are a LOT, like A LOT!! of iPods. (Like Karl, I too have been hoarding my old Apple products for no reason. I wish I could scam some people into buying them at auction.) Naturally, there is a wealth of fans. And I personally would not be mad if someone gave me a bust of Karl Lagerfeld once owned by Karl Lagerfeld for Christmas; I also low-key love these branded pencils, and they’re relatively cheap. This Karl Lagerfeld umbrella is incredibly whimsical and charming. But most amusing to me, a Diet Coke lover, are the many pieces of Diet Coke-related paraphernalia, including several collectable bottles. Sotheby’s is quick to note that the heavenly elixir within them “is clearly unfit for consumption,” which is frankly rude to my way of thinking. I mean, is it? Does Coke Light (in this instance) ever really go bad? If they need an expert tester, they know where to find us.
— Jessica
Mark Your Calendars
A lot of awards-season events have been moved around or outright cancelled in the wake of the Los Angeles fires, so we thought it might be useful to re-establish what’s on the horizon and when, as of today:
January 23: Oscar nominations are announced. I truly have no idea who is going to get nominated for what. Someone could come out and be like, “Emma Stone for Coffee Table Dream Sequence,” and I’d be like, “Oh sure, somehow I missed this one, sounds like Yorgos.”
February 2: The Grammys. We will be doing an open chat for paid subscribers during the red carpet and the show itself. Will anyone be as weird as Ben Affleck that one time? We can only hope.
February 7: Critics Choice Awards. When these were originally rescheduled from January 12 to January 26, I thought, “Huh, I would push those out a bit farther if it were me. “ Well! They did. Now these are randomly on a Friday, but I suspect the logistics of this got very complicated.
February 9: The Super Bowl. We will naturally be hosting a live chat during the game, for discussion of Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, the commercials, everyone’s snacks, and also the actual football game.
February 16: The new season of White Lotus premieres! As Rich People Behaving Poorly is one of our areas of expertise, we plan to recap in some form or another if you’re into that:
February 22: The Independent Spirit Awards. We will deal with these in a newsletter but not a live chat, largely because of what’s happening the next night. Also, nothing overly interesting ever really happens at this event, although the red carpet looks are often pleasantly kooky. Now that I’ve typed that out, obviously, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston will debut their new surprise romance on the red carpet or something similarly major will come to pass.
February 23. The SAG Awards. We will have a live chat during this red carpet and show. This one is always pleasantly concise! Thanks, SAGs. (Plus, who doesn’t enjoy all the jokey/congratulatory I’M AN ACTOR moments?)
March 2: The Academy Awards. Obviously, we will also be hosting a live chat for the granddaddy of them all. The Hollywood Reporter notes that this year’s ceremony will “help to raise funds for and celebrate fire relief efforts,” in a piece that also notes that the Oscars have NEVER been cancelled, and certainly will not be this time. Various rich people have been somewhat up in arms about awards shows going forward — well, mostly Jean Smart and Stephen King, both of whom I otherwise generally enjoy. Many other people have wisely pointed out that the Oscars industrial complex is a massive employer of folks in the LA area2 — camera people, production folks, hair and makeup and stylists, drivers, lighting people, the red carpet folks (both journalists and photo crews but also the providers of the literal carpet), caterers, the florists, the people who run the teleprompter, security crews, etc — and cancelling the ceremony would be financially disastrous at a time when a lot of those people are already undergoing financial disaster after Covid, the strikes, and these fires. The show must go on!
As a reminder, live chats and recaps are perks for paid subscribers, so if you want to get in on that level of fun, and I SWEAR IT WILL BE FUN….
ICYMI…
Last Call
— Speaking of awards season, Vulture is doing yeoman’s work here: How to Watch and Stream All the Early Oscar Contenders. I have a LOT of catching up to do. First up: Coffee Table Dream Sequence. —J
— Justin Baldoni, a name I wish not to type again for a long time and yet I do not foresee that being realistic, filed his retaliatory lawsuit against Blake Lively and his lawyer continues to be VERY SHIRTY publicly about the whole thing. Blake also is only speaking through her lawyers and they seem a lot calmer. His lawsuit includes this nugget:
The actress — who, in her complaint, accused Baldoni of body-shaming her postpartum appearance during filming, which he denies — allegedly told her costar that he should get a nose job, according to Baldoni's complaint.
Baldoni's complaint says the Jane the Virgin alum has "publicly expressed insecurities" about his nose and that her "derogatory" comment about his face is "also captured on camera." The complaint adds, "Baldoni, rather than write down a list of grievances against Lively, brushed it off and moved on with the scene."
For someone who has complained during this process about things being taken out of context, I would be curious what the context IS of her saying this, because I cannot imagine she waltzed onto set and said, “You should get a nose job!” I mean, Blake herself has had a nose job; maybe she was offering advice on an aspect of that procedure that made her life easier or made her feel better, or maybe he was being insecure about his nose and she thought she was being supportive because it’s how she handled her own nose. But the part that is really icky to me is Baldoni’s team jabbing at Blake for writing down her grievances, as if this is inappropriate behavior. First, it’s totally appropriate for anyone who feels harassed or mistreated to make a written record of it, for themselves or anyone else, and second: I LOVE a list of grievances, so SIT DOWN TWICE, jackwagon. — H
— The SoCal Fire Fund, which benefits “students, school employees and families” impacted by the fires, is auctioning off a few celebrity experiences to raise money, and while nothing will top Adam Scott walking your dog to benefit the Union Solidarity Coalition, they are pretty good, including lunch with Julia Roberts (will she wear the A Low Vera shirt? I would request it, and honestly I feel like she might do it); tickets to the opening night of George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck, where the winner also gets to meet George for a specified FIVE MINUTES ONLY (just long enough to ask him if he’s coming to work ever); and a round of golf with Larry David and Doc Rivers. I am a terrible golfer; would they let me just drive the cart? — J
I feel impelled to clarify that this was before I knew the EXTENT to which Karl was an asshole. — H
I have complained at length about this on both mine and the Fuggirls Instagram! —H
I wonder if the people at Savills are like, “who in the hell is linking to these random properties?” when they get like 300 clicks on just one…
Is it wrong, bad, or weird that while up to now I have generally been ambivalent about most awards shows - sure, turn 'em on the background, mute during the boring parts, and maybe there's a category I'm really invested in - but now that there live chats here, I'm putting them on my calendar? :D <3