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E M I L YB L U N T
B Y J U L I E M I L L E RP H O T O G R A P H S B Y C R A I G M C D E A N
A Spoonful of Brooklyn Glam: World, Meet Your New Mary Poppins
A L S O !
S P E C I A L I N V E S T I G A T I O NS T A M P E D E :2 , 0 0 0 D E A T H SI N M E C C AB Y W I L L I A M L A N G E W I E S C H E
G E E K S , D R U G S , A N D
O R G I E S I N S I L I C O N V A L L E Y :
A N O T H E R
# M E T O O P R O B L E M B Y E M I L Y C H A N G
“Life shrinks or
expands in
proportion to one’s
courage.”
— A N A Ï S N I N
U G L Y C H A R I T Y G R A BB Y W I L L I A M D . C O H A N
R O S E M C G O W A N H A S M O R E T O S A Y
B Y E V G E N I A P E R E T Z
L E N A D U N H A M ’ SE N D L E S S
A P O L O G Y T O U RB Y J A M E S W O L C O T T
R E D , W H I T E , A N D . . . E W W W :
T A S T I N GT R U M P W I N E
B Y C O R B Y K U M M E R
P L U S !
F E B R UA RY 201 8
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 812 V A N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfair.com
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F E A T U R E S
42 BEING BLUNT B y J U L I E M I L L E R
Social media be damned, Emily Blunt wants to keep a little mystery. Which makes her perfect for the iconic nanny in Mary Poppins Returns. Photographs by Craig McDean.
52 THE OTHER HARVEY SCANDALB y W I L L I A M D. C O H A N
For AmFAR, the AIDS-research foundation, Harvey
Weinstein was a major source of funding, publicity, and problems. Did he also involve it in a financial nightmare?
58 PARIS WAS A BALL! B y B O B C O L AC E L L O
The annual Bal des Débutantes, in Paris, is a night for playing
(or being) a princess. Photographs by Jonathan Becker.
62 ROSE RAGE B y E VG E N I A P E R E T Z
With her memoir, Rose McGowan, the actress who helped torpedo Harvey Weinstein, hopes to bring down the system behind him. Photographs by Brigitte Lacombe.
66 BACCHANALIA 2.0 B y E M I LY C H A N G
Sexism in Silicon Valley takes many forms, but the most insidious may be at exclusive orgies, where some tech women can get screwed whether they participate or not. Photo illustration by Darrow.
70 JUST YOU WAIT Spotlight on Bartlett Sher’s intrepid revival of My Fair Lady. By Jim Kelly. Photograph by Pari Dukovic.
72 INCREDIBLE VOYAGEB y W I L L I A M P R O C H N AU A N D L AU R A PA R K E R
Young Oskar Speck left Germany in 1932, in a folding kayak. Landing in Australia seven years later, he was imprisoned as an enemy, his epic adventure engulfed by World War II.
78 THE CARNEGIE IMPERATIVEV.F. nominates this year’s winners of the Carnegie Medal of
Philanthropy, for turning fortunes into legacies. By Cullen Murphy. Photograph by Jonas Fredwall Karlsson.
C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 4
Clockwise
from top left:
Rose McGowan
(page 62);
Victor Garber
(page 116);
Hot Type (page 30).
F E BRUA RY 2 0 18 No. 6 9 0
For
who’s who,
see page 102.
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y J O N A T H A N B E C K E R
For the 25th annual Bal des Débutantes, billed as the most prestigious descended on Paris, trailing couture gowns, custom jewels, and chevaliers. For the as BOB COLACELLO reports, it was a night to waltz
58 V A N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfair.com F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8
coming-out party in the world, the cream of the 1 percent crop daughters of American movie stars, billionaire tycoons, and European royals, with their dads, then kick up their Louboutin heels
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 www.vanityfair.com V A N I T Y F A I R 59
ne of
the more amusing sights at the 25th edition
of the annual Bal des Débutantes, held in
Paris on Thanksgiving weekend, was the
Friday-afternoon lineup of the girls’ fathers,
waiting to practice the box step with their
daughters for what would be the opening
waltz of the ball, the following night. There,
in a row, were the American comedian and
TV host Steve Harvey; the Ukrainian-born,
British-American billionaire Len Blavat-
nik; the French perfume magnate Frédéric
Malle; an Italian prince; a Spanish grandee;
and a Luxembourgian royal. Call it diversity
and inclusiveness global-elite-style. Or as
Le Bal’s founder and C.E.O., Ophélie Re-
nouard, sees it, the democratization of the
rigidly exclusive and largely anachronistic
pres en ta tions of highborn 18-year-old girls
at European royal courts and American
coming-out parties. (No, not out of the
closet, but into the adult ranks of the upper
crust of their city, state, or region.)
“I think it’s silly to talk about coming out
in society in the time of Facebook and In-
stagram,” Renouard explains. “There’s not
much difference at a certain level between
girls from America, Asia, and Europe. They
go to the same universities, listen to the
same music, dress the same—the top ones.”
Contrary to what some believe, families do
not pay Renouard to have their daughters
invited to Le Bal, but they are encouraged
to write checks to two charities: the Seleni In-
stitute, a New York emotional-health or gan-
i za tion for adolescent women, and Enfants
d’Asie, which promotes education for girls
in Southeast Asia.
This year’s crop of 21 debs hailed from a
dozen countries, including Japan, India, and
Brazil. The most C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 0 2
Clockwise from
top left:
Lori Harvey with
her brother, Wynton;
Cecily Lasnet;
Ophélie Renouard and
Reese Witherspoon;
Ava Phillippe;
Laila Blavatnik with her
father, Len;
Jeanne Malle with her
father, Frédéric.
60 V A N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfair.com F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8
@vf.comFor more scenes
from LE BAL
DES DÉBUTANTES,
visit VF.COM.PH
OT
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PHS
BY
JO
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EC
KER
(BLAVA
TN
IK,
HARV
EY
, MALL
E),
DA
NIEL
PA
IK (ALL
OTH
ERS
)
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8102 V A N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfair.com
C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 6 0 prominent among
the half-dozen Americans was Ava Phillippe,
the daughter of movie stars Reese Wither-
spoon and Ryan Phillippe. “I like the idea
of doing something that’s fancy and fun, but
supports a good cause,” Ava told me as she
posed Friday afternoon for a fleet of photog-
raphers from Hello, Paris Match, and assorted
international editions of Vogue. Ava was wear-
ing—or, rather, it was wearing her—a shim-
mering gold gown with a giant birdcage skirt
by Giambattista Valli. Each girl was dressed
by a different couture house, among them
Valentino, Dior, Chanel, Elie Saab, Vivienne
Westwood, and Armani Privé. Their hair and
makeup were done by Alexandre de Paris and
MAC Cosmetics, respectively; their not-too-
high heels were from Christian Louboutin, Le
Bal’s official shoemaker.
The ball’s official jeweler, Payal Mehta, told
me that she consults with the debutantes on the
design of the necklaces, earrings, and rings of
dripping emeralds, sapphires, and colored dia-
monds she creates for each of them. Scotland’s
Cecily Lasnet—the daughter of model Stella
Tennant and photographer turned osteopath
David Lasnet, and a great-granddaughter of
the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire—told
Mehta that “her family loves flowers, so we
made her earrings with a large emerald set in
the center of diamond petals.” Perhaps not
surprisingly, many parents end up buying these
“pieces of art converted into jewelry” as pres-
ents for their daughters. Payal New York was
also one of this year’s sponsors of Le Bal, along
with Groupe Renault and the Peninsula hotel,
the grand 16th Arrondissement site of the ball.
The girls also choose or are provided with
a cavalier, as their equally young escorts are
called. Ava Phillippe was paired with the dash-
Le Bal
ing H.H. Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh
of Jaipur, who, a few weeks earlier, had been
competing with India’s team at the World
Polo Championship in Sydney, Australia, and
whose sister Princess Gauravi Kumari of Jai-
pur was one of this year’s debs. Alice Ho, the
daughter of Stanley Sun Ho, the so-called King
of Macau, was matched with French film icon
Jean-Paul Belmondo’s grandson Giacomo
Belmondo. H.R.H. Princess Charlotte of Nas-
sau, daughter of T.R.H. Prince Guillaume
and Princess Sibilla of Luxembourg, brought
along her twin brother, Prince Léopold, as did
Spain’s Amina Martínez of Irujo and Casa-
nova; Amina and her twin, Luis, are grandchil-
dren of the late Duchess of Alba.
Royal and aristocratic girls with names
such as Windsor, Romanov, Bourbon-
Parma, and Hohenlohe have always made
up a large part of Le Bal’s participants, and
this year’s roster included H.R.H. Princess
Natasha d’Arenberg, from Belgium; H.R.H.
Princess Maria Francisca de Braganza, from
Portugal; Maria Pia of Jong-d’Orléans and
Braganza, from Brazil; Princess Costanza Pal-
lavicini, from Rome; and Donna Giacinta dei
Marchesi Brivio Sforza, from Milan. Previous
balls have also included debs with big political
names—Lauren Bush, Kick and Kyra Ken-
nedy, Barbara Berlusconi, Xenia and Ana sta-
sia Gorbachev. This time two of the debs were
from former U.S. diplomatic families. Los
Angeles soap-opera heiress Charlotte Bell’s
mother, Colleen, was President Obama’s am-
bassador to Hungary. Seattle telecom heiress
Paris McCaw’s aunt Susan McCaw was Presi-
dent George W. Bush’s ambassador to Austria.
(Bronwen Carter, daughter of this magazine’s
editor, debuted at the 2012 Le Bal.)
“I think the parents are having more fun
than the girls,” noted H.R.H. Princess Ma-
ria Thereza d’Orléans and Braganza, whose
daughter was wearing a gown by the Brazilian
couturier Sandro Barros. “We are so proud.”
A joyous Emily Blavatnik never stopped tak-
ing photos of her daughter Laila with her
iPhone. She had an additional reason to cele-
brate: her husband, said to be the richest man
in Britain, had just been knighted for his phi-
lanthropy by Prince Charles, at Buckingham
Palace. The newly minted Sir Leonard Bla-
vatnik, however, decided to wear his Légion
d’Honneur medal with his white tie and tails
on Saturday night, “because we’re in France.”
The evening began with cocktails and
hors d’oeuvres under the massive crystal
chandeliers in the Peninsula’s stately white
marble lobby. Then, once all were seated at
their assigned tables in the ballroom, came
the main event: La Procession des Filles et
Cavaliers. Master of ceremonies Stéphane
Bern, a veteran journalist and expert on roy-
alty, declared Le Bal “le plus prestigieux du
monde.” He then introduced each debutante
in alphabetical order, listing her education,
interests, dress, jewels, and escort, as he has
done for the last two decades. “They are
all so beautiful,” sighed Marjorie Harvey,
known for her blog, the Lady Loves Cou-
ture.
After a classic French dinner of pâté de
foie gras, médaillons de veau, and petits fours,
the action moved to an adjacent salon, where
fathers and daughters danced their opening
waltz to the theme song from La La Land.
Disco dancing ensued, lasting until three in
the morning. And, as Ophélie Renouard put
it, another “formative event in the education”
of debutantes came to its conclusion. �
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(1) Amina Martínez of Irujo and Casanova in Zuhair Murad Couture. (2) Wynton Harvey.
(3) Princess Gauravi Kumari of Jaipur in Tarun Tahiliani. (4) William Webster. (5) Lucien Malle. (6) Ava Phillippe in Giambattista Valli Haute Couture. (7) Paris McCaw in Oscar de la Renta. (8) Giacomo Belmondo. (9) Lori Harvey in Elie Saab Haute Couture. (10) Charlotte Bell in Monique Lhuillier. (11) Ahaan Panday. (12) Luis Martínez of Irujo and Casanova. (13) Lily Webster in Alexis Mabille Haute Couture. (14) Laila Blavatnik in Ralph & Russo Couture. (15) Cecily Lasnet in Chanel Haute Couture. (16) Alice Ho in Christian Dior Haute Couture. (17) Princess Costanza Pallavicini in Valentino. (18) Ananya Panday in Gaultier Paris. (19) Jeanne Malle in Vivienne Westwood. (20) H.H. Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh of Jaipur. All jewelry by Payal New York.
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