This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.

In September, Swatch released a group of watches in collaboration with the venerable brand Blancpain: the Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms collection, which, the company said, “met all the needs of underwater exploration.”

The original Fifty Fathoms — introduced by Blancpain in 1953 and still an anchor of the brand — was groundbreaking: It was considered to be the first modern divers’ watch, with water resistance of up to about 300 feet. And it wouldn’t have been created without a woman who was equally trailblazing: Betty Fiechter, the first female owner of a Swiss watch house in a traditionally male industry.

Fiechter (pronounced FEESH-tehr), who had started out as an apprentice, rose to the top at Blancpain in 1933. “It was totally unprecedented,” said Pascal Ravessoud, a vice president of the Swiss trade organization the Fondation de la Haute Horlogere. “It would have been twice as hard for a woman to fight her way through.”

In her 30-year tenure at Blancpain, which was acquired by Swatch in 1992, Fiechter held a variety of positions, including president and general director (titles she held simultaneously), and oversaw the creation of some of the company’s most successful watches.

She placed an emphasis on women’s timepieces, like the slim and elegant Rolls, the first automatic watch designed for women, created in 1930, and the Ladybird, a delicate 1956 piece considered at the time to have the smallest round watch movement, or internal mechanism. (Marilyn Monroe was famously a fan of Blancpain’s feminine creations.)

Fiechter managed the company with a dominating presence and shepherded it through difficult eras, including the Great Depression and World War II, with innovative sales methods.

Berthe Marie Fiechter was born on April 29, 1896, in Villeret, Switzerland, a center of Swiss watchmaking since the 1600s. Her father, Jacob Fiechter, was an owner of a company that made watch movements. (It was sold to Blancpain in 1914.) Her mother, Mary Lisa (Ramseyer) Fiechter, raised Betty and her five siblings.

Betty attended vocational school near Villeret and was hired by Blancpain as an apprentice in 1912, when she was 16. For seven generations, starting in 1735, Blancpain had been owned by the family that founded it. Betty worked alongside its last remaining family member, Frédéric-Emile Blancpain.

The expectation at the time would have been for her to eventually take on a secretarial or administrative role with the company, but Frédéric-Emile Blancpain “saw more in her and also pushed her to be more,” Jean-Marie Fiechter, Betty Fiechter’s great-nephew, said in an interview.

“She hadn’t had university education — no M.B.A., or whatever — but she was street smart,” he added. “She knew how the watch company should work.”

Blancpain implicitly trusted Fiechter, who often worked without him by her side; she would run the brand’s watch manufacturing operation while he was at his home in Lausanne, about 60 miles southwest of Villeret, the Swiss town where Blancpain was based at the time. To keep him updated, she would send him weekly reports on wax cylinders that were played on phonographs — essentially the equivalent of a leaving voice mail messages — and he would send back his own recorded replies.

When Blancpain died in 1932, his only daughter chose not to go into the business, so Fiechter and her boyfriend, André Léal, who also worked at the company, took over, with Fiechter becoming its chief executive and Léal serving as the sales director.

(For a time, because of Swiss regulations regarding brand ownership, they released new watches under the brand name Rayville-Blancpain, until 1960.)

Fiechter’s tenure included challenging periods, like World War II, but she came up with inventive ways for the company to survive. During the Depression, for example, when the Buy American Act of 1933 required federal agencies to buy domestic goods, she exported nearly-finished watches to the United States, where the cases and final parts would be added. At one point, she also prioritized selling watch movements to other watch brands in the United States.

But Fiechter’s focus remained on the brand — its survival and success.

She put everything she had into Blancpain, said Jeffrey Kingston, an editor in chief of Lettres du Brassus, a magazine that the watch brand publishes, for which he wrote a profile of Fiechter in 2021.

“Basically, Blancpain became her family,” he said. “It was her whole life. She never married, she had no children, so her whole existence wrapped around Blancpain.”

In 1961, Blancpain joined an alliance of watch brands, the Société Suisse pour l’Industrie Horlogère, and Fiechter became a member of its board. The partnership enabled her company to make a vast amount of watch movements for other member brands, like Omega and Tissot.

Standing about 6 feet tall, Fiechter towered over many of her male colleagues and expected them to be as tireless as she was. On one of her daily visits to the brand’s watchmaking atelier, for example, she spotted an employee taking a cigarette break and quickly docked the worker’s pay.

That wasn’t her only eccentricity. She sometimes shopped on Lausanne’s ritzy Rue du Bourg in her mink coat, accessorized by fluffy pink bedroom slippers. One afternoon in Villeret, she walked into a beauty salon and demanded — and got — service, even though the hairdresser was with another client; she then left midway through the session to attend to a pressing matter at the office, with curlers still on her head.

“She absolutely didn’t care,” her great-nephew said. “If it was right for her, it was right for her, period.”

When Léal died suddenly in 1939, Fiechter became Blancpain’s sole owner. By about 1950, she was diagnosed with cancer and brought in a nephew, Jean-Jacques Fiechter, to help her run the company. (His love of diving helped inspire the development of Fifty Fathoms.)

Fiechter’s illness went into remission for almost two decades, but a final bout led to her death, on Sept. 14, 1971. She was 75.

Iris Apfel, a New York society matron and interior designer who late in life knocked the socks off the straight fashion world with a brash bohemian style that mixed hippie vintage and haute couture, found treasures in flea markets and reveled in contradictions, died on Friday in her home in Palm Beach, Fla. She was 102.

Stu Loeser, a spokesman for her estate, confirmed her death.

Calling herself a “geriatric starlet,” Ms. Apfel in her 80s and 90s set trends with clamorous, irreverent ensembles: a boxy, multicolored Bill Blass jacket with tinted Hopi dancing skirt and hairy goatskin boots; a fluffy evening coat of red and green rooster feathers with suede pants slashed to the knees; a rose angora sweater set and 19th-century Chinese brocade panel skirt.

Her willfully disjunctive accessories might be a jeweled mask or a necklace of jade beads swinging to the knees, a tin handbag shaped like a terrier, furry scarves wrapped around her neck like a pile of pythons and, nearly always, her signature armloads of bangles and owlish spectacles, big as saucers.

She was tallish and thin, with a short crop of silver hair and scarlet gashes on lips and fingernails, a little old lady among the models at Fashion Week and an authentic Noo Yawk haggler at a shop in Harlem or a souk in Tunisia. Many called her gaudy, kooky, bizarre, even vulgar in get-ups like a cape of gold-tipped duck feathers and thigh-high fuchsia satin Yves Saint Laurent boots.

But she had a point.

“When you don’t dress like everybody else, you don’t have to think like everybody else,” Ms. Apfel told Ruth La Ferla of The New York Times in 2011 as she was about to go on national television, selling scarves, bangles and beads of her own design on the Home Shopping Network.

For decades starting in the 1950s, Ms. Apfel designed interiors for private clients like Greta Garbo and Estée Lauder. With her husband, Carl Apfel, she founded Old World Weavers, which sold and restored textiles, including many at the White House. The Apfels scoured museums and bazaars around the world for textile designs. She also added regularly to her huge wardrobe collections at her Park Avenue apartment in Manhattan.

The Apfels sold their company and retired in 1992, but she continued to act as a consultant to the firm and to be the otherworldly woman-about-town, a soaring free spirit known in society and to the fashion cognoscenti for ignoring the dictates of the runway in favor of her own artfully clashing styles.

In 2005, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, facing the cancellation of an exhibition and looking for a last-minute replacement, approached her with an audacious proposition: to mount an exhibition of her clothes. The Met had exhibited pieces from designer collections before, but never an individual’s wardrobe.

The show, “Rara Avis: Selections From the Iris Apfel Collection,” assembled 82 ensembles and 300 accessories in the museum’s Costume Institute: Bakelite bangles from the 1930s, Tibetan cuff bracelets, a tiger-pattern travel outfit of her own design, a husky coat of Mongolian lamb and squirrel from Fendi displayed on a mannequin crawling from an igloo.

“This is no collection,” Ms. Apfel said. “It’s a raid on my closet. I always thought to show at the Met you had to be dead.”

Harold Koda, the curator who helped organize the show, said: “To dress this way, there has to be an educated visual sense. It takes courage. I keep thinking, Don’t attempt this at home.”

Soon the show was the talk of the town. Under an avalanche of publicity, students of art, design and social history crowded into the galleries with the limousine society crowd, busloads of tourists and classes of chattering children. Carla Fendi, Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld took it in.

“A rare look in a museum at a fashion arbiter, not a designer,” The Times called the show, adding, “Her approach is so inventive and brash that its like has rarely been glimpsed since Diana Vreeland put her exotic stamp on the pages of Vogue.”

Almost overnight, Ms. Apfel became an international celebrity of pop fashion — featured in magazine spreads and ad campaigns, toasted in columns and blogs, sought after for lectures and seminars. The University of Texas made her a visiting professor. The Met show traveled to other museums, and, like a rock star, she attracted thousands to her public appearances.

Mobs showed up for her bookstore signings after the 2007 publication of “Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel,” a coffee-table book of her wardrobe and jewelry by the photographer Eric Boman.

“Iris,” an Albert Maysles documentary, opened at the New York Film Festival in 2014, and in 2015 it was seen by enthusiastic movie audiences in America and Britain. The movie critic Manohla Dargis of The Times called it an “insistent rejection of monocultural conformity” and “a delightful eye-opener about life, love, statement eyeglasses, bracelets the size of tricycle tires and the art of making the grandest of entrances.”

In 2016, Ms. Apfel was seen in a television commercial for the French car DS 3, became the face of the Australian brand Blue Illusion, and began a collaboration with the start-up WiseWear. A year later, Mattel created a one-of-a-kind Barbie doll in her image. It was not for sale.

In 2018, she published “Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon,” an autobiographical collection of musings, anecdotes and observations on life and style. As she turned 97 in 2019, she signed a modeling contract with the global agency IMG.

Iris Barrel was born on Aug. 29, 1921, in Astoria, Queens, the only child of Samuel Barrel, who owned a glass and mirror business, and his Russian-born wife, Sadye, who owned a fashion boutique. Iris studied art history at New York University and art at the University of Wisconsin, worked for Women’s Wear Daily, apprenticed with the interior designer Elinor Johnson, and opened her own design firm.

She married Carl Apfel, an advertising executive, in 1948. They had no children. Her husband died in 2015 at the age of 100.

Their Old World Weavers had restored curtains, furniture, draperies and other fabrics at the White House for nine presidents, from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton.

Ms. Apfel’s apartments in New York and Palm Beach were full of furnishings and tchotchkes that might have come from a Luis Buñuel film: porcelain cats, plush toys, statuary, ornate vases, gilt mirrors, fake fruit, stuffed parrots, paintings by Velázquez and Jean-Baptiste Greuze, a mannequin on an ostrich.

The fashion designer Duro Olowu told The Guardian in 2010 that Ms. Apfel’s work had a universal quality. “It’s not a trend,” he said. “It appeals to a certain kind of joy in everybody.”

Tom Sandoval, a star of “Vanderpump Rules,” has shared a lot in the decade that he has appeared on that reality TV show, the 11th season of which began airing on Bravo in January. But in a recent interview with The New York Times Magazine, Mr. Sandoval, 41, said things that surprised even people who were well familiar with his penchant for shocking behavior.

Speaking about the public interest in an affair he had with a co-star while he was dating another co-star, a tryst known as “Scandoval,” Mr. Sandoval said that he was not a historian of pop culture, but that he “witnessed the O.J. Simpson thing and George Floyd and all these big things, which is really weird to compare this to that, I think, but do you think in a weird way it’s a little bit the same?”

Mr. Sandoval also said he felt that he received more hate for his affair than the actor “Danny Masterson, and he’s a convicted rapist.” He spoke in the presence of a member of his publicity team, which to some was as astonishing as his comments.

The writer who interviewed Mr. Sandoval for The Times Magazine wrote that a representative for Bravo contacted her after their conversation took place and before it was published to relay concerns about what he had said.

Alyx Sealy, a publicist for Mr. Sandoval, declined to comment for this article. Bravo declined to participate. Adam Ambrose, a publicist who represents reality stars and who has represented Mr. Sandoval in the past, said in an emailed statement that working with people on reality TV could present unique challenges because of the nature of that genre.

“Unscripted stars portray and are their authentic selves, so at times the lines can be blurred for them to discern between being in front of the camera and speaking to the media,” said Mr. Ambrose, the founder of Brand Influential, a public relations company in Los Angeles, who emphasized that he was speaking generally and not about any specific client, past or present. “Sometimes they may be perceived as uncoachable, making it more challenging to manage their media presence from a P.R. perspective.”

He continued: “Moreover, the interest in their lives is or can be more intense than other ‘celebrities,’ as fans feel like they truly know and identify with them. So, when a scandal occurs, it can spark an out-of-the-ordinary public response. The media attention can spiral out of control to the point where the humanity of the situation can be truly lost and forgotten.”

Kelly Brady, a publicist and the founder of Brandsway Creative in New York, a public relations and branding company, said an opportunity like Mr. Sandoval’s recent interview with The Times Magazine was “a great get” for a controversial client because it had the potential to “to change public opinion.”

Ms. Brady, whose company represents stars of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” and other Bravo shows, said her preparations for that type of interview could involve researching the outlet and the journalist in order to prepare a client “as much as you possibly can.” But even if every detail has been thought out, she said, there is still the chance that someone will go off script.

That’s why Lori Krebs, a publicist for reality stars who include past and present cast members of “Vanderpump Rules,” said she preferred that her reality TV clients participate in articles only by outlets that agree to involve her in the editing process, in order “to ensure a positive outcome.” (The New York Times does not agree to such arrangements.)

Ms. Krebs, the founder of Lori K Public Relations in Montreal and Los Angeles, described reality stars as “a very different type of celebrity.” Some people expect them to be more relatable than traditional celebrities, she said, which can “make it more challenging to manage their image.”

Lynn Hason, a publicist and the founder of Lab Media Group, a public relations and branding company in New York that has worked with stars of “Housewives of Salt Lake City” and “Housewives of New York City,” said her approach to handling interviews with reality TV clients had been influenced by a line from “Hamilton.”

“‘Talk less, smile more,’” Ms. Hason said.

Video dinner parties, spa days, stuffed animals, favorite hoodies and cozy, colorful fleece blankets. Cole Brauer’s Instagram feed hardly feels like the work of someone racing a 40-foot sailboat around the world in the Global Solo Challenge. But Ms. Brauer, 29, is not an average ocean racer.

In 2022, Ms. Brauer had tried out for another competition, the Ocean Race, which is considered the pinnacle of professional ocean racing. Sailors in that race are highly trained, wear matching foul weather gear and have corporate sponsors. And most of them are men. Ms. Brauer, who had sailed thousands of miles on high performance ocean racing boats, felt she was ready to join their ranks.

But after competing in trials in France, Ms. Brauer was told she was “too short for the Southern Ocean” and was sent on her way.

In spite of her small stature — she stands 5 feet 1 inch — Ms. Brauer rounded Cape Horn, Chile, on Jan. 26, the last of the three great capes of her journey to finish the Global Solo Challenge. It is a feat most of the Ocean Race sailors picked instead of her have never even attempted. And despite being the youngest competitor in the race, she is ranked second overall, just days away from reaching the finish line in A Coruña, Spain.

Along the way, her tearful reports of breakages and failures, awe-struck moments during fiery sunrises, dance parties and “shakas” signs at the end of each video have garnered her a following that has eclipsed any sailor’s or sailing event’s online, even the Ocean Race and the America’s Cup, a prestigious race that is more well known by mainstream audiences.

“I’m so happy to have rounded the Horn,” Ms. Brauer said in a video call from her boat, First Light, after a morning spent sponging out endless condensation and mildew from its bilges. “It feels like Day 1. I feel reborn knowing I’ll be in warmer weather. The depression you feel that no one in the world can fix that. Your house is trying to sink and you can’t stop it.”

Shifting gears, she added, “It’s all getting better.”

Ms. Brauer’s rise in popularity — she has more than 400,000 followers on Instagram — has come as a surprise to her, but her achievements, combined with her bright personality, have struck a chord. And she has set a goal of using her platform to change the image of professional ocean sailing.

“Cole wants to prove you can go around the world and watch Netflix every once in a while and wear your pajamas,” said Lydia Mullan, Ms. Brauer’s media manager. “As for her mental health, she’s really creating a space in her routine for herself, to create that joy she hasn’t seen in other sailors.”

Four months after she began the Global Solo Challenge, a solo, nonstop race around the world featuring sailboats of different sizes, Ms. Brauer is holding strong. Sixteen sailors began the journey and only eight remain on the ocean, with the Frenchman Philippe Delamare having finished first on Feb. 24 after 147 days at sea.

Ms. Brauer, who was more than a week ahead of her next closest competitor as of Thursday morning, is on track to set a speed record for her boat class, and to be the first American woman to complete a solo, nonstop sailing race around the world.

Her Authentic Self

Ms. Brauer has been happy to turn the image of a professional sailor on its head. Competitors in the Ocean Race and the America’s Cup tend to pose for static social media posts with their arms crossed high on their chests, throwing stern glares. Ms. Brauer would rather be more comfortable.

She brought objects like fleece blankets on her journey, despite the additional weight, and said solo sailing has helped give her the freedom to be herself.

“Without those things I would be homesick and miserable,” she said of her supply list. “We need comfort to be human. Doing my nails. Flossing. It’s hard for the general public to reach pro sailors. People stop watching. If you treat people below you, people stop watching.”

Other female sailors have noticed the same disconnect. “The year I did the Vendée Globe, Michel Desjoyeaux didn’t mention that anything went wrong,” Dee Caffari, a mentor of Ms. Brauer’s who has sailed around the world six times, said of that race’s winner. “Then we saw his jobs list after the finish and we realized he was human.”

Ms. Brauer, as her social media followers can attest, is decidedly human.

They have gotten used to her “hangout” clothes and rock-out sessions. Her team produces “Tracker Tuesdays,” where a weather forecaster explains the routes Ms. Brauer chooses and why she uses different sails, and “Shore Team Sunday,” where team members are introduced.

“In the beginning I looked at what she was doing, posting about washing her knickers in bucket and I was like, ‘No! What are you doing?’” Ms. Caffari said. “I’ve been so professional and corporate in my career. She’s been so authentic and taken everyone around the world with her. Cole is that next generation of sailor. They tell their story in a different way and it’s working.”

Finding a Purpose

Ms. Brauer was introduced to sailing at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Those days of casual racing on the turquoise waters of Kaneohe Bay informed her vision of an inclusive sailing community. That image was shattered when she came to the mainland to try her hand at professional sailing.

“When I came to the East Coast it was so closed off,” she said of those early experiences. “I couldn’t get a job in the industry. Pro sailors were jaded. They didn’t want anyone to take their job. It’s a gig-based economy. Competition, we’re pinned against each other, especially women in high-performance sailing since there are fewer of us.”

“This whole process of being a pro sailor over the past five years, I feel mentally punched in the face and my legs kicked out from under me,” she added. “I screamed and I cried. Without those experiences I wouldn’t be as mentally tough. It made me callused.”

A big break happened when she landed a gig as boat captain for Michael Hennessy’s successful Class40 Dragon. The boat was a perfect platform to hone her ocean sailing skills as she ripped up and down the East Coast delivering it to races, often alone, pushing Dragon to its limits. Her Instagram posts of those adventures drew attention, and she was invited to tryout for the Ocean Race, a fully crewed race around the world in powerful 65-footers.

“I was crushed,” Ms. Brauer said of being rejected after the trials.

Ms. Brauer, though, found a new purpose. After months of living in her van and working on Dragon, she found a benefactor in F.K. Day, the president of World Bicycle Relief and the executive vice president of SRAM Corporation, who, along with his brother Lincoln, agreed to buy a boat and fund a massive refit for the Global Solo Challenge, which was only three months away.

Conducting the hurricane of activity last summer in Newport, R.I., Ms. Brauer knew this was her moment to shine. But her new sponsors had reservations about her bold social media experiment.

“I got a massive pushback: ‘How can you be so vain. This isn’t important. We don’t want to pay for this,’” she said. “I said none of this is going to matter if the world can’t see it.”

Her boat was covered with cameras her shore team could monitor, with technology allowing for constant recording that could be used to capture unexpected twists. Ms. Brauer got some immediate traction, but nothing prepared her for the numbers she would hit once the race began.

“We were taking bets in Spain,” said Ms. Brauer, who had to sail First Light nearly 3,000 miles from Newport to Spain as a qualifier for the race. “There was a photo of me excited we hit 10,000 followers. Ten thousand for a little race? That’s massive.”

A few months later she has 40 times that count.

A Dangerous Journey

Only a handful of solo ocean racers have been American, all of whom being male. Now Ms. Brauer has a larger following than any of them, pushing far beyond the typical reach of her sport.

“This is a really good case study,” says Marcus Hutchinson, a project manager for ocean racing teams. For me she’s an influencer. She’s a Kardashian. People will be looking for her to promote a product. She doesn’t need to worry about what the American sailors think. That’s parochial. She has to split with the American environment.”

Unlike her peers, Ms. Brauer is happy to do some extracurricular work along the way toward goals like competing in the prestigious Vendée Globe. “I’m part of the social media generation,” she said. “It’s not a burden to me.”

The playful videos and colorful backdrop, though, can make it easy for her followers to forget that she is in the middle of a dangerous race. Half her competitors in the Global Solo Challenge have pulled out, and ocean races still claim lives, particularly in the violent, frigid storms of the Southern Ocean.

“She was apprehensive,” Ms. Caffari said of Ms. Brauer’s rounding Cape Horn. “I told her: ‘You were devastated that you didn’t get on the Ocean Race. Now look at you. Those sailors didn’t even get to go to the Southern Ocean.’”

The question now is how Ms. Brauer will retain her followers’ desire for content after the race is over.

“She will be unaware of the transition she went through,” Mr. Hutchinson said. “She’s become a celebrity and hasn’t really realized it.”

Ms. Brauer, however, said she received as much from her followers as she gave them.

“They are so loving,” she said. “I send a photo of a sunset, and they paint watercolors of the scene to sell and raise money for the campaign. When I start to feel down, they let me stand on their shoulders.”

Cat Janice, a singer and songwriter who released a buoyant pop track from hospice that galvanized her thousands of supporters online to sway, and even groove, in the face of tragedy, died on Wednesday at her family home in Annandale, Va. She was 31.

The cause was sarcoma, according to William Ipsan, her brother.

The singer and multi-instrumentalist, whose legal name was Catherine Ipsan, started writing music as a teenager and released it throughout her 20s. But “Dance You Outta My Head,” which she shared on social media alongside candid discussion of her grueling cancer treatments, quickly became the biggest hit of her career. Over disco-inflected guitar and exuberant strings, she sang about “dancing on the edge of disaster.”

Ms. Ipsan released the song on Jan. 19, a few days after entering hospice care. The song caught fire as her health outlook darkened, with social media users — including celebrities like Jason Derulo — leaving messages of support.

It became a common soundtrack on TikTok after Ms. Ipsan encouraged her followers to stream the song as a way of supporting her 7-year-old son, Loren, after her death. “I am leaving this song behind for my son,” she wrote on TikTok. In another post, she said she had “changed all the rights from my songs so every presave and every stream goes to Loren.”

The song has been used in more than two million TikTok videos and became the singer’s first song to enter the Billboard charts.

“I’m praying my story isn’t over yet,” she wrote in a post on her birthday, the day after the song’s release. “But if it is, this is a pretty incredible way to say goodbye.”

Catherine Janice Ipsan was born on Jan. 20, 1993, one of four children in a musical family outside Washington, D.C. She played violin and piano, while her brother sometimes accompanied her on drums. Their mother was a radio D.J. who instilled a love of music in her kids, Mr. Ipsan, 27, said in an interview this month: “We’d be singing every lyric to the Eagles and the Beatles and all the oldies.”

According to her brother, Ms. Ipsan was also a science nerd, who studied geology at George Mason University before going to work as a geospatial analyst. But writing songs remained her outlet, he said. “If she’s stressed or anything, she’ll go do music.”

In 2022 she was diagnosed with sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that she first noticed as a lump in her neck. She underwent surgery and more than a dozen rounds of chemotherapy, her brother said. She posted personal updates on TikTok, including videos of shaving her head and writing music while undergoing treatment. She released an album, “Modern Medicine,” in July 2023.

“Cat’s always sharing what she’s got going on,” said her husband, Kyle Higginbotham, 36, also a musician. “It just happened to be that cancer was what she had going on her last year.”

She continued to perform at venues in the Washington area during treatment, sometimes alongside Mr. Higginbotham, who recalled taking his wife to rounds of chemo, then playing a show with her the very next day. They got engaged onstage in August, at her album release show, and married in December.

She started writing “Dance You Outta My Head” over the summer, while in the car with Loren, Mr. Ipsan said. She sent a demo to Austin Bello, a producer she had worked with for more than seven years, and asked him to mix the track.

“What always impressed me was the clarity with which her edits would come,” Mr. Bello said, offering as an example of one of her notes, “At one minute and 22 seconds, turn down the harmonies 2.2 dB.”

The success of “Dance You Outta My Head” was gratifying but also painful, Mr. Ipsan said. “She’s happy that she’s been doing music for so long and it’s getting the appreciation she deserves,” he said. But the outpouring of supportive messages from fans did not erase her disappointment that she probably would never get to go on a headlining tour or attend the Grammy Awards.

She spent her final weeks at her family home in Annandale, baking bread and getting matching tattoos with family members. Mr. Higginbotham and Loren often sat by her side, making beats on electronic drum pads. When she was feeling strong enough, she hummed.

Mr. Higginbotham said he hoped his wife’s music career would be remembered as more than a “sob story.”

“It’s not just, some girl made a song because she’s dying of cancer,” he said. “Cat’s a real-deal artist and poured every minute of her life into it, right up until the end.”

About four years ago, the D.J.s Malinder Tooray, Omar Ahmed and Bianca Maieli hosted a night of music and dancing in Los Angeles.

They were living in the city and loved attending dance parties that played rhythmic genres from around the world, like Afrobeats, reggaeton, and Brazilian baile funk, but they wanted to hear more sounds from Asia, including the Indian music of their formative years.

Their show, “No Nazar,” attracted a wide following and filled in what many saw as a gap in the music and nightlife scene.

“Nazar” is an Arabic word borrowed by many languages and cultures. It invokes the concept of “evil eye” — that is, an envious glance that can cause harm to those it falls on. The event created by Ms. Tooray, Mr. Ahmed and Ms. Maieli reflected a mood the trio was trying to create — that of an inviting and affirming environment that encourages cultural exchange through music.

“As all of us found what we liked at different parties, we also realized what we had as a gift to offer,” Ms. Tooray said.

The party has since expanded to other cities and, on Saturday night, it returned to New York at the Brooklyn Monarch. Many of the 1,500-some partygoers wore kaffiyehs and gold Indian jewelry.

Throughout the night, a lineup of five D.J.s played Amapiano, a jazzy, loungey style of house music that originated in South Africa, and mixed it with the flutes, tabla and buttery high-pitched vocals of Bollywood classics.

They blended Reggaeton hits like Bad Bunny, J Balvin and Mr. Eazi’s “Como Un Bebé” with Indian songs like “Tujh Mein Rab Dikhta Hai.” They played Arabic pop songs, old-school hip-hop and raucous Jamaican dancehall before segueing into tracks by the Nigerian artist Asake.

“Enjoy the experience tonight, because look around you,” Ms. Tooray said, addressing the crowd. “It is every color. Every race. Every gender.”

During the event, the D.J.s and guests discussed their outfits, their inspirations and what brought them out to the party.

Interviews have been edited.

Malinder Tooray

D.J. at No Nazar

Tell me about your outfit. My outfit is made by a friend of ours named Rahman. He is Bengali. He started his line called Rah Drip. He upcycles sari fabric and turns them into oversized tees.

What’s inspiring your set tonight? I love my Bollywood music. But as a queer woman, I think I’m trying to portray these Bollywood songs to be seen as queer love instead of straight love.

Why did you come out tonight? I’m a big supporter of the No Nazar community and crew. I’m a D.J. who’s played their parties a few times. The movement that they’ve created, the space that they’ve created for people of color, for brown people, for marginalized people — it’s amazing, it’s beautiful and it’s grown so much.

What do you like hearing at No Nazar? I think that No Nazar truly represents the rise of global music in the nightlife world, while creating a bridge between nostalgia and what’s new. It’s a perfect blend of everything that I love right now.

How did you get dressed tonight? Every show I do, I wear something made in Pakistan or India. This shirt is by Aomi.

Why is it important to you to include a piece from India or Pakistan? I’m South Indian, I really try to represent where I come from. Also, how do I be different? I had a moment two years ago, where I needed an outfit for a show. So I went to Zara, bought a shirt and wore it to the show. Then I ran into someone at the show wearing the same shirt. And I was like: “This will never happen again.” I retired the shirt.

Tell me about how you got dressed tonight and your outfit. I’m from Brooklyn, I just like to look fly!

What inspires your style? My culture. I’m Guyanese, I’m Caribbean. I like my colors to be vibrant. I don’t like to be too dark. Green is my favorite color.

Dani Brissett

Guest D.J.

Tell me about how you got dressed tonight. I was stressing. But when it comes to my D.J. sets, I always want to have a look. DJing has helped me hone in on my personal style.

What’s the vibe for tonight? Definitely a fun and youthful energy.

Jazzmine Hawthorne and Tia Holmes

Leasing consultant; and director of product and solution management

What inspires your style?

TIA HOLMES It depends on my mood. Some days I want to be edgier, some days I feel more sophisticated. It depends on how I’m feeling that day. Today, I wanted to pretend like I was Carrie Bradshaw.

Sundeep Singh Boparai

Health care administrator

Tell me about how you got dressed tonight. I’m a queer Sikh man, and I dress androgynously. I don’t really like to fit into a masculine or feminine box. I like to just mix and match and have fun with it. I’m wearing leather pants tonight with some black heels, a crop top and a fur coat, ’cause it’s cold outside.

Omar Ahmed

D.J. at No Nazar

What inspires your style? I’ve been inspired by the cities I’ve lived in, like Atlanta and L.A. Definitely, street culture is big for me, which is why I love Rastah, because Rastah was one of the first brands I saw that was streetwear inspired by India.

Which parties or D.J.s are you inspired by? Soulection, Everyday People and Boiler Room.

Shahzad Ahsan

Business owner

Why did you come out tonight? I came out for a diaspora banger party.

Tell me about your outfit. I make clothes in Karachi using traditional South Asian textiles. So I brought out my favorite, beautiful mirror fabric blazer for this community.

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died this month in an Arctic prison, has vowed to continue her husband’s work.

Ms. Navalnaya, 47, has been less public than Mr. Navalny, seen at his side and in his documentary, but mostly steering clear of the spotlight. She was, though, an important half of a global power couple: A telegenic duo who expressed unfaltering passion for each other and for their vision of a free and democratic future for Russia. “Everyone wanted a love like theirs,” wrote Julia Ioffe in a 2021 Vanity Fair profile.

Mr. Navalny galvanized millions with his combination of intellect, good looks and a breezy, ironic wit that, even in the grimmest of circumstances, offered a primer in resisting fear and intimidation. Although terrible things happened to him, Mr. Navalny somehow managed to survive, which lent him an aura of indestructibility.

Ms. Navalnaya’s presence enhanced that aura, providing a humanizing and protective context for her husband, even when his imprisonment separated them by thousands of miles. Mr. Navalny’s public affection and frequent photo postings of his wife on Instagram were highly unusual for a politician in Russia, where wives and children have traditionally been relegated to near-invisible status. (Few ever saw the former Mrs. Putin, for example.)

By contrast, Yulia was Mr. Navalny’s obvious home base, anchoring him and embodying his hope for the future — his own personal future, and that of his native Russia. “If those in power see families as a weakness, they are mistaken,” Ms. Navalnaya once declared in a speech. “Family is the strength of any normal person — especially any real politician.”

Now, everything has changed. Mr. Navalny’s death represents not just the loss of one man, but the destruction of the couple — and by extension, the shattering of the hope and reassuring, organic wholeness that couple symbolized for many Russians.

To take up her husband’s mantle, Ms. Navalnaya has to forge a new, solo public image. What will it look like? She has already given us some clues.

Ms. Navalnaya has long been as instantly recognizable as her husband, maintaining a very consistent visual style, simple and unadorned. In nearly all photographs, her white-blond hair is pulled tightly back into a small chignon. She wears little visible jewelry aside from a tiny chain necklace, and very minimal makeup. Her clothes tend to be simply cut basics in solid, neutral colors, with tops and jackets that often feature wide, open boat neck collars.

It’s a no frills, pared-down, almost severe look, in keeping with the seriousness of her life. Yet, at the same time, it conveys an “I have nothing to hide” message — a visual analog to the Navalnys’ demand for a transparent and uncorrupt Russian government. The sweptback hair and limited makeup offer up her face completely to scrutiny, exposing every angle of it to the gaze of others. The open necklines have a similar effect, creating a wide zone of clear, uninterrupted space around her head and shoulders, allowing an unimpeded view. There’s also something faintly regal about it: Those necklines frame Ms. Navalnaya dramatically, as if she were already existing in a future portrait of herself as a queen or first lady.

In the wake of her husband’s death, Ms. Navalnaya posted a YouTube video announcing her intention to take over his work and accusing President Vladimir V. Putin of murder. You can hear her grief and anger, yet her tone remains composed. As ever, her style is spare: hair pulled back, a barely perceptible chain at her neck (its pendant tucked under her dress collar) and a dark navy dress stopping just short of black, the color of mourning. Her manicure in red offers the only visual hint at emotion below the surface.

With this, we see clearly how well Ms. Navalnaya’s style serves an additional purpose now: It helps her to smooth down any potential jagged edges that come with grief. She may be torn to shreds on the inside, but on the outside, she looks supremely self-contained. Her hair is smooth; her clothes are smooth; her color palette is uniform.

On Thursday, Ms. Navalnaya met with President Biden in San Francisco to discuss sanctions against Russia, and photos of the occasion yielded further hints about the image she may cultivate for herself going forward. At this meeting, Ms. Navalnaya looked very much the way she does in her video.

This time, though, she was not alone, but accompanied by her daughter, Dasha, a student at Stanford. Dasha looks remarkably like her mother — tall, blond and slim. Her hair, too, was pulled back, nearly exactly like her mother’s. She wore what appeared to be a navy skirt suit or dress.

From the back, the two women were virtually indistinguishable. There could be a special power in this resemblance. Yulia Navalnaya’s marriage may have been ripped from her, but she still has her children, who represent the next generation of Russia. Seeing her alongside her look-alike daughter offers a powerful reminder that Ms. Navalnaya’s struggle does not end with her or her husband.

Cherri Gervais got her first gray hairs as a teenager.

“It’s genetic,” she said.

Her hair color, a striking shade of silver, is the first thing people on TikTok noticed when she asked them to tell her how old she looked in a recent video.

The guesses ranged wildly. Many were correct, or close enough, Ms. Gervais said. (She turned 34 this month.) Other suggested she was in her 60s or 70s.

Ms. Gervais, who lives in Kansas and works for a part-time beauty company, said she had decided to post her video after coming upon similar TikToks.

“I saw someone Gen Z do it because they were saying Gen Z is aging faster,” she said, referring to a recent online theory arguing that teenagers and young adults are aging more rapidly and more visibly than their millennial counterparts.

Her video is part of a trend in which users, mostly women, ask strangers to comment on their appearances. Ms. Gervais said that many of the comments she had received were unkind.

“People told me to dye my hair, told me to get lashes, to fix my eyebrows,” she said. Several suggested that she looked like a “middle-aged mom.” “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Ms. Gervais added. “But I’m not a mom.”

Jalisa Silva-Toney, a 21-year-old social work student who lives in Point Pleasant, W.Va., also took part. “I was just curious,” she said, noting that people often get her age wrong.

Part of the reason she wanted to post her video, she said, was that she hadn’t seen many other Black women participating. She added that TikTok’s culture of constant comparison could be fueling the trend and the larger debate over her generation’s frown lines and skin elasticity.

Pri Maha, a business analyst in Atlanta, said she had asked people to guess her age in a recent TikTok video mostly out of curiosity.

“I do see content from big-time influencers who are only, like, 23, getting Botox,” Ms. Maha, 27, said. “Sometimes it does make me think, ‘Oh, should I be doing that, since I am older?’”

She added, “I feel like there is definitely a push where I see younger girls getting work done, or just trying to look as young as possible, when they are still super young.”

Not everyone was in it just for curiosity’s sake, though.

“I have pretty thick skin, and not a lot of things hurt my feelings,” said Morgan Driscoll, who works in communications at a tech company and lives in Weymouth, Mass. “I knew it was worth posting for the views.”

Because she is someone who aspires to have a large number of TikTok followers, Ms. Driscoll, 30, saw participating in the trend as a kind of business opportunity.

“I didn’t post it because I was looking for validation,” she said. “I posted it because I knew it would get engagement.”

She was right: Her video has been viewed over 100,000 times.

Most of the comments were about her eyebrows. “I have very millennial eyebrows,” Ms. Driscoll said, meaning her eyebrows are thin. She was going to get them “fixed” this week, she added, based on the TikTok feedback.

“I think the worst I got was a comment saying that my neck is getting a gobbler, which is crazy,” she added. “I mean, I just turned 30!”

But for many TikTokers, any engagement is good engagement.

“A comment is a comment,” Ms. Driscoll said. “I don’t care if they are trolls. I don’t care if they tell me I look like a toad. I just want the comments.”

Tianna James used to love looking at the photographs Dronme Davis posted of herself on Instagram. Ms. Davis, a plus-size model, included pictures from her modeling campaigns alongside selfies of her stretch-marked stomach with captions like “fat belly saggy tits Sunday.”

For Ms. James, 22, Ms. Davis’s feed was a revelation. “I wanted to feel comfortable in my body, and she was like me in so many ways, so it made it easier to be myself,” Ms. James said. “If I could find this person so beautiful, and she was bigger, I could find myself beautiful, too.”

Ms. Davis gained a following through posts that criticized diet culture as she built a career as a curve model — she wore up to a size 16 or XXL — most prominently for Dôen, a California fashion brand known for floral prairie dresses typically worn by more willowy women. Her feed was a running commentary on the unrealistic expectation to conform to a thin ideal: “A flat stomach won’t change your life” and “It’s so exhausting being afraid and ashamed of parts of ur body.”

Then, over just a few months, Ms. Davis shrank.

She still posted the artsy selfies Ms. James loved, but photos of soft belly rolls were replaced by sharp cheekbones and clavicles. She continued to write in her confessional style, sharing her feelings about everything from constipation to career insecurities. But Ms. Davis stopped posting her habitual rants against fatphobia, and she didn’t explain why or how she had lost so much weight.

To Ms. James, Ms. Davis’s silence felt like a betrayal.

“It made me feel like she was being dishonest with her community,” Ms. James said. “I don’t want to say it was owed to us, but it was such a drastic change.”

The body positive movement has recently faltered in a cultural moment where thin is back in (though some argue it never really left), thanks in part to the rise of new drugs like Ozempic that are being used for weight loss. Celebrities, models and influencers like Ms. Davis who once celebrated their curves are grappling with how to discuss their smaller bodies, while their followers feel as if they’ve abandoned the causes they used to champion: encouraging people to challenge weight stigma and to accept themselves as they are.

‘She Won’t Cop to It’

Ms. Davis said that she had long agonized over how to publicly address her weight loss. Despite what some of her followers suspected, she wasn’t on Ozempic. The truth — that she had relapsed into the disordered eating practices that she had struggled with throughout her life — was hard for her to admit, even to herself. How had she succumbed to the same pressures she had warned her nearly 100,000 followers about?

“The only thing people are going to be OK with is a very detailed explanation, which is not something I can write in a caption,” the 24-year-old said by Zoom from her bedroom in the woods in Mendocino, Calif., where she lives with her mother.

She didn’t want to beat herself up for relapsing, but she also empathized with followers like Ms. James.

“I gathered all these women to follow me because I was going to be inspiring and make them feel empowered,” Ms. Davis said. “How can I still expect their attention and support?”

Ms. Davis grew up in a small town in Northern California. She put herself on a diet by the time she was 10, after she began to develop breasts. Her weight fluctuated, but when she was thinner, she said, she could fit into the Abercrombie miniskirts that her friends wore, and teachers took her more seriously.

She was discovered through her Instagram shortly after she graduated from high school, and soon landed a job as Dôen’s first curve model. She has since modeled for much bigger brands, including Levi’s, Sephora and The North Face, but she became a familiar fixture on Dôen’s website: The designers have called her their “longtime muse” and named a pair of jeans that came in extended sizes after her.

As Ms. Davis grew up online, it felt natural to post about all the facets of her life — not just her modeling, but her racial justice activism, her artwork and her evolving relationship to her body. Looking back, she said, in her passion to share her own learning process, she unintentionally positioned herself as an expert on body acceptance when that was not the case. It was a humbling experience and part of the reason she has not yet broached her weight loss publicly.

“I’m scared of being judged or yelled at or letting people down,” she said. “Which is ironic, because I think my silence is letting people down more than me talking about it.”

Some of the people who left comments on Ms. Davis’s Instagram about her body were kind: “Worried about u … hope you are ok.” Some chastised her: “This sort of rapid and continued weight loss is concerning.” And others were cruel, calling her “sickly skinny.” When Ms. Davis started deleting comments, followers decamped to other online forums to speculate further.

“I figure it must be Ozempic like everyone else and she doesn’t want to talk about it, which is a little off brand because she’s so open about everything else,” a user wrote on Reddit.

That commenter told The New York Times that she loved Ms. Davis regardless of her size, but still expected answers. “She talks about everything,” she said. “Every pimple she has on her face, every rash she gets on her arm. So why hasn’t she mentioned this?”

“She completely altered her body, and she won’t cop to it,” said another Instagram follower in an interview. She purchased Dôen items because Ms. Davis modeled them, including her namesake jeans. “If you’re going to be out there using your body to make a living, and position yourself as a brand, and then you walk away from your brand, I think you can’t expect the community around you to not react,” she said.

‘Life Is Too Hard in This Body’

Right now, body-positive influencers who have decided to be open about losing weight have also had to navigate a community that is often disappointed and angry.

The longtime curve model Gabriella Lascano filmed a TikTok video last year about her decision to lose weight, explaining that she felt “guilty” for being part of the body-positive movement. She told The Times she hadn’t been honest about “the trials and tribulations of gaining weight and getting older.” People accused her of equating thinness with health and of producing content that could be used to “justify fatphobia.” The outrage was so intense that she removed the video.

“I think it’s strange to be so hurt when someone chooses something for themselves,” Ms. Lascano said about the criticism she received.

But influencers’ personal choices affect the community they’ve cultivated, often leaving followers, especially vulnerable young people, feeling disillusioned and adrift. Those who appear to flip-flop can cause “intense feelings of betrayal,” said Sally A. Theran, a clinical psychologist and professor at Wellesley College who has researched parasocial relationships — the one-sided ties people form with media figures and influencers — and disordered eating in adolescence.

“I think if you’re going to put yourself out there, and if you’re going to earn money, then you’re positioning yourself as a leader in this domain, and you should take responsibility for the repercussions,” Ms. Theran said.

On a recent episode of the Burnt Toast podcast covering the rise of fat influencers losing weight, Virginia Sole-Smith, a journalist who writes about diet culture and who has contributed to The Times, said that influencers who once promoted fat acceptance but now claim they feel healthier when they are thinner are “throwing everyone else under the bus.”

“You used the hashtags in order to grow your following in order to post your affiliate links, get your sponsor deals, all of that,” Ms. Sole-Smith said. “So now what you’re basically telling us is you co-opted all that rhetoric and you don’t believe it at all, and that is pretty gross.”

Her co-host Corinne Fay said she thought it was better for influencers to be upfront if they were using weight-loss drugs instead of vaguely claiming to be “pursuing health.”

“They don’t want to call it a diet, so it’s called a health and fitness journey,” Ms. Sole-Smith said. “That’s pretty exasperating.”

With Weight Loss Came Affirmation

Few people, if any, become body positive proponents without struggling with the same societal standards they speak out against. “I’ve seen creators say things like, ‘It’s just too hard, life is too hard, in this body,’” said Katie Sturino, a body acceptance advocate. “It can feel like betrayal, but it’s a symptom of our culture and how in our society it is still the worst thing to be fat. People are still terrified of being in a bigger body.”

Ms. Davis acknowledged that with her weight loss came affirmation — more party invitations, more attention from men. “I so badly want to be like, ‘What you look like doesn’t matter,’” she said. “But it sure does change how people treat you.”

When she relapsed, Ms. Davis convinced herself she was just trying to eat healthier and be more active. Soon though, she said, she was subsisting on rice cakes and Red Bull. When she ran into friends from the modeling world, she was forced to explain herself. (She pretended she was vegan.) Online, she could evade every question.

“Part of me was embarrassed and felt really guilty,” Ms. Davis said. “All I ever wanted to do on the internet was make women feel OK about themselves.”

Ms. Davis recently posted an Instagram video of herself posing in a bandanna top and cargo pants for a partnership with Free People. As always, she looks quirkily chic. She also looks thin.

She says she has good days and bad, but that she is trying to be more honest in conversations with friends. She often thinks of how her mother and her grandmother have also struggled with body image their entire lives.

She wants her followers to know that she meant it when she told them to reject fatphobia. “It was always coming from a place that was genuine,” she said.

But given that she is still working on her own issues — and given that she’s no longer plus size — she doesn’t feel it’s her place to advocate body positivity online.

“There was a time when I was in a body where I was experiencing fatphobia,” she said. “Now that I’m not in that body currently, I don’t think my voice is needed.”

When Ms. James first noticed that Ms. Davis had lost weight, she unfollowed her. “I just didn’t think that was good for me,” she said. But then she noticed her feeds were full of people posting their exercise and diet routines. Ms. Davis was just one of many women who were no longer proudly plus size. Ms. James re-followed her. And recently, she said, she started working out and shedding pounds herself.

“I guess weight is just as much of a trend as anything else,” Ms. James said.

Audio produced by Kate Winslett.

On Friday, just outside Palm Springs, Calif., you might have thought a strange mirage had appeared: One or two zillion tweens descended upon an arena, all wearing platform Doc Martens.

Had some official communiqué been issued, at a frequency undetectable to those older than 25? Had everyone been subconsciously nudged to pair boots with fishnets and leg warmers?

No one seemed to care that it was hot out. What did matter was that the boots, punky symbols of past musical rebellions, were central to the unofficial-but-conspicuously-official uniform of Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour, which began that night.

Each recent tour by a major pop star has seemingly birthed an aesthetic microclimate that follows the artist from show to show, usually evaporating when the tour is over. Dressing up for concerts is not new — see Grateful Dead fans in their tie-dye, the ’90s Madonna fans in their regalia — but last summer’s blockbuster tours have upped the ante. Imagine showing up to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour without a cowboy hat or attending Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour without looking at least a little bit like a shimmery disco ball.

These uniforms grow out of fans’ desire to emulate their favorite artists and to visually identify with one another. Now social media gives people a chance to share and see what everyone else has been wearing. And it doesn’t hurt that e-commerce sites like Amazon and Shein make it easy to order and receive a pair of sequined, thigh-high boots in the time it takes for Beyoncé to fly from Vancouver to Seattle.

For fans of Ms. Rodrigo, the current poet laureate of adolescent vulnerability, what was the look going to be? They arrived at the first stop on her worldwide Guts Tour already dressed in startling unison.

In the parking lot before the concert, fans waited in long lines in every direction — for the merchandise truck, for V.I.P. tickets, for porta-potties — each one a slow-moving runway show. Purple was everywhere. Butterflies, too. Many followed the singer’s lead in drawing from riot grrrl and grunge fashion from the ’90s, like Lucy Elfelt, 14, who had some pointers for her mother on dressing to emulate a decade that only one of them had actually lived through.

“She was like, ‘Mom, you’re not grunge enough,’” Alicia Elfelt, 49, said. “I’m like, my hair’s purple.”

The uniform evoked femininity laced into combat boots, as if to outfit its wearer for the rugged territory of emotional catharsis. There were plenty of girlish details like bows, corsets and spangly miniskirts, but not without a chunky shoe or a swipe of sludgy eyeliner.

For some, maybe it was a reflection of Ms. Rodrigo’s ability to refashion the humiliations of adolescence into lethal songwriting weapons. “It’s like she read my diary,” Bridget Lee, 20, said of the artist’s songs about feeling naïve, embarrassed, vengeful, insecure. “Every song is literally me,” Diego Soriano, 19, said. Others say they relate to her because she is a Pisces, because she is of Filipino descent or because she gets angry about the same things they do.

“I love the way she screams,” Val Mok, 28, added. “Like, story of my life.”

Ms. Lee wore a tiered Betsey Johnson dress that she had found on the secondhand clothing app Depop, simply by searching for “Olivia Rodrigo.” She and a group of nine other superfans had been planning their outfits in a group chat for months. Did they follow those social media accounts that posted breathless updates on each new piece of tour merch? They giggled. “We are the accounts,” one said.

Many fans see Ms. Rodrigo’s fashion sense as flatteringly emblematic of Generation Z. But Tegan Astani, 18, said that some students at her arts high school thought Ms. Rodrigo was “basic.” Whose music do they listen to instead? They prefer less well-known artists, Ms. Astani said: “Have you ever heard of Led Zeppelin?”

When doors opened at 6 p.m., a parade of purple bows filtered into the arena. Natalia Adams, 20, settled into a seat between her parents, who were marveling at the youth of the crowd. Her father, Matt Adams, 58, remarked that there had been a long line for snow cones but no line to buy beer.

A few days earlier, when Ms. Rodrigo had released commemorative shot glasses for her 21st birthday, a user on X, formerly known as Twitter, responded that they had never seen an Olivia Rodrigo fan of legal drinking age: “What are they gonna take shots of…juice???” It was not too much of an exaggeration: A 7-year-old sat in the back row with her ears covered by massive purple headphones.

When fans dress alike, how does one stand out? Ms. Mok had constructed an entire outfit around the artist’s lyric “Coca-Cola bottles that I only use to curl my hair.” Ms. Astani had sewed a cheerleader outfit based on a costume in Ms. Rodrigo’s music video for “good 4 u.”

Others were perfectly happy to be dressed like everybody else, to slip into a sense of belonging that both a fandom and a dress code can afford. Sometimes the nudge comes from the top: Beyoncé went so far as to encourage fans to wear silver items on her tour. If Ms. Rodrigo did not offer such specific instructions, her Instagram posts and her pale purple merch offered hints of the kind of look she was going for.

Her fans turned out to have interpreted those clues correctly. When Ms. Rodrigo took the stage, she was wearing the same platform Doc Martens as everybody else.

“Did anybody dress up?” she asked a screaming crowd.

“The Independent Spirit Awards, where the dress code is, get dressed,” said John Mulaney during his bit at the 2018 show, which he co-hosted along with comedian Nick Kroll.

This year, “Saturday Night Live” alum Aidy Bryant is hosting the Indie Spirit’s 39th annual show, which is being live-streamed, with a presenter list that included Joel Kim Booster, Greta Lee, Jude Law, Colman Domingo and Emma Corrin. There are substantial differences between these awards and the rest of the seasonal intake of trophies this time of year — including, for the second year, all acting categories are gender-neutral — but last year “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won best picture awards at both the Oscars and the Indie Spirits.

Held in broad daylight in a tent on a beach in Santa Monica, the show has always been presented as the looser, hipper distant cousin of the Oscars — the outfits could also be somewhat described the same way. Due to the time of day it’s held (2 p.m. PST), this is one place during awards season when the industry can kick off its heels, leave the evening gowns at home and show off its casual wares, which has the potential for interesting style choices. Here are some of the best ones.

There’s a change underway in fashion. The safe, swaddling allure of quiet luxury, the sort of luxury that was as much of a local specialty as risotto alla Milanese, seems less and less consequential — a sort of relaxed, neutral approach to self-expression that no longer jibes with the increasing urgency of the world. That seems less like a panacea than a surrender.

It started in January, back in couture, when John Galliano’s Maison Margiela show with its extreme theatrics and heightened emotions acted like a wake-up call after seasons of being stultified by camel. Continued in New York, at Willy Chavarria, who set a family-size table of sartorial intention. And in Milan, was picked up by Francesco Risso at Marni, who boiled fashion down to its essence so it could begin again.

Papering in white a cavernous warren of rooms under a railway track, so it resembled some sort of petri dish, Mr. Risso birthed a very chic primal scream. The shapes nodded to paper doll versions of couture tropes, so the New Look skirts, cocoon dresses, egg coats all looked as if they had been made of construction paper (or a leather or wool version of it) and a flocked velvet print resembled a scribble. Outerwear had a cave man hairiness and mini dresses were covered in finger paint swirls. These would not be easy garments to wear, but they sure jolt you out of your torpor.

As a result, they leave a lot of the more — well, normal, for want of a better term — clothes on many runways looking like remnants of a different time, like wardrobes for masters of the universe with bolt-holes in New Zealand where they plan to sit out the apocalypse in solo off-the-grid splendor, and fah! to the rest of the world. That’s no longer such a good look.

The Gucci Gamble

Or so I felt, anyway, watching Sabato De Sarno’s second Gucci show. There’s nothing wrong with what he is doing: It’s crystal clear and succinct. Mr. De Sarno believes, very strongly, in the leg, tailoring and the fragile slip dress (it’s a trend here, along with leopard, thigh-high boots and fluffy shoes). He believes in shorts and the platform loafer. But he’s very up front about the fact his ambitions aren’t much greater than making very nice clothes. It’s one, not bad, thing for a designer to refuse to be a dictator. Another for him to be so reticent that without a logo he might disappear. That approach has taken a brand that used to be one of Milan’s magnetic poles and rendered it minor.

If you’re in the market for a little shine without effort, great — check out Mr. De Sarno’s coats with hems covered in paillettes and sequins, and grandpa knits with a bit of sparkly fringe. They’re terrific, just as the pants with a hefty cuff at Matteo Tamburini’s debut at Tod’s were perfectly done. But Mr. Tamburini’s big idea was belt buckles shaped like auto grills and leather shoes with carwash fringe, because — driving shoe! Get it? In both cases, it’s not enough.

Sure, there’s a theory that when life is complicated, fashion should be easy. But it should not also be easy to forget. The longest runways and most glittering celebrities can’t fill that void.

That’s why the little moments of weirdness at Ferragamo and Bally stood out among the otherwise well-behaved wardrobing: the great coats dangling two sets of belts at the back at Ferragamo and the witchy, exaggerated collars on an evening suit; the fur skirts exploding from a proper wool frock at Bally, and the studded skirts and vests that featured, along with the obvious punk references, little cows. Really: cows. Moo.

Now the designers Maximilian Davis (Ferragamo) and Simone Bellotti (Bally) just need to go further. Lucie and Luke Meier did at Jil Sander — all the way round the bend, in fact, cutting everything on an exaggerated curve so suits and coats and dresses resembled sci-fi bed jackets, often in cartoon colors and often quilted or padded. Not that this was a new strain of comfort clothing (honestly, enough of that). It’s more like what to wear for a soft landing after a moon shot.

The Great and the Terrible

Dream big. Get loud. That’s the point. Interestingly, Jil Sander is owned by Only The Brave, Renzo Rosso’s conglomerate, which also owns Margiela, Marni and Diesel, a brand that made its own statement at the opening of the Milan shows. For years the group’s name seemed more like a keep-trying-dear goal than a reality, but all of a sudden it’s starting to seem like an accurate characterization. One that could define not just the company, but the moment.

To that end, Mr. Rosso might take a look at Sunnei, Milan’s resident upstart conceptual brand, where the clothes are beginning to live up to the social commentary that surrounds them. This season, for example, the designers Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo exposed the inner lives of models by blasting their runway thoughts on the soundtrack — “Breathe. Breathe. Don’t close your eyes”; “Oh gosh, the noise of my stomach. Oh gosh, I can’t wait to eat some pasta”— while covering their outer selves in plush padded opera puffers and carpet-stripe separates that unsnapped into — well, carpets. They were cool.

That is why Donatella Versace’s retreat to the archive via ’90s power punks at Versace and Peter Hawkings’ retro sex-’n-’struts formula at Tom Ford was so frustrating. Ms. Versace and Mr. Hawkings can cut rock star jackets. They love a bit of sizzle. But it’s like they are on rewind. The result is less safe than stale.

And it is why Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta, with its twisted approach to the every day, evoking heightened detail and emotion, is so compelling.

Mr. Blazy doesn’t just make a coat, he pinches the seams of its arms from neck to wrist so they stand up, creating a sort of two-dimensional frame that makes the wearer look like a walking portrait of themselves. He covers silk dresses in passport stamp prints so they become a wearable travelogue. Cuts leather into yeti scruff. And finishes a plain black shirtdress with a furry band and layers of fringe, so it jounces along almost on its own: professional on the top, party underneath. Soul all the way through.

A few short months ago, members of the Screen Actors Guild wore jeans, shorts and T-shirts while carrying picket signs in the last days of a lengthy strike. On Saturday, they were at their red-carpet best as they arrived at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles for the 30th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Before the ceremony, which is streaming on Netflix for the first time, Lily Gladstone, Jeremy Allen White, Margot Robbie, Cillian Murphy, Selena Gomez, Ali Wong, Ayo Edebiri and a host of other film and television stars took a moment to pose on the red carpet. The looks ran the gamut, from sober black and white to the wildly colorful. Scroll on to see the full celebrity fashion report.

When Steven Meisel shot the supermodel Linda Evangelista for the September 2022 issue of British Vogue, she hid many of her features beneath a series of hats and scarves. The year before, she had filed a lawsuit after a cosmetic procedure left her “disfigured,” she said, and reluctant to venture outdoors.

Ms. Evangelista, 58, seems far less shy these days. She has since been on other Vogue covers and in a television series, and has talked openly about being treated for breast cancer twice. This month, she flaunted her face, frame and a mastectomy scar on the cover of Zeit Magazin, a sister publication of the German weekly Die Zeit, which has an English edition.

In the magazine, Ms. Evangelista appears in photos by Cass Bird looking not much older than she did in the ’90s, when she bragged that she would not get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. On the cover, she looks sultry in a denim jacket unfastened to the waist, and inside she appears positively coltish, her skin as youthful as a girl’s.

“I try to love myself as I am,” she said in an interview with Claire Beermann, a writer and the style director at Zeit Magazin. (Ms. Evangelista declined to be interviewed for this article through a representative.)

Visible scar aside, the photos tell a different story. In the interview, Ms. Evangelista said her features had been pulled taut with rubber bands and tape for the photo shoot, explaining that fashion is about selling illusions. One may be her sense of self-love.

Near the end of the interview, she and Ms. Beermann posed for a selfie, the writer recalled. Ms. Evangelista closely inspected the result. “Oh, God,” she lamented to Ms. Beermann. “In this bright light, you can see every pore.”

A New Frontier for Fashion Imagery

Art made using artificial intelligence is often reviled: It lacks honesty and creativity, some say, not to mention flouts copyright laws. But others, like Rupert Cresswell, an advertising and animation creative director in Los Angeles, argue that A.I. can be used to create works intended as a corrective to a “world that can be a pretty grim place,” as Mr. Cresswell put it.

That’s how he sees the books of stridently colorful A.I.-generated imagery he recently released. The two volumes, called “Frontier Drops,” include images of ranchers and wranglers he made using programs like Midjourney and Photoshop. He has shared many of those images on Instagram, where he goes by Prospex Park.

His cowboys and cowgirls exist in a radically inclusive universe. They come in varying shapes and skin tones, their costumes lavishly quilted and embroidered, their portraits familiar looking yet alien. Mr. Cresswell, who is in his 40s and who identifies as queer, said the images offered “pure escapism” and reflected his aim “to approach some Western tropes with a modern look and through a queer lens.”

His timing, he knows, is serendipitous. The books’ releases coincide with a resurgence of cowboy style. The aesthetic has been revisited by Pharrell Williams, who put a Western spin on his fall 2024 men’s collection for Louis Vuitton, and by Beyoncé, who has adopted a Stetson and spurs to promote “Texas Hold ’Em,” her new chart-topping country single.

And the style may be further explored by Mr. Cresswell, who said some people had expressed interest in bringing his machine-generated images to life. “We’ll see what happens,” he said.

A Fashion Show That’s Not About Clothes

“The New Look,” a new dramatic series on Apple TV+, follows Christian Dior (played by Ben Mendelsohn) and his design-world contemporaries in Paris during World War II. But couture devotees who tune in may be surprised to notice there is precious little fashion in the early episodes.

It comes mostly in teasing glimpses: A few scenes feature Dior’s gowns and his famous Bar suit with its cinched waist and swirling calf-length skirt. Others show the occasional length of tulle wafting over his cutting table.

What viewers get instead is a mostly sympathetic peek into the interior lives and unlikely relationships forged among Dior and designers like Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche), Cristóbal Balenciaga (Nuno Lopes) and Pierre Balmain (Thomas Poitevin) during the darkest days of the Nazi occupation of France.

The camaraderie among Dior, Balenciaga and Balmain is startlingly tender, particularly in a scene where, over drinks, they mourn prewar Paris and argue about whether to make gowns for Nazis’ wives and girlfriends. Balenciaga claims the moral high ground and exits in a huff.

As a friend, though, Balenciaga is steadfast. In a bittersweet scene, he tries to soothe a distraught Dior with a bit of Swiss chocolate. “One half for you and one half for me,” he says. “To the end of this Nazi awfulness.”

Were the two designers all that collegial in real life? Yes, for the most part. In “The Master of Us All: Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World,” the author Mary Blume writes that while he and Dior may not have been the tightest of chums, they did share a lasting friendship.

Claude Montana, the audacious and haunted French designer whose exquisite tailoring defined the big-shouldered power look of the 1980s — an erotic and androgenous tough chic that brought him fame and accolades until he was felled by drugs and tragedy in the ’90s — died on Friday in France. He was 76.

The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode confirmed the death but did not specify a cause or say where he died.

Mr. Montana was among a cohort of avant-garde Parisian designers, among them Thierry Mugler and later Jean Paul Gaultier, who idealized the feminine form in extravagant, stylized ways that harked back to the screen sirens of old Hollywood, but as reconstituted in outer space. Mr. Mugler, who died in 2022, offered a campier femme fatale than Mr. Montana’s icy vision, though the two were often lumped together as the architects of the 1980s “glamazon.”

“Claude Montana,” The New York Times declared in 1985, “is to big shoulders what Alexander Graham Bell is to the telephone.”

His clothes, said Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, “were fierce, with a power that was both militaristic and highly eroticized.” She added: “It was not the American power look of the shoulder-padded executive. His was a different kind of working woman.”

Mr. Montana often drew inspiration from the after-hours world of the Paris demimonde — the sex workers and dominatrixes, the denizens of the leather bars he frequented. But he wasn’t just stamping out fetish gear.

“His tailoring was scalpel sharp,” the fashion journalist and author Kate Betts said by phone. “The level of perfectionism was intense.”

Josh Patner, a former fashion coordinator at Bergdorf Goodman, said in a phone interview: “His clothes were meticulous, beautiful objects. He defined the design language of his era. The 1980s power proportions, the unreasonably sleek surfaces, the hard edges made sensual.”

Shy and recessive in person, Mr. Montana was nonetheless a born showman. From his first show in 1977, when he sent out models in full leather regalia, the epaulets of their jackets looped with chains (which drew comparisons to Nazi uniforms, upsetting the designer, whose inspiration was closer to home), his Paris presentations were among the buzziest, always overseen by gatekeepers in white paper jumpsuits and shrouded in secrecy. “You waited and you waited,” Ms. Betts said, “but it was always worth it.”

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Ellin Saltzman, a former fashion director of Saks Fifth Avenue, said: “There were people who cried after Claude’s shows. Almost Germanic in tempo, they could be very militant but totally sexy at the same time.”

Claude Montamat was born on June 29, 1947, in Paris, one of three siblings. He changed his surname in the 1970s, because, he said, people kept mispronouncing it. His mother was German; his father, a fabric manufacturer, was Spanish; the family was well-to-do.

“Very bourgeois,” he told The Washington Post in 1985. “They wanted me to be something I did not want to be.”

He left home when he was 17 and moved to London, where he began making papier-mâché jewelry that was featured on the cover of British Vogue. But back home in Paris, where he returned in 1973, he couldn’t find a market for his pieces and, through a friend, landed a job as a cutter for Mac Douglas, a luxury leatherwear company. A year later, he was the company’s chief designer. By 1977, he was on his own.

By the end of the decade, he was a star, and his styles would dominate the ’80s. Critics called him the future of Paris fashion. He had licensing deals, a boutique, a best-selling perfume and men’s and women’s ready-to-wear lines; he designed for an Italian line, Complice. Eighties cynosures like Cher, Diana Ross and Grace Jones all wore Montana. So did Don Johnson and Bruce Willis.

“He was a great, great designer,” Ms. Steele said, “but he had demons.”

Ensnared in drugs, he often disappeared for days or weeks at a time. In 1989, when Dior came calling, he turned the job down. “I need room,” he told The Washington Post that year. “I don’t want to have all this money and go to an asylum.”

Yet a year later he accepted Lanvin’s offer to design its haute couture line, and he did so for five seasons. “His new space maidens are a gentler race, wearing soft silk clothes with small waistlines and spreading skirts,” Bernadine Morris wrote in one review in The Times. “His collection was a perfect cameo expressing couture’s latest new era.”

But many critics panned the new work — Mr. Montana’s asymmetrical sheaths and beaded tops may have been too minimal for the ladies of couture — and he was let go.

Wallis Franken was an American model with two children who had been Mr. Montana’s muse and runway star since he started out. They shared a taste for nightlife and cocaine, and, by her account, Ms. Franken was always deeply in love with him. Their marriage in 1993 was seen by some, however, as a manipulation on his part to revive his business, a cynical “mariage blanc.”

In any case, their relationship, as Maureen Orth reported in Vanity Fair in 1996, was stormy. She resented his affairs with men, and he resented her work; he once beat her, Ms. Orth wrote, when the photographer Steven Meisel asked her to pose for a Donna Karan campaign.

Three years after their wedding, Ms. Franken’s body was found on the street outside their Paris apartment. Tortured by her own drug use and despondent over her marriage, Ms. Franken had told friends she had contemplated suicide. But people whispered: Had she been pushed?

“Whatever I am suffering, I am because I am,” he told The Washington Post. “I wonder many times why do I have to go through that pain.”

Mr. Montana continued to put out collections until the turn of the millennium, and critics invariably described them in lackluster terms. By the 2000s, he had became a recluse, even as younger designers turned to his bold styles for inspiration.

“There was a sense that Claude would go on and last forever,” Dawn Mello, a former Bergdorf Goodman fashion director, told Vanity Fair in 2013. “Then he disappeared and fell off the map.”

The designer Lawrence Steele, speaking from Milan, recalled that one of the first pieces of fashion he bought was a floor-length navy blue Claude Montana cashmere coat, with shoulder pads “out to here,” as he put it.

“It was 1983 and I had a buzz cut so I looked like Grace Jones and I felt extremely fabulous,” Mr. Steele said. “His clothes gave you a larger-than-life persona. They were like pure ego and strength. And that’s what the ’80s was about in general: this pure, powerful proudness of being.”

Vanessa Friedman contributed reporting.

It has become a common scene. Your phone dings, but instead of a text, it’s a forewarning that someone has orated just for you a private podcast of any imaginable length, the subject unknown until you press play. It could be a juicy morsel of gossip, a yarn replete with twists and turns, or a totally mundane account from someone who simply didn’t have their hands free to type it out.

It’s a voice note — somehow one of the most divisive forms of modern communication.

More intimate than a text and less urgent than a call, the audio messages don’t set a maximum time limit, unlike other voice messaging services, which eventually cut the sender off. That means senders can hit record and embark on an uninhibited verbal journey, leaving recipients at their mercy.

“If I have to listen to one longer than a minute, I get distracted and stop taking it in,” said Iris Meines, a 29-year-old policy officer at the Dutch consulate in New York. “If it’s under a minute, I’m like, OK, I can do this. Six or seven is just terrible. I don’t even know if I could listen to seven minutes straight of a friend talking on the phone.”

She said she usually takes notes as the recording plays, so she doesn’t forget what points to respond to. (Apple added a transcription feature for audio messages with an update to its operating system in the fall.)

“My friends know I don’t like them,” Ms. Meines said. “I ask them, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’” She finds it particularly grating if she can hear people chewing as they record.

For Ms. Meines, voice notes are mildly irksome — she would prefer talking on the phone or texting if she can’t see her friends face to face, she said. But for others, they appear to border on, if not a moral problem, then at least a question of etiquette. Writing in The Atlantic, Jacob Sweet recently argued that audio messages were “indulgent” and could “encourage selfishness.” A headline in The Spectator described their ubiquity as a “tyranny.”

Elaine Swann, an etiquette expert who teaches classes for adults as well as children, said that voice notes should not be used for lengthy monologues, but only in cases in which “tone is necessary, but a conversation is not” — an apology, for instance.

“Exercise self-control,” she said. “Don’t barge into someone’s life with a long-winded voice note.” More detailed messages, Ms. Swann said, should be saved for a phone call, when both parties can actively engage.

For the phone-averse, that may be easier said than done. Whereas millennials became known for shying away from leaving voice mail messages, Gen Z has a reputation for avoiding phone calls altogether. In a study conducted last May, Australian researchers found that 87 percent of respondents ages 18 to 26 preferred to handle unpleasant dialogues by text instead of phone, and 49 percent said phone calls made them anxious. This may help explain why voice notes — which were introduced by Apple a decade ago but have surged in popularity only in recent years — appear to be especially popular with Gen Z-ers.

Though older generations can be distressed by the phone, too. Alana Jordan, 36, an actress and on-air host in Los Angeles, said she saw voice notes as a way to manage those nerves. She listens back to messages before she sends them and rerecords if she wants to adjust her tone. “Having the ability to edit yourself alleviates the anxiety of being misunderstood,” she said.

Some experts say there can be downsides to avoiding those discomforts. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at M.I.T., warned of a widespread “flight from vulnerability.”

Voice note users, she said, “don’t have to respond to the friction of someone else’s affect” if a disagreement comes up, for example, or an unexpected question.

“Voice notes are essentially no risk,” said Professor Turkle, who is also the author of “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.” “People are losing the capacity for empathetic conversations, which is how we connect with each other. We need to practice that. People are so worried about showing too much of themselves.”

But rather than finding voice notes impersonal or closed off, many of their proponents — often just as vociferous as their critics — say they allow for a special kind of intimacy and vulnerability.

Brittany Marshall, a 27-year-old student who moved to New Jersey from Louisiana to study African American literature, said that she wasn’t the biggest fan of voice notes. “I have to stop what I’m doing and listen to them,” she said. “Then I have to remember everything so I can address it in my response.”

But she welcomes them from one close friend back home. The familiar voice is comforting, she said, and her friend’s expressive speaking style — thanks to a theater performance background — makes her laugh.

Gemalene Sunga, an immunology student in Houston, said she didn’t like being bombarded with a string of voice notes — her friends will send “six or seven in a row, all two minutes long, at least,” she said. “But I do like being able to hear my friends’ voices.”

Ms. Sunga, 31, added that, taking a longer view, she also appreciates voice notes as digital keepsakes. While Apple’s operating system defaults to deleting the messages after two minutes, recipients have the option to save them forever.

“Not to be morbid, but I’m such a nostalgic person that I do think about these things,” she said. “Voice notes aren’t tangible, but they’re sentimental to me.”

So much so that, despite their potential to become irritating, Ms. Sunga is trying to get her friends to send her voice notes even more frequently by sending them herself. “I only safely do it with specific friends, and I read the room,” she said. “I want to be considerate.”

As with any newer form of communication technology, it could take everyone a while to get on the same page about the proper courtesies. “With voice notes, there isn’t yet an established norm, so people have different interpretations,” said Melanie Green, chair of the communication department at the University at Buffalo.

There is research to support that words spoken aloud are better remembered than words read in silence, and that talking to oneself can be therapeutic. In 2007, researchers at the University of California Los Angeles found that affect labeling — the process of putting feelings into words — can help people manage their responses to negative feelings over time.

Rambling voice notes, then, while potentially onerous on the receiver, may be a healthy practice for the sender.

“I dislike them when I have to listen to them,” Ms. Meines said. “But I love sending them.”

There was a certain intimacy to the crowds outside the shows at London Fashion Week, which turned 40 this month. Aside from conjuring feelings of togetherness and pride, that milestone underscored how the approach to style in London — off and on runways — is different than in New York, Paris or Milan.

That approach can sometimes be written off as too funky or too laissez-faire, resulting in a perception that London Fashion Week attracts “not serious people” (to quote Logan Roy from “Succession”). But the event’s loudest critics seem to be those who complain about how, in other fashion capitals, they just see versions of the same thing.

It is true that London’s fashion scene is smaller, quieter and weirder than others. That hasn’t stopped the city from becoming an incubator of nascent fads — or from becoming a place where disparate trends are amalgamated in ways that create entirely new dress codes.

Autocracy may be much in the news, and increasingly in vogue depending on the electorate, but as Milan Fashion Week began, democracy was in the air. At least so it was at Diesel where, in a preview, the designer Glenn Martens was touting “transparency without censorship.”

Sounds pointed, but what he meant was tearing down the fourth wall, allowing anyone to access a live feed starting 72 hours before his show to watch the process of creation via cameras trained round-the-clock on the atelier, the casting area, hair and makeup, and so on. Then 1,000 viewers signed up to sit “front row” from home, their faces live-streamed on screens all around the show venue, so as they were watching the audience and the models on the catwalk, the audience and the models were watching back.

So the crowd at the show could see, for example, the viewer who decided to disguise themselves using an alien filter, resembling a creature from “War of the Worlds,” or the viewer who situated her generous cleavage right in the middle of the screen, or the ones who watched with family members, or their dogs. So the show crowd would be reminded, in other words, of the people it was really all about.

Fashion, in essence the most dictatorial of disciplines, where designers traditionally handed down styles like edicts from on high, has been theoretically democratizing for awhile now — ever since it jumped from the salon to the store via ready-to-wear, which changed the barriers to entry from class and caste to pocketbook.

Then came fast fashion, lowering that wall, and then social media opened the door even further, allowing everyone to see a show and pass judgment on it without being dependent on the industry’s power brokers to decide what they knew and when they knew it.

But while designers have thrown their shows open to the public before (Diesel did it last season, when Mr. Martens held a giant rave-as-a-show), and made their audience a part of the experience (see Balenciaga’s red carpet collection), thus far no designer had offered unfettered behind-the-scenes access. There was always a sense that some sort of mystery had to be preserved, some relic of the us-and-them relationship. Not any more.

“For me it’s quite important that we always remember that actually 95 percent of our customers are people who are not the happy few editors, buyers, influencers and celebrities,” Mr. Martens said in the preview.

It’s a fair point, but what made his show special wasn’t really the fact it was subverting the elitism of the event itself.

It was the fact Mr. Martens was also using materials to subvert the basic meaning of beauty and luxury; taking “transparency” from accessibility to design experiment. (In this, he is like Balenciaga’s Demna, who is also interested in upending hierarchies of taste). Diesel may be a denim brand, but Mr. Martens has transformed it into a high-concept laboratory — the sort of curtain-raising show that is a magnet for fashion purists who vote for pushing the edge of what can be done with clothes.

He has essentially taken the idea of devoré — the process in which chemicals are used to dissolve cellulose material, so fabrics look eaten away or corroded, and which is traditionally used on velvet — and figured out a way to apply it to a variety of textiles. So dresses and shirts in jersey made to look like denim or cotton or plaid seemed as if patches of the fabric itself had been sweated away to reveal the skin beneath. And florals, tulle and leopard print were desiccated to resemble either lace or scrap, depending on the angle, depending on how you saw them.

Mr. Martens isn’t interested in preserving the iconography of empire. Leave that to Fendi, where the designer Kim Jones reproduced historic Roman statues onto knits and sheer organza, sculptures on cloth that led him to make sculptures in cloth, rounding shoulders and curves, carving cable knits. Or to Roberto Cavalli, where Fausto Puglisi offered up 54 variations on Carrara marble.

Rather, Mr. Martens is interested in exploding the clichés of the bourgeoisie (and people’s expectations of Diesel).

Everything you thought you recognized turned out to be something else. Faux fur trapped under mesh to look like feathers; knitwear boiled and matted so it looked more like yak fur than mohair; and denim treated to look like leather. Puffer jackets were quilted in argyle patterns that were then splashed with paint to frame a peekaboo covering so the stuffing inside, which looked sort of like an orange cauliflower, became the star.

That made for complicated, challenging fashion. Mr. Martens’ genius was in packaging it as a bit of current affairs rebellion, the better to lure everyone in. Either way, it was a reminder that the real mystery isn’t how you make a show. The mystery is how you make the clothes. And that, magically, remains.

Just before midnight on Saturday, hard techno began pulsating from the Market Hotel, a D.I.Y. music venue located beside the elevated tracks of a Myrtle Avenue subway station in Bushwick, Brooklyn. A crowd of 20-somethings, many of them wearing sunglasses, ripped jeans and fanny packs, lined up in the cold before they threw themselves onto the dance floor.

The party, “Market Hotel Sweet Sixteen,” was meant to commemorate the venue’s legacy as a D.I.Y. rock club. But as the beats continued toward dawn, the celebration was more about the current moment in a vastly changed underground scene.

Over a decade ago, the Market Hotel nurtured a middle-class bohemia, providing a stage to punk and indie bands like Real Estate, Vivian Girls, Titus Andronicus and the So So Glos. Defiantly underground in its early years, it operated without a liquor license and offered housing to musicians who slept in its cubbies. Its address was passed along by word of mouth. If you knew, you knew.

Founded by the So So Glos and Todd Patrick, the music promoter known as Todd P, the Market Hotel became a hotbed of millennial Brooklyn nightlife back when a Pitchfork writer could lift a noise rock band from obscurity with a favorable review. At the recent Sweet Sixteen party, it was clear that the place had moved beyond the moment when flannel shirts were in vogue and craft beers were sipped from Mason jars.

“I don’t really know much about the indie rock scene that used to be here but I’m grateful for this space as it is now,” said Ashley Van Eyk, 26. “It’s become a liberating queer space I feel I can express myself in.”

Connor Samuelson, 30, was old enough to remember Pabst Blue Ribbon splashing onto the floorboards: “It’s still crusty, but it was crustier back when I was seeing punk and noise shows here. But I think the Market Hotel has changed as Bushwick has changed. It’s evolved since it was dudes in leather jackets spilling beer everywhere.”

As Brooklyn’s early aughts gentrification has come under critical review, and other D.I.Y. venues like Shea Stadium and Mr. Patrick’s 285 Kent and Silent Barn perished, the Market Hotel reinvented itself as a new kind of haven.

While punk and rock are still in the mix, the venue now hosts all-ages hip-hop shows for artists like Cash Cobain, BabyTron and Destroy Lonely, and its electronic music programming showcases subgenres like hyperpop and ghettotech. It has also become a vital nightlife space in Bushwick’s queer and trans community, hosting recurring parties like Intima, Dick Appointment and La Gota Fria.

“I think any creative scene, whether it’s the Market Hotel or the Lower East Side in the 1970s, is meant to adapt,” said Maleek Brown, the venue’s 24-year-old general manager. “Those were the people who came before us here, and none of what’s happening now would be possible without them. But we’re trying to reflect the underground scene now.”

Joni Glam, the Market Hotel’s nightlife curator, noted the change. “Scenes in New York repeat themselves with different names and styles, but what changes is who is able to participate in them,” she said. “It sounded like it was once a lovely time to be an artist at the Market Hotel. But as time progresses, there’s always room to do better and be better.”

As J trains rattled past the windows, and fog from a smoke machine filled the dance floor, people raved to sets by DJ Chaotic Ugly and AceMo. After a sweaty set by umru, a producer who has worked with Charli XCX, Ms. Glam, 25, took the stage holding a birthday cake topped with lit candles.

“We’re here to celebrate the Market Hotel’s birthday,” she said. “We love you. You’re beautiful. You’re growing. And we know you’re going through puberty right now, but you’re going to get through it — it’s OK.”

Todd P, who had put his two children to bed before arriving at the party, stood beside the stage as hard techno blasted into his face. Silver-bearded at 48, and wearing Vans and a black beanie, he was sipping kava tea from a deli cup. He still oversees the Market Hotel, along with the avant-garde music venue Trans-Pecos, but he has delegated most of its operations to his young staff.

He stepped out of the club to take a breather to refill his tea at the Korean grocery downstairs, Mr. Kiwi, where he reflected on the scene that he helped create as the ceiling shook above him.

“I’ve had lots of time to step back and look at that late 2000s Brooklyn moment, the so-called heyday of the Market Hotel, and I decided I didn’t want us to be tied to what we were,” he said. “I’ve thought about the implications spaces like this had on neighborhoods, and how the drawback of secrecy is these spaces end up belonging to people who are in the know, which is usually people who all look like each other. I’m proud that’s no longer a problem at the Market Hotel. These spaces shouldn’t just be for groups of privileged college kids.”

“We don’t want to be a nostalgia act,” he added. “Back when bands like Wavves or Girls played here, performing to a room full of Pitchfork writers as people hung off the rafters — that continuum is now dead, and we’re not trying to bring back the past.”

Joy Lorton, 80, has been married and divorced four times.

“I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, when everybody was supposed to get married and have kids, so I did that,” said Ms. Lorton, who lives in Olympia, Wash., and has three daughters, seven grandchildren and a gaggle of great-grandchildren.

But each of her marriages was marred by a different flavor of dysfunction, and since her last divorce in 2001, she has been devoutly and joyfully single. “It all goes back to the same word: freedom,” Ms. Lorton said.

Now, she chooses whom she wants to spend time with. And that could mean no one at all: “I really like my own company,” Ms. Lorton said.

Around 30 percent of adults in the United States over the age of 50 are single, according to a 2022 Pew survey, and despite the stigma that tends to surround both singleness and advanced age, many relish being on their own. Older singles were less likely than their younger counterparts to say they wanted to date or find a romantic relationship, and research suggests people’s satisfaction with being single tends to jump in middle age.

“People in their 60s and beyond who are single and flourishing is an untold story,” said Bella DePaulo, a social scientist who studies single life (and is a single 70-year-old herself). “And it’s a feel good story that shatters all of our stereotypes.”

Getting to know you.

Dr. DePaulo said that one major difference between being single in one’s 60s or beyond and being single when younger is the self-awareness and self-assurance that come with age. There is research to suggest that self-confidence peaks between the ages of 60 and 70.

“When you’re older, there’s a real sense of: I need to live my best life now,” said Jenny Taitz, a clinical psychologist and the author of “How to be Single and Happy.” People who have been single for any length of time have the benefit of experience and hindsight to show them that it is just as possible to experience joy and peace even without a partner, she added.

Experience has certainly been a teacher for Kamran Afary, 66, who grew up in Iran and moved to the United States when he was 16. He spent much of his early life pushing back against what he saw as rigidity all around him — first, the patriarchal society he was raised in, and then “oppressive” relationship expectations. He bristled at the idea that if you and your partner couldn’t meet 100 percent of each other’s needs, “you were a failure.”

Still, Mr. Afary dabbled in monogamous relationships for years. But as he got to know himself better, his sense of what he wanted shifted. In his late 50s, he came out as queer. Mr. Afary, who is a professor of communications studies and lives in Los Angeles, also began to read more cultural criticism and research about singleness, such as Dr. DePaulo’s.

“I think identifying as queer kind of opened up the door for me to be more open, to explore more,” Mr. Afary said. In hindsight, he believes he has been drawn to the single life “for many decades, but I just didn’t have the language, and I was still pressured by all of these social expectations that maybe I should be open to coupledom. But I don’t feel that way anymore.”

Dr. DePaulo said that this is a theme that comes up often in her work: People feel much freer to embrace single life when there is less outside pressure to settle down — particularly once parenthood is off the table.

“All those people who may have hassled you about not being married or who act like there is something wrong with you for being single have mostly zipped it by the time you get to your later years,” she said.

Finding other forms of connection.

Though he has embraced his singleness wholeheartedly, Mr. Afary is not naïve about the practical challenges he might face down the road without a partner. He is a primary caregiver to his mother, who is in her 90s, and he knows there might not be anyone to look out for him as he ages. (He noted how fortunate he feels to have a pension that makes a senior care facility financially feasible.)

But he does not fear the loneliness or isolation that affects so many older Americans, as he has learned to develop “very loving, intimate” platonic relationships with several friends and colleagues.

These relationships, Dr. DePaulo believes, are another untold story of singleness later in life: “They put more into their friendships, and they get more out of their friendships,” she said. Though singleness in general tends to be understudied, there is some research to support the idea. A small 2021 study that focused on university students found that those who were single tended to invest more in their friendships.

Jettie McCollough, 68, was married for 28 years but now lives “an incredibly joyful single life.” She has dabbled in online dating, but she recently deleted her accounts with eHarmony and Green Singles after asking herself, “Why am I on this stupid dating site?” (Her experience is not unique. Women over 50 are the demographic most likely to describe their online dating experiences as somewhat or very negative, a Pew survey found.)

Rather than feeling lonely, she has realized that “there is so much connection available in the greater world,” said Ms. McCollough, who lives in Ludlow, Mass. When winter storms hit, her neighbors text to see if she needs anything. She volunteers at a local school. She is in a running club and has a YouTube channel of herself jumping rope to Taylor Swift songs.

But she also relishes the quiet moments when they arise. And after decades of being married and raising four sons, “I love my alone time,” she said. “I cherish it.”

So does Ms. Lorton, who enrolled in college and earned her bachelor’s degree at 51. She retired in 2010 after three decades working as a legal assistant, and now spends much of her time driving grandchildren to and from school and various extracurricular activities.

Occasionally, she feels a pang of loneliness, coming home to her silent house after a family get-together. But Ms. Lorton has “absolutely, positively no interest” in looking for love again.

“Not only does being single allow me the freedom to make my own life choices,” she said, “it also gives me the peace I believe that I’ve always craved.”

Monica Hickey, who for decades swathed celebrities and socialites for their lavish nuptials in the haute bridal salons at the New York department stores Henri Bendel, Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue, died on Jan. 26 in Valle de Elqui, Chile. She was 100.

She died at the home of her daughter, Caitlin Margaret May, who announced the death.

Ms. Hickey ran the bridal boutique at Bendel’s under the company’s president, Geraldine Stutz, a celebrated figure in fashion retailing, from 1960 until she was hired away by Bergdorf’s in 1967 to run a department under her own name, the Bridal World of Monica Hickey.

In 1978 she returned to Bendel’s, where for more than a decade she directed the venerable Shop for Brides at the company’s flagship on West 57th Street in Manhattan, which had opened in 1908 and was considered an institution. In 1987, Bendel’s announced the closing of the shop. The closing followed a takeover by The Limited two years earlier, which also led to a move to Fifth Avenue.

“Through the years, the Bendel’s bride has been steadfast in one concept,” Ms. Hickey said in an interview with The New York Times after the announcement. “Her dress had to be romantic, delicate, in perfect taste, streamlined, never frantic.”

Among the prominent brides Ms. Hickey served there were the television host Jane Pauley and three daughters of the auto magnate William Clay Ford.

Over the years, she helped dress a number of other notable brides, including Amanda M. Burden, a daughter of the magazine editor and socialite Babe Paley, who would go on to serve as the New York City planning commission under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; and Margaret Lindsay, a daughter of another New York mayor, John V. Lindsay; Phyllis George, the former Miss America and CBS football host, who married John Y. Brown Jr., the Kentucky Fried Chicken mogul who was elected governor of Kentucky in 1979.

She also helped outfit Vera Wang, who became a celebrated bridal designer herself, but who was then the design director for Ralph Lauren women’s accessories and at-home wear, for her 1989 wedding to the stockbroker Arthur Becker.

After Ms. Wang opened her own bridal boutique on Madison Avenue in 1990, she asked Ms. Hickey to run it. Ms. Hickey ultimately declined the offer, although they remained friends.

“She sent a contract for three years,” Ms. Hickey recalled on the podcast “Meet the Masters” in 2007. She considered it a “wonderful opportunity,” she said, but when she told her husband, Peter Glushanok, a filmmaker and composer, his response was, “Do you want to be a bird in a gilded cage?”

Ms. Hickey was born on Nov. 17, 1923, in Glasgow, the youngest of three children of Irish parents, Margaret (Ryan) Hickey, a seamstress, and Patrick Hickey, a typesetter.

Her family frequently moved between cities in Scotland, Northern England and Ireland during her childhood. When she was 14, they settled in London, where she left school to help her mother with her home-based dressmaking business.

Monica first grew enraptured with the world of luxury, her daughter said, during World War II when she was evacuated from London during the Blitz to the safety of an aristocratic hunting lodge in the countryside.

In 1953, she and her sister, Kathleen, moved to New York to escape the deprivations of war-ravaged England. She eventually found a job as an assistant buyer in the evening dress department at Bendel’s. At one point, Ms. Stutz asked her to serve as a temporary fill-in in the bridal department, telling her that “our buyer, that we brought in from Philadelphia, I’m afraid she drinks before she gets here,” Ms. Hickey said on the podcast.

After a few months, Ms. Stutz approached her again, apologizing that she had yet to find a replacement. “And I said, ‘But you did,’” Ms. Hickey recalled.

While running her boutiques, Ms. Hickey regularly traveled to Europe as a buyer — and, effectively, as a tastemaker — scouting for dresses by designers like Karl Lagerfeld, Ursula of Switzerland and the noted British designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel, who in 1981 invited Ms. Hickey to the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer to get an up-close look at the explosion of ivory silk taffeta they had fashioned for the new princess.

At 4-foot-8, Ms. Hickey rarely bothered toting boxes or hoisting elaborate gowns, her daughter said; instead, she relied on her keen eye, honed at the hand of her dressmaker mother, to advise brides on the perfect fit and draping.

She also served as a de facto diplomat, managing the egos of many of her society clients and their mothers. After her final run at Bendel’s, she spent more than a decade running the bridal salon at Saks and briefly consulted for Vera Wang and Kleinfeld Bridal. She retired in 2003.

In addition to her daughter, Ms. Hickey is survived by four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Her husband, Mr. Glushanok, died in 1996.

Despite her success, Ms. Hickey faced her share of challenges — most notably in the late 1960s and early ’70s, when couples following a flower-child impulse ditched grand weddings to get hitched on sun-dappled beaches or in bucolic country meadows.

“The girls really didn’t want wedding dresses at all,” she recalled in a 1997 interview with The Tampa Bay Times. “But most of them succumbed because Grandmother would cut them out of the will if they didn’t.”

Danielle Goldberg was sitting at a table with her eyes glued to a laptop screen. On it was the actress Greta Lee, who was trying on a satin gown the same color as the flesh of a banana.

“This dress cannot puddle,” Mrs. Goldberg, 40, said, squinting her eyes as she focused on a slight break at the bottom of the custom Loewe piece. (Ms. Lee is an ambassador for the brand.) It was just past 9 on a Saturday evening in January, the night before the Golden Globe Awards, and Mrs. Goldberg, a stylist, was conducting a video fitting from her studio in New York with Ms. Lee, who was beaming in from her home in Los Angeles.

“What it’s doing right now,” Mrs. Goldberg said of the dress onscreen, “it can’t do that. It has to be perfect.” Nanaz Hatami, a tailor Mrs. Goldberg has worked with for five years, who was with Ms. Lee, sprang into action.

Video fittings have been a solution for the stylist as she has juggled the demands of her job, which lately has included dressing Ms. Lee along with the actress Ayo Edebiri and the singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo for awards season appearances.

Mrs. Goldberg, who lives in downtown Manhattan with her husband, Michael Goldberg, a creative director, and their young son, doesn’t like to spend too much time away from home if she can help it. Especially now that she is pregnant with her second child.

Halfway through the fitting with Ms. Lee, flashes of red began appearing at the bottom corner of Mrs. Goldberg’s laptop. They were photos from the stylist’s assistant in Los Angeles showing Ms. Edebiri in her own custom dress, made of scarlet satin by Prada. The following night, millions of viewers watched as Ms. Edebiri clutched the gown’s train while accepting the Golden Globe for best actress in a TV musical or comedy.

The next Sunday, Mrs. Goldberg was contemplating another outfit with Ms. Edebiri, this time in person at a Los Angeles hotel where the two were meeting ahead of the Critics Choice Awards. In a video call from the hotel room, Mrs. Goldberg explained that the actress’s look — a roomy white suit by the Row and wire-rimmed Oliver Peoples sunglasses — was inspired by outfits worn by Whoopi Goldberg in the ’90s.

Mrs. Goldberg has been working with Ms. Edebiri for just a few months: The actress’s team approached the stylist after noticing her work with Ms. Lee and Kaia Gerber, a model and an actress. (Mrs. Goldberg’s celebrity styling fees are typically paid by studios and brands working with her clients.) Ms. Edebiri, 28, said Mrs. Goldberg had played a crucial role as her profile rose after she received a spate of accolades for her work in “The Bear.”

She choked back tears as she described how Mrs. Goldberg’s approach to styling had made her feel comfortable and, in turn, confident. “We have these conversations,” Ms. Edebiri said. “Sometimes it will be, like, an ode to Whoopi. Then I can have that in my mind when I’m out there taking pictures, which is fun. It’s like an actor telling a story.”

“I get to be myself,” she said, “but also have this armor of the clothes.”

Chioma Nnadi, the head of editorial content at British Vogue, said Ms. Edebiri had made “strong fashion choices” that still reflected her “sense of humor and youthful energy” — a balance, Ms. Nnadi added, that can be hard to strike. Mrs. Goldberg’s ability to shape a rising star’s look, she said, “is so powerful.”

Recent looks Mrs. Goldberg has styled — including a feathered-and-opera-gloved ensemble by Bottega Veneta that Ms. Edebiri wore to the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, and Ms. Rodrigo’s vintage white Versace gown at the Grammys — reflect her aim to have “this moment that feels like a quiet statement,” as she put it.

Zanna Roberts Rassi, a fashion correspondent for “E! Live from the Red Carpet,” described Mrs. Goldberg’s aesthetic as an antidote to the flamboyant attire that has lately been embraced as formal wear. “You know when you are in a meeting and there is a person who speaks quietly and you really listen to them?” Ms. Rassi said. “She is the equivalent of that.”

Ms. Lee, 40, compared her relationship with Mrs. Goldberg to “the dreamiest collaboration” between an actor and a director. The “Past Lives” actress said the outfits they have chosen — like a meme-inspiring, blood-orange Bottega Veneta dress she wore to the Governors Awards last month in Los Angeles — are not for attention, but “for no one other than us.”

They met in 2013 when Mrs. Goldberg had a gig in the wardrobe department of a TV show on which Ms. Lee was a guest star. Later that decade, Ms. Lee approached Mrs. Goldberg about dressing her while preparing to promote another show.

The stylist put the actress, who was pregnant at the time, in an archival floral-print dress from a Balenciaga collection by Nicolas Ghesquière. “I knew that I wanted to do something mini, even though she was pregnant,” Mrs. Goldberg said. “Greta can carry fashion that isn’t easy and make it look effortless.”

Ms. Lee said their red-carpet moments could not have been achieved without the stylist’s exhaustive researching of references and encyclopedic memory of runway shows. Mrs. Goldberg started learning about the industry sooner than others: Her father, Oded Nachmani, founded a contemporary sportswear line called Coolwear not long after she was born. (Her mother, Carrie Nachmani, came up with the name for the brand, now defunct.)

She was raised in Old Westbury, N.Y., and has two younger sisters, Michaela Podolsky and Arielle Charnas, both of whom are influencers. Ms. Charnas may be better known to some as Something Navy, the name she used to develop an audience online and then later to start a clothing brand of her own, which has drawn criticism for the quality of its products and has reportedly accrued millions in debt.

“To see her build her own business and see it fail publicly,” Mrs. Goldberg said, before collecting herself. “My sister has incredibly thick skin,” she said of Ms. Charnas. “She needs to figure out what her next step is, and she is. The noise doesn’t help.”

Mrs. Goldberg said she is far less comfortable with sharing her personal life on social media than her sisters are. Ms. Lee said: “In her dreams she would be invisible.”

While studying at Syracuse University, Mrs. Goldberg had internships at Vogue and with the stylist Andrea Lieberman. Her first job out of college was a front-desk position at Pier 59 Studios in Manhattan. It afforded her face time with editors and stylists she aspired to work with. “That was my savviest moment to date,” she said.

She was later hired as a fashion assistant at T: The New York Times Style Magazine but was fired after six months because jewelry was misplaced. “It was a crucial lesson,” she said.

Two other magazine jobs followed before Mrs. Goldberg started working as an assistant to Annabel Tollman, a celebrity and editorial stylist. While she was working for Ms. Tollman, who died in 2013, her boss started styling Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen for a tour promoting their 2008 book, “Influence.” Mrs. Goldberg got to know the sisters and, in 2009, she was approached about dressing them for the Met Gala.

“I was in a Patagonia store when I got the call,” she said. “My head nearly exploded.” She dressed Mary-Kate in vintage Christian Lacroix. Ashley wore a white gown by the Row.

She continued to dress the Olsens for events and appearances in the months that followed before moving on to jobs styling runway shows for New York designers like Timo Weiland and Tanya Taylor. She styled Ethan Hawke for a period after meeting the actor at a photo shoot.

In 2017, she dressed Kendall Jenner for a Pepsi commercial that the brand quickly pulled after criticism that it trivialized Black Lives Matter protests. “It was insane to me how it all turned out,” Mrs. Goldberg said, adding that she had no knowledge of what the final ad would be.

That same year Laura Harrier hired Mrs. Goldberg while that actress was promoting the film “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” “Laura hiring me changed everything,” Mrs. Goldberg said, because she was hungry for clients who “really loved fashion.”

On a Wednesday in late January, Mrs. Goldberg was at her studio organizing both Ms. Rodrigo’s wardrobe for the Grammys and Ms. Edebiri’s for a “Saturday Night Live” hosting gig (a Thom Browne corset and pants). “If I wasn’t this pregnant, I would be getting on the first flight to L.A. after ‘S.N.L.’ for the Grammys,” she said.

Her second child, a girl, is due in May — the same week as the Met Gala. Maternity leave doesn’t exist in her chosen profession, Mrs. Goldberg joked.

But time off, according to Ms. Lee, is not something the stylist often seeks out. “Danielle is so satiated by the work,” she said. “She is relentless.”

Of all the merch hawked by the former president and current presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and related entities over the past few months — the gold (chocolate) bars, the wines, the superhero NFTs — is any of it more Trumpian than the $399 Never Surrender sneakers unveiled over the weekend at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia? They are like a road map to Mr. Trump’s value system and electoral strategy in sartorial form.

Gilded hightops as shiny as the chandeliers at Mar-a-Lago, they have an American flag wrapping the ankle like the forest of flags that spring up behind Mr. Trump whenever he takes a stage. They have red soles made to match his trademark red ties (and the flag) and perhaps as a sly nod to Christian Louboutins and the semiology of luxury footwear. Also, there’s a large embossed “T” on the side and on the tongue.

While they are “bold, gold and tough, just like President Trump,” according to the Trump sneakers website, allowing potential owners to “be a part of history,” they boast zero technical performance attributes. While they have a shape similar to Nike Air Force 1s (get it? Air Force One!), they are unabashed imitations of the original.

It’s tempting to dismiss the offering as all flash and marketing with little substance. That’s what Michael Tyler, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, did, saying, “Donald Trump showing up to hawk bootleg Off-Whites is the closest he’ll get to any Air Force Ones ever again for the rest of his life.”

Or to think of them as Mr. Trump’s answer to the Biden campaign’s TikTok presence: an effort to associate himself with the cool embedded in the whole idea of sneaker culture, not to mention the energy and athleticism implied by the “Just Do It” model. Despite the fact that Mr. Trump himself is almost never seen wearing a sneaker, or doing much exercise.

Yet the merching of the moment is more dangerous than it may initially appear.

There has been a lot of eye-rolling since the sneakers’ debut, and jokes about the fact that, given the millions of dollars in penalties levied on Mr. Trump in his various civil cases, he has to make more money somewhere. And there was a lot of focus on the boos that met his appearance at Sneaker Con. (To be fair, the sneakerhead community is not the market for the kicks since there’s nothing original about them; it’s the MAGA market.)

It’s easy to get distracted by the sheer absurdity of it all — a former president, selling sneakers!

There are so many ways Mr. Trump has challenged the norms of the presidential system that such merch can seem the least of the matter. What is selling NFTs with pieces of a mug shot suit compared with the indictment that necessitated the mug shot? What is offering $99 Victory47 cologne in a gold bottle with a gold Trump head as a stopper (another product available on the sneaker website) compared with offering to throw NATO allies to Russia like little pieces of red meat? Besides, realistically, there’s no way the sneakers will provide much of a financial boost to Trump World.

The sneakers are being created by a company known as 45Footwear LLC and are not officially “designed, manufactured, distributed or sold by Donald J. Trump, the Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals,” according to a disclaimer on the sneaker website. That company licenses the Trump name and image from one called CIC Ventures LLC, which happens to have the same address as the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. The Trump sneaker website looks a lot like the Trump NFT website, and as with that arrangement, Mr. Trump most likely receives a licensing fee. He did present the sneakers at Sneaker Con himself.

Despite the fact that, as of Sunday, the website claimed that the 1,000 pairs of numbered Never Surrender sneakers had sold out, leaving the somewhat less exciting T-Red cherry knit sneaks and Potus 45 white knit sneaks available at $199 each, it’s hard to imagine a circumstance in which the shoes provide any meaningful source of income.

What they offer is something else.

Like Mr. Trump’s tendency to turn every courtroom appearance into a form of entertainment that can be used as a campaign op, his effort to commoditize his legal jeopardy is a long-term strategic play. In reducing his indictments to a slogan on a consumer good, he is reducing their gravity.

It’s a form of insidious trivialization, the sort of tactic that plays perfectly in the landscape of late-stage capitalism in which everything is a product for sale. Oh, those old federal charges? They’re not serious; they’re a style choice. He’s transforming indictments into accessories, a language everyone speaks. The more product he sells, the more he makes a mockery of his situation. That’s where the real profit lies.

Stars of the past year’s biggest movies descended on the Royal Festival Hall in London for the BAFTA Film Awards on Sunday. The ceremony, which was hosted this year by the actor David Tennant, honors achievement in British filmmaking, but American celebrities were well represented on the (actually) red carpet.

“Oppenheimer” was the night’s biggest winner, taking home seven awards including best film, the evening’s highest honor. And although Americans came out on top in three of the four acting categories — Emma Stone and Da’Vine Joy Randolph won for leading and supporting actress, and Robert Downey Jr. for supporting actor — big fashion swings were taken from either side of the Atlantic.

Before a single award was handed out, however, there were entrances to be made. Here’s what the stars wore to make their arrivals.

Louis Lucero II contributed reporting.

Is it possible that the next great American media mogul is a woman who would rather sit in bed watching hours of “Grey’s Anatomy” than sit courtside at a Los Angeles Lakers game?

Is it possible that she has made crowds of thousands of women scream over her sex tips?

Is it possible that, on her podcast, she has invited rappers to smoke weed and actors to share trauma, but dismissed overtures from the White House?

Alex Cooper is making an argument for all of it.

Ms. Cooper is best known as the host of “Call Her Daddy,” a podcast that took off in 2018 as the young woman’s answer to Howard Stern. The podcast encountered some well-documented turbulence when Ms. Cooper split with her co-host in 2020, only to land a $60 million three-year deal with Spotify in 2021. As the show aged, it became less bawdy and outrageous, more confessional and sincere.

What is less known is how, over the last year, Ms. Cooper has been building a media company with Matt Kaplan, a film producer and her fiancé.

The company they founded and funded, announced in June as a “Gen Z media venture,” is called Trending. It forms an umbrella over Mr. Kaplan’s Ace Entertainment — he produced the Netflix teen romance franchise “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” among others — and Ms. Cooper’s Unwell network, which currently oversees “Call Her Daddy” and two other podcasts.

Unwell’s strategy draws partly on personalities like MrBeast (a stunty YouTuber turned food entrepreneur) and partly from the old Hollywood studio system. Unwell cultivates stars, producing their projects — for now, video podcasts — and helps build brands around them. These brands beget merch and, eventually, consumer products.

The network made its first big move in August, when it announced the signing of the TikTok powerhouse Alix Earle, whose ability to spread trends and sell products has been called the “Alix Earle effect.” She has enthralled millions with videos of herself chatting while applying makeup; it isn’t difficult to imagine her someday selling makeup, too.

During an interview in early January at Ms. Cooper’s West Hollywood studio, where many other press interviews were framed on the walls, something curious was happening with her podcast’s rankings. On the Spotify charts, “Call Her Daddy,” once the second most popular podcast below “The Joe Rogan Experience,” was now at No. 23; “Hot Mess With Alix Earle” had risen to No. 7.

Sitting down with Ms. Cooper, in her plain sweater and jeans and Uggs, this seemed to be the obvious story: At 29, she was becoming the old guard, a wizened millennial usurping herself by elevating these younger stars. (Ms. Earle is 23.)

But this was not the real story. Charts fluctuate, Ms. Cooper explained. There were practical reasons for her lower ranking, including a two-week hiatus from posting new episodes. “Call Her Daddy” not only returned to the Top 10 on the Spotify podcast charts, but in early February, when Spotify relinquished exclusivity of the podcast, it debuted at No. 1 on Apple’s podcast charts. Above Mr. Rogan. Above the Kelce brothers. Above “The Daily” and “Dateline.”

“I look at Oprah as an example, of her lifting Dr. Phil and other people,” Mr. Kaplan, 39, said of Ms. Cooper’s relationship to the new shows.

There is some truth in the idea that Ms. Cooper occupies less of the spotlight now. “The goal as I get older is I don’t want to just be relying on ‘Alex Cooper’ and ‘Call Her Daddy,’” she said. “The point of starting this was also so that I have all these different ancillary businesses that can be running.”

But the bigger truth is this: She isn’t someone to underestimate.

“I also know when I need to turn things up,” she said.

‘An Authentic Relationship’

In November, Ms. Cooper went on tour, visiting six cities. These evenings were conceived as one-woman shows wrapped in a rowdy bachelorette party. It was Unwell’s first attempt at live-event production, and the first time “Father Cooper” met her rabid “Daddy Gang” en masse.

“There’s a call to action to have fun and party,” Mr. Kaplan said the morning before her performance at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. “No one wants to come to the ‘Call Her Daddy’ tour and just, like, listen.”

The show began with several hunky ushers revealing themselves to be exotic dancers. Ms. Cooper emerged in a sweatsuit — her signature look — and delivered a sweary monologue for about 40 minutes, gradually shedding her baggy clothes until she was down to a little black dress.

She told her origin story: An awkward, sex-starved teenager in Pennsylvania “glows up” into a sexually adventurous college soccer player in Boston, then into a baseball WAG in New York City. (She nicknamed her major-league boyfriend Slim Shady, but his name, as tabloids have long reported, was Noah Syndergaard, then of the New York Mets.) She didn’t need to tell the rest; “Call Her Daddy” began not long after her ex kicked her out of his apartment, she said onstage. The podcast was soon acquired by Barstool Sports.

Ms. Cooper held the audience rapt — an evangelist of feminine raunch. They screeched for her. The line for drinks was as long as the line for Unwell merch. “Let’s do shots,” a woman in the audience said. “I want to be escorted out of here.” There had been a vomiting incident at a previous performance in Boston, Mr. Kaplan said.

“I started to cry the first night, and so did she,” he said. “Alex has worked so hard to have an authentic relationship with these women.”

Their romance is inextricable from their jobs. They love to work and rarely stop. In her downtime, Ms. Cooper, who studied film and television at Boston University, will read through Mr. Kaplan’s scripts and give notes. He was recently in London filming a movie called “Jingle Bell Heist” and in Montenegro filming a thriller called “Family Secrets.” A time-travel slasher movie, “Time Cut,” is coming to Netflix.

They met on Zoom in 2020, while Ms. Cooper was taking meetings about turning “Call Her Daddy” into a television show. At the time, he advised her to stay focused on the podcast. (Now, they’re developing a documentary together.)

Listeners got to know Mr. Kaplan as “Mr. Sexy Zoom Man.” Reddit users turned identifying him into a sport until the couple got engaged last year and Ms. Cooper revealed his name. The entertainment media quickly dug up info on his interests (football, movies) and relationship history (previously married to an actress, dated an Olsen twin).

The couple’s Los Angeles estate, bought for $10.7 million, according to reports, has been photographed in all its soothing neutral spalike splendor by Architectural Digest. But Ms. Cooper asked that the location and date of their wedding not be shared, other than to say it will be a destination wedding in the spring.

When asked about money, however, Ms. Cooper was more candid. She grew up comfortably middle-class, although there were tight moments, like when the National Hockey League went on strike, she said. Her father was a sports television producer.

“I was constantly aware of money growing up,” she said. “I remember, of my friends around me, I was considered the poorest.” Unlike them, she was told she couldn’t buy a Juicy Couture tracksuit.

Suddenly having money as an adult — a lot of money — was a “really big mind [expletive],” she said. When she looked at her banking app after the first Spotify deposit hit, there were millions of dollars in her account.

“I just put my phone down and kept editing,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Ms. Cooper is not the type to buy “15 Chanel bags” or private flights, but will splurge on a pair of Fear of God luxury sweatpants (nearly $1,000, which she regrets) and fly first class (no regrets).

“I think it made me more insecure,” she said. “Like now I have to prove even more that I deserve this.”

‘That Ride-or-Die Audience’

In early February, Unwell announced its newest talent: Harry Jowsey, a 26-year-old reality show star and former bad boy (he used a more vulgar term) whose podcast will be called “Boyfriend Material.” He joins Ms. Earle’s “Hot Mess” and Madeline Argy’s “Pretty Lonesome” in working to build a fan base through personal, vulnerable, relationship-oriented content.

Mr. Jowsey said he hoped his podcast would be “the first step to get me comfortable in front of a camera.” His ambition is more television gigs, including hosting reality shows.

“I’m working right now on just growing my community, getting that ride-or-die audience,” said Ms. Earle, whose first merch drop recently sold out. (Merch alone is an eight-figure business for Unwell, according to Ms. Cooper.)

Ms. Cooper sees a clear path to helping her show hosts, and herself: “I want to produce live events that would make Gen Z want to get off their phones,” she said.

It would seem that some members of Gen Z want that, too. “I sometimes prefer being in front of a live audience rather than a camera,” Ms. Earle said. “If you’re podcasting and make a joke, there’s no one really there to laugh about it besides yourself.”

To introduce “Hot Mess” back in September, Ms. Cooper released an 80-minute reality show-style episode with Ms. Earle. They flew to Ms. Earle’s father’s home in New Jersey, where she spoke about her earliest memories of public scrutiny. In 2008, Ms. Earle’s father was exposed for having an affair with Ashley Dupré, the former escort involved with Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York, whose career ended with a prostitution scandal; Ms. Dupré is now her stepmother.

Then they flew to Ms. Earle’s apartment in Miami, where Ms. Cooper asked Ms. Earle questions about her sex life that cannot be published here.

This kind of whiplash — from childhood trauma to explicit oversharing — is a signature of Ms. Cooper’s interviews.

“She’s so good at extracting information,” said Mr. Jowsey, who has appeared on “Call Her Daddy.” “I remember sitting there, and I’m like, ‘Has she done training?’”

Ms. Cooper has been alternately praised for her probing (including by Jane Fonda) and criticized online for not probing enough. Given the tight control publicists exert over access to their famous clients, it is surprising to hear Ms. Cooper say she has never “ever” provided questions in advance to her guests — not to Gwyneth Paltrow or Miley Cyrus or Zayn Malik in his first interview in years.

She does not allow publicists to sit in on interviews, arranging for them to watch from another room. She also has a strong sense of who makes a good “Call Her Daddy” guest, and it is generally not politicians.

“Go on CNN, go on Fox,” she said about shutting down conversations with the White House. “You want to talk about your sex life, Joe?”

As a father of two, Gerard Gousman enjoyed his career as a tour manager, working for artists like DMX, Salt-N-Pepa and Cat Power.

But the job required him to travel about six months out of the year. So when his wife, Quaneisha Gousman, became pregnant in 2018, he crunched some numbers. Mr. Gousman, now 45, quit his job to stay home to care for the children while Dr. Gousman, who has a doctorate in industrial and systems engineering, continued working in user experience research in Seattle, where the family lives. Becoming a stay-at-home father, he said, “was an easy decision once we realized it was viable.”

Mr. Gousman, who has since joined the board of the National At-Home Dad Network, said the move has allowed him to take an active role in his children’s education and “build the community that I want for my family.”

The percentage of stay-at-home parents who are fathers has risen dramatically over the last three decades. Pew Research Center, using the Census Bureau’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement, published a report over the summer showing that almost 1 in 5 American parents who do not work for pay are fathers. From 1989 to 2021 (the latest Pew data), that represented a 63.6 percent increase — the result of both rapid growth in the share of fathers who do not work for pay and a slight decrease in the share of mothers who do not work for pay. (The share of women working is currently at an all-time high, driven by mothers of children under 5, who have generally been likeliest to stay home.)

The continued rise may be partly attributable to the pandemic and its associated recession, when some men lost their jobs and very much liked being at home; or to the recession of 2008; the high cost of child care; and higher rates of women working in jobs that require graduate degrees than men, creating more job stability for the former.

For many families, a stay-at-home parent is not an option — they need two incomes to make ends meet. Others decide it’s economically beneficial for one parent to stay home — employers pay disproportionately more to workers that can be on-call at work, meaning another parent has to be on-call at home, and child care can cost more than a parent’s take-home pay.

Stephanie Coontz, a historian and author of the forthcoming “For Better and Worse: The Problematic Past and Uncertain Future of Marriage,” said shared labor is not necessarily a new development. Before the 20th century, couples were partners in work like “setting up a farm or small business,” she said. In colonial households, women were often referred to as “deputy husbands,” she said, because if the husband had to leave (to fight, for instance), it was up to the wife to keep the business running.

But in the 20th century and early aughts, being a stay-at-home father came with stigma. In fact, the notion of a father as primary caretaker was considered so absurd that it produced comedies like “Mr. Mom” (1983), “Daddy Day Care” (2003) and “Cheaper By the Dozen” (2003), to name a few.

Today, the stigma is lessening for some — as one bellwether, dad humor is all over social media — as more men become stay-at-home dads by choice.

The pendulum has seemingly swung so much that there is now comedy about working mothers’ resentment. In her 2022 special “Don Wong,” the comedian and actress Ali Wong pokes fun at the people who asked whether her then-husband, Justin Hakuta, was uncomfortable with her raunchy jokes.

“My husband is at home. In the house that I bought. Telling time, on the Rolex I got him for Father’s Day,” she said, adding that he doesn’t care “what I say onstage, because he’s too busy living the life I wanted for myself.”

The couple split in 2022, but she thanked him in her acceptance speech at the 2024 Golden Globes: “It’s because of you that I’m able to be a working mother.”

‘I Felt Very Much Like a Misfit’

Hector Jaeger, who ran a small business and also worked in carpentry, became a full-time stay-at-home father in 1990, when his second of three daughters was born. Education factored into the decision: Mr. Jaeger has a high school diploma, while his wife, Nancy Jaeger, who runs a psychotherapy practice, has a master’s degree.

Mr. Jaeger, who lives in Bath, Me., said the stigma of being a stay-at-home father in the 1990s was isolating: When people asked him what he did for work, he said his answer was usually a conversation ender. “People didn’t know what to do with that.”

“I felt very much like a misfit,” he added.

“It was very lonely for him,” said his wife, Ms. Jaeger. “That would be a regret I had for him,” adding that still the roles made sense because her husband is “a natural nurturer.”

Some fathers were able to find community with other stay-at-home dads. Larry Lewis, who played professional baseball and worked for a metal-stamping company before becoming a stay-at-home father in 2003, would often take his daughter, Marianna, to meet up with a group of three other stay-at-home dads — whose wives worked at the same insurance company as his — and their children at a park near their home in East Dundee, Ill.

Nedra Glover Tawwab, a social worker and the author of “Set Boundaries, Find Peace,” said that at her practice in Charlotte, N.C., women with husbands who stay home often face stigma too. Referring to domestic work, she said that women often receive critiques along the lines of: “Even though you’re working, you should be doing all of these other things, because you’re a woman, you’re a mother.”

She said that her clients often find that talking about their arrangement with people outside the house “is not very safe” because so many people are “making judgments about your situation.”

Some stay-at-home parents have, of course, made a lucrative business of it. Bryan Lambillotte, 38, of San Diego, Calif., always wanted to be a stay-at-home father. In March 2022, he and his husband, Christopher, who is the chief operating officer and co-owner of a medical device company, welcomed twins — a son and a daughter.

In 2021, the couple decided that Mr. Lambillotte, who had lost his job as a sales manager at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego during the pandemic, would be the primary caregiver. That same year Mr. Lambillotte began chronicling the couple’s path to parenthood on Instagram. (The couple also has a TikTok account with over one million followers.)

The couple’s following grew, and Mr. Lambillotte turned it into an LLC and hired an agent and manager who help facilitate brand collaborations. The couple hired a nanny for three days a week, so Mr. Lambillotte could focus on his business part-time.

As a result, he has tweaked his title: “stay-at-home working dad.”

‘Just the Joy’

While Mr. Jaeger said he never regretted his decision to stay home with his daughters in the ’90s and ’00s, he sometimes worried he wasn’t enough for them. “I’d wonder, did they think I was not quite measuring up to these money and power type males?”

But Mr. Jaeger, who is now 73, said that his wife’s work set a positive example. “The fact that she was the primary breadwinner undoubtedly has had a huge impact on our children,” he said.

The couple’s youngest daughter, Anna Jaeger, 30, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, said, “I didn’t know any different and I didn’t wish anything was different.” She praised how involved he was at her school. “The playground is actually called Hectorville” because he built it.

Today Mr. Jaeger, who faced so much isolation 30 years ago, is feeling much more relaxed in his current role: stay-at-home grandfather. Three days a week, he takes care of his 2-year-old granddaughter, Pip — the child of his oldest daughter, Gretchen Jaeger, who lives near him in Maine and runs the small business Mr. Jaeger ran before becoming a father.

He acknowledged that being a male caretaker for a baby today might feel much easier: “I almost feel like I’m cheating, because it’s so, so much fun.” But, he acknowledged, “I do everything during the day. It’s just the joy,” he said, “without the work.”

There are a few essentials for any child’s birthday party: a theme, a cake, some balloons, a piñata created in the image of a convicted killer.

At least that was the checklist for Alana Elizondo of Eagle Pass, Texas, when her daughter Raelynn requested a Selena Quintanilla theme for her eighth-birthday party. Ms. Elizondo and Raelynn had bonded over their shared love of the singer, a Tejano music superstar who died at age 23 in 1995. Rather than whacking at a piñata in the likeness of their idol, Ms. Elizondo thought, why not take a swing at her killer, Yolanda Saldívar?

With the help of friend, she was able to find someone who made Yolanda piñatas just across the border, in the neighboring Mexican state of Coahuila. In a recent interview, Ms. Elizondo recalled the day they hung it up at family pizzeria, with many of the patrons yelling out, “Hit her!”

At one time, Ms. Saldívar, who was found guilty of first-degree murder after fatally shooting the singer in a Texas motel room, had a reasonable claim to the title of most despised woman on earth. The founder and former president of the Selena fan club, Ms. Saldívar was broadly reviled for cutting down the beloved singer in her prime. (Ms. Quintanilla had won her first Grammy Award, for best Mexican American album, just one year earlier.)

“In our Mexican culture, our community, we dislike Yolanda so much,” Ms. Elizondo, 35, said. “She took away someone that had huge dreams and goals for herself. She took away a beautiful life.”

Given that in the almost 30 years since Selena’s death, Ms. Saldívar has evolved into something akin to a folk villain in the eyes of many Latinos, it might not come as a surprise that there’s been a healthy market for piñatas made in her likeness for years.

But with Ms. Saldívar up for parole next year and “Selena and Yolanda: The Secrets Between Them,” a two-part Oxygen True Crime documentary series, set to debut on Saturday, orders for Yolanda piñatas might just start to come in at a brisker pace.

For her first celebrity-inspired piñatas, Cristal Zuniga, the owner of Wild Corazón Designs, an online boutique in Houston, found her muses in Bad Bunny, the “Tiger King” star Joe Exotic and Barbie. But after seeing videos on social media showing little girls batting at Yolanda Saldívar piñatas, she knew who her next “celebrity” would be.

“Nobody wants to hit a Selena piñata,” Ms. Zuniga said. “Everybody’s like, ‘No, I don’t want to do that, my daughter doesn’t want to do that.’ So that’s when they started switching it over to Yolanda.”

Ms. Zuniga was commissioned to make her first Yolanda piñata a few years ago, by a client who had scouted her online shop.

She opted to base her design on a photo of Ms. Saldívar taken during a 1995 court appearance. She started with a quick sketch before building the base of the piñata from recycled cardboard boxes. The entire process took about 12 hours, she said, with the tissue-paper hair taking about a third of that time.

Ms. Zuniga said that she had received orders for her handcrafted Yolanda piñatas, which she sells online for $75.99, from well beyond Texas, with some being shipped to Florida, North Carolina and Colorado. She said she anticipated that there would be even greater demand after this weekend.

“With the documentary that’s coming out,” Ms. Zuniga said, “she’s becoming very very popular.”

Georgina Rios of the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington has also been selling Yolanda piñatas on Instagram.

“I had been wanting to make a piñata of Yolanda for a while,” Ms. Rios, 38, said in Spanish, “and luckily a client had reached out to me to make one for their daughter’s 21st birthday. It was a Selena theme, and who better to break than Yolanda?”

It took Ms. Rios around four hours to make the piñata using cardboard, tissue paper and other materials bought from Mexico as well as Los Angeles’s piñata district. Ms. Rios is currently selling her Yolanda piñata for $55, but she said that her prices could vary, sometimes going as high as $150 depending on size and customizations.

Despite the durable interest in Yolanda piñatas and curiosity about the new Oxygen series, some Selena fans are apprehensive about possibly glorifying Ms. Saldívar and undermining Selena’s legacy.

When asked if she and her daughter planned to watch the new documentary series, Ms. Elizondo said she didn’t think so. She would much rather preserve Selena’s memory through her music.

“I think Selena’s still so big today because we continue her legacy and hear her music, and we introduce Selena to our children and the children of the future,” she said.

Still, there’s joy to be wrung — or perhaps beaten — out of Ms. Saldívar’s infamy. In a TikTok video Ms. Elizondo posted of Raelynn’s Selena-themed birthday party, the birthday girl appears to be having a ball taking repeated swings at her Yolanda piñata.

“It felt amazing, like I was getting revenge on her,” Raelynn, who is now 11 years old, said in a recent interview. “I love Selena and was having so much fun at the party that in the moment I was just going at her.”

Little by little over the last few years, “A Year on Earth With Mr. Hell,” a self-published, sex-heavy memoir by an unknown author, has become a word-of-mouth hit among artists and writers.

The novelist and screenwriter Nick Hornby called it “gripping.” The critic Greil Marcus described it as “the most graphically effective sex writing I’ve read in a long time.” Capitalizing on its cult success, the Standard, High Line, a hotel in New York that makes an appearance in its pages, has placed copies in some suites and is selling the book through its website.

The author is Young Kim, who was the romantic partner of the punk rock impresario and provocateur Malcolm McLaren in the last decade of his life. In “A Year on Earth With Mr. Hell,” Ms. Kim, 52, chronicles the first 10 months of her affair with another punk icon, Richard Hell, who recorded his 1977 anthem “Blank Generation” (as Richard Hell and the Voidoids) after putting in time as a member of the influential bands Television and the Heartbreakers.

Mr. Hell, 74, and Mr. McLaren, who died at 64 in 2010, have been inextricably linked in punk lore, and now they share the dedication page — “For Malcolm and Richard” — in Ms. Kim’s book.

“I do think I was a kind of muse to Malcolm,” she said in an interview at the Crosby Hotel in Lower Manhattan. “Richard is my muse.” Though he inspired Ms. Kim to write, Mr. Hell said he does not approve of her book, calling it “revenge porn.”

Ms. Kim met him in 2015, when he presented the Malcolm McLaren Award to the artist Edgar Arceneaux at the Performa biennial in New York. “He emitted a sexiness that literally knocked me off balance,” Ms. Kim writes of Mr. Hell in the book’s introduction, “in spite of the fact that his shirt was unbuttoned practically to his navel — something that normally repulses me. Somehow, he got away with it.”

They saw each other four times after that, rendezvousing at New York locations reflecting their own tastes. For him, the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill; for her, the Standard and Ludlow hotels.

Ms. Kim describes the affair in sentences that are at once clipped and conversational. Detailed descriptions of her outfits take up at least as much space as her accounts of what went on in the bedroom. “I decided I probably think about clothes the way Richard thinks about sex,” Ms. Kim writes.

Bret Easton Ellis, the author of “Less Than Zero” and “American Psycho,” interviewed her on his podcast and said he read the book in a single sitting. “She was really being honest about the sex scenes and what they meant to her,” he said. “There’s an innocence about them that also makes them slightly jolting.”

Ms. Kim, whose parents immigrated from Korea to the United States when she was a baby, grew up on Long Island. She went to Yale and spent a year in law school at New York University before deciding to focus on artistic pursuits.

While studying fashion in Paris in the late 1990s, she met Mr. McLaren at a party for his ex-girlfriend and former colleague in fashion, the designer Vivienne Westwood. Ms. Kim was 26; Mr. McLaren was 52.

“He was my first boyfriend,” she said, adding that their relationship was “romantic right away, and he’s the first man I slept with.”

After Mr. McLaren’s death, Ms. Kim became the executor of his estate.

“Young had been struggling with losing Malcolm and dealing with the estate,” said the creative director Serge Becker, a friend of the couple, who had met Mr. McLaren in the 1980s. “I felt the affair with Richard, however brief and intermittent, had given her a renewed energy.”

Mr. McLaren had a history with the book’s titular subject, having seen Mr. Hell perform (as part of the band Television) in New York in the mid-1970s. Mr. McLaren loved his look — torn T-shirts; safety pins; short, choppy hair — and borrowed it for the designs he created with Ms. Westwood and sold at their London boutique, Sex. That same look became central to the appearance of the band he managed, the Sex Pistols.

Mr. McLaren looms large in Ms. Kim’s book — so much so, that the title is almost misleading. Her narrative bounces between the similarities of Mr. Hell and Mr. McLaren (“He was such a giant child, like Malcolm”) and their differences (“he wasn’t a bon vivant as Malcolm had been”).

At one point, when Mr. Hell tries to pull away from her, she is reminded of the “horrible, sickening feeling” she experienced when Mr. McLaren did the same during their low points.

“A Year on Earth With Mr. Hell” got its start about six months after the beginning of Ms. Kim’s affair with Mr. Hell, when he asked her to “write a few lines about what we’d done together sexually.”

“I’d never written anything dirty in my life, but I was willing to try,” she writes in the introduction. “I sent it, and he loved it, just as I had loved writing it.”

The more she wrote about the affair and what she was going through, the more a book began to take shape. Because her meetings with Mr. Hell were few and far between, her diary entries and correspondence became a large part of the finished product. Though the affair came to an end, Ms. Kim’s portrayal of Mr. Hell is fond.

“Richard, I have to say, elevates sex to an artwork,” she said.

Since his punk rock days, Mr. Hell has focused on his writing, publishing an acclaimed memoir, two novels and collections of essays, criticism and poetry. In an email, he detailed his unfavorable view of Ms. Kim’s book: “How would you feel if you dated someone briefly, including having sex, and it turned out that they were writing about it behind your back and eventually published that misbegotten, uncomprehending — but full of false detail — account of the affair, with a focus on the sex, using your real name?”

Ms. Kim defended her work in an email: “In writing this book I have only done what men have done unapologetically (and I do not think they should apologize) since time immemorial: choose my work over my relationship.” She added that she has kept in mind something the artist Michael Heizer once told her: “Any work of art of any worth (not a Hallmark card) is going to upset someone.”

Mr. Ellis said he saw nothing untoward in Ms. Kim’s depiction of Mr. Hell. “The portrayal of him comes off as very sympathetic and very real,” he said. “There’s an obsessive quality in the way she describes him. He’s a sex god in this.”

Ms. Kim said that she might publish a sequel to “A Year on Earth With Mr. Hell,” as well as a book centered on Mr. McLaren. “They have each given me something really important in my life,” she said. “Malcolm taught me somehow to create, and then Richard gave me the push to do it.”

And how is her love life these days?

“People bring up NDAs,” she said. “It’s come up. At least as a joke.”

Yes, it’s yet another show of A.I.-generated art — but wait! The software known as AARON isn’t like other A.I.’s. Its developer, the British painter Harold Cohen — being an artist — understood that A.I. isn’t a shortcut to interesting art. It’s a tool, ultimately only as good as its user.

Selections from the paintings Cohen made with AARON, on view at the Whitney Museum, represent their man-machine team’s increasingly sophisticated style. The early pictures, from the 1970s, were limited to abstract, wavering linework and crosshatched blobs — the available computing power couldn’t manage much more — which AARON drew with a robotic plotter and pen. Cohen added patches of blushy, acid color by hand.

Gradually, painstakingly, Cohen deepened AARON’s range to include human figures, objects like tables and flowerpots, and profusions of leafy plants. The 1995 update of AARON could compose jaunty portraits in recognizable, furnished interiors, and color them, using a robot arm to switch between pots of dye. By the mid-2000s, cascades of jagged leaves filled the pictures — in a projection at the Whitney, a version of the software from 2007 builds crayon-hued jungles in real time.

The late-1980s might have been the sweet spot. On view are two examples from Cohen and AARON’s “Bathers Series,” loosely inspired by Paul Cézanne’s Impressionist tableaus on the theme. In “Coming to a Lighter Place,” from 1988, the round warbling lines that are AARON’s constant signature inscribe swooshing figures daubed in shades of mustard and powder blue, a spindly forest jolted with tangerine and fuchsia. The painting creaks with fecund joy, as if it wants to go on flourishing.

Before taking up programming, Cohen was an accomplished painter — his canvases, spread with noodly, tractlike shapes, appeared in major exhibitions including the Venice Biennale and Documenta. In 1968, a teaching job at the University of California, San Diego, took him into the fermenting midst of a nascent Silicon Valley and the mushrooming defense industry. The Apple II personal computer was still a decade away when Cohen began tinkering with robotic drawing. He exhibited early experiments in 1972; but AARON proper was born during a residency at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 1973—75. Cohen stayed in California and continued enhancing AARON until his death in 2016.

The current generation of A.I. image-generating software, from text-to-image programs like Dall-E to splashy animations by Refik Anadol, rely on huge data sets of millions of pictures (many of them copyrighted works by others), which they process and regurgitate. AARON proceeds like a painter: stroke by stroke, following rules for depth and perspective, balanced compositions and color theory, and pulling from a small vocabulary of forms.

AARON has never “seen” a plant, or a human. Instead of imitating a person’s appearance, for example, it constructs figures one line at a time. Its code contains detailed instructions for anatomy, like numbers of limbs, proportions of heads and hands, the locations of joints and plausible postures. At the Whitney, you can see the sketchbooks where Cohen developed this logic, translating movements, like standing up, into code. In one almost mystical schematic, Cohen crisscrossed a drawing of two arms with points and lines like an acupuncturist’s map.

Paintings made with A.I.-driven robots might sound like a gimmick, especially with the present buzz around chatbots and deepfakes — and the timing of the Whitney show is certainly no accident. But a visit to the galleries dispels that notion, not least because Cohen applied the color in all but one of the paintings; the results are textured and eerily inhuman yet organic — whereas much A.I.-generated art either lives on a screen or has been flatly printed out. Impressions by Dall-E of work by Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner appeared last fall at Susan Inglett printed on canvas and awkwardly wrapped around stretcher bars, and fooled no one.

“One of the bargains I made with myself from the very earliest days was that I would never accept the position of having to apologize because this was done by a computer,” Cohen said in a published 1995 conversation with his wife, Becky. “I have always insisted that the work the program did would have to stand on equal terms with art made by hand.”

Today, savvy artists like Seth Price and David Salle are exploring ways to incorporate A.I. into their practices — to use the software, rather than react to it.

Compared to the visual horrors emerging from the psychedelic meatgrinder of text-to-image A.I.’s like Dall-E, AARON’s docile pictures of people feel friendly and controlled. The Whitney show speaks to a hopeful period of tech development, when the internet’s pioneers envisioned an anarchic realm of the mind, not the boundless attention-gathering machine it became. Cohen developed AARON with intention. The machine and the painter grew together — inefficiently, by tech’s standards, but fruitfully, by art’s. Not to pine for saccharine expressionism or argue for an overly trusting approach to our corporate overlords. But AARON’s purpose-built style of freedom and curiosity seems worth salvaging.

Harold Cohen: AARON

Through May 19. Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street., Manhattan; 212-570-3633, whitney.org.

This article contains spoilers for Episode 4 of “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.”

As the latest episode of “Feud” begins, Babe Paley (Naomi Watts) is facing radiation treatment for cancer and the terrifying possibility of her death. But she does so in a full dress and heels. At the same time, Truman Capote (Tom Hollander), who is unraveling from heavy substance abuse, tours his friends around a rehab facility, with a long scarf over his shoulder and a newsboy cap.

Throughout the series, whether it is a pair of carefully applied eyelashes or strands of pearls, the outfits of the protagonists are a piece of a puzzle they can control in a world where, despite wealth, their actual power is limited.

In advance of the release of the fourth episode, members of the Styles desk discussed one of the enduring trends Paley started; the department store as a lost sanctuary; and how modern, unnaturally youthful faces can affect a period piece.

VANESSA FRIEDMAN There were a few key moments for me in this episode. First, when Babe ties her Hermès scarf around her bag, which set off a trend that is still going on today.

And then watching her put herself together so deliberately for her radiation treatment, only to arrive at the hospital and take everything off again. That to me was so poignant, and evocative of how these women used clothing as armor.

GUY TREBAY The hospital prep scene may be one of the best observed in the series.

It would be interesting to know why Paley indulged in that scarf gimmick, since otherwise what was notable about her style was her resistance to ostentation.

JESSICA TESTA Let’s talk about that. Why do you think that trend caught on? Personalization? Displaying wealth (scarf) on wealth (bag)?

FRIEDMAN The scarf question is a good question. There’s an insouciance to it that is attractive, like a pretend casualness: “Oh, this old, very expensive thing?” On the one hand, it is a very calculated display; on the other, it seems almost cavalier.

TREBAY In spirit, it’s the antithesis of all the costly bag “charms” so many labels would later cash in on.

FRIEDMAN It’s like ultrawealthy D.I.Y.

TESTA I’m thinking of all the “I Love NY” charms we saw at the Coach show this week (pretzels, Statues of Liberty, tourist mugs).

But actually, this episode felt particularly New York-y to me, what with the touching Bergdorf window scene at the end. (Also a clever promotional tie-in, considering the Bergdorf windows are currently promoting “Feud.”) Did it really happen?

FRIEDMAN I think that Bergdorf scene was poetic license. Which again reflects how big a role fashion plays in this story. The department store as relationship denouement; consumerism as code.

TREBAY Speaking of trends, a reader wrote about the show’s casting after the Black and White Ball conversation. His observation was that all the actors have “modern” faces — that is, in certain ways unnaturally youthful.

TESTA Do you think the “modern face” observation is something that hurts the show? Like the actresses are less believable because they don’t look convincingly of that era?

FRIEDMAN I think that between filters and fillers and surgeries and what have you, we’ve lost all sense of what age actually looks like.

TREBAY That is 100 percent true. In that period — and except among a small percentage of the exceptionally rich — a 60-year-old human could be expected to look his or her biological age. That is fact, not a moral judgment. Medical technology changed all that.

TESTA Yet the obsession with maintaining appearances hasn’t changed. Just look at Babe going for her scan, putting on those false eyelashes. Beauty was armor then, just as lip fillers might be now.

FRIEDMAN But as Babe says, “The show must go on: I do the makeup, the hair, the jewels.” Today, you would add: the airbrushing.

TREBAY And the shifts in body morphology.

FRIEDMAN The irony is, I bet, if the characters had actually looked their age, everyone wouldn’t believe they were real. As it is, we have to identify the era — ’50s, ’60s, ’70s — via the outfits.

TREBAY To return to the department store scene, it’s saddening that the “third place,” that secure environment distinct from your home or your job, has effectively disappeared from urban life.

I thought about this the other day walking past Bergdorf Goodman. It was evening and the window dressers were doing an installation. That element of urban theater is practically defunct.

Where would Holly Golightly go now to chase away the mean reds?

TESTA She would fall down a TikTok K-hole.

Vanessa Friedman, Guy Trebay, Jessica Testa and Katie Van Syckle contributed reporting.

In Oklahoma, a small country music station that initially refused a listener’s request to play a new song by Beyoncé was forced to change its tune after an uproar from fans who say that Black artists are too often excluded from the genre.

On Tuesday morning, Justin McGowan requested that the D.J.s at KYKC, a country music radio station in Ada, play “Texas Hold ’Em,” one of two new songs Beyoncé released as announced in a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday.

Beyoncé, who grew up in Houston, sings about hoedowns, and the twangy song also features a fellow Black Grammy winner, Rhiannon Giddens, on banjo and viola.

The station manager, Roger Harris, emailed Mr. McGowan back with a concise rejection: “We do not play Beyoncé at KYKC as we are a country music station.” In sending the email, Mr. Harris unwittingly ignited a new flame in a long-simmering debate over how Black artists fit into a genre that has Black music at its roots.

In the Super Bowl ad, Beyoncé joked that her new release would “break the internet.” She wasn’t kidding.

Mr. McGowan put a screenshot of the rejection on social media, tagging a Beyoncé fan group in a post that drew 3.4 million views on X and sparked conversations on Reddit and TikTok.

“This is absolutely ridiculous and racist,” Mr. McGowan wrote, urging people to email the station and request the song.

Fans bombarded KYKC with hundreds of emails and phone calls, criticizing the station for not playing the song, according to Mr. Harris, the station manager for 48 years.

“I’ve never experienced anything in my career like the amount of communications that we received in support of the song,” he said in an interview.

In between fielding calls and emails from angry Beyoncé fans, Mr. Harris said the station scrambled to procure a high-quality version of “Texas Hold ’Em,” which D.J.s played three times in Tuesday night’s rotation.

Beyoncé’s new songs appear on an upcoming album that she referred to as “Act II,” part of a three-volume project that music critics have said is about reclaiming Black roots in popular music.

Mr. Harris said that he was not aware of that project. He said the radio network, which is owned by the Chickasaw Nation, regularly plays Beyoncé on its Top 40 and adult hit stations.

“We haven’t played her on our country station because she’s not a country artist,” he said. “Well, now I guess she wants to be, and we’re all for it.”

Mr. Harris said that their rotation is guided by where a song appears on the charts, and by what bigger stations play.

This was not the first time Beyoncé’s country music credentials have been called into question by arbiters of the genre.

When the star submitted her 2016 song “Daddy Lessons” from the album “Lemonade” for a Grammy in the country category, the Recording Academy’s country music committee rejected it, The Associated Press reported at the time. (Beyoncé brought rodeo chic to the Renaissance World Tour and to this year’s Grammys, wearing a white cowgirl hat and a leather Louis Vuitton suit.) Some fans responded to her live performance of “Daddy Lessons” with the Chicks at the Country Music Awards with scorn, arguing that she did not belong at the ceremony.

The removal in 2019 by Billboard of the hip-hop artist Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” from the country chart generated a debate over what constitutes country music, and over how race affects the conversation.

The Black Opry — a social media hub for Black artists and Black fans of country, blues, folk and Americana — used the radio station controversy involving Beyoncé to direct her fans online to its playlists on Spotify featuring other Black artists in country music.

Charles Hughes, the director of the Lynne and Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes College, said that the Oklahoma radio station’s initial dismissal of Beyoncé symbolized how “country radio has systematically excluded artists of color,” particularly women.

But if anyone can break down the barriers in country, Dr. Hughes said, it’s Beyoncé and her fans, known as the BeyHive.

“Maybe that power will create an expanded space for all these great Black women making country music,” he said, “to make it more in line with the people who love country music and the country it’s supposed to represent.”

As an impending snowstorm loomed over New York City late Monday night, the bouncers at the Box filtered through a steady stream of musicians, models and internet personalities in fur coats (or no coat at all) for the designer LaQuan Smith’s after-party.

The blowout, known for shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, fabulous looks and spectacle at every turn, is a coveted invite. It followed Mr. Smith’s fall 2024 show at Cipriani earlier in the evening, which featured fur bags, flowing sheer and satin silhouettes. (To close out the presentation, the musician Babyface left his front-row seat and performed on a grand piano in the middle of the room.)

Hundreds of guests, like the rappers Busta Rhymes and Joey Badass and the actors Meagan Good and Serayah McNeill, arrived at the main entrance, hidden behind a door labeled with an active driveway sign.

Inside the venue, an acrobat, sandwiched between a chandelier and a disco ball, hovered over bartenders gracefully fulfilling a steady frenzy of drink requests. “Are you getting a sidecar because it’s a snow day tomorrow?” said one guest calling across the room to a friend.

The models Jasmine Sanders, Alton Mason and Yvesmark Chery made their way to the dance floor, along with the internet personalities Aliyah Bah and Isan Elba, whose father is the actor, Idris Elba.

People shouted the words to a lineup of Usher songs, the D.J. making a clear reference to the recent Super Bowl halftime show. One of the performers, Ann-Archy Artist, wore a vibrant Wild West look in honor of Beyoncé’s recent announcement of her upcoming country-themed album.

“My philosophy is sort of a nod to the rah-rah ’90s,” Mr. Smith said when explaining the concept behind his fashion week parties. Achieving this, he said, means having a “good, crazy door,” a “great” playlist and an endless flow of drinks. The evening’s guests were also given Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars — one of many sponsored freebies that were gone by the end of the night.

Although he’s lost count of how many fashion week parties he’s hosted, he said that nightlife, specifically the style of the women in SoHo and the downtown scene in general, was a point of inspiration for him as a designer.

“I would sneak into some of the clubs or the fashion week parties in the meatpacking district back in the day,” Mr. Smith said.

Those who stayed into the early morning hours remained energetic, dancing and joining singalongs as a light hail fell.

On Monday, Puppets and Puppets, the six-year-old New York fashion brand/art project, had its last show.

Its founder and designer, Carly Mark, had decided it was too hard and too expensive to keep making clothes and trying to build a business in this city, despite being known as “downtown N.Y. gold,” as Highsnobiety called her, and despite developing the sort of culty following that is supposed to be an indicator of success. She is pulling up stakes and moving to London, she told The New York Times last week. She will keep her more lucrative and successful handbag business going from there. But no more runway and no more clothes.

Does it matter?

Practically, probably not. Fashion history is littered with the corpses of once promising brands that never quite worked out (Miguel Adrover, anyone?), so it’s not as if this is a new story. And even though Ms. Mark was nominated for a CFDA award as emerging designer of the year, the clothes were never all that good.

They often fit weirdly or couldn’t really be called clothes, or didn’t seem entirely finished. (She has a fondness for Edie Sedgwick tights and not much else.) They seemed more like works in progress. The material could look sort of flimsy. Ms. Mark was trained as a fine artist, not a designer, and she was essentially learning in real time and in front of the world. But she was getting better.

This season her work actually looked more like real garments than it has in the past, though sometimes only portions of real garments. A big fake fur coat turned out to be a false front; a peplos dress was entirely open on one side, save for a tiny tie at the waist. The hems of some draped jersey skirts and lacy little tops looped back up on themselves to form a veil, creating a sort of portable backdrop. That had potential, as did the holey sweats belted over lace skirts, like a corroded cocktail frock.

But whether or not you could ever imagine wearing these clothes, or buying them (or even liking them), Puppets and Puppets represented a kind of mythic creative optimism — a belief in possibility — that is quintessentially New York.

Which is to say: the idea that you can come to this city and have a big idea and some self-belief and make some wackadoodle stuff and see where it takes you. That you can define your own path and find a community and recognition. No matter how messy.

It’s the Gatsby promise, the fashion version, and it’s particularly potent in this city, where newness as opposed to heritage has its own distinct currency. Especially now, as the big brands that once defined New York style are disappearing and there’s a palpable desire for something next to emerge. But what happens when the somethings next, like Puppets and Puppets, throw in the towel?

Sure, more are waiting in the wings. The promising new names to watch this season include Colleen Allen, a former men’s wear designer whose first woman’s collection was a study in unexpected juxtapositions. (See a tailored riding jacket straight out of “Bridgerton” down to the hook-and-eye closures but rendered in … fleece.) Also, Diotima by Rachel Scott, a young Jamaican designer who manages to make seeming oxymorons — chic crochets, elegant macramés — entirely convincing.

And sure, fashion is a business and you’ve got to make the numbers work. But the thing that powers it forward, that keeps everyone coming back, that is at the heart of its allure, is the sometimes irrational faith in reinvention: of style, identity, career. If we stop believing in that, everyone loses.

For even those who have only a passing interest in golf, one of the sport’s most memorable images is of Tiger Woods playing his way to another major tournament victory while wearing a red polo shirt with a white Nike swoosh.

That image is officially in the past, however. In January, Mr. Woods announced the end of his 27-year deal with Nike, which had made him hundreds of millions of dollars. The partnership was marked by memorable ads and, of course, the red Nike shirts that Mr. Woods wore during many final rounds on Sundays.

When Mr. Woods announced the ending of his partnership with Nike, he said there would “certainly be another chapter.” On Monday, he and his new brand sponsor, TaylorMade Golf, made clear that the next chapter would again include a red polo shirt. It will be stitched with a tiger in the center, the logo for his new brand under TaylorMade: Sun Day Red.

Sun Day Red is marketed as a “lifestyle brand” for both sports fans and non-athletes and will include apparel — even cashmere sweaters — and shoes, David Abeles, chief executive of TaylorMade, said in an interview. (Mr. Woods switched to FootJoy shoes from Nike after his car crash in 2021.)

How much of a role design will play in that apparel was not entirely clear, but Mr. Abeles said that “the design language of the products is completely different” from products Mr. Woods wore in his last sponsorship deal. Initial promotional images showed a new logo — a tiger with 15 stripes to mark the number of major championships Mr. Woods has won; a black, long-sleeve T-shirt with the brand’s name, Sun Day Red, on it; and its version of the red polo, which is on the bloodier end of the red spectrum and includes black buttons, suggesting attention to detail. (To be fair, there’s only so much anyone can do with a polo.)

Mr. Woods’s affinity for red stems from his mother, who is from Thailand, where the color has significance.

“We worked through what he believes is the red that’s most associated with his color palette,” Mr. Abeles said. “The red color he chose is the one that is most prominent and most consistent with what he believes is the red that has inspired him.”

As for the space between “Sun” and “Day,” Mr. Abeles said it was meant to underline the brand as more than a weekly fit.

“Sunday red is the color that Tiger has made, you know, very famous on Sundays,” he said. But Mr. Woods “plays golf more than just Sunday,” Mr. Abeles added.

In ambition, if not design, Sun Day Red reflects a growing trend, one in which athletes see long-term potential in the increasing convergence of fashion and sports into one category known as “lifestyle.”

To that end, many are interested less in being living advertisements for a sponsor than actual participants, demanding increased ownership and control over their own brand. In 2019, Roger Federer became both an investor in and a guest designer for On, the Swiss sneaker company, and in 2022 Tom Brady unveiled Brady, a men’s wear brand developed in conjunction with Jens Grede, the mastermind behind Kim Kardashian’s Skims. Serena Williams also has her own fashion line, S by Serena.

Mr. Abeles would not confirm whether Mr. Woods had equity in the brand.

Sun Day Red will exist as a stand-alone brand within TaylorMade, with its own headquarters and team of designers. The company has appointed Brad Blankinship, who was previously at Quiksilver, to oversee daily operations.

Sun Day Red will first make its products available for sale online on May 1, with aims to eventually expand internationally. Polos will cost $115 to $175, and cashmere sweaters will be $250 to $350.

Mr. Woods has had an equipment deal with TaylorMade since 2017, when Nike shuttered its equipment business. The company made its pitch to Mr. Woods about an expanded relationship over the past several months, Mr. Abeles said. It included a visit to Mr. Woods’s boardroom in Jupiter, Fla., where the TaylorMade team showed him a pitch video that “really connected with his legacy, his greatness, his values and his future.”

Mr. Woods is now entering, in many ways, a new era in his professional life, nearly five years after his last major championship. Last year, he joined the powerful board of the PGA Tour and has been a key player in deliberations as it negotiates its future.

Mr. Woods announced the TaylorMade deal on Monday in Southern California, where he is hosting the Genesis Invitational tournament.

“I have learned so much over the years and have a lifetime of experience adjusting my apparel and footwear to help me play better based on the way it was constructed,” Mr. Woods said in a statement. “There are things that I could tell you that no one knew I was doing over the years. I’m ready to share those secrets with the world.”

About half an hour after the Area show ended in New York on Super Bowl Sunday, Taylor Swift appeared in Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas wearing a pair of the brand’s “crystal slit jeans” — a high-waist denim style sliced diagonally at the center of each thigh, the patently faux “rip” framed by diamanté. It was like a runway-to-real-life feature happening in actual time — or Super time.

Area, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, is generally one of those fashion week brands that most nonfashion people see and say, “But who would wear that?” (Well, other than Simone Biles making a viral statement at the Met Gala.) Ms. Swift was the perfect answer. The designer Piotrek Panszczyk — and indeed all of fashion, which sometimes suffers from a clothes-concept perception gap — could not have planned it better had he tried.

Mr. Panszczyk sits firmly in the Moschino-Schiaparelli fashion tradition of wielding sartorial humor as a commentary on contemporary life, though he tends to sit on the punny performance art end of that spectrum. Last season he used “Flintstones” bones and “Dynasty” faux furs to symbolize the evolution of luxury and caste signaling, which came after a season built around the idea of fruit and mortality, mostly in the form of banana skirts. The looks attract the sort of person who does not mind going on a milk run in Bushwick draped in rhinestones and not much else.

Ms. Swift, however, is an endorsement of a different kind. It’s not the first time she has worn Area denim. Last April she wore the brand’s crystal butterfly jeans in New York, and in October she wore a pair of Area embellished jeans shorts to another Chiefs game. (She does like a bit of sparkle.) But this is the first time she wore its denim when more than 100 million people were watching. It’s a potent, and deserved, argument for the future of Area as a credible business, rather than merely a fashion week gimmick.

As was the latest collection, which chose as its hot topic the peculiarly modern state of endless watching — of looking, and being looked at in turn. One that seemed notably apropos given the attention being paid to Ms. Swift and everything she does. It’s a serious subject, but the clothes were awfully fun.

The starting point was 1920s cartoon googly eyes, the kind composed of two big white ovals with little pupil dots that are shorthand for “Wow! These are about to fall right out of my head!” In Mr. Panszczyk’s hands, they were abstracted into Op Art flowers, which morphed into polka dots, which became Dalmatian print denim, which in turn became giant round diamonds, ultimately framed by a metal circlet in a simple black sheath, as if to suggest a viewer had not put a ring on it, but in it.

It was ridiculous and smart and less self-indulgently jokey than Area’s outfit one-liners can sometimes be, even veering occasionally into the realm of chic. Especially so in a one-shouldered crochet sheath with a spill of leather blooms down one side, some palazzo versions of the Dalmatian denim and a little shift covered in a field of three-dimensional googly eye paillettes that quivered, en tremblant, with the stride.

Before the Super Bowl was over, the jeans, which are listed for $695 on the brand’s website, had sold out.

It’s frowned upon when N.F.L. players complain to the referees. But at least they don’t urinate on them.

The same cannot be said for the competitors in the Puppy Bowl, Animal Planet’s canine football game that takes place in October but did not air until the afternoon of Super Bowl Sunday.

The event’s referee, Dan Schachner, stays ready for all eventualities by keeping five identical uniforms in his dressing room so he can change when accidents occur. Mr. Schachner, 49, admitted he had gotten lax about handing out penalties for “premature watering of the lawn” since he began calling the game in 2011.

“I don’t automatically reach for the flag,” he said. “We have a game to play.”

This year’s Puppy Bowl, which was televised at 2 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, was the 20th edition of the event, a milestone for a program that began as a tongue-in-cheek feed of puppy playtime before evolving into a counterprogramming juggernaut.

The three-hour skirmish over a football-shaped chew toy has been on the air for longer than “Grey’s Anatomy.” Animal Planet said last year’s Puppy Bowl “reached” more than 13 million viewers.

In this year’s edition, Team Fluff took an early two-touchdown lead thanks to the heroics of Francine, an energetic pug. But Team Ruff recovered in the fourth quarter to upset the reigning champions, 72-69, and take home the Lombarky Trophy. Moosh, an Australian Shepherd mix who forced a key turnover, was awarded M.V.P.

The event’s sustained success has come with unique production challenges. The players cannot throw because they lack opposable thumbs. They fall asleep at the 20-yard line, and sometimes they try to bathe in the water bowl. They are especially bad at determining when to go for a 2-point conversion.

It takes more than 100 crew members and 200 poop bags to coax the puppies into some semblance of a football game. “The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade requires just as much coordination,” said Howard Lee, the president of Discovery Networks, which owns Animal Planet.

In an interview, Mr. Lee described the program as a call for pet adoption sneakily disguised as a football game. According to Animal Planet, all of the 1,298 dogs that have played in past Puppy Bowls have been adopted. The event results in a surge of interest in shelters whose puppies take the field, although those that play in the game have usually been adopted by the time it airs.

The 131 members of this year’s lineup were selected through an online casting call this summer, and came from more than 70 shelters and rescue centers across the United States. All were between three and six months old.

As in the N.F.L., there were much-hyped prospects: Levi, a 72-pound Great Dane, was the largest puppy ever to compete in the event. Bark Purdy, a Chihuahua mix, shares a name (and perhaps his agility) with the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers.

In October, the draft picks were transported to a hockey arena in Glens Falls, N.Y., that had been outfitted with a 28-foot-long AstroTurf field. The game was filmed over the course of a week to allow the puppies to take ample hydration and nap breaks. The producers subsequently edited down any slow periods in game play.

To avoid injuries, smaller breeds like Dachshunds and pugs faced off in the first half, while the huskies and bloodhounds came on for a brawnier second half. (In Mr. Schachner’s experience, smaller breeds are more likely to “elude defenders” and “break tackles.”) Puppies on two teams — Team Ruff and Team Fluff — scored touchdowns by carrying chew toys into either end zone.

Victoria Schade, the on-set trainer, benches dogs when they are looking overwhelmed. In her 18 years working on the Puppy Bowl, she has perfected her technique for getting the dogs to gaze up patriotically during the national anthem: dangling treats above their heads.

“Freeze-dried chicken, freeze-dried liver, freeze-dried cheese: That’s going to get your Puppy Bowl-worthy performance,” Ms. Schade said.

‘Why Are We Working This Hard?’

The first Puppy Bowl, which aired in 2005, was more like a pickup game. Animal Planet’s producers had been asked by the network’s general manger to devise some kind of counterprogramming for the Super Bowl, said Margo Kent, who was then an executive producer for the network.

The task seemed impossible. “We would joke, ‘Why are we working this hard?’” Ms. Kent said. “Let’s just put puppies in a box and point a camera at it.”

They tried it out at a Discovery soundstage in Silver Spring, Md., with a couple of dozen dogs from local shelters. Camera operators filmed from behind a layer of clear plexiglass, which had to be wiped down frequently because the puppies kept pressing their wet noses against it.

“We could not believe how well it did,” said David Doyle, who was at the time the vice president of production and development at Animal Planet. The event became the “darling of ad sales and senior management,” he added. “All of a sudden it became all about, how can we make money off this cool thing?”

By Puppy Bowl II, ads for Subaru lined the stadium. A kitten halftime show was added, but that went awry when the explosion of confetti cannons caused all of the cats to leap out of the filming enclosure, Ms. Kent said. (It was retaped, with crew sprinkling the confetti by hand.)

Scorekeeping and uniforms were added in Puppy Bowl XI, and a sloth was introduced as assistant referee three years later. With each flashy addition, the Puppy Bowl also dedicated a larger share of airtime to encouraging viewers to adopt pets, including senior dogs and puppies with special needs.

If the event is good for puppy adoption, it may be even better for Warner Bros. Discovery, one of the entertainment industry’s biggest, and newest, behemoths. Last year, Puppy Bowl viewership added more than four million additional viewers, according to the network, thanks in part to Discovery’s acquisition of WarnerMedia in 2022.

For the first time, Puppy Bowl XIX was broadcast simultaneously on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, HBO Max, TBS and Discovery+. “The viewership has jumped especially because we’ve had more eyeballs from all these different platforms,” Mr. Lee said.

Animal Planet said it would not share the cost to produce the Puppy Bowl or the advertising revenue it brings in. But the program tends to have a high return on investment, said Mr. Doyle, who is now an executive vice president at Hearst Media Production Group. The first Puppy Bowl cost less than $100,000 to produce, he said. “I’m sure it costs five times what we spent on it or more,” he speculated. “But it’s probably bringing in 50 times the amount of money.”

‘Most Valuable Puppy’

Puppy Bowl crew members past and present offered various theories for the program’s continued dominance: It appeals widely across age groups; it’s easy to watch while making chili. Your preferred team can get eliminated during the N.F.L. playoffs, but it cannot fall short of making the Puppy Bowl.

Then almost all of them circled back to the obvious: People really like puppies.

Many viewers are motivated by the Puppy Bowl to seek out one of their own. Erika Proctor, 42, the executive director of Green Dogs Unleashed, a special needs animal rescue center in Troy, Va., estimated she gets close to 100 emails the day of the Puppy Bowl asking about adoptions and training. An uptick in applications follows, she said.

Green Dogs Unleashed, which has been sending dogs to the Puppy Bowl for the past 10 years, is responsible for the expense of transporting the puppies to Glens Falls and lodging them there. That was a challenge at first, Ms. Proctor said, but it “comes back to us tenfold in the awareness that it brings to the country of our special-needs animals.”

Those who are on set for the filming of the Puppy Bowl do not necessarily know its winner. Producers film endings in which each team triumphs, and the victor is determined in postproduction.

That means Mr. Schachner cannot help the people who direct message him on social media every year asking for tips that might help them bet on the game’s outcome. Other common prop bets concern the point spread of the final score and the age of the M.V.P. (Most Valuable Puppy).

Despite appearances, the producers insist that Puppy Bowl glory is earned on the field, not scripted by its human supervisors.

“You have to condense it down to make it a story that’s understandable and fun,” said Joe Boyle, a senior vice president for production and development at Discovery, “but we follow what really happened.”

On Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs will be making the team’s fourth Super Bowl appearance in the last five seasons. While some N.F.L. players go their entire career without playing for a championship, one of Kansas City’s newcomers had their ticket punched after only 12 games.

As Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic said on X, shortly after the Chiefs’ championship win: “Taylor Swift makes the Super Bowl in her first year in the league. Elite.”

Ms. Swift, who has been dating Travis Kelce, Kansas City’s star tight end, has changed the N.F.L. conversation all season, attracting a new audience for the league and inspiring strong emotions (both positive and negative) among fans. Her critics as well as her detractors may have some burning questions ahead of the game. First and foremost: Will she be there?

Has Taylor hinted at her Super Bowl plans?

Ms. Swift, as you may have heard, is good at keeping secrets. Her plans, beyond concert dates, are rarely announced in advance. That has led some to devise their own methods for figuring out what she’s up to. Ahead of a Kansas City game in October, for example, an NBC producer said he had a spotter plane searching the area around MetLife Stadium for police escorts in hopes of alerting the television crew if she showed up (she did).

Mr. Kelce was inundated with questions about Ms. Swift last week, and while he said he had heard some of her upcoming album — spoiler: he likes it — he did not offer any details about whether she would be at the game.

That being said, Ms. Swift has adjusted her busy schedule to allow her to attend 12 games already this season, so missing out on a potential Super Bowl win seems unlikely. The Associated Press reported on Saturday afternoon that her plane had been seen in Los Angeles.

But wasn’t she in Tokyo … last night?

She sure was. Her Eras Tour resumed recently, and on Saturday night in Tokyo she performed yet another marathon set of her extensive catalog of songs. With flights from Tokyo to Las Vegas often taking 13 hours or more, and human beings requiring sleep, some worried she might not make the game.

The Japanese Embassy in Washington pointed out that timing is not a real hurdle for Ms. Swift. First of all, a private jet shortens the journey (and provides a place to sleep peacefully if needed). Second of all, the international date line is her friend.

In 1873, before the international date line officially existed, the author Jules Verne mapped out Ms. Swift’s time advantage in “Around the World in 80 Days.” In the book, the protagonist Phileas Fogg believes he has lost his bet only to realize the distance and direction of his travels had saved him:

In journeying eastward he had gone towards the sun, and the days therefore diminished for him as many times four minutes as he crossed degrees in this direction. There are three hundred and sixty degrees on the circumference of the earth; and these three hundred and sixty degrees, multiplied by four minutes, gives precisely twenty-four hours — that is, the day unconsciously gained. In other words, while Phileas Fogg, going eastward, saw the sun pass the meridian eighty times, his friends in London only saw it pass the meridian seventy-nine times. This is why they awaited him at the Reform Club on Saturday, and not Sunday, as Mr. Fogg thought.

Or, as “The West Wing” summarized more succinctly in a scene that discussed President Bartlett’s journey from Tokyo to Washington, D.C. (and that recently went viral online):

Josh: He’s gonna land in Washington an hour before he took off?
Sam: Yeah.

For older generations, those scenes helped explain the logistics of the international date line. For Gen Z and younger, their frame of reference will likely be … when Taylor Swift flew to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl.

No one ever seemed to mind Jack Nicholson being a fixture at Los Angeles Lakers games, or Spike Lee being more associated with the New York Knicks than most of the team’s players. Drake got only a slap on the wrist when he began walking onto the court during timeouts at Toronto Raptors playoff games. But even though Ms. Swift receives relatively little airtime during the broadcasts of Kansas City’s games, she has become a target for those who still think she’s getting outsize attention.

“The attention is there because the audience wants to see it,” Jason Kelce, brother of Travis, said in an interview during last week’s Pro Bowl festivities. “If people didn’t want to see it they wouldn’t be showing it.”

As Ms. Swift put it, “a few dads, Brads, and Chads” may be angry, but the TV networks are thrilled. A ratings analysis by The Upshot indicated that she very well may be a driving factor for the league’s increased audience. Coach Andy Reid of the Chiefs has repeatedly said that he’s happy to have her around, and the N.F.L., which is enjoying an unexpected expansion of its built-in audience, has fully embraced her association with the league.

“N.F.L. fans come in all types — even global sensations,” said Alex Riethmiller, an N.F.L. spokesman. “We’re glad to have Taylor on board.”

During the regular season, Ms. Swift attended numerous games in Kansas City while seated in a luxury suite controlled by Mr. Kelce’s close friend and longtime teammate, Patrick Mahomes. She appeared to become fast friends with Mr. Mahomes’s wife, Brittany, and was regularly seen with other members of the Mahomes family.

She has also spent time at games with Mr. Kelce’s parents, Donna and Ed, and her own father, mother and brother came with her to a game on Christmas. During Ms. Swift’s trip to New Jersey for a Chiefs-Jets game she was seated with friends like the actors Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.

At a playoff game in Buffalo last month, she and Kylie Kelce were among those shown reacting to Jason Kelce’s shirtless bellowing and fraternizing with the crowd.

And at the A.F.C. championship game in Baltimore, she was surrounded by Mr. Kelce’s family and associates, including Donna and Ed Kelce, Jason and Kylie Kelce and Mr. Kelce’s managers, Aaron and André Eanes. There were also a few of Ms. Swift’s friends, like the actress Keleigh Teller and the model Cara Delevingne.

This is Taylor, surely there’s some numerology involved?

Ms. Swift has said she loves the number 13, and her fans can seemingly find it everywhere. In the case of this year’s Super Bowl, the examples are plentiful:

• Super Bowl 58 (5+8=13)

• Feb. 11, 2/11 (2+11=13)

• Kansas City is playing the 49ers (4+9=13)

• The 49ers were the No. 1 seed in the N.F.C., while the Chiefs were the No. 3 seed in the A.F.C. (1 and 3 — 13)

• This is the 13th N.F.L. game Ms. Swift has attended this season

It is unclear if it is a good or bad sign that San Francisco’s starting quarterback, Brock Purdy, wears No. 13. Time will tell.

They are now a collector’s trove — Paul McCartney’s own photos, shot 60 years ago, when the Beatles took Europe and America by storm: images of screaming fans (one carrying a live monkey); a girl in a yellow bikini; airport workers playing air guitar, and unguarded moments grabbed from trains, planes and automobiles.

McCartney, now 81, doesn’t like to sit still and reminisce about the past, so he chatted while driving home from his recording studio in Sussex, England. “My American friends call these small, one-way lanes ‘gun barrels,’” he said, warning his interviewer that at any moment the signal might die (it did). In the end, it took two days to complete a coherent conversation about the breakthrough period when the Beatles went viral, captured in the traveling exhibition “Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-1964: Eyes of the Storm,” which features 250 of his shots. Currently it’s at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va., and comes to the Brooklyn Museum May 3-August 18. (Don’t be surprised if the artist shows up for the opening.)

It was McCartney’s archivist, Sarah Brown, who found 1,000 photographs the musician had taken over 12 weeks — from Dec. 7, 1963, to Feb. 21, 1964 — in the artist’s library.

“I thought the photos were lost,” he said. ‘‘In the ’60s it was pretty easy. Often doors were left open. We’d invite fans in.” Even the recording studio wasn’t a safe space. “I was taking my daughter Mary to the British Library to show her where to research for her exams, and in one display case I saw the lyric sheet for ‘Yesterday,’” he said. A sticky-fingered biographer had swiped the original from their studio.

Rosie Broadley, a senior curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London, where the show was inaugurated, said, “His photographs show us what it was like to look through his eyes while the Beatles conquered the world.”

McCartney won an art prize at school and practiced photography with his brother, Mike (who later became a professional photographer). He graduated to a 35 mm SLR Pentax camera when the Beatles hit it big.

“It was the most sophisticated hand-held camera of the era. It would be like having the latest iPhone today,” Darius Himes, Christie’s international head of photography, said, adding: “We were all quite surprised by Paul’s sophisticated eye, and his awareness of trends in the visual arts. The yellow bikini shot is like a striking mix of Stephen Shore, William Eggleston and William Klein.”

The Beatles traveled with a flock of cameramen and were not shy about gleaning tips. McCartney admitted some of his earliest shots in the exhibition are a little fuzzily focused. “I console myself that one of my favorite photographers, Julia Margaret Cameron, also liked soft focus,” he said.

“His photos get better as he practices,” Broadley noted. The exhibition, and its accompanying book, take visitors on a whirlwind trip through six cities beginning in Liverpool and London, and ending in Miami. The images from the British leg are exhibited in small ‘‘austerity’’ walnut frames, to indicate Britain was still in throes of a postwar recession. The Fab Four might look nervous in these photos, but they had already reached stardom on their home turf, having bagged three No. 1 singles and met the Queen.

After a brief stint performing at the Olympia in Paris, alongside Sylvie Vartan, they heard that “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was No. 1 on the American charts and sped to New York. The crowning moment in America was their live television debut on the “The Ed Sullivan Show” on Feb. 9, 1964, singing five propulsive pop hits — an event watched by 73 million people.

In Miami, McCartney’s photos burst into Kodachrome color and the newly minted celebrities seem to bloom in glamorous new surroundings: lounging poolside, sipping scotch and riding around in motorboats. By April, the Beatles’ songs held the top five spots on the U.S. Billboard charts.

Musing on the images, he said, “There is an innocence to them,” adding, “I think it was a lot more fun than it was. We worked probably 360 days out of the year.” It was an all too brief halcyon period. Two and a half years later, the Beatles stopped touring. The logistics, the screams, the armored cars, had become a nightmare.

Like most successful artists thriving past retirement age, McCartney has projectitis. He’s working on a new album with the producer Andrew Watt (“Hackney Diamonds”), and just released the 50th anniversary remaster of the Paul McCartney & Wings classic “Band on the Run.” “His live shows continue to be of such high voltage one half expects him to burst into flames,” the Irish poet Paul Muldoon wrote in McCartney’s recent book, “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present.”

His next project is organizing a gallery sale of some of his photographs. “It’s a process I like,” he said, describing the joy of curating. “I’ve done it a few times with Linda’s work” [a reference to his first wife, the photographer, Linda Eastman]. His current homes, shared with his wife Nancy Shevell, are adorned with images by Linda and Mary, though, curiously, none of his own. But that may change. ‘‘The sale,” he said, “will probably encourage me to get some for myself.”

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation, in which he reflected on popular images in the exhibition.

John Lennon. London, January, 1964

My favorite photos are of John and George. There’s a huge sentimental aspect to them. No one else could have taken this pic. John was a great character. A very different kind of guy to the other boys I knew. We met at the village fete. He was playing with his band. He was a year and a half older than me [and] my first friend who wore glasses. He was always taking them off and polishing them. I found it fascinating. He’d take them off in public, which rendered him half blind. Onstage, he just stood there and gazed out into the blackness. Maybe it helped him focus on playing.

John, George and Ringo backstage in their dressing room. London, 1963.

We began by playing in really crummy little clubs and bars in Liverpool and Hamburg. In Germany, we slept in a little room, with a Union Jack flag for a blanket. Back in England, it started to get a little better. We played in ballrooms, got radio work and then TV work. It was like a staircase ascent for us. What nobody realized is, by this time [seven months after the Beatles’ first No. 1 hit on the U.K. charts], we were really fully formed beasts. We’d come from the postwar years into a Britain that was now experiencing joy for the first time in decades, and we ate it up.

Our Pentax cameras were probably a gift. There was a lot of artistic black and white photography emerging at that time. We admired David Bailey [who had a Pentax camera], Don McCullin, a stunning war photographer, and Norman Parkinson. When he took our picture, he’d say ‘give me big eyes’ and we’d all play along. I like to shoot through the mirror because things look good in a mirror. We all smoked. Smoking gave us a suave, grown-up feel. We were pretty young. I was just 21.

Ringo Starr. Paris, 1964.

Our aim was always to have fun. I think that communicates itself and became part of the reason we were so popular. It is just a characteristic of Liverpool people to have a laugh. [Paul snapped this shot of Ringo during a staged photo shoot with Dezo Hoffmann, one of their court photographers.] Dezo was a very nice guy. He would give us hints as to the aperture and all the various things needed to make a good photograph.

Fans welcoming the Beatles at Central Park. New York, February 1964.

Here’s a pic of Beatles fans acting like they should. … Going crazy! We didn’t know what we were gonna get in America; if anyone would turn out to meet us. On the plane over, the pilot radioed ahead and was told there were gangs of fans waiting. [Over 4,000 screaming girls held back by 200 policemen.] Manhattan was big, tall, loud and brash. There were stories of fans breaking into our room at the Plaza Hotel. Those were more stories than reality. We probably wished it would happen.

Ringo Starr setting up his drum kit during rehearsals for “The Ed Sullivan Show.” New York, February 1964.

We had done television in England, so we were used to it; the cameras and the lights and all that. What we didn’t really know was how important Ed Sullivan was. He was the BIG ONE. There were two stagehands waiting to draw back the curtains for us to go on and one said: ‘You nervous?’ I said, ‘I dunno. Not really.’ He says: ‘You should be. There’s 73 million people watching.’ Then I got nervous. But if you watch that performance, I can’t believe how confident we look. The weird thing about the stage set is Ringo’s [precarious] drum rostrum. I can’t work out how he got up there.

Photographers in Central Park. New York, February 1964.

New York journalists thought they were pretty smart and I’m sure they were used to handling dumb pop stars. We had a lot of fun with them, especially at the news conference at J.F.K. [Airport]. We gave as good as we got. It became a game of who could come up with the smartest answer. Often it was the truth. Someone asked George, ‘Do you ever get your hair cut?’ He said, ‘Yeah, yesterday.’ And he’d been to the barber’s the day before.

Unknown man. Taken from the window of train from New York to Washington, D.C., February 1964.

We loved music and performing. It beat working in a factory. A few years before these pictures, we’d all been fully immersed in working class life in Liverpool. I have a fascination with working class people like this man [a railroad worker caught from a train en route to Washington, D.C.]. Working class people are the smartest people I’ve ever met. My cousin Bert [Danher] was an insurance salesman, but he also compiled crosswords for The Guardian and The Times. The photography I admire is spontaneous, like the work of the great [Henri] Cartier-Bresson. It was good to just grab shots on the run. We didn’t have time to think.

Unknown girl. Washington, February 1964.

Some of my favorite photos are of fans. I really like this one of a young girl with a headscarf looking in a Zen-like manner into my camera. I took it and never looked at it again until I did a print [for the National Portrait Gallery exhibition]. When we started blowing up the images, we got to see all the individual characters. In one photo, at Miami airport, there’s a woman holding up a monkey. You wouldn’t get that past health and safety these days.

George Harrison. Miami Beach, February 1964.

This is George living the life in Miami. [McCartney switched to Kodachrome to record the group’s antics in Florida.] Miami felt like wonderland. These pictures were taken at a time when we were all young and beautiful. I mean these are good looking boys, you know! From this perspective, I feel very blessed to have not only known these guys, but to have worked with them and done such great things with them. I feel very blessed.

On Wednesday night, a throng of actors, cycling through a swirl of events — awards season, New York Fashion Week and the Super Bowl — assembled in Midtown Manhattan, wearing Chanel, dressed by Chanel and for Chanel.

Over cocktails, guests mingled for the opening of the brand’s first U.S. watch and fine jewelry flagship boutique on Fifth Avenue near 57th Street, designed by the architect Peter Marino with elements from Coco Chanel’s apartment in Paris.

America Ferrera greeted Natasha Lyonne. Kerry Washington chatted with Elizabeth Olsen. Katie Holmes posed for photos with Michelle Williams. Zazie Beetz convened with Rachel Brosnahan. Dianna Agron lingered. And nearby, Carey Mulligan and Jerrod Carmichael talked.

The new flagship store for fine jewelry and watches comes as New York’s retail space prices have kept rising over the past year. The move seemingly positions Chanel in a sector of the fashion industry that other brands, like Prada and LVMH, are also embracing.

The location on Fifth Avenue — sandwiched among Cartier, Tiffany & Company, Bulgari and Harry Winston — was a yearslong waiting game, according to Frédéric Grangié, the president of Chanel’s watches and fine jewelry.

“It’s a big step for the house,” Mr. Grangié said.

Steps away from the boutique, around 200 guests, including Lori Harvey, Francesca Scorsese and the actor Molly Gordon, shuffled into a dimly lit event space for dinner. In contrast to the store’s well-lit sparkle, the multilevel venue was enveloped in darkness that mimicked the shuttered Abercrombie & Fitch that was once there.

People reflected on their favorite everyday accessories, like Ms. Lyonne’s grandmother’s gold chain. “I never saw her as a Tony Montana type. She was just a little Hungarian lady in a Pucci dress,” she said.

The actor Taylour Paige, who loves her tennis bracelet and engagement ring, said that you can never have too many rings.

“If anyone says you’re wearing too many rings, cut them out of your life,” she said.

For the actors Tommy Dorfman and Amandla Stenberg, watches, which were family heirlooms passed down from generations, elicit a sense of nostalgia and sentimentality in an era of smart devices.

White roses lined long tables where influential guests like Lauren Santo Domingo, the artistic director of Tiffany’s homewares; Larry Gagosian, the gallery magnate; and Sean MacPherson, the hotelier, enjoyed oysters, caviar-topped potatoes, lobster or wagyu, and a two-tiered assorted dessert tower. After one course, guests were offered vodka shots.

Seth Meyers, the late-night host, did rounds greeting Ms. Ferrera and Ms. Olsen at one table, Ms. Beetz in another section with Ms. Holmes, and then later settling at his table with Ms. Washington and Ms. Williams.

When it grew late, the crowd was invited to the basement for a surprise performance, and the singer Gracie Abrams took the stage to a backdrop lit like a starry sky.

Watches make up only a small fraction of sales for LVMH, the biggest luxury goods empire in the world. The group is far better known for Louis Vuitton leather handbags and Moët Champagne. But lately, with Swiss watch exports reaching record highs and growing interest in fancy timepieces from a new generation of wealthy global consumers, LVMH is showing heightened focus on its fine watchmaking business, which includes TAG Heuer, Hublot and Zenith.

Last week, Miami hosted LVMH Watch Week. On Tuesday, a glittering new prize was unveiled at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the soaring glass museum designed by Frank Gehry to house the art collection of Bernard Arnault, the LVMH chief who is also the richest person in the world (this week anyway).

The bash on Tuesday night was a celebration to announce the winner of the first edition of the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives. Five finalists were vying for a 150,000-euro prize and a yearlong mentorship from the luxury house, rewards similar to those received by the winner of the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers.

Nearly all of the 250 guests wore black; many carried Louis Vuitton handbags. The talk was all about the inner workings of eye-wateringly expensive timepieces, an impenetrable dialect for anyone who doesn’t speak “watch.” Mingling with watch-world titans like Rexhep Rexhepi and Carole Forestier-Kasapi, snippets of overheard conversation included: “My god! He is the Mozart of the mechanical movement!” and “Now there is someone who really understands their way around orbital complications.”

Jean Arnault, 25, the twinkly-eyed youngest son of Bernard Arnault and the director of watches for Louis Vuitton, was the evening’s host. The new prize is his baby (though he was not a member of the judging panel). His parents and his glamorous girlfriend, the influencer and YouTube strategist Zita d’Hauteville, watched proudly as he presented the award.

If his recent executive appointments are anything to go by, Bernard Arnault sees the world of watches as a place where some of his children can learn the ropes of running a luxury empire. Last month, Frédéric Arnault, 29, the former chief executive of TAG Heuer, got a new role: chief executive of the LVMH watch division. Another Arnault brother, Alexandre, 31, is the executive vice president for product and communications at Tiffany & Company, which has a sizable watch arm.

“We expected a hundred applications at most, and we got more than 1,000,” Jean Arnault said after the ceremony. He stressed that the goal wasn’t to get access to or hire young watchmakers for big players. “This prize was set up to make sure the power of Louis Vuitton can support independent talent,” he said. “The volume of interest we received shows that this is a world that can and wants to grow.”

All five finalists were well-known names in the industry. All were European men. Their creations, each out-glistening the other in an attempt to demonstrate a new and expensive way to tell the time, ranged from wristwatches to a desk clock controlled by a pocket watch and a bee-shaped automaton.

There were 20 semifinalists, some of whom came from France, Canada and the United States. “That even one semifinalist came from outside Switzerland was a big surprise to me,” Mr. Arnault said. “We also had one female semifinalist, which was very important and a big win for me personally, given that women are still not well represented in the watch industry. I hope even the presence of one is inspirational.”

The winner, Raúl Pagès from Neuchâtel, Switzerland, learned his trade as a watch restorer before becoming an independent watchmaker. Today the 40-year-old Mr. Pagès creates about four timepieces a year, crafting them entirely by hand, from the design and development of the mechanism to manufacturing, assembly and finishes.

His winning wrist watch design, the RP1, is a manual-winding stainless steel watch with a rare and nearly impossible to construct caliber fitted with pivoted detent escapement, a device in mechanical watches that transforms the energy from the unwinding of a coiled spring (the power source) into countable impulses. Mr. Pagès spent three years working on the watch before it was ready to be revealed. The price tag is close to $100,000.

Mr. Pagès said that he wanted to bring his vision for an RP2 to life, which would be a chronometer with “a totally new movement.” A chronometer is a highly accurate timepiece that meets stringent independent tests. He also wanted to expand his workshop to increase current production.

The prize will be awarded every two years. To make the competition more accessible, Mr. Arnault said he was considering expanding the number of awards to include concepts.

“I’d love to have people submit drawings and present dreams, although there are lots of legal implications that we have to consider,” he said. “But we want independent watchmaking to grow in a healthy way. We have to figure this out next time round.”

I am a birth mother whose son found me seven years ago, when I was 70 and he was 49. I gave him up for adoption as an infant; his adoptive mother is deceased. He called me Mom from Day 1, and we felt an immediate heart connection. It has been a roller coaster of intense emotions. Unfortunately, his wife wrote me a letter saying she does not recognize me as his mother and wants nothing to do with me. Still, my son and I have developed a loving relationship over texts and phone calls. (We live 3,000 miles apart.) So, I was thrilled to be invited to his stepson’s wedding — though also nervous, given his wife’s letter. My son assured me I would be seated with his siblings, but I was placed at a distant table with his friend. I was also excluded from a family outing and the photos posted on Facebook. It felt like a punch to the heart. But my son doesn’t acknowledge any responsibility for my hurt. Did he gaslight me?

BIRTH MOM

I feel compassion for you and your birth son as you try to navigate a delicate reunion across 3,000 miles and five decades. I have no doubt that this wedding episode was painful for you (and possibly for him, too, if he had to haggle with his disapproving wife over your place at her son’s wedding). Still, I suspect that seating is not the central issue here.

From my vantage — at a safe distance from the emotional roller coaster, as you call it — I see productive takeaways for both of you: Work on your relationship one on one, for now, and avoid engaging with people in each other’s lives who don’t support your reunion. I can’t imagine why his wife has taken such an unkind position toward you, but she has, and she is a major figure in his life.

Adoption often brings up powerful feelings of abandonment and guilt. It may be helpful to arrange for some therapy for you and your son on video calls. I don’t minimize the “heart connection” you feel, but there may be other strong emotions at play, too. You should air all of them in the safety of your private relationship — or with the help of a counselor, if you like the idea.

Fuming That Her Treat Was Not Their Treat

Today, my sister-in-law sent me a Venmo request for $19.18 for frozen yogurt that she and my brother offered to pick up for us when they picked up their own orders. They are wealthy, with expensive habits like designer sneakers, and they never offer to pay for anything when they come home because our parents are so generous. My partner and I routinely buy them presents when we visit them. This year, they didn’t even thank us for our holiday gifts. Am I unreasonable for being incensed about this Venmo request?

SISTER

Incensed? Really? Let’s try to reframe this issue: No one owes anyone a gift. Gifts are voluntary by definition. You may find your brother and sister-in-law ungenerous (or unappreciative), but that still doesn’t entitle you to free frozen yogurt. In their view, saving you a trip may have been gift enough — and their wealth and your parents’ generosity are beside the point.

Going forward, it may be healthier to reset your expectations and reduce the number of gifts you give them rather than blow up a close family relationship over what are supposed to be tokens of good will. Because I am not sensing much good will here.

Three’s a Girls’ Weekend, Four’s a Crowd

My former college roommate is working on the national tour of a musical. She invited me and another friend to join her for a long weekend when the tour reaches Las Vegas. We accepted happily and booked our flights. Later, she casually mentioned that her boyfriend would also be visiting that weekend and staying in the hotel room with us. When we expressed surprise, she assured us that the room is large enough for four people. But we had been looking forward to a girls’ weekend. Can we tell her that, or since she is providing the room, should we put up with it?

FRIEND

Speak up! Your friend seems to have assumed — a bit cluelessly, perhaps — that since she was comfortable with this crowded arrangement, everyone would be. Tell her you were looking forward to a girls’ weekend and ask her if she could find a different weekend for her boyfriend or for you. (Hopefully, your airline tickets permit changes.)

A Cake (and a Party) the Birthday Girl Can Enjoy

My 4-year-old daughter was diagnosed with gluten sensitivity six months ago. Since then, we have been helping her navigate social situations. The hardest ones have been birthday parties where she can’t eat the cake. Her birthday is coming up, and I would like to give her a 100 percent gluten-free party, so she can eat and enjoy every single item. Does this seem overboard? Other guests may not enjoy the flavor.

J.

This is a birthday party for a tiny child who often feels deprived at parties. Of course you can arrange the menu around her dietary restrictions! And if some of your guests don’t care for the party fare, they will surely survive for two hours without gluten.

For help with your awkward situation, send a question to [email protected], Philip Galanes on Facebook or @SocialQPhilip on the platform X.

Ice Spice was born on Jan. 1, 2000, so it seems fitting that her personal style has often involved Y2K fashion. The rapper leaned heavily into the era at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, wearing custom Baby Phat. She arrived in a fur-lined denim jacket and a matching maxi skirt that trailed behind her as she walked the red carpet.

Baby Phat was started by Kimora Lee Simmons in 1999. The label, rooted in hip-hop culture, largely influenced women’s streetwear in the decade that followed. Baby Phat was worn by celebrities like Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim and Jennifer Lopez and was beloved by women and girls of color for its celebration of Black identity and style. Its items were relatively affordable yet still had an aura of glamour.

But in its heyday Baby Phat never had a big presence on red carpets. The brand’s aesthetic — a mishmash of fitted denim, fur, oversize logos, chains and jewels that Ms. Simmons described as “ghetto fabulous” — was not exactly reflective of high fashion in the early 2000s.

Since then, though, streetwear and hip-hop have only become more influential at even the most rarefied houses. That was on display at this year’s Grammys, where Lil Durk, Peso Pluma and Beyoncé were among the stars who wore items designed by Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton.

Ms. Simmons developed Baby Phat as an expansion of Phat Farm, a brand owned by her ex-husband Russell Simmons, who sold both labels in 2004. Ms. Simmons, who left Baby Phat in 2010 only to buy it back almost 10 years later and install herself as chief executive, said that Ice Spice’s wearing the brand on a major red carpet was “a full circle moment” that would help Baby Phat finally get the recognition it deserves.

“We don’t always get our shine,” said Ms. Simmons, 48, who is Black and Asian. “But I do it for the culture — make no mistake.” She added that Baby Phat’s Grammys appearance 25 years after the brand’s founding was a testament to its enduring appeal.

Ice Spice, whose forthcoming album is titled “Y2K,” worked with the stylist Timothy Luke Garcia on her outfit for the awards show. Mr. Garcia, 27, who is from Brooklyn, said he and the Bronx-bred rapper, who is Black and Dominican, wanted a look that “felt the most Latina, felt the most Bronx, felt the most New York.”

“Authenticity was the most important thing for both of us,” he said, adding that when he and Ice Spice were growing up in New York City, “Baby Phat was everything.”

Mr. Garcia and Ice Spice collaborated with Ms. Simmons to develop the denim separates worn by the rapper, who accessorized the look with a chain, tight orange curls and long acrylic nails. “I’m giving Bronx baddie tonight,” Ice Spice said in an interview on the red carpet.

Some longtime fans of Baby Phat said it was exciting to see the brand among the tuxedos, ball gowns and couture garments that typically characterize awards season fashion. Virginia Lowman, a 33-year-old digital director in Manhattan, said she had been wearing Baby Phat since she was a teenager, when, she remembered, it was categorized as an “urban” brand.

“Oftentimes, something is considered ghetto until a non-Black or non-minority brand brings it to their runway,” said Ms. Lowman, who is Black. “So I think it was neat to see Ice Spice decked out in denim and fur in this luxury look from a Black-owned brand.”

Evelina Kurayeva, a 24-year-old fashion designer from Queens, said she appreciated seeing a label she could actually afford on a red carpet, where the attire often seems “unattainable and out of touch,” as she put it.

Ms. Kurayeva has also been wearing Baby Phat since her teenage years, she said, and the mini skirts and fur-lined jackets she now makes are inspired by items Ms. Simmons designed for Baby Phat. Seeing the brand on the Grammys red carpet made Ms. Kurayeva feel more confident about the clothes she makes, she said.

“I’m not going to be scared of it being frowned upon because now I’m seeing it in these kinds of spaces,” Ms. Kurayeva said. “Kimora’s been influencing high fashion for decades anyway, and now I’m finally seeing her on the red carpet.”

At a recent Monster Jam event at the Prudential Center in Newark, as shark-finned and dog-eared and zombie-limbed monster trucks careened around a stadium floor caked in doughy, cinnamon-brown dirt, I remembered the first pseudo-sentence I ever spoke: “Big truck go by.” Gaggles of young children wiggled around the stands, their mouths agape and their ears covered by muffs or a parent’s palms.

Big trucks were going by, loudly.

They also went up into the air. They crashed back into earth recently dug out of a storage facility near MetLife Stadium. They bounced aloft again — that is, if they were lucky enough to land on their 66-inch tires and not on their roofs.

But before they did any of that, they stood quite still, posed around the space like sleeping beasts for a popular appetizer event called the Pit Party, which, for about $40 a head, granted attendees access to the stadium floor for an hour and a half that morning. There, fans lined up to meet drivers like Weston Anderson, the 21-year-old who operates the 37th edition of Grave Digger, the tour’s most famous truck.

Tall, blond and scruffy, Mr. Anderson hails from a monster truck dynasty out of Kill Devil Hills, N.C. His father, Dennis Anderson, built the original Grave Digger in 1982, and two of his siblings drive different iterations of the ghoulish, purple-and-green behemoth on other Monster Jam tours, while another competes in a spinoff truck.

“It’s like driving on a marshmallow,” Mr. Anderson said of the squishy Prudential Center dirt. “Some trucks will hike up, flip over. Some won’t.”

Monster Jam has grown significantly — monstrously — since its founding in 1992, a decade before Mr. Anderson was born. It now runs six series, five based in the United States and another overseas, and sells, by its account, millions of tickets each year between its indoor stadium extravaganzas and larger arena blowouts.

Monster Jam, it seems, has become faddish with Gen Z-ers and millennials. “There were a lot of 20-something-year-olds going with their friends, kind of ironically,” Eli Hauser, a 23-year-old artist, said of a Monster Jam event in San Francisco last month. Mr. Hauser posted that the irony had tipped into genuine enthusiasm. But a vast majority of the Prudential Center audience on the afternoon of Jan. 27 was made up of Gen X-ers and elder millennial parents with their children in tow, though some younger fans dotted the crowd, recalling how they had grown up watching monster trucks.

Self-described superfan Mark Galloway, 26, strode around the Pit Party with a custom-made, wrestling-style championship belt on his shoulder and took photos with Jamie Sullivan, who drives a truck called Monster Mutt Dalmatian. Mr. Galloway, who attended his first Monster Jam in 2003, said he had twice driven monster trucks in a training camp. “Although it was intimidating and it was surreal, I was able to get a feel for it,” he said.

Collin Groom, a high school junior from Upper Pittsgrove, N.J., said he toddled to his first Monster Jam at age 2 and never looked back. “You can’t sleep on an event like this,” added Mr. Groom, now 16 and wearing a baseball cap covered in driver autographs.

Around the pit, children played with toy monster trucks in sandboxes. Adults purchased beer and merch. (A collectible Grave Digger mug full of syrup-laden shaved ice cost $15.) Smells of moist soil and popcorn mingled with ambient exhaust fumes and soap, presumably emanating from freshly washed trucks.

The Pit Party wound down by noon, spectators found their seats, and at 1 p.m., the 12,000-pound monsters roared to life. Grave Digger and its seven competitors — Zombie, Dalmatian, Megalodon and El Toro Loco, among others — made a lap around the course, parked, and prepared for a series of brief, one-on-one races.

Neophytes might assume that cars are still regularly crushed under-wheel at these events, which mainly feature aerial acrobatics and tricks. The winners — determined by the fans watching, who score the non-racing performances on a scale of 1 to 10 using their phones — win only bragging rights, no money. And so it makes sense that Monster Jam is a spectacle-first business. Two drivers stomping on 1,500-horsepower apiece for 30 seconds sounds like 10 cars backfiring into your eardrum. It is shockingly, ecstatically loud. That’s the point.

Mr. Anderson gunned Grave Digger to ultimate victory in the racing contest, earning eight points. He climbed atop his truck for a touchdown-style, chest-beating celebration.

Next up was the two-wheel competition. The trucks had two chances to ramp up the mound of dirt at the center of the pit and land on their front or back tires. The announcer walked everyone through the finer points of wheelies, poppers and other tricks as the crowd took out their phones to make their assessments. Mr. Anderson secured another first-place finish after standing his truck on its nose and reversing into a wheelie.

By 1:45 p.m., the Prudential Center smelled like an exhaust pipe. Cindy Castillo, who had brought her daughter, Jaylene, and son, Izaiah, whose seventh birthday they were celebrating, said that her family had gotten used to the odor after about four years of attending the rallies.

“When we first came, my eyes actually burned from the smoke coming up,” she said. “But now we’re immune to it.”

While many parents made the trip to Newark at their children’s behest, some came on their own initiative. Champagne Pedro, a sneaker enthusiast who owns an ice cream business, traveled in from Middletown, N.Y., because he wanted “to feel like a kid again” on his 52nd birthday. “Who doesn’t love monster trucks?” he asked.

Wearing a fur-trimmed coat and oversize glasses, Mr. Pedro, who was accompanied by his two children and a fellow sneakerhead, noted his delight that three of the drivers were women. “Nothing’s impossible,” he said.

During halftime and other empty moments, interviews with drivers were broadcast on the Jumbotron. A dance cam scanned the crowd. Drivers played games like rock-paper-scissors with tykes, who earned a toy for their efforts. When halftime ended, motocross bikers rocketed up a thin ramp and performed midair stunts. Then the trucks returned, though not all lasted very long.

Monster trucks tear through doors, hoods — El Toro Loco’s hood crumpled and tore off mid-competition. “Everything but the chassis will more than likely be replaced once, if not 100 times,” Mr. Anderson said.

Sometimes the trucks simply fail. A Caterpillar vehicle dragged Zombie, now more dead than undead, off the course in the second half. Grave Digger risked a similar fate when Mr. Anderson flipped the vehicle onto its roof during the “Sky Wheelie” round. (It wouldn’t have been the first time a truck had died on Mr. Anderson — he totaled Grave Digger No. 33 in his first year driving.)

Would Grave Digger return for the freestyle event? “We’re not sure if Weston will be back,” the announcer said at one point, eliciting a lone boo from the stands. The favorite to win might yet lose.

The event was running 12 minutes into unofficial stoppage time. Monster Jam schedules its indoor events to run for two hours, approximately the amount of time parents can reasonably hope their children will sit still. Wrecks slow things down.

Then word came. Grave Digger’s theme song, “Bad to the Bone,” began to play. Mr. Anderson sped his truck into the center of the pit and promptly put up the highest score of the round, securing his supremacy for another day.

Or at least for a few hours. The central mound of dirt would have to be quickly rebuilt and the racetrack soil manicured. Another competition was scheduled to start at 7 p.m.

Never one to waste a spare moment, Matt Fitzgerald clambered into the second row of his Mazda CX-90 on a recent weekday morning and cracked open his MacBook so that he could work on another book.

Mr. Fitzgerald, 52, is many things — writer, public speaker, coach — but mostly he is prolific. He has written or co-written 34 books, most of them about running, endurance sports and nutrition. He writes early. He writes often. He writes a lot.

“Sometimes I do feel like I’m doing B-plus work on a dozen things versus A-plus work on three or four,” he said. “But I am who I am. There’s always a couple of things where I try to give the absolute best of myself at any given time, and I guess that’s enough.”

Mr. Fitzgerald has the sort of slim, athletic build that hints at another part of his identity: distance runner. He has been prolific in that area, too, finishing 50 marathons — his fastest in 2 hours 39 minutes 30 seconds. And, once upon a time, he would have been jogging on the quiet, snow-dusted road in Flagstaff, Ariz., where he had parked his sport-utility vehicle.

Instead, Mr. Fitzgerald was waiting for John Gietzel, a 48-year-old business consultant from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to finish loosening up so that he could close his laptop and coach him through a series of hill sprints. As for himself, Mr. Fitzgerald has barely exercised in three years.

“I probably wouldn’t be doing this if I hadn’t gotten sick,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “But I’ve found it surprisingly rewarding.”

Mr. Fitzgerald’s bout with long Covid has, in important ways, forced him to reshape who he is and what he does. In the process, he has found vicarious joy by starting a business called Dream Run Camp out of his home in Flagstaff, where he lives with his wife, Nataki, and a rotating cast of recreational runners who pay between $45 and $115 a day to stay in one of four guest bedrooms and be coached by him.

“I’m trying to create a happening,” said Mr. Fitzgerald, who shared his long-term vision: “Fast forward a few years, and everyone in the world has heard of Dream Run Camp, and there’s this mystique about it and it’s all good vibes.”

He organizes group runs every morning. He has “coach’s office hours” every afternoon when he emerges from his writing lair to offer PowerPoint presentations on topics like “Disrupting Complacency” and “Hard Fun.” Mr. Fitzgerald’s campers, whom he calls “dream runners,” can stay for however long they like, up to 12 weeks.

Mr. Gietzel, who has a job that allows him to work remotely, is staying for about a month so that he can train for the Mesa Marathon on Feb. 10. Mr. Fitzgerald plans to be at the finish line.

“There’s some kind of magic here,” Mr. Gietzel said. “I’m already feeling it.”

Mr. Fitzgerald had no way of knowing it at the time, but he now believes that the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February 2020 changed his life. He had traveled to Atlanta to make some promotional appearances ahead of the event and then race in the Publix Atlanta Marathon the day after the trials. “That weekend was much fun,” he said.

After returning home, Mr. Fitzgerald fell ill. His wife soon got sick, too. They both believe they had contracted Covid, though all of this happened before the availability of at-home tests and before widespread government shutdowns.

“We both stayed home and recovered, because hospitals were packed,” Nataki Fitzgerald said.

Mr. Fitzgerald felt horrible for about a month — “It was by far the sickest I’d ever been,” he said — before he slowly resumed his old way of life. In fact, he was running and exercising without issue through the summer of 2020.

“And then it all started to unravel in mysterious ways,” he said. “My neurological symptoms just became showstopping. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t create a training plan. I didn’t want to interact with people.”

Much remains unknown about long Covid. While there is no test that determines whether symptoms like fatigue, brain fog and persistent headaches are a result of the virus, long Covid can persist for weeks, months or even years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While Mr. Fitzgerald said his neurological issues had improved in recent months, he still experiences chronic fatigue and “post-exertional malaise,” meaning that anything involving physical effort leaves him feeling awful.

“Exactly the disease you want if you’re an endurance athlete,” he said.

Early last year, he felt good enough to try to ease back into running. After six weeks of gradually building his workload, he was able to jog for 30 minutes.

“And then the bottom dropped out again,” said Mr. Fitzgerald, who has not jogged beyond short distances since.

It has been disorienting for someone whose entire life revolved around sports. He recalled one of his fondest experiences as a runner, when he spent 13 weeks training for the 2017 Chicago Marathon as a self-described “fake professional runner” with HOKA NAZ Elite, a Flagstaff-based team of world-class distance runners. Mr. Fitzgerald concluded his time with the team by running a personal-best time for the marathon at age 46, and by writing a book about it called “Running the Dream.”

As Mr. Fitzgerald struggled with the effects of long Covid, he reflected on that experience in Flagstaff. He knew he could no longer run — at least, not anytime soon — but he could envision a way to stay involved, by using his expertise to coach others.

After convincing his wife that they should uproot their lives in California and move to Flagstaff, which is a high-altitude mecca for runners, Mr. Fitzgerald welcomed his first campers — sorry, dream runners — last May. He has hosted about 30 so far.

“I’ve known him to be someone who delivers on his ideas,” said Ben Rosario, the executive director of HOKA NAZ Elite.

Running camps are not exactly a novel concept. Steph Bruce, an elite distance runner, and her husband, Ben, have a weeklong camp for runners in Flagstaff each summer. There are countless others across the country.

The difference with Dream Run Camp is that Mr. Fitzgerald’s dream runners live in his house.

The walls are adorned with artwork of top runners. There is a communal recovery area with a hyperbaric chamber and a contraption called a vibroacoustic therapy bed. His garage is outfitted with high-end fitness equipment. The backyard features a sauna and a small pool for exercise swimming. Mr. Fitzgerald and his wife live in an attached guesthouse.

“It’s a tough thing to promote,” he said. “‘Come to Dream Camp, and be a little bored! It’ll be great for your running!’

“But there’s some truth to it. I see people who come here who are kind of clenched from their normal lives, and after they’ve been here for a few days, they’re liquid.”

While Mr. Fitzgerald seems to have made peace with some of his limitations, he cannot accept being a bystander forever.

Just after midnight on New Year’s Day, he padded downstairs to his computer so that he could sign up for the Javelina Jundred, a 100-kilometer ultramarathon in Fountain Hills, Ariz., in late October. Mr. Fitzgerald acknowledged how incongruous it sounded.

“I literally cannot run one step right now,” he said.

By way of explanation, Mr. Fitzgerald cited Charles Barkley’s final season in the N.B.A. After Mr. Barkley ruptured his quadriceps tendon in an early-season game, he vowed that he would be back.

Sure enough, about four months after sustaining his injury, Mr. Barkley returned to play in one final game, scoring a basket on a putback. He left the court to a standing ovation.

In his own way, Mr. Fitzgerald said, he wants to do the same. He even has a working title for a book that he wants to write: “Dying to Run: An Ailing Athlete’s Quest for One Last Finish Line.”

“I’m not doing this because I’m recovering,” he said. “I’m doing this because I’m not recovering.”

Mr. Fitzgerald does not expect to race, per se. He only wants to finish within the event’s 29-hour cutoff, even if that means walking the course.

“I can just survive,” he said.

Musicians are a colorful crowd, and as the Recording Academy doesn’t hesitate to remind audiences at every opportunity, the Grammys are “music’s biggest night.” So it may be little surprise that previous Grammys red carpets have been the site of such unforgettable looks as Cardi B swanning about in archival Mugler and Shania Twain cosplaying as Toad. Then there are the moments with a capital M: egg as entry vessel, for instance, or a neckline so low it inspired its own search engine.

While the arrivals for the 66th Grammy Awards, held on Sunday in Los Angeles, had much to live up to, several of the night’s most nominated artists — among them Dua Lipa, SZA, Miley Cyrus and Billie Eilish — have demonstrated track records on the red carpet.

Here’s what the stars wore to make their entrance.

Moments before MJ Zayas and Donald John Krams exchanged vows on Sept. 24, 2022, at the Loft by Bridgeview, an events space in Island Park, N.Y., Mr. Krams was brought to tears when he saw his soon-to-be spouse for the first time.

“The green was a must. It’s my favorite color,” said Mx. Zayas, who uses the pronoun they. “Wearing this ensemble and seeing my husband cry at how beautiful he thought I looked in it were the most affirming and unforgettable moments of my life.”

Mx. Zayas, 32, a grant coordinator at a nonprofit service provider for people with developmental disabilities in Plainview, N.Y., near where the couple lives, wore a custom emerald green jacket and a matching pleated, high-waist skirt. They accessorized with combat boots and a large, exaggerated black bow that hung purposefully around their neck — a stark but complementary contrast to Mr. Krams’s rented suit from Men’s Wearhouse. (Mr. Krams, 34, is an operations associate for Moncler, the luxury coat company.)

Mx. Zayas’s outfit was created by Shao Yang, the owner of the Tailory New York, a clothing company specializing in customized, inclusive and gender-neutral options.

Over the past few years, industry professionals have seen a small but notable rise in gender-neutral wedding attire — a departure from the feminine and masculine garments that defined bridal fashion — particularly from designers who are a part of the L.G.B.T.Q. community and allies who feel a responsibility to provide inclusive apparel. These garments are often custom made and can include three-piece suits, jumpsuits, dresses and blazers. More traditional silhouettes might feature dramatic and personalized touches or surprising colors.

A 2022 report by Klarna, a Swedish fintech company that provides online financial services, found that 36 percent of U.S. consumers had purchased fashion outside of their gender identity. Gen Z consumers are the biggest adopters of gender-fluid fashion, the report said, “with almost 58 percent of shoppers in this age group having purchased a fashion item outside of their gender identity.” (Millennials trailed behind at 40 percent, while Gen Xers contributed 22 percent.)

“Having options for how people want to dress for their wedding is finally becoming reflective of the multitude of ways people are identifying and expressing themselves,” said Lei Bretón, 46, a transgender formal wear designer based in Indianapolis and the owner of the House of Bretón, which offers wedding attire for trans, queer, gay, nonbinary and plus-size clients.

“Wedding dressing is a language of its own,” said Jackson Wiederhoeft, 30, a New York-based designer and the owner of Wiederhoeft, which specializes in flamboyant and androgynous garments. “You can say things with your body and with dressing that you can’t say with words. That power is extreme. It’s a statement for yourself and everyone else in the room.”

Mx. Wiederhoeft, who uses they, said they wanted everyone to see themselves and their bodies in a way they never expected while wearing something gender affirming. Given the industry’s ongoing challenges to be more inclusive, it’s a grandiose goal.

“In terms of fashion, we are seeing genderless or nonspecific gender in bespoke designs by people who have the financial resources to take the gamble to decide if now is a good time to test the waters,” said Helana Darwin, a sociologist who specializes in gender and the author of “Redoing Gender: How Nonbinary Gender Contributes Toward Social Change.” “That doesn’t mean we’re seeing that across the fashion or wedding industry.”

To move the needle, Dr. Darwin suggested that other clothing manufacturers would have to “decide that it makes financial sense to create genderless clothing and that there’s sufficient demand for them to invest the resources into the supply.”

The wedding industry might be the last to adopt gender-neutral offerings, she added, “because this particular type of fashion has the risk of eliciting outrage when it goes away from the gender binary.” She argued that there was still a widespread belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman. “So people feel strongly about clothing and how it should reflect that,” she said.

One of the biggest hurdles in normalizing gender-fluid attire is the sizing in traditional bridal collections. Mx. Bretón, who uses they, said that most trans and nonbinary bodies didn’t fit a typical suit or dress, which is why “it’s so important to have someone who understands their specific bodies and can make them feel comfortable and fully seen,” they said.

Mx. Bretón, a self-taught Colombian-born designer who created custom looks for 30 clients in 2023, often starts designing with clients a year before their wedding date. Offerings include three-piece, stretchy wool suits. Prices range from $3,500 to $4,000, depending on the fabric, and include a custom shirt. Dresses are purposely made with spiral steel boning, which offers more movability and a defined fit, they said. A light pink “Jellyfish Liberace” jumpsuit, complete with a “Little Mermaid” treasure trove-inspired silk cape, costs $4,500.

“Fabric doesn’t have a gender. It’s the gender that we put on it,” Mx. Bretón said. “As a trans designer, it’s important to give more permission to wear whatever you want.”

Mx. Wiederhoeft agreed.

“This is the day to say who am I, who do I want to be, and who am I in the context of this relationship?” said Mx. Wiederhoeft, who described the industry as a slow-moving entity where all visions and voices are not represented. “Bridal boutiques are not carrying what’s exciting. They don’t want to take the risk. Not everyone is in this moment. There is still a fear.”

Last year, Mx. Wiederhoeft opened their Fashion Week show with Richie Shazam, a nonbinary model who strutted the runway donning a $7,000 modern, Victorian-inspired white wedding dress with sequin-covered long sleeves, which created a pixilated disco ball effect. A large, black embroidered bow embellished the front.

“Many people are not used to seeing queer imagery. There’s still a lot of convincing, but gender is in the conversation,” Mx. Wiederhoeft said, adding that “visibility” is one way to help normalize and make these outfits more accepted.

Curtis Cassell, 35, was working as a waiter for the Ivy Room at Tree Studios, an events space in Chicago, while designing costumes on the side from 2014 to 2017 and routinely saw two fashion options at weddings: men in black suits and women in white dresses.

“I wanted to create a line of gender-fluid wedding wear that didn’t fit into the wedding world and didn’t fall into the men’s rack or women’s rack, but rather filled the aisles in between,” he said.

Mr. Cassell, who is from Ohio and moved to the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn in 2018, said he enjoyed balancing masculine clothing with feminine drama, like trains, beading and hoop skirts. In 2020, he created Queera, a gender-inclusive formal wear company in New York. His first collection, released that year, was a nod to the beach and to Romeo and Juliet — “think dramatic, historical, big shapes a la old-school Met Gala,” he said.

His 2024 collection is a deconstructed analysis of the tuxedo. “A mix-and-match gender expression of shirts and suits and tuxedos, which have exploded into gowns and blazers,” said Mr. Cassell, who designs six to eight wedding outfits a year for clients while still waiting tables. “We should have garments divided into body types that represent everyone’s identity and expression, especially on your wedding day.”

Marteal Mayer, 34, the owner and designer of Loulette Bride, a boutique bridal store in Greenpoint, offers the type of shopping Mr. Cassell encourages. Her sustainable and natural fabrics are made into gender-neutral garments in a wide range of sizes “that are all within one collection, so you don’t have to be designated to a certain section,” Ms. Mayer said.

Loulette Bride focuses on textured fabrics like silk jacquard and lace from France. Prices range from $500 for tops to $4,500 for gowns. Shirts are lined with cotton bobbinet, creating a breathable netting, making it extra malleable for different body types. There are dozens of garments that people can mix and match, including dresses, pants, jumpsuits, skirts and capes.

For her Spring 2022 shoot, she photographed two male friends in her dresses.

“It’s important to show representation of everyone in a safe environment where they feel seen and understood,” Ms. Mayer said. “You can’t just show slim, straight female bodies in size zero. That’s hard to see yourself in.”

Ms. Yang, 44, the owner of the Tailory New York, was working in a predominantly male environment, creating customized men’s suits, when her frustration with the lack of options for women and the gender-fluid community inspired her to start an inclusive line in 2014.

“I was in a boy’s club, and no one wanted to partner with me when I told them about expanding our services to other types of bodies because they didn’t see a need,” she said.

Her wedding line consists of different customized options: a three-piece tailored suit, jumpsuit, dress and beaded blazer, all of which “strikes the perfect balance between your feminine and masculine sides,” said Ms. Yang, adding that her jumpsuits, a fused-together dress and suit, are her most popular items.

“It affirms someone’s identity,” she said. “Most of our clients are fluid and don’t fit into the traditional wedding category.”

Ms. Yang dresses over 300 people every year for their weddings and special events. Her jumpsuits are made from Italian stretch satin and start at $2,950. Hand beading or embellishments can cost an additional $1,500 to $5,000. Fees include customized designs, fittings and alterations. “Creating wedding clothing for everyone is a revolution,” she said. “It’s encouraging everyone to live as themselves and to feel safe, vulnerable and seen while doing that.”

Still, some people may find that genderless clothing can be “a high risk for wedding fashion to take,” Dr. Darwin said. “Especially when you’re mixing and mingling symbols of different things to create your own hybrid and reality.”

But people like Mx. Zayas say that having gender-neutral options is life affirming.

“I wanted to wear an expression of myself; I wanted to break the rules,” Mx. Zayas said. “I don’t know what I would have worn if these options were not available. Clothing shouldn’t have rules, especially on the biggest day of your life.”

A flock of mostly 20-somethings gathered on Tuesday night in a chapel-like building in Brooklyn to hear about a subject that has been a hot topic in religious spaces for centuries: celibacy.

Except no one was using that term. Instead, they were calling it “boysober.”

“I hate the word celibacy,” said the host of the event, Hope Woodard, a comedian and storyteller who grew up in the Church of Christ in rural Tennessee.

Ms. Woodard, who lives in Brooklyn, described herself as sex-positive — and sometimes wears a button that says “I heart female orgasms” to prove it. But after taking inventory of her dating life in October, and realizing that she had been in a relationship of some kind since kindergarten, she decided to take a year away from sex and dating.

With nearly half a million followers across TikTok and Instagram, Ms. Woodard, 27, started using the term “boysober” at the start of her journey. Now she is describing the experience in a monthly storytelling and comedy show, called “Boysober,” at Purgatory, an entertainment venue in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood that was once an administrative building of the Evergreens Cemetery.

At the first sold-out show, the approximately 100 attendees filled the seats and crowded around the small stage. Before introducing the lineup of comics, Ms. Woodard explained that she intended “boysober” as an all-encompassing term, one that meant abstaining from romantic relationships with people of any gender.

The audience of mostly women and nonbinary people often burst into knowing laughter as the comedians told stories about inconsiderate partners who had left pubic hairs on the toilet seat; offered an unrefrigerated cheese stick from their back pocket; and invited a different woman to a Halloween party they had planned on going to together.

During her time at the mic, Ms. Woodard described moments when she was the villain of her own dating story — times when she had led someone on, or had allowed herself to be treated poorly because she wanted attention.

A highlight was her story about going back to Tennessee and spending time with her grandmother, who has dementia. During the visit, she noticed that her grandmother kept sending texts to her ex — that is, Ms. Woodard’s grandfather — and grew angry when he didn’t reply. The thing is, her grandfather is dead.

“I’m like, ‘Mimi, you are going to be left “on read” till your grave!’” Ms. Woodard told the crowd, using a term for a text not responded to.

And yet, she recognized herself in that moment.

“Do you ever see your mom or your grandma doing something and you’re like, ‘that’s messed up’” — Ms. Woodard used a stronger word — “but then you’re like, ‘I know I’ve got that inside of me’?”

A big part of the yearlong break from sex and romance is unlearning the unhealthy relationship patterns that often get passed down from generation to generation. “Maybe we are one of the first generations of women where we don’t actually have to plug into a man for, like, energy and power and whatever,” Ms. Woodard said.

Eliza Wright, an events planner from Brooklyn who was in the audience, said she knew what it was like to take a break from men. After a few bad sexual experiences in college, she stopped having sex for a couple years, and in that time she realized she wasn’t attracted to men at all, she said. She then fell in love with her longtime best friend Jess. The two are now married.

Ms. Wright, 25, pointed to the pressure on women to earn male attention. “When that dissolves,” she said, “there’s a whole new world that opens.”

Ms. Woodard said that, growing up in the South, she was raised to please others. Now, she said, she sometimes struggles with knowing what she wants. At its core, her “boysober” year is about learning how to say no.

“I’m a little bit angry at myself and angry at all the sex that I’ve had that I feel like I didn’t choose,” she said. “For the first time ever, I just feel like I have ownership over my body.”

Catie Kobland, 24, a nanny and graduate student in Manhattan who attended the event, said that she and her friends “go celibate” every so often.

“When you get out of a relationship, or you have a really bad situationship and dating or seeing people is tainted, and you want to rinse it from your mouth, I feel like the best way to do it is celibacy,” Ms. Kobland said. “It’s this year’s hottest mental health craze.”

There’s an inevitable timeline to virality. First there is the burgeoning fame, then the ubiquitous online affection, followed by a fall from digital grace. We’ve seen it happen over and over.

Remember Ken Bone, the gentleman in a red sweater who won hearts during a presidential debate in 2016? It wasn’t long before internet sleuths unearthed his unsavory Reddit history. TikTok’s favorite emu farmer? You already know where this is headed. (In internet parlance, these characters are often referred to as “milkshake ducks.”)

Now, Campbell and Jett Puckett are experiencing the latter half of this timeline.

The Pucketts, a married couple who live in Georgia, rose to prominence on TikTok, where Ms. Puckett regularly posts videos of the couple modeling their outfits. It is technically his wife’s account, but Mr. Puckett has become beloved for the very particular ways he hypes up his wife, whom he affectionately refers to as Pookie.

“This is the ultimate Friday date night outfit,” Mr. Puckett says in one video from November, gesturing to his wife’s miniskirt and cardigan. “It’s the sexy but classy look that I love,” he says in a video of the pair getting ready to attend a college-football game.

“Pookie looks absolutely amazing,” he says in a more recent upload. It has been viewed over 6 million times. Mr. Puckett sometimes describes his wife’s outfits as “fire.”

At first, viewers were baffled by the couple’s videos. Many found them a vehicle for experiencing acute secondhand embarrassment. But in recent weeks, the tide has turned. “I love this man,” reads a representative comment on a recent video. “He is so awkward in every video, but it’s so sweet,” reads another.

Mr. Puckett’s vocal adoration for his wife’s taste and wardrobe has become a meme. TikTok users have begun mimicking Mr. Puckett and making “absolutely fire” parody videos. Even Southwest Airlines got in on the bit. (Typically, when a brand enters the picture, it’s a sure sign an internet joke is no longer funny.)

Here’s where the inevitable happened: As the couple became more popular, people began digging into their online history. A TikTok user posted a screenshot of what appeared to be Mr. Puckett’s LinkedIn and narrated his résumé to the tune of two million views. (This video did not turn up anything unsavory, but rather pointed out Mr. Puckett’s academic and professional accolades.)

Then on Reddit, users shared photos of a person they claimed to be Ms. Puckett. In one, the woman poses in front of a Confederate flag. (The photo was still visible as of Wednesday on a Facebook account that appears to belong to Ms. Puckett.) In another, she wears an old-fashioned gown with a large skirt, which some online have said was a costume for an “Old South” plantation-themed ball. (This photo was posted on Pinterest by an account purporting to be the University of Mississippi’s chapter of the sorority Phi Mu, of which Ms. Puckett was a member.)

Ms. Puckett declined multiple requests to be interviewed for this article. In an email to The New York Times, she wrote that she had addressed the photos on social media. “Some old photos of mine recently resurfaced,” she wrote in an Instagram story. “At the time these photos were taken, I was 20. I didn’t fully understand the impact of my actions the way I do now.” She apologized “for the harm this may have caused for some and take full responsibility.”

Ms. Puckett is an influencer attempting to court an audience and, as such, has invited the internet at large to pay close attention to her. This scenario, however, doesn’t just happen to people seeking fame. By now everyone should understand the speed and ease with which everyone’s entire online experience is available for public consumption. But larger questions surround digital footprints, and as generations are raised in a world where there was never a time without internet, those footprints are getting larger and more unwieldy by the day.

Our pixelated detritus can range from banal and harmless to posts that might negatively affect someone’s personal life, career or, simply, cause unwanted or unearned embarrassment.

“Regular people need to be aware that through almost no attempt of their own, their lives could just suddenly blow up and become fodder for public consumption and judgment,” Kate Lindsay, writer of the digital culture newsletter Embedded, said in an interview. (Ms. Lindsay emphasized that she was not condoning Ms. Puckett’s actions, but was speaking more broadly.)

“I think it is within everyone’s best interests to regularly cull their internet presence,” she added. “There are some people who seem to fall under the belief that that’s avoiding or skirting accountability, but I actually think the deleting is the accountability. You realize that’s bad and it doesn’t represent you anymore.”

Pookie and her fire outfits will likely be forgotten as quickly as they appeared, but the viral cycle will all but certainly begin anew for someone else. It has probably already begun.

Pandora, known for its affordable sterling-silver charm bracelets, is the world’s largest jewelry company by volume: The Danish chain sells more than 100 million pieces annually. This week, it announced that it is now sourcing only 100-percent-recycled silver and gold for its collections.

The move was touted as an important step by a massive company to reduce its environmental footprint. “We wanted to lead by example,” Pandora’s chief executive, Alexander Lacik, said in an interview. “If we can make positive contributions to society through our use of recycled gold and silver, it means anyone can do it.”

By working with metals that have already been mined, Pandora won’t be digging deeper in search of new materials, allowing the company to substantially reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Mining requires more energy and resources than recycling and is a leading source of mercury pollution. In a 2020 news release announcing its shift to recycled metals, Pandora cited statistics from the World Gold Council and other entities showing that the process of recycling gold reduces emissions by about 99 percent compared to mining it, while recycling silver reduces carbon emissions by about 66 percent compared to mining it.

Other brands, like Prada and Monica Vinader, have also started using recycled metals. But some industry observers warn that those materials can seem more virtuous than they may really be.

Like “sustainability,” the word “recycled” can mean different things to different people. That interpretation gap can prove problematic, said Tiffany Stevens, the chief executive of the Jewelers Vigilance Committee, an organization in New York City that focuses on ethics and policy advocacy in the industry.

“Recycled is a positive modifier in most contexts but that isn’t necessarily the case when it comes to gold or silver,” she said. The term “recycled,” she added, gives jewelry made with such materials a “green halo,” or an aura of being environmentally friendly.

But the term does not “give people any clear answers about where their metals came from,” Ms. Stevens said, which is a reason her organization and others have asked the Federal Trade Commission to disallow the use of “recycled” to describe jewelry products sold in the United States. The F.T.C. is expected to respond this year when it releases updates to its environmental marketing guidelines.

Those guidelines currently say that “it is deceptive to represent, directly or by implication, that an item contains recycled content unless it is composed of materials that have been recovered or otherwise diverted from the waste stream.” Precious metals are generally not considered waste, however, because they have been melted and reused for centuries and typically retain their value.

The term “recycled” can also obscure the origins of some metals, like those sourced by so-called cowboy miners, or outlaw refiners known for using child labor or running operations that fund the activities of criminal networks. Patrick Schein, a refiner and a board member at the Alliance For Responsible Mining, said the word can create the illusion that the recycling process always yields “newly born gold that is ethically acceptable.”

The Alliance For Responsible Mining, an advocacy group, has promoted other ways to improve the jewelry industry’s supply chains, including for companies to support programs by groups like the Better Gold Association, which works with small-scale miners refining metals more responsibly.

“Buying exclusively recycled gold excludes this sector, which employs many people who already face vulnerable situations,” read a 2020 statement released by the alliance and other organizations.

Mr. Lacik said the shift to sourcing only recycled metals at Pandora was based more on environmental factors than on how it might affect small-scale miners, a group that produces nearly two-fifths of the world’s mercury population, according to a 2018 United Nations report.

“You have to decide: Is the climate topic more or less important than particular communities,” he said. “In our case, we think that getting hold of the climate issue and moving progress forward is a bigger topic for humanity in the long run.”

While using recycled metals might reduce the environmental footprint of Pandora, the mining of new gold and silver hasn’t slowed over the last decade, suggesting that companies’ growing interest in such materials has done little to offset the overall climate footprint of mining.

A team of 100 employees has been involved in the switch to recycled metals at Pandora, which moved from mined to lab-grown diamonds in 2021. The change in metal sourcing required adapting processes and equipment to measures set by the Responsible Jewellery Council, a group in London recognized for setting global standards.

Among Pandora’s suppliers of recycled metals is MKS PAMP, a Swiss refinery and trader. “We know every single source of our supply chain and can tell you to the gram what goes to whom,” said Xavier Miserez, the refinery’s head of sales. “Risk zero doesn’t exist but we try to mitigate as much as possible.”

Pandora plans to pay about $10 million more annually for recycled metals than it was paying for newly mined ones, Mr. Lacik said, “but that is a cost we are willing to absorb.”

“I’m also realistic about how important this is to jewelry shoppers,” he added, noting that most are driven by two main factors: design and price. “Some might then ask about sustainable production — but not many.”

Madonna performed at Madison Square Garden on Monday night as part of her Celebration Tour, a lavish stage spectacle devoted to her catalog of hits as the Queen of Pop. During “Like a Prayer,” she sang from a spinning carousel filled with jumbo crucifixes and shirtless men. When she performed “Vogue,” she invited Kelly Ripa onto the stage to join her in judging the ballroom moves of her dancers with scorecards.

“I don’t know when I’m going to be back here playing again, but I’m doing this show like it’s my last show,” Madonna, 65, told the crowd. “And I’m doing this show like it’s my first show.”

Before the concert, the scene outside the arena resembled a fashion runway as Madonna fans arrived to serve up style tributes to her. Men emerged from the subway wearing black biker boots and leather jackets. Some women had drawn fake beauty spots onto their upper lips. At a subterranean pregame bar in Penn Station, while hits like “Holiday” and “Papa Don’t Preach” piped from a speaker, Sophy LeMay, a corporate accountant, wore fingerless lace gloves as she nursed a drink.

Fans shared their opinions about the lawsuit filed by two concertgoers against Madonna, who has become known as an unpunctual stage performer, accusing her of false advertising and negligent misrepresentation for going on late at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in December. (Her representatives said that they “intend to defend this case vigorously.”)

“It is what it is,” Julio Alvarez, who wore a bowler hat, said. “She’s Madonna.”

“I’ve traveled all the way from Oklahoma to see her,” added Kevin Smith, who brandished a black riding crop. “I’ll stay awake until 1 a.m. to see her if I need to.”

In the edited interviews below, fans reflected on Madonna’s enduring cultural relevance.

Francisco Ramirez

Communications consultant

Why is she important to you? All roads lead to Madonna. Look, I love Beyoncé, but no one will ever take the crown from her. No one can take away what she’s given us. And what I mean by that is young queer folks who once knew no better. She led us through the wilderness.

Do you mind an unpunctual diva? I’ve made sure to be prepared for it if that happens. I had sleepy tea, took a nap earlier. I’m moisturized.

Mike SmileZ

Artist manager

Why is she important to you? Madonna was specifically responsible for my sexual awakening. She helped me find myself.

If you could spend a day with Madonna, what would you do? My PG-13 answer to that would be: I’d love to talk to her about the Danceteria days while giving her a foot massage.

Do you mind a tardy diva? A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.

Vera Alexander

Artist and designer

You say you once met Madonna? Yes, I met her back when she first arrived in New York City, back when she was a no one. She was just a girl from Michigan. Then she began hanging out with all the gay guys in the East Village and they enhanced her. She became brazen in a sexy way.

Kevin Smith

Criminal justice educator

Why do you love her? Because we’re going into her fifth decade, and she’s still going strong. People keep saying it’s her last tour, but I don’t believe it. This will not be her last tour. No one tells Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney that they need to stop touring. I wonder why.

If you could spend a day with Madonna, what would you do? It would be fun to go on a fashion shopping trip together where she’s picking up the bill.

Peter Maslow

Hospitality trainer

Why is she important to you? Because of her relentless support for the queer movement. And as a cultural icon, she’s immortal.

If you could meet Madonna, what would you do? I’d ask her about her gay friends during the AIDS crisis. How she felt about that time in New York, and how she coped with it.

Nina Lebron

Teacher

Why is Madonna important to you? She’s always been a style icon. She helped support artists and designers like Keith Haring and Vivienne Westwood. And everyone knows the Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra from the Blond Ambition Tour.

Why do you love her? Because Madonna’s staying power can’t be questioned. She’s a chameleon. Always changing. Always pushing the buttons. And she’ll never stop.

Milena Guedes

Bartender

If you could spend a day with Madonna, what would you do? I’d rather spend a night out with Madonna. Go to a strip club together, have lots of drinks and party until the morning.

Do you mind a tardy diva? She’s the queen. She can come on stage as late as she wants to.

Kevin Biedrzycki

Food runner

If you could meet Madonna, what would you do? I’d ask how she gets over her anxieties and insecurities. How she is able to turn all the scrutiny that society puts onto her into her fuel and her engine as an artist. How she lets it move her forward.

Why do you love her? She sticks to her guns and deeply understands her audience.

Sophy LeMay

Corporate accountant

Why is she important to you? Because when I saw her perform one night earlier during this tour, she made me feel like a teenager again. I hope she never stops touring.

There is a certain irony to the fact that of all the shows that took place during couture last week, the one designed to be the most off-line — the one conceived as an in-person experience rather than as a simple catwalk — is the one that ended up going the most viral.

The one that no one seems to be able to stop talking about — not the fashion world, nor its millions of followers.

I am speaking of the Maison Margiela Artisanal show by John Galliano. It has sent the watching hordes into ecstasies of praise and adoration, and inspired talk of “history” and “genius” and “the sublime.”

The show, held under the Pont Alexandre III bridge in a jury-rigged nightclub straight from Paris’s romantic old underbelly as a cold wind blew in off the Seine and waiters offered hot toddies and candied violets, was everything the fashion world once seemed to promise. It was sumptuous, excessive, rife with roiling emotion communicated in cloth, with models vamping, skittering and otherwise willing to sacrifice themselves on the pyre of unfettered imagination. It was the sort of immersive show that hasn’t been seen in more than a decade. Maybe two.

Exactly that sort of show. Which is why, almost a week later, I feel a lingering sense of déjà vu. And why, scrolling through the continuing paeans in the digisphere, I can’t help but wonder if the outsize reaction has less to do with Mr. Galliano and more with our own fears about the contemporary creative condition.

Fears that, as Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino told me in Paris, “the money has won,” no matter what the form of artistic expression. “Producers are stronger than musicians,” he said. “Galleries are stronger than painters. And big groups are stronger than designers.” Fears that along the way to super-brands, billions and globalization, we lost something essential and we don’t know how to get it back.

The Margiela show, with its distortions and theater, its lack of obvious commercial intent, represented a riposte to all that (even if a big group — Only the Brave, the conglomerate run by Renzo Rosso that owns Margiela and employs Mr. Galliano — actually paid for it). And if it could be greeted with such an ecstatic embrace … well, perhaps redemption was possible. Not just for Mr. Galliano, with all his talent and his transgressions, but for anyone complicit in the corporatization of inspiration.

Yet it seems to me that viewing this particular show as a solution rather than a symptom may be more wishful thinking than reality.

Still, you can understand it. No designer has been as symbolic of fashion’s modern arc than Mr. Galliano, the lonely kid born in Gibraltar and raised in South London who found himself in the fantasies of fashion at Central Saint Martins and ultimately got the keys to the luxury kingdom as creative director of Dior before collapsing under the pressure of the globalizing industry that demanded more and more collections.

When I first started going to shows, back in the early part of the millennium, the Galliano shows, both his signature label and Dior, were the hottest tickets in Paris. People would trek to abandoned warehouses on the outskirts of the city for Galliano and wait outside in the cold for an hour to be let in and transported to whatever realm the designer had dreamed up. (The neighborhoods were so sketchy that the Saks team once had its car broken into.)

Then, over the seasons, he went from being the darling of the fashion scene to its pampered dauphin, increasingly isolated in a gilded cage, taking his Dior bows with hair dyed to match the collections and in evermore elaborate costumes — now Napoleon, now an astronaut — that seemed evermore ridiculous. Ultimately he descended into drug and alcohol addiction and lost it all after an antisemitic rant in a Paris bar.

He was fired from Dior, lost his namesake label (which was owned by LVMH), convicted of a hate crime (albeit with a reduced fine) in a Paris court and spent a few years in the wilderness. He went to rehab, offered reparations, studied with a rabbi and gradually began his return. In 2014, Mr. Rosso named him creative director of Maison Margiela, and he humbly took the job, continuing the founder Martin Margiela’s practice of never taking a bow at the end of a show.

In any case, it turned out Mr. Galliano had something new and relevant to say: exploring ways of cutting old garments and upcycling that brought the house’s explorations of used materials to an exquisite new level. Now, almost a decade later, he has fully made it his own, bringing the story full circle, writing his own happy ending.

How did he know it was time? Perhaps he sensed there was a Galliano revival brewing. Vintage dresses by the designer keep popping up on the red carpet. Jennifer Aniston wore a white bias-cut Galliano for Dior from 1999 to the 2020 SAG awards; Amal Clooney wore a mint-green beaded Galliano slip dress from 2009 to the London premiere of “Ticket to Paradise” in 2022; and Laverne Cox wore a periwinkle blue and silver draped Galliano gown to the Golden Globes in 2023. When I saw Mr. Galliano in Paris before the show, he was marveling at the prices his old work fetched in the auction market.

This March a documentary on his life, “High & Low: John Galliano,” by the director Kevin Macdonald, will open in theaters. (Full disclosure: I am a talking head in the film.) Mr. Galliano sees himself, he said during our couture preview, as one of fashion’s earliest victims of cancel culture, even though there is a significant difference between being convicted in an actual court and being convicted in the court of public opinion.

Also, the period of Mr. Galliano’s greatest triumphs is having a nostalgic moment among millennials and Gen Z-ers, who view the age before smartphones as a halcyon time, before factionalism became an epidemic and everyone was isolated in the echo chamber of their own toxic beliefs.

As Tara Gonzalez wrote in Harper’s Bazaar after the Margiela show: “I grew up watching Galliano’s wildly theatrical shows years after the fact on YouTube, always with a tinge of bitterness. They made me feel like I’d been born into the wrong generation — what I wouldn’t have given to have been there, witnessing those scenes in real time, nothing but a notebook on my lap.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Mark Guiducci of Vogue, who wrote on Instagram: “The John Galliano show that my generation has been waiting for. The fashion fantasy that ’90s kids were promised.”

While I can understand the desire for something you think you missed, I wonder if, in celebrating Mr. Galliano’s “return to his roots,” we haven’t somehow missed the point. That era was also full of abuses (as the #MeToo movement uncovered) and self-destructive behavior.

The truly mind-blowing aspect of Mr. Galliano’s gift is his singular ability to invent new ways to shape material and through that, the body and sense of self. That goes far beyond the obvious use of extreme corsetry out of which the flesh spills, in all its meaty glory.

When I saw him at the preview, he was chortling over the silver swallows on a black chiffon dress, which he had finally figured out how to bead on the bias to remain square rather than twisting with the cut. Seams disappeared into embroideries as if they didn’t exist. Those models — or “muses,” as he calls them — in his show weren’t hunched over with their arms protecting their guts because they were acting. The wool coats were cut to create that effect, to give the gift of gesture without effort.

And the coats weren’t wool anyway. They were layers of organza and tulle crushed together, printed to resemble men’s wear fabric, and shrouded in a veil of chiffon like a shadow.

It’s easy to miss amid all the illusory drama, but it’s also a reminder: We’ve moved beyond the idea of suffering for fashion — and that’s a good thing. The dream of fashion ought to move forward, too.

On Friday night at 3 Dollar Bill, a queer club in the East Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, partygoers danced and sang along to early 2000s hits by Fergie, Justin Timberlake and, of course, Sophie Ellis-Bextor whose “Murder on the Dancefloor” is currently having a renaissance.

The theme of the night was the movie “Saltburn,” which, based on the number of attendees who arrived dressed in costume, is quickly garnering cult status. The crowd cheered as the D.J. played “Untouched” by the Veronicas. It was like hopping in a time machine to 2007. (Well, a 2007 in which everyone owns an iPhone and has a working knowledge of the words “novel coronavirus.”)

The film, a psychological thriller set in the early aughts, is as freaky as it is aesthetically rich. Come for the sex and the murders and the mind games, stay for the long, gorgeous shots of the debauched lives of the British upper class on summer holiday.

The same tone set the mood for the evening’s festivities. There were “bathwater” cocktails — made with pineapple juice, rum and coconut milk for extra, soapy froth — for sale at the bar. (The drink tasted fine, even if its inspiration, a scene in the film where Barry Keoghan laps up Jacob Elordi’s leftover bathwater, is perhaps less than appetizing.)

Chloe Philips, one of the party’s hosts known online as Chlomosexual, roamed the scene in a plaid miniskirt and a chain mail headpiece. Several other guests also took their cues from suits of armor while getting dressed. Plenty of pairs of antlers and wings were on full display as attendees queued outside the club waiting to let loose their early-2000s alter egos. Many of the guests were in their early 20s and ready to experience that particular moment in cultural history for the very first time.

Amid the merriment, partygoers discussed their outfit inspirations, Y2K nostalgia and, of course, that much-publicized bathtub scene.

Jo Widney

Creative director

Lives in: Crown Heights

Tell me about your outfit. I’m the bathtub. I made these little handles that spin and a little faucet in the front. I was so worried there were going to be other bathtubs, but I haven’t seen any yet.

What did you think about that bathtub scene? Well … there’s a reason why I’m the bathtub.

Drew Carter

Buyer

Lives in: Ocean Hill

Where did you get your outfit? It was all thrifted, except for the shoes. I’ve got a hole in my Converse.

Who are you trying to emulate tonight? The only brown person in the main cast.

Farley? That is his name. I loved the movie, but I don’t know anyone’s name.

Gale Lawton

Client adviser at Tiffany & Company

Lives in: Hell’s Kitchen

How did you decide what to wear tonight? My friend — it’s his birthday — lent me his bathtub. But otherwise, I just picked a cute outfit. The top is from the Mugler H&M collaboration. I slept overnight to be the first group in the store.

I obviously have to ask you about that bathtub scene. I sat there with my partner and I was like, “Is this arousing or disturbing?” It’s a little bit of both.

Lives in: Bushwick

Tell me about your shirt. I wanted to emulate Farley. I had to copy him.

This shirt has an important cultural history that predates “Saltburn.” Are you familiar with it? Of course!

Melvin Findley

Flight attendant

Lives in: Bushwick

What brought you out tonight? It’s my birthday and I’ve watched “Saltburn” probably seven times now.

What about it makes you keep coming back? The cinematography is really gorgeous.

Nora Stock

Filmmaker

Lives in: Bushwick

Where did you find this gown? I went to Beacon’s Closet about three hours ago and found this wedding dress. I was like, “I am Elspeth.”

Who do you think got married in this? I don’t know, I think it’s a young bride. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s, like, this 21-year-old girl who took her mom’s wedding dress and got married and then obviously got divorced, like, last year.

Lives in: Upper East Side

Where did you get this suit? I texted my mother and was like “I need this outfit ASAP. Please make it and overnight it for me.” And she said, “OK, yeah, I love my gay son.”

Where did she overnight it from? New Jersey.

Zach DePaolo

Theater director and barista

Lives in: Bedford-Stuyvesant

I love your horns. I am trying to be a slay version of the Minotaur statue from the movie.

Are you a Shakespeare fan? Absolutely.

What’s the most overrated Shakespeare? “Romeo and Juliet.” It’s good but everyone does it and it’s kind of boring.

Hugo Rojas

Visual merchandiser for Moschino

Lives in: Queens

Where did you get your wings? The wings I ordered from Bihbi, the same company that made Felix’s wings for the movie.

What about the rest of your outfit? All new. The jeans are probably, like, six hours old. They are from American Eagle. It kind of fits into the early-2000s aesthetic.

And how old were you during that era? Six or 7.

Hannah Pinson and Pilar Violet

Works for a textile designer; and photographer, hairstylist and stripper

Live in: East Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant

What was your hair inspiration tonight?

PILAR VIOLET: I was making the wings from that one Galliano show with Kate Moss, but I was doing it all very last minute so I just decided to go with the feathers on top of the hair.

What about this is “Saltburn” to you?

VIOLET: I love Barry Keoghan because he’s a sexy little freak. Jacob Elordi is hot, but I love a weird little freak.

How about your outfit?

HANNAH PINSON: I was inspired by Venetia in the film. She has so much money but she does not know how to do her makeup or how to do her hair. Half of my makeup today was just wiping off black eyeliner.

I recently started losing weight, and am having trouble figuring out what to wear. It seems foolish to invest in clothes before I finally stabilize again, but wearing things that are too big not only doesn’t look good, but is not good psychologically. Any suggestions? — Paula, Milwaukee

Changes in your body, whether intentional or not, are intrinsically connected to changes in your emotions and sense of self, even before you start taking into account social messaging around weight and physical beauty.

Altering your shape can alter your identity in pretty essential ways, and since identity is expressed in part through clothing, losing weight (or gaining it) sets off a domino effect that is about more than just size. It’s also about how you communicate who you are to the world: whether you are happy or sad; whether you want to bare yourself, hide yourself, armor yourself, decorate yourself; whether you want to turn yourself into a goth, a prepster, a sophisticate, and so on.

That means any clothing purchases related to your new size should be made with care and deliberation. Well, that should be true of any clothing purchases, period, but it’s especially true when you are dealing with a different you.

You really need to live in your body for a while before you decide how you want to display it, because how you feel initially may not be how you feel later, and wardrobes can be, as you point out, an investment. Of both time and money.

But what to do in the interim?

It’s easy to see fast fashion as a quick fix: a jolt of serotonin when you are feeling unsure about who you are or how you will be received. After all, it takes less commitment, and changing your body doesn’t affect just you but also your relationships and how your friends and colleagues see you. Literally. But in the long term, such a stopgap solution is probably just a waste, in all meanings of that word.

According to a study by Statista, 23 percent of American women and 19 percent of men buy clothes they never wear. My guess is that this is in part because what can seem perfect when you are surfing shopping sites at night or on your phone while taking the subway can also seem, in the stark reality of every day, uncomfortable and obvious. So it gets relegated to the back of the wardrobe or to the landfill, never to be seen again.

For alternatives, I asked Ines de la Fressange, the famously chic designer and former model, what she would suggest. “Men’s clothes are the solutions to everything,” she said.

Specifically, she advised investing in a classic button-up shirt from a brand such as Hilditch & Key (“the pink ones are usually on sale”), which you can then wear as you want: oversize and loose, perhaps with leggings that accommodate a variety of body shapes, and then belted, tucked in or even tied.

Along with the shirt, she suggested a pair of loose khakis that can be worn either on the hips or cinched at the waist with a belt or scarf and one good jacket or unlined coat for a bit of tossed-on-top polish. Just make sure whatever you pick fits in the shoulders.

Kate Lanphear, the women’s style director of T magazine, also advocated investing in a jacket, though she suggested pairing it with a jersey wrap dress (the sort that made Diane von Furstenberg famous) that can be adjusted according to your needs.

The point is: These are pieces that transcend size and provide a base line on which to build. When you are ready.

Your Style Questions, Answered

Every week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed.

There’s a keening sound coming from America’s co-working spaces, third-wave coffee shops, and mommy-and-me yoga classes.

Perhaps you’ve heard it, as if 72.2 million complaints rang out in unison: grumblings of sore joints from high-intensity interval training, of parties held in distant neighborhoods on weeknights; grievances about the resurgence of Y2K style, the onset of hair loss, the strength of contemporary marijuana.

Millennials have grown up. We’ve hit middle age, started to show signs of aging — even of aging out of the internet and into something called “millenopause.” We now have to work harder than ever to stay culturally relevant, as Gen Z and (gasp) Gen Alpha seize the attention of marketing departments and the media.

While it’s true that the generation born in the years from 1981 to 1996 is getting older — as is the way of all life — we are obviously not actually old, except by the stretch of our own fevered imaginations. Millennials are currently between 28 and 43, which means a significant number of us are still too young to run for president. A 36-year-old is smack dab in the middle of the generational cohort, falling well within the psychologist Erik Erikson’s “early adulthood” stage of psychosocial development.

Even if we grant that there are real things making millennials feel creaky — the traditional milestones of adulthood met or not met, the 20th anniversary of “Mean Girls” and the confusing craze for Stanley water bottles — there is something a bit odd about calling so much attention to our own generational obsolescence.

So loud is the chorus of lamentations that there is a sense of protesting a bit too much. Could it be a shtick? Remember, millennials are the first generation who learned to mine their lives for social media content, and “aging” may be a category that is too robust to leave on the shelf.

Once upon a time, if you called attention to your age, it was to tell everyone how great you were doing. Baby boomers, for example, didn’t approach midlife half so neurotically. When boomers started to reach middle age in the 1980s, Cheryl Russell, then the editor of American Demographics magazine, asserted, “The era of the rule of the young is over.” The boomers would still wield cultural power; they would just leave childish things behind.

And for many boomers, aging wasn’t really even aging. “Being 40 today is what 30 used to be, and 50 is the new 40,” Diane von Furstenberg, boomer, told The New York Times in 2005. Meanwhile, for millennials, as the television writer Jen Statsky once posted, “when you are 34 you are actually 27 but the second you turn 35 you are 50.”

According to Anne Helen Petersen, author of “Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation,” millennials were trained on an internet where every detail of their lives became viral chum. Ms. Petersen was my co-worker at Buzzfeed for several years in the 2010s, when articles like, “Signs you were raised in a small town,” were the norm.

“People are going to share things or click on them because it will make them feel seen,” Ms. Petersen said. She pointed out that older millennials have been complaining about being out of touch for some time, but that as more of the generation nears 40, there has been more content about aging.

Gen Z faces similar incentives to make content based on their own lives and has, believe it or not, already started to worry about its own decrepitude. The contrast between two social media native generations is, for the first time, fodder for social media — a fact not lost on anyone who has used TikTok recently. Ever wanted to know how millennials answer the phone, versus Gen Z-ers? How they dance? How they apply makeup?

“TikTok has amplified these generational differences, where every tiny thing feels like it’s under a microscope,” said Casey Lewis, the author of the popular After School newsletter, which analyzes youth consumer trends. “From the emojis we use to the way we say certain words.”

Ironically, nearly two decades ago, millennials were branded as a generation that would change cultural mores and make everyone else feel old: “A new breed of American worker is about to attack everything you hold sacred: from giving orders, to your starched white shirt and tie,” warned a “60 Minutes” segment from 2007.

Having remade so many aspects of American life in their youthful image, millennials are acutely conscious of being defined by their age.

Perhaps all the caterwauling is a defensive strategy — a gambit to claim irrelevance for ourselves before our younger counterparts can tar us with it. One fresh argument, advanced primarily by millennials on TikTok and X, is that Gen Z is aging faster and worse than millennials. In other words, we may be old, but you’ll be here soon, and you’ll handle it even worse.

“I don’t even try to keep myself up, and that’s very freeing,” said Ms. Lewis, who added that she had recently encountered a Gen Z neighbor in the hallway of her building, spurring an epiphany. “I saw her wearing basketball shorts and a big button down with a small cami and cowboy boots,” Ms. Lewis said. “I looked down at myself and thought, ‘I don’t have to engage with that anymore.’ I was wearing jeans and a sweater. It’s freeing, in a good way.”

Of course, millennials’ ability to drive a cycle of discourse around our age means we can still shape the conversation. For millennials who criticized their boomer parents for decades for not shuffling off the stage, the “look how old we are” act may serve another purpose: prolonging our own time in the spotlight, and our own sense that we are the protagonists of history.

A recent TikTok by the comedian Iliza Shlesinger flicked at this tension perfectly. In the video, Ms. Shlesinger, 40, rants at Gen Z with an outraged “message from the millennials,” chiding the youngs for forgetting that “we walked on Instagram so you could run on TikTok.” Naturally, the clip has gone viral on the latter platform, where it has been viewed more than nine million times.

“We were young once too,” Ms. Shlesinger said.

Audio produced by Parin Behrooz.

It’s not every day that Francis Ford Coppola deigns to weigh in on a TikTok trend.

But he made an exception for the so-called mob wife aesthetic — a louche amalgamation of fur coats, leather and leopard prints that are being presented on the platform as a kind of mafiosa cosplay.

In a recent Instagram post, Mr. Coppola, the director of “The Godfather,” compared the style to that of Connie Corleone, a character from the film portrayed by his sister, Talia Shire: “a sultry, delightful Italian princess.”

Hundreds of videos on the app show young women with no apparent marital relationship to organized crime trying on their own approximations of the look, which usually involve heavy jewelry and heavier eyeliner.

TikTok churns out a new reigning “aesthetic” every few months, and they vary widely in their real-world influence on offscreen dress. So what is actually powering this newly popular glamorization of outlaw-adjacent women?

What is the ‘mob wife aesthetic’?

The most basic version involves throwing a fur coat — real or faux — over an all-black outfit. But according to its proponents, the look is nothing without the attitude to go with it. Careful students of the mob wife oeuvre add red nails and lipstick, a high-volume hairdo and sunglasses big enough to function as a kind of windshield.

“It’s expressive, it’s bold, it’s unapologetic,” said Sarah Arcuri, 29, who lives in New Jersey and calls herself the “Mob Wife Aesthetic CEO” on TikTok. She has been dressing that way since high school, she said, inspired by the flashily dressed women in her Italian American family as well as the reality shows “Mob Wives” and “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”

Ms. Arcuri has been posting about the mob wife look since 2022, but interest in the trend did not surge until the beginning of this month. Its fans coalesced around a snippet of audio posted by Kayla Trivieri that has since been used as the soundtrack to more than 2,000 other videos.

Uh, give me some examples.

TikTokers are mostly reaching for examples of fictional mob wives (and girlfriends) like Carmela Soprano, Edie Falco’s character on the HBO series “The Sopranos.” Users on the app are lip-syncing to scenes of her arguments with Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and circulating images of Ms. Falco with French tips and big hair. Others point to her “Sopranos” co-star Drea de Matteo, playing Adriana La Cerva, and Lorraine Bracco’s character in “Goodfellas,” Karen Hill.

Where is this coming from?

Speaking of “The Sopranos,” plenty of users on the app believe that the trend was planted by HBO to coincide with its extensive promotion efforts for the 25th anniversary of the show’s debut. In a statement, Jason Mulderig, a spokesman for HBO, called the trend “a testament to ‘The Sopranos’ and its enduring impact on culture” — but did not cop to creating it.

Ms. Arcuri and others see TikTok’s preoccupation with mob wives as a reaction to the minimalist perfection sometimes advanced on visual social media platforms. Last year there was a “clean girl aesthetic” (think: beige pullovers, tidy updos) and “stealth wealth,” which prioritized subtle signifiers of wealth.

Sorry, but, is this real?

Typically, TikTok’s “aesthetic” trends go something like this: Identify a long-established style (wealthy older women wearing cardigans, for example) and give it a catchy new label (Coastal Grandmothers!). In this case, there are plenty of people who dress in the style captured by “The Sopranos” 25 years ago — some of whom are speaking up about their look being repackaged into a “trend.” It remains to be seen how many people outside that demographic will start dressing this way because they happened to see it on TikTok.

Is there deeper meaning?

Like the clean girl and stealth wealth aesthetics, the mob wife look focuses on conspicuous signifiers of wealth, but this time it’s of those usually associated with the nouveau riche. And specifically those whose wealth was earned outside the rule of law.

In most popular depictions, from “The Sopranos” to Lil’ Kim, even when she’s powerful herself, the mob wife is an accessory to a more powerful man — her sex appeal, beauty and style reflect his power back to him. What the mob wife knows or doesn’t know about her own situation creates her dramatic appeal: Is she clueless, holding no actual power in the illicit realm of her husband? Or is she savvy, looking away while enjoying his money? Regardless, in exchange for her silence, she gets to go shopping.

“In order to be in that lifestyle, as we’ve seen from movies and shows, you have to have a certain toughness to you,” Ms. Arcuri said. “They can wear what they want and get away with it.”

Someone must be complaining about this.

Ms. Arcuri said she disagreed with critics who say the trend glamorizes an association with organized crime. And for every influencer currently ordering a fur coat, other TikTok users are saying that these trends increasingly feel manufactured and meaningless. “There is a little bit of aesthetic fatigue on social media,” she added. “Every little microtrend is labeled.”

Each of those labels functions as an opportunity for influencers, brands and, yes, media outlets to hop on a trend and direct it to their own ends. Those seeking to get mob wife look may have to pay for it: A box of “mystery” items of secondhand mob wife apparel is already for sale on Poshmark for nearly $200.

On her press tour for the new adaptation of “Mean Girls,” Reneé Rapp has called out the owner of a bus touring company owner by name, described herself as “ageist” against millennial women, praised Megan Thee Stallion’s butt and used an interview as an opportunity to shoot her shot with Rachel McAdams, the original Regina George, whose shoes Ms. Rapp stepped into for her latest role. She also said that she might not want Ms. McAdams to see the new take on the character and suggested that she was weary of the franchise.

“I’m tired of wearing pink,” Ms. Rapp told an interviewer. “I’ve had it, I’m good on it. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“She’s not staying within the established safe boundaries of what’s the right thing to say, and that’s why her fans are identifying with her and gravitating to her — it’s very refreshing,” said Bill McGowan, founder and chief executive of Clarity Media Group, who conducted the Kardashians’ first media training session. “I mean, think about it — in some ways unhinged has become the new authentic.”

In the world of celebrity today, lawlessness and “unhinged” personalities reign supreme. Ms. Rapp is carving out her stardom in the mold of Julia Fox or even the disgraced politician George Santos, who both appear to be hyper-aware of their own presentation as well as willfully shambolic, treating press appearances as opportunities to go off-script. The more shocking, the better.

It’s a departure from what fans have come to expect from their favorite stars, many of whom have been coached to delicately dodge difficult questions and stick to positive messaging about their films and projects. In a meta move, Ms. Rapp appeared in an “S.N.L.” sketch last week that included a quip about her being sentenced to “40 hours of court-ordered media training.”

But among her supporters, “keep Reneé Rapp away from media training” has become a common refrain. So-called media training was once an industry secret. “23 years ago, we were the ones whispering off in the sides, telling stars what to say,” Mr. McGowan said. Today, however, an increasingly media literate generation may see it as antagonistic to star power, dulling a celebrity’s personality.

Now, stars who appear fundamentally untrained, who disrupt the norms of press appearances, and who leave their interviewer and co-stars shocked, as Ms. Rapp has done, may reap their own kinds of rewards, experts say: internet virality, or an ‘it girl’ moment.

Nya Étienne, 22, a digital strategist and journalist, said that Ms. Rapp’s delivery may appeal in particular to members of Gen Z, who have come to form deeper attachments to celebrities in an increasingly atomized world.

“These are people who spend hours online meticulously studying clips of celebrities, and when they see them acting like ‘real people,’ they feel a little bit less alone,” she said, adding: “These online communities thrive off shared cultural moments and understandings.”

Still, some argue that even this “stars, they’re just like us” relatability can be manufactured, especially through an evolving school of media training.

“Back in the day, it was all about taking three key messages, grinding them into some kind of indistinguishable, bland pulp that nobody could possibly remember,” Mr. McGowan said. He said media training had shifted its focus, preaching memorability over safe messaging. “Media training should be about creating memorable, provocative, interesting things to say and stories to tell,” he said.

Before the practice transformed the industry, stars like Parker Posey and Norm McDonald were early pioneers of a certain unpredictable style of interview, drawing laughter from audiences with their eccentric, out-of-pocket anecdotes and casual disregard for the interview format. In the 2010s, it was a style of media performance that became closely associated with white female millennials like Lena Dunham and Jennifer Lawrence, both of whom earned reputations for being quirky and offbeat (though sometimes it backfired).

“The idea of media training is existentially repulsive to me,” Ms. Dunam said to the singer Lorde in an interview with Dazed in 2015. “I would rather step in my own vomit 800 times and track it all over the world and get in trouble than sit in an office and have someone explain to me how I’m supposed to talk about things.”

Glenn Kinsey, a media trainer with 33 years of experience, said that while he has always encouraged authenticity in his practice, it’s a style of training that has only recently become popular among celebrities.

“Certainly in the past few years, it’s really been blowing up, because my thing is getting them to be themselves and to look like they’ve had no training,” he said. “Ultimately, the more raw, the more real, the more imperfect — in many ways, the better.”

One can only imagine the carnage that will ensue if Ms. Rapp undergoes her 40 hours of court-ordered media training.

Is anyone still rocked by Balenciaga’s notorious ad campaign from 2022 featuring teddy bears in harnesses? Seemingly not Kim Kardashian, who was “re-evaluating” her relationship with the fashion house in the wake of the scandal those ads caused, only to be named an ambassador for the brand this week.

Nor is Patricia Field. Ms. Field, 82, a merchant, costume designer and lifelong champion of funky alternative style, is a star of Balenciaga’s new “closet” campaign alongside Ms. Kardashian and Nicola Peltz-Beckham.

Looking formidable in a black leather trench and toting an updated version of the label’s Neo Cagole city bag ($3,100), a smiling Ms. Field appears in an ad posing against shelves full of freshly minted versions of the house’s top-selling bags.

“When I was first approached, I thought they wanted my services as a stylist,” she said. “But I was elated to discover they wanted me as a model. My reaction was like, ‘Really? Me?’”

Pat, don’t be shy.

Zac Posen Dresses the “Swans”

Ryan Murphy, a creator of “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” has described the TV show’s highbred protagonists — Babe Paley, Slim Keith, C.Z. Guest and other Park Avenue types whom Mr. Capote called his “swans” — as the original “Real Housewives.” But there was nothing remotely domestic about them, certainly not their garb.

The show, which will have its premiere on FX on Jan. 31, is focused on Mr. Capote’s betrayal of his closest society confidantes. A highlight is an episode based on the writer’s fabled black-and-white ball held in 1966, which features costumes whipped up by Zac Posen.

In creating them, Mr. Posen aimed for verisimilitude. “These women were style icons at the time, so I wanted to honor their looks but with a Ryan Murphy twist,” said Mr. Posen, 43.

“I tried to find the music that was played at the gala and video of the swans in their full looks,” he added. “But we weren’t recreating history. We were reimagining history.”

Did he hit his mark? Judge for yourself when the episode airs on Feb. 7.

One Pricey Spray of Tulle

It’s staggering what some people will pay for a bit of froth. In case you haven’t heard: The tutu Sarah Jessica Parker wore in the opening credits of “Sex and the City” was recently on the block at Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, Calif.

It fetched $52,000 — an eye-popping sum considering that the tutu was purchased for $5 by Ms. Field, the show’s costume designer, who said that she found it inside a remnant bin in Manhattan’s garment district.

A Knight at the Brooklyn Museum

“Where do you put the chevalier, before or after the name?” Dianne Brill, the fashion designer known for her coifed bouffant, asked with a perfectly straight face at the French Consulate in New York late this month.

Ms. Brill, a former fixture of the New York club scene, was referring to the French title for knight. The distinction had just been conferred on her friend Matthew Yokobosky, the senior curator of fashion and visual culture at the Brooklyn Museum, during a ceremony at the consulate. Mr. Yokobosky, who was named Knight in the National Order of Merit, is known for putting on extravagant exhibitions that have highlighted the work of French designers including Christian Dior, Thierry Mugler and Pierre Cardin.

He received the honor for his “contributions that helped shape our culture” and for his “forward thinking,” said Damien Laban, the acting consul general of France in New York. Guests watched from gilt chairs as Mr. Laban pinned a gold medal — the ultimate high-end bauble — on the curator’s lapel.

Mr. Yokobosky said his investiture sent him back to his childhood in southwestern Pennsylvania, when his piano teacher rewarded successful lessons with French postcards. The gesture ignited in Mr. Yokobosky an enduring passion for Gallic culture, and especially for French style. “When you’re in Paris you often do feel as if you are in a very chic movie,” he said.

For the record, he and Ms. Brill determined (via a Google search) that you may address him as Chevalier Yokobosky, or, more simply, as monsieur.

The night of the wolf moon — the first full moon of the new year — also happened to be the last night of the couture, when John Galliano recreated a decaying Paris nightclub in the vaulted caverns beneath Paris’s Pont Alexandre III bridge across the Seine.

Crepe paper streamers the color of Madeira wine were draped across walls and dangled from the ceiling amid banged-up wooden bistro chairs and scratched-up tables. Then a shirtless chanteur with a Freddie Mercury mustache rose to croon a love song, a grainy black and white film was reflected in the mirrors and the Maison Margiela show began: a fashion fantasy built on extreme corsetry in which bodies became hourglasses; flesh became a fabric unto itself (and no actual fabric was quite as it seemed); and historical allusions ran in and out like time.

At the end, the audience members were so overwrought they didn’t just clap, they stamped their feet hard enough to make the floorboards shake. It has been awhile since anyone had experienced a world-building show quite like it. It looked tortured, in a way that is rarely considered acceptable anymore, and extraordinary at the same time.

Once upon a time such fashion theater was Mr. Galliano’s signature. But between the transformation of houses into global brands and his own drug- and alcohol-fueled antisemitic self-immolation, exile and penitent return at Margiela, it had begun to seem like a thing of the past. A relic of an earlier age of histrionic self-indulgence of which he was the cautionary tale.

Is it time for reconsideration? Vintage Galliano is having a moment — and this was exactly that. Certainly it was a riposte to the whole idea of comfort clothing, stealth wealth and playing it safe; a masterful demonstration of the couturier’s ability to reshape nature in service of a dream and recreate the body modification and control that have become the province of the very rich. (It was striking that Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, multimillionaires and famous physiques both, were in the front row.)

Fashion at this level is its own reality-distortion field. That’s something to which the .00001 Percent can relate. For everyone else, it’s an anthropology lesson.

The Wealthy Condition

Couture, with its celebrities and its entrance-making evening wear, has become such a key element of brand marketing — such an eye-catching content generator — that it’s easy to forget that these clothes don’t just speak to Instagram and TikTok, they also speak to customers, albeit the select few who can afford five- and even six-figure dresses. And for that, the clothes need to have something to say about the wealthy condition. At least something beyond just “look at me.”

Yet that is exactly what seems to be missing in the work of the new crop of couturiers, names such as Gaurav Gupta and Robert Wun. They have the showmanship down pat: Mr. Gupta with his signature cosmic swirls spiraling up to the Milky Way, Mr. Wun with his crystal-rain-drenched film noir vibes. But it’s hard to tell if there’s anything behind the very elaborate curtain.

Indeed Mr. Wun’s decision to splatter a draped white cocktail dress and veil in jeweled blood (or blood-red beading) seemed particularly jarring, even if he was telling a gothic tale, given what else is going on in the world. And the red-skinned alien crawling out of the corseted back of a red ball gown looked — after the bedazzled robot baby at Schiaparelli, not to mention Rick Owens’ human backpack collection of 2015 — unfortunately like a gimmick. And a familiar one.

At least Simone Rocha, dipping into couture for the first time as the guest designer for Jean Paul Gaultier, brought her understanding of the power and frustrations of femininity, as well as her subversion of stereotype, to her dialogue with the house, giving the vintage Gaultier-isms gorgeous relevance for the current day.

In her hands the trademark corset lacings were loosened, as if Marie Antoinette had come undone, the bondage straps less B.D.S.M. than bedazzled. Perhaps most striking, however, given the current debate over the female body, was Ms. Rocha’s decision to remake the famous cone bra in the shape of rose thorns. Touch those puppies if you dare.

The Value of the Original

Ms. Rocha has what Mr. Galliano demonstrated: a singular creative voice. If part of the value of couture is uniqueness — the one-off, the made-just-for-you — that’s the crux of the matter.

It’s starting to become apparent at Fendi, where Kim Jones is coming into his own, embracing the elegance of refusal. See, for example, a perfect black column dress; fur that actually wasn’t fur, but rather silk fringe with the swish of mink; and trompe l’oeil silhouettes picked out in silver against a backdrop of jersey, like shadow puppets at a party.

And it’s emerging at Alaïa, where Pieter Mulier finally left behind the dutiful imitations of house style in favor of an original idea: one that spoke to the values of the brand’s founder without simply repeating them.

In his best collection yet, Mr. Mulier worked with one yarn (a special wool) and one shape (the circle), and then spun them into a host of smart ideas starting with blouson skirts and tops made from hundreds of strands that swayed and shimmied with the body, as if a skein had come undone. Wrist pompoms of curly wool decorated skinny knits and trapeze puffer coats. A tour de force of a dress looked like a snap bracelet, but one engineered to encircle the torso, climbing from the waist to the ribs and the breasts with no visible fastenings.

At Valentino, Pierpaolo Piccioli summed it up with: “The magic is in all the effort you don’t see.” His sumptuous feast of a show simply proved the point. He has the ability to make seemingly simple clothing — an anorak, a blazer, a New Look skirt — seem ineffably luxurious thanks to the saturated combination of the colors, the generosity of the cut.

So he mixed sea foam green with chartreuse and pine, juxtaposed tangerine against silver and petal pink. He tossed a tunic of crushed red roses with its own train over a pair of celadon trousers instead of defaulting to black tie, sliced one wide trouser leg up the front to the thigh (and the other leg up the back) to suggest the swishy attitude of an evening gown without the work.

The result reconciles the seemingly irreconcilable. That’s rich.

Back when Nikki Haley, the last woman standing in the race for the Republican nomination, began dating her now-husband, she took a look at him and asked him what his name was.

Puzzled, he told her it was Bill, which she already knew.

“You just don’t look like a Bill. What’s your whole name?” she replied, to which he answered, “William Michael.”

“From that point on, I started calling him Michael, and all my friends did the same,” she wrote in her 2012 memoir, “Can’t Is Not an Option.”

“Before we knew it, he was universally known as Michael,” she continued. “Everyone who knew him before I did knows him as Bill, and everyone who met him after I did knows him as Michael. He looks like a Michael.”

Mr. Haley even went by that name in a South Carolina newspaper’s bridal registry announcement in 1996 ahead of the couple’s wedding. He still continues to go by Michael.

That got me thinking: What happens when you can’t see yourself dating someone with a particular name? Or if you simply don’t like your partner’s name? If Mr. Right said his name was Chad, would that be a deal-breaker? If the woman of your dreams had the same name as your mother, would you stop the pursuit or call her by another one?

The idea of “looking” more like one name than another could stem from specific memories and characteristics that people have associated with certain names: Meet enough Bills, and you’re bound to form ideas of what a Bill looks like. A strong reaction to a person’s name — and certainly one visceral enough to want to call a partner by a different name — usually comes from somewhere, said Carol Bruess, a professor emeritus at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and a relationship social scientist.

“When a name evokes an emotional reaction, it’s usually because of a past or current relationship with someone who had that or a similar name,” she added.

According to Dr. Bruess, when we have had a traumatic or negative relationship with someone, those negative associations can be easily transferred to anyone with the same name.

“If you begin dating someone with the same name as your emotionally abusive uncle, it might take time to reorient your emotional connection to the name,” she said. “Like any symbol, we can recreate and reassign the meaning.”

One Reddit user even sought the help of strangers to learn to love his girlfriend’s name, Zelda. Her parents were apparently “huge literary geeks,” and her mother had an interest in the life of Zelda Fitzgerald.

“I love her. I just can’t get over her name,” he wrote in a post. “I call her pet names and weird nicknames all the time, because I just feel so weird calling her Zelda. It reminds me of Legend of Zelda, and I don’t like the games, and my first thought is always ‘who names their kid after a video game?’”

Another user admitted not only to disliking her partner’s name, Bradley, but confessed that she instead calls him babe “90 percent of the time.”

Opting to be known by a middle name isn’t exactly uncharted territory for Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. Although her given name is Nimarata, she goes by Nikki, which she has said is on her birth certificate. (Former President Donald J. Trump has made an issue of Ms. Haley’s name on the campaign, repeatedly flubbing her given name as a racist dog whistle.)

It’s normal for couples and families to refer to one another by nicknames or totally different names as a way to show affection, to reflect a close bond, or to pay homage to an elder or ancestor.

In Ms. Haley’s case, she changed her husband’s name as she was still getting to know him and — at least in her recounting — did not seem to ask for his permission.

Names are at the center of people’s identity, according to the linguist Laurel Sutton, the president of the American Name Society. People change their names for a number of reasons, including a gender transition, a hard-to-spell name or a simple distaste for the one they were given. But usually, it’s their choice.

“To tell someone to change their name because of your personal preferences, that’s a big ask,” she said.

Send your thoughts, stories and tips to [email protected].

As Taylor Swift’s N.F.L. adventure began in earnest at a Kansas City Chiefs game against the Chicago Bears on Sept. 24, the reaction of the Fox broadcast crew — and much of the N.F.L. world in general — was summed up by Erin Andrews, a veteran sideline reporter.

“We all need to calm down,” Ms. Andrews said, shortly after Travis Kelce scored a second-half touchdown.

Ms. Andrews was making a nod to one of Ms. Swift’s songs, but she was also acknowledging how star-struck she and her colleagues were to have the world’s biggest pop star at Arrowhead Stadium to see her new love interest, Mr. Kelce, play for the Chiefs. Greg Olsen, the lead analyst on the broadcast, went as far as bragging that Ms. Swift had once liked one of his tweets.

While Ms. Swift’s presence dramatically expanded the audience for Chiefs games — Nielsen Media Research estimated an additional two million women watched Kansas City’s game on Oct. 1 — some backlash was inevitable. Ms. Swift joked about “pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads” in her Time Person of the Year profile, but she had run out of one-liners (and facial expressions) by the time the comedian Jo Koy, in a disastrous hosting gig at the Golden Globes, said: “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the N.F.L.? At the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift.”

Mr. Koy soon went on a media tour defending the joke as a criticism of the broadcasts, not Ms. Swift. But the reality was that the sequence at the awards ceremony took 16 seconds to play out, which was more time than CBS had dedicated to showing Ms. Swift at either of the last two Chiefs games she’d attended leading up to that night.

And that dissonance between how many times Ms. Swift is shown versus how many times people seem to think she was shown, has continued despite the reality that she is typically on screen for less than 25 seconds over the course of broadcasts that run longer than three hours, and her name is rarely mentioned.

Rob Hyland, the coordinating producer for NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcasts, has run the coverage for two games Ms. Swift attended — the Jets-Chiefs game on Oct. 1 and the Packers-Chiefs game on Dec. 3 — and said his team prepares heavily for how they cover her, but that everything falls away if the game gets interesting.

“It is always a balance with what’s happening on the field and how you can enhance what’s happening on the field,” said Mr. Hyland, who challenged any dissatisfied viewers to name any aspect of the games they missed as a result of the cutaways. “It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, let’s, let’s show her this many times.’ It was, ‘Hey, when appropriate, let’s remind the audience that she’s there.’”

Mr. Hyland’s crew spent the lead-up to the Jets game — which was only a week into Ms. Swift and Mr. Kelce’s public relationship — frantically trying to find out if Ms. Swift would attend, going as far as having a spotter plane searching the area for police escorts. But a close game led to most of their preparation being tossed aside in favor of game action (and at least six cutaways to Aaron Rodgers, the Jets’ injured quarterback, sitting in his own suite).

Two months later, NBC showed her only once during the broadcast of the Packers game, largely because the novelty of the relationship had begun to wear off.

A close look at the games that have aired since Christmas reveals familiar patterns of coverage that have Ms. Swift’s fans hoping to see her more while some vocal N.F.L. fans remain overwhelmed.

Jan. 21 — Chiefs vs. Bills

Times shown: 5 | Total duration: 24 seconds
Travis’s day: 5 catches, 75 yards, 2 touchdowns
Time devoted to a shirtless Jason Kelce: 21 seconds
Score: Chiefs 27, Bills 24

After an early catch by Mr. Kelce, Ms. Swift was shown sitting in her luxury suite, and Tony Romo, the color commentator, said, “There’s an interested fan right there.” The broadcast went back to her suite after both of Mr. Kelce’s touchdown catches to see her celebrations. On the second one, Mr. Romo pointed out that Jason Kelce was sitting behind Ms. Swift, drinking a beer with no shirt on. “There’s your brother-in-law right behind you,” he said, incorrectly characterizing her relationship with Travis Kelce, just as he had during Kansas City’s game on Christmas.

Jan. 13 — Chiefs vs. Dolphins

Times shown: 5 | Total duration: 1 minute 16 seconds
Travis’s day: 7 catches, 71 yards
Score: Chiefs 26, Dolphins 7

Ms. Swift’s jacket — a custom creation by Kristin Juszczyk — quickly became the talk of social media. As for the game, which was shown exclusively on the Peacock streaming service, the mentions of Ms. Swift were few and far between, other than an extended stretch in which the game’s commentators, Mike Tirico and Jason Garrett, discussed their proximity to her.

“So I’m not exactly sure where in the stadium Taylor Swift sits, right?” Mr. Tirico said, as the cameras showed her suite and began to pull back. “We’re just sitting here watching the game. The last quarter-and-a-half, there have been people up here, and I’m like, ‘Man, they must love Jason Garrett.’ Everybody’s pointing their camera up to our booth to take a picture of Jason. And then about 10 minutes ago I was like, ‘Hey dummy, they’re taking a picture of Taylor.’”

As the camera showed a wide shot of the booth, which was just above Ms. Swift’s suite, Mr. Garrett said, “And the worst part is, I’ve been waving the whole time.”

Dec. 31 — Chiefs vs. Bengals

Times shown: 3 | Total duration: 12 seconds
Travis’s day: 3 catches, 16 yards
Score: Chiefs 25, Bengals 17

This was a quiet day for Mr. Kelce, which led to very little mention of Ms. Swift. After a crucial defensive play by one of Mr. Kelce’s teammates late in the game, the CBS cameras showed Ms. Swift celebrating in her suite, and Mr. Romo said, “You see all the fans — and your favorite fan — all excited out here.”

Dec. 25 — Chiefs vs. Raiders

Times shown: 3 | Total duration: 14 seconds
Travis’s day: 5 catches, 44 yards
Score: Raiders 20, Chiefs 14

Ms. Swift and her entire family spent Christmas with the Chiefs, and her brother, Austin, dressed as Santa Claus. But after CBS opened its broadcast with a shot of Ms. Swift in her suite, she largely disappeared, probably because Mr. Kelce played relatively poorly in a frustrating loss. The third and final time the cameras showed Ms. Swift was after a catch by Mr. Kelce in the second quarter, prompting Mr. Romo to say: “And his wife loves it — I mean girlfriend.”

On Tuesday night, actresses, producers and television executives, many draped in black and white feathered gowns, trickled into the Plaza Hotel to celebrate the premiere of FX’s “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans,” a limited series starting on Jan. 31.

The show focuses on the schism between the novelist Truman Capote, played by Tom Hollander, and the coterie of New York City socialites he befriended. The women severed ties with Capote after a fictionalized excerpt from his unfinished novel was published in Esquire magazine in 1975, which aired some of their closest-held secrets.

Some of the society fixtures, whom Capote referred to as his “swans,” are played by a distinguished cast: Barbara “Babe” Paley (Naomi Watts), Nancy “Slim” Keith (Diane Lane), C. Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny), Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart), Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald) and Ann Woodward (Demi Moore). The series is based on “Capote’s Women,” a 2021 book by Laurence Leamer.

Around 10 p.m., following a screening at the Museum of Modern Art, more than 400 guests filled the gold-trimmed Grand Ballroom of the Plaza for a party inspired by the lavish Black and White Ball, which Capote hosted in 1966 in the same room, and is fictionalized in the series. The Times’s Charlotte Curtis reported that “international Who’s Who of notables” attended including Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow and the Maharani of Jaipur.

As was the case nearly 60 years ago, white and transparent balloons hung from the ceiling near the chandelier, and public figures filled the room. Bethenny Frankel, the reality star, swayed on the dance floor. Nearby, Mr. Hollander chatted with Bob Iger, the chief executive of Disney. Ms. Moore posed for photos with Mr. Murphy. Zac Posen, who worked on the costumes for the Black and White Ball depicted on the show, sat next to the singer Debbie Harry. Emma Roberts, among the first to arrive, mingled with guests.

A crowd lined buffet tables featuring meatballs and orecchiette while servers offering crab cakes and tuna tartare circled mannequins in looks from the show, designed by the costume designer Lou Eyrich. Ms. Ringwald took a selfie with some of the “drag swans,” floating around the room, who were inspired by the main characters of the show.

Many of the attendees said they would have liked to attend the original Black and White ball. Ms. Watts, who plays Ms. Paley, said she would have wanted to shadow Capote. “He would have known how to find all the great corners, all the drama,” Ms. Watts said, who is an executive producer on the show.

Ms. Flockhart, who portrays Ms. Radziwill, the former princess and younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, said she would have wanted to meet her character. “I think maybe I would ask her what I should wear to dinner next week on Friday night,” Ms. Flockhart said. “She’d probably be very fancy and tell me not to wear my jeans and my sneakers.”

Mr. Hollander said he wouldn’t have cared about an invitation to the Black and White Ball.

“I think, honestly, most parties where everyone’s hysterical to get invited, I don’t believe that the actual party itself is any good,” he said, continuing, “Anything with that much expectation and social pressure I think would be horrible.”

He would, however, want to know what was happening in the bathroom, he said, and imagined, “people just gentle sobbing.”

Right before midnight, Ms. Ringwald and Mr. Posen joined the crowd that surrounded the dance floor as the “drag swans” emerged for a performance set to Bryan Ferry’s “Let’s Stick Together,” a song that is also featured in the show.

Now wearing pearls and black pencil dresses instead of their elaborate ball gowns, the drag performers represented feelings of anger and pain from the aftermath of Mr. Capote’s Esquire article, which is explored in the show.

Some of the performers screamed in anguish and ripped replicas of the magazine’s 1975 November issue. The crowd cheered as other performers triumphantly stomped on each balloon that Capote, portrayed by the aerialist, dropped from the ceiling much like the writer’s cutting remarks.

The fact that the big Oscar nominations reveal fell right in the middle of the Paris couture shows was a coincidence, but a fortuitous one. After all, ever since the end of the actors’ strike, the red carpet has been a veritable explosion of pent-up fashion fantasy. What better place to shop for that than at the couture?

Little wonder then that the celebrities (and their stylists) are back in town, swanning onto the front rows of the brands where they have relationships or want to have relationships or that are trying to lure them into relationships.

Here was Zendaya, scoping out the interplanetary Western-wear at Schiaparelli in a gown straight from the runway complete with train swishing like a horse’s tail, along with her creative director, Law Roach; there was Jennifer Lopez, ogling the brand’s curvy crystal gown with a face-framing paparazzi shield on one side.

Here was Rihanna, making an entrance at Dior, swarmed by so many paparazzi that she was impossible to see — at least until she halted in front of Vogue’s Anna Wintour to pay her respects before taking in the mid-century-inspired moirés. And there was Gwyneth Paltrow at Armani Privé, where the previous couture collection, a celebration of roses, already supplied many an awards entrance moment. How to top that? With evermore glittering wisps of lace, organza and crystalline net fit for a dance of the sugarcoated-chinoiserie-plum mermaids (and the mothers of their brides) apparently.

Little wonder that Chanel’s Virginie Viard enlisted one of the brand’s ambassadors, Margaret Qualley, to open her ballerinas-in-the-1980s show, held beneath a giant monogrammed button and rife with bouclé in Jordan almond tones, leotards, white tights and tulle. Ms. Qualley has the Grammys, with her musician-husband Jack Antonoff, looming on her calendar next month. Now she has something to wear!

Still, even off the red carpet, couture is having something of a movie moment.

Life Imitating Art Imitating Life

As it happens, Glenn Close and Juliette Binoche were also doing some frow hopping during the shows as they are among the stars of a limited series, “The New Look,” that debuts on Apple TV+ in February. The story of the rebirth of couture after World War II as seen through the prisms of Dior and Chanel, it features Ms. Binoche as Coco Chanel and Ms. Close as the Harper’s Bazaar editor Carmel Snow.

And “Cristóbal Balenciaga,” a biopic of the Spanish designer often called the greatest couturier of all that focuses on the same period and includes cameos of Dior and Chanel, aired on Disney+ just before the shows began (at least in Europe; in the United States, it is still waiting for a release date).

Both series focus on the idea of the couture as a riposte to the horrors and deprivation of the war; a clarion call of humanity. Given what is going on in the world, you can understand why filmmakers — and the designers who love them — might think it was a good time to revisit this particular period. In any case, it’s all starting to seem a lot like life imitating art imitating life.

And not just when it comes to galas. The age of luxury sweats and elastic waists appears to be at an end (thank goodness). Dressing — real dressing, as in the postwar years, when it was synonymous with self-respect — is taking the high ground.

At Dior, the designer Maria Grazia Chiuri said she was inspired by a 1952 dress by Monsieur Dior known as La Cigale and its counterintuitive juxtaposition of internal structure imposed on undulating moiré. That led to a series of trench coats and dresses elevated to their own special status by dressmaker details — cowl necklines, shawl collars, blouson sleeves — and jeweled embroidery. Well, we are all sort of in the trenches now. Button up and buckle down.

For a backdrop, Ms. Chiuri commissioned a series of enormous murals from the 94-year-old artist Isabella Ducrot, featuring garments stretched entirely out of proportion. Which, Ms. Chiuri said before the show, seemed like a fairly accurate summation of the current moment and its tendency to extremes. Perhaps in response, she worked small: pleating a white silk column into the sort of highly complex geometry that can only be done by hand; torquing the neckline of a slither of gold velvet; eschewing corsetry for structure created via seams.

Ms Chiuri can make a perfectly pow-worthy look — some of her moiré ball gowns have “Oscars” written all over them — but they are less interesting than her more intimate explorations. Commentators often whine on social media that her work doesn’t look like couture, as the techniques don’t read on the small screen. But to paraphrase Gloria Steinem, this is what couture looks like. It’s one way the real world seeps in.

Beyond Celebrities

It makes more sense, in any case, than Ms. Viard’s decision at Chanel to embrace shiny white tights and the current trend toward cropped tops and pantslessness. The tights, which came with leotards and under classic pastel tweed jackets often paired with the scrim of a see-through chiffon “skirt” or “trousers,” appeared in every look, including one peekaboo lace jumpsuit. Granted, they are very of the TikTok moment, but that may be even shorter than the bride’s wedding gown, which was more like a wedding tunic.

At least at Schiaparelli thoughts of modern technology sent Daniel Roseberry down a more ambitious path, which involved the news about A.I. coming out of the United States; his own Texas roots, as well as Elsa Schiaparelli’s roots (she also pops up in the “Balenciaga” series); and the fact that her uncle, Giovanni Schiaparelli, was the director of the Brera Observatory in Milan and discovered the trenches on Mars.

That led Mr. Roseberry (naturally) to thoughts of “Alien,” the 1979 movie, and its sequels — all of which he has seen, he said during a preview, at least six times. And that led to a somewhat chaotic mash-up of the surreal, the Martian and the cowboy.

Jackets came in bandanna prints dangling floor-sweeping fringe and sporting armor-size buckles; decorative knots bristled from oversize sleeves. One cocktail dress was made from hundreds of upcycled bits of pre-2007 technology (motherboards, computer chips, flip phones) that had been bedazzled within an inch of their afterlife; so was a toddler-size doll, toted by a model in white cargo pants and a tank top.

Mr. Roseberry has become a celebrity magnet thanks in part to his ability to master the social media moment (i.e., that doll), but it’s his simpler clothes that cut through the noise: a strapless black velvet bombshell gown framed by nude jersey draping; some high-waist black pants beneath a plain white buttonup with power-pose shoulders and a sharpened pencil pinning the collar like a sword. Or a point.

One that goes beyond the red carpet and straight to the contemporary condition. Greta Gerwig, controversially snubbed for best director by the Academy of Motion Pictures despite their many other nominations for “Barbie,” could wield that with aplomb.

Ariane and Andrew Vincent’s former home in Melbourne, Australia, was the kind of place people dream about: a three-story house near the beach with views of Port Phillip Bay.

But after years of climbing all those stairs — and chasing three growing children (now 18 to 23) among floors — “we were ready to live on one level,” said Ms. Vincent, 55, a business consultant who has worked in the furniture industry. “We wanted a pool and more of a family home that was more fun.”

Six years ago, they found something in Brighton, a nearby suburb, that captured their hearts: an 1889 Victorian brick house coated in concrete render, on a quarter-acre lot with a sunny, north-facing yard and one of the oldest, largest olive trees they had ever seen.

“It’s probably one of the most significant olive trees in Victoria,” Ms. Vincent said. She and Mr. Vincent, 63, who owns a mobile document-shredding company, bought the house in November 2018 for about 2.8 million Australian dollars ($1.8 million).

The house wasn’t perfect. It needed repairs and had awkward additions on the back, and the interior looked like it had last been updated in the 1980s. “It was very run-down and unloved,” Ms. Vincent said, “and had been renovated really cheaply.”

Looking to restore the original grandeur and update the home for contemporary living, the couple hired Mim Design, a Melbourne firm, to devise a plan. “It was all about stripping back the additional forms that had been added over the years and taking the home back to its roots with this lovely rectangular shape,” said Charlotte McGill, the director of interiors. “Then, at the rear, we designed a new pavilion with a similar shape to house the kitchen and living and dining areas, and give them views to the garden.”

To connect the old structure with the addition, which they clad in shou-sugi-ban siding, they added an atrium/study lined in floor-to-ceiling steel-and-glass doors.

In the old portion of the 3,500-square-foot house — which they reconfigured to create a primary suite, two additional bedrooms and a sitting room — they retained and restored as many original details as they could, including an arched entrance with decorative corbels near the front door and crown molding throughout. Then they added more period-appropriate touches, including ornate ceiling medallions and arched panels above interior doors.

The original fireplace mantel was missing, so Ms. Vincent hunted down an 1880s marble substitute. For the sidelights and transom at the front door, she found leaded-glass replacements made with antique glass.

In the addition, however, the home feels decidedly more modern. Most of the space is a wide-open expanse with room for cooking, dining and lounging. On one side is a kitchen anchored by a sleek island made from Bianco Lana marble and simple gray cabinetry terminating in a window seat; on the other side is a living room with low-slung furniture and a long fireplace topped by Venetian plaster panels that slide open to reveal bookshelves, a stereo system and a TV.

At the back, two sets of glass sliders open to the pool deck and garden, designed by Kate Patterson, a landscape architect. A walkway of pavers set in grass leads to a pool-house apartment beneath the olive tree at the back of the lot.

After completing plans for the renovation in 2019, the Vincents moved into a rental around the corner so Tenet Construction could begin work in May 2020, in the early days of the pandemic.

“Melbourne was one of the most locked down cities in the world,” Ms. Vincent said. “But we still got through it. We thought it was really important to support our builders, and as a result, we had a great journey.” The cost was about 3 million Australian dollars ($2 million), and the family moved back into the house in September 2021.

To complete the designers’ vision, the Vincents bought almost entirely new furniture for the house, mixing contemporary pieces, including a bulbous Moroso Gogan sofa by Patricia Urquiola in the living room, with midcentury-modern classics like Cassina Capitol Complex chairs, inspired by Pierre Jeanneret, at the kitchen table.

Now the family loves spending time at home, where the rooms flow easily into each other and the outdoors. “It’s just joyful and really easy to live in,” Ms. Vincent said. “You feel like you’re in nature, not in an urban setting.”

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It wouldn’t be the Monday morning of Paris couture week unless Schiaparelli used its runway show to produce a viral internet moment.

Last year, Kylie Jenner took her place in the front row wearing a giant hyper-realistic lion head attached to her chest. People went nuts because they thought it was real taxidermy and promoted trophy hunting. It wasn’t, obviously. It was made from sculpted foam, wool and faux fur.

This year, the spotlight didn’t belong to a celebrity, even though Zendaya did turn up with blunt bangs (gasp) and Jennifer Lopez, gearing up to promote her new film “This Is Me: Now … A Love Story,” arrived with a new hairdo of her own. It was a wet look bob, if you’re wondering, which she wore with Schiaparelli sunglasses that had sculpted gold eyebrows and lenses of opaque precious stone. (Fashion can’t always be fabulous and practical.)

No, this year social media was abuzz thanks to a runway cameo by a giant robot baby. The hot new accessory, worn on one hip by the model Maggie Maurer, was a bedazzled toddler-shaped figure made of silver and green electronic panels, pearl-encrusted switch boards, broken cables, wires and thousands of shimmering Swarovski crystals. Ms. Maurer, wearing an adventurous all-white racer vest, billowing combat pants and cowboy boots, clutched its little encrusted hand to her heart as she sashayed down the catwalk.

So what did it all mean?

The Schiaparelli creative director Daniel Roseberry, a Texan, had threaded ideas of the Wild West and venturing into the unknown throughout the collection. Mr. Roseberry, always one to tap into the fashion house’s surrealist DNA, also explained in his show notes that Giovanni Schiaparelli — the uncle of the houses’s founder Elsa Schiaparelli — was an astronomer who named many of the seas and continents on Mars and was also the inventor of the term “Martian.”

“He inadvertently began our modern fascination with creatures from out there,” the show notes read. “The show offers a series of profiles both familiar and not — part human, part something else. And, therefore, totally Schiaparelli.”

In a preview, Mr. Roseberry said that the robot baby was actually his ode to the Ripley character in the “Alien” movies, who (spoiler alert) has an alien child. So there you go.

This isn’t the first time fashion has toyed with the idea of robot babies — and has incurred the ire of some who dislike any insinuation that children can be portrayed as fashion accessories. In 2021, Frank Ocean turned heads when he cuddled one called Cody on the red carpet at the Met Gala. The musician had dyed his hair lime green to match the face of his doll, which nodded, blinked and waved at fans.

Mr. Roseberry’s version didn’t come with such bells and whistles. Nor does it have pockets or a shoulder strap, nor is it likely to ever go on sale. But that’s probably for the best. After all, in the 21st-century, one is supposed to buy designer bags, not designer babies. Right?

Additional reporting by Vanessa Friedman in Paris.

I’d like to wear my treasure trove of vintage concert T-shirts to the office. I have been collecting them for years, and some of them are rare and striking. But can I? How do I style them without looking ridiculous? — Jen, Seattle

The vintage T-shirt sector — especially the vintage concert T-shirt sector — has become an increasingly rarefied collecting space, one that inspires the same level of connoisseurship, obsession and knowledge as any decorative art. Often such T-shirts exist in extremely limited numbers (and sizes), have their own graphic value and represent a specific moment in culture and politics.

In a world where it often seems as if fashion has become generic and every garment is the same everywhere, vintage tees have a different kind of allure. I think of it as the three S’s: singular, special and sustainable. Taken at face value, they mostly just look cool, but for those who recognize the provenance, they act like a secret password: Those who know, know.

That’s why, for example, a 1967 Grateful Dead shirt sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 2021 for $17,640. It’s why sites like WyCo Vintage (where you can search the offering by year, color, band and measurements) and Ellie Mae Studios (where a 1990s Nirvana Nevermind tour shirt is currently on sale for $890) get traded like secrets.

And it’s why the question of whether you can wear such a garment to work is more complicated than just: Should you wear a T-shirt to the office? It’s also about how much of your private passion you want to share in a professional space.

On the one hand, being able to bring your full self to work, including your most serious hobbies, is satisfying and often restorative. Also, such personal details can double as a talking point and icebreaker in any meeting.

On the other hand, they are also revealing, and you will have to deal with any preconceptions someone who may not know you well will bring to the table if, say, you suddenly appear in an Iron Maiden T-shirt (highly covetable as that may be). And some professions — law, finance — obviously tend more than others to the generic suit philosophy, where personality is subsumed to institution.

Increasingly, however, such dress codes are flattening out, which means there is more wiggle room no matter what job you have. That means that the best approach to sartorial collectibles like concert tees may be to introduce such wardrobe elements strategically. (Note that this is true no matter what your gender.)

Jon Caramanica and Jacob Bernstein, colleagues and T-shirt connoisseurs, suggested pairing the T-shirt with a cardigan and a pair of well-cut trousers. According to Mr. Caramanica, “It’s an approach that allows you to show just a slim segment of the shirt to spark the curiosity of others” — or gauge their interest.

Alternately, he said, you could opt for a blazer or even a suit, though that approach takes you closer to an aesthetic popular in the early-to-mid 2000s known as “indie sleaze.” (That period is in the midst of a major trend cycle, so it actually feels contemporary.)

Another potentially more versatile option is to wear the T-shirt under a button-up shirt of your choosing, leaving the top two buttons undone. Just make sure, Mr. Bernstein said, that you pair the tee with a good watch or other form of jewelry and good shoes. Then you have what Mr. Caramanica called “the correct blend of upright and lowdown.”

Kind of like: There’s more going on under here than you might imagine. Hint, hint.

Your Style Questions, Answered

Every week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed.

When it comes to wedding outfit shopping, brides seem to get all the attention.

There’s New York Bridal Fashion Week, a three-day extravaganza where brands showcase their newest designs. There is a reality television series dedicated to dress shopping called “Say Yes to the Dress,” which has been running since 2007 and has led to multiple spinoffs.

Major cities are replete with bridal boutiques, and buying the bridal gown is often considered one of the first steps in the wedding planning process.

But what about the men getting married?

“I can’t tell you the number of times we get calls a couple of weeks before the wedding,” said Michael Andrews, who has been dressing grooms since 2006 at Michael Andrews Bespoke, his luxury clothing shop in New York. In October 2023, he opened the Groom Shop, also in New York, dedicated solely to the groom shopping experience.

Since the start of the pandemic, when comfort clothes predominated in everyday fashion, Mr. Andrews said he has noticed that more grooms are requesting looks for the entire wedding weekend, as multiday wedding celebrations have become more popular, as well as an outfit to change in between the ceremony and reception.

“People in their day-to-day are kind of dressed down, but whenever they’re looking for an excuse to get dressed up, they’re really doing it right,” Mr. Andrews said. “Men recognized that their wedding day was an opportunity to express their personalities.”

And many grooms are averting the traditional black tuxedo and crafting custom looks in collaboration with designers.

Travis London, an interior designer who got married in Miami in November 2023, started planning his wedding outfit as soon as he got engaged. He has nostalgia for the weddings he grew up watching and reading about in the magazine Martha Stewart Weddings, which, he said, is why he always knew he wanted an all white outfit for his wedding despite the fact that he loves color. (Shades of green, pink, orange and blue are bountiful in his Miami home, which was featured in Architectural Digest.)

“I still wanted to feel masculine, but I wanted to play on all the ideas of what a bride will wear,” said Mr. London, 35.

“The guys always look the same — a black tux,” he added. “The dresses of the women were all so detailed, so ornate, so beautiful.” The designer Jerome LaMaar custom-made a sheer top for Mr. London that included a train embellished with buttons. He applied pearls and rough-cut Swarovski crystals to the top by hand. The outfit also included a crown custom made by Soull Ogun, a founder of L’Enchanteur, a jewelry brand.

The custom look took about three months to complete. “My destiny, my calling, is to make clothes that have a little more flavor and show men they can play with color and textures and shapes that feel good for them,” Mr. LaMaar said. “This is their day, too — put the effort in so the person you’re marrying sees that it is an equal conversation in the relationship, through fashion and style.”

For his look, Drew Gehling, 41, chose a custom green velvet tuxedo from Michael Andrews Bespoke to match the nature aesthetic of his summer camp-themed wedding in September 2023. Mr. Gehling, an actor, frequently wears tailored costumes in the Broadway shows he appears in. He knew that he wanted to have fun with the fabric and the color of his wedding tuxedo, and that he didn’t want a suit off the rack.

“I understand how empowering it can be to wear something that is made specifically for your body at a specific time,” Mr. Gehling said. He added personal touches to his tuxedo, including his wife’s initials embroidered on the sleeves.

Nico Santos, an actor who got married in November 2023, crafted his custom look by weaving both sides of his identity as a Filipino American. He wore a barong, a traditional Filipino formal shirt, by the Filipino designer Veejay Floresca. Traditionally, the barong is shirt length, but Mr. Santos, 44, wore a mid calf length barong to “evoke bridal,” he said. He paired it with wide legged pants and a Dries Van Noten jacket that he had previously seen worn by the actor Jacob Elordi. The jacket, which is traditionally not worn with a barong, has bold, padded shoulders reminiscent of the traditional formal dresses worn by Filipina women.

“You can do whatever you want,” Mr. Andrews said. “It is an opportunity where you can throw the rules out the window if you want to.”

That’s why Andrés Cardona, who lives in Los Angeles and got married in Bogotá, Colombia, in June 2023, put together a brief explaining his desire to blur the lines between masculinity and femininity, and presented it to a Colombian designer he had been following on Instagram: Jonathan Cortez of La Petite Mort.

Mr. Cardona, 33, was inspired by an outfit worn by Bad Bunny in a scene in the music video for his song “Titi me Preguntó.” In the scene, Bad Bunny is getting married, and he is wearing a black maxi skirt and a white top with puffed shoulders. Mr. Cardona’s brief included a photo of Bad Bunny in the music video, as well as images of Timothée Chalamet, Harry Styles and Shawn Mendes in flowing, pastel suit pants and unconventional matching tops.

Over Zoom, Mr. Cardona, a product marketer at TransUnion, and his now-husband Carlos Marin, a 32-year-old product manager at Google, met with the designer over the course of four months, discussing ideas for their looks.

The end result for Mr. Cardona was an original eucalyptus green-colored suit that included pleated pants. Mr. Marin opted for a reinterpreted version of the liqui liqui, a traditional Venezuelan outfit consisting of a button down jacket and trousers. The liqui liqui is typically boxy, but Mr. Marin wanted a shorter and tighter fit. He also wore a skirt-like garment tied around his waist.

“The most important thing for us was to create a moment that felt authentic,” Mr. Marin said. “To connect with where we’re from and connect with who we are as people.”

If you wanted to explain the way a certain kind of very online tastemaking works in 2024 to an alien, or a 45-year-old, you could do a lot worse than showing them Perfectly Imperfect.

Since starting early in the pandemic, the Substack newsletter, along with its popular Instagram account, has become a kind of Debrett’s for a clout-chasing universe of Lower Manhattan influencers, podcasters, “it” girls, artists, scribblers, memesters, scenesters and a ubiquitous young man named Zack Bia. (There is also the occasional bona fide celebrity.) Each entry consists of a guest recommending stuff: books, films, records and clothes, but also states of mind, courses of action, exercise routines.

It’s the ne plus ultra of a thriving online recommendation culture that emphasizes subjective personal taste and limited (by internet standards, anyway) distribution over Consumer Reports-esque standardization and mass dissemination. It has inspired imitators, like Dream Baby Press’s Love/Hate lists, which feature a similar range of pseudo-celebrity guests. And now, Perfectly Imperfect is starting a social network that’s open to anyone, whether or not they have ever had a martini at the River.

“Everyone wants to feel like their taste is important,” said Tyler Bainbridge, one of the site’s editors.

Perfectly Imperfect recommendations work two ways. First, there are the actual, often cheeky endorsements put forth by the guests. Ayo Edebiri, star of “The Bear,” has touted medicinal nasal swabs. The comedian Kate Berlant suggested luxurious Italian mints. Matthew Gasda, the “Dimes Square” playwright, sang the praises of Duraflame logs. Mr. Bainbridge says he receives an endless stream of pitches from publicists, friends and random strangers, all of whom want to put their faces and their favorites on his website. For the most part, though, he reaches out to people he wants to feature.

Perhaps more important is the meta recommendation of appearing on Perfectly Imperfect. If the site — started by Mr. Bainbridge, 28, with two college friends, Alex Cushing and Serey Morm (Mr. Morm is no longer involved) — initially relied on the buzz of its guests to build its social cachet, now it often works the other way around. Appearing on Perfectly Imperfect has become a coveted credential in itself; the recommendation is the recommender.

Sean Monahan, a Los Angeles trend forecaster who helped coin two of the defining cultural concepts of the past decade, “normcore” and “vibe shift,” said that the world of internet tastemakers had grown “large and impersonal” because of the enormous scale of social media. Perfectly Imperfect — which has featured Mr. Monahan — has shrunk that world back down, he said, in a way not totally different from what glossy magazines did before the era of the big platforms.

Once upon a time, a self-respecting cultural gatekeeper might aver that, in fact, not everyone’s taste is important. But Mr. Bainbridge, a former Meta engineer, had a different impulse: to build a social network, allowing anyone to make recommendations.

In August, he started coding PI.FYI, the social media counterpart to the newsletter, and its app. And this week, after two months on an invitation-only basis, the site is open to the public.

Mr. Bainbridge said he thought the network could be a tool for coalescing scenes around the world, like the one that has sprung up around Manhattan’s Chinatown over the past several years.

“You can find pockets of people who are like you or who you think have cool taste,” he said.

PI.FYI does not look or feel very much like a modern social network, borrowing the retro-internet aesthetic of the newsletter. Beyond text and static images, there isn’t any media. There are no ads. Users can choose the background color of their profiles. There is a prominent, charmingly retro directory of everyone using the site.

Really, it’s just a big prompt to enter “What Have You Been Into?” and then a long scroll of recommendations. (Users can also ask for specific recommendations.) These range from “The Curse,” the popular new Nathan Fielder show (praised by one user for calling out “the repulsive aesthetics and politics” of generic hipsterdom that are “legit ruining this country”) to “beautiful women” (“enjoyable for all,” per another user) to the color brown. Many of the recommendations are funny. A few are poetic. (“I love the metallic smell of the fountains, and estimating the amount of change thrown there,” reads one recommendation for malls.)

Mr. Bainbridge’s elevator pitch for PI.FYI is “Letterboxd meets Myspace” — the film-review site where amateur film buffs do their best Pauline Kael impressions, and the aughts social network that functioned, among other things, as a way to find new music in the days before Spotify Discover.

Perfectly Imperfect gazes back nostalgically to an era when corporate algorithms didn’t control cultural discovery, and websites like The Strategist hadn’t streamlined product recommendations. If the modern internet has democratized access to culture and commerce, it has also, some critics say, devalued qualities like discernment and idiosyncrasy in taste.

“This is the internet as a medium coming full circle,” said Zizi Papacharissi, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois Chicago and the editor of the academic journal Social Media & Society. “It was built around small communities structured around niche markets and niche tastes.”

In this context, PI.FYI is an attempt to build a social network that rediscovers the internet’s early promise of connection, without the creeping sense of homogeneity that has resulted from years of algorithm-driven growth.

“The other platforms have become much too commercialized,” Professor Papacharissi said. “The more commercial they feel, the more they lose their authenticity. They have no sense of place or connection.”

In an interview at a Brooklyn bar near his home, Mr. Bainbridge said that his newsletter had made a small amount of money from subscriptions, but that he was funding PI.FYI with savings. The social network doesn’t have affiliate links or sponsored content; it’s not monetized at all, he said, beyond some special features reserved for paid subscribers to the newsletter.

“It makes the recommendations come across as more authentic,” Mr. Bainbridge said. “Hopefully, Perfectly Imperfect feels like there is a soul or a sensibility behind it.”

In this skepticism of scale for scale’s sake and money for money’s sake, Mr. Bainbridge — who is also a D.J. — may have rediscovered an ancient but proud ethos, thought to be lost to time.

“Maybe it’s some fear of selling out,” he said.

Josh Radnor and Jordana Jacobs were married outdoors this month, amid a snowstorm, with their 164 snow-drenched guests shivering in the 20-degree evening air, as Dr. Jacobs read a 10-minute monologue about her beloved, and Mr. Radnor responded with a 10-minute soliloquy.

No strangers to extraordinary circumstances, the couple fell for each other while tripping on mushrooms.

It was February 2022, and Dr. Jacobs, a clinical psychologist, and Mr. Radnor, an actor and musician, were at a sound meditation retreat held in upstate New York, along with about 30 other people. There, they ingested a psychedelic mixture before lying on the floor at opposite sides of a large room. Masks covered their eyes as they listened to singing bowls and chimes.

That is when Mr. Radnor and Dr. Jacobs slid into the DMs of each other’s consciousness.

“That’s her,” Mr. Radnor, now 49, said a voice told him. “That’s your woman.”

Across the room and the psilocybin-infused metaverse, Dr. Jacobs, 36, was having a conversation with her heart.

“What do you have to tell me?” she asked it.

“You know that man over there across the room, Josh?” it replied. “You’re drawn to him.”

They had met the previous day, at the onset of the three-day retreat, which was centered around the meditation “ceremony.”

Mr. Radnor, the star of the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” who more recently appeared in “Fleishman Is in Trouble” on Hulu, had been processing a painful breakup for a few months. He bounced from his house in Los Angeles to his parents’ place in Columbus, Ohio, to an Airbnb in Nashville, where he was recording an album with friends. Then he arrived in New York for a weekend of amplified self-evaluation.

Dr. Jacobs lives in Brooklyn, a subway ride from her close-knit family. She is a clinical psychologist with a private practice there. She graduated from Tufts University and received a doctorate of clinical psychology from Long Island University, Brooklyn.

She made the trip upstate that weekend as well because “these experiences have been very powerful for me in understanding who I am,” she said. She, too, was healing from a broken relationship and had decided that this weekend would signify a new, less cerebral orientation in which she would be guided by her heart.

The night before the meditation, she and Mr. Radnor chatted for half an hour. “We just fell into a really easy, fun kind of getting-to-know-you session,” he said.

They spoke of love and death, and the connection between them, which Dr. Jacobs told him she had studied. But she told him that she feared her approach was overly “academic and intellectual.”

“I need more experience with both,” she said. Mr. Radnor was intrigued. “I thought it was evidence of real depth,” he said. “I thought she was formidable.”

They discussed his songwriting, which also integrates themes of love and death, including in the album he was recording in Nashville, which he ultimately titled “Eulogy.” Dr. Jacobs felt a spark, too.

Every couple has a version of flirting. This was theirs.

After their psychedelic experience, as part of Dr. Jacobs’s new commitment to being guided by her emotions, she felt obligated to tell Mr. Radnor that she liked him.

She tapped him on the shoulder. “I had this experience in ceremony of listening to my heart,” she told him, sheepishly, “and my heart is drawn to you.”

Slightly panicked by the feelings stirring inside him, Mr. Radnor replied, “You came up for me in ceremony as well, but I’m not ready to talk about it.”

Binge more Vows columns here and read all our wedding, relationship and divorce coverage here.

Within minutes of leaving the retreat, he was ready. “Hi, it’s Josh Radnor,” he texted her.

This began a monthlong, modern-day epistolary courtship. They discussed their families — both of their parents have had long, successful marriages. She has brothers (three), he has sisters (two).

They talked about her career and his creative efforts to escape the shadow cast by a long-running hit sitcom. Dr. Jacobs, a television buff, said she had never seen “How I Met Your Mother,” which thrilled Mr. Radnor. “Fame robs you of an ability to make a first impression,” he said.

They talked, texted and sent voice memos. “We were constantly in touch, sharing things we had written and things we had made,” he said. “Thoughts, feelings, insights.”

Weeks later, Mr. Radnor was cast in “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” which was filming in New York. He sublet a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn and invited Dr. Jacobs to meet him for dinner.

“We had a really beautiful and intense and powerful first date where we went very deep,” she said.

Later that night, Mr. Radnor developed what he called a “vulnerability hangover” and told her “my walls had gone up,” he said.

Rather than feeling rejected, Dr. Jacobs was moved by his honesty. “To me, it showed me that he could process with me in the moment and tell me what was going on for him,” she said. “I just loved that.”

They grew inseparable. He officially moved from Los Angeles to Brooklyn. She became enamored with his labradoodle, Nelson the Dog. Within months, they were discussing marriage.

“Actors and shrinks,” said Gillian Sturtevant, Dr. Jacobs’s close friend from high school, explaining the couple’s compatible proclivity to talk (and talk) about their feelings.

They became engaged one morning in May in Joshua Tree, Calif. First, they meditated. Then Mr. Radnor casually suggested that they write each other love letters. His ended with a proposal.

Their friends view them as a perfect match. “They are in a perpetual ‘college-dorm-go-deep’ mode that most adults abandon after graduation,” said Elliott Holt, a fiction writer who attended Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, with Mr. Radnor.

The couple decided on a January wedding in New York, right before Mr. Radnor would start rehearsals for “The Ally,” a new play opening in February at the Public Theater.

They settled on a location: Cedar Lakes Estate, a former summer camp that was converted into an event space in Port Jervis, N.Y. The only available date that worked for the couple was the third anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. “We decided we would rebrand Jan. 6,” Mr. Radnor said.

Since their relationship started at a sound meditation ceremony, they planned for the wedding weekend to reflect the concept of “set and setting,” which, in the psychedelic context, refers to the interaction between one’s emotional and mental state and the physical environment.

The night before the wedding, there was a dinner with decorative mushrooms integrated into the centerpieces and at least one speech that referenced Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. (There were seven therapists in attendance from just Dr. Jacobs’s family.) Guests wrote their intentions on cards and tossed them into a fire.

Mr. Radnor strummed his guitar — the only other sound was the crackle of burning wood — as he sang lyrics he wrote for his bride: “One day this’ll all be gone, what remains will be the songs I sang to you.”

On the morning of the wedding, there was yoga and then a (drugless) sound meditation. And then — in the couple’s most significant attempt to stimulate the senses — the ceremony was called to take place outside in the bracing cold at dusk.

Not even a snowstorm, which had been predicted by meteorologists for days, could thwart the couple’s intentions. So their guests bundled up and headed into the evening storm.

The couple said they had miscalculated in thinking that the heavy snow would start later than it did. “The snow was two things,” Mr. Radnor said. “Cold and anxiety-producing, but also cosmic and divine.”

Neither slippery driving conditions nor ice chunks accumulating on hairdos and beards could keep their guests away. “We’re like the post office,” said Alyson Hannigan, one of the groom’s “How I Met Your Mother” co-stars.

Pamela Fryman, the sitcom’s director, had one request. “When they renew their vows,” she said, “maybe they can do it in the spring.”

In a blitz of large, shimmering snowflakes, the bride, groom, their siblings and their parents managed to stride down the aisle without falling.

The bride promised to give her groom space. “My first vow is freedom, which also means we are free to stay, or — if this relationship ever evolves in such a way that it is no longer serving our highest good — we are free to go,” she told him. “We know it is choice, not obligation, that makes us want to remain exactly where we are.”

The groom cried as he pledged himself. “I look into the infinity of your green eyes, I know that my not having gotten married until now was not due to some brokenness in me,” he said. “The truth is, I didn’t get married until now because,” he added, “I was waiting for you.”

The ceremony included Jewish wedding traditions and was led by Jacob Azia, a friend of the couple who is a Universal Life Church minister.

As the guests thawed around a large indoor fireplace, the newlyweds peeled off so that the bride’s snow-drenched hair could be restyled as the groom, in his first official act as a husband, knelt at her feet and warmed them with a blow-dryer.

Back in the candlelit lodge, the reception unfolded. Nine friends and relatives gave speeches as the snow continued to fall, and as those who were not among the 115 guests planning to stay in cabins at the venue overnight checked and rechecked the weather and traffic apps on their phones.

Dr. Jacobs and Mr. Radnor tried to focus on the speeches and let the wedding planner and venue staff handle the logistics. “But energetically, in the room, we could feel the stress,” Dr. Jacobs said.

Around 10:30 p.m., a member of the venue staff made an announcement: The roads were not passable and everyone would need to spend the night. This included guests, the 10 members of the wedding band, the event planners, the venue staff members and a reporter and a photographer from The New York Times, a total of 59 extra people.

Some were assigned top bunks in rooms that the couple’s friends had rented for the weekend, while others slept at the venue owner’s on-site residence.

“Once it was announced, ‘No one is leaving here tonight,’ people went into a little bit of surrender mode,” Mr. Radnor said. The band began to play the Beatles song “Oh! Darling” and the newlyweds danced with abandon.

“It was about as analogous to a psychedelic ceremony as you can get,” Dr. Jacobs said.

On This Day

When Jan. 6, 2024

Where Cedar Lakes Estate, Port Jervis, N.Y.

The Eve of the Night Before Two nights before the wedding, Mr. Radnor and Dr. Jacobs dined alone in a heated glass igloo with views on the wedding venue’s property. Dr. Jacobs surprised Mr. Radnor with a collection of their voice memos from when they were dating. “It was so special to hear these earlier versions of ourselves getting to know each other,” he said. “And then to look across the table and realize where we were — moments away from being married.”

Wedding Swag Guests received welcome bags containing incense sticks, an incense dish, CBD tincture and an “intention kit” with paper and a pen. “We find that setting an intention can be a helpful way to drop in and calibrate your internal compass to true north,” the instructions read.

Man’s Best Man Nelson the Dog, the couple’s labradoodle, served as an honorary groomsman (wearing a burgundy bow tie) and was walked down the aisle by Seth Jacobs, one of Dr. Jacobs’s brothers.

The headline was Gucci. The headline was always going to be Gucci, in the same way the Ever Given was destined to dominate the news cycle when the mammoth vessel, one of the largest container ships ever built, got stuck in the Suez Canal back in 2021.

Gucci is, in a way, the Ever Given of the personal luxury goods trade. With more than 500 stores worldwide and an estimated market value in 2022 of $35.3 billion, it is that skyscraper-size tanker, caught sideways. The entire fashion business took a hit during the pandemic and then bounced back, or seemed to, with a surprising resilience. Then it encountered something that in its way was as unexpected as that grounding of a nautical behemoth thrown off course by fluke winds.

In Gucci’s case it was the fickleness of shifting taste. When Alessandro Michele, the former creative director of the brand — founded in Florence in 1921 as a leather goods manufacturer catering to a sophisticated carriage trade, and now owned by the luxury goods giant Kering — said in an interview with this reporter back in 2020 that “maybe one day I will not be relevant,” he was sending a signal, to both his bosses and the culture at large.

Mr. Michele was a creative savant and lucky, as he has said, to have survived a quarter century in the business largely by following his instincts (or his “stomach” as he said.) He knew. The instincts that helped elevate him from journeyman accessories designer to star were already giving him the itch to move on. This was largely because society was about to do the same.

The gender play Mr. Michele pioneered — pussy bows and rhinestones and tiger prints and baby-doll dresses on guys — and that for a brief, giddy and obscenely profitable moment drove Gucci’s valuation to great heights, were absorbed by the culture with alacrity. Harry Styles in a dress on Vogue’s November 2020 cover looked groundbreaking for about a minute. Harry Styles in a dress now would hardly rate a second glance.

And the not-so-dirty secret at every luxury goods house is that overall sales are driven not by apparel at all, but by leather goods, and not even costly handbags, at that. It would surprise people to learn how much profit there is in a logo key chain.

Gucci had to right the ship and return it to the mainstream. In attempting to do so, it hired as its new creative director Sabato De Sarno, a man so pragmatic by nature that interviewing him is less like consulting an ancient Greek sibyl, as was the case with Mr. Michele, than it is talking to the director of engineering at a boatyard.

“I love fashion, but I don’t love the idea of fashion,” Mr. De Sarno said one afternoon before his show. “I want to make things to use and wear, and not just things for shows or red carpet or editorials.”

Seen through that lens, he is as much a man of his moment as Mr. Michele was of his. Virtually every fashion house showing in Milan this week made clear its understanding that consumers, particularly young consumers, are through with the hype. Pragmatism was the subtext of the best collections, and those were provided by labels as unalike as Prada, Tod’s, Neil Barrett and Brunello Cucinelli. At each of those houses there was an emphasis on craftsmanship, which nowhere is as refined as it is in Italy.

The cliché on the Little Italy T-shirts turns out to be true: Italians Do It Better. Yes, there was the Renaissance. But for present purposes it is the marriage of craft, industrial design and high aesthetic values, which began here in the early 20th century, when the novel idea of providing luxury goods for the masses arose.

Those early designers and, eventually, scores of others put centuries-old artistic traditions to industrial use. It is premature to associate what Mr. De Sarno is doing with the work of giants like the architect and designer Gio Ponti. Yet the impetus is there, and the collection Mr. De Sarno presented — a follow-up to a heavily-criticized teaser he presented during the women’s wear shows in September — made a strong case for him as a plausible successor to industrial innovators who refuted narrative, and focused instead on materiality and craft.

The knock on the De Sarno Gucci show was that it was commercial, as though there was something wrong with drilling down into the Gucci archives and sampling what he uncovered. There were versions of the original snaffle-bit loafer, interpreted variously as soft and lug soles or else studded brothel creepers; enlarged versions of the celebrated Jackie bag that Samuel Beckett, of all people, once slung over his shoulder; versions of the elegantly tailored outerwear Gucci was renowned for, although rendered in “Through the Looking Glass” volumes.

There were also versions of GG monogram suits in which the logo receded to become a kind of human gift-wrapping, and of previous designers’ faux-fur topcoats that made reference to Mr. De Sarno’s own love of cozy and protective garb. (He said he has 240 coats in his personal collection; coats are his security blanket.)

“I opened the show with the same coat, the same silhouette, the same bag” as he showed during women’s wear, Mr. De Sarno told Vogue.com, as though he were flipping his critics the bird.

“I don’t care about the Instagram moment,” he added in conversation with this reporter, using saltier language. The Instagram moment, we all know, cannot be avoided. But it is not what floats Sabato De Sarno’s boat.

Speaking from the stage of the 75th Emmy Awards as he prepared to announce the winner for best supporting actor in a drama series, Pedro Pascal clarified for anyone wondering that it was an injury to his shoulder — not his arm — that required him to be in a sling. He also offered something in the way of an explanation for the injury.

“Kieran Culkin beat the” living daylights out of him, Mr. Pascal said, using a word that was bleeped for broadcast audiences.

For Mr. Pascal, who was nominated for three awards on Monday, including best actor in a drama series for “The Last of Us,” the injury probably could have come at a better time: In just the past two weeks, he has found himself staring down a sea of cameras on three red carpets. But at each appearance, Mr. Pascal has incorporated the sling into his overall look, turning medical equipment into a distinctive accessory.

His arm-sling fashion made its first red-carpet appearance on Jan. 7 at the Golden Globes, accompanying a black Bottega Veneta turtleneck with white embroidery and manicured fingernails that spelled “ouchy.” In custom Valentino at the Emmys on Monday, his right arm was supported by a sling embellished with a black fabric rose matching an identical one on the cuff of his left sleeve.

But it was his Critics Choice Awards outfit, a custom-made monochromatic ensemble by the luxury men’s wear brand Zegna, that may have represented the most ambitious integration of sling and suiting so far.

Alessandro Sartori, Zegna’s artistic director, had no interest in trying to obscure the injury.

“It’s much better that we create something around the sling than try to hide it,” Mr. Sartori said of the ensemble, whose layered, bandagelike straps may evoke a freshly wrapped mummy.

Mr. Sartori and his team at Zegna worked with Mr. Pascal and his personal stylist, Julie Ragolia, to create a look that was not just fashionable but also functional for the actor to wear. When they began devising a sling prototype, comfort was a top consideration.

“Once we decided to do it in leather, we were just trying to have the best posture to avoid any pain to his arm and his shoulder,” the designer said. “So actually, we did a few tests in the right positions and right angles with Pedro.”

The sling provided extra support with a band that wrapped around Mr. Pascal’s waist, keeping his arm gracefully tucked. He wore a matching long-sleeve, collarless button-up and loosefitting pants, all in a shade the brand called “monochromatic pearl gray.”

When designing the arm sling, Mr. Sartori consulted with Ms. Ragolia and conducted his own research to make sure the sling provided the actor full support on the red carpet and during the award show. He opted for leather instead of fabric in part because of the strength.

“The key component goes to the material,” Mr. Sartori said, “because the leather is very smooth, but at the same time it’s very durable, very resilient.”

The final product was completed in two weeks, including design, production and a series of online fittings with Mr. Pascal via Zoom.

“We like a personalized look for each single talent,” Mr. Sartori said, “and that’s why we wanted to do this with Pedro. This was not just a look, but something that was comfortable and mostly safe.”

While Mr. Pascal’s elevated arm sling has been leaving an impression during the 2024 awards season, he is not the first to be photographed on the red carpet while on the mend. Matt LeBlanc sported a black leather sling by the Los Angeles luxury brand Chrome Hearts at the 1996 Emmy Awards after dislocating his shoulder while shooting a scene for “Friends.” He matched his arm sling with a black suit and customized Chrome Hearts sunglasses.

The Emmys may have been the last major outing for Mr. Pascal’s sling: At the premiere of his latest film, “Freaky Tales,” at the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, both of Mr. Pascal’s arms were noticeably unsupported.

Dressed in matching off-white jacket-and-trouser set patterned with a head-to-toe chain-link motif, the actor posed for photos with one of his “Freaky Tales” co-stars, Jay Ellis of “Insecure.” Video of the stars’ arrivals shows Mr. Ellis making a conspicuously cautious approach as he prepared to embrace Mr. Pascal for the cameras. Still, onlookers were nervous.

“Don’t hurt his shoulder!” a voice shouts from the rope line.

On Alexandria Angco’s 28th birthday in September 2022, she declared that she would not date anyone for a whole year. Dating wasn’t going so well for her, and she wanted to focus on herself instead.

Twelve days later, she met Christian Chai Chua in person for the first time. And five months later, they were engaged.

“I failed,” she said of her goal. But ultimately, that turned out to be a good thing.

The two first met on Zoom in August 2020 at an annual conference organized by Singles for Christ, a group for young Catholic adults.

Ms. Angco, who is from Toronto and goes by Ali, and Mr. Chua, who is from Vancouver, British Columbia, who goes by Ian, saw each other again at subsequent virtual events hosted by the group, though neither thought much of the other. In September 2022, the organization held an in-person conference in Vancouver, its first since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Ms. Angco, 29, flew in for the event.

At the conference, Mr. Chua, also 29, attended a personal development workshop for which Ms. Angco was the facilitator. “The workshop was done so well,” Mr. Chua said. “I was so impressed. I was just like, this girl’s funny and she’s smart.”

During a Sunday Mass on the last day of the conference, Mr. Chua sat next to her at St. Francis de Sales Parish in Burnaby, a town near Vancouver. “Wow, this girl is beautiful,” he recalled thinking.

He invited a group of friends from the conference to go stargazing nearby that evening. Throughout the night, Ms. Angco was trying to be a wing woman for a friend who had a crush on Mr. Chua. But she accidentally charmed him instead. Her jokes made him laugh so loud that his friends warned him to quiet down to avoid complaints from neighbors.

The next morning, he called her and asked her out on a date.

“For some reason, immediately I said, ‘Yeah, let’s go,’” she said.

She called her friend who had a crush on him, who encouraged her to go on the date and said there were no hard feelings.

That night, Mr. Chua packed a blanket, a bag of chips and hot chocolate in his car. He picked her up, and the two went stargazing in Porteau Cove Provincial Park. It was pitch-black, and they sat in the dark for three hours talking about their upbringings, their families and their dreams. “My brain was so engaged,” Ms. Angco said.

In an effort to get to know other people and better understand what they love about themselves, Mr. Chua likes to ask one question in particular: “Why are you worth knowing?”

“I was like, what a good question,” Ms. Angco thought. “I’ve never written about that in my journal.”

Her flight to Toronto was at 5 p.m. the next day, but they made time for a second date at the Vancouver Art Gallery. After reflecting on the question he had asked her the day before, she brought it up again. That excited Mr. Chua.

“It’s such a special question because knowing somebody knows their value and their worth — it just means the world to me,” he said. After she returned to Toronto, they stayed in touch and talked on FaceTime almost every day.

That November, before a Singles for Christ retreat in Holtwood, Pa., they made it official. During Sunday Mass, she whispered to him, “I’m ready to be your girlfriend.” And he whispered back coyly, “So, you want to be my girlfriend?”

Ms. Angco is a senior product designer at Shopify, an e-commerce company. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a bachelor’s degree in neurobiology. Mr. Chua is a concierge and bellman at Sheraton Vancouver Wall Center. He received a tourism diploma from the Canadian Tourism College.

In February 2023, Mr. Chua proposed to Ms. Angco in a gondola at Mount Habrich in Squamish, British Columbia. On Jan. 6, they were married at Holy Rosary Cathedral in Vancouver in front of 115 guests. The Rev. Pablo Santa Maria officiated.

The Filipino couple incorporated the coin, veil and cord tradition into their ceremony, during which they exchanged coins as a symbol of their commitment to each other and their community. A veil was draped over their shoulders, and a cord was wrapped around them to symbolize their union.

The reception, held at Brass Fish Tavern, featured a kissing bingo game. Ms. Angco had printed giant bingo cards filled with tasks that guests had to complete to get the couple to kiss.

“It was just laughter all around,” Ms. Angco said.

A Virginia woman who has spent more than a year digging a tunnel under her home and documenting the project on TikTok was recently stopped by officials in her town after the popularity of her account brought their attention to her project.

Spending hours heaving dirt and rocks from the ground might seem like an unusual pastime, but it has a history: Hobby tunnelists of yore include the Fifth Duke of Portland, who in the 19th century built an underground ballroom on his property, and, more recently, the so-called mole man of London, who spent 40 years making tunnels before he was discovered.

Here’s a look at their underground activities, and what happened after they were brought to light.

A TikTok Tunneler

Since 2022, the TikTok creator @engineer.everything has been documenting her attempt to build an emergency shelter under her home.

The tunneler, known as “Tunnel Girl” by some fans online, said in a phone interview this month that her tunnel had a 30-foot entrance and a main chamber 22 feet below ground. She spoke on the condition that she be identified by her online nickname, Kala, because of privacy concerns.

She said that she started the project because she wanted to do something that was “technically challenging and would require me to learn a lot of new skills.”

She was not prepared for how much attention the project would receive online. “I was hoping to share with kind of a smallish group of people who are interested in the engineering and technical challenges of it, and I really did not intend for it to go mainstream,” she said.

Kala’s work came to a halt in December, when the town she lives in, Herndon, Va., issued a stop work order. She said that she has since submitted permit applications and blueprints to the town and is waiting to hear back.

In a statement, the town of Herndon said a site inspection took place on Dec. 7, a few weeks after a round of media attention that included a Bloomberg opinion piece and an NBC article about the tunnel. “The town is working with the property owner to correct any violations and ensure that the property is safe and in compliance with the code,” the statement said.

But Kala is far from the first person to capture the attention of the world with an off-the-books tunnel project.

A Canadian Mystery

There was an international media frenzy in 2015 when a tunnel over 33 feet long was found in the north of Toronto with tools, empty bottles and food containers inside. The Toronto police investigated the tunnel for more than a month but were unable to find answers and asked the public for help. Speculation about drug labs and terror plots followed, but the explanation ultimately involved nothing illicit.

A little over a week after the police asked for information, the digger confessed in an interview with The Toronto Sun. Elton McDonald, a 22-year-old construction worker from a neighborhood near the tunnel, said he had built it. “It was just something I always wanted to do,” he said.

The tunnel was quickly filled in. It was located on property owned by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority but under a management agreement with the city of Toronto, which maintains the property on behalf of the conservation authority.

The conservation authority, a nonprofit organization responsible for conserving and managing more than 1,338 square miles (3,467 square kilometers) of land and water resources in the area, said in a statement that the Toronto police “took the necessary steps to fill in the tunnel.” The nonprofit “was not involved in this process,” it said.

Not every local authority races to fill in a tunnel when it’s found.

After Baldassare Forestiere arrived in the United States from Sicily in the early 1900s, he constructed an expansive complex of underground rooms and gardens at his home in Fresno, Calif.

Mr. Forestiere created each room as he worked without written plans, according to the website for the complex, Forestiere Underground Gardens, which is now a tourist attraction. Mr. Forestiere dug for 40 years and planted orange, lemon and grapefruit trees in his underground network.

His hobby was celebrated by the state of California, which registered the complex as a historical landmark in 1978, calling it a monument “to a creative and individualistic spirit unbounded by conventionality.”

A London Mole Man

An East London man the British press called “the Mole Man of Hackney” spent 40 years digging a tunnel network under his house before the local government obtained a court order in 2006 to stop the digging and to fill the holes with cement, according to the Guardian.

William Lyttle, who died in 2010 after being evicted from the home, told The Guardian that he had first tried to dig a wine cellar, then kept going. “Tunneling is something that should be talked about without panicking,” he said.

An Eccentric Entomologist

In September 1924, a truck sank into the ground near Dupont Circle in Washington, revealing tunnels created by Harrison G. Dyar, an entomologist.

Dr. Dyar said that he had started digging the tunnels in 1905 or 1906, prompting The New York Times to declare “Moth Lover Dug Tunnels.”

“I did it for exercise,” Dr. Dyar said at the time. “Digging tunnels after work is my hobby. There’s really nothing mysterious about it.”

Dr. Dyar dug the tunnels when he was the honorary custodian of Lepidoptera, or moths and butterflies, at the United States National Museum (now known as the National Museum of Natural History). He also had two families who lived in separate homes — each of which had tunnels. Contrary to urban legend, the two sets of tunnels weren’t connected, said Marc Epstein, an entomologist and the author of the book “Moths, myths, and mosquitoes: the eccentric life of Harrison G. Dyar, Jr.”

In the decades since the delivery truck discovery, one set of the tunnels has been blocked, and the other was demolished during construction, Dr. Epstein said.

A Burrowing Duke

In the 1800s, William John Cavendish Scott Bentinck, the Fifth Duke of Portland, built 2.75 miles of tunnels and an underground ballroom on his property, Welbeck Abbey, near Sheffield in England, according to an exhibit at the Harley Gallery on the Welbeck Estate.

He was known as the “burrowing duke,” and rumors circulated that he had other unusual habits, including always wearing three pairs of socks, only eating roast chicken, and communicating exclusively by letter through his bedroom door, according to the exhibit.

Today, the tunnels are not open to visitors. A representative for the Welbeck Estate did not respond to questions about their current status.

The visible vestiges of Crystal Hefner’s days as a Playboy Playmate are mostly gone. The snowy blond hair that once characterized Ms. Hefner, the third and last wife of Playboy’s founder, Hugh Hefner, has become more dirty blond. Revealing costumes have been traded for sensible clothes like beige cardigans.

But a closer look reveals a woman who is still acclimating to life outside of the infamous Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, which she left about seven years ago, not long after Mr. Hefner died in 2017.

On a recent afternoon, Ms. Hefner leaned against a pink banquette in an Italian restaurant in Manhattan. She appeared pensive: It had been less than an hour since she had read an excerpt from her new memoir, “Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself,” to a group of strangers for the first time.

Ms. Hefner, 37, said she is still adjusting to life outside the mansion, where she lived for almost a decade and where she “was rewarded for being small.” She’s been trying to shed the conditioning that she endured within its lavish walls. “Coming into power is a work in progress,” she said.

“Only Say Good Things,” which comes out on Jan. 23, is a step toward achieving that power. In the book, Ms. Hefner re-examines her initiation into the Playboy world; details the objectification and misogyny she said she experienced under Mr. Hefner; and mines the trauma that she’s still processing.

“At the time,” she said, “I must’ve been brainwashed or something.”

Ms. Hefner met Mr. Hefner at a 2008 Halloween party at the mansion. The estate offered a glimpse at how the 1 percent lived, she writes in the book, and she wanted to be part of it. Then 21, she was one of many attendees in revealing French maid costumes whom he invited to his bedroom to have group sex as the party wound down.

She soon learned visits to the mansion often involved a “trip to the bedroom at the end of the night,” she writes in her memoir. Back then, she believed it was worth it.

Ms. Hefner moved into the mansion two weeks after the Halloween party, and she started dating Mr. Hefner about two years after they met. (At the time, Mr. Hefner was still married to his second wife, Kimberley Conrad, but the two lived separately.)

As his girlfriend and later as his wife, Ms. Hefner had to routinely maintain her appearance for Mr. Hefner: If she gained any weight, he would tell her to “tone up,” she writes in the book, and if her natural brown hair was showing, he would tell her to make it blonder.

She writes about how she and other girlfriends who lived in the mansion were given a weekly payment of about $1,000 and about how they had a strict curfew that was disguised as a schedule. Breaking it risked Mr. Hefner throwing a fit.

Ms. Hefner said she made several attempts to escape the mansion when she was one of Mr. Hefner’s girlfriends. One time, she succeeded: She told security guards on the property that she needed to buy tampons and went to stay with a friend who lived nearby. But she moved back into the mansion a year later, she said, because she had Stockholm syndrome.

“I just felt like, ‘Oh, this is my destiny. This is where I’m supposed to be,’” she said. “I was 25.”

Ms. Hefner said that she often catered to his desires at the expense of her own because she feared being replaced by someone younger, bubblier, blonder and with “bigger boobs.”

She said those worries were slightly assuaged by their wedding in 2012, when she was 26 and he was 86. (Mr. Hefner’s second marriage to Ms. Conrad, ended in 2010 after an 11-year separation; his first marriage, to Mildred Williams, whom he met during his college years, ended in a divorce in 1959.)

His union with Ms. Hefner was the kind made for tabloid fodder. Some wrote her off as a “gold digger” and a “dumb blonde,” reducing her to nothing more than another notch in the belt of a man known for dating and marrying younger women.

She didn’t feel comfortable having sex with Mr. Hefner alone, she writes in the book, so she often invited a friend to join them. By 2014, the sex had stopped because of Mr. Hefner’s age and declining health. At home, Ms. Hefner started to become more of a caretaker than a companion: She described herself as “the supportive, loving wife in public” and “the nurse carrying his bedpan at night.”

When he died of cardiac arrest at 91, she at first protected his reputation. She writes about how, before he died, Mr. Hefner made her promise to “only say good things.”

Ms. Hefner’s resolve to keep that promise began fading in 2019, she said, when she started therapy after watching “Finding Neverland,” the documentary that details sexual abuse allegations from two men who had long-running relationships with Michael Jackson.

Looking back at their marriage now, Ms. Hefner said, evokes feelings of regret and disgust. She is still learning how to build healthy relationships and break the codependent tendencies she developed during her relationship with Mr. Hefner.

“When I started dating again, that was hard,” she said, “because with Hef, he just wanted me by him all the time.”

It was only recently, she said with a nervous laugh, that she learned the concept of setting boundaries. “I didn’t have any when I was at the mansion,” she said. “If you wanted to be there, you couldn’t have boundaries.”

Ms. Hefner said Mr. Hefner could be emotionally abusive and some of his other former lovers have made similar accusations. In 2015 Holly Madison, a former girlfriend of Mr. Hefner’s, released a memoir in which she recounted the strict rules she needed to follow at the Playboy Mansion and the ensuing mental health issues she experienced. Many Playmates were upset about the book when it came out, Ms. Hefner said, herself included.

But now? “I see it in a completely different way,” she said.

Before his death Mr. Hefner had denied Ms. Madison’s accusations and others made against him. After Ms. Madison published her book, he said in a statement to People Magazine that he remained friends with many of his ex-girlfriends, but that a few “have chosen to rewrite history in an attempt to stay in the spotlight.”

The PLBY Group, Playboy’s parent company, in recent years has re-addressed the accusations against Mr. Hefner. Ahead of the 2022 premiere of the A&E documentary series “Secrets of Playboy,” the group published an open letter on Medium that acknowledged the “allegations of abhorrent actions by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and others.”

“We trust and validate women and their stories, and we strongly support the individuals who have come forward to share their experiences,” the letter read. (The PLBY Group did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)

Jennifer Saginor, who wrote a book about her regular visits to Playboy Mansion with her father, a former doctor of Mr. Hefner’s, described Ms. Hefner and other women who lived and spent time there — most of whom were young, thin, blond and white — as “hired props” that helped Mr. Hefner cultivate a certain image.

Ms. Saginor, who became acquainted with Ms. Hefner through their shared connection to the Playboy universe, said she had doubts that Ms. Hefner and Mr. Hefner’s other lovers didn’t know what “they were, like, signing up for” by pursuing relationships with him.

Ms. Hefner said that her life now is a stark departure from her days at the mansion. She buys and sells rental properties for a living and, for the last year, has been traveling between Los Angeles, where she lives, and Hawaii, where she bought a farm.

She’s not sure if Los Angeles is her “forever place,” she said, because she likes the idea of living “somewhere that’s a little less superficial.”

On Monday night at the 75th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, Christina Applegate, a presenter of the award for supporting actress in a comedy series, used a cane and walked to the podium with effortful dignity. The 52-year-old actress, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021, wore a red, silk-velvet dress, her signature blond hair parted to the side, cascading down her shoulders like a golden curtain.

As she spoke into the mic, panic and determination seemed to be waging a battle behind her green eyes. Still, she conjured the disarming smile she’s been flashing at America since 1987, when she played the teenager Kelly Bundy on the sitcom “Married With Children.”

Ms. Applegate wasted no time acknowledging her disease, showing the audience that it would not stop her from coming to the stage. Since her diagnosis, Ms. Applegate appears to have experienced some of its debilitating effects, and has said she no longer plans to work on camera.

Nonetheless, under the blazing lights, on a show broadcast to millions, she spoke deliberately and made a series of jokes meant to both call attention to and deflect from her self-consciousness about her appearance and her chronic illness. Each one walked a fine line.

When some in the audience stood to applaud her, she responded chidingly. “Thank you so much,” she said. “Oh my God. You’re totally shaming me with disability by standing up.”

Laughs are hard to come by in the best of circumstances at awards shows these days, but that line got an uneasy one. Even Ms. Applegate seemed unsure if she wanted people to celebrate her efforts or to treat her like nothing had happened.

Her next punchline, “body not by Ozempic,” worked better. It poked fun at the often unacknowledged change that weight-loss drugs have had on the way many celebrities prepare for awards-show season, while making a subtle statement that cosmetic concerns pale in comparison to the realities of degenerative diseases.

In Hollywood, where beauty is a form of currency and physiques can make careers, illnesses that impede physical function hold a special horror. Occasionally, celebrities have taken those challenges public: the actor Christopher Reeve, who died in 2004, spoke about his paralysis; the actress Selma Blair and the actor Michael J. Fox have spoken about their respective battles with multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s.

For anyone to call attention to the fact that an illness has rendered their body incapable of conforming to the typical standards imposed by the entertainment industry takes a certain kind of resilience. Perhaps Ms. Applegate was more prepared for this moment because she’d previously been diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 36, for which she underwent a double mastectomy. There’s something powerful about facing the world with an illness that no amount of surgery can disguise and Ms. Applegate looked comfortable, even emboldened, by being in the spotlight.

The jokes also reminded the celebrities in the audience, and the viewers at home, that Ms. Applegate — who was also nominated for lead actress in a comedy series for her role in “Dead to Me” — has made a career of being funny. As she welled up describing her many roles, including her first as Baby Burt Grizzell on “Days of Our Lives,” while the audience continued to clap, she said flatly, “We don’t have to applaud every time I do something.”

But in this case, the applause was warranted.

After being postponed because of labor strikes in Hollywood, the Emmy Awards returned on Monday night and with the ceremony came what might be the television industry’s biggest fashion show.

Though the carpet was gray, there was no shortage of red, a color that also proved quite popular at the Golden Globes this month. Bows, an inescapable accessory of 2023, held on as a favorite embellishment: Riley Keough had a black bow in her hair, while her “Daisy Jones and the Six” castmate Suki Waterhouse and the “Abbott Elementary” actress and screenwriter Quinta Brunson each had them on their gowns. (Ms. Waterhouse’s sat beneath her baby bump.)

The ceremony was honoring television programs broadcast last year, which gave viewers a chance to catch up with casts like that of “White Lotus” season two. Some of its members seemed to use the occasion to pay homage to the show’s setting by wearing Italian designers: Meghann Fahy chose a rosette-laden strapless gown by Armani (that was red); Simona Tabasco donned full-skirted, floral Marni; and Jennifer Coolidge wore a sheer dress by Etro.

Amid a carpet full of feathers, beads, sequins, diamonds and plenty of well-tailored suits, the following 15 outfits stood out from the rest (for better or worse).

The actress and a star of “The White Lotus” had a colossal pin stuck through her pale yellow-green Loewe look. If the accessory looked familiar, it might be because the “Past Lives” director Celine Song had a similarly large pin through her Loewe skirt at the Golden Globes.

Ayo Edebiri: Most Seed Pod!

A leather texture and an inverted tulip shape made the “The Bear” actress’s Louis Vuitton dress a little more interesting than your average black strapless number.

There was no mistaking the “The White Lotus” actress for Peppa Pig in this black Etro dress with sheer fabric and a plunging neckline.

Issa Rae: Most Avian!

In an interview on the carpet, the actress and an executive producer of “A Black Lady Sketch Show” said she wanted her Emmys look to give a little drama. Her flowing Pamella Roland gown covered with feathers and crystals achieved that (and then some).

Donald Glover: Most Embroidered!

The actor, a co-creator of the show “Storm,” looked natty in a black velvet Bode suit with floral embroidery. The best part of the outfit might have been his bow-topped ballet flats.

Suki Waterhouse: Most Pregnant!

Few if any red gowns were as eye-catching as the pregnant actress’s Valentino dress, which put her stomach front and center. In an interview on the carpet, she said it had to be redesigned to fit the bump.

Sheryl Lee Ralph: Most Menswear Mermaid!

The actress, a star of “Abbott Elementary,” graced the carpet in a look styled by her daughter. Her white Christian Siriano dress featured peak lapels, a cinched waist and a flared mermaid skirt.

Liv Hewson: Most Suave!

After taking their name out of the running for the acting awards divided by gender at this year’s Emmys, the “Yellowjackets” cast member and actor seemingly underscored the point by claiming the tuxedo-sans-shirt look as the ultimate in nonbinary chic.

Matty Matheson: Most High-Low!

In a tuxedo and fisherman sandals, the actor, a star of “The Bear,” offered his take on wearing Birkenstocks under a gown.

Taraji P. Henson: Most Promotional!

The actress, who was nominated for her guest appearance in “Abbott Elementary,” chose an ethereal Armani gown in a shade of plum — perhaps to remind viewers that she is also a star of the new adaptation of “The Color Purple.”

Selena Gomez: Most Matisse!

Covering the “Only Murders in the Building” star’s gown were blood-red sequins forming motifs that looked like shapes featured in the artist’s so-called cut-outs.

Tatanka Means: Most Himself!

The “Killers of the Flower Moon” actor showcased personal style with the braids and the beaded bracelet he wore with his green velvet tuxedo.

Laverne Cox: Most Archival!

The E! host wore some of the most capital F fashion of the night: a spindly, scaly dress by Thierry Mugler. (She is a devoted collector of the courtier.) The collection the gown came from — “Les Atlantes,” in 1989 — has been exhibited in museums.

Emma Brooks McAllister: Most Sculptural!

The influencer gave the illusion of baring everything in a bodysuit bedazzled to look like ab muscles worn beneath a semi-sheer skirt.

Simona Tabasco: Most Collaged!

The actress, a star of “The White Lotus,” looked like a walking bouquet in her Marni dress.

Stella Bugbee, Vanessa Friedman, Madison Malone Kircher, Anthony Rotunno and Jessica Testa contributed reporting.

A four-month postponement of the 75th Emmy Awards because of last year’s actors’ and writers’ strikes resulted in an oddity of Hollywood scheduling: back-to-back awards shows.

The Critics Choice Awards, hosted by Chelsea Handler on Sunday in Los Angeles, could have been a mere opening act to the Emmys on Monday. But because the awards recognize movies as well as television, film actors running full tilt at Academy Award nominations were loath to miss an opportunity for face time. (The next class of Oscar nominees will be announced on Jan. 23.)

Here’s what the winners, nominees and presenters wore to one of their last major appearance opportunities before their names are called — or not — for Hollywood’s highest honor.

Louis Lucero II contributed reporting.

An auction house in Dallas that is usually stocked with fine art and rare baseball cards now holds a six-foot dog mascot suit last seen in Episode 1 of the HBO drama “Succession.” Audiences may recall a nauseated Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) putting on the costume and puking through its eyeballs.

The item has been thoroughly cleansed of prop vomit, according to auction staff members, and is now among 236 lots of memorabilia from the show that were sold on the Heritage Auctions website on Saturday. The furry mascot fetched just over $7,800.

“Even the eyeholes are mostly clean,” said Robert Wilonsky, a spokesman for the auction house.

“Succession,” the story of ultrawealthy siblings jockeying for control of their father’s media empire, ended its four-season run in May and is up for 27 Emmys on Monday — the most of any series. Fans and collectors wanting to own a piece of the show were able to bid on luxury suits worn by the show’s cast or the vape pen puffed by its Season 4 antagonist, Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard). Fear not: It comes with a charger.

The auction’s most coveted item may have been a boxy Burberry tote ridiculed by Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) when it is carried to a family event by an interloper. “She’s brought a ludicrously capacious bag,” he says. “What’s even in there, huh? Flat shoes for the subway?”

The bag was viciously memed. On Saturday, it was among the auction’s most expensive items, and sold for $18,750.

Other instruments of humiliation include the Vitamix blender used to douse Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) in Season 4 and the prop sausages from a hazing ritual in Season 2 called “boar on the floor.” Taxidermy boars from the same scene could not be put up for auction because they are “kind of hard to store,” said Monica Jacobs, a prop master for the show.

Even the most mundane props could take weeks to create, Ms. Jacobs said. Credit cards were fabricated specifically for the show — don’t get your hopes up, none of them work — and handwritten speeches for a funeral scene were scrawled by a member of the show’s art department. (Mr. Strong requested to write his own, she added.)

HBO has previously auctioned off props from the shows “Insecure” and “Watchmen,” joining A24 and Netflix in a crowded field of Hollywood memorabilia auctions that can generate buzz — and profits — long after filming has wrapped.

Sales from the auction totaled $627,825, according to Heritage Auctions, and will be shared between HBO and the auction house.

Items for the auction were selected while Season 4 was being filmed in the early months of 2023, said Jax Strobel, a managing director in entertainment for Heritage Auctions. He was invited by HBO to snoop around sets in New York and earmark items — say, the bayonet sword hanging on the wall of Logan Roy’s office — that should be set aside.

“What will a fan remember or recognize?” he said. “The things that show up often, or that have a special moment or memory attached.”

Also up for auction were several of the costumes that helped spawn a frenzy over “stealth wealth” — the subtle flexing of understated pieces that are in fact quite expensive. See: the brown Brunello Cucinelli blazer worn by Kendall in Season 2, which sold for $1,875.

The show’s characters “stand for money,” Michelle Matland, the costume designer, said in an interview last year. “They stand for affluence. They stand for position and posture.”

Ms. Matland dressed them accordingly, beginning with their shoes, which she called “the most important article of clothing on a person’s body.” Her selections from brands including Prada, Saint Laurent and Lanvin appeared in the auction at various levels of wear and tear.

Some fans of the show grumbled on social media about the markup on a blue children’s T-shirt from Walmart worn by Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) in the series finale. The shirt and a corresponding pair of salmon shorts from Old Navy sold for $1,875.

Ms. Jacobs, the prop master, is encouraged that the show’s carefully selected signifiers of wealth, status, self-absorption and poor taste are still being appreciated by fans.

Some of them were headaches to procure. She ordered around 20 dried scorpions for the paperweight that Tom gives to Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) in Season 4, and reshaped their tails into “attack mode.” She dried the scorpions in the oven of her apartment before one, cast in resin, enjoyed just a few seconds as a guest star on prestige TV.

The paperweight sold for $10,000. “My kitchen smelled terrible for a couple weeks,” Ms. Jacobs said, “but it was worth it.”

Mis palabras exactas para él en nuestra primera cita fueron: “No busco integrar a nadie en mi vida. Busco escapar de mi vida”.

Nos conocimos en un restaurante italiano durante una cálida noche de agosto, en el segundo aniversario de la muerte de mi marido. Habíamos conectado en una aplicación de citas, donde destacaban sus mensajes ingeniosos y cerebrales, así como su foto de perfil en la que aparecía leyendo una revista New Yorker en un sofá bañado por la luz del sol.

Ese mismo día me había ido de excursión con mis hijos a un parque cercano, donde mi hija encontró una bolsa de tesoros que alguien había escondido en el sendero para que la descubrieran. Entre las calcomanías, los origamis, los paquetes de semillas y las pinturas había una piedra plana con las palabras “Sigue tus sueños” pintadas con los colores del arcoíris.

Qué oportuno, pensé. Hacía poco que había empezado a creer en las señales de un universo benévolo. Aquellos tesoros, el significado del aniversario y mi primera cita con este nuevo hombre parecían coincidir de algún modo.

Para nuestra cena, me puse uno de mis vestidos ajustados favoritos y me pinté los labios de rojo. Me sentía bien con algo que no fuera mi uniforme de madre con leggins y el cabello sin lavar. Más tarde me contaría que aquella noche, al verme delante de él, se quedó sin aliento.

Era médico de atención primaria, recién divorciado tras un largo matrimonio. Su hijo estaba en su primer año de universidad y su hija adolescente vivía con él en un nuevo departamento de soltero. Tenía una sonrisa pícara y melancólica a partes iguales y una voz masculina llena de matices y humor. Me tranquilizaba estar en su presencia.

Reconocí en él a un compañero de alma inquieta; había algo de ensoñación en su modo de hablar. Los detalles de su desilusión eran diferentes, pero la vida había templado sus ideales de manera similar, y él también estaba enamorado del escapismo.

Cuando nos levantamos para salir del restaurante, su cadera golpeó la mesa y un vaso se cayó y se quebró en el suelo. Me quedé helada, pero él no se inmutó. Sonrió y se disculpó con el camarero mientras nos dirigimos a la salida, competente y tranquilo. Me lo imaginaba así con sus pacientes. Su seguridad me impresionó.

Me acompañó hasta mi coche y sus labios rozaron los míos cuando nos despedimos. Más tarde diría que fui yo quien lo besó primero. “Tu auto tiene cara de Georgina”, me dijo con una sonrisa. El suyo era un pragmatismo hilvanado con imaginación.

Me envió un mensaje de texto antes de llegar a casa para pedirme que volviéramos a vernos.

Para nuestra segunda cita, planeó un picnic en el parque Mount Tabor de Portland. Me envió un mapa por adelantado con una indicación de dónde estacionarme. Más tarde, me di cuenta de que casi todo lo que hacía era premeditado, planeado con minuciosidad para garantizar un desarrollo fluido. Incluso en la espontaneidad, no dejaba las cosas al azar.

Subimos por el sendero hasta el embalse. Había empacado vino, pan, aceitunas, queso e higos para untar en latas de metal. Yo solo había traído chocolates, que se derritieron en mi bolsa antes de que pudiéramos comerlos. Nos sentamos en una ladera rodeados de parejas jóvenes mientras se ponía el sol.

Me contó la historia de un paciente suyo de casi 80 años con cáncer terminal que eligió una muerte digna. El hombre organizó una fiesta, invitó a todos sus seres queridos y luego se tumbó para morir en el dormitorio de invitados.

Se me nublaron los ojos de lágrimas, las cuales disimulé bebiendo otro sorbo de vino.

Esto fue antes de que él supiera cómo había muerto mi marido, quien también eligió su propia muerte, poniendo fin a su vida en un día de verano similar, y nos tomó a todos completamente por sorpresa. En un momento irrevocable, la vida que yo conocía dio un vuelco, dejándome sola como madre de una bebé y un niño pequeño.

Dos años después, volvía a aventurarme tímidamente en el mundo de las citas. Aún no podía imaginarme los ritmos diarios de la vida con otra persona, pero anhelaba compañía y deseo. Quería sumergirme en la belleza del mundo y recordar que estaba viva, aunque la vida que una vez conocí había terminado.

El sol se deslizaba por el horizonte mientras pensaba en la muerte y en la decisión de vivir.

Poco después, empezamos a reunirnos los domingos por la noche en varios hoteles del centro. Con mis hijos en casa con la au pair y su hija adolescente en su departamento rentado, no teníamos ningún sitio privado donde ir. La idea de nuestro encuentro me sostenía durante mis largos y ajetreados días. Era el único momento reservado para mí sola, y fantaseaba con eso toda la semana.

Con él podía olvidarme de que era una madre soltera de más de 40, con una lista interminable de cosas que hacer y tiempo limitado. Me liberaba del recuerdo constante de que había perdido a mi marido por suicidio. Una noche a la semana, normalmente después de que mis hijos iban a dormir, podía olvidarme de los montones de ropa sucia, de las tareas administrativas de ser psicoterapeuta en una consulta privada y, quizá lo más importante, podía alejarme del dolor omnipresente.

Hicimos paracaidismo y frecuentamos tanques de flotación, saunas y salones poco iluminados. Fumábamos porros, bebíamos martinis con miel y guarniciones frutales y preparábamos listas de reproducción de Spotify para nuestras pernoctas en los hoteles. Intentábamos superarnos mutuamente en posibles futuras aventuras. Me leía historias de ficción de la New Yorker en voz alta en su sofá mientras su hija estaba en el colegio, mientras la luz entraba por las ventanas de cristal que iban del suelo al techo. Hablamos de posibles tríos, clases de baile y psilocibina.

Fue como si me hubieran quitado una venda de los ojos: me volví a ver a mí misma con precisión.

La posibilidad volvió a entrar en mi vida por primera vez desde la muerte de mi marido. Me sentía juguetona, esperanzada, en contacto con la libido de la vida. Me apunté a clases de piano, empecé a bailar en barra vertical y me compré una tabla de paddle surf. Todas las experiencias vitales que no había vivido y que había sido demasiado tímida para explorar ahora las sentía al alcance de mi mano.

Cuando estábamos juntos, el tiempo transcurría de otra manera; parecía una realidad alternativa. Sin embargo, nunca dormía lo suficiente en las camas de los hoteles, rara vez comía algo completo y a menudo bebía demasiado vino. Los días siguientes eran una mezcla de falta de sueño y ansias por volver a verlo.

Pensé en una clienta que una vez me dijo: “A estas alturas de mi vida, solo quiero estar con alguien con quien pueda dormir bien”.

Después de nuestras aventuras, no descansaba bien.

“No me veo volviendo a ser padre de niños pequeños”, me dijo cuando llevábamos cuatro meses saliendo. Yo había evitado ese tema y cualquier mención al futuro, pues sabía que no estaba preparada para afrontar las consecuencias de hablar de eso.

Fue entonces cuando lo supe: ya no deseaba puro escapismo. Estaba preparada para el potencial. Él podía ofrecerme romance, pero no la belleza ordinaria de la vida cotidiana. No íbamos a crecer.

No habría un mundo en el que veríamos Disney+ juntos en el sofá. Él nunca sacaría a mis hijos del baño, con sus mejillas enrojecidas y el cabello relamido. No me despertaría a su lado en un día normal de trabajo, vestida con ropa sencilla, sin adornos de magia nocturna.

Incluso los lugares sexis, los vestidos ceñidos y los tacones altos pierden su atractivo. Se me antojaban ensaladas de col rizada, sobriedad y una buena noche de sueño. Por mucho que me gustaran nuestras aventuras, la indulgencia se había desequilibrado sin el contrapeso de los placeres sencillos.

Estaba lista para alguien que algún día pudiera amar a mis hijos. Que quisiera hacer panqueques con nosotros los domingos por la mañana y tomarnos de la mano en el parque. Había entrado en un nuevo capítulo.

Seguimos un mes más, pero el hechizo se había roto.

La última vez que lo vi fue el primer día del nuevo año. Condujimos dos horas al norte de Portland, hasta Astoria, y pasamos la noche en un hotel junto a la desembocadura del río. Los leones marinos nadaban frente a nuestra ventana. Había traído binoculares, bocadillos y docenas de velitas que proyectaban pequeñas llamas contra el cristal que estaba entre nosotros y la oscuridad del río Columbia.

A la mañana siguiente, cuando me desperté, sentí nuestra despedida en el aire entre nosotros. De camino a casa, hicimos una parada en la playa, donde dimos un paseo tomados de la mano y luego nos acurrucamos mientras sentíamos la fresca brisa de enero. Fue una sensación tierna y concluyente.

Cuando estábamos a punto de llegar a mi casa, me dijo: “Ojalá pudiéramos seguir como hasta ahora, pero me sentiría egoísta sabiendo que quieres algo diferente. Quiero que encuentres el amor que buscas”.

Le di las gracias y le deseé amor.

Si tienes pensamientos suicidas, llama o envía un mensaje de texto al 988 para ponerte en contacto con la Línea Nacional de Prevención del Suicidio o visita SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources para una lista de recursos adicionales.

Dacia Fusaro es psicoterapeuta en Portland, Oregón.

Kelsey Masako Fumiko Kiyota and Elliott Lin met through a mutual friend in 2012, but it wasn’t until six years into their friendship that they realized they had something important in common — a love for the “Fast & Furious” movie franchise. The discovery happened in January 2018 while at a party at their friend’s house in San Francisco, where they both lived.

“I loved the story being about friends and family,” said Ms. Kiyota, 38. “Elliott had such a different take on it. He was like ‘I just love the cars’,” she said with a laugh.

“I’d never met anyone, especially a girl, that had the same interest,” said Mr. Lin, 34. He knew he had to act. “This could be my shot,” he said. “This could be the one.”

After the party, Mr. Lin texted Ms. Kiyota to ask her out. She said yes but she wasn’t clear if their friendship was truly taking a romantic turn. “I was a little bit confused because I’d known him for six years,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if it was a real date or a hangout.”

That March, they met for Korean barbecue at a restaurant called Han Il Kwan in San Francisco. They discovered a few other things they had in common, including a shared interest in food and dining out. At the night’s end, Mr. Lin walked Ms. Kiyota home and presented her with a gift he had brought — a box of macarons. These gestures cleared up Mr. Lin’s intentions, Ms. Kiyota said.

After more dates, the new couple went to Lake Tahoe a few weeks later. They went on hikes and continued to enjoy going out to eat. That August, Mr. Lin stayed over at Ms. Kiyota’s place and, before falling asleep, he asked her to be his girlfriend. She said yes.

Ms. Kiyota knew things were going well when she introduced Mr. Lin — who comes from a “polite and quiet” family — to her “very loud, very rambunctious” family in Colorado that fall. “He already knew how important my family was to me,” Ms. Kiyota said. “To see him make that effort was the best,” she said. “He was just a perfect fit.”

[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]

By the end of 2018, Ms. Kiyota told Mr. Lin that she was in love and he said he was too. Ms. Kiyota moved into Mr. Lin’s condo in Hayward, Calif., in 2019. Marriage wasn’t something the pair talked about much but, in the summer of 2020, Ms. Kiyota mentioned that she thought a yellow diamond engagement ring would be nice. “I like bright colors,” she said. Mr. Lin took note.

The couple moved to Erie, Colo., in December 2021. Ms. Kiyota grew up in Niwot, Colo. ​​She received a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Colorado Boulder and is now a global learning program manager at Fivetran, ​​an automated data movement company based in Oakland, Calif.

Mr. Lin grew up in Fremont, Calif. He received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from San Francisco State University and is a project manager at Intuitive Surgical, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. Both work remotely from their home in Erie.

Mr. Lin picked out an engagement ring with a yellow diamond, then enlisted Ms. Kiyota’s photographer cousin to help plan a surprise proposal on Jan. 15, 2023. Ms. Kiyota thought her cousin wanted their help trying out some new locations in Boulder for future photo shoots — until Mr. Lin asked her to marry him.

“I was very surprised,” she said.

The couple started wedding planning right away. They knew they wanted to get married in a year but Colorado would be cold then so they set their sights on Hawaii. Ms. Kiyota also had a family connection in her uncle, who had grown up in Lahaina before moving to Colorado. But when the wildfires hit Maui in August 2023, the couple was unsure how, or if, they should proceed.

“We wanted to make sure we were being sensitive to the locals that live there,” Ms. Kiyota said. They eventually called their vendors, some of whom live near Lahaina, and she said they encouraged her to continue on as planned. Their florist was excited that visitors and tourists were coming back, Ms. Kiyota said.

After signing their marriage licenses at home on Christmas Day in 2023 (Colorado allows for self-solemnization), the couple headed to Maui.

Mr. Lin and Ms. Kiyota celebrated their wedding on Jan. 5 at the Ritz-Carlton in Kapalua, Maui with about 100 guests. King Alamshahi, a friend from San Francisco, led the ceremony, which took place on a lawn overlooking the beach.

Thoughts of the wildfire were still present for many, including her uncle who lost a friend in the fire. But Ms. Kiyota said the difficulty was balanced with joy.

Shortly before the reception, the sun was setting and the couple was photographed on a cliff overlooking the ocean. “We were able to take a deep breath, relax a bit, and soak everything in,” Ms. Kiyota said. In that moment, there was no sound except for the crash of ocean waves.

In all the words currently being written about the end of the Bill Belichick era in Boston — or, technically, the Boston suburbs — which reportedly finally came to a close on Jan. 11 after weeks of speculation, the end of the N.F.L. season and the Patriots’ dismal loss to the Jets, the one that sticks in my mind is “hoodie.”

More than anyone except perhaps Mark Zuckerberg, Boston’s famous football coach has become synonymous with that particular garment. It is “an inseparable part of his legacy,” according to Bleacher Report. His “trademark,” wrote Sports Illustrated. “Iconic,” crowed Buzzfeed. For decades the hoodie helped burnish the Belichick legend, but recently it has begun to seem part of the problem: less a symbol of his coaching genius than, perhaps, a sign of his obsolescence.

For most of his 24 years with the Patriots, the sweatshirt has been Mr. Belichick’s garment of choice for game day. And not just any old sweatshirt, but a particularly nondescript, schlubby blue or gray sweatshirt, often with the sleeves lopped off in a seemingly random way somewhere between the elbow and the shoulder, and layered over another shirt. Sometimes it was paired with flip-flops. The majority of that time, when he was leading the team to its six Super Bowl wins, the sweatshirt seemed to symbolize Mr. Belichick’s singularity: his ornery refusal to be anything but himself or follow any vision but his own; his gruff, blue-collar fighting spirit; his consistency; his refusal to give up — not the game and not his favorite wardrobe item.

It got him named to various “best-dressed” lists with the sort of affectionate irony traditionally lavished on irascible but beloved uncles, and led to a “Bill Belichick raglan pullover hoodie” being sold in the N.F.L. merch shop. His commitment to the garment inspired one football prognosticator to create a “hoodie tracker,” and it has been the subject of Super Bowl betting. Mr. Belichick even presented a hoodie to President George W. Bush on a visit to the White House.

The origin story of Mr. Belichick and the sweatshirts is part of his mystique. He first appeared in a gray hoodie in 2003. (Before that he often wore windbreakers on the field.) As the tale goes, he adopted the hoodies after the N.F.L. made a deal with Reebok (now Nike) that included coaches, meaning that they were forbidden to wear the sort of tailored suits that once distinguished men like Tom Landry, Hank Stram, Blanton Collier and even Vince Lombardi. Instead they had to wear team gear, becoming a walking billboard for the sponsor.

As a form of protest against the selling of the sport, it was said, Mr. Belichick chose to wear the most aggressively unfashionable garment he could find within the dress code. (He had, after all, worn a suit in various appearances beforehand, not to mention on the cover of Nantucket Magazine, and cleans up perfectly well when he wants to.)

Whether or not the middle finger-to-the-corporate-overlords narrative was true, the attitude it reflected fed the Belichick ethos in a way that worked in the coach’s favor, as even he must have realized, since he never refuted the idea (even when asked about it directly). Instead, Mr. Belichick somewhat coyly sidestepped the question, telling Yahoo columnist Dan Wetzel that he liked sweatshirts because they were “comfortable” and he could “carry stuff in the pouch.” As for cutting the sleeves, it was because his arms were “too short” and all that fabric was getting in the way.

Fair enough, except that in framing Mr. Belichick as a man of principle focused purely on his job, rather than fashion, the responses revealed just how aware of the power of fashion he actually is. Being worst dressed is just as much a choice and a statement as being best dressed. And therein lies the rub.

Indeed, the Zuckerberg comparison may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. The old mythology of Silicon Valley was built in part on the image of tech prodigies untethered from the petty concerns of the everyday — jackets and ties — only to suffer from periodic backlashes when the untethered bit seemed to lead to psychological abuse or financial crimes. Similarly, it turns out, the Belichick image may have contained within it the seeds of its own destruction.

Over the last few seasons, football has followed sports like basketball and soccer into the world of fashion, with players — Tom Brady and Russell Wilson, both of whom have their own lines, as well as current athletes like Davon Godchaux, Joe Burrow and (ahem) Travis Kelce, who seem to be headed that way — increasingly aware of their own potential. Not Mr. Belichick, however, and the contrast has made his insistence on wearing the same old same old seem more like a rut; an example of what started to look like a stubborn refusal to change not just his wardrobe, but with the times.

This winter, for the first time in recent history, it’s possible to ice skate underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

Since November, when Glide at Brooklyn Bridge Park opened, almost 300 people have packed onto it at any given time, according to organizers. With the Manhattan skyline in the background, patrons skate on real ice under twinkling lights and past digital art. When finished skating, they can retire to a glass-walled cafe and drink hot chocolate and beer while snacking on charcuterie and table-side s’mores.

Just across the East River, there is another new rink on the rooftop of Pier 17 in Manhattan’s South Street Seaport neighborhood. This one was made of synthetic ice: a plastic, spongy material that parents can easily walk on as children master skates.

2023 was the first year that people could ice skate 100 stories above ground at the Edge, the observation deck at a skyscraper in Hudson Yards, or roller skate on synthetic ice inside the vast Oculus at the World Trade Center. And until Jan. 7, there was another new rink at Luna Park, an amusement park in Coney Island that has typically been a summer destination. (These are in addition to the classics: the Rink at Rockefeller Center and Wollman Rink in Central Park.)

Ice skating, a cold-weather pastime for thousands of years, is happening in even more places this winter. New rinks have not just popped in New York, but all over America, offering proficient and aspirational skaters alike a nostalgic seasonal activity that doesn’t require snow, which has been in short supply after the hottest year in a century and a half.

These are not the indoor shopping mall rinks of yesteryear. Many have sweeping views and décor ideal for documenting on social media, as well as food and drink options. Those involving synthetic ice, like the rink at Pier 17, can be set up almost anywhere because making the material requires no water or energy. Ice skating is also relatively affordable. At Glide, for example, tickets start at $10 for children and at $15 for adults, and there are discounts for New Yorkers. (Skate rentals are about $12.)

In December, a new outdoor rink opened in Portland, Ore. — the city’s first in 24 years. “Winter in Portland is dark and cold,” said Amanda Park, a senior project manager at the city of Portland’s economic and urban development agency, who spearheaded development of the rink. “We need more opportunities for families and folks to get out and enjoy themselves.”

That was particularly true this year, since many of the local ski resorts opened late because of a lack of snow. Ms. Park said that all pre-sale tickets for the Portland rink sold out in December. The rink is scheduled to close Jan. 28, but organizers are considering extending it to meet demand, she added.

Like many of the rinks that have recently popped up, the one in Portland is attempting to create a whole vibe: It’s surrounded by a winter village with fire pits, dining tables and 100 trees. Every Wednesday, an ice-rink-related movie like “The Mighty Ducks” or “Cutting Edge” is shown in the village and the film’s soundtrack is played for skaters on the ice. Fridays are “Ladies of Pop” nights: Music by Beyoncé and Taylor Swift plays while tweens and teens skate and take selfies.

Some new rinks are giving people a chance to try skating for the first time. Morgan Mosley, 30, a content creator in Indianapolis, was excited that a rink opened this winter at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the arena where the Indiana Pacers play. “I have seen ice skating a lot in the movies, and on social media,” she said. “But I had never got a chance to go.”

She bought tickets for the rink’s opening weekend. “It was a lot harder than it looked,” Ms. Mosley said, adding that she plans to keep at it.

Organizers of the rink at Gainbridge Fieldhouse said they had hoped to attract 20,000 skaters throughout the six weeks it is open. They recently hit that goal, they added, with three weekends and two full weeks of the season left.

U.S. Figure Skating, the national governing body for the sport, said more beginners are getting involved across the country. Its program Learn to Skate USA reported a 10 percent increase in the 2022-23 season compared to the prior year.

But not all the rinks have been a hit, especially among those looking for an authentic experience.

Before Christmas, Lynette Bedoya, a 27-year-old nail technician in Coral Springs, Fla., visited a new 4,000-square-foot rink made of synthetic ice at Las Olas Oceanside Park, on the beach in Fort Lauderdale.

“I really wanted to have a winter holiday experience,” she said. “Ice skating feels like the closest we can get.”

But the second she stepped on the fake ice, she was disappointed. “It was awful,” she said. “You could actually walk on it. There was no gliding or spinning. It was a waste of money.”

The absurdity of the setting also struck her. “It was like, ‘What are we doing ice skating here?’”

My mother passed away in 2021. She left her estate in equal shares to my sister, my brother and me. My siblings were named coexecutors of her will. It was relatively easy to sort out her house and belongings and to distribute the money. My sister insisted on handling everything: “I’ve got it,” she would say when we offered to help. Most of the funds were distributed soon after my mother’s death. But there remains a balance of $150,000. When my brother asked my sister to distribute it, she sent a long email saying she deserves to be paid for her work. My brother and I are surprised, sad and angry: The will doesn’t say anything about paying executors. My sister was an ample beneficiary, and her work was finished 18 months ago. If she wanted to be paid for what I view as an act of love, she should have brought it up at the beginning. Thoughts?

SIBLING

Let’s skip the knee-jerk reaction (“What a greedy sister!”) and consider this issue more fully. When wills are silent or don’t explicitly prohibit the payment of executors, most states have laws that set guidelines for their reasonable payment — usually an hourly rate or a small percentage of the estate. In my experience as a lawyer, though, executors of family estates who are also beneficiaries usually waive payment.

Still — and I say this respectfully — it is facile for you to call your sister’s work easy or to suggest that it be done free of charge (as an “act of love”) when, despite your offers, you did none of it. Having served as the executor of my mother’s estate, I can report that it was time-consuming and, also, that I wouldn’t have taken a penny for it. So, maybe you and your sister both have a point?

Ask a local lawyer what compensation the coexecutors of your mother’s estate are entitled to under state law. Unless your mother was extremely wealthy, it will not be close to $150,000. But if the estate is still pending and state law allows for payment to executors, your sister is entitled to ask the probate court for reasonable payment for her work. Inevitably, this will lead to hard feelings among you, and I am sorry for that. So, for those making wills, remember to stipulate whether executors are entitled to payment for their services.

The Reek Across the Way

My husband and I moved to the suburbs with our two young children. Our home is close to a neighbor’s house on one side — only six feet apart. The problem: We smelled cannabis inside our house recently that seemed to be seeping in from the outside. We suspect it came from our neighbors: They are closest, and the smell was stronger on their side of the house. How can we tell them nicely that the smell bothers us?

NONSMOKER

I get the big picture: You don’t like the smell of cannabis. But I’m fuzzy on the details. If your neighbors are smoking in the narrow alley between your homes, ask politely: “Could you smoke on the other side of your house, please? The smell is wafting into ours.”

But if you believe the smoke is coming from inside their home, traveling across the narrow yard and seeping into your house, I suggest calling a contractor to check the seals around your windows and doors. Apart from the smell of cannabis, heating a drafty home will be expensive this winter.

Step One: Confirm There’s a Problem

My husband and I were very close with another couple. (Think: hanging out every week and traveling together.) Now, they don’t initiate get-togethers and always seem to be busy when we do. This is not the case with other friends, based on social media. Should we stop making the effort? That feels wrong, given our history.

FRIEND

If I’ve done something to upset a close friend or if one of them wants a break, I prefer to know about it. Misunderstandings are inevitable, and I like to try to work them out. (Not everyone feels this way. I respect that, too.)

You or your husband might say to one of them: “We miss seeing you. Did we do something to upset you?” Then listen. Your friend may tell you — or shy away. It may also take a while to get an honest answer, but I think the question is worth asking.

His Wife Wants His ‘Partner’ Demoted

My husband has a flirty colleague. (She flirts with everyone.) They work for a large nonprofit and have started referring to each other as “partners.” I have heard people use this term when they become equity stakeholders — “I made partner” — but not when they just work for the same company or use it only to refer to each other. My husband says it’s normal. Is it?

WIFE

Not in my experience. Years ago, co-workers used the terms “office husband” and “office wife” to refer humorously to their (platonic) go-to colleague: the person with whom they most often ate lunch, took coffee breaks and chatted. (I haven’t heard them used recently.)

Unless your husband and his co-worker are part of a dedicated two-person team, their nomenclature seems weird to me, and your husband’s attempt to normalize it sounds like gaslighting. Ask him to be more mindful of boundaries with his colleague.

For help with your awkward situation, send a question to [email protected], Philip Galanes on Facebook or @SocialQPhilip on the platform X.

This year’s revamped Golden Globe Awards brought several changes to the program. But it was business as usual on the red carpet, with hundreds of celebrities seemingly relishing the chance to give us something to ogle after last year’s strikes stopped many from posing for cameras at award shows and events.

There were ball gowns. There were sequins. There was lots of red — crimson dresses, candy apple heels, oxblood tuxedos — with dashes of “Barbie” pink and the color purple.

Aside from maybe Jason Sudeikis, who wore a crew-neck sweater that Styles reporter Jessica Testa said induced “flashbacks to him wearing a hoodie during the awards show-by-Zoom days,” almost everyone looked elegant. The 20 people on this list, however, managed to stand out just a little more than others.

The actress, who wore outfits inspired by the doll’s clothes for much of the “Barbie” press tour, continued that streak with a hot-pink Armani Privé gown and a tulle boa that resembled a loofah. The look was inspired by the Superstar Barbie toy.

Jeremy Allen White: Most Freshly Covered Up!

The actor, a star of “The Bear,” wore a wide-lapel Calvin Klein suit over a sheer shirt. No items from his recent, nearly naked underwear campaign for Calvin Klein were included, as far as we know.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph: Most Birth of Venus!

The “The Holdovers” actress evoked a modern-day goddess in a maroon Rodarte gown with a sequined shell-style bra that channeled Botticelli’s painting.

As the actress, who attended the ceremony as a presenter, walked the carpet, her gauzy Prada gown billowed behind her. The look was equal parts eerie and captivating.

Charles Melton: Most Throwback Glamour!

The “May December” actor went with classic formal wear — specifically, a sharp, double-breasted Armani suit in navy blue, which he accessorized with a watch that had a like-colored face.

Ali Wong: Most 20-20 Vision!

The “Beef” star’s white Dior gown had an elegant braided shoulder and it draped beautifully. But her signature eyewear was what made the look sing.

A glittering, floor-length Pamella Roland gown made the actress, a star of “Barbie” and “American Fiction,” look a little like the statuette from the Academy Awards. Her glowing complexion enhanced the likeness.

Gillian Anderson: Most Anatomical!

The actress nodded to her role on “Sex Education” in a strapless Gabriela Hearst ball gown featuring dozens of subtly embroidered vulvas (she called them vaginas).

Colman Domingo: Most Embellished!

Two statement brooches added some sparkle to the slim Louis Vuitton suit worn by the actor, a star of “The Color Purple” and “Rustin.” A pearl earring dangling from one ear upped the ante.

The actress, a presenter at the ceremony and a star of “Oppenheimer,” continued her streak of wearing sheer fabrics with a gauzy Valentino gown that showed some skin beneath its floral appliqués.

Cillian Murphy: Most Lydia Tár!

It looked as if the “Oppenheimer” star had stepped off the set of a different movie (“Maestro”) when he arrived on the carpet in a black standing-collar suit and white pleated shirt.

Ayo Edebiri: Most Cherry Lip Balm!

The “The Bear” actress’s strapless Prada tube dress might have been the freshest red number of the night. Helping the look pop were a sheer train and a sleek bob hairstyle.

Sticking through the waistband of the “Past Lives” director’s Loewe skirt was a two-foot silver needle. The look, like her film, was understated and had the potential to draw tears.

Barry Keoghan: Most Checkered!

A pearl necklace and belt chain spiced up the “Saltburn” actor’s Louis Vuitton jacket and pants — and helped hide the fact that their prints didn’t exactly match.

Billie Eilish: Most Gen Z!

The singer looked thrift-store chic in a boxy Willy Chavarria blazer, a khaki skirt and Mary Janes with socks a similar color to her bangs. She accessorized the outfit by tying a black ribbon from a birthday gift around her neck.

Was her purple Louis Vuitton gown about as surprising as florals for spring? Yes. (Oprah is an executive producer of “The Color Purple.”) Did she look regal in the off-the-shoulder, sequined dress? Also yes.

Timothée Chalamet: Most Rock Star!

The actor traded “Wonka” purple for a sparkly black Celine Homme blazer that dazzled with each flash of a camera. His somewhat-buttoned shirt was a departure for someone who often opts not to wear one on the red carpet.

Rosamund Pike: Most Addams Family!

During a preshow interview with Variety, the “Saltburn” actress described her look — a black tea-length Dior dress with a dramatic, lace veil covering her face — as having a “weird funeral vibe.” In the interview, the actress said that she had a skiing accident this winter and chose to wear the facial covering because she was concerned her injuries would not heal before the awards.

Though the singer’s “Eras Tour” film was nominated for a Golden Globe, her Gucci gown covered in sparkling chartreuse sequins seemed to be screaming “Reputation” about as loudly as possible.

Ryan Gosling: Most Ken!

She’s everything, he’s just … an actor wearing Gucci.

Stella Bugbee, Vanessa Friedman, Callie Holtermann, Madison Malone Kircher, Anthony Rotunno and Jessica Testa contributed reporting.

After months of brainstorming how to have the most delicious wedding cake possible, Rachel Karten and Roxanne Rosensteel, a pastry chef based in Santa Barbara, Calif., concluded that only one kind of wedding cake could fit the bill: a big sheet cake.

The original plan was to have four of them, but when Ms. Karten, the former head of social media at Bon Appétit, saw the 3-foot-long cake at the designer Sandy Liang’s wedding in June, she asked Ms. Rosensteel if it might be possible to combine four sheet cakes into one.

It was. Ms. Rosensteel baked an olive oil chiffon and plum jam cake, topped with burnt honey buttercream and delicate purple gomphrena blooms that measured just over 4 and a half feet — a size dictated by the width of Ms. Rosensteel’s car. (Other bakers may travel with the cake in parts and put it together on-site.)

The mega cake was momentous for reasons beyond its size — it was part of an emerging trend of extremely long cakes popping up around the world. But they are alike only in their oversize proportions: Bakers are putting their unique spin on large-format desserts to produce cakes of all forms and flavors, and for all occasions. Zélikha Dinga, a chef based in Paris, baked a 5-foot-long semicircle cake for the stylist and model Shawn Lakin’s wedding to Matt Spector in Michigan in September. That same month, Blanca Miró Scrimieri, a content creator and fashion designer, celebrated her birthday with a more than 5-foot long Brazo Gitano, a Spanish cake roll, baked by Pastry Gas in Barcelona. Julia Gallay of Gallz Provisions in Toronto baked a 7-foot-long floral slab cake for a pop-up event at a friend’s bar, passing it through a window.

These oversize food scapes might feel trendy now, but the intersection of large-scale food and art is nothing new. “Food has always been a symbol of wealth and status,” said Geraldine A. Johnson, head of the department of history of art at the University of Oxford.

“Beginning in the 16th century, there was an increasing fascination among European elites with elaborate banquets that included sculptures made of food,” Professor Johnson said. “At the wedding of Maria de’ Medici and the French King Henri IV in 1600, the elaborate table decorations included almost life-size gilded sugar sculptures of the bride and groom.”

In a more contemporary context, one could reference “Les dîners de Gala,” Salvador Dalí’s surrealist cookbook published in 1973, for scenes of sprawling table scapes and towers of food. And more recently, the artist and chef Laila Gohar has been doing large-scale desserts at high-profile events since 2019, including 50 feet of sweets last year that fed 3,000 people.

Now, as a departure from pandemic-mandated micro-gatherings and individually wrapped treats, the trend has arrived at weddings, along with oversize charcuterie boards and their newest iteration, butter boards. “This idea of a messier, more communal dessert will probably be something people continue to do,” said Ms. Karten, who married Greg Costanzo in September.

Then there is, of course, the social media appeal of these ostentatious offerings. Generally, Ms. Karten said, “there’s a pressure with weddings to get attention. More people are attempting to do things or little touches that might get them noticed online or set a trend.”

Delaney Lundquist, an interior stylist and design manager in Charlotte, N.C., was early to document the mega-cake trend on TikTok. “I hope it’s not overdone by May 2024,” said Ms. Lundquist, 31, who is currently planning her own wedding. “I’m dreaming of a several-foot-long tiramisu.”

She need not worry. The trend is “probably only getting started,” Ms. Gallay said.

Kassie Mendieta, a cake decorator and recipe developer in Los Angeles, cautioned, however, that what might appear at first to be a humble sheet cake can still pose a challenge.

“I can confirm it is not easier than doing a tiered cake,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to go into this thinking, ‘Oh my god, this is going to be a breeze.’”

Although they attended the same high school in Rochester Hills, Mich., Julia Marie Gerard and Adam Edward Romund never crossed paths until their senior year. They were placed in the same personal finance class and became fast friends. The two began spending more time together outside of class, attempting to prepare for their A.P. calculus exam.

“What was supposed to be studying at the library was not studying at all,” Mr. Romund, 23, said. “It was basically a date. We did zero studying and just talked about random stuff.”

Their mutual crushes prompted Mr. Romund to ask Ms. Gerard to the prom in May 2018, where they shared their first kiss. The couple spent most of the following summer together, knowing they’d eventually be heading off to colleges in different states — Ms. Gerard to Ohio State University, and Mr. Romund to Michigan State University.

“He had become my best friend,” Ms. Gerard, also 23, said. “We really wanted to make it work. We couldn’t imagine losing the other person.”

[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]

Maintaining the relationship came with challenges — “95 percent of our relationship existed over FaceTime,” Mr. Romund said. But they managed to see each other once or twice a semester. Mr. Romund endured a nine-hour bus ride to visit Ms. Gerard in Ohio. Ms. Gerard hitched a ride with a friend when she ventured to Michigan. During each reunion, the couple took a Polaroid selfie to mark the occasion.

The sustained separation that defined their relationship did have a silver lining.

“The nice thing that came out of long distance and FaceTiming all the time was that we communicated pretty well,” Mr. Romund said. Among the many topics of conversation was the subject of marriage.

“When we first started talking about getting married, we had said something like, ‘Oh, I want to wait awhile. I want to be older, like 27, 28,’” Ms. Gerard said. But the picture of their future together changed over the years, particularly as graduation approached. “We know we want to do this. Let’s just do this now,” Ms. Gerard said.

In 2021, Ms. Gerard graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and moved back to Rochester Hills, where she works as a financial analyst at General Motors. Mr. Romund graduated in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, and moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., about 40 miles from Ms. Gerard, to pursue a doctor of dental surgery degree from the University of Michigan.

After they had both earned their undergraduate degrees, it was clear, based on their numerous conversations, that an engagement was imminent.

“She’s my best friend,” Mr. Romund said. “I feel like I’m the most ‘myself’ around her. She’s the first person I’d tell when anything crazy, weird or exciting happened.”

But Mr. Romund was determined to make the proposal a surprise.

“I took her out on a few fancy dates and didn’t pop the question,” he said.

Then, one morning in October 2022, while Ms. Gerard was visiting him in Ann Arbor, Mr. Romund suggested they grab a coffee and take a stroll along the Huron River, which ran by his apartment.

When they came upon a bridge, they walked across it, stopping to take their obligatory couples Polaroid. After the photo was captured, Mr. Romund got down on one knee and asked Ms. Gerard to marry him.

“We don’t like the super elaborate Jumbotron, baseball game proposals,” he said. “I thought finding a nice remote area with fall colors would be the best.”

Just as Mr. Romund hoped, Ms. Gerard was surprised, although she chuckles now at the hints she missed in hindsight.

“Walks were a normal thing for us,” she said. “But Adam getting up early was abnormal.”

The couple were married Dec. 22 at St. Mary of the Hills Roman Catholic Church in Rochester Hills, which Ms. Gerard had attended as a child. The Rev. James Mayworm performed the ceremony.

The 175 guests that gathered for the reception at the Station at Shepherd’s Hollow Golf Club in Clarkston, Mich., included a smattering of loved ones who were alumni of Michigan State, Ohio State and the University of Michigan. (Everyone got along just fine, the couple said.)

Mr. Romund and Ms. Gerard are excited about embarking on their careers and traveling together. Most of all, they are thrilled to finally share a home; they just bought a condo in Ann Arbor.

“No more long distance,” Mr. Romund said.

On the morning of New Year’s Day, along the sleepy streets of the East Village in Manhattan, scarf-bundled crowds trickled into St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery to attend a 12-hour poetry reading that has been a spiritually cleansing downtown tradition since the 1970s. To its devotees, the gathering’s hypnotically lengthy programming of readings and avant-garde performances provides a dependably radical initiation into the new year.

Hosted by the Poetry Project, the nonprofit organization that has operated out of the historic church since the 1960s, the marathon serves as its biggest annual fund-raiser. About 150 writers, artists and dancers take their turns onstage until about midnight. Its performers have included William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Yoko Ono, Amiri Baraka and Patti Smith. Years ago, the poet John Giorno might have provided participants with a bowl of LSD-spiked punch; these days, young attendees head to the church directly after partying at all-night raves.

Sunlight poured through stained-glass windows as guests settled in for the long haul ahead. Beneath the church’s paint-peeling ceiling, many sat cross-legged in nooks and corners, unpacking the blankets and dog-eared paperbacks they had brought with them. A few parents wearing beanies sat in chairs with their babies in tow, and a woman walked her terrier down a crowded aisle.

Lee Ranaldo, a co-founder of Sonic Youth, eventually took the stage with a guitar to perform “Forty Songs,” a tune based on the lyrics of the Beat poet Michael McClure. After finishing his six-minute set, Mr. Ranaldo hung out in the parish hall, where visitors nursed hangovers with coffee and catered pierogies from Veselka, a nearby Ukrainian diner, as they perused chapbooks for sale.

“When I first came to New York, this reading was one of the first things I wanted to see,” Mr. Ranaldo said. “Oddly enough, lots of New Yorkers still don’t know about it. It’s always had a fringe and marginal aspect to it. You’re getting Allen Ginsberg here, not Robert Frost.”

“I remember Jonas Mekas once brought a box to a reading,” Mr. Ranaldo added. “It contained Ginsberg’s beard clippings. It still gets weird here like that today.”

Greeting old friends and fellow poets was Eileen Myles, who has lived in a nearby rent-stabilized apartment since the 1970s, and was once the Poetry Project’s director.

“This is how I begin my New York life every year,” they said. “For me, the ball drops, and then there’s the New Year’s Day reading at the Poetry Project. This is also the place my education started as a young poet. You’d bring a beer and go to a workshop held by Ted Berrigan.”

They added: “I’m going to be reading a love poem I wrote called ‘Put My House.’ And I’m giving it to Palestine tonight.”

More than a thousand people passed through the church over the course of the day. Some lingered for just a few sets, whereas others committed themselves for hours, bringing out balls of yarn and knitting needles to while away the time. The marathon gradually took on the semblance of one epic, collective avant-garde spectacle to its own, and its lineup blurred through categories of genre and experimentation.

Jaye Bartell, theater manager for the Anthology Film Archives, strummed a folksy and mournful guitar tune. Journey Streams, a young writer who was introduced as a “nightlife historian based in Brooklyn,” recited an untitled work off an iPhone. A choir, Sing in Solidarity, marched to the chant of “Power to the workers. Power to the working class.” They wore red shirts, scarves and dresses and sang from sheet music in red folders.

“We are the choir of Democratic Socialists of America, New York City chapter,” Annie Levin, one of the singers, announced. “Please come to our concert Jan. 13 at the People’s Forum where you’ll be hearing some Appalachian labor songs.”

Luminaries of the poetry scene dominated the stage in the marathon’s second half.

Anne Waldman, who founded the event in 1974 during her directorship of the Poetry Project, read a poem while accompanied by a jazzy saxophonist. Cecilia Vicuña, the Chilean artist, recited a minimalistic political poem, “Ga Za.” Pamela Sneed, wearing a necklace with a hunk of quartz, presented a new work, “Barbie,” inspired by her distaste for Greta Gerwig’s summer movie.

“What if Barbie were taken to every skid row, homeless shelter in America and saw where unwanted people were dumped?” Ms. Sneed said. “What if her relatives were caught up in, and drowned by, a buoy on the Texas border trying to keep migrants out? What if she lost everything? To AIDS. Covid. What if her breasts were removed and she had to start a GoFundMe to cover medical costs?”

Chelsea Manning, the former intelligence analyst who conducted the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history, stood onstage in silence for several minutes. The church was now packed and sweltering, and people closed their eyes in meditation.

“I became very used to this experience that you just had, sitting there in silence,” Ms. Manning finally said, referring to her stay in solitary confinement. “Where I had nothing but myself and my thoughts. Just stone silence.”

“I think that there is a lot of power in silence,” she added. “I wanted to share a little piece of that.”

As midnight approached, the church emptied out, and about 60 people sat in darkness watching the marathon’s last leg. The critic Sarah Nicole Prickett gave a reading, as did Ty Mitchell, a writer and former gay pornography star. The pianist Conrad Tao performed an improvisation of Art Tatum’s 1950s recording, “Over the Rainbow.”

David Velasco, who was fired in October as the editor of Artforum after publishing an open letter that called for Palestinian liberation and a cease-fire, recited a personal essay about the events leading to his termination.

“That morning, I wake up to find a bird on the floor of the apartment unmoving, after being brought inside by the cat,” Mr. Velasco said. “It’s been tense all day as different people decide what to do me with me.” He continued: “A lawyer thinks I should write an email to buy myself time. A friend thinks I should prepare a statement. I’m crouched in the chimney trying to position my body between the bird and the cat when a voice inside me starts saying, ‘Do nothing.’”

The night’s final reading belonged to Kyle Dacuyan, the outgoing director of the Poetry Project, and his staff surprised him afterward offstage with champagne and a cinnamon-and-nut cake. Outside, in the old church’s cemetery, a lingering group hung out smoking cigarettes in the cold, talking poetry above the graves of the dead.

Fi Cotter Craig, a television producer in Britain, was scrolling through Instagram one day when she was struck by a photo. “I saw my friend wearing a jacket that I actually thought I would kill her for,” Ms. Cotter Craig said. “Rather than kill her, I rang her up and said, ‘Where did you get that jacket?’”

Chloe Speed, who lives in Amsterdam and works in marketing for Nike, envied her husband’s new blue chore coat and poached it for herself. “The color was so iconic and beautiful,” Ms. Speed said. “Every time you wear it, it gets a little softer in places and fits better.”

Ethan Cannon, a divinity student in St. Louis, was pulling into a restaurant parking lot one rainy night when he was stopped by the attendant. “He’s standing in the rain, holding up traffic,” Mr. Cannon recalled. “First thing he said was, ‘Where did you get that jacket?’”

The maker of all three coats is Paynter Jacket Co., a small British label run by Becky Okell and Huw Thomas, a married couple who take an unusual approach to their business.

Four times a year, they announce the garment they will produce next. Their newsletter subscribers have about a week to order it in their desired sizes and colors, and the label makes only that many, in “batches” numbered 1, 2, 3 and so on. After the call out to subscribers, Paynter will offer each batch to the general public in an announced drop, which often sells out in about two minutes.

The “drop” model is common to streetwear brands, who often use it to drive up demand. But as Mrs. Okell, 30, and Mr. Thomas, 31, explained during a video call from their studio in London, they use drops with the idea of reducing waste.

“It’s a very wasteful industry,” Mr. Thomas said. “OK, how can we do this differently? What if we made only what we needed?”

Paynter has none of the inventory management problems that bedevil other fashion brands, Mrs. Okell added, because it has no inventory. The label orders enough fabric to make the coats for which it has orders — and no more.

Before starting Paynter in 2019, Mrs. Okell and Mr. Thomas spent time in corporate fashion. She worked in the brand department at Nike; he did marketing and product design for Hiut Denim Co., in Wales. In 2018, they attended an industry workshop in London, where, for some reason, Mrs. Okell greeted Mr. Thomas, a stranger at the time, with a hug. Within weeks, they were inseparable.

Mr. Thomas had long collected vintage workwear, including a blue jacket from France that had a better fit and softer fabric than the typical workcoat. As the couple began decoding how the jacket was made, they decided to build a brand around it.

Mrs. Okell and Mr. Thomas work within a narrow range of styles. Many of the 16 batches released so far have been variations on a traditional chore coat, as well as classic denim, gabardine overcoats and field jackets.

They begin by selecting fabrics from mills in Italy, Japan and elsewhere. The jackets — and occasional shirts — that they make out of those fabrics stand out for their simplicity. That is, until you notice the attention to detail.

Each limited-edition jacket has a label hidden inside designed by a different artist. The jackets are also hand-numbered, and the care labels have whimsical instructions, including, “Wake up early. Exercise first thing. Inhale. Exhale. Have a bowl of Coco Pops.” The jackets come in the mail with a small gift; Batch No. 16, an Italian wool cashmere winter coat, included a Tony’s chocolate bar with a custom Paynter wrapper.

Planned releases for 2024 include a waxed barn coat with a corduroy collar, followed by a chore jacket meant to commemorate the company’s five years in business. That one “will distill all our learning and all our favorite details from all the chore jackets we’ve ever made,” Mr. Thomas said. The very next drop, a flap pocket corduroy workshirt in four colors, is scheduled to go on sale to the general public on Feb. 10. Newsletter subscribers as usual will have early access to order.

The fashion writer W. David Marx has a Paynter field jacket in olive green. Asked to describe the construction of the coat, he wrote in an email, “A focus on fit and silhouette. No bells and whistles or details that will age poorly. The jackets are just made to make everyone look good.”

Ms. Cotter Craig, the TV producer, concurred. “I’ve got six or seven Paynter jackets and they’ve never disappointed, not one,” she said.

Mr. Cannon, the divinity student, said he likes to buy new jackets partly to follow how Mrs. Okell and Mr. Thomas are improving over time. “I don’t feel like someone is selling me something,” he said. “I feel like I’m participating in some kind of art project, almost.” Last fall, he flew to London to attend one of the label’s “Paynter at the Pub” events and to meet the designers.

Mrs. Okell and Mr. Thomas do just about everything themselves. And their low overhead means they can sell a wool cashmere coat for about $335 — an unheard-of price for a luxury good, a category to which their coats arguably belong. The label’s shirts cost about $150.

The couple said they have often heard from friends, customers and industry colleagues who say that Paynter should scale up and make double or triple the number of jackets.

“Some waiting lists go up to 3,000 people,” Mr. Thomas said. “And you think, ‘We should have made more of that.’”

He and Mrs. Okell aren’t losing any sleep over the missed sales, however.

“When we started Paynter, we both wanted a similar company,” Mrs. Okell said. “We were both absolutely dead set on it being independent. We didn’t want investors. We didn’t want big teams. We wanted to work on every part of the process ourselves.”

“We make clothes,” Mr. Thomas said. “We don’t make fashion.”

Extra-large bags, silver jewelry and gardening are in. Quiet luxury, podcasts and late bedtimes are out. That’s at least according to Instagram and TikTok, where lists confidently declaring which trends will thrive and which will die in the new year abounded as the clock struck midnight on Sunday.

The dead week between Christmas and the new year has always been conducive to introspection, the hours usually spent working or socializing suddenly freed up for stewing in regret, rethinking bad habits or planning a comeback. But instead of making traditional New Year’s resolutions, many TikTok and Instagram users have started publishing “In and Out” lists that mix predictions of what will and won’t be considered cool in the coming year with aspirations for their 2024 selves.

“I feel like New Year’s resolutions are very personal, and an In-and-Out list is a more niche, general statement,” said Lukas Battle, a stand-up comedian and TikTok personality. “It’s also a way to make fun of last year’s self and set a goal. For example: OUT: being in a toxic relationship, IN: hanging out with friends and going to dinner.”

In-and-Out lists are particular to their makers, incorporating personal tastes and beliefs, sense of humor, and informed (or uninformed) predictions to create a vision for the year ahead. Some items on the list are actual fashion or culture trends — like animal prints or espresso martinis — while others are more behavior-oriented. Common ins for 2024 include early bedtimes, staying hydrated and red-light therapy, while impulsive shopping, mindless phone scrolling and vaping are popular outs.

Kit Keenan, an influencer who describes herself as “a young Martha Stewart stuck in Blair Waldorf’s plotline,” posted a TikTok video last week in which she interviews her mother, the fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, about what’s “In vs. Out” in the new year. The consensus? Knee socks, prep school and animal prints are in; capri pants are decidedly out. “If you’re not Bella Hadid, I don’t want to see you in capris,” Ms. Keenan declared.

In Mr. Battle’s own In-and-Out list, he anticipated the end of “quiet luxury,” the trend in which wealth is telegraphed in a stealthy way. Instead, he intends to replace it with “loud budgeting,” which he says is “all about not being weird about money, being able to communicate about it to your friends and really be like: ‘I don’t want to do that. I don’t think that’s worth my money or time.’”

Mandy Lee, a professional trend forecaster who has predicted the rise of phenomena like indie sleaze and balletcore, also made an In-and-Out list, which she posted on her Instagram account. For her, the lists are less about making serious and informed predictions about trends, and more about low-stakes fun with friends and followers.

“It feels more like people’s personal manifestation rather than what they actually think is going to be trending,” Ms. Lee said. “I put deviled eggs on my In list because I made deviled eggs on New Year’s. Do I think delivered eggs are going to have a resurgence? Honestly, maybe — but there’s no real data points or evidence pointing to that happening.”

Certain subjects have shown up on multiple In and Out lists, which may give at least some idea of what people think will be cool in 2024. Minimalism, for example, is pointedly out, being traded in for wild animal prints, bold color and enormous logos. Bows, the sartorial embodiment of the girlhood trend, are also on the way out, along with Snapchat, oversharing and the clean-girl aesthetic. What’s in? Sobriety, putting your phone in Do Not Disturb mode, polka dots, cherry red, dinner parties, outfit repeating, having a nemesis and drinking soda, to name a few.

Some things appear to be In and Out at the same time. Perhaps no item is more controversial in this year’s In and Out lists than oat milk, which appears on as many In lists as it does Out. But Mr. Battle says there’s no gray area here. “Oh, oat milk is definitely out,” he said. “It’s out because someone at a party told me it was unhealthy.”

Falling Upward

It all began so innocently: snow falling at dusk, a crackling fire, an embrace between three old friends. Soon, I was floating away on a river of love with my husband and our friend. Both men insisted that everything was aboveboard, open and non-possessive. Still, I worried: What would our friend’s girlfriend say about our ménage à trois? “How could you do something so stupid?” she said when she came home later. “We just, uh, fell into bed,” he stammered. “You fell into that bed?” she yelled, pointing to the ladder leading to the high loft. Oops. — Pamela Jane

Holding on to Possibility

My husband takes me camping near Yosemite after I lose my 12th pregnancy. Feeling hollow, I think of the New Year’s Eve we celebrated early on in our relationship: We were half-drunk, giddy, full of possibility. My husband doesn’t know that lately, I’ve been trying to find a reason to exist in the world if I can’t be a mother. But here, in the shadow of ancient mountains, he turns, smiles, and I remember how loved I felt that New Year’s when he reached for me. “Don’t leave me now,” he said as the crowd counted down. I won’t leave. — Hanna Bartels

How to Repair

My wife orders takeout with her iPhone, but it rejects her card. She snaps at me as I try to help. I collapse into silence, a protective shield. When we’re wounded, our tendency is to get small. Snippy. Mean spirited. In these moments I wonder how the world’s conflicts will ever be resolved when we two who have committed to loving one another would rather find fault than mend relatively minor transgressions. She asks for a hug, so I hold her. I make two cups of tea. Drape a blanket over shoulders. Small gestures, perhaps. But my heart feels giant. — Nicole R. Zimmerman

A New Kind of Family

My husband and I never had children. Yet, in our late 60s, we inherited a teenager. He’s my friend’s son, conceived through I.V.F. When she, a single mother of this 17-year-old, died unexpectedly during cancer treatment, he asked to live with us. We said yes to this tsunami of a life change for all of us. Together, with his extended biological family, we navigate these deep, uncertain waters. We’re a new kind of family now: the one he never wanted to see come true, the one we never expected, the one we all grieve and celebrate. Together, from this day forward. — Bev Mondillo Wright

In the only recent year in which Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs weren’t playing in the Super Bowl, the N.F.L. star was driving around Los Angeles in early February with his business managers, André and Aaron Eanes, marveling at billboards featuring Dwayne Johnson, the actor and entertainer better known as the Rock.

“Man, I don’t think I’ll ever be as famous as the Rock,” Mr. Kelce said.

His co-managers looked at each other. “We’re like, Yes, you can,” André Eanes said.

The twin brothers had known since Mr. Kelce was at the University of Cincinnati that the 6-foot-5 athletic star with the Marvel-character physique, blue eyes and affable charm had crossover potential.

But let’s be honest. Nobody imagined this.

This was a year even The Rock might envy. Mr. Kelce, a tight end, won the Super Bowl (his second) in February. In March, he hosted “Saturday Night Live.” He’s starred in seven national television commercials. The podcast he co-hosts with his brother, Jason, is among the most popular on Spotify. He launched a clothing line with his team.

And he’s dating the world’s most famous pop singer. Perhaps you’ve heard.

Mr. Kelce’s sudden conquering of the zeitgeist — being put on the map, if you will — has taken even die-hard football fans by surprise. The reality is that most of his ascent has been years in the making — the result of a carefully manicured business plan developed by the 34-year-old Eanes brothers that blossomed at precisely the right moment.

The Chiefs have spent the last few years as the most unstoppable force in football and, along the way, Mr. Kelce’s other team has grown to include a creative strategist, a community outreach coordinator, a Los Angeles-based publicist, a personal chef and a trainer. He has four football agents, led by Mike Simon at VMG. In the spring, he also became a client of Creative Artists Agency to feed his budding acting itch.

The Eanes brothers coordinate it all, managing the surging flow of incoming traffic for a piece of Kelce Inc. Film scripts have been shared among the team. Game shows are a consideration. Maybe a few less commercials.

“People say to me, ‘Man, it’s been a crazy year,’” Aaron Eanes said. “When I say, ‘Actually, it’s not that crazy,’ people look at me funny. It’s because it’s easy when you have a plan. We’re executing that plan.”

Before you run to YouTube and TikTok to research conspiracy theories, no, the plan did not include Taylor Swift.

Mr. Kelce’s managers have a window of time between the ending of the Super Bowl in February and the beginning of training camp in July in which their plan for the Kelce brand must unfold. Once the season starts, Mr. Kelce manifests what he wants on his own.

But while Mr. Kelce’s shift into a more mainstream form of celebrity was planned out before he met Ms. Swift, there is no question that the doubling of his prospective audience — from mostly men between the ages of 18 and 49 to a far larger group bolstered heavily by Ms. Swift’s female fans of all ages — has changed the calculus for where the plan goes from here.

“The awareness of Travis is much larger and with an even broader audience,” said Richard Lovett, C.A.A.’s co-chairman. “It’s accelerated that which was probably inevitable in terms of his level of awareness and appeal.”

André Eanes, who manages Mr. Kelce’s portfolio of 28 investments, first met his client through Mr. Kelce’s college roommate, D.J. Woods, a childhood friend of Mr. Eanes, who grew up near Cleveland. They became close when Mr. Eanes started an event management business while still in college that booked venues and hosted D.J.s around Cincinnati. Mr. Eanes became Mr. Kelce’s go-to guy for a V.I.P. pass.

“He was always the life of the party,” Mr. Eanes said of Mr. Kelce. “Everyone wanted to go hang out with Travis.”

At the same time, Aaron Eanes was studying sport management and entrepreneurship at Bowling Green University in northern Ohio. He wanted to help athletes grow their careers. But he had no interest in becoming a traditional sports agent.

“Agents are contract advisers,” Mr. Eanes said. “I thought instead about a music model and building a business where there’s coordination with all their external providers.”

Mr. Eanes hadn’t even graduated when he began pitching college football players about the services of a manager in addition to a traditional agent. It was an unusual proposition at the time for most players, whose focus primarily was on getting that first professional contract. But Mr. Kelce seemed to grasp the bigger picture that his friends were charting. He became the second client of A&A Management, the company that the Eanes brothers still run.

“It was unusual,” said Mr. Simon, Mr. Kelce’s agent. “I think his thought process at the time was, ‘Let’s all do this together, and we’ll figure it out as we go.’”

Mr. Kelce’s first glint of mainstream publicity came in a 2015 feature in Complex magazine, in which he stood on a pool table wearing a burgundy velour Versace jumpsuit and Gucci sunglasses. A short time later, Aaron Eanes got a call from a producer from E! about a reality dating show. “I was like, Absolutely not!” Mr. Eanes said.

The brothers eventually relented, thinking that a TV show might open other doors. After “Catching Kelce,” which ran for eight episodes and never did find Mr. Kelce’s true love, they agreed that reality television was one and done. Instead, Mr. Kelce, a lifelong comedy fan, gave his co-managers a lofty goal to chase: He wanted to be on “S.N.L.”

Aaron Eanes reached out to the show’s producers during the 2020 season, but their reciprocated interest sounded lukewarm at best. That changed in October 2021 after Mr. Kelce dropped into an “S.N.L.” after-party before a game in Philadelphia and went to work, chatting up (and impressing) Lorne Michaels.

The day after the Chiefs defeated the Eagles in the Super Bowl last February, Aaron Eanes’s phone rang at 9 a.m. It was “S.N.L.”

“I don’t think he’s even been to sleep yet,” Mr. Eanes told the booking agent.

After walking out onto the stage at Rockefeller Center’s Studio 8H on March 4, less than a month after the Super Bowl win, Mr. Kelce choked up during the show’s opening monologue at the enormity of fulfilling a childhood dream. He had brought his family along for the ride: his brother, Jason, the Eagles’ center; and his parents, Ed and Donna, who the Eanes brothers help manage free of charge.

After “S.N.L.,” the Eanes brothers began interviewing Hollywood agencies that had stronger connections in the entertainment industry.

“We’re just two guys that live in Ohio,” Aaron Eanes joked.

Mr. Lovett and Tom Young, C.A.A.’s co-head of sports media, both said that Mr. Kelce had an easygoing charisma and a coachable nature that made producers want to work with him. “Decision makers and those folks that are meant to be visionary about who’s the next potential movie star, those folks had already tapped into Travis even coming out of ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Mr. Lovett said. “And probably before.”

But nothing was being rushed, Aaron Eanes said. That’s not Mr. Kelce’s style. And Mr. Eanes had already been laying the groundwork for his client’s path to the A-list. Throughout 2022, Mr. Eanes had targeted endorsement deals with companies that were not traditional N.F.L. partners — like promoting vaccines for Pfizer, for instance, or a new debit card from Experian. The purpose was to build out Mr. Kelce’s résumé as a stand-alone pitchman, rather than yet another interchangeable player in a commercial for one of the N.F.L.’s partners, capitalizing on a foundation built by the league.

Danielle Salzedo, a veteran brand strategist who joined Mr. Kelce’s management team after 14 years at Viacom, said she has adopted marketing lessons from working with music artists like Harry Connick Jr., who was constantly willing to reinvent himself to reach new audiences.

“That ability to continue to evolve what your image is and stay current but still remain elevated, from someone who is already a global star,” Ms. Salzedo said, “is something that I think Travis has the ability to do.”

Mr. Kelce’s inner circle insists that his time as a viral celebrity hasn’t changed him. His personal chef, Kumar Ferguson, has been pals with Mr. Kelce since they played recreational basketball together in the fourth grade. He drives home-cooked meals (typically wild rice, chicken and veggies) to the Chiefs’ practice facility every day so that he and Mr. Kelce can have lunch together.

Despite the growing pile of distractions, Mr. Kelce’s longtime trainer, Alex Skacel, said the star tight end’s dedication to football has never been stronger.

Mr. Skacel likes to share the story of a visit to Paris Fashion Week a few years ago, when he and Mr. Kelce took a late-night jog around the city because Mr. Kelce was antsy for a workout after an entire day of sitting by the runway. “It’s midnight, and we’re doing sprints over the bridges over the river,” Mr. Skacel said. “No matter where he is, he finds time to get done whatever he needs to get done.”

While 2023 was a nearly perfect year for Mr. Kelce, Aaron Eanes said the increased attention has his team considering a potential area of concern: oversaturation. Is there too much of Mr. Kelce on television and in the news, and could fans grow numb to the sight of him? The plan for next year revolves around one word: curation. Fewer deals. Quality over quantity. Authenticity first.

After a midweek visit to New York to talk at a sports business conference, the Eanes brothers were rushing to catch flights to Ohio for a few days with family before heading back to Kansas City, where the Chiefs were playing the Buffalo Bills in a clash of two top teams.

The game was decided in the final moments by a penalty that reversed what would likely have become a signature play in Mr. Kelce’s career.

Trailing by three, Mr. Kelce caught a pass in the open field. Then, as he was about to be tackled, he showed off the arm he had used as a high school quarterback, throwing a perfect pass back to an open teammate who raced in for what appeared to be a game-winning score. The only problem was that the teammate had lined up incorrectly before the play, which erased the touchdown.

The Chiefs went on to lose the game, but once again, Mr. Kelce had found a way to be in the middle of everything.

“We positioned Travis to be world famous,” André Eanes said. “We didn’t know how it would happen, or when it would happen, or what would help push that further along. But it’s always been the thought in the back of our minds.”

The artist Eduardo Kac was at his New York gallery the other day to show a reporter his work: a hologram encoded on a sliver of glass resting inside a tiny metal case. This little package is the capstone of Kac’s career to date — an artifact he created in 1986 that is now, finally, about to find its intended home in space. On Jan. 8 it is scheduled to be on board a Vulcan Centaur rocket as it lifts off from Cape Canaveral and heads into orbit around the sun. This holographic artwork — a “holopoem,” Kac calls it — might or might not be discovered hundreds of thousands of years from now by whatever creatures are around to find it. But for the moment it was here at the Henrique Faria gallery just off Madison Avenue, about to be viewed by a human.

Gingerly, I took the little round case. “OK,” Kac said. “You just have to, like, unscrew it.”

“Unscrew it?” The thing was barely more than half an inch in diameter and had no obvious grips.

I gave it a try. Immediately it went clattering to the floor.

Kac (pronounced Katz) seemed unruffled. “This thing is titanium 5” — the strongest titanium alloy there is. He opened it deftly.

The tiny square of glass inside looked pristine, untouched. But when Kac held it up between thumb and forefinger and aimed a small, hand-held laser at it, the word AGORA appeared in lurid green letters on the opposite wall. This is his holopoem: In his native Portuguese it means “now.” But the name engraved on the outside of the titanium case is ÁGORA — a subtle but important distinction. With the accent mark, the word in Portuguese changes meaning, from “now” to “place,” as in the ancient Greek word “agora” for “gathering place.” (The Greek agora was akin to the Roman forum.)

So the holopoem refers to time, and it refers to space. Space/time. In perpetual orbit around the sun.

“Kac has always been interested in radically new forms of distribution, but this really takes it to a new level,” said Stuart Comer, chief curator of media and performance at the Museum of Modern Art. “It completely resituates how we think about art, language, communication — we’re not communicating very well, so why not try space?”

Kac assumes his holopoem will eventually be discovered by some indeterminate species he calls “homo spaciens”: space people. As for when, he knows better than to hurry. “It’s like you have a gallery exhibition and nobody has showed up for the opening,” he said. “But it’s a permanent show, so you hope that in the course of time they’ll come.”

His primary concern appears to be not time but space. “Putting an art piece deep into the cosmos is an attempt — it’s creating this public space by the sheer act of making the work in it,” he said. This is not the first time he has sought to create a public space, an agora. “But now, with this space poem, my agora is the cosmos.”

Kac first ventured into public space, and into the art world, as a 17-year-old in Rio de Janeiro. That’s when he founded the Porn Art Movement with a friend. It was 1980, toward the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship. The Porn Art Movement wasn’t actually about pornography; it was more subversive than that. In his “Pornogram 1,” for instance, a nude Kac sprawled seductively before the camera, his hairy legs parted just enough to reveal a plausibly rendered vagina. Almost as radical was the idea of performing in public, because under military rule any form of assembly was forbidden. Public space did not legally exist. So Kac put on a pink miniskirt and staged guerilla performances in Rio’s central square and on the beach at Ipanema. He had a couple of run-ins with the military police, but nothing he wasn’t able to talk his way out of.

“Paulo Freire had the pedagogy of the oppressed,” he told me, citing the leftist philosopher. “Then you had the theology of liberation. I created the pornography of emancipation.”

Kac was brought up by his maternal grandparents in the fashionable, high-rise beach district of Copacabana. Polish Jewish refugees who had arrived in Brazil in 1939, they supported his unorthodox pursuits. They funded a book of his porn art poetry. His grandfather even came to the print shop to make sure the job was done properly. “The issue for them was, How is this kid going to survive? With art and poetry? The fact that I was dealing with the body and wearing a miniskirt — that they weren’t worried about.”

Enrolling in a Catholic university in Rio, Kac found its art and literature programs unbearably conservative. He settled on communications because that would open the door to other disciplines — sociology, anthropology, semiotics, cinema, philosophy.

By 1982, he was getting into digital technology. Years earlier, when he was 12, he’d devoured an encyclopedia of current affairs that had entries on such subjects as cybernetics, digital art and holography, whose inventor, Dennis Gabor, had recently won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work. Back then, digital art had to be created on a mainframe; by the 1980s Kac could make art on a personal computer or on the Minitel, the French videotex service, a version of which was available in Brazil. And that meant his agora was no longer Ipanema Beach or Cinelândia Square. His agora was bigger, broader — the network.

Examples of his Minitel art are now in the permanent collections of MoMA and the Tate. Even as he was programming the Minitel, however, Kac began experimenting with holopoems. In 1986 he was granted a residency at the Museum of Holography in New York, where he created “Ágora.” But when he returned to Rio and tried to set up his own holography lab, he found nothing but frustration. He wasn’t able to get the materials he needed. His laser stopped working. One of the most advanced holography labs for art practice was at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. So he moved to Chicago, got his Master of Fine Arts in 1990, started teaching there a few years later, and has remained on its faculty since.

Kac created 24 holopoems between 1983 and 1993. He also started experimenting with telepresence and robotics, and then with what he calls “bio-art.” This culminated in a blaze of controversy over Alba, the “GFP Bunny,” a cute little albino rabbit that, thanks to some fancy gene-splicing, turned fluorescent green when you put her under blue light.

Meanwhile, the excitement that had greeted holography in the ’70s and 1980s was fading. The Museum of Holography shut its doors in 1992. The C-Project, an ambitious program that had artists like Louise Bourgeois and James Turrell experimenting with holography, started up in 1994 but shut down five years later. A second Museum of Holography, this one in Chicago, hung on until 2009. Today the scene is in limbo. It twitches occasionally: a show at the New Museum in New York in 2012, a C-Project exhibition at the Getty Center in Los Angeles next summer. “It’s not dead,” said Matthew Schreiber, a holographic artist who worked on the C-Project and maintains his own holography lab in Brooklyn. “It’s just kinda very small.” And Kac? “Wherever’s the bleeding edge of technology, that’s where Eduardo is.”

These days, that seems to be space. Kac’s first work to venture beyond Earth was “Inner Telescope,” a paper sculpture that was developed under the auspices of the cultural arm of France’s National Center for Space Studies and realized in 2017 by Thomas Pesquet, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. That took him 10 years to arrange. A tiny work on glass, “Adsum,” is planned for the surface of the moon in 2025. If the Vulcan Centaur launches on schedule on Jan. 8 and successfully enters solar orbit a few weeks later, he will finally have accomplished the goal he set for “Ágora” in 1986. “I conceived the work for deep space,” he said. “And since that moment, I have been trying to find a way to complete it.”

It will be the Vulcan Centaur’s maiden voyage. The rocket system was developed by United Launch Alliance, based in Centennial, Colo., a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing that competes with SpaceX and others for contracts from NASA and the Defense Department. Its main payload will be a lunar lander that’s scheduled to to separate from the Centaur V upper stage 92 minutes and 20.9 seconds after liftoff to make a moon delivery for NASA. The Centaur V upper-stage rocket and its forward adapter will continue into deep space, settling into orbit around the sun with a “memorial payload” for Celestis, a Houston-based company that’s in the business of sending tiny smidgens of human remains into the cosmos.

Among those whose heirs have tucked them atop the rocket’s second stage, fellow travelers with the holopoem, are the Apollo 14 astronaut Philip Chapman, the “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and his wife, Majel, and the actors who played three key characters in the original “Star Trek” series — Lieutenant Uhura, Lieutenant Commander Scott and Dr. “Bones” McCoy.

The correlation of “Ágora” with science fiction seems appropriate. “I am still astounded by the technology that Eduardo uses so brilliantly in that work,” said Jenny Moore, who curated the holography show at the New Museum and now heads Tinworks Art, a new exhibition space in Bozeman, Mont. “And what a brilliant time for it to meet its moment,” she added — in the wake of the extraordinary success of the James Webb Space Telescope, whose images are taking us ever closer to the moment of the Big Bang. Even so, Moore points out, entering into orbit will not actually complete the work.

“Will it be perceived by some other entities?” Moore said. “Think about the Rosetta Stone — how is that word going to be received? Because until it’s perceived, its potential is still unfulfilled.”

Neither Kac nor the rest of us will be around for the answer.

A new year brings new beginnings. For the Styles Desk, it also comes with an old pastime: Predicting the fashion and lifestyle trends that may bubble up in the months ahead.

Last January, when we pondered what might be in store for 2023, some of our thoughts proved rather prescient. Supersize lies (hello, George Santos); fake fashion items (hello, superfake handbags); and an appreciation for “regular degular” people (hello, blue-collar TikTok), to name three.

Others didn’t come to fruition. Butter crocks never took off; neither did pet rats.

The challenge with seeing the future is you can’t. As much as yesterday’s trends can give clues about tomorrow’s, there will always be those things that come out of nowhere.

Our predictions for 2024 contain well-supported hypotheses and others that may sound unlikely. But a nice thing about Jan. 1 is that it is a day when almost anything can seem possible. — Anthony Rotunno, fashion news editor, Styles

Music, fashion, movies, higher education: All were heavily influenced by Taylor Swift in 2023. Her relationship with Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs also put a spotlight on football — and put an athlete at the side of one of the world’s most popular bachelorettes, turning many people indifferent to the N.F.L. into armchair fans. Will that enthusiasm, coupled with the interest in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, set the stage for a jock renaissance? — Wilson Wong, editing resident, Book Review

Everything’s Coming Up Rosettes

We hit peak bow last year. Now rosettes are ascendant. More are appearing on items by Sandy Liang, the designer whose girlish aesthetic in part made bows so prevalent. The red rosette is being pushed as an accessory for the lapel and as a whimsical choker by the fashion blogger Leandra Medine Cohen. And Rosette, a newish clothing label in New York, is dedicated entirely to the soft roselike design. — Marie Solis, staff editor, Styles

Gen X and older millennials who grew up without the internet will cease their nostalgic rhapsodizing about life before cellphones, when people read books on the subway and talked to strangers while waiting in line and made plans that they couldn’t cancel via text. They’ll start abandoning social media and recommitting to being charming and witty and interesting in real life with real people in real spaces. — Melissa Kirsch, deputy editor, Culture and Lifestyle

Fancy Glassware Sheds a Stigma

Not even drinking glasses have been immune to discussions about gender identity. But a bartender-led push to abandon outmoded ideas about the gender of cocktail glasses is afoot. Might it mean that men who have had a death grip on their rocks glass since college will start opting for the refined Nick-and-Nora glass more often? A Nick-and-Nora communicates a sense of occasion: It’s narrower than a coupe, wider than a flute and has an eye-catching silhouette — think an upturned bell — that can make everyone feel like the belle of the bar. — Louis Lucero II, senior staff editor, Styles

Smart Watches Enter Elementary Schools

Lots of parents remain resistant to introducing smartphones at a young age — and for good reason. But more seem open to getting smartwatches after companies like Apple made it easier to control children’s accounts. Expect to see more devices on the wrists of the elementary-school set and more school districts trying to adjust to a world where kids play watch games and send garbled audio messages. Some have already banned the devices from classrooms. — Farah Miller, strategy and operations deputy, Culture and Lifestyle

Theme Dressing Becomes a Red-Carpet Staple

Hollywood never met a good idea it didn’t want to squeeze a sequel — or 15 — out of. The strategic red-carpet roll out for “Barbie” has already inspired themed dressing at premieres and photo ops for films like “Wonka” (so many shades of purple) and “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” With movies like “Dune: Part Two” and the “Mean Girls” remake set to release this year, just imagine the possibilities. — Vanessa Friedman, fashion director, Styles

Grand Theft Auto VI Hype Grows Inescapable

The ultraviolent Grand Theft Auto franchise’s next installment isn’t coming out until 2025. But a trailer released last month has received more than 128 million views — and has led to swirling debates about whether the teaser’s high-fidelity graphics will actually be representative of the game play. (Fans have also noticed that GTA VI, which is set in Miami, evokes the visuals of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, its 21-year-old predecessor heavily inspired by South Florida.) Buckle up for lots more discourse now that thirsty gamers’ attention is piqued. — Mike Isaac, technology reporter, Business

Less Virtuous Drinks

Low-to-no-alcohol beverages are now a fixture at restaurants, bars and even clubs. The focus on virtuous drinking, however, may be inviting new vices: hard sodas, for instance, or heavily caffeinated lemonades. It has been almost 15 years since the company behind Four Loko stopped producing the caffeinated alcoholic drink. Would it be so surprising if that anniversary was used to launch a comeback? — Dani Blum, reporter, Well

Butterfly Kisses Get Reconsidered

The explosion of girlhood online over the last year — girl dinners, girl math — was, in a way, about the culture-shaking, market-moving effects that can come from forces often seen as unassuming. Could it give new relevance to the butterfly kiss, another little, silly thing with surprising potential? The butterfly effect tells us that seemingly tiny events can have colossal, unpredictable effects on far away places and in far away times. Who knows what butterfly effects a year of fluttering eyelashes could yield. — Emma Goldberg, reporter, Business

Manicures for the Boys

ASAP Rocky appeared in a new Bottega Veneta ad with blitzed-out nails. Drake had his painted a neutral color in a recent Nike campaign. And over the past few years, Harry Styles, Machine Gun Kelly, Lil Yachty and Tyler, the Creator, have all launched nail-polish lines. Men, famous and not, have been painting their nails for centuries. But the practice’s recent ubiquity suggests male manicures are poised to have a larger cultural moment. — Christy Harmon, photo editor, Styles

Chocolate Lava Bubbles Up

Molten chocolate cake — or chocolate lava cake — has been harder, but not impossible, to come by since it haunted restaurant menus in the 1990s and 2000s. But in a presidential election year, when some will be driven to seek comfort and others driven to hedonism, few desserts seem more ripe for a comeback than this classic, warm, chocolaty and indulgent confection. — Anna Kodé, reporter, Real Estate

Tides Turn for Gen Z

As Gen-Zers have basked in the glow of youth, they’ve also told older generations that everything they do is embarrassing. (Two words: OK, Boomer.) That attitude may catch up with them now that Gen Alpha, a younger cohort, has arrived online. The new kids are already mocking terms embraced by Gen Z: “It’s not even funny how out ‘slay’ is,” one Gen Alpha member said on TikTok. Some members of older generations are ready for the skewering. “Watching Gen Alpha come for Gen Z is gonna be the highlight of my Millennial life,” a commenter responded. — Callie Holtermann, reporter, Styles

Alrededor de las 10:30 p. m. de un miércoles reciente, en un parque de patinaje en el centro de la ciudad, debajo de la Interestatal 95 en Miami, cuatro luchadoras entraron al cuadrilátero: Bingo, Midnight Player, Rina Yamashita y Stray Cat.

Más de 1000 personas, incluidos hombres con gorras de béisbol y camisetas de los Delfines de Miami y una mujer que sostenía un perro pequeño, rodearon las barricadas de metal alrededor de la plataforma. Gritaron mientras las luchadoras ocupaban sus lugares. El olor a marihuana y a los gases de escape de los automóviles de la carretera de arriba llenaba el aire.

Stray Cat, vestida con látex negro y una máscara de inspiración felina, se enfrentó primero a Bingo, un personaje parecido a una arlequina vestida con un traje blanco cubierto de diamantes negros.

“¡Stray Cat! ¡Stray Cat! ¡Stray Cat!”, coreaba el público, alentando al personaje cuyo nombre en inglés significa “gata callejera”.

Bingo se abalanzó hacia adelante, extendiendo el brazo y el pulgar hacia abajo. Stray Cat levantó su pierna en el aire y pateó a Bingo en el pecho, causando que la luchadora se retorciera. Stray Cat agarró el brazo de su oponente, lo giró alrededor de su espalda y le aplicó una llave a la cabeza.

Se trataba de Sukeban, una nueva liga de lucha libre femenina con luchadoras japonesas, la primera de su tipo en Estados Unidos.

Es una de las muchas ligas dedicadas a la lucha libre femenina japonesa, donde las atletas a menudo realizan golpes teatrales y contundentes y defensas inteligentes mientras cuentan una historia con sus movimientos y disfraces. Sukeban pone especial énfasis en la moda, y diseñadores de renombre, entre ellos Olympia Le-Tan, fundadora de la liga y su directora creativa, ayudaron a producir el vestuario y los accesorios con la esperanza de atraer a un público no familiarizado con el deporte.

En el evento, estuvo presente Bull Nakano, la comisionada de la liga y luchadora profesional retirada que hizo carrera en Japón.

“Luché durante muchos años”, dijo a través de un traductor, “y me siento honrada de ser actualmente parte de esta transformación de la lucha libre profesional femenina japonesa hacia una forma más artística y entretenida”.

Antes del evento, que fue promocionado como el primer Campeonato Mundial de Sukeban y se llevó a cabo durante la Semana del Arte de Miami, los asistentes exploraron un mercado al estilo de Tokio. Bebieron cerveza Orion, comieron palomitas de maíz y rodearon el cuadrilátero anticipando los seis combates de lucha de la noche.

En el evento participaron 18 luchadoras que compiten profesionalmente en Japón. Fueron agrupadas en cuatro facciones: The Vandals, Cherry Bomb Girls, Dangerous Liaisons y The Harajuku Stars. Las atletas, cada una de las cuales encarna un personaje con una personalidad específica, lucharon entre sí usando sus disfraces, gestos y expresiones faciales para contar una historia del bien contra el mal, explicaron los organizadores.

En japonés, el término sukeban se refiere a una “chica delincuente” o “líder de una pandilla de chicas” y el nombre de la liga es un guiño a las pandillas femeninas de las décadas de 1960 y 1970 que ayudaron a poner el feminismo en primer plano en Japón.

Le-Tan dijo que la misión de la liga era llevar a Estados Unidos un deporte que había sido popular en Japón durante años, particularmente en las décadas de 1980 y 1990.

“Estas jóvenes iban a ver a las luchadoras y se inspiraban, y colgaban afiches de ellas en su habitación”, dijo Le-Tan, y agregó: “Eso es lo que queremos ofrecerle a la generación actual”.

Los organizadores planean organizar combates en todo Estados Unidos. El primer evento de la liga, celebrado en la ciudad de Nueva York en septiembre, se agotó y está previsto llevar a cabo otro en Los Ángeles en marzo.

Artistas importantes han creado estilos memorables para los combates. Le-Tan, que tiene su propia línea de accesorios y artículos para el hogar y ha trabajado con Marc Jacobs, diseñó los vestuarios. Stephen Jones, un sombrerero británico entre cuyos clientes se encuentran Lady Gaga y la princesa Diana, hizo los tocados. Marc Newson, un diseñador industrial australiano representado por la Galería Gagosian de Nueva York, creó el cinturón de campeonato.

Isamaya Ffrench, una maquillista que ha trabajado con marcas como Thom Browne y Off-White, creó estilos para cada personaje. Se enfocó en resaltar las personalidades de cada una de las luchadoras. “Todo fue en gran medida una respuesta orgánica a la ropa”, dijo.

Entre combates, la luchadora Crush Yuu dijo que estaba tan emocionada de participar en Sukeban que había renunciado a su último equipo para unirse a la liga.

Dijo que veía al sukeban como una oportunidad para una colaboración entre las culturas japonesa y estadounidense, así como una oportunidad para mostrar al público estadounidense la lucha libre femenina profesional. Se sentía particularmente alentada por la cálida respuesta del público en Miami.

“El público estadounidense me dio más confianza de la que normalmente tengo cuando salgo al cuadrilátero”, dijo, a través de un traductor, y agregó: “Y eso contribuye a mi creciente amor por Estados Unidos”.

A medida que se acercaba la medianoche y el sonido de los fanáticos vitoreando rebotaba en la carretera interestatal que pasaba por encima, Ichigo Sayaka y Commander Nakajima subieron al cuadrilátero para la lucha por el campeonato.

Mientras Sayaka hablaba con el réferi, Nakajima se deslizó detrás de ella, agarró a su oponente por la parte posterior de la rodilla y la arrojó al suelo. El réferi se inclinó sobre la lona, golpeó el suelo tres veces y declaró vencedora a Nakajima.

Bull Nakano subió al cuadrilátero para entregarle a la luchadora el cinturón del campeonato.

“Damas y caballeros, gracias por acompañarnos esta noche”, exclamó un locutor. “¡Esto es Sukeban!”.

In the last few months, Beth Fletcher, a 39-year-old photographer in Derbyshire, England, built a small following on TikTok by recapping and analyzing the British reality show “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!” When the latest season ended in early December, Ms. Fletcher was at a loss for content because, she said, “we don’t have another good reality TV show on until summer.”

Then the TikTok algorithm delivered: a video of Brooklyn Schwetje, a graduate student and influencer, sharing a day in her life on the Ultimate World Cruise, a nine-month-long, round-the-world voyage with Royal Caribbean. Ms. Fletcher was instantly rapt. “I’ve never been on a cruise, and the idea of a nine-month cruise blew my mind,” she said. After finding more videos from other passengers on the cruise, something clicked: “Maybe this is our own reality TV show, but better.”

Since the ship launched from Miami on Dec. 10, TikTok has been flooded with posts from voyeurs on land, dissecting the videos shared by cruise passengers and speculating on the ship’s potential as a floating arena for high-level drama. Some are declaring it a “nine-month TikTok reality show,” with the passengers becoming unintentional celebrities.

Videos with the hashtag #UltimateWorldCruise have had more than 138 million views on the social media app.

This isn’t the first time TikTok creators — competing for views with millions of other accounts — have mined videos posted by others to manufacture their own genre of online reality TV. In 2021, the University of Alabama’s sorority rush became an internet fixation known as #BamaRush (and eventually, a Max documentary). But much as on reality TV, the truth behind the content can seem beside the point.

With a 274-night itinerary, the Ultimate World Cruise is the longest cruise ever offered by Royal Caribbean. Fares for the full trip — which stops in 65 countries — start at $53,999 per person and can go up to $117,599, excluding taxes and fees, according to Royal Caribbean’s website. The ship, called the Serenade of the Seas, has capacity for 2,476 guests, although a Royal Caribbean representative would not confirm how many are currently on board.

From England, Ms. Fletcher started posting videos of herself talking about the cruise, introducing passengers that she identified through their TikTok accounts as “cast members” and sharing tidbits about their life aboard the ship gleaned from their videos.

More accounts dedicated to the cruise emerged: One creator refers to herself as TikTok’s “sea tea” director, updating her followers with “breaking news” (claiming that someone had left the cruise, and another had tested positive for the coronavirus). Another TikToker made a virtual bingo card with predictions like “petty neighbor drama,” “a wedding,” “stowaway” and “pirate takeover.” That bingo card video amassed more than 300,000 views and hundreds of comments like, “This is the new Hunger Games,” and “It’s gotta be a social experiment.”

Ryan Holland, a 28-year-old posting regularly about the cruise, says people are “curious how people afford it” and “how people can stand being on a boat for that long.” She sees two possible outcomes for the trending fixation. Either “it dies out,” she said, “or it changes the future of reality TV.”

One unlikely star of #cruisetok is Joe Martucci, a 67-year-old recent retiree from St. Cloud, Fla., posting from the ship with the handle @spendingourkidsmoney. Mr. Martucci’s four children encouraged him to post video updates on TikTok, which he’d never used before. His first video has nearly half a million views.

“This is not us trying to become famous,” said Mr. Martucci, who now posts daily with his wife, referring to themselves as “Cruise Mum & Dad” and opening each video with a cheeky, “Hi, kids.”

Mr. Martucci, who now has more than 69,000 TikTok followers, says the attention is mostly positive, but he worries about fan accounts dedicated to drumming up drama. “I think they’re trying to manufacture something,” he said. “They’re in it for the views and for the followers.”

Another passenger, Lindsay Wilson, a 32-year-old teacher from Phoenix, said the attention “was very, very weird.” She and some of the other passengers who have amassed new TikTok followings have since connected in person and talk via group chats about their overnight stardom.

Apart from some grumblings about passengers of different customer tiers being treated unequally, few actual dramas have yet to emerge. One exception, however, was a video (currently at 2.5 million views) posted on Dec. 17 by Brandee Lake, a Black content creator and cruise passenger who said she had been mistaken for a crew member, once by a passenger and another time by a staff member. Neither Ms. Lake nor Royal Caribbean confirmed if they had been in contact regarding the issue.

Despite TikTok’s fixation with the cruise (and hope for drama), most of the videos coming from the Serenade of the Seas has been more mundane than gripping. Ms. Lake described a typical day at sea: Zumba class, breakfast, coffee at Café Latte-tudes and an activity such as doing a team puzzle or making gingerbread houses. After dinner, she will occasionally take part in the evening programming, like a silent disco, but usually she just retires to her room. “I’m trying to figure out where this drama is,” Ms. Lake said. “What am I missing?”

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Pavol Roskovensky eagerly gave Claire Anderson-Wheeler the inside scoop on the Temple of Dendur, pointing out centuries-old graffiti, like “Leonardo 1820,” on its gate and walls as they strolled through the Metropolitan Museum of Art after-hours. She also got an intimate look at her favorite Monet, Bonnard and Van Gogh paintings in the Impressionist collection.

Occasionally, a security guard or a museum employee walked by, or they heard the whir of a vacuum cleaner. But otherwise, Ms. Anderson-Wheeler said, “It was so calm.”

Her visit that evening, in March 2022, was the first of at least a dozen she made at the invitation of Mr. Roskovensky, 37, who worked as an art handler in the Met’s Greek and Roman wings until last May. (With permission, he could show guests around when the museum was closed to the public.)

Ms. Anderson-Wheeler, 38, was excited about having special access to the museum, she said, but more excited about her blossoming relationship with Mr. Roskovensky, whom she had matched with on OkCupid in December 2021. That month, they had their first date at Lillie’s Victorian Establishment in Manhattan’s Union Square area.

They sat outdoors on a balmy Thursday evening and spoke about their dreams over Sierra Nevada Pale Ales. He also told her about how ancient artifacts in the museum’s storage rooms can smell of clay and earth — and about the time he had to move a priceless terra cotta egg dating to 420 B.C.

Mr. Roskovensky, born in Slovakia, came to this country with his parents when he was 9, and then grew up on Staten Island.

[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]

His initial meeting with Ms. Anderson-Wheeler felt more like “a reunion” than a new connection, he said. “I talked about what my art means to me,” said Mr. Roskovensky, who is an abstract painter. “She talked about her writing.”

Until July, Ms. Anderson-Wheeler was a literary agent, focusing on children’s books, at Regal Hoffmann & Associates in Manhattan. Her debut novel, “The Gatsby Gambit,” a Jazz Age mystery, is to be published by Viking by the spring of 2025. She has already self-published three novels online under the pen name Claire Amarti.

Ms. Anderson-Wheeler was born in Washington and later lived in Dublin until she was 10. As a teenager she traveled around Europe with her mother, who worked for the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in law from Trinity College in Dublin, and received a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia in England.

She said she was taken by Mr. Roskovensky’s “sense of wonder and magic.” After leaving the bar, they kissed on a street corner.

“It was all over after that first kiss,” he said. “No question. She was it.”

They began texting daily, and soon she visited his art studio, where he showed her a painting he had recently completed: a stormy triptych, “Carpathian Sea.” Mr. Roskovensky, who has a bachelor of fine arts degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston through Tufts University, has had his paintings in group shows at Iona College, Long Island University and Westbeth Gallery, as well as in employee art shows at the Met.

He soon brought his pasta maker over to Ms. Anderson-Wheeler’s place, and they made ravioli while listening to a playlist of Italian songs. About two months after they met at the bar, and a week after Valentine’s Day, he told Ms. Anderson-Wheeler he loved her on Feb. 21 — her birthday.

“I remember feeling so happy to say it back,” she said.

Two months later, while visiting his brother and sister in Cape Coral, Fla., in April 2022, Mr. Roskovensky said he told his brother with “1000 percent certainty” that he was going to marry Ms. Anderson-Wheeler.

On Dec. 16, 2022, one year after their first date, he got down on one knee just after they walked through a Gothic arch of fairy lights during a Lightscape tour at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This summer, they moved from New York to Jamaica Plain, Mass. Mr. Roskovensky is now in a post-baccalaureate fine arts program focusing on painting at Brandeis University.

On Dec. 16, the second anniversary of their first date, they were wed in the library at the House of the Redeemer, also known as the Edith Fabbri House, a mansion with an Italian Renaissance art collection in Manhattan. Brittney Brady, a friend of the groom who received a one-day New York State officiant license, led the ceremony before 35 guests.

“We walked down a beautiful staircase to the theme song to ‘Rocky,’ and everyone cheered,” Ms. Anderson-Wheeler said, and they later enjoyed Sacher torte from the Hungarian Pastry Shop.

On Dec. 30, the couple plans to celebrate with his family, including both his grandmothers, in Bardejov, Slovakia, before traveling to celebrate with hers in Dublin on Jan. 6.

On July 18, 2021, the day Patrick Alan Pennel was supposed to meet Margaret Ann Kretzmer for a first date, he canceled to spend time with someone else he was getting to know. When Ms. Kretzmer offered to meet him the following day instead, he said OK but brought the other girl along.

Mr. Pennel, 40, wasn’t being a cad, he just didn’t have much choice: He had recently moved to Santa Monica, Calif., by himself and, to stave off Covid loneliness, was adopting a dog. Emma, the shepherd mix he brought home the day of the postponed date, was too new to leave alone. So on July 19, she came with him to meet Ms. Kretzmer at Ashland Hill, a Santa Monica bar.

“I was still very much getting to know Emma,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect.” Nervous barking or a date cut short by a needy new pet he could have anticipated. Feeling the first stirrings of love for an Los Angeles Dodgers fan: not as much.

Mr. Pennel and Ms. Kretzmer met on Hinge, where an app-generated prompt on Ms. Kretzmer’s profile connected them. To the query, “We’ll get along well if …” Ms. Kretzmer had written “ … you like baseball.”

“That’s what initially drew me to her,” Mr. Pennel said. Her photos were nice, too. “I liked her smile and her pictures with friends. She looked like someone who would be fun.”

His images didn’t generate as much enthusiasm. One in particular kept her from swiping left. “It was Pat on a flamingo floatie in a pool with his shirt off,” she said. “I was like, no.” But for weeks, he kept appearing in her scroll. “The algorithm must have been like, you’ve got to meet this guy.” His initial message — “Hi Maggie. I like baseball, too” — got her past the float shot and into a conversation compelling enough to accept a first date.

Ms. Kretzmer, 38, is the director of social impact for KW, the actress Kerry Washington’s production company. A native of Los Angeles, she grew up with an older sister and a younger brother. Their parents, Martha Thom Kretzmer and Michael Kretzmer, moved the family to Manhattan Beach when the siblings were little. In high school, a twice dislocated shoulder dashed Ms. Kretzmer’s hopes of playing volleyball in college. “So I got into drama and theater, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.”

She enrolled at Baron Brown, an acting studio in Santa Monica, at 17 and completed the program at 20. “I loved my community of actors. But when we graduated I was like, Oh, God, I don’t think I have it in me to do this.” Instead of auditions she turned to Craigslist for jobs outside of acting. Until 2016, when she became Ms. Washington’s executive assistant, she worked as an assistant for film producers, managers and directors.

Binge more Vows columns here and read all our wedding, relationship and divorce coverage here.

Working with Ms. Washington was a dream; “Scandal,” the hit TV show, was in its final two seasons when she started. “That was just a really special and exciting time to be involved,” she said. Now she supports Ms. Washington, who is also a producer, author and political and social activist, in a way that’s differently fulfilling. “Kerry cares deeply about everything she does,” she said. “And I love what she’s doing.”

Mr. Kretzmer cultivated his daughter’s longtime interest in Major League Baseball. But he liked the wrong team. “My dad is the biggest Giants fan,” she said, because he grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ rivals. She didn’t tune him out when he talked about Giants history, though. That was something Mr. Pennel picked up on between tending to Emma and trying to seem casual on their first date.

Mr. Pennel is a Marine veteran and a freelance program manager for electric vehicle and electric vehicle charging companies. He, too, is a Giants fan from the Bay Area. He and his younger sistergrew up in Belmont, Calif., with their parents, Terry Pennel and Susan Pennel. Like Ms. Kretzmer, in high school Mr. Pennel wasn’t sure college was right for him. The military seemed a better fit. He started boot camp in 2001 and served nine years, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He left the Marines as a staff sergeant.

At 27, he enrolled at Pepperdine University on the G.I. Bill and started working part time at a Santa Monica Tesla showroom, his introduction to electric vehicle work. In 2014, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science and moved back to the Bay Area. Seven years later, he picked up stakes and returned to Santa Monica. “All my friends were married and having kids,” he said. “I was looking for a change.”

The introduction first of Emma and then of Ms. Kretzmer provided way more than a change of scenery. On their first date at Ashland Hill, they talked baseball. “My dad had taught me some old-school Giants references, and I think that impressed Pat,” she said. He impressed her with what seemed like his ease around Emma. “He looked confident,” she said. “It made me feel comfortable.”

The Giants and Dodgers were squaring off the same night. By the time the first pitch was thrown out, they had pushed past their team tribalism to a place of respect and romantic possibility. “I can appreciate them,” Ms. Kretzmer said of the Giants. “I just never want them to win.”

The next few weeks, while Ms. Kretzmer was away visiting a cousin in the Hamptons, they texted and talked on the phone. At the end of a second date in early August, at Art’s Table in Santa Monica, they kissed. Mr. Pennel felt himself falling in love that night. “There was a moment during dinner when it was hard to keep the conversation going,” he said. Ms. Kretzmer rescued it from faltering. “She was intuitive. I felt like she could feel my feelings.”

He felt hers acutely a month later, when Ms. Thom Kretzmer got a breast cancer diagnosis. “I have a hard time being vulnerable,” Ms. Kretzmer said. This time, he was intuitive. “Whether it was letting me have space when I needed it, hugging me when I was crying hysterically or making meatballs for my mom, Pat supported me.”

By October, they had deleted their dating apps. Their first “I love you’s” came with a November trip to Palm Springs. In October 2022, Mr. Pennel and Emma moved into Ms. Kretzmer’s Venice apartment. “I already knew I wanted to marry Maggie,” he said. In November, he reached out to her best friend, Tara Ower, to help him pick an engagement ring. Ms. Kretzmer suspected nothing. But she was superstitious about jinxing a hoped-for proposal: “Tara was like, let’s go try on rings at Fox Hills Mall,” Ms. Kretzmer said. “I said, ‘OK, but please don’t tell Pat we’re doing this.’”

By Christmas, the couple was looking forward to a post-holiday getaway to Santa Catalina Island after what had been a very good year. Ms. Thom Kretzmer’s breast cancer was in the rearview after successful radiation. The pandemic was waning. The Dodgers weren’t World Series contenders, but neither were the Giants. On Dec. 28, 2022, they rented a golf cart and took a spin toward the Catalina Chimes Tower, an island landmark. Mr. Pennel hit the brakes in a hilly area with sunset views before pulling from his pocket a pear-shaped diamond ring Ms. Ower helped him design.

“Maggie, you’re my best friend,” he said. Before he could string together a proposal, Ms. Kretzmer jumped in. “I said, ‘What does this mean? Do you want to marry me?’” she said. When they returned the golf cart a half-hour later, the ring was on her finger.

Ms. Kretzmer and Mr. Pennel decided on two weddings. The first, a legal ceremony Dec. 14 at American Martyrs Catholic Church in Manhattan Beach, was for family and a few close friends. the Rev. John F. Barry, pastor of American Martyrs who has known Ms. Kretzmer since birth and baptized her, officiated a full Catholic mass for 50. “There’s something so sacred about getting married in a church,” Ms. Kretzmer said. “That was important to me.”

A second ceremony for 210 on Dec. 16 at the Bel-Air Bay Club in Pacific Palisades was a party in wedding disguise: Ms. Kretzmer, in an Atelier Pronovias gown with a train and veil, walked with her father down a sweeping outdoor aisle accented with white flowers and oranges and lemons. Nine bridesmaids carrying olive branches met them at a circular altar overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Pennel, flanked by a six-person mixed-gender grooms’ party, wore a Knot Standard suit. His Marine decorations were worn instead of a boutonniere.

Under blue skies, Emily Galvin Moore, a friend who married them ceremonially, explained to guests including Ms. Washington that as the couple round the bases of their lives together, their appreciation for baseball will serve them well. In marriage as in baseball, she said, “teamwork, strategy and resilience play key roles.” Before she pronounced them married for a second time in two days, she offered a salute. “Here’s to a marriage fueled by competition,” she said, “the joy of victory and the enduring bond that will carry you through every season of life.”

On This Day

When Dec. 14 and Dec. 16, 2023

Where American Martyrs Catholic Church, Manhattan Beach, Calif.

Batter Up At a reception following the wedding at the Bel-Air Club, guests chose from a menu of top sirloin steak, chicken tapenade or orecchiette. A white wedding cake was topped with a bride and groom wearing tiny team baseball caps.

Not the Whole Picture Mr. Pennel likes to set the record straight when the couple tell the story of how they matched on Hinge. Yes, one of his photos showed him shirtless on a flamingo float, he said. But “that was a cropped version,” he said. And not a crop he liked. The full picture included his young nieces and nephews for a more family-friendly feel.

Safe A kickball game the night before the second wedding set the tone for a weekend-long celebration. The bride’s team wore Dodgers white and blue, the groom’s black and orange in honor of the Giants. Softball would have been a more fitting tribute to their passion for baseball, Ms. Kretzmer said, but no one wanted her to risk a black eye. The winner was the Giants.

While some tried and true wedding traditions may have lost their luster, wedding professionals are taking note of modern iterations that honor and elevate classic trends.

“Couples are looking to put their own spin on traditions and refresh them,” said Heather Balliet, an owner of Amorology Weddings, a wedding planning and event company in San Diego. “They want to update and personalize them while holding onto remnants.”

Here are a few old-school wedding traditions that have undergone inventive upgrades for the modern age. From cozy, family dining to floating cakes, industry experts share examples of how events have evolved as couples seek to make their celebrations more inclusive and memorable.

Elevated Guest Portraits

Everyone wants to capture everything — usually all at once. Polaroids were kitschy and Warholian. The huge photo booths that spit out a photo strip were cheeky. Roaming photo machines, complete with props, have had their moment. “Though these offered an interactive experience and a memento from the wedding, they were cheesy and very playful,” said Kelly McWilliams, the owner of Kelly McWilliams Celebrations, Weddings and Parties, in Cape Coral, Fla. “Couples are returning to old-school, black-and-white guest portrait photography where photographers set up mini studios at their wedding.”

Ms. McWilliams said that couples who desired more sophistication were leaning into an old money aesthetic. “Candid portrait photos tell a story in a different way,” she added. “They’re professionally positioned, more artistic and timeless. There’s a slowdown and care as opposed to an Insta, whimsical feel which couples have grown tired of.”

Some photographers offer both guest portraits and full wedding coverage services. “Your photographers are running around, capturing all of your moments that will tell the story of your wedding,” Ms. McWilliams said. “Portraits are edited, Vogue-imagery photos, usually of the guests, that are keepsakes for everyone.”

Gifting the Bouquet

Tossing the bouquet can feel outdated. As couples seek to include meaningful traditions into their celebrations, an “anniversary dance” is being substituted and embraced in place of the ritual bouquet toss, which is reserved for the single women in attendance.

“Southern weddings are steeped in tradition but also honor its elders,” said Autumn Washington, the owner of Lavender by Autumn, a wedding planning firm in Atlanta. “The purpose is to re-gift the bouquet and acknowledge another couple, usually the one married the longest.”

In this more updated version of the tradition, a D.J. will often play a love song while calling all married couples to the dance floor, Ms. Washington said. Couples married five years or less are generally asked to sit out first. The D.J. might go incrementally by decades during the next several rounds until all but one couple is left standing.

“The last couple remaining are given the bouquet and praised for their longevity and commitment to having found love,” she said, a gesture she believed was more hopeful and meaningful. “Usually that couple is asked to give words of advice or wisdom. It celebrates people who found love rather than singling out someone hoping for love.”

Others who want to keep the bouquet toss in their wedding, but agree that it can be exclusive, are finding more inclusive iterations. Ms. Balliet, from Amorology Weddings, said she was seeing brides tossing what appears to be one bouquet but releases into single or mini clusters of flowers as it drops — “enough for everyone participating to receive something,” she said, adding that couples don’t like highlighting single people anymore. “This surprises the guests and is more about sharing the love and the fortune that comes from that bouquet.”

Leave a Message at the Beep

If you’re still offering a paper guest book for attendees to scribble ‘congratulations,’ you might as well use squid ink and parchment paper, some industry experts say.

“They’re dated,” said Danielle Rothweiler, the owner of Danielle Rothweiler Events and Designs, a wedding planning and design company in Verona, N.J. “No one wants to write anything when you have a martini in your hand.”

Guest books, which went from being ubiquitous and obligatory to customized — in some modern versions, guests may scrawl sweet sentiments on a canvas with a photo of the couple on it — have been replaced with interactive digital voice recording options. Some couples, for example, may provide faux phones for guests to leave a voice message to the couple and, perhaps, authentically capture the feel and emotion of the event.

“Voice messaging on texts and Instagram have become part of daily life; it makes sense this would reflect that behavior,” said Ms. Rothweiler, who added that different styles of phones and installations can seamlessly match the couple’s personality and décor. “Audio lets couples relive the emotion and happiness of their guests. They can also hear the noise in the background, which is part of the experience.” FêteFone, for example, lets couples purchase 20 different retro or vintage phones, ranging from $199 to $449. After guests hear the couples’ prerecorded outgoing message on the phones, they are able to leave their own.

“Some couples display the phones in their homes as an audible memory you can listen to by lifting the receiver,” said Michael Radolinski, the owner of FêteFone, adding that messages can also be transferred onto a USB drive.

While After the Tone offers rentable phones or a virtual dial-in option, allowing friends and family who are unable to attend to feel included by calling from their own phones and leaving voice mail messages. Additional interactive visuals are created by designers who can build a structure and installation that mirrors the couple’s theme.

Sweets Suspended in Midair

Wedding cakes dropping from the ceiling or appearing as if they’re floating on a customized swinging structure are not signs you’ve had too much to drink. They’re the new way these sweet treats are often being displayed “because couples want a romantic, curated, ethereal dessert experience,” said Lois Caplan, an owner of Arrangements Unlimited, an event planning and design firm in King of Prussia, Penn.

A multitiered wedding cake wheeled in on a cocktail-size table was once the visual guests expected. The newlyweds would then cut the cake together, which was traditionally considered their first act as a married couple.

Ms. Caplan said swinging cakes or those rigged from the ceiling and then lowered into the event space were an unexpected surprise for guest, but a significant addition to the budget for the couple.

“It’s Cartier for cakes,” she said. Ms. Caplan added that the additional costs for a cake swing, which would be customized to fit with the décor, and includes the structure, additional florals, and 25 to 30 hours of labor, could increase a couple’s budget by as much as $10,000. The fee for the cake is separate.

“Couples want a ‘wow’ reaction from their guests when they see it,” she said. “It’s become a showcase within the wedding.”

Cozy Family Dining

Some couples are forgoing the sweetheart’s table, which typically featured an intimate setting for two positioned a few feet away from the other seated guests, in favor of a table of close family members that resembles “someone’s dining room,” said Emily Campbell, the founder and executive producer of GoBella Design & Planning, an event company in Breckenridge, Colo.

“Historically, couples wanted a little liberation and privacy,” she said. “Now they want a sentimental, nostalgic family feel. Couples are asking for a family table filled with their parents and grandparents.”

To make these experiences feel authentic, Ms. Campbell added that tables might often feature family china and other heirloom tableware lent for the occasion by the bride or by family members.

“A family recipe is sometimes given to the chef to incorporate into the planned menu, and chandeliers are hung extra low, at four feet instead of a regular 10, to create a cozy feel,” she said.

As they awaited the arrival of their third child in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Kerri and Neil Beggs encountered a problem familiar to families everywhere: They needed more space, but didn’t have the budget for the kind of house they wanted.

“What we found was that we were in a certain price bracket, and it was quite a large leap in price for the size of house we wanted,” said Ms. Beggs, 44, a health care professional. She and Mr. Beggs, 47, who runs a plumbing supply company, had been renting a narrow, four-story townhouse that sometimes felt like more of a big staircase than a home, and they wanted more space indoors and outdoors.

Fortunately, they had met Craig Hutchinson, the founder of the London architecture firm Hutch Design, through a mutual friend, and he offered to help them assess various properties.

When they visited a rundown 1907 Victorian that had been divided into three dank apartments and had outhouses in the backyard, it seemed too far gone to consider. “I was quite overwhelmed by it,” Ms. Beggs said, “even though I’ve always had a passion for older houses.”

Mr. Hutchinson agreed. “It was really in a terrible state,” he said. “There were holes in the roof, and on the ground floor there was rising damp.”

But that’s what made it ideal, he insisted.

“Craig was saying, ‘Well, there’s huge potential — you just have to knock it out and redesign it,’” Ms. Beggs recalled.

The couple decided to take a chance and bought the house for about 475,000 British pounds (about $600,000) in 2019. Then Mr. Hutchinson got to work.

The house is in a conservation area, so he planned a faithful restoration of the brick-and-lime-render exterior, with new double-glazed windows that resembled the drafty old single-pane ones. Inside, he was free to create an interior that blended modern and traditional elements.

“In Victorian times, it was a lot of closed-off, separate rooms,” Mr. Hutchinson said. But he knew the Beggses wanted something more open.

“Because their kids are quite young, they wanted to be able to see the kids from everywhere,” he said — especially when the parents are working in the kitchen and the children are playing outside.

As a result, the primary living space of the three-story, 4,100-square-foot house is now one large room that contains the living room, kitchen and dining area. Besides knocking down walls, Mr. Hutchinson cut through the floor above to create a soaring, 23-foot ceiling over a low-slung limestone fireplace. Along with a pair of French doors that open to the generous front yard, the cutout helps funnel light from the second-floor windows down into the living room.

Although most of the original architectural details were lost long before the couple arrived, Mr. Hutchinson aimed to play up the home’s age by installing traditional elements: arched and paneled doors, crown molding and chair rails, and jib doors that almost disappear into walls.

“Because we had lost so much of the Victorian decorative detail, we wanted to introduce some things to replace it,” he said.

To counter Belfast’s frequently overcast weather, three skylights help bring in natural light, which bounces off walls and ceilings finished in chalky lime paint. One skylight pulls sunlight into a mezzanine connecting the second and third levels, which Mr. Hutchinson created by cutting open a section of floor. Another illuminates a new curving staircase. The third is a round window directly above a walk-in shower, designed as a spiral of green tile.

To complete the house, Mr. Hutchinson redesigned the front and rear yards — yes, he removed the outhouses — adding plantings selected with the landscape architecture firm FFLO that provide a sense of lush green and privacy. He also helped the couple furnish the home with sculptural pieces: Chandigarh chairs by Pierre Jeanneret and a steel coffee table by Vogel Studio in the living room; art and decorative accessories by Irish artists and craftspeople; and shaggy wool rugs and nubby linen drapery and bedding.

The project took about a year and a half to design, including securing the necessary permits, and another year and a half to build. The family moved into their completed house last February. The construction cost was about £178 a square foot (about $227).

“It was a long process, and very stressful at the time, but worth it in the end,” said Ms. Beggs, who loves that the home has the character of an old house but the convenience of a new one. “It sounds cheesy, but it just makes me smile. It’s a restful, relaxing house to be in.”

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He’ll Be Home for Christmas!

“I’ll drive; it’s 20 hours and I’ll be there for Christmas dinner,” my husband, Edwin, said, undeterred after a Canadian snowstorm grounded all flights. Imagining a fatality replacing our festivities, I insisted he come by train. Hours in, Edwin’s locomotive halted, its tracks blocked by debris. Eighteen hours of standstill later, the train reversed direction, returning to its starting point. But Edwin didn’t give up: He cabbed to the nearest airport and boarded a then-available plane. After 54 hours of travel (for a trip that would normally take two hours), Edwin smiled beside me at my family’s celebratory spread. — Laura Schep

A New View from the Shore

When I was growing up, being gay was a joke at best and a ticket to hell at worst. Add poverty, language barriers and a parent with chronic illness, and I had a story that made school counselors cry. My first love was a straight man who couldn’t love me. My second love was a gay man who didn’t love me. My third love fell in love with me after I had learned to love myself. We said “I do” on the same Texas shore I once wandered as a shame-addled kid. Thank you, Tyler, for changing my life. — Roberto López Jr.

An Ending and a Beginning

As the oldest of three, I did my best to protect my siblings, never expecting I would lose my little brother to a brief bout with cancer. When he transitioned into hospice, I temporarily relocated from San Francisco to Denver. There, my desire for an escape became overpowering, so I reactivated an old dating app. Although my profile clearly stated that I was looking for something fun and temporary, my breaking heart was the perfect conduit for letting in love. While losing my brother, I found the unexpected love of my life. — Mara Kassoff

Embracing Change

On my first post-divorce Christmas, our traditions felt essential. My children and I chose a perfect tree, hauling it home atop our minivan. Covered in sweat and sap, I muscled the tree into the stand until it was mostly straight and stable. The next year I opted for friends’ assistance, returning their kindness with beer. A year later my son was old enough to tighten the screws. And this year? My boyfriend, a Jewish man who adores Christmas, was happy to help. Though the tree tradition remains, a lot in our life has changed. I am so glad that it has. — Ashley Davis

One afternoon in August 2020, while staying at her parents’ house in the Hudson Valley, Jean Garnett, an editor at Little, Brown & Company, prepared to meet remotely with the author Chantal V. Johnson, whose novel “Post-traumatic” she wanted to acquire for publication.

She had to find a private place to take the call, not because she needed quiet, but because her identical twin sister Callie Garnett — the editorial director at Bloomsbury, a competing imprint — was also staying at the house and would be taking her own call with Ms. Johnson a few hours later.

Jean ended up working in her father’s office, while Callie hunkered down in a bedroom.

“I went to the bathroom while she was on the call, and I heard her being brilliant,” Jean recalled in an interview this month at a German beer hall in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood. She was sitting on a bar stool next to her sister as a publishing industry holiday party was winding down.

Callie, wearing an olive green trapper hat, smiled as her sister told the story, then delivered the punchline: “But Jean got the book.”

At the event, an annual soiree hosted by the literary agent Soumeya B. Roberts and the Grove Atlantic deputy publisher Peter Blackstock, everyone knew Callie from Jean and vice versa. But at a reading a few hours earlier, Callie said, more than one person had approached her to say, “‘I know you’re one of the twins, but I don’t know which one.’”

“That happens a lot,” Callie added.

Such is occasionally the cost of doing business when you work in the same tight-knit industry as your identical twin. Turns out, Jean said, mix-ups are “really good for networking.”

“Post-traumatic” was not the only project that enticed both Garnetts. Each chased “Enter the Aardvark,” a political satire by Jessica Anthony (Jean won); “Outlawed” by Anna North (Callie won); and “Little Rabbit” by Alyssa Songsiridej (Callie won again, and Ms. Songsiridej later earned a 5 Under 35 award from the National Book Foundation for the novel).

Jean said that when she started reading “Little Rabbit” on submission, “within like five pages, I was like, Callie is going to be all over this.”

“Sometimes we just know,” she added.

Rachel Mannheimer, an editor at The Yale Review, walked over to chat with Jean about a forthcoming essay on midlife crisis. She and Callie had both turned 40 at the beginning of the month.

The sisters are also writers, and Ms. Mannheimer is Jean’s editor at the Review. “I send all of my work to Rachel,” Jean said. She edited “There I Almost Am,” Jean’s Pushcart Prize-winning essay on coping with jealousy and comparison as a twin, published in 2021.

“Writing about the ways I’m envious of my twin was very freeing,” Jean said. “It made me more fully grasp the love and identification side of envy. Which twins are a useful symbol of.”

That same year, Callie’s first poetry collection, “Wings in Time,” appeared on The New York Times’s list of Best Poetry.

In July, Jean wrote about their relationship again in a New Yorker piece called “Giving Away My Twin,” which recounted her experience walking Callie down the aisle at her wedding.

The twins, who both live in the Hudson Valley, grew up in Park Slope. As tweens and teens, Callie said, they “did a lot of thrashing around trying to individuate.” But as they got older, she added, they realized that they “didn’t really have to force that.”

“We were enough of our own people that we could really share the things that we loved,” like writing and editing, Callie said. Jean got into publishing first and, in 2014, connected Callie with George Gibson, then the head of Bloomsbury.

“Jean is responsible for me being in publishing,” Callie said. “And for me getting my first job. I’ve been at Bloomsbury my whole career.”

To create a place where, as Jean put it, they “weren’t in competition as editors,” she started a joint Instagram account under the handle @publishingtwins in 2021. She and Callie have since used it to celebrate each other’s successes and to boost each other’s titles.

In November, Callie published Helena de Bres’s book “How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins,” which grapples with existential questions related to twinship and society’s perception of it.

Ms. de Bres, a professor at Wellesley and a twin herself, said in an interview that many identical twins end up in the same fields. (For example, the U.S. politicians Julian and Joaquin Castro; the tennis doubles champions Bob and Mike Bryan; The National band members Aaron and Bryce Dessner, and the feuding Danish beer brewers Mikkel Borg Bjergso and Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergso.)

When the average person encounters a pair of twins, Ms. de Bres said, it’s easy to start thinking about “free will, or the nature of love, or what it means to be a person, what identity is.”

What Ms. de Bres did, Callie said, is explore questions like “‘which one are you?’”

“‘Who’s the smart one?’” Jean chimed in. “‘Who’s the good one?’”

“‘Are you two in love?’” Callie continued. “I loved that one. Because people really do project a weird romance between twins. I think that’s why identical twins are a little threatening to people. They have a closeness.”

Ms. de Bres’s book, Callie said, was “license to start talking about some of the stuff that we’ve thought about our whole lives.”

“My husband says about Jean, ‘She’s the least “other” other an other can be,’” she said. “There’s a threshold of otherness that we’re really close to.”

“We’re not quite ‘other’ to each other,” Jean said, reaching for a handful of fries on the bar.

“But we are other,” Callie added.

“But we are!” Jean said. “We’re not in the same body.”

“We’re right on the border of that,” Callie said, pouring some beer from their very tall, shared glass into a smaller one, “and it means we have to think about that a lot of the time, which means we end up thinking about individual agency and individuality, free will, I think, maybe more than other people do.”

Before stepping out into the cold night, this reporter asked the sisters to put their editor caps on and pitch each other’s writing.

“She memorizes her poems and performs them,” Jean said. “They are the best surreal stand-up comedy that you’ve ever seen.”

Callie considered this and added, “There’s an element of stand-up comedy to your essays, too.”

“We are both writers, but I think,” Jean said to her sister, “and correct me if I’m wrong — we both think of ourselves like collage artists. We’re interested in putting two things next to each other and seeing what happens.”

The Covid-19 public health emergency officially expired in the United States in May, and it seemed the celebrations were nonstop.

Night after night, a cohort of shiny and (and often deep-pocketed) city dwellers escaped into lavish, invite-only parties, galas and benefits that gleamed like 2019. These elaborate fever dreams were made all the more feverish and dreamy by looks often spun from the runways: fire-engine reds, overblown silhouettes, yards of tulle and a grab bag of bijoux.

Whether at a Fashion Week party at Gracie Mansion or a benefit for Elmhurst Hospital at the American Museum of Natural History, guests swanned around in looks so surreal that they transported us somewhere beyond the pings of the push notifications that typically mark our time.

Below are some of the looks and themes that made us smile or smirk or take a second look. They all provided a bit of glimmering levity to the year.

High Volume

Guests couldn’t swing a coupe, it seemed, without bumping into another partygoer’s oversize skirt, sleeve or coat. Call it an extension of Covid comfort dressing: Exaggerated silhouettes in touchable materials made for larger-than-life entrances (and, undoubtedly, tricky rides home).

Seeing Red

Perhaps as a reaction to last year’s ubiquitous electric lime, perhaps as a reflection of the fall 2023 runways, blaring reds seemed to be everywhere — including on the equally omnipresent Mayor Eric Adams.

Gloves On

With plastic gloves and groceries sprayed with Lysol now marking a certain moment in time, statement-making gloves made with rich satins, supple leather and even sheer fabric signified retro chic rather than contagion.

Knockout Jewelry

Nothing says Surrealism like slinging a sparkly cartoon face around your neck, or adorning your brows with bejeweled paper clips, or having two unblinking Schiaparelli eyes dangle from your earlobes. Needless to say, we couldn’t look away.

Top Tiers

A shorthand for sugarplum fantasy, tiers of tulle and flouncy ruffles graced benefits across the city, turning venues like Cipriani into something like Cinderella’s castle. At the very least, it was a sweet nod to innocence.

Defying Category

And then there are those whose looks evaded neat description but demanded tribute. What to do with a rainbow balaclava inspired by the film “Monsters, Inc.,” or a metallic get-up meant to resemble a “bureaucratic office wizard,” in actor Julio Torres’s telling? We raise a glass.

During the lockdown days of the pandemic in early 2020, Aaron Rose found himself sifting through old papers in his home in Hollywood. “I can’t let anything go. I’m a hoarder. That’s why there were 200 poems from 1989 sitting in a box,” he said with a laugh.

Mr. Rose, 54, has held many jobs. When people ask him to pick a lane, he’ll say he is a “polymath,” which he knows is a cop-out. Fine, then: “Artist encompasses all of it.”

For 10 years from 1992 to 2002, he ran Alleged Gallery, the influential Lower East Side space where people like Chloë Sevigny and Chan Marshall hung out and a generation of artists like Mike Mills, Shepard Fairey, Tom Sachs, and Mark Gonzales got their start. He’s also a filmmaker known for the 2008 documentary “Beautiful Losers” about the Mission School art scene of the 1990s and “Portraits of Braddock,” which followed Senator John Fetterman when he served as mayor. Sometimes he paints, too.

And now, Mr. Rose is officially a poet, this month publishing “Blackout Poems”: a slim, pocket-size book he wrote from age 19 to his early 20s, scrawling his work on cocktail napkins, inside matchbooks, over shopping bags. Many were written at long-closed, indie spots known to attract those same “beautiful losers” he showcased: Mars Bar, Horseshoe Bar. The cover is a snapshot taken of Mr. Rose with a vicious shiner, the result of a bar fight at Max Fish on Ludlow Street, which happened to be a few doors down from his gallery.

Mr. Rose grew up in Calabasas, Calif., long before the Kardashians and Jenners made it globally recognizable. He played guitar in an acoustic punk band called Cat Furniture, and he dedicated “Blackout Poems” to the group’s late singer, Paco Bliss. When the band broke up in 1989, Mr. Rose moved to New York City. “The second I saw St. Mark’s Place — I mean, it was crazy. I was just like, I’m home,” he said.

He didn’t yet have many friends, so he spent his time drinking in bars, meeting people in Tompkins Square Park and doing drugs. (“I was never really a proper junkie,” he noted.) For his first three years in the city, his life followed a loose but meandering pattern. “I would meet a girl, be in a relationship for a little while, move in with her. Then we’d break up, and then I’d be homeless for a little while, really just bouncing around,” he said. “These works in this book are very much a result of that.”

The poems do include many lovelorn references. “Hearts not broken/ but bruised:/ tried to cash my soul in/ But the window refused,” he writes in “Angels (2 a.m.).” There are numerous allusions to California, drugs, sex, violence.

Mr. Rose struggles to name a favorite. “I love them and it’s really nice to get them out, but I’m also completely and totally embarrassed by every single one of them,” he said.

The $12 book is more like a zine, made with a young generation in mind. “I see a lot of very accomplished poets putting their work out, but I don’t see a lot of published poems that are from a different phase of a writer’s life.”

If he were to publish poetry he wrote now, he thinks it might be technically better, but perhaps less honest.

Mr. Rose’s poetry output slowed down by 1992, when he opened Alleged Gallery on Ludlow Street (now the home of a Van Leeuwen ice cream parlor). The art shows he threw were like parties, and attracted a community at the intersection of punk, hip-hop, skateboarding and high fashion: members of Beastie Boys and Sonic Youth, the director Harmony Korine and Ms. Sevigny, his then-girlfriend. Mr. Rose dated Tatiana von Furstenberg, the daughter of the designer Diane von Furstenberg.

“Barry McGee, I knew him as a graffiti writer Twist — we knew each other through that world before he was even, I think, really considering fine art,” Mr. Rose said. Artists from the gallery were beginning to take off.

By 2001, Alleged had moved to the Meatpacking District and rent was $10,000 per month, Mr. Rose remembered. “Jeffrey Deitch stole my four biggest artists. Which he’s since apologized for — we’re good friends and we’ve worked together a lot, so it’s fine,” he continued. “But people had started moving on to bigger galleries, and I couldn’t sustain the same kind of support. I couldn’t match those kinds of galleries.”

Alleged had plenty of cultural impact but was not making money. A friend in Los Angeles told Mr. Rose about a space available on Chung King Road, a burgeoning area of young galleries near downtown. And rent on an available space was $400.

He arrived back in L.A. on Sept. 9, 2001. “I moved back into my childhood bedroom,” he said.

The Annex, his L.A. gallery and bookstore, suffered from a lack of foot traffic and lasted just a year.

In 2002, he was approached to curate a museum show at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati featuring artists from his world. The result, which opened two years later, called “Beautiful Losers,” included work from Mr. Fairey, Mr. McGee, Mr. Mills, Mr. Gonzales, Clare Rojas, Margaret Kilgallen, and Ryan McGinness, and toured the world.

Despite publishing a book of poems from the era, Mr. Rose doesn’t dwell in 1990s nostalgia, even if a lot of his young fans are attracted to that time.

“The Instagram and the TikTok era has been really inspiring,” he said. “Gen Z people are so bold in what they’re willing to just slap on their profile with actually no experience. At first I was annoyed by that. I’m like, I’ve been working 25 years to call myself that. And then I was like, well, that’s kind of great.”

When the actors’ union went on strike, many could not promote their projects. The future of red carpets quickly became a topic of concern. But within days of the strike ending in early November, celebrities had again begun stepping out in their finest borrowed garments and those fears disappeared faster than the flash of a flashbulb.

After the strike-induced hiatus, and with awards season now underway, outfits have gotten bolder. We’ve seen real-life Wonkas, daring silhouettes and, despite the time of year, lots of shirtless men.

The looks on this list are highlights from red carpets in November and December. Consider them a taste of what to expect as some of the biggest events of the coming year kick off in January.

The actor left his purses at home for the Los Angeles premiere of “Saltburn,” allowing his sharply tailored three-piece suit to get all the attention.

Elizabeth Debicki: Most Diana!

Though the actress did not accessorize her black off-the-shoulder dress with pearls, her look at the Los Angeles premiere of “The Crown” Season Six: Part 1 seemed like a subtle homage to the so-called revenge dress worn by Princess Diana, whom she plays in the series.

Meg Bellamy: Most Effortless!

A red poppy pin diverted attention from the plunging neckline of the slinky, black dress that the actress — who plays Kate Middleton “The Crown” — wore to the Los Angeles premiere. (The pin was in honor of Britain’s Remembrance Day.)

The singer and flutist was a vision in white ruffles at the world premiere of “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé.” A flowing robe worn over her stomach-baring, two-piece made the look more elegant.

Laverne Cox: Most Frozen!

At the “Renaissance” premiere, a red-carpet host of “Live From E!” traded her microphone for a tiny purse that complemented her ice-blue corset and sleek silver skirt.

Janelle Monáe: Most Pop Art!

The singer seemed to channel one of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s speckled pumpkins in a hooded polka-dot dress with a balloon skirt at the “Renaissance” premiere.

In a double-breasted suit and no shirt at the Gotham Awards, the “May December” actor — who received the award for Outstanding Supporting Performance — looked like a hypebeast James Bond.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph: Most Regal!

The actress, a star of “Only Murders in the Building,” dazzled at the Gotham Awards in a deep-blue velvety gown that fit like a glove.

Timothée Chalamet: Most Wonka!

The star of “Wonka” dressed the part at the film’s world premiere, pairing a purplish suit with chocolate-brown boots.

The bright marigold color helped show off the unusual structure of the dress that the “Killers of the Flower Moon” actress wore at the Academy Museum Gala.

Barry Keoghan: Most Commando!

After baring it all in “Saltburn,” the actor went shirtless beneath an olive-green vest and matching pants that brought out the color of his eyes at the Academy Museum Gala.

Greta Lee: Most Statuesque!

The “Past Lives” actress lit up the Academy Museum Gala carpet with a crimson column-like gown and a glowing complexion.

At a “Poor Things” screening in London, the actress evoked her wardrobe in that film with a shawl that made it look like her slip dress had mega sleeves.

Stella Bugbee, Madison Malone Kircher and Anthony Rotunno contributed reporting.

Styles is with people: how they dress, how they live, how they navigate our dynamic world. As such, we are engrossed in looking closely. This year’s collection of images reflects those fixations, whether in a cropped shot of Gwyneth Paltrow’s bare face, or in the swirling memorial for a dancer at a Brooklyn gas station. Each photograph in this roundup gives readers unfettered insight into the characters and places that commanded our gazes.

This year we peered into the California rose garden of the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actress Cheryl Hines as she discussed her husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and his 2024 presidential campaign. We captured Pharrell Williams at the Louis Vuitton men’s atelier in Paris, on the eve of his first collection. We were on the scene for the reopening of the “never pay retail” mecca, Century 21, and in Hollywood when a certain septuagenarian bachelor made his television debut. From Beyoncé fans to A-listers in the front row, from influencers to fashion high school students, our pictures defined what it felt like to be on the front lines of culture in 2023.

“As Jared made his way through the room, the disembodied cat head seemed to float above the crowd, a solid representation of the ‘jump the shark’ status reached at this year’s Met Gala.” — Rebecca Smeyne

“When photographing someone who has been photographed a lot, my goal is to try to create images that look and feel different. Even though we only had 10 minutes, we were able to make images that feel intimate and unhurried.” — Dana Scruggs

“I peered over a shelf only to come face to face with a shopper. We both froze, and I snapped a frame before we shared a laugh at our mutual surprise.” — Jonah Rosenberg

“What I love about photography is that no matter how much planning you do, the magic of an unpredictable moment can surprise you at any time. I put the camera down for a second and looked up to notice Alexandre tossing the Tiffany box in the air in front of his face.” — Landon Nordeman

“My assistant and I found ourselves herding pigeons onto a subway grate with pieces of hot dog bun. Pigeons are clever — they understand that subway grates aren’t ideal to walk across — but it’s all absolutely worth it for the irresistible taste of Wonder Bread hot dog buns.” — Adam Powell

“Beckett was instantly raw and vulnerable with me. Entering his living quarters felt like touring a museum or a storage unit from the 1960s, cobwebs and all.” — OK McCausland

“I wanted something that would embody exactly what she stood for in that moment: a young Black woman from Atlanta at the top of her game. I think this portrait exudes that sense of power.” — Wulf Bradley

“I wanted the viewer to see what Sabrina would look like when relaxed at home, but also make it ‘extra,’ like her personality. It felt awkward yet funny and familiar, like Sabrina.” — Lanna Apisukh

“Once the trucks started selling, it was chaos. I saw Annabella breathlessly escape from the crowded line with a hefty armful of goodies and took some photos as the realization of her success finally set in. She was wearing the joy and relief on her face as proudly as her coveted sweatshirt.” — Zack Wittman

“Models are often perceived and interpreted through various lenses, and the concept of portraying more than one face resonated with me because of that.” — Melissa Schriek

“As someone who is often nude and a huge proponent of nudity, it was interesting to note how many different thoughts and feelings came up for me. It felt very freeing and was one of the most empowering experiences I have had in life.” — Jeanette Spicer

“I wanted everyone to feel their glamour and beauty. I wanted people to feel as if they were face to face, as I was, with such majesty.” — Gus Aronson

“I love how men’s grooming has become so much more expressive over the years. It was just really cool to hear men talk about their self-care routine and figure out what style they wanted.” — Jessica Chou

“It was the first day of summer camp. As I saw this group of campers gather outside of their bunk, I thought of the endless possibilities that lay in front of them during a summer yet to unfold.” — James Estrin

“I never thought in my wildest dreams I would photograph an adorable pig in a bow tie, but I was here for it. ” — Ariana Drehsler

Over the summer Viviane Trinh, 35, received a surprising email from her parents, her mother in her late 60s and her father in his mid-70s, explaining that they wanted to skip the family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations this year and take a six-week cruise from Japan to Singapore. “They asked if anyone had objections,” she said.

Ms. Trinh, who is a dentist and lives in the West Village, felt torn.

On one hand, she loves her family’s traditions. The whole gang — she and her two siblings, and their partners — gathers at her parent’s house in Stamford, Conn., where they have a huge Thanksgiving meal. The day after Thanksgiving they begin decorating the tree, and in the weeks leading up to Christmas she’ll drop by to keep helping out. Christmas Day brings another feast along with a gift exchange.

“I never thought our family traditions would change,” she said.

But Ms. Trinh also wants her parents to do what they want, especially since they are getting older. “My parents love us so much, they are always providing, and this is a chance to rekindle their own love as a couple,” she said. “People my age are making our own plans and having our own families,” she added.

This year some parents of adult children are forgoing family traditions and making their own plans, including taking dream trips. Their thinking goes: Our holidays have revolved around our children for decades; why not finally take time for ourselves?

But changing long-established roles and customs can be challenging.

“I didn’t realize how much I appreciated our family traditions and family time until my parents made this choice,” said Ms. Trinh, who is spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with her husband’s family.

Susan Rossen, 72, who works as a part-time hospice and palliative care nurse in Memphis, has spent numerous Hanukkahs with her three children, ages 46, 43 and 37, and her six grandchildren, ages 3 to 17.

But this year she and her husband are celebrating their 50th anniversary and decided to spend the holiday in Aruba. “We have a timeshare there, and we’ve come so many times with children, grandchildren, siblings, relatives,” she said. “We’ve never come with just the two of us, so we decided to take a couple’s trip.”

She feels the difference. “We talk about our kids a lot,” she said. “We are buying souvenirs for them.” The couple also made sure to celebrate Hanukkah with their child who lives in Memphis, along with other family members, before they left, and they plan to see all of them when they return.

But it’s also been stimulating to create new holiday traditions. “Last Thursday night there was a Hanukkah party here at one of the hotels,” she said. “There were several hundred people; they did candle lighting; they had latkes and jelly doughnuts and kosher deli sandwiches; they had a concert. It was really fun.”

Ms. Rossen said it wasn’t as big of a deal for her not to spend the holidays with her family since she sees them regularly, especially the one who lives in the same city.

It was the same reason Laurel Niedospial, 39, a middle school teacher in Oak Park, Ill., said she didn’t mind that her father and his wife, who both live in Evanston, decided to take a road trip to California instead of spending Christmas with her and her two children, 8 and 3. “Because I see them fairly frequently it didn’t feel like any sort of slight,” she said. “They even dropped off a box of presents before they left.”

She also said she understood that roles were changing with her family. “Christmas for me at this point has become mostly about my kids, and I am not the kid anymore,” she said. “We are passing the baton.”

Some parents who chose to be away from their children this holiday season are discovering they don’t like it.

Dinah Duvall, 75, a retiree who lives in Indianapolis, decided to go on a river cruise down the Douro River in Portugal with her husband. “I had all three kids and their spouses home for Thanksgiving,” she said. “My husband and I just thought, ‘Why are we staying around here? Let’s go somewhere.’”

It’s been a fun trip. “There are decorations all over the ship, and people are starting to be festive,” she said.

But Ms. Duvall said she missed her family, which sparked an idea of what next Christmas might look like. “I think we might talk with them and see if they will come on a cruise with us next year,” she said. “I love the idea of doing something new for the holidays with them.”

Shortly after signing their prenuptial agreement the morning of Dec. 7 in Miami, Barbara Guggenheim and Alan Joel Patricof were, as usual, watching the clock. Not because they were counting the days until they were married — they are so in love, both said, that this was a given — but because that’s what their lifestyles dictate.

“I think breakneck is the only speed Alan knows,” said Ms. Guggenheim, who lives in Malibu, Calif. She wasn’t exactly idle that morning either. Before the ink on the prenup was dry, several clients were awaiting her at Art Basel, the international art fair that brought her to Miami.

Ms. Guggenheim, 77, and Mr. Patricof, 89, have known each other since the early 1970s, before either had established what would become formidable reputations — Ms. Guggenheim as an art adviser to clients including Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg, and Mr. Patricof in business.

Both were living in Manhattan when a mutual friend, the art historian Jonathan Brown, brought them together for dinners on the town. They were a party of six in those days: Ms. Guggenheim and an art dealer boyfriend, Mr. Patricof and his wife, Susan, and Mr. Brown and his wife, Sandra (Mr. Brown died in 2022).

The meet-ups were infrequent, both recall, but the company was memorable. “Alan liked new adventures,” Ms. Guggenheim said. “He was always willing to try out new restaurants. And he was lively and interested in art history or whatever the conversation was.” Mr. Patricof liked Ms. Guggenheim’s passion for art, and her hustle. “Barbara was always very knowledgeable and hardworking,” he said.

Mr. Patricof started his first firm, Alan Patricof Associates, in 1969, before “venture capital” was familiar business parlance and shorthand for how to breathe life into promising startups. That company later became Apax Partners. A second firm, Greycroft Partners, where he is still chairman emeritus, opened in 2006 and invested in companies including what was then known as the Huffington Post, Axios and Wondery. In 2020, he and a partner founded Primetime Partners, a fund that invests in goods, services and technology for people over 60. He is still the chairman there.

Bootstraps helped him conquer the corporate world. Born in New York in 1934 to immigrant parents — his mother, Dorine, was from Belarus; his father, Martin, was Ukrainian — Mr. Patricof was selling the Saturday Evening Post in the subway at age 6. “We lived a very careful life,” he said. “My parents had just enough to scrape by and educate their children,” which included his two younger sisters. “I didn’t get on a plane or ride in a taxi until the middle of college.”

At Ohio State University, he studied finance, graduating with a bachelor’s degree after three years. Two years later, he earned an M.B.A. from Columbia while working as an analyst for an investment firm.

An early marriage, in 1958, ended in divorce in 1966 after the first of his three sons, Mark, now 59, was born. In 1970, he married Susan, who became a well-known philanthropist, supporting children and global health. “My wife was brilliant and beautiful, and she was the sweetest person in the world,” he said. Ms. Patricof died of Alzheimer’s disease in January 2021; the couple had two sons, Jon, 50, and Jamie, 47.

Ms. Guggenheim, despite her familiar name, comes from a family that is entirely distinct from the one behind the Guggenheim museums and foundation. She grew up attending Quaker school in Woodbury, N.J., with a younger sister, Eileen Guggenheim Wilkinson. Their parents, Lester and Sylvia Guggenheim, owned dress shops, but Sylvia was more passionate about art than fashion.

That passion rubbed off on both girls. Ms. Guggenheim Wilkinson is chair of the board at the New York Academy of Art and a former aide to King Charles III; both sisters have doctorate degrees in art history. Before Ms. Guggenheim earned hers, from Columbia, she worked as a lecturer at the Whitney Museum of American Art to finance her way through graduate school. Her master’s degree in art history also came from Columbia. Her bachelor’s degree in art history is from Douglass College at Rutgers University.

“I’ve seen the art world from different angles,” she said, including as the entrepreneur behind the ’70s-era Art Tours of Manhattan, which brought visitors to art studios and galleries, and as the head of the American Painting Department at the auction house Christie’s.

In 1981, she founded an art advisory company that morphed into Guggenheim, Asher Associates. She is still president there. She didn’t marry Bert Fields, an entertainment lawyer known for representing Hollywood film studios and clients including George Lucas, Michael Jackson, Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, until 1991, when she was in her early 40s.

The couple had no children but several homes. “I collect houses, not art,” said Ms. Guggenheim, who owns four but considers Malibu her primary residence. “I don’t want to compete with my clients.”

Like Mr. Patricof’s, her marriage was enduring. When Mr. Fields died last year of complications from long Covid, Mr. Patricof went to the memorial in Los Angeles. And because the couples had socialized throughout the years, Ms. Guggenheim, likewise, mourned with Mr. Patricof when Susan, whom she had long admired, died.

Binge more Vows columns here and read all our wedding, relationship and divorce coverage here.

“We both had great marriages,” Mr. Patricof said. Their decision this fall to start a new one together surprised them more than it surprised friends.

“I think them finding each other was a comfort they didn’t expect,” said Dr. Wayne Winnick, a sports medicine doctor who has been close with Mr. Patricof for more than 30 years.

They’re as well matched energetically as they are socially, he said. Mr. Patricof runs marathons — last year, he was the oldest person to complete the New York City Marathon — and Ms. Guggenheim is a competitive ballroom dancer. Both write books in their spare time. Mr. Patricof’s “No Red Lights: Reflections on Life, 50 Years in Venture Capital and Never Driving Alone,” published by Post Hill Press, came out last year; Ms. Guggenheim has written five books on art, including “Art World: The New Rules of the Game,” published by Marmont Lane in 2017, and is working on a collection of stories.

Neither would call the courtship traditional. In 2020, when Ms. Patricof’s disease had progressed so much she was confined to the couple’s Upper East Side apartment, Mr. Patricof often found himself in need of a partner for social obligations. “I told my children and my friends, don’t be surprised if you see me out with someone,” he said. “Barbara and I were both unbelievably dedicated to our marriages. But it’s tough to be alone.”

Ms. Guggenheim, on the West Coast, was too far away to be in his lineup of possible companions. She was also busy caring for Mr. Fields, whose health was declining. But she helped in another way. “Alan would need a plus-one, and I would vet them,” she said. By 2022, she was noticing a shift in how she felt about her vetting duties.

When visiting New York, “I would go places with him, and if we ran into someone he had gone out with or was going to go out with, I felt a little pang of jealousy,” she said. Both went on a few blind dates after their spouses died, but by the end of 2022, “I think we both came to the conclusion that we’d rather be with each other than with anyone else,” she added.

Both reject the idea that their romance was built on convenience. “It’s nice to be with someone who fits in with your friends and your family,” Mr. Patricof said. “But it’s as simple as, we fell in love. We have a love affair now.” As Ms. Guggenheim put it, “I always laugh, because people probably think we’re two old losers who just decided, let’s glue it together. It’s not like that.”

The relationship glue known as marriage hadn’t occurred to either when they were at a cocktail party in September in the Hamptons and a friend congratulated them on their engagement. “He mentioned the name of a mutual friend who had told him we were getting married,” Mr. Patricof said. The friend had started the rumor — neither knows why, but both found it amusing. A few days later, they took a long walk in East Hampton. “I said, ‘Since he said it, why don’t we do it?’”

Among the things Ms. Guggenheim loves about Mr. Patricof, she said, is that he’s game. That day, she was game. She said yes.

On Dec. 10, they were married in the Park Avenue apartment Mr. Patricof has lived in since 1970. Just 40 family members and a few close friends had been invited.

David Gelfand, the rabbi at Temple Israel of the City of New York, officiated a traditional Jewish ceremony. Before each stomped a glass to mark the start of their marriage, Rabbi Gelfand told guests the wedding was life affirming. “People their age are typically going to funerals,” he said. Not them.

Mr. Patricof often tells people he expects to live to 114. “I promised Barbara we’d have 25 years together,” he said. She’s counting on it. “Alan is irresistible,” she said.

On This Day

When Dec. 10, 2023

Where Park Avenue, New York

Recycled Rings During the ceremony, the couple exchanged rings. But not new ones. Each gave the other the band they had worn in their previous marriages. “Our marriages were both long and good,” Ms. Guggenheim said. “We figured it was a good omen.”

Something Spectacular Ms. Guggenheim turned 77 on her wedding day. During a reception in the apartment, while guests sipped bellinis and mimosas and helped themselves to a buffet of lox and bagels, a bouquet of flowers arrived. “In the middle of everything, I got birthday flowers from Tom Cruise,” she said. It was not a small bouquet. “He does nothing that’s not spectacular.”

And Something Signature For her short walk down the living room aisle, she carried a lily of the valley bouquet — her mother’s favorite flower — and wore a white Dior pantsuit she pulled from her closet. Mr. Patricof wore his signature outfit, a blue suit from J. Crew.

Collection Intact Ms. Guggenheim will move to New York in the new year, though she will hang onto her other properties, including the Malibu home.

Philip von Hahn, a 30-year-old tech investor on the Upper East Side, attended a holiday party on Sunday night to take his mind off the recent dissolution of his three-year relationship.

“We’ve been weighing it for the past few months,” Mr. von Hahn said of the decision to end things. The holidays, however, added a sense of urgency, as he and his ex-girlfriend weren’t able to agree on who would visit whose family for Christmas, or if they even wanted to spend this time of year with each other again.

Although fall and winter have affectionately become known as “cuffing season” in recent years — a period where couples stay indoors, cuffed together throughout the cold months — they can also be a fraught time that puts pressures on newer relationships.

A small infraction like not buying a thoughtful Christmas gift or being reluctant to visit your partner’s family for the holidays can be the excuse a hesitant partner was looking for to call it quits. Ghosting feels like an easy option when people can use their travel plans as an excuse to be absent, and time apart can make staying connected difficult, especially if a relationship is already on shaky ground.

Mr. von Hahn said that he and his ex-girlfriend both decided to break up after realizing the relationship wasn’t progressing to the next step (“Like, get married”). He said he felt good about the decision, despite still needing time to adjust, and was crashing with a friend in Brooklyn after moving out of the apartment they shared.

For Christmas, he planned to return home to Toronto to spend time with his family “and convalesce.” He was looking forward to having a busy holiday schedule to keep him occupied.

The end of the year is also often a time of reflection and a yearning for a “new year, new me” that can be at times one-sided.

Beth Booker, a 33-year-old public relations specialist in Naples, Fla., had met her ex-boyfriend in September on Bumble and hard launched as a couple in November. He broke up with her this past weekend.

“It really sucks when you finally decide to take that leap and you feel safe enough to do it, and they can’t catch you,” she said in a phone interview on Monday.

He returned home to Pennsylvania around late fall, and, after agreeing to try to make a long-distance relationship work, he had a change of heart during a conversation about their plans for the new year.

Despite films on the Hallmark and Lifetime channels that would like to convince people that the holidays are the most romantic time of the year, they can feel especially lonely if you’re single.

Tejah Larkin, 31, describes this time of year as the moment many couples choose to make things official, so holiday parties and ugly Christmas sweater gatherings can feel harder for people like her who are still casually dating.

“During this time, the events are not really gauged for the singles, because most people probably have been dating since the summer and now they’re trying to lock it down,” said Ms. Larkin, who lives in East Orange, N.J. “Most people are inside with their significant others.”

Ms. Larkin is currently seeing a man with whom she grew up after reconnecting in late October. It’s in the honeymoon phase, she said, and they are focused on building atop their old friendship and seeing where things go. He plans to return home to Georgia for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. She hopes they will stay in contact during that time.

“This will be the first time either of us have been not in the same area communicating, so hopefully we keep the same consistent communication,” Ms. Larkin said. “It’ll be a real test.”

Send your thoughts, stories and tips to [email protected].

A decade ago, Jasmine Rae de Lung, a San Francisco-based cake maker, wanted to test out some new decorating elements. She headed to Clement Street in the Richmond, a neighborhood with several Asian markets. Her haul that day included some rice paper sheets, typically used to form Vietnamese spring rolls.

Back in her Mission District kitchen, de Lung realized the sheets wouldn’t work for draping on a cake; they became flimsy when wet and shrank and shattered when refrigerated. The diaphanous material offered greater potential, though, in detailing: Cut into pieces, dyed, dried and attached to wire, the rice paper resembled delicate flowers.

But de Lung also learned the paper couldn’t be commanded; it curled and changed in unexpected ways. Instead, she had to create multiple versions and choose which ones worked best with the cake. “You have to let it be the beauty that it wants to form,” she said.

De Lung, whose business is named Jasmine Rae Cakes, embraces this sort of serendipity. Her artistry, she said, “is rooted in the natural process, how time changes things, surrendering to what’s going on as opposed to designing and creating every last detail.”

She never trained professionally as a baker, or even baked as a hobby. But with the encouragement of her boyfriend at the time, de Lung began her business in 2006 as an outlet for creative experimentation. (She’s drawn to unusual flavors, like calamansi and osmanthus tea, and roasted apricots and almonds.) At first she baked items for local cafes, but decided in 2010 to focus exclusively on cakes, and now primarily makes them for weddings.

Her approach to cake making is heavily informed by her training in both art and psychology. De Lung attended an arts magnet high school before studying cognitive science in college. She had already been baking for a few years when she pursued a masters in psychology, which, she said, helped her hone “the tool of yourself and who you are.”

Working in an edible medium is inherently ephemeral. De Lung can spend anywhere from 12 to 200 hours on a cake, but her creation, meant to be eaten and enjoyed, doesn’t last long.

On a late autumn day, the shifting seasons felt acutely personal: Her mother has a terminal illness, which has centered de Lung’s focus on change, aging and death. For that day’s decorating, she drew inspiration from dried flowers, a symbol of the passage of time.

“What’s interesting about a dried flower is you cut it off from its life source, but it still has fluid and life in it for a little while,” she said. “It’s not like it freezes in time. It continues to move. And then as it dries, it curls more and continues to develop and change until at some point it just stays still.”

She’s developed and adopted other distinctive elements that reflect similar themes, like “elephant skin” — dried out and cracked fondant. Once de Lung realized she couldn’t stop it from happening in her low-humidity kitchen, she decided to see the beauty in the texture and use it in her work.

“And then I really fell in love,” she said. “I could never have designed that.” De Lung has become known for her cakes’ sculptural forms and techniques, such as rough stone, torn paper ruffles and what she calls “crawling ridges,” which emphasize surface and movement.

In the last few years, she’s become interested in creating a “billowing and undulating and unfolding” motion produced by carving her cakes with a knife before decorating them.

After carving a stack of cakes as a sculptor might shape a block of marble, de Lung applied buttercream to the shape before turning to the fondant, which she colored by kneading in dye.

She then rolled the fondant out to an almost translucent thinness, and tore it into nonuniform pieces and placed them on the cake, her hand warming the buttercream frosting, making it more adhesive. She assembled the rice paper flowers and added some to the cake. In the end, everything visible but the wires holding up the petals was edible — “the highest form of integrity in cake making,” she said.

To finish her decorating demonstration within the day, de Lung left more elements incomplete than she would leave for a commissioned cake. As the sun began to set, she assessed her creation, welcoming the “uncertainty of how it would continue to bloom.”

Her cakes typically cost between $5,000 and $10,000 for local weddings, though clients have hired her to travel and bake cakes for weddings around the world; the most she’s charged is between $30,000 and $40,000. She also offers workshops for other cake makers.

De Lung’s somewhat freethinking, fluid approach might seem at odds with the meticulous planning typical for weddings. She offers rough sketches to clients with the caveat that, while she can promise to employ certain techniques and keep them and their specific story in mind, the cake may evolve as she works on and responds to it.

With her cakes, she said, “you’re buying the process, not the product.”

Phoebe Cheong and Jude Andam, friends who live on opposite coasts, have recently begun a tradition whenever they see each other.

They have tea.

On a recent afternoon, Ms. Andam, a makeup artist in Los Angeles, joined Ms. Cheong, a commercial photographer, at Lady Mendl’s Tea Salon, which occupies the parlor floor of a Georgian townhouse in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan.

The two friends might have met for coffee or lunch, but they prefer the more formal experience of tea.

“Coffee shops are casual,” Ms. Andam, 42, said. “You go in there in your athleisure or whatever. This is more of a special occasion.”

Ms. Cheong, 31, noted the maximalist décor at Lady Mendl’s, which includes Victorian fringe lamp shades and gold-leaf on the molding. She also appreciated how the server announced that the topping for their scones was Devonshire cream.

“Here there’s mystery, there’s storytelling,” Ms. Cheong said.

Elaborate afternoon tea service is a main attraction at more than a dozen venues in New York and Los Angeles. At Brooklyn High Low, which has two locations near Prospect Park, it’s $48 for the “Classic” prix fixe tea service, which lasts 75 minutes. At Rose Tree Cottage in Pasadena, Calif., a man in a tuxedo serves cucumber sandwiches and sticky toffee pudding. The three New York locations of Alice’s Tea Cup have an “Alice in Wonderland” theme.

It is a curious fact that, in a decidedly uncivil time, when people have grown accustomed to arguing with strangers on social media and wearing sweats on the plane, this high ritual has made something of a comeback.

A new service in New York, Tea Around Town, hosts afternoon tea aboard a pink and white double-decker bus for those who would like to take in the sights while sipping organic Earl Grey with lavender. The bus’s interior has soft pink banquettes in place of the seating one might find on a Greyhound.

That rolling salon joins longtime standbys known for elaborate tea service — a group of establishments that includes The Peninsula Beverly Hills, the London West Hollywood and The Plaza Hotel. The Palm Court at the Plaza looks much the same as tea salons did in the 1920s, when tables were divided by large palms, creating rooms within a room where guests may be inclined to share their most intimate thoughts.

Bruce Richardson, the master blender at Elmwood Inn Fine Teas in Danville, Ky., and the co-author of “A Social History of Tea,” has been tracking the tea scene for some 30 years.

“I was just in London last month,” Mr. Richardson said. “Boy, every hotel is having afternoon tea again, even more than 20 years ago. There’s a real resurgence of customers looking for that sit-down teatime.”

Mr. Richardson, 70, put forth a theory as to why afternoon tea, which took hold as a tradition among the English gentry in the 1840s, has persevered in the modern world. “In the tea-making ritual,” he said, “we rediscover our humanity, which has become obscured amid a life that is often moving too fast and filled with too much.”

Honey Moon Udarbe, the proprietor of Brooklyn High Low, said that she used to take tea by herself as a kind of escape, and later did so with her daughters and friends, before she opened her first salon in the Prospect Heights neighborhood, in 2020.

Business has been so good that Ms. Udarbe, 47, recently saw fit to open a second teahouse 12 blocks away from the original location. The new salon — called Brooklyn High Low, the Parlor — can be found on the ground floor of a brownstone in Park Slope. She calls it a “speak-teasy,” because she does no advertising.

“I like this nostalgic moment of unplugging and sitting down and chatting with people,” Ms. Udarbe said. She went on to say that a tearoom has much in common with the corner bar, only it manages to encourage a sense of camaraderie “without the booze.”

Mary Fry opened Rose Tree Cottage, a teahouse in Southern California, 50 years ago with her British husband, Edward. They created a time-warp atmosphere not only by having Edward don tux-and-tails whenever he serves customers, but by seeing to it that digital devices have no place at the table.

“Let me just say that we make you turn your phones off,” Ms. Fry said. “You cannot be watching the Dodger game and having tea. It’s a time to calm yourself and enjoy conversation with family and friends and bring yourself down to where your brain should be.”

Perhaps that is why her salon has been bustling lately, and why she has noticed many guests in their twenties and thirties. They arrive wearing fancy hats and fascinators — the formal headpieces popularized by Kate Middleton. In its gift shop, Rose Tree Cottage stocks a variety of elaborate hats and fascinators in pink, yellow, green and blue, along with jackets from the British clothier Barbour.

“My husband called it a sanctuary,” Ms. Fry said. “It’s a sanctuary in a mad, crazy world that’s going on right now. People want to escape with something traditional.”

In a separate interview, Ms. Udarbe made much the same point.

“Really,” she said, “the basis of afternoon tea is time. It’s escaping the iPhone or subway or your job or whatever runs you ragged. I had some lady come in and tell me it really is self-care.”

Proponents of the trend note that a teahouse is quite unlike a cafe or restaurant, in which one might be assaulted by the din of clattering silverware or pop music blasting out of ceiling speakers.

“Someone has taken the time to make this a setting that is conducive to beautiful talk and remembrances,” Mr. Richardson, the tea expert, said. “It could be like going into a cathedral. There’s just a presence that you feel there.”

At Floating Mountain Tea House on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the tea ceremony has a meditative aspect influenced by Chinese and Japanese tea culture. Guests are asked to remove their shoes upon entering the sparsely furnished room, where they may choose from 67 teas sourced from China. A special service, on Saturdays and Sundays, involves sitting on the floor and drinking tea in silence.

“Customers come here out of curiosity and they experience something they’ve never experienced before,” Elina Medvedeva, the owner, said. “The energy is so serene.”

No food is served. The idea is spiritual nourishment. “The space which I’m providing for you allows you to connect with yourself,” said Ms. Medvedeva, 48.

Though peaceful in its own way, Lady Mendl’s, with its stuffed parlor furniture, upright piano and portrait of Queen Elizabeth, evokes a different mood. Tea service, at $78 per person, begins with a selection of teas, followed by snacks, including finger sandwiches and scones. The salon fairly guarantees an atmosphere conducive to mature discourse through a policy that forbids entry to children under age 12.

While social media channels have lately been brimming with arguments over wars and the election to come, a major debate at the Manhattan salon on a recent afternoon was the age-old question of what to put on one’s scone first: clotted cream or jam. At Lady Mendl’s, it is suggested that the cream go first.

Two women at a back table were celebrating their pregnancies. Ms. Cheong and Ms. Andam, seated at a table near the piano, lingered over cups of Wonderland Rooibos, a tea variety with hints of chocolate. They talked until the 4 p.m. closing time. No hovering staff member pressured them to leave.

“In a coffee shop, everyone is working,” Ms. Andam said as she and her friend stepped out of the tranquil townhouse and into the noise of New York. “When does anyone take time to do this?”

Styles come and styles go, but Stan Herman has been in fashion for decades.

Just last month, Mr. Herman, 95, the king of cozy couture, was moving the merch — velour loungewear — on QVC, where his creations have been a durable staple for 30 years, and where has he sold close to 900,000 units since 2017.

“They buy more each season. I’ve retained my viability, which is not so easy,” said Mr. Herman, who has a particular affinity for chenille. “It’s my secret weapon.”

When he’s not outfitting people for repose, Mr. Herman is dressing them for work. In 1975, after a successful run with a line of stylish, affordable women’s clothing under the label Mr. Mort, he began designing uniforms for hotels, casinos and businesses of all stripes, among them Avis, Amtrak, McDonald’s and United Airlines. More recent clients include JetBlue, FedEx, Sandals Resorts and New York’s Central Park Conservancy.

For the record, Mr. Herman’s own uniform leans toward cashmere and turtlenecks — generally in the earth tones that comport with his astrological sign, Virgo. If you meet him, plan on talking horoscopes. And plan on being charmed, wherever you fall on the zodiac.

Now Mr. Herman, a former president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, has chronicled his adventures in apparel (and out) in a memoir, “Uncross Your Legs: A Life in Fashion,” out this month.

He still has a work space in Manhattan, overlooking Bryant Park, and a house in the Hamptons where he waited out the pandemic. But his home base for more than half a century has been a rented duplex with high ceilings, two terraces and multiple closets in an Art Deco building in Murray Hill.

“I started here as one of the young whippersnappers, and now I’m the elder statesman,” Mr. Herman said. “Everybody points to me and says to their kids, ‘Do you know how old that man is?’”

That old man showed his form early: As a 9-year-old in Passaic, N.J., he was selling Vogue and Butterick sewing patterns at one of his father’s fabric stores. After college in Cincinnati and military service, Mr. Herman moved to New York and met the man who would become his life partner, Gene Horowitz, a teacher and writer. The two settled for a time in Greenwich Village, first in a raffish fifth-floor walk-up on West Fourth Street and then in less bohemian quarters on West 12th Street. “We had a beautiful view of the Hudson River and of the ships bound for Bermuda,” Mr. Herman recalled.

Still, with the success of the Mr. Mort label, he wanted to live closer to the fashion district.

Stan Herman, 95

Occupation: Fashion designer

Step up: “I’ve spent my life looking for stairs. That’s why I’m still walking well.”

As it happened, a close friend and fellow designer, Chester Weinberg, was also looking for a new apartment.

“Somebody told him about this place in Murray Hill. Chester had to go out of town, and he asked me to go see it and give him my feelings about it,” Mr. Herman said. “And the second I walked in, I said, ‘This isn’t for Chester; it’s for me.’ I knew I could make it a home for myself. It was like having a little house in the middle of Manhattan.”

Mr. Weinberg, he continued, “would have painted it black, which was what everybody was doing at the time to imitate Calvin Klein and his black apartment. And that’s not what this apartment should be.”

Mr. Herman claimed the space, painted it white and filled it with furniture from Roche Bobois, a choice he came to regret because once people sat down, they couldn’t get up: “I lost four friends in the cracks.”

He updated the kitchen a mite and preserved the bathrooms’ original gray tiles and burgundy sinks and tubs. For the record, he also preserved his friendship with Mr. Weinberg, who was sadly an early casualty of AIDS.

Life in the duplex was idyllic. In the evening, Mr. Horowitz would read aloud. Opera music — Mr. Herman is a perfervid fan and creditable singer — poured out of the stereo. And the woman who lived in the maid’s apartment next door became a surrogate mother to the two men. “We let her use our kitchen, and she would make breakfast every morning and sing Schubert Lieder,” Mr. Herman said. “It made me feel so comfortable.”

Mr. Horowitz died of a heart attack in early 1991. Some months later, Mr. Herman was a guest at a birthday party for the playwright and screenwriter Arthur Laurents in Quogue, N.Y.

“Arthur was all in white, and I looked at him with my Virgo laser eyes and I thought, ‘God, those pants are old, and he’s washed them a lot.’ And the shirt had stains on it,” Mr. Herman said. “And I thought to myself, he’s one of those guys who’s getting older and is thinking, ‘Oh, I don’t need to buy a new shirt.’ And I didn’t want to be like that. When I went back home, it was Gene all over the apartment, and I thought, ‘I need to change it.’”

Within a month, Mr. Herman had hired a decorator. He held on to the most cherished of Mr. Horowitz’s possessions, but otherwise sought to make the apartment a reflection of its occupant, now a single man.

It started with the custom-made chocolate-brown sofa upholstered in chenille (of course). ABC Carpet & Home was the source of most of the furnishings, including a cabinet with a chinois cast and, in the dining alcove, a round yellow table patterned with green diamonds and ringed by metal chairs.

Before the pandemic, a rubber tree that Mr. Herman, a plant lover, had tended for half a century canopied the table and chairs. “It was wonderful giving dinner parties because you felt you were in the country,” he said. “But during Covid, I wasn’t there for a week or two, and the tree died on me. And it’s the only thing I’ve lost in the apartment other than my partner.”

Not long ago, he walked into his apartment and decided that it looked like a museum. Everywhere he turned, there was “stuff” — paintings on the walls; an oversized tennis racket (Mr. Herman plays doubles twice a week); posters from the Metropolitan Opera; handmade birthday cards from Mr. Herman’s friend, the artist and illustrator James McMullan; and watercolors and sketches by Mr. Herman himself.

The top of the piano was covered with photos: photos of Mr. Herman’s family, photos of Mr. Herman with Princess Diana, Lauren Hutton, Demi Moore, Elizabeth Taylor, Anna Wintour. And a dozen or so green porcelain parrots, gifts from the designer Oleg Cassini, perched on the fireplace mantel.

“But it’s not bad that it looks like a museum,” Mr. Herman said. “It’s good. Everything here reminds me of stuff that happened in my life.”

Stuff is still happening. He’s designing collections for QVC into 2025. He’s a member of the Garment District Alliance and on the board of Bryant Park Corporation. And he still has occasion to wear the tuxedo that Donna Karan insisted on making for him when he became president of the Council of Fashion Designers in 1991. It fits wonderfully, he said, making a gesture that seems to be the fashionista’s version of a chef’s kiss.

“My father was very upset with me when he found out I was gay,” Mr. Herman said. “He sat me down and said, ‘The reason I’m so upset is what’s going to happen when you’re old and you have nobody? You won’t have children. You won’t have grandchildren. You’re asking for real trouble.’”

Mr. Herman went briefly silent. “I wish he were here today,” he said, “to see that as an old man I have a home, a house, friends and family.”

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About 200 carolers had just begun the second verse of the classic Christmas song “The Friendly Beasts” when a little girl let out a squeal of delight. About 20 feet below the balcony, on the floor of the large domed barn, two of the half-dozen dairy cows were butting heads. As the grazing heifers lifted their horns, their playful roughhousing seemed like a display of holiday cheer.

On Saturday, the Churchtown Dairy in Claverack, N.Y., once again hosted a Yuletide tradition: caroling to the herd of 28 cattle that call the cathedral-like barn their winter home. What began a decade ago as a way for the farm’s staff and their families to celebrate the herd has since grown to an annual tradition that brings locals and out-of-towners to the farm’s 250-acre property each December.

This year, preregistration for the two caroling events filled up within hours of going online. Farm staff fielded phone calls from frustrated would-be carolers, some of whom blamed an Instagram post advertising the event for its rise in popularity.

“We’re considering adding a third night next year to accommodate all the interest,” said Grace Pullin, Churchtown’s director of partnerships and programs.

There were more than a few repeat carolers at Saturday’s event. Ashlyn St. Ours, 33, who attended her first caroling last year, called it a “beloved tradition.” This year, it even got a shout-out in her annual Christmas letter.

Another attendee, Sharon Mclees, 64, has attended for six years. Growing up around cows, Ms. Mclees said she felt comforted by the tranquillity at Churchtown. “I love the farm atmosphere,” she said. “It’s just so back to nature.”

Churchtown Dairy was founded in 2012 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the granddaughter of the business magnate John D. Rockefeller, but the property has been under her family’s purview for decades. Her mother, Peggy Rockefeller, purchased the land as part of a larger acquisition of over 2,700 acres by the American Farmland Trust, an agricultural nonprofit Peggy started in 1980.

The younger Ms. Rockefeller partnered with the architect Rick Anderson to design the farm, traveling the country visiting barns for inspiration. For her, the dome is a sign of a healthy, biodynamic farm. At the event on Saturday, Mr. Anderson explained that its shape served a more practical purpose: “Cows hate corners.”

The dairy is not unique in its caroling tradition; just a few miles up the Taconic State Parkway, Hawthorne Valley Farms has been singing to its herd in a smaller event on Christmas Eve for the past 40 years. Staff members at Churchtown each had a different theory on the origins of the practice. Ms. Pullin suggested it might have been inspired by the work of the German esoteric philosopher and biodynamic farming pioneer Rudolph Steiner, who claimed that cow horns had “astral-ethereal formative powers.” Eric Vinson, a herd manager on the farm, referenced the old European myth that animals are able to communicate with humans at Christmastime. In more contemporary contexts, scientists at the University of Leicester found that cows produced more milk when played songs with less than 100 beats per minute. (R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” seemed to go over especially well.)

By that logic, carols, with their measured pace, could be conducive to a happy herd.

For those who managed to snag a spot in the barn’s rafters, the evening was a celebration of cows: their majestic moos, their picturesque habitat and their unpasteurized milk, which Churchtown sells for $6 per half-gallon, plus a $2 bottle deposit fee.

The legal status of unpasteurized, or raw, milk varies from state to state; in New York, farms can sell raw milk directly to consumers. Health experts cite the risk of food-borne illnesses from pathogens like salmonella, listeria, campylobacter and E. coli, which would typically be removed in the process of heating, or pasteurizing, the milk.

While giving a tour of the farm hours before caroling, Mr. Vinson described the precautions taken at Churchtown Dairy, including regular testing and treating the cows’ udders with an iodine solution. He also extolled the milk’s purported benefits: “Raw milk is a living probiotic food. It still has the good bacteria that helps inoculate your gut and strengthen your gut biome.”

Enthusiasts will even cross state lines for the good stuff: Two carolers that evening, Nora O’Rourke, 54, and Michael Leone, 61, drove from their home in Rockaway Township, N.J., where raw milk is illegal, to Warwick, N.Y., for unpasteurized dairy.

Not everyone at the caroling event came for the milk, though: Michael O’Gara, 70, a member of the Hudson Community Choir, lamented that he couldn’t tolerate it as well as he used to. Instead, he and his wife, Bonnie, 72, along with other members of the choir, were there to lead the group in song.

Carolers, armed with illustrated songbooks, began with Christmas classics — “The First Noel,” “Silent Night,” “Joy to the World,” — before Ms. Pullin opened the floor to requests. There were shouts of “Free Bird” but the crowd eventually settled on “Feliz Navidad” as the final number of the night.

The cows wagged their tails in appreciation — or maybe they were swatting away loose hay — and for a moment, the myth seemed to come alive: Animals and humans communicating for the holiday.

She wore the ballerina-length evening dress to a 1985 dinner hosted by the mayor of Florence, Italy, and again to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra the following year. On Sunday, that dress, which belonged to Diana, Princess of Wales, sold at auction for nearly $1.15 million — a record amount for one of her dresses.

The piece, created by Jacques Azagury, the Moroccan-British fashion designer, was “synonymous with the Princess of Wales’s royal elegance and eternal grace,” the Hollywood auction house, Julien’s Auctions, said in a statement, noting that it had sold for more than 11 times what the auction house had predicted that it would bring.

The dress was sold along with a matching illustration that detailed its black velvet bodice embroidered with metallic stars, a two-tier royal blue organza skirt with a sash and bow (a nod to Diana’s love of dance) and one of her signature looks: shoulder pads.

“The fact that this dress, all these years later, goes for this amount — I think people continue to be in awe of her and her fashion,” Elizabeth Holmes, a fashion critic and expert in the royal family’s style, said in an interview on Monday. “Diana has remained a fashion icon.”

The sale of the dress came as “The Crown” — the opulent Netflix series about the British royal family that has renewed interest in the life of Princess Diana and her children — airs its final season. Several of the show’s 60 episodes are devoted to the princess and the controversies in the years leading up to her death in a car crash in 1997.

The series also showcases her famous clothes. Diana, among the most photographed women in the world at the time, knew her fashion would be observed by millions, and evolved from a modest young woman into a glamorous international celebrity.

“She knew the power of a picture,” Ms. Holmes, the fashion critic, said, describing how Diana used fashion to communicate with onlookers and draw attention to the charities she supported — even as her public speech was limited. When Diana wore the ballerina dress in the 1980s, the princess had truly begun to lean into her personal style, taking risks with shorter hemlines, lower necklines and bold silhouettes, Ms. Holmes said. “You can see that in this dress,” she added. “You can place it in time.”

The sale followed an auction in September at which Diana’s iconic black sheep sweater was sold by Sotheby’s for $1.14 million.

At Sunday’s sale, a blouse the princess wore in her 1981 engagement portrait sold for $381,000, four times its original estimate, Julien’s Auctions said.

Diana was the first to auction off her clothing — cleaning out her closet just months before she died to sell 79 dresses in New York and donate $3.25 million to charity.

“It’s interesting to see how her style, thank God, changed,” Joan Rivers, the comedian, said at the time, as she observed the cocktail and evening dresses. A Los Angeles real estate broker, Donna Burgess, noted at the same event that she had come “to Never-Never Land to get a piece of the fairy tale” that, at the time, appeared to some to be Princess Diana’s life.

As is common, Julien’s did not reveal the buyer of the Azagury ballerina dress. Ms. Holmes, the critic, said she hoped whoever it was would treat it with appropriate care.

“I’m dying to know what the people who buy these clothes do with them,” she said. “Are you hanging it in your closet? What’s going on?”

Have you ever admired a particularly stylish stranger at close range? Maybe the color of their overcoat popped out in a crowd, or you noticed the way they stacked fancy rings in a “What, these old things?” kind of way. Whatever draws your eye, and no matter how you think about good personal style, you probably know it when you see it.

I like to think of those kinds of details as “the exuberance of individual choices” — all the small decisions that go into getting dressed, coalescing into a unique package. These are the magic moments we try to capture in “Style Outside,” a column by the newest member of our team, photographer Simbarashe Cha.

Last February, Simbarashe and I sat down to dinner in Paris, after a long day spent covering fashion shows. He told me about his passion for portraiture and the joy of walking around and observing people; how the toss of a scarf, the fade of a haircut, or the way the cuff of a man’s pants hits his ankle was the manifestation of attitude.

Simbarashe said he appreciates the way someone looks, but also how they respond to being asked for a photograph, especially when they aren’t necessarily posing. He also told me of a fateful day, in early 2012, when he was walking in Riverside Park after a snowstorm. He stopped a woman and asked if he could take her picture. She said yes, then told him, “You’re like Bill Cunningham.” But Simbarashe, a self-taught photographer (and former banker) was not familiar with the legacy she was referring to; Cunningham was a New York Times photographer who chronicled people on the street and at parties for the paper for nearly 40 years. The woman insisted he go home and watch the documentary about Cunningham that night. He did, and decided then and there he’d devote his life to this medium.

Following in that tradition of fashion reportage, in which clothes come alive off the runways as much as on, Simbarashe is out and about, all over the world, snapping pics of whomever he finds interesting. It’s a hobby I share with him: forever noticing the tender quirks of personality on display all around me, though I’m not holding a camera.

I recently met a Milanese woman who wore a single long strand of cobalt beads over an orange dress covered in tiny monkeys, paired with New Balance sneakers. I would never have thought to combine those items! Her sensibility was so specific to her that it felt revelatory — she was the embodiment of “sprezzatura,” as the Italians call that type of studied casualness — and I was captivated. When I raved about her style, she told me the name of the shop in Sardinia where she had bought the dress (it’s called “Foresta G”). A compliment had turned into a tip for a reporting mission.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

• A lost work by Raymond Chandler, best remembered for his hard-boiled detective novels, was found. It’s a poem.

• Four months after the British Museum fired a curator suspected of stealing​ from its Greek and Roman stores, the ​institution​ said about 1,500 objects were missing. Gold taken from some other items has probably been sold to scrap metal merchants.

• The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s ​dance-heavy ​upcoming season will feature ​a rock opera by the performance artist Taylor Mac and a film retrospective of the actor Jeffrey Wright​.

• The actor Andre Braugher died this week at 61. Stream seven of his memorable performances, including “The Tuskegee Airmen” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

• Cardi B announced that she had separated from her husband, the rapper Offset, Billboard reports.

• “Curb Your Enthusiasm” will officially end after season 12 next year, Variety reports.

• A judge ruled that there was sufficient proof that Prince Harry’s phone was hacked by a U.K. tabloid.

• In Miami, Kanye West previewed his first album since a string of antisemitic comments threatened to end his career last year. Onstage he wore a pointed black hood that resembled a Ku Klux Klan robe.

THE LATEST NEWS

• A jury ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay $148 million to two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, whom he falsely accused of trying to steal votes from Donald Trump.

• Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages during combat with Hamas in northern Gaza, the Israeli military said.

• An autopsy found that the “Friends” star Matthew Perry died from the “acute effects of ketamine,” the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office said.

• Material from the investigation into 2016 Russian election interference went missing in the final days of Trump’s presidency, people familiar with the matter said.

• Several women at the fast-growing real estate firm eXp said they had been drugged and assaulted by two star agents, and that the company long ignored their complaints.

• “It’s a suicide mission.” For two months, Ukrainian marines have fought over a muddy patch of land along the Dnipro River. Soldiers say the combat is brutal, with little to show for it.

• Sheikh Nawaf, the emir of Kuwait, who took power in the oil-rich state during political infighting in 2020, died. He was 86.

CULTURE CALENDAR

🎬 “American Fiction” (Out Now): Jeffrey Wright stars in this lacerating satire as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an underappreciated novelist who, under a pseudonym, releases a book stuffed with “deadbeat dads, rappers, crack” and other Black literary clichés that he has long resisted. To his amusement, then horror, it’s a hit. For bonus points, check out “Erasure,” by the great Percival Everett, which the movie is adapted from.

📺 “Maestro” (Wednesday): In the microgenre of classical-music dramas, last year we had Lydia, and this year we have Lenny. After a brief theatrical release, this biopic is now streaming on Netflix, with Bradley Cooper as a larger-than-life Leonard Bernstein (Cooper also directed and co-wrote the script) and Carey Mulligan as his wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.

Miso soup

During the chaotic excess of the holiday season, it’s often the simplest dishes that hold the greatest appeal. Eric Kim’s brothy miso soup is just the thing to simultaneously satisfy your appetite and calm your spirit. It has the deep umami flavors of kombu and wakame, rounded out with a little bit of sake and mirin for complexity, and a dollop of soft tofu for texture and heft. Sip the soup as is, or use the recipe as a base for all kinds of additions. As Eric notes, sliced shiitakes, fried tofu, clams, chicken or even a tiny bit of butter can be delicious stirred into this gentle, warming soup.

REAL ESTATE

Object by object: How Anderson Cooper deals with grief and memorializes his family at home.

What you get for $1.1 Million​: A circa 1720 stone house in Kerhonkson, ​N.Y., a 1912 Colonial Revival home in Wilmette​, Ill., and a 1926 Craftsman cottage in Seattle.

The hunt: Homing in on Lenox Hill, could a young couple find a one-bedroom on the Upper East Side for less than $1 million? Play our game.

Female renters: A new study puts a spotlight on the challenges faced by ​single women living alone​, who are more rent burdened than single men.

Genius loci: As travel boomed again this year, we offered new takes on classic destinations​ as well as surprising coverage of some lesser-known places. Here are some of your favorites.

Pain: Getting an IUD hurts. Why aren’t more women offered pain relief?

E-commerce: With retailers like Shopify rolling out chatbots, this holiday shopping season might be the first to be powered by A.I.

Losing hair, gaining followers: Hair-loss influencers say they are destigmatizing an insecurity. Critics say they are cashing in on a vulnerable audience.

Quiet superfood: Flaxseeds have many potential benefits, from boosting heart health to lowering inflammation. But they can’t do everything.

ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER

Two essential tools for cookies

If you’ve got big holiday cookie plans this year (and how could you not, with this recipe lineup from NYT Cooking?), a couple handy little tools will make the messy, sugar-dusted operation go smoother. As the senior editor of Wirecutter’s kitchen coverage, I swear by a good bench scraper and nimble offset spatula from our guide to holiday cookie baking gear. Use the bench scraper to divide dough, scoop up a pile of chopped nuts, level a measuring cup or scrape your counter clean. The offset spatula can deftly smooth frosting, spread jam or pry a delicate cut-out cookie from the counter. — Marguerite Preston

GAME OF THE WEEKEND

Texas vs. Nebraska, N.C.A.A. volleyball championship: Early this season, Nebraska became the center of the volleyball universe when the team drew more than 92,000 fans to a match — setting a world record for attendance at a women’s sporting event. They have lived up to the hype since then, going 33-1 and earning the No. 1 overall seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament. After sweeping Pitt in the semifinals, Nebraska will face Texas, last year’s champions, in the finals. The teams have met in the championship twice before — in 2015 and 1995 — and Nebraska won both. Tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern on ABC.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Holiday parties are a fixture in New York City, and there were plenty to choose from this week. Highlights included David Barton and Susanne Bartsch hosting a toy drive at Gym U NYC in Chelsea, and Gabriela Hearst and Yola Mezcal holding an event at Café Carlyle.

Collecting Toys at Gym U

On Thursday night, around 9 p.m., revelers in silver sequins and knee-high boots walked into Gym U NYC, David Barton’s new gym in Chelsea, carrying toys like trucks, dinosaurs and board games, as the smell of exercise mats filled the air.

They had come for the holiday party and toy drive that Susanne Bartsch, a New York nightlife fixture, and Mr. Barton, a gym and fitness entrepreneur, have been hosting since the 1990s.

Just past the doors, Ms. Bartsch, dressed in a sparkling red jumpsuit and a wig with reindeer-like antlers made of hair, greeted guests. As in years past, she wanted to: “Give people a chance to feel the spirit,” she said. “I can’t believe it is already Christmas. I feel like I’m in a time warp.”

Mr. Barton, wearing a ripped Ramones T-shirt, said they also just wanted to collect a lot of toys, adding that the party is “always a reminder of what we’re supposed to think about this time of year.”

Throughout the gym, D.J.s blasted a pulsing beat to a crowd of several hundred guests, including the singer-songwriter Sam Smith, the actress and comedian Sandra Bernhard, a co-host of the event, and Christian Cowan, a designer known for feathered club-wear popular with celebrities like Lady Gaga, Cardi B and Lil Nas X.

Partygoers, some of whom had worked out in the space earlier that day, waited in line at a bar near a chest press machine for white wine and umami margaritas. Adding some extra holiday cheer, muscular men in Santa hats danced on the equipment.

Near a Christmas tree surrounded by toys, Mr. Cowan, a co-host of the event, said that during the holidays, when it comes to friends and family, he often tries to introduce humor with his presents.

“I love to give people hilarious taxidermy,” he said, “like a parrot dressed up as a pirate,” and recalled the time he gave someone a frog purse with a zipper.

He continued: “I think it is much more fun to invest in making everyone laugh at Christmas than to make them feel like they got the thing they really wanted.”

On Monday night at Café Carlyle, the storied Manhattan cabaret venue, Chan Marshall, the singer best known as Cat Power, slipped between the Steinway piano and a rack of guitars. She filched an oyster from Justin Theroux’s table, then was out the revolving door to Madison Avenue for a cigarette.

Ms. Marshall was on the Upper East Side to perform at a holiday party hosted by Gabriela Hearst, the former creative director of Chloé, and Yola Jimenez and Gina Correll Aglietti, founders of the spirit brand Yola Mezcal.

Minutes later, the producer Mark Ronson emerged from a black S.U.V. Ms. Marshall congratulated him on the two Golden Globe nominations he had earned earlier that day for songs from the “Barbie” soundtrack.

He said he had gotten the news while grocery shopping. “I didn’t want to be thinking about it, so I was like, let me just go and get some blueberries,” he said.

Inside the dim, mural-lined bar, more than a hundred attendees from the worlds of music, fashion and media did their best not to spill their mezcal martinis or dribble their crab tacos.

Guests included Katie Couric, who greeted Mr. Ronson warmly; Mel Ottenberg, the stylist and editor in chief of Interview Magazine; the actress Grace Gummer; and Tremaine Emory, the founder of Denim Tears and the former creative director of Supreme.

Once guests had settled, Ms. Hearst climbed onstage. “Thank God I’m dressed like a meringue,” she said, referencing a creamy one-shoulder dress of her own design.

Ms. Hearst announced that her namesake brand and Yola Mezcal would donate a portion of their sales from December to Save the Children, which provides humanitarian assistance to young people through its children’s emergency fund.

“The suffering out there is great,” Ms. Hearst said. “Just to celebrate how lucky we all are that we’re here, the most punk thing to do is to show joy, and to show awareness.”

On a tight stage, Cat Power performed “Georgia on My Mind” with Mr. Ronson beside her on guitar. The Swedish singer Lykke Li then asked the crowd to sing the chorus of her song “I Follow Rivers,” which Ms. Hearst filmed on her iPhone.

Mr. Ronson and the singer Andrew Wyatt took the microphone for a two-man arrangement of “I’m Just Ken,” a song from “Barbie.”

“I’m just Ken and I’m enough,” Mr. Wyatt declared, in the room once graced by the cabaret legends Bobby Short and Elaine Stritch. “And I’m great at doing stuff.”