ELYSIAN Winter 2022/23 Thought Leaders & Holiday issue Private

ELYSIAN Women Inspiring Women

DISPLAY UNTIL MARCH 1, 2023

Back Study Gray Oil on Canvas 40h x 30w in

By Catherine Woskow

764 MIAMI CIRCLE, SUITE 132 ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30324 (404) 352-8775

www.pryorfineart.com

Torso Frontal Mixed Media on Museum Board, 2020 39h x 20w in

By Catherine Woskow

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A large cotton crochet «blanket» capeline over a «Romanian» dress with a belt in silk and ecru cotton on a ruffled tulle petticoat. ©AMAURYVOSLION-FRANCKSORBIER / FRANCKSORBIER.FR

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La Servante, Le Passeur etLa Relique The Servant, the Ferryman and the Relic by Franck Sorbier is a haunting reflection of excellence and refined craftsmanship.

BY SAMANTHA PAIGE

ELYSIAN VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 4 • THE THOUGHT & LEADERSHIP ISSUE / HIVER 2022/23 • L’ÉDITION PENSÉE ET LEADERSHIP

Once upon a time, not that long ago, there really was a beautiful princess . . . and her name was

DIANA

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BY LAURIE BOGART WILES

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Christmas Markets & Rural Splendor in Germany

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Christmas Markets & Rural Splendor in Germany.

BY DAINA SAVAGE

Ray Eames

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BY VERITY GALSWORTHY

Inspiring Women The National Foundation of Women Legislators

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architecture&interiors Gothic grandeur. BY CHRISTY NIELSON

holiday traditions

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Thru the holiday looking glass. BY WINIFRED TOWNSEND

travel&wellness

76mind&body A tale of timber & Ice. BY MARCY DUBROFF

shopping

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The light of luxury. BY SINDIE FITZGERALD-RANKIN

From philosophy to thought.

BY SONIA HENRY

176 philanthropy

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If you want something done, ask a woman.

BY CORA WLADEN

back story

ELYSIAN celebrates the launch of its 2022 Summer “GREEN” issue at Mountain Sky Ranch in Emigrant, Montana.

on the cover

American lawyer and television host, Eboni K. Williams, photographed by Michael Paniccia at the iconic Russian Tea Room in New York City, New York.

34 entertaining The high art of afternoon tea.

BY PEARL LUSTRE

E publisher

Karen Floyd c r e at o r - i n - c h i e f

Ryan Stalvey

executive editor

media

&

production director

Rob Springer

d i g i ta l d i r e c t o r

Celia Wise Cooksey comptroller

Anna Christian special projects director

Joey Iannetta

director of philanthropy

Kimberli Scott

d e s i g n a s s o c i at e

Amber Edwards

managing editor

Jason Spencer

director of web design

&

development

Elliot Derhay

web3

Gabe Willen, Jackie Dutton, Myca Miralles special events director

Sarah Smith

editorial director

Rita Allison

c o m m u n i t y a f fa i r s

Ann Bible

d i r e c t o r o f d i g i ta l p r o d u c t i o n

Caleb Chilcutt

lead photographer

Michael Paniccia

post-production supervisor

Elise Rimmer

post-production editor

Ty Yachaina

d i g i ta l a d d i r e c t o r

Christiana Purves

s o c i a l m e d i a c o o r d i n at o r

Stephanie Duclos

e x e c u t i v e a s s i s ta n t

Charlotte Jones

contributing writers

Marcy Dubroff, Sindie Fitzgerald-Rankin, Verity Galsworthy, Sonia Henry, Pearl Lustre, Christy Nielson, Samantha Paige, Daina Savage, Winifred Townsend, Cora Walden copy editors

Nancy Brady, Monya Havekost, Diane High, Hadley Inabinet

c o o r d i n at i n g p r o d u c e r

Paula Fender

c i r c u l at i o n s p e c i a l i s t

Greg Wolfe

e-mail distribution

Mark Trombetta

contributing photographer

Dalton Rook Barber

ELYSIAN Magazine is published four times per year by Palladian Publications LLC., 113 W. Main St., Spartanburg, SC 29306.

For subscription information, call 864-342-6500.

All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

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In September, ELYSIAN celebrated three national awards for publishing excellence. Third from top: Creator-in-Chief Ryan Stalvey was named Designer of the Year at the 2022 Folio: Eddie & Ozzie Awards. This prestigious recognition program acknowledges excellence in editorial content and design across print and digital media. More than 1,300 entries were received across nearly 170 categories this year, and finalists represent the highest-scoring entries per category as judged by qualified editorial and design professionals. Executive Editor Laurie Bogart Wiles won an Eddie in Range of Work by a Single Author for the magazine’s Spring 2022 issue. And, Ryan Stalvey also won an Ozzie Award for Best Overall Art Direction for the magazine’s Winter 2021/22, Spring 2022, and Summer 2022 issues. Fourth from top: The ELYSIAN team was on hand for the evening’s honors and festivities. Bottom: Creator-in-Chief Ryan Stalvey with his wife Nicole.

Laurie Bogart Wiles

As

IF YOU LIKE LAWS AND SAUSAGES, YOU SHOULD NEVER WATCH EITHER ONE BEING MADE.”

a former prosecutor and judge, I understand firsthand, sausage is both more predictable and controlled than making laws, publishing magazines . . . and life itself. In a sausage factory there is a common culinary goal, specific recipe to follow, and a defined production process, all of which is precise and measured.

NOT SO WITH THE LAW, MAGAZINES OR LIFE.

THE PROVERBIAL “MAGAZINE SAUSAGE” WAS MADE. This issue, ELYSIAN’s pages are dedicated to telling unique stories and sharing experiences through both our words and photography. We believe that dreams are limitless. With holiday travel knocking at the door, whether real or imaginary, our pages will take you to France, as you turn your eyes heavenward to the soaring towers and vaulted ceilings of the Gothic cathedrals. Visualize dressing up, perhaps wearing white gloves for a high tea, an English custom embraced for centuries. From nibbling on finger sandwiches and scones, to learning the proper way to pour and select tea, let your mind marvel at what your eyes might not see. Delight in the reverie of exploring Christmas markets, which began in Germany almost one thousand years ago. Imagine music filling the air, wandering the alleyways looking for the perfect handmade “something” . . . a toy or decoration for your tree. Envision selecting the perfect garland, fir tree or star. The market would be scented with traditional Christmas aromas of spices, marzipan and cookies—and of course sausage—which brings us back to the introductory quote from eighteenth century German Otto von Bismarck, who likened the messiness of making laws to making sausage.

It is my hope that through these pages you will find answers to unknown questions and experience limitless wonders. Your imagination has no boundaries, so while you read, forget the “sausage making” of law, magazines and life. For just a moment, try to be present in the pages and experience the fantasy of words you read. Take them in, dream and explore.

In this season of gratitude, ELYSIAN is determined to make a difference and focus on content that will be heard above the din. ELYSIAN thinks differently. We believe love lights up the darkness and storytelling expands and nourishes the curious mind.

Wishing you and your families a safe and wonderful Holiday season. Thank you for sharing the journey.

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With love,

Karen Floyd Publisher

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ELISE RIMMER

Last year at our annual ELYSIAN editorial retreat (where quarterly content is decided), I pitched the idea of a “Winter, Thought Leader Issue.” With the November elections perhaps there was an opportunity to spotlight women legislators? Sufficed to say many of my colleagues did not immediately concur. “What about the holidays?” our Creator-in-Chief quipped . . . knowing full well our Q4 Holiday issue is one of the ELYSIAN readerships and also my favorites. It has always been “a given” that with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hannukah, our Q4 issue focus would be themed around the Holidays . . .

The idea for an issue focused on “women thought leaders” began four years ago, when I had the privilege of interviewing the executive director of the National Foundation for Women Legislators (NFLW) for part of the ELYSIAN Inspiring Woman series. I was intrigued when Jody Thomas explained that her nonpartisan organization NFWL provides resources and development to all elected women. “NFLW is a national organization where there is never an R or a D on anyone’s nametag,” she said. The organization’s goal is to exchange diverse legislative ideas and foster effective governance amongst elected women from across the country and across the aisle. NFLW is a bright light shining in a time of dim grey. Women coalescing around ideas and generating change . . . setting aside their political differences for common good. The ELYSIAN reader can see from the interviews of the women legislators a shared transcendence of purpose.

Finally, little did we know at the time of our editorial content retreat the previous year, that ELYSIAN would engage in the Web3 space and the timeliness of our second NFT launch would just so happen to fall simultaneously with the Thought Leader and Holiday issue. And what more perfect a cover for the thought leader issue than the beautiful, brilliant and enigmatic Ebony K. Williams, who is also the keynote speaker for the annual NFLW meeting in Charleston, South Carolina.

The Russian Tea Room is open daily.

150 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019 For reservations, please call 212-581-7100 • www.russiantearoomnyc.com

architecture&interiors

Gothic Grandeur

BY CHRISTY NIELSON

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Snow falls on the Milan Cathedral, or Metropolitan Cathedral-Basilica of the Nativity of Saint Mary. As Gothic architecture gained popularity outside of France, other cultures took certain Gothic elements and translated them through their own cultural lens.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEXANDRE ROTENBERG / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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if

EROTICISM, HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS, NUCLEAR SCIENCE, GAUDI’S GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, MY LOVE OF GOLD - THERE IS A COMMON DENOMINATOR IN ALL OF IT: GOD IS PRESENT IN EVERYTHING. THE SAME MAGIC IS AT THE HEART OF ALL THINGS, AND ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE SAME REVELATION: WE ARE CHILDREN OF GOD, AND THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE TENDS TOWARDS THE PERFECTION OF MANKIND.” — SALVADOR DALI

you have ever watched a royal wedding or visited an ornate cathedral in Europe, you have witnessed the grandeur and gracefulness of Gothic architecture. The majestic architectural aesthetic, prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th centuries, was invented by the French. Gothic is sandwiched between the Romanesque style—with its focus on sturdy, thick walls and small windows—and Renaissance architecture, which enlists precise ratios of height and width to create a sense of proportion and harmony.

Gothic architecture is characterized by soaring spires, vaulted ceilings, ornate decorations, massive and elaborate window tracery, stained glass, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses. The vaults and buttresses are key—creating an “exoskeleton” that offers structural support from the outside of the building, freeing up wall space for windows that create a light-filled, cavernous interior.

Glass was very expensive in the Middle Ages, even for kings, so most people did not have windows, to say nothing of windows as large as those constructed in Gothic cathedrals. “Walking into these spaces with these huge fields of brilliantly colored glass was like entering another world,” says Lisa Reilly, Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History at the University of Virginia. “It was like no place on earth that people had ever been to, so it’s an incredible transformational, other-worldly, heavenly space.” She adds that these buildings were also absolutely enormous compared to other structures of the time.

The Gothic style was first conceived for the reconstruction of the choir portion of the Basilica Cathedral of Saint-Denis near Paris, which was originally an abbey church that was designated a cathedral in 1966. Saint-Denis was designed by Gothic godfather Abbot Suger,

Germany’s Cologne Cathedral is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe and was constructed to resemble France’s Amiens Cathedral.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY WONDERVISUALS / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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The royal Hohenschwangau castle in Schwangau, Bavaria, Germany, was reconstructed in the 1830s in the Gothic Revival style.

Gothic Revival came about in the 1700s by architects who wanted to bring back Medieval Gothic architecture.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DROZDIN VLADIMIR / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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ARCHITECTURE IS THE LEARNED GAME, CORRECT AND MAGNIFICENT, OF FORMS ASSEMBLED IN THE LIGHT.” —LE CORBUSIER

EVELINE PERROUD, LE CORBUSIER (2007).

“OPUS 1, LE CORBUSIER”

a close associate of King Louis VII. Suger introduced Gothic architecture to the sanctuary by using considerable amounts of open space and natural light—a symbol of divinity. The church is the final resting place for the kings and queens of France and contains graves for all but three of the French monarchs.

The soaring Gothic style caught on in France, and many other notable Gothic cathedrals were constructed in and around Paris during this period. The Notre-Dame de Reims Cathedral (not to be confused with Notre-Dame Paris) is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture. Larger and about 50 years younger than Notre-Dame, the Reims is also larger and more ornate than its Paris counterpart with more than 2,300 statues adorning its facades. The Amiens Cathedral, located in the Piccadilly region, is the tallest Gothic cathedral in France. It radiates the aesthetic with stained glass art, Gothic sculptures and slender spires.

Certain aspects of the Gothic style also spread across Europe. But rather than copying the vocabulary of French Gothic precisely, these other cultures took certain Gothic elements and translated them into massive and elaborate buildings that reflected their local culture and needs. In some cases, the ornate decorations were adapted, while in others it was the scale of the structures that was reflective of the French Gothic style. Sometimes, the buildings were constructed with the characteristic flying buttresses, but not always. Despite these Opposite: The sculpture of an angel adorns the famous Gothic Cathedral of Amiens, France.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JORISVO / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM LEFT: PHOTOGRAPH BY DYNAMIC WANG / UNSPLASH

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Gothic spires and white marble statues pierce the sky above the roof of the Milan Cathedral, or Duomo di Milano, in Milan, Italy.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JULIA ZAVALISHINA / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Architectural details of the gothic interior of the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Amiens, also caleed Cathédrale Notre-Dame d’Amiens, in Amiens France. PHOTOGRAPHY BY ISOGOOD_PATRICK / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM • Opposite: St. Peter’s Church, Rome. PHOTOGRAPHY BY URBAN JYDEN / UNSPLASH

variances, Reilly says the style undoubtedly had an impact across the continent.

Examples include the Salisbury Cathedral in England, which houses one of the best-preserved original copies of the Magna Carta and boasts the tallest spire in Britain since 1561, at over 404 feet. The iconic London landmark, Westminster Abbey, features the highest Gothic vault in England at over 100 feet and displays other Gothic features such as ribbed vaulting and flying buttresses.

More examples of Gothic architecture can be found throughout the whole of Europe. Italy’s Duomo di Orvieto took almost three centuries to construct, and its style displays an evolution from Romanesque to Gothic as construction progressed. St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Austria is the most important religious building in Vienna and a symbol of the city.

Leuven Town Hall in Belgium is one of the world’s most famous secular Gothic buildings. Germany’s Cologne Cathedral is the largest Gothic church in northern Europe and was constructed to closely resemble France’s Amiens Cathedral.

Reilly says eventually the Gothic style ran out of steam for a number of reasons. “Once these huge churches are constructed, they are not being replaced,” she explains. “Also, with the advent of Protestantism in certain parts of Europe, this type of church is no longer being built.” She adds that in other parts of Europe such as Italy, the style simply shifts away from Gothic as the country embraced its classical roots.

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Rose window detail inside the Orvieto Cathedral in Umbria, Italy. Construction of the cathedral took approximately 300 years, and the style evolved from Romanesque to Gothic as the construction progressed.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROBERTO MUSSI / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Bronze sculpture of a gargoyle.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE ESTVANIK / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: Piazza del Duomo, or Cathedral Square, is the primary city square in Milan, Italy. It is named after, and dominated by, the Milan Cathedral.

in PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKITA YO / UNSPLASH.COM

the early 1900s, Gothic architecture and modern building collided in the United States in the form of Gothic skyscrapers.

Reilly notes that both skyscrapers and Gothic buildings rely on skeletal support structures, and skyscrapers are tall like Gothic churches, so the vocabulary of the Gothic style is seen as appropriate. “People evoked Gothic into skyscrapers for all kinds of reasons, and of course not all skyscrapers look like Gothic cathedrals, but a whole bunch of them do in the early 20th century,” Reilly describes.

The Woolworth Building in New York, dubbed the “Cathedral of Commerce,” is one of the earliest and tallest examples, which became a model for Gothic skyscrapers around the world. Reilly says that while some people associated Gothic skyscrapers with churches, that isn’t necessarily what architects of the time were thinking. “In the case of the Woolworth Building, for example, the architect Cass Gilbert was looking for the roots of capitalism, so he actually copies cloth hall buildings from Belgium and France that he sees as representing the beginnings of capitalism.”

The Tribune Tower in Chicago is another famous example of a Gothic skyscraper. In this case, there was a huge competition for the design of the newspaper building, and the Gothic style was selected in part because it was believed that Gothic was a “morally correct” aesthetic. In the South, the Atlanta City Hall was designed to look like a New York City Gothic skyscraper, in part, because Atlanta was marketing itself as the “New York of the South” and wanted to have an association with New York in copying this design. ■ Editor’s note: To learn more about the influence of European Gothic architecture on skyscrapers in the United States, check out the book Skyscraper Gothic, to which Reilly contributed. In addition, many of the world’s finest Gothic structures are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites and can be seen here: whc.unesco.org.

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The Hungarian Parliament Building, which is also known as the Parliament of Budapest, was built in Neo-Gothic style and opened in 1902.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY IMAGES72 / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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entertaining

the High Art of Afternoon

BY PEARL LUSTRE

tea

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MASSON / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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ne day, in 1840, around four o’clock of an afternoon, Anna, the Seventh Duchess of Bedford, Lady of the Bedchamber, Ladyin-Waiting, and lifelong friend and confident to Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India, was feeling rather peckish.

“Bridges,” she called out to her maid, whose given name was London, but servants only ever are addressed by their patronymic.

“I’m feeling rather peckish.”

“Sit down, m’lady,” Bridges urged, “so youse don’t go fall’in down. Now, tell me, what did you eat fer luncheon today?”

“Only the usual,” Lady Bedford replied, casually. “A bowl of Clear Hare Soup with Quenelles, Baked Haddock with Clairvillle Sauce, Steak and Oyster Pudding, Roast Ribs of Beef with Horseradish Sauce . . . I refused the Partridges a l’Italian to leave room for dessert, Conservative Pudding with Muscat Jelly!”

“And we knows how partial you is to Co’ser’ratib Puddin’s, m’lady!”

“Oh, Bridges!” the famished noblewomen bemoaned. “It is hours before dinner at nine! However shall I last till then?”

“Well, here’s a thought! Why don’t I jist hurry down to the kitchen and asks Cook to make you a nice hot pot a’tea.”

“What a good idea! And, Bridges, do have her make up a plate of cucumber between two slices of buttered bread the way the Duke of Sandwich makes them—you know, without the crusts— and perhaps some scones and clotted cream and strawberry jam, and oh, yes! Ask Cook for a nice piece of Victoria sponge! It is a particular favorite of Her Majesty and Cook always keeps some on hand, and maybe some fruit tarts and . . . ” So satisfying was the notion of an in-between-meals refreshment that Lady Bedford made it part of her daily routine.

She began inviting friends to join her, even the Queen herself, and soon the news spread far-and-wide and throughout the land, for so pleasant and practical is an afternoon break from one’s daily toil! And so, to this very day, nobility and peasant alike pause at four o’clock of an afternoon to enjoy a nice cuppa tea.

And thus, the tradition of English Afternoon Tea came about.

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Opposite: Yayoi asukayama hanami. [Translated title: Third Lunar Month, Blossom Viewing at Asuka Hill]. Woodcut print by Kitao Shigemasa, [between 1772 and 1776].

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS / LOC.GOV

The Very First Cup of Tea

In 2732 BCE, according to ancient Chinese legend, Emperor Shen Nung, known as Yan, “the divine farmer,” was seated under a copse of trees preparing a pot of boiling a water for his midday meal. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind rustled the leaves above him and several fell into the boiling water. A delightful fragrance pervaded the air and the emperor dipped his cup into the pot and drank the aromatic brew. Filled with peace and pleasure, he called it ch’a, which means “mankind in balance with nature.” News of the wondrous drink spread far and wide and soon, tea plantations covered the highlands of Manggeng-Mengben, Jingmai Dapingzhang-Nuogang, and Mangjing in the Yunnan Province, where more than 1.13 million ancient tea trees continue to flourish to this day.

Serving and drinking tea became a ritual. Only young virgins were permitted to handle the tea leaves, and to prevent their breath from contaminating the precious tea leaves, they were forbidden to eat garlic, onions, or strong spices. To refine the ritual, delicate porcelain was invented during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD) and tea cups and teapots were made and, by the Tang Dynasty (618-907) porcelain—or fine china, as it was now called—traveled along The Silk Road, a Eurasian trade network that carried goods from The Orient to India and Italy until the mid-15th century. Merchants, such as The House of Medici in Florence, became rich and powerful. Wars were fought over tea—famously, the Boston Tea Party, when American colonists protested “taxation without representation” by England and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor on December 16, 1773.

Britain fought two wars against China over the export of tea—the first Opium War (1839-1842) and the second (1856-1860.) English Afternoon Tea became so popular throughout Queen Victoria’s reign that such huge quantities of tea imported from China gave rise to the phrase, “Not for all the tea in China,” meaning the determination not to do something, whatever the inducement.

Sitting down to a formal tea is often equated with Christmas and other holidays, and indeed, themed Christmas Teas are served wonderfully at Harrod’s, Fortnum & Mason, and The Ritz in London.

But tea is not relegated to holidays. Indeed, it is a daily event, a way

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Afternoon Tea 3 by English genre painter, George Goodwin Kilburne, who was best known for his watercolor works featuring accurately drawn interiors with figures.

PAINTERS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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PHOTOGRAPH BY VITORIA HOUSTON / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: Afternoon Tea 4 by George Goodwin Kilburne.

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A close up view of a vintage Royal Albert teacup with biscuits on the side.

of life, in Great Britain and throughout the Realm and for those who simply want their tea. There are four sorts of Teas: Afternoon, High, Cream, and Royal.

Traditional Afternoon Tea is served anytime between three o’clock and five. Finger sandwiches, warm scones just out-of-theoven served with a dollop of clotted cream and strawberry jam; and desserts, or “sweets”—either a bite-size or individual tarts, cakes, eclairs, never cupcakes, are carefully arranged on a 3-tier tea stand. The bottom tier is always sandwiches; the middle tier, scones; and the top tier, topped high with delectable desserts.

High Tea is generally served around six o’clock, never earlier and seldom later. This is a light supper, actually, with cold meat pies, sausage rolls, a plate of cheese, hardboiled eggs, and the like. High Tea is the exception as you can drink tea from a mug with no fear of social ostracization. You’ve read Victorian books where Nanny announces, “It’s time for the children’s tea.” By this she means High Tea. If someone refers to Afternoon Tea as High Tea, they have it all wrong.

Cream Tea is an abbreviated Afternoon Tea, limited to scones served with clotted cream and strawberries and oftentimes crumpets, a British specialty that’s rather like a firmer, butterier English muffin. A Cream Tea is a pick-me-up that can be enjoyed throughout the day, and you can brighten it even more if you indulge in a Royal Tea, which is Cream Tea served with champagne.

How to Lay the Tea Table

Lay a fine tablecloth on a table that seats four. At each place, lay a dessert fork (never a dinner fork!), a luncheon knife, a small plate (between the size of a luncheon plate and a saucer), a cup and saucer, and an individual silver tea strainer. The strainer prevents loose tea leaves from getting into the cup as the tea is poured. Tea bags are never permitted, under any circumstances. Ever.

Tea and the Proper Way to Make It

A porcelain or silver tea service is no matter but what does matter is that you never, ever, serve coffee. It’s simply not done. There’s a teapot; a separate pot for hot water, a cream pitcher, sugar bowl with tongs, and, always, a plate of sliced lemons. The hot water pot serves two purposes. On one hand, a guest who prefers weak tea can ask to have hers filled halfway or whatever with tea, then topped with hot water. Secondly, once most of the tea is poured out of the teapot, replenish the pot with hot water, as the tea leaves will have abundant flavor even after the first pouring. A silver hot water urn, as pictured, is most ideal as it has a burner that, when lit, keeps the water hot.

Types of Tea

There are several types of tea. All true teas have caffeine and as a rule, the lighter color the tea, the less caffeine. Up to the mid-17th century, all Chinese tea was Green tea. As foreign trade increased, Chinese growers discovered that they could preserve the tea leaves with a special fermentation process. The resulting Black tea kept its flavor and aroma longer than the more delicate Green teas, which traveled better when exported to other countries.

Pu’erh tea, also known as fermented tea, undergoes the highest degree of fermentation, which is a process after the leaves are harvested that involves exposure to the air, heating, drying, and sometimes crushing the leaves. Sheng tea, Ripe Pu’erh, and Aged Raw are types of this variety.

Black, which is also fully fermented and oxidized but not to the degree of Pu’erh. English Breakfast tea, Irish Breakfast tea, and Earl Grey are some and each varies. For example, Bergamot oil is added to Earl Grey and therefore, you should never add lemon.

Oolong, which is partially fermented, is one of the more complex teas and can vary widely as the leaves are processed in a variety of ways and thus yield different flavors and aromas. Popular Oolong teas

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Five o’Clock Tea by Julius LeBlanc Stewart. Stewart was an American artist who spent his career in Paris. A contemporary of fellow expatriate painter John Singer Sargent, Stewart was nicknamed “the Parisian from Philadelphia.”

ALBUM / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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include Dan Cong, Ti Kuan Yin, and Da Hong Pao. Green tea is neither oxidized or fermented. Popular Green teas include Sencha, Gyokuro, Longjing, Gunpowder, Genmaicha, Hojicha, Bancha, and Matcha tea. Never add anything to Green tea—not sugar or other sweetener, and never milk, which can counteract the natural health benefits of Green tea.

Yellow tea is so rare that most tea drinkers have never heard of, let alone tasted this yellow brew. Light, naturally sweet, and flavorful, tea leaves undergo a process called yellowing, which gives it its color. Yellow teas include Huang Ya Cha, Huang Da Cha, and Huang Xiao Cha. White tea is a specialty tea made only from young leaves harvested at the beginning of the season. Once the leaves are plucked, they are immediately dried and withered to prevent oxidation. This results in a light color and flavor. Popular White teas are Silver Needle, White Peony (Bai Mudan), Gong Mei, and Shou Mei. Because this requires special processing, white tea is more expensive than other teas.

Flavored teas such as Peppermint tea, Ginger tea, and Chamomile are teas made from the dried flowers of plants and are not considered true teas.

How to Pour Tea

Only one person ever pours the tea and that is usually the host. If, however, the host asks a guest to pour, it is considered a great honor.

Never, under any circumstance, should you pour your own cup of tea.

In earlier times, milk was first poured then the tea because cold milk prevented the cup from cracking. With improvements made across the years in porcelain production, today it is more common to pour the tea and then add milk—never, ever cream. Never add cream and lemon.

The cream will curdle. If you want sugar and lemon, add the sugar first, then the lemon. If you add the lemon first, the sugar will not dissolve.

Here’s how to pour. Put the tea strainer over the cup. Slowly pour the tea into the strainer. Remove the strainer and set it aside, then add white or brown sugar cubes—preferably cubes, not granulated sugar—that you lift out of the sugar jar with tongs and drop the cubes, one at a time, just inside the rim of the cup, never in the middle so as to prevent splashing. Gently stir the tea with your teaspoon, either from 6 to 12 o’clock or 12 to 6 o’clock, it’s all the same, back-and-forth in the middle of the cup and never around the rim. When finished, rest the spoon on the saucer and then add milk.

Never lift up the saucer when you are having tea at the table.

Only if you are at Ascot or at a polo match or other event where you are standing can you hold the saucer. To properly hold a teacup, hold it by the handle with the index finger and thumb, then rest the third finger along the outside of the cup to support it. Tilt the cup, not your head. Look inside the cup, never over the cup.

The Essential Three-tier Tea Server and What’s on It

Tea sandwiches, scones, and sweets are served on a three-tiered stand. Each tier holds a porcelain plate (some servers have plates drilled with holes and affixed to the stand.) The bottom plate is always for sandwiches; the middle, scones and the top plate is heaped with sweets and desserts. Start at the bottom and work up.

The height of impropriety would be to take a morsel from each tier and pile it on your plate all at once. Even more would be to move on to the scones plate before everyone has finished eating from the sandwich plate. Wait until everyone has finished their sandwiches before you move up to the scone tier.

Finger sandwiches are meant to be eaten with the fingers.

They are served first because they are meant to clear the palette.

They can be cut in rectangles, squares, or rounds. Cucumber sandwiches, watercress sandwiches, smoked salmon with cream cheese, potted meat or fish sandwiches—these are just among the many served at tea. Just remember, always trim off the crust.

Scones are a traditional Scottish quick bread. To properly eat

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a scone, crack it in two pieces lengthwise, break a piece off with your fingers, and apply cream and jam. There has long been a debate between Devonshire Cream Tea versus Cornish Cream Tea as to the order in which clotted cream and strawberry jam should be added to a split, warm scone. Those who prefer Devon insist the cream comes first followed by the jam and those who

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PHOTOGRAPH BY CHAMPIOFOTO / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

favor Cornwall, apply jam first, then top it with clotted cream.

Just as with the sandwiches, wait until everyone at the table has finished their scones before moving up to the sweets plate.

Lastly, desserts. Always use your fingers to put desserts on your plate. If a piece of cake or a fruit tartlet, use a knife and fork to cut, one bite at a time. Cookies, brownies, eclairs, Napoleons, there’s no end of sweet delicacies to choose from. However, never serve an

entire cake or pie at the table. Simply not done.

A special note regarding napkins. Napkins at the tea table measure 12-inch square. If you need to leave the table to powder your nose, excuse yourself and when you rise from the table, fold the napkin in half and leave it on your chair seat. After you have finished tea and are ready to leave, fold the napkin in half lengthwise, then widthwise, and place it on the table to the left of your plate. ■

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PHOTOGRAPH BY BARTU OZBATUR / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

PHOTOGRAPH BY BELOZOROVA ELENA / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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holiday traditions

THRU the HOLIDAY LOOKING GLASS

BY WINIFRED TOWNSEND

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It’s

Christmas in the city. Brightly colored lights and wreaths, stars and bells made of shimmering tinsel are strung across the streets and along the street lights. Last-minute shoppers scurry along snow-covered avenues. Carolers singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing rival the laughter and joyful cries of children bundled head-to-toe in woolen coats and caps, clutching their parents’ hands with theirs in mittens. They have poured downtown like crusaders to the Holy Land to see the marvelous Christmas dioramas and toys displayed in the department stores’ enormous plate-glass windows. Realistic toy swans with arched necks swim in mirror-ponds. Life-size angels all in white surround a Nativity scene. Lionel trains whistle and wind down papier-mâché mountains on miniature tracks. A full-size mechanical Santa belly-laughs as elves load gaily wrapped presents into a sleigh pulled by eight impatient reindeer poised to take flight.

“Please, Mommy, lift me up!” a little girl begs her mother so she can see over the crowd, and in the moment her mother takes her hand away, the baby carriage carrying her sleeping infant rolls towards the busy intersection.

This is the opening scene of the 1947 Christmas classic The Bishop’s Wife, starring David Niven as the bishop, Loretta Young as the bishop’s wife, and Cary Grant as Dudley the Angel—who stops the baby carriage, averts tragedy, and soothes the hysterical young mother who cries, “How do I ever thank you,” and Dudley replies, “Don’t try. Just don’t let it happen again.”

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tore windows decorated for Christmas appear in a plethora of holiday movies, such as the A Christmas Story (1983), Elf (2003), starring Will Farrell and James Caan; Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (2007), starring Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman; and of course, Miracle on 34th Street (1947), starring Maureen O’Hara, Edmund Gwenn, a very young Natalie Wood, and “the world’s largest department store,” R. H. Macy & Company, in New York.

There crowds gathered in 1884 to see, for the first time, the store windows gaily decorated for the holiday season. Indeed, department store windows set the stage for my own Christmases growing up in New York and yet, in my mind’s eye, I can still

Crowds first gathered to see department store windows decorated for Christmas at Macy’s in 1884, and the modern phenomenon of elaborate holiday displays began in 1909 at Selfridges’ in London.

Top: Retailers’ elaborate Christmas displays have become a tradition, capturing the imagination of the young and the young at heart.

PHOTOGRAPH BY INTERFOTO / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Left: Rolls Royce parked on Bond Street, London at Christmas, as a reindeer takes flight in a Louis Vuitton storefront.

BAILEY-COOPER PHOTOGRAPHY / STOCKIMO / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Opposite: Susanne Bisovsky’s designs on a revolving mannequin in the store windows of Swarovski, New York City.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEXANDROS LAVDAS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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This elaborate display at TSUM in Moscow, Russia’s largest department store, depicts the Russian fairy tale “Kroshechka-Khavroshechka.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY SERGEY BEZGODOV / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Christmas windows at Saks Fifth Avenue, New York attract window shoppers from all over the world. PHOTOGRAPH BY RITU MANOJ JETHANI / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Opposite: Department stores spend months planning and building their annual holiday window displays, such as this one at Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in New York. PHOTOGRAPH BY SERGEY BEZGODOV / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

see the breathtakingly, beautifully decorated Christmas windows of legendary department stores. Back then, going to the city to see the Christmas windows was an occasion. We’d dress up in our Sunday best, my sister and I, and Mom would take us up and down Fifth Avenue to Lord & Taylor and a few blocks up, B. Altman’s; Bonwit Teller, Abraham & Strauss, Best & Co., and, of course, magical F.A.O. Schwarz. Alas, these amazing stores are no longer teasing us, leaving Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, and Tiffany & Co. among the few survivors of the golden age of retail shopping.

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here is no early record of just when stores seriously began decorating for Christmas. Not until Prince Albert introduced the Christmas tree to England from his native Germany, and a drawing of his and Queen Victoria’s burgeoning family appeared on the front page of the London Illustrated News, did Christmas as a holiday metamorphize into the all-consuming holiday we celebrate today. In those Dickensian days, the great specialty food store, Fortnum & Mason, displayed a cornucopia of seasonal foods in their windows, such as turtle soup (one turtle, boiled live, made a single serving), Christmas puddings, cakes, jellies, and jams, and along the streets of Covent Garden, the food stalls sold fattened, pen-raised, fresh-killed Christmas geese and other delicacies. But

for all intent and purposes, the tradition of turning department store windows into inspired, seasonal wonderlands began in 1909 at Selfridges, the renowned London retail store on Oxford Street. What began with a display of dolls from all around the world and scenes from American author Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, has evolved into an extravaganza. Today, Selfridges uses over 85,000 Christmas ornaments, 12,000 paper decorations, 200 Christmas trees and 2.1 miles of garlands, and 9 miles of LED lights to decorate its world-famous Christmas windows. The tradition that began 113 years ago employs more than 500 staff to create and install the displays and the week before the windows are revealed, 100 employees work nonstop, day and night, to ensure every light, bauble, toy, tree decoration and strand of tinsel is perfectly placed.

Harry Gordon Selfridge was an enormously respected, terrifically wealthy retail magnate and innovative marketing genius who transformed the retail business. However, even he did not anticipate the phenomenal sales that resulted from the hordes of shoppers who were attracted like moths to a light by Selfridges’ Christmas windows. An American who began his career in the retail business at Marshall Fields’ department store in Chicago, he started out managing a department of window dressers and designed the store’s window displays (years later, he bought Marshall Fields). It was 1906 when Selfridge traveled to London on holiday with his wife, Rose.

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Christmas windows at Lord & Taylor in New York City have been a celebrated holiday staple since the 1940s.

PATTI MCCONVILLE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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Entranced, they decided to move permanently to England and the rest, as they say, is history. (It was Harry Selfridge, by the way, who introduced the phrase, “Only X shopping days to Christmas.”)

Immediately, Harrod’s, Liberty of London, and Fortum & Mason followed suit and likewise in America, at Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor, and Bergdorf Goodman. Every store unveiled their windows the Friday after Thanksgiving (before it was referred to as Black Friday) and that’s also when Christmas merchandise was put out on the floor. The Christmas windows were such a draw that sales tripled, quadrupled, and the Christmas sales soon represented the lion’s share of department stores’ annual revenue.

So popular were Lord & Taylor’s incredible Christmas windows that velvet rope and post crowd-control stanchions were set up to keep crowds of thousands in line. At Macy’s,10,000 an hour came just to see the Christmas windows. Each year, the displays became more elaborate—and more top-secret. Employees privy to the themes were forbidden to speak about it for fear of losing their jobs. So guarded was Lord & Taylor that in 1938, the company installed a system of hydraulics that allowed window dressers to create their displays in the sub-basement, away from prying eyes and unauthorized personnel.

Only at the final moment were the hydraulics engaged to raise platforms and unveil the windows to throngs of window-shoppers and live, on television, besides. That same year, Lord & Taylor became the first department store to feature animated displays. Bells swung back-and-forth, mannequins in holiday garb were set on rotating platforms, and as in The Bishop’s Wife, Santa Claus laughed as his belly jiggled like a bowlful of jelly. What’s more, to create a wintery effect, fans blew bleached cornflakes to look like falling snow and a recording of howling winds replicated the sound of a blizzard.

Christmas windows were no longer a way to show off merchandise— they were meant to enchant.

Today, department stores begin planning their Christmas windows in April, displays are built between June and September, and everything is put together before Halloween. And each year, every store tries to outdo themselves. Last year, Harvey Nichols used three-and-a-half miles of Christmas lights to set their windows ablaze. Bloomingdale’s displayed 7,600,000 Swarovski crystals in their Christmas windows. But at the end of the day, nothing could be brighter, or more magical, than seeing the magic of a Christmas window reflected in the bright and innocent eyes of a child. ■

Top: No longer limited to showing off merchandise, department stores use holiday storefront displays to enchant shoppers and passersby, such as this window display at the Dior boutiques.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SERGEY BEZGODOV / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: A holiday window display at Bergdorf Goodman in New York.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY VICTORIA LIPOV / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Holiday sweets and pies are displayed in a pastry shop window in Rimini, Italy.

NICOLETTA ZANELLA / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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travel&wellness

a Tale of PHOTOGRAPH BY HALFPOINT / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

timber & Ice

BY MARCY DUBROFF

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The centerpiece of the Arctic Bath is a circular spa building adorned with a lattice of locally felled pine and spruce, inspired by the days nearby residents would float timber downstream. The spa features two hot saunas, one steam sauna, two outdoor Jacuzzis, and an open-air cold pool for an Arctic plunge experience.

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY ARCTIC BATH

rank Lloyd Wright once wrote “We no longer have an outside and an inside as two separate things. Now the outside may come inside and the inside may and does go outside. They are of each other. Form and function thus become one in design and execution if the nature of materials and method and purpose are all in unison.”

While Wright was referring to his famous Arts and Crafts designs, with their emphasis on nature, craftsmanship, and simplicity, he could just as easily have been referring to a spectacular new floating hotel, the Arctic Bath, located on Sweden’s idyllic Lule River, just south of the Arctic circle in the far northern part of the country’s Lapland region. Almost ten years in the making, the recently opened Arctic Bath blends the great outdoors with indoor posh amenities, allowing visitors to either sleep under the brilliant lights of the Aurora Borealis or the midnight sun, depending on the time of year they visit.

Arctic Bath was designed by the architectural team of Bertil Harström, Johan Kauppi, and Ann Kathrin Lundqvist (the team behind the groundbreaking Treehotel in nearby Harads), is a luxurious 12-room hotel featuring six elevated land cabins and six other buoyant rooms that float on the river when the Lule thaws in the spring, and are icebound in the winter months. At the heart of Arctic Bath is a circular spa building that is woven from local, naturally felled pine and spruce trees. According to the Arctic Bath website, the spa most closely resembles a logjam, and its design was inspired by the days when the Lule was used by locals to transport lumber by floating logs downriver. The structure makes use of sustainable natural materials, such as wood, stone and leather, and allows visitors to immerse themselves in the elements, while ensuring that Arctic Bath leaves a minimal to zero-impact on the environment.

The land cabins feature spiral staircases leading to lofts, and are graced by glass walls that afford guests unfettered views of the stark and lovely river landscape. Decks offer guests a place to relax, meditate, or have their morning coffee, and pellet stoves warm each of the cabins in the winter. These land cabins are designed for larger groups.

Each of the buoyant cabins, designed for one or two people, is connected to the shore by floating walkways, and offer a serene spot for meditation, sunbathing, or stargazing on outdoor decks. Lundqvist, the architect behind the land accommodations, said that “The Arctic Bath is a first—it’s a special experience. So much thought, engineering and ingenuity have come together to provide visitors with an experience they can’t find anywhere else.”

The focal point of Arctic Bath is its circular spa, where visitors have access to two hot saunas, one steam sauna, two outdoor Jacuzzis, and the spa’s namesake open-air cold pool (maintained at 39 degrees F) for those who want

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Situated under the Northern Lights in the winter and the midnight sun in the summer, Arctic Bath is a luxurious 12-room hotel with six land cabins and six that float on the Lule River when it thaws.

Buildings are constructed from sustainable materials and make the perfect rustic hideaway.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY ARCTIC BATH

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as

part of their stay, all guests receive an à la carte breakfast, full spa access, and a spa set that includes a bathrobe, a swimsuit, and a selection of spa products from c/o Gerd, a company noted for its use of locally sourced organic skincare products. This set is theirs to take home at the end of their stay.

The food at Arctic Bath is designed to complement the spa experience and is enjoyed in an intimate space for diners to enjoy the spa’s chefs’ creations. After a day of relaxation, guests can enjoy five-course menus inspired by the Arctic Bath’s natural surroundings and prepared with the spa’s wellness focus in mind. Arctic Bath is used to catering to dietary needs and can accommodate a wide variety of preferences, including vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free, among others, with advance notice.

All of the spa’s food is homemade, local and sustainable, and the dishes are created with local ingredients and inspired by Arctic Bath’s wellness focus while using traditional northern cuisine with a modern twist. The Sápmi-style menu relies on nature’s bounty—in this part of the world, that includes reindeer, wild fish, fresh smoked or salted meat, seasonal berries, regional honey and dairy, as well as locally grown vegetables. There is also locally sourced beer. Guests can take a midday breather with a traditional Swedish fika coffee break featuring a regional twist: a cheese cube melting at the bottom of a hot cup of coffee.

Swedish fika is not just a time to enjoy a burst of caffeine, it is a moment to slow down and appreciate the moment. In Sweden, fika serves as both a verb and a noun, and, according to kitchn.com, fika is the moment that you take a break . . . and find a

Nestled in the beautiful wilderness of the Swedish Laplands, the Arctic Bath’s accommodations are sleek and modern, yet do not impose on the surrounding flora and fauna just south of the Arctic Circle.

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY ARCTIC BATH OPPOSITE: FEDERICO DI DIO PHOTOGRAPHY / UNSPLASH.COM

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to indulge in the Arctic tradition of a cold-water plunge. Guests are also encouraged to book spa treatments such as massage with mineral salts and eucalyptus, as well as other holistic therapies including facials, with on-site therapists who focus on the spa’s four cornerstones of wellness—proper nutrition, regular exercise, peace of mind, and care of the face and body. This combination of hotcold therapy, is the basis for many Nordic spa experiences, and is designed to clear the mind and revive the soul, according to Forbes, but Arctic Bath takes it to a new level. According to coolhunting.com, “the heart-racing kick of the ice bath provides a natural energy and mood boost, and is reputed to help with sleep and the immune system.” Angelina Villa-Clarke described her time at the spa as “spine-tingling exhilarating” as she combined the heat of the wood-fueled sauna with the bracing cold of a plunge into the icy pool.

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The Arctic Bath spa experience is designed with four cornerstones of wellness in mind to bring peace to your mind and body.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY ARCTIC BATH

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F All dishes at Arctic Bath are homemade from local, sustainable products— including fish caught by the guests themselves. The Sapmi-inspired menu takes advantage of local offerings, such as reindeer, wild fish, seasonal berries and regional honey.

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY ARCTIC BATH

or those who are a bit more daring and who want to venture beyond the confines of the spa experience, Arctic Bath offers a variety of activities that allow guests to appreciate their unique surroundings. These include fishing expeditions on the shores of the Lule as well as ice-fishing excursions; snowshoe hikes among the frosty pine woods surrounding the Arctic Bath; a five-hour tour to learn about the region’s Sápmi culture, history, and traditions; nature walks to gather berries and herbs; and kayaking, among others. Perhaps one of the most unique experiences that visitors can have is a moose safari with the Arctic Spa’s resident “moose whisperer” Mikael “Micke” Suorra. During this 2.5-hour expedition, guests have the opportunity to snap photos of “the king of the forest” and other regional wildlife, all while learning about the local wildlife from Suorra, a trained wildlife, fish, and nature conservationist who has perfected the technique of “moose calling” by imitating the regal animals’ sounds. Suorra also leads ice-fishing expeditions for Arctic Bath and has been known to collaborate with the Arctic Bath chefs, often providing them with some of his and guests’ fresh-caught fish. “When the ice-fishing guests catch Arctic Char with me, the restaurant takes it to another level by making magic in the kitchen and serving the guests their own fish for dinner,” he said in in a recent interview.

Arctic Bath is truly an architectural feat and experience that seamlessly combines the Swedish aesthetic of elegant simplicity and functionality with the spa’s natural surroundings. It is proof that the dialogue between nature and man-made structures that Frank Lloyd Wright wrote of is possible and can be brilliantly executed. Visitors are constantly reminded of the important role that the Lule River and its surrounding natural resources have played in the region. That, combined with Arctic Bath’s focus on well-being and mindfulness, results in a holistic and meaningful spa experience. Lundqvist, who is also one of the owners of Arctic Bath, says that “we want to promote wellness into everything we do . . . this is a place to be silent, to be at one with yourself, and be at peace with the world.” ■ Editor’s note: For more information, visit arcticbath.se.

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baked good to pair with your beverage. “You can do it alone; you can do it with friends. You can do it at home, in a park or at work. But the essential thing is that you do it, that you make time to take a break: that’s what fika is all about.” The owners of Arctic Bath believe fika is an integral part of the day, and very easy to do in this serene northern environment.

Sometimes referred to as Northern Europe’s last remaining wilderness, the natural landscape surrounding Arctic Bath offers a new experience everyday.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY ARCTIC BATH

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1. 2.

3.

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1. BACCARAT CRYSTAL, Etrange Zenith Sur La Lagune 15 Light Chandelier, Limited Edition - ($108,000) crystalclassics.com. 2.

BACCARAT CRYSTAL, Le Roi Soleil 40 Light Chandelier - ($148,000) crystalclassics.com. 3. LALIQUE Champs Elysees 6 Tiers Crystal Chandelier Clear, Chrome - ($96,600). crystalclassics.com. 4. LUXXU LUX3858 Burj Chandelier - ($15,615.67) venicasa.com. 5. GIVENCHY Royal Hanover German Silver Eight-Light Chandelier (More than $9 million) sothebys.com.

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shopping

the light of luxury

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5 4.

BY SINDIE FITZGERALD-RANKIN

The

earliest known man-made glass dates to somewhere around 3500 B.C., to Mesopotamia, and mankind has been enamored with its radiance, clarity or color, and sheer, splendid transparency ever since. Referred to as “translucent liquid” by Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.), handblown glass is as beautiful as it is useful, whether a wine glass, bowl, objet d’art, or windowpane. Not all glass is crystal—but all crystal is glass. And when light refracts off the crystal prism of a chandelier, it radiates a rainbow of color that emerges from the amalgamation of lead, zinc, silica, barium, titanium that makes it shimmer, glitter . . . and ethereally magical. ■

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Diana, Princess of Wales, is seen here in Tywyn, a town in Wales in November 1982—a little more than a year after her marriage to Prince Charles.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAYNE FINCHER/PRINCESS DIANA ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

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Once upon a time, not that long ago, there really was a beautiful princess . . . and her name was

by Laurie Bogart Wiles

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very story has a beginning and ours opens with Sir John de Spencer, Lord of Snitterfield and Wormleighton, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, and High Sheriff of Northampton. Sir John was an English knight and feudal lord born sometime between 1455 and 1474, was married to Isabel, who bore him seven children, Jane, Leonard, Elizabeth, William, Anthony, Dorothy, and Marilyn, and died on April 14, 1522, age estimated between 62 and 72. Sir John was a hardworking sheep farmer who was respected far and wide for the effective management of his Midlands estates in Warwickshire. It was through his own very clever and admirable devices that he accumulated even greater wealth than that which he inherited from his father, also a knight, which he applied to greatly expanding his holdings into Northamptonshire. By 1486, he owned the manors of Fenny Compton, Stoneton, Nobottle, Great Brington, Little Brington, Compton Harlestone, Glassthorpe, Flore, Wicken, Wyke Hamon, Upper Boddington, Lower Boddington, and Hinton, among others, making him the richest nobleman in all of England.

In addition, Sir John leased a highly desirable estate consisting of 13,000 acres. Recorded in the Doomsday Book of 1086 as “Olletorp,” he purchased the property in 1508 and called it “Oldthorpe.” Over time, the name evolved to “Althorp” and has remained in the possession of the Spencer family ever since. The Grade I listed stately home that stands today was built in 1688, replacing the original edifice. So grand was the architecture, so sumptuous the formal gardens, so magnificently appointed were the interiors, which showcased one of Europe’s largest private art collections and a library with over 100,000 volumes, that Althorp, only 70 miles from London, became a social mecca for kings, queens, and aristocrats of every ilk and from many countries across the centuries and to the present.

In the middle of the estate is the beautiful, formal Pleasure Garden, which was part of the improvement of the great park by renowned landscape architect Lancelot Brown, completed by Henry Holland and Samuel Lapidge, and redesigned in 1870 by English architect and landscape designer William Milford Teulon, who dredged an ornamental lake. It is called The Oval and at the center is a small island. Today, there a princess sleeps. However, her birth evoked such sorrow that a week went by before her parents could set aside their grief to give her a name. And yet, by the time of her premature death, she was known throughout the world to every man, woman, and child.

Her name was DIANA.

Opposite: Lady Diana Spencer grew up in Althorp, the Spencer family home for 500 years, where she was homeschooled before being sent to boarding school, as was the practice for children of her class.

SMITH ARCHIVE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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Diana and Queen Elizabeth II comfort a young bridesmaid on July 29, 1981, before Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles. Bridesmaids pictured from left to right: Miss India Hicks, Miss Sarah-Jane Gaselee and Miss Clementine Hambro.

PHOTO BY LICHFIELD ARCHIVE VIA GETTY IMAGES

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TRINITY MIRROR / MIRRORPIX / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

iana, Princess of Wales, was heralded as “the People’s Princess” only after her death, owing to a publicity stunt dreamed up by the office of Prime Minister Tony Blair. It was a ploy by antiroyal members of his staff to incite the press—a press that was responsible for Diana’s death—to condemn Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family for their delayed response to the tragic news of Prince Charles’s ex-wife—news that stunned the world. “The People’s Princess” was immediately embraced by a mourning public and incited crowds who flocked to London in shared grief.

“I got people from my office to work very closely with the royal court regarding how we managed the affair over the next week,” he later claimed.

But the maneuver was thwarted the moment the Queen and Prince Philip returned from Balmoral, their home in Scotland where traditionally they spent their Augusts and Septembers, when they appeared outside the flower-strewn gates of their London home, Buckingham Palace, to lay their personal bouquet and speak with fellow-mourners.

She dreamt of becoming a princess since childhood. That part of her dream did come true but alas, there was no Happily Ever After. She was, at the time of her marriage, fresh, innocent, aristocratic, pure as the driven snow—but she was not scooped up from rags to riches. Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 1, 1961, at Park House on the royal estate of Sandringham, to one of the most powerful landed families in Great Britain.

You must understand her parentage and heritage to visualize the backdrop against which her life story played out.

Diana was, at once, the relaxed and outgoing girl when in the closed but familiar circle of landed gentry with whom she socialized, attended polo matches, and sailed at Cowes, and simultaneously the Viscount’s daughter who was shy and standoffish when forced into the company of commoners. She was homeschooled before being sent to a private boarding school, as was the way of the children of her class. Whether Diana knew the discipline of history or even much at all about her own family’s history is subject to speculation, but she loved to dance, she loved to laugh, and she loved to play. The Queen’s younger sons Andrew and Edward were among her childhood playmates but their older brother, Charles, was 12 years and another generation her senior. He was worlds apart, and among the many attractive young women he was dating was Diana’s older sister, Sarah. Only after Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, came up with the notion that 19-year-old Diana would make a suitable consort for her 32-year-old

grandson Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, was the royal plan set in motion—and for Diana, meeting her prince could not have been more opportune.

Prince Charles had just received the gut-wrenching news of the assassination of his beloved great-uncle and father figure, Uncle Louis, by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was a prominent military officer and relative of the Royal Family, the first Viceroy of British India and subsequently, the first Governor-General of the Dominion of India, the maternal uncle of, and substitute father to, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and second cousin of Queen Elizabeth’s father, King George VI. “Lord Louie” was brutally murdered while on holiday at his summer home, Classiebawn Castle, in County Sligo, Ireland. He was lobster-potting on his 29-ft. wooden boat, Shadow V, when a 50-lb. radio-controlled bomb, which had been attached under the unguarded boat the night before by IRA radical Thomas McMahon, was detonated, instantly killing Lord Mountbatten, 79, along with his twin grandson Nicholas, 14, and a 15-yearold crew member named Paul Maxwell. Doreen, Dowager Lady Brabourne, 83, mother-in-law of Mountbatten’s elder daughter, Patricia, died the next day. Patricia, along with her other twin son, Timothy, 14, and husband, Lord Brabourne, survived, though all were badly injured.

It was in the midst of this tragedy that Diana appeared in his life not as his brothers’ childhood playmate but as his prospective bride. She was unworldly outside her protected world, inexperienced apart from the familiarity of living an unimaginably privileged life. And though she appeared shy and naïve, she had skills: few women before or since knew how to romance a camera like Diana. Charles was not love-struck. After all, he was in love with another woman. But he was captured by Diana’s natural compassion and empathy at a time when he needed it

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Princess Diana wears a shimmering white gown and, for the first time, a tiara of diamonds decorated with drop pearls, on Nov. 4, 1981, as she attends the State Opening of Parliament.

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Princess Diana holds her son Prince William after his christening ceremony at Buckingham Palace. Among the many notable attendees are Prince Charles, her husband; Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh; Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (left of Diana); and Queen Elizabeth II (right of Diana).

SMITH ARCHIVE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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most, and he understood his duty to marry and provide an heir.

And so it was that Charles, Prince of Wales, proposed to Lady Diana Spencer in the nursery at Windsor Castle, and they were discreetly engaged for six months before publicly announcing their engagement on February 6, 1981. They were married on July 29, 1981, at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London—not at the traditional site of royal weddings and funerals, Westminster Abbey, but St. Paul’s allowed an unobliterated view so the cameras could capture the entire ceremony for a wildly ecstatic, Diana-crazed worldwide TV audience. It was proclaimed “the wedding of the century.”

As I already mentioned, to understand Diana you must know something about the family from whence she came. The Spencer Family is one of England’s oldest and most prominent, despite scandals, outrageous rendezvous, financial ruin, barren women, glorious renegades, and rule-breakers, down through their generations.

The birth of the fourth of five children to Viscount and Viscountess was met with sadness and disappointment. Frances and Johnny Spencer had two daughters before the birth of their much-desired, greatly awaited son and heir—so badly deformed that he only lived 10 hours.

The demand in a family governed by primogeniture was so great that Frances was pregnant again within a year. The expectation was so high that when Frances delivered yet another girl, it was a week before her greatly disappointed parents even bothered to give her a name. It was only after the arrival of their fifth child and second

son, Charles Edward Maurice Spencer, on May 20, 1964, who would succeed his father as 9th Earl Spencer, that there was joy at Althorp.

But the dye had already been cast. Frances and Johnny Spencer were mismatched and unhappy since their marriage in 1954. She had begun an affair with Peter Shand Kydd, a businessman and Bohemian, and in the summer of 1967, when Diana was 12, she left her husband and children. Frances wanted the children but her own mother, Lady Fermoy, stood against her in divorce court, siding with her son-in-law, and all four children were awarded to their father.

Diana was not conventionally pretty like her sisters and she grew up plagued with insecurities, filled with demons, love-craved, and shuttled between her parents, suffered rejection, and hated Althorp, the Spencer family home for 500 years, to which her father moved his family from their cherished home to when he became 8th Earl Spencer upon the death of his distant and unaffectionate father and the grandfather Diana and her siblings barely knew, the 7th Earl Spencer, in June 1975.

Diana was now Lady Diana Spencer. But she was not the first Lady Diana Spencer.

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harles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland (1675-1722) was the second son of Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, and his wife Anne, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Bristol. Upon the death of his elder brother, Robert, Charles became heir to the peerage and entered the House of Commons as a member of Tiverton. That same year, he married Arabella Cavendish, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Newcastle.

Alas, Arabella died young, age 25, in 1698, barely three years after their wedding day, leaving him with their only child, a daughter.

Two years later, Charles wed Lady Anne Churchill, daughter of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough.

Hence, the dukedom of Marlborough came to the

Princess Diana walks alongside Prince William as he rides a pony at Highgrove.

PHOTO BY TIM GRAHAM PHOTO LIBRARY VIA GETTY IMAGES

Opposite: Princess Diana holds Prince William at home in Kensington Palace in London.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TIM GRAHAM PHOTO LIBRARY VIA GETTY IMAGES

9 0 Andre Durand’s famous ‘Votive Offering,’ which commemorates the visit of Princess Diana to the Broderip Ward at Middlesex Hospital. She is seen with Sunnye Sherman, one of the first American women diagnosed with AIDS. Diana was renowned for her charity work, particularly with those living with AIDS. ANDRÉ DURAND / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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Spencer’s, and with this grew an important alliance between two great families. It proved a brilliant marriage, catapulting Charles into the hierarchy of the English government as the son-in-law of the nation’s greatest war hero. But it also proved a deeply romantic and personal union, for in his new bride he met his soulmate and political partner. Charles’ and Anne’s position in society was further enriched when, two years later, upon his father’s death in 1702, Charles succeeded to the peerage as 3rd Earl of Sunderland and they took over the Althorp estate, entertained lavishly, established one of the finest private art collections and libraries in Europe, expanded and improved upon Althorp and made it the social center of aristocratic society.

But all was not bright on the horizon. Queen Anne, who favored moderate Tory politicians, took an active dislike to Charles. As one of five leaders of the political faction known as the Whig Junto, he directed the Whig Party, the predecessor of the Liberal Party, and as his power grew, so did Queen Anne’s loathing.

In the meantime, Lady Anne Churchill, now Countess of Sunderland, bore Charles six children in rapid succession, all the while being a considerable influence in her own right as Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne. However, Charles lost Queen Anne’s favor and she eventually dismissed him from the government (despite the protestations of his fatherin-law, the Duke of Marlborough) and Lady Anne left her position in court. In 1714, Queen Anne died.

Despite 17 pregnancies, she died without surviving issue and her second cousin succeeded her as King George I. Charles rose to the positions of First Lord of the Treasury and Lord President of the Council, effectively becoming Prime Minister of England.

However, tragedy soon struck Charles when, in 1716, his beloved wife Anne died, at the age of 33.

The following year, he married a wealthy Irish aristocrat named Judith Tichborne, who was 26 years Charles’s junior. In their four years of marriage, she bore him three children, all of whom died in infancy. Charles died in April 1722 at the age of 46, predeceasing six of his 10 children. His second son and heir, Robert, died seven years later at the age of 28 with no children. His younger brother, Charles, became the 5th Earl of Sunderland and, upon the death of his aunt, Henrietta, 2nd Duchess of Marlborough, became the 3rd Duke of Marlborough.

It was Charles’s youngest surviving child (and Robert’s youngest sister) who was the first Lady Diana Spencer. She was meant to marry a Prince of Wales—Frederick, eldest son and heir apparent of King George II. And, just like Princess Diana, she, too, would die young.

Princess Diana stands next to the Sphinx at Giza during an official visit to Cairo, Egypt, in May 1992. Diana is wearing a suit by Catherine Walker.

PHOTO BY JAYNE FINCHER/GETTY IMAGES

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he first Lady Diana Spencer (1710-1735), like her descendant and namesake, Lady Diana Spencer (1961-1997), grew up without a mother. The first Lady Diana was orphaned at the age of six and sent to Blenheim Palace, where she was raised by her maternal grandmother, the formidable Sarah, 1st Duchess of Marlborough. Diana was Sarah’s favorite grandchild and as the youngster grew into womanhood, became the duchess’s closest confidante.

So, too, the third Lady Diana lost her mother when she was 12—though not through death but rather divorce, when she was separated from her mother after her father won custody of his children.

Both the first and the third Lady Diana were engaged to a Prince of Wales. However, the Duchess of Marlborough’s scheme to arrange a secret marriage for the first Diana was thwarted, and instead, she married John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, and became Diana Russell, Duchess of Bedford. She was pregnant with her first child when she was thrown from her carriage, but the premature child—a much-wanted son—died within a day of his birth. This first Lady Diana became pregnant again only a few months later but that ended in a miscarriage. What she thought was a third pregnancy proved, instead, to be illness, and her four-year-long marriage ended when she died at age 25 from tuberculosis.

Her widower would remarry, and have three children by his second marriage; his youngest, Lady Caroline Russell, would grow up to become the wife of George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough, further unifying the Spencer and Churchill families.

Princess Diana’s funeral cortege arrives at Westminster Abbey in 1997.

PA IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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SHE WAS AN EXCEPTIONAL AND GIFTED HUMAN BEING. IN GOOD TIMES AND BAD, SHE NEVER LOST HER CAPACITY TO SMILE AND LAUGH, NOR TO INSPIRE OTHERS WITH HER WARMTH AND KINDNESS.” —QUEEN ELIZABETH II

THE QUEEN’S MESSAGE FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES

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ohn Spencer (1708-1746) was the youngest son of the 3rd Earl of Sunderland and his second wife, Lady Anne Churchill. Like virtually all male members of his family, he was a brilliant statesman. His position was further secured by birth, in the complex way that the British aristocracy seems to evolve with birth, marriage, breeding, and death. John was half-brother to Lady Frances Spencer, wife of the 4th Earl of Carlisle; brotherin-law of Lady Anne Spencer, Viscountess Bateman, and the 4th Duke of Bedford, who had married his younger sister, Lady Diana Spencer (the first Diana); and brother of Charles Spencer, 5th Earl of Sunderland who succeeded their aunt, Henrietta Godolphin, 2nd Duchess of Marlborough, as 3rd Duke of Marlborough. With his siblings, Diana and Charles, John, then seven-years-old, was raised by their grandmother, Sarah, 1st Duchess of Marlborough when their mother died.

In 1733, John Spencer inherited his family’s estates—including Althorp. By his wife, Georgiana Caroline Carteret, third daughter and co-heir of Earl Granville, they had two children: a son, John, and a daughter, Diana, born in 1735—the second Diana Spencer.

Alas, Diana died at only eight years of age.

This brings us back to the third Diana Spencer: Diana, Princess of Wales. This past August 17, 2022, marked the 25th anniversary of her death which, to this day, is clouded by drama and controversy—as was much of her life. “The People’s Princess” had an outward warmth and compassion that set her apart from members of the Royal Family, who were perceived at the time to be withdrawn and aloof. Diana herself was first considered by the public to be shy, but coy. In private, she was outgoing, mischievous, and loved to perform.

Raised in a life of privilege among privileged people, she rose to the highest possible ranks as Princess of Wales. Her interaction with the public was through many charities given to her by appointment of the Queen and in many of these, she showed great empathy, especially for those afflicted with AIDS, cancer, or mental illness, and in her advocacy through the International Red Cross for the removal of landmines, which had caused death and injury to people in war-torn areas.

Above and beyond all else, Diana made the world fall in love with her as the leading fashionista of her day, and besides the world, the camera loved her, too, and in time, she knew how to play to it. Sadly, that may have contributed to her disintegrating marriage. Whether dancing and twirling in a figure-hugging gown with John Travolta at the White House or changing her hairstyle, Diana was always front-page news. The fairy tale marriage collapsed with news of her suicidal unhappiness, bulimia, acts of self-mutilation, marital issues, multiple sexual indiscretions, bitter public comments against her husband, and secret interviews, all of which were “leaked” to the newspapers and culminated with her November 20, 1995 television interview. On July 15, 1996, a decree nisi was granted and five weeks later, the divorce of Princess Diana and Charles, Prince of Wales, was finalized on August 28, 1996. She received a one-time settlement of more than $40 million and an annual stipend of over $1 million in today’s value.

The day after her divorce, to allow for other royal patronage, she

announced her resignation from over 100 charities, including the Landmine Survivors Network, Help the Aged, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, the British Lung Foundation, Eureka!, the National Children’s Orchestra, the British Red Cross, the Guinness Trust, the Meningitis Trust, the Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund for Children, the Royal School for the Blind, the Welsh National Opera, Birthright, the British Deaf Association, and many more, retaining her patronage of only six charities, including The Leprosy Mission and the National AIDS Trust.

In June 1997, she sold part of her world-famous wardrobe to benefit these charities.

After her divorce, her life continued to be clouded by privacy issues. Now, rather than reports of her charitable deeds, her affairs with several men made front-page news. Even her mother, Frances Shand Kydd, publicly disapproved of her daughter’s behavior, and mother and daughter ceased speaking with one another. In a final attempt to completely distance herself from the Royal Family of which she was no longer a member, she rejected their significant offer for full-time security by the Metropolitan Police’s Royalty Protection Group. It proved a foolish move on her part, given the circumstances of her untimely and premature death—a year and a week after her divorce from Charles.

On August 31, 1997, Diana died in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma Tunnel in Paris while her drunk chauffeur, Henri Paul, attempted to flee pursuing paparazzi. Paul and Diana’s then-lover, Dodi Fayed, son of billionaire businessman Muhammed al Fayed, owner of famed Harrod’s of London, died instantly. Diana did not; she succumbed to her injuries just a few hours later. Her funeral was watched by a worldwide audience of over 32 million. She was given a full state funeral and for the first time in the history of the realm, the flag flying over Buckingham Palace was lowered to half-mast, having never been done for anyone before, or since—even now, as Great Britain mourns the death of the beloved Queen Elizabeth II. Diana’s legacy is one of compassion and youthful vigor. Images of her glorious wedding day—the “wedding of the century”—recall a fairytale celebration the likes of which the world had never seen before or is likely to see again. It is, therefore, best to forget the dark days of Diana and speak no more of the demons that haunted her. ■

A portrait of Princess Diana from April 1985.

TRINITY MIRROR / MIRRORPIX / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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Christmas Markets & Rural Splendor in Germany

by Daina Savage

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9 9 A celebratory spirit infuses the town of Aalen, BadenWürttemberg, Germany, during Advent.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JANDERS / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Opposite: An aerial view of the Christmas Market in Cologne, Germany, through which the Rhine River runs.

Cologne boasts nine markets during the season. PHOTOGRAPH BY FOKKE BAARSSEN / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Below: Signs for sausages and other grilled meats line a Christmas Market kiosk in Bonn, Germany.

PHOTOGRAPH BY EWY MEDIA / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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autumn chills to winter and the darkness of night extends into the day, a festive season is about to begin in Germany, marked with twinkling lights, familiar carols, the heady aromas of spices and evergreens, the sizzle of grilled sausages, the steam of hot beverages, and a celebratory community spirit imbuing the country’s cities, towns, and villages. It’s Advent, time when the country marks the countdown to Christmas with Christkindlesmarkts or Weihnachtsmarkts. The annual open-air market tradition, which may have begun as early as the 1200s as people looked to stock up on provisions for the winter, gradually evolved in the 1400s to become a beloved occasion to shop for gifts for friends and family, ornaments for the tree and home, and toys for children.

Today, during the four-week Advent season, almost every town in Germany boasts at least one Christmas market, with larger cities hosting dozens, ranging from a collection of simple stalls in the town center, to a veritable village of decorated wooden huts, to elaborate spectacles that are more tourist-draw than simply shopping for household holiday essentials.

Although the Christmas markets have been exported throughout the world as Germans migrated, it’s in their homeland that the markets are most beloved.

The markets are a gastronomical delight, with regional specialties as well as stalwart essentials.

While each region may vary with the types of stalls and decorations, visitors can count on the toasty ingredients of Glühwein, a hot mulled wine typically spiced with cinnamon and cloves, and Bratwurst, a large link sausage typically made of pork, to keep them warm when it’s frosty out.

When many Christmas markets were closed during the Covid pandemic, families often created their own home celebrations with these key ingredients for a festive mood, heating the Glühwein in crockpots and grilling the Bratwursts in their backyards, just so they could keep alive the tradition.

Naturally, Christmas trees are features of the markets, creating virtual forests of fir, spruce, and pine around the stalls or soaring up to 80 feet high in town squares. Also towering in many

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The vibrant Marienplatz square in Munich is surrounded by Medieval buildings like the Town Hall and the Glockenspiel.

The square hosts one of the best-known Christmas markets in the city, which is the capital of Bavaria, Germany.

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markets are the Christmas pyramids or Weihnachtspyramide, a several-story carousel-like structure decorated with nativity figures, angels, musicians, and even forest scenes that is a giant version of the familiar candle windmill decoration. Nativity scenes are also a feature at most markets, as are musical performances and activities for children like carnival rides, games, and ice skating.

Sampling all the treats like gingerbread, candied almonds, and sugary cinnamon stars, as well as taking in the spectacle of illuminated decorations and strolling musicians could be enough of a draw. But the chief attraction is the shopping to find seasonal provisions for the holiday table, handmade ornaments for the tree, and unique crafts, toys, and souvenirs for gift-giving. Most popular are traditional wooden folk art decorations of elaborately painted nutcrackers and tree decorations, Christmas-candle pyramids, Räuchermänner (smoking men incense burners), and arch-shaped Schwibbogen candleholders that serve as tabletop centerpieces.

These are all crafted in the Christmas ornament town of Seiffen in the Erzgebirge or the Ore Mountains, a veritable Santa’s workshop of toys. A former mining region, woodworking and toy-making became the area’s focus beginning in the 17th century. The year-round production here populates many of the stalls in Germany and around the world at Christmastime.

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lthough nearly every town and city has its own market, travelers may choose to visit Dresden’s historic Striezelmarkt which dates back to 1434, the oldest and perhaps the most authentic Christmas market in the country. With the backdrop of the Elbe river reflecting all the twinkling lights of the Altmarkt square in the center of Dresden, this market features the world’s tallest nutcracker. Timing a visit for the Saturday before the second Sunday of Advent, visitors can enjoy the Dresdner Stollenfest or the Dresden Christmas Cake Festival, when the world’s biggest stollen, filled with dried fruit and

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Above: The sun rises over the snow-covered Bastei, a famous rock formation that rises nearly 200 meters above the Elbe River in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains of Germany. PHOTOGRAPH BY FEXEL / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Opposite: New Year’s sculptures line the streets of Dresden, Germany. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEKS49 / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

PHOTOGRAPH BY THORSTEN FRISCH / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Snow covers the famous half-timbered houses in Alter Flecken, or old town center, in the town of Freudenberg, Germany.

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Below: Toys and other traditional decorations line the rooftops of shops in the Dresden Christmas market.

PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANZ12 / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: Christmas stollen, one of Dresden’s favorite holiday sweet breads, with oranges. Stollen typically contains nuts, raisins and candied fruits.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREI LAPKIN / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

marzipan is carried through the Old Town in its own carriage. Weighing up to four tons and measuring 13 feet, pieces are ceremoniously cut off and handed to parade-watchers along the way for a small donation. Once it arrives at the market, the rest is cut into thousands of pieces and sold to festival-goers. There are nearly a dozen other markets in the city, from the Augustusmarkt on the Hauptstrasse with its white pagodas, to the Frauenkirche market at the striking Frauenkirche church, or the Winterlichter or Winter Lights market famed for its illuminations.

In Nuremberg, on the Friday before Advent, the magical figure which is known as the Christkind “angel” (portrayed by a local girl) appears on the balcony of the Church of Our Lady and spreads her golden wings to open the Christkindlesmarkt with a stunning backdrop of the Alps and the Imperial castle. The market’s 180 wooden stalls decorated with red and white canvas feature unusual Zwetschgenmännle, or prune men decorations, the famed Nüremberger sausage which is eaten “Drei im Weggla,” or three in a bun, and the traditional soft, rich gingerbread lebkuchen.

Hamburg has several Christmas markets to choose from, but the biggest is the Town Hall market, attracting three million visitors each year. An unusual feature is seeing Santa’s sleigh flying over the brightly decorated stalls, as well as performers like clowns and circus artists serving beverages. On each of the Advent Saturdays, colorful parades march through the streets. Hamburg also boasts markets like the maritime Fleet Market surrounded by waterways and the “adult” Santa Pauli erotic market held in the red-light district.

In Augsburg, the main Christmas market is held in the town hall square, where the most unique attraction is the Engelesspiel pageant. Each weekend evening, 23 live angel figures dressed to imitate an altar by Hans Holbein the Elder appear on the balcony and in the windows of the city hall as a sort of Advent calendar. Another feature is the Augsburger Märchenstrasse, where dioramas of fairy tales are displayed in the windows of the shops that line the market.

The Bavarian town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber hosts a picturesque Christmas market on the cobblestones of its medieval town square surrounded by its historic half-timbered houses, as it has for more than 500 years. The town is so devoted to celebrating the holiday that it boasts a whole museum dedicated to Christmas. In addition to the traditional features found in all of Germany’s Christmas markets, the Reiterlesmarkt offers Rothenburg’s favorite Schneeballen or snowball dessert made of fried rolled dough covered in powdered sugar or melted chocolate.

The city of Cologne is a popular one for visitors, where one can take in more than nine major markets during the season. There’s a Fairytale Christmas Market, a Market of Angels, a Gay and Lesbian Christmas Market, and the Cologne Harbour Market on the Rhine. The star of these is the market in the square of the towering gothic cathedral Kölner Dom, which each year features a massive fir tree with more than 50,000 lights. In addition to the usual booths with food and drink, arts and crafts, toys, and decorations, the Dom market features staged music and other entertainment, as well as a merry-go-round. Visitors look forward to the signature Kölner Dom Spekulatius cookies as well as the Kölner Heinzelmännchen cookies, which are shaped like traditional wooden toys.

The Regensburg Christmas markets, in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, are some of the more internationally famous. The market stalls stretch from Neupfarrplatz and across St.-Kassians-Platz around the Galeria Kaufhof. Here visitors will find sausage by the half-meter, which at 18 inches can be unwieldy. While most Christmas markets are free, in Regensburg visitors will spend around $10 to visit the Romantic Christmas Market at the vast, rococo St. Emmeram Palace, which includes the ability to take in the grandeur of the candlelit palace grounds and a chance for a sighting of Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis as she

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Foolish Thursday in Mittenwald, Germany, features a procession of maschkera -- so-called wild men wearing intricate, hand-carved wooden masks -- in an attempt to drive away the bitter cold of winter.

PHOTOGRAPH BY FOOTTOO / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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An Advent star hangs in Dresden.

PHOTOGRAPH BY POPOVARTEM.COM / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: Experience the stunning rural beauty of the German Alps in Ramsau, Bavaria.

PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANK FISCHBACH / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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mingles through the crowds. At the palace market, enjoy wild boar skewers and other game harvested from the royal forests.

In the city center of Leipzig, one of the oldest and largest Christmas markets twinkles in concert with the historic architecture, while performers keep the stage full of lively entertainment. The more than 300 stalls surround a 65-foot-tall Saxon spruce tree and the local specialty is kräppelchen, a jam-filled doughnut. Other unusual offerings are the magical light display of German woodland animals and the replica Finnish village which sells traditional delicacies like reindeer meat and smoked salmon.

Munich boasts numerous Christmas markets spread throughout the city, but the best known is in the middle of the historic city center in the iconic Marienplatz square, surrounded by medieval buildings like the Town Hall and the Glockenspiel and then extending to neighboring streets. A giant 100-foot tree with thousands of lights sparkles above the largest nativity scene in the country. The hundreds of illuminated stalls offer traditional Bavarian handicrafts like intricate wood carvings and hand-painted glass ornaments. Other Munich Christmas markets are scattered around various districts and suburbs, including the market on Wittelsbacherplatz which has a Renaissance Fair vibe.

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he roots of the Frankfurt market begin at the end of the 14th century when mystery plays were performed on the Römerberg. Now a plethora of traditional wooden huts spills from the square lined with timber-framed medieval houses down to the river. Find handmade crafts and toys, as well as specialties like the marzipan cookies of almond-covered Bettmännchen and the rectangular Brentens. Frankfurt has its special tradition of prune and nut figures, the Quetschemännchen, which were traditionally made by young men to give to their sweethearts.

Unlike most German cities, Berlin does not have a large central market, but rather boasts 60 markets spread throughout the capital. The biggest is the Gendarmenmarkt, located near the French and German Cathedral, where visitors can watch wood carvers, goldsmiths, glass blowers, and toy makers at work in the craftsman tent. At the Saint Lucia Christmas market, held at the Berlin Kulturbrauerei, a fusion of German and Scandinavian food, songs, and crafts is featured. The market at the stunning Charlottenburg Palace, which is colorfully illuminated with an elaborate light installation, allows visitors to stroll through the palace royal gardens while listening to a live choir, enjoying Berlin’s largest nativity scene, and partaking of treats from more than 250 stalls. The Spandau Christmas market is the largest in Berlin with 400 stands and is especially targeted at families with children with their own Kinder market.

In Düsseldorf, eight themed markets offer everything from handicrafts created on the spot by blacksmiths, woodworkers, and glassblowers, as well as more unusual items like vinyl records and car parts. One of the most popular themed markets is the Art Nouveau Engelchen-Markt in Heinrich-Heine-Platz featuring golden-winged angels and sparkling lights.

In this coldest of seasons, shored up by everything from hot Apfelwein, warm Eierpunsch, or the spectacle of Feuerzangenbowle where a rum-soaked sugarloaf is set on fire and drips into mulled wine. German Christmas markets perfectly convey the idea of Gemütlichkeit, a feeling of warmth, friendliness, and good cheer. ■

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A hooded houppelande in plasticized organza, its veil edged with a ruche on a “Romanian” dress, is belted with an ecru silk and cotton taillone on a ruffled tulle petticoat. • Opposite: Cotton shawl is crocheted and features an application of lace mosaics on a “Romanian” dress that is belted with a silk and ecru cotton belt on a ruffled tulle petticoat.

116 Franck Sorbier’s work has been described as dramatic and haunting. Nowhere is that more prevalent than within his collection, L’Esprit des lieux Chaalis—La Servante, le Passeur et la Relique. Sorbier weaves an enchanting fairy-tale of Haute Couture, deriving inspiration from the Chaalis Abbey. The Spirit of the place, Chaalis—The Servant, the Ferryman and the Relic, is a collection of intense design, multicolored patterns, with plural and deep textures. These royal garments of master designer Franck Sorbier are a reflection of excellence and refined craftsmanship. ■

Appel de la Sirène La Servante, Le Passeur etLa Relique Kim Kassas Couture’s Siren Call and Deep Blue collections are inspired by the beauty and mystery of siren mermaids.

The fantastical gowns are influenced by the splendor and lure of the feminine nature. Soft and delicate at first glance, but bold and beguiling in spirit just like the sirens, the collection captures the essence ofbytheSamantha seductive sea creatures Paige emerging from the water to enchant and captivate.

by Samantha Paige

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An ecru jacket in crochet and bobbin lace in the early twentieth century, embroidered with guipure flowers on a “Romanian” dress and belted with an ecru silk and cotton taillonne on a ruffled tulle petticoat. • Opposite: A skirt and a shawl are embroidered with seashells in a greige floating thread jacquard on a “Romanian” dress with a belt in ecru silk and cotton on a petticoat with ruffles in tulle. ©AMAURYVOSLION-FRANCKSORBIER / FRANCKSORBIER.FR

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Long cardigan in jacquard in the Maison Rubello vat style with a beaded ruche on a long sheath with a train, a stand-up collar in black gold guipures by Monsieur Beauvillain, entirely inlaid by hand. • Opposite: Long coat, short sleeves with pleats in gold, silver and black jacquard with a “granite” effect, trimmed with fine gold guipure by Monsieur Beauvillain on a long full-biased sheath with a train, American armholes that are trimmed in black silk crepe. ©AMAURYVOSLION-FRANCKSORBIER / FRANCKSORBIER.FR

A micro mini hi-low corset dress made in an iridescent silver Solstiss lace highlighted by a voluminous ruffled hemline through to the train extension.

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Long full-biased sheath with a small train, half-cup neckline in ecru silk crepe. • Opposite: Long batwing coat in pastel, brown and gold floral jacquard by Rubelli, embroidered in-between with mechanical lace from Société Choletaise de Fabrication on a long sheath with a train, a stand-up collar in black gold guipures by Monsieur Beauvillain, all entirely inlaid by hand. ©AMAURYVOSLION-FRANCKSORBIER / FRANCKSORBIER.FR

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Still life with reference to the Flemish School of the 15th and 16th centuries. Burgundy woven basket in white wicker is garnished with vegetables, country bread, pine needles and dried beech foliage. ©AMAURYVOSLION-FRANCKSORBIER / FRANCKSORBIER.FR

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Long sheath with a train, a stand-up collar in black gold guipures by Monsieur Beauvillain, entirely inlaid by hand.

• Opposite: A bridal set made up of a lace camisole, white, ecru and gold guipures, entirely inlaid by hand on fragments of a lace skirt from Lyon and Calais and a circle skirt in white silk organza, embroidered with stars and leaves of gold guipures.

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The relic is wrapped between two gold mechanical laces from Société Choletaise de Fabrication, guipures by Monsieur Beauvillain, embroidered with faceted, colored and translucent rhinestones, diamond-like, cultured pearls and chains, enhanced with elements of Napoleon III bridal globes.

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Charles Ormond Eames, Jr. and Bernice Alexandra “Ray” Kaiser Eames were an American married couple of industrial designers who made significant historical contributions in the fields of architecture, furniture design, graphic design, film and the photographic arts through their work at the Eames Office.

This is her story, Ray’s story.

by Verity Galsworthy

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“anything ay I can do she can do e better.”

33 —CHARLES EAMES

Charles and Ray with a scale model of the Mathematica exhibition, commissioned for IBM in 1961. © EAMES OFFICE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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UBURBS EMERGED IN AMERICA to fill the need for affordable housing by returning servicemen and their young brides after World War II. New jobs were created, and for the first time in our country’s history, white-collar workers exceeded the number of blue-collar workers. In 1956, Congress enacted the $32 billion National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. Like arteries feeding blood to the heart, metropolitan arteries, such as the Long Island Expressway and New Jersey Turnpike, fed cities such as New York from suburbia.

A 1956 Chevy 150 or ’56 Ford Station Wagon cost $2,100, gas was 22-cents-a-gallon, and commuters drove or carpooled to their 9-to-5 jobs instead of catching the train. Subdivisions mushroomed. An average family home with four rooms up and four down was around $11,700.

Dad was the sole breadwinner and he made $5,300 a year—twice what his father had earned at that stage of his life. Stay-at-Home Mom took care of their three children, kept house, walked the dog, and paid 29-cents a pound for hamburger and 10-cents for a can of Campbell’s tomato soup for the meatloaf recipe she found in her bible, Good Housekeeping magazine. The Baby Boomer Generation was born.

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1956, television was broadcast live in black-and-white on all three networks—ABC, NBC, and CBS. Fewer than two-percent of American households owned a TV and I Love Lucy was the nation’s top-rated TV show and kids watched Captain Kangaroo.

On NBC, actress and popular TV personality Arlene Francis and her cohost, Hugh Downs, presented a weekday daytime TV show called Home.

The forerunner to the Today Show, the show aired a staggering 907 episodes between 1954 and 1957 and one was devoted to Midcentury architect and furniture designer Charles Eames and the “revolutionary chairs” that made his name a household word. Miss Francis conducted the interview and, a minute-and-a-half into the program, said—“Almost always when there is a successful man, there is a very interesting and able woman behind him.”

A shy, petite woman in her thirties wearing a demur, high-collared dress appears before the camera. Her dark hair is pulled back with a bow and a thick fringe of bangs are rolled tightly, like film star Colette Colbert. “This

is Mrs. Eames,” Miss Francis continues, “and she is going to tell us how she helps Charles designs these chairs. How do you manage that?”

“A million things,” Ray Eames replies, “but I think the most important thing is to keep the big idea, to look critically at the work.”

“It is important to have a critical viewpoint of your husband’s work,” Miss Francis interrupts, “so he can improve along with it and not grow stagnant . . . which is certainly not the case with Charles Eames!”

Ray Eames’s answer had gone right over Arlene Francis’s head. Catching the unintentional though obvious slight, Charles quickly interjects, “Well, Ray was a painter, worked here in New York with Hans Hoffman for a while, which is a pretty good start…”

Less than a minute later, Miss Francis dismisses Ray, leaving Charles alone with her to continue the interview.

Ray, as she had said, was “the woman behind him” and in 1956, a woman was subordinate to a man. Not until after her death in August 1988, at the age of 75, was Ray Eames recognized as her husband’s creative equal— the co-founder and partner of legendary The Eames Office, and one of the 20th century’s most influential creative forces. Ray Eames singular, groundbreaking contributions as an originator of America’s Midcentury movement would influence commercial and residential architecture and design, furniture, textiles, film, industrial and consumer products, and the art and science of mass-produced furniture to the present day.

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Above: Charles and Ray pose with one of their wooden sculptures for their Christmas card in the mid-1940s. Opposite: Charles and Ray seated on a Velocette motorcycle, photographed in the Eames Office in 1948.

© EAMES OFFICE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ORN ON DECEMBER 15, 1912, in Sacramento, California, Ray-Bernice Alexandra Kaiser Eames was the daughter of an Episcopalian mother and non-practicing Jewish father who taught her to find religion in nature and take unmitigated joy in the world around her. After she graduated from Sacramento High School in 1931, she moved east to study at the May Friend Bennett Women’s College in Millbrook, New York under the renowned female sculptor, Lu Duble. In 1933, Ray moved to New York City to continue her studies under Duble’s mentor, abstract expressionist artist Hans Hofmann. She immersed herself in painting, socialized with like-minded artists who, together, formed the American Abstract Artists group, and by 1936, emerged as a key figure in the New York art scene. Few of Ray’s paintings have survived from this early period yet clearly, she was inspired by Pablo Picasso, George Braque, and Juan Gris. Like her contemporaries, artists Henrietta M. King and Georgia O’Keefe, Ray’s work was organic and her colors, however vibrant, were readily found in nature. It was Ray’s trained eye that would define the Eamses’ singular style.

In 1940, Ray, now 28, returned to California to care for her widowed mother, who died shortly after. On the recommendation of an architect friend, Ben Baldwin, Ray moved to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, to expand her artistic horizons by studying architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. There she met Charles Eames, the head of the Industrial Design Department and five years her senior. Their attraction was spontaneous.

Charles divorced his first wife and in June 1941, he and Ray were married.

For their honeymoon, they drove to Los Angeles and settled there. Charles

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Charles and Ray making image selections while working inside the Eames Office in Venice, California.

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took a job as a set designer for MGM while Ray remained at home creating the prototype process for the molded plywood chair design that would catapult them to international fame.

“Ray put together the materials for tooling up the chair. Los Angeles proved to be a perfect choice because they were close to the aircraft industry, which furnished Ray materials for building molds for the chairs and for splints for war use,” wrote influential architecture historian, Esther McCoy. During that time, Ray designed abstract covers for Art & Architecture

magazine—26 in all—which would lead to their later collaboration with the magazine’s celebrated editor, John Entenza, on his seminal Case Study House Program (1945-1962.)

In 1943, Charles and Ray set up business in the former Bay Cities Garage building at 901 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, California, and called their company The Eames Office. Together they worked to create their distinctive vision. So seamless was the couple’s collaboration that it was impossible to see where she started, and he ended. As American

Christmas advertisement for Herman Miller, featuring the Eames Aluminum Group and Lounge Chair and Ottoman.

© EAMES OFFICE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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graphic artist Milton Glaser asserted years later, it would be “thankless, if not perverse, to try to separate Charles’s and Ray’s work.” Theirs was an indivisible partnership, professionally and personally.

Their first important contract for a mass-produced, ergonomic, compound-curved, molded plywood leg splint they designed for the U.S. Navy to replace the unhygienic metal splints then in use, in World War II. To fulfill the initial order for 150,000 splints, Charles and Ray established the Molded Plywood Products Division of Evans Plywood

and with the profits, continued to experiment and improve upon the technology they would apply to the plywood furniture creations that would bear their name and trademarks.

“Eames took technology to meet a wartime need (for splints) and used it to make something elegant, light, and comfortable. Much copied but never bettered,” Time magazine proclaimed the Eames Lounge Chair Wood (LCW) as “the 20th century’s best design” in the December 31,1999, issue.

Ever creative, while the couple were creating their compound-curved

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A series of Eames Wire Chairs, featuring a folk art wooden bird sculpture from Charles and Ray’s personal collection. © EAMES OFFICE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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plywood furniture designs, Ray was creating sculptures using the same materials and methods. Her graceful, biomorphic forms allowed further refined techniques they developed for bending and shaping laminated plywood into hitherto impossible curves. Geared to mass-production, they expanded into steel, plexiglass, and industrial plastics. The demand for a strikingly simple yet comfortable chair knew no bounds and soon offices, schools, and homes from coast-to-coast had Eames chairs.

Whether you know it or not, you’ve sat in one.

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eauty, comfort, elegance, and delicacy in mass-producible furniture: that was criteria Charles and Ray applied to everything they did and a businessman from Zeeland, Michigan, named D. J. De Pree wanted to ride this wave of the future. In 1946, he hired the Eameses to create a new product line for his company, Herman Miller. It was, indeed, “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” The Eames Fiberglass Steel Chair, which won the 1948 Museum of Modern Arts’ International Competition for LowCost Furniture Design, went into mass-production in three colors and proved so popular, the color line expanded to six within the first year of production. “La Chaise,” a chaise lounge that became an instant classic, went into production and the Eames Compact Sofa soon followed. In 1956, the Eames Lounge Chair and ottoman were introduced. The luxurious, cushioned, molded plywood chair became an overnight status symbol. Complete perfectionists, Ray and Charles tried thirteen different versions of the chair’s armrest alone before finalizing the design. Charles said its upholstery wears “like a well-used first baseman’s mitt.”

Awards were won, sales went through the roof and Herman Miller had grown so in leaps and bounds that it monopolized the office furniture industry and a large hunk of the residential furniture business. Despite the fact that Ray’s influence was equal to her husband’s, the designs were promoted under Charles’s name only.

The couple’s creativity knew no bounds and they applied their skills to filmmaking, and their vision to become world-renowned information designers and design theorists who believed design was “a way of life.”

Between 1950 and 1979 they produced more than 44 films, several in collaboration with composer Elmer Bernstein, brother of Leonard, who wrote the musical scores. They worked on the design of 20 residences and buildings, including the Time-Life Building lobby (1961) and the Herman Miller’s Los Angeles showroom (1950); six exhibitions, including the IBM Pavilion at the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair; and the housing for the Zenith “Z” radio (1946), Emerson 578 and 588 radios, speakers, and toys.

In 2015, the New York Times looked back at Charles and Ray’s influence and wrote, “By the mid-1950s, the Eameses had become as indispensable to the American computer company IBM as they were to Herman Miller.”

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Christmas Eve 1949, Charles and Ray moved into the home they spent years dreaming about, designing, and built on a five-acre parcel of land in a Pacific Palisades neighborhood north of Santa Monica with a view of the Pacific Ocean to die for. It all began almost five years before, in 1945, when Charles and Ray began collaborating with their longtime friend, architect-designer Eero Saarinen (who had

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A stack of Eames Dining Stacking Side (DSS) chairs presented in an array of color options. Opposite: Charles and Ray Eames seated inside the Eames House, among their collection of personal objects and self-designed furnishings, circa 1955. © EAMES OFFICE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Ray Eames inside the Eames House, just after she and Charles moved in on Christmas Eve of 1949. © EAMES OFFICE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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worked with Charles in the early development of molding plywood) on John Entenza’s Case Studies Houses Project. One of the great influencers of 20th century modern art and architecture, Entenza established the project to address the same housing crisis that established the burgeoning suburbs around metropolitan areas. Millions of soldiers returning from the battlefields of World War II wanted to start families and needed houses that could be quickly and inexpensively built without sacrificing quality and design. Entenza’s case studies were built and furnished using materials and techniques derived from World War II—such as the Eamses’s molded plywood technology they used in manufacturing splints.

Case Study House No. 8 became the Eameses’ two-building compound that served as their home and studio, a sanctuary where they could focus entirely on their work and themselves, now that their children had left home. Ray was a “sublime pack rat” who collected and delighted over tiny toys, shells, combs, pint-size dishes, Chinese kites and balls of yarn—anything that struck her fancy. She had a “gift of arranging and dramatizing tiny objects” [McCoy] and this love of small objects and traditional handicrafts became the aesthetic for their home and blazed a new, eclectic post-war style. It was Ray who “singlehandedly brought about a return to richness, the joy of the miniature object in a modern framework,” Charles would observe. Their Pacific Palisades home make no demands on them and became the sublime backdrop for “life in work” with nature as a “shock absorber,” as Charles put it. They named it Bridge House and there they would live out the rest of their lives.

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harles died on August 21, 1978. Ray designed the pine boxes for her and Charles’s ashes. “They were made of straight grain sugar pine with force-fitted lids, and lined with handmade Japanese paper in which was imbedded wisps of flowers and leaves.” Ray passed away ten years to the day, on August 21, 1988. Of course, she was buried with Charles. During her difficult decade as a widow, she took succor by actively working to continue the Eames legacy. Their daughter, Lucia Eames, inherited Bridge House and in 2004, established The Eames Foundation to preserve and publicly share her parents’ legacy for future generations. In the course of their lives, the Eames had received numerous awards. Arguably the greatest of all was conferred posthumously, when the U.S. Postal Service released the Eames postage stamps, a pane of 16 stamps celebrating the designs of Charles and Ray Eames.

Charles refused to ride in the car when Ray was behind the wheel. As a close friend observed, “Ray was looking at everything. She was looking at what was blooming, she was looking at the shadows on a certain wall . . . she was looking at everything except the traffic.” That, more than anything else, describes the driving creative spirit of Ray Eames, who never was “the woman behind the man” but rather, the woman who stood with him, equally, shoulder-to-shoulder and side-by-side. ■

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Christmas gifts inside the Eames House, personalized by Charles and Ray for one another, circa 1950. © EAMES OFFICE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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THE WOMEN WHO INSPIRE The National Foundation US of Women Legislators

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Women Inspiring Women . . .

ideas and participate in civil colloquy.

The assembly of women in Charleston in November will partake in a three-day agenda packed with multiple programs that will include “Ending Period Poverty” (for more information, www.ubykotex.com/en-us/ end-period-poverty) as well as the NFWL’s “Grab’n Go Programming,” a wide-platform, online program that poses—and responds to—timely issues. This includes appropriate and current information on human trafficking through the Pew Charitable Trusts in partnership with Shared Hope International and Evidence-Based Policy. (for more information, www.womenlegislators.org/ grab-n-go/) Sponsors of this Conference are the Pew Charitable Trust, Kotex, the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), the Mayo Consulting Group, Walmart, and Wells Fargo, among others.

Each of the twelve women you are next to read about is a longstanding member of the NFWL. Each has devoted her life to her family, her constituency, her vision for our country, and her God. We at ELYSIAN are honored to help tell their stories.

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ounded in 1938, the National Foundation of Women Legislators is a non-partisan 501c3 educational foundation for elected women on the state, county, and municipal levels of government. The organization was established to provide strategic resources to elected women for leadership development, exchange of diverse legislative ideas, and effective governance through conferences, state outreach, educational materials, professional and personal relationships, and networking. Today, women hold 2,307 of the 7,383 legislative seats nationwide—more than 31 percent. The oldest organization for elected women in America and the only one that includes women on the city, county, and state levels, the NFWL membership currently boasts more than 5,000 members.

This year, the National Foundation for Women Legislators selected Charleston as the location for their 2022 Annual Conference, November 14-16.

It would be appropriate to wonder what exactly happens when a collection of distinct and notable elected women gather to exchange

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Karen DEMOCRAT REPRESENTATIVE FROM TENNESSEE

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he Honorable KAREN D. CAMPER, 64, is the first African-American woman to lead a caucus in the history of Tennessee’s General Assembly. She was elected by her colleagues as House Democratic Leader in November 2018 and elected again in November 2020. She is a member of the Shelby County Delegation, a member of the Tennessee Legislative Black Caucus, a lifetime member of Black in Government, Past President of the National Organization of Black Elected Legislative Women, Incoming Chair of the National Foundation for Women Legislators, and board member of TN History for Kids.

As Tennessee House Minority Leader and representative of the 87th District in the Tennessee House of Representatives since 2008, she has held a seat on the House Finance Ways and Means Committee, the House Business and Utilities Committee, the House Commerce Committee, the Ethics Committee, the House Calendar and Rules Committee, and the Joint Pensions and Insurance Committee.

On October 21, 2021, Representative Camper assumed the position of Redistricting House Democratic Leader and member of the House Select Redistricting Committee. “This type of select committee is different from what has been done in the past,” she explained in an interview on October 7, 2021, with Chrissy Keuper of WUOT Radio, “so this is going to be new territory, if you will, that we are navigating. I see my role as ensuring that there is the ultimate level of transparency and education for the community on redistricting. I think people need to understand it, I think people need to feel like they are part of it, and we will do our due diligence to make sure voices are heard. I’m in the minority party and am the minority within that party as a woman representing Blacks in Tennessee, which is a minority, so I have to make sure these voices are heard at every single level, at every single table I sit at, and everywhere I go. I feel I am accountable to the people—this is just something I feel deep in my heart.”

Representative Camper is a life member of the NAACP, Vice Chair of the Tennessee Economic Council on Women, former board member of the Women’s Actions for New Directions, and a fellow for CSG Toll. Before being a Representative in the Tennessee Legislature, she was a Chief Warrant Officer Three of the US Army. She continues to be involved in military affairs by being a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #11333 and a charter member of Women in Military Service for America. She received her A.S. from the University of Albany SUNY. Representative Camper, a Baptist, has one child, Bruce Jr., and resides in Shelby County, Tennessee. She has taught in the Memphis City School System and is the business owner of Key II Entertainment and Founder of Humble Hearts Foundation.

When asked what advice she would offer to women who seek their path in life, Representative Camper says, “Trust in your inner self. ‘Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. [John 4:4, KJB]’” ■

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AYLE HARRELL

represents Florida Senate District 25, soon to be District 31, which includes Martin and St. Lucie Counties and part of Palm Beach County. She was elected to the Florida Senate in November 2018 after serving two terms in the Florida House of Representatives from 2000-2008 and from 2010-2018.

Senator Harrell has over 25 years of experience in healthcare. She has worked as a Healthcare Administrator, managing the Ob-Gyn. practice of Dr. James E. Harrell and was the founder of the Breast Imaging Center, a mammography center specializing in preventive care for women. Her experience in healthcare has made her a leader in setting healthcare policies for the State of Florida.

Senator Harrell is Chair of the Transportation Committee and Vice Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services. Senator Harrell is also a member of the Children, Families, and Elder Affairs; Military and Veterans Affairs and Space, Finance and Tax, Reapportionment, and the Select Subcommittee on Congressional Reapportionment.

Senator Harrell has won numerous awards for her legislative service. Among her many awards, she has received the Legislator of the Year by the Florida Medical Association, the Legislative Leadership Award by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Legislative Award by the Florida Children’s Forum, an “A” Ranking by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Friend of Free Enterprise Award by the Associated Builders and Contractors, the Legislative Achievement Award by Keep Florida Beautiful, and the Distinguished Legislator Award by the Florida Police Benevolent Association.

A resident of Florida’s Treasure Coast for over 40 years, Senator Harrell is committed to serving the community having served as president of many civic organizations such as Hibiscus Children’s Center, Education Foundation of Martin County, Big Brothers Big Sisters of St. Lucie, Indian River, and Okeechobee Counties, and HPS - Helping People Succeed. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish and a Master’s Degree in Latin American History from the University of Florida where she received the Edith Bristol Tigert award as an Outstanding Female Graduate and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Gayle was married to Dr. James Harrell (deceased) for 51 years, has four children and eight grandchildren, and is an active member of the First Presbyterian Church in Stuart. ■

Gayle REPUBLICAN SENATOR FROM FLORIDA

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orn and raised in Kalihi, Hawai’i, Senator DONNA MERCADO KIM, 70, is the daughter of a Korean father and Spanish-Filipino-Portuguese mother. She completed her freshman and sophomore years at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and graduated Cum Laude at Washington State University.

Senator Kim has served at every level of state and local government. This year marks her 40th year in politics—a shining career that commenced in 1982 as a State Representative of Hawaii from 1982 to 1984, she served on the Honolulu City Council from 1986 to 2000 and was elected to the Senate in 2000, representing Senate District 14, a seat she continues to represent to this day.

She has chaired the Committee on Tourism, the Committee on Ways and Means, the Committee on Government Operations, the Special Committee on Accountability, and the Committee on Tourism & Intergovernmental Affairs; served as Vice President of the Senate from 2003 to 2006 and again from 2011 to 2013, and from 2013 to 2015 was President of the Hawaii State Senate.

She is Senate President Emeritus and chairs the Committee on Higher Education.

As chair of the Higher Education Committee, she led House Bill 2024 Relating to Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii whose peak elevation, at 13,803 ft. above sea level, is the highest point in the state and the second-highest peak of an island on earth and a dry prominence second in the world only after Mount Everest. To protect this topographically unique, area, she has worked to develop a workable management structure that is in harmony with the diverse interests of astronomy, conservation, and culture, defining regulatory uses of a volcano held sacred down the centuries by all peoples, indigenous and foreign alike.

In business, Senator Kim has consulted for Motorola Communications, Bank of America, The Pacific Institute, and Models of the Century, among others. Closely tied to her community, she is associated with the Kalihi Business Association, the Filipino Chamber of Commerce, the Hawaii Korean Chamber of Commerce, and the Special Committee on Studying Effects of Economy on Judiciary.

A member of the National Foundation for Women Legislators (NFWL), she held an atlarge position as Southwest Regional State Director, then State Director, before becoming Board Chair from 2019 to 2021. Senator Kim is a member of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education Legislative Advisory Committee, National Conference of State Legislators Education Committee, National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials, National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators, Board of Latino Legislative Leaders, and the Latina State Legislative Caucus.

“Take advantage of the opportunities,” Senator Kim advises.“Be more involved in the community and more opportunities will present themselves.” When asked what she cherishes most in life, she replied, “My son, Micah.” ■

Donna SENATOR FROM HAWAIʻI

RUTH REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE FROM DELAWARE

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epresentative RUTH BRIGGS KING has represented the 37th District in the Delaware House of Representatives since 2009. She has worked extensively in the fields of medicine, education, banking, and finance, and has devoted her energies to numerous committees that include Workers’ Compensative Reform, Financial Literacy, the Mental Health Task Force, and the Educational Funding Task Force, among others.

The Representative is admired for her unwavering leadership, and strengths in organizational development and strategic planning as she possesses an innate honesty and straightforwardness, and has a proven track record to address and solve problems with an end-game of realizing results.

In addition to introducing numerous Bills in the House, she has initiated legislative action on opiate and heroin issues in Delaware by bringing attention to substance-exposed infants. She currently is a member of nine committees, including the Corrections Committee, Education Committee, and Veterans Affairs, among others. “It is both a pleasure and an honor to work for you in the Delaware Legislature,” she tells her constituents. “I work for you to improve our community in many ways.

Our district is large, and our needs are different, but I am diligently championing our needs and seeking improvements for your quality of life.”

As a strong advocate on many issues, she also maintains a busy local schedule to be accessible and accountable to her constituents. “The most important part of my work is not what bills or policies we create in Dover, it is about helping people overcome barriers and challenges that impact their lives,” she says. “This past year, we have helped so many citizens overcome issues with their unemployment benefits. Our staff and I have taken many calls and worked to ensure benefits were received. ‘Many hands make light work’ and many hands are needed to address complex and community issues.”

Rep. King received her associate degree in Medical Technology from Delaware Technical and Community College, her bachelor’s degree in Applied Profession and Supervision, and her master’s degree in Human Resources and Instructional Leadership from Wilmington College. She is a certified Medical Laboratory Technologist (ASCP), Clinical Laboratory Scientist (HEW), holds an Administrator Certification from the State of Delaware, and is a REALTOR® Associate Executive. She worked at Milford Memorial Hospital and for the Dickenson Medical Group, and in 1988, joined the Kent Country Vocational Technical High School as a teacher in Medical Assisting. In 1994, she joined Medlab, Inc., and rose through the ranks to become Director of External Operations, overseeing 24 patient centers, four Stat Labs, the Courier Fleet, and Customer Services.

In 1999, she moved on to the Baltimore Trust Company, where she became Vice President of Human Resources, and Officer in Charge, and during that time, taught courses for both the American Institute of Banking and Wilmington College. She continues to parlay her experience and skills as a consultant in areas of human resources, strategic planning, and organizational development. ■

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LISA REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLYWOMAN FROM NEVADA

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Republican member of the Nevada Assembly and representative of the 26th District, native Californian LISA KRASNER does it all. Wife of Charles Krasner, M.D., and mother of their two adult sons, her work as an assemblywoman and community leader is inspiring.

The first member of her family to graduate college and graduate school, she received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of La Verne College of Law. Today she is an adjunct professor in the political science department at Truckee Meadows Community College. Lisa credits her father for her work ethic. “He immigrated to the United States, the legal way. He stood in line, filled out the forms, and taught himself how to read, write, and speak English, and he worked hard to provide for his family. He taught me I could accomplish anything if I worked hard enough.”

As a member of the faculty of the University of Phoenix, she taught courses in Political Science, focusing on the United States Constitution, the Nevada State Constitution, Advocacy & Mediation, State & Local Political Processes, Critical Thinking, and Business Law. She currently teaches a similar curriculum at Truckee Meadows Community College.

More than that, Lisa cares about education. Throughout her children’s public-school education, she volunteered in the classroom and taught Junior Achievement. A member of the Galena High School PTO Boosters, she served on the Board of Directors of the State of Nevada P.T.A. and the Board of Directors of the Hunsberger Elementary School PTA. Her belief that a strong community can improve the life of every resident was put into play as Commissioner on the State of Nevada Commission On Aging and Disability, a position she held for three years, and as a former member of the Nevada Commission on Aging Subcommittee Concerning Legislative Issues. In pursuit of a family-friendly environment, she served as a Commissioner for the City of Reno’s Recreation and Parks Commission for seven years. She poured her love of the performing arts into the Reno Philharmonic Association Board of Trustees and the Reno Philharmonic Guild, which she served as president. As a former First Vice President of the Board and present member of the Alliance with Washoe County Medical Society, she advocated community health. A stalwart Republican, she serves on the Washoe Republican Central Committee, is a member of the Incline Village Republican Women’s Club, an Associate member of the Carson City Republican Women, Mt. Rose Republican Women, the Republican Women of Reno, the Washoe Republican Women, and the Republican Men’s Club of Northern Nevada.

Lisa has received numerous honors and awards as a Legislator, including the National Woman of Achievement and Distinction Award. She also received the National Rising Star Award from Governing, Inc. Lisa has been called “A Rising Star and One to Watch.” ■

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epresentative LISA MEIER has diligently served District 32 in the North Dakota House of Representatives since her election in 2001 and has sponsored 27 bills. She was born in Mandan and now lives in Bismarck with her husband, Dennis, and has one son, three stepsons, and seven grandchildren. By trade, she is an Interior Designer (AS, Bismark State College). She sits on the Board of KNDR Radio, is District Commissioner for the Boy Scouts, a Board Member of Pride Industries, and served as a delegate to the American Council of Young Political Leaders, South Korea, in 2001, and in 2006 as a delegate to the Asian Summit in Tokyo, Japan. In 2007 she was a participant in the Government of Canada’s Rising State Leader Program and continues to serve on the Board of the North Dakota State Commission of National and State Community Service.

Rep. Meier currently is an Interim Member of the North Dakota House of Representatives in the Budget Section, on the Government Finance Committee, the Health Care Committee, and the Interim House Appropriations Committee. She is a standing member of the Appropriations Committee and also in the House Appropriations’ Government Operations Division. She oversees procedural arrangements for the House Committee Rooms. Gayle is a Governor Appointee member of the National and Community Services Commission.

She was the 2019 recipient of the AARP Capitol Caregivers Award and the 2019 Greater ND Chamber Champion Award.

She formerly served on the Human Services Committee, the Higher Education Committee, the Justice Reinvestments Committee, and the Transportation Committee, among others.

Rep. Meier notes that her top priority in the North Dakota legislature is always education.

It is her opinion that good schools and good teachers enable children to be ready for the next level and to stay in North Dakota. ■

LISA

REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE FROM NORTH DAKOTA

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epresentative RENA L. MORAN was born in Chicago. She received her B.S. in Early Childhood Education from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois.

Rena’s sense of community came from her large family and a neighborhood where people truly looked out for each other. A strong family and sense of community are at the very core of who Rena is today. Rena is the mother of seven children. The oldest, LaSheeka, is married with a son and daughter. The youngest, Silver, is a graduate of The University of Mankato in Mankato, MN. As a mother of seven, Rena knows what it is to sacrifice for the greater good of her children.

“I moved to the Twin Cities in search of a better life for my kids. Homeless, my children and I stayed in a Minneapolis shelter for several months. It wasn’t long before my family and I went from homelessness to homeowners. I found my first job in Minnesota earning minimum wage at Camp Snoopy, then at the YMCA before moving on to work at a commodity trading firm in downtown Minneapolis for seven years and becoming a homeowner.

Rena’s political life began as a community organizer in her Saint Paul neighborhood and expanded as she geared up to run for office in 2010. As a person who overcame so much, Rena went on to win her first-ever election in 2010 to become the first African American person to represent Saint Paul in the MN House of Representatives.

Rep. Moran formerly served as Chair of the House Health and Human Services Policy Committee, House Deputy Minority Leader, and was the founding member of the People of Color and Indigenous Caucus (POCI) and founding member of the United Black Legislative Caucus (UBLCthe ). In 2021 Rep. Moran became the Chair of the Powerful Ways and Means Committee. She was the first person of Color to ever chair that committee.

In 2020 Rep. Moran was recognized for her leadership by receiving several awards including: Twin Cities Business, Top “100 People to Know in 2021,” MN Physician, top 100 influential Health Care Leaders, NAMI Minnesota, Legislator of the Year Award, Nancy Latimer 2020 Legislative Champion Award - Early Childhood Education Award, St. Paul YWCA Changemaker Honoree.

On a national level, Rena serves on the Board of the National Foundation for Women Legislators (NFWL), National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL), Midwest Regional Director for the National Organization of Black Elected Legislative Women (NOBEL), and as the Minnesota State Director of Women Legislators’ Lobby (WILL).

Rep. Moran says. “Believe in yourself and how you see the world and the world you want. A world that is more inclusive, kind, and forward-thinking. Ask more questions and be okay with not knowing.”

As regards women and politics she says, “I think the current environment is prime time right now for women to run and win. For women over 40, your experience, worldview and vision for a more inclusive state and world are so needed right now. So, tap into the current movement, and the current moment, bring your experience and expertise to the table, and lead. The future of our Country is waiting on you.” ■

rena DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE FROM MINNESOTA

sue REPUBLICAN SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS

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epublican Senator SUE REZIN has represented the 38th District in the Illinois House of Representatives since she took the oath of office on December 14, 2010. In 2015 she was appointed Assistant Leader for the Illinois Senate Republican Caucus and in 2021, became Deputy Minority Leader. Senator Rezin presently serves as the Minority Spokesperson on the Senate Energy and Public Utilities, Senate Education and Senate Human Rights committees. She is a member of the Executive, Health, and Insurance committees and sits on the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. Additional committee and task force appointments have included the Education Funding Reform Commission, Education Funding Advisory Committee, the Young Adult Heroin Use Task Force, the Social Security Retirement Pay Task Force, the Illinois Veterans Advisory Council, the Task Force on Hydraulic Fracturing Regulation, the Illinois Electric Vehicle Advisory Council, and the Unemployment Insurance Task Force.

As an active member of the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), she collaborates with legislators across the country to find viable solutions to problems states bilaterally face and has a seat on the NCSL’s 63-member Executive Committee and Task Force on Energy Supply.

Senator Rezin lives in Morris, Illinois, with her husband, Keith, and their four children. For nearly two decades, she has been the co-owner and manager of her family’s real estate company.

Community service has always been extremely important to Senator Rezin. For over twenty years, she served as a wish grantor and volunteer for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Northern Illinois.

She is a former vice president of the Community Foundation of Greater Grundy County and a board member of We Care of Grundy County. She helped establish the Grundy County Summer Internship Program in conjunction with the Grundy Area Vocational Center and the Grundy Economic Development Council, helping dozens of students obtain high-quality internships with local employers. “The goal is to not only provide students with a real-world, hands-on experience at great companies,” she explained, “but to entice students to stay in the area by working here.”

She has also volunteered her time with the Edgar Fellows Program, where students participate in an intense four-day executive leadership-training program.

In addition, Senator Rezin also established the Illinois Valley Flood Resiliency Alliance (IVFRA), an organization that brings communities, local governments, and emergency personnel together to prepare for floods and other extreme weather events through education, communication, and the purchase of flood prevention materials. Part of the resiliency plan for the region is the IVFRA’s ongoing efforts to secure grant funding for communities to prepare for, and prevent flood losses.

Senator Rezin earned her degree in International Business and Political Science at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, and graduated with a minor in Hispanic Studies. She is a graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government’s Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program. In 2020, she was selected as a 2020 Women of Excellence Award honoree by the National Foundation for Women Legislators. ■

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sandra DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE FROM GEORGIA

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emocratic Representative SANDRA SCOTT entered the world of politics in 2008 as a member of the Clayton County Board of Education. She has represented District 76 in the Georgia House of Representatives since assuming office on January 10, 2011. Though her current term ends on January 9, 2023, Rep. Scott advanced from the May 24 Democratic Primary and is on the ballot for reelection when the general election is held on November 8.

Rep. Scott has been a member of numerous legislative committees, presently serving on the Defense & Veterans Affairs Committee, Human Relations & Aging Committee, Science & Technology, Legislative & Congressional Reapportionment, and Special Rules committees.

She has sponsored more than 100 bills in the Georgian House of Representatives—most recently, House Bills 962 and 971 for legislation that would require gun owners to store their firearms in a secure manner and report if a firearm has been lost or stolen.

“My heart cries out with sadness, grief, and anger every time I learn that a child has been shot by another child because someone left a loaded firearm on the table, in the car, or on their dresser,” said Rep. Scott. “We do not need legislation that would allow people to carry a gun without a permit. We need laws that increase gun safety, such as House Bills 962 and 971. When household guns are not stored safely or securely, the risk of death or injury only increases.”

Policy Director for the National Foundation of Women Legislators, Rep. Scott was awarded the NFWL 2013 Woman of Excellence Award in Washington, DC. She is the vice-chair of the Henry County Legislative Delegation. She has been the chair and vice chair of the Clayton County Legislative Delegation, was the Recording Secretary for NOBEL Women from 2018-2021, the Georgia Women Caucus, the Working Family Caucus, WILL/WAND and the Clayton and Henry County NAACP, and the Clayton and Henry NCNW member.

In addition, she is a member of Henry County Democratic Women and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators Executive Committee. She has been honored as the 2013 Georgia Legislative Black Caucus Legislator of the Year.

Her favorite saying is, “If I can just help one person a day then, my living will not be in vain.” When asked, however, what advice she would give her younger self Representative Scott said, “To love me unconditionally. To believe in myself. To take time to be comfortable with who I am. Take time to understand how to move around in this world that is constantly changing. Take time to understand why I do what I do. To go to school and never stop learning. To get involved in what is going on in my community, county, city, and state government. To be the voice for the people who won’t or are afraid to speak up against injustice. To encourage people that they can be . . . Don’t be afraid to fail because failure will only make you better. To never stop dreaming because my biggest dream is yet to come. To love my people unapologetically. To always embrace righteousness over wrong. To STAND UP for what is RIGHT, even if I MUST STAND ALONE. To trust God and let him lead me through this worldly world.” ■

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enator Shealy, 68, was born in Columbia, SC, to the late Brooks Edward, Sr., and Bernice Bell Frye. At the time of her election in November 2012, Senator KATRINA SHEALY was the only woman in the South Carolina Senate—and a decade later, she is one of only five women in the state Senate. She represents District 23. Presently, she serves as Chairman of the Family & Veterans’ Services Committee and sits on the Finance, Corrections & Penology, Rules, and Labor, Commerce & Industry Committees in the Senate. She is also a member and past chair of the Joint Citizens and Legislative Committee on Children, co-chair of the State Suicide Prevention Coalition, member of the State Child Fatality Advisory Committee, and the State Domestic Violence Advisory Committee. She is a past chair of the Southern Legislative Conference’s Human Services and Public Safety Committee and chair-elect of the National Foundation for Women Legislators. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Lexington County Department of Social Services, the Girl Scouts of the Congaree, Friends of Juvenile Justice, served as Chair of the Lexington County Republican Party from 2007 to 2008; is a past president of the West Metro Republican Women, 2008-2010, and sits on the Advisory Board of the Women of Hope Lexington Medical Center Foundation.

In 2013, Senator Shealy was awarded Outstanding Female Statesman Award for Lexington County Republican Party, the South Carolina Republican Party Terry Haskins Award, was proclaimed South Carolina Federation of Republican Women’s 2013 Woman of the Year, received the Strom Thurmond Award for Excellence in Government in Public Service, the Saluda River Chapter of Trout Unlimited Conservationist of the Year Award; and in 2014, was awarded South Carolina Wildlife Federation Conservationist of the Year, the South Carolina Taxpayers Association “Friend of the Taxpayer” Award and the Woodman of the World “Community Leadership” Award.

In 2015, she was proclaimed National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Legislator of the Year, received the coveted Palmetto Trout Award, the Palmetto Center for Women Twin Award, and was celebrated as the SCCADVASA Legislator of the Year. In 2016, she was named Children’s Advocacy Champion for Children, received the United Way Common Good Award for Volunteerism, the Trailblazer Award for Leadership on Domestic Violence Issues, and in 2017, was named S.C. Beer Wholesalers Legislator of the Year, received the American Legion Special Legislative Award, the Respectable Award, Able SC, and the Legislative Award, S.C. Department of Probation, Pardon, and Parole Services—to name a few.

Senator Shealy is the founder of Katrina’s Kids, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, which strives to give “Every Chance to Every Child” in foster care and group homes. A longtime champion of children’s and women’s issues, she formerly served as Chairman of the Board of the South Carolina Friends of Juvenile Justice, the Women’s Advisory Board for Lexington Medical Center, and as a board member for the Girl Scouts of the Congaree.

As Founder of Katrina’s Kids, Senator Shealy was celebrated for her philanthropy in the Spring 2020 issue of ELYSIAN magazine as an Inspiring Woman. Her interview can be seen on YouTube. ■

Katrina SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA / CHAIR-ELECT OF THE NFWL

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epresentative LISA SUBECK, 51, has represented the 78th District in the Wisconsin State Assembly since January 2015. Born and raised in Chicago, she is a graduate of Rich Central High School in Olympia Fields, Illinois, and earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin (Madison) in 1993. After college, she funneled her interest in children and young mothers as the Dane County Program Director of Head Start and Early Head Start programs, during which time she helped launch Hope House, a Madison-based housing program for young mothers of infants and toddlers.

Her advocacy for mothers and children led to her first attempt at running for public office, as a Progressive candidate for the Madison Common Council. She was defeated by a candidate who represented a coalition of realty and development interests and rather than allowing that to deflate her dreams, her determination became even more driven. She served as a member of Madison’s Community Services Committee, Equal Opportunities Commission, and Madison’s Southwest Neighborhood Plan Committee and in 2009, she was hired as Executive Director for NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin. In 2011 she made her second attempt for election to public office, this time as a candidate for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, and won in a field of five contenders in the nonpartisan primary.

In 2014, Rep. Subeck announced her campaign for Wisconsin State Assembly in the 78th Assembly district, an open seat held by incumbent Brett Hulsey, who decided not to run for reelection but instead, for Governor of Wisconsin. She defeated fellow Democratic City Council member Mark Clear with 56% of the vote and went on to be unopposed in the 2014 general election. Rep. Subeck was sworn into office in January 2015 and was reelected in 2016, 2018, and 2020. She currently serves as the Democratic Ranking Member of the Committee on Local Government and the Committee on Public Benefit Reform and sits on the Health Committee, Children and Families Committee, and Committee on Family Law. “I have been a leader on health care, support for children and working families, strengthening our public schools and University of Wisconsin system, protecting our natural resources, access to women’s health care, fairness and equity, supporting our workforce, and protecting our democracy,” she proudly says.

Rep. Subeck was elected Minority Caucus Vice-Chair for the 2021–2022 session and serves on the Assembly committees for Review of Administrative Rules, Campaigns and Elections, Energy and Utilities, on Health, and Rules, and the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules.

As a member of the Governor’s Council on Domestic Abuse, Speaker’s Task Force on Foster Care, and having served on a legislative Study Committee on Access to Civil Legal Services, her interest in issues dealing with poverty, homelessness, economic empowerment, and affordable housing as they affect children and mothers has never wavered.

She has served as President and Treasurer of Woodhill Condominium Association, was a member of the Southwest Neighborhood Plan Steering Committee, and the Wisconsin State Chairwoman for Democratic Municipal Officials. Rep. Subeck is the Wisconsin director of the National Foundation for Women Legislators and is an executive board member of the Women’s Legislative Network of the National Conference of State Legislatures. ■

lisa

DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE FROM WISCONSIN

jody

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN LEGISLATORS

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arm, welcoming, and all-encompassing in her work to increase and promote diversity within its leadership in accordance with the strategic direction established by the Board of Directors, since December 2013 JODY THOMAS has been at the helm directing the National Foundation for Women Legislators as its Executive Director. A graduate of the University of Central Oklahoma (BA), she served as National Finance Director in two presidential campaigns, bringing to the NFWL the skills necessary to manage issue-oriented groups, committees, campaigns, and special events. Prior to that, she honed those skills as a partner of the Tour de Force Group in Alexandria, Virginia, a public relations firm, and for eight years, a principal at Sagac Public Affairs. She managed all fundraising and political activity for Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts (R) between 1995 and 2002 and in 2002, was appointed by President George W. Bush as Director of Public Liaison for the Office of Personnel Management, which exposed her to national politics at the very core, giving her an unparalleled opportunity to see, and participate in, the workings of the federal government.

A dedicated mentor to women of all ages in government relations, since 2015 Jody has served on the State Relations Task Force. In 2021, she received the Women in Government Relations Lifetime Achievement Award.

CliftonStrengths is a global analytics and advice firm that “helps leaders and organizations solve their most pressing problems.” NFWL Executive Director Jody Thomas used this assessment tool to not only learn more about herself—but to understand how to effectively work together with others with different strengths toward developing more optimal solutions.

No. 1 is an individual’s greatest strength. No. 34 is a person’s least. Here’s what Ms. Thomas learned: “Through CliftonStrengths, I discovered that what I perceived as my weaknesses are really my strengths and I learned how to use my strengths to partner with people who have other strengths that I don’t. My number one strength is harmony. My No. 4 is WOO— ‘Winning Over Others.’ Those help make me a good fundraiser, which is what I have done my entire career—and which I love so very much. When you are doing fundraising, whether for political candidates or an organization, it has to be as good for the donor as it is for the recipient—it can’t be a one-way street.

“No. 34 for me is command. Renee Dabbs—who leads all NFWL projects related to strategy and the best approach to achieving the organization’s goals—has command as her No. 1 strength, and that is what makes us such great partners. Over the years, I unconsciously have partnered with people who had super-strong personalities. They needed me too because I want everyone to be happy and get along. CliftonStrengths made me realize my strengths and how to use them. I love my job. When I came on board as Executive Director of the NFWL, I said I’d sign a two-year contract and that’s it. I’m now in my tenth year!” ■

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SPECIAL ADVERTORIAL

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

The Holy City Celebrated for its cobblestone streets that ooze history and pre-Civil War historic homes that evoke the gentle life of the Antebellum South, Charleston has long been called “The Holy City”…and no one seems to quite know why…

LOWCOUNTRY GULLAH

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no matter. Whether it’s her many churches, the European-inspired American southern architecture, the pulsating nightlife, tantalizing restaurants, amazing shops, or because there’s so much to see and do in Charleston—well, perhaps that’s why people call it divine. Visitors love to come to Charleston.

Again, and again. And again.

That’s just one reason why The National Foundation for Women Legislators selected Charleston for their 2022 Annual Conference, to be held November 14-16. “What happens when diverse and impressive elected women get together to share ideas, network, and engage in civil discourse?” asks the NFWL as elected women from across the country gather in Charleston. Quite simply, a packed, two-day itinerary focusing on pressing matters at hand.

A Packed Agenda is planned for the NFWL Annual Conference

Leading the three-day agenda is “Ending Period Poverty,” a program in partnership with “U by Kotex®.” Determined to meet a long-pressing issue, “U by Kotex®” was created to ensure a menstrual period, and negative perceptions of a period, will never get in the way of any woman’s personal or professional progress.

“No student should have to miss school, no adult should have to miss work, and no person should have to miss out on daily life because they are unable to afford the supplies they need.” [for information: ubykotex.com/en-us/end-period-poverty]

Also presented will be the NFWL’s “Grab ‘n Go Programming,” a wide-platform, online program that poses—and responds to— timely issues. “Grab ‘n Go” is underwritten by organizations that are recognized as best-in-class in their category, bringing resources, programs, and presentation materials right to your fingertips. (www.womenlegislators.org/grab-n-go/) This includes pertinent and current information on human trafficking, in partnership with Shared Hope International, and EvidenceBased Policy, through the Pew Charitable Trusts, which sheds

light on state trends and analysis, social programs, policy-making, and retirement in all 50 states.

In addition to the Pew Charitable Trust and Kotex, other NFWL sponsors who support vital programs spearheaded by the NFWL include PepsiCo, Reynolds, the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), Weedmaps, Verizon, Walmart, Charter Communications, the American Petroleum Institute, Comcast/ NBC Universal, Wells Fargo, and the Mayo Consulting Group among others.

Why Charleston? Why, Indeed!

Why, then, has the NFWL chosen Charleston as its location to discuss its all-important Healthcare Summit and present its coveted 2022 Women of Excellence Awards? Because Charleston has emerged as first in the nation as a preferred destination for conventions and meetings. Here, in this iconic, culturally refined, and historically plentiful city there’s a feeling in the air—modern momentum meets antebellum, tempered by an ocean breeze-kissed climate.

It’s a city rich in diversity and resplendent with the gentility of a bygone age. Charleston welcomes and offers so much. Yes, there’s something about Charleston—the laughter and camaraderie among friends, old and new, and the tranquility to be found in solitude. For in these shining moments, memories are made in Charleston as in no other place on earth.

Meeting Places

The National Federation for Women Legislators is one of the numerous organizations, businesses, and clubs that have come to Charleston to conduct business while enjoying all the city provides.

One of the most notable is THE CHARLESTON AREA CONVENTION CENTER CAMPUS, which features more than 150,000 square feet of flexible meeting and exhibit space.

Adjoining the Performing Arts Center, it is mere steps away from

HISTORIC HOMES

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the North Charleston Coliseum and the Embassy Suites Hotel.

The architecturally breathtaking CHARLESTON GAILLARD CENTER is home to the Charleston Symphony, SEWE, Spoleto, and other world-renowned events. The 1,800-seat theater and 16,000 square-ft exhibition hall are located in the Historic District and within easy walking distance of some of Charleston’s finest hotels, amazing restaurants, and many attractions.

THE AMERICAN THEATER, Charleston’s premier movie house, has become a quirkily popular venue with its boisterous Art Deco architecture, making it a Charleston landmark since 1942.

For more intimate gatherings there are HALLS SIGNATURE EVENTS, located steps from Waterfront Park; the uniquely versatile PORTER ROOM beside the Noisette Creek at Holy City Brewing, 39 RUE DE JEAN, and UPSTAIRS AT VIRGINIA’S.

CHARLESTON HARBOR

NEW COLLECTION GALLERIES / COLUMBIA MUSEUM OF ART

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HISTORIC DOWNTOWN

The famed KIAWAH ISLAND GOLF RESORT, with its 23,000 flexible square-foot West Beach Conference Center, 10,000 square-foot ballroom, and 11 breakout rooms, has long been a mecca for those seeking the leisurely atmosphere this world-class resort affords.

Charleston is home to many estates that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the historic MCLEOD PLANTATION HISTORIC SITE and downtown, LOWNDES GROVE, Charleston’s last great waterfront estate, built in 1786, which boasts two indoor/outdoor venues on expansive, landscaped grounds overlooking panoramic Ashley River views.

DRAYTON HALL, the impressive Lowcountry plantation built in the early 1750s, is one of the most remarkable examples of Palladian architecture in America. There’s the AIKEN-RHETT HOUSE, the city’s most intact antebellum urban complex, built in 1820 and virtually unaltered since 1858; BOONE HALL PLANTATION, a Georgian-style home that emerged as part of the Second Wave of Reconstruction, in 1936; the NATHANIEL RUSSELL HOUSE, a grand, Federal townhouse completed in 1880 best-known for its magnificent free-flying staircase.

MIDDLETON PLACE, a National Historic Landmark, encompasses 65 acres of America’s oldest landscaped gardens.

The EDMONSTON-ALTSON HOUSE is one of the first dwellings built on Charleston’s High Battery. Here, from one

of the home’s three-story piazzas, is where General Beauregard watched the bombardment of Fort Sumter. THE HEYWARDWASHINGTON HOUSE, home of Thomas Heyward, Jr. a signer of the Declaration of Independence, features a pristine collection of period furniture.

What’s More . . .

What’s more, Charleston goes beyond downtown: there’s Charleston west of the Ashley, North Charleston, James Island, Johns Island, Folly Beach, Awendaw, Edisto, Wadmalaw Island, Kiawah Island, Mt. Pleasant, and Isle of Palms. Come to Charleston for a convention, for sure—but also bring along your family for a fun-packed vacation.

Whether it’s a tour of Charleston Harbor on the 84-foot-tall ship, THE SCHOONER PRIDE, or a live history tour aboard the motor vessel, THE CAROLINA BELLE, see Charleston by water or take a carriage tour. Enjoy an outdoor experience at the area’s many riverfront parks and white sand beaches, visit the newly renovated Cypress Gardens and wander its scenic paths, bridges, and natural water swamp.

By day, poke into the many marvelous shops, spend a day at one of Charleston’s many spas, and at night, enjoy the vibrant nightlife as you swill a Mint Julep. Or two.

There’s something for everyone in Charleston. Come see for yourself !

For more information on Charleston, log onto www.ExploreCharleston.com and www.DiscoverSouthCarolina.com If you plan to attend the NFWL Conference, registration is open online by logging onto womenlegislators.org/event/charleston22/

mind&body

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From Philosophy

to

Thought

BY SONIA HENRY

ILLUSTRATION BY CRISTINA CONTI / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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w

e’ve all heard the famous Descartes quote, “I think, therefore I am,” but what does it mean to really THINK? The traditional definition of thought is the mental process by which people form psychological associations and models of the world, manipulate information, form concepts, create solutions to problems, reason, and make decisions. These are heady notions, and the study of the mind and how people think have engaged both philosophers and lay people alike for millennia.

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hroughout the ages, as humans have searched for deeper meaning and a greater understanding of their existence, they have turned to the philosophers and thought leaders of their times for guidance. The names that immediately come to mind when discussing such complicated topics are Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Confucius, Kant, and Rousseau, to name but a few. Interestingly, a quick internet search of the 20 greatest philosophers of all time turned up nary a woman’s name, which does a great disservice to the history of thought and women’s role in influencing the philosophical canon. However female philosophers who lived and thought alongside many of history’s renowned male philosophers are beginning to take their rightful place

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in the fields of philosophy and thought leadership, and their role in creating our understanding of thought and impacting our lives is beginning to be acknowledged on a wider scale.

A fine example of this is the presence of hundreds of female philosophers dating back to about 1000 BC who are spotlighted on a new timeline located at www.chronoflotimeline.com/ timeline/shared/7897/Women-Philosophers-Timeline. This website takes visitors on a historical journey of famous (and not so famous) women thinkers over the millennia. Clicking through the ages, one can find brief synopses of great minds such as Ghosha, a Brhamavadini who was well-versed in mantras; early feminist Aspasia of Miletus; neoplatonist Hypatia of Alexandria; Hildegard of Bingen (the founder of scientific natural history); American women’s suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton; political theorist Hannah Arendt; and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, to name a few. This timeline is a stark reminder that many of these voices have been obscured by their more celebrated male counterparts. However, as we enter an age of empowerment and the emergence of women in all facets of life, it is clear that women’s thoughts and ideas are beginning to take their rightful place in the history of thought.

But how does the somewhat esoteric field of philosophy impact our everyday lives and how laypeople think deeply about the world? The 20th century philosopher Brand

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FREEDOM IS ALWAYS AND EXCLUSIVELY FREEDOM FOR THE ONE WHO THINKS DIFFERENTLY.” —ROSA LUXEMBURG

POLISH & NATURALISED-GERMAN REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST, MARXIST PHILOSOPHER & ANTI-WAR ACTIVIST

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Blanshard addressed this very question in his seminal piece “Can the Philosopher Influence Social Change?” In this 1954 article, Blanshard takes a closer look at history and the role that philosophers played in several watershed events, including the American, French, and Russian Revolutions.

Blanshard postulates that philosophers of the time, who championed such ideas as democracy, general will, and the rights of the proletariat, undoubtedly influenced the social affairs of the times. He calls to mind how Stoicism, for instance, helped to “abolish disabilities of race, sex, and class” and how “the Reformation undermined the ancient hierarchies,” and how “Nietzche’s exaltation of power hastened the trend toward Fascism.” Blanshard wrote, “Indeed we could dip into history at almost any point and find evidence for the effect on society of speculative ideas.”

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hilosophy is, indeed, the foundation of critical thinking, bringing important questions to the fore and helping people work toward answers.

Great thinkers have inspired others to think more deeply about the world and how they can live better lives. When looking at the female philosophers who have influenced thought over time, it is clear that many great women thinkers have been overlooked. That being said, according to researchers at the Genealogies of Modernity Project out of the University of Pennsylvania, “we are . . . becoming more aware (for example) of the originality and influence of Marxist thinkers and orators such as Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg, and of the crucial role of women such as Edith Stein, Gerda Walther, and Hedwig Conrad-Martius in the development of early phenomenology.”

Today, the term philosopher is not as common as the phrase “thought leader,” the latter referring to a person whose views on a subject are taken to be authoritative and influential. Thought leaders are typically business leaders who have expertise in their chosen fields and, like philosophers, offer guidance, inspire innovation, and influence others in the way that they look at the world.

What is exciting is that many of today’s thought leaders are women, people like Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, former First Lady Michelle Obama; YouTube and cosmetics guru Michelle Phan, MeToo activist Tarana Burke, Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Marie Khan-Cullors Brignac, and author and entrepreneur Ash Ambirge, who encourages women to be brave and disobedient. And of course, no list of women thought leaders would be complete without Oprah Winfrey, the queen of talk shows whose endorsements have turned many products into multi-million-dollar ventures.

While these thought leaders are not necessarily contemplating the meaning of life, they are most certainly inspiring activism,

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social consciousness, and motivating ideas about body positivity and female empowerment. A recent article in The Huffington Post says that the hallmark of all of these female thought trailblazers is that they “don’t play by traditional industry rules: when it comes to online entrepreneurship, earning credibility and becoming an expert in your field, they show that it no longer has to do with credentials—it’s about the people whose lives you’ve changed. The lesson? Helping others never goes out of style.”

The author of that article goes on to say that women are naturally assuming these thought leadership roles because they are now the ones who are building online platforms and businesses from scratch and sharing their expertise.

She writes that “thought leadership is the combination of passion, expertise, and experience . . . and that women are ‘long overdue’ for environments that cultivate their abilities.”

It is also possible that women are assuming their place as thinkers in the thought leadership arena because they now, increasingly, see themselves AS leaders. Women are in positions today where they can eschew the traditional job market and can create their own networks and businesses using online platforms. It is an empowering time for women and, thanks to the internet, they now have the wherewithal and the means to magnify their messages to much larger audiences and to create followings.

It is clear that these thought leaders, who may someday take their place in the timeline of great philosophers, have been changing the world in meaningful ways and engaging others to join in their efforts. Not only are they helping people interpret the state of the world, they are creating spaces that encourage others to engage with each other, and to practice what they are preaching. Denise Brousseau of Stanford University’s Business School and author of Ready to be a Thought Leader, says that these thought leaders are creating dedicated groups of followers who can “replicate and scale their ideas into sustainable change . . . by creating blueprints for people to follow . . . create change . . . and to take action.”

These thought leaders’ ability to inspire others to not only think deeply about their lives, but to also implement change are what inspire people to grow, develop, and think as human beings. So, whether you choose to follow the teachings of Aristotle or Oprah, Plato or Sandberg, Nietzsche or de Beauvoir, it is probably wise to heed the words of Socrates, who said “true wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”

Whether we choose to learn from ancient philosophers or contemporary thought leaders, we are forced to examine our own lives and to find the meaning in others’ teachings that will help us untangle how we look at the world and ultimately (and hopefully) make it a better place. ■

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philanthropy

IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE, ASK A WOMAN

BY CORA WALDEN

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La Liberté Guidant le Peuple (Liberty Leading the People) by French painter Eugène Delacroix.

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2018, Forbes magazine organized the Forbes Philanthropy Forum in response to the ever-growing presence of successful businesswomen and investors looking for a place that would reflect their personal interests, benefit from their cash, and be in a position to do great and lasting good. Interestingly, there was a near parity between the number of male philanthropists and female, enforcing the prediction that “investment by women, and in them, is growing,” according to the international financial periodical, the Economist, which cited that between 2010 and 2015 private wealth held by women increased by more than fifty-percent—and showed every sign of rising. And yet, in 2018, Forbes reported that only 256 women out of a field of 2,208 individuals were billionaires and, according to Crunchbase, only eight-percent of partners among the top 100 venture firms were female. More telling is between 2012 and 2017, 90-percent of venture dollars globally went to all-male businesses and organizations.

This said, studies suggest that women are more apt to engage in prosocial outreach and behavior. We are inclined to volunteer more, get on board to help worthy causes, and donate more freely—almost twice as much as men. So, what’s the trend? Where is philanthropy headed, especially in the present times?

The Women’s Collective Giving Network

Women first organized “giving circles” in which like-minded individuals band together to give together as a means of co-creating solutions that will help a common cause. One such organization, the Women’s Collective Giving Network, has branched out around the country to effectively target regional causes. For example, the Women’s Giving Network of Wake County, a giving circle of the North Carolina Community Foundation, leverages “the power of collective giving through a local network that supports the community in a purposeful way . . . while maximizing women’s leadership in philanthropy by engaging and educating its membership and increasing charitable contributions.” Kansas-based Philanos (formerly known as Catalist), an international women-led philanthropic leadership collective, “believes that organizations that prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) create environments that respect and value individual differences.”

How does this work? By example, every year, the Women’s Giving Alliance apportions $1,100 of each member’s annual gift to build up its “grants pool.” This “partner funding” yields a substantial sum.

Together the membership decides on how to apportion the monies (“one member, one vote”) and through this grantmaking process, WGA awarded $660,000 in 2022 alone to seventeen area nonprofits dedicated to transforming the lives of women and girls in Northeast Florida.

As this new trend in female-led philanthropy continues to grow and gain popularity, it also provides the opportunity to co-create solutions with established, female-led philanthropies, such as the Gates Foundation.

Directed by Melinda Gates, last year $20 million was committed to strengthen women’s groups worldwide. “They know their community. They know what needs to get done,” Melinda says. As this creative, collaborative spirit amplifies, so will its impact on communities, regions, and the world.

Women Moving Millions and other initiatives

For women, it goes a step further. Though there are no official statistics,

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investing in causes that support women and girls—which, historically, have been underfunded—also serves to strengthen gender equality.

In 2007, an initiative called Women Moving Millions was organized, resulting in a collective of 290 members who pledged over $600 million to organizations and initiatives committed to advancing women and girls around the world. Another powerful example of women investing in women took place in January 2018, when the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund was established by a group of female philanthropists to address sexual assault, harassment, and inequality women face in the workplace. A staggering $22 million was raised online. And the trend continues through organizations such as the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), which was founded in 2014 to provide business solutions to the social and development problems women face, in line with the World Bank’s program, Gender Equality as Smart Economics.

Notable Women Philanthropists

These are financially trying times and philanthropy is dependent on investments if their impact is to be sustained, let alone amplified. Morgan Stanley recently conducted a survey in which 84-percent of the women polled were interested in “sustainable investing” that would not only meet their financial goals but their social and environmental objectives, as well.

As more and more women make their own fortunes and have taken an active leadership role in family and corporate philanthropy, they have emerged as top networkers and catalysts in modern philanthropy.

A major—if not the major female philanthropist in the world is Melinda Gates. The former Mrs. Bill Gates, oversees the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her leadership and unmatched power in ensuring women’s issues, such as female reproductive health, has the power to change the lives of millions worldwide—and does.

Susan Buffett, with her deceivingly low-profile, keeps her name out of the limelight. However, she controls two giant foundations—one, the secretive Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation—named for her late mother—which is ranked among the five largest foundations.

Patricia Harris is the head of Bloomberg Philanthropies and has held the job of orchestrating Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropic universe since 2010, when he appointed Harris as chair and CEO of Bloomberg Philanthropies.

In 2013, Bloomberg gave away $452 million—almost as much as the Ford Foundation—and that figure has increased annually ever since.

Susan Dell is the wife of Michael Dell, the 25th richest person in America, and every year she supervises the distribution of over $1 billion through the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.

What’s Next?

The late, great humorist Erma Bombeck said, “It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.” Women such as those just mentioned and many more have that in common: they are all, to a one, dreamers. Whether a woman dreams of improving the lives of women, minorities, or communities; whether she seeks to undo the damage mankind has wreaked on the health of the environment, or improve the standards of health here, in America, or far-and-wide in Third World Countries. Whether she dreams of opening the world to children on the spectrum who are impaired by their vision and comprehension of the universe around them—every woman can be a philanthropist. Whether a woman is wealthy beyond imagining or gives $20 a month to help her cause, one can be a philanthropist. All you have to do is dream. ■

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Put a smile on their face this holiday season.

Explore the colorful world of Annabelle and the CoGlo Amigos. cogloamigos.com

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back story

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icture-perfect and surrounded by old and new friends, the reveal of ELYSIAN’s Fall 2022 “Travel & Technology” Issue in Napa Valley, California was spectacular.

ELYSIAN’s newest Inspiring Woman, Jan Zakin, featured on the cover, opened her heart and home—creating exquisite memories for everyone. Spanning the continent with over 20 states represented (Hawaii to New York, Texas to Florida) and international guests from Europe, breathtaking views and unforgettable artistry was the weekend’s hallmark.

In keeping with the technology theme, ELYSIAN revealed and launched its first NFT. Months of dedication and planning for this giant feat yielded the most stunning and amazing results that ELYSIAN is proud to share with the world today. ■

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Top row, left to right: Julie Mims with Dr. Amy Green. Chelsey Stevens (Jan Zakin’s makeup artist) with Allegra Agabian. View of the vineyard, from the Zakins’ home. Lauren Carson (middle), and Cyndy McDermott (right) with a friend. Don Bailey (in cap)—auction winner. Second row, left to right: Sarah Smith, ELYSIAN Special Events Director. Amy Burkman’s painting (on the breezeway) inspired by back cover of the Fall issue celebrating inaugural NFT. Kimberli Scott, Kimberli’s friends & sisters Tanya Ward and Amy Williams, and Sandra Nyblom. Third row, left to right: ELYSIAN Publisher Karen Floyd with Misti Hudson. Gloria Massey & pup, Honey, with Kimberli Scott, ELYSIAN’s Dir. of Philanthropy. Amy Burkman “live event entertainer/ speed painter,”created this painting in under ten minutes. Kathrin & Marvin Yeboa. Taylor Wroolie looks at Angelika Nyblom. Bottom row, left to right: Spiegel-Mock family celebrating reunion of family members from the Ukraine, California, South Carolina, and Washington state. Jan Zakin, cover of Fall 2022 issue, poses with friend and makeup artist, Chelsey Kay Stevens @chelskay. beautyco. Zakin chardonnay—meant for toasting friends and celebrations.

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