E M I L YB L U N T

B Y J U L I E M I L L E RP H O T O G R A P H S B Y C R A I G M C D E A N

A Spoonful of Brooklyn Glam: World, Meet Your New Mary Poppins

A L S O !

S P E C I A L I N V E S T I G A T I O NS T A M P E D E :2 , 0 0 0 D E A T H SI N M E C C AB Y W I L L I A M L A N G E W I E S C H E

G E E K S , D R U G S , A N D

O R G I E S I N S I L I C O N V A L L E Y :

A N O T H E R

# M E T O O P R O B L E M B Y E M I L Y C H A N G

“Life shrinks or

expands in

proportion to one’s

courage.”

— A N A Ï S N I N

U G L Y C H A R I T Y G R A BB Y W I L L I A M D . C O H A N

R O S E M C G O W A N H A S M O R E T O S A Y

B Y E V G E N I A P E R E T Z

L E N A D U N H A M ’ SE N D L E S S

A P O L O G Y T O U RB Y J A M E S W O L C O T T

R E D , W H I T E , A N D . . . E W W W :

T A S T I N GT R U M P W I N E

B Y C O R B Y K U M M E R

P L U S !

F E B R UA RY 201 8

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 812 V A N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfair.com

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42 BEING BLUNT B y J U L I E M I L L E R

Social media be damned, Emily Blunt wants to keep a little mystery. Which makes her perfect for the iconic nanny in Mary Poppins Returns. Photographs by Craig McDean.

52 THE OTHER HARVEY SCANDALB y W I L L I A M D. C O H A N

For AmFAR, the AIDS-research foundation, Harvey

Weinstein was a major source of funding, publicity, and problems. Did he also involve it in a financial nightmare?

58 PARIS WAS A BALL! B y B O B C O L AC E L L O

The annual Bal des Débutantes, in Paris, is a night for playing

(or being) a princess. Photographs by Jonathan Becker.

62 ROSE RAGE B y E VG E N I A P E R E T Z

With her memoir, Rose McGowan, the actress who helped torpedo Harvey Weinstein, hopes to bring down the system behind him. Photographs by Brigitte Lacombe.

66 BACCHANALIA 2.0 B y E M I LY C H A N G

Sexism in Silicon Valley takes many forms, but the most insidious may be at exclusive orgies, where some tech women can get screwed whether they participate or not. Photo illustration by Darrow.

70 JUST YOU WAIT Spotlight on Bartlett Sher’s intrepid revival of My Fair Lady. By Jim Kelly. Photograph by Pari Dukovic.

72 INCREDIBLE VOYAGEB y W I L L I A M P R O C H N AU A N D L AU R A PA R K E R

Young Oskar Speck left Germany in 1932, in a folding kayak. Landing in Australia seven years later, he was imprisoned as an enemy, his epic adventure engulfed by World War II.

78 THE CARNEGIE IMPERATIVEV.F. nominates this year’s winners of the Carnegie Medal of

Philanthropy, for turning fortunes into legacies. By Cullen Murphy. Photograph by Jonas Fredwall Karlsson.

C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 4

Clockwise

from top left:

Rose McGowan

(page 62);

Victor Garber

(page 116);

Hot Type (page 30).

F E BRUA RY 2 0 18 No.  6 9 0

For

who’s who,

see page 102.

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y J O N A T H A N B E C K E R

For the 25th annual Bal des Débutantes, billed as the most prestigious descended on Paris, trailing couture gowns, custom jewels, and chevaliers. For the as BOB COLACELLO reports, it was a night to waltz

58 V A N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfair.com F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

coming-out party in the world, the cream of the 1 percent crop daughters of American movie stars, billionaire tycoons, and European royals, with their dads, then kick up their Louboutin heels

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 www.vanityfair.com V A N I T Y F A I R 59

ne of

the more amusing sights at the 25th edition

of the annual Bal des Débutantes, held in

Paris on Thanksgiving weekend, was the

Friday-afternoon lineup of the girls’ fathers,

waiting to practice the box step with their

daughters for what would be the opening

waltz of the ball, the following night. There,

in a row, were the American comedian and

TV host Steve Harvey; the Ukrainian-born,

British-American billionaire Len Blavat-

nik; the French perfume magnate Frédéric

Malle; an Italian prince; a Spanish grandee;

and a Luxembourgian royal. Call it diversity

and inclusiveness global-elite-style. Or as

Le Bal’s founder and C.E.O., Ophélie Re-

nouard, sees it, the democratization of the

rigidly exclusive and largely anachronistic

pres en ta tions of highborn 18-year-old girls

at European royal courts and American

coming-out parties. (No, not out of the

closet, but into the adult ranks of the upper

crust of their city, state, or region.)

“I think it’s silly to talk about coming out

in society in the time of Facebook and In-

stagram,” Renouard explains. “There’s not

much difference at a certain level between

girls from America, Asia, and Europe. They

go to the same universities, listen to the

same music, dress the same—the top ones.”

Contrary to what some believe, families do

not pay Renouard to have their daughters

invited to Le Bal, but they are encouraged

to write checks to two charities: the Seleni In-

stitute, a New York emotional-health or gan-

i za tion for adolescent women, and Enfants

d’Asie, which promotes education for girls

in Southeast Asia.

This year’s crop of 21 debs hailed from a

dozen countries, including Japan, India, and

Brazil. The most C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 0 2

Clockwise from

top left:

Lori Harvey with

her brother, Wynton;

Cecily Lasnet;

Ophélie Renouard and

Reese Witherspoon;

Ava Phillippe;

Laila Blavatnik with her

father, Len;

Jeanne Malle with her

father, Frédéric.

60 V A N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfair.com F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8102 V A N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfair.com

C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 6 0 prominent among

the half-dozen Americans was Ava Phillippe,

the daughter of movie stars Reese Wither-

spoon and Ryan Phillippe. “I like the idea

of doing something that’s fancy and fun, but

supports a good cause,” Ava told me as she

posed Friday afternoon for a fleet of photog-

raphers from Hello, Paris Match, and assorted

international editions of Vogue. Ava was wear-

ing—or, rather, it was wearing her—a shim-

mering gold gown with a giant birdcage skirt

by Giambattista Valli. Each girl was dressed

by a different couture house, among them

Valentino, Dior, Chanel, Elie Saab, Vivienne

Westwood, and Armani Privé. Their hair and

makeup were done by Alexandre de Paris and

MAC Cosmetics, respectively; their not-too-

high heels were from Christian Louboutin, Le

Bal’s official shoemaker.

The ball’s official jeweler, Payal Mehta, told

me that she consults with the debutantes on the

design of the necklaces, earrings, and rings of

dripping emeralds, sapphires, and colored dia-

monds she creates for each of them. Scotland’s

Cecily Lasnet—the daughter of model Stella

Tennant and photographer turned osteopath

David Lasnet, and a great-granddaughter of

the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire—told

Mehta that “her family loves flowers, so we

made her earrings with a large emerald set in

the center of diamond petals.” Perhaps not

surprisingly, many parents end up buying these

“pieces of art converted into jewelry” as pres-

ents for their daughters. Payal New York was

also one of this year’s sponsors of Le Bal, along

with Groupe Renault and the Peninsula hotel,

the grand 16th Arrondissement site of the ball.

The girls also choose or are provided with

a cavalier, as their equally young escorts are

called. Ava Phillippe was paired with the dash-

Le Bal

ing H.H. Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh

of Jaipur, who, a few weeks earlier, had been

competing with India’s team at the World

Polo Championship in Sydney, Australia, and

whose sister Princess Gauravi Kumari of Jai-

pur was one of this year’s debs. Alice Ho, the

daughter of Stanley Sun Ho, the so-called King

of Macau, was matched with French film icon

Jean-Paul Belmondo’s grandson Giacomo

Belmondo. H.R.H. Princess Charlotte of Nas-

sau, daughter of T.R.H. Prince Guillaume

and Princess Sibilla of Luxembourg, brought

along her twin brother, Prince Léopold, as did

Spain’s Amina Martínez of Irujo and Casa-

nova; Amina and her twin, Luis, are grandchil-

dren of the late Duchess of Alba.

Royal and aristocratic girls with names

such as Windsor, Romanov, Bourbon-

Parma, and Hohenlohe have always made

up a large part of Le Bal’s participants, and

this year’s roster included H.R.H. Princess

Natasha d’Arenberg, from Belgium; H.R.H.

Princess Maria Francisca de Braganza, from

Portugal; Maria Pia of Jong-d’Orléans and

Braganza, from Brazil; Princess Costanza Pal-

lavicini, from Rome; and Donna Giacinta dei

Marchesi Brivio Sforza, from Milan. Previous

balls have also included debs with big political

names—Lauren Bush, Kick and Kyra Ken-

nedy, Barbara Berlusconi, Xenia and Ana sta-

sia Gorbachev. This time two of the debs were

from former U.S. diplomatic families. Los

Angeles soap-opera heiress Charlotte Bell’s

mother, Colleen, was President Obama’s am-

bassador to Hungary. Seattle telecom heiress

Paris McCaw’s aunt Susan McCaw was Presi-

dent George W. Bush’s ambassador to Austria.

(Bronwen Carter, daughter of this magazine’s

editor, debuted at the 2012 Le Bal.)

“I think the parents are having more fun

than the girls,” noted H.R.H. Princess Ma-

ria Thereza d’Orléans and Braganza, whose

daughter was wearing a gown by the Brazilian

couturier Sandro Barros. “We are so proud.”

A joyous Emily Blavatnik never stopped tak-

ing photos of her daughter Laila with her

iPhone. She had an additional reason to cele-

brate: her husband, said to be the richest man

in Britain, had just been knighted for his phi-

lanthropy by Prince Charles, at Buckingham

Palace. The newly minted Sir Leonard Bla-

vatnik, however, decided to wear his Légion

d’Honneur medal with his white tie and tails

on Saturday night, “because we’re in France.”

The evening began with cocktails and

hors d’oeuvres under the massive crystal

chandeliers in the Peninsula’s stately white

marble lobby. Then, once all were seated at

their assigned tables in the ballroom, came

the main event: La Procession des Filles et

Cavaliers. Master of ceremonies Stéphane

Bern, a veteran journalist and expert on roy-

alty, declared Le Bal “le plus prestigieux du

monde.” He then introduced each debutante

in alphabetical order, listing her education,

interests, dress, jewels, and escort, as he has

done for the last two decades. “They are

all so beautiful,” sighed Marjorie Harvey,

known for her blog, the Lady Loves Cou-

ture.

After a classic French dinner of pâté de

foie gras, médaillons de veau, and petits fours,

the action moved to an adjacent salon, where

fathers and daughters danced their opening

waltz to the theme song from La La Land.

Disco dancing ensued, lasting until three in

the morning. And, as Ophélie Renouard put

it, another “formative event in the education”

of debutantes came to its conclusion. �

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(1) Amina Martínez of Irujo and Casanova in Zuhair Murad Couture. (2) Wynton Harvey.

(3) Princess Gauravi Kumari of Jaipur in Tarun Tahiliani. (4) William Webster. (5) Lucien Malle. (6) Ava Phillippe in Giambattista Valli Haute Couture. (7) Paris McCaw in Oscar de la Renta. (8) Giacomo Belmondo. (9) Lori Harvey in Elie Saab Haute Couture. (10) Charlotte Bell in Monique Lhuillier. (11) Ahaan Panday. (12) Luis Martínez of Irujo and Casanova. (13) Lily Webster in Alexis Mabille Haute Couture. (14) Laila Blavatnik in Ralph & Russo Couture. (15) Cecily Lasnet in Chanel Haute Couture. (16) Alice Ho in Christian Dior Haute Couture. (17) Princess Costanza Pallavicini in Valentino. (18) Ananya Panday in Gaultier Paris. (19) Jeanne Malle in Vivienne Westwood. (20) H.H. Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh of Jaipur. All jewelry by Payal New York.

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