Archie Panjabi and Petra Nemcova

What: A party celebrating Clinique's new Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion+, reformulated 45 years after its inception

When: Tuesday, June 18th

Where: The 620 Loft & Garden at Rockefeller Center. Rain—the running theme of June—kept guests from fully enjoying the outdoor space, but that didn't stop a woman in a sweeping yellow dress from performing an interpretative dance in homage to the famed lotion. Those who stayed inside were treated to a wall artfully covered in bottles of the potion and an all-white room with banquettes, a bar, a portrait studio with Sophie Elgort, a fashion illustrator booth, and tunes from the Djs Mad Marj and Hannah Bronfman.

Stacy Keibler and Emily VanCamp

Who: A white and buttercream-clad group—one man was overheard telling his companions that his look was his "Kentucky Derby" outfit. Celebrities included Stacy Kiebler, Emily VanCamp, Archie Panjabi, Katharine McPhee, and Petra Nemcova.

Why: In this fickle consumer climate, a moisturizer that can maintain a loyal following for 45 years deserves a party. Also, any beauty maven worth her weight in humectants knows it's best to apply moisturizer to damp skin. So rain, take that!

Photo: Billy Farrell Agency

After founding Design Miami/ and then serving as the fair's director for five years, Ambra Medda is moving into the digital sphere. Her latest project: L'ArcoBaleno--a new e-commerce destination for design--officially launched today.

Under Medda's selective, curatorial eye--and in collaboration with the site's high-profile advisors like Pharrell, Tom Dixon, and Reed Krakoff--L'ArcoBaleno offers both contemporary and classic pieces from global artists and galleries, luxury brands, and designers. The diversity of the site's collection is impressive--the seating category alone includes a ribbon-shaped bench by Maria Pergay ($38,970), a rare set of metal chairs by Janine Abraham and Dirk Jan Rol ($20,000), and a Campana brothers Panda chair ($44,170). Late-night web shopping just got a bit more dangerous...

Visit L'ArcoBaleno online at www.larcobaleno.com

An ever-changing cast of concerns factors into how we dress on a given day—our mood, the weather, how much time we have to get ready, where we’re going, who we expect to see. Longing to know the secrets behind how and why women dress the way they do, writers Sheila Heti, Leanne Shapton, and Heidi Julavits have joined forces on a soon-to-be completed book, Women in Clothes: Why We Wear What We Wear.

"What to wear?"

The book, due out next year from Penguin, will include offerings from inspiring thinkers and artists like Miranda July and Zadie Smith. And in the spirit of collaboration (and Shine Theory, perhaps?) the three editors are asking for those interested in participating to submit answers to a style survey they’ve created specifically for the purpose of the book. Here, Sheila, Leanne, and Heidi explain a bit more about the project, the virtues of group think, and, of course, clothes:

What inspired you to start working on this project?
Sheila Heti: I went to the bookstore one day looking for a very specific book. I wanted to know what women thought about when they bought clothes, and what they were thinking as they put outfits together. What factors were they considering? I wanted to learn from other women, so I could dress myself better, the same way I read the Paris Review Interviews as a teenager to learn how writers thought, so I could be a better writer. It's not terribly useful to see outfits, I think it's much more useful to see thinking. I was surprised that I couldn't find any book even remotely like this, so it seemed right to make it. It also seemed obvious that I should collaborate with Leanne and Heidi, so I asked them within weeks of that bookstore visit and they said Yes. They had their own reasons for wanting to work on this book.
Heidi Julavits: I am a novelist. It was recently pointed out to me how much attention I devote to dressing my characters. I'd never thought about this before, but this observation revealed to me how I see both characters and people. I read humans, and in particular women, through the clothing they put on their bodies. I understood their outfits as public witnesses to their more secret selves. The impulse wasn't about fashion consciousness or brand awareness—it was about honoring this information as important. Intentionally or not, a woman reveals many things—her ambitions, her anxieties, her life philosophy—through how she dresses herself.

What caused you to want to collaborate on this particular project?
Leanne Shapton: We've all always collaborated on projects together—Heidi and Sheila on The Believer, Sheila and I on a book and a lecture series. It was a natural progression to work on this together. We all have different relationships to this topic, and part of what is so fun about the collaboration is melding our understanding of style. The book gave us an excuse to start talking about this stuff in depth, and once we realized how differently we approached what seemed to be a commonly shared act—getting dressed—we wanted to reach out to other women, and learn from them, too. We also have similar work ethics and respect for deadlines, which helps.

What do you hope or expect to receive from these style surveys?
Leanne Shapton: We've got about 150 completed so far and they keep coming in. We didn't have specific expectations, but we hoped that we'd hear women explaining something private about themselves and their habits. What's been great is when women really go deep and talk about their insecurities and confidences and histories and the real reasons behind their choices. We love when we get answers that aren't meant to impress a readership or make the subject sound chic. For example, instead of anodyne answers like "I love pairing vintage with designer," we're getting stories from women about refugee fathers, lost grubby sweatshirts, and the smell of their mother's hair.

Fill out the survey at womeninclothes.com, and look for the book next year.

Photo: CNP Montrose/Richard Rutledge, Glamour Magazine, Sept 1948

Madonna

What: The world premiere of Madonna: The MDNA Tour, hosted by The Cinema Society and Dolce & Gabbana

Where: An after party at Harlow followed the screening at New York City’s famed Paris Theater. A menswear-clad Madonna explained in a post-film Q&A that Marlene Dietrich, who cut the venue’s inaugural ribbon in 1948, inspired her own three-piece Tom Ford suit, top hat, and wavy bob.

When: Tuesday, June 18

From left: John Travolta; Kelly Osbourne

Who: The show didn’t start until the Queen of Pop had taken her seat amongst an audience that included the cast and crew of the 2012 tour—who rambunctiously sang and danced along with the film—as well as John Travolta, Kelly Osbourne, Martha Stewart, Andy Cohen, Riccardo Tisci and Salman Rushdie. Outside, fans braved the rain in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Material Girl.

Why: There’s nothing quite like watching a Madonna concert… next to Madonna herself.

Photos: Patrick McMullan

Earlier this spring, 85 tractor-trailers rolled out of a downtown Los Angeles warehouse bound for New York. They were hauling the building blocks of a colossal artificial forest, which the artist Paul McCarthy has now installed in Manhattan’s Park Avenue Armory for WS, his major solo exhibition opening on Wednesday. As he’s done in the past with Caribbean pirates and Santa Claus, the artist recast a (mostly) innocent childhood fantasy—in this case Snow White—through film, performance, and sculpture, creating a vividly grotesque nightmare barely recognizable to anyone weaned on Disney. (Don’t bring the kids.)

Damon (left) and Paul McCarthy (in tie) on the set of WS

On a May afternoon, the artist’s son Damon McCarthy, 39, was overseeing the installation of the 8,800-square foot set in the Armory. The stage was maybe two-thirds finished, but the fake earth, foliage, and towering foam trees already seemed to fill the vast space. “My father feels this is his biggest accomplishment as an artist,” Damon told me. It is certainly the largest in sheer size. In recent years, Paul McCarthy has emerged as a contemporary titan working on a scale as spectacular as that of Jeff Koons. (The New York Times called their latest dueling New York gallery shows “The Battle of the Big.”) Damon, who manages the studio in L.A. and collaborates closely with his father, has been instrumental in helping realize this outsize vision.

Damon McCarthy

“I like to push things in a different way,” Damon said when I asked him about his role in the McCarthy family enterprise (his younger sister Mara operates the downtown L.A. gallery The Box). We were in a back office at the Armory, where he queued up footage of a performance shot in the L.A. warehouse space last year: A Walt Disney-like figure (Walt Paul, played by Paul McCarthy) romps about a house in the forest with several Snow Whites and a gang of drunken men who resemble grown-up frat bro versions of Sleepy, Sneezy & co. Beer, blood, bodily fluids, and genitals fly about the scene freely—it’s Girls Gone Wild meets torture porn. When I mentioned that the creation of such imagery is not exactly a commonplace father-son bonding activity, Damon replied with a shrug, “I think we broke the typical father-son relationship at some point.” (Probably the time Damon, then six, helped his father homebrew beer for a mechanical sculpture piece called Bavarian Kick.) In the decades since, they’ve become true collaborators. Shooting and then editing the month-long bacchanal from some 350 hours of video into a seven-hour, four-channel narrative that is at turns horrific, hilarious, and heartrending (it will play on huge screens above the set installation) is perhaps Damon’s biggest contribution to WS, and to his father’s work at large.


An exclusive time lapse film of the installation of WS

Early on in his career, Paul McCarthy documented his performances with an erratic handheld video camera in much the same way as Chris Burden, Mike Kelley, and Bruce Nauman, his counterparts in the L.A. art scene of the late ’60s. Since he began collaborating with his father in 1996, Damon, who studied film at CalArts, has brought a certain imagination and refinement to the videos. (They’ve even begun poaching personnel from nearby Hollywood studios, including Disney.) “We still exist on the other side of the tracks from Hollywood, but we’ve gotten really good at everything in terms of film production,” Damon explained. It’s allowed his father, whose ambitions have never lacked for grandeur, to go even bigger. Recently, the elder McCarthy bought a thousand acres of land in the desert north of L.A., which he is converting into an American Cinecitta of sorts, where they plan to make a series of Westerns. When I suggest that the McCarthy family studio, which employs roughly 50 regulars, is starting to resemble early Warner Bros., Damon laughed and said, “Yes, except we don’t hire just for a shoot. We’ve built a big production family. And we throw some really crazy Christmas parties.”

“WS” is on view from June 19 – August 4, 2013, at the Park Ave Armory, 643 Park Ave in New York.

Photo: courtesy of the Park Avenue Armory

Valentino Resort 2014

This look -- a double-ply cotton T-shirt paired with an exquisitely embroidered floral skirt and flat sandals -- really sums up the Valentino woman: she is casual, but always in the best pieces.

Photo courtesy of the designer

If it's June it must be... Art Basel! Each summer, the art world descends on the small Swiss city notable for its museums, theaters, and, arguably the world's most prestigious art fair. Here are some highlights from 2013's program.

Rob Pruitt's canvasses 

There's more to the Scottish artist Lucy McKenzie and the designer Beca Lipscombe's collaborative project Atelier EB than extremely wearable clothes, but it's a good place to start. Their second collection is all chic simplicity with a retro-modern edge: sharp, traditionally tailored wool coats, backless jumpers that put a subtle sexy twist on sumptuous cashmere, and a thick, buttery leather satchel that balances schoolgirl charm with grown-up minimalism.

"We design for our friends and each other," they chime, at their presentation at London's Cabinet gallery. Other inspirations include Cleopatra, who appears in cartoon form as a badge, and Madame Gres, and Chanel for how they "managed to imaginatively shape the modern woman."

"The finished collection makes me think of a weird boarding school uniform, but somewhere like Cairo!" enthuses McKenzie. "Like a sci-fi version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." As you might expect of an artist known for her alternative take on cultural history, these are clothes with more than one story to tell.

Atelier EB began with The Inventors of Tradition, a research project into Scotland's legendary but struggling textiles industry. "These companies can only look forward because it's all about keeping the factory open," explains Lipscombe, who discovered dust-coated racks full of vintage Dior, Givenchy, and Katherine Hamnett alongside old British Rail uniforms at Mackintosh. "Many were flabbergasted at the idea they had this heritage."

"Our collections show what textiles can be made," says Lipscombe, comparing two versions of McKenzie's "perfect work coat." Designed with cult Glaswegian tailor Steven Purvis, this white buttoned, high-collared number looks utterly different in robust heavy cotton on the one hand and translucent woven cashmere on the other.

While warm woollies dominated the first collection (both women are from Scotland), this year, after holidaying together on Stromboli's hot black sands, they've included crisp cotton skirts and T-shirts hand-printed with Egyptian motifs. Delicate necklaces bearing heads cut from old coins are another covetable addition.

"It's about creative satisfaction," says McKenzie. "As an artist, I love the idea I can make a huge painting or tiny little bracelets."

Atelier EB's Beach side boutique is part of "Volcano Extravaganza: Evil Under the Sun" on Stromboli, Aeolian Island, Italy through the end of the summer. Work by Atelier EB is included in "The Cat Show," curated by Rhonda Lieberman, White Columns, New York: (Organized in partnership with the Social Tees Animal Rescue.) June 14 - July 27, 2013.

Missoni Resort 2014

The unexpected knit lace on this beach-casual evening dress is a surprising update to the classic Missoni aesthetic.

Photo courtesy of the designer

Lou Doillon

Lou Doillon has dabbled in many things over the years--acting, modeling, designing clothes, donning top hats. But from the sound of her debut album Places, a smoky, soulful compilation of Southern-tinged folk songs, singing is clearly her forte. Produced by French pop musician Etienne Daho, and mixed by Philippe Zdar (Phoenix, The Rapture, Beastie Boys, Cat Power), the album, which will be released in the U.S on Tuesday, June 18th by Verve Records, has already earned rave reviews in France, where it debuted last September. And no one is more surprised by its success than Doillon, who, by virtue of her famous family, has received rather unkind press in past years. Here, over a glass of ginger soda and a succession of American Spirits at the Bowery Hotel, she discusses winning over her critics, her tour attire, and her aversion to Kanye West.

Your album, which is fantastic, is notably un-French.
Well, I don't feel French or English or anything for that matter. I just feel odd in general. I thought maybe that oddness could travel a bit.

But where does its blues sound come from?
As a little girl, my father [indie filmmaker Jacques Doillon]--who doesn't speak a word of English--would only listen to American music, and funny enough, musicians who wrote great lyrics, like Leonard Cohen and Nina Simone. I spoke English as a little girl and I remember crying in his car at age 9 or 10 to Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoats," thinking that you could write nearly a love letter to a man who betrayed you by having an affair with your wife. I was thinking how wonderful and pure music can be for explaining situations. I listen to a variety of music. The only common point is strong lyrics; I'm more obsessed with lyrics than music. I need to hear a form of truth and if it's a hard truth, even better. I picked up the guitar very late, in a very pagan way--I didn't know how to play, but I knew I had to. I drew and I had a diary, but it wasn't enough; I needed to express more. As soon as I learned two notes, I started to tell a story, which is why, I guess, my music resembles blues or folk. I guess that's why it's closer to the origins of music in America.

Many of the songs on the album were written years ago, in the middle of the night, in your kitchen. They're personal, not necessarily intended for the world's ears. Did that give you any pause?
I've been boycotted by the French press for 15 years--they hated me--so I've become a tough cookie in that I don't care what people think. So, no, I wasn't scared. But I was scared thinking, Shit, the only way I've survived all this hostility was by having this private little garden of music, so suddenly if I share the music and people hurt me, how will I calm myself? I was scared also of being a victim of other people. As an actor or model, you're a consenting victim. Music was the only place where I was my own chief. And I thought, If I have to go through a process where I'm eaten up by an industry that tells me what to do, I'll go bonkers. But the fact is, people were so convinced the album was going to be a disaster, they left me alone.

But in fact it's been a great success! You won Female Artist of the Year at Les Victoires de la Musique, which are like the French Grammys.
I'm super surprised by the positive reaction! I could feel hints of it when my girlfriends would come over and ask me to sing the song where you like your dog better than your husband, or the one about that girl who makes lists, or when you drink late at night and get real smart. They're like these little girl mantras.

Now it's being released here in the U.S--the same day as Kanye's album.
I can't listen to his music, like a majority of music today, because of that bloody auto-tune. I can't even listen to the lyrics and think, Do I like this music or don't I? because my whole body goes weird; its absolutely repelling to me.

So what do you listen to?
A lot of Van Morrison--all day long. There are two albums, one called TB Sheets and one called Street Choir, which are absolutely beautiful and very far from what I'm doing. I try to not listen to all the girls I admire musically--like Nina Simone--just so I don't find myself imitating them, even if it's subconsciously. Funny enough, Patti Smith isn't one of them--as much as people think she might be. She's like a mother to me in a very strange way. I've only met her once, but I've always admired her person even more than her music, so I actually don't listen to her music that much. I find it hard to relate to so many women today because they're all so scared--scared of aging, of not being what they used to be. As a woman you're drawn to people who aren't that scared. In that respect, Patti's at the top of my shrine. Her and Louise Bourgeois. I'm not scared thanks to them.

What's on your rider?
A bottle of rum. I drink it with hot water, honey, and lemon. It's grog, but with more rum.

What have you been wearing on tour?
I'm a bit of a contrarian, so I like the idea of going on stage without makeup, without the hair being done, in the jeans and shirt I've been wearing all day. At first that was an issue, because I didn't want to be disrespectful. I didn't want people to think that there wasn't an effort, when in fact I was so scared to go on stage that I would wear a huge Chanel coat that I love because it makes me feel secure. I'd take it off, and leave it at my feet, and as soon as I felt a little bit fragile, I'd put it back on again. When I'm really scared, I have a lovely Saint Laurent tuxedo that I put on. I did a gig in London the other week, and that's what I wore. I had all the guys dress in black too. I said, 'We're going to be hated; the English are really hard. It's our own funeral.' And it was true. The crowd was just standing there with their arms crossed and it was back to square one. It's too easy now in France; we arrive in front of a crowd of 6,000 people who are screaming and know all the lyrics by heart, and you think, This is good. Then you arrive in London with a crowd of 600 people who don't give a shit. But at the end, there was a standing ovation.

Photo: Getty Images