Vanity Fair UK - 10.2019

Correspondence

Your two August stories about the travails of hedge funder Chip Skowron

and Purdue Pharma’s David Sackler were similar in that both were

rewarded with big paydays for doing wrong [“Look Homeward, Hedgie,”

by Chris Pomorski; “Bitter Pill,” by Bethany McLean]. Skowron, who

served time for securities fraud, and Sackler, whose family rode a tidal

wave of OxyContin profits to the Forbe s World’s Richest List, both plead

their cases in your pages—and both fail. Skowron, who now feels most

comfortable in prison, albeit one that he leaves each night after visiting

his former cellmates, might be the same old “Hedgie” if his neighbors

in Greenwich had not cast him out socially. And Sackler, who is upset that

his family is being blamed in part for the more than 400,000 U.S. opioid

deaths over the past 20 years, feels angry and aggrieved by the situation

in which he and his family find themselves. A little advice to both:

Look in the mirror. You were complicit in the actions that brought you to

the present. Be grateful that you still have the money to do as you please.

Having lived a bit of the D.C. version of ballroom culture, I enjoy

your revisiting of Paris Is Burning [“Paris Is Burning Is Back—And So Is

Its Baggage,” by K. Austin Collins, VF.com]. It wasn’t so much about drag

as it was creating performance art out of one’s own aspirations. In the

NYC scene they would dress as rich New Yorkers or upper-middle-class

kids. We had our versions: “White Woman From Chevy Chase” was

a favorite, “Diplomat’s Daughter” another. I wonder if we ever stopped.

As I drive today through tony D.C. neighborhoods, it seems the entire

neighborhood of meticulously curated homes is performance art as an

expression of people’s aspirations. Upper Northwest as a reenactment

of Paris Is Burning. White women from Chevy Chase throwing shade.

Social

“The Idris

Experience,”

by K. Austin Collins,

August 2019

OMG the new

@VanityFair has

@idrisElba on the

cover #swoon

@DebbieMonterrey

This must be a

cooking magazine

’cuz DAMN, look at

that dish. @idrisElba

@VanityFair

@SunAndSeaSalt

Just got my Vanity

Fair with that fine

specimen of a man

Idris Elba on the

cover. Nice read. But

did y’all read the

Receipts story?

Whitney coinage the

phrase people.

Wasn’t that a fucking

crazy interview with

Diane Sawyer??

A great read in the

August issue.

@Jesusch22375337

“It was creating performance art out of

one’s own aspirations.” —John Green, Washington, D.C.

Greta Garbo, on the set of the film

A Woman of Affairs

Wrote V. F. : Garbo primped,

complaining, “Oh, this terrible

hair.” Steichen asked her to

repeat the gesture. The result: a

classic V. F. portrait (October 1929 issue)

Photograph by

Edward

Steichen,

1928.

90

YEARS

AGO

David Comden

Ventura,

California

Connecticut
Convict

ILLUSTRATION BY AIMEE BEE BROOKS

John Green

Washington,

D.C.

Paris Is
Burning

Coming Soon

The Musso &

Frank Grill, by

Michael Callahan,

out this month

from Story Farm

CORRECTION

On page 94 of

the September issue

(“Screen Share”),

Caitriona Balfe’s

name was misspelled.

26 VANITY FAIR OCTOBER 2019

PHOTOGRAPHS: FROM TOP, BY

JONATHAN BECKER, © OFF WHITE

PRODUCTIONS/EVERETT COLLECTION, FROM THE CONDÉ NAST ARCHIVE