Prose has some fabulous speakers coming up over the next few weeks: NY Times Modern Love editor Dan Jones, NY Times Op-Ed editor Peter Catapano and a  free talk with bestselling author Laurie Gwen Shapiro whose novel The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam has been lauded by both the NYT and CBS.   Most everything on Prose is on-line. So this is a heads up…  You snooze, you lose. Trust me, Prose is a gem of a resource for all writers and aspiring writers. Listen to the episode here where I interview Joselin, Prose’s fabulous founder.

3. Here is the link to the FREE in-conversation with Author Laurie Gwen Shapiro who wrote the new Amelia Earhart book that’s getting so much press – it’s on Tuesday, August 19th.

August, 2025

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Dressed in a frilly white Chloe blouse, black Yohji Yamamoto  trousers, an over-sized black blazer that set off her chic white bob and a fabulous lavender overcoat, this vintage hipster was just as inspiring in person as she was when I interviewed her on the phone for my blog. The 72-year-old writer talked about how to view ageing positively and creatively… and realistically.  That sometimes it’s better to let go, not have an agenda, strive less, do what you love more. In Lyn’s case, that’s writing essays on Substack or for her local paper, the Peekskill Herald, being with her longtime ponytailed partner Calvin, daughter and grandchildren and being in nature. She now lives in the Hudson Valley and loves to tend to her wild garden, cycle on car-free converted railroad tracks and go antiquing for her arts and crafts home.

But this wasn’t always the case. During her sixties, Lyn gave up her job as a social worker and professor in New York to become a full-time media influencer known as the Accidental Icon with nearly a million followers. The uber-stylish Lyn rejected age as a variable to be considered in how you dress.

She got noticed, hired, and her face was splashed across billboards and buses around the world. Both Lyn and the late Joan Didion modeled sunglasses, the former for Valentino, the latter Celine. Lyn traveled the world. It was a wild ride.

But in the end Lyn felt she’d lost her way, promoting brands she felt no connection to. So, she gave it all up, and wrote a terrific memoir about her experience.

Here’s my edited Q&A with Lyn:

In your fabulous book, which is so honest, intelligent and relatable, you say that your 60’s was a tough decade. Can you briefly explain why the 60s are harder than previous decades?

Well, I think we have a lot of societal expectations that happen to you during your 60s. You have to sign up for Medicare and 65 is a traditional retirement age. I think for me, the challenge of my 60s was, how am I going to respond to all of these things? Which of them really is sort of an old idea that is no longer relevant. I think this idea that you have to retire away from the world and not work anymore, is a very outdated. Many people are finding very vibrant second careers during their 60s. I had an experience that was such an adventure that I did not have in any of my earlier years.

 I think 60 for me is also when my body really began to change pretty dramatically. I wrote about that recently in an essay called Stranger in the Mirror. All of a sudden one day you look in the mirror and you say, who is that woman? And she’s sort of you, but unrecognizable to you. I think for me, that was a big challenge. How am I going to deal with these changes in my body.

And then I remembered that my body has always changed as a woman. You know, when you’re a child to an adolescent, you’re always losing or gaining weight when you become pregnant, when you have menopause, you know, you’re always having to figure out that question. How do I dress a changing body? So again, the more that I think about age and being older as something that I have done before, that I have, in fact, even more knowledge, skills, and experiences to respond to it, the easier It makes it for me to be more positive about it.

2) When you were the Accidental Icon media influencer you lived a life others can only dream of- travelled the world first class, modeled for Valentino and Dior, appeared in Vogue, and then you pulled back from that heady and ultimately unfulfilling experience. I ask you now, who do you really want to be visible to and why?

I think we have these two, opposite representations of ageing in the media. On one hand, we have this decline narrative where. You’re going to have dementia, you’re going to be disabled, you’re going to have chronic illnesses, you’re going to be a care burden you’re ruining the generations that are coming after you because you’re taking up all their money etc.

And then on the other hand now, we have this new version of ageing. I’ve been watching it emerge. Which is you’re kind of ageless. You’re highly resourced, you’re perfectly fit, you’re running marathons at 90, you’re doing whatever you want to do, and it’s as if you’re still young. And I think what’s dangerous about that is that the vast majority of people ageing are in the middle of those two extremes. One extreme is total dependence. The other is complete independence.

But most of us are in the middle,  probably 90 percent of us are in the middle, and I think what’s dangerous about this notion that we don’t need anything, or that everything has to be about curing our diseases, or trying to intervene in providing medical care, is that policymakers and innovators are either going to think we don’t need anything, or that all the innovation should be about our physical body. And that means that the needs of us in the middle are not going to be getting met in creative ways.

What I would like to see happen is that we’re really showing more of those people in the middle. What I’m finding is that you can be extraordinarily creative and have a very rich life without having to have the perfect body or the perfect bank account. I would really like to be visible to those people in the middle. Maybe that’s part of wearing the denim and having an ordinary life (now), I want all of those women to be seen. So that’s who I want to be visible to.

I’ve done this little experiment with younger women who I know, and who have been saying, Oh, I liked your book. I say, ‘Well, what are you doing now to prepare yourself to be old?  I want you to do me a favour and create mood boards for everything in your life. Make a mood board for who you want to be as an older woman.”

We’re never invited to fantasize about our older self. I think if I had been able to do that, like during those times in my life where I was really pressured, and I didn’t have time for me where I kind of lost myself, like in the midst of raising kids and making my career. If I had known that I was going to publish a book when I was 70, I could have comforted myself. I could have said: All right, take a breath. You’re in this now. You put your little dream up on the shelf, but it’s going to come down and it’s going to come out and you’re going to have it. And so, I’m encouraging all young women to start making mood boards of who they wish to be as an older woman in their life.

 like dreams deferred?

Right. Yes.

3) Imagine that your beloved new/old house is on fire. It’s only a pretend fire. Don’t worry. And you can grab three pieces of clothing. Which three would you grab and why?

I have this very beautiful, long, to the floor silk. Yohji Yamamoto coat. I would take that. I would take my overalls, which I am obsessed with at the moment, and I would take this piece that was especially designed for me by I’m not remembering her name, but it’s a beautiful silver brocade jacket. I would probably take those three.

Is the Yamamoto coat black?

Of course

You can read the rest of my edited written interview here on 26, or listen to the whole interview here on my new podcast Elena Meets the Author, where I get to have real conversations with the people I admire. I hope you enjoy it.

March, 2024

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Stretch, who lived in Los Angeles right out of college, explains:

There’s a great east west divide. Beverley Hills is east of the 405, Santa Monica is west. It can take two hours to get from Pasadena to Santa Monica with traffic, 45 minutes without.”

I’m still confused.

I was just about to give up on LA, prepared to stay disoriented and mildly depressed every time I visit, when I was asked to write a story for the June issue of  British House & Garden about LA designer Todd Nickey who moved from NYC to LA twenty years ago.

Todd and his business partner in crime Amy Kehoe, another NY export, joined together in 2004 to form design duo Nickey Kehoe. When I flipped through the pages of their book Golden Light, The Interior Design of Nickey Kehoe, I was entranced.

This was the LA I could relate to, the LA I could move into. Fixed up old houses with original details – floors, beams, bannisters, ceilings, fireplaces all left intact, old tiles salvaged, English wallpaper added, a lot of books and pictures and an eclectic mix of objects, just the right amount of color, deliberate but unfussy, not perfect, a respect for what could and should be saved but never musty or sad.

I can almost smell the orange blossoms wafting in though the French doors or feel the warmth from the California light streaming in through the open leaded windows. An English bulldog is hanging out on the patio. This is my LA.

As hotelier Liz Lambert writes in the forward when describing the Nickey Kehoe aesthetic:

An attitude of warmth and casual sophistication. Unforced. It says: repair what exists. It is a love for the natural…. The irreverence of a wall painted deep banana to the natural ease and elegance of an overgrown garden wall. Here’s to making people feel grounded and good and free.”

So, I have a plan.  Next time I visit LA, I’m going straight, do not pass go, to their shop on Beverley Blvd and then Todd (who doesn’t know this yet, but he was super pleasant during the interview) is going to show me around our LA, all the houses and neighborhoods in that dreamy book. We’ll end the day at my favorite house of all, the one I got to write about, Todd and his husband Greg Holcomb’s Pasadena hacienda, originally built in 1927.

We’re all drinking margaritas in the courtyard with that oversized terracotta pineapple they lugged home from Mexico. Oh, and Anne Hardy who made this story happen, who makes most of my design stories happen, she’s there too.

The sun is setting a lavender glow. The air is warm and fragrant. It’s February. California dreams.

May 2021

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Sticking with the travel theme (vs airports to propose in) I am a huge fan of fellow nomad Melissa Biggs Bradley, founder and CEO  of Indagare Travel, who was recently profiled here in a series by NBC about innovative, thoughtful leaders across industries.

I’ve known Melissa for nearly twenty years dating back to her time as Travel Editor at Town & Country Magazine. I freelanced for her then, and followed her in 2007, as did most of her staff at T&C (she’s always been inspiring) when she launched a digital magazine called Indagare. This was in the early days of the internet when print magazines were doing just fine. Melissa saw the future then, and she continues to today. What started as a digital magazine soon became one of the country’s leading luxury trip planners. In 2019 Indagare sent members to 122 different countries. Then the pandemic hit, and Indagare’s revenues plummeted to zero. Below is my Q&A with Melissa, one of my all-time heroes.

You’ve always been an impressive editor and entrepreneur, but during the pandemic you have shown your grit and creativity in other ways. Indagare has launched a variety of programs to keep your community inspired and connected, if not physically on the move.  Global Conversations, Global Classrooms, a Podcast, you have been anything but silent. You recently   hosted the Future of Travel Summit and you went to Rwanda in November, leading your first Insiders Journey since the pandemic began.

What are a few of the key lessons that you have learned over the last ten months?

Covid has certainly taught all of us to be more flexible, and I think being open to change is one of the great lessons that traveling teaches us too. You have to surrender to what happens and make the best of it. I always tell my kids you cannot control what happens in life, you can only control your reaction to it. Our team has been amazing at adapting and finding the opportunities in new challenges.

For instance, at the start of lockdown what I really missed was the global perspective one gets from interacting with people while on the road, learning about how we are different but also similar and to keep that exchange alive. So, we launched our virtual Global Classroom series and our Indagare Global Conversations podcast. Both of these programs allowed our members to continue to learn and be inspired by amazing people around the world who share their expertise and unique stories and remind us how connected we are even when borders are closed.

Ambition or talent- which matters more to success?

To me, the key is persistence, preferably driven by passion. Talent is a bonus but if it isn’t backed up with hard work, it usually isn’t enough.

How many Insider’s Trips have you led? Did your recent trip to Rwanda feel different? How?

I have led dozens of our Insider Journeys over the past ten years, including ones in partnership with Vogue, Architectural Digest and WSJ, and none has been quite as profound an experience as the Rwanda trip because the positive power of tourism—as well as the danger of the loss of tourism—has never been so starkly apparent. The country overcame a horrific genocide and has become a beacon of inspiration. It is the safest and cleanest country in Africa with one of the fastest growing economies. It has managed to rewild Akagera National Park after its animals were eradicated and grown the population of endangered mountain gorillas—and yet much of this progress has been built on tourism, which disappeared in March when the world locked down.

On this trip everyone we met—from women who ran artisan cooperatives to park rangers and trackers and the hotel staff—was thrilled to welcome us not just because we represented some of the first business that they had had in months but also because they saw in us the hope that tourism would return. In a moment of global crisis, it was truly inspirational to spend time with people who overcame a genocide and transformed their tragic history into a light of hope. They have handled Covid 19 better than the vast majority of countries and are really leading the way in how travel can be managed safely even in a pandemic, so it was a bit like visiting a bright future. We all felt enormously grateful for the opportunity to take a truly once in a lifetime trip at a critical moment.

What is your earliest memory of travel? Can you tell us some highlights? Is that when you got the bug?

 

My earliest memories of travel are of visiting my mother’s parents in Sydney as a child. Everything about their world—from the passion fruit trees around their house and the unfamiliar candies like Violet Crumble and snacks like Tim Tams that we ate to the cricket matches that my grandfather watched—was totally different from my life in New York City. The exposure to such a different way of living, to me, represented the infinite array of possibilities and to this day, that is the magic of travel—that it reminds you of the endless options one has to choose from in how you want to live your life. Do you want to wake up in Tokyo and eat steamed rice and pickled vegetables for breakfast or in Paris and have coffee with croissants? There is no right way but hundreds of beautiful choices.

Do you think Covid has permanently affected the way we travel? Do you see ‘considered travel’ versus ‘consumptive travel’ as the new normal? Will Indagare be offering more ‘slow travel’ trips?

I think the travel landscape will be drastically different in the next five to ten years in part because air travel will likely be vastly reduced in terms of number of flights and likely much more expensive because of a permanent drop in corporate travel. Plentiful cheap flights are probably a thing of the past, so I think people will be more thoughtful about the trips they do plan. I also think the loss of the right to travel has made people think more deeply about what kinds of trips are the most meaningful, so we will see a more considered and conscious focus on travel and a less consumptive one.

People will also likely see just how important travel is to conservation and community and cultural preservation, and I hope that will give rise to more responsible travelers who use their trips to have a positive impact and become more aware of their carbon footprint and how to offset the negative impacts of travel.

In his latest book A Life on Our Planet, the 94-year old natural historian Sir David Attenborough describes in sombre, depressing prose how we are destroying and losing our natural world. If we have learned one thing during the pandemic, it’s how much we should treasure nature, how nature can restore the soul in difficult times. What are some of the most notable ways Indagare addresses conservation and saving the planet?

I loved David Attenborough’s latest film and think its message is critical for all of us to heed. From Indagare’s founding, we have always highlighted responsible travel and emphasized travelers’ commitment to safeguarding nature and cultural heritage and supported organizations that do the same. We also run Impact trips that specifically focus on sustainability like the one I am hosting next fall to Antarctica.

Our voyage has been carefully designed by our Global Impact team to reduce unnecessary energy waste and support sustainable travel practices. Additionally, a portion of the trip’s cost will go towards supporting conservation initiatives to protect vulnerable environments like Antarctica all around the world. And perhaps most of all, our journey will help raise awareness around the damage that is being done to this most precious environment, to inspire faster and more meaningful action.

What drives you on?

Curiosity. I am eternally curious about the world and the people in it, so exploring is like breathing for me. I cannot imagine not discovering something new every day, whether it is a new or old book or a foreign or familiar city.

You have seen more of the world than most people. What is still on your bucket list?

So many places. I haven’t been to Detroit or Mexico City.  I am hoping to visit Tunisia this year and also Antarctica, but I am also a big believer that return travel offers great discoveries too.

Anything unusual in your carry-on?

I use Zicam swabs in my nose and tiger balm on my wrists, behind my ears and under my nose to keep viruses at bay on the plane, and I love a hydrating powder from Italy called Polase, which revives me after a flight.

Tell us something surprising about yourself, something people wouldn’t have guessed. I recently learned that a campaign reporter for the NYTimes has a fear of flying – any of those surprises up your sleeve?

In some ways I am a serious homebody. In fact, I live in the same apartment building in New York that my parents brought me home from the hospital as a newborn to. Someone once told me that you have to have very solid roots to be able to feel truly at home anywhere in the world. I am deeply nomadic but that side may have been able to flourish because I feel so connected to my family and my roots.

If you weren’t working in travel, what would you be doing?

I would be writing biographies of women I admire.

In what place are you happiest?

At home, in the African bush

or in Paris.

 

What would your 20-year-old self say if she could see you now?

Not a bad result for not having a solid plan.

January, 2020

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Elena, did you say it’s a freehold, with a garage and a mews on Chester Square?

Colin Orchard would be perfect- not only is he super talented, but he’s nice and fun. You’ll love working with him.

Jewellery brings me a lot of joy and happiness, says Jessica.

As much as I’ve been in t-shirts, sweaters, and jeans every day for the most part of this year, I don’t think I’m tired of dressing like that yet. For me it works, and I have always loved the idea that diamonds can dress up a casual outfit. At the moment I feel even more focussed on creating jewellery that’s easy to wear and works with real lifestyles. Next year we’ll dress up though, and I can’t lie – I’m looking forward to that too! 

Let’s go back to the beginning- As a child growing up in New Zealand were you a tomboy climbing trees who also loved trying on your mother’s clasped earrings? 

I was definitely an active, outdoorsy child – I think a lot of New Zealand kids are like that, because there’s so much incredible nature to enjoy. But my obsession with jewellery did start in my teens, so I think you’d call that balanced! From quite an early age I was buying up boxes of old jewellery at auctions with my dad and playing around with it – seeing what I could create. 

Your father owned an auction house. Can you tell us about his influence on your chosen career? 

My father was a huge influence, I think. Growing up I was surrounded by so many special pieces and incredible antiques that he brought home. He loved things that brought joy, and the stories that objects could tell.

Was Rihanna your first customer?

She was one of them! She was definitely my first really high-profile client. I look back on that as a bit of a turning point for the brand! 

Any tips you can give other designers thinking of setting up their own business?

 Learn from others! I can’t think of anything more important than surrounding yourself with experts, in whatever capacity, from as early on in your career as you can. 

What is your most popular piece?

 Our Gypset earrings, they seem to work for everyone. They’re so versatile, you can layer them, stack them, buy them separately, mix and match them, sleep in them…!! I never take mine off.

(Seems Charlene likes them too)

And your personal favourite? 

It’s too difficult to choose. Usually my favourite is whichever piece is newest, I’m fickle like that! At the moment it’s a pair of earrings from my collection with the Haas Brothers, ask me next week though and it will be something different!

 How would you describe your personal style in a sentence or two?

Relaxed, comfortable… heavy on the diamonds!

 Your jewellery boxes are nearly as desireable as your jewellery. How did the idea of using vintage boxes with the prettiest images come to you? 

It felt like a natural next step after the jewellery. We have these pieces that are so special to us, so emotional, so valued.. It made sense to create something equally special that could hold them. The Heirloom jewellery boxes look after your jewellery, and at the same time stand alone as beautiful objects.

What’s next?

 There’s so much to come next year, new collections, new launches, and some brand developments that I can’t wait to share with every-body. I’m excited for what’s to come, and – like everyone else I think – ready for a fresh start! 

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