For Immediate Release: September 14, 2015 Press Contacts: Natalie Raabe, (212) 286-6591 Molly Erman, (212) 286-7936 Adrea Piazza, (212) 286-5996 THE STYLE ISSUE The World’s Wealthiest Clients Gather by the Mediterranean to Shop In the September 21, 2015, issue of The New Yorker, in “The Couture Club” (p. 76), Rebecca Mead reports from Portofino, Italy, where Dolce & Gabbana recently presented this year’s collection of Alta Moda—made-to-measure haute couture—by throwing an over-the- top, four-day event for an élite international clientele. Launched four years ago by Stefano Gabbana, fifty-two, and his business partner of thirty years, Domenico Dolce, fifty-seven, “Alta Moda consists of one-of-a-kind, made-to-measure pieces: virtuoso demonstrations of what can be achieved sartorially when the imagination of a designer and the spending power of his patron are given unconstrained ex- pression,” Mead writes. Since Alta Moda’s inception, the fall/winter collection has been shown outside of Milan. This year, Dolce and Gabbana threw the most ambitious Alta Moda getaway yet: a four-day weekend of fashion shows, dinners, and other festivities, culmi- nating in a dance party with a dress code of gold. “These people live in another world,” Gabbana—whose personal wealth, like Dolce’s, is estimated by Forbes to be more than a billion dollars—tells Mead, regarding the Alta Moda clients. “I don’t live in that world.” He adds that he was sometimes surprised by the extravagances that the clients took for granted. “I live in an apartment, I have three dogs, two cats— you know what I mean.” The Alta Moda presentation consisted of a fashion show in which ninety-four models each wore just one cou- ture outfit, which could then be purchased—at a starting price of around forty thousand dollars—by the first customer to lay claim to it after the show ended. “Shopping at an Alta Moda show is intensely competitive—the way it used to be at Loehmann’s, but less combat- ive,” Mead writes, noting that Coco Brandolini D’Adda, an aristocratic Italian-Brazilian who serves as a brand ambassador for Alta Moda, was on hand to help manage the clients’ expectations. Brandolini D’Adda tells Mead that the jockeying among the women never rose to the level of a fight, adding, “If you buy this clothing, you already have a lot of clothing.” The designers have not sought celebrity endorse- ments for Alta Moda, and don’t give the dresses away for red-carpet premières. “We don’t want movie actresses or models—no way,” Dolce says. According to Mead, the feeling may be mutual, in the aftermath of Dolce and Gabbana’s public fight with Elton John—over Dolce’s statements regarding children born via I.V.F. or surrogacy—last year. Anna Joukova, a Russian Alta Moda client, tells Mead that she pre- viously thought couture was something you wore once in a lifetime, “but then I realized that, in a moment in your life where you have a lot of everything already—jewelry, beautiful bags, a nice house—then you start getting in the mood to buy more exclusive clothes.” A Family Accused of Financing Terrorists In “The Imam’s Curse” (p. 48), Evan Osnos examines the prosecution of Hafiz Khan and his sons Izhar and Irfan, American citizens who emigrated from Pakistan to Miami, and were later ac- cused by the United States of funnelling thousands of dollars to the Pakistani Taliban. Osnos pres- ents the prosecution of the Khans, who denied the allegations, as a case study in the costs and ben- efits of trying to disrupt terrorism as early as possible. The case against the Khans, who were arrested by the F.B.I. in 2011, “rested on the two most frequently used tools in the legal battle against ter- rorism: conspiracy and ‘material support,’ ” Osnos writes, noting that under material-support laws, it is a felony to knowingly provide money, shelter, or technical advice to anyone involved with ter- rorism. The charge was filed frequently in the aftermath of 9/11; recently the pace has accelerated again. “This year, the Justice Department has filed material-support charges against at least fifty- seven defendants who are accused of allying with the Islamic State,” Osnos writes. “The Khan-fam- ily case bore many hallmarks of America’s legal battle with terrorism, but counterterrorism officials rarely set out to capture what a prosecutor called ‘an entire family that has participated in extreme violence.’ ” Rarer still does a case evolve in such a way that, once it’s over, the family tells its story.” At the time of their arrest, the F.B.I. had been secretly tracking Hafiz, an imam at Florida’s Mas- jid Miami mosque, and his two sons—Izhar was an imam at a mosque nearby; Irfan was a software programmer—for at least a year, monitoring their finances and recording thousands of hours of conversation, in person and on the phone. In the indictment—which also included two other fam- ily members and an acquaintance in Pakistan—they were accused of conspiring to buy guns, shel- GREG FOLEY ter the Taliban, and send students “to learn to kill Americans in Afghanistan.” The indictment described phone calls from Miami, in which Hafiz “called for an attack on the Pakistani Assembly” and “called for the death of Pakistan’s President.” As Osnos details, the case, which was based on thousands of wiretapped phone calls, was fraught with misunderstandings—including the F.B.I.’s confusion over a money order that Irfan sent to his wife’s uncle, a retired biology professor whose has a similar name to a Taliban commander. Hafiz Khan and his sons were kept in solitary confinement while awaiting trial. After ten months, the case against Irfan was dropped; after another ten months, the judge aban- doned the case against Izhar. But Hafiz—in part because of conversations that he had with an F.B.I. informant who expressed extremist views— was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. From a federal medical center in North Carolina, Hafiz tells Osnos that he has done nothing wrong, and that his words were misconstrued. “I believe the American legal system will do justice in my case,” he says. “I believe that the United States was built on the basis of equality and justice and it will always be against unfairness.” But a senior F.B.I. official tells Osnos that the bu- reau considers the Khan case a success, and a successful use of its resources. “We took it as far as the evidence would allow us to take it, both from a deterrent factor, as well as enforcing the law,” the official says. Irfan lost his programming job in the aftermath of the case; he now drives a cab. Recalling taking his oath for American citizenship, he says, “I held up my end of the bargain, but they didn’t hold up theirs.” He continues, “If you think about it, the whole purpose of this country was to protect people like us.” Bethenny Frankel and the New Breed of Celebrity Entrepreneur In “Perfect Pitching” (p. 60), Lizzie Widdicombe explores the rising phenomenon of celebrity C.E.O.s—known in gossip-blog parlance as “celebpreneurs”—and looks at how the “Real Housewives of New York City” star Bethenny Frankel parlayed a spot on reality television into the multimillion-dollar Skinnygirl brand. The term “celebpreneur” can be applied to Gwyneth Paltrow, who, with her Web site, Goop, has refashioned herself as a life-style guru; Reese Witherspoon, who recently launched the Southern-inspired retail site Draper James; and Kate Hudson, who co-founded a line of workout clothing called Fabletics. But the “most successful celebpreneur to date is probably Jessica Alba, who co-founded the Honest Company, an online vender of toxin-free home products, which was recently valued at a billion dollars,” Widdicombe writes. Frankel may not be far behind. This year, after a solo television career, she returned to Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of New York City” for its seventh season. “It was like the Hell Freezes Over tour,” she says. Frankel popularized her signature cocktail, the skinny girl’s margarita, on the show. In 2011, she sold the Skinnygirl Margarita brand to the liquor conglomerate Beam Suntory, the maker of Jim Beam, for a reported hundred and twenty million dollars. “The sale made Frankel rich,” Widdicombe writes. “It also ushered in an era in food marketing, inspiring female-focussed innovations like Skinny Pop, Skinny Pizza, and the Skinny Flavored Latte.” Frankel tells Widdicombe, “I turned a brand around in, like, a year on television and nobody even knew that I was doing it.” In the article, Frankel ex- plains how she’s made her reality television career into a guerrilla marketing campaign for her Skinnygirl products. “I single-handedly com- pete with multibillion-dollar companies and their advertising budgets,” she tells Widdicombe. “I’m competing with Ogilvy.” As part of Frankel’s deal with Beam, she retains the rights to use the Skinnygirl name for products other than booze. “I own Skinnygirl, but Beam paid me all this money to use [the name],” she says, adding, “I win.” In the past five years, Frankel has rolled out more than a hun- dred new products—mostly low-calorie foods, such as popcorn, chips, and salad dressing—in partnership with national food conglomer- ates. Her goals, Widdicombe notes, are imperial. “When Grey Goose sold, they sold for two billion dollars, but that’s it,” she says.