Excerpts From the February 2015 Vogue, Presented Without Commentary

Condé Nast’s arrival downtown is, I am sure, going to precipitate more changes to the neighborhood, creating one of those moments when you feel the center of gravity shift. It will be fascinating to see how the landscape is transformed (I hope one result will be an outpost of Starbucks a little closer to the office!).

Fast-forward several decades, and I delightedly accepted an invitation to Villa Zinnia, house of the late Prince Rupert Lowenstein, a great friend of my parents’, grand seigneur, and former manager of the Rolling Stones.

Of course, the place does feel wildly exclusive too. The grand (and sometimes questionable) taste of some of the villas of proof of that. An Italian-inspired palazzo towers somewhat forlornly on the island’s highest point. Another looks like its owners mistook the island for a Moroccan medina. My favorite villa had every comfort imaginable, and was made mostly from bamboo.

Carey Mulligan describes her trip through the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo and the inspiring children she met along the way.

When designer Adam Lippes hosted the spring presentation for his two-year-old namesake label at his Greenwich Village duplex, it was hard to know where to focus: on Lippes’ ivory topcoat embellished with knotted silk tassels and his sporty tank evening dress with its intricate plissé skirt — or the elegant arrangement of flowers stretching toward the ceiling and the eclectic display of artworks, including paintings by Robert Motherwell and Milton Avery.

Initially resistant to anything in the Berkshires (too far from Manhattan, he thought) and anything Tudor (he never much cared for the style), Lippes nonetheless ended up the fourth owner of a charming four-story converted eighteenth-century barn that once served as a woodcut printing press.

And so, over the last decade, Lippes has cleared miles of path through the wild grasses and along the shallow swimming holes where his three Labradoodles — Bidu, Lola, and Kiko — frolic.

Every once in a while, something happens in the fashion world that forces you to reconsider your entire philosophy of life. (Previous instances include couture sneakers and the return of the Mom jean.)

And I’m here to tell you that not only has it never been easier for any kind of girl to do any kind of look — from uptown polish to downtown street cred — with a single gesture, but that like most things, it’s all in how you use it.

First step? Approach the mastery of eyelining as you might the artfully rumpled insouciance of French Girl Hair: by acknowledging that it takes a fair amount of skill to look this effortless.

Recently reopened with an elegant redesign by the late Oscar de la Renta, each villa has been beautifully done in colonial plantation style, with a bright palette and natural touches like wicker, rattan, and native wood.

To really get away from it all, consider Sri Lanka’s Cape Weligama resort, overlooking the Indian Ocean and designer like a five-star village, with residences grouped around private pools. Beyond the gates, trek to ancient Buddhist temples.

Super Bowl XLIX kicks off on the first of the month. Whether or not you’ve made the pilgrimage to Phoenix (we’re leaning toward “not,” though we love a surprise), a boyfriend-cut trouser makes for the perfect cheering ensemble -along with a boxy jacket and beanie for colder climes.

Shake off the midwinter chill with a quick flyaway to a southern latitude.

“My most favorite thing about London,” confides Dakota Johnson on the first day of our madcap foray into the capital’s Fashion Week, “is that nobody recognizes me. It’s really…cool.”

The actress exudes the effortless cool of an It girl, from her Stella McCartney platforms and the eighties Rive Gauche and Ungaro pieces in her wardrobe (recently ferreted out from a vintage store on the Rue de Grenelle) to the discreet skull earrings that were a gift from her mother (Melanie Griffith, if you didn’t get the memo; Don Johnson is her father and Antonio Banderas her stepfather). The clothes are arranged in a suite at the Chiltern Firehouse, her London home from home (when she isn’t crashing with Kate Moss in her storied eighteenth-century house in the north of the city).

All of which raises the question: How much, really, should you change your own brow, if at all? How much is too much?