Lifestyle
How to tour a haunting Santa Barbara estate that's been frozen in time for half a century
The house, a French palace on a Santa Barbara bluff, stands as undisturbed as a crime scene, a pair of unstrung harps in the music room, china laid out on the dinner table, waves crashing on East Beach below.
This is the mansion that heiress Huguette Clark left behind — well, one of them. For half a century, as Clark (1906-2011) paid an estimated $40,000 per month to keep it unchanged, the coveted estate known as Bellosguardo remained no livelier than the cemetery next door.
A tour group waits to enter Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
But now outsiders trickle in. For the last year and a half, the Bellosguardo Foundation has been quietly offering ground-floor tours for $100 a head, and it may soon open up more of the long-idle estate to visitors.
For anyone fascinated by great estates, robber barons, generational wealth or just human psychology, the tour is a chance to see territory that’s been off-limits for decades. It’s also a haunting illustration of what money can buy and what it can’t.
“We used to come to the cemetery and peek over the wall,” confessed Patti Gibbs, a longtime Santa Barbara resident who was among those on hand for the 10 a.m. tour one recent Wednesday.
“I’ve been waiting for them to let me in since I read the book years ago,” said visitor Peggy Simmons of Ojai.
The book she mentioned is “Empty Mansions,” by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr., which lays out the history of the Clarks and their homes in California, New York and Connecticut.
But stepping into the story is different from reading it. With docents Susan Bush and Cindy McClelland leading the way, Gibbs, Simmons and a handful of other visitors entered the front door.
The dining room, set with dinnerware. One of many custom chandeliers — this one hangs in the mansion’s art studio. A portrait in the estate shows heiress Huguette Clark, who died in 2011 at age 104. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The music room of the estate.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
They examined the telephone room to the left, then the coat room to the right (with a portrait of a French World War I hero on the wall) and the Steinway piano at the foot of the spiral staircase. And they listened closely as the docents addressed the morning’s central questions:
Where did the money come from? And why did Huguette Clark put the mansion on pause?
The first answer is copper, mined, sold and leveraged by a slight, bearded man named William Andrews Clark.
Clark (1839-1925), born in a Pennsylvania log cabin, got rich in copper mining and built his first mansion in Butte, Mont. Later he built a railroad from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, opened banks, mined more copper in Arizona, co-founded Las Vegas (seat of Clark County) and built another mansion, a 121-room behemoth on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. (It has since been razed.)
Clark and daughters Andrée, left, and Huguette visit Columbia Gardens, which he built in Butte, Mont. It was about 1917.
(Montana Historical Society)
“He’s one of the richest men that nobody’s ever heard of,” McClelland told the visitors.
Along the way Clark got married, fathered seven children, lost his first wife to typhoid fever, remarried in his 60s and fathered two additional daughters. He also got caught bribing Montana state legislators, yet served a term as U.S. senator from that state. And his name does endure here and there.
His son, William Andrews Clark Jr., made the donations that started UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Also, you could say the senior Clark inspired Mark Twain.
Clark, Twain wrote, “is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs.”
Much of the Bellosguardo story, however, is about the next generation of Clarks. As the group advanced through the house, admiring custom chandeliers and golden bathroom fixtures, the docents pushed the narrative forward.
A custom-made chandelier dangles in the library of the Bellosguardo Estate in Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
By summer 1923, when Clark and his second wife, Anna, arrived as renters at this 23-acre property above East Beach, he was one of the world’s wealthiest men. But he was in his mid-80s, 39 years older than Anna. Four years earlier, the couple had lost their older daughter, 16-year-old Andrée, to meningitis. Their surviving daughter, Huguette Clark, was now 17.
The Santa Barbara summer went well. By year’s end, the Clarks had bought the place for $300,000. But less than two years later, Clark died, leaving Anna and Huguette with a chunk of his fortune, the Santa Barbara property and the Italianiate villa that stood upon it, nicknamed Bellosguardo, or Pretty View.
So why, then, do visitors today walk through a French palace and not an Italian villa?
Because in 1933, as the country struggled with the Great Depression, Anna and Huguette Clark decided to level the villa (which had been damaged by a 1925 earthquake) and start over. Since they had lived several years in Paris and often spoke French to each other, they liked the idea of something French — a notable change from the Spanish Colonial projects popping up all over Santa Barbara.
Architect Reginald D. Johnson, designer of the Biltmore hotel in Montecito, delivered a rigorously symmetrical gray stone building (including one door that opens to nowhere) that paid minimal attention to ocean views. Two stories, 27 rooms, 13 fireplaces.
A sculpture in Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate shows Andrée Clark, a daughter of copper mogul William Andrews Clark who died in her teens. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate include an art studio full of paintings by and of heiress Huguette Clark, who is seen in the work on the easel. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Grounds, Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
It’s subdued, but not dull. As visitors see, there’s a circular women’s powder room. Carved maple panels line walls in one room, while 160 carved oak panels dominate another. The building wraps around a stately pond, much of the furniture dates to the 18th century and the walls are hung with paintings of the French countryside and, in just about every room, portraits of Andrée and Huguette as doe-eyed girls.
“Reminds me of Hearst Castle,” said visitor Cherie Visconti, eyeing the dining room.
On the library shelves, Voltaire and George Eliot are joined by Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner, the Ventura lawyer and author who created Perry Mason.
The Clarks never lived here full time. By the foundation’s estimation, the mother and daughter made 14 visits (by train) between 1936 and 1953, staying about 18 months in all.
On those stays, Huguette, known for being shy but smart, played piano and violin, collected dolls and painted, including many portraits and still lives now hanging under the high ceilings of the mansion’s art studio. Having been married and quickly divorced in her 20s, Huguette didn’t date much.
Anna, an accomplished musician, played the harp and sponsored a string quartet (whom she outfitted with Stradivarius instruments).
Dining room, Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Portraits in the Music room of Santa Barbara’s Bellosguardo Estate include a piano-top photograph of heiress Huguette Clark. She is also shown in the oil painting in the background. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
But by 1953, Anna Clark’s health had become too delicate for the train ride west, and Huguette stayed east as well. After Anna Clark died in 1963, Huguette, now in her 50s, continued to stay away. Later, she said that Bellosguardo held so many reminders of her absent mother that it made her sad. But not sad enough to let it go.
Now without her sister, father, mother, partner or a job, Huguette kept more to herself. She took pleasure in commissioning dolls and dollhouses, sending gifts to artisans, employees and their children. She checked photographs to make sure that staffers were keeping Bellosguardo unchanged, from the doghouse (whose occupant had died years before) to the 1933 Cadillac limousine and Chrysler convertible in the garage.
Then, one day in 1991, after a long spell without medical care, she summoned a doctor to her 42-room New York apartment (which was really three apartments combined). He arrived to find a wraith in her 80s, down to 75 pounds, suffering from multiple cancers that had disfigured her face.
Yet she survived. Once Huguette had been transported to a New York hospital, she responded well to surgeries. Choosing to remain in the hospital and rejecting all suggestions that she move home, she regained her health and lasted until her death more than 20 years, shortly before her 105th birthday.
For all those years, she not only left Bellosguardo empty but also a Connecticut mansion and the Manhattan apartment. From her hospital room, she bought more dolls, commissioned dollhouses, bid at auctions and rebuffed hospital officials when they pressed too often for donations. Meanwhile, she traded calls and letters with friends and employees, showering gifts on her favorites.
Grounds, Bellosguardo Estate, Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Over those last 20 years, authors Dedman and Newell write, Huguette spent an estimated $30 million on gifts (including six homes) for her day nurse, Hadassah Peri, who routinely worked seven-day weeks.
In many respects, they wrote, the Clark family saga is a classic folk tale — “except told in reverse, with the bags full of gold arriving at the beginning, the handsome prince fleeing and the king’s daughter locking herself away in the tower.”
The fighting over her estate persisted for years (she left two wills). In time, the Bellosguardo Foundation was created to operate the Santa Barbara mansion as an arts center. To some degree, this is par for the course in the neighborhood. Casa del Herrero in nearby Montecito has been hosting visitors for years, as has Lotusland, renowned for its gardens. But years passed before the first Bellosguardo tours happened, a delay that sparked complaints from some in Santa Barbara.
Now, the foundation director and docents say, an expansion of the tours is at hand.
Foundation Executive Director Jeremy Lindaman estimated that 100 to 150 people take tours each week. Others visit as part of occasional special events, such as a flamenco dance presentation that took place on the grounds last month during Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta.
Bellosguardo tours
What: 90-minute tours led by a volunteer docent. Visitors must be at least 14, and no indoor photography is allowed.
When: Usually offered Wednesdays through Sundays, two or three per day.
Where: Bellosguardo, 1407 E. Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara
Cost: $100
Info: For details and to sign up to be notified of tour openings, visit the Bellosguardo Foundation website
By late fall, Lindaman said, he’s hoping to add a second tour that covers the mansion’s more intimate quarters, including bedrooms and service areas. A coffee-table book is in the works, as well.
“Everything that was here when she died is still here,” Lindaman said.
But booking a tour is a two-step exercise. Instead of offering direct booking through the Bellosguardo website, the foundation asks would-be visitors to sign up for notification. Every two months, an email goes out and tour slots fill quickly.
Thanks in part to this process and the price, Bellosguardo remains a well-kept half-secret. For many in Santa Barbara, the family’s most visible legacy is not the mansion but the Andrée Clark Bird Refuge, a 42-area city park and lagoon just north of Bellosguardo, that Huguette Clark paid to create and maintain in her sister’s name.
Yet among those who get inside Bellosguardo’s gates, Huguette Clark and her family are still sparking speculation.
Walking the rooms, “You just feel that family,” said Penny Simmons. “Sad things happened around here.”
“I didn’t know she was such a fine artist,” Patti Gibbs said at the end of her tour.
“We think she lived the life she wanted to live,” said her docent guide, McClelland.
“She was not crazy,” said Peter Higgins of Oxnard. “She knew what she was doing right up until the end.”
It’s 5:30 a.m. Allison Sheehan switches on the light in the bathroom of her New York City apartment and stretches in front of the mirror. “Welcome back to another morning in the life of an ‘investment baker,’ which means someone who works at an investment bank but also makes cakes,” she says at the beginning of the video, which she uploaded to TikTok in early 2025.
Tying an apron over her pajamas, Ms. Sheehan, now 26, proceeds to pipe lilac buttercream ruffles on a heart-shaped funfetti cake she had baked the night before.
At 6:50, she heads to the gym, filming herself doing crunches before heading home to shower, put on makeup and pick out an outfit. By 8:20, Ms. Sheehan heads to her wealth management job, at Goldman Sachs (she didn’t reveal the name of the bank in her videos while employed there).
In 2023, Ms. Sheehan, who has since made cakes for brands including Goop and LoveShackFancy as well as the model Gigi Hadid, was posting on social media as “The Investment Baker,” a persona she created for her custom-cake business, Alleycat.
On her Investment Baker Instagram and TikTok pages, Ms. Sheehan posted familiar influencer content like “What I eat in a week” and day-in-the-life videos, along with breakdowns of her corporate wardrobe. At the time, her DMs were inundated both with cake orders and with young women seeking advice on how to break into finance.
The finance industry remains one of the most sought-after sectors for college graduates. In 2025, Goldman Sachs saw 360,000 students competing for just 2,600 internships — up 15 percent from the previous year. It has also historically insisted that employees maintain a low profile on the internet. Ms. Sheehan was careful never to disclose the bank at which she worked in her videos, and she never filmed herself in the office, per her employer’s rules. In fact, she never discussed finance much at all. Still, the tension between the “two worlds of baking and being a financier was the whole allure,” Ms. Sheehan said.
Yet Ms. Sheehan was informed that her baking content was seen as a “reputational risk” for the firm. She was instructed to delete every post on her TikTok and Instagram and to change her handle so that it made no reference to the word “investment.” When Ms. Sheehan drew comparisons to the firm’s chief executive, David Solomon, who moonlights as a D.J., she was told she could not compare herself to him. She pushed back, saying that the firm’s policy should apply to everyone. “It doesn’t work like that,” she said she was told.
Like Ms. Sheehan, Sahilee Waitman, 28, used the fact of her employment at an investment bank as a hook for her TikTok videos. Ms. Waitman moved to New York City from Amsterdam to work in compliance at an investment bank in 2023. She soon started posting day-in-the-life content, detailing everything from her workouts to what she ate for lunch, with the goal of building financial autonomy outside her corporate role. Both women were clear that while they worked at investment banks, they were not investment bankers, often a point of contention or confusion in the comments section.
The New York Times reached out to many of the investment bank employees on TikTok, but they declined to comment for this article, fearing the risk to their reputation. The New York Times also reached out to 14 different banks, among them Goldman Sachs, but none responded to requests for comment regarding the matter of social media use among employees.
Despite these fears, investment banking content is going viral across social media. Nearly 60,400 videos tagged #investmentbanking have appeared on TikTok in recent years. Time-stamped 100-hour work weeks and late-night keyboard A.S.M.R. regularly draw hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok. Part of the appeal is that influencers offer a more realistic depiction of the world of work than can be gleaned from shows like “Industry” on HBO or from actual recruitment events.
Ms. Sheehan was determined to show that even bankers could have a life outside work. In October 2024, a year after posting her first video, a meeting with her manager appeared unexpectedly on Ms. Sheehan’s calendar. At first, she thought it might be good news. But the excitement was short-lived when she was greeted by three compliance officers. “We see you have an online persona called ‘The Investment Baker,’” she recalled them saying.
At present, there is no widely agreed-upon policy regarding employees’ personal social media use. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the largest independent regulator for brokerage firms in the United States, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, a government agency that regulates the entire U.S. securities industry, have rules and guidance dictating that employees cannot share any information that is deemed confidential or in any way sensitive. But how firms apply their own internal policy is at their discretion.
Hannah Awonuga, the former head of colleague engagement at Barclays U.K. and a cultural transformation and inclusion consultant, sees both parties as at risk. Employees might find themselves on the wrong side of human resources. For employers, “once you allow staff to post freely,” she said, “you run the risk that they might express an opinion on a Saturday that goes against your values.”
For decades, “workism” — the belief that work is central to one’s identity — has infiltrated the American ethos, particularly for many city dwellers, whose hobbies and leisure activities can fall by the wayside. Increasingly, younger workers are pushing back, demanding a healthier work-life balance and actively working to decouple their identity from their careers.
The world of high finance is one of the last sectors to catch up. “Once you work in these industries,” Ms. Waitman said, “you’re essentially taught to choose one lane.” You are either a “serious professional,” she said, or a “creative.” “I just don’t believe those things are mutually exclusive,” she added.
Ms. Waitman, who is Black, hoped that by posting on TikTok, she would be promoting diversity in the industry. She received the occasional negative comment, insisting she must be a “secretary,” but a majority of her messages were positive, she said, and came from other women seeking her advice about pursuing careers in finance.
At the time, Ms. Waitman did not receive pushback from her employer on her videos, though she made sure to declare any outside business activity to compliance and her director. “I think firms are just now catching on to this,” Ms. Waitman said. “Once they find out, you have compliance on your neck.”
A recent glossy fashion spread in Interview Magazine entitled “Meet the Finest Boys in Finance” highlighted what can happen when young finance professionals attract the wrong kind of publicity. The designer-heavy photo shoot was mocked and meme-ified online for violating Wall Street’s sacrosanct rule against flashiness.
Across social media, some women were quick to point out the double standard at play. “But women get fired from Goldman for being influencers …” read one comment left on a TikTok video about the spread.
In fact, many of the people posting influencer-like content are young women, which is at odds with the traditionally male-dominated world of high finance.
A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs told Bloomberg that the interviews in Interview Magazine were not approved by the firm.
After the compliance meeting, Ms. Sheehan did as she was instructed and archived all her social media posts. Three months later, though, she put them back up. “I didn’t see my posts as a violation of the bylaws,” she said. Immediately, another meeting with compliance landed on her calendar. This time, her cake business was taking off, and Ms. Sheehan decided to hand in her resignation. (Goldman Sachs did not respond to requests for comment.)
As banks are forced to iron out their policies in an ever more online world, workers sharing the minutiae of their days is likely to become an increasing headache for compliance. “If you have five followers, there’s no need to make anyone aware,” Ms. Awonuga said. But, she added, “as more Gen Z’s come into the workplace and grow in their roles, I just don’t know how feasible it becomes to say you’re not allowed a social media presence.”
Ms. Sheehan, meanwhile, has no regrets. “I cannot believe,” she said, “that they were concerned about me making pink cakes when people are insider trading.”
Leigh McDaniel always knew she was destined to become a witch. Growing up in Hawaii, she came from a long line of “kitchen witches,” she explains — women who intuited measurements, spices and when a cake was done from the next room. “There was always a part of me that was like: Yeah, I’m a witch,” says McDaniel from her California sun-soaked studio.
Today, McDaniel — who calls herself a “womb witch”— practices a different kind of magic: pelvic care bodywork. Based in a bright studio in Glendale, McDaniel serves clients of all genders. Before each session, McDaniel invites clients to share their personal histories, and then McDaniel performs bodywork through touch as sage smoke curls in the air.
“A person who left today had their first session and was like, ‘I’m so much lighter in my body,’” McDaniel says.
McDaniel’s work is rooted in holistic pelvic health and touch therapy, which she discovered after giving birth to her second child at age 46. Before her daughter was born, McDaniel says she met her in a dream. The child introduced herself as “Luna.” The name stuck. After her birth, McDaniel theorized that her daughter had “reorganized her pelvic bowl.” When she sought out answers from her midwife and OB-GYN, they were dismissive; the experience prompted her to explore alternative care.
“It sent me down a few rabbit holes,” McDaniel says. “Previously, I had studied naturopathy with the intention of going to a naturopathic school — herbalism, Reiki and light touch therapy.”
Leigh McDaniel says that after one session her clients often feel an immediate shift in their bodies.
(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)
While body wisdom and alternative healing are framed as part of the Goop-conscious modern wellness movement, McDaniel explains that these practices are not new. She cites Ubuntu, a South African philosophy that informs her healing approach. “Indigenous practices knew how to hold people in trauma,” she says. “We’re only just beginning to figure it out.”
After an explanation of the nervous system, consent and the pelvic floor, her sessions begin with McDaniel burning sage or mugwort while the client is on the table. She asks for consent before touching the client and offers a prayer or blessing. McDaniel explains she’s feeling for energy before moving on to the abdomen, where she applies various levels of pressure. She compares it to a guided meditation as she incorporates breathwork while asking clients to breathe into her fingers. She emphasizes that the client controls the pace and asks for consent at each step.
“I think consent and boundaries are so critical to taking care of your body,” she says.
The intimate nature of McDaniel’s practice has garnered attention — and occasional skepticism. Comedian Ali Macofsky, for example, says with a smile, “I go in person to this womb witch,” on “The Endless Honeymoon” podcast. The hosts are baffled and intrigued. Macofsky adds, “It feels very old school the way women have to go through things.”
Macofsky discovered Leigh through actor and comedian Syd Steinberg who highly recommended her work. “I went to help with some CPTSD [complex post-traumatic stress disorder] and TMJ [temporomandibular joint] pain and she helped,” says Steinberg. “She really is a miracle worker.”
Macofsky was intrigued by the whimsical title of “Womb Witch.” “I was like, I’ll make an appointment and see what happens.” After a phone call, McDaniel explained that she helped clients with physical intimacy and sexual trauma through bodywork. The comedian was hooked.
Macofsky notes that in a culture where female pleasure is not prioritized, it’s hard to know where to seek advice. After a session with Leigh where she discussed advocating for oneself sexually, Macofsky began to see the results take hold in surprising ways. “It’s helping me in other areas where normally I’d be uncomfortable to advocate for myself or speak up about what I want.”
Clients seek out the womb witch for a variety of reasons. Some report physical discomfort during sexual encounters, while others come after experiencing sexual assault, abuse or consent violation. At other times, clients may experience stiffness or pain that McDaniel believes may be a reaction to trauma.
Her session also focuses on sexual health. McDaniel gives her clients a tutorial on pleasure anatomy and consent, most recently teaching sexual health lessons to a gathering in Silver Lake. “I like to show a lot about the pleasure anatomy, the mobility of the uterus, and where the cervix is at different times of the month,” she explains.
McDaniel argues that pleasure is an important part of daily life. “Female pleasure is finally being noticed,” she says. “Pleasure is a birthright. There’s pleasure and there’s grief. To be full-spectrum humans, we need to be feeling pleasure.” McDaniel cites that recent studies claim the clitoris has 10,000 nerve endings.
Leigh McDaniel holds a bowl of coconut and castor oil that she often uses with clients.
(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)
McDaniel says that everyday stress — including sexual harassment and misogyny — manifests in the body, often leading to chronic pain. “In patriarchy, the comments land in your body, and you find yourself bracing every time you pass them,” she says. “They can seem so small and harmless, but even those little things add up. They’re felt. It’s part of feeling unsafe in the world.”
Though many people struggle to navigate the American healthcare system, more Americans are turning to a spiritual wellness approach. The National Institutes of Health reports that holistic care methods such as meditation, acupuncture and yoga have grown significantly in recent years. Ancient Chinese medicine techniques have gone viral on TikTok, capturing the attention of Gen Z. “People are more willing to look outside the Western medicine model,” McDaniel explains. “I have people that come here to see me because of medical trauma too.”
Dr. Tanaz R. Ferzandi, director of urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery at Keck Medicine of USC, believes that holistic medicine can be a potent adjunct to more traditional remedies. She has recommended acupuncture to her patients who have experienced sexual trauma. “The whole idea of acupuncture is you’re lying there, and coming to peace with yourself and your body,” she explains. “It’s a forced therapy where you can be alone with yourself and shut out the rest of the world.”
Simultaneously, Ferzandi believes a healthy amount of skepticism is good. “We have to stay scientific — what’s the evidence behind it? As long as women understand that we don’t know if there’s data to support some of the things they’re doing,” she says. “I’m very cautious about touting certain things that are somehow going to be a panacea.”
McDaniel’s explains its rare she encounters skeptics at her practice. “I never try to convince anyone to come in for a session,” she says. “There are scientific studies on the efficacy of different types of work that are adjacent to, or similar to what I do, but nothing exact.”
She acknowledges elements of her work are difficult to quantify. “There is also a mysterious space between bodies, the client and myself, where something happens that I cannot really explain, but it feels magical,” she says. “I don’t think any of this would convince anyone who is inherently skeptical though.”
McDaniel views her daughter Luna’s birth as the inciting incident into her true calling — becoming the “Womb Witch.” “Everything that happened to my own body after her birth, it was a calling to do this,” she says. “I’ve done so many things, and this is the first time I really feel settled in what I do.”
You want to see some real fashion ingenuity? Watch the N.F.L. draft.
I’m not saying it’s all good, but where else are you going to see someone in a double-breasted suit made by a company better known for making yoga pants? Or an Abercrombie & Fitch suit jacket so short that it exposes the belt loops on the pants beneath?
On the whole, the style on display at the N.F.L. draft last night was very overeager senior formal: a lot of suits in colors beyond basic blue. The quarterback Ty Simpson wore a custom suit by the athleisure label Alo, which, I have to say, looked better than I would have envisioned had you said the words “Alo Yoga suit” to me.
I thought it might have been from Suitsupply, but the conspicuous “Alo” pin on his right lapel put that idea to rest. Simpson, smartly, unfastened that beacon before appearing onstage as the 13th pick to the Los Angeles Rams. He had, perhaps, satisfied his contractual obligations by that point.
Earlier in the evening, as the wide receiver Carnell Tate threw up his arms in exaltation after being picked fourth by the Tennessee Titans, his cropped Abercrombie & Fitch jacket revealed a swatch of rib cage. He looked like a mâitre d’ who had just hit the Mega Millions.
During the N.B.A.’s extended fashion awakening, its draft has become a sandbox for luxury brands to cozy up to would-be endorsers. The Frenchman Victor Wembanyama broke a kind of cashmere ceiling when he wore Louis Vuitton to go first overall in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.
The N.F.L. draft has none of that. The brands you see are often not brands at all, but custom tailors that reach the league’s neophytes through a whisper network among players. The draft is also a platform to raise the curtain on longer-term brand deals that better suit these rookies. We may, for instance, never see Simpson in a suit again. Nearly every photo from his time at Alabama shows him in a T-shirt or hoodie. It makes sense for him to sign with Alo.
Football is the most mainstream of American cultural entities. And it’s one that still hasn’t, in spite of the league’s best efforts, taken off overseas. Few players, save some quarterbacks and a tight end who happens to be engaged to a pop star, feel bigger than the game itself. If you’re a new-to-the-league linebacker, you’ll most likely never harness the star power to grab the attention of Armani, but you might have just the right pull for Abercrombie.
The N.F.L. draft is therefore one of the few red carpets where the brands worn by the athletes may also be worn by those watching at home. How many people watching the Oscars will ever own clothes from Louis Vuitton or Chanel? People may comment online about Lady Gaga wearing Matières Fécales to the Grammys, but how many of those fans and viewers could afford to buy clothes from it?
The Japanese designers changing fashion
Yesterday, I published a deep dive into how a newish crop of Japanese designers are soaking up all the attention in men’s fashion right now. This was a piece I was writing in my head long before I sat down and finally started typing. I remember sitting at a fashion show in Paris over a year ago — I believe it was Dior — and being asked by my seatmate if I’d made it over to a showroom in the Marais to check out A.Presse. That Tokyo-based brand is now part of a vanguard of Japanese labels that, on many days, seems to be all anyone in fashion wants to talk about. I spent months talking with designers, store owners and big-time shoppers to make sense of why these brands have kicked up so much buzz and, more than that, what makes their clothes so great. You can read the story here.
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