Lifestyle

Haider Ackermann Leads Tom Ford Into a New Era

Published

10 months ago

March 2, 2025

Haider Ackermann Leads Tom Ford Into a New Era

One evening in late January, Haider Ackermann, the new designer at Tom Ford, was tucked into a velvet banquette at La Reserve, the discreet, tryst-worthy hotel not far from the Élysée Palace in Paris. He was doing his best impression of Tom Ford, the man.

“Hello, Haider,” Mr. Ackermann purred, his voice dropping an octave and taking on a sultry tone. He was acting out a phone call he had received. “It’s Tom.” He paused to take a breath, as if he were tasting the air. “Call me,” he said, making it sound like “come here.”

Then, his voice back to normal, he added, “Of course I did.”

That was about eight months ago. It turned out Mr. Ford, who had sold the company that bears his name to Estée Lauder in 2022, had a proposition for Mr. Ackermann. After only a year, the new owners — Lauder and Ermenegildo Zegna — had decided that Mr. Ford’s immediate successor, Peter Hawkings, was not the right man for the brand.

To replace him, they had only one name on their list, “and that name was me,” Mr. Ackermann said. Though he had recently taken a job as creative director of the outdoor company Canada Goose and was in the midst of negotiations to become the designer of a big French fashion house, Mr. Ackermann started fantasizing about Tom Ford.

“I was immediately thinking about what I should do,” he said. “What I would do.”

Now, after multiple conversations with Mr. Ford, Mr. Ackermann is on the verge of introducing a new Tom Ford collection for men and women. The goal is to do what Mr. Hawkings could not and redefine Tom Ford for the post-Tom Ford era.

Mr. Ackermann has moved the fashion show to Paris from Milan and is in the process of moving the company headquarters from London. He has teased his new look on his friend Timothée Chalamet, who wore custom Tom Ford by Haider Ackermann on the red carpet at the Golden Globes in January: a skinny, rhinestone-speckled black suit with a sky blue polka-dot silk scarf slung around his neck. But he is still trying to find “the thread between what I call sensuality and what Mr. Ford called sexuality,” he said.

“The exercise is more difficult than I thought it would be,” Mr. Ackermann said, noting that he had not made a knee-length pencil skirt, a Tom Ford signature, in his entire career. But, he went on, “the man, the woman, they are not strangers to me. I know we will get together, but it takes time.”

Especially because it turns out this particular relationship is kind of a throuple.

The Ghost in the Machine

“The complexity of this story is that the house of Tom Ford is Mr. Ford,” Mr. Ackermann said. “There’s no other ambassador than Mr. Ford.” Tom Ford is his ghost in the machine.

Plenty of designers have taken over houses that still bear the names of the designers who founded them: Dior, Chanel, Givenchy, Gucci, Saint Laurent — these were all real people. That’s where the idea of brand “DNA” originates.

But at a certain point, a brand can become so divorced from its founder that the name is just an abstraction. Once enough other designers have inherited the title, it’s hard to remember that clients were once loyal to a specific silhouette or design. That opens up the possibility for new creative directors to make the house their own.

A house like Tom Ford is somewhat different. That’s because it’s only 20 years old, and, whatever his official status, Mr. Ford still seems very much around.

Founded by Mr. Ford and his business partner, Domenico De Sole, in 2005, Tom Ford-the-brand was a kind of test case: Would Mr. Ford, who had become a celebrity by remaking Gucci and creating Gucci Group (the seed of the conglomerate that eventually became Kering) before leaving in 2004 to make movies, have enough name recognition to build a label from scratch on the mere power of his stubbly, unbuttoned-shirt appeal?

The partners started by licensing fragrance (to Lauder), then eyewear and then expanded into men’s wear (with Zegna) and women’s wear. But while the beauty line became a smash hit, and the suiting did fine, the women’s line always seemed more of a red-carpet indulgence than an actual business.

Nevertheless, just over two years ago, after Mr. Ford’s husband died and he decided to focus on filmmaking (again), Estée Lauder paid $2.8 billion to buy the house, enlisting Zegna to handle the fashion side. Mr. Hawkings, who had worked with Mr. Ford for 25 years, was named designer. He was, Mr. Ford said in an Instagram post, “the perfect creative director.”

It did not take long, however, before rumor had it that Mr. Ford was not happy with comments Mr. Hawkings had made that seemed critical. The reception of Mr. Hawkings’s first collections was mixed, and Mr. Ford, in what seemed like a very public repudiation, wore Saint Laurent to last year’s Met Gala. By July, Mr. Hawkings was out. Soon after, Mr. Ford was on the phone with Mr. Ackermann.

“Mr. Ford and I, we had always been flirting with each other professionally,” Mr. Ackermann said. When Mr. Ackermann was fired from a previous job as creative director of Berluti in a designer reshuffle, Mr. Ford “wrote me such a beautiful letter,” Mr. Ackermann said. “Karl Lagerfeld was the first, and he was the second. It was so moving.”

Haider and the Big Ts

Mr. Ackermann, 52, is something of a fashion designer’s designer. A Colombian orphan who was adopted by a French couple, he spent his childhood moving around the world with his cartographer father before his parents settled in the Netherlands. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp but was kicked out before graduation. (If he did not feel he had anything to say to a teacher, he said, he just did not go to class.) He started his own namesake label in 2003.

His work was characterized by an extraordinary facility with color and decadent romance; he calls his aesthetic “bohemian dreamer.” At one point, Mr. Lagerfeld was enchanted enough to suggest that Mr. Ackermann succeed him at Chanel.

He spent two years at Berluti, but after a dispute with his backer, he lost control of his label and name. Though he has since regained ownership of that name, he was off the runway for a time, save for a much lauded one-off stint as a guest designer for Jean Paul Gaultier couture and the occasional custom order from his famous friends, Mr. Chalamet (whom he has been dressing since 2017) and Tilda Swinton. He calls them “the big Ts.”

As Ms. Swinton tells it, they met in 2004. He sent her a gown for the Cannes Film Festival, but he did not show up for the fittings because he had promised his partner at the time a trip to India. Later, he said, she called and invited him for a patisserie and asked him why he had not been there, and they bonded over the idea of putting relationships over business. She has worn his designs ever since, and they speak, she said, “several times a week.”

“He’s a proper romantic and proper punk, which is the best combination,” Ms. Swinton said, describing his work as “ancient and supersonic at the same time.”

Daphne Guinness, the artist and collector, said Mr. Ackermann was “a Saint Laurent for the space age.” At this point, she calculated that she had about 40 Ackermann pieces in her wardrobe, including the first four looks of his Gaultier couture collection.

During his time away from the runway, Mr. Ackermann did a collaboration with Fila. Then Canada Goose got in touch. “It was very interesting,” he said, going from “being this very niche designer to talking to thousands of people. I had never worn a parka before. Now, I love it. But somebody told me recently that it made my legs look very short.”

Mr. Ackermann has been converted to the joys of camping instead of clubbing. He is a famously good dancer — “incredible,” Ms. Swinton said — and his favorite haunt used to be a club in Rotterdam where, he said, “I was the only boy who didn’t have a shaved hair.” His last summer vacation, however, was spent in a tent in British Columbia. It’s good for perspective.

That’s when he realized that the “massive failure” of losing his own brand “brought me to today, where I understand what I do and why I’m doing it.”

Serving the House

It also brought him to Tom Ford. Gildo Zegna, the chief executive of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group (which also owns Zegna and Thom Browne), described meeting Mr. Ackermann in Paris. “We clicked,” Mr. Zegna said. “We had two long days together, walking around, sitting in the garden, and the social part, the friendly part, was as important as the business part.”

Well, that and the fact that, Mr. Zegna said, “he had the support of Tom Ford, which was very important.”

Which raises the question of what Mr. Ford was doing pulling the strings of a brand he supposedly had nothing to do with. Though Mr. De Sole is on the board of Zegna, Mr. Ford has had no official role in the company since the sale. He declined to comment for this piece, and Mr. Zegna was quick to de-emphasize his role, even as he acknowledged that Mr. Ackermann was Mr. Ford’s idea. But it further raises the stakes for Mr. Ackermann.

“The moment that you work for a house, you have to know your place,” Mr. Ackermann said. “It’s not about you. It’s about you at the service of the house.”

“I didn’t think it was going to be easy to take the role, knowing that somebody has been kicked out in a violent way,” he continued, referring to the departure of Mr. Hawkings. “I’ve been through it. I know what rejection can feel like.”

He is very careful to use the honorific “Mr.” when he speaks of Mr. Ford. (He calls him Tom when they meet in person, he said.) Even as he added: “If people are expecting hot sex, no, you will not see it from me. I don’t have that talent, to be very provocative or very avant-garde. I have different codes. I’m not there to continue exactly the past.”

No More Hot Sex

“We had an appointment in London for lunch one time,” Mr. Ackermann said, describing a meeting with Mr. Ford when they were in the wooing stages. “I arrived earlier, and when he entered the restaurant, he didn’t see me standing in the corner, so I could just observe him. The way he entered the room — the security, the audacity he had in his posture — everyone in the room was looking. It intrigued me. Perhaps, coming from a very Catholic background, I could not be this person. But perhaps, somewhere deep inside, I would like to be this person. To have that kind of freedom.”

That, Mr. Ackermann said, is what his Tom Ford man represents. As for the woman: “I don’t believe in big words like glamour and power. The power of women is not big shoulders. The power of women is what she’s got inside her, the fragility that she eventually wants to show.”

It was two weeks before the Paris show, and he was sitting in his atelier with a vase of white calla lilies behind him. “They are a little more pure than Black Orchid,” he said, referring to one of Mr. Ford’s signature perfumes. “But I think still poisonous and dangerous.” He had decided that his connection to the brand was more about his own memories than any specific silhouette.

“Like in 2012, I went to the Met Gala,” he said. “I was really nervous. I was like, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to wear?’ I’m too shy. But Anna Wintour said: ‘You’ve got no choice. You have to come.’”

So Mr. Ackermann went to a Tom Ford shop and bought a black suit with black dots. And when he was on the Met red carpet, he bumped into Mr. Ford. “He looked at me and said, ‘Oh, you look so smart,’” Mr. Ackermann said. “I was so happy. Then I realized he was not looking at me. He was looking at his suit. So obviously, you will see black dots in the show.”

There will also be knee-length skirts, though Mr. Ackermann was still “trying to find the right line that doesn’t feel too vulgar or too much secretary. I’m challenging myself for sure.”

Mr. Zegna said he believed growth would come for women’s wear, accessories and the European business. Because of the Hawkings issue, the owners are a year behind in their strategic plan. The turnaround has to happen “fast,” he said. “We have not invested to not get returns.”

That’s partly why Mr. Ackermann moved the show to Paris: to signal an ambition to compete at the highest level. Also, he said, “I don’t think Mr. Ford had the easiest time in Paris,” a reference to the period when Mr. Ford appointed himself head of Saint Laurent, to the public criticism of Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent.

“For me, it was a way to say thank you for trusting me, giving me the honor to continue your story,” Mr. Ackermann said. “I want the world to look at Tom Ford in Paris. The name deserves it, and you deserve it.”

Only 200 people are invited to the show, including Mr. Ford and Mr. De Sole. “I wanted to have something intimate,” Mr. Ackermann said. “I believe that’s what luxury is. It shouldn’t be accessible to everything and everyone. I think the world needs less of a circus. I want it to feel rich, and I want it to feel noble, but I also want it to be quiet. To command attention without screaming.”

Mr. Ackermann has scattered the collection with Easter eggs for Mr. Ford — “things,” he said, “where he will be the only one to see it.”

“If it goes wrong, it goes wrong,” he continued. “But I have no fear. If, after the 5th of March at 7:30, Mr. Ford can say, ‘I made the right choice,’ if I make Mr. Zegna and Mr. Lauder proud, then, OK. Let’s go for it. I’m going to a secret place with the team members and my friends, and we’re going to dance the hell out of it.”

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Lifestyle

Washington National Opera leaves Kennedy Center, joining slew of artist exits

Published

9 hours ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

Washington National Opera leaves Kennedy Center, joining slew of artist exits

A view of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which the current board is calling the Trump Kennedy Center, in Washington, DC, on Dec. 26, 2025.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images

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Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images

The Washington National Opera is leaving the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, its home since 1971.

Friday’s news, shared with NPR in a statement via email from the opera company, comes in response to new policies which the 70-year-old performing arts group said strain its financial model.

The Washington National Opera stressed the “amicability” of its decision to end its longtime residency at the Kennedy Center. But it said the center’s new business model, which requires productions to be fully-funded in advance, is incompatible with the usual mix of ticket sales, grants and donations that cannot all be secured ahead.

“Opera companies typically cover only 30-60% of costs through ticket sales, with the remainder from grants and donations that cannot be secured years ahead when productions must be planned,” the statement said.

The company added the model also does not accommodate its artistic mission, which aims to balance popular works such as West Side Story, slated for May 2026, with more obscure and experimental operas, such as the little-known Scott Joplin work, Treemonisha, scheduled for March. “Revenue from major productions traditionally subsidizes smaller, innovative works,” the statement said.

Artistic director Francesca Zambello, who has led the company for 14 seasons, shared her regrets in a statement with NPR, while also looking to the future.

“I am deeply saddened to leave the Kennedy Center,” Zambello said. “In the coming years, as we explore new venues and new ways of performing, Washington National Opera remains committed to its mission and artistic vision. Our repertory will continue to include diverse offerings, from monumental classics to more contemporary works, presented in bold visual productions with first-class musical values.”

In addition to a continued presence for now on the Kennedy Center website, the opera company launched its new independent website within a few hours of its announcement.

“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the Washington National Opera due to a financially challenging relationship,” the Kennedy Center wrote in an email to NPR on Friday. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”

On social media, Kennedy Center executive director Richard Grenell said it was the center’s decision to sever ties with the opera company — and not the other way around.

“The Trump Kennedy Center has made the decision to end the EXCLUSIVE partnership with the Washington Opera so that we can have the flexibility and funds to bring in operas from around the world and across the U.S.” Grenell said. “Having an EXCLUSIVE relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety.”

Grenell reposted his message on Saturday after he was alerted that his X.com account had been hacked and the original message had been removed.

President Donald Trump was named chairman of the Kennedy Center’s board in February 2025. His name was added to the Kennedy Center in December following a vote by the Trump-appointed members of its board. Since the power of the venue’s board to rename the center is currently in dispute, NPR continues to refer to the Kennedy Center using its legal name.

A string of exits

The Washington National Opera’s departure is the latest and perhaps most significant in a string of artist exits from the cultural institution since Trump took over the institution.

Backlash from ticket-buyers, slated performers, and certain board members—including Shonda Rhimes—was swift.

Artists are continuing to cancel performances. But one of the first to do so was a touring production of the musical Hamilton. In a statement on X in March 2025, producer Jeffrey Seller said he opposed the Trump administration’s ousting of many Democratic board members.

“The recent purge by the Trump Administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national center represents,” wrote Seller.

Actress and writer Issa Rae followed suit with a post on Instagram, cancelling her sold-out March performance.

A slew of additional artists and performance companies canceled after the board’s vote to rename the center “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Congress has not yet authorized the name change.

Grenell has responded to many cancellations on social media, condemning the artists. After Banjo player Béla Fleck canceled his performance because he said the center had become “political,” Grenell wrote on X, “You just made it political and caved to the woke mob who wants you to perform for only Lefties.

“This mob pressuring you will never be happy until you only play for Democrats. The Trump Kennedy Center believes all people are welcome—Democrats and Republicans and people uninterested in politics. We want performers who aren’t political—who simply love entertaining everyone regardless of who they voted for.”

Find a running list of these cancellations below.

Sonia De Los Santos

On Jan. 8, singer-songwriter Sonia De Los Santos announced on Instagram that she was canceling her upcoming February concert at the Kennedy Center. “As an artist,” wrote De Los Santos, “I treasure the freedom to create and share my music, and for many years I have used this privilege to uplift the stories of immigrants in this country.”

De Los Santos, who was nominated for a Latin Grammy for best children’s album in 2018, stated that “I do not feel that the current climate at this beloved venue represents a welcoming space for myself, my band, or our audience.”

Béla Fleck performs onstage during the 67th Annual Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony at Peacock Theater on Feb. 2, 2025 in Los Angeles.

Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

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Béla Fleck

Performing at the Kennedy Center “has become charged and political, at an institution where the focus should be on the music,” wrote American banjo player Béla Fleck about his scheduled appearance with the National Symphony Orchestra in an official statement posted to Instagram on Jan. 7. “I have withdrawn from my upcoming performance with the NSO at The Kennedy Center,” he wrote. “I look forward to playing with the NSO another time in the future when we can together share and celebrate art.”

The 18-time Grammy winner has performed at the Kennedy Center in the past.

Stephen Schwartz

The composer and lyricist for the beloved musicals Wicked, Godspell and Pippin was expected to host a gala fundraiser for the Washington National Opera in May 2026. On Jan. 2, Schwartz announced his withdrawal. According to NBC News, Schwartz reflected that the Kennedy Center was “founded to be a political home for free artistic expression for artists of all nationalities and ideologies.” Today, he said, making an appearance “has now become an ideological statement.”

Richard Grenell quickly responded to Schwartz’s withdrawal, calling it a “bogus” report in a statement posted on X and saying reporters were plagiarizing a “fake @RollingStone story.” Schwartz was “never signed,” Grenell wrote.

Reports from NBC and other outlets, including Variety, have refuted this claim, publishing screenshots showing that Schwartz was promoted on the Kennedy Center’s website prior to his cancellation.

Stephen Schwartz attends the 2025 Songwriters Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony at Marriott Marquis Times Square on Jun. 12, 2025 in New York City.

Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame

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The Cookers

The seven-piece band of veteran jazz musicians announced shortly before Dec. 31 that they would not perform at the Kennedy Center for “A Jazz New Year’s Eve:”

“We know this news is disappointing,” reads the statement on their website. “We are not turning away from our audience, and do want to make sure that when we do return to the bandstand, the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it. Our hope is that this moment will leave space for reflection, not resentment.”

The statement went on to say, “We remain committed to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”

Chuck Redd

The American jazz drummer and longtime host of the Kennedy Center’s annual Christmas Jazz Jam chose to cancel his 2025 appearance when he “saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building,” according to a statement sent to the Associated Press.

On Dec. 27, the Kennedy Center announced its plan to file a $1 million lawsuit against Redd. “Any artist canceling their show at the Trump Kennedy Center over political differences isn’t courageous or principled—they are selfish, intolerant, and have failed to meet the basic duty of a public artist: to perform for all people,” said Kennedy Center spokesperson Roma Daravi.

In a letter shared with NPR, Richard Grenell condemned Redd: “Regrettably, your action surrenders to the sad bullying tactics employed by certain elements on the left, who have sought to intimidate artists into boycotting performances at our national cultural center.”

Doug Varone and Dancers

“The renaming for me has kind of pushed me off a cliff,” said choreographer Doug Varone on Dec. 31, when he spoke with NPR’s Morning Edition. Varone, who was set to showcase members of his Doug Varone and Dancers company at the Kennedy Center in April 2026, pulled the performance.

John F. Kennedy, for whom the Kennedy Center was established as a living memorial, “believed in the arts as kind of the beating heart of our nation,” said Varone.

“I believe that the level of artistry has dropped drastically since the administration change, and the employees that were responsible for the quality of the work at the center have all been let go.”

After canceling, the company started a crowdfunding campaign to help offset its financial loss. It raised over $42,000, exceeding its $40,000 goal.

Magpie

In a statement posted to Facebook on Jan. 5, Greg Artzner of the American folk duo Magpie announced the decision to pull their Feb. 28 concert, set to play on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage.

“There isn’t really anything defensible” about Trump, said the statement from Artzner and Magpie’s Terry Leonino. Although they had planned an evening of songs with messages of unity and hope, “We are personally and philosophically in agreement with the belief underlying the growing boycott,” they said. “The stand being taken by fellow artists we respect and admire has created a moral picket line. We stand with them in solidarity.”

An update on Jan. 9 said that Magpie would now be performing a longer version of that concert on Feb. 21 at Seekers Church in Washington, D.C., now called, “The Traveling John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restoration Roadshow.”

Kristy Lee

Folk singer Kristy Lee canceled her Jan. 14 Kennedy Center performance due to “recent efforts to impose political branding on the Center,” according to a statement posted on her website.

“Public arts spaces should be free from political influence,” Lee said in her statement. “I step back out of respect for artistic freedom and the Kennedy Center’s founding mission, not in opposition to its staff, artists, or audience.”

On Jan. 14, Lee plans to host a live-streamed concert instead, titled “Showing Up: From the Kennedy Center to the Couch.”

Low Cut Connie

Philadelphia rock and roll band Low Cut Connie pulled their concert, set for February 2025, “Upon learning that this institution that has run non-partisan for 54 years is now chaired by President Trump himself and his regime,” according to a statement posted on their Facebook page.

“Maybe my career will suffer from this decision,” wrote band frontman Adam Weiner, “but my soul will be the better for it.”

Rhiannon Giddens

In Feb. 2025, folk singer Rhiannon Giddens announced her departure from the Kennedy Center lineup in a social media statement. “I cannot in good conscience play at The Kennedy with the recent programming changes forced on the institution by this new board,” wrote Giddens.

Giddens transferred her May 11 concert, “Old-Time Revue,” to The Anthem concert hall, also in Washington, D.C.

Balún

The Puerto Rican band, based in Brooklyn in New York City, canceled their Kennedy Center performance, which had been set for Feb. 27, 2025.

According to a statement posted to Balún’s Instagram account, “recent events made it clear that the space no longer aligns with our values. Our safety, integrity, and commitment to justice come first.”

Issa Rae attends HBO’s final season premiere of “Insecure” at Kenneth Hahn Park on Oct. 21, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.

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Issa Rae

Shonda Rhimes attends the premiere of "Wicked" at the Museum of Modern Art on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, in New York.

“Thank you so much for selling out the Kennedy Center for ‘An Evening With [Me],’” wrote Issa Rae, the acclaimed star and creator of HBO’s Insecure, on her Instagram stories page in Feb. 2025. “Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue.”

“Hamilton”

In March 2025, Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller announced on X that the Tony-award winning musical phenomenon would no longer run as scheduled at the Kennedy Center. According to the statement, the decision was made both for political and for business reasons. Not only was there “a new spirit of partisanship,” the statement read in part, but “it would be “financially and personally devastating to the employees of Hamilton if the new leadership of the Kennedy Center suddenly canceled or re-negotiated our engagement. The actions of the new Chairman of the Board in recent weeks demonstrate that contracts and previous agreements simply cannot be trusted.”

The Kennedy Center was swift to respond to Hamilton‘s cancellation. On X in a now-deleted post, Richard Grenell accused Hamilton star and creator Lin Manuel-Miranda of being “intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically,” and stated that the decision was “a publicity stunt that will backfire.”

In the months since the show’s cancellation at the Center, Hamilton has continued to sell out theaters on Broadway and in venues nationwide who host its North American touring company.

U.S. Marine Band

The U.S. Marine Band announced in February 2025 that the Marine Band would not perform in the Equity Arc Wind Symphony event, a collaboration between Marine Band members and selected high school musicians.

The U.S. Marine Band, known also as “The President’s Own” was founded by an Act of Congress in 1798, making it the country’s oldest professional music organization.

Composer Kevin Charoensri, whose music had been scheduled to be performed by the band at the event, stated in a Facebook post that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) orders resulted in the cancellation of the Equity Arc concert:

“It has come to my attention that the program, one based on equity and diversity of voices, is no longer supported at the federal level under this administration,” Charoensri wrote. “It was for this reason that the program and performance were canceled.”

The U.S. Marine marching band performs in the 120th Tournament of Roses Parade January 1, 2009 in Pasadena, California.

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

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Jennifer Vanasco edited this story.

Lifestyle

Take a winter hike with the Los Angeles Times and Zócalo Public Square

Published

10 hours ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

Take a winter hike with the Los Angeles Times and Zócalo Public Square

Happy new year! I’m Jaclyn Cosgrove, an outdoors reporter at the L.A. Times.

The deluge of rain and snow has paused, and the sun is out in Los Angeles. It’s a beautiful time for a winter hike in L.A. County.

I’d love for you to join me and Times wellness writer Deborah Vankin, alongside our friends at Zócalo Public Square, at 9 a.m. Jan. 31 as we hike through Placerita Canyon Natural Area, an east-west canyon east of Santa Clarita with lush oak woodland, chaparral and a seasonal creek.

We will start our trek with a gentle stroll to the Oak of the Golden Dream, where the first authenticated gold discovery by colonizers took place in California in 1842.

Then Vankin and I will lead 40 hikers along Canyon Trail, which will be 3.6 miles round trip. The hike includes an area where natural “white oil” bubbles up from the earth, which locals reportedly used to collect to fill their Ford Model T fuel tanks.

Parking is free and easy. We will meet in front of the Placerita Canyon Nature Center (19152 Placerita Canyon Road in Newhall).

We will have water bottles and snacks for attendees, but you’re also welcome to bring your own. You must be 18 or older and will be required to sign a waiver prior to attending. (Please consider arriving 15 minutes early to leave time for waiver signing.)

Grab a spot on Tixr.

Note: The hike will be rescheduled if rain is in the forecast.

A winter hike with the Los Angeles Times and Zócalo Public Square

Lifestyle

In ‘No Other Choice,’ a loyal worker gets the ax — and starts chopping

Published

21 hours ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

In ‘No Other Choice,’ a loyal worker gets the ax — and starts chopping

Lee Byung-hun stars in No Other Choice.

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In an old Kids in the Hall comedy sketch called “Crazy Love,” two bros throatily proclaim their “love of all women” and declare their incredulity that anyone could possibly take issue with it:

Bro 1: It is in our very makeup; we cannot change who we are!

Bro 2: No! To change would mean … (beat) … to make an effort.

I thought about that particular exchange a lot, watching Park Chan-wook’s latest movie, a niftily nasty piece of work called No Other Choice. The film isn’t about the toxic lecherousness of boy-men, the way that KITH sketch is. But it is very much about men, and that last bit: the annoyed astonishment of learning that you’re expected to change something about yourself that you consider essential, and the extreme lengths you’ll go to avoid doing that hard work.

Many critics have noted No Other Choice‘s satirical, up-the-minute universality, given that it involves a faceless company screwing over a hardworking, loyal employee. As the film opens, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has been working at a paper factory for 25 years; he’s got the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect family — you see where this is going, right? (If you don’t, even after the end of the first scene, when Man-su calls his family over for a group hug while sighing, “I’ve got it all,” then I envy your blithe disinterest in how movies work. Never change, you beautiful blissful Pollyanna, you.)

He gets canned, and can’t seem to find another job in his beloved paper industry, despite going on a series of dehumanizing interviews. His resourceful wife Miri (Son Ye-jin) proves a hell of a lot more adaptable than he does, making practical changes to the family’s expenses to weather Man-su’s situation. But when foreclosure threatens, he resolves to eliminate the other candidates (Lee Sung-min, Cha Seung-won) for the job he wants at another paper factory — and, while he’s at it, maybe even the jerk (Park Hee-soon) to whom he’d be reporting.

So yes, No Other Choice is a scathing spoof of corporate culture. But the director’s true satirical eye is trained on the interpersonal — specifically the intractability of the male ego.

Again and again, the women in the film (both Son Ye-jin as Miri and the hilarious Yeom Hye-ran, who plays the wife of one of Man-su’s potential victims) entreat their husbands to think about doing something, anything else with their lives. But these men have come to equate their years of service with a pot-committed core identity as men and breadwinners; they cling to their old lives and seek only to claw their way back into them. Man-su, for example, unthinkingly channels the energy that he could devote to personal and professional growth into planning and executing a series of ludicrously sloppy murders.

It’s all satisfyingly pulpy stuff, loaded with showy, cinematic homages to old-school suspense cinematography and editing — cross-fades, reverse-angles and jump cuts that are deliberately and unapologetically Hitchcockian. That deliberateness turns out to be reassuring and crowd-pleasing; if you’re tired of tidy visual austerity, of films that look like TV, the lushness on display here will have you leaning back in your seat thinking, “This right here is cinema, goddammit.”

Narratively, the film is loaded with winking jokes and callbacks that reward repeat viewing. Count the number of times that various characters attempt to dodge personal responsibility by sprinkling the movie’s title into their dialogue. Wonder why one character invokes the peculiar image of a madwoman screaming in the woods and then, only a few scenes later, finds herself chasing someone through the woods, screaming. Marvel at Man-su’s family home, a beautifully ugly blend of traditional French-style architecture with lumpy Brutalist touches like exposed concrete balconies jutting out from every wall.

Murder is lost in translation in 'Decision to Leave'

There’s a lot that’s charming about No Other Choice, which might seem an odd thing to note about such a blistering anti-capitalist screed. But the director is careful to remind us at all turns where the responsibility truly lies; say what you will about systemic economic pressure, the blood stays resolutely on Man-su’s hands (and face, and shirt, and pants, and shoes). The film repeatedly offers him the ability to opt out of the system, to abandon his resolve that he must return to the life he once knew, exactly as he knew it.

Man-su could do that, but he won’t, because to change would mean to make an effort — and ultimately men would rather embark upon a bloody murder spree than go to therapy.