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What’s With All the Dancing at the Fashion Show?

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What’s With All the Dancing at the Fashion Show?

The models were dancing. Again.

Here, during the first full weekend of the men’s fall shows, a noticeable number of fashion houses had decided that merely showing off their new clothes wasn’t enough. No, no, the audience should be given a performance right out of Alvin Ailey. Runway shows are out. Free Jazz dance recitals are in.

At Brioni on Saturday, the designer Norbert Stumpfl paused a walk-through of his collection of one-percenter signifiers (croc-skin coats, vicuña jackets, cashmere sweaters looped devil-may-care style over jackets) to allow me to take in the gyrational stylings of a dancer. For a few minutes, a man wiggled and pliéd across a red carpet. He swished his coat about like a matador with a cape, as if to say: “Look ma! No lining!”

Hours later, at a presentation at Corneliani, more dancers skittered along a rotating platform, doing some pseudo-break dancing in marbled gray sweaters and slate suits. They paused between slides to hug it out.

“I think male dancers are very emotional,” said Stefano Gaudioso Tramonte, the label’s style director.

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Beyond providing some Instagrammable drama, the performance, which was choreographed by Kate Coyne, the artistic director of the Central School of Ballet in London, expressed that the label’s pressed trousers and flat suits weren’t as restrictive as they seemed.

“All the fabrics are very rigorous,” Mr. Guadioso Tramonte said, “but we wanted to show that they’re quite fluid also.”

The fledgling label Mordecai didn’t need a dance routine to demonstrate that its clothes were fluid — that was pretty evident from the slouchy way its Abominable Snowman parkas and slack, striped trousers hung on the models at its presentation on Saturday afternoon. Still, Ludovico Bruno, the label’s founder and designer, had the static models come to life, bending and stomping like monks listening to Kraftwerk.

“It’s not a dancing class, it’s more like a wave,” Mr. Bruno said.

Movement has long been a part of fashion presentations. In the 1990s, models would sashay down the catwalk, surviving with verve. (Watch “Unzipped,” the mighty fashion documentary about Isaac Mizrahi, for some footage of that.) To this day, brands like Issey Miyake employ dance troops to jitter down the runway, highlighting the pliability of their clothes.

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That dancing has become such a common motif in Milan speaks to the nature of the brands that operate here. Many are traditionalists whose collections barely budge from season to season. To unkind eyes, dance routines distract the audience from this fact. A kinder take, of course, would be that the routines show the elegance and grace of the clothes.

There is also, of course, the social media of it all: Every performance I witnessed this weekend was captured by the iPhone-holding throngs in the audience. I could watch them all later on Instagram. How’s that for savvy free marketing?

Labels like Mordecai represent the other, though comparatively tiny, faction in Milan: younger companies that are, perhaps, not yet confident enough for the runway but not resigned to the static “oh, whatever” feel of a showroom, which, to the uninitiated, looks like a well-stocked retail store.

They should take that leap to the runway, instead of half-measuring with some choreography. Their audiences at fashion week, after all, are better suited to judge a topcoat than a two-step.

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‘Wait Wait’ for March 28, 2026: Live in Savannah with D.W. Moffett

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‘Wait Wait’ for March 28, 2026: Live in Savannah with D.W. Moffett

Actor, director, chair of film and television department, SCAD, D.W. Moffett speaks on stage during Rising Star Award presentation to “Star” on Day Three of aTVfest 2017 presented by SCAD at SCADshow on February 4, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for SCAD)

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This week’s show was recorded in Savannah with host Peter Sagal, judge and scorekeeper Alzo Slade, Not My Job guest D.W. Moffett and panelists Adam Burke, Shantira Jackson, and Joyelle Nicole Johnson. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.

Who’s Alzo This Time

Flotus and Robotus, Ineligible Bachelorette, and a Change of Season

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Panel Questions

Fold-out Coach

Bluff The Listener

Our panelists tell us three stories about a hot new dining destination, only one of which is true.

Not My Job: Actor, director, and chair of the film and television department at SCAD, D.W. Moffett, answers our questions about melees

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Actor D.W. Moffett, part of the cast of One Battle After Another, plays a game called “Lots of Battles All At Once.”

Panel Questions

Hairless Whisper, Signing Off

Limericks

Alzo Slade reads three news-related limericks: Buns on the Runway, Constructive Play, Getting Work Done at Work.

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Lightning Fill In The Blank

All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else

Predictions

Our panelists predict, after the Bachelorette, what’ll be the next TV season to get cancelled at the last minute.

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Gen Z is the loneliest generation. Here’s what can help

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Gen Z is the loneliest generation. Here’s what can help

We are more connected than ever before, with our high-speed internet, pinging smartphones and ever-updating apps and social media networks. (iPhone 17e, anyone?!)

And yet, we are also lonelier than ever, especially younger generations who are even more likely to be on their digital devices for longer periods of time. Gen Z, it turns out, is the loneliest generation of them all, according to the 2025 Cigna Group report “Loneliness in America.” It found that 67% of Gen Zers reported being lonely (65% of millennials, who also grew up with digital technologies, did as well, as compared with 60% of Gen Xers and 44% of baby boomers).

What’s more, about 1 in 5 teenagers ages 13 to 17 experiences high rates of loneliness, according to a World Health Organization’s 2025 report; and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40% of high school students reported “persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness” in 2023.

Dr. Shairi Turner, chief health officer of the nonprofit Crisis Text Line — a free, 24-7 text-based mental health service — calls it “a public health crisis” that is especially affecting Gen Z for a reason.

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“They’re 14-29 now, so they’re digital natives, very comfortable with being connected to people by phone,” she says. “But that connection isn’t a replacement for human connection. It gives the illusion of being close, but without real interpersonal interaction.”

That’s compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and increased single parent households, she says.

“This is a generation that lived through the pandemic during some key developmental years — some of their formative years may have been in lockdown, using smartphones, [instead of] developing critical social skills,” Turner says. “And Gen Z is more likely to have been raised in single-parent households, and may have come home to an empty home where one parent was working or they were going back and forth between homes.”

So where to go from here? Note the warning signs, Turner says.

“Is your child spending more time with their phone than their friends?” she says. “Are your kids coming home upset about interactions at school or with their friends more times than not? And: Are they avoiding in-person extracurricular activities like sports or clubs? These are all things to look out for.”

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Here are Turner’s top three tips for helping your Gen Z kids cope with loneliness.

Be present and engage in active listening

“Give them the space to share their feelings. Just be present and listen to your child — don’t put words in their mouth. Create that safe space so they know they can share with you that they’re feeling lonely. Ask open-ended questions. Instead of saying ‘did you have a good day?’ where they can say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ ask a question that elicits more: ‘What did you do today that you enjoyed?’ Or: ‘Is there anything you found challenging today?’ Brainstorm with them options or ways that they could have handled a situation differently; or do some role playing with your child, so they feel prepared the next day.”

Plan outdoor social activities

“That can be with your child or with your child and their friends. Connect in a low-pressure way: ‘Let’s bring some kids over and go to the park.’ Plan something around a shared interest, like soccer or baseball, where they’re enjoying the sport together and they don’t have to sit and talk in a high-pressure way — they can just have fun. Our report on young people in crisis shows that outdoor third space areas — parks and recreation — help young people cope with their mental health. These same young people identified sports and opportunities for social connection as helpful to their mental health and well-being.”

Explore mental health resources

“Know what the school resources are, what’s available, before your child needs mental health support. Are there counselors, school psychologists? What’s the bevy of resources in school or in the community if my child is in need — therapists, local support groups? Our Crisis Text Line is great because it’s on the phone and most young people are comfortable with that and they can text our volunteers and it’s confidential. It’s about being prepared and aware.”

Ultimately, Turner says, young people are resilient — their brains are still growing — and intentional parenting goes a long way toward offsetting the effects of digital devices and social media.

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“It’s never too late to encourage — and model — positive interpersonal skills,” Turner says. “Meaning: human to human connection.”

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‘The Madison’ adds to Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Yellowstone’ legacy — ‘Marshals’ not so much

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‘The Madison’ adds to Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Yellowstone’ legacy — ‘Marshals’ not so much

Michelle Pfeiffer stars as Stacy Clyburn in The Madison.

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Since introducing his Yellowstone TV series, starring Kevin Costner, in 2018, Taylor Sheridan has made a very successful career of building dramas around veteran stars. Now Sheridan has a new official sequel series — Marshals, on CBS — and a seemingly unrelated series, The Madison, that I suspect will connect to the Yellowstone storyline before too long.

The Madison is a six-episode drama, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell. It streamed half its episodes when it premiered March 14 on Paramount+ and has been renewed already for a second season. All six episodes were written by Sheridan and directed by Christina Alexandra Voros, who directed many episodes of both Yellowstone and its prequel, 1883.

The Madison is set up as a sort of dramatic Green Acres, and presents Pfeiffer and Russell as Stacy and Preston, wealthy New Yorkers who are close to approaching their 50th wedding anniversary. They have daughters, and granddaughters, and Preston also has a cabin and some land he shares with his brother Paul in Madison River Valley, Mont. He goes there when he can to relax; when he does, his wife Stacy stays behind in the city.

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Before long, Stacy decides to take her daughters and granddaughters to see the Montana cabins for the first time. The whole family is there: One older divorced daughter with two girls — a teenager, and one in grade school — and the younger married daughter, who has just been mugged.

The Madison, like Yellowstone and all its prequel series, is all about legacy and responsibility and relationships — but focusing on the women instead of the men. Some scenes and concepts in The Madison are absurd in the extreme, like the idea that the streets of New York are more dangerous than any wild west. But there also are moments of true beauty and calm — and the valley setting itself, I suspect, eventually will link to previous series in the Yellowstone canon.

Fly-fishing figures prominently here, as it does in most other Yellowstone-connected series — but Sheridan and The Madison, with Russell fully enjoying the peace of the river, nails the emotion. The new CBS sequel, Marshals, which also has a male-bonding fly-fishing scene, does not.

Luke Grimes as plays Kayce Dutton in Marshals.

Luke Grimes plays Kayce Dutton in Marshals.

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Marshals, which premiered March 1 on CBS, stars Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton, one of the sons of Costner’s John Dutton from Yellowstone. Sheridan co-wrote the first episodes, but Marshals isn’t nearly as good a series as The Madison. It finds a way to get Kayce hired as a U.S. Marshal, but mostly to give the character a chance to run around with more advanced weaponry. And his relationship with his son Tate, played by Brecken Merrill from Yellowstone, is explored a lot less credibly, and dramatically, than the maternal dynamics on The Madison.

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Marshals adds to the Yellowstone legacy, with its allusions to long-established storylines like a seventh-generation land surrender, and modern clashes that echo deadly standoffs of old. But it’s The Madison, like 1883 and 1923, that brings the best out of Sheridan. And bringing back veteran movie stars Pfeiffer and Russell? Even in a modern Western, that’s a real Bonanza.

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