Is it really that hard to look good on vacation? Scratch that. Who wants to make the effort to look good on vacation? Surely downtime should be precious time spent away from the stress of our regular 24/7. No makeup, no tie, no suit, and definitely no heels. Celebrity, though, brings with it certain expectations; vacations are in part a brand extension.
These days, the travels of the rich and famous include stage-managed selfies posted for the consumption of tens of thousands of adoring, ravenous global fans. It gets thorny when the paparazzi come into view with their long lenses and their even longer attention spans. So perfecting the art of looking stylish on holiday has long been a celebrity rite of passage. Nail it and you are Cindy Crawford or Marc Jacobs. Get it wrong and, well, it would be churlish of us to name names.
When we began debating our second annual most-stylish list, we kept coming back to one image (above): the boho couple of their day, Talitha and J. Paul Getty Jr., photographed in 1970 by the late Patrick Lichfield (son of Princess Anne, first cousin to Elizabeth II) on the rooftop of their House for the Senses in the warm dusk of Marrakech. “Everyone looks beautiful in Marrakech,” Talitha is said to have commented. She certainly did. Despite the fact that the two were in residence rather than on vacation, Lichfield’s photograph became the picture that spawned a thousand chic vacation shots. We wondered, Could the photo be bettered?
We chose two locations: ski resorts—where looking chic while staying upright (or not) demands herculean efforts—and beach backdrops, where the skimpiest of outfits must be sported with aplomb, grace, and more often than not a great body. Did we get it right? Let us know at depeditors@timeinc.com, but for the moment, sit back and enjoy our second parade of the globe’s most stylish travelers.
