The Shooting Star and the Model | Inside the Oscar Pistorius Murder Case
Photograph by Marcel Hartmann
“This is a person I’ve never seen before. So I didn’t want to be seeing her for the first time dead in a casket. I didn’t want to see that. I wanted the first time I was seeing her to be the first time I see her. In the kingdom of heaven.”
We have always loved Downton outdoors—not scenes of the ladies roaming the hedges at some tea party, gossiping about Sir Evelyn Napier’s hot friends, but the outdoor scenes of country sports, like the pheasant shoot last season, the family hike where Sir Richard wears the wrong tweeds, or that fan favorite, the fox-hunting gallivant with Kemal Pamuk. Whereas Downton’s whole upstairs-downstairs shtick depends deeply on its Carnarvon interiors—on the judge-y appraisals of those fringed lamps—the outdoors really remind you the show is on (gorgeous) location. It’s like stumbling upon a vivid, perfectly preserved colorplate in the middle of an ancient, yellowing library book. Especially for American audiences, where the closest thing to Matthew casting his fly rod in a west-highlands stream, the amber evening sun catching the sine curve of his line, is, what—Bassmaster?
Our Downton Abbey Season Three finale recap in full, here!
“I don’t like to lose in anything. Anything.” -Lance Armstrong
Photograph by Annie Leibovitz
Michelle Collins recaps day 10 of the Olympics, with special attention paid to the equestrian events.
If you’re not into the idea of sitting through countless hours of Olympics coverage this weekend, go to VF.com for hilarious and thorough recaps by Michelle Collins.
If you don’t, the Queen will exercise her full Olympic power.
Renowned illustrator George Bellows captured sporting life for Vanity Fair with a rare eye for action, strength, and conflict. See more of his work here.
Illustration by George Bellows
