Kwan Kevin - Sex and Vanity

3 Actually, Takeshi Kanishiro appeared only in Wong’s Fallen Angels and Chungking Express .

CHAPTER EIGHT: SAINT LUKE’S PLACE

1 Prince Nikolai of Denmark has a Danish father and a mother who’s actually of English, Czech, Austrian, and Chinese ancestry. Mark-Paul Gosselaar, aka Zack Morris on Saved by the Bell, has a German father and a Dutch Indonesian mother. Phoebe Cates has a Jewish father of Russian ancestry and a Chinese Filipino and Jewish mother, and yes, she still looks twenty-five.

2 That would be legendary party photographer Patrick McMullan, of course, who has chronicled New York’s nightlife for over four decades. If Patrick wasn’t snapping away at your party, it might as well not have happened.

3 My favorite Bond girl from the Roger Moore era, Major Anya Amasova (aka Agent XXX) was a Russian KGB agent played by the incomparable Barbara Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me.

CHAPTER NINE: DORSET YACHT CLUB

1 Named after Enzo Ferrari’s late son, Alfredo “Dino,” the 2.0-liter, V-6-powered mid-engine open-top sports car was designed by the great Pininfarina, with original, unmolested specimens going for upward of $400,000.

2 No baby Zalaa Jinst white goats were harmed in the making of this novel. Cecil’s sweater was actually made from adult goats that grow long, fine fibers in the winter to protect themselves, and herders hand comb the fibers from the goats since shearing them can be too stressful for the animals. An average-sized Zalaa Jinst cashmere sweater requires the wool from approximately four adult goats.

CHAPTER TEN: CISSINGHURST

1 Ermenegildo Zegna. Go ahead, see how fast you can say it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: OUTLOOK AVENUE

1 Donkey milk abounds with vitamin C, proteins, and fatty acids, confering a multitude of antiaging benefits for your skin. Cleopatra was known to bathe in donkey milk to maintain her renowned beauty and youthfulness, so if it’s good enough for the Queen of the Nile, isn’t it good enough for you?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: ROCKEFELLER CENTER

1 Not to be confused with the accessories closet intern or the beauty closet intern.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS RESERVOIR

1 See the White Diamonds perfume commercials for the specific era of Elizabeth Taylor’s hair.

2 A diner on Madison Avenue between Seventy-Fifth and Seventy-Sixth Streets, 3 Guys Restaurant has been called New York’s “Most Powerful Diner” because it’s a popular haunt for many of the city’s biggest business titans, like Michael Bloomberg, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, and, of course, Freddie Churchill.

3 The Racquet and Tennis Club, a private social and athletic club on Park Avenue that boasts an exquisite cigar lounge and one of the handsomest locker rooms this side of the Atlantic. It is also one of the few private clubs in New York that has retained its men-only membership policy.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE ANIMAL RESCUE FUND SUMMER GALA

1 Lucie’s completely mistaken. Lan Kwai Fong is an upscale entertainment district popular with expats and tourists and is unconnected in any way with Wan Chai, the decidedly wilder neighborhood that’s home to bars, brothels, and nightclubs that are equally as popular with expats and tourists.

2 The jazz band at Shanghai’s Peace Hotel is one of the city’s most beloved institutions. Often described as “the oldest jazz band on the planet,” its dapper musicians range from their late sixties to their ninety-nine-year-old former trumpeter Zhou Wanrong. Xiao Xueqiang, saxophonist and manager of the band, reports, “He still comes around to perform with us once in a while, but now he shakes the maracas instead.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: MONTAUK HIGHWAY

1 Even the New York Times had to concede in 2018 that Los Angeles had become “America’s best and most exciting food city.”

III. CAPRI

1 Before marrying one of the richest royals in the world, converting to Islam, and taking on her Arabic name, Her Royal Highness Sheika Kiza was married to two of the wealthiest men in Asia. Kiza in Arabic, by the way, means “kitty.”