GRACE CODDINGTON: CREATIVE INDEED
Grace Coddington has been a force in fashion for 50 years, as a model and a creative director. Julie Kavanagh, her assistant in the 1970s and a friend ever since, captures her style, then and now ...
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PARTY LIKE IT'S 1979 WITH MIKE LEIGH
For the first time, Mike Leigh is reviving one of his own plays. Isabel Lloyd talks to him about the highs, and lows, of “Ecstasy” ...
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THE CURIOUS JOURNEY OF CURIOUS GEORGE
The little storybook monkey had many big adventures, but none so dramatic as what his German Jewish creators experienced, writes Erica Grieder ...
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WHAT GIGGS AND TENDULKAR HAVE IN COMMON
Sportsmen are not supposed to get better at the end of their careers, but nobody told Ryan Giggs and Sachin Tendulkar. Tim de Lisle pinpoints their virtues ...
ILLUMINATING A MASTER
An influential (and often overlooked) Flemish painter who invested a rare bit of heat in his mythological nudes ...
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AS RIGID AS OSCAR HIMSELF
Yet another conservative and sentimental awards ceremony, writes Nicholas Barber ... read more »
LESS IS EVEN MORE
For years now, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has been partly closed for rebuilding. William Fiennes likes it better that way—less Gallery Fatigue, more time for Vermeer and Rembrandt ... read more »
THE CV: SHERLOCK HOLMES
The BBC’s hit “Sherlock” is just one of 230 films or television series featuring the great man. Matthew Sweet picks the best ... read more »
VISITOR'S BOOKS
What could be more satisfying than a hotel with its own library? Claire Wrathall catalogues five ... read more »
THE STRANGEST SPICE
It tastes like flowers and feels like a live wire; no pantry should be without it. In a new food column, Jon Fasman considers Sichuan peppers … read more »
THE PLAYLIST: ROCKING AFRICA
Our regular contributor J.M. Ledgard covers much of Africa for The Economist. This is the soundtrack to his life ... read more »
Comment of the moment
quote Japan was not an isolated country. Although Tokugawa Japan could hardly be called cosmopolitan and multicultural, it had extensive trade abroad. Apart from the Dutch, there were far more Chinese traders in Nagasaki. Also through the Ryukyu kingdom (Okinawa), trade was going on with South-East Asia. And there were extensive contacts with Korea...