Now is the time of year when the well-heeled jet-setters of the world, finally exhausted of being exhausted after the whirl of the holidays, pack their bags and set off for their annual lavish skiing holidays in Gstaad, Klosters, Verbier, and…Tehran? Ex-squeeze me? No, you’re reading right. According to Vogue, Tehran is the next big thing. It could even be (gasp) the next Aspen, if Colorado were to unexpectedly pass a law declaring all female skiiers must be accompanied on the slopes by a male family member to safeguard her morals and remind her that the sense of freedom one experiences on a particularly good downhill run is nothing but a cruel illusion. One simply doesn’t go off-piste in the Islamic Republic.
This tidbit, naturally, is left out of the Vogue piece, written in its typically knowing yet breathless house style. It’s tempting, of course, to chalk up these omissions—and possibly, the editorial judgment behind publishing a piece extolling the virtues of a place a large portions of Vogue’s readership is a) unable to fly to commercially b) would not be admitted even if they could somehow reach it and c) has been under sanctions for the better part of the past 30 years due to its horrific repression of dissent, human rights violations, and totalitarian regime—to the magazine’s typically fluffy treatment of global issues (remember that Asma al-Assad profile, anyone?).
From Tablet Magazine
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