FASHIONABLE DRESSES

The most discussed fashion model of 2015 did not, like some of her colleagues, earn $44 million or shave her head. She did not even leave her apartment.

There she was, in her New York home, hidden as usual behind a pair of sunglasses: the writer Joan Didion, on the Upper East Side, in an ad by Juergen Teller for the much watched and even more copied French label Céline.

Though Phoebe Philo, Céline’s designer, said nothing about the choice, then or since, she was more or less the only one. The fashion press and social media churned with goggle-eyed appreciations, think pieces, takes and tributes, as well as a few reality checks and reconsiderations.

Ms. Didion, firm in her froideur, professed not to notice. “I don’t have any clue,” she told The New York Times of the cacophony that ensued. “I have no idea.”

But one place that will not bear their name is on the campus of Paul Smith’s College, in upstate New York, close to where the couple owns a home. For a brief spell this last year, the school was on the verge of being named Joan Weill-Paul Smith’s College, courtesy of a promised $20 million donation from the Weills.SO WE SHOULD HAVE TO BE FASHIONABLE ...