Victor
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The speed of the VA-111 far exceeds that of any standard torpedo currently fielded by NATO. This speed is a result of supercavitation: the torpedo is, in effect, flying in a gas bubble created by outward deflection of water by its specially shaped nose cone and the expansion of gases from its engine. By keeping water from coming into contact with the surface of the body of the torpedo, drag is significantly reduced, allowing extremely high speeds. In effect, the Shkval is an underwater missile.
Ralph Vaessen. Great eyewear.
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, sex symbol, and early pop icon. His death at age 31 caused mass hysteria among his female fans, propelling him into icon status.
Varosha is a quarter in the Cypriot city of Famagusta. Prior to theTurkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, it was the modern tourist area of Famagusta. Its inhabitants fled during the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and has remained abandoned ever since.
The VEGETABLE LAMB OF TARTARY is a legendary plant of central Asia, believed to grow sheep as its fruit. The sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant.
The Geographer
In 1966, after a terrifying nightmare, the Italian maestro decided to abandon the making of a film called The Journey of G. Mastorna. Years later, the script was published in Italian newspapers with some illustrations by none other than Milo Manara, whose “Untitled” was a tribute to Fellini and which uncle Federico had liked. The subsequent collaboration on “Trip To Tulum” is a gorgeous blending of Fellini’s dream vision and some of the finest illustrations ever put to paper by Manara (which means finest illustrations by anyone ever).
Henrik Vibskov. A/W 2010. Keeping his brilliant signature cuts. What you wear before you graduate to Dries.
The Altiplano is a cold, harsh habitat, ranging from about 12,000-18,000 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains of South America. At this elevation, there are no trees to block strong winds, and very little rain, though nightly fog and dew provide water. The land is covered with low, tough shrubs and hardy grasses, neither of which provides places to hide. This inhospitable area is home to a species of animal with the finest fiber in the world: the vicuna.
During the height of the Incan empire, the animals were plentiful and numbered approximately 2 million. Their fleece was so valuable (vicuna fabric currently sells for $1,800 to $3,000 per yard) that only royalty could wear garments made from it.
Villa Cimbrone is an historic building in Ravello, on the Amalfi coast of southern Italy, dating from at least the 11th century AD. In 1904, Ernest Beckett, 2nd Baron Grimthorpe transformed it into a fortified palace with towers, battlements and a mixture of Arabic, Venetian and Gothic details, and called it Villa Cimbrone. Between the house and the cliff edge he built a garden, high above the Gulf of Salerno. The garden is an eccentric mixture of formal, English rosebeds, Moorish tea houses, picturesque grottoes and classical temples.
Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild is a French seaside palazzo constructed between 1905 and 1912 at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera by Baroness Béatrice de Rothschild.
Villa Torlonia is a villa and surrounding gardens in Rome, Italy, formerly belonging to the Torlonia family. Disused for a time, Mussolini rented it from the Torlonia for one lira a year to use as his state residence from the 1920s onwards. It was abandoned after 1945, and allowed to decay in the following decades, but recent restoration work has allowed it to be opened to the public as a museum owned and operated by Rome’s municipality.
Vin jaune is a special and characteristic type of white wine made in the Jura wine region in eastern France. It is similar to dry finoSherry and gets its character from being matured in a barrel under a film of yeast, known as the voile, on the wine’s surface.
Serge Voronoff was a French surgeon of Russian extraction who gained fame for his technique of grafting monkey testicle tissue on to the testicles of men for purportedly therapeutic purposes while working in France in the 1920s and 1930s. The technique brought him a great deal of money, although he was already independently wealthy. As his work fell out of favour, he went from being highly respected to a subject of ridicule. In 1999, some speculated that the AIDS virus discovered in the 1980s entered the human population through Voronoff’s transfer of monkey parts into humans in the 1920s.
The Voyager Golden Records are phonograph records which were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft, which were launched in 1977. They contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or for future humans, who may find them. The Voyager spacecraft are not heading towards any particular star, but Voyager 1 will be within 1.6 light years of the star AC+79 3888 in the Ophiuchus constellation in about 40,000 years.
Diana Vreeland’s autobiography. The best guide ever to PERSONALITY.
VVV was the direct product of the leading Surrealists of the day. The magazine was edited by David Hare in collaboration with Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, and Max Ernst.
