The ambitious restoration of the derelict Argo factory has made it "one of the most beautiful buildings of Tehran", said architect Nazanin Amirian, visiting the latest exhibition there.

While the former factory with its towering chimney and cavernous cellar has been given a new life, many other historic buildings in the Iranian capital face a grimmer fate.

"We hoped restoring Argo would inspire others to preserve similar buildings," said Hamid Reza Pejman, director of the Pejman Foundation that took on the project.

But "economic conditions are tough", said Pejman, after years of crippling sanctions and with no government funding to support restoration endeavours.

Established more than a century ago, the Argo factory had produced one of Iran's oldest and biggest beer brands before falling into disuse.

It had ceased operations just a few years before the 1979 Islamic revolution, which toppled Iran's Western-backed shah and ushered in a strict ban on the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages.

The brand itself lives on alcohol-free, with rights to the Argo logo transferred to a local beverage company, Pejman said.

He said that since the factory was "out of operation" at the time, it was spared the fate of some other breweries which were set ablaze during the revolution.

Ever since the Islamic republic banned alcohol, bootleg beverages proliferated on the black market, with toxic methanol occasionally contaminating the natural ethanol and resulting in mass poisonings.

- 'Transform the city' -

Left a crumbling structure of weathered brick walls that also served as a shelter for homeless people, the Argo building was eventually purchased by the Pejman Foundation in 2016.

Its brick walls and chimney were restored, keeping their distinct industrial look, while other parts like the roof had to be entirely rebuilt.

Since 2020, the building has been open to the public as a museum, featuring local and international artists.

In a nod to its past life, the Argo arts centre offers non-alcoholic beer for sale.

The current exhibition is a collection of installation works, sculptures and paintings by Iranian multidisciplinary artist Maryam Amini.

Over the years, the building has been swallowed by Tehran's rapid urban expansion, now surrounded by high-rises, modern cafes and sprawling commercial centres in one of the city's busiest neighbourhoods.

Much like the Argo factory until 2016, some of Tehran's historic buildings including old movie theatres have been abandoned for years, largely due to economic hardship.

Others were demolished as shifting urban priorities have favoured modern developments over restoration.

Amir Ali Izadi, a 43-year-old artist visiting the factory-turned-museum, expressed his hope that similar buildings would undergo renovation.

"It would transform the city's landscape," he said.

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The US and Russian presidents' phone call on March 18 focused on Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy sites, US military aid to Kyiv, and peace negotiations.

But according to the Kremlin, Putin also brought up a subject close to his heart -- ice hockey -- and raised the possibility of matches between players of both countries.

"We've been seeing efforts by the Russians to warm up the situation with Donald Trump and vice versa... Putin is a big hockey fan," Gary Smith, a former Canadian diplomat and author of "Ice War Diplomat", told AFP.

Smith's book focuses on a series of hockey matches between Canada and the Soviet Union during the Cold War in 1972, which is considered one of the most significant events in 20th-century Canadian history.

"The advantage of sports is that it impacts foreign societies from top to bottom because there's such a mass interest in sports," he added.

"So you have an opportunity to really convey a message, a cultural message. And what it does is it helps break down cultural stereotypes.

"For instance, we didn't like the communists at all but they had a goaltender, 20 years old, named Vladislav Tretiak, and he put a human face on communism."

- 'Relationships of trust' -

Whether ice hockey can help to "humanise" modern-day Russia more than half a century later remains to be seen.

First, games would have to actually take place between the Americans and Russians and despite Trump's agreement in principle, this is not yet a done deal.

The North American NHL cut ties with its Russian counterpart, the KHL, after Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and Russia is banned from international competitions until at least 2026.

Smith assesses the chance of the offer coming to fruition as "50-50" -- and dependent on the course of the war.

"The longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the less likely this series will happen," he said, noting that the White House read-out of the call made no mention of ice hockey.

Putin, 72, portrays himself as having a healthy and athletic lifestyle and took up ice hockey late in life, playing in high-profile gala matches every year.

Ice hockey "brings people together and helps build relationships of trust", he said during one match in 2019 when asked about possible "hockey diplomacy".

By coincidence, Russian Alex Ovechkin, who plays for NHL franchise the Washington Capitals, is closing in on the league record of 894 goals set by the player widely considered the greatest of all time, Wayne Gretzky.

Ovechkin founded "PutinTeam" to support the Russian president in the 2018 election and his Instagram profile picture shows him standing with Putin.

- Elbows up! -

In recent weeks, ice hockey has also emerged as a proxy for tensions between North American neighbours the United States and Canada.

In February, a clash on the ice between the two countries in an international tournament in Montreal was marked by three fights in the first nine seconds and a chorus of deafening boos.

Faced with Trump's repeated calls to make their country the "51st state", Canadians have adopted a rallying cry of resistance directly drawn from the vocabulary of their national sport: "Elbows up!"

New Prime Minister Mark Carney, himself a former player, also alluded to ice hockey in a speech about the trade war with Washington over tariffs.

"Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves," he said, referring to ice hockey's notorious punch-ups.

"The Americans should make no mistake: in trade as in hockey, Canada will win."

The former central banker donned his national team jersey for the final of the tournament.

Despite a phone call from Trump himself to the American players before kickoff, the United States lost the final 3-2 to Canada.

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Alexander-Arnold joined the Reds 20 years ago as a six-year-old and has gone on to win a clean sweep of Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup titles.

His status is reflected in a mural that stands just metres from the club's Anfield stadium, emblazoned with the quote: "I'm just a normal lad from Liverpool whose dream has just come true."

However, how he will be remembered for years to come in his home city will for many be dictated by the decision he takes in the coming weeks over his future.

Alexander-Arnold's contract expires at the end of the season, meaning Madrid do not have to pay a transfer fee for a player who has smashed Premier League records when it comes to a creative output from a right-back.

Here, AFP Sport looks at the key considerations facing the 26-year-old ahead of a career-defining call.

- Madrid's compelling case -

Liverpool like to taunt their Premier League rivals with their six European Cups, making them by a distance the most successful English club in the competition's history.

Madrid though are in a league of their own with 15 European Cup or Champions League triumphs, including six in the past 11 years.

On top of the lifestyle benefits that a switch to the Spanish sunshine offers, Alexander-Arnold would be lining up each week alongside his close friend and England colleague Jude Bellingham, among a cast of stars also including Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior.

The spotlight at the state-of-the-art, newly refurbished Santiago Bernabeu could also offer Alexander-Arnold the chance to fulfil his dream of becoming the first full-back to win the Ballon d'Or.

"I believe I can (win it)," Alexander-Arnold told Sky Sports earlier this season. "It's only the morning after you retire that you're able to look in the mirror and say, 'I gave it everything I got'.

"It doesn't matter how many trophies you win, or how many medals you've got. It matters what you give to the game and if you reach your full potential."

By running his contract down, Alexander-Arnold is in a strong position to make millions from a signing-on bonus in lieu of Madrid having to pay a huge transfer fee.

And he can argue there is little more to be gained by staying at Anfield.

Liverpool are 12 points clear at the top of the Premier League, meaning by the time his current deal expires, Alexander-Arnold should be a two-time English champion to go with six other major trophies.

"His legacy, I hope, is one of an outstanding homegrown footballer who's done incredibly well for this club," Steve McManaman, who himself made the move from Liverpool to Real Madrid on a free transfer back in 1999, told the BBC.

- Follow Gerrard's lead? -

McManaman won two Champions Leagues and two La Liga titles in his four years in the Spanish capital and yet is being used as the counter argument encouraging Alexander-Arnold to stay.

"It's about his legacy at Liverpool and how he is seen. Do you want to be seen like (Steven) Gerrard or McManaman?" former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher, himself a one-club legend, said of Alexander-Arnold's choice.

"He (McManaman) went to Real Madrid and won cups but he is not adored. If (Alexander-Arnold) stays, he will be remembered as one of the best to play for the club and not far behind Gerrard."

Alexander-Arnold is already the club's vice-captain and would be the natural heir to Virgil van Dijk.

In contrast to the era of Gerrard, McManaman and Michael Owen, who swapped Liverpool for Madrid in 2004, he is part of a side regularly competing at the top of the Premier League and Champions League.

Should he stay, Alexander-Arnold could be front and centre of trophy lifts in years to come as a local lad turned legend.

But Liverpool are just the latest club to learn that the magnetism of Madrid is hard to resist.

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He makes "bisht", a long gown which for centuries has been a status symbol, worn by kings and princes -- and ordinary men -- and could take a week of meticulous work to create.

Now, with cheap Chinese-made robes taking a bite out of his business, the 60-year-old tailor is struggling to make a profit, and his only son wouldn't take over the beleaguered shop.

But Mohammed refuses to let the ancient craft die, searching for ways to hand down his knowledge.

"We've started training here at the shop and at home," he told AFP in his windowless atelier in the oasis city of Hofuf, with bishts hanging all around.

"I am teaching my grandchildren, be they girls or boys."

In Mohammed's native Al-Ahsa governorate, it was "considered shameful for a man to go to a funeral or a market, or make a visit to anyone anywhere without wearing the bisht", he said.

The bisht came to global attention in 2022 when Qatar's emir draped one over football star Lionel Messi after the World Cup final.

Although Arabs across the Gulf still sometimes wear traditional garb, especially in formal settings, factory-made clothing has replaced tailor services in the oil-rich countries of the region.

- Robe 'recession' -

At his workshop, Mohammed watched over his granddaughter Fajr, nine, and grandson Ghassan, 10, as they embroidered delicate gowns.

For the veteran craftsman, who learned to weave when he was only five, this is "my entire life".

"I came into this world... seeing only bishts around me," said Mohammed, wearing the Saudi national dress of white thobe robe and chequered red-and-white headdress.

"I was born in (my father's) tailor shop and grew up watching my mother sew. I saw my brothers and cousins work with my father in the tailor shop," he added with pride.

His wife was also a bisht seamstress, he said, skilled at collar embroidery.

But his modest shop in an artisans' market in Hofuf has fallen on hard times.

"A sort of recession has taken hold," he said.

A high-quality bisht could once have fetched up to 6,000 riyals ($1,600), but machine-made cloaks sell for just a fraction of that price, Mohammed said.

"Pieces I would make for 1,500 riyals now go for 150 riyals. It's not enough to make a living."

- 'Didn't give up' -

Mohammed refuses to let the tradition die out, and he is far from alone.

A bisht revival is taking shape in Saudi Arabia even as it opens up to the world, attracting tourists and foreign businesses.

Last year, the kingdom ordered ministers and other senior officials to wear a bisht when entering or leaving the workplace or attending formal events.

Saudi Arabia has named 2025 the Year of Handicrafts, when it will promote and support 10 crafts including bisht-weaving.

And Gulf countries are trying to include the bisht on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage in a bid to preserve the craft.

Some of the bishts hanging on the walls of Mohammed's workshop are at least a century old, he said, proudly presenting a brown robe made from sheep's wool.

"Someone offered me 200,000 riyals for this, but I refused to sell it because it is as dear to me as my life. It represents my country's history," he said.

"I want to pass them down to my children and grandchildren, and I will instruct them never to sell them," he said, pointing to the pieces on the walls.

Mohammed also gives weekly bisht tailoring lessons at a nearby institute, mostly for young people.

"We didn't give up," he said, training the younger generation "to revive an old heritage that was disappearing".

"We will bring it to life once more," said Mohammed.

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Friends since childhood in Seattle, Gates and Allen founded Microsoft in 1975 with a stated goal of putting a computer in every office and home.

- Gates -

Born William Henry Gates III in 1955 in Seattle, he began writing software programs while a 13-year-old schoolboy.

Gates dropped out of Harvard in his junior year to start Microsoft with Allen.

The childhood friends created MS-DOS operating system, since renamed Windows, which went on to dominate office work.

Gates built a reputation as a formidable and sometimes ruthless leader.

Critics argue he unfairly wielded Microsoft's clout in the market, and the US pressed a winning antitrust case against the company in the late 1990s.

In 2000, Gates ceded the CEO job to Ballmer, whom he befriended while the two were students at Harvard.

Gates chose to devote himself to a charitable foundation he established with his then-wife, Melinda.

He resigned from Microsoft's board of directors in 2020 -- shortly after the firm acknowledged the existence of an "intimate" relationship with an employee in the past.

The following year, the couple divorced. Melinda Gates faulted him for his relationship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was found guilty of sexually exploiting under-age girls.

His support of Covid-19 vaccine campaigns and agriculture programs that focus on climate change and women made Gates a favorite target of conspiracy theorists.

Baseless accusations aimed at Gates include him putting tracking chips in vaccines.

- Allen -

Paul Allen, born in 1953 in Seattle, was a schoolmate of Gates.

Allen was 10 when he started a science club at home, and would later bond with young Gates over computers.

"Microsoft would never have happened without Paul," Gates wrote in tribute to Allen, who died of cancer complications in 2018.

Gates told of Allen showing him a magazine featuring a computer running on a new chip, and warning that a tech revolution was happening without them.

Allen is credited with combining "microcomputer" and "software" to come up with "Micro-Soft".

He left Microsoft in 1983, but remained a board member until 2000. He went on to accuse Gates and Ballmer of scheming to "rip him off" by getting hold of his shares while he battled cancer.

- Ballmer -

Ballmer was seen as a devoted salesman who ramped up Microsoft revenue while neglecting innovation.

A Michigan native with a talent for mathematics, he graduated from Harvard.

Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 and was best man at the 1994 wedding of Bill and Melinda Gates.

Ballmer, now 69, succeeded Gates as chief executive in 2000.

His enthusiastic gestures, awkward dance moves, and voice-straining shouts made him the stuff of internet memes and company lore.

Ballmer oversaw the launch of Xbox video game consoles, Surface tablets, and Bing online search engine. Microsoft bought Skype and Nokia's mobile phone division on Ballmer's watch.

During his tenure, Microsoft was seen as clinging to PCs while lifestyles raced toward mobile devices and cloud-based software.

His product failures include Zune digital music players, Kin mobile phones, and a Vista version of Windows.

- Nadella -

Nadella took over as chief executive in early 2014 and says he learned leadership skills playing cricket as a boy growing up in India.

Nadella, who will turn 58 in August, was hired in 1992 while studying at the University of Chicago.

Early in his academic career, a drive to build things led him to pursue computer science, a focus not available during his engineering studies at Mangalore University.

Nadella's Microsoft bio shows stints in research, business, server and online services units.

For relaxation, he turns to poetry, which he likened to complex data compressed to express rich ideas in few words.

Nadella held firm that for Microsoft to succeed, it needed to adapt to a "cloud-first, mobile-first world".

Soon after becoming chief, he ordered the biggest reorganization in Microsoft's history.

He is credited with guiding Microsoft from a fading packaged software business to the booming market for cloud services.

Microsoft has been pumping billions of dollars into AI, investing in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and infusing the technology across its products.

In a rare stumble, Nadella triggered an uproar his first year as chief by suggesting during an on-stage discussion that working women should trust "karma" when it comes to securing pay raises.

Microsoft's acquisitions under Nadella include Sweden-based Mojang, maker of the popular video game Minecraft; social network LinkedIn, and the GitHub online platform catering to software developers.

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Some companies at the Milan Furniture Fair, which opened Tuesday, compare the sudden levies to a rampaging wrecking crew. But many are also determined to keep offering their prestige output in the hope that buyers in the key US market will stick with them.

The United States is the Italian furniture industry's second-biggest market after France, accounting for 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) of its 19.4 billion euros of exports in 2024, according to industry figures.

The "geopolitical" factors, such as the new tariffs, "will certainly have long-term repercussions," the fair's president Maria Porro told AFP.

About 10 percent of all Italy's exports go to the United States, and Prime Minister Georgia Meloni will go to Washington on April 17 in a bid to ease the impact of the 20-percent tariffs imposed on European Union products.

Some furniture firms say it is too early to know how much damage can be expected from the tariffs that have shaken global markets.

"We made it through Covid, we had the war in Ukraine and lost Russian clients, but we survived," said Nicola Fagetti, finance director of the Parma company La Contessina, which prides itself on producing a modern version of Italian renaissance styles.

"We are now facing tariffs, but we always find a solution," he said stoically. US sales account for 35 percent of his company's made-to-order exports.

Emmanuel Antonello, marketing director for Villari, a luxury brand whose tables can cost more than $20,000, is also refusing to panic.

"The United States accounts for 20 percent of our exports, but we can still count on our sales in the Middle East, our primary market with a 60 percent share," he said.

And he's banking on customer loyalty across the Atlantic: "Americans are fascinated by Italian design -- there's a 'Wow!' effect when they see our products; for them, they're gems."

- Absent Americans -

But there are few Americans roaming the fair this year, while they were the sixth-largest foreign contingent in 2024.

"I will lose a lot of my clients. I think the tariffs are going to be enormously awful for trade," said interior designer Allison Muir, a 48-year-old from San Francisco and a fan of the late Italian designer Gio Ponti.

"Italian design can really relax the mind and create a place to really reflect. And I think that's what a lot of my clients are looking for in the frenetic Silicon Valley," she said.

Upset with Trump's policies, she is considering leaving the United States and settling with her family in Seville, Spain.

A decline in exports to France (-3.3 percent) and Germany (-6 percent) already helped drag down the Italian furniture industry's revenues last year by more than two percent to 27.5 billion euros.

"Even though some emerging markets are growing, such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, they are still unable to make up for traditional markets," said Porro, the fair's president.

Turning to trends at the 63rd edition of the Salone del Mobile, she said clients are increasingly interested in sustainability and a return to nature.

"In a period of instability like the one we are experiencing now, people prefer natural, bright and warm shades," she said, adding that the border between design and art is increasingly blurred.

The giant show, open until Sunday, has 2,103 exhibitors, with more than a third from outside Italy. Last year, it attracted 370,824 visitors from around the world, a 20 percent increase on 2023.

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At 63, wearing number 10 and sporting brown-dyed hair, the grandmother of seven was far from your typical footballer when she stepped onto the field for her first international tournament.

"I feel like a superstar," Nonhlanhla grinned, revealing a missing tooth. "They call me the goal machine."

Her team, Vuka Soweto, hails from the renowned township of Soweto outside Johannesburg.

It had joined more than a dozen others from across Africa and beyond to compete this week at the Grannies International Football Tournament in the northern province of Limpopo.

The four-day "Grannies World Cup" was held in a stadium with sweeping mountain views.

The 30-minute games were played in two halves at a slow but purposeful pace, between teams from as far as the United States, France and Togo.

"It is all about active ageing. Whether we win or lose, it is all about coming here and staying fit," said 62-year-old South African Devika Ramesar, a mother of two and grandmother of five.

Until this week, the Liverpool fan had never stepped onto a football pitch.

Kenyan striker Edna Cheruiyot only had two months to learn the "long list" of football rules before Friday, when she scored her only goal.

She took selfies to remember her first ever trip abroad and send to her grandchildren.

- Unfair pressure on grannies  -

"I feel nimble. This is the lightest I have been since my first child in 1987," Cheruiyot said, adjusting the blue headwrap covering her greying hair.

At 52, she is a youngster within her team, whose oldest player -- Elizabeth Talaa -- is 87.

The idea for the tournament arose in 2007 as a way to improve the health of local women, said founder Rebecca Ntsanwisi, 57, who is fondly called Mama Beka.

It came out of her sense of personal challenge following a cancer diagnosis that once bound her to a wheelchair.

"The older women need to come together and enjoy. We are neglected," she told AFP outside the home where she lives with her ageing parents.

She hopes to host the next tournament in Kenya in 2027.

In South Africa alone, almost 40 percent of  children live in households headed by their grandparents, according to government statistics.

That is mainly due to poverty, cultural traditions and urban migration.

But grandmothers should not be saddled with the responsibility of raising their grandchildren, Ntsanwisi said.

"This is our time to enjoy and relax," she said. "I will die knowing that I did something."

Chris Matson, 67, took the advice to heart and travelled from the United States to "enjoy every second of the tournament".

"I did not play when I was little so to do it now is wonderful," said the bubbly goalkeeper for the winning American New England Breakers team, who also took the golden glove.

"I have something precious to take home," she told AFP, cradling her first ever trophy.

- Rolling back time -

The team doctors, however, earned their keep.

The aches and pains of the elderly players needed constant checking, South African team medic Diana Mawila said.

Some members of her Vakhegula Vakhegula team had to be monitored for high blood pressure before every game.

Vakhegula Vakhegula means "grandmothers grandmothers" in the local Tsonga language and is a nod to the national men's team, Bafana Bafana or "boys boys".

But the team disagreed with the medic's assessment and burst into heartfelt laughter.

"We are fit!" captain Thelma Ngobeni said, balancing on her head a packet of maize flour that players received after the games.

"It is not about winning or losing. All that matters is that we showed up, had fun and did our best," she said.

Nonhlanhla's goal was more ambitious. A dream of making it big in football was within reach, she said.

"It's never too late to achieve your childhood dreams. I don't see anything stopping me," she added, walking out of the tunnel to face France.

In a scene mirroring professional football, the vuvuzela-blowing crowd erupted in applause as teams entered the stadium hand in hand with young mascots and national anthems played.

"I'm halfway there, right?" Nonhlanhla smiled.

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For the first time in three decades, the V&A museum is showing a retrospective of some of Cartier's most iconic creations.

Founded in Paris almost 180 years ago, the company has pioneered and modernised the luxury jewellery market.

"We all think of Cartier as being this wonderful design epic and glamorous name, but it's also because they are so good at creating something that is ahead of the times, but doesn't go out of fashion," said curator Helen Molesworth.

The exhibition opens on Saturday and is already sold out for April and May -- but visitors have until November 16 to marvel at some 350 brooches, tiaras, necklaces and earrings festooned with diamonds, pearls and stunning jewels of all the colours of the rainbow.

The exhibition's curators have brought together rare pieces from museums around the world, including from private collections such as items belonging to King Charles III and Monaco's Prince Albert.

- Queen Elizabeth's brooch -

One of the masterpieces on display is the breathtaking Williamson pink diamond rose brooch, made for Queen Elizabeth in 1953, the year of her coronation.

It contains a 23-carat pink diamond -- one of the rarest, most flawless in the world -- presented to the queen as a gift on her wedding to Prince Philip.

Nearby is a tiara from 1902 set with 1,048 diamonds worn to the queen's coronation by Clementine Churchill, the wife of the then prime minister Winston Churchill.

It was lent to singer Rihanna when she was photographed for the cover of W magazine in 2016.

There is also a sumptuous square-shaped diamond engagement ring, one of two offered to US actress Grace Kelly by Monaco's Prince Rainier; and a diamond rose brooch worn by the queen's sister, Princess Margaret.

"We wanted to showcase ... the legacy of Cartier over a hundred years," said Molesworth.

In one room, the curators have gathered a collection of 18 tiaras spanning from 1900 to the modern day -- a grand finale to the dazzling display.

- 'Trendsetters' -

The design house was founded in Paris in 1847 when Louis-Francois Cartier took over the workshop of his master.

In 1898, his grandson Louis Cartier joined the brand, and was to play a pivotal role in Cartier's evolution. And then in 1902, his brother Pierre, opened a branch in London.

"We see very early on, even in the beginning of the 1900s, that Cartier is really looking around for inspiration," said Molesworth.

"We see inspirations from the Islamic world, from Egypt, from China, from India. The brothers ... travelled. They went to Russia, they went to India," she added.

Above all they managed to capture the changing moods of the times in which they lived.

After the stunning diamond necklaces of the Roaring Twenties came more sober gold bracelets, designed in the 1960s.

"One of the great successes of Cartier is staying ahead of the times, being the trendsetters, and realising that they are keeping up with the changing world around them," the curator said.

During the war years, Cartier designed a brooch in 1942 of a caged bird to mark the Nazi occupation of France.

Following France's liberation, the design was changed in 1944. Called "Free as a Bird" the brooch shows a chirping bird, bearing France's distinctive red, white and blue colours, spreading its wings as it flies out of its cage.

The exhibition also wanted to explore the links between the French house and the British royal family, which dates back to the early 1900s.

In 1904, King Edward VII officially appointed Cartier as jewellers to the monarchy -- a title which it retains to this day.

This includes the Halo Tiara ordered by Queen Elizabeth II's father, George VI, for his wife the late queen mother.

Imbued with almost 800 diamonds, it was worn by Princess Margaret to the 1953 coronation of her sister Elizabeth and later to hold the veil of Kate Middleton on her marriage in 2011 to Prince William.

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"The Edwardians: Age of Elegance", which opened on Friday at the King's Gallery in Buckingham Palace, brings together more than 300 works from the Royal Collection that will be on display until November 23.

The centrepiece is the coronation gown Queen Alexandra wore on August 9, 1902, made of silk embroidered with thousands of gold sequins and designed by the French house Morin Blossier.

Alexandra, daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and sister of King George I of Greece, married Edward, then Prince of Wales, on March 10, 1863, in the chapel of Windsor Castle.

She was 18 years old. He was 22.

Alexandra was to remain the princess of Wales for almost 40 years until Edward succeeded to the throne on the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, in 1901.

Under Edward VII began the Edwardian period.

The royal couple ushered in a new generation after the austere last years of Victoria's long reign, when she largely withdrew from public life, mourning the death of her beloved husband, Albert.

- 'Pure drama' -

For her coronation as the new queen, Alexandra decided against wearing the traditional white or cream robes, which had an ecclesiastical feel.

"She wanted that moment to be a moment of pure drama," said curator Kathryn Jones.

Realising that electric light was to be "used for the first time in Westminster Abbey ... she chooses a gold fabric so that she shimmers with thousands of tiny spangles", Jones told AFP.

The dress is fragile and has not been on public display for some 30 years.

Conservators have spent more than 100 hours preparing it for the exhibition.

"It's a powerful example of Edward and Alexandra's attempts to balance tradition and modernity as they stood on the cusp of the 20th century -- a shining moment of glamour before the world was at war," Jones says on the exhibition's website.

Edward's gold coronation mantle is also on display, along with two thrones commissioned for the event.

Photography was still in its infancy but it allowed thousands of pictures of the new queen to be seen around the world, turning her into fashion icon and symbol of elegance of the times.

Alexandra was a keen amateur photographer herself and some of her snapshots taken with a portable Kodak camera are on display.

Two massive portraits of the couple greet visitors arriving at the King's Gallery.

One room depicts their lavish lifestyle through paintings of opulent receptions, concerts, regattas on the Isle of Wight, lavish costume balls, garden parties and their residences at Marlborough House in London and Sandringham in Norfolk.

As collectors, they amassed textiles, artworks, tableware, paintings, furniture, sculptures, plants, and rare books.

There is a copy of Oscar Wilde's "Poems" with a rare handwritten note by the author.

Edward also discovered a passion for Faberge and ordered several miniature figures of his favourite animals.

Visitors can admire paintings and water colours by such artists as Frederic Leighton, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and John Singer Sargent, as well as bronze sculptures by Alfred Gilbert.

Several rooms are dedicated to the royal couple's travels across five continents.

The exhibition also includes works collected by Alexandra and Edward's son, who became George V and was crowned in June 1911, with his wife Mary.

By then, times were changing, and instability and political turmoil roiled Europe and the British Empire.

The Age of the Edwardians was fast coming to an end.

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Kennedy took over in mid-February facing a major health crisis with an outbreak of the highly contagious disease that had previously been declared eradicated in the United States.

More than 300 people, mostly children, have now been infected with measles in Texas and New Mexico and two unvaccinated people have died—the first US fatalities from the disease in a decade.

"Some years we have hundreds of measles outbreaks, measles outbreaks every year," the man known as RFK Jr. said in a recent interview with Fox News at a fast food restaurant.

In recent weeks he has alarmed and angered medical professionals with comments downplaying the gravity of the crisis and ambiguous remarks on vaccination and others promoting alternative remedies.

"He couldn't do a worse job than he's doing," said Paul Offit, a renowned pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, vaccines, immunology, and virology.

"People assumed that when he became secretary of health and human services he would become somewhat more responsible to the public health, and they were wrong," Offit told AFP.

- Crisis management -

In an opinion piece published early this month by Fox News, Kennedy said: "Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons."

Still, he has raised doubts and stirred anger by continuing to question the safety of vaccines.

He claimed on Fox News in mid-March that the measles vaccine itself causes deaths "every year."

"It causes all the illnesses that measles itself cause, encephalitis and blindness, etc., and so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves."

Offit disagreed. "He says that the measles vaccine can cause blindness and deafness. He says that measles immunity fades so that adults are no longer protected. All of those things are false, clearly and plainly false," he said, also rejecting Kennedy's suggestion of using vitamin A as an alternative treatment against measles.

Kennedy's crisis management skills have reportedly been criticised even within his own staff, with US media reporting one of his spokespersons resigned and even by some Republicans.

Last week the White House withdrew at the last minute the candidacy of David Weldon, a close associate of Kennedy, to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) -- the main public health agency in America -- after concluding he would lose a Senate confirmation vote.

- Transparency and beef fat -

Measles is making a comeback amid a decline in vaccination rates as more and more Americans, wary of the safety of vaccines, ignore warnings from health authorities to get shots.

Kennedy is accused of contributing to this problem by arguing that there is a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism -- a debunked theory that came from a study based on manipulated data and disproven by later research.

Still, Kennedy's health department recently ordered a new study of this alleged link. A spokesman told AFP, "the rate of autism in American children has skyrocketed. CDC will leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out what exactly is happening."

That pledge of transparency is a kind of mantra for Kennedy, a nephew of the late president John F. Kennedy, as he promises to make Americans healthy again, in part by fighting against consumption of heavily processed food.

Kennedy has set out to toughen rules on food additives but has also endorsed a fast food chain that cooks its French fries in beef tallow, or rendered fat, which had been phased out in America as unhealthy decades ago.

As for transparency, Kennedy critics say he has achieved just the opposite by doing away with a policy that let the public voice comments on health policy.

Under Kennedy, expert level meetings have been cancelled and new policies have been announced with no internal discussion in the department.

Nate Brought, who used to work for a US health agency but resigned last month, criticized Kennedy's management style.

"The way things are being handled is very much not transparent," he told AFP. "Everybody is intentionally being kept in the dark."

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© Agence France-Presse