Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2024 i Cosmopolitan

Sweats on Sweats… …on sweats! Sure, you already know and love your matching sets, but designers want you to kick it up a notch with all-sweats-everything. Should we say “sweats” one more time for good measure? Your closet needed this snuggly maxi yesterday. Wear it to… a weekend gossip sesh. You’re comfy, you’re casual, but you’re also chic and ready for anything. Truly, the tripling down is what makes this trend work: One sweat piece might be lazy, but more and more are a certified vibe. Dress it up with jewelry and shoes and you could even hit the bar later too. Low-Rises So sorry, millennials, but there are ways to embrace them without feeling like you’re back in the bleakest parts of 2003. Sneakers and a baseball hat keep…

ISAMAYA The Artist:Isamaya Ffrench (yes, that’s her to the left) The Aesthetic: High fashion The Must-Try Product: Liplacq Maximizing Lip Serum Isamaya Ffrench has worked her ultracool magic on clients like Madonna, Rihanna, and Kylie Jenner. Also on her résumé? Collaborations with some of the biggest beauty brands in the world, including Burberry, Byredo, and Tom Ford—all of which inspired Ffrench to launch her own line, ISAMAYA, in 2022. “I’ve always felt like the industry wasn’t producing very exciting visuals, be it product packaging or ad campaigns,” she says. “This felt like an opportunity to create great makeup in beautiful, collectible packaging.” ISAMAYA’s products—vinyl-like lip glosses with iridescent finishes, sheer lipsticks with shimmery flecks, metallic eyeshadows in smoldering shades—come in pierced or lacquered containers, and any of them can be…

You nap when you’re tired, rest when you’re sore, and (hopefully) take a mental health day when it all feels like too much. But what about when you can’t fathom following through on another “let’s grab drinks after work” because the couch looks way more tempting than talking about your hobbies and how many siblings you have…yet again? Friends, here is exactly what to do in this scenario: nothing. Don’t agree to or go on the date. Don’t force yourself to engage in a tired Q&A session, you know, just in case. Don’t spend minutes you can’t get back agonizing over falling behind in the socially ingrained race to Find The One By A Certain Age. Instead, make no plans at all. Okay, fine, a lot easier said than done.…

KIM Petras has a PhD in pop star. And like most advanced degrees, it came with work, years of ideating and innovating her sound, her performances, and her persona. Well, personas—plural—because there have been eight (8!) since the 31-year-old started all this at age 19. And now, after a year that included a Grammy win and 24.5 million monthly Spotify listeners, the dance-pop phenom—famous for her up-tempo tracks and tongue-in-cheek lyrics—seems to be evolving again. I’m currently looking at who I’ll call Down-time Kim, curled up on a brown couch in her Los Angeles home. Sweats casual and eyebrows immaculate, she’s talking with her hands, complimenting my mascara, and reminiscing on how she got here, how she earned this next role. “I’m always looking to free myself of things,” she…

TEXTS FROM MY EX WHAT IT DOES Just as its name implies, the free online platform relies on an AI-powered algorithm, trained on large-language models, to analyze texts between you and a former romantic partner. Brave users can upload entire conversations from iMessage or WhatsApp, and Texts From My Ex will reply with what went wrong. The platform will also assign you and your ex an overall compatibility rating based on factors like communication, sexiness, “cute moments,” and (somewhat brutally but also maybe the honesty we need?) “why it will never work.” WHAT IT’S LIKE Luckily for me, I have plenty of ex-boyfriends, so all I had to do was upload my chat history with one of them from a few years back (yes, I still have this, because receipts,…

“I SEE AI AS A NET POSITIVE, ESPECIALLY FOR THE SOCIALLY AWKWARD WHO NEED A LITTLE HELP!”—LINDSEY METSELAAR, HOST OF THE WE MET AT ACME PODCAST “We need to be mindful about what this means for the future of the internet and how much of what we see we can really believe.”—KAMIE CRAWFORD, HOST OF CATFISH: THE TV SHOW AND THE RELATIONSH*T WITH KAMIE CRAWFORD PODCAST “AI may create sexy bots that could be better than many of the men out there…but I still like an IRL hot man in my bed.”—SERENA KERRIGAN, CREATOR OF THE “LET’S FUCKING DATE” CARD GAMES “AI can be an ideal matchmaker if done right, but it will never replace human intelligence. It may come with blessings, but it will also be our greatest challenge in the years to come.”—ALEEZA BEN…

DRESS TO CARESS Say that three times fast, or just trust us when we tell you this spring is all about wearing the kind of materials that are a little (or a lot) extra in all the right ways. COMPOUNDING EFFECTS And just like that, your new favorite things to fidget with are a pair of very chic glasses and an intricately beaded top. HIDDEN DEPTHS Unsurprisingly, this kind of style contains multitudes. It’s not just about sculptural pieces or spiky things—it’s also about voluminous tulle and flowing chiffon. JOIN THE MOVEMENT You knowyou’ve mastered the mood when whatever you’re wearing makes you want to all-out frolic. KEY PLAYERS Whenever in doubt, slip into some sheer sequins and add leather details. ACTUALLY GROUND-BREAKING Florals for spring, when they get an…

The source of Julia Fox’s fame can vary depending on who you ask. For some, she’s a viral icon, a newsfeed staple for what she’s said, worn, or done that day. For others, it was her breakout performance in 2019’s Uncut Gems or her brief relationship with Kanye West (“the least interesting thing about me”) or her recent memoir, Down the Drain. Real ones know she’s also found various levels of renown as a party girl, dominatrix, fashion designer, model, podcaster, and provocative artist who once painted with her own blood. Now she’s adding another to the list: host of competition show OMG Fashun. Chances are also pretty good that she’ll soon be known for this interview, where she gets into all the things the internet is dying to know…

Behold: inclusive beauty sleep in a bottle. Before this country’s recent racial reckoning, so many Black-owned businesses spent years, if not decades, hustling in the shadows. I’ve since personally watched lots of Black-owned beauty brands finally get the love and success they deserve. But one thing hasn’t changed yet: the general misconception that their products are exclusively for Black people. The truth is, these companies still tend to be “othered,” bypassed by those who consider them too niche or who don’t consider them at all. So here’s a PSA for all my non-BIPOC folks out there: Unless an item explicitly states it’s only for a specific ethnic group, skin tone, or hair type, it’s also meant for you. “When you center skin of color first, you’re centering those who have…

Monét fans are having a thrilling 2024. Almost perfect, really, thanks to the artist’s seven Grammy nominations, including Best R&B Song, Best R&B Album, and Best R&B Performance. But not entirely perfect because of that Best New Artist one that might not sit right. It feels frustratingly close to another recent incident, when MTV allegedly told Victoria’s team that it was “too early in her story” for Victoria to perform at the 2023 VMAs. “I try not to take it personally,” says Victoria, in a speaking voice that could rival your favorite guided meditation despite this tricky topic. “Someone who doesn’t have the full scope of this story might think, It’s too early. But people who are in the know know the songwriting. They know the girl group I was…

Megan, 31, writer, creator, and presenter; Char, 34, director of people Years together: 1.5 Char: We met at Birmingham Pride. The first thing she said to me was, “Oh my god, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” Megan: It was the truth! It just spilled out of my mouth. Char: She’s got lyrics. Megan: It wasn’t even a line. It was just in my head—it popped up and came out. Angus, 30, sales director; Bliss, 26, model Years together: 5 Bliss: We’re off to the cinema to see Saltburn. Angus: Whereas I pretend to be a film buff, Bliss actually gets it. She’s really good at picking up on what’s going on straight away if something’s slightly complex, while I’m often like, “What’s the dynamic here?” There’s another…

WHAT IT DOES The premise here is that the true mark of compatibility between you and a potential partner is all in…your faces. SciMatch’s face-reading algorithm—trained on a database of millions of facial characteristics associated with specific personality types—can analyze, for free, a quick scan of your face and identify your “character quirks.” It then uses those to spin out a handy bio for your dating profile. You can also ask it to analyze photos of any of your matches to gain insight into their character and how compatible you’d be. Like most apps, SciMatch also has a few premium (aka you have to pay for them, from $9 per week to $125 for six months) features. Perhaps the most interesting: Upload a photo of your celebrity crush and SciMatch…

PROBABLY the best thing about AI and the tools powered by it is that they’re largely available to everyone with an internet connection. But this doesn’t mean they were made for everyone. When talking about AI, “we forget that we’re talking about datasets or language models,” says Jamie Cohen, PhD, an assistant professor at Queens College of the City University of New York with a specialty in digital culture and internet literacy. “The major models we’re using today are extremely exclusive, and that means they’re very problematic.” TL; DR: The “machine learning” behind AI has to learn from something. And the majority of models are created and trained by cis white men. The datasets they use to train bots are often open source, meaning they’re publicly available, and many are…

Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence, battery, exploitation, suicidal thoughts, and child endangerment. It draws from extensive interviews with both women, conducted between August 2023 and January 2024, and reflects their experiences and voices. Other details are taken from allegations in an ongoing lawsuit filed in U.S. district court—allegations that most of the defendants deny; other defendants had not responded to the lawsuit’s allegations or to Cosmopolitan’s request for comment at press time. Chapter 1 Julia Hubbard was one of the best bottle girls at Plush. Her role at the trendy Dallas nightclub was to support the VIP area. Keep the drinks flowing. Turn customers into regulars. As a 27-year-old extrovert, she made good money. As a newly single mom of two kids under 10, she…

My husband worried I’d die. My sister asked if my organs would get harvested. My mom said I was being unfair to our family. And another relative asked, quite literally, how I was different than a prostitute. So, yeah. It’s safe to say that at first, my choice to become a surrogate—someone who gets pregnant for someone who can’t—wasn’t popular with the people in my life. Like, at all. Let me set the scene: It was 2015, and I was 33 and making $40,000 as an overworked English teacher. My husband, Kyle, was trying to grow a small business, and we owed thousands of dollars in student debt. We kept downsizing, moving around to save money, but it was hard on us, my son, and our dogs. So after seeing…

I met Maria* in the bathroom of a student bar that was blasting cheesy pop songs from the aughts. We struck up a tipsy conversation, complimented each other’s outfits, and soon found ourselves gushing over our mutual love for anime, dystopian fiction, and all things nerdy. And thus, a friendship was born. I was 18, a shy introvert who’d just moved out of my family’s place to attend college in a different city. Maria was spending a semester abroad at my school. She’d been born and raised in Spain—her parents had divorced when she was a kid, and she now lived with her dad in Granada. Before she came along, I’d felt like a fish out of water at freshman orientation. But we made the perfect pair of homebodies, bonding…

1. SINTRA, PORTUGAL You deserve to feel like a queen on your wedding day…so why not elope to where the Portuguese royal family of yore spent their summers? About 30 minutes from Lisbon, Sintra is home to the regal Pena Palace, a colorful 19th-century castle, and multiple other historic sites dating as far back as the 8th (!) century. Holding hands while spiraling down the famous Initiation Well, a mysterious 88-foot-deep inverted tower you’ve got to see to believe, is highly recommended. 2. KHUMBU, NEPAL Alexa, play “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”! If adventure is in your relationship’s DNA, you can (and honestly probably should) do the damn thing on Mount freakin’ Everest. Carry your nuptial necessities—or hire a porter to lug them for you—while hiking the Himalayas on your…

NAME: Glen Powell AGE: 35 SIGN: Libra MAIN GIG: Actor You know him as the irritatingly irresistible assistant in Set It Up, the lovable asshole pilot in Top Gun: Maverick, and, most recently, the alluring bad boy in Anyone but You. (Yes, there is a theme here, and that theme is an onscreen charm offensive so potent, it all but cancels out his characters’ flaws.) In real life, Glen can wash your truck for you. Or fly your air plane. Or give you a ride on his motorcycle. He also has a new puppy. And he looks like this. Are you blushing yet? “I take the bedroom situation seriously. My bed is a California king. I’ve got six throw pillows. Is that a normal number? Is that a solid average?”…

Uchis is in her bedroom, leaning against the bed, taking a moment to say goodbye to her “man,” rapper Don Toliver, before settling in. “I want to get comfortable,” she explains, “because I have a lot to say.” And then it’s just us chicas. Our big topic of conversation: the way Kali, a Colombian American singer-songwriter, was labeled a “niche artist” for much of her early career. Sure, she came up through R&B, her music’s airy tones and deep basses, her voice’s lower notes and whistle tones, enough to make listeners feel like they’re floating. But her style wasn’t ever only that. It also moved the genre forward with the use of synthesizers, unexpected instruments like harps, and voice-layering and reverb that make it sound like an entire choir is performing…

IT WILL COME AS A SURPRISE to exactly no one that AI can do things to a photo. Glossy things. Poreless things. Disney-movie-character things. Anyone with a social media account can watch this unfold day in and day out. People who once looked “real” now look impossibly perfected—at least in terms of the unrealistic beauty standards du jour—and is that the Taj Mahal they’re suddenly posing in front of? Or the moon? Selling a certain image of yourself on social media (for followers, for profit, maybe just for fun) somehow feels different, though, than using essentially fake photos to attract a date. Pretty much every human relationship expert (and probably some AI ones too) would advise against the latter. But I’m not a professional relationship expert, real or artificial. What…

WHAT IT DOES Rizz (free for a week, then from $7 per week) is a self-proclaimed “AI wingman” that helps people keep the flirty messaging flowing. Users can upload a screenshot of a conversation from their dating app of choice (or from iMessage or WhatsApp) and get a near-instant Rizz Reply. You can also upload a photo of a match and the app will produce a customized opening pickup line for you to throw their way. WHAT IT’S LIKE From the jump, I loved how user-friendly the interface is. When I needed a witty response to send the Hinge guy who messaged me “Finally got my wife,” getting my Rizz Reply was a breeze. The response itself though…well, see for yourself: “With a wife already in the picture, are you…

ARIES The good: You’re in for a great Valentine’s Day, with either your S.O. or your squad. The bad: You’re dealing with exes for pretty much all of Pisces season. Once Aries season begins, though, your love life starts to blossom…until (you guessed it) Mercury Retrograde strikes in early April. TAURUS You’re reaching a critical moment in your career, and if you keep working this hard, you’ll be showered with rewards (a promotion, a raise, a job offer) by the end of Pisces season. Then Aries season arrives to help you clear out any personal baggage so you’re truly thriving just in time for your birthday. GEMINI Gemmy, you are busy. And it’s not just work. You’re somehow doing all the things and going to all the places with all…