Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2025 i Harper's Bazaar

There is a subtext to that question that speaks to something deeper about what it means to be alive right now—about what unites and inspires us, what galvanizes us and gives us hope. These are incredibly transformative and disorienting times. Keeping pace with all the change can feel like a full-time job. There is a beauty, though, in all the chaos—and a powerful opportunity. The realms of influence and cultural power are no longer reserved for a select few. And while the forces of society and history—and the myriad algorithms that now suffuse our lives—can feel as though they are conspiring to reduce and limit us, there is space to break out of those artificial boxes. The people in this issue have each embraced that idea in their own way.…

WHY DON’T YOU…GET yourself a three-way mirror so you can see your backside as well as your front. It’s important. You learn that from being in the studios with the actresses or anybody that had to move around and dance. I’ve had some young ones, these Disney children who have grown up into hot mamas lately, like Zendaya, Sabrina Carpenter, and Miley. It’s kind of interesting to fit them; they’re looking back at the old stuff to see what we were doing then. WHY DON’T YOU…KNOW your limits. Most crop tops aren’t for everybody. You know, you’re lucky if you look good in a crop top. If God was good to you. The first time I met Cher, I just said, “Oh my God, we can do anything and get away with…

WHY DON’T YOU…? Opt for SLEEK ACCESSORIES that show you mean BUSINESS.…

It’s easy to see why the fashion world has long been so besotted with Deeda Blair. Her style is impeccable—“quiet luxury” before it was a catchphrase—and she’s worn her hair in the same perfectly coiffed bouffant for six decades. She was a patron and close friend of Hubert de Givenchy, and she wore Balenciaga (designed by Cristóbal himself) when she wed William McCormick Blair Jr., John F. Kennedy’s ambassador to Denmark, on September 9, 1961, at Frederiksborg Castle, just northwest of Copenhagen. Deeda’s appeal, though, runs far deeper. For most of her life, she has been a tireless champion and fundraiser for scientific research and causes. With the flick of her wrist—occasionally attached to a long, slim cigarette, a trademark vice—she speaks as knowledgeably about gene sequencing as she does…

On a sunny spring day, I stepped onto a small boat on the Prinsengracht canal and sped north on the Zaan river to preview the ZAMU Amsterdam museum, opening later this fall. The site, a collection of 16 military-industrial structures just north of the city in Zaandam, will house the works of one large-scale installation artist per building; 19 John Chamberlain sculptures have already been installed in one, with works by KAWS to follow. The dissonance of that mix of 17th-century gabled canal houses and sleek modern art and design is typical of Amsterdam. Dutch artist Frederik Molenschot describes the city as one “of contrasts—historic and contemporary, structured and fluid, intimate yet international,” which “fosters a unique creative energy.” I first went to Amsterdam as a college kid for the…

It’s a beautiful spring afternoon in Munich, and the city’s squares are full of bleary-eyed people, still celebrating. Scattered around park benches are the last few empties, the universal symbol of a memorable night. It feels as if the whole city is in a moment of afterglow from the night before, when Paris Saint-Germain defeated Inter Milan to win its first Champions League final and Dua Lipa played to an arena of more than 15,000 screaming fans. I’d arrived in Munich 24 hours earlier, on a red-eye from Boston. I shuffled through customs at 7:00 a.m. and approached the weary-looking border agent slumped forward in his chair. “Purpose for visit?” he asked. I panicked, in the flush of sleep, and could muster only “Dua Lipa?” “Ah,” the agent said, leaning…

WHY DON’T YOU…? Add a FLOURISH with a BLOOMING BROOCH.…

WHY DON’T YOU…? Go ALL IN with TONAL EXTRAS.…

A FEW YEARS AGO, I could not put an outfit together to save my life. I was going through a messy breakup and feeling stagnant at my job. I was sleeping in a bedroom without a window. Everything felt overwhelming, including getting dressed. I had pieces I loved shoved into my tiny closet; there was a printed Jean Paul Gaultier sheer shirt, a cheeky bedazzled souvenir top from Paris, and a bubblegum-pink vintage knit. But I found myself gravitating toward a plain white men’s shirt. I wore the same look several times a week: this slightly oversize, slightly rumpled men’s button-up with a pair of jeans and ballet flats. I wasted no precious brainpower riffling through my closet. The shirt was a balm and a blank slate. It felt dressier…

The beauty landscape is as dizzying as ever, so when buying products today, we like to know that they guarantee transformational, tell-all-our-friends-about-it results without compromising our current routine. We took the time to test hundreds of skin, hair, and body products this year in order to anoint these 31 products and tools. There are masks that overhaul skin while you sleep, the silkiest sunscreens ever, a glossy lipstick that lasts, and tools that deliver pro-grade technology from the comfort of your bathroom. These award-winning beauty products are all about ease, comfort, and cutting-edge science—because nobody has the time (or spare budget) to waste on anything but the best. BODY ICONS Target everything from the neck down with these. SKIN ICONS Inside these jars and vials is advanced skincare science. MAKEUP…

The word ICON can evoke singularity, a distinct one-of-oneness grounded in who someone is, what that person represents, and the scale of that individual’s accomplishments. But while achievements can be singular, people contain multitudes. They embody a vast array of ambitions and experiences. Take the people in our Icons portfolio. Two-time Olympic-champion snowboarder Chloe Kim has redefined what athletic heroism looks like, speaking openly about her mental health and creating space for others to do the same. A prolific behind-the-scenes hitmaker, Benny Blanco has now found his own place in the spotlight, releasing an intimate and infectious collaborative album, I Said I Love You First, earlier this year with his fiancée, Selena Gomez. Stranger Things star Sadie Sink has paved the way for an even brighter future with her Tony-nominated…

For a little sliver of recent history, fashion seemed to be creative and welcoming, as well as increasingly profitable. In short, fashion was everything that most anyone could want it to be. It wasn’t perfect—far from it. But it seemed to be making real strides toward being the best possible version of itself. The body-positivity movement successfully pushed for a range of physiques to be celebrated on the runway, in advertising, and in magazines. Corporate gatekeepers were making a conscious effort to open the doors to those who had been historically marginalized. Diversity, equity, and inclusion were desirable aspects of the cultural conversation. Gender was a big, beautiful, blurry spectrum. And Virgil Abloh’s rise, from 2013 until his death in 2021 at the age of 41, was proof that if…

Amy Winehouse. Adele. Bruno Mars. Dua Lipa. Mark Ronson has crafted hits for some of music’s boldest and brightest. But before he was a sought-after pop maestro, Ronson was a scrappy young DJ spinning his way through ’90s New York City. “It was eight years of digging in crates and studying records,” he says. That formative period is the focus of Ronson’s new book, Night People, which chronicles how his DJ years laid the foundation for his next phase as a songwriter and producer—one ushered in with his work on Winehouse’s smoky 2006 breakthrough album, Back to Black. As evidenced by his more recent work, like his hit soundtrack for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, he has maintained his groove ever since. “The script was so rich with emotion and comedy that…

WHY DON’T YOU…? Keep things WARM and FUZZY with a LIGHTWEIGHT KNIT.…

It’s the morning after the Met Gala, and I’m at the Pierre hotel in New York to meet Pamela Anderson, whose appearance was one of the talking points of the night. She arrived on the arm of her elder son, Brandon, wearing a crystal-encrusted Tory Burch gown, long-sleeved and high-necked. Her distinctive blond mane had been cut into a chin-grazing bob and microfringe, the better to display a spectacular diamond ear cuff and matching stud, while Brandon had a corresponding diamond brooch. When Anderson opens the door to her suite, she is dressed down in ripped jeans and a white T-shirt. Her feet are bare, as is her face, and she has pulled back the bob into a little ponytail. The dress is lying on the sofa in an attitude…

Louis Vuitton’s first color cosmetics collection was more than 170 years in the making. With it, the fashion house is now revealing a new status symbol for makeup lovers. Developed by makeup artist and new cosmetics creative director Dame Pat McGrath, La Beauté Louis Vuitton features an extensive array of 55 LV Rouge lipsticks (a nod to the Roman numeral LV). The satin and matte formulas are infused with shea butter and hyaluronic acid for comfortable 12-hour wear and scented by master perfumer Jacques Cavallier Belletrud with notes of mimosa, jasmine, and rose.…

THE LANGUAGE OF FASHION is built around images we think of as “iconic.” But the work that goes into conceiving and creating those images—the hair and makeup, the setting and lighting, the fashion and styling choices—is often visible only in the end result. It’s an idea that Richard Avedon explored with the image that appeared on the September 1961 cover of Harper’s Bazaar. The subject: 26-year-old Italian actress Sophia Loren. By then, Loren had already emerged as an international movie star. She would soon become the first actor to win an Academy Award for a foreign-language film, for her performance in Vittorio De Sica’s Two Women. As one of the faces of the “Dolce Vita” era of Italian cinema—so named for Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960), which, incidentally, also gave…