Vogue February 2017

Somehow our February issue has ended up with a common thread: courage. It wasn’t deliberate, yet when I read many of this month’s pro!les it became clear that that was what tied them all together—and I have no doubt that everyone here at Vogue is just like so many others in our country right now, who are seeking out and celebrating those who choose to see the world in progressive and inclusive ways, and who aren’t afraid to speak up and speak out for what they believe in. That’s certainly true of our cover girl, Dakota Johnson, whom I like more and more; one feels that not only is she set to grow in stature as an actress but that her willingness to be open about her career, her fame,…

We met in the middle of a blackout. It was searing hot and there wasn’t any running water and New York City had lost its mind. People were sweaty and edgy, thronging the streets, leaking heat and anxiety. Traffic lights dangled dead over the intersections; taxis lurched through the dark. The ATMs didn’t work and bodegas were charging insane amounts for bottled water and I was thirsty, hungover, and almost out of cash. I felt defenseless every time I walked up the ten flights to my apartment carrying a lit candle in the ghostly stairwell. I was nearing panic when a friend called and told me he had the water back on in his building down by City Hall, and a grill out on the balcony. As I walked there,…

This makes me laugh. I mean, these pants are hilarious!” Glenn Martens is standing in his light-drenched Y/Project aerie o! the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, going over pictures of his spring show, pointing out an arrangement of underwear-skimpy shorts and suspendered chaps. Oh, see: The slivers of exposed upper thigh and the scissoring leg action form a Y-shape. “Y/Project is very eclectic,” Martens says, smiling, “but there’s always joyfulness in it.” The collection—which a roiling audience of young Parisian fans cheered on at Martens’s show last September—“was a men’s collection women would buy, with a club-culture background,” says the designer, who was appointed creative director of the label in 2013, after cofounder Yohan Serfaty died. Gradually, the 33-year-old Belgian’s own romantically weird, streetwise vibe has "ltered through. Evidence the brilliant hybrid…

This graphic Highlander staple makes a strong daywear showing. FOR FASHION NEWS AND FEATURES, GO TO VOGUE.COM…

The Spring BOOT As the world keeps whirling like a dervish in illogical directions, it feels like the time to step forward boldly. I’m talking footwear here, not global solutions, but the optimism of the spring collections struck an emboldening tone: Shocking pink! Vivid prints! Bold shoulders! Stripes! More stripes! And the footnote? The reimagined ankle boot. Louis Vuitton’s spacey python-and-leather boots come pointed and peaked mid-shin, while Loewe’s coquettish neo-Victorian booties draw the eye forward with a high-shine bow and a spacious “beak” (giving one’s legs, incidentally, the flattering appearance of cocktail stirrers). Rag & Bone’s cricket-stripe boots, meanwhile, have tomboyish élan, and Olivier Theyskens’s hook-and-eye booties bring a kind of offbeat romance to the everyday, with the new fit-and-flare shapes making for a sophisticated, all-season ally. “I am…

Coming o$ co$ee felt rotten. It was a bit of an accident, and I blame an invitation to Sicily. (Yes, I detoxed from co$ee in Italy.) My program at the Verdura Resort was designed to exclude stimuli—which I apparently have enough of in my life—with ca$eine, sugar, and almost all salt o$ the menu. Trotting from one spa treatment to the next, from a lengthy thalassotherapy bath to a workout, I endured a piercing headache, tingling muscles, and a head like cotton wool. I barely recognized myself, and it took four days for my energy level to come back. At last I felt balanced, hydrated, less erratic. I was hooked on getting unhooked. But what would become of my social life? Afternoon co$ees with friends, work meetings, a post–dinner party…