Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i Vogue

BEAUTY When Los Angeles–based skin-care brand Nécessaire launched in 2018 with a simple tagline—“Treat your body like your face”—it was a novel approach in an industry that has long prioritized the skin above the neck. “For so many brands, it was an afterthought,” says Nécessaire cofounder and CEO Randi Christiansen, who has made it her personal mission to popularize facial-grade body products. Two years later, the idea is starting to catch on. “We want every inch of our skin to be rejuvenated,” says Jennifer Levine, M.D., a New York–based plastic surgeon who has been slathering the same peptide-rich Neocutis face cream on her knees, elbows, and chest for years to avoid what she calls the “bobblehead” effect—“when your face looks like it belongs in one decade and your body in…

ART When Jeffrey Gibson was growing up, his father worked for the Department of Defense, so his family moved often—from Colorado Springs to Korea to Germany. He spent a lot of time learning how “to be a good visitor to someone else’s culture,” as he puts it. But no matter where he was, he kept his Choctaw roots close. “Although I never lived in Mississippi,” he says, “I was always taught: This is your home.” Today the 48-year-old artist, who resides in the Hudson Valley with his husband and two children, brings that personal inheritance to his work. The central piece in a Brooklyn Museum show, When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks (also the title of the exhibition), is typical of Gibson’s style: colorful and dazzling but…

BOOKS Early review copies of Lawrence Wright’s pandemic thriller The End of October (Knopf) began circulating just as the COVID-19 outbreak was taking hold in the U.S. This terrifying and deeply researched novel about the remorseless march of a virus, written by one of America’s most celebrated long-form journalists, may not be everyone’s idea of an escapist read, but there’s no denying its grim power. In Wright’s book, which he has dedicated to scientists and health-care workers, the Kongoli flu throws the globe into utter chaos. Trying to unlock its secrets is an American expert on contagion, Dr. Henry Parsons—who careens from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia to a nuclear submarine in the middle of the Atlantic, trying to outwit an invisible enemy. Meanwhile, governments fail, war commences, millions die. This…

FASHION “It’s not advertised, but fall is 40 percent off,” whispers the precision-bobbed, skinny-suited shop assistant at the Celine shop in Mayfair. I promptly stop toying with the plaited cord of a dressing-gown coat and hurry over to the sleek, almond-toe knee-high boots—I had been patiently waiting for them to go on sale. A gentle hiss: “Not those boots.” These soigné boots, which hit the perfect spot on the spring runway in Paris, just a couple of inches below the knee in black calf, were reimagined here in glossy snake and buttery suedes, both incarnations with those refined ’70s touchstones—honed toe, stacked heel. The counterintuitive move at play: The winter boot is taking confident strides into spring—and beyond. (As Chanel demonstrated with the buccaneer boots stomping down its most recent…

Call your brother. Something’s happening.” Lisa, my oldest friend from the small town in Connecticut where we both grew up, has phoned as I’m heading out from my office in New York City’s Flatiron District to pick up lunch. “A caseworker from the Department of Children and Families turned up at his apartment, and the landlord just called me,” Lisa says. “I think she’s there to take your niece.” I hang up and quickly dial my brother, who answers in a state of confusion and duress. In the background I can hear his girlfriend, my niece’s mother, but cannot make out what she’s saying, only that she’s upset. My brother tells me the caseworker is there and abruptly hands the phone to her. She tells me that someone made an…

ART Tschabalala Self arrives nearly a half hour late for our appointment at her New Haven, Connecticut, studio, sipping a concoction of fresh lime slices and honey from a mason jar. “I didn’t have any tea bags, so lime was my tea bag for today,” she says. She’s a compact beauty in a black watch cap, red sweater, navy pants, and hiking boots, her superlong fingernails painted lavender. To enter the studio, which is located in a converted factory building on the outskirts of the Yale campus, I have to sidestep a huge, unstretched canvas. A work in progress inspired by Matisse’s 1908 sculpture Two Negresses, Self ’s creation is titled Two Girls and features entwined figures made up of a collage of stitched-together fabrics. Laundry baskets filled with scraps,…

DESIGN As fashion lore has it, socialite Lilly Pulitzer launched her line because she needed clothing that was spill-proof—printed dresses so complexly colorful they could camouflage a splash of fruit-juice cocktail. But what the tale elides is the woman responsible for those patterns. Her name was Suzie Zuzek, and she designed the vast majority of Pulitzer’s famous color-soaked prints––and, in the process, helped create the unofficial uniform for the preppy sets of Palm Beach, Palm Springs, and all the country clubs in between. It was (and is) common practice for textile designers to remain anonymous, but the extent of Zuzek’s previously unacknowledged genius is the subject of the new book Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer (Rizzoli Electa) and the Cooper Hewitt museum’s forthcoming exhibition Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The…

FASHION Growing up in small-town South Africa in the early aughts, Thebe Magugu spent his childhood dreaming of elsewhere. Huddled in front of the satellite television in his mother’s living room, he was mesmerized as an eight-year-old boy by runway shows broadcast from Paris and New York. Even so, it was in Ipopeng, a township on the outskirts of Kimberley, in the Northern Cape province, where the 26-year-old designer was born, that his keenest fashion instincts were formed. Though unassuming in appearance, the place is auspicious by name—Ipopeng means “to beautify oneself” in Setswana, a language of the Tswana people spoken across southern Africa. “There’s this narrative around small towns being backward that’s so negative and one-sided,” says Magugu, who in his late teens moved to Johannesburg, where he attended…

The first time I smelled Byredo’s Gypsy Water, it was on a supermodel friend. The minimalist Scandinavian fragrance brand wasn’t yet sold in the States—this was 2007—and she had picked up a few bottles of the perfume in Paris, one of which she generously gifted me after the umpteenth time I’d begged to borrow hers. I felt so special wearing Gypsy Water; I loved the way it made me smell, like a bergamot-and-vanilla incense stick, and every spritz was like a secret my friend and I shared. “Oh, you can only get it from Colette,” I’d say smugly when someone complimented me as I wafted by. “Maybe you can pick it up the next time you’re in Paris.…” Then Byredo launched at Barneys. Gypsy Water became a best seller—and I…

YEARS AGO, MY MOTHER interrupted me over dinner to say she’d just had a premonition of precisely where I would eventually need a facelift. She pointed to the part of my upper neck where it meets the jawline. On a map, this would be the Panhandle of Florida. Because mothers are masters of the mixed message, she added that I was perfect and should never get any work done on my face—and that I needed to put on more makeup. I wasn’t fazed by the prophecy, because I was still young enough to think I would always be young. I was maybe 48. This turns out to be not so young, in neck years. In 2003, when Nora Ephron wrote in this magazine that the neck goes at 43 and…

Table of contents: 28: Knit vest, $228; similar styles at toryburch.com. Skirt, $736; matchesfashion.com. Santangelo Pacha earring, $380 for pair; santangelo.studio. Jewels earring, $375 for pair; jewelsarts.com. Ariana Boussard-Reifel Papyrus earring, $595 for pair; arianaboussardreifel.com. Rogue Rose beaded necklaces. Laruicci silver-plated multistrand necklace, $130; laruicci.com. Stephen Dweck chiastolite-and-rosewood bangle, $4,885; neimanmarcus.com. Tiffany & Co. Elsa Peretti red lacquer bangle, $490; tiffany.com. Dinosaur Designs bangles, $98 each; dinosaurdesigns.com. Manicurist, Megumi Yamamoto. Tailor, Leah Huntsinger. Cover look: 28: Dress, price upon request; (866) VUITTON. Tiffany & Co. Tiffany Victoria diamond earring, $9,000 for pair; tiffany.com. Manicurist, Emi Kudo. Tailor, Susie’s Custom Designs. V Life: 54: Dress, $625. Bottega Veneta necklace, $6,100; bottegaveneta.com. Prada necklace ($1,100) and sandals ($850); prada.com. 72: On Ndubula: Parka, $1,100; thebemagugu.com for information. Shirt from the Thebe Magugu…

In this month’s Betty, HBO’s female-led skateboarding comedy based on the 2018 Sundance hit Skate Kitchen, actor Katerina Tannenbaum plays a queer teen who dabbles in glitter makeup and heart-shaped sequins. “It was really fun to play around,” says the 26-year-old Oregon native, who looked to the beauty mainstays preferred by TikTok stars to help create anime-inspired looks—a far cry from her everyday routine. “If I had to keep one thing in my bag, it would be blush,” says Tannenbaum, a “fair-skinned Russian girl” who relies on a rosy glow to bring out her freckles. The time-tested makeup staple has been part of her arsenal since middle school, when Ellen Von Unwerth’s noughties-era Guess ads offered billboard-size endorsements for super-glossy lips and an allover blush application—a multitasking approach that got…

FASHION Some fashions are hopelessly mired in a specific time and place—the disco-distended shoulders of a spandex tunic; a macramé vest so redolent of Woodstock you can almost smell the patchouli—but other styles manage to transcend the years and dazzle for decades. The eternal summer dress—sometimes full-skirted, sometimes slim as a shirtwaist—has seduced wearers for almost a century with an allure so powerful you often can’t bear to put a favorite one aside (even when it’s far too cold to venture out in a “sundress”). Maybe it’s because these frocks are singularly flattering. With the current conversation so focused on diversity and inclusion, these dresses glide over all manner of shapes and maintain their charm whatever their price point: A stellar Carolina Herrera has its virtues, to be sure, but…

“I saw a picture of Anya Taylor-Joy in this dress, and I said, ‘Gee—that looks like something I might do.’ My design director Joe said, ‘You did do that—it was about 20 years ago, but you did do it,’ ” says Bob Mackie with a laugh. On a whirlwind press tour for the delightful film Emma, Taylor-Joy stepped out in a 2002 Mackie creation that was, of course, inspired by the dress worn by a certain Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady’s embassy-ball scene. The heavily beaded vintage piece (with matching necklace) was unearthed from the personal archive of Taylor-Joy’s stylist, Law Roach. (“I didn’t even know he had it!” says the designer.) And though we’ll never know for certain, it’s probably safe to say that in this dress, Taylor-Joy…

BOOKS Naoise Dolan was a recent university graduate living in Hong Kong and teaching English to young children when she wrote Exciting Times (Ecco). Set in Hong Kong prior to the protests, the book is narrated by Ava, a 22-year-old ESL teacher split between two mind-bending relationships. There’s Julian, a foppish and emotionally withholding Oxford-educated banker, and then there’s Edith, a stunning Hong Kong local with whom life is like a never-ending slumber party. Keeping these two affairs separate is hard work, but nowhere near as taxing as divining the meanings of her paramours’ communications and calibrating her own reactions. The 28-year-old author swears, though, that Ava’s story is not her own. “Teaching and writing kept me plenty busy,” she insists. “I did get up to some good hikes, though!”…

DESIGN In 2011, textile designer Olivia Wendel cold-emailed the now-defunct label Suno for an internship. She didn’t land the gig, but she did receive an invitation to design a series of prints for an upcoming collection. The unexpected experience informed her decision to launch an eponymous line of pillows, blankets, and scarves. Wendel’s process now begins with a hand-painted illustration that is translated to cloth: Silk scarves are printed in Italy, while her fringe-edged blankets (so lovely they can double as wall art) are woven in North Carolina. The final products might feature a convivial clan of tigers or a collection of felines who seem to have stepped from the pages of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. But her storybook style is somewhat accidental: “That is me trying to…