Vogue August 2021

HOW INCREDIBLE TO THINK THAT President Biden’s Inauguration was only six months ago—it feels like a different century. The American vaccine effort has proceeded with such speed that we’re headed into a summer of relative normality (I wish this were so around the world). Economic stimulus is also coming, as well as aid to families and investment in infrastructure. It’s fashionable to say President Biden is boring. But I would call the pace of change under his administration electrifying. One key member of that administration is Dr. Jill Biden, whom Jonathan Van Meter profiles for us this month—his third time writing about her for Vogue. “A joy multiplier,” he calls the first lady, and her infectious, unpretentious appeal is evident throughout Jonathan’s wonderful profile. Equally obvious, though, is how hard…

Théo de Gueltzl This month, along with shooting the model Anok Yai in some of the season’s wildest (but most wearable) accessories (“The New Bags,” page 72), de Gueltzl captured Gabriela Hearst, Chloé’s new creative director (“This Woman’s Work,” page 54). “We shared a lovely morning, very early, to catch the first light,” says the photographer, who is based in Paris. “We met around this weeping willow on the bank of the Seine.” They connected over their love for the environment, which plays a major role in both Hearst’s design sensibility and a long-simmering project of de Gueltzl’s, examining “the relationships between humans and nature in ancient cultures and indigenous communities.” The day, de Gueltzl says, “was a great memory.” Jonathan Van Meter Where Van Meter’s prior profiles of Dr.…

Is it possible to will ourselves into thinking optimistically with a little help from eye shadow? From finely etched fluoro flicks at Christian Dior to thick wings in striking pinks and blues at Versace, the fall runways—and TikTok, that other arbiter of style—seem to suggest yes. “Last season it was all smoky eyes and black liner,” reveals makeup artist Fara Homidi, noting the somber state of makeup as the pandemic raged on. Now, as we edge closer to a postpandemic future, “everyone is asking for color,” she continues—and not subtle washes and transparent finishes but what Homidi calls “impact makeup,” like the layering effort of bright canary creams and powder pigments she applied to Hailey Bieber’s clean skin and bare lashes to telegraph a certain sunniness. “It’s definitely a mood,”…

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy ravaged Pier 54, an unassuming strip on the West Side of Manhattan that jutted into the Hudson River near 14th Street. Once a dock for transatlantic luxury liners—the Lusitania departed from the pier before it met its untimely end and contributed to the start of World War I—it had become a venue for outdoor events. But following Sandy, the pier was a ragged shadow of its former self and in grave need of rehabilitation. The Hudson River Park Trust approached Barry Diller, who, with his wife, the designer and philanthropist Diane von Furstenberg, had been the single largest donor to the neighboring High Line. Diller offered a counterproposal: What if he just tore the whole thing down and started over? He gathered theater directors Stephen Daldry,…

A decade ago, with Enlightened, Mike White discerned that the path to transcendence is often paved with materialistic diversions. In his new series, The White Lotus (HBO), a literal boatload of drifting souls are grasping for a more grounded tether to their very glossy lives as they sail toward a luxury Hawaiian resort. Even in paradise, these guests—played by a fantastic cast including Connie Britton as a hard-driving corporate executive, Sydney Sweeney as her disaffected daughter, and Jennifer Coolidge as a teary solo traveler—keep stumbling over their own intentions, while the staff of this tiki-torch-lit retreat hustles to pick them up. The staff ’s own weaknesses and foibles, in turn, underline that the road to higher ground is a rough and winding one, no matter where you’re starting. In Netflix’s…

If you have sought out less-populated pastures over the past year, then you are likely familiar with All That the Rain Promises. The 30-year-old field guide to Western mushrooms (including recipes for food and hair dye) doesn’t have Didion’s prose or the urgency of a Michael Lewis exposé; but for a certain subsection of eco-curious hipster, it has become the housewarming gift for friends who have traded in city life for country living. Mushrooms—which are not plants or animals but fungi that constitute their own kingdom, with more than 10,000 different species—are having their cultural moment, and not just psychedelic varieties. Locally sourced morels and chanterelles are turning up on fine-dining menus; in March, Hermès announced that it would release an eco-friendly version of its classic Victoria travel bag made…