Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i ELLE

When I dropped in to visit the set of her ELLE cover shoot, I was struck by what a natural Jenna Ortega is in front of the camera. The Wednesday star is unbelievably self-assured and composed for someone who’s a mere 20 years old. It’s clear that it’s all about her craft, not her, and she displays an impressive level of maturity. In front of Felix Cooper’s lens, Ortega completely transforms in the same way she does onscreen. She assumes the character; you can see it in her expressive eyes. No wonder Ortega was director Tim Burton’s choice to tackle one of pop culture’s most beloved heroines. It’s been powerful for me getting to see a young Latina fronting one of Netflix’s biggest hits of the year and becoming a…

SAUER “We revisit the teardrop, an ancient, multicultural motif, and bring the emblematic Celtic, Persian, Kashmiri, and hippie pattern to the present day.”—Stephanie Wenk Tiger’s-eye, citrine, diamond, and gold earrings, Sauer, $6,800, modaoperandi.com. MING JEWELLERY “Black diamonds are so hard that light reflects off them as a white flash. This contrasts with the soft, flowing warmth of the red coral dome and the ripples of gold.”—Ming Lampson Coral, black diamond, and gold ring, Ming, mingjewellery.com. RETROUVAÍ “My intention with these one-of-a-kind pieces was to combine semiprecious stone slabs with a precious faceted gem. The lapis really makes the emerald come alive.”—Kirsty Stone Talisman pendant, Retrouvaí, twistonline.com. JENNA BLAKE “The diamonds elevate the playful-ness of color in hard stones, while the hard stones ground the diamonds, giving them a…

Stay In town, Osorio recommends booking a hotel near the Arno River in order to best see the city on foot. Portrait Firenze and the Hotel Lungarno both offer rooms with river views, while the Four Seasons has an 11-acre garden and “probably the nicest brunch in Florence.” For a weekend in the countryside, Belmond Hotel’s Villa San Michele is “like a dream,” Osorio says. Eat “My canteen is Trattoria Cammillo—I normally eat there once a week,” says Osorio of the homey standby for no-frills Tuscan food that is always teeming with locals. For oenophiles, the designer recommends Cantinetta Antinori, owned by the legendary wine-making family of the same name. Shop For midcentury and modern furniture, Osorio can’t get enough of Flair, which is near the Aquazzura boutique on Lungarno…

Kantamanto Market, a secondhand exchange in Accra, Ghana, has piles of clothing taller than the people walking through it. When the wind picks up, T-shirts whirl around the seemingly endless rows of clothes, most of which have been discarded and donated from Canada, the United States, and Europe. It’s impossible to know the exact amount of clothing in the world, but between social media hauls, overwhelmed second-hand markets, and textile-burdened landfills, all signs indicate that we have too much. Still, more than 100 billion new pieces are created every year, and many will meet the same sad fate as those flying T-shirts. That’s why the call for a circular fashion industry is getting louder than ever. Circularity is “the concept that we can produce goods that cause no harm to…

Refillable, Reusable Receptacles Brands are creating carefully crafted containers designed to live on your shelves instead of landfills. It’s hard not to get hooked on Tata Harper Skincare’s Restorative Eye Crème, a plumping formula that makes eyes look less tired. Thankfully, there’s a good contingency plan for when you run out: Both the starter receptacle’s pod ($130) and the refill pods ($110 each) contain 96 pumps’ worth of the formula (tataharperskincare.com). Kate McLeod’s Forest Stone is a palm-size orb of cocoa butter and plant-based oil, which melt with body heat to become a silky yuzu-and-woodsy-scented body moisturizer. The “stone” comes packaged in recyclable paper and a reusable (and compostable) bamboo canister, and you can purchase refills online ($45; katemcleod.com). Irene Forte Skincare Apricot Penta-Acid Face Polish ($110; ireneforteskincare.com) contains a…

UKRAINE Olena Zelenska For being a bright light for her country in a time of darkness. Before her husband was elected president of Ukraine in 2019, Olena Zelenska studied architecture and was a comedy writer. As First Lady, her focus shifted to school nutrition reform, gender equality, and organizing an international summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen. In February of last year, when Russia invaded Ukraine, she pivoted once again, advocating for her people on the global stage, spearheading rehabilitation projects, and working to project strength and empathy. She’s absorbed countless stories of tragedy, each more harrowing than the last, but these stories are what propel her forward, she says. “In a local hospital, a Ukrainian mother met four children whose father was killed during Russian shellings. He had raised…

When Amanda Nguyen was a senior at Harvard, she was raped in her dorm. The injustice she felt after discovering her rape kit could be destroyed after only six months, and the trauma of going through the criminal justice system, prompted her to create Rise, a civil rights organization that has helped pass more than 65 laws, including the federal Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, which requires that rape kits be preserved for up to 20 years and guarantees medical examinations, among other rights. In 2022, after six years of lobbying by Nguyen and Rise, the United Nations passed the first worldwide resolution that recognizes the needs of sexual assault survivors as human rights during peacetime. Activism fuels her days, but Nguyen’s delight for life, curiosity for worlds beyond…

In 2019, a year after giving birth to her first daughter, Allyson Felix, now the most decorated track and field Olympian in history, went public when her sponsor Nike offered her a contract that would cut her pay by 70 percent—which felt to her like a punishment for having a child. “I was terrified to speak out,” Felix recalls, “but I was also overwhelmed with support from people who could relate. It was encouraging, but also heartbreaking, because so many women had been through something similar.” Nike soon announced a new policy guaranteeing an athlete’s pay around pregnancy, but for Felix it was too late. “I walked away,” she says. After venting to her brother Wes, he suggested that they create their own shoe company. “It was an opportunity to…

In May 2022, journalist Bianca Graulau got a call from a producer working with Bad Bunny. She had been gaining recognition through her TikToks on issues plaguing Puerto Rico, but had no idea the reggaeton phenom was a fan. “I thought it was a prank,” Graulau says. With funding from Bad Bunny’s record label, she and two dozen freelancers created Aquí Vive Gente (“People Live Here”), a 22-minute documentary on displacement, gentrification, and other issues that has since been viewed on YouTube over 12 million times. “I hope I can capture a sliver of what it means to be Puerto Rican,” Graulau says. “The struggles, the beauty, the hope, and the amazing spirit.”…

If you know hardly anything about Ashley Biden, well then, her efforts up until now have paid off. She is the only child of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden—half sister to Hunter and Beau—and she has deliberately kept a lower profile. But even though she’s here being interviewed by a national magazine and has enlisted a well-connected publicist, Ashley tells me at least a handful of times during our conversation that she’s “never wanted to be in the public eye.” And she is clearly anxious about the exposure now: “Yeah, I still don’t,” she adds. But being the First Daughter comes with a certain amount of pressure to use the platform handed to you. “It’s not like I’m going to go and become a movie star,” she…

COVER JENNA ORTEGA Top, Loewe. Inside Cover: Hooded dress, Ferragamo, ferragamo.com. Elsa Peretti cuff, Tiffany & Co., $1,700, tiffany.com. EDITOR’S LETTER PAGE 12: Dolce & Gabbana, dolcegabbana.com. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE 22: Ferragamo, ferragamo.com. Elsa Peretti cuff, Tiffany & Co., tiffany.com. TRENDING: SHOP PAGE 38: Watch, Audemars Piguet, $35,600, audemarspiguet.com. ASHLEY BIDEN KNOWS WHO SHE IS PAGES 72–75: Brandon Maxwell, brandonmaxwellonline.com. Jennifer Fisher, jenniferfisherjewelry.com. Jimmy Choo, jimmychoo.com. Altuzarra, similar styles at altuzarra.com. Loro Piana, loropiana.com. Sophie Buhai, sophiebuhai.com. Brent Neale, shopetcjewelry.com. JENNA ORTEGA PAGES 76–89: Simone Rocha, simonerocha.com. Paula Mendoza, paulamendoza.com. Roger Vivier, rogervivier.com. Ferragamo, ferragamo.com. Prada, prada.com. Harry Winston, harrywinston.com. Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co., tiffany.com. Dolce & Gabbana, dolcegabbana.com. Alaïa, maison-alaia.com. Ring, Van Cleef & Arpels, $11,600, vancleefarpels.com. Valentino, similar styles at Valentino boutiques nationwide. Jo Miller…

1 The BAG Celine’s petite basket bag is an elevated version of the classic Provençal souvenir. Basket bag, Celine by Hedi Slimane, $3,950, celine.com. 2 The SHOE Nothing indicates the mercury is rising quite like the appearance of raffia. Bottega Veneta’s must-have mule gets an au naturel update for spring. Sandal, Bottega Veneta, $1,500, bottegaveneta.com. 3 The NECKLACE Made for the season’s bare-shoulders trend, Ana Khouri’s masterpiece of yellow and white gold, Brazilian rosewood, and white diamond is a guaranteed head-turner. Necklace, Ana Khouri, anakhouri.com.…

Any silhouette—from a winged goddess to wired headphones—can transform when dipped in precious metal, alchemically turning the everyday into the eternal. Valdé Beauty did just that to the humble lipstick case, crafting its version from a zinc alloy coated in liquid gold. Its shape was designed to evoke the power of women, explains founder Margarita Arriagada. Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian, acting as curator and muse, convinced Dolce & Gabbana to open its archives this season, inspiring pieces like a clingy, ’50s-siren-meets-’90s-diva wiggle dress. Another shiny ’90s stalwart? Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog, to which sly homage is paid in JW Anderson’s Mylar-like twist on his Twister Bag. Coperni threw back to a more recent era, immortalizing wired headphones in sculptural jewelry, and it doesn’t get more current than the curve of a…

When Xiye Bastida was 13, her family had plans to move to the United States from their small Mexican town of San Pedro Tultepec. But the day before their flight, rainfall flooded their drought-weary town. They escaped, but the experience stayed with her: “I remember the pain of leaving without knowing what happened,” Bastida says. Young people have emerged as the leaders of today’s climate movement, and Bastida has been at the forefront, leading the first big student climate strike in NYC when she was 17 and a year later cofounding Re-Earth Initiative, a youth-led organization that supports communities dealing with environmental restoration. She is also a junior at the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in environmental studies. “I realized I couldn’t wait to grow up to do something about the…

“I had stopped knowing what ‘fine’ was,” says Arianna Huffngton of being diagnosed with burnout. She began studying exhaustion and sleep deprivation, and decided she wanted to change behavior. In 2016, she launched Thrive Global to help people, companies, and communities improve their well-being and, in turn, their work performance. As a board member for several start-ups, she’s not only a business and tech-industry power broker but an advocate for creating a stronger safety net for women, calling for paid family leave and closing the gender wage gap. “I’m devoting my life to helping people see that burnout is not the price you have to pay for success.”…

Oriaku Njoku has worked in reproductive health, rights, and justice for nearly 10 years, but not much could prepare them for what happened last May. The day after the leak of a Supreme Court opinion signaled the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Njoku was offered a job leading the National Network of Abortion Funds, a network of nearly 100 grassroots organizations that remove barriers for patients by helping them pay for abortions, as well as the things needed to access the procedure: transportation, housing, and more. “I was like—,” they take a pause, and their voice jumps an octave: “This is wild.” Post-Roe, abortion funds are more essential than ever, as patients navigate legal and logistical minefields; as of this writing, 13 states have a near-total ban on abortion. Njoku…

ARIES MAR 21–APR 19 On the 20th, the Aries hybrid solar eclipse could spin you into a frenzy as you tap into a powder keg of feelings. Drop the mask and let friends in on where you’re currently scared or floundering. Your raw courage will win over their hearts and minds. TAURUS APR 20–MAY 20 Forget spring cleaning—you’re ready to update entire infrastructures. To tame stress at work, design systems for workflow and organization. Temporary slowdowns will give way to accelerated productivity, and here’s the real bonus: You’ll hit benchmarks without working so hard. “Diamonds created from stars connect us to the galaxy above, in the same way light through stained glass can connect us to the heavens.”—Ming Lampson, founder and designer, Ming Jewellery GEMINI MAY 21–JUNE 21 You’re ripe…

THIS MONTH The latest fashion and beauty news, handpicked by ELLE editors. ACCESSORIES Eye-catching jewelry that marries semiprecious and precious stones. ELLE SHOP Sleek metallics rule the day, while utilitarian staples go high fashion. LIVING + TRAVEL Aquazzura’s Edgardo Osorio finds inspiration in Florence. 1. UP FIRST AS WE DIVE INTO THE BEST OF APRIL: Robert Wun, who made his couture debut in Paris this season. The Hong Kong native found inspiration in horror films—specifically the work of Stephen King—for his collection, which was appropriately titled “Fear” and drew from his own creative doubts. “Who am I as a designer? Am I good enough?” asked Wun in his show notes. His design process was about “turning what we fear most into the inspiration itself.” That translated into details such…

I always had this funny feeling that I lived here in another life,” says Edgardo Osorio. “I’m a proud Colombian, but at the same time, somehow Italy, particularly Florence, felt like home.” The designer first landed in the city, famed for its skilled artisans, in 2005 after starting a consulting company. By 2012, Osorio had launched his own brand—dubbed Aquazzura for the crystal-blue waters of Capri, which the jet-setting designer often visits. The unique designs (like the classic black Bow Tie pump, recognizable by its cutaway heel) quickly made their way onto Rihanna, Taylor Swift, and, well, just about everyone on and off the red carpet. Osorio had an equally charmed experience when searching for a home base in Florence, due to a chance meeting with the Corsini family. “The…

1. SAIE GLOWY SUPER SKIN WEIGHTLESS HYDROBOUNCE SERUM FOUNDATION, $40, SAIEHELLO.COM “I never really got into tinted moisturizer—I’ve always found the coverage to be too light. But the glowiness from this new foundation, with 85 percent skin care ingredients and 15 percent pigment, makes up for anything I feel like I’m lacking.”—Kathleen Hou, Beauty Director 2. EPARA HYDRATING MIST, $56, NORDSTROM.COM “As the weather gets warmer, I like using this hydrating mist. It’s very fine, and leaves my skin feeling supple and moisturized, even over makeup.”—Nina Garcia, Editor-in-Chief 3. NETTE LA FORÊT EAU DE PARFUM, $120, NETTE.COM “Finally, a fragrance my fiancé and I both love to wear. At first spritz, it’s traditionally woodsy, but it dries down to something much cozier, with notes of patchouli and bergamot.” —Margaux Anbouba,…

The daughter of a single mom who was a ship’s captain on the Great Lakes, designer Elena Velez says her “childhood spaces were docks and engine rooms.” Her pieces are at once delicate, melting onto the body like wax, and built Ford tough with metallic hardware. Incorporating her Rust Belt roots came from “not seeing my tribe” in fashion, says Velez, who won the CFDA American Emerging Designer of the Year Award. Now she hopes to create a coworking space in her hometown, Milwaukee, to produce her collection and those of other brands who find New York and L.A. too expensive. “The need to be in one physical space doesn’t exist anymore,” she says. “I’m trying to be a pioneer of that future.”…

While filming the Jordan Peele horror film Nope, Keke Palmer had an epiphany. “I started to feel like I had so much to offer that I no longer wanted to hold it in,” she explains. Since starting work at age nine, Palmer has established herself as an actress, television host, producer, and singer; now, the Emmy Award winner wants to turn her focus outward. “I don’t love the concept of being ‘the only one,’” she says. “I was trying to figure out how to channel everything that I’ve learned in creating the Keke Palmer brand into something that could reach far beyond me.” The result is KeyTV, a digital network “for a new generation of creators.” Palmer’s ultimate goal is to be able to democratize the entertainment industry while highlighting…

Alice Walton is a different kind of philanthropist, a former ranch owner who’s been known to bid on world-class artworks while sitting astride a horse. The world’s second-richest woman, according to Forbes’s 2022 list, and a daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, Walton is a subtle but major force in the art world. Her Bentonville, Arkansas, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which opened in 2011, has become a key cultural destination in the region. She has also grown the Art Bridges Foundation, which encourages museums to get artworks out of storage and on display. “Everyone deserves access to art, and in small to midsize communities across the country, access has often been limited,” Walton says. “Let’s make art available to everyone!”…

When Iranians took to the streets following the September death of Mahsa Amini, they achieved something Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad had long wished to see: crowds boldly standing up to the restrictive regime. Forced out of her home country in 2009, she was a world away, in Brooklyn—but felt no distance. “My body is here, but my thoughts, my soul, my dreams, everything is in Iran,” Alinejad says. “The government managed to kick me out of Iran, but they couldn’t manage to kick Iran out of me.” The protesters’ demands echoed her long calls for an end to the country’s government’s compulsory hijab policy. Nearly a decade ago, Alinejad urged women to shed their hijabs and send videos and photos as proof. They flooded in. Amid the current protests, she…

It’ll be hard to top Representative Mary Sattler Peltola’s 49th birthday. After months of campaigning—charming voters with her meditation-app-worthy voice, pro-fish platform, and salmon earrings—Peltola had been waiting to hear if she’d made history. It was August 31 when she finally got the good news: She had won Alaska’s special election, making her the first Alaska Native ever elected to Congress and the first woman to represent the state in the U.S. House. Alaskans hadn’t sent a Democrat to the House in nearly 50 years. Her presence as a proud Yup’ik Alaska Native brings Congress one step closer to being a truly representative body. Peltola, who wore a pair of traditional boots known as piilugguqs to her swearing-in ceremony, is just surprised it’s taken this long. “Alaska is full of…

“I’m definitely the actress who’s like, ‘More blood,’” Jenna Ortega deadpans. “If I’m going to speak up about anything, or put my two cents in about anything,” she says, it would be that: Let a scene be as crimson as possible. Gore has always fascinated Ortega; she wanted to start acting, at all of six years old, because she watched a movie that scared her. It’s fitting, then, that Ortega is Gen Z’s reigning scream queen: The star of Scream VI commits to the bit. This morning, though, it’s the day after Friday the 13th, and there’s no blood. Ortega and I are thumbing through crates of rock and disco records at Superior Elevation, a vintage record store in Brooklyn. Outside, the sidewalks are dusted with snow, and it is folklore…