ELLE March 2014

MARCH THE ELLE MUST-DO Checklist Friday, March 7–Sunday, March 16 South by Southwest fest, a dream buffet for music, film, and tech lovers • Friday, March 7 A trio of experts offers up unique perspectives on contemporary art for the Whitney Biennial • Sunday, March 23 After a six-year hiatus, Les Misérables breaks Broadway's heart all over again. Sunday, March 2 STEP UP With heavy contenders such as 12 Years a Slave and Gravity, the eighty-sixth annual Oscars demand comic relief from Ellen DeGeneres, who picks up hosting (and fancy footwork) duties for the first time since 2007. Oh, to be a pair of black-tie Chuck Taylors upon those dancing feet! Tuesday, March 4 BAGGAGE CLAIM There's irreverent, and then there's Chelsea Handler. In her new book of travel (travail?)…

MARCH THE ELLE MUST-DO Checklist Saturday, March 1 A Dries Van Noten retrospective bows today at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris. • Sunday, March 2 Flock to the opening of "Plumes & Feathers in Fashion" at the MoMu Fashion Museum of Antwerp. Sunday, March 2 We'd love to see a starlet or two break the Oscars' mold tonight. One suggestion that would certainly wake up the red carpet: Charlotte Olympia's rainbow-striped range of towering heels and evening clutches created with whimsical Brit jeweler Solange Azagury-Partridge. Saturday, March 8 Celebrate the weekend by taking a well-deserved break at Kate Spade's oh-so-appropriately named Saturday shop in SoHo. It's the first Big Apple outpost for her bargain-priced, superchic line of cheerful, candy-colored RTW and accessories. Thursday, March 13 Pick up a little something…

"THERE'S ALWAYS time to recapture and maintain skin," says Harold Lancer, Kardashian's go-to for her year-round glow. To combat morning puffiness Lancer recommends exfoliating and rinsing with cold water. Then apply a cocktail of vitamins C, D, and E (or Retinol). Who says real women can't keep up? TO PLAY UP HER RAZOR-SHARP cheekbones, FLOTUS calls DC contour guru Carl Ray. His prescription for a more angular look: Make a kissy face and apply bronzer to hollows, dab blush "in the same family" as your lip color to the bone line, and add shimmer (Ray's favorite: $21 Anastasia brow highlighter). FROM PARIS, WITH LOVE All throughout Paris Fashion Week—designers debut fall collections between February 25 and March 5—make ELLE.com your source for next season's trends French dressing is traditionally about…

I think often about what the founding editor of ELLE, Hélène Lazareff, had to say when she launched the magazine in Paris just after World War II. It was 1945, the city was just coming back to life, and her job, she said, was to "open women's appetites." When I read that I thought, What a great thing to do with your life: to be charged with inspiring half the population to live as fully as possible, with as much passion and bravado as they can muster. Last month, we ran a gorgeous black-and-white photograph of Mindy Kaling on one of the four covers for our Women in Television Issue, meant to celebrate women whose talent, work, and all-around genius and coolness inspire us, in a medium in which, historically,…

SMALLS' WORLD For our January 2014 cover shoot, supermodel extraordinaire Joan Smalls was all dramatic glamour in Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, and Chanel. She impressed photographer Michael Thompson with her chameleonic abilities, and writer Molly Young with her sharp sense of humor and unwavering opinions. "Last time I checked," Smalls told Young, "the world is a multicultural place…. Beauty is universal. These doors have to open." ELLE readers agree wholeheartedly: The supermodel era is over, said no one, now that we've seen Joan Smalls on the January cover of ELLE. It's exciting to see a model back on a major fashion magazine cover—and, with a cover line describing her as "the world's real top model," we have a feeling we're going to see a lot more of her face in print.…

With shooting of Fifty Shades of Grey in full swing, Dakota Johnson is in high demand. For our March cover shoot, masterminded by ELLE Creative Director Joe Zee and contributing photographer Carter Smith, Johnson perfected her soon-to-be-famous smolder playing a not-so-prim housewife in pastel John Galliano and delicate Chanel. Smith: "We wanted a slightly twisted suburban story. A bored woman who dresses up in elaborate outfits and is confined to her frozen-in-time home." Hairstylist Adir Abergel: "My inspiration was the stars of the '60s. She loved it—she said that her hair hadn't looked this beautiful in years." Assistant Fashion Editor Sarah Schussheim: "Dakota was right off a plane from filming, and we listened to RJD2 and Pusha T to keep the energy way up. She had fun with the clothes!…