Harper's Bazaar October 2025

IT’S A GOOD TIME TO BE OBSESSED. We are increasingly submerged in a vast web of data streams and algorithms to continually feed and fuel our greatest and most all-consuming passions, enthusiasms, loves, tastes, infatuations, and desires. Our cultural obsessions—Beyoncé, Rihanna, Taylor, whatever is trending on TikTok—have never been bigger. But the very same infrastructure also helps support our smallest ones; this is the era of the uberniche, the microtrend, the subsubculture. We are primed for our obsessions—and have the tools to explore them as deeply as we want. Is that necessarily a good thing? Not always. Some rabbit holes can lead to dark places. But there is something decidedly life-affirming about the idea of fostering and nurturing the healthiest forms of obsession—with an important cause or a creative project,…

Here are a few of the things I’m obsessed with right now: wearing skirts again just because they feel good (a midi length; I don’t like short skirts), piling on earrings, my Lisa Eisner Saint Christopher necklace, a good leather jacket, layered quilts on a bed, and floral upholstery fabric. Harper’s Bazaar is a luxury fashion magazine. Maybe it’s a given that we are a team that delights in obsessing over beautiful things, and in this way, almost every issue could be seen as being devoted to obsessions. But this month marks the first time we have decided to dedicate our issue’s theme to obsessions. Because I believe our obsessions are about much more than stuff; they are about who we are, how we connect and form community, and how…

“With my MUSIC, I’m OBSESSED with the overall CONCEPT,” says GIVEON EVANS. “That’s what makes music LAST, especially if it’s a STORY people can GRAVITATE to.” In the realm of pop, perhaps no subject has been as thoroughly rhapsodized and romanticized as love. But for Evans, who performs as Givēon, it was the act of looking back—at failed relationships, at his own part in their unraveling—that provided the source material for his most recent album, Beloved. “I love exploring the nuances of love and relationships in general,” says the 30-year-old R&B singer, who is also a passionate rom-com enthusiast, with 2005’s Hitch topping his list. To achieve the emotional depth he was after on Beloved, Evans drew inspiration from records he grew up listening to in his family’s vinyl…

WHY DON’T YOU…GET IN THE HABIT of being obsessively curious. Ask questions. All of the time. A lot of them. Admire people’s career trajectory? Ask them to tell you how they got to the top and not to skimp on the details. In a taxi? Ask drivers their life story. (They have seen it all and always have the best stories.) That chic woman on the subway? Ask her for the exact hue of her lipstick. Ask a lot of questions, more than you answer. It’s one of the more sincere forms of flattery. WHY DON’T YOU…CEDE YOUR FATE to the cosmos. Completely follow the horoscopes for the entire month. When feeling in free fall, just focus on looking chic. A great Manolo pump is a statement of fabulous intent in an…

There was a chunk of time in the last decade when ambitious women were encouraged to lean in: to work later and harder and be better than their male counterparts—to do whatever they needed to do to get that seat at the table, regardless of what-ever else might be going on in their life, including raising kids. Laura Brown and Kristina O’Neill ascended the corporate ladder right on schedule. They had each worked at Harper’s Bazaar for more than a decade and gone on to land the final boss roles as editors in chief of InStyle and The Wall Street Journal’s style supplement, WSJ Magazine, respectively. There they were, in the front row at every fashion show, hosting extravagant celebrity-filled events, wielding their influence across every platform. And then they…

Florence, Italy—the city that birthed the Renaissance—played host to Gucci’s resort-show festivities this past spring. Models sashayed through the 15th-century Palazzo Settimanni before a candlelit dinner at the cloisters of the Santa Maria Novella. The night ended on a sweaty 600-year-old dance floor in the refectory, where Julia Garner, Paul Mescal, and Yara Shahidi were among the throng grooving to the sounds of Grammy- and Oscar-winning songwriter and music producer Mark Ronson, who was DJing at the event. Models and editors kicked off their heels and jumped on sofas as Ronson presided from an elevated booth bathed in glowing neon light. (Only Bethann Hardison, the pioneering model and activist, dared climb up to confer with him on his playlist.) The vibes were vibing, all big sunglasses and broad smiles. When…