Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2025 i Vogue Australia

SHOULDER TO SHOULDER Anthony Vaccarello used the shoulders and line of the collarbone to create an imposing shape. His Saint Laurent has become a lodestar for assertive female energy – echoed in the sharp triangular shapes at Stella McCartney, Chloé and Dries Van Noten – one we crave in a world encroaching on our rights. Maximalist with 80s bravura, for the strong women of today. Scan the QR code to shop Vogue’s edit. HOLDING SPACE For the pragmatists: a reassuring realism informed the functionality of the one bag to buy now. The slightly slouchy (read: it moves with real life) top-handle has room to fit it all, but a touch of polish to either front up to work or finish a weekend look. Scan the QR code to shop Vogue’s…

Early this spring, I turned 35. As someone who had sailed through milestone birthdays without much concern, the panic I was gripped with took me by surprise. If you are a woman, it is likely you have been met with the notion that 35 is cause for grave concern. This is the age alarm bells of the biological clock sound, the age at which fertility allegedly freefalls off a cliff – a myth that is wholly untrue. Suddenly I was overcome by thoughts of whatever beauty I possessed waning; my femininity too atypical, not rooted in any “type”, but something more fluid – taking on masculine codes one day and that of a nutty librarian the next. Strangest of all was the thought the woman I had become did not…

It could be said that the cocktail watch – small, unique and open to interpretation – is the true personal taste watch of 2025. Also, that it’s never felt more relevant. Small watches continue to resonate, as much beloved by Paul Mescal as they are by Lana Del Rey. Both wear a Cartier Baignoire, which you could argue is definitely a cocktail watch. Especially this year’s version on a gold bangle with polka dot diamonds. Really, though, the rules are out the window. Cocktail watches, once ittybitty diamond-speckled pieces for evening affairs only, can and should be worn any time at all. Alexandre Ghotbi, deputy chairman and head of Europe and Middle East for auction house Phillips Watches, says there has been a marked increase of interest in these watches.…

A video of Jenna (Mayilema) Lee’s hands cutting into a lotus root with a knife forms the backdrop to her latest work, Gwoyarr-ma (2025). The board fills up with discs of the root stacked in milky columns, but the knife does not slow. Except for the percussion of the blade, the only other sound is a lightly uttered ‘gwoyarr-ma’, the name of the plant in the language of the Gulumerridjin people, repeated by her father, Chris ‘Bandirra’ Lee, over and over again. In front of the installation – on display at the National Art School Galleries in the exhibition The Neighbour at the Gate, which highlights the connections between First Nations and Asian artists – a billabong made of printed paper warps under a shaft of projected light. There, lotuses…

I am standing with Tschabalala Self in her studio, amid a tapestry of colour and texture, where dappled light spills onto a collection of fabrics gathered over several years. She is preparing for her upcoming exhibition, Skin Tight, at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA). Her studio is quiet and serene, but still it pulses with creativity. Dotted throughout the room are vibrant fabrics, paint splatters and sewing machines. There are bookshelves lined with the works of her artistic heroes, next to her own elegantly crafted and collected furniture. “It is a difficult thing to make something beautiful,” she says. “Beauty can be seen as something negative when you are in art school. But to make something of beauty requires skill.” She takes inspiration from the natural world around…

In a rainy day in early May, Veronica Leoni, the Roman creative director behind Calvin Klein, is at a fitting for her spring/summer ’26 collection in New York’s garment district, where the company has its headquarters. She examines a dress and a trench coat, all the while refining what she calls the transatlantic vision of the new Calvin Klein Collection: combining the “casual, deconstructed beauty” of Rome with the fast rhythm of New York’s streets. After six years away from the runway, Calvin Klein wants to reclaim its place as the prime mover for contemporary American excellence in minimalist fashion. Enter Leoni, 42, an animated pixie with a sweep of salt-and-pepper hair. When we meet, in a white-walled room next to a bare-bones atelier full of tables with sewing machines…

While travelling through Bhutan in 2014, Nicola Fuzzati encountered a rare and promising plant species. As the director of innovation and development for cosmetic ingredients at Chanel, Fuzzati often travels around the world in pursuit of natural materials that will go on to be researched by the maison and, if effective, formulated into active skincare powerhouses. The plant species was Swertia chirata, a medicinal herb native to the Himalayas and characterised by vibrant purple or blue blossoms. “Swertia is a fascinating flower that blooms just once every three years,” Fuzzati says. Through further studies, the scientist and his team discovered the Swertia flower also contains active molecules called xanthones, which are known for their revitalising and skin-conditioning qualities. Swertia extract now features as a primary ingredient in Chanel’s Sublimage Les…

The body mist that perfumed the 2000s has staged a revival. What we’re spritzing today, though, is worlds away from those one-note formulas. Take Glossier, which introduced two body mists in sandstone and orange blossom neroli blends. Ellis Brooklyn diffused its clean fragrance range into hair and body sprays that span peach, marshmallow and sea foam notes. Tom Ford and Jo Malone have also given into the pull, with reimagined takes on their beloved scents. It’s a trail Sol De Janeiro blazed with its Cheirosa 62 Perfume Mist, a cult favourite that reignited the category. LA fragrance brand Maison Louis Marie is one of the latest to enter this sensory category. “People are craving fragrance that feels joyful, flexible and less formal,” says founder Marie du Petit Thouars. “Body mists…

THE GUY BOURDIN ESTATE 2025, IMAGE COURTESY LOUISE ALEXANDER GALLERY The noise about health emitted by social media has never been louder, and the word cortisol is a core part of its chorus. A term once used exclusively in clinical contexts has suddenly become part of the everyday vernacular, thanks to the algorithmic machine on platforms including Instagram and TikTok. An innocuous scroll through social media now has people wondering if they have cortisol face, if they need to be drinking cortisol cocktails, and whether they should be tracking cortisol levels. The real-world impacts of this cursory information are already being felt. According to a recent global survey by Edelman, 38 per cent of young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 were found to trust social media over…

Virgo 24 AUGUST-22 SEPTEMBER A New Moon eclipse in your sign follows a Full Moon eclipse in your partnership zone, where a replay of recent events could bring a chance to correct situations that have veered off course. Mars makes you forthright, but channel Venus in your sign to get what you want without a sting in the tail. Level-headed negotiations will bring fairness to sensitive situations. Scorpio 23 OCTOBER-22 NOVEMBER A creative or romantic aim could make a game-changing U-turn now under the influence of a Full Moon eclipse. Unorthodox options could solve commitment issues, and a New Moon eclipse might bring more love and money to ambitions and friendships. Mars in your sign urges you to take action, but channel the Sun and Mercury’s energy to act rationally,…

Hannah Murray “The last time I worked with Abbey Lee was on a shoot with Dan [ Jackson] and hairstylist Esther [Langham] for Vogue China,” recalls UK-born, US-based make-up artist Hannah Murray, who was excited to reunite with a team she trusted for this month’s cover shoot. “She’s such a natural beauty and my instinct is to not do too much. But here, it was fun to give her a character and see her in a different way,” Murray says of the model and actor’s 60s- and 70s-inspired makeover. “Esther and I definitely went there, but we didn’t want it to be too retro. It’s more of a nod to that era, but with a lighter hand.” Tasnim Ahmed In ‘More than a woman’ (on page 68), Bangladeshi-American writer Tasnim…

COLLEEN ALLEN Colleen Allen sees fashion from the inside out. “There’s something intimate and reverent about making the inside beautiful for the wearer alone,” the 29-yeardesigner explains. “It’s also where so much of the emotion of craft lives.” Since founding her brand in 2023 after a stint at The Row, Allen has become one of the most buzzed-about new designers to emerge from New York. Charli XCX, Gracie Abrams and Mikey Madison are devotees of her elegant, female-focused designs, which take cues from historical women’s garb and are stocked on Moda Operandi and Ssense. Female intuition is a touchpoint in her collections, especially autumn/winter ’25/’26. “With the current political climate in the US, I found myself looking to elders, to artists and cultural figures who have lived through moments of…

What makes a design enduring? For Pierre Rainero, the longtime image, style and heritage director at Cartier, it’s a lot to do with a shape that can take on new iterations, without ever losing anything essential. “Shapes are versatile, that’s a good thing about them. Especially the ones we choose at Cartier, because of that capacity to evolve and their versatility. So they evolve according to our own desire at a certain time, a certain moment,” he said at this year’s Watches and Wonders fair in Geneva. “It’s for the sake of each creation and the beauty of each creation that we work, rework and then never stop working on those shapes.” Cartier is known for the instantly recognisable geometry of its watches. There are the clean rectangular lines of…

Melissa Simpson, head of gardens at Scotland’s Dumfries House – besuited in natty tailoring that belies her hands-on, day-to-day role on the 800-hectare property – is striding ahead amid the estate’s manicured hedges and riotous, abundant flowers. She pauses to pull an errant weed as she tells the group that King Charles is always the first one up and about when he visits the estate, which has become the headquarters for The King’s Foundation, the youth-focused sustainability charity His Majesty founded in 1990 when he was then the Prince of Wales. The King himself is a lifelong passionate gardener with many opinions. For example, the wrought-iron chairs in the Van Cleef & Arpels Rose Garden (so named in 2023), set within the Queen Elizabeth Walled Garden, are duck-egg blue because…

OMAR MUSA Omar Musa’s mother is a journalist, his father a poet, and although his creative life is rich with other pursuits – woodcut artworks, hip-hop music, his own poetry – the 41-year-old is a born wordsmith. “I try not to make too many distinctions,” he says of his different artistic outlets. “Things like rhythm and flow (and knowing when to break them) are just as important to writing a novel as to making music,” he says of his fiction. If there is one thing unique to writing, as seen in his new novel Fierceland (Penguin, $34.99), it is the connection to the reader. “Because of the sheer number of words in a novel, there’s nothing quite like this form to allow direct access to the inner thoughts of a…

It’s 8am in New York. Abbey Lee is at home in her airy Williamsburg loft reading a part in preparation for an audition in the city. Her next goal as an actor is theatre. We must rewind, though. Having just binge-watched seven-and-a-half episodes of the new Netflix series she’s in, Black Rabbit, my heart is racing. This is small-screen viewing with all the bells and whistles: a violent plot, characters on the edge, the seedy underbelly of the New York hospitality scene, betrayal, family drama and the rest, rolled up into one. And here she is on Zoom, Black Rabbit’s star, all fresh-faced and glowing. “It’s very tense, isn’t it!” Lee says, smiling. “It builds, builds and builds!” The 38-year-old is wearing a Zara 50th-anniversary T-shirt on which she features…

Sometimes, Ako Kondo thinks Sydney might be the closest thing she has to destiny. Her parents visited the city before she was born – as newlyweds, on honeymoon from Nagoya. They tell Kondo the Sydney Opera House, with its lemon-wedge sails and pink granite walls, was one of their favourite parts about meandering along the harbour. When the water was still and the sun temperate, it seemed to glow. Maybe it had made them a promise. “My parents always say to me, ‘Oh, we looked at the Sydney Opera House all the time, and talked about how beautiful it was,’” Kondo tells Vogue. “Now, they say, ‘My child is dancing on the Sydney Opera House stage.’ It’s an amazing feeling for them.” Kondo’s photo shoot has just wrapped when we…

PARTING WAYS This season, nostalgic style was both embraced and amplified: welcome the return of the 2010s side sweep. At Fendi, Hermès and Victoria Beckham, among others, hair was swooped and slicked into deep, dramatic parts that gave added polish, a hint of androgyny, and signalled a departure from the more prevalent middle line. NEW WINGS The classic winged eyeliner took new forms on the runways. In Paris, make-up artist Lisa Butler for Chanel created the illusion of feathers flitting across the lid in charcoal hues. Miu Miu, meanwhile, adopted a more subtle approach, applying a few lashes to the outer corners of the eyes to elongate their shape. Taking a different direction, Thomas de Kluyver for Courrèges made the wing three-dimensional, adding depth and intrigue. SIREN CALL A far…

CHANEL LES 4 OMBRES BOUTONS EYESHADOW, $114. “This is the perfect springtime palette. Being stamped with the iconic Chanel motif is an extra artful touch.” KIP OVAL TRAY IN OLIVE, $34, FROM DOMAYNE “I’ve been seeking a beautiful vessel to house my growing collection of fragrance – the Kip tray is as functional as it is elegant.” BULGARI ALLEGRA FIORI D’AMORE EDP, 100ML FOR $465 “Inspired by togetherness and blended with rose and raspberry notes, this fragrance will be scenting my upcoming European holiday.”…

Photographed by fashion photographer Dan Jackson for Vogue Australia’s September cover in what New York-based stylist Katelyn Gray calls “a time capsule on Long Island”, Abbey Lee reaffirms her status as one of Australia’s most successful modelling exports. “We loved the kooky 70s interiors – full of ‘can you believe it?!’ moments and each room wilder than the last,” says Gray, who worked alongside Brooklyn-based director of photography Nick Korompilas to bring the shoot to life with an on-location video you can watch online at Vogue.com.au. “So often, Abbey is shot as ‘cool girl’ Abbey,” Gray tells Vogue about the creative brief behind Lee’s transformational look. “We wanted to capture her in a different light and lean into a character. We loved her being a 70s bombshell – easy, sexy.…

For her seventh solo studio album, out later this month, the enigmatic art-pop singer Cate Le Bon admits she was disoriented. “I got a little more lost that usual, but it was very necessary,” she says. Le Bon wrote as she walked through the pain of a break-up and used it “to look heartache in the eye and exorcise it, since I’d been unable to outrun it. It was a bit of a tussle,” she says. “The album became a way to experience something painful, examine it and let it go.” Making music since her teens and later earning critical acclaim, the prolific singer-songwriter and producer (she’s lent her skills to Wilco, Horsegirl and Devendra Banhart) is comfortable in the wilds of both her emotions and in the desert landscape…

JARROD REID New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based designer Jarrod Reid has an origin story that reads more like that of the rebel spirits of the 70s and 80s: born of the wild hot bed of club culture, a designer funnelling after-dark experiences into avant-garde clothing. For Reid, who began his career making clothing for friends’ drag performances on Melbourne’s Smith Street, it is a path that connects him directly to his heroes. “I’ve always loved Leigh Bowery, Vivienne Westwood and the Blitz Kids. I think they shine through as really obvious influences on my work,” he says of his punk tartans, 18th-century-inspired crinolines and sweeping, romantic gowns with frayed hems. He is, however, adding his own twist in a recurring theme – exploring established societal constructs by disregarding them. “I have always…

When I started to travel for modelling, Mum always made sure I stayed grounded. Worried I might become someone too good to eat the oysters that she knocked off the rocks at Cudgen Creek and barbecued, she’d always give me a hug goodbye and then say, “Don’t forget where you came from.” Thinking she meant it in the literal sense, I remember flying to locations like Singapore and Fiji and thinking, why would Mum think I won’t know how to get back to Tweed? Don’t worry – the lights came on, and by 19, I understood what she meant. When I model, I’m a model. And when I’m not, I get to be Samantha. That is, the girl who loves spending time with her family and pets, dances while cleaning…

Is it possible to be in love with a leather swatch? I wouldn’t have thought so, but on this hot June day in Paris, Lazaro Hernandez is gazing at one with such ardour, I’m revisiting the assumption. “It looks painted, right? Like watercolour – or Rothko, the way the colours bleed into each other … But it’s not, look, it’s layers of leather – the technique’s old, it’s called skiving, but this is a new way of doing it.” Hernandez carries on in this vein, like a friend breathlessly reporting back on a fantastic first date. Meanwhile, Jack McCollough, Hernandez’s partner in work and life, is road-testing a bucket bag in the mirror (“How’s this slouch?”) as members of the Loewe design team look on. In January, Hernandez and McCollough…

MARIA GRAZIA CHIURI Actor Sarah Catherine Hook – Piper in the third season of HBO’s The White Lotus and soon to appear in Netflix’s adaptation of the Emily Henry novel People We Meet on Vacation – wears Chiuri’s design for Dior. STELLA McCARTNEY “Nothing flatters the form like a perfectly cut suit in beautiful, sustainable fabrics, and that’s become iconic to my fashion house,” says McCartney. “Something that makes you feel confident and like a boss bitch, and then you can hand it down to the next generation; it never ages, it never gets old.” CATHERINE HOLSTEIN “We’re living in a moment where everything is constantly changing – I believe women want clothes that they don’t have to think twice about,” says Holstein, who launched Khaite in 2016. “There’s a…

VOGUE AUSTRALIA: You’ve been behind countless legendary colour moments. Which are your most memorable? JOSH WOOD: “Nobody had done colour backstage at catwalks when I first started, when I worked with Marc [Jacobs] in the 90s, and at Louis Vuitton, then with Mrs Prada. It added another layer of complication backstage. At the time, some of the briefs were crazy, but when I look back, I can see those hair colours contributed towards the zeitgeist. It wasn’t just the hair colour, but those collections without that hair colour may not have been quite as prolific.” VA: You’ve worked with famous faces, including Victoria Beckham, Saoirse Ronan and Gwendoline Christie. How was it playing a part in their colour narratives? JW: “Victoria is incredibly stylish. How we work well together is…

SIGNATURE SCENT: “Debaser by D.S. & Durga is something I always go back to. I just love how green it is, but it’s also more than just a green clean fragrance. For a fig-based scent, it feels a bit more dressy and a little more evening.” CAREER INSPIRATION: “My mum. She was a singer and so very into make-up. She had a signature of bold red lips, lots of bronzer and thick black spidery eyelashes.” NOSTALGIC PRODUCT: “Probably Rimmel’s lipsticks in Birthday Suit or Heather Shimmer. I don’t think they’re even sentimental to me anymore; they were just what I could afford back then and are the first beauty products I ever bought.” BEST BEAUTY ADVICE: “This is from my sister. I think she was the one who told me…