Vogue January 2021

A NEW YEAR, A NEW BEGINNING—and a time to recommit to our values. Vogue believes in joy and optimism. We strive to live sustainably and advocate for independence, individuality, and creativity. We honor meaning and craft in fashion. We insist on inclusivity and respect—and will hold ourselves accountable to those ideals. We will endeavor every day to discover and support new talent. We believe in the power of communities and families of all kinds. Our work matters. ALL THE EDITORS IN CHIEF OF VOGUE…

To put a newfound spin on our favorite looks from the spring season—see the buoyant stripes-filled portfolio “A Fresh Start” (page 58)—we called upon eight photographers, most of whom were entirely new to our pages. As we were closing this issue, we asked each of them to tell us a bit about their time on set. Of his photo of model Mayowa Nicholas, Philip-Daniel Ducasse, 32, who grew up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, said, “I wanted this image to take us back to where we both came from. As Africans and Afro Caribs, we love color—it lifts our moods and complements our skin.” Jody Rogac, 39, from Vancouver, Canada, also wanted the essence of her subject (model Grace Elizabeth) to shine through: “I didn’t want her to transform into anything other…

Five minutes before NBC called the 2020 election for Joe Biden, Kristen Welker was sprinting. After rising at 4 a.m. and coanchoring Weekend Today in New York, the White House correspondent darted into a car and began racing back to her post at Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. Welker knew Pennsylvania would be called imminently, and she risked missing her historic live shot if she was stuck at a gas station in New Jersey when the race was decided. “It was out of a movie,” Welker, 44, said of arriving at Wilmington’s Chase Center at the final hour. (Her producer later scored a TikTok video of her dashing onto the set to the Rocky theme.) “I made it in time to get a sip of water, hear the special…

The first step was to empty my wallet, with its graveyard of receipts that had last seen the light of day in pre-pandemic times, loyalty cards from abandoned coffee shops, 17 NYC MetroCards carrying unknown currency. Cash!? I hadn’t handed over a fistful of filthy bills since you could still call a certain Mexican beer by its proper name without a second thought. And the salt in the wound: a reloadable Fun Card from Deno’s Wonder Wheel. Where is Deno’s Wonder Wheel? (Coney Island, it turns out. See you in the summer of 2022.) For years I have been a large-bag person—not only to accommodate this brick of a wallet but to make sure I could handle all manner of mishaps: laptops that had lost their charge, episodes of low…

It was a few months into the pandemic—post–Tiger King, pre–The Vow—when I decided to do something about my cyst. A small bump tucked into a nasolabial fold, my cyst was virtually invisible, but it bugged me, and one night, while watching TLC-star Dr. Sandra “Pimple Popper” Lee bandage a patient’s face, I realized there would never, ever be a better time for me to get rid of the thing. For starters, thanks to social-distancing measures, I hardly went anywhere or saw anyone other than my boyfriend. And when I did leave the house, I wore a mask. The tie-dyed silk facial coverings I’d just ordered from Kes were both a chic prophylactic against disease and the perfect post-op disguise. Plus, I told myself, fear of COVID must be keeping the…

It’s a Friday afternoon in Dosan Park, a parcel of Seoul populated by smartly appointed boutiques and manicured men and women. In a private room on the second floor of Parnell, a shop-café with succulents in the window and superfood smoothies on the menu, I am waiting for Yeri Han, the South Korean indie-film and TV star who this month will make her Hollywood debut in writer and director Lee Isaac Chung’s deeply personal and semi-autobiographical film, Minari. I have arrived 20 minutes ahead of our scheduled meeting, but Han, 36, slides into the room promptly at two o’clock with a casual bow. Dressed down in black leggings, a padded green coat, faded blue crewneck, a Champion cap, and maroon socks stuffed into white Nike sneakers, she smiles sheepishly, confessing…