Vogue November 2021

AS THE CFDA/VOGUE FASHION FUND turns 18 this year, I’ve been struck by all the changes we’ve seen—the way the fund has evolved and how those shifts have reflected American fashion writ large. To give just one example: When the fund was launched in the aftermath of September 11, the main way to support emerging designers was to persuade retail stores to take a chance on them. Now, of course, retail is only a part of the picture, and independence is everything. Designers forge their own relationships with fans and followers and collaborators and, yes, buyers. It’s all part of building a community—that watchword for any creative pursuit in 2021. Mentorship and financial support are still crucial, and this year, instead of a competition, we gave grants to all our…

Cabaret Club For “Come to the Cabaret” (page 110), writer Sarah Crompton’s story on the exciting new West End revival of Cabaret starring Eddie Redmayne (as the Kit Kat Club’s Emcee) and Jessie Buckley (as Sally Bowles), fashion editor Amanda Harlech—pictured above, at right, with production designer Stella Fox—joined forces with the photographer and filmmaker Autumn de Wilde to conjure a scene befitting the musical’s heady, hedonistic milieu. “Autumn had found this leafy secret house belonging to her artist friend, and every room seemed like a lantern slide in which Eddie became not only the performer but the collector of everything that was strange, beautiful, and dark,” Harlech says. “It was an amazing, unforgettable day.” The CVFF Class of 2021 This year’s CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalists—LaQuan Smith, Mike Eckhaus and…

T.A., New York City When Telsha Anderson opened her New York boutique, T.A., last summer, she knew it was a risky business move. But she had a clear vision: “to bring the excitement of discovery back into retail,” Anderson says. Her edit consists of “independent and international designers that have a fearless, architectural, and playful feel.” With the store already a success, Anderson’s focus now is on creating a community. “Having opened during the pandemic, we got to know our customers on a personal level, and learn about them—their likes and dislikes, their opinions—in a way that often isn’t seen in the retail space,” says Anderson. Expect to find contemporary labels such as Christopher John Rogers, Christopher Esber, Mozh Mozh, and more. TERMINAL 27, Los Angeles Terminal 27 is a…

WITH HIS KAMIKAZE humor and soft spot for both 1 percenters and shlubs, Gary Shteyngart is one of our greatest living satirists. In Our Country Friends (Random House), he turns his antic gaze to the pandemic. As a deadly virus spreads, the book’s eight characters retreat to an idyllic Hudson Valley estate where they burrow themselves in an “unconscionably lovely” existence consisting of gossip, gourmet meals, and petty grievances. A mash-up of Uncle Vanya and house-share reality TV, the book bobs along as the players mull their diminishing relevance in a world whose new values are being written on the fly. Composed in what feels like real time, the novel captures the absurd side of the darkness: the aerobically skittish elbow bumps, a prestige restaurant known for its hand sanitizer.…

EARLIER THIS YEAR, I took an afternoon walk with my grandmother in Yongin, just south of Seoul, winding our way toward a stream called Tancheon. It was a warm mid-winter day, and we linked arms. I hadn’t seen her in several years since phasing out my childhood visits to Korea. She didn’t look much older than I remembered, but she moved a bit more slowly, a bit stiffer at the knees. We watched children ride past on blue and yellow bicycles, and I thought of the summers I once spent in Seoul, running along the Han River, my grandparents following close behind. Stopping to rest on a wooden park bench, she posed a question she had asked me before, when I was a teenager: Did I want to get my…

A FEW DAYS AFTER SPEAKING with Catie Marron, I texted her a picture of a squash from my mother’s vegetable garden. This glossy green pumpkin is the fruit of a seed from Row 7—a company cofounded by chef Dan Barber to engineer seeds for optimal taste and nutrition—and, at the moment, of great interest to us both. “It’s so hard to know what is more important,” Marron mused, “the soil or the seed.” Marron has been contemplating this chicken-egg quandary for several years, and it’s just one of the digressions in her forthcoming book, Becoming a Gardener: What Reading and Digging Taught Me About Living (HarperCollins)—an expansive horticultural history and a memoir of her own evolution from interested bystander to aficionado, out next year. (Marron, a former editor at Vogue,…