Vogue December 2024

At Balthazar, over two double chicken paillards (mine with a side of mash), Anna handed me a large envelope. I opened it as she explained, “I would like you to be the guest editor of our December issue.” Wow! Inside the envelope were spreads that Anna had mocked up, with me in mind, of what December could look like. Instantaneously that awful voice in my head, my inner saboteur said, “You can’t do this, what do you know about putting together a magazine?” Oh, shut up! With a weekend to think it over, I came to the conclusion that I would only regret not doing this. Cut to my first meeting at the Vogue offices. “We want you to go for it!” Anna told me. “What would you like to…

Dogged Pursuit Typically, Vogue’s Last Look (page 186) comprises one very special accessory captured in an artful still life—so when the featured piece has an actual model it’s a bit of a moment. This issue presented just such an instance, with a darling little smooth-coated Brussels griffon puppy named Carl showing off a major bracelet from Chanel. (That’s him, top left.) It was a competitive gig, to be sure: Our guest editor, Marc Jacobs—a devoted dog lover—wanted a “character” for the page, inspired by an Instagram-famous Brussels griffon named Proshka (handle: @griffy.girl). And so began a weeks-long search for the right pup, requiring about seven casting decks. Among the very cute close calls? Clockwise from top right: Monkey, Proshka himself, Eleanor, Maple, and Barney. Flower Power The portfolio “Blossoms Dearie”…

A friend once asked me whether she had a drinking problem. “I have to have three glasses of wine a day!” she said. I laughed. Only three? “But I have to have them.” I told her I drank 10 glasses of wine a day, and then we both laughed. We were bloggers at the time, living in New York, in our 20s. Drinks after work were standard, nothing to think twice about. But her comment lodged in my mind. Is it the needing and not the number? The itch? Of course you have to have them, I thought at the time. It’s wine. It’s perfect. What else is there to do in this life? I drank wine every day, even as an increasingly loud voice in the back of my…

KATE MOSS When I first met Marc, I remember thinking that he was so cool, so cute. I walked in his Perry Ellis show in 1992, that historic collection that got him fired but was later celebrated as way ahead of its time. All the major girls were there; it was really exciting, and you could feel a buzz in the air. In London we had our own version of grunge that my friends and I were all wearing, so when I saw the collection I wasn’t shocked. It was more like relief. Like, Someone else gets it. Marc is always pushing the boundaries of what is new. Everybody rallied around Marc when he started his own collection. We would get dressed and do hair and makeup in one place,…

WILLIAM EGGLESTON DAVID ZWIRNER, LOS ANGELES The story behind “The Last Dyes,” a new William Eggleston exhibition at David Zwirner in Los Angeles, is rather quaint. To produce his densely colorful photographs—all those deep reds and glowing pastels—Eggleston, who turned 85 in July, has largely relied on a highly technical and time-consuming dye-transfer process that, in 2024, only a married couple based in Washington State can execute at the highest level. Further complicating matters is the fact that 30 years ago, Kodak discontinued the materials required to do it—leading Eggleston’s family to buy up whatever chemicals and specialized paper were left. Now, with those supplies exhausted, Zwirner is showing the final set of William Eggleston prints ever made in the distinctive format. In a way, things are ending as they…

The well-to-do Weiland family in Sara Sligar’s Vantage Point (MCD) is subject to a curse of untimely deaths. Their contemporary affliction is more digital in nature: Clara, whose brother, Teddy, is running for Senate, finds herself the victim of an explicit viral video that just might be a cunning deepfake. Clara and Teddy have been raised on a remote island in Maine surrounded by generational wealth, and there is an acutely rendered upstairs-downstairs dynamic that plays out in the novel as well, offering acerbic social commentary laid on top of a propulsive and highly entertaining plot. An alternate title for Playworld (Knopf), Adam Ross’s dazzling and endearing new novel, could be The Lying Life of Children Treated Like Adults. Loosely based on the author’s years as a child actor in…