Innehållsförteckning för Volume 4, 2021 från W Magazine

Renell Medrano Photographer, “Julia Garner” (page 164) Which TV show have you watched over and over again? Sons of Anarchy, and my favorite message from that show is “I got this.” I actually ended up getting that quote tattooed on my arm as a constant reminder. Who is your favorite pop culture icon? Omahyra Mota Garcia. I identify with her because she is Dominican, like me, and channeled a very fearless attitude in her photos, with a balance of masculine and feminine energy. Who is inspiring you creatively these days? I’m my own mood board. Harry Lambert Stylist, “Emma Corrin” (page 122) Who is inspiring you creatively these days? Jonathan Anderson, Marco Ribeiro, Harris Reed, S.S. Daley, Sara Berman, and the fashions of the singer Celeste, who’s styled by Ella…

In 1978, Michael Kors dropped out of the Fashion Institute of Technology after attending for nine months. He launched his namesake line at Bergdorf Goodman in 1981, and wound up in Vogue for the first time that same year (at right, with models wearing his designs), all while working out of the Manhattan loft in which he lived. “I always knew what I wanted to do, but I was sort of astounded that it was happening at the time,” he says. Since then, Kors has been wowing devotees with his cheerful, wearable designs—and delighting them with his mischievous wit. Earlier this year, to commemorate his brand’s 40th anniversary, Kors opted for a presentation featuring a runway down the middle of 45th Street. “A lot of people think fashion has to…

The jacarandas were in full bloom when I drove to meet Joan Agajanian Quinn. The magical trees blossom twice a year, brightening the gray sprawl of Los Angeles with sublime purple clouds. (Vladimir Nabokov, who had a form of synesthesia he called “color hearing,” reportedly remarked that he could live in L.A. for the jacarandas alone.) Weaving through surface streets on the west side, I passed under purple canopies and over purple carpets of fallen petals. By the time I got to Beverly Hills, the jacarandas seemed to be conspiring with the bougainvillea—a riot of red, orange, yellow, and magenta—to light the way toward Quinn’s house. A bit of cosmic foreshadowing, it turns out. I knew that Quinn, a longtime arts patron and the former West Coast editor of Andy…

in the fall of 2019, when Julia Garner walked into the Albion Correctional Facility, near Buffalo, New York—past the towering fence topped with chill-inducing loops of razor wire—she knew, on some level, what to expect. In preparation for meeting the incarcerated pseudo-socialite Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey), whom Garner depicts in the upcoming Shonda Rhimes series Inventing Anna, she’d read and reread the viral New York magazine story on which the show is based, and watched hours of footage of the Russian-born faux heiress, who was recently released from prison after serving nearly four years for conning high-end New York hotels and banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. “Shonda was able to shoot interviews of Anna the first week that she got into jail,” says Garner, “so I’d…

When we started our discussions about whom to feature on our four fall fashion covers, we knew we wanted to celebrate television actors who were about to have a momentous year. During several editorial meetings, we had talked about putting Beanie Feldstein on the cover, so when we heard that she had been cast as the world’s most famous intern, Monica Lewinsky, in Ryan Murphy’s Impeachment: American Crime Story, we knew that now was the time (“Beanie Feldstein,” page 152). The brilliant duo Inez & Vinoodh photographed Feldstein in a fabulous style that brings to mind Old Hollywood glamour—she wears, among other things, a strapless Dior gown, a crocheted Chanel cape, and a sparkling Michael Kors dress. (Speaking of, make sure to check out “My Life in Parties: Michael Kors,”…

At some abyssal point in the Trump era, the painter Avery Singer became obsessed with the death of Robespierre. “I was taking out a lot of unconscious aggression and frustration,” Singer told me, on a sunny morning in her Brooklyn studio. Several of her recent paintings refer to the French revolutionary who steered the Reign of Terror. In one, his face—dark gaze, full eyebrows, wig—filled the canvas. Thick black lines blotched over it like graffiti. Thinner, cartoonlike vignettes played across the surface: a body strapped to a guillotine gurney; the Internet meme Wojak, a cartoon face also known as Feels Guy, clad as Martin Luther hammering his theses to the wall; Wojak again, in a top corner, beaming down like a Renaissance cherub. Another work—also in airbrush, Singer’s dedicated medium—was…

From a lipstick ad featuring a close-up of punk musician Dani Miller’s gap-toothed smile to runway looks with mascara “tears,” false-eyelash eyebrows, and glossy lips and lids on models of all genders, Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele’s vision for Gucci Beauty is invariably clever, inclusive, and subversive. As Thomas de Kluyver, Gucci’s global makeup consultant, puts it, “It’s about self-expression, identity, and fluidity.” During the film presentation of Aria, Michele’s opulent fall collection, both boys and girls walked the runway while applying lipstick and checking their reflections in glamorous gold compacts, simple gestures that defy conventional notions of beauty and manage to turn ordinary makeup objects into covetable accessories. “There are so many different characters at Gucci,” de Kluyver says. “Sometimes they’re very natural, and it’s all about gorgeous, healthy…

as a schoolgirl in postapartheid South Africa, Thuso Mbedu learned only the bare facts about the African diaspora, the Black American experience, and the plunder of her people and their struggle. “It was really glazed over in our history classes,” she says over Zoom. “We were taught that people were taken from Africa, and they were enslaved, and then the teachers sort of just moved on. They do not go into the reality of the Black body in America—the real oppression of the body here. Those are things I only came across as I was doing research.” That research was in the service of Mbedu’s role as Cora Randall in The Underground Railroad, a 10-episode series on Amazon Prime based on Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed novel, and created, directed, and cowritten…

Your Olympics coverage on Olympic Highlights With Kevin Hart & Snoop Dogg, on Peacock this past summer, was a major hit, and so many of the clips have gone viral. If you were going to compete in an Olympic sport yourself, which one would you choose? Probably basketball. Or the long jump or the high jump. In high school, I used to mess around with track a little bit. And considering that I’m tall, it’d be a nice little easy event to get into. Would you say you’re more of a summer Olympics guy or a winter Olympics guy? Oh, definitely summer. I can’t fuck with them winter Olympics. I can’t stand cold. I don’t like nothing cold. Who is your style icon? It’s not one person. I think I…

Earlier this summer, the curator Ebony L. Haynes welcomed me at 52 Walker Street, in New York’s TriBeCa neighborhood, and led me on a tour of a construction site. What was once the dimly lit after-work drinks spot M1-5 Lounge was in the midst of being transformed into a high-ceilinged, white-walled gallery. Where the bar had been, columns divided the sizable room. In the back, where there used to be a kitchen, were two niches, intimate nooks that Haynes hoped would inspire artists to engage with the physical space in new ways—perhaps for performances, readings, or other events. The gallery, called 52 Walker and opening on October 28, is an experimental addition to the art world ecosystem, a kunsthalle-esque model characterized by long-running programs designed to promote critical and scholarly…

When you think of the phrase “sustainable fashion,” what comes to mind? Maybe some boxy little shirts upcycled from Victorian tablecloths, or diaphanous sack dresses made out of hemp fibers. Perhaps a pair of rubbery-looking sneakers with 100% RECYCLED emblazoned prominently on them. Until relatively recently, the concepts of glamour and ecological consciousness rarely went hand in hand. But a number of designers are shifting the nagging perception that environmentally friendly clothing needs to look like something a militant counselor at a Vermont summer camp might wear. By innovating new plant-based or recycled materials, rethinking their production processes, and getting creative about waste and deadstock fabrics, established houses and up-and-coming brands alike are offering everything from black-tie gowns to diamond necklaces to sleek carryalls that make a minimal impact on…