Innehållsförteckning för Volume 1, 2023 från W Magazine

Tommy Kha Photographer, “Doing It Their Way” (page 56) What is your favorite arthouse film and your favorite guilty-pleasure film? My favorite art-house films are anything by Wong Kar-wai. Guilty pleasures are Empire Records and Kung Fu Hustle. What is your favorite film quote? This exchange between Mitzuko and Jun in Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train: “Jun, why do you only take pictures of the rooms we stay in and never what we see outside while we travel?” “Those other things are in my memory. The hotel rooms and the airports are the things I’ll forget.” Philip-Daniel Ducasse Photographer, “Flash Forward: Theophilio” (page 54) What film have you watched the most in your life? I must’ve watched Brian De Palma’s Scarface at least 20 times. It’s taught me a lot about…

The photographer Jamie Hawkesworth and I took our first pictures together about 10 years ago, when I was working at American Vogue and he was just starting to shoot for magazines. Since then, I have seen him become not just one of the best photographers in fashion, but one of the best photographers working in any capacity today. When he agreed to collaborate on our annual Best Performances issue, the brainchild of Editor at Large and Hollywood legend Lynn Hirschberg, all of us at W knew that Jamie would bring something different to the portfolio. So began our journey: After many, many conversations via phone, email, text, WhatsApp, and Zoom, we arrived in Los Angeles during a hot November weekend. With an incredible team in place—Lucia Pica for makeup, Anthony…

“I chose the name Theophilio for my brand to pay homage to my family,” says designer Edvin Thompson, who is known for his carefree, Caribbean-infused aesthetic. “It was my grandfather’s name, and it means ‘to be loved by God.’” Thompson moved to the United States from Jamaica in 2002, at the age of 9, with his mother and siblings; his father followed shortly thereafter. “I’ve always wanted to celebrate Jamaica’s past, present, and future through my clothes,” he adds. “Jamaica is everywhere—it’s easy to draw inspiration from the cultural diaspora. There are beautiful Caribbean communities all over, and I wanted to help build a bridge from my country to the world.” The traditional mesh tank tops one sees at a Jamaican Carnival are recast in Theophilio collections as cropped knits…

In the mid–19th century, the expression “fashion victim” took a tragically literal turn. On March 16, 1858, The New York Times reported on a young Boston woman who went up in flames when her capacious frock—stretched to extreme circumference by the then ubiquitous undergarment known as a hoopskirt—came too close to the fireplace in her Beacon Street home. According to the paper, no fewer than 19 ladies had met a similar fate in England between the first of January and the middle of February that year. “Certainly an average of three deaths per week in conflagration ought to startle the most thoughtless of the privileged sex and to make them at least extraordinarily careful in their movements and behavior if it fails (as of course it will) to deter them…

Hair by Eugene Souleiman at Streeters; makeup by Ana Takahashi for Westman Atelier; manicure by Lauren Michelle Pires for the Gel Bottle at Future Rep. Model: Mona Tougaard at the Society Management. Casting by Anita Bitton at Establishment New York. Set design by Ibby Njoya at New School.…

Pamela Anderson Actor, Model, Animal-Rights Activist The Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story examines how a young girl from British Columbia, Canada, turns into a Playboy ingenue, a Baywatch babe, the wife of rock star Tommy Lee, an animal-rights activist who helped persuade President Vladimir Putin to stop importing seal products from Canada, and, most recently, a long-shot Broadway star. It comes out the same day that your memoir, Love, Pamela, is being published. How do you reconcile the two projects? Well, my book is an expression of my feelings, from birth until now—all my memories. It’s funny how people are formed. We’re all born innocent, and then life happens. I really don’t know much about this documentary, except that it’s about me. I was interviewed for it, but I’ve…

Pierre Hardy, who is known for his distinctive brand of stealth glamour, is in a philosophical mood. The creative director for Hermès shoes and jewelry believes there’s never been a better time to look beyond the obvious and embrace one’s esoteric side. “It’s definitely a moment for contemplation,” he observes, “to pay attention to everything that’s happening in the world.” Hardy, who joined Hermès in 1990, is musing about his latest high-jewelry collection, Les Jeux de l’Ombre, comprising 53 pieces inspired in part by the moody 16th-and 17thcentury chiaroscuros of Caravaggio. A former dancer, the Paris-born Hardy explains that the dramatic collection, his seventh since he launched Haute Bijouterie for the luxury house in 2010, forms a pas de deux between “the two sides of Hermès.” Nowhere is this duality…

Up until recently, you could count on one hand the number of Native American artists valued by the contemporary art world. One of them, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, 83, has called it “the buckskin ceiling”—a rather vivid term for the institutional barriers or systemic racism preventing Native artists from landing regular exhibitions in mainstream art galleries and museums. That much is finally changing. Thanks to work by artists and activists like Quick-to-See Smith, as well as the larger cultural reckoning that put the “I” in BIPOC, that buckskin ceiling has some serious cracks in it, with animal hides actually making an appearance in big galleries and museums. Also showing up: techno-themed Navajo weavings, abstract paintings inspired by Lakota quillwork, and more, as several artists are bringing ancestral techniques and materials into…

Nearly all the films that were released in 2022 were conceived—and, in some cases, shot—during the Covid pandemic lockdown. Undoubtedly, the time spent inside, as well as the fear that movies might never return to their glory days, had a huge impact on filmmakers. Their anxiety and pent-up desire resulted in wildly ambitious films such as Babylon, which practically exploded in its depiction of the crazy, decadent 1920s in Hollywood; Elvis, which was the cinematic equivalent of fireworks; and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which took place on a Greek island full of wealthy, antagonistic friends and lovers. The pandemic period also made filmmakers introspective: Steven Spielberg created his most personal film to date, The Fabelmans, about his parents, with Michelle Williams playing his utterly unique mother; Todd Field…