Vogue USA 09.2021

RAZZLE-DAZZLE In 2022, Corrin—who has been one to watch on the red carpet—will play opposite Harry Styles in Michael Grandage’s My Policeman before becoming Lady Chatterley for a big-screen D. H. Lawrence adaptation. Prada coat, turtleneck, pants, and gloves.

“I think we’re both “That’s something to never forget,” Simons’s career has been punctuated by really interested in Simons says. “My brand was so much seen sublime riffs on radical youth culture— trying to understand as the avant-garde of menswear, and Jil his 2001 Riot Riot Riot collection was the world and how Sander was so different. They saw some- famously inspired by the post-Soviet gen- it’s evolving,” Simons thing that nobody else had seen—or would eration of young Eastern Europeans, and says, “and how that dare to risk.” Each continued to follow the his 2011 Jil Sander Techno Couture col- reflects on how other’s work—until they met up after a 2015 lection, which featured Busta Rhymes on people look at fashion Miu Miu show in Tokyo and had what both the soundtrack and models radiating an and at clothes. describe as “an open conversation.” acid-color palette, was hailed as a trans- It’s changing a lot” formative moment for the brand. “Very open,”Mrs. Prada emphasizes. “We 300 thought, What can we do? We toyed with The questions—if not the answers— switching roles—I heading up Raf Simons, raised by the cultural and political moment he at Prada,” she says, laughing again. have driven both Simons and Mrs. Pra- da throughout their careers—and one “It was very daring, this collaboration,” can’t help but feel that it’s their common says Koolhaas over Zoom. “It fits complete- interest in squaring contradictions that ly with Prada’s interest in experimentation, animates both their friendship and their and it’s still surprising: There is not yet a work together. They seem to take particu- feeling of routine—or anything like it—so lar pleasure in digging into their dislikes, it feels charged with potential.” their fears and their discomforts—whether that’s about linen, which both profess to It also explores the increasingly relevant hate, or something more abstract. “First question of what collaborations mean in you hate something, then you investigate fashion today. In this once-unimaginable why you hate something,” Mrs. Prada says. era in which not only Prada and Raf “That is exciting—and for creative people, Simons are joining forces, but also Balen- to be excited is the only way.” ciaga and Gucci (albeit described as not so much a collaboration but a one-off What excites both designers right now “hack”), it’s hard to avoid the conclusion is the drift toward capitalist and populist that there has been a profound shift away politics. “People are becoming so incredibly from the idea of the auteur as a kind of conservative,” Mrs. Prada says. “I want to singular, dictatorial creative genius and do a show about that because that is the toward a more communal approach to both truth.” Neither she nor Simons will say design and brands in general. (Simons now more, but as I probe whether their spring embraces his co–creative director role at 2022 collection will be about satirizing Prada while continuing to lead his own right-wing movements, they exchange label, while Mrs Prada maintains her own knowing looks with each other. sphere of sole influence in Miu Miu, where Simons plays no part.) “I think we’re both really interested in trying to understand the world and how Linda Loppa, who taught Simons it’s evolving,” Simons says, “and how that during the 25 years when she headed up the reflects on how people look at fashion and fashion department at Antwerp’s presti- at clothes. It’s changing a lot, and it’s a gious Royal Academy of Fine Arts, regards generational thing.” her former student’s venture with Prada as almost inevitable. Mrs. Prada, who has spent her storied career confounding both expectations and “I’m not really surprised that it’s Raf notions of luxury, echoes those thoughts. Simons and Prada who are doing this,” “Through my job, I show my ideas,” she Loppa tells me, “because these two per- says. “So I take my job very seriously.” sons are not really the stars we expect they should be as fashion designers. They are And—after more than five decades at outsiders—they kept their personality, and Prada—the notion of not doing that job they have a common feeling about how to isn’t something she’s entertaining. behave in this complex society. We are in a moment of really important change, and “Why is it,” she asks, emphatically, “that we have to reflect that in the way we work.” we ever have to stop working? I’m doing what I want.” @

FIT AND FINISH Simone Ashley may be best known for playing Olivia in Netflix’s Sex Education, but soon she’ll be donning bustle, bonnet, and gloves as the new lead in Bridgerton. Prada coat, polo, turtleneck, bag, gloves, and boots. All clothing and accessories at prada.com. In this story: hair, Eugene Souleiman; makeup, Ammy Drammeh. Details, see In This Issue. PRODUCED BY LALALAND PRODUCTION; SET DESIGN, IBBY NJOYA.

It’s a summer Friday. President Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki SET DESIGN, MARY HOWARD STUDIO. is at his Delaware beach house, has mended critical fences with where he delivered a brief speech about that morning’s encouraging the fourth estate. Just don’t call her nice. jobs numbers. Washington, D.C., By Lizzie Widdicombe. is quiet—some might say eerily so. (The lead from Michelle Goldberg’s column Photographed by Annie Leibovitz. that morning in The New York Times: “We are in the eye of the storm of American MEET democratic collapse.”) There is still news to be reckoned with. Reporters have ques- tions about the president’s infrastructure negotiations with Senate Republicans, his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin, and the rising threat of ransomware attacks. Today, as on most days, the person fielding these questions will be the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, a 42-year-old commu- nications operative with a straight red bob and a high-collared teal dress. When Psaki first appeared in the press briefing room, in January 2021, there was a collective swoon from roughly half the coun- try. This was largely due to what she was not doing: berating the assembled reporters, griping about CNN’s coverage of a presiden- tial tweet, or spouting flagrant, easily dis- provable lies. Like her boss, Psaki was being graded on a curve. The New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb tweeted, “I really should not be impressed with a calm, professional, and factual press briefing, but I am where I am.” But as the weeks went on, another consen- sus formed: Psaki was good at this—and not just compared with Kayleigh McEnany and Sean Spicer. She had a mixture of warmth, humor, intelligence, and edge. On Twitter, her fans deployed a hashtag for moments when she dispensed with a foolish or spuri- ously framed question: #PsakiBomb. In one clip, Peter Doocy, of Fox News, attempts to knock her off course. “I just heard you describe the infrastructure negotiations as the ‘art of seeking common ground,’” he says. “At some point, does that become the ‘The Art of the Deal’?” Psaki shoots back, “I don’t know. You’re the professional here, Peter. You’re the TV star….What’s the Fox chyron gonna be?” Her former White House colleague David Axelrod has called Psaki the best press secretary in his lifetime. “She’s unflappable,” he tells me. “It’s very easy under the glare of those lights and the intense questioning to buckle or to become ornery. She never does. As Biden would say, she has a steel rod for a spine.” The White House reporters I speak to more or less agree. They appreciate her prac- tice of calling on everyone, including Doocy, and her civility, even when she’s implying that a story they’ve C O N T I N U E D O N PAG E 3 4 0 302

#PSAKIBOMB Jen Psaki, photographed in her White House office. “She’s unflappable,” says David Axelrod. Hair and makeup, Alexis Arenas. Details, see In This Issue. Sittings Editor: Chloe Malle. THE PRESS

W hen Rihanna ascended the red carpet at the repurposing exercise to encourage designers to communicate with GAL LIANO : PAOLO ROV E RSI/ART + COMME RC E . LETTE RING : J ESSICA NIC H OLS. Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2018 Costume one another through their work. Institute exhibition “Heavenly Bodies,” chan- neling Catholic panoply in a coruscating pearl- Koizumi’s initial response to the Margiela garment’s stiff calico and-crystal-encrusted minidress and full-skirted was “to paint the toile as a canvas by using a ruffle-paint technique robe designed by John Galliano for Maison developed for my next collection,” he says. “I tried to create a har- Margiela Artisanal—replete with a papal miter fashioned by Stephen monious ensemble when the three pieces were put together, while Jones—she showed us, as we noted then, “why she continues to inspire making each piece individual.” He opened up the sleeves to reveal the fashion faithful.” Designer Tomo Koizumi, a Galliano admirer the wearer’s arms, gave the dress more volume—“inspired by Rococo since the age of 14, when he first saw the designer’s work for Dior, design of the 18th century”—by adding frills between the layers and, recalls his delighted surprise at Rihanna’s appearance. “It was a very in a nod to what he calls Maison Margiela’s “reconstructive design,” sophisticated look that betrayed my expectations in a good way,” repurposed the crinoline hoops of a wedding-dress skirt. he remembers, so he was both delighted and awed when Galliano surrendered the outfit’s toile for a Vogue-sponsored collaborative In that same transformative mood—recalling Koizumi’s Galliano- inspired teenage experiments with repurposing vintage garments to wear clubbing—the bodice was embellished with deadstock 304

KIND OF BLUE Model Lulu Tenney wears a Tomo Koizumi dress repurposed by John Galliano for Maison Margiela Artisanal. (To see the collaboration in action, watch the video at Vogue.com.) Maison Margiela Glam Slam bag and Recicla boots. Hair, Eugene Souleiman; makeup, Marianne Agbadouma. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman. Photographed by Maciek Poz˙oga

LIKE A DREAM SPECIAL THANKS TO TREAT MAISON. Model Tsugumi Nakamura wears a custom Maison Margiela Artisanal miter, coat, and dress repurposed by Tomo Koizumi. Hair and makeup, Haruka. On-set stylist, Shotaro Yamaguchi. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman. Photographed by Takashi Homma

MARGIELA: COURTESY OF MAISON MARGIELA; BACKGROUND: GETTY IMAGESRIHANNA: JACKSON LEE/GETTY IMAGES. KOIZUMI: TIM WALKER. neon-hued ribbons and the miter dotted with puff balls of net frills every net ruffle of Koizumi’s creation—a process that took two people for an antically secular makeover, “like a flower design—to give more five days—then color-coding them into balls like skeins of wool and pop,” says Koizumi. After a three-week transformation that involved using this newly created medium to knit an oversized sweater so that 50 collaborators and the wedding-dress atelier of Treat Maison, the “these generational memories could be worn. I kind of imagined a Rihanna ensemble is now infused with Koizumi’s kawaii spirit. “I love couple by the moonlight,” Galliano explains, “sharing their stories big dresses, and colorful ones,” Koizumi explains of the exuberant of beautiful times they’d had together, and those memories soothing result, “and I wanted to give it a craftier feel. their troubled souls—which the act of knitting does as well, because it’s almost meditative.” The couple Galliano had in mind happened “The best reaction is surprise,” he adds. “I want to arouse positive to be the Margiela in-house model-muses Valentine Charasse and emotions, so that people can have fun.” Thomas Riguelle. Each garment that the designer creates is fitted on both of them, and if it works on both, “then I think it’s a cool piece Meanwhile, when Koizumi’s wedding dress was first unveiled in to have in the collection,” Galliano explains, “and it is proposed and the Maison Margiela atelier in Paris it was, Galliano recalls, “a really sold in this genderless manner.” magical day: God’s light was shining through, and then this beautiful wedding dress was presented to myself and Gypsy and Coco”—his The Margiela studio had to produce a number of knit samples to Brussels griffon terriers. “Gypsy is old-school,” Galliano explains, ensure the correct tension and body, “so that it had the emotion, it “more couture—and she really likes Tomo’s work because of all the didn’t look too freshly minted, and it had some soul,” Galliano says. fluff and the frills. She was amazed—and it was at that point I felt “It’s very nonchalant,” he adds, of the sweater that took 11 days, or a huge responsibility.” 90 hours, to knit, “but it’s quite a chic piece, I think.” Galliano pondered how to upcycle something that represented Galliano also eyed the lining. “I couldn’t not do something with “one of the greatest days of your life. Taking things apart,” he adds, it,” he recalls. “so I made a little T-shirt, which I then turned into a recalling the limited means of his own student days, when he would little bonnet. I loved it with the yellow waders and bag—set for repurpose clothes he’d found in the vintage markets, “is the greatest a lovely walk in the park.” teacher that one could have—[it] is quite a joy to psychologically take myself back to that era, and take it ever further. When I joined The garment now bears the Maison Margiela Recicla label. “Style Margiela it took me a few seasons to stop being so polished and to description, look number four, Tomo Koizumi. Provenance, Japan. embrace that sense of freedom.”He began by meticulously unpicking Spring 2021.” @ 307



Mr. Personality PRODUCED BY AP STUDIO. FOUR DAYS BEFORE HE BEGAN his glorious, drama- The 22-year-old Stefanos filled run to the finals at Roland Garros, Stefanos Tsitsipas has more going for Tsitsipas took the court at a suburban Paris country him than a killer forehand. club and started circling his arms, reaching so far that A love of travel. A keen he looked less like a 22-year-old tennis star and more interest in graphic design. like a Ferris wheel that had just been turned on and An appreciation of essential was gently picking up speed. Today was shoe-test day. Tsitsipas was oils. Lauren Collins meets wearing a new pair of black sneakers from Adidas, his sponsor; tennis’s most lovable black shorts; and a white T-shirt that read terre battue (“clay eccentric. Photographed court,”more or less, and a French Open slogan). His shoulder-length, by Valentin B. Giacobetti. sun-streaked curls were getting in his face, so he called for a head- band. While he waited, he took out a pouch and ate some kind of surfaces. Apostolos says, “His uniqueness helps him to handle all goo. Soon Tsitsipas’s coach—his father, Apostolos—had set up a the thousands of pieces of information that are coming in while quartet of cones, and Tsitsipas was hitting down-the-line forehand he’s playing matches.” after down-the-line forehand, an exercise designed to improve his margins, cratering the red dirt so that it looked like the balls were The day before his practice session, Tsitsipas was sitting in a ball- landing on the moon. “He always wants to improve, no matter what room at the same country club, chatting animatedly on pretty much he’s doing,” Nick Tzekos, Tsitsipas’s agent, said, looking on. “I was any subject that happened to come up. (In addition to English, he with him yesterday, and he was like, ‘I’ve created my own font!’” speaks Greek and Russian fluently, and knows a decent amount of French, Portuguese, and Spanish.) He had thoughts on taking a Yes, that’s right: his own font. In addition to being the fourth- nutrition class on the online learning platform Coursera, for example. ranked tennis player in the world, the youngest person in the ATP And on Matt D’Avella’s documentary about minimalism (“I feel like Top Ten, and the subject of countless dubious nicknames (the Greek decluttering is good”). Not to mention essential oils (“I love laven- God, Greece Lightning), Tsitispas has, apparently, been finding time der and always have it in my apartment”) and detoxing from social to get into graphic design. Unusually for a professional athlete of media (where he once posted competitor and friend Nick Kyrgios’s his caliber, he cultivates extracurricular talents and sundry passions, phone number as a birthday prank). Feed Tsitsipas a question, put remaining open to the world from the closed circuit of his sport. whatever spin on it you want, and he fires back with a straight winner “I think growth starts from outside the tennis court, and then it goes or a surprising little conversational drop shot. “There’s a salad that into my tennis,” he says. I find really underrated, and that’s the Cretan salad,” Tsitsipas says, asked about a tweet in which he called for the abolition of the Caesar. Born in Athens in 1998, Tsitsipas grew up in the seaside suburb “I would love this salad to be more in the spotlight.” of Vouliagmeni. He picked up tennis as a three-year-old at the local club, where both his father and his mother, Julia, a Soviet-born for- Tsitsipas’s charm is on full display on YouTube, where he frequent- mer professional player, worked as instructors. Stefanos is the eldest ly shares travel vlogs with an audience of nearly 180,000 subscribers. of four Tsitsipas children: His brother and doubles partner, Petros, (He does most of his own production.) Traveling, Tsitsipas has said, recently joined the ATP tour, while their younger siblings, Pavlos “solves a lot of problems, in my opinion.” What kinds of problems? and Elisavet, are on the junior circuit. From childhood, Stefanos “Well, just feeling anxious and feeling like my life leads somewhere,” was different: quiet, comfortable in solitude, as introverted as he is he says. “Sometimes I feel like I play tennis and I offer so much to personable now. “At some point, the teachers were worried, and they many different people that love the sport. But outside the court, I even asked me if maybe we should do some kind of special test,” want to be able to create.”The most exciting thing that ever happened Apostolos recalls, adding, “He’s a dreamer.” Today Tsitsipas’s quirky to him while traveling was meeting the World’s Strongest Man, in Ice- disposition is one of his biggest assets, in addition to the blazing land. The biggest disaster happened in Oman, when the four-wheel forehand, a killer serve, and unusual versatility on all of the sport’s drive he was riding in through the desert almost ran out of gas. “The sun was setting, and, you know, we were thinking we were going to YOUNG AND YOLO have to spend the night there,” Tsitsipas recalls. As for the wildest “I have a saying that I really believe, and that doesn’t night, that went down recently, in Dubai: CO NTIN U ED O N PAG E 3 4 2 translate only into my tennis, which is to go after every single day.” Grooming, Naomi Regan. Details, see In This Issue. Fashion Editor: Azza Yousif. 309

Earthly Delights The early-20th-century landscape designer Beatrix Farrand was poetic of mind and determined of spirit. Natalia Vodianova embodies this American pioneer in her gardens—and in the season’s most transporting creations. By Chloe Malle. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

GARDEN VARIETY Model Natalia Vodianova—as the fantastic Mrs. Farrand— at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C, the “most deeply felt and best loved” project of Farrand’s career. Dior jacket and skirt; dior.com. Fashion Editor: Grace Coddington.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE Famously assiduous, Farrand took pains to distinguish herself from women who practiced garden design as a hobby; her work was both art and obsession. Zanini cardigan ($975) and pants ($1,370); matchesfashion.com. Hunter boots.

“S houlditnotberemembered that in setting a garden we are painting a picture?” So asked Beatrix Far- rand, inspiration for the painterly images on these pages, in her 1907 Scribner’s essay “The Garden as Picture.” A pioneering American landscape architect whose career spanned the Gilded Age, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and two world wars, Far- rand wrote, “The two arts of painting and garden design are closely related, except that the landscape gardener paints with actual color, line, and perspective...while the painter has but a flat surface on which to create his illusion.” She was the product of five generations of gardeners and descended from Ameri- can aristocrats on both sides of her family, Revolutionary War heroes among them (including Ebenezer Stevens, who tipped tea into the Boston Harbor). Her father’s line, the Jones family, was so distinguished they are said to have inspired the saying “keeping up with the Joneses” and included no less a figure than Edith Wharton, Farrand’s aunt. It was Farrand’s mother, the Philadelphia- born blueblood Minnie Cadwalader Rawle, who introduced Wharton to Henry James at the vaunted literary salon Minnie hosted in her East 11th Street town house (she also served as Wharton’s part-time literary agent). James, a dear friend of Minnie’s, affectionately called determined young Beatrix “Trix” and in one letter asked to send love to “the Earthshaker,” a prescient epithet considering Farrand would go on to be just that. Beatrix’s interest in plants blossomed at her grandparents’ Newport cottage, Pen- craig, the site of America’s first espaliered fruit garden, and at Reef Point, her par- ents’ cliffside estate in Maine, where the seven-year-old spent long summer days transplanting woodland wildflowers to the family’s lawn. She would educate herself on her own terms, apprenticing with Harvard’s Charles Sprague Sargent (a cousin of the paint- er), learning botany and horticulture, and hiring a professor from Columbia to tutor her in surveying, as the university’s School of Mines did not admit women. At 22 she embarked with her mother and Wharton on a European tour visiting some 150 gardens—from the 30-foot bamboo allées of the Jardin d’Essai in Algiers to the Baroque terraced gardens of the Villa Torlonia in the hills of Frascati, reachable only by mule. 313



GATHER YE ROSEBUDS In Dumbarton Oaks’s Rose Garden, where some 900 blooms are organized by color, one can rather prettily match the scene in a Marni coat and dress; marni .com. Zanini shoes.

STATE OF BLISS As Mildred Bliss—Farrand’s great friend and the owner, along with her husband, Robert Woods Bliss, of Dumbarton Oaks—model Karen Elson (near right) wears a Miu Miu dress ($2,340) and tights; miumiu.com. Carmina Shoemaker boots. Vodianova also wears a Miu Miu dress and tights. Gianvito Rossi shoes.



Was it Farrand’s single-mindedness—the joy that she took in being ever so slightly obsessed—that drew Annie Leibovitz and Vogue’s Grace Coddington to her for these images? “Society, yes, it is very agreeable...a little of it,” Farrand told one newspaper reporter, “But to live for it and in it entirely. Oh, never. This is so different. It is work— hard work and at the same time it is perpet- ual pleasure. With this grand art of mine I do not envy the greatest painter, or sculptor or poet that lived. It seems to me that all arts are combined in this.” “I was so intrigued with her story,” says Leibovitz. “Even though she was well-to- do, she knew she wanted to do something.” (“She’s obsessed with her,” says Codding- ton. “There’s nothing more to be said about Beatrix if you spoke to Annie.”) Coddington and Leibovitz have spent close to two decades creating fashion fan- tasias for Vogue, which will be anthologized in Wonderland, Leibovitz’s forthcoming volume of fashion images for Phaidon. Some of the most memorable shoots have starred the model Natalia Vodianova, who under Coddington and Leibovitz’s direc- tion has embodied heroines ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Edith Wharton. This shoot, with Vodianova as Farrand, model Karen Elson as her close friend and patron Mildred Bliss, and the actor Aldis Hodge as David Williston, the pioneering Black landscape artist who was Farrand’s peer, has a valedictory air. “There was a cer- tain nostalgia,” admits Coddington. “We both said this is probably the last time this kind of shoot is going to happen.” It is also a tribute to a quintessentially American notion of womanhood— the Gibson girl, who “emerged at the end of the 19th century pos- sessing the self-confidence, indi- viduality, and independence of a generation ready to conquer the world,” writes the scholar Thaisa Way in her 2009 book Unbounded Practices: Women, Land- scape Architecture, and Early Twentieth Century Design. (Way’s The Garden as Art: Beatrix Farrand at Dumbarton Oaks will be released next spring.) These New Women included performers, athletes, professionals, and society women who rode bicycles and adventured outdoors. Bliss, the wife of diplomat Robert Woods Bliss, also embodied this new par- adigm, and so it was natural that she chose Farrand to transform Dumbarton Oaks, the Blisses’ hilltop estate and 53-acre tract, formerly farmland, at the northern edge 318

COMMON GROUND In the role of David Williston—commonly cited as the first professionally trained Black landscape architect in America—actor Aldis Hodge wears a Dolce & Gabbana waistcoat and pants. Tom Ford shirt. Vodianova wears an Alberta Ferretti dress; saksfifthavenue.com. Menswear Editor: Michael Philouze.

“With this grand art of mine I do not envy the greatest painter, or sculptor or poet that lived,” Farrand said. “It seems to me that all arts are combined in this” of Georgetown. Dumbarton Oaks would be Farrand’s masterpiece, a 30-year proj- ect she would later describe as the “most deeply felt and best loved” of her career. Arranged along a steep grade, Dumbar- ton Oaks wends and winds through a series of outdoor rooms, where symmetry and asymmetry are juggled with deftness—from ebullient larkspurs and alliums to restrained boxwood and yew-bordered walks. Nothing is static, yet there is also the calm clarity of Farrand herself. It is a garden to be active in, not one simply to stroll through or admire from afar like the pannier-skirt-wide central axes of the Versailles parterres. When Farrand took on the project, in 1921, her career was at its prime and saw her shuttling to site visits from Long Island to Newport to Maine. She was known to use the train car as her office and would have associates board at Penn Station and upon finishing their business of the day disem- bark at whatever station was next. Farrand designed the Asian garden for John and Abby Rockefeller in Seal Harbor, Maine, the block-long backyard of what is now the Morgan Library for J. P. Morgan, and the East Garden of the White House for Edith and Woodrow Wilson, as well as some 200 commissions over her long career. Perhaps Farrand’s most enduring contri- bution to the American aesthetic is the way she reenvisioned university campuses such as Princeton, Yale, Vassar, Chicago, and Oberlin, creating the open quads recognized today and espaliering the Gothic buildings with magnolia. She created diagonal path- ways to accommodate the walking habits of students, and at Princeton, where she would work for three decades, she became known by students as the “bush lady”for her tendency to pop out of campus shrubbery. She was most often found in tailored men’s Scottish woolens, suited to her rig- orous work, prompting one newspaper to marvel that she was outfitted in “a suit resembling a fisherman’s on a rainy day.” And even when she dressed for society life, she sometimes did so with a wink— 320

FULL CIRCLE Emerging from Dumbarton Oaks’s Mélisande’s Allée, Vodianova lingers near Lovers’ Lane Pool, clad in a fittingly romantic Alexander McQueen jacket and skirt ($1,450); alexandermcqueen.com. John Lobb shoes.

BEYOND MEASURE The landscape here evokes Reef Point, Farrand’s beloved family home on the craggy cliffs of Maine. from near right: Vodianova wears a Marni coat and dress; marni.com. Elson wears an Alexander McQueen dress; alexandermcqueen.com.



a gown she wore during one coming-out season featured a pattern mimicking the quadrants of a European formal garden. She maintained friendships and profes- sional relationships with similar deftness, and Bliss was one of her closest friends. Correspondence between the two was addressed to “My Dearest Gardening Twin” and “Trixie,” and the pair had nick- names for their favorite plants at Dumbar- ton Oaks—a spring magnolia was called “the Bride” for her showy cream blooms. When visiting Bliss’s estate, some- times with her husband, Max Farrand, the Yale historian and future director of the Huntington Library, Farrand would stay in a room on the second floor of the brick Georgian manor that overlooked the majestic oaks that give the property its name. The couples were ardent music lov- ers, and the Blisses organized performances in the house’s formal music room or in the drained stone basin of Lovers’ Lane Pool. This particular site, with its neighboring woodland path and crocus- and narcissus- studded dale, is arguably the most romantic of the property, and Leibovitz’s photo- graph of Vodianova crossing toward it from Mélisande’s Allée, like the titular star-crossed heroine of the Debussy opera for which the path is named, is the pho- tographer’s favorite of this shoot. Lei- bovitz took it in the middle of the pool, rolling up her pants to wade in and climb a gardener’s ladder. That June day was so hot and humid, Cod- dington says, that she drank eight bottles of water and three bottles of Gatorade and changed her shirt three times. Meanwhile Vodianova didn’t release a bead of perspira- tion, even in wool bouclé coats. “I don’t know how she does that,” marvels Coddington. Leibovitz says they dressed Vodianova in a subdued, pastel palette to let the landscape be the strongest color scheme, the inverse of Bliss’s directive to Farrand that the enter- taining terraces close to the house feature only plantings in green and white so as not to compete with the fashion of the guests. “The last place I wanted to go to was Dumbar- ton Oaks,” admits Leibovitz, who remem- bers being unmoved by the garden when she would visit as a teenager growing up in Silver Springs, Maryland. “I felt it was too famous; I wanted to find the hidden garden that had some magic to it.” However, when she scouted it, a half century later, the garden was empty, overgrown and humming with cicadas flitting about in the late-afternoon light. “I was floored,” she says. “The cliché is true; it is her masterpiece.” @ 324

FRAME OF REFERENCE Vodianova is the picture of Farrand’s perfect lack of preciousness in a Zanini blouse ($1,750), pants ($1,650), and shoes. Blouse and pants at matchesfashion .com. In this story: hair, Julien d’Ys; makeup, Francelle Daly. Details, see In This Issue. SET DESIGN, MARY HOWARD STUDIO. SPECIAL THANKS TO INSIGNIA FILMS/BEATRIX FARRAND’S AMERICAN LANDSCAPES.

CURTAIN UP Once upon a time, whenever When Broadway shut neck in America.” It was a thrilling reasser- I had seats for a Broad- down in the spring tion of ritual and of theater’s immediacy, a way show, my pretheater reminder of how powerful it can be when ritual involved one of two of 2020, it was as though people gather together in the dark to watch activities. I would either an entire season other people perform in the same room. meet a friend at Sardi’s for a quick martini and a ramekin of orange vanished overnight. Now, After that, spring and summer, sped along cheese or else find myself sprinting out of as New York theaters by Pfizer and Moderna, came fast. Less the Times Square subway station at 7:59 to reopen, Adam Green than three months later, the St. James— make an 8:00 curtain. But on a sunny, not- and Broadway—reopened when Bruce quite-warm Saturday in early April, I found looks at where we’ve been Springsteen returned for an encore run myself in a fluorescent-lit exam room at an and where we’re going. of his revelatory bildungsroman in music. urgent-care clinic in Hell’s Kitchen, on the Photographed Then Shakespeare returned to Central receiving end of a rapid-antigen COVID by Miranda Barnes. Park, where it remains the hottest ticket in test. A negative result would let me join a town, with Jocelyn Bioh’s adaptation of The lucky few at the St. James Theatre for an a single day or 1,000 years had passed. Sit- Merry Wives of Windsor at the Delacorte. iteration of NY PopsUP, the citywide ini- ting among 150 other audience members And now, as New York City’s summer of tiative to start bringing back theater, music, in a theater that normally accommodates rebirth winds down and a new theater sea- and dance to its culture-starved citizens. 1,700 only added to the unsettling, dream- son is poised to kick off, it feels like the right It would be the first live performance on like atmosphere. moment to look back at what we’ve lost and a Broadway stage since New York the- ahead at what’s to come—including two ater, and the city itself, went dark last year But when Savion Glover, in black jeans productions in particular that signal the first on March 12. and a black T-shirt, wearing white tap glimmers of change on Broadway: Thoughts shoes and a white knit cap, strode onto the of a Colored Man, Keenan Scott II’s clear- An hour later, I was standing outside the bare stage, the audience was jolted awake. eyed and lyrical look at contemporary St. James, where I was greeted in quick suc- A storehouse of tap-dance history and a Black manhood, which offers a snapshot cession by the stylish, lushly maned theatri- restlessly inventive pioneer, Glover spent of 24 hours in the lives of seven Black men cal impresario Jordan Roth and the dean of the next 20 minutes or so weaving past and in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbor- theatrical press agents, Rick Miramontez. present into a spontaneous invocation of hood, and Camille A. Brown’s new produc- “This is like my spring training,” Miramon- musical theater’s essence. With his signature tion of for colored girls who have considered tez told me. “And believe me, I need it.” As I mix of syncopated frenzy and laid-back suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, Ntozake entered the lobby, I immediately noticed the ease, he punctuated his steps with a cappella Shange’s 1976 paean in poetry and dance lack of pre-show chatter, though the hush snippets of show tunes from our collective to the vulnerability and resilience of Black was punctuated by an occasional “I see you consciousness while keeping us anchored in women. Brown’s production, which will under that mask!” After a largely isolated the reality of today. “I want to live in Amer- fuse theatrical elements, offers her unique 13 months, during which the it-couldn’t- ica,” he sang at one point. “Knee on your interpretation of Shange’s vision of a uni- happen-here tropes of dystopian science fied “choreopoem” and will make her the fiction became our shared reality, the scene STEP IN TIME first Black woman to both direct and cho- felt at once familiar and alien, as if either Camille A. Brown will choreograph and direct reograph a play on Broadway. for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, which opens this winter. Balenciaga dress. Shoes by The Row. Fashion Editor: Max Ortega. 326



CASTING CALL MARLOW AND MOSS: PAUL WETHERELL. VOGUE, 2020. HAMILTON: ANNIE LEIBOVITZ. VOGUE, 2015. WARREN: ANTON CORBIJN. Among the shows VOGUE, 2019. FREESTYLE LOVE SUPREME: STEVEN KLEIN. VOGUE 2019. that will return are Six (cocreators Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, left), Hamilton (above), Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, starring Adrienne Warren (right), and Freestyle Love Supreme (original cast members, below). O n the afternoon of Thurs- When Sanctuary City was shut down day, March 12, 2020, after just a few previews, Majok says, she the day that Broadway “didn’t know when, or if, the play would theaters announced that ever be performed again. And I was scared they were shutting down that it would just disappear, as if it had for at least a month, I never happened.” (Happily, New York was debating whether I should go ahead audiences will finally get to see it when the with plans to meet a group that included production returns to the Lortel in Sep- the playwright Martyna Majok for an tember.) Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s early dinner in the West Village. We would musical Six, which assembles the unlucky afterward go to see her new play Sanctuary queens married to Henry VIII as perform- City, which had at that point played eight ers in a high-octane pop concert—it came previews off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel to New York from London trailing clouds Theatre. As a huge fan of Majok’s work, I of critical glory and a reported $12 million felt like maybe I should still go. I literally in advance ticket sales—was also shut down had one dithering foot out the door when on March 12, an hour and a half before I got word that both the dinner and the per- curtain time, as were the 15 other shows formance had been canceled. yet to open in the weeks ahead. “The whole 328

BRODERICK AND PARKER: ANNIE LEIBOVITZ. VOGUE, 2020. CLARKE: FULL ENSEMBLE “I realized that ANTON CORBIJN. VOGUE, 2020. AMERICAN UTOPIA: STEVEN KLEIN. VOGUE, 2019. I had an Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica opportunity to Parker return for tell the story Plaza Suite (above); I wanted and invite Sharon D Clarke everyone in” in a costume from Caroline, or Change (top right); and cast members from David Byrne’s American Utopia (right). journey of the show snowballed in a really iconic moments as Meryl Streep, Audra surreal way over three years,” says Moss, McDonald, and Christine Baranski swig- “and I’d been waiting for it to disappear at ging cocktails in their bathrobes as they any moment.” For most, the shock of these sang “The Ladies Who Lunch.”) Other sudden closures was immense. In addition highlights of that dark time include the to the casualties that would be suffered by sleight-of-hand man Helder Guimarães’s the theater world—elder statesman Ter- The Present, which somehow managed to rence McNally and the charismatic star make Zoom feel intimate, and I Am Sending Nick Cordero, among many others—the You the Sacred Face, Heather Christian’s pandemic took a devastating economic toll opera about Mother Teresa. But the most on the theater and everyone who earned fully realized and promising piece of online a living in it. theater was Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley’s Circle Jerk, which, though it started When Take Me to the World, Stephen as a stage play, felt born of and made for the Sondheim’s online 90th-birthday concert, internet. An absurdist look at white suprem- occurred just over a month into the pan- acy, it pulls together a range of influences, demic, it felt like a necessary coming togeth- from the quick-change wizardry of Charles er of the theater community. (It had the Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company added bonus of including such instantly 329

OFFSTAGE AND OFF DUTY The ensemble of Thoughts From a Colored Man, from near right: Bryan Terrell Clark (in Schott NYC), Da’Vinchi (in Burberry), playwright Keenan Scott II (in Gucci), Keith David (in Jos. A. Bank), Luke James (in Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello), Forrest McClendon (in Gabriela Hearst), Tristan “Mack” Wilds (in Amiri), Dyllón Burnside (in Wales Bonner). In this story: hair, Ro Morgan; makeup, Frankie Boyd. Details, see In This Issue.

PRODUCED BY TANN PRODUCTION; SET DESIGN, JULIA WAGNER. to TikTok. “We grew up on dial-up internet, and we’re kind of all over the place in the things we love,” Breslin says with a laugh. Produced by the playwright Jeremy O. Harris, who added “munificent online the- atrical impresario” to his résumé during the pandemic, Circle Jerk wound up as a final- ist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Though Breslin and Foley plan to continue exploring the possibilities of online theater, they are eager to mount Circle Jerk onstage this season. “I think that there’s a version of the show in meatspace that is even more out- rageous and confounding,” Foley says. “We love it when half the audience is laughing and the other half is offended, or not sure if they should be crying.” With its use of multiple remote-controlled cameras, it cap- tured the handmade, you-are-there feeling of a live performance on a computer screen, showing a way forward to future online the- ater makers. It also showed that digital pro- ductions, with their low cost of entry and ability to be streamed anywhere in the world, have the potential to reach an audience beyond those who live near theatrical hubs and can afford the price of tickets. When Breslin and Foley performed their show This American Wife live online last spring, Foley recalls, “we had people coming back multiple times; they wanted to see how it changed from night to night, or if maybe we were going to fuck up. That’s theater.” A mong the most anticipated live shows of the coming season is Michael R. Jack- son’s 2020 Pulitzer-winning A Strange Loop, which will make its way to Broad- way after a stint at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C. From its start as a monologue for an undergraduate playwriting class 18 years ago, it’s been an improbable journey for a musical about an overweight, Black, gay writer struggling to write a musical about an overweight, Black, gay writer. “My initial attitude was, ‘Nobody ever does Black musicals, so I’m going to show those white people what’s up and make this the Blackiest Black thing ever,’” Jackson recalls. “But as it got clos- er to production, I realized that I had an opportunity to tell the story I wanted and invite everyone in. A musical can be a mirror for some people and a window for others, and how neat to be able to have both in the same place.” As joyful as Jackson’s Pulitzer win was, it also came at a moment when the pan- demic was taking C O N T I N U E D O N PAG E 3 4 2 331

TUFT LOVE Model Yoonmi Sun wears a Balenciaga Couture coat— inspired by Cristóbal Balenciaga’s fall 1950 collection. Domed hat by Philip Treacy. opposite: Designer Demna Gvasalia fits a Balenciaga Couture opera coat on model Anania Orgeas. Balenciaga Couture gloves and archival earrings. Fashion Editor: Tabitha Simmons. 332

TURN UP THE VOLUME For a show that was held in silence, Demna Gvasalia’s haute couture debut for Balenciaga has made a glorious noise. By Hamish Bowles. Photographed by Anton Corbijn. For Demna Gvasalia, Balencia- “the master of us all.” Balenciaga shaped a fashion layer—more streetwear-oriented ga’s artistic director, the haute fashion from 1937—after he fled the Spanish fashion, easy to wear, everyday,” and then couture—reintroduced to the Civil War to establish his already two- “more conceptual, upscale fashion—a level storied brand on July 7 (for decade-old brand in Paris—until he shut- above the streetwear.” Above that, he says, the first time since its founder tered his house in 1968 (complaining bitterly “I felt there was this big black hole. retired in 1968) with a power- that his career in couture, during which he ful, elegant presentation, shown in silence dressed the most stylish and demanding “A lot of people see me in the context of and fragranced with incense, that managed women of the century, was “a dog’s life”). streetwear, but that’s not at all how I see to be both reverential and iconoclastic—is myself as a designer,” Gvasalia continues. “almost like a holy grail, like an altar in a “The reason for him closing was actually But why couture now? “To be honest,” church.”When he joined Balenciaga in 2015, the birth of ready-to-wear,” says Gvasalia, he confides, “I needed some time to earn Gvasalia was well aware of the house’s his- in the weeks leading up to the show. “To- some ‘economic credibility’—I won’t call it tory and its roots in impeccably conceived, day we can come back to couture, thanks money—to afford to do couture! I needed handcrafted couture under the direction to ready-to-wear’s success.” Gvasalia’s ap- to work all these layers in the pyramid. of Cristóbal Balenciaga, a humbly born proach to Balenciaga is centered on what [And] I needed this time to get in the Spaniard whom Christian Dior hailed as he calls an “aesthetic pyramid.” At the comfort zone for myself—I wouldn’t have base, as he explains, are “cool sneakers, then dared until recently.” 333

To immerse himself and his chosen cabine of models in the haute couture mood, Gvasalia projected a remarkable series of films of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s haute cou- ture presentations—shot by photographer Tom Kublin from 1960 to 1968—on a giant screen in his atelier during fittings. Unlike the electrifyingly atmospheric, fast-paced, and lavishly produced spectacles that Gvasalia himself masterfully stages, those earlier shows were very different affairs. As the footage reveals, the couturier’s mod- els (who were, famously, chosen for their supercilious hauteur rather than their looks, while Gvasalia’s pan-generational casting deliberately challenged conventional beauty tropes to focus on presence and character) slunk through the salons, removing their jackets and coats with jerky movements and holding up cards with the number of the outfit, while a scattering of clients gossiped and chain-smoked—and, occasionally, sim- ply got up and left. (The collections were shown every day for several weeks, so the privileged customers—and the store buyers and manufacturers looking for inspirational clothes to copy for their own customers— who had passed muster with the terrifying directrice, Mademoiselle Renée, came and went at will.) While he worked on his own fittings, “that Cristóbal Balenciaga aesthetic spirit was present,” Gvasalia says—something that inspired him to make hats for the first time, resulting in dramatic, flying-saucer creations in collaboration with Philip Trea- cy. “I discovered millinery!” Gvasalia exults. A hat, he avers, “is such a weird object—I’ve been doing baseball hats, but this is a new experience.” Gvasalia also felt strongly about the im- portance of having an “iconic address— like Chanel has the rue Cambon,” he says. “At Balenciaga, we are kind of like a no- mad.” Gvasalia discovered that Cristóbal Balenciaga’s original salons, at 10 Avenue George V, were presently being used as storage, which for him was “blasphemous. I felt very sad—I wanted to give this address back to the house.” In reclaiming the space as the house’s haute couture salons once again, Gvasalia envisaged an experiment in time travel—“as though when they closed the house in ’68, the door was locked, and we just reopened it C O N T I N U E D O N PAG E 3 4 3 THE BIG LEAGUES Model Celeste Romero wears a Balenciaga Couture opera coat, gloves, and archival earrings. In this story: hair, Eugene Souleiman; makeup, Marion Robine. Details, see In This Issue. 334

PRODUCED BY LALALAND PRODUCTION; SET DESIGN, IBBY NJOYA.

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INTO THE WOODS to Alice in one of their long, clever emails, middle of a large, grinning crowd of Dem- the problem is we all just find each other too ocratic notables: Obama, Hillary Clinton, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 148 interesting. “And I love that about humani- Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice. Psaki is one of ty,” she writes, “and in fact it’s the very rea- several former White House deputies now couch; it’s one of my favorite places to son I root for us to survive—because we are occupying top roles. Her contemporaries in- work.”) In the evening, she and John will clude Kate Bedingfield, the communications eat dinner and watch films. Rooney is still so stupid about each other.” @ director; Jake Sullivan, the national security feeling the lack of dinner parties, though adviser; and Brian Deese, the director of her social circle is small: “I’m not somebody MEET THE PRESS the National Economic Council, who is set who’s really popular,” she says, counting to join her at that day’s press briefing, in a only “four or five” friends who know her CONTINUED FROM PAGE 302 practice that she calls “lifting up the people “very, very well.” They keep in touch by behind the policy.” email. “I remember somebody saying to written is daft. The Times’s Peter Baker, me, when Conversations With Friends came who’s been on the White House beat since Psaki sits at a semicircular desk, in the out, ‘Oh, it’s really, like, retro that they use the George W. Bush administration, says teal dress and open-toed tan patent leather email,’” she says, laughing. “I was like, ‘It’s that Psaki’s tenure feels like a return to an heels, with a leather briefing binder spread what? I love emails.’” earlier era. “She’s lowered the temperature out before her, its sections labeled covid, and gotten us back to a more stable, if doj, drugs, economy. She has an Apple The TV adaption of Conversations is cur- adversarial, relationship.” On the downside, watch on one wrist and, on her desk, a rently in production, with Normal People he adds, “the briefings are not exceptionally neon-green water bottle that flashes occa- director Lenny Abrahamson at the helm. informative”—a trend that he notes didn’t sionally, reminding her to hydrate. Some Though she worked on the scripts for the begin with Psaki. And, despite Biden’s gar- press secretaries have asked not to be told former show, Rooney has been almost entire- rulous reputation, “they’ve been pretty but- about sensitive government information, ly hands-off this time—finishing the book toned up and tight with information—much so they don’t risk saying something they and moving house meant she couldn’t do to our frustration at times.” shouldn’t. But Psaki is a completist. When it justice, she says, plus Abrahamson is “a she’s gathering information, “I always want genius. I felt so confident that what he was According to Psaki, the most important to know the whole story,” she says. “And going to do with it was going to be some- thing about speaking on Biden’s behalf is then I can ask, ‘Okay. Can I say this? Can thing so interesting and fresh.”Out next year, getting the tone right. “The first thing he I say that?’ ” Biden’s the same way. Some it will star Joe Alwyn and Jemima Kirke as said to me was ‘We need to be aligned on staffers get annoyed by his endless requests 30-something couple Nick and Melissa, as tone,’ or, really, he needs me to be aligned for data and details, but Psaki says, “I get well as Sasha Lane and newcomer Alison with him,” she tells me. “He said, ‘We are it. He wants to know everything, so he can Oliver. If you thought the sex in Normal healing a country whose nerves have been figure out what his position is.” People was abundant, then considering Con- frayed. It’s just a little bit frantic. We need to versations is, at heart, an adultery novel, it’s be projecting calm, openness to engagement, Underlings file in and out, delivering not exactly in short supply here either. governing for all people.’” She goes on, “It “toppers,”or updates on various Biden proj- doesn’t mean you don’t have moments where ects. Psaki makes notes in colored Sharp- “It is, I think, totally modern in its ap- you are tough or firm or make clear to people ie, peppering them with queries and little proach,”Alwyn tells me. And it will undoubt- when they’ve crossed a line. He does that, interjections. First, immigration. Psaki asks edly set the Rooney hype machine in motion too.” But, she says, the tone thing “is really a young staffer about Vice President Kama- once again. She has another book to write my North Star.” It’s questionable how far it la Harris’s trip to Guatemala and Mexico. but, for the first time in a long time, promises will go in a country where, according to one “Did we decide we’re going to do a topper she is going to take a break, though she hasn’t poll, a quarter of citizens, and more than half on the VP trip? Do we know if she’s got big proved herself to be much good at that yet. of Republicans, believe that Donald Trump deliverables from that?” “Let’s be honest,” she deadpans, “I’m not is the “true president.” But Psaki says the very chilled out.” administration thinks it can make inroads “There will be some tangible border not by “wrestling with alligators—or former stuff,” the staffer says. “But I think she’s Maybe this time she will be. Being ubiq- alligators, or the people around them—but by doing a big sit-down interview there.” uitous weighs on her mind. She has left delivering results.”She goes on, “That’s what Twitter—she doesn’t believe novelists should we’re betting on. We’ll see if we’re right.” “Oh, right, with Lester Holt!” Psaki says. have the cultural prominence the platform Another staffer wraps up an economic can afford, plus she is too “socially anxious It’s a little after 9 a.m., and Psaki is in her briefing by saying, “Your water bottle is to put out tweets.” She still “lurks,” she says office, a place that, like the rest of the West reminding you to drink.” with a smile, and no doubt sees the churn of Wing, is smaller and more modest than I’d Psaki picks up the flashing bottle and content that comes when, say, Alwyn’s part- pictured it. There’s blue carpeting and taupe laughs. “You want one!” she teases, and asks ner, Taylor Swift, publicly applauds her work. curtains bearing the presidential seal. The another staffer, “When’s her birthday?” “I feel like there must be people who are so walls are decorated with artwork by Psa- angry at me because I get talked about too ki’s children, ages three and six, and a few Psaki grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut— much and I’m like, ‘I know! I’m sorry! I can’t carefully curated photographs representing but not exactly that Greenwich. “There’s make it stop!’” she says, sounding mortified. various stops on her rise through Democratic a lot of hippie vibe in my family,” she tells politics: Psaki, in sunglasses, sitting on a me. She’s the oldest of three daughters: Her It is sincere. Rooney’s disconcertment at plane next to John Kerry (she was his spokes- youngest sister, a Unitarian Universalist min- her public persona, her confusion as to why person when he was Secretary of State); ister, does indeed send out hippie vibrations, anyone would be fascinated by a woman who President Obama crawling on the floor of as does her mother, a therapist who grew up writes on her sofa and lives with a teacher the Oval Office with Psaki’s infant daughter in blue-collar Queens. Psaki’s father, a retired in rural Ireland, with only birds and rabbits (Psaki began her tenure as his communi- real estate developer, declared bankruptcy for company, is real. Perhaps, when all is cations director when she was six months when she was in seventh grade. “We were said and done, the answer to her bafflement pregnant). In one picture, Psaki stands in the sits within her new novel. As Eileen puts it 340 SEPTEMBER 2021 VOGUE.COM

in this nice neighborhood, and I was the me. “But they really didn’t hold back from found its way into the U.S. media. “At first, kid who was on the scholarship in middle telling us all the ways they thought we were it was upsetting,” Psaki says. “I remember school,” she recalls. “Was it traumatizing? stupid.” Psaki recalls of the Obama people, talking about it at a briefing and getting a Not really, but everybody has a story.” For “They’re my friends, and they are some of little choked up, because you feel like you are the most part, Psaki was focused on her absolutely the most talented and best people being picked apart.” Eventually, some sea- high school swim team—she had a powerful I worked with in politics, but the culture was soned Russia correspondents explained the backstroke—and, later, on her sorority, Chi to yell at reporters, slam the phone down.” dynamic: “They were like, ‘This is a badge of Omega at the College of William & Mary. After traveling with journalists for weeks on honor. This is telling you that your message She was the president, but then, as now, she end, and, in many cases, bonding with them, is getting through, and they need to discredit didn’t seem to want to be the center of atten- Psaki realized, “That’s never going to be you to their public.’” (Putin kept it up after tion. “She’s an under-the-radar leader,” her comfortable to me.” Instead, she developed his meeting with Biden in Geneva in June, college roommate, Ally Wagner, tells me. a more personable rapport—charming her saying that while the American president is Psaki quit the college swim team after two interlocutors with little jokes, asking about “collected,” “his press secretary is a young, years but stayed “crazy athletic,” Wagner their hometowns and families. She’s not a educated, beautiful woman who’s always says. Katie McCormick Lelyveld, who got pushover, though. At one point, she tells mixing things up.”) to know Psaki early in her career, describes me that she hates when people describe her her as “a deeply devoted friend,” and despite as “nice.” “It is like nails on a chalkboard,” Psaki’s State Department years turned out her work ethic, “she knows how to relax and she says. “And it still happens. I was intro- to be good preparation for the current polit- laugh, and she likes a dance party.” As for duced to a foreign delegation in the hallway ical environment. One lesson: Propaganda the music, “she’s a Top 40 girl,” McCormick the other day as ‘This is Jen. You may have is not personal. You just have to “be a big Lelyveld says. But not current stuff. “The seen her do the briefings. She’s a really nice girl,” she says, recognize the strategic objec- music that was popular during her 20s and person.’ I’m like, Really? You can’t think of a tives behind it, and address misinformation 30s.” She mentions the CD compilations better description?” The word is sexist and a head-on. “By the end of my time at State, Now That’s What I Call Music. little diminishing, but, she says, “it’s also this I started to have fun with it,” she recalls. desire to put people in a box. Yes, sometimes She would mock the rumors herself and Psaki ended up in politics at the age of I’m friendly and joyful, and sometimes I’m tease the RT reporters when they needled 23, after “an early quarter-life crisis” led tough, and sometimes I’m straightforward.” her during press briefings. to a job as a door-knocker with the Iowa After shadowing Psaki for a bit, I start to Democratic Party. She liked the feeling of think that her real gift is her ability to be sev- At 11:30 a.m., Emily Horne, the spokes- being part of something bigger than herself. eral of these things at the same time. Many person for the National Security Council, But, mostly, she liked the people. “The kinds of her cheerful quips are actually ways of arrives to brief Psaki on foreign-policy of people you meet on political campaigns shutting down a line of questioning. When issues. They make a high-speed tour of cri- are some of the best human beings,” she tells there’s information the administration is ses and threats in every corner of the world, me. “They’re survivors, and they’re spunky, not ready to share yet, she’ll respond with landing on Iran. “Another one for you,” and they have personalities, and they spend a chipper “Stay tuned!” or “Buckle up!” Or Horne says. “Brian Bennett of Time might months sleeping on couches and living on, she’ll brush aside questions about tense deal- be asking about Iranian disinformation whatever, pizza and coffee and bad beer.” making by chirping, “Democracy in action!” campaigns.” In foreign-policy circles, these would be called “malign cyber-information Psaki joined the Obama campaign before Psaki was up for the press-secretary role operations,” but Horne says, “I’m really the 2008 Democratic primaries, after work- twice during the Obama administration, working hard to not say malign anymore. ing at the DCCC, where she met her hus- losing out first to Jay Carney and then to I want that word out of my vocabulary.” band, Gregory Mecher, now a Democratic Josh Earnest. The second time around, “I This is a Biden directive. Along with tone, political aide. That had been a high-intensity was devastated,” she told Axelrod on his Psaki explains, the president is focused on experience, but a presidential campaign is podcast. “But that’s also a good life expe- eliminating bureaucratic jargon that might something else. She was assigned to manage rience for you.” During the Obama years, confuse or alienate the public. She recalls the “press bus”—the giant caravan of report- she became a mother and worked as White briefing him on COVID-relief checks. “He ers trailing the superstar candidate across House communications director, which left said, ‘How are you explaining how peo- the country. The assignment was supposed her even more prepared: “I’ve also been ple are going to get these checks if they to be one month long, but it turned into six. through legislative battles. I’ve been through don’t file taxes?’ I said, ‘Well, if you are a When she called back to headquarters, she global crises. I’ve been through, unfortunate- non-filer—’” Biden interrupted her. “He’s says, “they’d tell me, ‘Just stay on the bus. ly, many mass shootings...there’s little that’s like, ‘Non-filer? Nobody knows what that is. Keep going.’” (She and Mecher had to do going to unbalance me.” That’s not how anybody speaks.’” the long-distance thing.) Axelrod says that Psaki’s unflappability made her indispens- As spokesperson for the State Department, Minutes before the day’s briefing, Psa- able. “Things happen on the road. You’re she had the character-building experience of ki pulls a blow-dryer from under her desk faced with a shitload of reporters, and all of becoming a subject of Russian propaganda. and straightens her hair, then does her them have different stories they’re working In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine, and Psaki makeup while looking into a wall mirror. on and problems and needs. When she went became the voice of the U.S. as it condemned The Trump administration had a hair-and- out on the road, things would go smoothly. the invasion. RT, the Russian state-funded makeup person on the payroll, but Psaki is She’d handle it. She’d manage what needed news network, launched a campaign to cast a one-woman operation. She owes much to be managed. That’s an incredibly import- her as an airhead, publishing a list of what of her current regimen—black eyeliner, ant quality in this business.” it called “Jen Psaki’s Most Embarrassing simple lipstick—to a CNN makeup artist Fails.” There were T-shirts printed with Psa- who has texted her tips. (Psaki has worked Obama-world was famously harsh with ki’s face, and conspiracy theories about a as a commentator for the network.) When the press. “Some people have this mistaken rumored pregnancy. Some of the criticism it comes to her wardrobe, Psaki has a few belief that it was warm and cozy,”Baker tells long-standing preferences—bright colors, 341

chunky necklaces—but she’s open to sugges- role for around a year, although she tells One of Tsitsipas’s goals for 2021 was to tions. “I have friends who know a lot more me, “I’m not walking out the door on day win a Masters 1000 tournament, which about fashion than I do who will text me 365.” She has many reasons for not linger- he did in April in Monte Carlo (where he and be like, ‘This dress would look great on ing. “One, life.” She points to the kids. “All now lives), becoming the first Greek ever you.’ Or ‘I’m going to drop off some dresses these guys get bigger, and you don’t want to do so. Then he triumphed again in May, I’m not wearing anymore,’” she says. She’s to miss things. Two, I’ve done it before. Not winning easily at Lyon. Prior to his run at not changing the straight red bob, though. this job but versions of it. And three, you’ve the French, Tsitsipas had made a habit of “I couldn’t operate a curling iron to save met members of my team. These are really coming up short in Grand Slams: a late- my life,” she says. She opens a desk drawer incredible people.” She wants to lift them round exit here, a semifinal there. But his full of barrettes, sent to the White House by up. “And also I love my husband, and he’s focused performance in Paris, culminating older ladies who are apparently horrified amazing, and I still want him to be married in a thrilling five-set final in which he lost, to see her brushing her hair out of her face to me when I leave this place.” just barely, to Novak Djokovic, put an end on television. to the tutting of sideline second-guessers, The first year of an administration is an while winning Tsitsipas a legion of new sup- As she does her makeup, Psaki reflects, exciting time, Psaki says. “There’s just so porters. (His first-round exit at Wimbledon “On your best days, you think through the much possibility.” When asked about her in June was, alas, a disappointment for the things that you want to proactively com- goals, she talks about her hopes for the White growing fan club.) “My goal for this year municate.” She runs down the list: multiple House communications apparatus. She’d is to finish the season with a lot of wins,” paths forward on infrastructure. Positive jobs love to modernize the press briefings and he told me before Roland Garros. “I don’t report. A shipment of vaccines on its way to find ways to reach a wider swath of the pub- know whether that’s 50, 60, or 70. I don’t South Korea. In the end, the moments from lic. As she discusses these things, I can’t help care how many, but I want to be at the top the briefing that go viral aren’t topics that thinking of larger goals and of the question of the Most Wins leader of the year.” When she prepped—they’re what Psaki would call that seems to be hovering over the entire we spoke, he was at 33, having earned more “wrestling with alligators.”She’s asked about Biden presidency. To succeed, the president than $1.5 million in prize money. Facebook’s decision to suspend President must maneuver his agenda through an evenly Trump until 2023. (Psaki: “It feels pretty divided Congress and a faltering political Last year, at a post-match press confer- unlikely that the zebra is going to change his system. What if he can’t pull it off ? The ence, Tstisipas admitted that he “sometimes stripes over the next two years. We’ll see.”) administration’s communication strategy, feels like my parents are too involved in my And she has an amusing exchange with Fox’s like its electoral strategy, is based on the idea life.” Then, at his next press conference, his Doocy over his network’s current obsession, that results speak louder than words. But mom showed up and playfully lobbed a Dr. Anthony Fauci’s newly released emails. what if those results never come to pass? question from the back row (“Hi, Stef; now Doocy asks of Fauci, “Can you imagine any I’m following you to the press conference to circumstance where President Biden would When I ask Psaki about this, she mentions make sure I’m aware how you feel”). As Tsit- ever fire him?”Psaki replies with a curt “No.” a photograph in her office—the one of her sipas’s game evolves, he is also evolving into Twitter lights up: #PsakiBomb. standing in a crowd of smiling Democrats: his own person, trying on hobbies and hab- President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Susan its to find out what suits. “I’m a grown-up That night, Psaki leaves the White House Rice. It was taken on the night before the now,” he says of his emerging independence. a few hours earlier than usual and drives 2016 election. “All of us were so happy,” she “I’m not a boy anymore. When I turned 21, home for pizza night, a weekly ritual with says. They thought they were on the thresh- I felt like, you know, things have changed.” her family and her middle sister, Stepha- old of a Hillary Clinton administration. With some help from his girlfriend, The- nie, a senior adviser at the Department of “We’re like, ‘It’s going to be amazing.’” It’s a odora Petalas, an NYU graduate with a Health and Human Services. Stephanie is tragic image, but Psaki keeps it in her office. degree in project management, he even has married to Adam Frankel, a former Obama “Because it’s a reminder of how things can some new outfits. “My wardrobe was quite speechwriter, and their two children are the change.” She can’t give us any guarantees weak, and I didn’t have a game there,” he same ages as Psaki’s. The families formed about how things will work out. No one can. says. “I wanted to start dressing up a bit, a bubble during the pandemic, and Psaki It’s the kind of thing that veterans like Psaki so we tried to create an identity.” The look: has said their weekly pizza nights have been understand. She goes on, “There are times “earthy colors,” nothing too flashy; refined psychological ballast, helping her to manage where you have to be on the journey and but youthful. “I started investing more in the time she spends away from home. recognize that sometimes you don’t know fashion, and I’ve seen that transition kind what the end is going to be, right? Maybe of benefit me a lot and make me feel better It’s a cozy suburban house, set against about myself,” Tsitsipas says. Onward, then, a hill, with blue hydrangeas in the back- it’s going to be great. And maybe it’s not.” @ to wherever his curiosity takes him. “Things yard. Inside, the decor is spare. Ally Wagner, seem to be working my way,” he says. “If I Psaki’s college roommate, claims that she MR. PERSONALITY keep putting in the same amount of work was messy in her youth. “I changed,” Psaki and if I stay persistent, I feel it can lead to says. “Now I’m a clean freak.” Stephanie is CONTINUED FROM PAGE 309 making margaritas at a juicer, while Mecher, a really nice place I haven’t been before.” @ Psaki’s husband, takes a frozen pizza out of “I never drink,” Tsitsipas begins, grinning. the oven. Raya and the Last Dragon plays “But during my preseason, things kind of CURTAIN UP on a flat-screen TV. The children are stam- went out of control.” There was Peruvian peding over the hardwood floors. Psaki’s food, along with some Moscow Mules and CONTINUED FROM PAGE 331 three-year-old son, Matthew, jumps into Cosmopolitans (“not a very manly drink, her arms. “Hi, bubs!” she says, picking him but I enjoy it”). “That was probably the first a cruelly disproportionate toll on commu- up and snuggling him. Psaki has long said time I experienced being drunk,” Tsitsipas nities of color, shining a harsh light on the that she plans to stay in the press-secretary says before adding, “I have a saying that racism tightly woven into the fabric of our I really believe, and that doesn’t translate society. And just three weeks later, George only into my tennis, which is to go after Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis sparked every single day.” 342 SEPTEMBER 2021 VOGUE.COM

worldwide outrage and a broad reckoning. In this month after a short run this summer at The revival that I’m most looking for- early June, a wide-ranging group of BIPOC BAM, feels equally—ferociously—vital and ward to, though, is Michael Longhurst’s theater makers published a letter titled “Dear shouldn’t be missed.) production of Caroline, or Change, Tony White American Theater,” calling out the Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s exquisite discriminatory practices of its institutions Thoughts of a Colored Man owes its DNA chamber musical about a Black maid to and demanding a transformation of what in part to for colored girls who have consid- a white Jewish family in 1960s Louisiana. theater looks like. It seems fitting, then, that ered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf. The Opening in October at Studio 54, this will Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind, her 1955 choreographer and director of the new be the first Broadway revival of a show that drama about racism in the American theater, production, Camille A. Brown, will also has grown in stature since its short original will make its Broadway debut this fall, as will become the first Black woman to direct a run in 2003. It features a widely heralded Second Stage’s production of the great Lynn production on the mainstage of the Met- performance by Sharon D Clarke, who won Nottage’s new play, Clyde’s. ropolitan Opera, where this season she is the Olivier for it and now seems likely to directing Fire Shut Up in My Bones. “I’m earn the award’s U.S. counterpart. “The Whether evidence of a fundamental shift sometimes shocked that Black people are small story of Caroline and her change, or just the vagaries of show business, it’s still experiencing ‘firsts,’” she says, “and I’d within the bigger change in the world and also heartening that Broadway’s new sea- like that to change.” the burgeoning civil rights movement, feels son opens with three works by Black play- so relevant,” she says. wrights: Pass Over, Antoinette Chinonye Between staging pieces for her eponymous Nwandu’s modern-day, urban riff on Wait- company, choreographing such Broadway Of course, before Clarke or anyone else ing for Godot; Lackawanna Blues, the direc- shows as Choir Boy, and engaging in com- can be nominated for a Tony this season, tor and actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s munity work through her Every Body Move there’s the little matter of handing out the autobiographical one-man play; and Keenan initiative, Brown has established herself as awards for the truncated 2019–2020 season. Scott II’s Thoughts of a Colored Man. one of the most exciting, creative, and suc- After a long delay, the ceremony, originally cessful figures in the world of dance today. scheduled for June 7, 2020, is finally taking “I feel honored to be at the forefront of a In the fall of 2019, she choreographed a place on September 26. Special Tony Awards change that I think Broadway’s about to see,” production of for colored girls at the Public this year will go to the hip-hop improv show Scott says. The characters in Thoughts—the Theater that drew on a stylistically wide Freestyle Love Supreme and David Byrne’s terrific cast includes Dyllón Burnside (Pose), range of movement to bring the many facets American Utopia, both of which are slated Da’Vinchi (All American), and the veteran of Black female identity to vivid life. For to return this fall and offer powerful shots character actor Keith David (you’ve seen him this production, Brown, who grew up in of theatrical bliss. in a million things)—chart a course through Queens, plans to continue to mine the same a gentrifying neighborhood and a society influences and push them further. “In this Uncharacteristically, I probably won’t that sees them via a narrow and distorted play,” she says, “the dance and the words be watching the Tony Awards this month, lens, struggling with racial and sexual iden- are one—they’re living and working inside because I’ll have my eye on a new fall pro- tity and ultimately transcending the labels each other.” Though Brown will be building duction of my own: On September 20 or so, they’ve been given. (Each character goes by off of Shange’s script, she sees plenty of my wife, Katie, is due to give birth to our an allegorical name: Love, Lust, Wisdom, room to make it her own: “I plan to bring first child—a girl!—and I am becoming, at et cetera.) “Too often, Black men are por- in as much of the Black-girl experience as an un-boyish age, a father. Unless the apple trayed as monoliths, based on stereotypes possible. So that’s everything from double falls far from the tree, we will also be bring- and tropes—the superathlete or the super- Dutch to more formal modern dance. I’m ing into the world a member of the next criminal,”Scott says. “With these seven men, 41, so I have 41 years of gestural informa- generation of theatergoers. I hope that the I wanted to show the spectrum of Black male tion, emotion, storytelling, and life lived that theater she sees in the years ahead is more existence. I wanted to show each of them, I can put into this work.” inclusive, representing a wider spectrum of and all of us, in our totality.” voices and cultures and viewpoints, and I For colored girls is not the only tantalizing hope that the audiences that she’s part of Born in Queens, Scott started entering musical revival coming to town in the months are younger and less white, that they’re there poetry slams when he was 15 and, till recent- ahead. Among them, Hugh Jackman’s return because tickets are affordable and they see ly, considered himself more of a poet than to the boards opposite Sutton Foster in The theater as a vital art form rather than a relic a playwright. Not surprisingly, naturalistic Music Man has the kind of old-fashioned, of the past. I also wouldn’t mind if she got dialogue in his play often takes on the rhythm big-ticket appeal that promises to bring joy to to see an old-fashioned Broadway block- and diction of spoken verse, and music, song, the land. And it wouldn’t be a theater season buster or two, followed by dinner together and dance give the proceedings a heightened without at least one Sondheim revival. This at Joe Allen or Bar Centrale. Most of all, reality. Scott says that he’s trying to create a time around we get two. There is Marianne I hope that, in an increasingly atomized new theatrical form that blends traditional Elliott’s smashing, gender-reversed produc- age, she continues to appreciate the sin- Western dramatic structure with storytelling tion of Company, a 2019 Olivier winner in gular pleasure of a communal experience. rooted in African folklore and the language London that was set to open on Broadway Life, as it turns out, still goes on, and, for of poetry. And while he wrote the play long before the pandemic. And off Broadway, as long as it does, there will always be new before COVID, he feels that it speaks to Classic Stage Company is reviving Sond- sets of eyes side by side in the dark watching where we are in its aftermath. “I can’t wait heim and John Weidman’s dark 1990 mas- for the day when some of the problems I terpiece Assassins, directed by John Doyle it unfold onstage. @ depict in this play seem out of date,” he says. and featuring a superb ensemble cast. After “But what the pandemic has shown me is January 6, Sondheim’s all-American look TURN UP THE VOLUME that my work is urgent and the stories of at how disgruntled citizens turn personal these men need to be told now.” (Aleshea grievance, racial animus, and a sense of CONTINUED FROM PAGE 334 Harris’s What to Send Up When It Goes alienation into acts of political violence Down, which opens at Playwrights Horizons seems likely to be more chilling than ever. now.” Following a meticulous restoration that involved researching and using authen- tic 1950s paint, and adding a Sleeping 343

Beauty–like layer of patina—replete with proportioned 1950s evening gowns. Gvasalia found that “Cristóbal’s work is difficult to flaking plaster and trompe l’oeil water describes his research as “Cristóbal’s master do something different with because it was damage—the reborn space was used to class. It was really important to spend some already so good.” The iconic silk gazar present Gvasalia’s debut collection. “It’s time with the actual pieces and the proto- wedding dress from his spring 1967 col- a tiny, tiny place,” he says, laughing. “After types and the sketchbooks and the notes lection, for instance, presented a thesis in all these huge [pre-pandemic] shows, I have and personal things that belonged to him to reduction—and a case in point. (“Balencia- the smallest backstage I’ve ever had—but understand the way he saw the relationship ga gives cloth a purity and calm nothing can couture is such an exclusive thing, [and] that between the body and the dress. Then when disturb,” wrote Vogue to accompany David makes it really special.” you go into the prototype mode, it is much Bailey’s photograph of the original piece.) easier to…I wouldn’t say to channel…but to “We tried to do different things with it,” Gvasalia has been inspired by the house’s get into the mindset that he had.” Gvasalia says, before conceding that “after extensive archives since he first arrived: Wit- three trials, I had to go back to the original ness his fall 2016 debut, with its molded-hip For his couture debut, however, Gvasalia because there was no way to do it better— suits and dramatic off-the-shoulder neck- says that rather than pay homage, he want- let’s just accept that it’s already so modern line treatments employed on parkas and ed “to get inspired by things I saw in the and so minimal and so ingenious and enjoy puffers; or fall 2017, with its reimagining archives, but to reinterpret them, make doing it in a modern fabric!” of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s sensationally them more modern”—though he sometimes In This Issue 250–251: Dress, MORE IS MORE! belt ($2,025). Pants, price price upon request; 266–267: On Akech: Jacket upon request. Hannah Table of contents: 69: ($1,980), pants ($720), and christopherjohnrogers ($4,250) and long johns Martin earring ($1,864) Dress, $15,000; tomo- belt ($250); marni.com. .com. Sandals, $1,200; ($2,650). Boots, $1,575; and bangle ($8,698); koizumi.com. Headband Carmina Shoemaker boots, nordstrom.com. Thom r13.com. On Hadid: Jacket, hannahmartinlondon.com. ($220) and earrings ($58); $495; carminashoemaker Browne bag, $16,000; $2,875. Pair of Thieves Chopard bracelet, $10,100; joomilim.com. Necklace .com.Tailor, Lucy Falck. (212) 633-1197. Ralph socks, $13 for pack of 3 chopard.com. Repossi ($2,290) and rings ($990 Bright Future: 170: Dress, Lauren Collection bag, pairs; pairofthieves.com. bracelets, $7,050–$21,000; for set). Necklace at $2,450; givenchy.com. $2,200; ralphlauren Boots, $1,275; r13.com. saksfifthavenue.com. Tilly givenchy.com. 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Behind-the-scene Brother Vellies, $685; .com. 260–261: On Shi: Wood earring, $588 for pair; ($1,890), silver pavé shots, photographed brothervellies.com. Close to Blazer ($1,680) and tomwoodproject.com. bangle ($790), belt by Hunter Abrams. Home: 204: Bracelet and skirt ($980); nordstrom On Fischer: Coat ($7,800) ($1,590),and boots ($990). Editor’s Letter: 118: rings, priced upon request. .com. Earrings, price upon and shorts ($3,890). Hannah Martin rings On Hodge: Waistcoat and request; shoprodarte On Palmer: Clyde leather ($3,476–$12,374) and pants, $2,745 for suit; ALL IN A DAY’S WERK .com. Necklace, $945; head scarf, $164; clyde. bangles ($8,698–$24,716); dolcegabbana.com. 248–249: On Nicholson: ben-amun.com. 264–265: world. Bag, $2,175; hermes hannahmartinlondon.com. Shirt, $735; tomford.com. Dress, $4,100; rickowens Dress, price upon request; .com. 276: Jacket, $5,900. Tilly Sveaas bangle, $348; On Elson: Dress, price .eu. On Noel: Blouse puppetsandpuppets.com 277: Coat (price upon tillysveaas.co.uk. Tom upon request; celine.com. ($378) and pants ($358); for information. Boots, request), pants ($2,900), Wood rings, $745–$765; Gianvito Rossi shoes. fenoel.com.Also at $1,750; (212) 861-5371. belt ($1,150), and boots tomwoodproject.com. On Vodianova: Jacket blackownedeverything.co. In this story: Tailors, ($1,100). Beret, $598; On Palmer: Jacket, price Zunyda, Lucy Falck. harvysantos.com. Romanin upon request. Beret, $295. Behind-the-scene earrings, $180; romanin Hannah Martin earring, shots, photographed by .com. 278: On Attal: $484; hannahmartinlondon Hunter Abrams. Waistcoat ($12,700) and .com. 284: Dress, $2,900. 344 SEPTEMBER 2021 VOGUE.COM

In turn, Gvasalia has grafted Cristóbal that collaborated with Balenciaga himself— Russia, we say, ‘Appetite comes with dinner’! Balenciaga’s ideas onto his own aesthetic to including on a coat fluttering with Maison It has a very different price tag, of course,” present an haute couture that embraces ele- Lemarié’s silk-shantung “feathers,” evoking he adds, “but when you touch it, when you vated sportswear elements—a shocking-pink Cristóbal’s slim-skirted cocktail dress from put it on, something changes. Some of my parka morphing into an opera coat, an fall 1950—and fitting the samples to the models never wore couture before, and it elaborately embroidered ball gown worn exact bodies of his chosen models. changed their posture. These clothes make over cigarette-leg pants, a black faille bal- you feel very special.” macaan treated as a man’s puffer coat—to This casting now includes men. Original- present his own vision of modern elegance. ly the collection was made only for wom- As he relishes that luxury of time that the Thankfully, the couture has allowed Gvasalia en, and, as Gvasalia recalls, “I felt kind of couture has afforded—and as he contin- to relish what he calls “this sacred luxury jealous.” Also, “it made no sense to gen- ues to reel from what he calls the “jet lag” of time”: The strident blue dye of a satin der-identify only with women, as couture of all the seasonal drops he produces for faille opera coat took three months to per- always has traditionally. We have male cus- Balenciaga—Gvasalia will, however, present fect, while some tailored pieces have been tomers who spend so much money on ready- only one couture collection each year. “For six months in development. He’s also been to-wear—I think they will have the desire me, it’s the cherry on the top,” he says. “I’m working with the original embroidery houses to own one or two pieces. It’s a new conver- the happiest designer when I have my cou- sation with a client who isn’t used to it—in ture days—it’s like Christmas every time.” @ A WORD ABOUT DISCOUNTERS WHILE VOGUE THOROUGHLY RESEARCHES THE COMPANIES Leggings; similar styles On Palmer: Dress and EARTHLY DELIGHTS pants, $1,150; balenciaga ($570) and pants ($655); MENTIONED IN ITS PAGES, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THE AUTHENTICITY OF MERCHANDISE SOLD at pe-nation.com. Bag, beret; priced upon 310–311: Jacket and skirt, .com. Kangol beret, $56; walesbonner.net. Superga BY DISCOUNTERS. AS IS ALWAYS THE CASE IN PURCHASING AN ITEM FROM ANYWHERE OTHER $6,700; gucci.com.Junya request. 290: Hat, $550; priced upon request; (800) kangol.com.The Frye sneakers, $65; superga THAN THE AUTHORIZED STORE, THE BUYER TAKES A RISK AND SHOULD USE CAUTION WHEN DOING SO. Watanabe Comme des doverstreetmarket.com. 929-DIOR. 312–313: Company shoes, $328; .com. In this story: Tailor, Garçons boots, $1,035; 291: Knit dress, $2,559. Boots, $105; hunterboots thefryecompany.com. On Lars Nordensten. doverstreetmarket.com. Maison Margiela beret, .com. 314–315: Coat Da’Vinchi: Jacket, $3,190; 285: Dress, similar styles price upon request; ($3,800) and dress burberry.com. Balenciaga TURN UP THE VOLUME at etro.com. La Fetiche maisonmargiela.com. ($5,900). 316–317: On tank top, $395; balenciaga 332: Balenciaga Couture scarf worn as headwrap, Junya Watanabe Comme Elson: Tights ($510). Boots, .com. Hermès pants, $980; tights and shoes. In $250; lafetiche.com. Loewe des Garçons boots, $1,035; $495; carminashoemaker hermes.com.Amiri shoes, this story: Manicurist, sterling silver cuff, $1,900; doverstreetmarket.com. .com. On Vodianova: Dress $650; Amiri, Beverly Hills. Marie Rosa. loewe.com.Tiffany & Co. In this story: Manicurist, ($4,250), slip ($2,480), On Scott: Cardigan Elsa Peretti red bangles, Yuko Tsuchihashi.Tailor, and tights ($570). 318– ($1,400) and shirt ($800); INDEX $550 each; tiffany.com. Hailey Desjardins. 319: On Hodge: Waistcoat gucci.com.J.Crew pants, 336–337: 2. Scarf, price Jennifer Fisher bangle, and pants, $2,745 for $80; jcrew.com. Converse upon request. 8. Watch, $995; jenniferfisherjewelry SPEAKING THE suit; dolcegabbana.com. Chuck Taylor All Star $2,730; cartier.com. .com. Bottega Veneta SAME LANGUAGE Shirt, $735; tomford sneakers, $60; converse 14. Shoulder bag, $3,250. bracelets, $2,600–$3,150; 293: Long johns and gloves, .com. On Vodianova: .com. Burberry trench 15. Ring, $13,050. bottegaveneta.com. Junya priced upon request. Dress, $2,835. Carmina coat, $2,250; burberry Watanabe Comme des 294: Coat ($6,100), skirt Shoemaker boots, $495; .com. On David: Suit, $199; LAST LOOKS Garçons boots, $1,035; ($1,890), and bag (price carminashoemaker.com. josabank.com. Club 348: Bag, $5,500; similar doverstreetmarket.com. upon request). 295: Blue 320–321: Jacket, $2,650. Monaco shirt, $80; styles at Marni, Los Angeles. 286: Dress, $5,980. Scarf, cardigan ($1,430), pink Falke socks, $30; falke clubmonaco.com. Prada 350: Watch, $18,700; $215; walesbonner.net. cardigan (price upon .com. Shoes, $1,535; John tie, $250; prada.com.Allen hermes.com. 351: Bag, Junya Watanabe Comme request), stole ($1,750), Lobb, NYC. 322–323: On Edmonds shoes, $395; $2,690; chloe.com. des Garçons boots, $1,035; and headband (price upon Vodianova: Coat ($3,400) allenedmonds.com. On 354: Boot; vuitton.com. doverstreetmarket.com. request). 296: Coat, and dress $2,450), priced James: Jacket, $2,690; ysl 355: Necklace,price upon 287: Jacket, $12,000. Gipsy $4,250. 298: Coat upon request. On Elson: .com. Burberry pants, request; tiffany.com. tights, $8; gipsytights.com. ($9,500) and turtleneck Dress, $3,690. Carmina $1,050; burberry.com. 358: Hat; ilovelibertine.com. Boots, $1,136; mnzstore ($1,150). 299: Coat Shoemaker boots, $495; Nike sneakers, $90; nike HighJewelry brooches .com. 288–289: On Palmer: ($13,500), turtleneck carminashoemaker.com. In .com. On McClendon: by Bvlgari,priced upon Jacket ($4,650), dress ($1,150), pants ($1,430), this story: Tailor, Lucy Falck. Jacket ($2,750), shirt request; (800) BVLGARI (price upon request), cap and gloves ($950). 301: ($620), and pants ($920); for information. 359: Glove; ($455), and boots ($1,400 Coat ($4,100), polo (price CURTAIN UP gabrielahearst.com. John prada.com. 362: Earrings, for similar style). Earring, upon request), turtleneck 327: Dress, $3,090; Lobb shoes, $1,535; price upon request; $11,600 for pair; cartier ($1,150), gloves ($1,590), balenciaga.com. Shoes, johnlobb.com. On Wilds: vancleefarpels.com. .com. On Baiboon: Dress, bag (price upon request), $790; therow.com. Trench coat, price upon 363: Coat ($7,145) and hat; beret, necklace, and boots, and boots (price upon 330–331: On Clark: Jacket, request; amiri.com. Gap dolcegabbana.com.364: ysl priced upon request. request). In this story: $845; schottnyc.com. T-shirt, $20; gap.com. Dior .com.368: Boots; gucci.com. Flowers pinned on dress Manicurist,Ama Quashie. Hermès sweater, $1,250; pants, $2,500; dior.com. from VV Rouleaux, London. Tailor,Audra Budvytiene. hermes.com. Balenciaga On Burnside: Cardigan ALL PRICES APPROXIMATE VOGUE IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT © 2021 CONDÉ NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. VOLUME 211, NO. 9. VOGUE (ISSN 0042-8000) publishes monthly, except combined issues that count as two, as indicated on the issue cover, by Condé Nast, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. Roger Lynch, Chief Executive Officer; Pamela Drucker Mann, Global Chief Revenue Officer & President, U.S. Revenue; Jackie Marks, Chief Financial Officer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40644503. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 123242885-RT0001. 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THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, ART WORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND ORIGINALS, UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO DO SO BY VOGUE IN WRITING. MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND OTHER MATERIALS SUBMITTED MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE. 345





Last Look Calling the Shots Three up-and-coming photographers, selected in collaboration with PHOTOVOGUE—Vogue Italia’s platform for spotlighting international talent—capture the season’s most-wanted accessories. Marni bag SET DESIGN, PEYTON FULFORD. Bits and bobs and odds and ends add a dash of charm to this top-handle, brushed-calf-leather bag. There’s a tiny mushroom for a psychedelic, down-Alice’s- rabbit-hole flair—along with some cutlery and a set of keys, because why not? PHOTOGRAPHED BY PEYTON FULFORD 348 SEPTEMBER 2021 VOGUE.COM