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August 2021 14 needs now. By Editor’s Letter Jonathan Van Meter DREAM ON MODEL ANOK YAI WEARS A LOUIS VUITTON X FORNASETTI DRESS. 20 54 FAS HIO N E DITOR: AL EX H ARRIN GTON. HAIR, C HRISTIAN E BE RHARD; MAKEUP, C ÉCILE PARAVI NA. Contributors This Woman’s Work PRODUCED BY KITTEN PRODUCTION; SET DESIGN, IBBY NJOYA.DETAILS, SEE IN THIS ISSUE. PHOTOGRAPHED BY THÉO DE GUELTZL. Rachel Donadio 22 on Gabriela Hearst’s 12 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M Bright Idea arrival at Chloé The joys of bold eye color 62 On Their Games 24 Robert Sullivan Island in the Sun spotlights three A new park opens Olympic standouts on the Hudson River 70 30 Scene Stealer Take Me Higher Alexandra Marshall In three new shows, on Lupin star Omar Sy characters seek a secular salvation 72 The New Bags 34 Plucky (and perfectly Ground Support useful) accessories Beauty’s latest It ingredient 84 Outer Limits 36 This fall, jackets have The Myth and the been reinvented and Magic reimagined Louis Vuitton meets the whimsy of 86 Piero Fornasetti Make It Work Chioma Nnadi 38 on returning Some Like It Hot to officewear August’s best books lead with love 90 Give Me the Night 40 Glittering fashion Dinner on Demand that pulls no punches An elegant entertaining trend 92 Rising to the 42 Occasion Moon Shot Chloe Malle on The beauty platform dressing up to go out elevating BIPOC founders 98 Index 46 Good style meets The Doctor Is In good works Dr.Jill Biden is the First Lady that America 104 Last Look Cover Look Country Strong First Lady Jill Biden wears an Oscar de la Renta dress and Tiffany & Co. earrings. Hair, Sally Hershberger; makeup, Francelle Daly. Details, see In This Issue. Photographer: Annie Leibovitz. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman.



Letter From theEditor NEW DIRECTIONS CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN AND DR. JILL BIDEN IN 2017; GABRIELA HEARST (WEARING CHLOÉ), PHOTOGRAPHED BY THÉO DE GUELTZL; OMAR SY (WEARING A LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S COAT), PHOTOGRAPHED BY JONAS UNGER. Meeting the Moment HOW INCREDIBLE TO THINK THAT President a joy to have her (photographed brilliantly by Annie HE ARST: FAS HION E DITO R: CAMILL A NIC KE RSO N . HAIR, ODILE G ILBE RT; MAK EU P, TO M PECH EUX. PRODUCE D BY Biden’s Inauguration was only six months ago—it feels Leibovitz) on our cover. STE PH ANIE O’CONN O R. SY: FAS HIO N E DITO R: MIC H AEL PHILOUZE . HAIR, JAYR ; MAKEUP, ANG LO MA. like a different century. The American vaccine effort has PRO DUC ED BY KITTE N PRODUCTION . THE B IDE N S: AN NIE LE I BOVI TZ. VANI TY FAIR, 2017. D E TAILS, S EE IN T HIS I SSU E. proceeded with such speed that we’re headed into a summer Just as in touch with our time is the designer Gabriela of relative normality (I wish this were so around the Hearst, who has taken over the reins at Chloé and world). Economic stimulus is also coming, as well as aid to is transforming the venerable Paris fashion house into families and investment in infrastructure. It’s fashionable a leader in sustainable design. In Rachel Donadio’s to say President Biden is boring. But I would call the pace profile, Hearst comes across as earthbound and artifice- of change under his administration electrifying. free, someone who isn’t interested in waiting around for change. Similarly restless is the brilliant French actor One key member of that administration is Dr. Jill Biden, Omar Sy, who burst onto our small screens in Netflix’s whom Jonathan Van Meter profiles for us this month— breakout smash Lupin and whose performances have his third time writing about her for Vogue. “A joy multiplier,” already made waves in French cinema. I was charmed— he calls the first lady, and her infectious, unpretentious if not surprised—to find out that Sy regularly tops appeal is evident throughout Jonathan’s wonderful profile. most-popular lists in France. A scene-stealer par excellence. Equally obvious, though, is how hard she’s working. Jonathan traveled with her for a month of reporting, and it seemed that he was in a different state every day— Alabama, Illinois, Arizona, New Mexico. He could hardly keep up with the first lady, who has been tirelessly promoting President Biden’s agenda while continuing to teach over Zoom. (Incredibly, Dr. Biden has kept up her work as an English and writing professor.) It’s the first time in modern memory we’ve had a first lady with a day job. Which only goes to show how human she is, as teaching is something she clearly needs to do. If the Bidens are conducting a pomp-free presidency, it is one that seems suited to our moment. And Dr. Biden, in all her hardworking, roll-up-your-sleeves, no-nonsense appeal, is certainly the first lady that America needs now. It is 14 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M



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Contributors Théo de Gueltzl Jonathan Van Meter DE GU E LTZL : COURTESY O F THEO DE GU E LTZL; VAN ME TER: JASON SC H MI DT/TRU N K ARC HIVE. LE IBOV ITZ : K ATHRY N MAC LEO D. VANITY FAI R , 20 17. This month, along with shooting the model Where Van Meter’s prior profiles of Dr. Jill Biden, published in 2008 Anok Yai in some of the season’s wildest (but and 2019, described her life at home in Delaware, surrounded by most wearable) accessories (“The New Bags,” family, a rather different tack was required for this issue’s cover story, page 72), de Gueltzl captured Gabriela Hearst, “The Doctor Is In” (page 46). Van Meter’s reporting—which Chloé’s new creative director (“This Woman’s bade him from the Woodstock, New York, home that he shares with Work,” page 54). “We shared a lovely morning, his husband, Andy, and their “weird cat,” Timmy, to the nation’s very early, to catch the first light,” says the capital—found our first lady endlessly in motion. “It was all on photographer, who is based in Paris. “We met the road,” he says. “Jill was working really hard, helping to sell the around this weeping willow on the bank of American Rescue Plan, opening schools, visiting vaccination sites, the Seine.” They connected over their love for the and restarting Joining Forces,” an initiative she’d established with environment, which plays a major role in both Michelle Obama to support military families. The experience was a Hearst’s design sensibility and a long-simmering whirlwind—but some things were familiar. “She’s just always this joy project of de Gueltzl’s, examining “the multiplier. Wherever she goes, she’s a very, very cheerful, funny, easy relationships between humans and nature in person to be around,” Van Meter says. “That hasn’t changed at all.” ancient cultures and indigenous communities.” The day, de Gueltzl says, “was a great memory.” Annie Leibovitz When, last year, Vogue asked Leibovitz what her life looked like in lockdown, she shared a portrait of herself doing laundry. And now? “I still do the laundry sometimes,” she jokes. “The schedule is more of a hybrid. I don’t spend whole days in my pajamas. There are some days in the office, some days working from home, and then sometimes on location, like for the Biden shoot.” At the White House, where she shot the president and first lady for “The Doctor Is In,” a surreal scene reflected the complexities of the moment. “When I met Dr. Biden for a fitting and a location scout, the furniture in the historic first-floor rooms had been placed to the side to make space for a virtual summit of world leaders on climate,” Leibovitz says. “It was a high-tech event, with video monitors everywhere. Due to COVID, there were no visitors, and the White House was practically empty.” (The picture at left comes from a shoot in 2017, a rather simpler time.) But, like Van Meter, Leibovitz was beguiled by Dr. Jill Biden’s warmth and authenticity, even when describing the challenges of the job. “I know it is the first 100 days,” she told the photographer on her husband’s 96th in office, “but it already feels like 10 years.” 20 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M

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Bright Idea HAIR, JIMMY PAUL; MAKEUP, FARA H OMIDI. PRO DUC E D BY P REISS C REAT IVE . DE TAILS, SE E IN TH IS ISSU E . Change up your makeup bag—and your mindset— with bold strokes of eye color. I s it possible to will ourselves artist Fara Homidi, noting the somber subtle washes and transparent finishes into thinking optimistically state of makeup as the pandemic raged but what Homidi calls “impact make- with a little help from eye shad- on. Now, as we edge closer to a post- up,” like the layering effort of bright ow? From finely etched fluoro pandemic future, “everyone is asking canary creams and powder pigments flicks at Christian Dior to thick wings for color,” she continues—and not she applied to Hailey Bieber’s clean in striking pinks and blues at Versace, skin and bare lashes to telegraph a cer- the fall runways—and TikTok, that IT WAS ALL YELLOW tain sunniness. “It’s definitely a mood,” other arbiter of style—seem to sug- Hailey Bieber wears purposeful pigment she says of the effect, which inspires gest yes. “Last season it was all smoky and clean skin. Fashion Editor: Camilla a once-familiar feeling: happiness. eyes and black liner,” reveals makeup Nickerson. Photographed by Stefan Ruiz. —celia ellenberg 22 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M

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Island in the Sun After an almost decade-long gestation, Manhattan’s Little Island opened this spring—a new kind of green space for an evolving city. I n 2012, Hurricane Sandy rav- Diller offered a counterproposal: about a half-mile of winding paths, PRODUCED BY PREISS CREATIVE. aged Pier 54, an unassum- What if he just tore the whole thing stairs, boulder scrambles, a 700- ing strip on the West Side of down and started over? He gathered person amphitheater, and several Manhattan that jutted into theater directors Stephen Daldry, overlook points with glittering views. the Hudson River near 14th Street. George C. Wolfe, and the late Mike It undulates across 132 tulip-shaped Once a dock for transatlantic luxury Nichols to consider what a new public “pots” rising out of the water (some liners—the Lusitania departed from park that centered on the arts might as high as 62 feet); from below, their the pier before it met its untimely end look like. Nearly 10 years and $235 mil- concrete stems are connected to pre- and contributed to the start of World lion later (plus a combined contribu- cast piles rooted in the river’s bedrock. War I—it had become a venue for tion of $21 million from the City of outdoor events. But following Sandy, New York and the Hudson River Park Construction began, after several the pier was a ragged shadow of its Trust), Diller’s vision has been realized. years of negotiations (and a few legal former self and in grave need of reha- disputes), in 2016, overseen by both bilitation. The Hudson River Park Sprawled over 2.4 acres, Little Is- the English architecture firm Heath- Trust approached Barry Diller, who, land consists of a large central lawn, erwick Studio and the New York– with his wife, the designer and philan- based Mathews Nielsen Landscape thropist Diane von Furstenberg, had PIER TO PIER Architects. Nested in those pots is a been the single largest donor to the The “pots” of Little Island were inspired by kind of “maritime botanic garden,” neighboring High Line. the old wooden piles that once linked Piers says Signe Nielsen, a founding prin- 54 and 56. Photographed by Stefan Ruiz. cipal at MNLA. Collectively, >30 24 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M



the landscape features more in the amphitheater,” says Trish San- BLOOM TIME than 30 species of trees, 65 tini, Little Island’s executive director. “We have paid a lot of attention species of shrubs, nearly “To me, it felt like a space that had its to pollinators,” says landscape 300 varieties of grasses and arms wide open.” The hope is that in vines, and some 66,000 bulbs. both its visitorship and performers, designer Signe Nielsen. Nielsen’s sense of the park Little Island will reflect the diversity of crystallized a few years ago, the city. (Timed tickets are required to The timing of Little Is- after Diller had taken a walk enter the park after 12 p.m., but events land’s much-anticipated through Central Park. “He are mostly free or priced moderately.) opening this spring felt auspi- said, ‘Signe, I want this to be cious. After many long, dark a beautiful park where people months, the park was primed will feel comfortable and nat- for wandering, picnicking, ural and like they have places and generally rediscovering to socialize and meet,’ ” she the pleasures of serendipity— says. So she and her team one of the many casualties tried to draw that sensibility of our remote-everything out, in ways both big and small: The moment. “I always believed park’s color story, for instance, evolves that at some point the damned hor- throughout the year—from pastels rible thing would end,” Diller says in the spring to “hotter” tones in the of the pandemic’s traumas, “and summer and golds and beiges in the that when it ended, the enthusiasm fall. That sense of surprise permeates of the people who love New York the artistic programming for the park and who did not flee New York was as well. “You can lean on the rail from going to renew it.” Would it take a pathway and watch what’s happening a while? Maybe—but the wait would be well worth it.—marley marius Take Me Higher In three new shows, characters seek a secular salvation. A decade ago, with Enlightened, Mike White dis- SYNC OR SWIM TOP: PHOTOGRAPHED BY STEFAN RUIZ. PRODUCED BY PREISS CREATIVE. BOTTOM: MARIO PEREZ/HBO. cerned that the path to transcendence is often from left: Sydney Sweeney, Brittany O’Grady, and Alexandra paved with materialistic diversions. In his new series, The White Lotus (HBO), a literal boat- Daddario in The White Lotus. load of drifting souls are grasping for a more grounded tether to their very glossy lives as they sail toward a luxury satire, The Chair is neither condemnatory nor celebratory, Hawaiian resort. Even in paradise, these guests—played by but rather a sweetly sardonic depiction of campus life, a fantastic cast including Connie Britton as a hard-driving where truth is hard to find. corporate executive, Sydney Sweeney as her disaffected daughter, and Jennifer Coolidge as a teary solo traveler— In the latest star-vehicle for Nicole Kidman, Nine Perfect keep stumbling over their own intentions, while the staff Strangers (Hulu), she plays a seraphic guru presiding over a of this tiki-torch-lit retreat hustles to pick them up. The secluded retreat where a cadre of broken people have gath- staff’s own weaknesses and foibles, in turn, underline that ered to skinny-dip, guzzle tropical smoothies, and investigate the road to higher ground is a rough and winding one, no their dysfunction. There are other motives at play, however, matter where you’re starting. and even in the sparkling sunlight, things begin to get a little dark. The ominous overtones can’t dispel the series’s lush In Netflix’s The Chair, Sandra Oh stars as the fresh- appeal, though. As in Big Little Lies, which was written by ly appointed head of a disintegrating college English the same novelist, Liane Moriarty, and adapted by the same department. Enrollment is down; a handful of dinosaur team, suffering has never looked so good.—chloe schama professors have not updated their syllabi for decades; and her closest friend and potential paramour—a rumpled Jay Duplass—cannot seem to make it to his own lectures on time. An older generation (mostly male, mostly white) have long stuck their heads in the sand, and Oh’s character has been rewarded for her years of scrambling with the unglamorous task of digging them out. A gentle-hearted 30 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M

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Ground Support Beauty’s latest It ingredient is gaining cultural cachet for its essential role in nature—and in nurturing tinctures and toners. I f you have sought out less-populated pastures over Mask last year with hydrating reishi and clarifying chaga GETTY IMAGES. the past year, then you are likely familiar with All that purport to soothe skin, featuring a formula that is That the Rain Promises. The 30-year-old field guide “so pure you can eat it.” to Western mushrooms (including recipes for food and hair dye) doesn’t have Didion’s prose or the urgency “Reishi and cordyceps have long been used in traditional of a Michael Lewis exposé; but for a certain subsection of Chinese medicine to boost the body’s qi, or energy, and eco-curious hipster, it has become the housewarming gift strengthen its ability to function well,” explains Sandra for friends who have traded in city life for country living. Lanshin Chiu, a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist and Mushrooms—which are not plants or animals but fungi the owner of Brooklyn’s Treatment by Lanshin. Chiu, who that constitute their own kingdom, with more than 10,000 often prescribes custom tinctures with these ingredients to different species—are having their cultural moment, and clients—to reduce stress, inflammation, and fatigue—is not just psychedelic varieties. Locally sourced morels and wary of the modern marketing boom. But mushrooms’ chanterelles are turning up on fine-dining menus; in March, allure as a panacea is growing—and it isn’t unwarranted, Hermès announced that it would release an eco-friendly says Kevin Spellman, Ph.D. “Fungi have beta-glucans—or version of its classic Victoria travel bag made from sus- messenger molecules—that carry information to the immune tainable mushroom-derived leather; and before there were system to turn it up a bit or turn it down a bit,” explains octopus teachers, Fantastic Fungi became a cult hit on the Spellman, a molecular biologist and herbalist who recently small screen. “One of the big takeaways of the pandemic collaborated with the San Francisco–based skin-care line is that communities survive better than individuals,” says In Fiore on three new tinctures, including Adapt’Âscend, the film’s director, Louis Schwartzberg, pointing to the which includes reishi to energize or relax you. appeal of mushrooms’ underground threadlike cells, which connect the roots of surrounding plants, allowing them “I see this as an exciting moment in the reevaluation of to share nutrients and communicate. A cruise through mushrooms”—in skin care and in our society at large, adds Whole Foods suggests mycology’s influence on wellness, Andrew Weil, M.D., an integrative-medicine practitioner that other pandemic-era obsession, is similarly compelling. and a pioneer in the space. (The anti-redness Mega Mush- room treatment lotion he created with Origins 15 years As newly buzzy, immunomodulating species become ago is now the brand’s number-one global best seller). a part of the better-living vernacular—Reishi! Chaga! “Mushrooms may offer us even more exciting possibilities Cordyceps! Lion’s mane! Turkey tail!—there seems to be in the future,” Weil adds—beyond the brave new world of a mushroom-based supplement, tincture, tea, and now vegan Birkins.—marisa meltzer face mask to cure whatever ails you. Four Sigmatic, the Finnish brand that has popularized a mushroom-based SHROOM SERVICE adaptogen coffee substitute, launched its Superfood Face From anti-inflammatory reishi to antioxidant-boosting chaga, mushrooms are becoming a big part of the better-living vernacular. 34 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M

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SLEIGHT OF HAND MODEL: GIOVANNI GIANNONI. SCREEN: PHOTO © CHRISTIE’S IMAGES / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES. ALL OTHERS: COURTESY OF LOUIS VUITTON. Vuitton’s Fornasetti collaboration (Malle Pyramide bags, left, and on the runway, right) captures the élan of work like the City of Cards screen (circa 1950s), center. The Myth and the Magic Nicolas Ghesquière’s Louis Vuitton collection draws on the whimsy of Piero Fornasetti—and catches the more-is-more mood of the moment. N icolas Ghesquière had an epiphany when vis- accessories. I owned some myself, and regularly sleuthed for iting the Michelangelo Gallery at the Louvre treasures in Fornasetti’s crowded Milan boutique. for Louis Vuitton’s fall 2021 show: The space, with its stunning sculptures from the Italian In preparation for this new capsule collection, some of Renaissance, brought to mind the work of the sui generis which was part of the runway show, Ghesquière and his artist and designer Piero Fornasetti. team explored the extensive Fornasetti archives, “search- ing,” as he notes, “for images centered on antique statues, Celebrated for his furniture and ceramic designs, cameo portraits, and architecture.” The results—from Fornasetti began his career in the 1930s in fashion, fashion to purses and luggage—reflect the joyous optimism making headscarves that mixed innovative printing of fashion as we continue to reemerge from the pandemic. techniques with pochoir and hand-painting. The scarves (See our New Bags story, page 72, for more examples.) “We drew the eye of the great designer Gio Ponti, and the had lots of fun creating trompe l’oeil,” says Ghesquière, two collaborated on some iconic pieces of midcentury “challenging the materials and techniques....” furniture that revealed Fornasetti’s mastery of ancient crafts, embrace of innovation, and impressive archive of “I like the interpretation,” says Barnaba Fornasetti, historic visual references. guardian of the brand since his father’s death in 1988. “Using the past, renovating, interpreting is like the more In the postmodern 1980s, Fornasetti’s “Tema E Variazi- recent DJs, who use something existing, remix it, and come oni” plates—more than 300 versions of an engraving of the out with totally original music.” The results, he adds, feel belle epoque beauty Lina Cavalieri’s face—were must-have “very modern, very futuristic.”—hamish bowles 36 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M

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Some Like It Hot A summer of love plays out in the month’s best books. Ghosts (Knopf), by Dolly Alderton own instincts. Written in a bracing, though the encounter marks the start COURTESY OF PUBLISHERS. The action in Ghosts, an astonishing- acerbic, and darkly comic register, the of this beguiling book, which unfolds ly assured debut novel, takes place book is a surprisingly buoyant read, amid the ponds and poison ivy cov- after Nina George Dean turns 32. a sly investigation of the meaning of ering the Cape. Toggling between de- She’s a writer with a London flat that devotion.—CHLOE SCHAMA cades, the novel charts a wandering she adores, a new book in the works, course among the scruffy socialites two well-meaning parents, and a cir- Everything I Have Is Yours: A who populate this gin-soaked land- cle of close friends that includes an ex Marriage (Flatiron), by Eleanor scape: salty women in their muu- with whom she’s unproblematically Henderson Memoirs of marriages muus, men who treat divorce as “just close. When Nina meets the doting are like confessions—the more hon- a seven-letter word,” kids largely ig- and superhero-handsome Max, she est, the better. And this one is ruth- nored. Elle, with her loving husband can’t believe her luck. But her house less. The love story is there: Eleanor and three children, seems to have of cards soon starts to cave: Her dad’s falls hard for Aaron in a record shop charted a more committed path, but health takes a turn; the proposal for in Florida in 1997. She is 17. He is her fleeting infidelity—and the sul- her next book isn’t coming togeth- a 25-year-old straight-edge dream- try memories it provokes—illustrates er; and after several blissful months, boat, “teeth as white as his T-shirt.” how even the most staid life can take she’s getting radio silence from Max. She brings him to college and then to an unpredictable tack.—C.S. Deftly observed and deeply funny, graduate school. Eleanor is ambitious, Ghosts considers, with what might upwardly mobile. Aaron is mercurial, Afterparties (Ecco), by Anthony well be described as haunting pre- wounded, seemingly unemployable, Veasna So A series of vignettes cision, where we find—and how we and given to secrets. She builds a documenting the lives and loves of hold on to—love.—MARLEY MARIUS life; he tears it apart with his mood Cambodian-Americans in California, swings and his strange ailments. A Afterparties ricochets between medi- Agatha of Little Neon (FSG), by medical mystery develops—does he tations on food and family, an eclec- Claire Luchette In this romance cen- have Morgellons? Schizophrenia? tic array of pop-culture references tered on an elusive figure of a different Some other psychiatric condition? and the emotional legacy of those who sort, Agatha, a nun, is transplanted, Or is there something darker going fled the Khmer Rouge. So’s observa- along with her pious sisters, to a half- on—addiction? Leave him, the reader tions on queer life are particularly in- way house in the “tuckered-out town” thinks. But life, of course, is not so cisive: In one instance, a charming love of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. (Lit- simple, and rarely has codependency story blossoms between a righteous tle Neon is the former convent turned been chronicled with such precision, tech entrepreneur and a young teach- bridge housing for recovering addicts such poignancy.—TAYLOR ANTRIM er, with the couple finding a strange and ex-cons, so named because it’s poetry in the rhythms and routines painted the color of Mountain Dew.) The Paper Palace (Riverhead), by of casual sex. These intimate windows What follows is an eccentric coming- Miranda Cowley Heller In the midst into this particular immigrant experi- of-age story in which Agatha, attracted of a dinner party in the backwoods of ence leave a powerful imprint, even if to the order for its promise of both Cape Cod, Elle steps into the shadows reading So’s work is tinged with sad- belonging and obscurity, begins to and consummates a long-simmer- ness. The author, who died suddenly learn that true comfort lies not in ing love affair. The next morning she last year at the age of 28, clearly had conformity but in awareness of her declares it “the end of a long story,” so much left to say.—LIAM HESS 38 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M

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Dinner on Demand At once elaborate and streamlined, the party-in-a-box might mark a new mode of entertaining. I spent my 28th birth- Home, which was created by CELEBRATIONHOME: CARLO GERACI, ALL OTHERS: COURTESY OF BRANDS. day on my couch, event planner Jennifer Zabin- binge-watching Netflix ski and Met-gala caterer Oli- and fantasizing about vier Cheng and which offers cake. It was March of 2020, packages like “A Night at the and my local grocery store Opera”or “Around the Farm- had run out of eggs, sugar, and er’s Market.”They’ll send you flour. It was a minor grievance everything you need in a gi- in the scheme of things. But ant box—from the asparagus come 2021, it wasn’t exactly tarte tatin to the Jardin du something I wanted to repeat. Luxembourg scent diffuser. So it was with the grace of Dio- “It’s like your own little sa- nysus that a few weeks before lon,” says Zabinski. The new my second pandemic birthday, company Party by Numbers I stumbled upon Savour. An will pack a midcentury bar app that allows users to book cart with everything from the chefs—from restaurants like Aperol aperitif to the olive- Eleven Madison Park, Momofuku, and Noma—Savour branch arrangement to the Bose speakers piping in the also arranges everything from menus to table mats. A few sounds of the Sanremo Music Festival. Recently they got taps of my phone and I’d booked a family-style meal by chef the approval of the James Beard Foundation’s Zero Food- Akiko Thurnauer, formerly of Nobu. The next Thursday, print organization for their carbon-neutral measures. she knocked on my door, hot-pink eye shadow swiped Then there’s the fash- across her eyes and a basket of Bao buns on her arm. ionable fleet of mobile mixologists. The May- Right now, in many places, we’re in an awkward phase bourne Beverly Hills of socializing. After a year and a half of pandemic liv- in Los Angeles fits an ing, most of us are desperate to see people beyond our entire bar in the back bubble. As Bronson van Wyck, author of Born to Party, of an Escalade that it Forced to Work, sums it up: “We’re all ready for a true rager. can dispatch to your Parties—actual full-on parties—have been in a medically driveway. Meanwhile, induced coma.” Such gatherings are not just frivolous famed French chef entertainment—they are crucial to our well-being: “Much Yann Nury has turned of what fulfills us are the bonds we create with other people, his 1985 Land Rover and more often than not, those bonds materialize through into a roaming happy physical interactions,” wrote researchers in an August 2020 hour, making stops in study titled “The Dangers of Social Distancing.” And yet, the Hamptons, Nan- many of us may feel a lingering discomfort at the prospect tucket, and Rhode Is- of sharing respiratory droplets in the name of celebration. land. For a little extra, he’ll tow along his vintage Social gatherings may re- Airstream, retro-formatted with a wood-fire grill. main, for some, domestic. Will these services eventually become fossils of the Fauci era? “I think over the past year, peo- Thankfully, a set of new ple really learned—and fell in love with—the joys party services is stepping of home entertaining,” says Party by Numbers in to elevate at-home en- cofounder Nicky Balestrieri. The pandemic, if tertaining. In addition to anything, taught us how a few close relationships Savour, there’s Celebration can sustain the soul more potently than a dozen diffuse ones. “Hospitality—the act of breaking BOWLED OVER bread together—has in many ways never been more present,” muses van Wyck, “with one key A tablescape from Party difference: It’s more-is-more for the people who by Numbers (top), matter the most.” —elise taylor a dish designed by chef Yann Nury (middle), and a setting from Celebration Home (bottom). 40 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M

In the spring of 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold, Vogue asked designers, photographers, artists, editors, and models (and a few celebrities) to reveal what their lives looked like under lockdown. The result was an extraordinary series of self-created images, interviews, and essays, now brought together in one volume. Postcards From Home marks a moment of profound change and serves as a stunning document of creativity thriving through crisis. BY THE EDITORS OF VOGUE FOREWORD BY ANNA WINTOUR rizzoliusa.com Available Wherever Books Are Sold

Moon Shot Thirteen Lune, an ambitious new beauty e-commerce platform, aims to elevate BIPOC founders and the idea of self-care for all. L ast summer, Nyakio Grieco had a watershed “It really comes to life with the founders,” says Grieco, © DIANA GOMEZ / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES. moment. While interest in Black-owned brands who is hoping to both elevate these products and amplify was on the rise, it was kind of hard to actually the voices behind them—Black, brown, and otherwise. find them. So Grieco—a beauty entrepreneur who This spring, Grieco and Herning introduced an allyship in 2002 launched a line of coffee bean– and sugar-based program designed to change the conversation around exfoliators inspired by the Kenyan skin-care secrets passed accountability in the beauty industry by welcoming brands down to her by her grandmother—teamed up with size- that have always prioritized inclusive formulas, such as inclusivity pioneer and 11 Honoré founder Patrick Herning Leland Francis’s natural skin-care collection and Holi- to launch Thirteen Lune: an e-commerce site that focuses Frog’s range of cleansers. “These brands were created by on a hyperedited curation of BIPOC-owned beauty brands. people who aren’t Black or brown, but they’re committed to addressing the needs of melanin-rich skin and textured It’s an exciting proposition for someone like, say, me, hair,” Grieco explains, noting that 90 percent of the site is who has always had a fraught relationship with beauty. still dedicated to BIPOC-backed products. In exchange for After years of painstakingly seeking out products with digital real estate, these more established companies will the appropriate undertones for my brown skin and sham- help mentor emerging brands. poos that wouldn’t turn my scalp into the Sahara, I still deal with psoriasis, traction alopecia, and extreme hair It’s this kind of forward thinking that has attracted inves- breakage. “As a Black woman, I’ve been buying products tors including Gwyneth Paltrow and Sean Combs, who will made by people who are not Black or brown my whole life guest-star on a just-launched Thirteen Lune podcast that with the expectation and assumption that they’re going to hopes to unpack that other beauty buzzword: self-care. work on my hair and skin,” says Grieco, echoing my own “Black and brown communities are very underserved frustration and that of so many Black women. We pour when it comes to messaging about self-care and nontoxic roughly $54.4 million into beauty products each year but ingredients, so there is a tremendous opportunity for us to still face hurdles to access, especially to luxury products. educate around that issue,” says Grieco, a sentiment that resonated with me as I unscrewed the cap of Liha Beauty’s The 64 BIPOC-owned brands carried by Thirteen Lune, Idan Oil. Its creamy tuberose scent transported me a world which is named for a sacred number in some African cultures away from my Brooklyn apartment, and I was reminded and the 13 moons in a calendar year, offer more than just a of how rarely I make time for myself. Rarer still is that I’m vetted curation: They offer a sense of discovery and novelty, encouraged to do so.—janelle okwodu itself a luxury for women of color. On the site I found Brit- ish hairstylist Charlotte Mensah’s hydrating shampoo that ALL THE FEELS is rich in Namibian manketti oil, but I also learned about With its hyperedited curation, the site is selling the joy of discovering KéNisha Ruff ’s journey from Wisconsin cosmetologist BIPOC-backed beauty products and the voices behind them. to founder and creative director of Marie Hunter Beauty. 42 A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 V O G U E . C O M







FLOTUS WFH Photographed in the East Sitting Hall of the White House. Ralph Lauren blouse and skirt. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman.

The Doctor Is In Famously empathetic and free of pomp, Dr. Jill Biden is the hardworking, heart-on-her- sleeve, everywhere-at-once first lady that America needs now. By Jonathan Van Meter. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

When Jill looser, goofier, and more expansive. You generally hear her before you see her because she is often laughing. She is, quite simply, a joy multiplier. As part of her elevator pitch for Biden visits free community college—part of the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan President Biden proposed to Congress in April—she likes to talk about one of her most dedicated students, a military interpreter from Afghanistan who came community to America to start a new life. “A few semesters ago...I got a text from her—it was like six o’clock in the morning. ‘On my way to the hospital to have my baby, research paper will be late.’ To which I replied, Excuses, excuses.” It gets a big colleges, whichisalotthese laugh, even from the jaded press corps. No one thought she could keep teaching. “I heard that all the time during the campaign,” she told me. “Like, ‘No. You’re not going to be able to teach as first lady.’ And days, she is received in highly I said, ‘Why not? You make things happen, right?’” But as choreographed settings by a governor, say, or members of I traveled with Dr. Biden through much of April, I saw just the public as the nation’s first lady. But to administrators how much time her day job took up: In Albuquerque, New and teachers, she is Dr. Jill Biden, college professor. At Mexico, the entire retinue of staff, Secret Service, and press Sauk Valley Community College in Illinois, there were held at our hotel until well into the afternoon, when the pink and white flowers set out everywhere, befitting her motorcade finally hit the road for a nearly three-hour drive visit; they even matched her white dress and pink jacket. and a long evening of events in Arizona—because Dr.B But there was also a welcome dr.biden sign so huge that was teaching her classes over Zoom. On a trip to Illinois, the period on the Dr. was as big as her head. It felt like a her motorcade sped toward the airport as if there weren’t subtle rebuke to that scolding she was subjected to back a second to waste. Because there wasn’t: Jill had to teach! in December for using the title she has every right to. Meanwhile, countless editorials began marking the first Indeed, in all the places she goes lately she is honored as 100 days of the Biden administration, many expressing a woman with several degrees who has worked really hard surprised relief over how much was getting done, how her whole life at the most relat- much legitimately helpful policy able job there is. Everyone has “Oh, please, call me Jill,” was moving through the system, a favorite teacher, after all. On how little drama, how few flubs her visit to the Navajo Nation in she will say to people in formal or fumbles or ugly fights. Joe April, Dr. Biden was introduced settings who sometimes Biden is boring—and that’s not by someone I came to think of a complaint. One day, I asked as the Ruth Bader Ginsburg stumble over how to address her Dr. Biden about the mood of the of Indian Country: chief justice country. “During the campaign, of the Navajo Nation Supreme I felt so much anxiety from peo- Court JoAnn Jayne, a tiny woman with hair pulled back ple; they were scared,” she told me. “When I travel around in a tight ponytail, wearing Doc Martens: “Dr. Biden, the country now, I feel as though people can breathe again. millions reap inspiration from your quote ‘Teaching isn’t I think that’s part of the reason Joe was elected. People just what I do; it is who I am.’” In Birmingham, Alabama, wanted someone to come in and heal this nation, not just she was introduced by a lawyer, Liz Huntley, a sexual-abuse from the pandemic, which I feel Joe did by, you know, get- survivor whose parents were drug dealers. “I want to thank ting shots in everybody’s arms. But also...he’s just a calmer Dr. Biden from the bottom of my heart for the role that president. He lowers the temperature.” she plays not just as the first lady…but for her heart for Part of what makes the Bidens’ right-out-of-the-gate suc- educating. She told me she’s grading papers on the plane, cesses so extraordinary is that they seem to have perfectly y’all! What? Who does that?! You know, they say being an read the room: We have been through this enormous, col- educator is a calling…in your life that you can’t resist, and lective trauma, and here’s a calm, experienced, empathetic she just won’t let it go.” president, and here’s a first lady who is driven, tireless, The December debate over titles seems awfully small in effortlessly popular, but also someone who reminds us the face of all of this: Jill Biden opening schools, visiting of ourselves. She’s selling a new vision for how our most vaccination sites, traveling to red states to sell the American fundamental institutions ought to work—infrastructure, Rescue Plan, telling folks that “help is here.” The role she’s education, public health—even as she goes to extraordinary fulfilling on these visits is, in many ways, neither first lady lengths to keep a real-world job, to stay in touch with what nor professor but a key player in her husband’s adminis- makes her human and what matters most. tration, a West Wing surrogate and policy advocate. “An underestimated asset,”as Mary Jordan, the Washington Post Now it is May, an unseasonably hot Tuesday afternoon, reporter who’s written a book about Melania Trump, put and I’m sitting with Dr. Biden under a white trellis in the it to me. “It’s hard to imagine Joe doing this without her.” Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, just outside the East Wing Which is not to say that Dr.Biden, who is constitutionally of the White House. She is wearing a red dress and red shy, doesn’t take special delight in these visits. She becomes pumps. Finals were last week; the semester is over. Phew. 48

Today—teacher-appreciation day, as it happens—is the first to learn that she traveled to nearly 40 countries as second Tuesday since moving into the White House that she did not lady. “And now I have a bigger platform,” she says, “and have her writing class (one of three she taught this semester I feel every day, like....What could I give up? That I would at Northern Virginia Community College). She already want to give up? Nothing. If anything, I feel like adding misses her students, who were, for whatever reason, mostly more things, but I know it’s not possible, because you want men this semester. “Maybe two months ago they said, ‘Hey, to stay centered, because you want to do things well. And Dr. B.... Can we ask you a question?’ ” I said yeah. They there’s so much to do. There is...so. Much. To. Do.” said, ‘When we write in our journals, can we curse?’ ” Dr. Biden’s trip to the Navajo Nation was, in fact, her third They were worried it was inappropriate because you’re official visit to the tribal land—a fact that was lost on no the first lady? one. (Business leader and Navajo advocate Clara Pratte “I don’t know what they thought! We never said the says, “As someone who has worked in this field for a long words first lady ever. So I said, ‘Yes, you can curse.’ Because time, I can tell you: This is not the norm. But it should be I tell them they can write anything. And here they are, the norm.”) Dr. Biden’s last trip was two years ago, when these young men, like, ‘Yes! she came to open “the very We can curse!’ I loved that. first cancer-treatment cen- After that class, I felt...good. ter on any American Indian I’ve achieved what I wanted reservation,” as the Navajo to achieve: They see me as Nation’s first lady, Phefelia their English teacher.” Nez, pointed out. Her hus- Protecting this part of her band, President Jonathan life is “an underappreciated Nez, added that it was the big deal,” says the journalist Navajo Nation that helped Evan Osnos, author of the put Biden over the top in recent Joe Biden: The Life, the Arizona, with “60, 70, even Run, and What Matters Now. 80 percent turnout in some “Because, you know, the iso- places.” There is a Navajo lation and the seclusion and word, jooba’ii, that sounds the degree to which that job like “Joe Biden” and means messes with your head...it’s compassion, he said. “That’s real. So to be able to step out how a lot of our elders re- of that, to be able to negotiate membered it at the polls.” her way out of that, I’m sure, Distances here are vast. took some stubbornness— FAMILY VALUES The Navajo reservation is productive stubbornness.” larger than West Virginia, Dr. Biden with her grandchildren, Naomi, Finnegan, with nearly 400,000 mem- He adds that she has a kind Hunter, Maisy, and Natalie, in Delaware. bers. One of the pool pho- of “fortitude that most peo- Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, Vogue, 2019. ple didn’t really pay that much tographers told me that in attention to”—and this is something I saw on the road. his 15 years of covering the White House, the nearly three- I watched her hold the hands of nervous women in Albu- hour motorcade ride from Albuquerque was the longest querque as the vaccine needles went in their arms. (“Look he’d ever taken—an indication of the slog and why hardly at me,”said Dr. Biden. “It doesn’t hurt. Really. It’s mostly in anyone at Jill Biden’s level ever comes to visit. But the way your head.”) She is the designated driver on the piece of the she was received here was beyond touching. She gave a live American Families Plan meant to cut child poverty in half. radio address in front of the red sandstone arch—Window She is working in tandem with the Secretary of Education, Rock—after which the tribal capital is named. As the sun Miguel Cardona, “reimagining our education system from was setting, and the speeches from the nation’s dignitaries preschool to college.” dragged on, the temperature plummeted and the wind She has also restarted Joining Forces, the military family– picked up—it quickly became teeth-chattering cold. Jill, support initiative she launched with Michelle Obama who was wearing a dark suit with nude pumps and bare 10 years ago. And it won’t be long before her East Wing legs, looked like she was going to freeze to death. Someone operation, which is still staffing up, plans state dinners and came over and draped a Navajo blanket around her, which cultural events, fussing over menus and seating charts happened to perfectly match her Jimmy Choos, enveloping and Christmas decorations, because someone still has to her like a sleeping bag. “We heard it here today,” said Seth be the nation’s hostess at the end of the day. Damon, the speaker of the Navajo Nation Council, from It’s a lot, I say. “Well, don’t you think that I always had a the stage. “You are a fierce warrior.” lot going on? I like that kind of energy,” she says. “When I “It was more than cold!” says Biden when I ask her became second lady—and there was so much I wanted to about that evening. “Oh, I couldn’t stop my knees from do—I always said, ‘I will never waste this platform.’” Most shaking.” She laughs. “Didn’t it feel emotional to you? It people had only a vague idea of who Jill Biden was during wasn’t just a visit. I feel a real emotional connection to the those years, except sort of maybe knowing that there was Navajo Nation. They knew I was cold, and the woman a nice teacher lady who was married to the vice president. came up behind me and put that blanket around me. They I’d written two profiles of her, and even I was surprised cared about me.”

STOLEN MOMENT The first couple on a patio off the Oval Office. Dr. Biden wears a Michael Kors Collection sweater and skirt.

“During the campaign, I felt so much anxiety from people; they were scared,” she told me. “When I travel around the country now, I feel as though people can breathe again”





T he night before I started following Jill MAKING TIME Biden around the country, I decided to “We still light the candles, still have the conversations, still put take a walk around the newly fortified the phones away,” she says. In this story: hair, Sally Hershberger; White House to figure out exactly how to makeup, Francelle Daly. Details, see In This Issue. get in the next morning. I was dumbfound- ed to see the brutal black fencing, as high country was a part of everything he did, and he inspired as the towering old trees, and to realize how far I would us, his five daughters, to see America through his eyes.” have to walk to get to the checkpoint, like something out of Cold War Berlin. The White House perimeter When she finished, she silently walked off the stage. “And keeps pushing farther out—security creep, with all of so we begin!” she said to no one in particular, and then the attendant police-state vibes—scooping up ever more laughed. In many ways, Dr. Biden is perfectly calibrated of the city grid. for this moment—thus far, a nearly pomp-free presidency. “Oh, please, call me Jill,” she will say to people in formal But once I was inside the White House the next morn- settings who sometimes stumble over how to address her. ing, I was greeted by nothing more forbidding than a “Sit down,” she says, laughing, when people stand for a bunch of nice, nerdy career D.C. people—working. That second too long in her presence. “There’s an unadorned day Dr. Biden was giving a speech for the Joining Forces thing that I think she values,” says Osnos. “And she’s quite relaunch in an empty auditorium in the Old Executive suspicious of artifice in others.” Office Building, next to the West Wing. A handful of press, staff, and Secret Service would be on hand, but no After the speech, her 12-car motorcade, sirens blaring, eager, tittering audience, thrilled to be invited to the White sped across the Potomac to Arlington, Virginia. (I said to House—only the now-familiar wall of human video tiles her, “It must be exhausting to always travel at the speed behind the podium. When Dr. Biden appeared onstage, of motorcade.” “It’s funny,” she replied. “On the way to a production person’s voice came over the sound system: the airport, I said to Joe, ‘Where’s all the traffic?’ And then “Whenever you’re ready to go ahead and start….” She I realized...oh, yeah, they stop the traffic.”) In Arlington, gathered herself and launched in. “This work is personal she would be greeted by Charlene Austin, the wife of the to me,” she said. “My dad was a Navy signalman in World Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, among others, to take War II and went to college on the GI Bill. His love for this a tour of Military OneSource, a resource hub and call center for service members and their families. Among the 52