Cover #1 [above] with Eliza Santos by João Viegas.

Sofia Lucas, EIC of Vogue Portugal devotes her October 2022 issue to ‘The Butterfly’ effect.

Nearly 45 years ago, during the 139th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, [1972] Edward Lorenz posed a question: “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”

A professor at MIT, Lorenz was the first to recognize what is now called chaotic behavior in the mathematical modeling of weather systems. In the early 1960s, Lorenz realized that small differences in a dynamic system such as the atmosphere--or a model of the atmosphere--could trigger vast and often unsuspected results.

Reading about Professor Lorenz, who passed in 2008, on the MIT website, his theory — eventually called chaos theory and applied to many scientific systems beyond the weather — is one of three that many scientists consider to be fundamental to the 20th century: relativity, quantum mechanics and chaos.

Covers 2 and 3: [above] Olivia Arben by Branislav Simoncik and [below] Tosin Okunnu by Anna Archen.

Vogue Portugal is known for being more intellectual than other Vogues, but AOC doubts that Santos had a plan to wade into some of the most significant scientific and cultural questions of the 21st century. To give credit, however, the editor defines ‘The Butterfly Effect’ as a “mathematical construct behind Chaos Theory”. Impressive words in a Vogue!

Lucas’ own jumping off spot is a quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, from ‘The Little Prince’:

“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.”

Fashion has been obsessed with duality for the last year. When we lock onto a word, it’s in every brilliant quote from every creative director in the industry.

This thought just prompted me to query: what is the connection between duality and chaos theory? Suffice it to say there is one, from the scientific perspective. To be continued . . . let’s get back to these three covers from Vogue Portugal’s October 2022 issue.

Santos continues:

As the world leaps from catastrophe to catastrophe, perhaps there is something we can learn from the fragile but hopeful transformation of the butterfly. Perhaps that is why, by the way, the butterfly has had a return as symbolic as it is omnipresent in this year's fashion trends. . . .
We dedicate this issue to metamorphosis and all the strange phases that are part of it, and to the real Butterfly Effect, not only in Fashion but in a deeper sense: change as a series of interconnected events that affects everything and everyone anywhere on the planet. . . . A network, a cascade of actions of kindness, of empathy, of generosity, can also create an immense network of transformation in the world. If we could quantify all the ramifications of each of our small gestures, the web of change would be as surprising as the butterfly effect cyclone. One of our biggest mistakes is underestimating our individual potential. Ideas can change the world, but they can only do so when we act on them. And it's everyone's small gestures, every day, that build the whole.

Amen, Sister. ~ Anne