Sharon Stone Is Modern Goddess with Ancient Roots in Vogue Adria June 2025

Sharon Stone Is Modern Goddess with Ancient Roots in Vogue Adria June 2025

Sharon Stone Is Modern Goddess with Ancient Roots in Vogue Adria June 2025

Actor, activist, humanist and hardcore ballbreaker Sharon Stone is the cover star of Vogue Adria [IG] June 2025. Stone is joined by models Gabriel Aubry and Adam Senn in a provocative fashion story styled by Paris Libby.

Photographer Branislav Simoncik [IG] captures the visual narrative that reminds us of 90s Gianni Versace, Dolce & Gabbana and even Valentino. It intrigues me to review French luxury brands and Italian brands historically on this idea.

In its simplest form, Sharon Stone is a glass half full person. And she is the consummate ballbreaker.

Right wingers insist that ballbreakers are narcissistic women consumed with our own self-image and self-contained universe. In fact, ballbreakers are more likely to be exactly the opposite.

Read More

Sydney Sweeney Talks New Films 'Eden' and 'Echo Valley' for W Magazine Summer 2025

Sydney Sweeney Talks New Films 'Eden' and 'Echo Valley' for W Magazine Summer 2025

Sydney Sweeney Talks New Films 'Eden' and 'Echo Valley' for W Magazine Summer 2025

With a short but punchy interview Lynn Hirschberg runs a trifecta with the actor about her upcoming 2025 releases.

Professionally, Sweeney appears this summer in ‘Eden’, a survival thriller set in the Galápagos Islands. She also plays Claire, a devious and compelling character drug addict in Apple TV+’s new thriller ‘Echo Valley’.

Sydney Sweeney Plays Boxer Christy Martin

In her third upcoming 2025 release this fall, Sweeney gained more than 30 pounds to play breakthrough female 90s boxer Christy Martin.

The real story of the rise to welterweight champion of the coal miner’s daughter from West Virginia — is much more complicated than previously told.

Will Sydney Sweeney tell the entire story?

Read More

Nicole Kidman Is 'On a High' in a Hyperbaric Chamber by Dan Beleiu for Allure May 2025

Nicole Kidman Is 'On a High' in a Hyperbaric Chamber by Dan Beleiu for Allure May 2025

A Dual Hyperbaric Chamber Meetup

The irrepressible, uber-talent Nicole Kidman rolls on with life, inviting Allure Magazine Summer 2025 to meet her for am atypical bodyshop tuneup.

There’s a reason why fashion story interviews typically happen separately from the fashion shoot. Can you imagine photographer Dan Beleiu [IG] getting a message that he will be shooting Nicole Kidman [IG] for the May 2025 issue of Allure Magazine’s beauty issue in a hyperbaric chamber in Nashville?

In NK’s case, her career just does not slow down. Ever since she wore the MiuMiu mini skirt, remaining oblivious to the morality-infused angst of younger women that Kidman should act her age, the red head with bangs staring back at us has been on fire.

Read More

Actor Jodie Comer Knows Quite a Lot About Rage in GQ UK June 2025 Heroes Issue

Actor Jodie Comer Knows Quite a Lot About Rage in GQ UK June 2025 Heroes Issue

Actor Jodie Comer Knows Quite a Lot About Rage in GQ UK June 2025 Heroes Issue

Actor Jodie Comer is among the British GQ’s Heroes cover stars, lensed by Scandelbergs [IG] for the June 2025 issue and styled by Gerry O’Kane and more for the fashion story ‘How Jodie Comer focused the fury.

Rage in Play ‘Prima Facia’

Rage is not confined to her next film ‘28 Years Later’. Comer’s ‘Prima Facie’, the one-woman play that won her a Tony when it transferred to Broadway in 2023, has been a game-changer for her. The play has also helped her to confront this severe contradiction of inner peace between many men and women.

The play has been so emotionally draining for Comer as an actor, that she prepared for her West End run by sitting and waiting, drowning out the raw negativity about to consume her for 100 minutes with music. Absorbed in the sound and messages of artists Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Alison Goldfrapp and Florence Welch, Comer would steady herself until someone tapped her on the shoulder to tell her it was time to go on. That’s quite a story.

Read More

Bella Hadid's Memorable British Vogue June 2025 Interview with Giles Hattersley

Bella Hadid's Memorable British Vogue June 2025 Interview with Giles Hattersley

Bella Hadid's Memorable British Vogue June 2025 Interview with Giles Hattersley

In her British Vogue cover interview and fashion shoot, Bella is styled by IB Kamara in chain-mail from Etro and Balmain and embellished tulle from Dolce & Gabbana. Her silk crepe cover dress is Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello.

High jewelry comes from Chopard — for whom Bella is a global ambassador. Earrings and super bangles are from Alexis Bittar.

Clearly, Bella Hadid and photographer Steven Meisel [IG] have excellent chemistry.

British Vogue’s IG descriptor of Bella also resonates. Bella Hadid “gives a riveting glimpse into her complex inner self.”

It’s an indisputable fact that a peculiarity of constitution or temperament surrounds the process of interviewing Bella Hadid. She is an idiosyncratic human being, which is not a negative comment.

Journalist Giles Hattersley is superb in how he handled Bella. In one moment of the interview, Bella really stepped in it with Anne — who still can’t believe how Hadid played right into the hands of the Trump Administration trying to get rid of women in high places.

I beg her mother Yolanda not to let Bella go to Washington with her controversial views, as she suggested she wanted to do.

Read More

Kaia in Vogue Spain June 2025: "Why did I try so hard not to be like someone I admire so much?”

Kaia in Vogue Spain June 2025: "Why did I try so hard not to be like someone I admire so much?”

Kaia in Vogue Spain June 2025: "Why did I try so hard not be like someone I admire so much?”

Kaia Gerber covers the June 2025 issue of Vogue Spain, lensed by Amy Troost. Max Ortega styles the ‘Overcompensating’ [Amazon Prime] series actor in Altuzarra, Gabriela Hearst, Mango, Phoebe Philo, Prada, Sportmax and more. The extensive Mango selects are from Gerber’s current collabwith the Spanish brand.

Kaia is lit: she’s lit on literature, learning, her Library Science [IG] bookclub and loving fellow humans very different from herself. The mega-talent in-the-making won AOC over in the i-D Spring 2020 Icons Issue, where Kaia Gerber chatted with her new friend and ‘Slave Play’ playwright Jeremy O. Harris.

The actor, literature lover and top model talent shares very unique insights into her relationship with mom Cindy Crawford. They are very much worth the read.

Read More

Rosamund Pike in 'Rare Bloom' Lensed by Emma Summerton for Harper's Bazaar UK June 2025

Rosamund Pike in 'Rare Bloom' Lensed by Emma Summerton for Harper's Bazaar UK June 2025

Rosamund Pike in 'Rare Bloom' Lensed by Emma Summerton for Harper's Bazaar UK June 2025

English actor and producer Rosamund Pike is styled by Leith Clark in Dior fashion, beauty and high jewelry, in advance of her performance this summer in ‘Inter Alia’. Photographer Emma Summerton [IG] captures Pike in ‘Rare Bloom’ for Harper’s Bazaar UK [IG] June 2025.

Pike plays the role of a London Crown Court Judge Jessica Parks, at the top of her successful career, also navigating professional demands and family life. Outside her courtroom, Parks is a karaoke fanatic, a loving wife and good mom. Life is idyllic.

Then an event occurs that throws Judge Parks’ life into chaos, leaving her family life fissured by this searing examination of modern motherhood and masculinity.

Read More

Natalie Portman in 'Leading Light' for Vogue Australia May 2025

Natalie Portman in 'Leading Light' for Vogue Australia May 2025

Natalie Portman in 'Leading Light' for Vogue Australia May 2025

Natalie Portman is Vogue Australia’s [IG] May 2025 cover star eager to discuss her upcoming movie ‘Fountain of Youth’, which Vogue calls a “globe-trotting extravaganzathat looks like it was fun to make. The movie opens May 23 on AppleTV.

“It was so fun. It was really a dream offer when I got it. Wait, I get to work with Guy Ritchie and John Krasinski? And all these other actors, between Domhnall [Gleeson] and Eiza [González] and Arian [Moayed] and Carmen [Ejogo], who I love so much. . . Vienna was extraordinary and Cairo was a dream. It’s so rare these days to go to the real places.”

Portman pushes back on the issue of aging in ‘The Fountain of Youth’, although she affirms that her beautiful, aging-naturally mother inspires her not to be afraid of physical aging.

Read More

Diane Kruger Talks New 'Merteuil' Film with Madame Figaro FR April 25, 2025

Diane Kruger Talks New 'Merteuil' Film with Madame Figaro FR April 25, 2025

Diane Kruger Talks New 'Merteuil' Film with Madame Figaro

Today we find Kruger covering the April 25, 2025 issue of Madame Figaro [IG], where the actor has just finished filming the six episodes of ‘Merteuil’, by Jessica Palud, freely adapted from ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ [1988], which was adapted from ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ [1959], directed by Roger Vadim.

Kruger is styled by Barbara Baumel in images by Thiemo Sander [IG].

Kruger plays Madame de Rosemonde, in the ‘Merteuil’ series, and here we share synchronicity. Just today I wrote about the ancient, global history of courtesans, inspired by a Louboutin Beauty campaign with Daphne Groeneveld.

Her character excels in the art of seduction, Kruger explains. “But she uses her beauty for the sole purpose of being the equal of men, or even their superior. She is a strategist and a manipulator determined not to be locked up in the shackles of the patriarchal society of the time.”

Read More

A History of Courtesans Thru the Lens of Louboutin Beauty's 2025 Rouge Stiletto Vinyl Gloss Campaign

A History of Courtesans Thru the Lens of Louboutin Beauty's 2025 Rouge Stiletto Vinyl Gloss Campaign

A Global History of Courtesans Thru the Lens of Louboutin Beauty

Today we return to Mesopotamia, asking about the rise of courtesans. Was it a worldwide role for select women, a role crossing many different global cultures but with compatible definitions?

In Mesopotamia Temple priestesses, often referred to as "sacred prostitutes," were involved in religious rites, highlighting a blend of the sacred and the secular that involved sexual service as part of worship. . . These practices are mentioned in the Code of Hammurabi, which provides one of the earliest written references to women who engaged in such roles.

In Greece The concept of the courtesan emerged more distinctly in Greece. . . In India Ancient texts in India also offer early textual evidence of courtesans, with references in ancient texts such as the Arthashastra and the Kamasutra . . . In China The origins of courtesans can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty, which lasted from approximately 1046 to 256 BC . . . In Italy The origins of courtesanship can be traced back to a complex interplay of social, economic, and cultural factors that emerged during the Renaissance.

In America Yes, there is a record of courtesans in America. But AOC needs to catch up with the facts. After reading about white women courtesans in urban cities like New York and Chicago, we queried the story in New Orleans.

The findings were borderline extraordinary, and we will explain in our next deep dive into red lips women.

Read More

Linda Evangelista Wants to Live, As Told to Linda Wells for Harper's Bazaar US May 2025

Linda Evangelista Wants to Live, As Told to Linda Wells for Harper's Bazaar US May 2025

Linda Evangelista Wants to Live, As Told to Linda Wells for Harper's Bazaar US May 2025

Supermodel Linda Evangelista covers the May 2025 issue of Harper’s Bazaar US May 2025 as she faces her 60th birthday on May 10th. Evangelista is styled by Carlos Nazario wearing Cartier, Givenchy, Jacquemus, Maison Alaia, Tiffany and more, lensed by Anthony Seklaoui [IG]./ Hair by Mustafa Yanaz; makeup by Dick Page

Evangelista’s relationship with her trauma over a CoolSculpting procedure gone rogue continues to dominate her life. One must process this reality knowing that the 90s superstar has experienced a host of health challenges. CoolSculpting aside, Linda has a 2018 double mastectomy behind her.

"I’ve had all those lung surgeries, oh my God, and my keloids and all the chest-tube scars and my C-section scar. There were a lot of surgeries. I’m cool. I’m fine with those. I won. I’m here. I won.”

This is an usually candid interview with the supermodel, who says she still can’t look at herself in the mirror but — even more important — she is grateful to be alive. Evangelista is in therapy to confront that issue of the mirror, and she also wants to be a grandmother. Just not right now.

Read More

Gisele Bundchen: The Early Years 1996 - 2007 and a Victoria’s Secret, Career-Changing Angel Contract

Gisele Bundchen: The Early Years 1996 - 2007 and a Victoria’s Secret, Career-Changing Angel Contract

Gisele Bundchen: The Early Years 1996 - 2007 and a Victoria’s Secret Career-Making Contract

Gisele was a rising star model with plenty of work in 1999. It’s almost impossible to believe, but Gisele appeared on 37 international and US covers of ‘Vogue’ alone in 2000.

Then all hell broke loose in a change that put Gisele Bündchen in the financial stratosphere of models.

In 2000, the Brazilian powerhouse signed a five-year contract with Victoria’s Secret, estimated by People Magazine to be worth $25 million. This deal made Bündchen an early member of the Angels sorority and the highest-paid model on the Forbes list for 14 straight years.

Read More

Paris Hilton, Humanist and Brainiac, Covers Grazia Global April by Daniella Midenge

Paris Hilton, Humanist and Brainiac, Covers Grazia Global April by Daniella Midenge

Paris Hilton, Humanist and Brainiac, Covers Grazia Global April by Daniella Midenge

On a sun-drenched rooftop in Venice Beach, California, Paris Hilton [IG] stepped into the spotlight with photographer Daniella Midenge [IG] at her side. The glamorous Hilton was poised to create fashion magic with Midenge for 10 Grazia countries worldwide.

In spring 2023, Hilton responded to an outpouring of positivity and caught-off-guard understanding and support for her unknown, personal journey first revealed in the 2020 Documentary ‘This Is Paris’. Hilton’s response was a new book ‘Paris: The Memoir’.

In explaining the personal revelations in her film, one magazine summed up Paris’ point-of-view perfectly: “I’m Not a Dumb Blonde. I’m Just Really Good at Pretending to Be One.”

Read More

Rianne Van Rompaey's 'Last Dance' As She Leaves Modeling To Be Her Real Self

Rianne Van Rompaey's 'Last Dance' As She Leaves Modeling To Be Her Real Self

Rianne Van Rompaey's 'Last Dance' As She Leaves Modeling To Be Her Real Self

The infinitely-talented Rianne Von Rompaey covers the April 2025 issue of Harper’s Bazaar France [IG], styled by Emmanuelle Alt in ‘Rianne, Last Dance’. Carlijn Jacobs [IG] photographs the aspiring actor — and perhaps future screenwriter and/or producer.

This may be one of the last times we see the Dutch model in 2024/5 campaigns for Chanel, Chloé, Louis Vuitton, Tom Ford and more. Rianne also does an unusual amount of editorial work — all on this AOC link.

Especially after completing her first short film in fall 2024, working with director David Finlay, Rianne Van Rompaey wants to plunge into this new world of creative opportunities. I watched the 8-minute film this morning —which Rianne wrote, starred in and produced — and was highly impacted by the film itself and Rianne’s superior talents.

Read More

Vittoria Ceretti Reveals She Was a Whale in Another Life in Vogue France April 2025

Vittoria Ceretti Reveals She Was a Whale in Another Life in Vogue France April 2025

Vittoria Ceretti Reveals She Was a Whale in Another Life in Vogue France April 2025

Vittoria Ceretti has a truly original interview in Vogue France. The top model is styled by Alastair McKimm and lensed by Carin Backoff [IG].

In fact, they made her response to an innocent question the headline, even though her response came mid-interview:

"I have always been sure that I was a whale, in a previous life."

Why a whale?

Because she lives in the ocean - I love the ocean as much as it scares me. And they are mammals, so they keep their young with them, even for very long trips.

Ceretti gave him a real opener with that answer, but Mr. Dreyfus wanted none of it. Of course, this was not the ‘end of it’ with Anne and AOC. Read our update and much more of the actual interview on top-of-page link.

Read More

'The Leopard' Star Deva Cassel for Madame Figaro March 2025

'The Leopard' Star Deva Cassel for Madame Figaro March 2025

'The Leopard' Star Deva Cassel for Madame Figaro March 2025

The visually-stunning, luxurious production, inspired by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's renowned novel situated in Sicily, premiered on Netflix USA on March 5. During the initial five days, 'The Leopard' accumulated over 3 million global views and secured a spot in the platform's Top 10 across more than 30 nations such as Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, and Spain. In Italy, 'The Leopard' swiftly climbed to the No. 1 position.

Deva Cassel plays the role of Angelica Sedara, amid the 1860s fall of the Sicilian aristocracy. She enjoys a high-society romance with Prince Tancredi Falconeri, played by actor Saul Nanni, who is now her lover.

Photographer Branislav Simoncik [IG] photographed Cassel at the Italian embassy in Paris for these sumptuous images of a beautiful young woman destined to rise high in the creative world, in the footsteps of her parents Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel.

Read More

Rihanna Covers Harper's Bazaar US March 2025 Legacy Issue, by Luis Alberto Rodriguez

Rihanna Covers Harper's Bazaar US March 2025 Legacy Issue, by Luis Alberto Rodriguez

Rihanna Covers Harper's Bazaar US March 2025 Legacy Issue, by Luis Alberto Rodriguez

She’s a “titan of music” and a “self-made mogul” who “ just might have manifested her dream life”, writes Lynette Nylander for Harper’s Bazaar US March 2025 ‘Legacy’ issue.

The interview happened before the lifting of a major cloud hanging over the couple’s life and family — husband A$AP Rocky’s court case in Los Angeles.

Most AOC readers know about the not-guilty verdict that sent the couple into each other’s arms on February 18, 2025. But another story so relevant is the extraordinary words Rocky spoke to his lawyer Joe Tacopina right before the verdict was read.

Read More

AOC Taps Debra Shaw in Dior Cruise 2025 for a History Lesson on Pre-Christian Scottish Women

AOC Taps Debra Shaw in Dior Cruise 2025 for a History Lesson on Pre-Christian Scottish Women

AOC Taps Debra Shaw in Dior Cruise 2025 for a History Lesson on Pre-Christian Scottish Women

Maria Grazia Chiuri staged her Dior Cruise 2025 show in the gardens of Drummond Castle in Scotland, with bagpipes making the occasion. The winter Luxe issue of Grazia UK [IG] features top model Debra Shaw wearing key pieces from the Dior Cruise 2025 collection, lensed by Silvana Trevale [IG] at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland.

Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri Always Finds the Unique Makers for Her Collections

In fashion we concentrate so much on shape Grazia said, but textiles are a big part of our job—what you can do with them, and the changes you can make through them.” So, Chiuri went to the traditional—the tartan and cashmeres, the tweeds and the Argyles—and deftly filtered them into a collection which variously drew on the geopolitics of fabrics.

Chiuri’s collection and brief history lesson took AOC on a breakthrough journey into the history of women in Scotland and beyond. Anne never intended to land in a deep-dive into the Middle Ages. In fact, that’s exactly where our Gleneagles Defender landed.

Read More

Celina Ralph for Sunday Times Style UK Suggests Regression on Larger Size Models

Celina Ralph for Sunday Times Style UK Suggests Regression on Larger Size Models

Celina Ralph for Sunday Times Style UK Suggests Regression on Larger Size Models

Buzz-cut model Celina Ralph does business class, styled by Verity Parker in masculine suiting, crisp shirts and a tie for images by Ina Levy [IG].

It could be that fashion comes to rest around Celina Ralph’s body type as much more aspirational than in the past. And Ralph is in good company with shrinking-bodies models on Ozympic-style drugs. She cites her concerns generally on this topic:

“We have to be careful of tokenism,” she says. “Of course we celebrate when designers and brands celebrate women of different sizes, but there has to be longevity, and we definitely haven’t got there yet. What we need in this industry is variation — we need all different versions of beauty.”

Factually-speaking, about 50% of luxury sales in clothing are coming from 1% of the population. Very, very few of those women are not model size, and they’ve always been thin.

We have more than four-years of luxury brands featuring significant numbers of larger-size models on the runway with little or no financial payback. Celina Ralph may be the body type all brands can embrace in today’s business climate, also bodies like Ashley Graham’s, who is a tour de force far beyond her body size.

After all, many of us are trying to save democratic governments and core human rights in our politics. Our focus is just not on the psychological demands of these women.

Read More

Penelope Cruz Life Timeline 2012: Babies Leo & Luna | Film 'The Counselor'

Penelope Cruz Life Timeline 2012:  Babies Leo & Luna |  Film 'The Counselor'

Penelope Cruz Life Timeline 2012: Babies Leo & Luna | Film 'The Counselor'

Penélope Cruz, the renowned Spanish actor, has graced the pages of Anne of Carversville for almost 20 years. AOC recently renewed Penelope Cruz’s Vogue Espana November 2012 fashion story ‘Sangre Caliente’, lensed by Tom Munro.

Penelope Cruz has always enjoyed Yummy Mummy status, and 2012 was an important year in that journey.

Read More