Erykah Badu 'Radical, Relevant, Real' for Vogue March 2023 by Jamie Hawkesworth

Erykah Badu 'Radical, Relevant, Real' for Vogue March 2023 by Jamie Hawkesworth

Erykah Badu has been a doula for about 20 years, and was preparing for her first multiple birth of twins with mother Summer Walker when Vogue’s Chioma Nnadi connected with the certified Reiki master in her South-Dallas childhood home.

Alex Harrington styles the photo shoot for The Second Coming of Erykah Badu, showcasing the four-time Grammy winner wearing a metallic Marni x Erykah Badu coat on the cover and other unique fashion artworks from their new co-designed collection.

Those of us who know Erykah Badu indeed consider her to be a shamanic priestess of a higher order. Both her interview and video tour of her private spaces confirm that the spiritual persona suits her. In multiple aspects, Erykah Badu has always been lighter than air . . . ethereal and spiritual but also possessed of ancient wisdom.

DJ and producer Questlove, who first saw Badu at the 1996 Soul Train Awards in Los Angeles, reflects:

“She had on the tallest turban I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says. “It was like she was hiding a three-year-old standing on her head, that’s how tall her headwrap was. I was just transfixed.”

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Stephanie Seymour's Steely Grace for WSJ Magazine, Lensed by Daniel Jackson

Stephanie Seymour's Steely Grace for WSJ Magazine, Lensed by Daniel Jackson

Model icon Stephanie Seymour covers WSJ Magazine’s Spring Women’s Fashion issue, making her first supermodel appearance since the January 2021 death of her son Harry Brant due to an accidental overdose of prescription.

There is a deep sadness that pervades Seymour’s interview with Derek Blasberg — as can be expected when a mother has lost her son to a drug overdose. Daniel Jackson [IG] captures Stephnie’s poignant grief, photographing the woman who “has built her career by happily submitting to the gods of the photo shoot”, in the words of Blasberg.

Those gods include Herb Ritts, Peter Lindbergh, and Richard Avedon. Seymour had a long and lucrative career with Victoria’s Secret.

Neither Stephanie Seymour’s life nor Peter Brant’s was ever dull. In 2018, the New York Times shared ‘The Great Interview Magazine Caper’, writing “Andy Warhol’s magazine is dead. No wait, it’s back! Inside Peter Brant’s latest magic trick.”

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Catherine McNeil Is Back! Married, Sober and Ready To Rumble in Vogue Australia

Catherine McNeil Is Back! Married, Sober and Ready To Rumble in Vogue Australia

Catherine McNeil covered the November 2022 issue of Vogue Australia, styled by Petta Chua in ‘Catherine McNeil’s Great Comeback’.

In Fall 2019, the top, top model walked out of the Burberry show, returned to New York, got off social media, put her furniture on the street — according to Vogue Australia — and bought a one-way ticket home to the country that would nurture her back to health.

Photographer Jake Terrey [IG] captures Catherine McNeil who has returned to the world of fashion modeling sober, married this month to former NBA American basketball player Miles Plumlee, and now possessed of an identity outside of fashion.

You must have guts to walk away and come back clear-headed and accept your fashion-model fate.

To do it twice? It’s called emotional and psychological depth and an absolute willingness to face the woman in the mirror head-on. Simply-stated, you become a warrior woman. ~ Anne

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Vogue Celebrates the 'Year of the Rabbit' with Artist Cai Guo-Qiang and Plenty of Gunpowder

Vogue Celebrates the 'Year of the Rabbit' with Artist Cai Guo-Qiang and Plenty of Gunpowder

Models He Cong, Sherri Shi, Sora Choi and Yumi Nu are styled by Gabriella Karefa-Johnson in a celebratory, fashion-extravagance happening that was ignited by gunpowder.

New York-Paris based artist Theo Liu [IG] packed up his photography studio essentials, as the creative entourage assembled at contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang's studio in a ‘Year of the Rabbit celebration running globally on multiple Vogues, including in the US.

Under Cai's guidance, the models became his interns, hand-carving stencils using a utility blade and extinguishing the flying sparks of the gunpowder explosions with cotton pompoms.

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Ajok Daing at 'Alex Kata: Gathering' Guggenheim Show by Alex Webb for Vogue US

Ajok Daing at 'Alex Kata: Gathering' Guggenheim Show by Alex Webb for Vogue US

The Winter 2022.23 Issue of American Vogue takes us to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on upper Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Model Ajok Daing is our guide to view “Alex Katz: Gathering,” curated by Katherine Brinson. The show opened in late October, and you can view the Katz exhibit through February 20, 2023.

The fashion story “Go Big!” trends both the paintings and our spring 2023 focus on very large bags. Max Ortega styles this delicious fashion story lensed by Alex Webb [IG].

American designer Claire McCardell, deeply celebrated on an ongoing basis by designer Tory Burch, caught Alex Katz’s eye decades ago. Her spirit is a major muse behind the current exhibition.

Katz, who is not a fan of the superfluous or fussy in any art form, tells the New York Times how “unaffected” her designs were: “They’re perfect now because everything is so pretentious,” he says. “The idea was, you can spend the day welding and go home and cook some hamburgers outdoors and wear the same clothes.”

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Kaia Gerber Lights Up ELLE February 2022 in Malibu with Cass Bird

Kaia Gerber Lights Up ELLE February 2022 in Malibu with Cass Bird

Top model and ingenue actor Kaia Gerber, now 21, covers the February 2023 issue of ELLE US. Alex White styles the Celine ambassador in Celine, of course, with sprinkles of Ralph Lauren Collection and an American flag dress from Vaquera. Cass Bird [IG] is behind the lens at the beach in Malibu.

Kaia Gerber has never been “model light” in her interviews. Hyland asks her multiple times about her mental health — like don’t we ask every multi-million $$$$ model today about her mental health?

Kaia shrugs it off with a smile — the smile of plenty of loving, hard work on Kaia — not to fix herself or those around her. But to engage with and gain a young person’s understanding of life around her.

There’s really a lot to like about this young woman. REALLY a lot to like. ~ Anne

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Lizzo Is On the Charts with All Systems on Go, Lensed by Campbell Addy for Vanity Fair

Lizzo Is On the Charts with All Systems on Go, Lensed by Campbell Addy for Vanity Fair

We’re late to Lizzo’s November 2022 Vanity Fair US cover story event — and what a reading experience it is. Now that New York’s Governors Ball has announced Lizzo in its 2023 edition June 9-11 at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, it’s time we do some serious Lizzo duty.

The uber talent well on her way to becoming a super star is making waves across America, and we’re here for it. Vanity Fair November was a long-interview pit stop with Lisa Robinson and it came with a perfect title: ‘Everything’s coming up Lizzo, and it’s about damn time.

Lizzo was styled by the one and only Patti Wilson, with photography by Campbell Addy [IG].

I’m writing and switching paragraphs around so that this next tough-talking paragraph from her Vanity Fair interview is followed by Lizzo’s 2021 TEDMonterey Talk.

If you are a white woman who thinks she sounds a little bit too hostile in her VF interview, consider her flute playing at the Library of Congress on September 26.

I am so disturbed over what happened, I probably would have gone to jail.

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Wild Romance Denim Nicola and Brooklyn Style for Vogue US Winter 2023

Wild Romance Denim Nicola and Brooklyn Style for Vogue US Winter 2023

The Winter 2023 issue of American Vogue [IG] declares a love affair with wide-leg jeans. Glam couple Nicola Peltz and Brooklyn Beckham front the fashion story and the 1970s vibe that inspired so many changes in American society.

Remember, we are in the dawning of ‘The Age of Aquarius’, so it makes sense. Speaking of wild romance terrain and wide-leg jeans “worth falling for,” Vogue is mum about married couple Peltz and Beckham’s intense friendship with Selena Gomez, called a ‘throuple’ by Selena. Media is eager to define the lifestyle of ‘Gopeltzham’.

If Brooklyn and Nicola hadn’t sold their home recently, moving into Selena’s Encino estate before Christmas, the big news would be that Peltz and Gomez have matching tatoos.

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Florence Pugh Covers Vogue US Winter 2022, Talks Her Radical Self-Acceptance

Florence Pugh Covers Vogue US Winter 2022, Talks Her Radical Self-Acceptance

Colin Dodgson [IG] is in the kitchen with Pugh as she talks ‘Florence Pugh’s Radical Self-Acceptance’ with Chloe Schama. / Hair by Akki Shirakawa; makeup by Fara Homidi. 

Schama describes Florence Pugh as somebody who exudes “a let’s-go gameness.” It was on full-display in summer 2022, when Pugh wore a sheer Valentino dress that was transparent and showed — goddess forbid — her nipples.

“. . . we were always naked as kids,” Pugh says. “We are human, we are bodies.”

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Christy, Linda, Naomi, Cindy & Tatjana by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue Australia (2013) as 'Supernova' | AOC Archives

Christy, Linda, Naomi, Cindy & Tatjana by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue Australia (2013) as 'Supernova' | AOC Archives

Update 1/11/2023: AOC has written multiple times about Peter Lindbergh’s famous supermodel shoot for British Vogue and its hallmark relevance in inspiring the George Michael ‘Freedom 90’ video. Cindy Crawford shared the video on Instagram three years ago. Prior to that we moved it to the front of the fashion channel on December 25, 2016, with the passing of George Michael.

Regretfully, we again move the video to the front of our channel with the passing of Tatjana Patitz — the super who marched to her own melody. Losing acclaimed photographer Peter Lindbergh — Tatjana’s fashion godfather — on September 3, 2019 was such a gut punch. Today’s news is another ember on a fire of uber-talented people who have left planet Earth long before we were ready to leave them.

May your next act be glorious Tatjana Patitz. ~ Anne

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