Actor Emily Blunt is styled by Celia Azoulay in garden party clothes from Dior, Emilia Wickstead, Louis Vuitton, Max Mara, Miu Miu, Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini, Safiyaa and more. Tom Schirmacher [IG] flashes Blunt in ‘A Seat at the Table’ for Harper’s Bazaar UK July-August 2023./Hair by Laini Reeves; makeup by Jenn Streicher
This summer, Blunt plays a very different role in ‘Oppenheimer’, the story behind the creation of the atomic bomb. Playing the role of Kitty Oppenheimer, born Katharine Puening Harrison in New York City on August 4, 1910, Emily Blunt the actor is introducing us to a woman intrinsically tied to the most significant scientific achievement of the 20th century.
“She was fiery, a force very much his equal. She was not a woman who conformed to the 1950s housewife ideal,” Emily Blunt explains, with a tone of voice that denotes reverence.
Of course, as an American I know who J. Robert Oppenheimer was. And I know intimately well the story of the McCarthy hearings, as my first landlord in New York was a playwright imprisoned for 1-2 years during the hearings.
Anne of Carversville lives very close to the ancient symbolism of much of the artistic imagery featured here, and how stereotypes of women have evolved over the last 12,000 years.
Photographed by Tyler Mitchell and styled by Carlos Nazario, top model Mona Tougaard was captured in the surreal landscape of Salin d'Aigues-Mortes, in the Camargue, for the summer 2023 issue of i-D magazine.
My response to Irina’s “wet and wild” fashion story, shot in Joshua Tree, California was connected to 1] her walking nearly naked in a recent Cannes event where everyone else appearing in photos was wearing clothes. As a publicity stunt, I can’t even remember the jewelry brand she was wearing; and 2] specifically in Joshua Tree, Danielle Midenge shot Winnie Harlow recently with a vibe that is more akin to this one with Mona Tougaard and Tyler Mitchell in the south of France. I loved Daniella’s Winnie images and revere the ancient history of Joshua Tree.
i-D acknowledges that Demeulemeester and her former new designer don’t seem to live at all in the same territory on the fashion spectrum. It’s a very convoluted explanation by Ludovic of why he was perfect to interpret Ann’s vision. Note: I also am very impressed by Robert Mapplethorpe. I still don’t get the shared synergy.
Bulgari [IG] ambassador and on-fire actor Eiza González celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Serpenti collection, gracing the cover of L’Officiel Paris’s [IG]June-July 2023 issue in a dazzling set of Bulgari High Jewelry diamonds.
In a refreshing voice about hard work, the upcoming The Three Body Problem star attributes her strong work ethic to growing up in Mexico City, while noting that America has benefitted from the attitude of her people.
“ I come from a culture where we work, work, work, work, work. In America, some of the hardest working people you will see — underpaid — are Mexican people or Latin people. We have always been taught to work and work harder, and then after you work harder, work harder than that.”
Nick Thompson [IG] shoots the actor’s ‘Stands Strong’ fashion story for The Wonder Women Issue.
In AOC’s opinion, feminism and women’s rights leaders haven’t given enough voice to the experiences of women from Mexico and Central and South America, where there are matriarchal traditions far stronger than in American history.
Eiza González speaks fiercely to the importance of her values in everything she does.
The well-loved Netflix series Heartstopper has been praised for its beautifully authentic portrayal of teenage love, with Yasmin's character, Elle Argent adding an important and moving dimension to the storyline. Heartstopper will enter its second season on August 3, with an expanded role for Finney.
Heartstopper is a graphic novel series written and illustrated by Alice Oseman. The story centers around two teenage boys, Charlie and Nick, who attend an all-boys school in the UK. Charlie is openly gay and has had a crush on Nick for quite some time, while Nick is straight and oblivious to Charlie's feelings.
One of Charlie’s best friends, Elle [Finney] is going through her own challenges at school. After years at the all boys’ school, Elle has officially transferred to the all girls’ school, making this her first year without her trusted group of BFFs by her side.
Though at first she’s convinced she’s the only LGBTQIA+ student, she learns quickly that she’s not as alone as she thought.
Actress Rebecca Ferguson covers the June 2023 issue of Vogue Hong Kong, styled by Karen Clarkson. Photographer Royal Gilbert[IG] captures Ferguson in a fashion story ‘Rebecca Ferguson: Digging Deep’./ Hair by Jillian Halouska; makeup by Emma Lovell
Ferguson is very busy with a new Mission Impossible film out this summer and Dune: Part Two arriving in late fall — currently November 3. The British-Swedish actor is executive producer on the acclaimed post-apocalyptic series Silo, streaming now on Apple TV+.
She is also in final negotiations to shoot the movie “Best Served Cold” under the direction of Tim Miller. Ferguson will play a legendary mercenary, who is betrayed, rejected and on a quest for revenge. Her personal mission will forever change the nation.
NBC News has announced Kristen Welker's appointment as the new anchor of “Meet the Press” the network’s flagship newsmagazine program. Welker currently serves as NBC’s White House correspondent and “Weekend Today” co-anchor.
One of Welker’s standout moments happened in 2020 when she moderated the second and final presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The no-nonsense but fair interviewer drew extensive positive reviews from both sides for keeping the proceedings moving and under control.
In truth, no one in media has done a better job than Kristen Welker, insisting that Donald Trump address specific questions — rather than letting him wrestle the narrative away from the moderator.
Last season alone, Meet the Press only averaged 2.57 million total viewers and 492,000 in its advertiser-prized 25-54 demographic; Todd’s ratings were significantly below competitors like CBS' Face the Nation and ABC' This Week in total viewers and in second place in the 25-54 demographic.
Australian actor Margot Robbie doesn’t remember having a Barbie doll, as a young girl growing up in Australia. Her cousin had Barbies and perhaps they all joined Robbie in admiring a dandelion-decorated mudpie or two made for an afternoon tea in the Australian Gold Coast sandbox.
Fast-foward to now, and Barbie’s scheduled touchdown in American movie theaters remains July 21, 2023.
The Summer issue of American Vogue weighs into the frenzy, putting Margot Robbie as Barbie on the cover. Robbie is lensed by Middle America to East Coast photographer, Caledonia, Michigan’s own Ethan James Green [IG].
When pitching her company LuckyChap, the production outfit she runs with her friend Josey McNamara and her husband, Tom Ackerley, to Mattel’s new CEO of Mattel, Ynon Kreiz, at the Polo Lounge in 2018, Robbie was clear about the road ahead.
“We of course would want to honor the 60-year legacy that this brand has,” Robbie says. “But we have to acknowledge that there are a lot of people who aren’t fans of Barbie. And in fact, aren’t just indifferent to Barbie. They actively hate Barbie. And have a real issue with Barbie. We need to find a way to acknowledge that.”
Supermodel Paloma Elsesser covers the May 19, 2023 issue of D Repubblica, styled in a wide range of sensual, dark beauty looks by Laetitia Gimenez Adam.
Luxury labels including Blumarine, Dolce & Gabbana, Maison Alaia, Niccolò Pasqualetti, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello and more join forces with Paloma in designs that do not contain the female body.
Photographer Pablo Di Prima [IG] is in the studio./ Hair by Matt Benns; makeup by Marcelo Gutierrez
Paloma Elsesser is waging a war against fatphobia, saying:
"It's absurd that such a large percentage of people are excluded. Who can think that fashion only interests thin people?". "I want to get the message across that even if you're imperfect, you can have the life you want," she explains. And here she talks about the days on set when you don't have "that" size, the hypocrisies of the system and that time at the age of 8 in Gap's dressing room ...
The Failure of BodEquality
Non-luxury retailing is having major struggles with keeping their businesses solvent. But in the case of BodEquality, a new challenge I’ve not read before, has entered the convo. Brands should invest years of losing money to earn the trust of potential plus-size customers. I will also add, even if you are trying to achieve new sustainability goals that require major financial investment.
Our dear Edward Enninful, EIC of British Vogue, has very strong opinions on this topic. Let him take his three new supers he has crowned and his very intelligent self and become a “flying squad of larger-bodies intelligence” that is deeply-embedded in three test case brands.
Don’t just demand representation. Do something constructive.
Late in 2022, Serena Williams launched her wellness brand ‘Will Perform’, with an initial focus on recovery essentials for pain relief and sore muscles. The clean, cruelty-free, topical pain relief and daily muscle-care solutions are designed to reimagine recovery from demanding exercise routines.
Today Serena and her tribe are headed to 3000 individually-selected Walmart stores with an offering of three key products also available at Walmart’s online platform. These products include the “Will Relieve Lidocaine Pain Relief Roll-On“, and the “Will Relieve Lidocaine Pain Relief Spray“, both priced at $13, along with the “Will Rest Nightly Muscle Recovery Lotion“, which is also priced at $13.
“Recovery has played an integral role in my performance and professional success. It’s a practice that can benefit anyone with an active lifestyle. That belief is what inspired us to develop a line of products that targets your muscles and can be incorporated into your daily self-care routine,” Williams said in a written statement.
Jennifer Garner covers the May 2023 issue of ‘Allure’ magazine, lensed by Tom Schirmacher [IG]. We don’t think of Jennifer Garner going edgy, but stylist Yashua Simmons creates a modern, steely-woman vibe with Miu Miu on the cover, LaQuan Smith [yellow trench coat], Loewe, Michael Kors and more.
“It spoke to the mountain girl in me — it’s a big part of Appalachian culture,” says Garner, 51, who grew up in West Virginia and gifts one of her wood-turning bowls created at a downtown Los Angeles studio to Pergament.
Garner learned the art of word turning in preparation for her current Apple TV+ thriller The Last Thing He Told Me.
Asked who she would be without Hollywood, Garner delivers an unexpected answer.
“I would have really liked being a minister,” she says. “My mom thinks I still will be. I grew up in such a lovely church in the United Methodist Church, and the minister was like the den parent. What I like about the study of religion, it reminds me of the study of theater . . .
Super talent Hailey Bieber takes the stage in the May 14th, 2023 issue of The Sunday Times Style [IG], wearing Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello on the cover.
Stella Greenspan styles Bieber in images by Cass Bird [IG]. / Hair by Edward Lampley; makeup by Grace Ahn
Ellie Austin conducts the interview, which is focused primarily on her very successful [and lauded on AOC] skincare brand Rhode.
The entrepreneur and in-demand model-talent does make a health claim that caused my heart to hit the floor, given the times we are living in.
Apparently Hailey makes the claim often, and if estimates are that 10 people in 10,000 have this side effect annually, she may well be on the short list. Bieber makes no uber-rare disclaimer around her health assertion, so the right-wingers Maga crowd just runs wild with it.
AOC shares the facts around her claim from the world-respected Cleveland Clinic.
The brand new Netflix show “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story” is inspired by actor Golda Rosheuvel’s role as “Bridgerton’s” feisty Queen Charlotte. Now, a younger India Amarteifio stars as the younger face of the monarch in the new spin-off series prequel.
Even Shonda Rhimes and actor Golda Rosheuvel stress that the purpose of putting Queen Charlotte front and center in the new Netflix spinoff is to inspire, even jumpstart new research around her ancestry.
"Our Queen Charlotte is based on and inspired by a real person, but is a fictional construct. We have made a beautiful, fantastical show with the hope that it makes people stop and wonder, 'Actually, who was this remarkable woman?' and go to find out more," she says. "Because she deserves it. She was part of the abolitionist movement; she knew Mozart; was a great patron of the arts."
The House of Windsor has never denied Queen Charlotte’s claimed African ancestry. David Buck, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson, was quoted by the Boston Globe as saying “This has been rumored for years and years. It is a matter of history, and frankly, we’ve got far more important things to talk about.”
Mermaid-loving Halle Bailey has a digital cover in the May 2023 issue of Vogue Arabia. The fabulous young talent is styled by Julia Müller in luxury looks from Chanel, David Koma, Jil Sander, Schiaparelli, Valdrin Sahiti, Valentino and more for images by The Morelli Brothers [IG]. / Hair by Tinisha Meeks; makeup by Christiana Cassell
My position with Ariel is that based on my studying of Hans Christian Andersen and having new reading from Andersen delivered to me — ‘Two Dramas. The Mulatto and The Moorish Girl’ — there is zero reason to take the position the ‘The Little Mermaid’ could not have been portrayed as a young creature of color in 1950 or in 1875, the year the author passed.
The problem is societal racism but not the author’s racism. And even people of color are jumping to conclusions about the author, which are presently unfounded. White people have the most simplistic argment: that Andersen was Danish and therefore Ariel was white.
The beautiful, meticulously-maintained gardens of Highgrove House hosted this exquisite fashion story featuring model Aishwarya Gupta, of Indian heritage posing for Harper’s Bazaar UK [IG].
The private residence of King Charles and Queen Camilla was used in a collaboration with The Prince’s Foundation, for which British Vogue EIC Edward Enninful is an ambassador. [See link end of this post].
The newly-crowned royal couple Charles and Camilla’s convoy was seen Saturday evening May 6, 2023 passing through Tetbury in their maroon Bentley, less than two miles from their Highgrove Estate.
Model and Muslim-rights activist Halima Aden is featured on four Vogue Arabia May 2022 covers. Aden is styled by Amine Jreissati in images by Youssef Oubahou [IG].
Even in 2022, Halima was giving the same new interviews to media that shared her story of walking out of the fashion industry in 2020. AOC checks on her about every 90 days. Aden brings that identical voice to this Vogue Arabia May 2023 interview — but after therapy, which she cites as being very beneficial for her.
Is the fashion industry still rife with “inhumane working conditions for models”? I don’t know, but the New-York based Model Alliance four days ago posted on IG that the ‘Fashion Workers Act’, represents the culmination of the Model Alliance’s work over the last decade.
The Master of Diplomacy
In AOC’s opinion, Manuel Arnault probably has the most delicate and politically-fraught EIC role in fashion media. He walks that tightrope with an impressive maturity and diplomacy that I certainly don’t possess.
Arnault impressed me today, because he has taken up the topic of the Cleopatra Netflix series. Hence the paragraph that preceds this one. I bow down, Manuel Arnault.
On March 26, 2023, Longoria debuted her new CNN show, “Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico”, which is modeled after the very successful “Searching for Italy with Stanley Tucci”. She is both host and executive producer of the series.
The series consists of six episodes, each exploring a different location in Mexico, including Jalisco, Mexico City, Nuevo Leon, Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Yucatan. Throughout the show, Longoria immerses herself in the rich culture, landscape, and history of Mexico, which have all played a significant role in shaping its world-renowned cuisine.
There are plenty of star chefs in the series, but Eva Longoria is unusually mindful of the stories of simple people like Ponciano Méndez, a farmer from Santa Ana Zegache, a town one hour from the capital of Oaxaca. In the valley where Ponciano lives, corn has been planted for more than six thousand years; In the neighboring valley, the oldest maize remains of humanity were found.
I truly love the show and was eager to learn more about Eva’s experiences of visiting indigenous communities and eating a traditional decolonized diet.
Before the Spanish conquest, Mexico was a predominantly vegetarian territory.
Sharing these fabulous images of Winnie Harlow lensed by Daniella Midenge [IG] at California’s Joshua Tree National Park, Winnie is just the most beautiful, articulate, focused and inspiring warrior-woman, love goddess on our precious Earth.
It’s a challenge to do her justice with words, although Jeannine Amber does a great job of explaining Winnie’s impact on the general population in her Women’s Health April 2023 interview Winnie Harlow Wants To Be More Than Just Your Role Model. Amber and Winnie go deep into how she maintains her extraordinal physique and warm spirit.
Between Daniella’s unique persona as a photographer/model and Winnie in all her glory, we’re damn lucky this duo and their team didn’t cause a major earthquake in the desert.
I hope Winnie won’t be cross with me for saying this, but when I saw her images, I thought they were primordial. We know that humans lived in Joshua well over 15,000 years ago — a group of hunter-gathers known as the Pinto Culture. The park's oldest rocks, Pinto Gneiss among them, are 1.7 billion years old.
Actor, singer talent Halle Bailey takes a May 2023 cover of British Vogue with an interview “Making Waves: Halle Bailey On Reinventing The Disney Princess In The Little Mermaid.”
Law Roach styles the 23-year-old Atlanta native in Dsquared2, Gucci, Philosophy by Lorenzo Serafini, Prada, Ralph Lauren Collection and more in images by Sharif Hamza [IG].
Back to Halle Bailey, she is interviewed by Jen Wang about her upcoming role as the lead of Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid.
“The version of Ariel in my head was the one we all know and love: pale skin and bright red hair. She didn’t look like me,” Bailey tells Wang.
Bailey auditioned her heart out for The Little Mermaid. Rob Marshall was totally spellbound by Halle, but her acting experience was limited — and Ariel is the lead role.
At every step of the way, Marshall found himself immersed in her excellence — even as he put more challenging obstacles in her path.
My Revolt Against MAGA Ignorance
The difference between AOC and MAGA is that we educate ourselves. And unless you just reject all of the historical record, and all facts about Denmark and author Hans Christian Andersen, MAGA is drowning in ignorance when they hit Twitter with claims that the author was Danish and therefore the Little Mermaid had to be white.
The model, writer, businesswoman and podcaster Emily Ratajkowski travels to the picturesque town of Chinchón, southeast of Madrid, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Vogue Spain’s May 2023 issue.
Emrata embodies Mediterranean sensuality in a fashion story that is pure style, celebration and tradition.
Photographer Brett Lloyd [IG] captures Ratajkowski, who is styled by Laetitia Gimenez Adam, in a story with a Sophia Loren vibe. That’s a compliment ER.
Emily Ratajkowski reminds me of Marilyn Monroe, who also sought to be regarded as a woman with an active, intelligent brain. Speaking of this major transition to being a multi-hyphenate writer, 'podcaster', political subject and mother [as described by Vogue], she explains:
“I thought the most I could do with my life was be a sex object and I said to myself, 'My God, I'm so unhappy.' So I started writing.”
Top model Irina Shayk shares a more intimate side of her personality, in what becomes a wonderful interview, as told to Nikki Ogunnaike for the May 2023 Beauty issue of Harper’s Bazaar. / Hair by Cim Mahony; makeup by Marcelo Gutierrez
The concept of ‘kindness’ is the biggest theme in her story, beginning with Shayk’s grandmother who never wore makeup but whipped up natural potions, using ingredients in the fridge. Irina reflects:
She was always so positive and grateful for every day and was like, “Always be yourself. Be kind to people.” That’s what true beauty is.
I mentioned on Wednesday reading a powerful Emrata interview in the LA Times, and that it was “a welcome jolt”. The minute I began reading Irina Shayk’s interview, my thoughts immediately went to Emrata.
