Holiday Magazine [IG] takes us to Samarkand, in their FW 2025 issue No.396. Bibi Breslin is dressed by Emmanuel Alt in YSL for the cover, as the creative team heads out for a holiday in a key city on the original Silk Road.

Drew Vickers [IG] captures ‘Bibi’s Eastern Reverie’ in Samarkand, a UNESCO city in Uzbekistan, founded in the 7th - 8th centuries as the ancient city of Afrasiab. /Hair by Damien Boissinot; Makeup by Christelle Cocquet

For centuries, ancient trade routes - from Siberia to India, from China to Egypt - converged on the international oasis now known as Samarkand. Greeks, Persians, Turks, Mongols and Arabs all made their way to the city.

Alexander the Great conquered the city in 329 BCE, when it was known as Markanda. Genghis Khan destroyed it, ruling from 1206 to 1227, the year of his death. During this time, Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and established the Mongol Empire.

From Holiday Magazine website:

Between 1946 and 1977, Holiday was one of the most exciting magazines in the United States. Renowned for its bold layout, literary credibility and ambitious choice of photographers, Holiday portrayed the world like no other periodical. The premise was simple: send a writer and photographer to a specific location and ask them to capture their vision of the place without constraints of style, length or budget. Some of the most celebrated writing by Graham Greene, Joan Didion, Jack Kerouac and Truman Capote first appeared in the pages of Holiday. At the peak of its acclaim, the magazine had more than a million subscribers.

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In 2014, after a thirty-seven-year hiatus, Holiday returned at the behest of Parisian art director Franck Durand. This new Holiday remains faithful to the essence, aesthetic and sense of journalistic adventure of its forebear, but in a format that also celebrates fashion. Editorials shot by industry-leading photographers, and emerging talents alike, coexist beautifully with the work of today's top literary voices. And true to its original concept, Holiday still sends contributors afield to produce a portrait of a place that is at once intimate and timeless.

Jack Kerouac did not travel the Silk Road, limited instead to famous but short trips to Europe and Morocco, Mexico and intensive travel across America as a key voice of the Beats generation.