V106: Special Digital Edition

106 SPRING 2017

SPECIAL DIGITAL EDITION KRISTEN STEWART

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KENZO FILMS #4

AD MUSIC IS MY MISTRESS A FILM BY KAHLIL JOSEPH In this shapeshifting new film, Music is much more than mere sound and rhythm. This story casts music herself as the central character of an unfolding drama across cultures, space, and time.

Tracee Ellis Ross Jesse Williams Kelsey Lu Ish NOW SHOWING AT KENZO.COM/MUSICISMYMISTRESS

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V106 Mario Testino Karl Lagerfeld Bruce Weber Nick Knight Mario Sorrenti Hedi Slimane Paul Cavaco Amanda Harlech Jacob K George Cortina Linda Evangelista Chloë Sevigny Beat Bolliger Sharif Hamza Ellie Grace Cumming Leon Mark Bruno Staub Julian Jesus Chad Moore Rúben Moreira Annie Powers Jeff Henrikson Akari Endo-Gaut Therese Aldgard Louise Borchers Whitney Mallett Nell Beram Alex Frank

EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / CREATIVE DIRECTOR Stephen Gan EDITOR Joseph Akel MANAGING EDITOR Nancy Gillen SENIOR EDITOR Joshua Lyon CONTRIBUTING SENIOR EDITOR Priya Rao DIGITAL EDITOR William Defebaugh PHOTO EDITOR Nicola Kast BOOKINGS EDITOR Sara Zion CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, ENTERTAINMENT

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TO SEE. TO BE SEEN.

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CONTENTS

72 HEROES Derek Blasberg honors the great China Machado, Linda Evangelista looks back on her friendship with George Michael, plus the much needed return of Depeche Mode and a new collection of Joan Didion’s writings

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78 THE NEW VANGUARD Six modern icons nominate their picks for the next generation of powerhouse personalities

84 V NEWS Guess reissues their original 1981 capsule line, Issey Miyake’s latest homage, Chanel’s new It Bag, and much more

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88 CITY GUIDE Copenhagen’s latest export, the band Communions, takes V on a tour of their hometown

90 THE FUTURE OF FASHION We predict that Dior’s zodiac-themed clutches and rings are destined for greatness

92 ALL EYES / ALL EARS Celebrate sound and vision with the season’s most stunning earrings and sunglasses

94 SPRING RITES A moody take on new must-have trends is a study in contrasts

98 V GIRLS

Four actresses who are more than ready for their close-up

V is a registered trademark of V Magazine LLC. Copyright © 2017 V Magazine LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A. V (BIPAD 96492) is published bimonthly by V Magazine LLC. Principal office: 11 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10013. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Speedimpex 3010 Review Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101. For subscriptions, address changes, and adjustments, please contact Speedimpex, tel. 800.969.1258, e-mail: subscriptions@speedimpex.com. For back issues contact V Magazine, 11 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10013, tel. 212.274.8959. For press inquiries please contact Purple PR, tel. 212.858.9888.

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CONTENTS

106 KRISTEN BY MARIO TESTINO Kristen Stewart smolders in Spring’s sexiest fashion and opens up to Chloë Sevigny about her intense new film, Personal Shopper Styled by Paul Cavaco

THIS ISSUE

120 ONE CIRCUS, THREE RINGS BY BRUCE WEBER Escape the real world and join a magical mystery tour of the season’s wildest fashions Styled by Amanda Harlech

152 BELLA BY MARIO SORRENTI The supermodel as you’ve never seen her before— baring all in black and white Styled by George Cortina

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170 CAITIN KITTEN BY NICK KNIGHT Muse and Instagram star @caitinkitten pushes boundaries in the season’s most extreme fashion Styled by Jacob K

182 STRICTLY BALLROOM BY KARL LAGERFELD Take to the floor in elegant formal wear that will keep you dancing until dawn Styled by Amanda Harlech

192 URBAN COWBOY BY MARIO TESTINO Bonner Bolton’s professional bull riding career ended after a terrible accident, but now he’s back in the saddle as an in-demand model

+ HEDI SLIMANE’S NEW YORK DIARY The second installment of the photographer’s visual love letter to the artists who keep the spirit of the city alive

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EDITOR’S LETTER

LETTER

The dearly departed artist Prince once said, “A strong spirit transcends rules.” We couldn’t agree more. Here at V, our mission has always been to seek out and celebrate those free spirits who are unafraid to challenge norms and push boundaries. What we love about the truly free-spirited is that there’s something deeper at work than simply being a rule breaker for the hell of it: these are people who understand that in order to truly look beyond the barriers, you must first look within yourself. The freedom to not care what others think and to stay the course of your own beliefs is everyone’s birthright, but it often takes deep introspection and perseverance to get there.

Who better than Kristen Stewart to appear on the cover, photographed by Mario Testino and styled

by Paul Cavaco? From the very start of her career, Stewart has held fast to her integrity as an artist while resisting the expectations often assigned to celebrities, particularly women. During her opening monologue on Saturday Night Live this February, she officially came out of the closet, while poking fun at Trump’s obsession with her ex-boyfriend. It was a hilarious and beautifully subversive rebel yell, a perfect meld of the political and the personal in which she firmly took control of her own narrative. With several forthcoming films, here she speaks with her friend and Lizzie costar Chloë Sevigny about her role in the psychological thriller Personal Shopper, her own fashion icons, and the effects of social media today.

Always the daring ringleaders, Bruce Weber and Amanda Harlech bring a springtime carnival to V. With a merry cast of revelers, Weber reminds us of the ultimate childhood freedom fantasy: running away to join the circus. Meanwhile, photographer Mario Sorrenti and George Cortina present Bella Hadid as she’s never been seen before. One of the biggest models working today (at last check she had 10 million Instagram followers), Hadid’s presence is larger than life, and her willingness to be so candid and intimate proves why she’s at the top of her game.

Visionary photographer Nick Knight and stylist Jacob K once again show us that the most daring fashion deserves an individual who knows how to wear clothes as an extension of self. Featuring model Caitin Kitten, Knight makes clear fashion’s place at the vanguard of expressions of freedom, aligning himself with Coco Chanel’s radical emancipation of the modern women and Oliviero Toscani’s activist-inspired ad campaigns for Benetton. Karl Lagerfeld and Amanda Harlech dance to their own tune in a ballroom-inspired fantasy that puts the spring in Spring fashion, starring models Jules Horn and Lindsey Wixson. Finally, Mario Testino photographs model and former pro bull riding champion, Bonner Bolton. Having suffered an accident in early 2016 that almost left him paralyzed, Bolton is living proof of the resilience of the human spirit.

Elsewhere in the issue, we pay tribute to two icons of self-expression that left us in 2016. Derek Blasberg recalls the legacy of China Machado while Linda Evangelista remembers the day she filmed the video for “Freedom! ’90” with George Michael. We also profile six of today’s brightest new visionaries as nominated by the likes of Pharrell, Glenn Close, and Oliver Stone, among others.

Of course, this wouldn’t be V without covering the best that the season has to offer in fashion, music, and literature—disciplines that are especially important to showcase now that we’ve entered into a political climate in which the arts are at risk and the very idea of freedom of expression is on shaky ground. It’s perhaps paradoxical that it takes a free spirit to lead by example, but as long as there are those willing to do so, we will be here to champion them. MR V

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REI-TROSPECTIVE In advance of this year’s Met Gala celebrating Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo, we look back on the visionary’s works as they have appeared on the pages of V throughout the years.

See Bella Hadid like never before in a stunning short film by Mario Sorrenti alongside an interview with the photographer.

BALLROOM BLITZ Watch Jules Horn and Lindsey Wixson’s ballroom love story come to life on the dance floor for Karl Lagerfeld.

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GOLD MINE Discover more V Girls online with exclusive features on the stars of tomorrow—like Kiiara, the rising rebel whose debut single “Gold” has kickstarted her career.

V is a registered trademark of V Magazine LLC. Copyright © 2016 V Magazine LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A. V (BIPAD 96492) is published bimonthly by V Magazine LLC. Principal office: 11 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10013. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Speedimpex 3010 Review Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101. For subscriptions, address changes, and adjustments, please contact Speedimpex, tel. 800.969.1258, e-mail: subscriptions@speedimpex.com. For back issues contact V Magazine, 11 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10013, tel. 212.274.8959. For press inquiries please contact Purple PR, tel. 212.858.9888.

Clockwise from top left: Photography Steven Klein for V94; Photography Mario Sorrenti; Photography Michael Ray Ortiz; Photography Karl Lagerfeld

BELLISSIMA

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CHINA MACHADO V ’s editor-at-large remembers the legendary, boundarybreaking model and muse.

A few years ago, I tried to call China Machado at her home on Long Island and grew panicked when I couldn’t get an answer on her landline. It rang and rang, and I kept calling back. I was worried. Finally, breathless and panting, there was China on the other end of the line. The reason she couldn’t hear the phone: she was dancing and blaring her music, lost in her own fabulous world of movement and style.

The world lost China, pronounced “CHEE-na,” on December 18, 2016, at the age of 86, and a glittering light in the fashion world for the past six decades was extinguished. Some models are scouted as girls, work professionally until they become young women, and then retreat from the industry and move back into the real world. Not China. She was Richard Avedon’s muse, then his fashion director. In 1959, she became the first non-Caucasian to appear on the cover of a major American fashion magazine when she posed for Harper’s Bazaar. Two years after, she was the first to appear nude in their pages. Later, she became one of their editors. She also starred in the now infamous “Battle of Versailles” fashion show in 1973. She opened the door for generations of models of color, and she did it by doing what she did best: breathing life into fabulous clothes and turning fashion photography into art.

Avedon said she was “probably the most beautiful woman in the world,” and by making her his muse he was largely responsible for her stellar career. “He was the first person who photographed me,” China told me in an old interview. “He saw me with Diana Vreeland 72 VMAGAZINE.COM

the day after I arrived in New York.” It was 1958, and it was during their first shoot that he snapped the iconic picture of China posed with a cigarette dangling from her fingertips, which appeared on Bazaar’s February issue the following year. “I didn’t know what to do when I came into the studio. I had never had a makeup person or a hairdresser—and he even had a manicurist.

He kept saying, ‘Show the bones! Show those golden bones!’” Two decades later, China discovered those pictures caused a furor at Bazaar. Her ethnicity ruffled feathers and made the publisher fear they would lose subscribers. Ultimately, Avedon, whose contract was up for renewal, said if the pictures didn’t run he’d quit shooting for the magazine. “I had no idea that there were racial issues. I didn’t think of myself as any race, to tell you the truth.”

China’s life story was as inspiring as her pictures.

She was born to a Portuguese-by-way-of-Macau father and a Chinese mother in Shanghai. They were a well-off family—she spoke French among friends, Portuguese with her parents, and Chinese to the staff—until the Japanese invaded in 1937. China (then Noelie Dasouza) and her family escaped by boat. Following World War II, they tried to immigrate to America but were turned away from New York City. So, instead, they moved to Argentina, then Peru, and finally Spain, where, when she was only 19, she began an affair with Luis Miguel Dominguín, the most famous bullfighter in the world and the inspiration for Ernest Hemingway’s nonfiction book The Dangerous Summer. Because the affair scandalized her family, she ran off with Dominguín to Rome.

Two years later—when he left her for Ava Gardner— she landed in Paris. There, she went with a girlfriend to a cocktail party and the directress of Balenciaga asked China if she wanted to be a model. “I didn’t know what to say. I had no idea about fashion. I was just a girl from Shanghai,” China told me, laughing. “But, I thought, Why not?”

She quickly sashayed from house model to being the highest paid face in Paris. Her career continued in New York, both as a model and later as one of the city’s preeminent fashion editors. The legendary, futuristic, hot pink helmet that Jean Shrimpton wore on the infamous April 1965 cover of Harper’s Bazaar?

China designed it. She also worked with Avedon on stars like Judy Garland and Elizabeth Taylor. “Every shot that Dick did from 1962 to 1972, I did it with him,” she told me. They remained close friends and collaborators until he died in 2004. “I always loved the way Dick talked about my bones. Because, for me, that’s where style resides. It’s in my bones.” DEREK BLASBERG

PHOTOGRAPHY GLEN LUCHFORD FASHION BEAT BOLLIGER CHINA WEARS DRESS AND NECKLACE LANVIN RESORT 2011 EARRINGS ALEXIS BITTAR RING DIOR

Makeup Lisa Houghton (Streeters) Hair Kevin Ryan for Rsession Tools (Art + Commerce) Lighting technician Jack Webb Manicure Alicia Torello (The Wall Group) Digital technician Aron Norman Photo assistant Lance Cheshire Stylist assistants Delphine Danhier and Karen Wisdom Location Splashlight Soho Retouching House Studios

HEROES

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George Michael, March 1988, Faith World Tour, Michael Putland / Getty Images

HEROES

GEORGE MICHAEL Linda Evangelista recalls her first meeting with the iconic singer and their enduring friendship born from the “Freedom! ’90” video shoot.

74 VMAGAZINE.COM

Despite having known who George was from his Wham! days, I didn’t meet him until 1990, when he came to Paris for the collections and asked me to do the “Freedom! ‘90” video. All of the other girls had already agreed and I was the last one to sign up. When he told me, “It will make you famous,” I burst out laughing! At that moment in my career, all I wanted to do was make my “art”—whatever that was. I did not want to lip-synch in a music video or sell calendars or burgers—and I’m not saying that in a derogatory way. I truly only wanted to be a fashion model. I was also laughing because I had no idea how I would find the time.

I was so busy! George, in all seriousness, then said, “It will put you on a different level.” How do you say no to that? We gave George the only day I had free.

The day before filming, I had a shoot with Steven Meisel where my hair was Andy Warhol-inspired (blond only on top, roots dark), but then after the shoot, we dyed my hair platinum because Steven decided “The Warhol” was too strange on me. So after shooting all day, we dyed my hair in my kitchen until 3:30 AM, and I went straight from my kitchen in Paris to film the video in London. The other girls had each received a Sony Discman with the song and a copy of the lyrics. I not only never got a Discman, but since my fax machine wasn’t working, my agents in New York City were unable to send me the lyrics, so I showed up the last day of filming not knowing the words and having never heard the song. George found out and came to the makeup trailer to help me learn it. He stayed with me until he was comfortable that I got it. To this day, I’m not sure if he was enthusiastic or worried…I like to think it was enthusiasm.

After my first take, George jumped in, stopped me and told me to stop singing the song and lip-synch

instead. I had no idea what the difference was, but I worked very hard on my lip-synching skills. For most of the 16-plus hour day, Christy was with us (but better behaved than me and George). There was plenty of red wine, lots of laughter, and when the production locked up the wine, George and I managed to break into the locked production office and steal some back for the purpose of “finishing the shoot,” with George repeating, “I paid for this! I paid for this!” We became close friends from then on out and would see one another wherever we could.

By the time we shot the “Too Funky” video for the Red Hot + Dance album two years later, Georgie (which is what I was calling him by then) and many artists were working to bring awareness to HIV/AIDS. In fact, Georgie and the other artists on the record donated all of their proceeds to HIV/AIDS organizations.

Making the video for “Too Funky” was a bit tougher than “Freedom! ‘90.” Georgie had hired Thierry Mugler to direct the video, but it was such a detailed project and they soon learned that they didn’t have the time needed for the version Thierry imagined. So Georgie took over, combined Thierry’s footage with new footage he directed, and made the version it’s best known for today. Genius at work!

Over the years, we stayed in touch and would send one another birthday wishes (mine in May, his in June). I can easily recall all of the craziness we enjoyed together. One of my favorite times with Georgie was seeing Prince in concert in London—from the sound booth—and dancing the entire time! Georgie was a dazzling and compassionate soul who I will always remember as he was on the day when we met: with a precocious smile and sense of adventure. Thank you for the love, Georgie. AS TOLD TO FRED HOWARD

All prop styling Heather Greene (Hello Artitists)

DEPECHE MODE

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The quintessential synth rock band returns with an album readymade for old-school fans and a new generation of rebels.

If you feel a sense of gloom about the state of the world today, then Depeche Mode is the right band for you. They’ve long crafted beautiful songs from ugly truths, and with their new album, Spirit (out March 17th on Columbia Records, their 14th since their 1981 debut), they’ve hit on a doozy in the current political climate. The first single, “Where’s the Revolution,” is a righteous ode to the disillusionment and dread creeping over the Western world. Written by Martin Gore—the lyricist behind most of DM’s iconic hits, like “Personal Jesus”—right before the Brexit vote, it carries an eerily prophetic quality about the current turmoil on our side of the pond: “C’mon people you let me down,” sings Dave Gahan, the band’s frontman, over churning synth sounds. “The end is coming so get on board.”

Escapism, this is not. “I was just picking up a sense of frustration in the air,” says Gore, on the phone from his home in Santa Barbara. “There are a lot of angry people, and I think they’re confused and don’t know quite where to put their frustration.”

Gore is well acquainted with the frustrations of the average Joe, thanks to his 1970s upbringing in Essex, an industrial and agricultural county east of London. “It was very working class,” he says. “When I left school, I was on [welfare] for about three months. I wasn’t interested in anything, except music.” His mom forced him to work at a bank, and the dull job had the unexpected effect of jumpstarting Gore’s musical career by allowing him the money to buy his first synthesizer.

“There was a bit of an electronic scene happening,” he recalls. “I felt that it was the future.” He was right, both for himself and the music world at large.

The genesis of Depeche Mode occurred in the late ’70s, when founding members and schoolmates Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke linked up to play music

together before absorbing Gore and Gahan, the latter discovered when Clarke heard him sing a David Bowie cover at a talent contest. (Clarke left in ’81 to form Yaz and later Erasure. His replacement was Alan Wilder, who left the band in ‘95.) The band bounced around the U.K. underground scene for years, making increasingly moody music that blended rock with electronic sounds and contained lyrics about BDSM and spirituality. Gore credits the song “People Are People,” a jangly meditation on discrimination and hate, for helping to make them superstars. “In 1985, when we came back to America after a two year break, we realized there were like 15,000 people turning up to each show,” he says. They quickly became massively influential for a generation of ’80s kids obsessed with their sound, steely look, and austere Anton Corbijn-directed videos.

Practically any artist who fuses electronic instruments with a pop sensibility owes Depeche Mode a debt of gratitude. “Electronic music is everywhere now. For good or bad,“ Gore says. “Now, you can record it in your bedroom very cheaply.”

His own musical revolution aside, these days he’s newly married with a young daughter and one more on the way. “There’s a song on the new album about my daughter, which is about doing whatever I can as a man to [help her] when black clouds rise and the radiation falls,” he says. That’s a fairly bleak way to frame what is essentially a lullaby, but Gore doesn’t think of his music as entirely sad. Instead, he sees his art as a way to get us to face up to the darker aspects of world around us. “I’ve always said that I make realistic music,” he says. “I would like to hope that the music makes people think.” ALEX FRANK

PHOTOGRAPHY MATTHEW PORTER

HERO

JOAN DIDION The release of her previously unpublished notebooks, South and West, offers new insights into one of our greatest living authors.

76 VMAGAZINE.COM

I know, I know: you already love Joan Didion. You love her earliest efforts, published while she was working at Vogue. (For example, from her bravura 1961 essay on self-respect: misguided people “think that selfrespect has necessarily to do with not having safety pins in one’s underwear.”) You also love Blue Nights, her bracingly crystalline 2011 mediation on the 2005 death of her adult daughter and only child, Quintana, on the heels of losing her husband of multiple decades, the writer John Gregory Dunne, and her coinciding fear that she is losing herself (“What if I can never again locate the words that work?”).

In addition, you love just about everything Joan Didion wrote in between those two markers: the novels, the screenplays, the feats of so-called New Journalism.

And while we’re talking about Didion, you love her carefully curated look. In Blue Nights, she laments that she’s become too wobbly for her red four-inch heels. In that 1989 Gap ad she poses with the adult Quintana in matching black turtlenecks, her fingers locked around her daughter’s middle as if she forecasts what’s to come. In a 2015 ad campaign, she menaces in black shades as the 80-year-old face of Céline.

I get it: you love Joan Didion. But did you know that there’s a reason to love her more? South and West: From a Notebook, out in March, offers a pair of newto-the-public sketches of two geographical landscapes

that she owned with her pen back in the 1970s, when you, or maybe your parents, were first falling in love with her.

“I could never precisely name what impelled me to spend time in the South during the summer of 1970,” she writes in the first piece, “Notes on the South.”

Nothing in particular was going on there, “no celebrated murders, trials, integration orders, confrontations, not even any celebrated acts of God.” But the fact of being Joan Didion was reason enough to spend a month driving around Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, her husband at the wheel and the humidity tormenting her “long straight hair, which is not seen in the South among respectable women past the age of fourteen.”

Didion writes of visiting a derelict Mississippi reptile farm and a Mississippi Broadcasters’ convention brunch, as well as the casual bigotry she encounters, like on a roadhouse menu that advertises “Italian or Wop salad.” She’s Dorothea Lange–like, noting the people waiting on their porches for something to happen to them, and she withholds judgment. (You should try that sometime.) “Notes on the South” is a Didion-stamped time capsule, and yet, given the recent U.S. election results, you wonder how much has changed in a place where, in 1970, “the Civil War was yesterday, but 1960 is spoken of as if it were about three hundred years ago.”

The “West” in South and West refers to the coast where Didion was to cover the trial of wealthy young newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, who was kidnapped from her Berkeley apartment in 1974 and who, so it was being argued, later formed a willing alliance with her politically berserk abductors. Who better to cover Hearst’s trial, thought Rolling Stone, than fellow California girl Joan Didion?

In 1976, Didion went to San Francisco for the trial, her pencils sharpened. What she put in her notebook, here published as “California Notes,” includes a nod to her common ground with Hearst—both were children of California who had “never known deprivation”—but she ultimately abandoned the assignment, having found herself more interested in “the peculiar vacuum in which I grew up.” Didion was right to let her attention wander: these sparse notes led to 2003’s Where I Was From, which is maybe your favorite Joan Didion book.

Didion, now arguably New York’s most famous living writer, probably didn’t anticipate that these two pieces would one day augment the fragmented autobiography that she has been informally crafting, from one cardinal point or another, her whole professional life.

South and West has all the squinty-eyed curiosity and stinginess about easy sentiment for which you have always counted on Joan Didion. You will definitely feel the love, meaning yours for her. I’m afraid you’ll have to earn hers. NELL BERAM

SOUTH AND WEST: FROM A NOTEBOOK IS AVAILABLE FROM KNOPF MARCH 7, 2017

Joan Didion, circa 1977, ©CSU Archives / Alamy

“I could never precisely name what impelled me to spend time in the South during the summer of 1970.” —Joan Didion

THE NEW VANGUARD V introduces the next generation of creative innovators, nominated by some of the biggest names in entertainment today.

BARRY JENKINS Nominated by James Franco 78 VMAGAZINE.COM

A long steady-cam shot moves in and around the drug dealer, swirling as he talks to his underling working on the corner. I assumed that this was the lead character. Then, the young boys run through. They’re chasing young Chiron, called “Little” in this first chapter.

After watching Moonlight four times, I noticed the small crown on the dash of the dealer’s car. A small crown that pops up on the dash of the older Chiron’s car in the third chapter, when Chiron is a drug dealer himself and is now called “Black.”

Maybe I was slow to figure it out, but everything in the movie is connected.

The dealer’s love for Chiron, culminating with him baptizing the latter in the ocean, is the love and support that gets Chiron through his youth. A love that comes with the painfully ironic twist that situates the dealer as the provider of crack for Chiron’s mother, while also becoming the impromptu father for Chiron. This configuration is later reflected in the irony of Chiron as “Black” becoming a drug dealer after suffering as the child of an addict.

The same cruel irony is true of Chiron’s figure of affection, Kevin. The boy he knew as a child, who taught him

to be tough in the face of others. As a teen, Kevin would both initiate him into love, into physical intimacy, while also delivering the blows of hate as the school bully's puppet. And as an adult, Kevin is the one who would draw him out of the protective shell of his drug dealer persona. The one who could pull out the sensitive Chiron he knew from their youth, the one who could admit that he had not been intimate with anyone since they were teens on the beach.

The movie is so personal, so specific: growing up black and gay in Florida, a world that has zero similarities to my upbringing in Palo Alto. There isn’t one white person in the film. But the storytelling is so deft, the actors are so committed, the subject matter so relatable (coming of age) that I am filled with empathy every time I watch the film.

Barry Jenkins disregarded every preconceived idea about what would make a commercial film, made a personal film, put his whole heart into it, and turned out a masterpiece. JAMES FRANCO

ARTWORK BY JAMES FRANCO

GRACE VAN PATTEN Nominated by Glenn Close Actress Grace Van Patten is no stranger to Hollywood. Her uncle, Dick Van Patten, was a fixture on film and television, perhaps best remembered for his leading role on the comedy Eight Is Enough. Added to that, Grace's father, Tim, has made a name for himself behind the camera, directing episodes of standout series, including Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire, among others. With genes like those, it was only a matter of time before the young star found herself working in the industry. Among her most recent projects, Grace finished working on the romantic comedy, Wilde Wedding, starring alongside the likes of Glenn Close and John Malkovich.

With several other films set to release in 2017, Van Patten is all set for a wild ride of her own. JOSEPH AKEL

PHOTOGRAPHY CHAD MOORE STYLING AKARI ENDO-GAUT

Makeup Katie Mellinger Hair Jillian Halouska (Starworks Artists) Photo assistant Zach Sky Stylist assistant Jeanette Reza

GRACE WEARS TOP FENDI

R- R-SS------Nominated by Lena Dunham

“I’m nominating Ry Russo-Young because her skills as a filmmaker and her voice as an artist are strong enough that she can make the most intimate stories epic and the most epic stories intimate.

She is the kind of ’80s art world film boss/dream babe I grew up worshipping. When she looks through the camera, even the inanimate comes to life. She’s funny and wise and boy does she look good in pants.”

PHOTOGRAPHY SHARIF HAMZA STYLING ELLIE GRACE CUMMING RY WEARS TRENCH SALVATORE FERRAGAMO BOOTS STUART WEITZMAN WATCH OMEGA TIGHTS STYLIST'S OWN

Ben Schnetzer: Grooming Jillian Halouska (Starworks Artists) Photo assistant Zach Sky Stylist assistant Jeanette Reza Ry Russo-Young: Makeup Susie Sobol for NARS (Julian Watson Agency) Hair Marki Shkreli for Marki Haircare Production Ashley Herson Photo assistants Matthew Hawkes, Evgeny Popov, William Takahashi, Mary Fix Stylist assistants Nadia Zeeman and Jordan Duddy Hair assistant Kelly Oliphant Makeup assistant Anya Zeitlin Production assistant Tom O’Meara

BEN SCHNETZER Nominated by Oliver Stone

For actor Ben Schnezter, 2016 was a big year. get to see how a real leading man conducts himStarring in director Oliver Stone's NSA whistle- self off camera, as well." Schnetzer's career is blower drama, Snowden, Schnetzer found himself often marked by his willingness to tackle subject working for an icon of the film industry. "Oliver is matter that foregrounds controversial social and masterful at crafting character-driven narratives," political topics. Case in point: his starring role as the actor notes, "and the marriage of his fear- a gay rights activist in the historical drama, Pride. less political voice with his deep, intuitive under- "To have a hand in telling a story worth telling is the greatest feeling in the world as an actor." JA standing of character really appealed to me." Of his costar, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Schentzer is equally praiseful: “I hope every young actor, when PHOTOGRAPHY CHAD MOORE STYLING AKARI ENDO-GAUT they're starting out, has the opportunity to work BEN WEARS COAT KENZO SHIRT (UNDERNEATH) with someone like Joe. Not just to play opposite GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI and learn from his brilliance as an artist, but to

Nominated by Pharrell

Tei Shi: Makeup Steven Canavan (L‘Atelier NYC) Hair Rudy Martins (The Wall Group) Photo assistant Jordan Zuppa Stylist assistant Kacey Hirschberg Chanté Adams: Makeup Susie Sobol for NARS (Julian Watson Agency) Hair Marki Shkreli for Marki Haircare Production Ashley Herson Photo assistants Matthew Hawkes, Evgeny Popov, William Takahashi, Mary Fix Stylist assistants Nadia Zeeman and Jordan Duddy Hair assistant Kelly Oliphant Makeup assistant Anya Zeitlin Production assistant Tom O’Meara

CHANTÉ ADAMS “She’s a chameleon who transforms into a character and makes you forget that Chanté Adams even exists. When an actress can reveal so much emotion with only her eyes, it’s obvious she’s an undeniable talent.”

PHOTOGRAPHY SHARIF HAMZA STYLING ELLIE GRACE CUMMING CHANTÉ WEARS BLAZER ZADIG & VOLTAIRE TOP REDEMPTION

TEI SHI Nominated by Tove Lo

In a city as bustling with anxious energy as New York, Valerie Teicher, better known as Tei Shi, is making quiet, ’80s R&B-tinged music that forces its listeners to dive into something deeper, “a different space within myself,” as Teicher describes it. With her debut album, Crawl Space, which comes almost two years after 2015’s Saudade, a fully realized artist emerges, but not without nods to her journey of actualization.

“I’m a bad singer. Can’t do anything well…I just hope one day I can be like Britney Spears,” says a young Teicher in one cassette tape-recorded interlude. Today, fortunately, she is neither of those things. “It was interesting for me to revisit those same feelings and thoughts from when I was little. I also enjoy the juxtaposition of those bits—bringing myself down then following that up with an empowered

song/vocal delivery,” she says, adding “I’ve always had a lot of self-doubt and have been pretty self-deprecating, I guess.” The album title is an allusion to confronting her childhood fear of the dark and the newer insecurities that come with fame. “The fear of putting myself out there more fully, of putting my face on what I do—before, I hid a bit behind the more ethereal music...I also never really had myself on the EP covers. With [Crawl Space] there was a conscious decision to attach myself more personally to everything, to say that this music and this project is a direct reflection of who I am as a person." IAN DAVID MONROE

PHOTOGRAPHY JEFF HENRIKSON STYLING JULIAN JESUS TEI SHI WEARS CLOTHING KENZO JEWELRY CHROME HEARTS

V NEWS

A designer’s debut collection from the ’80s receives a trueblue reissue, plus the newest It Bags, a scent to swoon over, and much more.

NAMING RIGHTS From the insouciant little black dress to the boxy sailor- also intended to represent a new wave of magnetic striped top, there are certain fashion pieces that are characters like Pharrell Williams, Caroline de Maigret, quintessentially Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. For Spring, Karl Kristen Stewart, and Cara Delevingne, all friends of Lagerfeld winks at his predecessor’s effortless spirit with the firm who pose with the bag in the newest camthe house’s Gabrielle bag. “Everybody called her Coco, paign. “They have strong personalities,” says Lagerfeld. but her real name was Gabrielle,” Lagerfeld emphasizes. “They each embody the bag in their own way and give “Gabrielle is the perfect name for a bag, very representa- it a unique allure.” PRIYA RAO tive of Chanel’s codes.” The ultra-supple and light twotone carryall is sure to become a classic, much like its CHANEL GABRIELLE BAG ($3,400, AVAILABLE AT CHANEL BOUTIQUES) sister bags, the 2.55, Flap, and Boy. But this number is PHOTOGRAPHY THERESE ALDGARD

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M-RE BAG- WE L-VE THE SWEETHEART

FENDI MARIE ANTOINETTE KAN I HANDBAG ($5,000, FENDI.COM)

THE WILD ONE

CÉLINE MEDIUM CLASP HANDBAG ($5,000, CÉLINE MADISON AVENUE)

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BURBERRY MEDIUM BANNER BAG ($1,595, BURBERRY.COM)

W-RK- -F ART Issey Miyake is known for his thoughtful references that draw upon art, culture, and design. Case in point: his upcoming Ikko Tanaka Issey Miyake collection, which pays homage to the famous graphic designer, who he first met in the 1960s. Two of Tanaka’s works, Bokugi (1996) and Face (1995), have been chosen as motifs in Miyake’s newest 30-piece lineup. “Ikko always created new, powerful, and original designs at a time when everything was done by hand, not by computer,” he says. “The project came out of my admiration for his talent and a wish to expose a new generation to his work. Ikko-san was a brilliant artist and created many beautiful designs. With each new season, I draw my inspiration directly from elements in his work.” PR

Clockwise from top left: Courtesy Fendi; Courtesy Céline; Courtesy Burberry; Courtesy Frédéric Malle

IKKO TANAKA ISSEY MIYAKE FACE #2 DRESS ($585, TRIBECAISSEYMIYAKE.COM) PHOTOGRAPHY THERESE ALDGARD

-CENT-----When Frédéric Malle and Alber Elbaz decided to work together after meeting through a mutual friend, the idea they kept hitting on was luxury. “I think in that first conversation the word ‘superstitious’ came up, the idea that there are things that are bigger, stronger than those convictions that everybody has about the way to do business, the way to do luxury,” says Malle. Elbaz agrees, saying, “In the world of luxury, we’re almost not allowed to use intuition anymore.” From there, the two artists began jamming together, almost like musicians. As Malle explains, “Alber improved my ideas: ‘Why don’t you do this, why don’t you do that?’” Eventually, the fragrance, appropriately named Superstitious, was crafted from a mix of Turkish rose, Egyptian jasmine, velvety peach and apricot skin, and sandalwood. Such a luxe perfume needs an equally beautiful bottle: a black design with a golden eye reminiscent of Alexander Calder’s jewelry became the vessel. PR

ALBER ELBAZ FOR FRÉDÉRIC MALLE SUPERSTITIOUS ($370 FOR 100 ML, FREDERICMALLE.COM)

COPENHAGEN’S COMMUNIONS The latest export from Denmark heralds a thriving music scene in the country’s capital.

MAYHEM “Our friends play concerts or DJ here many nights. There’s usually a good party after.”

MAYHEMKBH.DK

DEN VANDRETTE “They experiment with all kinds of seasonal Danish small plates and serve organic wines.”

DENVANDRETTE.DK

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LATIN QUARTER “There are some good thrift stores in this district, from traditional clothing to ’80s and ’90s sportswear collections.”

THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF DENMARK “We have many museums—visit this one for their permanent exhibitions of Danish and Nordic art.”

SMK.DK

Formann and Lind while the latter two were rehearsing.

“They were jamming out there and I had some songs written and wanted some friends to make them with,” Rehof recalls. “Then it progressed into more of a real band.” There are no current U.S. tour dates to support their just released debut album, Blue, but that’s a great excuse to see them on their own turf. “It’s a very youthful place,” Rehof says of Copenhagen. “There’s a great energy, a lot of stuff happening with the music and arts scene. But it’s also just really beautiful.” Check out a few of the band’s favorite hangouts, below. JOSHUA LYON

BLUE IS OUT NOW ON FAT POSSUM RECORDS

JAZZHOUSE “Great sound and a relaxed atmosphere.

We’ve played here a couple of times.”

JAZZHOUSE.DK

TORVEHALLERNE “There’s everything you need at this indoor/outdoor market, from bakeries to meat booths.”

TORVEHALLERNEKBH.DK

Clockwise from top right: Courtesy Simon Birk; Courtesy Torben Christensen; Courtesy Thomas Steen Sørensen; Courtesy Mark Leckey and Gavin Brown Enterprise New York/Rome © Mark Leckey; Courtesy Tim Spreadbury; Courtesy Mayhem; Photo Yadid Levy / Alamy

On the outskirts of Copenhagen sits a graffiti-covered shack, a rehearsal space/music venue called Mayhem.

The name is a bit misleading, considering its reputation for bringing people together. Take Communions, a band whose infectious songs sound sort of like what would happen if the Smiths and the Strokes decided to raise some teenagers. “Mayhem has been a good platform for a lot of people to get their creative outlet,” says Martin Rehof, who makes up the four piece together with his brother Mads and their friends Jacob van Deurs Formann and Frederik Lind Köppen. They formed in 2014, after the brothers hooked up with

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THE FUTURE OF FASHION For her Dior debut, designer Maria Grazia Chiuri conjured tarot and zodiac accoutrements for a positively cosmic collection.

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FASHION

JEWELRY AND JACKET SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO

We’ve taken a serious shine to the earrings of Spring— from chandeliers that shatter light to minimalist hoops with a hint of shimmer.

EARRINGS BULGARI TOP ADIDAS

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EARRINGS REPOSSI TOP ISSEY MIYAKE

Makeup Christine Cherbonnier (The Wall Group) Hair Michael Silva (The Wall Group) Models Lameka Fox (IMG) Sabina Lobova (Elite New York City) Tiana Tolstoi (Trump Models) Matilde Rastelli (The Society Management) Photo assistant Wendell Cole Stylist assistant Sara Stephanie Katarzyna

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SUNGLASSES AND JACKET COACH 1941

Dramatic structural frames and gently tinted lenses provide killer views—and even a welcome return to the cat eye.

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From eclectic prints to blooming florals, get swept away by the season’s most idyllic trends.

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JESSICA HENWICK

A rebel at heart, this Game of Thrones actress is poised to steal the crown.

“I did a scene just before Christmas with my costar,” recounts Game of Thrones actress, 24-year-old Jessica Henwick, “and she turned to me and said, ‘This is one of those rare moments as an actor where our experience on set is bigger than how people see it.’” For Henwick, such sentiments are often true while filming the hit HBO series, famous for its big budgets and exotic shooting locales. “It’s bigger for us than the audience.”

As for playing Nymeria Sand, the second eldest of Prince Oberyn’s three bastard daughters, Henwick notes, “What really drew me to Thrones is that Nymeria works in a unit with these sisters,” going on to state that representations of women collaborating are rare. “When you see strong female characters in media, it’s often 98 VMAGAZINE.COM 100 VMAGAZINE.COM

that they’re a lone wolf or a tomboy amongst men.” At a young age, Henwick became well-versed in the politics of representation, learning how women, and women of color in particular, tend to be portrayed—if they are portrayed at all. As a teen, she was cast in the BBC children’s show Spirit Warriors, becoming the first actress of East Asian descent to play a lead role on British TV. When the show ended, Henwick struggled to find work and “realized how deprived we are of Asian characters on screen.” Relocating to the States, she found a similar dearth, taking crew and production gigs for a year without a single acting role.

Eventually Henwick found more work on British television, but her big break was getting cast in Star Wars:

The Force Awakens as the first female X-wing pilot. She moved to New York last spring to shoot Netflix adaptations of the Marvel comics Iron Fist and The Defenders.

This year, Henwick and fellow actress Lourdes Faberes cowrote a short film, The Heart of the Forest, currently making the rounds on the festival circuit. “It’s definitely something I want to explore more,” she says about writing, “because the scripts that come across your desk as a young actress are pretty bad a lot of the time. I want to be changing this.”

DRESS DSQUARED2 TOP (UNDERNEATH) SALVATORE FERRAGAMO EARRINGS MIKIMOTO

The Atlanta lead is all about life’s finer points.

“I think what happens with a lot of writing and art is that specificity ends up being relatable while universality becomes vague,” contends Zazie Beetz, a star of the Donald Glover-helmed series Atlanta. One of 2016’s breakout shows, it chronicles the trials of an up-andcoming rapper, his cousin and manager Earnest, and the mother (played by Beetz) of Earnest’s young child.

It’s a show grounded in the particulars of its namesake city, a fact Beetz cites as a reason for the show’s diverse appeal.

When it comes to developing characters, Beetz favors honing in on precise traits. “You can place that person much better than someone who has no specificity. No human has no specificity.”

For her part, Beetz’s own personal history has plenty of specificity. Born in Berlin, Beetz grew up mainly in Washington Heights, New York, though she returned to Germany each summer. In many ways, her acting career has been fated: she did community theater as a child, attended LaGuardia High School—known for its performing arts program and the alma mater of actors like Al Pacino and Jennifer Aniston—and later studied theater in college. However, she has questioned this career path. “I was having a huge crisis last year about whether or not I wanted to continue acting or if I wanted to be a midwife or engage in visual arts,” she reveals, adding that she strives to make room to pursue other interests besides acting, which include

ZAZIE BEETZ

screenwriting and directing.

With her busy schedule, however, it can be tough to find the time. In addition to the demands of Atlanta— which got picked up for a second season—she had a recurring role in Joe Swanberg’s anthology-style TV series, Easy, and has shot several films due out this year, including Slice, a mystery with Chance the Rapper, and Geostorm, a global warming-themed thriller. Still, she’s bent on pursuing other passions. “I’ve had acting teachers say, ‘If you want to do anything else but act that means you’re not an actor,’ which I think is stupid!”

JACKET JIL SANDER DRESS KENZO HEADWRAP ZAZIE’S OWN

DENÉE BENTON

After her smashing Broadway debut, this shooting star is on the rise.

Recently, Josh Groban was chatting with his Broadway costar, Denée Benton, and he recounted an exchange he’d had with an admirer. “The other day there was this fan who was like, ‘Do you remember me? I saw you in a park 10 years ago and you were walking your dog,’” as Benton remembers the story. “I was like, ‘Oh my God Josh, is this what you deal with all the time?’”

Since her Broadway debut, in November she’s gotten her own taste of superfandom by proxy. Fans as far away as Japan, for instance, have been making dolls in the image of her and Groban’s 19th-century Russian characters from the War and Peace-based pop opera Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.

All in all, it’s been a “dream year” for the 24-year-old

Florida native who studied theater at Carnegie Mellon.

In addition to landing one of The Great Comet’s titular roles, she starred in the second season of the LifeTime series UnREAL, a drama chronicling the making of a fictional Bachelor-style reality show. She played Ruby, a BlackLivesMatter activist that the fictional TV producers lure onto the show for ratings. Benton notes that the characters “cast based on stereotypes, like ‘We gotta get the angry black girl, We gotta get the Muslim girl,’ but in the end, all of those characters end up having a really beautiful story arc.” She adds, “I think it humanizes people in a time where we’re very polarized.”

The Great Comet’s casting of Benton as an 1812 Russian aristocrat comes on the heels of Hamilton’s

highly publicized nonwhite cast. (Another connection: the Off-Broadway version of The Great Comet starred Asian-American actress Phillipa Soo, who went on to star as Alexander Hamilton’s wife in the smash hit.)

Benton underscores how “exclusion is rooted in such an ugly history of purposeful discrimination.” She goes on to note about the need for diversity in casting, “For us, it’s not necessarily a political statement. It’s just our livelihood. We’re actors who are happy to be working and having the opportunity to tell stories.”

JACKET RALPH LAUREN BANDEAU BALMAIN PANTS JIL SANDER

Makeup Georgi Sandev (Streeters) Hair Holly Mills (Tim Howard Management) Photo assistant Evan Browning Location Root Studios

For one Black Mirror actress, there’s no time for reflection.

“It honestly made me delete all of my social media apps for a while,” actress Madeline Brewer says about Black Mirror, the darkly satirical sci-fi show that explores contemporary technoparanoia. Before she landed the role of a trigger-happy soldier manipulated by an augmented-reality implant, Brewer had already been a fan of the series. “A mirror reflects what you see and a black mirror shows the dark side of it,” she notes, deciphering the show’s title. “I love that it reflects society, but to its extremes.”

Brewer’s been hard at work on another project, the small-screen adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale. “The only value my character possesses is her healthy ovaries,” explains Brewer, who plays Janine, a handmaiden

in a totalitarian caste system where women are forced into reproductive servitude. Unpacking how this fictional dystopia reflects our society, she attests, “I’m realizing that a lot of people don’t really care what happens to other people as long as it doesn’t affect them.”

The 24-year-old hails from South Jersey, but right after high school she moved to New York to study musical theater, her tuition paid in small part by the prize money she earned winning her town’s Miss Pitman pageant. “It made it so that I didn’t completely bankrupt my parents and I could come here for school and have a little freedom to go to Chipotle,” she jokes.

Right out of school, Brewer snagged the role of Tricia Miller on Orange Is the New Black, a blonde cornrowed

MADELINE BREWER

inmate who struggles with drug addiction until she overdoses during the first season.

Although it’s hard to reconcile the idea of a pageant queen with the gritty characters she inhabits on shows like Orange Is the New Black and Black Mirror, Brewer has a candidness that points to a tender vulnerability underneath her tough veneer. Case in point: she has “I do not love you” tattooed in white ink on her arm. “Even if the industry or a man tells me it doesn’t love me, it doesn’t need me, or that I’m not worthy of it, fuck that, I’m fine,” she affirms, noting, “I also didn’t want it to say, ‘I love myself,’ though, you know?”

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“Sweet spring,” the poet e.e. cummings wrote, “is your time, is my time.” For V, it is a time to embrace the promise of a new season and herald the forces behind it, a time to take joy in the creative spirit that speaks to us all. 108 We open our Spring issue with one of Hollywood’s true free spirits, Kristen Stewart.

Photographed by Mario Testino and styled by Paul Cavaco, she discusses her love of film and fashion with friend Chloë Sevigny.

122 Next, Bruce Weber and Amanda Harlech conjure a Spring folly that’s nothing short of a three-ring circus. 154 Meanwhile, Bella Hadid channels Spring’s sensuous side for an intimate story photographed by Mario Sorrenti and George Cortina. 174 Model Caitin Kitten shows that bold fashion requires visionary individuals in a shoot by Nick Knight and Jacob K. 186 LindseyWixson and Jules Horn literally put a spring in their steps, starring in a dance-inspired Parisian fantasy photographed by Karl Lagerfeld and Amanda Harlech.

196 Mario Testino gives new meaning to the idiom “bucking trends” in a candid story starring pro bull rider and model, Bonner Bolton. Finally, V presents the second installment of Hedi Slimane’s “New York Diary,” a special edition supplement featuring some of the city’s brightest lights and living legends. As the following pages prove, Spring is, to quote cummings once more, “our time.”

KRISTEN A force in both film and fashion, Kristen Stewart opens up to Chloë Sevigny, discussing her role in the psychological thriller Personal Shopper.

Photography Mario Testino Fashion Paul Cavaco Text Chloë Sevigny

BLAZER CHANEL ON BROWS CHANEL EYEBROW PENCIL IN NOIR CENDRÉ ON EYES CHANEL LE VOLUME DE CHANEL MASCARA IN NOIR ON LIPS CHANEL ROUGE ALLURE VELVET LIP COLOR IN LIBRE

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“When you speak to someone on the phone, that is a decipherable, understandable exchange.

But with text and social media, it’s essentially a dialogue with yourself and your interpretation of a shadow. It’s not invalid; it’s a new language.”

—Kristen Stewart

CHLOË SEVIGNY Hi! KRISTEN STEWART Hi! Chloë, thank you honestly so much for doing this. I know you definitely didn’t have to. This is going to be amazing and I appreciate it.

CS I mean, we should’ve got around to it when we had a lot of time on our hands.

KS I don't know, at that point, I probably would have just accosted you about the movie that we were doing. It would have all just turned into, “Look what we got to do!”

CS What have you been up to? A little time off?

KS I have been kind of cultivating my whole life in this dope way that I didn’t have the chance to for a while because I was quite busy. Over the holidays, it’s like the only time people in general and the business get a little sleepy for a second. I’ve been doing stupid actor personal stuff. I’ve been drawing and writing poems, but that's how I’m going to find my next short. I just finished my other one completely. Done done, you’re going to love it. I can’t wait to show you at Sundance.

So yeah, it’s been good. I’ve just been really enjoying some down time. It’s been rad.

CS Yeah, I really need to recharge. Remember at the end of the shoot how I was like, “I cannot have this camera looking at me anymore.”

KS I know, babe. I mean, I was in front of 500 cameras promoting my films, but not the one. Not the intimate one. Not the one that I really care about. Sometimes, you reorient your mind and become really aware of the fact that you’re not working and become a little internal. That's actually, honestly, what I’ve been doing.

And I know that it seems like just a couple weeks at a time or whatever, but between Cannes and the New York Film Festival, it seems like I need to force myself to be like, OK no, stop being external. Enough of the output. Sometimes, you need to—this sounds so cliché—meditate on replenishing the well.

CS For sure, 100%. I’m like, “No more photo shoots. No more of any of that,” because it's all work and it’s all exhausting and pulls so much from you.

KS Yeah, and at the same time, stuff like this, it’s all about reflection and whatever, but sometimes I can very easily, in a very mundane way, be consumed by distractions. Since we did Lizzie, I hurt myself really badly, I came home and got really sick: I was really aware of my physicality. There was a serious physical manifestation of how this year ended, too. I was like, God, wow, I need to sit down and be quiet.

CS You said you were writing and drawing and thinking about your next short. I was wondering, the one that’s going to Sundance, it’s called Come Swim, right? I was wondering what was the inception of it. How did you come up with the idea? And it’s non-narrative, right?

More like a meditation?

KS It’s something a little more linear and I think maybe I

see more of that than other people, but everyone that I’ve shown has a different experience with it, which is cool. But there’s a through line through all of those experiences that has the same emotion that I’m proud of. I thought of this a couple years ago, I had this recurring image in my head that I was just really obsessed with—I wanted to see someone sleeping on the bottom of the ocean. There was this picture of a chair and trash and shit that had been discarded and sitting on this ocean floor. Then I was like, God that looks lovely, that looks so content and kind of...away, but also it’s really terrible and sad and that’s totally not how you want to live. But at that time, I was just, Oh my God, just put me on the ocean floor.

So, it started with that. I thought that image was literally worth capturing and then, as I thought about it and went through everything I’ve written in the last four years, I basically had written the same poem again and again and again and again and again. And I was embarrassed by it, I was like, Kristen, move the fuck on. So, I shoved it into this movie and I hired one of my really best friends’ boyfriend, who’s also a very good friend of mine. And when we all got together and thought through the thing, it turned into two perspectives of the same day, looking at how we aggrandize our own pain and how, maybe, on the surface people don't see that and how you think, Nobody’s ever gone through this. This is definitely the most anyone has ever felt. I know it. I’m positive this is different. I’m different. But it’s like, “No you're not, man. Everyone goes through it and it looks, like, really normal and kind of slightly pathetic.”

CS They gave me a couple of questions to ask you [about Personal Shopper], so I’m just going to ask them now. I hope I’m doing a good job at this.

KS Babe, you’re doing an awesome job!

CS One interesting aspect of the movie is the role texting plays, this communication that your character Maureen has with an unknown character. What are your thoughts on surveillance in the movie and more broadly speaking?

KS When you speak to someone on the phone, that is a decipherable, understandable exchange. But with text and social media, it’s essentially a dialogue with yourself and your interpretation of a shadow. It’s not invalid; it’s a new language. But the amount of projection and investment in things that might not really be there is a little scary.

It’s an internal dialogue that is not always untrue. It reminds me of those experiments where they check to see if mice like cocaine or not. They do. That dopamine hit is something you have in real life with people and interactions and that makes it feel less odd. But you also become addicted to that hit by yourself and with

yourself, every seven minutes or so, and you end up wasting so much time just validating something very superficial in yourself. It has definitely changed us. I think that Maureen totally struggles with wanting to be seen, but also staying invisible. It’s weird, she’s struggling with an identity crisis because she’s kind of, like, two very separate versions of a person. And that’s not a bad thing, it’s just a difficult thing to contend with.

CS Your character totally has this love/hate relationship with her job as a personal shopper. Actually, is she a personal shopper or a personal stylist? What’s the difference? But, yeah, what is her relationship to fashion and clothes?

KS I definitely think Maureen is conflicted about it.

There’s a lot of self-hatred but, at the same time, I think she’s also very attracted to the world of fashion.

I think she is fascinated by these things, these shiny things we obsess over, but which she also hates.

CS Fashion, of course, plays a big part in your life. I wonder if you could talk about you relationship with Karl Lagerfeld?

KS Karl has always, from the very beginning, made me feel like being myself was the right thing to do. And in [the fashion] world, that is a rarity. He’s a compulsive and obsessive artist and it’s contagious. And he’s kind.

He is who he is for a reason. I feel so lucky to be in his space so often.

Honestly, I love the fashion-y aspects of my life. I’m really into it. Actresses have, like, this default kinda relationship with fashion—just by coincidence, we’re allowed to enter into a world that we have nothing to do with. Even if I have nothing to do with making dresses, it pulls me out of myself, like they find aspects of me, that I’m like, Wow, this is me. This is a version of me, and I’m totally cool with that.

CS OK, so just looking over the questions—I hope I’m doing a great job [laughs].

KS Absolutely awesome.

CS So, there’s this question they gave me about your role with Olivier and Cloud of Sils Maria and whether there was a similarity between the two characters.

KS I think the two characters are very different. I mean, Maureen’s character has, like, this depth, this internal struggle. She is stuck in her head, figuring out this feeling of intense fucking isolation.

CS Last question. In Personal Shopper, the supernatural plays an important role. Do you believe in the supernatural, like ghosts and life after death?

KS Like, there’s so much that we see that we don’t know to be true. There’s something that doesn’t go away. I feel people intrinsically and I think that leaves shadows. I am aware of my environment and do believe that there is something which does drive me, but that is itself hard to define.

BLAZER CHANEL TIGHTS AMERICAN APPAREL BRIEFS (THROUGHOUT) KRISTEN'S OWN ON BROWS CHANEL EYEBROW PENCIL IN BRUN NATUREL ON CHEEKS CHANEL COCO CODE BLUSH HARMONY ON LIPS CHANEL ROUGE DOUBLE INTENSITÉ LIP COLOR IN DARING RED

BLAZER MICHAEL KORS TIGHTS AMERICAN APPAREL SHOES CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN ON CHEEKS CHANEL COCO CODE BLUSH HARMONY ON LIPS CHANEL ROUGE ALLURE VELVET LIP COLOR IN LIBRE

BLAZER DKNY TIGHTS SOTZ ON BROWS CHANEL EYEBROW PENCIL IN NOIR CENDRÉ ON EYES CHANEL LE CRAYON YEUX PRECISION EYE DEFINER IN NOIR ON LIPS CHANEL LE ROUGE LIP CRAYON IN CASSIS

BLAZER GUCCI ON EYES CHANEL ILLUSION D’OMBRE VELVET EYE SHADOW IN FLEUR DE PIERRE

BLAZER RALPH LAUREN TIGHTS SOTZ SHOES JIMMY CHOO ON BROWS CHANEL EYEBROW PENCIL IN BRUN CENDRÉ ON EYES CHANEL STYLO EYE SHADOW IN AZULEJO ON CHEEKS CHANEL LES BEIGES COLOUR STICK IN BLUSH N˚20 ON LIPS CHANEL ROUGE COCO STYLO LIPSHINE IN ROMAN ON NAILS OPI NAIL LACQUER IN ST. MARK’S THE SPOT

BLAZER EMPORIO ARMANI TIGHTS HUE SHOES JIMMY CHOO ON NAILS CHANEL LE VERNIS NAIL COLORS IN BEIGE BEIGE AND BLANC WHITE

“I was in front of 500 cameras promoting my films, but not the one.

Not the intimate one. Not the one that I really care about. —Kristen Stewart

BLAZER STELLA MCCARTNEY TIGHTS HUE ON BROWS CHANEL EYEBROW PENCIL IN BRUN CENDRÉ ON EYES CHANEL INIMITABLE MASCARA IN NOIR BLACK ON LIPS CHANEL ROUGE ALLURE VELVET LIP COLOR IN LA SENSUELLE ON NAILS CHANEL LE VERNIS NAIL COLORS IN BEIGE BEIGE AND BLANC WHITE

TIGHTS SOTZ SHOES SERGIO ROSSI ON NAILS CHANEL LE VERNIS NAIL COLOR IN ROUBACHKA

BLAZER ALEXANDER MCQUEEN TIGHTS AMERICAN APPAREL SHOES MANOLO BLAHNIK ON EYES CHANEL STYLO EYESHADOW IN AZULEJO AND LE CRAYON YEUX PRECISION EYE DEFINER IN BRUN-CUIVRÉ ON CHEEKS NYX AWAY WE GLOW LIQUID HIGHLIGHTER IN GOLDEN HOUR ON LIPS CHANEL ROUGE COCO STYLO LIPSHINE IN ROMAN

MAKEUP TOM PECHEUX (HOME AGENCY) HAIR ADIR ABERGEL (STARWORKS ARTISTS) MANICURE LISA JACHNO (AIM ARTISTS AGENCY) PRODUCTION GABRIEL HILL (GE PROJECTS) DIGITAL TECHNICIAN JAKOB STORM ON SET RETOUCHER LIAM BLACK PRODUCTION ASSISTANT BEAU BRIGHT (GE PROJECTS) PHOTO ASSISTANTS ALEX WALTL, MARK DURLING, MICHAEL PREMAN STYLIST ASSISTANT JENNIFER YEE MAKEUP ASSISTANT SAMANTHA LAU HAIR ASSISTANT DEREK YUEN LOCATION SMASHBOX STUDIOS

VEST AND BLAZER DOLCE & GABBANA TIGHTS SOTZ ON BROWS CHANEL EYEBROW PENCIL IN NOIR CENDRÉ ON EYES CHANEL ILLUSION D’OMBRE VELVET EYE SHADOW IN FLEUR DE PIERRE ON LIPS CHANEL ROUGE ALLURE VELVET LIP COLOR IN LIBRE

photos by B R U C E W EBER styling H C E L R A H AMANDA

with poem y b s t n e m g FRa

J OSEPH

PINTAURO

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ESTELLA WEARS DRESS, SOCKS, SHOES GIVENCHY BY RICCARDO TISCI SKIRT, RUFF, HAT COSTUME WORLD RIBBONS VINTAGE JOHN GALLIANO EARRINGS HER OWN ON EYES ESTÉE LAUDER DOUBLE WEAR MASCARA IN BLACK ON LIPS ESTÉE LAUDER GENUINE GLOW REVIVING OIL LIP TINT

MILLINER

J UAN

H E R E D I T A’S H A T S

JUAN WEARS COAT OFF-WHITE VEST AND PANTS JEAN COLONNA SASH STYLIST’S OWN ALEX WEARS SUIT VINTAGE FROM C.MADELEINE’S

ESTELLA WEARS DRESS, SWEATER, EARRING ALEXANDER MCQUEEN TULLE, POM POMS, VEIL ELENA DAWSON TIGHTS EMILIO CAVALLINI ON EYES ESTÉE LAUDER LITTLE BLACK LINER IN BLACK AND DOUBLE WEAR EYE PENCIL IN BURGUNDY SUEDE ON LIPS ESTÉE LAUDER PURE COLOR ENVY BLOOMING LIP BALM

TAYLOR WEARS DRESS, BUSTIER, NECKLACE ALEXANDER MCQUEEN SWEATER (AROUND WAIST) MSGM TIGHTS EMILIO CAVALLINI ON EYES LANCÔME COLOR DESIGN EYE SHADOW IN POSE MAIA WEARS DRESS SIMONE ROCHA JUMPSUIT (UNDERNEATH) CLIO PEPPIATT EARRING ASHLEY ISHAM ON BROWS ESTÉE LAUDER BROW NOW BROW TINT IN DARK BRUNETTE ON CHEEKS AND LIPS ESTÉE LAUDER GENUINE GLOW BLUSHING CREME FOR LIPS AND CHEEKS IN SWEET CHEEKS

THIS PAGE: MARSHALL WEARS SHIRT CHLOÉ HAT JUAN HEREDITA OPPOSITE PAGE: ESTELLA WEARS DRESS BOTTEGA VENETA COAT, SHOES, POM POMS ELENA DAWSON HAT STYLIST’S OWN BELT MAISON MARGIELA ON EYES ESTÉE LAUDER DOUBLE WEAR EYE PENCIL IN COFFEE ON LIPS ESTÉE LAUDER PURE COLOR ENVY LIPSTICK IN DECADENT

TAYLOR WEARS TOP VINTAGE FROM C.MADELEINE’S COAT GUCCI PANTS FAITH CONNEXION HAT AND RUFFS COSTUME WORLD SHOES MARC JACOBS BELT DSQUARED2 ON BROWS LANCÔME SOURCILS STYLER BROW GEL IN BRUN ON EYES LANCÔME COLOR DESIGN EYE SHADOW IN POSE ON LIPS LANCÔME LIP LOVER LIP COLOR IN CORAIL CABRIOLE

TAYLOR HOLDS FEATHER FAN VINTAGE FROM C.MADELEINE’S ON EYES LANCÔME COLOR DESIGN EYE SHADOW IN A TOUCH OF CORAL AND GRANDIÔSE EXTRÊME MASCARA IN INTENSE BLACK ON CHEEKS LANCÔME BLUSH SUBTIL IN MIEL GLACE ON LIPS LANCÔME COLOR DESIGN MATTE LIP CRAYON IN LIPSTICK AVENUE

TAYLOR WEARS TAYLOR WEARS DRESS LOEWE DRESS LOEWE HAT COSTUME WORLD HAT COSTUME WORLD (ALSO ON OPENING SPREAD) ON EYES LANCÔME LE STYLO ON EYES LANCÔME IN NOIRIN NOIR LE STYLO EYELINER ON LIPS ON LIPS LANCÔME LIP LOVER LIP LANCÔME LIP LOVER COLOR IN CORAIL CABRIOLE IN CORAIL CABRIOLE ON NAILS LANCÔME VERNIS IN LOVE NAIL POLISH IN SUGAR ROSE

FROM LEFT: BRIAN WEARS, COAT, WAISTCOAT, PANTS JOHN ALEXANDER SKELTON MAIA WEARS JUMPSUIT AND HAT SOMMIER SHIRT (UNDERNEATH) CHANEL CHOKER COACH ON EYES LANCÔME OMBRE HYPNOSE STYLO EYE SHADOW STICK IN PEPITE AMAZONE ON LIPS LANCÔME COLOR DESIGN LIPSTICK IN NATURAL BEAUTY RED WEARS WAISTCOAT AND PANTS ELENA DAWSON ARMBANDS WIEDERHOEFT

TOP IMAGE, FROM LEFT: ALEX WEARS PANTS GARETH WRIGHTON SHOES MSGM TOP VINTAGE FROM C.MADELEINE’S PANTS FAITH CONNEXION BELT DSQUARED2 SHOES CONVERSE JUAN WEARS SWEATER AND SHOES J.W.ANDERSON PANTS ANGUS CHIANG BRIAN WEARS JUMPSUIT ANDREAS KRONTHALER FOR VIVIENNE WESTWOOD BOOTS BALENCIAGA

FROM LEFT: ALEX WEARS SWEATER RYAN LO PANTS MISSONI SHOES MSGM ESTELLA WEARS JACKET, SHORTS, BOOTS MARC JACOBS JUMPSUIT PAM HOGG ON EYES ESTÉE LAUDER MAGIC SMOKY POWDER SHADOW STICK IN SLOW BURN ON CHEEKS ESTÉE LAUDER PURE COLORENVY HI-LUSTRE SCULPTING BLUSH IN BLUSHING NUDE ON LIPS ESTÉE LAUDER PURE COLOR ENVY LIPSTICK IN NUDE REVEAL TAYLOR WEARS PANTS AND BOOTS FENDI JACKET AND HAT COSTUME WORLD BUSTIER AND WAND VINTAGE FROM C.MADELEINE’S

RED WEARS SHIRT GARETH WRIGHTON OVERALLS COSTUME WORLD

THIS SPREAD: HELENA WEARS CLOTHES HER OWN MACK WEARS JACKET AND SHORTS COSTUME WORLD TIGHTS EMILIO CAVALLINI MARSHALL WEARS DRESS BALENCIAGA PANTS COSTUME WORLD BOTTOM IMAGE, FROM LEFT: RED WEARS WAISTCOAT AND JACKET FAITH CONNEXION PANTS COSTUME WORLD MACK AND MARSHALL WEAR T SHIRT BURBERRY JEANS CHRISTIAN DIOR ENFANTS

SUNNY WEARS SHIRT N°21 PANTS STELLA MCCARTNEY JEWELERY PEBBLE LONDON ON LIPS M.A.C. LIP PENCIL IN NIGHTMOTH AND LIPMIX IN BURGUNDY ON NAILS ESTÉE LAUDER PURE COLOR NAIL LACQUER IN PURE RED

ALEX WEARS SHIRT STYLIST’S OWN PANTS ELENA DAWSON NECKLACE MAISON MIHARA YASUHIRO JUAN WEARS TANK TOP AND PANTS JIALE NECKLACE HIS OWN

BRIAN WEARS COAT AND HAT VINTAGE FROM C.MADELEINE’S JEANS CALVIN KLEIN SHOES QUETSCHE

MAKEUP GUCCI WESTMAN (ITB WORLDWIDE) HAIR THOM PRIANO (GARREN NEW YORK) FOR R+CO HAIRCARE MODELS TAYLOR HILL (IMG), ESTELLA BOERSMA (DNA MODELS), ALEX JUNE, MAIA RIVERO, HELENA (FRONT), BRIAN TERRILL, RED WINTERS, BREANNA, SUNNY, JUAN, MARSHALL JR. JONES, MACK JONES SET DESIGN DIMITRI LEVAS PRODUCTION LITTLE BEAR INC PRODUCTION COORDINATOR DAWN TOMASSONE DIGITAL TECHNICIAN DENIS VLASOV LIGHTING TECHNICIAN YUSUKE NAITO PHOTO ASSISTANTS CHRIS DOMURAT, JEFF TAUTRIM, SUNNY FACER, DAVID WEINER, ROBERTO PATELLA STYLIST ASSISTANTS FIONA HICKS AND TALLULAH HARLECH PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS BORIS MCNERTNEY, RON GIBBS, DAVE BEGLEY, MIGUEL QUINTERO SET DESIGN ASSISTANT RED WINTERS LOCATION GOLDEN BEACH STUDIOS TEXT THROUGHOUT FROM ONE CIRCUS, 3 RINGS, FOREVER AND EVER, HOORAY!

BY JOSEPH PINTAURO © 1969 BY JOSEPH PINTAURO. NEW YORK: HARPER AND ROW. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.

ESTELLA WEARS DRESS AGANOVICH BUSTIER VILSHENKO SHOES ELENA DAWSON JUAN WEARS BOLERO WIEDERHOEFT PANTS COSTUME WORLD SHOES JUNYA WATANABE

MACK WEARS SHIRT MAISON MARGIELA NECKLACE LOEWE VEST STYLIST’S OWN PANTS COSTUME WORLD

OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM LEFT: BRIAN, JUAN, MARSHALL, HELENA WEAR CLOTHING THEIR OWN ALEX WEARS SWEATER LOUIS VUITTON PANTS OFF-WHITE SHOES MSGM RUFF COSTUME WORLD BREANNA WEARS JUMPSUIT AND SUIT CÉLINE MAIA WEARS SHIRT, VEST, PANTS LOUIS VUITTON SHOES COACH RUFF TOME

THIS PAGE TAYLOR WEARS LEOTARD AND PANTS VERSACE BRA AND BRIEFS WIEDERHOEFT BOOTS MARC JACOBS ON EYES LANCÔME COLOR DESIGN SHADOW & LINER PALETTE IN BLEU CIEL PARISIEN

BEL A The girl everyone is talking about like you’ve never seen her before.

Photography Mario Sorrenti Fashion George Cortina

PANTS CHLOÉ EARRINGS (THROUGHOUT) LINN LØMO ON EYES (THROUGHOUT) DIOR DIORSHOW KHÔL EYE MAKEUP IN SMOKY BROWN

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SKIRT (THROUGHOUT) LOUIS VUITTON BOOTS (THROUGHOUT) BALENCIAGA

TOP VALENTINO BRIEFS MAISON LEJABY ON LIPS (THROUGHOUT) DIOR ROUGE DIOR LIPSTICK IN GRÈGE 1947

ON CHEEKS (THROUGHOUT) DIOR DIORSKIN NUDE AIR LUMINIZER POWDER IN 001

OPPOSITE PAGE: DRESS HAIDER ACKERMANN

TOP AND SHORTS PRADA

CORSET ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

BODYSUIT ZADIG & VOLTAIRE

BRA YASMINE ESLAMI

TOP COURRÈGES

MAKEUP DIANE KENDAL (JULIAN WATSON AGENCY) HAIR RECINE FOR RODIN (THE WALL GROUP) MODEL BELLA HADID (IMG) MANICURE HONEY (EXPOSURE NY) SET DESIGN PHILIPP HAEMMERLE (PHILIPP HAEMMERLE INC.) PRODUCTION KATIE FASH ON SET PRODUCTION STEVE SUTTON DIGITAL TECHNICIAN JOHNNY VICARI LIGHTING TECHNICIAN LARS BEAULIEU PHOTO ASSISTANT KOTARO KAWASHIMA STYLIST ASSISTANTS ALEX PAUL, KATHERINE KALBACHER, HEATHER DUNPHY MAKEUP ASSISTANT CAOILFHIONN GIFFORD HAIR ASSISTANT SHINGO SHIBATA TAILOR MARTIN KEEHN SET DESIGN ASSISTANTS RYAN STENGER AND ANDY CHAPMAN LOCATION SUNSET STUDIOS NY PRINTING BY ARC LAB LTD. CATERING NOZ

MODEL BELLA HADID (IMG) MANICURE HONEY (EXPOSURE NY) SET DESIGN PHILIPP HAEMMERLE (PHILIPP HAEMMERLE INC.) PRODUCTION KATIE FASH ON SET PRODUCTION STEVE SUTTON DIGITAL TECHNICIAN JOHNNY VICARI LIGHTING TECHNICIAN LARS BEAULIEU PHOTO ASSISTANT KOTARO KAWASHIMA STYLIST ASSISTANTS ALEX PAUL, KATHERINE KALBACHER, HEATHER DUNPHY MAKEUP ASSISTANT CAOILFHIONN GIFFORD HAIR ASSISTANT SHINGO SHIBATA TAILOR MARTIN KEEHN SET DESIGN ASSISTANTS RYAN STENGER AND ANDY CHAPMAN LOCATION SUNSET STUDIOS NY PRINTING BY ARC LAB LTD. CATERING NOZ

CAITIN KITTEN Spring’s most daring fashion requires a muse of equal strength and beauty.

Photography Nick Knight Fashion Jacob K 170 VMAGAZINE.COM VMAGAZINE.COM 174

OPPOSITE PAGE: DRESS WITH HOOP SERGIY GRECHYSHKIN BRA AND BRIEFS (UNDERNEATH) ERES GLOVES CORNELIA JAMES SOCKS MICHELLE WARNER STOCKINGS AGENT PROVOCATEUR ON EYES M.A.C. EYE SHADOWS IN STEAMY AND PASSIONATE ON LIPS M.A.C. PATENTPOLISH LIP IN FEARLESS ON NAILS ESSIE NAIL POLISH IN PICKED PERFECT

THIS PAGE: DRESS GUCCI SHAWL J. JS LEE BRA (UNDERNEATH) ERES GLOVES CORNELIA JAMES ON EYES M.A.C. EYE SHADOWS IN SUMPTUOUS OLIVE, IN THE SHADOWS, AND ESPRESSO ON LIPS M.A.C. LIPGLASS IN RUSSIAN RED AND VAMPLIFY/BLACK FRIDAY LIP GLOSS IN BLACK PLUM ON NAILS OPI NAIL LACQUER IN REFLECTION

DRESS COACH DRESS (UNDERNEATH) SHARON WAUCHOB SHAWL MARQUES’ALMEIDA BRA AND BRIEFS (UNDERNEATH) ERES SOCKS MICHELLE WARNER STOCKINGS AGENT PROVOCATEUR ON EYES M.A.C. EYE SHADOW IN BEAUTIFUL IRIS ON LIPS M.A.C. LIPGLASS IN RUSSIAN RED AND VAMPLIFY/ BLACK FRIDAY LIP GLOSS IN BLACK PLUM

DRESS MOLLY GODDARD BRA AND BRIEFS (UNDERNEATH) ERES STOCKINGS AGENT PROVOCATEUR ON EYES M.A.C. EYE SHADOWS IN TEAL APPEAL AND PASSIONATE ON LIPS M.A.C. VERSICOLOUR STAIN IN PRESERVING PASSION

DRESS SERGIY GRECHYSHKIN BRA (UNDERNEATH) NINA RICCI BRIEFS (UNDERNEATH) ERES GLOVES CORNELIA JAMES SOCKS MICHELLE WARNER STOCKINGS (UNDERNEATH) AGENT PROVOCATEUR SHOES MANSUR GAVRIEL ON EYES M.A.C. EYE SHADOW IN TILT AND ACRYLIC PAINT IN PROCESS MAGENTA ON LIPS M.A.C. LIPGLASS IN GIRL ABOUT TOWN

THIS PAGE: DRESS DIOR SHAWL J. JS LEE BRA (UNDERNEATH) ERES STOCKINGS AGENT PROVOCATEUR ON LIPS M.A.C. LIPGLASS IN RUSSIAN RED OPPOSITE PAGE: TOP DILARA FINDIKOGLU SHAWL J. JS LEE DRESS (UNDERNEATH) NINA RICCI BRA AND BRIEFS (UNDERNEATH) ERES SOCKS (UNDERNEATH) MICHELLE WARNER TIGHTS (UNDERNEATH) AGENT PROVOCATEUR SHOES MANSUR GAVRIEL ON EYES M.A.C. EYE SHADOWS IN LUCKY GREEN AND TEAL APPEAL ON LIPS M.A.C. VERSICOLOUR STAIN IN PRESERVING PASSION

CLOTHING, ACCESSORIES, SHOES ALEXANDER MCQUEEN SHAWL J. JS LEE BRA AND BRIEFS (UNDERNEATH) ERES ON EYES M.A.C. ELECTRIC COOL EYE SHADOW IN PHOTOSPHERE ON LIPS M.A.C. LIPGLASS IN RUSSIAN RED

BRA ROCHAS SOCKS MICHELLE WARNER STOCKINGS AGENT PROVOCATEUR SHOES MANSUR GAVRIEL WRAPS V V ROULEAUX ON EYES M.A.C. EYE SHADOWS IN SUMPTUOUS OLIVE, IN THE SHADOWS, AND ESPRESSO ON LIPS M.A.C. VERSICOLOUR STAIN IN PRESERVING PASSION

MAKEUP LAURA DOMINIQUE (STREETERS) HAIR MARTIN CULLEN (STREETERS) MODEL CAITIN KITTEN MANICURE KATE CUTLER (PREMIER HAIR AND MAKEUP) SET DESIGN ANDREW TOMLINSON DIGITAL TECHNICAN LAIMONAS STASIULIS PRODUCTION MANAGER RIANA CASSON (SHOWSTUDIO) PHOTO ASSISTANTS BRITT LLOYD, ROB RUSLING, TOM ALEXANDER, JOHN HEYES STYLIST ASSISTANTS FLORA HUDDART AND CLEMENCE LOBERT HAIR ASSISTANT SHIORI TAKAHASHI MANICURE ASSISTANT LASHAUN GRAHAM PRODUCTION ASSISTANT REBECCA BURGHUM SET DESIGN ASSISTANTS JAMES ROBATHAM AND TOBIAS BLACKMORE DIGITAL POST PRODUCTION MARK BOYLE (EPILOGUE) LIGHTING DIRECT PHOTOGRAPHIC SPECIAL THANKS TO NICOLE ANNE ROBBINS

THIS PAGE: CAITIN WEARS DRESS PRADA SHAWL J. JS LEE BRA (UNDERNEATH) NINA RICCI BRIEFS (UNDERNEATH) ERES GLOVE CORNELIA JAMES STOCKINGS (UNDERNEATH) AGENT PROVOCATEUR ON EYES M.A.C. EYE SHADOW IN LUCKY GREEN AND PAINT IN SUBLIME NATURE ON LIPS M.A.C. LIPGLASS IN RUSSIAN RED AND HUGGABLE GLASS IN MEGAHUG OPPOSITE PAGE: CAITIN WEARS TOP AND SKIRT LOUIS VUITTON SLEEVES OLIVIER THEYSKENS BRA AND BRIEFS (UNDERNEATH) ERES CHOKER AND ORGANZA V V ROULEAUX ON EYES M.A.C. SOFT SERVE EYE SHADOW IN BIG BAD BLUE AND ACRYLIC PAINT IN BASIC RED ON LIPS M.A.C. LIPGLASS IN RUSSIAN RED

STRICTLY BALLROOM Step lively this Spring with fashion that will have you dancing on air.

Photography Karl Lagerfeld Fashion Amanda Harlech

Flamenco LINDSEY WEARS DRESS AND BUSTIER (UNDERNEATH) CHANEL CAPE BENOÃŽT NECKLACE AND BROOCH CHANEL FINE JEWELRY ON SKIN CHARLOTTE TILBURY LIP CHEAT LIP LINER IN KISS 'N' TELL ON LIPS CHARLOTTE TILBURY K.I.S.S.I.N.G LIPSTICK IN LOVE BITE JULES WEARS SHIRT RALPH LAUREN

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Waltz FOREGROUND: LINDSEY WEARS DRESS GUCCI SKIRT (UNDERNEATH) DORHOUT MEES NECKLACE DAVID YURMAN JULES WEARS TAILS, WAISTCOAT, PANTS, BOW TIE, JACKET LANVIN SHIRT RALPH LAUREN POCKET SQUARE DIOR HOMME CUFFLINKS AND SHIRT BUTTONS CHARVET

BACKGROUND: ADRIEN WEARS TAILS, SHIRT, PANTS RALPH LAUREN BOW TIE AND CUFFLIKS CHARVET SHOES HIS OWN

ON SKIN, LINDSEY WEARS CHARLOTTE TILBURY AIRBRUSH FLAWLESS FINISH FACE POWDER IN 1 FAIR

CONSTANCE WEARS DRESS FENDI TIGHTS (UNDERNEATH) EMILIO CAVALLINI CAPE BENOÃŽT SHOES GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI EARRINGS CHANEL FINE JEWELRY GLOVES GEORGES MORAND

Fox Trot JULES WEARS TAILS, WAISTCOAT, PANTS, BOW TIE, JACKET LANVIN SHIRT RALPH LAUREN CUFFLINKS CHARVET LINDSEY WEARS DRESS VALENTINO BUSTIER (UNDERNEATH) CHANEL TIGHTS (UNDERNEATH) EMILIO CAVALLINI GLOVES CERVIN BRACELET CHANEL FINE JEWELRY BROOCHES HELENE ZUBELDIA FAN MAISON CLOSE ON EYES CHARLOTTE TILBURY MAGIC EYE RESCUE EYE CREAM ON LIPS CHARLOTTE TILBURY K.I.S.S.I.N.G LIPSTICK IN VELVET UNDERGROUND

Charleston FOREGROUND: JULES WEARS TUXEDO AND SHIRT RALPH LAUREN PANTS AND BOW TIE LANVIN CUFFLINKS AND SHIRT BUTTONS CHARVET LINDSEY WEARS DRESS PRADA NECKLACE CHANEL FINE JEWELRY FEATHER STOLE TADASHI SHOJI SHOES GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI BACKGROUND: CONSTANCE WEARS VEST CHANEL SKIRT SALLY LAPOINTE TIGHTS EMILIO CAVALLINI SHOES GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI NECKLACE DAVID YURMAN

Swing LINDSEY WEARS DRESS DIOR SHOES MANOLO BLAHNIK BROOCHES ERICKSON BEAMON ON BROWS CHARLOTTE TILBURY BROW LIFT IN GRACE K JULES WEARS SHIRT DIOR HOMME TIE THOM BROWNE PANTS MARC JACOBS SHOES DOLCE & GABBANA

Tango LINDSEY WEARS DRESS AND SHOES GIVENCHY BY RICCARDO TISCI SOCKS NICOLAS MESSINA ON CHEEKS CHARLOTTE TILBURY WONDERGLOW FACE PRIMER ON LIPS CHARLOTTE TILBURY K.I.S.S.I.N.G LIPSTICK IN VELVET UNDERGROUND JULES WEARS TOP AND PANTS MARC JACOBS CUMMERBUND TOM FORD SHOES CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN

Cha Cha LINDSEY WEARS TOP AND BELT DSQUARED2 BOLERO VINTAGE FROM MAIREAD LEWIN VINTAGE SKIRT SALVATORE FERRAGAMO SHOES CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN ON EYES CHARLOTTE TILBURY THE RETOUCHER CONCEALER IN FAIR I AND 2 JULES WEARS TOP AND PANTS GUCCI SHOES LANVIN

Quickstep LINDSEY WEARS DRESS ALEXANDER MCQUEEN BRIEFS (UNDERNEATH) AGENT PROVOCATEUR NECKLACE GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI SHOES OPÉRA DE PARIS ON SKIN CHARLOTTE TILBURY AIRBRUSH FLAWLESS FINISH FACE POWDER IN FAIR FINISH 1 JULES WEARS TAILS, WAISTCOAT, PANTS, BOW TIE, JACKET LANVIN SHIRT RALPH LAUREN PURPLE LABEL POCKET SQUARE DIOR HOMME CUFFLINKS AND SHIRT BUTTONS CHARVET

MAKEUP CHARLOTTE TILBURY (ART PARTNER) HAIR SAM M CKNIGHT (BRYAN BANTRY AGENCY) MODELS LINDSEY WIXSON (THE SOCIETY MANAGEMENT), JULES HORN (KULT MODEL AGENCY), CONSTANCE GIEZENTANNER AND ADRIEN CABY (GEORGES & ROSY) MANICURE ANNY ERRANDONEA (MARIE-FRANCE THAVONEKHAM AGENCY) PRODUCTION TOBIAS BRAHMST AND LUCAS HAEGELI (SHAPE PRODUCTION) IMAGE DIRECTION ERIC PFRUNDER AND KATHERINE MARRE PHOTOGRAPHY CONTACTS OCÉANE SELLIER, ALEXANDRA HYLÉN, ALICE CADAUX LIGHTING DIRECTOR VINCENT RICOUX PHOTO ASSISTANTS OLIVIER SAILLANT, XAVIER ARIAS, FREDERIC DAVID, BENWARD SOLLICH STYLIST ASSISTANTS FIONA HICKS AND ALEXANDRA HICKS MAKEUP ASSISTANT SOFIA BERMUDEZ HAIR ASSISTANT DECLAN SHEILS PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS ALEXANDRE GALLANI, RAPHAËL BERRICHON, ANDREAS SCHMIDT LIGHTING ASSISTANT DAVID LEMEVELLE TAILOR BENOÎT PRUVOST RETOUCHING LUDOVIC D' HARDIVILLÉ LOCATION HÔTEL D'ÉVREUX SPECIAL THANKS ADÉLINE JAMIN AND ROLAND D'ANNA CATERING POTEL ET CHABOT

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URBAN COWBOY For pro bull rider Bonner Bolton, falling down turned into a higher calling.

Photography Mario Testino Text Joseph Akel 192 VMAGAZINE.COM 196 VMAGAZINE.COM

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“I was counting my blessings and getting ready for it, praying to God, ‘If this is it, I’m ready to go, but I don’t want to.’”—Bonner Bolton

Bonner Bolton’s life changed forever on Sunday, January 10, 2016. The second day of the Professional Bull Riders’ Chicago Invitational, Bolton—who was 28 at the time—was preparing to ride a particularly aggressive bull by the name of Cowboy Up. Watching a video on YouTube of the competition’s original broadcast, it’s apparent that Cowboy Up is already restless to escape the confines of the small pen, or “chute,” that allows Bolton to mount and tie into a rope that will fasten him to the steer. As Bolton ties in, the broadcast’s commentator predicts that Cowboy Up “is going to give us a little bit of trouble at the end of the ride.” Fateful words, indeed.

“Going into Chicago, I had just come off a top 10 finish at PBR’s World Finals,” Bolton notes about that day.

“I was really rising as a rookie on tour the year before and I was looking to destroy 2016.” On Saturday, the first day of the invitational, Bolton had an exceptionally strong ride, placing second and advancing to round two of the competition. “The next day,” Bolton notes, before pausing for a sigh, “I found out that I’m getting on this bull called Cowboy Up, which is the bull that my accident occurred on.”

Cowboy Up had a reputation for strong bucks and a fluidity of movement, one factor judges use to determine a rider’s score—the more forceful and fluid the movement, the higher the score—and Bolton was excited by the prospect of riding him. “I knew something special was gonna happen,” Bolton tells me, “I had that feeling in my gut. I went in super confident that day, loving my matchup—everything seemed to be destiny, picture perfect for me.” Until it wasn’t.

Watching the video of Bolton, coming out the chute, the ride proceeded perfectly. “Move for move,” Bolton remembers, “I was so in rhythm with that bull. We were one. I’ve never been on a bull that felt better.”

As Cowboy Up bucks, Bolton intuitively reacts, one hand fastened to the rope while the other remains high in the air. Judges score a ride out of a 100 points, 50 allocated to the bull’s performance, the other 50 based on the rider’s. For the latter, points are awarded, in part, on the rider’s ability to anticipate and mirror the bull’s movement. Disqualification can occur if the rider’s free hand touches any part of the bull or himself. In addition, a rider must remain on the bull for a minimum of eight seconds in order to receive a score.

Most experienced riders average a score of 75 or more, with anything above 80 considered excellent.

For comparison, Bolton’s ride on Cowboy Up received a score of 86.75. Perhaps one of the most difficult elements of any ride is the dismount. A poorly timed dismount can turn an exceptional ride into what cowboys call a “wreck,” an apt euphemism for the brutally violent falls and life-threating run-ins with a bull that can occur as a result. Bolton’s dismount quickly became the wreck of his life.

“I looked to launch out and dismount from the bull,” he recalls, “and I just mistimed it. Instead of shooting out to the side, I get rolled out the back, first suspended high in the air before coming straight down onto my head.” In the video, Bolton can be seen laying face down in the dirt motionless, the once cheering crowd silent as medical staff rush into the arena. “It’s like someone took a baseball bat to my head.” Within a split second, Bolton knew he had had bigger problems.

“Any time we hit the dirt, our training teaches us to get up and run immediately,” he tells me. “You can see in the video, I raise my head, but I couldn’t feel anything

below my neck—my arms were out in front of me, but I can’t move them.” Bolton is strapped to a stretcher and rushed to a nearby hospital where x-rays reveal a snapped C2 vertebrae. He would remain paralyzed for 24 hours, during which time he would undergo six hours of surgery.

The dangers posed by bull riding were nothing new to Bolton. Born into a ranching family just outside of Odessa, a rural town in west Texas, Bolton had been exposed to the sport as a young child. His father, Toya Bolton, has some 20 years of riding experience and is considered a pioneer of the sport. “I had been riding horses my whole life,” the younger Bolton points out proudly, “growing up on a ranch and working cattle doing the real cowboy thing.” As soon as he was old enough, Bolton began training to ride bulls, first on a bucking barrel—an oil drum suspended in the air by ropes tied to stakes in the ground—and later on the real thing. Bolton’s rise as a PBR rider to watch was stellar and he was looking to make 2016 the year that he broke out as a champion rider.

As he rode in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital, those dreams quickly vanished. “I’m thinking this might be my last day on this Earth,” he confesses, “that I might not get to see my family.” At one point Bolton says reflectively, “I was counting my blessings and getting ready for it, praying to God, ‘If this is it, I’m ready to go, but I don’t want to.’” Bolton’s prayers were answered. That night, laying in his hospital bed, he felt something. “My stomach turned, like a wave,” he recalls with intensity, “and at first I thought I was bleeding, but then I realized it was the first feeling I had below my neck.” Bolton was not permanently paralyzed and in three days he would be walking again.

Shortly thereafter, he began several months of grueling physiotherapy. “There were literally moments,” Bolton remembers of that time, “where I kind of just wanted to end it. It was just torture. I have never been through a more painful experience, one where it’s hard to even raise yourself up out of bed.” But just as God gives, so can he take away. While Bolton regained full sensation of his body and its use, his doctors made it clear that his riding days were best left in the past.

With his career as a bull rider in question, Bolton remained an active figure in the PBR community. His all-American good looks paired with a wholesome sensibility quickly found Bolton garnering the attention of executives at IMG Models. In 2015, WME|IMG acquired PBR, one of several forays by the talent agency into the realm of sports, including their purchase of UFC. In short order, Bolton has shot a campaign for Saks Fifth Avenue and is working on a new fragrance project.

Additionally, he has become, in many ways, the face of PBR, an ambassador for the sport and its riders.

Several weeks after our first meeting, I met Bolton again at Madison Square Garden for the kick-off of the 2017 PBR Built Ford Tough Series, PBR’s equivalent to the major leagues. Just two days shy of the anniversary of his fateful accident, seeing Bolton hanging around the chutes with other cowboys preparing for their rides was especially poignant. When pressed about whether he would ever ride again if given a clean bill by his doctors, Bolton was quick to respond: “My passion is there still for the sport. I told the doctors, ‘If there ever is the chance that I can ride again without it being a threat to my life—just doing it one time—I would, because my passion supersedes the danger.’ It always has and that’s why I always come back from my wrecks.”

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GROOMING YADIM (ART PARTNER) HAIR CHRISTIAAN MODEL BONNER BOLTON (IMG) PRODUCTION GABRIEL HILL AND ROGER DONG (GE PROJECTS) DIGITAL TECHNICIAN JAKOB STORM PHOTO ASSISTANTS ALEX WALTL, PATRICK ROXAS, WILLIAM TAKAHASHI GROOMING ASSISTANTS JANESSA PARÉ AND AYA WATANABE PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS STEFAN CHRISTOPHER, STEPHAN WERK, GUS POTTER, DAVID KING ON SET RETOUCHING LIAM BLACK LOCATION HOTEL ON RIVINGTON

THE DRINK of CHOICE

DR I N K R ESPONSI BLY

HEDI SLIMANE’S NEW YORK DIARY

Hedi Slimane’s New York Diary Part Two

V Magazine presents the second installment of Slimane’s portfolio series dedicated to the city’s unwavering artists and visionaries, both old and young.

Michael D’Addario of the Lemon Twigs “It’s a cool place. Having known it my whole life, it’s hard to look at it objectively, but I always feel at home when I’m here.”

Jonas Mekas “I was brought to New York by the U.N. Refugee Organization on October 29th, l949, on a U.S. Army ship as a displaced person, after a year in a forced labor camp in wartime Germany and four years in a displaced persons camp in postwar Germany. My earliest memories are very schizoid. On the one hand, I was at the gates of Paradise, in the very center of a dream of freedom, the lights and excitement of Manhattan, and on the other, I was in the immigrant slums of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, trying to set my roots in a place that looked to me more like a Purgatorio than Paradise.�

Brian D’Addario of the Lemon Twigs “I remember going to the Upper West Side the night before the Thanksgiving Day Parade and seeing people blowing up the gigantic balloons, and I thought to myself, This is New York, baby.”

John Eatherly of Public Access TV “As a teenager I was ridiculously obsessed with music that all came from New York. I made the move as soon as I was 18, coming from the middle of nowhere in Tennessee in 2008. New York has attracted so many great minds that I look up to. I think it’s because there’s not much looking back in this city and everything is always moving forward. There’s so much to explore right outside your door and it’s full of surprises. I plan to stay and move accordingly.”

Joseph Matick and Carly Russ of Girlyboi “I see a homeless dude pee on the L train every night. And I see a stranger do something incredibly nice every day. That’s very New York, I think. Mostly gross, but occasionally charming.” —Joseph

Robert Longo “I guess my golden era of New York would be when I no longer had to have a shitty job to support my practice. Around 1979, I stopped driving a taxi and had enough money to pay for my rent, some food, and my art materials.

At that time, the downtown scene was totally artistically integrated. Artists played in bands, made films, executed performance art pieces. It was an exciting time in music, cinema, and art. It was the changing of the guard: a new generation was taking over.�

Nick Zinner “New York is still the only place in the world where I feel sane, despite its ever-changing state. It’s the place that both inspires and disappoints, the place with the most ghosts on every corner, the place where anything can change tomorrow.�

Edmund White “My earliest memory of New York was staying in the West Side Y and waking up to find what we called a ‘troll’ standing in my doorway. Now that I am a troll, I don’t know why I was so standoffish.”

Katie Von Schleicher “As a kid, my parents took me to see the Rockettes. My earliest memory is being inside Radio City seeing these beautiful, leggy women smile indefatigably. I could pretty much hang all my dreams on how happy they looked.�

Conor Backman “The city often feels like an intense projection and magnification of how I’m feeling. It can be incredibly exciting and wonderful, or unnecessarily harsh.

At the moment, I’m feeling a lot of love for New York.”

Alex Da Corte “I recall going to NYC when I was younger because my dad worked in the city and we would visit during Christmastime. I remember thinking it was a lot like Gotham City. I had always wanted to live in the movie Batman Returns, so visiting New York every winter was the next best thing.�

Gary Indiana “New York is a cloaca of greedy energies with a scattering of light moments.”

Production Kim Pollock Equipment Milk DGTL Location ACME Studio, Fast Ashleys Studios, Øutpost Studio, LightSpace Studios Catering Monterone

Rob Pruitt “New York has always been a place where I can freely be myself, even in my early 20s. I didn’t feel that I needed to hide my homosexuality from anyone— store clerks, whatever—and it’s always been that, but I have a renewed feeling of this now that we are entering this dismal Trump period. I feel it’s a bastion of people who care about civil liberties and are willing to defend them. And I’m happy it’s my home!”

Part 2 of Hedi Slimane’s New York Diary, published inV106, March/April 2017.

Copyright © 2017 V Magazine LLC.

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