ET’S MAY 2021 £5.99 GO OUT! Fashion face-off: oversized or skin-tight? The shoesof the season (that aren’t slippers!) Key pieces to update your WFH wardrobe 05 PLUS Addicted to lockdown: 9 770269 259983 a party girl’s story

CONTENTS May 2021

Page 116

Page 54

Page 47

THE COVERS UPFRONT ON THE NEWSSTAND COVER THE NOW, THE NEW, THE NEXT Jumpsuit and belt, both Chanel. 27 In this month’s update: how to take your WFH wardrobe ON THE SUBSCRIBER COVER Jumpsuit, Valentino. Sandals into the real world. Plus the future of going out out, and tights, both Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. cloud-like clutches and the music we can’t get enough of Sunglasses, Linda Farrow. Photography: Tom Schirmacher. Styling: Charles Varenne. Hair: Gavin Garwin at The Wall Group. Make-up: Sil Bruinsma at The Wall Group. STYLE Model: Altyn Simpson at Next Management. Casting: Giulia Filippelli and Oliver Ress at Creartvt. Set design: STEPPING OUT Maria Santana. Fashion assistant: Catherine Sullivan. 47 After all this time in slippers, if you’re going to dress up, do it properly: start from the feet up, basing your outfits around bright, directional, mood-boosting footwear EVERY MONTH STACK IT UP EDITOR’S LETTER 54 Mastering transitional style is no easy feat – so 19 Editor-in-Chief Farrah Storr reflects on how the past year we’re here to help. Oversized silhouettes, multiple has caused many of us to take our lives in a new direction layers and some clever styling tricks are all you need

MY FASHIONABLE LIFE: AMANDA WAKELEY THE FINISHING TOUCH 162 The designer on sustainable style, fashion in the 1980s 62 A statement timepiece is more than just a watch – its and what 30 years in the industry has taught her fine materials and elegant design will elevate any outfit

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 13 Page 84 CONTENTS May 2021

PASTEL PARTY 1O2 Freshen up your wardrobe with a gentle burst of colour, thanks to a rainbow palette of soft ice-cream shades

BEAUTY MIDAS TOUCH 113 Take face glitter beyond festival territory, using this technique by legendary make-up artist Pat McGrath

BEAUTY MOOD BOARD 114 The new products, trends and tricks to know, including the smoky eye 2.0 and how to get rid of ‘tech neck’

MOUTH OFF 116 There’s more than one way to wear a red lip. From ombre to high-shine, this is lipstick, reinvented

DO YOU REALLY NEED YOUR PERIOD? 128 Fewer symptoms, less pain, less fuss: there’s a new wave of women pressing pause on their period – here’s why

NEXT BIG THING: FRENCH FANCIES 133 The classic French manicure is a thing of the past – give yours an update with these bold patterned designs

CAN YOU BE ADDICTED TO ISOLATION? 135 One extrovert reflects on how a year of lockdown has READS made her wary of returning to her past life of excess WAYS OF SEEING 1O OF THE BEST: FACE TOOLS 23 Aged 25, writer Emma Stonex suffered a mini-stroke, and 138 Toning, lifting, line-smoothing tools to transform your the fear of it recurring became an all-consuming emotion face and boost your skincare, as chosen by our editors that took over her life. Here’s how she broke free KATY’S COLUMN: HAND SANITISER MANUFACTURING THE PERFECT MATCH 139 With so many out there, how do we know which one 68 Love… It’s all about luck; a numbers game, right? Wrong. to choose? Our Beauty Director has the answers According to scientists, it’s down to a precise formula that could revolutionise dating forever FUTURE BEAUTY: THE BONDAGE BUN 141 Transform your everyday bun into a statement hairstyle, THE FASHION SHOWS thanks to these easy-to-follow tips from the experts 74 The new wave of TV stars aren’t the ones on screen –

they’re the ones behind the scenes, revolutionising the way we dress through the clothes they present TR AVEL

GABRIELA HEARST: CAN FASHION BE DONE DIFFERENTLY? DISCOVER WOODLAND DINING 8O As she takes the helm at Chloé, the Uruguayan designer 143 Make dinner a truly special occasion at this tranquil opens up about trusting her gut, and marrying style sanctuary nestled in a eucalyptus forest in China with sustainability for her first collection at the house ON THE ROAD 144 What better way to celebrate our impending freedom FASHION than with a road trip? Let these idyllic routes inspire you FLASH MOB THREE DAYS IN LANZAROTE 84 Embrace those rising temperatures, slashing hemlines 15O Discover a new side to the Canary Islands, immersing and showing a little skin for a look that screams ‘summer’ yourself in its paradise coves and otherworldly landscape PHOTOGRAPHY: LARA ANGELIL, DIMA HOHLOV, SCHIRMACHER. TOM PETROS,

14 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021

Editor-in-Chief, ELLE and ELLE.com/uk Chief Luxury Officer FARRAH STORR JACQUELINE EUWE

Creative Director TOM MEREDITH Luxury Sales Director SHARON DAVIES-RIDGEWAY Executive Editor ALICE WIGNALL Director of Luxury Fashion CHARLOTTE HOLLANDS Executive Editor (Digital) NATASHA BIRD Director of Watches and Jewellery ANNA O’SULLIVAN Acting Digital Editor KATIE O’MALLEY Fashion & Luxury Account Managers ROSIE CAVE, SARAH SHEPHERD Watches & Jewellery Account Managers OLIVIA HORROCKS-BURNS, EMILY MILLS Executive Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief and Head of Luxury Agency LOUISA PATEY Chief Luxury Officer LEANE BORDER-GRIFFITH Luxury Create Director BETHANY SUTTON Group Brand Manager JESSICA DAY FASHION Director of Motors JIM CHAUDRY Group Luxury Fashion Director AVRIL MAIR Director of Fashion EMMA BARNES

Fashion Bookings Director CHLOË RIDLEY Director of Travel DENISE DEGROOT

Acting Fashion Bookings Director CHLOÉ MEDLEY Director of Personal Finance PETE CAMMIDGE Fashion Features Editor SARA McALPINE Director, Hearst Studio ALI GRAY Fashion & Accessories Editor GEORGIA MEDLEY Director of Beauty LEE BAILEY Fashion Writer DAISY MURRAY Regional Director DANIELLE SEWELL Fashion Assistants Head of Media Planning LUCY PORTER JULIA HARVEY AND LOIS ADEOSHUN Media Planning Manager KATHRYN FAIRBAIRN Bookings Assistant WHITNEY HARRISON Head of Classified LEE RIMMER Fashion Interns JACK O’NEILL AND HADYA TUOFIQ Production Director JOHN HUGHES Production Manager STEVE OSBORNE FEATURES Senior Ad Production Controller CARL LATTER Associate Editor/Culture Director LENA DE CASPARIS Acting Associate Editor/Culture Director TOM MACKLIN HEARST UK Features Director HANNAH NATHANSON CEO, Hearst UK | President, Hearst Europe JAMES WILDMAN Acting Features Director LOTTE JEFFS Chief Operations Officer, Hearst Europe GIACOMO MOLETTO News Editor (Digital) OLIVIA BLAIR Chief People Officer, Hearst Europe SURINDER SIMMONS Features Assistant BECKY BURGUM Chief Commercial Development Officer ROBERT FFITCH With special thanks to ATA-OWAJI VICTOR Chief Commercial Officer JANE WOLFSON Chief International Brand Officer MATT HAYES AMY BREWSTER Group Social Media Manager Chief Content Development Officer BETSY FAST

TRAVEL & LIFESTYLE Finance Director JULIEN LITZLEMANN

LUCY HALFHEAD Business Strategy Director ROMAIN METRAS Travel & Lifestyle Director Contributing Interiors Editor JACQUI CAVE Director of Operations SOPHIE WILKINSON ART AND PICTURES Director, PR & Communications EFFIE KANYUA

ALBY BAILEY PR and Communications Manager VINNIE NUZZOLESE Art Director ZOYA KALEEVA Luxury Event Partnerships Directors MICHELLE PAGLIARULO, MEGAN HESS Art Editor SONIA RUPRAH Luxury Event Partnerships Manager CONNIE FFITCH Designer Picture Director DIANA EASTMAN Head of Events and Client Service, Hearst Live NIKKI CLARE Deputy Picture Editor NATALIE MICHELE Marketing & Circulation Director REID HOLLAND Head of Consumer Sales & Marketing JAMES HILL BEAUTY Head of Subscription Marketing JUSTINE BOUCHER Group Luxury Beauty Director KATY YOUNG Head of Marketing Promotions AOIBHEANN FOLEY Beauty Editor JENNIFER GEORGE Digital Marketing Director SEEMA KUMARI Beauty Editor (Digital) GEORGE DRIVER Beauty Assistant ZEYNAB MOHAMED HEARST MAGAZINES INTERNATIONAL Managing Director Asia and Russia SIMON HORNE PRODUCTION Senior Vice President/Editorial and Brand Director KIM ST CLAIR BODDEN Chief Sub-Editor CLAIRE SIBBICK Deputy Chief Sub-Editor OLIVIA McCREA-HEDLEY ELLE INTERNATIONAL: A DIVISION OF LAGARDÈRE NEWS Group Managing Editor CONNIE OSBORNE ELLEAROUNDTHEWORLD.COM Editorial Business Manager STACEY TOMLIN CEO CONSTANCE BENQUÉ CEO ELLE International Licenses FRANÇOIS CORUZZI Contributing Fashion Editors SVP/International Director of ELLE VALÉRIA BESSOLO LLOPIZ PAUL CAVACO, AURELIA DONALDSON, SVP/Director of International Media Licenses & Syndication MICKAEL BERRET BETH FENTON, SOLANGE FRANKLIN, JENNY KENNEDY, JOANNA SCHLENZKA, SASA THOMANN ELLE BRAND MANAGEMENT Marketing Manager MORGANE ROHÉE Contributing Editors Editorial Manager TRISH NAGY TRAVIESO SUSIE BOYT, LIV LITTLE, LAURA CRAIK, SUSIE LAU, Graphic Design Manager MARINE LE BRIS CLARA AMFO, PANDORA SYKES Senior Digital Project Manager MODA ZERE ELLE INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTIONS 020 3728 7713 For all advertising enquiries, call Fashion Editor CHARLOTTE DEFFE Beauty & Celebrity Editor VIRGINIE DOLATA For all PR enquiries, email [email protected] For all event enquiries, call 020 7312 4105 ELLE SYNDICATION

For all general enquiries, call 020 7439 5000 Deputy Syndication Team Manager MARION MAGIS Syndication Coordinator ANA AFONSO Copyrights Manager SÉVERINE LAPORTE Database Manager PASCAL IACONO International Ad Sales House: LAGARDÈRE GLOBAL ADVERTISING SVP/International Advertising JULIAN DANIEL [email protected]

ELLE is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (which regulates the UK’s magazine and newspaper industry). We abide by the Editors’ Code of Practice and are committed to upholding the highest standards of journalism. If you think that we have not met those standards and want to make a complaint please contact [email protected] or visit hearst.co.uk/hearst-magazines-uk-complaints-procedure. If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or if you would like more information about IPSO or the Editors’ Code, contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit ipso.co.uk. For subscription queries, contact our customer service team at hearstmagazines.co.uk/contact-us or call 01858 438796. Lines open weekdays, 8am-9.30pm; Saturdays, 8am-4pm. Magazine printed by Walstead Roche, St Austell. Distribution by Frontline Ltd, Peterborough (01733 555161) Elle GUEST LIST

Page 84 ALTYN SIMPSON North Carolina-raised Altyn was 16 when she made her runway debut for Chanel. She tagged along to a friend’s acting audition, and was signed on the spot. Now 19, she’s starred in campaigns for Versace and Ralph Lauren, and is ELLE’s May cover star. MOST VALUABLE LIFE LESSON? ‘I surround myself with people I want to emulate – those who are generous, kind and wise.’ CAREER HIGHLIGHT? ‘Meeting Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel.’

Page 23 EMMA STONEX Bristol-based Emma was a book editor before she became an author. Her latest novel The Lamplighters (out now), is about mysterious disappearances on the Cornish coast. Emma writes about the epiphany she had after experiencing a mini stroke on p23. BEST WRITING TIP? ‘Don’t let themes you have no experience of intimidate you: writing is about discovering new perspectives.’ ADVICE FOR YOUR YOUNGER SELF? ‘Have the courage of your convictions. It doesn’t matter what others think.’

Page 116 NINNI NUMMELA After studying in Stockholm, Finnish Ninni moved to London hoping to assist Charlotte Tilbury, which she did for three years. Now a Chanel make-up artist, Ninni has worked with Priyanka Chopra-Jonas, Kate Moss and more. See her work on p116. FAVOURITE MAKE-UP TRICK? ‘Use two mascaras: waterproof to curl, and a volumising one for thickness.’ MOST USED ITEM IN YOUR BEAUTY BAG? ‘Cold-pressed oils; they work wonders on my skin.’

Page 54 LARA ANGELIL ,QÁXHQFHGE\KHUFODVVLFDOGDQFHUSDUHQWV/DUDSLFNHGXSDFDPHUDDWWRFDSWXUHPRYHPHQW Soon after, she left California to study fashion photography at the London College of Fashion and now counts Uniqlo and Theory as clients. Lara photographs Stack It Up on p54. HOW DO YOU CREATE GOOD VIBES ON SET? ‘Remaining light-hearted, even when it’s going wrong.’ WHAT’S YOUR SHOOT UNIFORM? ‘A shirt, loose Levi’s jeans and – importantly – Nike knee pads under them.’

Page 54 GEORGIA MEDLEY :DWFKLQJÀOPVVXFKDVFunny Face when she was a child ignited stylist Georgia’s love affair with glamour. The former fashion assistant for Harper’s Bazaar is now ELLE’s fashion and accessories editor. This month, she shows you how to mix oversized shapes and layers on p54 . BIGGEST FASHION MISCONCEPTION? ‘That we should avoid mixing black and brown, or white and cream. Whoever said that

WORDS: BECKY BURGUM. PHOTOGRAPHY: TOM SCHIRMACHER, PETROS, DIMA HOLHOV. was wrong.’ MOST BELOVED ITEM OF CLOTHING? ‘I wear black boots all year.’

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 17

Elle EDITOR’S LETTER

adjustments, too: city-dwellers who have jumped to the CHANGE AFOOT... country, pet-phobics who have become dog lovers; stress is bunnies who’ve transformed into meditative monks. What Can you sense it yet: the slow unfurling of life all around? have they done that the rest of us have not? They have It feels good, doesn’t it? Satisfying in the way only questioned what they want the new normal to feel like. something you have truly waited for feels. By now, It feels very similar to something someone once told I expect many of you will have met with family members, me: question your direction of travel every few years, SHUKDSV IRU WKH ÀUVW WLPH LQ PRQWKV ,W ZLOO IHHO WKH for we are seldom the same person for our entire lives. same as it always did: gentle, easy, warm. And yet it will That’s scary, of course, for in confronting where you somehow also feel different. KDYH EHHQ \RX PD\ÀQG\RXKDYHPDGHVRPHURJXHWXUQV You’ve probably got a hair appointment on the horizon. along the way. The good news about acknowledging this And a pedicure too, no doubt; maybe even something is: it’s never too late to change your course. a little more procedural. Perhaps it is For you, however, adjusting your your way of trying to insert yourself direction of travel may not involve any back into a life you once knew. “We a re big deviations, but rather smaller, But what if the point of all this almost-imperceptible alterations. A new upending change (upending being SELDOM haircut; a new way of dressing; a new a polite way to describe the past year) the outlook, perhaps. If this is you, then is to offer us a bend in the paths same person you’re in the right place, for this issue we’ve all, until now, unquestioningly for our of ELLE is all about small changes. taken? What if 2020 was the ENTIRE Head to our refreshed beauty section metaphoric breakup with our IURPS ZKHUH\RX·OOÀQGQHZ previous lives that we needed to get LIVES” ways to rethink, well everything, from clarity on what we really want? the French manicure to creating Over the past few months, I have witnessed numerous a bondage bun. (Far less complicated than it sounds, people – friends, friends of friends, former colleagues – I promise.) Our fashion pages, meanwhile, show you break free from lives they once lived. There are the high exactly how to wear the trickier trends of the seasons Á\HUVZKRKDYHWKURZQJOLWWHULQJFDUHHUVWRWKHZLQG – from outsized jackets and dresses to genius new in search of something simpler and more sustainable. ways to upgrade your lockdown ‘classics’. There are the individuals who have packed in age-old But mainly this issue of ELLE is dedicated to you relationships, which, upon closer examination, appeared for toughing it out, for sticking with us for the ride bound together by nothing more than a joint bank account and for knowing that the biggest gift that change can and a shared past. There are those who have made smaller give us is the opportunity to renew.

ON MY RADAR this MONTH

BRALETTE, £170, BAG, £1,180, DRESS, £626, MIIDNIGHT RENEWAALAL, SHOES, £45, LA PERLA MÉTIER LONDON BOUGESSA ££140, OMOROVICZAA CHARLES & KEITH

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 19

Elle MEMOIR

WAYS of SEEING

When writer Emma Stonex suffered a mini stroke at the age of 25, the walls of her world closed in. Here, she describes how she broke free from fear Photography by Eddie New

IT STARTED WITH A HEARTBEAT (AS EVERYTHING DOES). For an the street without it bleeding out from somewhere. Even instrument that beats more than billion times in an average now, hearing that song makes me queasy. It was my fault: lifespan, there are maybe only a handful of occasions, if we’re I was tired, I’d been drinking too much, smoking too much. lucky, that we’re properly aware of it. When we’re afraid, or I’d been staying out late, getting no sleep, doing no exercise. in love. When, as children, the doctor presses a cold metal But as I sifted through reasons, the realisation set in that it disc against our chest and we watch them listen. When we could be any or all or none of these things – and what did hear our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. I was 25 when it matter, when the harder I tried, the less I could see? mine told me something was wrong. I was living in London, There was always a suspicion that my heart beat watching TV late at night after my boyfriend had gone to bed differently. You know that scene in Dirty Dancing where when, like dimming a sidelight, I lost the vision in one eye. Johnny puts Baby’s hand on his chest? Ba-boom, ba-boom. I’d The best way I can describe it was like creeping fog, from touch my heart and think, Mine doesn’t sound like that. More like left to right: a silver curtain closing. I don’t remember what someone toppling downstairs, or a galloping horse pausing to I was watching – you’d think I ought to, but maybe the brain sail over a jump. Whenever I lay down, I could feel that erratic tunes things like that out when it goes into shock. The body rhythm – I still do – and it wasn’t the reassuring 80-beats-a- knows when it’s in trouble. I’ve since given birth to two minute everyone said it should be. If you tried dancing to that, babies. It hurt, and I was scared, but nothing has scared me you’d get motion sickness. But it never caused me problems more than that advancing grey mist. Blindness is a primordial beyond faint curiosity, so I thought no more about it. fear. Sight is our truest anchor: without it, we’re adrift. In the bedroom, I turned on the light and said something I washed my eyes out in the bathroom, trying not panic. farcical like, ‘I’m going blind, I can’t see.’ My left arm felt The vision in my left eye had almost completely gone. ticklish with pins and needles. My boyfriend sat up and looked Music was playing next door, Kings of Leon. It was the at me, but he wasn’t looking at me. He said, ‘How many euros summer of Sex on Fire, when you couldn’t walk 10ft down did you get with the exchange rate?’ (He’d never talked

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 23 Elle MEMOIR

in his sleep before and hasn’t since, I became low-level agoraphobic. so it was kind of him to do it then.) Anyone who knows a cousin in that I felt like I’d slipped into a deep fold in family – anxiety, PTSD, depression the fabric of the universe: everything – knows they are closely related. slightly to the side of where it should I’d always been independent, but be, like someone moving during the for a time I grew needier. When exposure of a photo. Idiotically, things are about to slip away, we hold I started flashing the overhead light on ever tighter. I felt I’d had a lucky on and off, one hand clamped over escape: what if the clot had been my unseeing eye like a tableau in a THE WRITER worse or the blockage hadn’t cleared? David Lynch movie. We were in the EMMA AFTER HER MINI STROKE If life could be pinched out so swiftly, early hours by then; the edges of that what guarantee was there that other fog were softening and breaking things, other people, wouldn’t vanish? apart. My right eye was OK; I’d go to But there are no guarantees. That’s hospital in the morning. But I didn’t “I felt as though the point. Life is skating on thin ice. sleep. I kept vigil over my sight like a Id’ slipped We can fall through it at any moment. sick child, afraid that if I closed my For weeks, I blamed myself. I’d eyes, even for a moment, it would flit into a deep been hurtling along with the arrogant away from me altogether. assumption that I was invincible. It The next day, a doctor performed FOLD in the didn’t matter that I hadn’t taken care an ECG, diagnosed atrial fibrillation fabric of the of myself, I was young and would (a type of heart arrhythmia) and said make up for it later. There’s always a I’d had a TIA. A transient ischaemic UNIVERSE” later when you’re twentysomething. attack. I’d never heard of it. ‘A mini There’ll be time to achieve the things stroke,’ he explained, with kindness you want. But as the days passed, it and a touch of pity, which in a way was worse than the slowly settled that, lucky or not, I’d escaped. Doctors ran judgement itself. The blood had been obstructed on its way 24-hour recordings of my heartbeat and an MRI on my chest to my brain. I was confused; distraught. Strokes happened and head. They offered me beta blockers to manage my to old people. How could one have happened to me? arrhythmia and daily aspirin to prevent clots, but warned taking either over a long period could result in problems later. I WAS IN HOSPITAL FOR THE REST OF THE DAY, dizzy and terrified, I said no to both. My GP stressed there was no reason to think but, by evening, with my eyesight back to normal, there was I’d have another TIA. I could make lifestyle changes but, no reason for me to stay. I was told to call 999 if I experienced beyond that – and she said this quite happily – living is a risk. numbness on my left side or pain in my chest. Returning to We all worry about how and when we’ll reach the lowering the flat, I was overcome with fear. What if it happened again? of the light. Illness, injury, getting knocked down by a bus. The idea is that we shouldn’t be aware of the inner You’d never leave the house if you thought like that, my mum used to workings of our bodies. Human anatomy runs on electricity say. Only I hadn’t left the house, had I? This had happened and magic – the older I get, the less sure I am which there’s at home, in the quietest way possible: death and life wrapped more of. The fortunate among us live in healthy ignorance around each other; two sides of the same coin. The fact is, without ever coming into contact with the machinery that nowhere is safe and nothing is sure. We give in or we get on. keeps us going. When we do, it’s like glimpsing the scaffolding As I began to absorb the meaning of my doctor’s words, holding the set in place, or seeing the actors at the stage I realised I had to make some lasting decisions. Little by little, door having a fag. The strings, the rigging, the apparatus I gathered the courage to go out. I went for short walks, then that keeps the show on the road, we don’t want to know longer ones. I rode the bus, then the Tube into town. One day, about it – because we are the show, right? It’s distressing to I felt brave enough to drive on the motorway. I went back to be reminded that it’s all as temporal as an assembly of parts work and looked at my career anew. I loved editing novels but that, like any other, can one day stop working. had always secretly yearned to write my own, so I decided I rang in sick to my job in publishing with half the story. to begin a manuscript. When an agent agreed to represent I felt embarrassed and upset by people’s sympathy whenever me, I quit my job. I promised to ring my family more often I said the S word. My boss sent work home, but I felt too and spend meaningful – sober – time with friends. I drank fragile to focus on it. I lived in fear of the blindness returning, less and stopped smoking (almost). I took long walks and or that I’d look in the mirror and wouldn’t recognise my face. did yoga. I reminded myself to look up at the sky every day. I had elaborate nightmares about my truant heart: one My TIA didn’t steal away life’s pleasures. Rather, it where it dissolved through my fingers like sand; in another, showed me how to enjoy them more. We’re only here once, I followed an echo in a house, only to discover my heart in a after all. There’s a thin membrane between life and death, wardrobe. I didn’t go out, terrified of being away from home and I feel it with every beat of my weird, wonderful heart.

in case of a relapse. I felt confined by the walls of my flat. The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex is out now PHOTOGRAPHY: EDDIE NEW/TRUNK ARCHIVE, COURTESY OF EMMA STONEX.

24 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021

upfront THE NOW, THE NEW, THE NEXT

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T-SHIRT, £650, BALENCIAGA

FOOOTBALL, £145, VERSACEV BALENCIAGA at FARRFETCH

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BRITAIN’S TOP SCORERS TAKE TO THE PITCH FOR THE FA CUP FINALS IN MAY, MIU MIU BETHANY WILLIAMS AND FASHION HAS MADE SURE WE’RE ALL SUITABLY DRESSED. FORGET SPORTS CASUAL, THOUGH. MICRO LENGTHS, TRACKSUITS WITH HEELS AND GLITTERING ACCESSORIES TO FINISH – THIS IS SPORTS DRESSED UP

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FOOTBALL, £15, JODIE X TAYLOR ADIDAS Edited by SARA McALPINNE and SHHORTS, £80, TRAINERS, SOS PHIE HIRD BECKY £795, PRADA BURGUMM SHOPPING: JULIA HARVEY. PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES, ALAMY, IMAXTREE.

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 27

Elle UPFRONT

MEET Nabhaan Rizwan He takes the lead in one of the year’s most weepy romantic dramas. But if you think Nabhaan Rizwan is your ‘IT’S A REFRESHING REMINDER THAT love is possible,’ says Nabhaan Rizwan of average romantic star, think again The Last Letter from Your Lover, his first Words by Becky Burgum Photography by Elliot James Kennedy major leading role. Adapted from Jojo Moyes’ novel, it follows two stories in different eras: a heady 1960s French Riviera romance, and an innocent affair in contemporary London. Rizwan plays Rory, a newspaper archivist who, along with journalist Ellie – played by Felicity Jones – finds a cache of heartaching letters sent between two lovers in the 1960s (Big Little Lies’ Shailene Woodley and Fantastic Beasts’ Callum Turner). Though decades apart, their stories slowly become entwined. ‘Previously, when I’ve watched this genre, it’s perpetuated archaic gender roles and [that] takes me out of the film. It’s a distraction,’ says 24-year-old Rizwan. ‘But this script was different.’ Yes, there’s the obligatory (and appreciated) kissing-in-the- rain scene, but there’s also a woman calling the shots, and love is the last thing on her mind. ‘We rarely see this on screen, but that’s how things are in real-life relationships.’

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 29 Elle UPFRONT

THE TOMEI, TOKYO, Director Augustine Frizzell, of Euphoria fame, was a huge JAPAN (LEFT) pull for Rizwan. ‘Sometimes figuring out scenes can be like WHEN THIS TOILET IS trying to solve a riddle,’ says Rizwan. ‘But Augustine made OCCUPIED, THE GLASS everything easy.’ The chance to flex his comedic prowess was WALLS BECOME FROSTED. WOULD YOU another. You’ll fall in love with awkward, bumbling Rory as RISK IT? PART OF THE much as you will self-assured heartthrob Anthony (Turner). TOKYO TOILET The Last Letter from Your Lover is less political than his PROJECT, IT’S ONE OF 17 RENOVATED PUBLIC previous projects; Rizwan’s openness to experimenting can LOOS IN SHIBUYA. be attributed to his mother. ‘She knew the importance of varying what we were into,’ says Rizwan of his childhood in east London. ‘Despite a lack of resources, she encouraged us to try everything.’ His mother is an actor, his father was a playwright, “My main goal and brother Mawaan is a comedian and YouTube star. It was in UREDDPLASSEN, in 2O2O was Mawaan’s videos that Rizwan GILDESKÅL, NORWAY (RIGHT) GAZE AT THE to put out got the taste for acting. ‘It was a NORTHERN LIGHTS AS music.I want naturally creative environment to YOU TINKLE IN WAVE build our brotherhood, but I did get SHAPED FACILITIES OVERLOOKING THE to study fashion picked on at cricket club,’ he says. NORWEGIAN FJORDS. NEXT” ‘It was uncool, but I enjoyed it.’ A self-confessed ‘handful’ at school, if Rizwan wasn’t having fun, he’d ‘freak out’: ‘I was smart, but I took the piss. Teachers GO SEE hated that.’ Drama lessons were a way to mess around in a constructive way. After A-levels, Rizwan did youth work while acting in theatre groups. His big break came when he Wa n d e r- l o o s bagged an agent at a drama showcase he put on with friends. NO ONE WANTS TO BE CAUGHT SHORT… SO MAKE ‘I didn’t know they’d been invited,’ he says. After one of his YOUR NEXT PUBLIC TOILET TRIP A MEMORABLE first auditions, he landed the lead in BBC thriller Informer, about a British-Pakistani man recruited as a counter-terrorism ONE FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS spy. ‘It was a badass script and a badass character,’ he says. Next came war drama 1917, then Riz Ahmed’s culture- KUMUTOTO TOILETS, clash film, Mogul Mowgli. ‘[Ahmed] reached out before WELLINGTON, NEW Informer came out. He’s got this crazy radar,’ says Rizwan. ZEALAND (LEFT) In Mogul Mowgli, Rizwan plays a tattooed rising-star rapper ENJOY FRESH SEA AIR AS whose outrageously crude music will make you wince. As a YOU RELIEVE YOURSELF IN THESE GIANT SEA talented rapper – last summer he released his first EP under MONSTERS NEAR THE the alias El Huxley – he’s ashamed to say he wrote every lyric HARBOUR – THE SHAPE in the film. ‘It was a dream and nightmare writing the most OF THE TAIL PROMOTES NATURAL VENTILATION. misogynistic lyrics with four guys from Warner Records.’ Rizwan also starred in the BBC series Industry and fondly describes producer Lena Dunham as having ‘comedy chops’. ‘We’d shout silly things to each other on the trading floor,’ he says. ‘That bled into the work; she allowed me to add quirks.’ This year, Rizwan makes his West End debut in Anna X, alongside The Crown’s Emma Corrin, as well as starring in post- ‘TOILET ISLAND’, PLACENCIA, BELIZE apocalyptic HBO series Station Eleven, directed by Hiro (RIGHT) CASTAWAYS Murai, creator of Childish Gambino’s This Is America video. NEED LOOS TOO… THIS ‘I watched his video for Flying Lotus’ Never Catch Me every REMOTE FLUSHING THRONE IS PROOF. EAT day while filming Informer,’ says Rizwan. He’s my hero.’ YOUR HEART OUT, There are hundreds of directors Rizwan is dying to work ROBINSON CRUSOE. with, but his ethos of diversifying his craft rings strong. ‘My main goal in 2020 was to put out music, which I did. I want to study fashion next. I want to push people’s expectations.’ If it means we see more of Rizwan, we’re 100% behind him. The Last Letter from Your Lover is out later this year WORDS: BECKY BURGUM. PHOTOGRAPHY, STANDARD/ PREVIOUS KENNEDY/EVENING JAMES ELLIOT PAGE: EYEVINE. PHOTOGRAPHY, THIS HIROYUKI PAGE: HIRAI,ALAMY, STEINAR SKAAR/TURISTVEG, GETTY IMAGES.

3O ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Elle UPFRONT

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ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 31 Elle UPFRONT

THE LOOK A REFRESHINGLY BRALETTE, MODERN TAKE £65 ON CLASSIC CRAFTY KNITTING AND CROCHET

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If yyour idea of knitting and croochet conjures images of priickly Aran jumpers and Nana’s SPOTLIGH cliccking needles, then Katya ZeZelentsova will surprise you. Katya Zelentsova Her seductive, cut-out, high- colour styles blow the dust off MEET THE ZERO-WASTE DESIGNER REREINVENTINGNVE those crafty stereotypes. KNITWEAR FOR A NEWW GENERATION The wry 26-year-old (‘Is now the time to start lying about my age?’ she jokes over the phone) creates provocative JACKET, £650 ppieces that have captivated the fashion industry following hher BA and MA in knitwear from Central Saint Martins. ‘I’m reeally thankful that people seem to like it,’ she laughs, aware oof her designs’ unconventional appeal. The industry’s key pplayers certainly do – including super-stylist and Simone Rocha ccollaborator Robbie Spencer, as well as musician Celeste. There’s much to like about Zelentsova and her self-described ‘sensual and sentimental’ designs, inspired by her glamorous ggrandmother who brought her up in southwest Russia and is sskilled at craft herself. Zelentsova knew she’d be a designer ffrom the age of seven. ‘There was never any plan B,’ she says. BRIEFS, £55 After cutting her teeth at Marc Jacobs and Burberry, ZZelentsova has spent the past year creating zero-waste capsule ccollections in her own name, all hand-crocheted, sewed and THE MOOD kknitted from her Brixton home and sold via her website. Think IN THE DESIGNER’S ccandy-hued, punk-infused dresses and bralets that inject energy OWN WORDS, IT’S ‘SENSUAL AND into the classic craft. ‘I’m greedy when it comes to techniques,’ SENTIMENTAL’, she says, excited about the versatility of a skill often considered TOP, WITH TEXTURE twee. She is mindful of sustainability, too – every offcut is made £175 AND UNEXPECTED CUT OUTS into something unique. ‘I just think it’s blasphemous to waste!’ Not that being thrifty or green has thwarted Zelentsova’s sense of fun – some of her main references are the fantasy SKIRT, Juliet of the Spirits and her own friends on £185  )HOOLQL ÀOP a night out. It’s no wonder her vibrant, playful and frankly sexy knits look as they do. ‘Ultimately, I just want to make people happy. That’s what I intend to do,’ she says. And in

these (still) unprecedented times, that’s all we really need. WORDS: DAISY MURRAY. PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF KATYA ZELENTSOVA.

32 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021

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IXQIULOO\SODWHV:LWKIDVKLRQFURFNHU\·VODYLVKGHVLJQVWKHUH·VQRH[FXVHQRWWRGLQHLQVW\OH WORDS: BECKY BURGUM. SHOPPING: JULIA HARVEY. PHOTOGRAPHY:CLAVERO, DANIEL SCOTT BOOKER COURTESY OF FLAMING LIPS, PRODUCTION CLU.

34 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 S AV E 65% £1.67 PER ISSUE

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INSPIRED BY 101 go od bo ys We’re straining at the leash for Cruella, the 101 Dalmatians reboot starring Emma Stone in the title role (out 28 May). Say what you like about Cruella, she’s right on one thing: monochrome always looks good. It’s one of spring’s foremost trends, updated with cut-out polka dots, warped houndstooth and checks, and patchworked prints. Thankfully, the fashion take is cruelty-free.

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Elle UPFRONT

FINAL FRONTIER KATHERINE WATERSTON AND VANESSA KIRBY IN THE WORLD TO COME TRENDING Romance revival ONCE DISMISSED AS FLUFF AND FRIVOLITY, LOVE IS BACK WITH A TENDER VENGEANCE

At a time when intimacy has been in short supply, are we falling back in love with a neglected genre? Romances of all kinds, from swooning dramas to the romcoms of the 1990s and 2000s were once box-office bankers, but stale formulas and the more reliable profitability of action movies saw them languish in recent years. But now: they’re back. First, Netflix, with its unrivalled spending power, bet on originals like To All The Boys, The Perfect Date and, of course, Bridgerton. These smash hits “ Romance proved that romance wasn’t dead, it just needed an update. ISN’T DEAD. In cinema, the slow-burn It just trend – exemplified by offerings needed as varied as Call Me By Your other. In Ammonite Name in 2017 and Crazy Rich A RESET” (out now), Kate Winslet Asians in 2018 – showed that stars as palaeontologist there was life in the genre, as Mary Anning, who falls long as the stories were fresh. in love with her friend (Saoirse Ronan). And now it’s come to fruition with On TV, BBC One’s The Pursuit of Love romance firmly back in our hearts, (out this spring) is the joyful romp we need: the though often of an unexpected kind. adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s classic follows In film releases this month, female love the romantic adventures of aristocrat Linda takes centre stage, with frontier romance Radlett (Lily James) and her cousin Fanny The World To Come (out now) seeing Vanessa Logan (Emily Beecham), as they gallivant Kirby and Katherine Waterston find solace around Europe between the World Wars. from their unhappy marriages with each In books, rejoice over Dial A For Aunties (out 29 April), Jesse Q Sutanto’s part-murder mystery, part-romcom, in which Meddelin Chan kills her blind date by accident. Queer love is celebrated in Laura Kay’s The Split (out now) and The Hate U Give’s Angie Thomas is one of six authors writing WAR-TIME JAPES LILY JAMES AND about Black teen love in Blackout (out 21 June). EMILY BEECHAM IN THE PURSUIT OF LOVE

SEA CHANGE KATE WINSLET

WORDS: BECKY BURGUM. PHOTOGRAPHY: BBC/THEODORA FILMSMOONAGE PICTURES LIMITED, LIMITED/ROBERT VIGLASKY. AND SAOIRSE RONAN STAR IN AMMONITE

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 39 4O Elle

UPFRONT appropriate, spin-offs, ANDERSON Reworking THE IT JUST NEEDSIT JUST A2O21 UPDATE WARDROBE. LOUNGEWEAR, YOU KEEPTHE STILL CAN ANEW REQUIRE LIFE DOESN’T REAL RE-ENTERING the £465, JW up’ To style, Boston appearance. JW make and VALENTINO opt Anderson

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SHOPPING: LOIS ADEOSHUN. PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES, IMAXTREE. Elle UPFRONT

NAME TO KNOW RAPPER AND SINGER ELHEIST’S FANS INCLUDE JORJA SMITH AND DESIGNER MOWALOLA

THE HYPE Starstruck STANDUP COMEDIAN ROSE MATAFEO’S NEW SERIES PROMISES BIG BELLY LAUGHS

After nearly 13 years on the comedy circuit, 28-year-old Rose Matafeo’s career is going into overdrive. In the past few months, the Kiwi comic has made her film lead debut in comedy Baby Done, while her award-winning Edinburgh Fringe gig Horndog aired on BBC Three. Next is Starstruck: Jessie (Matafeo) is juggling two dead-end jobs, when an awkward morning- UP Nigeria knows after-the-night-before reveals she’s LISTEN RIGHT NOW,WITH A SLEW slept with a movie star. ‘It’s like an ALL EARS ARE ON NIGERIA updated, gender-reversed Notting OF MUCH-HYPED ARTISTS TAKING OVER OUR PLAYLISTS Hill with 200% more brown people,’ and whose fans include Rihanna Afropop prodigy Rema – says Matafeo. ‘I have so much love This month, while new-wave R&B singer – releases his debut album, for the white lady leads of 1990s Barack Obama , featuring Wizkid. Plus, there’s the video for her track Essence romcoms, but I was thrilled to write TEMS drops Savage and British-Nigerian ‘queen of Afrobeats’ Tiwa a show with someone who’d usually new music from and Grace La Doja’s and Darkoo. And while Skepta be a “sassy best friend” as the lead.’ rising stars Elheist year, look out Lagos may be cancelled this Though Matafeo swears she’s Homecoming festival in in its place. arts schedule that’s launching never been in this position herself, for a new digital music and she does admit ‘it’s slightly based

on an anecdote from friends, who hung out with a famous superhero actor all night after meeting him in a London pub. As well as the many stories I read on @deuxmoi [the celebrity gossip Instagram account], of course.’ Expect the same high energy as Matafeo’s electric live shows. As for the film’s message? ‘Ask for someone’s full name and ON THE RISE occupation before you drunkenly FROM LEFT: LOOK sleep with them. That’s what OUT FOR NEW MUSIC RELEASES FROM my mother always told me.’ TEMS, TIWA SAVAGE,

WORDS: BECKY BURGUM. PHOTOGRAPHY: INSTAGRAM/SCRDOFME,MARK JOHNSON, ELLIOT HENSFORD, RODERICK EJUETAMI. Starstruck airs this spring on BBC Three DARKOO AND REMA

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 41

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ELLE.COM/UKM/UKMAY 2021 43

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ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 53 Photography DIMA HOHLOV Styling GEORGIA MEDLEY Shopping JULIA HARVEY

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TOP, £165, SANDRO THE DETAIL CONSIDER THE XL SLEEVE: PUFFED- OUT SHOULDERS OR STATEMENT CUFFS ARE AN INSTANT WAY TO ADD SHAPE TO YOUR LOOK.

SANDALS, £290, MOSCHINO

DRESS, £175, REJINA PYO RING, X & OTHER £29.95, SEOL STORIES + GOLD

BAG, £255, BAG, £35.99, KASSL MANGO EDITIONS

THE HOODY 2.O SANDALS, INVEST IN AN ELEVATED TAKE ON £90, DUNE THE SWEAT TOP, THEN SHOW IT OFF (AND SMARTEN IT UP) WITH A SLEEVELESS JACKET.

SKIRT, £95, GUESS JEANS

SHOES, £2,050, GO TONAL TOP, £50, WANDLER LEVI’S KEEPING THINGS MUTED MAKES MATCHING YOUR LAYERS EASIER. ADD ONE BRIGHT ACCENT PIECE TO FINISH.

D , 0 , BAG, £1,632, DRESS, £305, GIVENCHY GANNI J

ELLE.COM/UKELLE COM/UK MAY 2021 55 Skirt, £425, PALMER//HARDING. Trousers, £340, PLEATS PLEASE ISSEY MIYAKE. Leggings (worn underneath), £79, ARKET £19.99, RESERVED. Boots, £545, LONGCHAMP

£15, MONKI

POP (ON) YOUR COLLAR MAXED OUT ON LAYERS? YOU CAN WORK THE OVERSIZED COLLAR TREND WITHOUT ADDING ANOTHER SHIRT, THANKS TO THESE DETACHABLE PIECES.

£14.99, NEXT

THE QUICK fix DON’T LET COOLER TEMPERATURES PUT YOU OFF WEARING SUMMERY SKIRTS – JUST ADD TROUSERS

£50, GANNI

TROUSERS, £245, SANDRO TROUSERS, £320, THEORY

CROP TO IT TROUSERS UNDER SKIRTS NOT FOR YOU? TRY TOPS TOP, £325, OVER TOPS: ADDING A MAX ZARA STATEMENT CROP OVER STERCK TOP, TOP, £11.99, ZARA A T-SHIRT OR DRESS GIVES £24.99, AN INSTANT UPDATE. H&M TOP, £300, CHARLOTTE KNOWLES DRESS, £250, TOTÊME 56 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Elle STYLE

Navy jacket, £800, green welly boots, £250, and white flower pin, £75, all PHILOSOPHY DI LORENZO SERAFINI. Camel trench coat, £269, GEOX. White shirt, £55, LEVI’S. Pink and white bag, £185, VIVIENNE WESTWOOD

CONTRAST is KEY EMBRACE A WIDE-SHOULDERED OVERSIZED SILHOUETTE, PAIRING WITH A MINI BAG TO EXAGGERATE PROPORTIONS

57 Elle STYLE

THIS PAGE Cream jacket, £750, ACNE STUDIOS. Red and white shirt (worn over brown jacket), £480, and red and white shirt (tied around waist) £580, both ISABEL MARANT. Brown jacket, £59.99, H&M. Grey trousers, £130, FRENCH CONNECTION. Gold earring, £1,750, HANNAH MARTIN. OPPOSITE Brown jacket, £295, REISS. Beige jacket, £35, ASOS. Crop top, £139, BOSS. Beige top, £17.99, H&M. Bodysuit, £19.99, and leggings, £19.99, both RESERVED. Sandals, £220, EMPORIO ARMANI. Hat, £14.99, LINDEX. Bow clip (on hat), £130, SHUSHU/ TONG at BROWNS FASHION. Earrings, £190, GIOVANNI RASPINI

THE shirt TRICK A BLAZER AND TAILORED SHIRT IS A CLASSIC COMBINATION, BUT NOBODY EVER SAID WHICH ORDER YOU HAD TO PUT THEM ON…

58 £350, BIRKENSTOCK STYLE 1774 X FAYE Elle TOOGOOD

£49.99, MANGO

THE ‘UGLY’ SANDALS YES, CHUNKY, VELCRO STRAP SHOES ARE A THING AGAIN. GIVE THEM A SS21 UPDATE IN NEUTRAL TONES THAT WAY, YOU CAN WEAR THEM WITH EVERYTHING.

£49.99, ZARA

£330, BOSS

KEEPit SIMPLE COLOUR CLASHESS CAN BE FUN, BUT FOR A MORE MUTED

000, APPROA CHOSE TONAL SHADES FOR A GENTLE CONTRAST

£145, ATELIER BY VAGABOND

£25, ASOS DESIGN

£520, ACNE STUDIOS

NEW HUES USE YOUR TAILORING TO CHANNEL SPRING LIKE SHADES OF EARTHY BROWNS, LEAFY GREENS AND GREY SKY BLUES. £135, & OTHER STORIES X REJINA PYO £329, CLAUDIE PIERLOT £250, REISS

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 59 Elle STYLE

£17.99, MANGO

£295, LOEWE PAULA’S IBIZA

HATS OFF WELL, HAT’S ON, ACTUALLY. THE BUCKET HAT IS GOING NOWHERE, SO PREPARE FOR RAIN OR SHINE IN ONE OF THESE SHAPELY STYLES.

£225, ERDEM

ALL TIED up LAYERING DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SHAPELESS. USE A BELT, OR EVEN A CORSET, TO DEFINE YOUR SILHOUETTE £108, RE/DONE

£595, BOSS

GRAB YOUR COAT YOUR OUTERWEAR IS THE FIRST THING PEOPLE SEE, SO £100, MAKE IT COUNT IN ONE OF THESE RIVER REINVENTED TRENCHES. ISLAND

£150, £700, £1,170, COS HERNO COLVILLE

6O ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Elle STYLE

THIS PAGE Brown coat, £930, ISABEL MARANT. Green coat, £525, BOSS. Beige coat, £355, and briefs, £235, both SPORTMAX. Boots, £545, LONGCHAMP. Beige hat, £17.99, MANGO. Navy hat, £8.99, LINDEX. Denim hat, £75, BY.WUZZY. Earrings, £55, KATE SPADE NEW YORK. Bag, £245, REDVALENTINO. Socks, £6.99, SOCKSHOP. OPPOSITE Tan corset, £1,750, DIOR. Grey jacket, £535, MM6 MAISON MARGIELA. Pink top, £45, and matching skirt, £69, both GUESS. White top, £175, PLEATS PLEASE ISSEY MIYAKE. Gold earring, £1,750, and gold bracelet, price on request, both HANNAH MARTIN

TRIPLE threat ONE COAT IS STANDARD, A SECOND ADDS WARMTH AND A THIRD? WELL, THAT CAN BE YOUR WATERPROOF – REMOVE, MIX AND MATCH AS REQUIRED AT PREMIERAT MODEL MANAGEMENT. THIS SHOOT PRODUCED WAS IN ACCORDANCE WITH LOCAL COVID-19 GUIDELINES. HAIR: FEDERICO GHEZZI SAINT AT LUKE ARTISTS.NAILS: MAKE-UP: AMI SHINOBU STREETS ABE USING USING SUQQU SIGNATURE THE DIOR MANICURE COLOR EYES. COLLECTION AND MISS DIOR HAND CREAM. MODEL: JAE BAGNALL

61 THE We know your phone can tell the time, but can it make a statement like these watches? We think not. Fine materials mixed with classic design – you’re still not dressed without one FINISHING

TOUCH

Dress, price on request, LONGCHAMP. Bra, £87, THE UNDERARGUMENT. Steel and red gold watch, £6,350, BREITLING 62 Bra, £75, and briefs, £40, Elle ACCESSORIES AGENT PROVOCATEUR. Black tights, £14, FALKE. Nude tights worn underneath), £19, WOLFORD. Blanket, £168, TEKLA. Left arm: steel and pink gold watch, price on request, AUDEMARS PIGUET. Right arm, from top: steel and black mother of pearl, £3,400, gold, diamond and onyx, price on request, and steel, gold, diamond and lapis lazuli, £12,500, all DIOR WATCHES

Photography DIMA HOHLOV Styling GEORGIA MEDLEY 63 Elle ACCESSORIES Skirt, £322, SUPRIYA LELE. Sandals, price on request, 16ARLINGTON. Blanket, £168, TEKLA. Beige gold and leather watch (top), £11,750, CHANEL WATCHES. Gold, diamond and mother of pearl watch and bracelet set, price on request, BVLGARI

64 Top, £365, DRIES VAN NOTEN. Briefs, £65, MYLA. Watches, from left: steel, £1,250, TAG HEUER; and diamond and titanium, £11,000, HUBLOT 65 Top, £140, AMLUL. Watches, from top: rose gold with interchangeable pink gold bracelet, price on request, and steel, £5,550 both CARTIER. Gloves, £145, CORNELIA JAMES. Blanket, £168, TEKLA Elle ACCESSORIES

Skirt (worn as dress), £322, SUPRIYA LELE. Steel and gold watches, from left: £2,530 and £2,920, both TUDOR ROYAL. Blanket, £168, TEKLA HAIR: CECILIE HILDEBRANDT OF SUBSTANCE AT USINGBEAUTY CHARLOTTE CAMELLIA MENSAH. GLOW CONCENTRATE. MAKE-UP: SHINOBU NAILS: ABE MILKAT USING AMI CHANEL MODEL STREETS MANAGEMENT. ROUGE COCO USING FASHION BLOOM THE AND ASSISTANT: DIOR MANICURE HYDRA JACK O’NEILL. COLLECTION THIS SHOOT AND PRODUCED WAS MISS IN ACCORDANCE DIOR HAND CREAM. WITH LOCAL MODEL: COVID-19 KENZA GUIDELINES. SAFSAF 67 MANUFACTURING...

68 Elle READS

...YOUR perfect MATCH Lust + attraction + attachment = true love. According to scientists, finding ‘the spark’ is just about perfecting a formula. Is this the future of dating, asks Alexandra Jones

DAISY* SWIRLS THE TIP OF HER FINGER ALONG THE BASE OF HER GIN glass, collecting the condensation with a sigh. The date, their second, is not a bad one; the man sitting opposite her is clever enough and certainly good-looking enough. He has a decent job, he owns a cat – and, crucially, hasn’t referred to himself as a ‘cat dad’, which would be an immediate red flag. But despite all of this, it’s not what she would describe as a ‘standout’ date. In the two years she’s been single, Daisy, 34, has been on close to 100 first dates, figuring love was ultimately a numbers game. But, so far, each meeting has yielded similar results. ‘There’s no… spark,’ she says. ‘That thing where you get excited about someone. It just isn’t there.’ Daisy’s theory – that the probability of finding a good match comes down to meeting enough people – has become one of the most common arguments in favour of dating apps. And in the grip of the pandemic more of us than ever banked on the idea that swipes would equal sparks. (According to data from the end of 2020, the biggest apps – including Match and Bumble – grew by almost 20% in September and October.) However, as one prominent Oxford University academic and relationship researcher Dr Anna Machin explains: ‘What we’re talking about when we say “spark” is the impact of neurochemical attraction, and apps rarely create the conditions necessary for that.’ In fact, the sheer number of available options may well be working against our biology, in the long term driving us into a neurological quagmire where we find it difficult to spark with anyone. Photography We find ourselves at a point in history where, in theory, it’s never GAB BOIS been easier to find a partner – but it’s still as hard, if not harder, to

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locate what we really want: butterflies, a sense of excitement and possibility. The question is: how long will our demanding generation put up with that unsatisfying state of affairs? With restrictions on physical meetings likely to continue – possibly for years, in one form or another – technology will undoubtedly remain at the heart of our search for love. And the search itself may well become more important than ever. Innumerable studies have linked close relationships to improved health and increased longevity and, conversely, have found that social isolation increases the risk of early death by an amount comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Luckily, we may well be on the cusp of a new dawn in the world of dating. With increasingly sophisticated algorithms and biotechnologies in development, is it just a matter of time before how often we spark, and with whom, is under our control? In a 2020 article for The Atlantic, tech journalists Ashley Fetters and Kaitlyn Tiffany argued that ‘the way people now shop online for goods – in virtual marketplaces, where they can easily filter out features they do and don’t want – has “Is it just a matter of time before who we spark with is under OUR CONTROL?”

influenced the way people “shop” for partners, especially on dating apps, which often allow that same kind of filtering.’ Indeed, the digitisation of the singles market has expanded the dating pool to the point where some kind of filtering system is actively necessary. But the rise in what psychologists have called ‘relationshopping’ has had a profoundly disruptive effect on our biologically programmed ability to find a partner we click with. On a neurological level, romantic love is governed by three interlinking brain systems: lust, attraction and attachment. The lust system, characterised predominantly by an uptick in testosterone and oestrogen, causes us long-distance running). As Fetters and Tiffany go on to to feel sexual desire and drives us to act on those feelings. point out, though ‘romantic chemistry is volatile and hard Underpinned mainly by dopamine and serotonin, the to predict, it can crackle between two people with nothing attraction system then narrows our focus to partners in common and fail to materialise in what looks on paper who are more genetically appropriate for us. Finally, like a perfect match.’ Dr Machin puts this ‘crackle’ down the attachment system (via hormones such as oxytocin to our brain’s ability to take in sensory information that we and vasopressin) helps us to sustain connections long may not consciously be aware of (‘smell and pheromones, enough to couple up and perform parental duties, which body language, speech patterns’), all of which engages our – from a biological perspective – is the whole point. attraction system. ‘This has a number of effects,’ says But the criteria we use to filter matches online isn’t Dr Machin. ‘But in the main, it motivates us to learn more necessarily what will get our neurons firing IRL. Daisy finds about the other person, and rewards us when we do.’ herself gravitating towards the profiles of potential partners On a one-off basis, meeting someone we think is perfect who work in a similar field to her (finance), and whose but who, for whatever reason, doesn’t deliver in person isn’t hobbies and interests complement her own (cycling, a huge problem. But, as Daisy found, the more times our

7O ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 of excitement and disappointment means we find ourselves increasingly neurologically closed off. Far from helping us along, the ‘numbers game’ approach – the relentless swipe- match-message-meet – may be responsible for disrupting our finely tuned internal love compass. So can we break that negative feedback loop and give our biology a helping hand, so that old disappointments don’t discolour new experiences? According to Dr Machin, it’s a question currently being asked by pharmaceutical companies. As she explains: ‘[Relationships] are a new research frontier. Drug interventions are on the horizon because we now know more than ever about what the neurochemicals in our brains can do in terms of supporting us to date, motivating us to find someone and then helping us to stick with them.’ Brian D Earp is the Associate Director of the Yale- Hastings Programme in Ethics and Health at Yale University and co-author of Love is the Drug: The Chemical Future of Our Relationships. ‘There’s no single love pill that spontaneously creates love, but there’s a whole range of substances that interact with the love systems,’ he says. ‘We need to start mapping out the territory to work out which kinds of drugs have effects on which systems, and what these effects look like. Right now, it’s all emerging information.’ The two classes of drugs he singles out as having a potential impact on who and how we love are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs, ‘which are widely in use today [as antidepressants], and do have a relational impact that is so far unstudied’) and psychedelics (‘MDMA in particular’). Pointing to the rebirth of MDMA-assisted couples therapy (first available in the 1980s but banned when MDMA was made illegal), he describes the power of this compound – 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine – to ‘reignite a spark within existing relationships’. “ The idea of a drug to help foster connections is expectations of a spark not so FAR-FETCHED” are unfulfilled, the more disillusioned and disappointed we become. As she said: ‘I try to give people who seem great a real chance, but ultimately Studies have found that MDMA prompts a huge you can’t force the connection, even if you really want there upsurge in serotonin and oxytocin in the brain. It also to be one. It can get really demoralising.’ That disappointment quietens activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that isn’t just painful in the moment. It can also have a long-lasting controls fear response. Though Earp points out that the toxic effect on a person’s future chances of finding a spark. brain’s attraction system in particular is not well understood, In fact, according to one pioneering study into the MDMA causes a release of exactly the neurochemicals neuroscience of disappointment by academics in Geneva, responsible for the love state, while also introducing an repeated disappointment rewires our brains to become more element of plasticity (meaning malleability) – the exact cautious, less trustful of people we don’t know and more condition necessary to break us out of negative thought likely to make impulsive self-protective decisions. The cycle patterns. ‘You get a heightened sense of empathy and

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a willingness to listen to others,’ he explains. ‘You’re a move it hopes will lead to more relationships, and therefore essentially in a state where you’re more open to being help to alleviate the country’s low birth rate. affected by certain stimuli or personal encounters.’ But the dating apps of the future are likely to look very The problem (alongside the illegality of taking Class A different to the ones currently available. Rashied Amini is drugs) is that you may make decisions that, on rational a systems engineer at Nasa and founder of Nanaya, a new reflection, don’t align with your wider goals. ‘This is why, kind of love prediction algorithm. Echoing Daisy’s findings, at the moment, MDMA interventions are more effective Amini points out that one of the biggest challenges in the and ethical in long-term relationships. If you’ve been with dating tech space is that, ‘when we put ourselves on an app, someone for long enough, you have a sense of your shared we have a set of expectations that are often disappointed. values and what you’ve built together. But people get into Each interaction layers on a new set of expectations and a mental rut, settling into certain patterns that could disappointments, until it becomes difficult to foster that be negative or destructive. Or you lose the ability to see spark within the contrived medium of the app.’ the person with fresh eyes. These are the sorts of situations Nanaya’s mission is to perfect an algorithm that can that psychedelics such MDMA can help alleviate.’ come up with optimal matching. It all started when Amini’s The idea that you could buy a drug in a pharmacy to then-girlfriend of two years felt she wanted to break up with help you foster quicker connections with new people, rather him but didn’t know why. ‘She wanted to do a cost-benefit than having to surreptitiously score MDMA, is not as far- analysis of the relationship – those were her words,’ he says. fetched as it may sound. Reputable pharma firms are working ‘I’d been doing modelling like that for my work at Nasa. on this very thing. Bright Minds Bio, a Toronto-based I was upset and wanted to focus my energies on something pharmaceutical company, has taken psychedelic research silly, so I built a prototype for a cost-benefit tool and we used to a new level, becoming a pioneer in ‘creat[ing] new and it together.’ The relationship didn’t last but the algorithm modify[ing] existing molecules in order to reduce unwanted proved to be more effective than Amini had imagined. side effects and accentuate positive therapeutic properties’. In its current iteration, Nanaya offers users a report to One US-based researcher, who asked to remain anonymous, outline their chances of finding love (given as a prediction likened the old-style psychedelic drugs, MDMA among them, of how many more months they’re likely to remain single), to the first-generation iPhone. ‘What’s being synthesised now the areas of one’s life in which to concentrate the search is the iPhone 5,’ he says. ‘Unwanted side-effects are being and the personality types that might best suit theirs. Based ameliorated so outcomes are more predictable.’ In terms on a detailed questionnaire, asking some seemingly of love, he argues that pills making it easier for us to connect incongruous questions (such as, ‘Do you own a pet reptile?’), with new people may take time to become mainstream it creates a holistic profile of the user, then applies the because ‘research is largely focused on finding solutions learnings from data gathered from hundreds of thousands for debilitating problems’. But he does point out that the of other users to make its predictions. potential for profit makes ‘love aids’ a very attractive market. Many have reported the algorithm’s predictions and ‘And we’re closer than ever to ironing out “chemical kinks”.’ advice to be eerily accurate. Its success has surprised even It’s not just biotechnologies that may soon intervene Amini. He says that it’ll be at least another year before its full in our search for a spark. As of December 2020, even the capabilities are made public. ‘We’re not a dating app,’ he says. Japanese government has started to pour funding into ‘We look at what we consider to be the core aspects of identity the development of more sophisticated matchmaking AI, – part of that is demographics, the value set that you have as an individual, your lifestyle, as well as a basic personality profile.’ This, he hopes, will offer us a way out of the negative feedback loop we’ve found ourselves in. “What is LOVE? Can it Ultimately, all of these interventions are trying to answer questions that be defined and have been around since the ancient Greeks: what is love? Can it be defined and quantified? Do we all feel it in the QUANTIFIED?” same way? Can it be harnessed? Arguably, our attempt to speed up the love process – to get those answers quicker than ever before – is what has landed us in this emotional rut in the first place. For Daisy, the obvious course of action is to step back from technology altogether – ‘Give fate a chance’, she laughs. But she’s likely in the minority. For a generation used to hyper speed and at-your- fingertips convenience, love in pill form and an algorithm for the perfect partner make absolute sense. *NAME HAS BEEN CHANGED.

72 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021

Collages PATRICK WAUGH

74 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Elle READS

The FASHION SHOWS Where do you get your style ideas from? The catwalk? The street? Nah, just switch on Netflix. Sara McAlpine looks at how the Golden Age of television has brought with it a gilded new era of fashion inspiration, which could change the way we shop forever

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THE FASHION WORLD WAS BUILT ON SHIFTING sands. By their very nature, trends evolve with the times, designers come and go, hype burns then sizzles. Power has been passed like an Olympic torch between editors and influencers, stylists and shoppers, and back again. But never before has the ground under the runways been so close to a tectonic realigning. And who, or what, is behind this fashion quake? The pandemic? Sure! Social media? Of course. A growing awareness of sustainability and the provenance of the clothes we wear? Duh… But today’s biggest influence on the future of our wardrobes is something far more prosaic. Television. Surprised? Don’t be. Streaming-service subscriptions skyrocketed by 31% in the first half of 2020, and Netflix alone added 10 million subscribers in the first three months of Britain’s first lockdown. From the eye-catching outerwear of The Undoing (a show about Nicole Kidman’s coats, with a murder mystery subplot), to the trippy knits in BBC Three’s I May Destroy You, TV characters’ costumes are as compelling as their plot lines, defining fashion moments, setting trends and getting us to click ‘add to basket’ with a renewed fervour. Not only are TV shows serving up inspiration when it comes to style, audiences are able to immediately react, simply opening a new tab to add similar pieces to their wardrobes. ‘People are shopping off the back of these episodes. That’s a fact,’ says Shiona Turini, a fashion stylist- turned-costume designer currently working on Issa Rae’s Insecure. “I’m tagged in And she’s right. Lyst, a fashion ‘ ’ number-crunching platform that Get the look tracks the product searches of more posts before than 100 million people worldwide, reports that TV style is influencing an episode has shoppers like never before, driving us to buy the styles featured on EVEN screen in droves. Unlikely ones, This is not entirely a product too, with no direct link to catwalk ENDED” of the pandemic – we’d already trends. For example, Lyst searches fallen for Jodie Comer wearing for the Kangol hat worn in Emily In Molly Goddard as Villanelle in Paris shot up 342%. As did searches Killing Eve, and taken inspiration for corsets, with 123% more people investing off the back from Shiv’s slick Succession wardrobe. But, over the past of Bridgerton. La Perla also reports a 135% increase in year, TV has connected us, inspired us and got us talking searches for corsets compared to last year – at a time we’re more than any other cultural medium. all allegedly living in tracksuits and pyjamas. ‘When an ‘Even my mum has Netflix now, and she used to only episode airs live I’m tagged in “Get the look” posts on social watch three channels,’ says Rachel Walsh, costume media before it even ends,’ says Turini, which itself makes it designer for The Serpent, which landed on BBC iPlayer easier to search for and buy the styles on screen. She adds in December. All eight episodes were available to gobble that the exact Dior Book Tote that was carried by Molly in up in one drop, rather than airing weekly, which helpfully season four of Insecure, retailing at a whopping £2,550, was sated our newly ignited appetite for its Seventies style. trending on Twitter immediately after that episode dropped. Walsh has been in the business for more than 20 years,

76 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Meanwhile, our post-pandemic lifestyles have radically changed and, with that, so have our wardrobes. We’re increasingly attuned to the seductive styles on screen, because they vicariously feed our appetite to dress up while we watch at home, reclined on our sofas in Ugg slippers and loungewear. Walsh, whose recent credits include The Royals, starring Elizabeth Hurley as a wiggle dress and diamond-obsessed queen, and Temple, with Carice van Houten and Mark Strong decked out in The Vampire’s Wife and Belstaff, “ It feeds our understands the allure of APPETITE visually seductive style. ‘It’s part of the appeal. If I think to dress up as we of shows I’ve loved, such as Channel 4’s The Great, the watch in clothes are so beautiful and sumptuous, with incredible loungewear and shapes and rich jewel tones.’ And experiencing fashion SLIPPERS” through a screen, rather than on the pages of a magazine or out in the wild is how, today, we are all most comfortable. Press pause on any one of the buzzed-about TV shows of the past 12 months and you’ll frame an Instagram-ready tableau where clothes, styling, background and character all work in a happy symbiosis. The ‘look’ is perfectly curated, and the colour palettes that we see – from The Dig’s muted, earthy neutrals, to Bridgerton’s candyfloss fake florals orThe Queen’s Gambit’s chessboard chic – becomes a tasteful addition to the living room into which such shows are beamed. It’s also smart thinking on the producers’ and was shocked by the rush of requests for comment and part. Before social media, TV chat was watercooler only. But clothing credits from media outlets after the first episode these days, we’re all potentially self-published critics via our of The Serpent aired on New Year’s Day on BBC One . channels. With more conversations happening, we need more to talk about: why not make the costumes a storyline ‘TWENTY-ODD YEARS AGO, FILM WAS THE PINNACLE OF in their own right? The ‘Is it “so wrong it’s right”, or just plain the industry, and TV was like its poorer cousin,’ Walsh wrong?’ debate about Emily Cooper’s wardrobe in Emily in explains. Today, high-profile film actors and directors – Paris occupied more of my mind and post-binge dissection including Sir Steve McQueen, Luca Guadagnino and than anything to do with the plot. (Which was what, exactly?) stars such as Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Jodie For The Serpent, Jenna Coleman was bedecked in a mix Turner-Smith – who appears in Anne Boleyn, airing later this of real vintage and copycat styles (multiples made for year – increasingly turn their hands to television. They are continuity and stuntwomen) inspired by those found in attracted by its growing audience, and the opportunity to original magazines from the Seventies – Paris Match and stretch their creativity across eight hours, rather than 120 international editions of Vogue. The look was lowkey minutes. ‘Costume designers who would have only ever glamour in a sunset palette, with vintage Van Cleef & done big films are now designing for TV series on Netflix.’ Arpels sunglasses, Studio 54-style jumpsuits, turquoise

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 77 THE POWER OF INSPIRATION LEFT: ZOË KRAVITZ IN HIGH FIDELITY. RIGHT: ZENDAYA IN EUPHORIA

COAT OF ARMS LEFT: NICOLE KIDMAN IN THE “Brands are UNDOING. ABOVE: LILY COLLINS IN having to think EMILY IN PARIS tailoring, and secondhand Celine bags from a market in Bangkok’s of ways Chatuchak, where most parts of the show were filmed. All were to REACH styles that audiences were keen to a wider add to their online baskets. marks an interesting, broader shift So, what’s the secret to the AUDIENCE” in the entanglement between style success of the past year’s TV style and TV: the growing appetite for hits? Striking the balance between the fashion industry to be part of fantasy and reality, according to the action, capturing our attention both Turini and Walsh. ‘You want it to look really stylish, but as we spend 40% of our waking hours consuming TV.* real,’ Walsh says, particularly when it comes to outfitting an era like the Seventies. ‘You don’t want it looking like Austin THIS ISN’T WHOLLY NEW. WHO REMEMBERS THAT ASOS Powers.’ That believability has a narrative function, of course, was originally called As Seen On Screen – a place to allowing us to connect with the characters on screen more buy cheap copies of TV, film and award-show outfits? easily. But it also makes the styles we see more relatable; the But as audiences become more gripped by the captivating element of fantasy in shows like The Queen’s Gambit seem costumes on screen, established fashion brands are a little more within reach, because pieces like the checkered becoming more aware of the power of being a part of Miu Miu-style coat worn by the main character is just a click characters’ wardrobes, establishing relationships with TV away on Net-a-Porter, or easily sourced secondhand on eBay shows. ‘I’ve found that more brands have been reaching out (one of the sites that Walsh often scours for inspiration). this season,’ says Turini. Walsh agrees. ‘As much as I want to push the envelope for TV, I have For both fashion brands and TV producers, partnering to look at styling differently when I’m working on a fashion to produce compelling costumes can prove financially editorial or music video, where anything goes, just so looks lucrative; a show’s most-stylish scenes have the potential are more rooted in reality,’ Turini says. She began her career to attract a huge amount of press. That’s why the British in the fashion industry, working as a stylist and editor at Fashion Council partnered with Netflix for the launch W magazine and Carine Roitfeld’s CR Fashion Book, before of Bridgerton in January, inviting three fashion design collaborating with musicians including Beyoncé and graduates to produce Regency-inspired garments, modelled Solange Knowles. Her transition into costume design by stars of the show, much to the delight of a suddenly

78 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Elle READS

ATTAINABLE ATTIRE LEFT: ANYA TAYLOR-JOY IN THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT. BELOW: ISSA RAE IN INSECURE

“The next POLITICAL PIECES frontier? ABOVE LEFT: ROSE Bridgerton-obsessed social media BYRNE IN MRS. Making AMERICA. ABOVE: audience. That kind of visibility is OMARI DOUGLAS valuable at a time when Covid-19 IN IT’S A SIN has put a temporary stop to red AMAZON carpet spectacles and international fashion weeks – the typical ways Originals seeing more ‘it’ styles with fashion designers and brands can ensure shoppable” industry buzz available to buy now: their clothes get seen. ‘Brands are The Vampire’s Wife statement having to think of other ways to silhouette midi-dresses, the sell-out reach a wider audience and tote by New York-based designer promote their product,’ Turini says. Telfar Clements, branded candy-hued T-shirts by Versace, And that’s why we may see more fashion stylists enter and covetable wrap dresses by brands such as Hungarian the TV space. While costume designers traditionally operate label Nanushka, whose styles are social media catnip. separately to the fashion industry, not tied to brands or ‘It’s an exciting time to work in this field,’ Walsh says. real-time trends, it’s the purview of fashion stylists to For designers, too, who often find inspiration in on-screen establish relationships with brands, making sure they feed style. Most recently, Jonathan Anderson was ‘so awestruck’ the fantasy thought up by major labels, who are often the by Ratched, the Netflix drama series released in September advertisers keeping magazines in business. In short, it’s 2020, he chose to unveil JW Anderson’s pre-AW21 collection part of their remit to make brands’ styles appealing: on one of its stars, Sophie Okonedo. Given the boosted it boosts their bottom line. ‘Because I have an editorial interest in screen style from both shoppers and the fashion background, I have long-standing relationships directly industry, perhaps the next frontier of TV fashion is with brands and designers, so have been able to work streaming services such as Amazon Prime – which already with those I’ve been working with for the past 10 years stocks a number of clothing brands, from Mango to Michael to create something special,’ Turini says. Kors – making its Original series shoppable. It’s surely This will have an impact on the role of the traditional only a matter of time before we’re able to click ‘add to costume designer, too. ‘Lots of costume designers are having basket’ for a character’s outfit without even opening a new to learn how to style. And I’m one of them,’ says Walsh. She’s tab, and see more designers citing TV as inspiration. aware of the appeal of enticing audiences with contemporary ‘The shows are powerful,’ says Turini. ‘They definitely brands, such as The Vampire’s Wife, which Walsh featured have the power to impact trends.’ in Sky’s medical crime drama Temple. So, forget the front row, and stake your place firmly on The fashion industry’s increased appetite is inevitably the sofa: the new season of Fashion is about to begin and

*BBC. ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: BEN BLACKALL, NIKO TAVERNISE,NEFLIX, CAROLE PHIL BRAY/NETFLIX, BETHUEL/ BBC/ELEMENTFALKNA/LAURA PICTURES/HULU, RADFORD, BBC/VARIOUS BBC/VARIOUS ARTISTS ARTISTS LTD AND LTD AND FALKNA/NATALIE SEERY, ALAMY.. upping the fashion credentials of some shows, and we’re (spoiler alert!) you won’t want to miss it.

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 79 Photography CHRIS COLLS Styling ALEX WHITE

8O Elle READS

Gabriela Hearst has a question: can fashion be done differently? As the Uruguayan designer takes the helm at Chloé, she’s embracing the challenge of marrying style and sustainability, with a spring collection rooted in craft Words VÉRONIQUE HYLAND

81 Elle READS

GROWING UP ON A RANCH IN URUGUAY, Gabriela daughters. Around 80% of the collection was made Hearst learnt a valuable lesson from riding horses. When by hand. ‘Braiding shells on a dress is not something the animal bolts, you can panic or go with the flow. ‘My a machine can do,’ Hearst says. The magic of the upbringing [exposed me to] dangerous situations where process lay in ‘human imperfection, and then the I had to react,’ she says. Her instinct now is fight, not imperfection transforming to [something] marvellous. flight. ‘I don’t get paralysed with fear. I take action.’ At this company, we are believers in trying to save as That damn-the-torpedoes approach is helping many crafts as we can.’ Such tactile arts also offered a Hearst stare down the existential challenge that is way to feel more connected to the physical in a digital climate change. Since founding her eponymous brand sphere. ‘I think that’s one of our big challenges,’ Hearst in 2015, she’s worked tirelessly to reshape the industry says. ‘We’re so physical, so human. It’s challenging to in a more sustainable image, setting benchmarks for express that in the digital world.’ She asked herself a others to follow. For her AW17 show, she used dead question we’re all grappling with these days: ‘How can stock, or unsold surplus fabric. ‘[At the time,] that was you emote and provoke [while] being mostly digital?’ kind of a bad word to use with “luxury” next to it,’ she recalls. ‘Now it’s becoming common practice.’ Two HEARST’S WORK FOCUSES not just on the traditional years later, she held the first-ever fashion show to be environmental definition of sustainability but on ‘the certified carbon-neutral; for SS21, she offset her show’s social component of who’s making the clothes,’ she says. carbon footprint with a donation to EcoAct’s Madre ‘As simple as it may sound, happy people make happy de Dios Amazon Forest Conservation Project. clothes. I’m a big believer in the consciousness of ‘I never realised we were a product.’ Some of the spring going to be the first show that collection was made by Manos ever mentioned their carbon del Uruguay, a not-for-profit she’s footprint,’ she says. ‘And now, worked with for years that employs looking back, I realise that what “I shifted to hundreds of women – which, she we were trying to do was bring points out, is a significant bloc in accountability and data collecting trusting her home country of nearly 3.5 to our industry.’ Her current goal million people. At Manos, which is to transition to 100% MY GUT has been around for more than repurposed materials by the end more than 50 years, ‘you see mothers and of this year or early 2022 (‘Right daughters working [together],’ now we’re at around 50%,’ she MY she says. ‘The older I get, the says). And, having been named more I enjoy the company of the creative director of Chloé in BRAIN” women. I feel that we get very December, Hearst will now have witchy with age.’ Each piece is a bigger platform for her activism. emblazoned with the name of the woman who made it, connecting AS WITH CLIMATE CHANGE, the pandemic presented the wearer to the process. But, she notes, ‘I work with a case of clear and present danger for us all. Over the them, not [just] because of their good intentions, [but] past year, Hearst says, ‘I shifted to trusting my gut because they make a beautiful product and they more than my brain.’ Her subconscious took the understand my aesthetic. I don’t think anyone’s going to wheel, and she dreamed about her late grandmother, buy us for our good intentions. They’re going to buy us imagining herself knotting cloth on her back to create because the product speaks to them as desirable.’ a dress. ‘A dream of reassurance,’ she called it. Another In her debut for Chloé, Hearst reinforced her talisman that brought solace was a shell bracelet from commitment to sustainability, decreasing the AW21 Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that her mother had given collection’s environmental footprint by 400% from the her right before the pandemic hit. Those two threads previous year, using dead stock from old designers and found themselves intertwining in the SS21 collection decades. Her take on this quintessentially feminine Hearst showed in Paris in October, appearing in the brand referenced not only her own heritage, with a knotted back of a dress and in the shells clinging to handspun poncho opening the show, but the women the edges of gowns’ cutouts. The collection, titled who preceded her: Stella McCartney, Phoebe Philo. Dreams of Mothers and Grandmothers, was steeped in The result was compelling, haute bohemia with both the comforting idea that generations of women had heart and soul. The pandemic ‘has shown us that we tackled seemingly impossible challenges before. can change our habits really quickly,’ she says. ‘I keep It also incorporated craft, which is, aptly, a traditionally myself hopeful, because I do really believe that we’re female practice often passed down from mothers to going to be able to pull ourselves from the brink.’

82 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 SUBLIMINAL STYLE GABRIELA HEARST’S COLLECTIONS HAVE SET A SUSTAINABLE BENCHMARK FOR OTHER BRANDS IN THE INDUSTRY TO FOLLOW SUIT

“I don’t think anyone is GOING to buy us for our OOD intentions”

CONSCIOUS SHIFT RIGHT: HEARST AT HER SHOW IN PARIS, OCTOBER 2020. LEFT: THE SS21 SHOW WAS THE FIRST TO BE CERTIFIED AS ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: IMAXTREE, GETTYMAKE-UP, IMAGES. PREVIOUS HAIR ELLEN AND PAGE: GUHIN THE AT CANVAS AGENCY. CARBON-NEUTRAL

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 83 After a year indoors,it’s time to show SOME SKIN,so slash those hemlines and

THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE Black bra, price on request, and black skirt, £945, both VERSACE FLASH

those hemlines and embrace summer’s RISING temperatures MOB

Photography TOM SCHIRMACHER Styling CHARLES VA R ENNE

Top, £1,200, bra, £860, and skirt, £4,000, all DIOR THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE Black jumpsuit, £1,690, VALENTINO . Black sandals, £660, and sheer black tights (worn as socks), £165, both SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO . White sunglasses, £335, LINDA FARROW

THIS PAGE White dress, £3,290, and white bra, £550, both GIVENCHY. OPPOSITE Black bra, £330, and black skirt, £1,310, both VERSACE MOSCHINO. Black sandals, £820,

THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE Bra, price on request, trousers, £470, and belt, £565, all SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO

Black bra, price on request, and black skirt, £945, both VERSACE

Black jumpsuit, £10,405, and black belt, £845, both CHANEL

THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE Silver-toned dress, £6,650, and black top, £350, both BALENCIAGA . Black briefs, stylist’s own Black jumpsuit, £2,150, and brown top, £300, both HERMÈS. Black dress, £2,595, STELLA McCARTNEY. Black sunglasses, £259, VICTORIA BECKHAM. HAIR: Gavin Garwin at The Wall Group. MAKE-UP: Sil Bruinsma at The Wall Group. MODEL: Altyn Simpson at Next Management. CASTING: Giulia Felippelli and Oliver Ress at Creartvt. SET DESIGN: Maria Santana. COLLAGES: Patrick Waugh. FASHION ASSISTANT: Catherine Sullivan. This shoot was produced in accordance with local Covid-19 guidelines. Photography MATTIAS BJÖRKLUND Styling LISA LINDQWISTER pastel

Whether your silhouette is fitted and neat or relaxed and oversized THIS PAGE Dress, £1,380, PRADA at MYTHERESA. Dress (worn underneath), £39.99, H&M. OPPOSITE Jacket, £880, and dress, £840, both ISABEL MARANT. Sandals, price on request, ACNE STUDIOS. Bandana, stylist’s own. Bag (in bubble wrap), £310, ATP ATELIER pa rty

and oversized, choose pretty ice-cream shades to keep it fresh

THIS PAGE Dresses, sandals, earrings and bag, all price on request, ACNE STUDIOS. Bandana, stylist’s own. OPPOSITE Top, £355, and skirt, £370, both PROENZA SCHOULER. Sandals and earrings, both price on request, ACNE STUDIOS. Bandana, stylist’s own

THIS PAGE Jacket, shirt, sunglasses and bag, all price on request, and sandals, £450, ACNE STUDIOS. Socks, £3.99, CALZEDONIA. OPPOSITE Dress, £5,900, VALENTINO. Shoes, £790, VALENTINO GARAVANI. Bag, £210, STAND STUDIO. Bandana, stylist’s own THIS PAGE Jacket and shirt, both price on request, and shoes, £450, ACNE STUDIOS. Socks, £3.99, CALZEDONIA. OPPOSITE Swimsuit, £250, STELLA McCARTNEY. Trousers, £480, ISABEL MARANT. Shoes, £450, ACNE STUDIOS

THIS PAGE Dress, £1,395, STELLA McCARTNEY. Sandals, £79.99, H&M. Socks and bandana, both stylist’s own. OPPOSITE Dress, £1,185, ALBERTA FERRETTI. Shoes, £450, ACNE STUDIOS. Socks, £3.99, CALZEDONIA. HAIR Amanda Lund at LundLund. MAKE-UP Ignacio Alonso at LundLund. MODEL Jessica Dalliah at Select Models. SET DESIGN Fanny Hamlin at Mau/Mau. POST-PRODUCTION Jenny Stigsdotter. FASHION ASSISTANTS Vanessa Werkelin and Emelie Preber. This shoot was produced in accordance with local Covid-19 guidelines.

beauty GOING ABOVE & BEYOND THE SURFACE

VALENTINO Midas touch THE MOOD glitter look modern. NATURALLY MAXIMALIST, IT’S TRICKY TO MAKE KEEP THE REST MAKE SHIMMER THE SINGULAR, SURPRISING FOCUS – AS SEEN AT ValentinoBY PAT MCGRATH – BY SWEEPING OVER TEMPLES. OF THE FACE BARE AND EDGES SOFTLY BLURRED TO AVOID FESTIVAL TERRITORY Edited by KATY YOUNG WORDS: JENNIFER GEORGE. PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF VALENTINO.

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 113 Elle BEAUTY

BOBBI BROWN CRUSHED SHINE JELLY LIPSTICK, £25 EACH BLUMARINE BORA AKSU

ELF COSMETICS PUTTY BLUSH IN TAHITIITII, ££66

TEXTURE trip :H·UHÀUPEHOLHYHUV WKDW PDNHXSVKRXOGDOZD\V EH IXQ

%XWLI\RXQHHGFRQYLQFLQJ GLS BLUMARINE \RXUÀQJHUVLQWRWKHQHZHVW MILK MAKEUP WH[WXUHVIURPMHOO\WR SXWW\ COLOR CHALK IN :LWKQREUXVKHVQHHGHG LW·V DODGEBALL AND DSOD\IXO DQGHDV\ ZD\ WR IDOO HOPSCOTCH, £14 EACH EDFNLQORYHZLWKPDNHXS

MAC STUDIO FIX TECH CREAM-TO- POWDER FOUNDATION, Beauty MOOD BOARD £30 What’s in, what’s out and what those in the know are talking about Words by Jennifer George

114 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Elle BEAUTY

NATASHA DENONA BLACKEST 1. BLACK CHLOÉ EYESHADOW, £25

SURRATT ARTISTIQUE EYESHADOW IN NOIR LE PLUS 2. NOIR, £18

3. BLU Have you HEARD? CHANEL Of the sooty sweep? No fuss, no ÀGGOHVWKLVJUXQJ\ORRNLVWKH new way to wear a smoky eye. A swipe of matte black shadow, LAURA MERCIER as seen at Chanel and Chloé, is a Shutting down CAVIAR EYE directional but wearable take. Use STICK IN TECH NECK TUXEDO, £25 a dense eyeshadow brush, or just A full year of WFH has wreaked ORDGWKHSURGXFWRQWRÀQJHUWLSV havoch on our necks (especially if you’ve spent most of it WFBed) causing criss-cross lines due to constant creasing. Luckily, these CHANEL products promise to take you from saggy to swan-like: Dermalogica Neck Fit Contour Serum, £75 (1), SkinCeuticals Tripeptide R Neck Repair, £110 (2), and BareMinerals Ageless Phyto- Retinol Neck Cream, £45 (3).

ELIZABETH ARDEN FLAWLESS FINISH SKINCARING FOUNDATION, £32 Coverage makes a COMEBACK Foundation fell out of fashion in recent years, replaced by tinted serums and clever concealers. But boosted, new-era formulations – that go beyond PHOTOGRAPHY: ZAK, PAUL IMAXTREE, GETTY IMAGES. painted-on colour – have us falling back in love. Try (OL]DEHWK $UGHQ IRU D YLWDPLQÀOOHG IRUPXOD 6KLVHLGR IRUOLJKWUHÁHFWLQJUDGLDQFHRU0$&IRUWUDQVIRUPLQJ texture. As for shade range? All three have 30 or more.

SHISEIDO SYNCHRO SKIN RADIANT LIFTING FOUNDATION, £41 DIOR

ELL E .COMM /UK MAY 2021 115 Mouth off Unmasked, this is the new way to From loaded lacquer finishes,there’s nothing

THE ULTRA GLOSS TAKE IT UP A NOTCH (AND THEN ANOTHER) FOR AN ALMOST PLASTIC AESTHETIC. CHANEL MAKE-UP ARTIST NINNI NUMMELA STARTS WITH A TOMATO-RED BASE, SUCH AS ROUGE ALLURE LAQUE IN INVINCIBLE, £31, THEN PILES ON A MATCHING LIQUID FORMULA. LET IT SETTLE BETWEEN EACH COAT SO YOU CAN BUILD THE SOLID COVERAGE WITH A LOADED BRUSH, WITHOUT DISTURBING THE REFLECTIVE FINISH. 116 Elle BEAUTY unleashed,untamed: wear lip colour. to purposefully undone classic about this red...

Photography PETROS Words JENNIFER GEORGE 117 Elle BEAUTY

Bed of roses Take ombre lips to the Take inspiration from a rose petal starting in the centre with a scarlet 118 FADED PIGMENT HERE, NINNI BUILDS THE BOLD CHANEL ROUGE ALLURE LAQUE IN ICONIQUE, £31, IN THE CENTRE OF THE LIPS, BLOTTING TO REMOVE ANY SHINE. SHE PAIRS IT WITH ROUGE ALLURE LAQUE IN CONTINUOUS – A PEACHY NUDE SHADE – AROUND THE LIP LINE, MERGING THE TWO AT THE FULLEST PART OF THE LIP. BLUR THE LIP LINE BY BLOTTING OUT WITH YOUR FINGER FOR A SOFT-FOCUS LOOK.

next level by playing with contrast. –velvety soft, vividly sensual – tone, fading to a gentler shade

119 Painted lady Channel your inner your canvas, by mixing colours and textures. Keep the finish as abstract as you dare and don ’t even think about

PLAYFUL PALETTE THE KEY HERE IS CONTRAST. NINNI USES CHANEL ROUGE ALLURE LAQUE ULTRAWEAR SHINE LIQUID LIP COLOUR IN UNLIMITED, EXIGENCE AND CONTINIOUS, £31 EACH). RESISTING THE URGE TO SMOOTH OUT VISIBLE BRUSH STROKES, HOWEVER TEMPTING IT MIGHT BE.

12O Elle BEAUTY artist and make your lips by mixing colours and textures. Keep the finish as t t even think about blotting

121 Elle BEAUTY

ear a lip staintai firmly on the 122 PLUM POUT NINNI STARTS WITH SOFTLY HYDRATED LIPS, THEN BLOTS IN CHANEL ROUGE COCO BLOOM IN BLAST, £31, FROM THE CENTRE OUTWARDS. USE YOUR FINGERS, AND THEN A LIP BRUSH TO ADD A VOLUMISING SHAPE CENTRED ON THE CUPID’S BOW. KEEP THE FINISH MATTE AND SMUDGED.

grunge in this moody merlot and imperfect application lip stain firmly on the cool side of cute 123 Bold rush A nod to the Seventies, power pout is one to bookmark for your return

and give it a healthy swish... 124 Elle BEAUTY this dazzling,glitter-loaded power pout is one to bookmark for your return to the dance floor

HIGH SHINE, HIGH IMPACT START WITH A SATIN FINISH LIPSTICK – TRY CHANEL ROUGE ALLURE IN ROUGE NOBLE, £35 – THEN RAMP IT UP BY PRESSING IN GLITTER, BEFORE LAYERING ON A CLEAR GLOSS. DITCHING THE LINER WILL STOP IT LOOKING TOO ‘DONE’, AS WILL GRABBING A COTTON BUD TO SMUDGE OUT THE EDGES.

125 Elle BEAUTY

The line of beauty Turn things inside out by making shade of lip liner the main event . It Nineties staple that adds instant volume in a matter of seconds

126 LINE DRAWING TO KEEP YOUR LOOK FROM GOING TOO CLOWN-LIKE, OPT FOR A COLOUR THAT’S A FEW SHADES STRONGER THAN YOUR NATURAL LIP TONE. HERE, NINNI HAS PICKED UP THE NATURAL PINKNESS IN THE LIPS WITH ROUGE COCO BLOOM IN MERVILLE, £31, AND PAINTS ON A THICKER- THAN-USUAL LINE TO MAKE AN IMPACT. MAKE-UP: NINNI NUMELA FOR CHANEL USING CHANEL HYDRA BEAUTY CAMELLIA WATER CREAM AND LES BEIGES SHEER HEALTHY GLOW TINTED MOISTURISER. NAILS: IMARNI. MODEL: ZUZANA KUSNIRUKOVA AT MILK MANAGEMENT.

Turn things inside out by making a subtle It’s a modern take on a staple that adds instant volume in a matter of seconds

127 Photography JEAN PIERROT

128 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Elle WELLNESS

Do you really need your PERIOD? Ditching your period can lead to better mental health, less pain ‘HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR PERIOD?’ The question, posed by my neurologist and more productivity. as she dutifully explored new ways to treat my migraines, sent me down a If you could safely spiral that landed me in the early 1990s. stop yours, would you? My period debuted when I was in Year 8, and made quick work of turning my Laura Sampedro favourite pair of jeans into a crimson- puts it to the test hued Rorschach test. I spent the rest of my first day as a woman wearing my PE kit from the waist down, learning the true meaning of shame. At school, I feared my heavy flow so intensely that I never left home without a backpack full of maxi- pads so large they could double as water skis. By the time I was at university, brutal cramps, intense back spasms and cold sweats ushered in my biblically heavy period each month. My housemates took turns handing in my work whenever I was too ill to go in, and I leaned into my tutors’ assumptions that I was just another hungover student. The truth, somehow, felt worse. By my mid-thirties, migraines became the checkered flag that signalled the arrival of my period. And while medication helped lessen my migraines’ frequency and severity, there was still one particularly paralysing headache that always showed up on race day. ‘It’s my Waterloo,’ I whined in response to the doctor’s question. To my surprise, she responded by asking if I’d feel comfortable just eliminating my period and, hopefully, the migraines that came with it. ‘I can do that?’ I asked, in the excited pitch usually reserved for the recently engaged or children opening Christmas presents. ‘You can do that,’ she replied, setting aside a prescription pad. ‘It’s not that hard.’ Addressing period elimination (or ‘menstrual suppression’) is impossible to do without wading into the mysteriously murky waters of hormonal contraception, some forms of which (the Pill, patch and ring) remain the most effective medications for regulating periods and their side effects. Contraception provides the body with synthetic versions of progesterone and oestrogen, the ovarian

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 129 Elle WELLNESS

hormones released when the body is pregnant. Think of 1958 that women could presumably create a menstrual cycle progesterone and oestrogen as the bouncer and clipboard- of their own desired length while on the Pill, yet chose to wielding door attendant for Club Uterus, working to keep introduce the idea of a hormone-free ‘placebo’ week to the the ovaries from releasing any new eggs and strengthening cycle, believing that women would be reassured by the the endometrium so that additional sperm never make it arrival of their period. Rock, a devout Catholic, hoped that inside. When an egg is not fertilised, the bouncer and door by preserving menses he could finally obtain the Catholic attendant go off duty, causing the drop in progesterone and Church’s approval of the Pill, arguing that married couples oestrogen that leads to the uterine shedding its lining (your could partake in church-sanctioned ‘natural’ birth-control period). Avoiding that hormonal dip by taking continuous practices like the rhythm method by using a woman’s cycle contraception is the key to turning off your period, and could as their guide. But in 1968 Pope Paul VI declared that all provide a significant degree of relief for women suffering ‘artificial’ methods of contraception, including the Pill, were from conditions as wide-ranging as against the church’s values. Despite asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, improvements, the 28-day cycle with endometriosis, diabetes, polycystic ovary a placebo week remains the template for syndrome, anaemia and depression, “If you’re not most Pill iterations, leaving the Catholic among other mental health issues. TRY ING Church’s fingerprints all over the People with physical and medication it continues to reject more developmental disabilities who have to make an than 60 years later (despite its potential to difficulty coping with the hygienic needs embryo, there’s minimise pain and suffering). of periods – or who may be dependent on For Yen, who specialises in adolescent others for care – have had the option of no point to medicine, turning off your period has suppressing their period for decades with BLEEDING” another upside: it gives women and girls no record of sustained physical side a greater opportunity to succeed where effects. So why is it not more common for they may otherwise be held back. ‘I ask people dealing with other physical and mental hardships? Or any parent of anybody with a uterus, “Is your young person those of us who simply can’t take it any more? going to do better [in exams] bleeding or not bleeding? ‘If you’re not trying to make an embryo, there’s no point At football, bleeding or not bleeding? At their Olympic to bleeding,’ says Dr Sophia Yen, CEO and co-founder of swimming competition, bleeding or not bleeding?”’ she says. contraceptive mail order service Pandia Health. ‘This ‘It’s about competitiveness. It’s about equality.’ The divide incessant menstruation is a modern construct.’ It’s only in the does appear to fork around the time that periods come into past 100 years (ironically, with the advent of contraception) play. ‘Starting at puberty, boys and girls start to separate in that women have come to experience an estimated 350 to terms of their mental health experience,’ says reproductive 400 periods in their lifetime. As contraceptive pioneers psychiatrist Dr Uma Lerner. ‘Girls and women have higher Elsimar M Coutinho and Sheldon J Segal noted in their incidences of depression and anxiety, and all of that begins 2001 book Is Menstruation Obsolete?: ‘As recently as [the 19th with puberty, which shows that women’s hormones and their century], women had an average of eight children, with long repression make a big difference in our mental health.’ periods of lactation between frequent pregnancies.’ Putting These early experiences can have a lasting impact. that into context, Yen asks, ‘How many periods do you have When I had my debilitating periods, I often skipped parties when you’re pregnant? Zero. How many periods do you have and other opportunities to socialise with my peers (to say when you’re exclusively breastfeeding? Zero.’ Prior to the nothing of missed classes and the constant fear I harboured industrial revolution, a woman may have only experienced of accidentally unleashing a flotilla of sanitary towels while perhaps 100 periods, because she was either pregnant or pulling out a school book). ‘So much is missing when we talk breastfeeding for the majority of her fertile years. ‘Relatively about girls’ academic performance compared to boys’ and speaking, [these women] were menstruation-free compared girls’ confidence rates, but we don’t account for the fact to their descendent daughters just a few generations later, who that girls are dealing with a lot of physical issues that [are average fewer than two children,’ Coutinho and Segal wrote. still shrouded in] stigma,’ Lerner adds. If history has given us the precedent for eliminating In my case, it took three years of migraine treatment periods, science is now backing it up with evidence that it’s before my doctor even mentioned the possibility of beneficial – the less frequently we menstruate, the lower our eliminating my period – and only after I’d tried multiple chances of developing reproductive cancers. ‘Why are we medications, altered my diet, taken supplements, had building and sloughing, building and sloughing? Every time vitamin injections, taken thrice-yearly blood tests and begun we build, we risk endometrial cancer,’ Yen says. ‘When we keeping a weather journal. It was another two years of pop out an egg, we’re risking ovarian cancer. And why are experimenting with contraception and going head-to-head we doing this for 10 [to] 20 years pre-baby, then another 10 with my period before I started to feel better. And, while to 20 years post-babies – if we’re not trying to make a baby?’ my neurologist is still diligently working to make me 100% Even John Rock, Gregory Pincus and Min Chueh Chang, migraine-free, I’m happy to report that my life’s biggest architects of the modern contraceptive pill, acknowledged in headache – my period – is finally in my rearview mirror.

13O ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021

Elle BEAUTY

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Beauty by Zeynab Mohamed Photography by Paul Zak

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ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 133

Elle WELLNESS

Can you be addicted to ISOLATION? Theoretically, we want our freedom back… But are we really ready to trade in the comfort and safety of quarantine? A former extrovert explains Words by Becky Burgum

IT’S 5AM ON A SUNDAY MORNING when I truly take in my surroundings. I’m on a makeshift dance floor in the basement of a Hackney kebab shop, Photography by Laura Palm with a roomful of strangers and the one friend who’s happy to take any evening as far into the night as me. She looks terrible. I can only assume I look the same, after eight hours of frantic drinking and And so, on 23 March, there it was at last… solitude. If felt as dancing. Once again, a night that started relatively civilised, though the lights on my life had been turned off. My diary a meal at a bougie new restaurant, has descended into chaos. emptied. My ‘night-out friends’ disappeared. For the first Reckless nights out like this were staples of my life time ever, it was just me and the four walls of my flat. BC (Before Covid): the parties, the afterparties, the Those first few weeks were what can only be described after-afterparties, topped off with brunch and further as actively painful – like a splitting headache that no amount escapades with another set of friends the next day. A night of painkillers could dull. Gone was the thrill of being wanted in and, more importantly, alone seemed dull. Tragic, even. by others. Gone was the dizzying anticipation of how far As a consequence, I’ve never been skilled in the art of being I could push a casual drink to the extremes. Life felt… by myself. It makes me feel on edge, nervous. I can’t even flat. It felt: terrifying. Because, for the first time in as long lie in bed with my own thoughts. Instead, I have to rely on as I could remember, I was alone with my own thoughts. podcasts – the thoughts and voices of others, if you will – I’m not good with a lot of headspace. Time to think has to send me off to sleep. What, then, is the worst thing that never appealed to me, largely because thinking tips into could happen to someone like me? Lockdown. the obsessive, which tips into a lot of negative self-talk.

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 135 Elle WELLNESS

It’s always been this way. I’m an overthinker. I will hash out social cues.’ She believes that a dent has been made in her, memories of the smallest events that happened weeks – and many of her friends’, social confidence. The thought of sometimes even months – ago. I worry about interactions having to navigate group dynamics again leaves her uneasy. that nobody else has even noticed, sending them spinning But psychologist Dr Abigael San, who specialises in around and around in my mind, as though they’re on a 40ºC mental health and addictions, warns about a new reliance wash. It is endless and it is exhausting. on isolation. ‘It can be used as an escape and avoidance Most of all, I flee from introspection because I’m not of underlying issues that need confronting,’ she says. sure how much I like me. And yet, despite losing a year of ‘There has been a removal of situations that brought valuable carpe diem time, as we near the beginning of full discomfort, from deciding what to wear, to making small social reintegration, the thought of returning to my previous talk in a sandwich shop. But you will have to face these life fills me with dread. What’s changed? A lot, is the answer. everyday interactions again one day.’ (San explains that In lockdown, the noise stopped. I felt finding relief in quarantine is called calmer, grounded, like an untethered negative reinforcement.) balloon that has gradually and gracefully As messages start to roll in about drifted back down to earth. Without “In rejoining summer plans, group holidays and a crowd to perform for, I felt enlivened. the world, will week-long hedonistic blow outs, my With new socialising restrictions palms begin to sweat and my neck imposed upon me – seeing one close I REVERT stiffens. I feel anxious that I’ll slip friend for an hour’s walk every day – BACK to using back into my tornado of self-destructive I was able to truly connect with excess. Dr Pauline Rennie-Peyton them, without the pressure of things my social life reminds me that when lockdown unravelling into something wild and to complete me?” is finally over, we all have a choice. spontaneous. It felt much easier to ‘Do you want to go back to behaving leave a Zoom gathering than it ever did the way you were before, or do you a party, resulting in far fewer hangovers and crushing want some more balance in your life?’ she says. ‘It doesn’t moments of regret. In my happy isolation, there is no have to be one or the other.’ If you’ve built up a better, more pressure to look good or be interesting, I can just be. accepting relationship with yourself, she recommends not ‘The discovery of a new contentment with solitude can going back onto an autopilot of ‘yes’. be a very good thing. It can add an important dimension of ‘If someone asks: “Would you like to go to XYZ?” the depth, meaningfulness, and fulfilment to your life,’ says answer is: “I don’t know, let me think about it.” Just because psychologist Bella De Paulo, the go-to expert on solitude, you used to go out drinking a lot with your mates, doesn’t having lived her entire life as single. Psychologist Dr Pauline mean you have to jet off to Ibiza for a week as soon as travel Rennie-Peyton agrees. ‘People have started accepting restrictions are lifted. Life doesn’t have to be lived at such themselves as they are. The important questions are: a ridiculously fast pace,’ adds Rennie-Peyton. ‘Who am I? What makes me feel good? What [clothes] Dr San adds: ‘If you’re feeling anxious, ease back in with do I feel comfortable in?’ It’s about establishing your own a few small social gatherings and build up from there to identity, not the crowd identity of who people think you are.’ avoid feeling overwhelmed. It’s about not doing anything I’m not by myself (ironically) in experiencing the joy of too big, too quickly.’ solitude. Francesca Spector, author of Alonement (out now), Olivia Laing, author of Lonely City, agrees. ‘We are likely had no capacity for introspection until a break-up, aged 27, to find social contact and crowds quite alarming, at the same left her living alone. ‘At 17, I took the Myers Briggs time as longing for them,’ says Laing. ‘Spending time alone personality test and it told me I was an extrovert,’ says but among others could be a really good way of easing back Spector. ‘It made sense because I loved being around people, in – art galleries are a perfect way to do that.’ It’s never easy so I moved away from any sort of quiet time.’ Spector to get the balance right between socialising and inward quiet curated an excessively busy life and no one ever told her it time, but if you have learned to appreciate it, Laing suggests was a problem. Spector only managed to embrace alone time making sure you get it. ‘Schedule it in your diary so that – coining the term ‘alonement’ for the positive experience your days don’t fill up completely with post-lockdown fun.’ of it – when she reached a breaking point of exhaustion from I’m hopeful I can swap my addiction to social isolation filling every evening with nights out or bad dates. for social moderation. I aspire to emerge from my cocoon a Here’s the problem: I worry that in rejoining the social truly balanced butterfly, introducing the person I’ve become world, I will lose my new sense of self. Will I revert to using over the past year to my old hedonistic self. Who knows, my social life to complete me? For many of us, crippling I might even turn into one of those mysterious, sophisticated FOMO has been replaced by a creeping FOGO (AKA the women who go out for dinner alone, with just a good book fear of going out). ‘There’s a relearning that will need to for company. But I do wonder, as the world opens up and happen,’ says writer Eleanor Morgan, who has also spent the light comes flooding back in, if the sheer messy, sprawling pandemic living alone. ‘I’m finding that it takes me a while joy of tequila-fuelled spontaneity with friends and friendly to get back into the rhythm of conversation and remember strangers will prove impossible to resist.

136 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021

Elle BEAUTY

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GARNIER ORGANIC KONJAC JADE FACIAL BEAUTY: JENNIFER GEORGE. BOTANICAL CLEANSING ROLLER, £26 SPONGE, £5.99 138 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Elle BEAUTY

WHAT I USE Hand sanitiser

When you get paid to test beauty Here’s a fun fact about beauty editors: one products for a living, what do of our hands looks younger than the other. Years – nay, decades – of regularly testing to use? ELLE beauty serums, creams and miracle oils on the you actually pay back of one hand and not the other starts director Katy Young comes clean to show. What’s the lesson? That looking after your hands makes a difference. Though that’s taken on a new meaning these days. There was a time when lipstick was the only essential (yes, essential) in THE EDIT EDITOR your bag, but this far into a pandemic and there are three, if not four, sanitisers Hand gels & sprays LOVES VKRYHGLQWRR¶1DWXUDO·¶ÁRUDO·¶DUWLVDQDO·²WKHLQGXVWU\KDVRQHIRUHYHU\WDVWH The trouble is, that choice makes shopping for it as confusing as knowing your tiers. It turns out that not all hand sanitisers are made equal. For a gel to kill germs, it must contain at least 60% alcohol. Covid-19 is an ‘enveloped’ virus, which means it’s coated in a fatty layer. That’s why washing hands in hot, soapy water works well and SUSANNE KAUFMANN HAND SPRAY ‘PURIF-I’, £16. A MOISTURISING why alcohol-based sanitisers are a good second best – both break down oils. Alcohol- TONIC THAT STILL DELIVERS free versions exist but, to date, research is less convincing in their abilities. (And don’t ON SAFETY FIRST WITH 62% ALCOHOL. get ideas about tinkering in your kitchen to make your own remedy. Turn to DIY and you’ll end up with something useless at best, dangerous at worst.) Under normal circumstances, I’d never advocate applying something as harsh as these gels to your skin on a regular basis, but even I have to admit that health and safety trumps beauty. Potent sanitisers dry your hands out terribly, which isn’t great news, as hands are already prone to showing signs of ageing. That’s thanks to a lack of fat and elasticity beneath the skin, and because they’re exposed in all weathers EVIL EYE GELPOP, £14.99. “Alcohol- DID SANITISING JUST BECOME CHIC? without enjoying the same TLC we lavish on our faces. free CLIP THIS ONTO YOUR HANDBAG If you’re not careful, sanitisers can leach the skin’s sanitisers exist SO YOU DON’T GET CAUGHT OUT. natural oils, leading to thinning and making it prone to sun spots. Sensitive types might notice dermatitis, but, to date, an itchy red rash, as alcohol can upset the skin’s RESEARCH protective barrier. But effective doesn’t have to mean evil. Look for unscented variants with a moisturising is less convincing THISWORKS STRESS CHECK CLEAN base, free from triclosan – an antibacterial agent so ” HANDS, £4. A SWEET-SMELLING in their abilities OPTION, WITH HYALURONIC VWURQJLW·VEDQQHGLQWKH86

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 139

Elle BEAUTY

JOHN LEWIS ELASTIC, £2.50. GHD STRAIGHT ON STRAIGHT & SMOOTH FUTURE BEAUTY SPRAY, £18 The bondage bun BRING CLASSIC TRENDS INTO A NEW ERA WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THE BIGGEST NAMES IN BEAUTY Words by George Driver Photography by Olivia Lifungula

DENMAN PRECISION DPC2 TAIL COMB, £4. SILKE LONDON CLEOPATRA HAIR TIES, £30

OK. IT’S TIME. We need to exit the lazy zone and make (a bit) more effort. After a year of unintentionally messy buns, ZH·UHXSSLQJWKHDQWHRQRXUXSGRVLWXDWLRQ¶:H·OOÀQDOO\ be moving on from just “chucking” our hair up,’ hairstylist and industry innovator Grant Williams predicts. ‘This twisty, turny bondage bun is intentional, exaggerated and a tougher take on traditional femininity.’ A little bit structured, a lot badass, think of it as swapping your old reliable loungewear for a tailored Fendi suit. Despite appearances, this tied up but understated take on the casual bun requires a refreshingly simple kit. Starting with a low ponytail, use a tail comb to bend the hair over itself, wrap with a length of black elastic, and tie. For Williams, KITSCH ESSENTIAL BOBBY PINS, £3.99 the secret is all in the tension. ‘Tightly criss-cross the elastic FOR 45. AESOP around the ponytail and pull out hair in between for a spikier VIOLET LEAF HAIR BALM, £23

HAIR: GRANT WILLIAMS. WILHELMINA. MODEL: AT LUOSTARINEN JESSICA ÀQLVKWKDWIHHOVDELWPRUHSXQN·

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 141

SEE THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY

Edited by LUCY HALFHEAD woodland dining DISCOV ER fragrant eucalyptus SINUOUSLY HUGGING THE EDGE OF A LOTUS POND IN A OF THE FOREST, GARDEN HOTPOT RESTAURANT IN CHENGDU, CHINA, IS BOILING A CALM SANCTUARY.BROTH the trails of steam THAT RISE FROM THE all the senses. ITS DESIGN IS INSPIRED BY LOCAL DISH FROM WHICH THE RESTAURANT TAKES ITS NAME. A FEAST FOR PHOTOGRAPHY: ARCH-EXIST, COURTESY OF MUDA-ARCHITECTS.

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 143 DRIVE WITH A VIEW LEFT: IN BURGUNDY’S CÔTE D’OR AREA, NARROW ROADS WIND THROUGH THE PICTURESQUE VINEYARDS

ON the ROA D Flights may still be uncertain, but have wheels, will travel. The only question is, where to go? Let these tales of adventure inspire you

WHERE TO STAY RIGHT: THE LUXURIOUS BEDROOMS AND TWO-MICHELIN-STAR RESTAURANT MAKE LE RELAIS BERNARD LOISEAU A DESTINATION IN ITS OWN RIGHT 144 REASONS TO VISIT Elle EXPLORE BELOW: VILLA LOISEAU DE SENS (ADJACENT TO THE HOTEL) HAS BOTH AN AWARD-WINNING SPA AND ONE OF FRANCE’S main restaurant is closed on Mondays and BEST ‘HEALTHY’ FINE- DINING RESTUARANTS Tuesdays. Really, this is what you come for: to sample the legendary frogs’ legs and parsley jus; the cloud-like sweetbreads and the crispy-skin pike with shallot marmalade. On the recommendation of Madame Loiseau – who still runs the place and is as charming a host as one could wish for – we packed up and headed into Beaune, long regarded as Burgundy’s ‘second city’ after Dijon. We wound through the narrow roads of the Côte d’Or, the sun on our forearms. This is a unique and often overlooked slice of Burgundy that is all golden-hued vineyards (its name translates to ‘the golden slope’), which produce their own delicious appellation of wine. FALLING FOR Then, just before we reached Beaune, everything changed. A flurry of flashy rental cars BURGUNDY filled the streets, while above our heads we could By Farrah Storr make out the soft flutter of a half a dozen Burgundy was always supposed to be a pit stop helicopters. We had entered serious wine country. for my husband and I; a place to break up the We pulled up in a dazzling little village called long car journey between Calais and our final Savigny-lès-Beaune, a few miles north of Beaune. destination of Provence. On a map, it seemed This, it turned out, is one of the most authentic nothing special. No coast. No mountains. Just wine villages in all of France, where the tourists a great big thumb print in the lungs of France. look as though they have all flown in from a Silicon Which is exactly why maps tell you everything Valley all-staff. We were hungry and wanted and nothing about a place. something low-key, away from the braying wine We felt the switch in tempo about 15 minutes nuts. We found it at Restaurant Le Morgan. This after leaving Champagne. Gentle farmland place had it all: a chalkboard bearing classic French swallowed us up. The sky got bigger. Villages, dishes, a smattering of wobbly tables and a kind- no more than three or four eyed patron who served as houses (one of which always waiter, bartender and chef. appeared to be a bakery) We left full and happy. sprung up around us like “We felt the That afternoon, we wildflowers. We rolled down ambled into Beaune itself; the windows – even the switch in tempo. a beautiful fairy tale of scent of France had changed: THE SKY a city where we were greeted hot flour, pastis, tobacco, by its twice-weekly market. lazy sex in the afternoon. got bigger. We loaded our bags with It was all there; the olfactory Époisses cheese, candied cliché of France that we all Villages sprung cherries and greengages carry in our hearts. up around us as soft and sweet as toffee We puttered into a village before making our way to called Saulieu and pulled up like wildflowers” Hôtel Le Cep, a cheery, outside a handsome building: frill-free affair in the centre Relais Bernard Loiseau. My of town, to rest our heads. husband had romanticised this place for years. The next day we rose early, circuited the town It was the gastronomic home of Bernard Loiseau, twice, took in the dazzling Hospices de Beaune one of France’s most canonised chefs. Today, it is (also known as Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune where, a polished affair: holding two Michelin stars once a year, Christie’s holds the world’s oldest in its main restaurant, and now with the addition and most famous charity wine auction) and vowed of a beautiful spa, lovely romantic gardens and we would return again soon. As we searched rooms with rustic terracotta floors and huge, for Provence on our satnav and drove out of arching beams. The key is to make sure you touch Burgundy, a great sadness swept over us, knowing down between Wednesday and Sunday, as the full well that the best part of our trip was over.

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 145 Elle EXPLORE

COASTAL PATH BELOW: THE DRAMATIC CLIFFS OF WORMS HEAD IN WALES’ GOWER RETHINKING PENINSULA WALES By Daisy Murray While the true glory of a Welsh road trip is, of course, its lush countryside, dramatic mountains DQG PDJQLÀFHQW EHDFKHV DQG FOLIIV , VWLOO WKLQN \RX VKRXOG NLFN LW RII LQ WKH FDSLWDO &DUGLII A wander around the Victorian arcades is a must if it’s drizzling, as is getting a short water WD[L IURP %XWH 3DUN WR &DUGLII %D\ ZKHUH WKH IDPRXV 0LOOHQQLXP &HQWUH VLWV ,I WKHUH DUH FOHDU VNLHV QDE D SDVWU\ IURP 3RUWXJXHVH EDNHU\ FKDLQ 1DWD &R DQG KHDG WR &DUGLII &DVWOH $IWHUZDUGV \RX FDQ ZDON RU F\FOH XS WR &DVWHOO &RFK DORQJ D EDVH WR GLVFRYHU WKH FKDUPLQJ %D\ WDNH D ERDW WKH ULYHU 7DII WKURXJK WKH SDUNV (LWKHU ZD\ \RX trip to spot dolphins in the day and return home should end your day with dinner at independent for dinner at Fforest’s in-house pizza restaurant :HOVK ELVWUR 0LONZRRG FRPSOHWH ZLWK LWV KRPHEUHZHG EHHU  &LW\ OLIH WLFNHG RII KLW WKH URDG DQG VSHQG 1H[W PDNH \RXU ZD\ QRUWK ZLWK D IHZ SLW a night or two in the Brecon Beacons National VWRSV DORQJ WKH ZD\ GHSHQGLQJ RQ KRZ PXFK 3DUN WR H[SHULHQFH LWV EHDXWLIXO GHQVH IRUHVW DQG WLPH \RX·YH JRW  7KHUH·V 'HYLO·V %ULGJH )DOOV P\VWLFDO ZDWHUIDOOV 6WRS RII IRU WUHDWV DW 7KH $QJHO IRU VRPH ZRZIDFWRU  2ULHO 'DYLHV *DOOHU\ IRU %DNHU\ DQG 7DOJDUWK 0LOO DQG VWD\ DW /ODQWKRQ\ VRPH FXOWXUH  0HGLQD FDIH IRU D 0HGLWHUUDQHDQ Priory Hotel – a part-ruined 12th-century VW\OH UHIXHOOLQJ  DQG 7ZR ,VODQG ,FH &UHDP PRQDVWHU\ QRZ KRPH WR D KRWHO DQG FDPSVLWH IRU \RX NQRZ LFH FUHDP EHIRUH VSHQGLQJ D QLJKW From there, head along RU WZR VOHHSLQJ LQ D EOXHEHOO WKH VRXWK FRDVW %H VXUH WR wood at the eco-friendly visit the Gower Peninsula /LYLQJ 5RRP 7UHHKRXVHV and eat lunch at Michelin-star “Go off the Well-rested from your restaurant The Beach House nights nestled in the treetops, LQ 2[ZLFK ,W VLWV RQ WKH beaten track at NHHS WUDYHOOLQJ XSZDUGV WR VWXQQLQJ 7KUHH &OLIIV %D\ the BLUE Portmeirion for the most WKH LGHDO SODFH WR ZDON RII DQ magical leg of your journey: indulgent meal, though you LAGOON – D IROO\ YLOODJH EXLOW EHWZHHQ might need to dash to catch 1925 and 1975 in the style of ORZ WLGH LI \RX ZDQW WR ZDON an azure-flooded DQ ,WDOLDQ UHVRUW \RX PD\ to the island of Worm’s Head slate quarry you QHYHU YLVLW D PRUH ERQNHUV \HW ZKLFK \RX VKRXOG GR LI \RX·UH HQFKDQWLQJ SODFH :H VWD\HG DW SDUWLDO WR D JRRG YLHZ  can swim in” WKH RQVLWH KRWHO WR WUXO\ DEVRUE Onwards along the coast, WKH H[SHULHQFH EXW \RX FRXOG VWRS RII DW /DXJKDUQH IRUPHU MXVW VWRS RII IRU WKH GD\ KRPH WR SRHW '\ODQ 7KRPDV \RX FDQ YLVLW KLV )LQDOO\ \RX·OO UHDFK WKH LVODQG RI $QJOHVH\ ZULWLQJ VKHG DQG DQ LG\OOLF FRDVWDO YLOODJH 7KHQ 7KHUH \RX·OO QRW RQO\ ÀQG XQSDUDOOHOHG EHDXW\ YLVLW 6WDFNSROH WR JOLPSVH VRPH ZLOG SRQLHV EHIRUH EXW D EX]]LQJ LQGHSHQGHQW VFHQH ² ZH ORYHG WKH UHDFKLQJ WKH IDPRXV WRXULVW KRQH\SRW RI 6W 'DYLGV 6FDQGL OLIHVW\OH VKRS -DQHW %HOO IRU NQLFN NQDFNV The small city is on many ‘must visit’ lists, and the outdoor Tide cafe at Halen Môn – a sea DQG LW LV MDPSDFNHG ZLWK GHOLJKWV D FDWKHGUDO VDOW SURGXFWLRQ IDFLOLW\ \RX FDQ WDNH WRXUV DURXQG FXWH FDIHV  +RZHYHU LI \RX·UH ORRNLQJ IRU DQ VRXQGV ERULQJ EXW LW UHDOO\ LVQ·W  :LWK QRWKLQJ RIIWKHEHDWHQWUDFN H[SHULHQFH \RX FRXOG ZHOO EXW WKH $WODQWLF LQ IURQW RI \RX LW·V WLPH WR KHDG VNLS 6W 'DYLGV DQG JR VWUDLJKW WR &DUGLJDQ %D\ KRPH ² EXW QRW EHIRUH \RX SLFN XS D ERWWOH RI YLD WKH %OXH /DJRRQ DQ D]XUH EOXHÁRRGHG ZLQH IURP *ZLQOODQ &RQZ\ YLQH\DUG DQG VRPH VODWH TXDUU\ \RX FDQ VZLP LQ  8VH VHOIFDWHULQJ VQDFNV IURP +DZDUGHQ (VWDWH )DUP 6KRS 'ULYLQJ apartments or luxury glamping site Fforest as LV D KXQJU\ EXVLQHVV DIWHU DOO

146 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Elle EXPLORE

“Spend a night or two sleeping in a bluebell wood in ECO-FRIENDLY treehouses”

WOODLAND STAY LEFT AND BELOW: GET BACK TO NATURE IN A LIVING ROOM TREEHOUSE

HOME GROWN LEFT: STOP AT THE HAWARDEN ESTATE’S FARM SHOP FOR FRESH, LOCAL PRODUCE ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 147 Elle EXPLORE

“You don’t need to head ANYWHERE in particular, just pootling up hill and down dale is a lovely way to SPEND A DAY”

SPA DAY BELOW: VISIT HARROGATE’S TURKISH BATHS A TRADITIONAL VICTORIAN HAMMAM

TIME FOR TEA RIGHT: STOP FOR A FAT RASCAL AT THE WORLD- FAMOUS BETTY’S TEA ROOMS 148 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 Elle EXPLORE

ROLLING HILLS BELOW: THE CLIFFS OF ROBIN HOOD’S BAY, NEAR WHITBY. LEFT: THE monastic ruins nestle in a river valley. (There are GREENERY OF THE cottages on site that you can book via the National YORKSHIRE DALES Trust if you really want to soak up the atmosphere.) If the walking tires you out, visit the Turkish Baths in Harrogate for a spa treatment in an original Victorian hammam (a Yorkshire version of one, anyway) that’s been operating since 1897. Then, wander down the road for cake at the legendary Betty’s. Its Fat Rascals are famous, but I can never resist the less well-known Yorkshire curd tart, the most beloved treat of my childhood that you don’t find anywhere else in the country. Proust’s madeleines might be more chic, but who cares? It’s an odd feeling, holidaying in a place you used to live: everything is at once familiar and yet different from the memories stored in your head. REDISCOVERING As we turned west, I noticed like never before how the surroundings alter gradually; the rolling hills YORKSHIRE petering out to give way to fresh slopes that lead By Alice Wignall up to the moors. And we were able to make There’s no place like home, so they say. But, given spontaneous diversions to half-forgotten haunts, the opportunity, we dash as far as we can, seeking such as Castle Howard – a favourite Sunday day different weather, different food, different views. trip destination and still very much stately home But last year, we weren’t given that opportunity. goals. (You might recognise it too: it stands in as Travel was uncertain, even illegal, and more the Duke of Hastings’ country pile in Bridgerton.) familiar landscapes took on a fresh appeal. So, as A short hop down the road is the sweet town of restrictions loosened enough for us to slip a rented Malton, building a reputation as the food capital of car through them, we took to the roads – not to the county, with artisan and independent producers a far-flung destination, but to my childhood home (literally) on every street corner. Make Bluebird county, neglected for decades, Bakery the top of your list but still patiently waiting. to stock up for a picnic. For We started in York: easy something a bit fancier, the to get to from anywhere in “ It’s odd, Black Swan Oldstead on the the country (two hours from edge of the Yorkshire Moors London King’s Cross) and a holidaying in is the country pub of dreams, perfect base. Don’t get stuck A PLACE you except it just happens to have exploring the medieval streets a Michelin star. (It has nine and great shopping on used to live. rooms, too, so you don’t Stonegate and Low Petergate have far to go after dinner.) – road trip, remember? – but Everything is Heading over the

don’t move on so quickly that familiar, yet Moors, the scenery becomes you miss the city’s burgeoning increasingly rugged and dining scene. Locals (I have DIFFERENT” melancholic, until it abruptly ears on the ground, thanks to stops at a steep descent to my parents) head to Skosh on the sea. Most visitors hover Micklegate for innovative food in a relaxed setting, around Whitby, with its fish and chips, Dracula but if you’re pushing the boat out, try Le Cochon associations and dramatic ruined abbey on the cliff Aveugle’s stupendous tasting menu. edge. But I wanted to press on up the coast to Back in the car, we headed east, and soon found Staithes, a quintessential fishing village nestled ourselves in the Dales: rolling hills, dry stone walls right at the top corner of the county, where and more sheep than you’d know what to do with. whitewashed cottages tumble down the hill to You don’t need to head anywhere in particular – meet the waves. The local community of artists just pootling up hill and down dale is a lovely way congregate around the Staithes Gallery, though to spend a day – but you could stretch your legs on really there’s not much to do apart from get a drink the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail to enjoy the dramatic at the harbour-side pub and watch the horizon. GETTY IMAGES, MANON HOUSTON, ILLIYA VJESTICA/UNSPLASH. PHOTOGRAPHY: STOCKSY, JONATHAN THÉVENET, FRANCK JUERY, scenery, or make for Fountains Abbey, where But I found there was nothing else I’d rather do.

ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 149 Elle EXPLORE

THREE DAYS IN... Lanzarote Spend a long weekend on this colourful

Canary Island – a volcanic paradise of black A CITY OASIS RIGHT: HEAD TO THE beaches,turquoise water and red earth EL CHARCO SAN GINÉS AREA OF CAPITAL CITY Words and photography by Lucy Mason ARRECIFE AND ENJOY WATERSIDE VIEWS FROM ITS MANY BARS AND RESTAURANTS

DAY 1 Check in to one of nine stunning rooms at Hotel Boutique Palacio Ico (inset), known for its legendary breakfast spread. In the heart of Teguise, Lanzarote’s former capital (before it moved to Arrecife in the 19th century), the hotel is the perfect base from which to explore the town – especially its huge Sunday market. End your day with a meal at laidback hangout Cantina Teguise. THE HOT TICKET Teseguite ANOTHER WORLD ABOVE: STOP ALONG Local ceramicist Eguzkine Zerain (a former THE RUGGED archaeologist) has a studio hidden down a COASTLINE OF EL GOLFO FOR THE winding street in nearby town Teseguite. BEST NIGHT SKIES There, you can watch her hard at work and ON THE ISLAND also buy some unique pieces to take home, so make sure to leave space in your suitcase.

15O ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 PHOTOGRAPHY: LUCY MASON/GOING HOME BROKE. CENTURY DESIGN OF OF DESIGN CENTURY JAMEOS DEL AGUA IN AGUA DEL IN JAMEOS ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021 THE NORTH. ABOVE ABOVE NORTH. THE HIDDEN PARADISE HOTEL BOUTIQUE RIGHT: A COVE AT AT ACOVE RIGHT: RIGHT: THE 17TH- THE RIGHT: (mountains of fire)and feelas though you’re Timanfaya National Park’s otherworldly Park’s otherworldly National Timanfaya Playa Papagayo (inset) is ahidden white- thanks to the uniquethanks shape of the bay, where terracotta cliffs meet bright blue sea, from the 18th and 19th centuries. Take landscape is the result of volcanic eruptions and lined with a detour to Playa de Montana Bermeja, along Hervideros the and of coast make Los a tour through the Montañas del Fuego before at Golfo parking El for sundowners. sand beach lapped by clear, water, calm of the bus for the best views. Then drive aseat on –grab on the Mars right-hand side PALACIO ICO PALACIO Playa PapagayoPlaya

DON’T MISS DON’T chiringuitos DAY DAY serving cocktails. cocktails. serving 2

The grape-growing region (inset) Geria of La The grape-growing Travel north (left), to Jameos del Agua César ManriqueCésar the in 1960s and now has La Corona eruption.La The site converted was where ahuge crab sculpture welcomes visitors to the series of lava tubes formed into attraction an by artist and architect in the El Charco San Ginés of thein area San Arrecife. Charco El is on Volcán Cuervo’s El doorstep, so stop at inside the crater of Volcán – just Cuervo El lunch, it’s time for like no awalk other, right around 4,000 years ago by the ago years Montañaaround 4,000 an easy 15-minute easy an from hike the road. a bar, restaurant and auditorium. After one of the wineries before heading to dinner dinner to heading before wineries the of one THE PARTING SHOT THE DAY DAY El Charco El 3

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Fashion Crossover ADVERTISEMENT London Designers from Left to Right: Sissel Gustavsen, Eden Keshia, Daniela Groza Sarah Thompson, Capucine Huguet, Zoey Simpson. www.fashioncrossover-london.com @fashioncrossoverlondon

Fashion Crossover London Dial it Down for London Fashion Week 2021 Fashion Crossover London introduced its very first Whiting who focuses on reducing the use of plastic meaningful concepts and teach them about ethical Fashion Crossover London Slow Fashion Week - and sources materials closer to home. consumerism” says the Romanian designer. Digital Event, which took place from the 18th until the 23rd of February 2021, in line with the Official On day two Fashion Crossover London designers How to construct garments in a more sustainable London Fashion Week. When better to hit the pause Omaia Jallad, Riina Oun-recipient of the 2020 matter was dealt with on the fourth day, where button than when the entire world is at a common Central Saint Martins x Fashion Crossover London Sarah Thompson, part of Fashion Crossover London standstill. With everybody forced to look at different Advertorial Sponsorship - ELLE UK, and Eden Graduate Talent Programme since 2019, took the lead resources and making the transition from physical Keshia shared their outlook on the sourcing of and surprised our audience with a sneak peek of her to digital. Fashion Crossover London chose a more sustainable materials. From turning kombucha-waste collection: “TOM-O, by Sarah Thompson, celebrates personal approach, by inviting no less than fifteen into textile to preserving flowers, yet it was the the sentiment of garments through creating one-off Fashion Crossover London designers to turn on their Leeds-based designer Eden Keshia that stole the show pieces from unwanted clothing. TOM-O gives new camera, and show the audience the individuals behind with her pineapple leather and adds: “Eden Keshia life to unloved fabrics, by patch-working them into the brands. Over the course of five days the selected promotes the notion of an extra-ordinary wardrobe, something unique, ethical & sustainable.” Following designers gave tutorials, invited viewers to their filled only with the most significant, lasting garments a similar principle yet applying it to festival-wear and studios and shared their design tips under the five that capture the attention with a plethora of sequins, T-shirt respectively were Tasarla Lagan and Citizen T. pillars of sustainability: Circular Thinking, Sourcing embroidery, tassels, metallics and hand-illustrated Materials, Creating Fabrics, Garment Construction details.” Fashion Crossover London brands Tribe All, Founded and Ethical Fashion. by Angela Thouless, and Farah Nasir drew the week From material, we weave our way to fabric and to a close as they divulged their ethical practices Starting off day one with Circular Thinking, was introduce the work of Fashion Crossover London from working with locals to securing fair wages Capucine Huguet who joined Fashion Crossover designers and the 2020 Global Young Talents Zoey for workers. Saving the best for last, Indonesian London through its Graduate Talent Programme Simpson, Sissel Gustavsen and Daniela Groza. jewellery designer Edwin Charmain, who together in 2020. The Paris-based designer creates unique While Zoey looks at natural dying techniques, Sissel with the help of Fashion Crossover London secured a accessories from recycled material, that carry a Gustavsen took it up a notch and presented us with Global Young Talent Visa in 2019, dedicates his time deeper message by paying homage to the planet’s a tutorial on how to dye your fabrics with household and designs to the revival of the Indonesian filigree- future, and says: ‘With the climate crisis and items, a must-watch for anybody who has some technique. COVID-19, there is a growing consciousness and extra time - and fabric - on their hands. The Danish awareness and the way we dress can be a powerful designer said: “Each of my scarves is handmade from After five days of informative, inspiring and tool to highlight environmental issues!’. Joining her luxury peace silk and naturally dyed and rust printing, invigorating content one thing is certain, the was designer Aurelie Fontan, the winner of the Dame ensures each scarf is both unique and sustainable.” next generations of fashion are shaping a greener Vivienne Westwood Sustainability Award who joined From rust to relics Daniela Groza stunned by turning narrative, allowing us all to dream of a more the Fashion Crossover London designer family in family heirlooms into sculptural pieces of jewellery conscious future. 2019. The French designer gave an insight into her that celebrate body-diversity, “Jewellery must not zero-waste and bio-design approach as well as Lydia just beautify, but also empower the wearer through

TO ADVERTISE HERE PLEASE CALL THE ELLE TEAM ON 020 3728 6260 ELLE FASHION ADVERTISEMENT A Vision of Fashion Crossover London’s Collaborative Ingenuity

Fashion Crossover London seeks to identify and give the future generation of fresh creatives a chance for their work to shine, and break through the noise, using the power of collaboration. May it be exactly that, which allowed four Fashion Crossover London designers, each showcasing a unique aesthetic to merge seamlessly in a shoot beaming with innovation, inclusivity and all-together dreaminess.

Amid UK’s third lockdown, Fashion Crossover London opened its doors - following all necessary COVID-19 regulations - to an afternoon of creative escapism. Bringing to life the designs of Fashion Crossover London designers Claire Tiplady, Seren Gaygusuz, Anne Elisabeth F Marthinsen and Bonabag was the emerging photographer Qingyang Chen. With a background in fine art, Qingyang looked at paintings for inspiration and treated every shot like a work of art, spending hours developing in the darkroom to create the perfect shot.

Celebrating love, kindness, and peeling back the facade clothes provide us with, we saw a more stripped-back approach, allowing every piece to speak for itself. The Cambridge-based gender-neutral designer Claire Tiplady found inspiration in the intricate network of the London Underground. Her woven coat and two-piece, made entirely from ribbons, was muted down with the naturally dyed wardrobe staples by Norwegian designer Anne Elisabeth F Marthinsen, who in turn took inspiration from the telling of Dorian Grey. The ESMOD graduate chose to work with 100% natural fibres and dyes ensuring sustainability was embedded throughout her work.

New Faces and brothers Devontay and Dijon Graham modelled the gowns by Turkish-born yet London- based Seren Gaygusuz, to sheer perfection. Though extravagant and symbolic of female empowerment by nature, Gayusuz’s tulle frocks transformed into a manifestation and a triumphant display of gender- fluidity. Tying the looks together were the Turkish-made sustainable leather handbags of the Swiss label Bonabag by Founder Cansu Sahin, emblematic for their flawless blend of artisan design and quality leather. With each frame underpinning their mantra ‘Bona’, translating into “good, genuine, fortunate”.

Together, these images paint the perfect picture of how we all crave kindness, understanding and openness.

Discover all the Fashion Crossover London designers and brands on www.fashioncrossover-london.com and shop their Made-To-Order collections.

Fashion Crossover London Global Talent Director: Since Wang Editor: Lupe Baeyens Ad Production: Katarzyna Korcz, India Scott Designers: Seren Gaygusuz, Claire Tiplady, Anne Elisabeth F Marthinsen, BonaBag Photographer: Qingyang Chen Art Direction: Unai Mateo, Shuoshuo Xu Stylist: Hsieh Wen MUA: Jan Chan Hair: Sandra Hahnel Models: Devontay Graham, Dijon Graham at Anti-Agency Location: Fashion Crossover London Showroom

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My fashionable life AMANDA WA K E L E Y From 1980s modelling to sustainable style, the British designer, 58, on what 30 years in fashion has taught her Photography by Maria Ziegelböck

I HAD TWO VERY STYLISH GRANDMOTHERS: Muriel and all day walking to go-sees, then out at night. I remember Monica. They were 180 degrees apart. Muriel was pretty thinking that Debbie Harry was the coolest thing on the understated, and Monica was a bit of a boy racer – she planet: high glamour and sexy, in such a New York way. drove ambulances through the Blitz – and was a brave, sporty woman. They weren’t fashion-obsessed, they were THE MONEY IN THE 198Os WAS CR A Z Y. It was very just inspiring. They taught me the power of clothes – that hedonistic. I wasn’t the next Cindy Crawford but when they could change how you felt about yourself. I was modelling in New York, I could work for a couple of days, then not work for the next few. I definitely used it as PEOPLE HAD SO MUCH FUN WITH CLOTHES IN THE 197Os. an opportunity to experiment with style. I had the requisite I grew up in Cheshire, and it was a bit… country. There were charity shops, though. So I would trawl through perm. And let’s not talk about the make-up. those as a teen, finding things and cutting them up. MY ATTITUDE TO STYLE HAS CHANGED A LOT. Excess My mother was very tolerant of me taking things to pieces isn’t something I’m proud of any more, or that I can relate and recreating them. to now at all. MY FIRST JOB WAS IN A MEN’S BOUTIQUE WHEN I WAS 16. THE MOST VALUABLE THING I OWN IS MY FATHER’S It was all tailoring and I’m still really inspired by that process, the way pieces are cut and constructed. I’d spend every CASHMERE SWEATER. Because it’s sentimental. penny I earned on fabric, making new looks for myself. I commissioned a big red sweater for him, and he’s gone now. Whenever I put that on, it’s like my father is all around me. MY FIRST MILESTONE PURCHASE WAS PROBABLY A CHANEL BAG, and price-per-wear it was more than worth IF YOU FEEL GOOD, DOES THE REST MATTER? Clothes are it. I wore it to death. It would elevate my whole look and meant to be joyful, empowering, cocooning – all of those I learnt that just adding one transformative accessory or things. Right now, for me, that’s huge, swaddling knitwear. piece could make all the difference. Enjoy your clothes.

NEW YORK WAS A HUGE INFLUENCE ON ME. I moved MY ADVICE? DON’T SAVE CLOTHES FOR ‘BEST’. My theory there and modelled in the 1980s – it was such a liberating is, the more money you spend on something, the more you culture shock. It had great energy and, with my job, I spent should wear it. Don’t be afraid of doing that. ‘Best’ is now.

162 ELLE.COM/UK MAY 2021