Table of contents for Dec/Jan 2021 in Harper's Bazaar

We live in a country rich in traditions. They can be comforting, especially around the holidays; our customs connect us to generations past and allow us to pass on something meaningful and lasting to our children. Traditions can also serve as reminders of our otherness. They are often predicated on assumptions of shared experience that don’t mirror everyone’s truth. I grew up in a splintered home, so my reality never quite matched up to the traditions I saw around me. As an adult, I have often found myself asking the simple question: Who are these traditions serving? Throughout the issue, we called on cultural leaders across various disciplines to weigh in on what tradition means within their fields. Our cover star, Vanessa Kirby, gives an unflinching performance in the new…

Diamonds are known for their sparkle, but what if they could also glow? Luminous Diamonds do just that. Naturally fluorescent, the gems show unique intensities under every light, but when exposed to UV rays they transform, revealing an otherworldly blue glow. Meant to reflect the inner brilliance and power of the women who dare to wear them, these statement earrings are timelessly elegant and enchantingly rare. Luminous Diamonds Inner Glow Hexagon Drop Earrings from the Moonlight Collection. Shop the collection at LuminousDiamonds.com.…

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FASHION DIRECTOR AND AUTHOR “I like things that come in mood-boosting colors and shapes, and will also use my seasonal shopping as an opportunity to support Black-owned and small businesses.” SB = BUY ON SHOPBAZAAR.COM…

Turkiye’s fashion design, with Istanbul as its epicenter, had long won its place on the world scene, with home-grown designers offering a wide range of collections—from ready-to-wear to leather goods—that embody innovative design and exquisite craftsmanship. Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week-Istanbul, a number of prestigious fashion schools and a flourishing trove of concept stores continue to make the city a thriving playground for fashion’s next-gen. Meanwhile, Istanbul is making waves in jewelry design, too. The last 10 years has witnessed a dramatic change in the way jewelry is created and worn, with some new and established brands aimed at a modern, cosmopolitan and demanding public, representing contemporary visions of the crossroads between East and West with their personal imprint. It’s not surprising though. The art of jewelry in Anatolia is a tradition…

Christmas might come early this year if you placed an order through the Telfar Bag Security Program. The innovative retail concept allowed fans of the New York label to preorder the always sold-out Shopping Bag—a.k.a. the Bushwick Birkin, or simply the Telfar bag, as the accessibly priced vegan leather tote is known—for guaranteed delivery between December 15 and January 15. The Shopping Bag comes in three sizes and 17 colors, including the medium oxblood recently spotted on the shoulder of U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Every one of those 51 combinations was on the menu during a 24-hour window in August, with no purchase limits. Contrary to conventional luxury marketing, the Bag Security Program is not designed to exclude. It’s in keeping with the ethos of the brand’s founder, Telfar Clemens,…

ATTAINING SALON-WORTHY style at home is easier than ever. Introducing the InfinitiPro by Conair with The Knot Dr. All-in-One Dryer Brush: Bolstered with a powerful ion generator and tourmaline ceramic, it delivers a brilliantly shiny and flawlessly frizz-free look in a matter of moments. Its secrets to success? Its large oval barrel features Flexalite bristles for painless detangling and the bonus volume pik attachment adds extra body at the roots. At long last, you can detangle, dry, style, and volumize your hair all at once. We know what’s at the top of your wish list this holiday season.…

CLEAN SWEEP There was a time when cleansing balms were considered niche, but today many skin-care companies are adding them to their roster. Augustinus Bader The Cleansing Balm ($70) feels more like a spa treatment than a face wash. The formula binds to makeup, oils, and pollutants, while squalane, vitamin E, and conditioning butters moisturize. Remove it with the accompanying muslin cloth. PRIME TIME A growing number of skin-care brands are focusing on the specific needs of an oft-overlooked audience—women going through menopause. A few products to try: Korres White Pine Meno-Reverse Deep Wrinkle Plumping + Age Spot Concentrate ($78) and Pause Well-Aging Fascia Stimulating Tool ($115) are both designed to boost collagen. And the State of Whipped Body Cream ($24) is formulated to stand up to hot flashes. WAVE…

THE HOLIDAYS ARE HERE, which means it’s time to treat yourself to a festive fragrance. Meet your new signature scent: Pegasus Exclusif by Parfums de Marly. The woody winter release is the epitome of easy elegance. Featuring rare essences and sophisticated extractions, Pegasus Exclusif is an exquisite evolution of the original Pegasus scent. With opening notes of pink pepper and bergamot, and a deep base of guaiac wood and natural oud, it’s the scent of the season.…

When Nia Martin-Robinson was 18, she had sex for the first time. Soon after, worried that she might have a sexually transmitted infection, she went to her local Planned Parenthood clinic in Detroit to get checked out. The clinician who examined her said she was healthy but added, “If you weren’t being promiscuous, you might not have to worry about having an STD,” recalled Martin-Robinson, who is Black. More than two decades later, the memory still stings. She had waited until high school graduation to have sex, just as her mother had asked. Yet here was a judgmental assumption coming from someone she’d sought out for medical help. “You can do all the right things and people’s bias will rear itself, whether that’s at a traffic stop or a room…

“Tradition means that you’re able to be innovative and come up with new things, but at the same time you can speak to the things that existed before,” says the legendary jazz musician and composer Wynton Marsalis. “You don’t have to overthrow them to be an innovator. You can just sweep them right up along with you.” For his playlist, the longtime artistic director of New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center selected a wide range of tracks that reflect his interest in an array of musical traditions: from Marvin Gaye’s Motown touchstone “Inner City Blues”; to the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Linus and Lucy,” from nostalgic holiday favorite A Charlie Brown Christmas; to Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time,” which Marsalis describes as having “an earthiness and down-home quality.” Listen to Wynton’s…

BEA BONGIASCA “One thing we love at Marissa Collections is color! Bea Bongiasca’s collection is a visual wonderland of bright enamel and gemstones. This Italian-made jewelry pays tribute to pop culture and every piece is sculptural, wearable art.” LIZZIE MANDLER “Handcrafted in Los Angeles, Lizzie Mandler’s jewelry has a modern sensibility with an edge. Her pieces are easy to wear by themselves or layered, and we love the minimalist approach of her designs.” WWAKE “Wing Yau’s sleek and contoured shapes are a favorite among Marissa Collections’ clientele. Lightly sprinkled opals, tourmaline, and conflict-free diamonds create a collection made for every woman.” JENNIFER MEYER “With meaningful jewelry on the rise, Jennifer Meyer’s designs represent many of life’s sweetest moments: love, good fortune, and celebration. Her jewelry is the perfect gift and…

Augustinus Bader is one of the most exciting names in skin care right now. The brand’s new face oil, a lightweight, fast-absorbing formula, contains its patented TFC8 (Trigger Factor Complex)—a mix of more than 40 vitamins, amino acids, and other powerful ingredients—combined with botanical oils to address concerns from lines and wrinkles to hyperpigmentation. Augustinus Bader The Face Oil, $85 for 10 ml.; $230 for 30 ml. augustinusbader.com.…

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GALLERIST “My guide focuses on femalefounded and-designed brands that make my life wonderful on a daily basis. Cross-pollinating brands I love with people I love, to support companies that give back to causes I love, feels right right now.” SB = BUY ON SHOPBAZAAR.COM…

ACTOR AND PLAYWRIGHT “My love language is gift-giving. Finding the perfect item for someone is like finding the key to their glee—it’s my favorite thing. These picks are rare finds, and they were curated to surprise and titillate.”…

TEYONAH PARRIS’S fascination with superheroes began with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In a world where most ’90s kids identified with TMNT’s resident reporter April O’Neil, Parris wanted to be a Turtle. She loved their bravado. But did heroes always have to be men? “Turtles are turtles,” Parris says. “But they’re guys.” So it’s fitting that Parris will now get to have a hand in making superhero history herself. This winter, the actress will become the first female Black character to join the beloved Avengers when she takes on the role of Monica Rambeau in WandaVision, a new Marvel Studios series streaming on Disney+. SB = BUY ON SHOPBAZAAR.COM For Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans, WandaVision offers a deeper look at the relationship between Avengers Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. Scarlet Witch…

THE PROPHETS By Robert Jones, Jr. (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) In 2006, during his first semester in the M.F.A. fiction program at Brooklyn College, Robert Jones, Jr., began to sketch out what would ultimately become his debut novel, a story of forbidden love between two young enslaved men on a plantation in the Deep South. As an undergraduate, Jones had minored in Africana Studies and noticed how infrequently Black queer people appeared in literature by Black authors. “I decided then to heed the wisdom of the late, great Toni Morrison: If you cannot find the book you want to read, then you must write it,” says Jones, who is the founder of the social justice social-media community Son of Baldwin. At first, developing his idea seemed like an impossible task. “I…

SKIN CARE BEST CLEANSER One area where you can always save: cleanser. CeraVe Hydrating Cream-to-Foam Cleanser ($14.99) feels surprisingly luxurious, and this derm favorite is never overdrying. BEST BLURRING SERUM Melé Smooth Pore Minimizing Serum ($23.99) has a blurring effect that makes skin look amazing and helps mattify and reduce the appearance of pores. BEST MOISTURIZER A true classic, Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream Moisturizer ($33.49) keeps skin continuously hydrated and improves the look of wrinkles in as few as 28 days. BEST RETINOL Derms agree, retinol is a proven anti-ager, and L’Oréal Paris Revitalift Derm Intensives Night Serum With 0.3% Pure Retinol ($36.99), with added glycerin, won’t irritate skin. BEST SPF If you need a little extra incentive to apply SPF, try La Roche-Posay Anthelios Melt-in Milk Sunscreen Broad Spectrum…

Now that you have our December/January issue, get ready to shop it. Look for the SB icon next to an item in Harper’s BAZAAR: It means the item is available to buy on ShopBAZAAR.com—the online store brought to you by our editors. We’ve partnered with the best specialty boutiques, most coveted designers, and prestige beauty brands to present the must-have fashion and beauty edit of the season, in a shopping destination that’s open around the clock and around the world.…

WHEN VANESSA KIRBY was 21, she did a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton, outside Manchester, England. She played Helena, in love with Demetrius, who is in love with Hermia instead. “All these schools used to come in, loads of kids,” she says. “They were always super bored or fidgeting.” During her monologue at one performance, speaking desperately of a love that has been thwarted, someone dropped a box of candy down the stairs, and they rolled all over the stage in front of her. “And I was like, ‘Oh, God, fucking hell. What am I doing wrong? And then I saw this girl, off to the left. And she was, I don’t know, 13 or something, and she was listening to every word,”…

JERRY LORENZO, the reserved designer of Los Angeles–based cult label Fear of God, is known for his defiantly understated clothes, which disregard fashion seasons and inhabit a different register from the loud, status-conscious glamour of many of his contemporaries. Lorenzo’s low-key, luxe looks, based on his personal style and created ostensibly for men but beloved by women, offer an almost muffled rebuke to the din of the fashion circus. But despite his efforts to exist outside the fleeting nature of fashion, Lorenzo, who started his label in 2012, now finds himself very much of the moment. The hosannas for Fear of God’s seventh collection—a study in languid luxury two years in the making and unveiled in August—presaged the “all sweats all the time, but make it cute” orthodoxy of our…

THE PREMISE was simple enough: A fallen angel, in the form of model Amber Valletta, descends upon New York in the most ethereal looks of the season. But Peter Lindbergh’s epic 1993 story for Harper’s Bazaar transcended fashion. The shoot was inspired in part by the 1987 Wim Wenders film, Wings of Desire, about an angel who is sent to observe the earthly world and winds up choosing humanity over immortality. The imagery took on added meaning at a pivotal moment in another pandemic, the AIDS crisis, which by the end of 1993 had claimed more than 270,000 lives in the U.S. alone; that year, Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play, Angels in America, a stark exploration of the pain, rage, and ravages of the disease, opened on Broadway and helped…

Launched in November (just in time for the holidays) by a group of fashion industry veterans, knitwear brand Paradis Perdus deserves your attention, especially our exclusive Hero. Crafted from 100 percent recycled wool and featuring classic ribbing, this red sweater is a little piece of luxury that makes a bright statement on its own—the perfect, cozy gift. SB = BUY ON SHOPBAZAAR.COM…

DANI McCLAIN WRITER “A Reckoning Inside Planned Parenthood,” page 130 “I help my mother decorate her Christmas tree every year. She still has ornaments from when she was a child. Arranging her tree while listening to the Temptations and Johnny Mathis gets me in the holiday spirit.” CARL KELSCH MANAGING EDITOR Harper’s Bazaar “Every December, my partner and I spend a couple of nights in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The town goes all-out to create a cozy Christmas vibe, and I get to drop off gifts for my god kids nearby.” LYNN STEGER STRONG WRITER “Vanessa Kirby Doesn’t Flinch,” page 108 “Almost every morning I go running. It keeps me steady when I’m anxious. It’s a space of time that’s mine, and no one needs me or speaks. The way a place…

I TALKED about buying a pearl necklace for so many years. And I never did. Then last Christmas, I said, “This is it. I’m doing it. I’m going to Mikimoto and I’m going to get my pearl necklace.” Now [the pearls] have become like a good luck charm. Since we’ve been in quarantine, it became very important to me, when I wake up in the morning, to do the things that bring me joy. Like, I don’t want to sit around in sweatpants. Fashion is such a big and important part of my life. The pearls are part of my ritual of self-care, and I can be of service to other people when I take care of myself. So it is kind of a symbol of my well-being in a…

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DESIGNER “My favorite part of gifting is giving something that makes the other person feel truly seen. Speaking to people’s ethics is great. If someone loves sustainability, artisan work, or vintage, go in that direction.”…

CHEF AND RESTAURATEUR “These gifts are based on products that I love and actually use, own, and buy on repeat. They’re functional and luxurious at the same time—little treasures to elevate your everyday.” SB = BUY ON SHOPBAZAAR.COM SEE WHERE TO BUY FOR SHOPPING DETAILS…

When I was five, we moved from my hometown of the Bronx, New York, to Savannah, Georgia. We’d visit my maternal grandparents in Waynesboro, which is a very, very small town in the countryside that seemed to have only one stoplight. Every Friday morning, my granddaddy would go fishing and catch whiting or trout or some other freshwater fish. My grandmama would fry them up whole in cornmeal, salt, and pepper, and we would eat them with grits and baked beans and mustard. It was a normal supper, but it was special to me because I got to know them a little bit better by sitting around and talking and eating on Fridays. You learn about your family through the food that they cook. When I was 11, we moved…

A CAREER-SPANNING volume featuring nearly 80 paintings and drawings alongside a new piece of short fiction, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly in League With the Night (Tate/D.A.P.) is a major survey of the British artist and writer’s eclectic body of work. Published to coincide with an exhibition of the same name at Tate Britain in London (on view through May 9), the book centers on Yiadom-Boakye’s rich oil paintings, which borrow from classic European portraiture and showcase imaginary Black subjects, often created from found images, as they powerfully explore questions of identity, history, and representation.…

Even if your holiday calendar is looking a bit less eventful this year, the end of 2020 is something worth celebrating. “It’s time to have fun experimenting with color,” says Daniel Martin, makeup artist and global director of artistry and education for Tatcha. “Maybe that’s wearing a lip color that’s out of your comfort zone, or winging out your liner,” he adds. Here, we’ve gathered some of our favorite makeup artists and asked for tips and tricks to update your look this season whether you’re on your couch, behind a computer screen, or at a (tiny) cocktail party. ELEGANT EYES STEP IT UP “Try a classic smoky eye, but swap out black and gray for jewel tones,” says Martin. One of his favorite shades? A rich metallic burgundy. Sweep it…

DESPITE THE CHEER and warm wishes this season, when the temperature plummets, your skin can become dry and irritated. Thankfully, we’ve found the remedy: Epionce Intensive Nourishing Cream. The ultra-rich formula is a balanced blend of skin-replenishing ceramides (which create a barrier against the season’s harshest elements) and soothing botanicals, like lavender. Apply daily to reduce fine lines and wrinkles and to get that relaxing-by-the-fire glow…

Covers Bulgari High Jewelry earrings, price upon request. Internal Giambattista Valli Haute Couture dress and mask, prices upon request. Editor’s Letter Page 22 Dior Haute Couture coat, price upon request. Table of Contents Page 27 Chanel jacket, $3,450. Bulgari Serpenti earrings, $5,050. Celine by Hedi Slimane vest, $970, and shirt, $1,300. Similar styles available at celine.com. Celine by Hedi Slimane pants, $770. celine.com. Bottega Veneta shoes, $980. The Buy Pages 43 & 45 Luminous Diamonds Inner Glow Hexagon Drop Earrings from the Moonlight Collection, $43,000. The Good Buy Page 49 Mikimoto Reserve Akoya Cultured Pearl necklace, $54,550. Portrait Mode Page 52 Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello blouse, $1,890. 212-980-2970. Pomellato bracelet (worn as necklace, top), $31,200. pomellato.com. Tiffany & Co. necklace (middle), price upon request. tiffany.com. Chanel High Jewelry necklace (bottom), price upon request. 800-550-0005.…