Table of contents for December/January 2024 in Harper's Bazaar

WE OFTEN TALK about what artists do in terms of creative expression—the things they imagine and invent and create. But there is an art to everything: to living, to dressing, to conversation, to entertaining. In many ways, it’s a way of life. What, though, makes someone an artist? There are traditional schools and institutions that have historically been guided by one set of definitions, and there are people and communities that have been excluded from those spaces and have sometimes arrived at another. But an informal, anecdotal survey of the individuals we tend to think of as artists right now would suggest that almost everyone has the capacity to be one. Because being an artist is not as much about making paintings and sculptures or subscribing to certain ideas or…

1 LISTEN TO SLEATER-KINNEY’S LITTLE ROPE Erstwhile ’90s riot grrrl stalwarts Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein return with their 11th studio album, out January 19. Written in the aftermath of the death of Brownstein’s mother and stepfather, it’s a raw exploration of grief—and how to move through it. 2 EXPERIENCE AILEY THROUGH THE AGES Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will celebrate its 65th anniversary by presenting a slate of performances at New York City Center through December 31. Along with the world premiere of Amy Hall Garner’s Century, the lineup includes pieces from choreographic powerhouses such as Alonzo King, Jamar Roberts, and Ronald K. Brown. On December 19, a special performance will pay tribute to the pioneering women of Ailey: Carmen de Lavallade, Judith Jamison, Denise Jefferson, and Sylvia Waters.…

WHY DON’T YOU…? JAZZ THINGS UP with a pair of SOFT OXFORD SHOES.…

I’ve never really celebrated traditional holidays, like Christmas or my birthday. For me, it always felt much more exciting to celebrate the first day of spring or dahlia season at the farmers’ market. This comes from my parents: We celebrated the holidays growing up, but they never placed a ton of emphasis on them. I’m the same way now with my son, who was born this past May. Still, entertaining is my way of life. It’s how I connect with the people I love. Making food is an obvious way of expressing your appreciation and gratitude for others. It’s also what I do professionally; I create installations out of food in traditionally nonfood spaces like galleries and museums and in partnership with fashion brands for events. There’s so much opportunity…

I don’t like holidays,” proclaims the French-Moroccan entrepreneur Ramdane Touhami, “but I love the mountains. I just want to go up, up, up!” After selling Officine Universelle Buly, the 19th-century French beauty brand he relaunched with his wife, Victoire de Taillac-Touhami, two years ago, that appears to be the direction Touhami is headed. Since then, he has invested in various enterprises related to high-altitude living, among them the Drei Berge Hotel, a 19-room inn built in 1907 in Switzerland’s Bernese Alps. Touhami purchased the property last year and reopened this past summer, reimagining it with a series of quirky twists. While its red-and-white-chevron shutters are traditional, Touhami needed to get permission from everyone in Mürren (population 450), the tiny village where the inn is located, to paint the exterior pine…

Lana Del Rey points a red vape at a set of lounge chairs in her backyard. “When I bought those,” she tells me, “I was stoked.” I’m skeptical. The chairs look untouched, unused. A telltale line bisects their fabric, marking where the fence has cast a shadow over half of the material. There, in perpetual shade, the vibrant green pattern is preserved, but above it the fabric is exposed, bleached by the sun, nearly to white. “We had a firepit,” Del Rey says, gesturing first to a place in the yard that doesn’t seem to have ever had a firepit and then to a dilapidated daybed. “Despite its state, this daybed, I’m proud of this,” Del Rey tells me. “I got it from Living Spaces. They brought it in the…

IN A CAREER in fashion that had already spanned close to two decades, Liya Kebede had worked with some of the world’s biggest photographers. But when Harper’s Bazaar invited her to be a part of a special collaboration with the Italian painter Francesco Clemente for the magazine’s April 2016 issue, she had never before sat for an artist. For the project, Clemente was asked to paint portraits of five supermodels: Kebede, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Iman, and Anna Ewers. Kebede had first become aware of Clemente’s work from Alfonso Cuarón’s 1998 adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke. A pivotal sequence in the film involves Hawke’s character, the lovelorn and impulsive Finn, furiously sketching and painting Paltrow’s elusive Estella; the actual sketches and paintings were…

One of the great things about working at Harper’s Bazaar is the opportunity that we have to bring people together around subjects like fashion, beauty, and culture—but also bigger ideas and questions we all have about ourselves and our lives. In making the magazine, it’s what we as a team always try to do in a different way, collaborating with photographers, stylists, writers, artists, and other creatives to bring the stories that we tell to life. In putting together this issue, which is devoted to art, I was struck by something the artist Lauren Halsey said about her upbringing in South Central Los Angeles and how it influenced the way she thinks about making art: “Growing up in a Black Baptist church and holidays come around, it’s all a collective.…

TAKE A BREAK FROM THE WINTER WONDERLAND and transport yourself to a far-flung destination where the sun is always shining. Our coveted edit is a paradise of wanderlust-inspiring resortwear well-suited for boat rides, walks on the beach, or lounging under the rays while sipping Aperol spritzes. Discover our packing list below. SHOPPING AT SHOPBAZAAR.COM IS EASIER THAN EVER. SCAN THE CODE WITH YOUR SMARTPHONE TO SHOP THE MOST COVETED PIECES FROM THE BEST DESIGNERS. SBZ = BUY ON SHOPBAZAAR.COM…

THIS WINTER will mark Nicolas Ghesquière’s 10th anniversary as women’s artistic director of Louis Vuitton. Throughout the past decade, the designer’s collections have propelled the 169-year-old French house forward with an ever-evolving aesthetic that modernizes luxury through contemporary silhouettes, construction, and detailing. These impeccable updates evoke the brand’s history of craftsmanship in the most thoughtful of ways. To wit, for Spring 2024, Ghesquière’s forward-thinking perspective was at play once again with clothes and accessories made for women with wanderlust, intrepidness, and independence. Form meeting function was a key theme, as it has always been for Louis Vuitton. While Ghesquière’s achievements at Vuitton have been many, there is perhaps no better example of his ability to bring heritage into the present than the quilted lambskin GO-14 bag, which was designed for…

IT’S ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE, but it might be even truer today: It’s tough to be an independent fashion designer. With the cost of raw materials and labor rising in the U.S. and across Europe, not to mention the dominance of well-established brands and conglomerates in the luxury and fast-fashion sectors, scaling a retail business on your own is a hustle. It’s especially daunting for women of color, who are often overlooked for lead design roles by the fashion-industry powers that be. And yet, despite the slim odds, the Spring 2024 season offered a window on the tremendous creative power, drive, and vision of three female independent designers who made headlines for their incredible collections: Torishéju Dumi, based in her hometown of London; Karoline Vitto, Brazilian but currently living in…

There’s no better time than the holiday party season to engage in a more-is-more hair look. Treat your ponytails and buns as if they’re a naked fir or an unwrapped box, begging for ornaments in the form of claw clips, scrunchies, and pins. Because when these everyday accessories are decked out in gemstones, designer logos, or layers of gold, their status is upgraded from utilitarian to treasure. “I’m really excited about using hair accessories creatively as a form of jewelry and to deliver our individuality,” says celebrity hairstylist Lacy Redway, whose clients include Tessa Thompson and Laura Harrier and who created the braided ribbon-corset hairstyle at the Christian Siriano Spring 2024 show. Embellishing hair certainly isn’t a novel concept: Chanel’s iconic camellia flower has been adorning half-up styles on runways…

“MUSIC and ART are BROTHERS and SISTERS,” says Kasseem “SWIZZ BEATZ” Dean. “PRODUCING a beat is the same feeling as PAINTING. They come from the same part of your HEART.” Outside of his career as a rapper and producer, during which he’s collaborated with everyone from Beyoncé and Jay-Z to DMX and Kendrick Lamar, Dean is a passionate artist, having painted for more than 25 years. “I paint in my free time as therapy,” he says, adding that large-scale abstract works are his style of choice. “Everybody should grab a paintbrush and a canvas; it’s a great exercise.” Alongside his wife, Alicia Keys, Dean—who is on the Brooklyn Museum’s board of trustees—has also amassed an expansive personal collection of art that includes works by Nina Chanel Abney, Jordan Casteel, and…

WHY DON’T YOU…? Add extra sparkle with a SHIMMERY EVENING BAG.…

This past summer, two movies exploring facets of the Asian-American experience hit theaters. Both arrived by way of female filmmakers marking their feature-directorial debuts. Both drew critical acclaim, but they couldn’t be more different. Writer-director Celine Song’s Past Lives, starring Greta Lee, is a semiautobiographical indie from art-house outfit A24 about a Korean-American New Yorker (Lee) whose marriage begins to buckle under the weight of the past when her childhood crush (Teo Yoo) visits from South Korea. The movie is an intimate drama that unfurls bilingually through English and Korean in subdued tones on Skype, huddled over bar countertops, and in the enclosed rooms of a Manhattan apartment. Adele Lim’s Joy Ride is not what you’d call intimate—unless you’re referring to the many raunchy jokes and gags and elaborate comic…

Naiomi Glasses is sitting in her sunlit home on Dinétah—the Navajo Nation—in northeast Arizona, adorned with striking silver and turquoise jewelry, including a centerpiece necklace styled ever so coolly beneath the popped collar of a classic black Polo shirt. A seventh-generation Indigenous artist skilled in the Diné tradition of weaving, Glasses also happens to be a model, designer, and skateboarder. In the past few years, she has amassed a social-media following and become widely recognized for her efforts to expand the reach and visibility of Indigenous art. This mission is another reason she is so excited to be launching her own capsule collection in collaboration with Ralph Lauren that, in her words, “celebrates the Diné land, people, and culture.” Glasses is the first collaborator to partner with Ralph Lauren for…

CLEAR CANVAS Debuting in December at Art Basel in Miami Beach, Babor’s the Art of Beauty Collection ($65) includes 14 daily treatments—among them, bestsellers like Hydra Plus and Perfect Glow. Berlin-based artist Cevin Parker gave the concentrated-serum ampoules an artful update with packaging featuring his paintings. PLUMP IT UP Dior Capture Totale Hyalushot ($90) promises injectable-level results sans needles; it replenishes hyaluronic acid in target areas like the forehead and around the eyes with two molecular weights that plump deep into the skin and soften fine lines at the surface. Plus, it’s been shown to reduce wrinkles by 45 percent in four hours. CROWD-PLEASERS Harry Styles’s lifestyle brand, Pleasing, makes its foray into fragrance with three scents ($135 each): Bright, Hot, a woody amber blend meant to evoke the feeling…

LAUREN HALSEY ARTIST Halsey, whose collages, sculptures, and installations draw upon elements of Afrofuturism, pharaonic architecture, and the history and culture of South Central, is preparing for upcoming shows in 2024 at both Gagosian’s Paris outpost and London’s Serpentine Galleries. “It’s not enough to just REPRESENT.… I have to equally commit to the DEVELOPMENT, TRANSCENDENCE, and GROWTH of PEOPLE here.” Even before Lauren Halsey’s artwork was installed this past spring on the rooftop of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, she knew it would one day wind up back in Los Angeles. The piece, a sculptural work titled the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I), is a 22-foot-high, open-air structure modeled on aspects of the Egyptian Temple of Dendur on view in the museum’s galleries and…