Table of contents for March 2026 in Harper's Bazaar

TECHNOLOGY HAS UPENDED a lot of things in life—the way we live and communicate, for example—but it has also changed the way we think about legacy. The word legacy used to imply a certain distance—between an event and its importance, between an act and its meaning, between the living and the remembered. It almost always felt like an inheritance or something left behind with intention: a home, a fortune, an art collection, a body of work, exonerating evidence, incriminating letters, a box of old photographs tied with a string. You lived your life, and only later did someone else decide what it all amounted to, for better or for worse. That version of legacy feels vestigial now. Legacy is no longer a marble bust; it’s a running transcript. Legacies are…

WHY DON’T YOU… LIVE firmly in the moment. The recently departed and eternally chic Countess Jacqueline de Ribes was once described as the DJ of couture, thanks to the ease with which she mixed garments. “She was a real femme du monde,” Pierre Bergé told Harper’s Bazaar in a 2015 profile of the French socialite. “I think she may be the last to know how to live like that.” She cut up couture gowns to her liking, had her wardrobe showcased at the Met, and possessed a beauty so captivating that legendary Harper’s Bazaar fashion editor Diana Vreeland demanded photographer Richard Avedon take her portrait immediately upon meeting her. She was one of Truman Capote’s swans, she ran in circles with Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino, and Joan Collins’s Dynasty style…

At Louise Trotter’s debut runway show as creative director of Bottega Veneta this past September, Lauren Hutton, seated in the front row, was every bit the picture of a modern style icon. The legendary model and actress paired a menswear-inspired suit with a slightly wrinkled green bucket hat. In her hand? The Lauren, the Italian house’s classic leather Intrecciato-weave clutch first introduced in the late 1970s and later named in her honor. The bag initially gained fame after it appeared under Hutton’s arm in the Paul Schrader fashionfest American Gigolo (1980); her character, Michelle Stratton, paired it with slouchy blazers, fluid trousers, and crisp shirts worn open at the neck. In 2016, the clutch returned to the runway when Hutton carried one as she modeled a silk trench in Bottega…

Leo Holder is standing in the cavernous warehouse of the Local 52 Motion Picture Studio Mechanics in Astoria, Queens. He raises his arms, striking them apart like Moses parting the sea, and four stagehands go running with canvas in hand to opposite corners of the room to unfurl a backdrop depicting a lush tropical landscape. These are the original sets for Dance Theatre of Harlem’s 1982 production of Stravinsky’s Firebird, hand-painted by Holder’s father, the late actor and polymathic artist Geoffrey Holder, who also designed the costumes. First performed in 1910 by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and adapted by George Balachine for New York City Ballet in 1949, Firebird was inspired by a Russian folk tale. The ballet tells the story of Prince Ivan, who captures the firebird, a creature…

SECOND SKIN Celebrity makeup artist Mary Phillips’s first product, an all-in-one cream contour and highlight palette, was created to execute the underpainting technique she popularized, which layers contour under foundation. M.ph Le Skin Weightless Serum Foundation ($49; mphbeauty.com) is the next step: a barely there serum foundation that, when buffed over underpainting, gives a flawless base that looks like skin. SOFT TOUCH La Prairie’s Cashmere Body Cream ($305; laprairie.com) contains a proprietary peptide to soften and strengthen skin from the neck down, and hyaluronic acid and shea butter provide extra nourishment for even the driest skin types. The cream also boasts a velvety musk and floral scent and a plush texture that brings to mind wrapping yourself in a cozy pashmina. LIGHT SWIPE Merit’s genius new lip formula feels like…

I have a quote tacked over my desk from an interview Jhumpa Lahiri gave to The Paris Review a few years ago: “The goal isn’t to be happy with my voice,” she says. “What I want is simply to have one.” March is our Legacy issue, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what legacy means today. Traditionally, the word has conveyed distance—between one generation and the next—and a sense of intention around what you leave behind. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe legacy is simply about having a voice and allowing its shape to be defined by others. This is something novelists seem to understand instinctively: Their stories find new meaning in the hands of each reader. That’s why I was thrilled to shine a light on a group…

WHY DON’T YOU…? DOUBLE (or TRIPLE) DOWN on the look and ACCESSORIZE with scarves too.…

WHY DON’T YOU…? PUNCTUATE a fluid dress with layered BANGLES and big EARRINGS.…

In 1604, Angelo Rocca—Augustinian bishop, humanist scholar, and first head of the Vatican printing house—founded one of Europe’s first public libraries, the Biblioteca Angelica, in Rome. From the street, it looks like a nondescript building tucked beside the Basilica of Sant’Agostino, a small church famous for housing a Caravaggio painting of the Madonna and Child greeting barefoot pilgrims. But past a turnstile in its fluorescent-lit entryway and up a flight of worn-in wooden stairs, the view is awe-inspiring. Soaring walls of antiquated texts rise in tiered, intricately carved bookshelves, and the air is rich with the unmistakable odor of weathered leather and parchment. Ah, yes—the sweet scent of literature. It’s early December, and I’m here by myself. A kind librarian explains that in an era when books were locked behind…

The South of France became a see-and-be-seen summer destination a century ago, when the free-spirited American couple Gerald and Sara Murphy began hosting epic beach parties in Cap d’Antibes. At any one of them, you might find Jean Cocteau and Igor Stravinsky unpacking a picnic basket, Pablo Picasso or Ernest Hemingway flirting with Sara (who famously wore pearls with her bathing suit), or F. Scott Fitzgerald taking mental notes for Tender Is the Night. The legacies of the Lost Generation are still a thrill to follow, though booking a room at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, where the Murphys liked to stow their guests, is now a trickier prospect. The French Riviera remains a wildly popular summer destination and will serve as the next setting for HBO’s The White Lotus. Instead,…

For some, the blank page is daunting; many artists dread the moment when they must put pen to paper, brush to canvas, chord to staff. Michaela Coel revels in the controlled chaos of creation. She lives for the intensity. We’re in her apartment in London at night. We bustled up here together—Coel hauling four or five bags, me carrying a recently delivered package, and her friend, the actress Ann Akinjirin, who we bumped into outside of the building, in tow. We go up in the elevator and into the apartment, where the 38-year-old writer, actor, and director lives alone. It’s understated yet expansive, with a set of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out across the River Thames. At high tide, the water licks at the building. The plan, she tells Akinjirin and…

George Nakashima Woodworkers is located on a quiet road just behind the picturesque main drag of New Hope in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, approximately two hours southwest of New York City. The route I took, driving there one recent morning, was dotted with farmhouses and involved crossing a bridge over the same section of the Delaware River that George Washington forded during the Revolutionary War, a fact marked by several signs and a replica boat. The area has become more glamorous in recent years, attracting residents like Yolanda Hadid and her two supermodel children, Gigi and Bella Hadid, as well as Bradley Cooper, earning Bucks County the distinction of being a serious “rival to the Hamptons.” For a long time before that, though, New Hope was a beacon for an artistic…

“These are the SONGS that MADE ME,” says singer DANIEL CAESAR. “EVERYTHING you SEE or HEAR from me, you can KNOW THAT this is WHAT I was ON.” Caesar, 30, has emerged as a much-beloved voice in music over the past decade, thanks to a string of stripped-down, soulful R&B gems—including his most recent album, Son of Spergy, a powerful rumination on faith and family featuring collaborations with Sampha, Bon Iver, and Dev Hynes. But curating a playlist for our Legacy issue meant looking back at songs that have left an indelible mark on him, from Frank Ocean’s “Self Control” (“That [final] section always made me feel like I could punch a hole through a wall”) and Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo’s “Nothing Even Matters” (“A man and a woman coming…

WHY DON’T YOU…? Ground the look with a sleek black ALMOND-TOE FLAT.…

WHY DON’T YOU…? Let your skirt SHINE by pairing it with an UNDERSTATED TOP and classic JEWELRY.…

ON A DRIZZLY JULY DAY in Paris, an Olympic-swimming-pool-size silk scarf stretched across the courtyard of Celine’s headquarters and billowed softly in the rain. The scarf, with its swirling chain-link-and-ribbon print, functioned as a de facto tent for the editors and buyers and celebrities gathered to take in Michael Rider’s debut show as the house’s creative director. It would have been easy to write it off as an Instagrammable prop. But as the models came down the runway, it became clear that the silk scarf, or foulard in French, was a harbinger of a new era for Celine. In both Rider’s first collection and his subsequent spring womenswear collection, the foulard emerged as a dominant motif. Rich primary-hued versions, featuring the house’s signature equestrian prints or monogram, were styled peeking…

Every season, the Row does something that leaves the fashion world in a frenzy, whether it’s the latest incarnation of the cult-favorite Margaux bag, a high-vamp jelly sandal in lollipop red, or, as was the case for summer 2026, a hair comb (or several) tucked ever so neatly into a sculptural, modern take on a French twist. It was the updo seen around the world, with photos quickly coursing through Instagram and TikTok, prompting an uptick in French-twist tutorials. The runway look was created by legendary hairstylist Guido Palau, who credits its virality to its familiarity. “When there’s a hairstyle that has one foot in the past and one foot in the future, people respond well to it,” he explains. “The combs could trigger a memory, maybe from a grandparent…

CARMEN DE LAVALLADE moved through life like she was having a conversation—aware of its rhythms, unafraid of the pauses, always listening for what was left unsaid. The dancer and choreographer, who passed away in December at the age of 94, was an undeniable force in a career that spanned seven decades. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she studied ballet as a teenager before finding her way to Lester Horton, one of the key architects of American modern dance. Horton encouraged dancers to think of their bodies as vessels for larger ideas—social, political, even mythic. De Lavallade absorbed that ethos deeply, bringing a clarity and restraint to performances in works like Horton’s Salome. She would soon appear on Broadway in Truman Capote’s Caribbean-set 1954 musical House of Flowers and in…