W Magazine

Steven Spielberg and Janusz Kaminski Director and Photographer, Director of Photography, “A Fabelmans Redux” (page 92) Is there a film from history you wish you could have worked on? Steven Spielberg: Lawrence of Arabia, because it was—and still is—a great human epic, and I’d have loved to overhear David Lean directing Peter O’Toole. What was your first film industry job? Janusz Kaminski: In 1986 I was a second camera assistant on a low-budget film called Sex, Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll. I learned that I was not good at that job. I also learned that making movies is the best adventure in life. Who do you consider the most original filmmaker in history? SS: For me, it will always be Stanley Kubrick. Why? Just look at his films! What was an early source of inspiration for you? JK: Two Men…

Michelle Williams wears a Bottega Veneta dress, earrings, and shoes. Paul Dano wears a Brunello Cucinelli jacket, shirt, and pants; Vicki Turbeville bolo tie; John Lobb shoes. Directed and photographed by Steven Spielberg. Styled by Mark Bridges. Danielle Deadwyler wears a Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello dress. Directed and photographed by Todd Field. Styled by Allia Alliata di Montereale. Jennifer Coolidge wears a Bad Binch TongTong by Terrence Zhou custom bow dress; MAM headpiece; Amina Muaddi earrings; stylist’s own gloves. Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. Photographed by Lenne Chai. Costume designs by Shirley Kurata. W’s Directors Issue, now in its fifth year, is the brainchild of Editor at Large Lynn Hirschberg. I love making every issue of W, but I have to admit that this one may be my favorite. My…

A mile in Manolo Blahnik’s shoes is no casual stroll—it can resemble a lonely crusade against vulgarity. “Everything is bad everywhere,” lamented Blahnik, the éminence grise of shoe design, now 80, on a recent afternoon. He was calling from one of his homes, an hour outside of London, bemoaning the decline of taste and intellect. “The platform shoe is evil—ghastly,” he sniffed. “Sometimes I feel like I’m not really a part of the world.” Fortunately for women who are, Blahnik, the self-styled “borderless shoemaker” born in the Canary Islands to a Czech father and a Spanish mother, has forged his own contrary path and continues to find plenty to get excited about. “Why not?” he asks. “I’m always looking to the future. Maybe tomorrow is better.” A pioneer whose namesake brand…

One of the few times Michael Musto ever woke up early in the 1980s was to head to an interview for a gossip and nightlife columnist job at The Village Voice. “I was just a wreck, because I hadn’t existed in the morning for quite some time at that point,” he says. But he got the gig and continued a mostly nocturnal existence for the next few decades, documenting the dirt and glamour of New York City’s downtown scene. In the world of “La Dolce Musto,” as his column was titled, club kids, drag queens, and tabloid fixtures were every bit as noteworthy as pop stars and models. Often, they were partying together at the clubs Musto frequented anyway. “I’m not just always talking about the past,” says Musto, who…

Horror films had a tough few decades. From the 1980s until recently, movies featuring a murderous doll, a ghostly presence, or a creepy neighbor with a taste for revenge had been mostly relegated to the realm of C-list actors, ham-fisted dialogue, and predictable plots. Now the genre is a cultural force to be reckoned with. Thanks to a mix of box-office hits with crossover appeal, prestige projects with top-tier directors and major stars, and creatively ambitious indies, horror movies have become essential communal experiences that spark important conversations while delivering a whole lot of fun. “The idea of what horror is is expanding,” says Meg Hafdahl, an author who has written 11 books on the genre. “As a community, we’re learning, ‘Oh, horror isn’t just a girl falling and she’s topless…

Michael Stewart isn’t into mood boards. “I’m not one for putting hundreds of images up; it does my head in,” says the designer. Instead, there’s just one black and white picture in his small studio in East London, tacked on a wall just over the shoulder of a mannequin pinned with a sweeping white gown. It’s of a dolmen—a Neolithic tomb—in Donegal, Ireland. A giant flat rock is propped up on two others: a piece of what Stewart calls “pure elemental design,” or a fragment of an ancient culture that has somehow survived, and that is able to generate awe thousands of years later. There are standing stones throughout Ireland, including in County Clare, the rural western area where Stewart grew up. They set the tone—and inspired the name—for his label,…