ELLE February 2022

1 LENS CRAFTER Robert Mapplethorpe made his name with photography, but lesser known is the jewelry the artist created early in his career. Gaia Repossi, a longtime fan of his work (his 1981 photograph Puerto Rico hangs in her Paris studio and was her first art acquisition), was invited by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to create a collection inspired by the pieces, which were primarily made from beads and objets trouvés. Expect varying shades of gold that call to mind the contrasts of black-and-white photography. Rings, Repossi/Robert Mapplethorpe, Gagosian Shop, NYC. 2 LEGS FOR DAYS Shanel Campbell has created custom garments for Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, and Solange Knowles, and Bed on Water, her collection of ready-to-wear and accessories, is perfectly in tune with that Hollywood glamour. Amid stellar silk bodysuits and separates…

Who isn’t ready for a warm-weather getaway? This season, designers brought the sunshine any way they knew how, whether it was Proenza Schouler’s Grecian gowns in shades from sunflower yellow to fiery orange, or Rabih Kayrouz’s shimmering gold lamé maxidress fit for a sun goddess. Still snowed in? It’s easy to bring the tropical feeling home with Disco Lab’s new riff on the lava lamp, Klimchi’s classic hobnail glass vase in amber, or simply a box of persimmons overnighted from California-based Frog Hollow Farm. The ultimate splurge: a work from abstract painter Loie Hollowell. Whatever you do, don’t forget SPF. Soleil Toujours’s tinted Mineral Ally Daily Defense SPF 50 has you covered, in a sheer formula to suit any skin tone. KLIMCHI VASE: MICHAL KERTÉSZ; SUNSET: INTERPHOTO/ALAMY; PERSIMMONS: KAYLEE KUTER; HORIZON…

"Good morning, Gorgeous. I love you. I got you. I need you.” That’s what Mary J. Blige says when looking in the mirror every morning, and it’s a ritual we all might want to adopt. Our cover star, who named her new album Good Morning Gorgeous after that mirror affirmation, wasn’t always that supremely confident. As she tells Beauty E-Commerce Editor Nerisha Penrose, “I didn’t feel beautiful—like for real for real…until about 2016.” But even as a young girl growing up in Yonkers, New York, Blige always recognized the power of beauty as a means of self-reinvention. Long before her albums went multiplatinum, she went platinum blonde, at a time when tired stereotypes about Black hair dominated the conversation. “I won’t say hair gave me strength. I’d say I give…

1 The BAG In artfully draped lavender velvet, Loewe’s Goya clutch is an aptly named, museum-worthy showpiece. 2 The SHOE With its slightly retro rounded toe, Christian Louboutin’s Betty slingback feels tailor-made for a modern-day bombshell. 3 The EARRING Louis Vuitton’s rainbow-hued high jewelry stunners are a colorful reminder that spring is just around the corner.…

WHEN OSCAR ISAAC KISSED his way up Jessica Chastain’s arm at the Venice Film Festival, he awakened a sea of starved onlookers. Those few seconds on the red carpet quenched the public’s thirst, and they suddenly knew what they’d been missing. The moment tapped into a larger conversation about the dearth of true sensuality in popular media: You’d be hard-pressed to come up with anything from the last few decades that resounds with a true sensual nature. There are not too many moments that could compare to the slow-burning fire in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, when Madame Olenska touches Newland Archer’s knee with her fan: “It was the lightest touch, but it thrilled him like a caress,” Wharton writes. Or the high-octane pairing in Singin’ in the Rain,…

Directly below the Manhattan Bridge, on the mostly-vacant second floor of a Chinatown mall, there is a highly curated array of eveningwear at the vintage mecca James Veloria. When they were first released in the late ’90s and early aughts, many of these garments would have been displayed in gleaming department stores. But now, surrounded by tinsel and jewel-toned faux fur, these Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, and Todd Oldham gems have taken on new life—due in large part to TikTok’s ravenous appetite for Y2K-era fashion. This past summer, before the store moved into its new space down the hall from the original, lines wound through the empty mall’s corridors. “Everyone was like, ‘Oh, we saw it on TikTok,’ ” says co-owner Brandon Veloria Giordano. “I feel like we maybe went viral,…