ELLE UK

What makes a memorable summer? For me, it’s music, which sits high on my list alongside experiences and travel. When I recall my endlessly social summer of ’22, my first as editor of ELLE UK, Beyoncé’s entire Renaissance album and Wizkid’s wildly popular single ‘Essence’ will never not play in my mind. Going back further to the summer of ’12, it’s Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’ (listened to on repeat during those early months with my then newborn son) that stands out. This issue, we’re celebrating the cultural signifiers of summer – the music, books, films and fashion that transport us – and the women behind them, from our cover stars, the perennially cool Californian sister act Haim (page 64), to a wave of authors, agents and publishers (page 110), including Candice…

PAGE 76 AMY FAYE Nothing thrills Senegalese model Amy Faye more about the Dakar fashion scene than the energy. ‘People are so passionate about what they are doing, you can feel it, and it’s so exciting,’ she says. Faye splits her time between Paris and New York, and her career highlights reflect her international status: ‘As a young girl from Dakar, I had the opportunity to do New York, Milan and Paris fashion weeks, work with clients like Balmain and Thom Browne, and I closed a show for Jean Paul Gaultier.’ Amy features in ‘The new wave’. PAGE 118 NOSHEEN IQBAL It’s difficult for the journalist and host of The Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast Nosheen Iqbal to choose her favourite commission: ‘Hanging out with Kanye West for a day was fun, going on tour…

THERE WAS A HINT, THE MOMENT CHLOË SEVIGNY STEPPED OUT on the Proenza Schouler catwalk dressed, quietly but assertively, in a wasp-like black blazer and a white Oxford shirt over a straight leather wrap skirt and slouchy boots, that fashion was about to undergo a profound shift. That monochromatic look, and the line-up of herringbone-tweed coats, shearling-swathed black leather moto jackets and other tried-and-true wardrobe staples that followed, was a marked departure from the fringed bra tops and semitransparent macramé skirts that designers Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez conjured up for their SS23 collection. ‘We’re tired of all this fantasy and Instagram clothes,’ they said backstage. They wanted to return to making real garments, for real women. Thank God. Fashion, riding the wave of post-lockdown jubilation in the West and eager to…

wear: Dive deeper Swimwear takes centre-stage this season. Scuba-inspired shapes came down the catwalk at Marine Serre and Priscavera, but for a poolside look with a side order of Y2K nostalgia, see Roxy’s ‘Blue Crush’-inspired collaboration with Kate Bosworth. Surf’s up. go see: LINA GHOTMEH’S PAVILION Don’t miss this year’s Serpentine Pavilion by Paris-based Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh. The structure – called À table – was inspired by the idea of sitting down together for a meal, and creates a sense of unified space that invites human interaction. read: Crook Manifesto Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead is back with a continuation of Ray Carney’s story in his new book ‘Crook Manifesto’, out this month, which reveals 1970s New York in all its seedy glory. Beach reads just got darker. buy: Simon Miller x Mango West Coast…

LONDON-BASED WOMENSWEAR DESIGNER KAROLINE VITTO vividly remembers the beauty standards of her native Brazil that surrounded her as a teenager. ‘Images of Gisele Bündchen were frequently in magazines, on TV and billboards. This svelte, tall, blonde, blue-eyed supermodel wasn’t a reflection of the women around me,’ she explains. ‘We were all aspiring to be like this woman and it didn’t make sense.’ Now, Vitto uses her work to counter those images, creating clothes that accentuate curves and celebrate the body parts many women might try to hide – namely, fat rolls and cellulite. It all began with The Body As Material, her thesis collection, which she produced for her master’s degree at the Royal College of Art in 2019. ‘I highlighted areas of the body that we are afraid of showing,’…

A LOT HAS CHANGED IN THE FILM industry since Lizzy Caplan played the now-iconic loner Janice Ian in the Y2K cult classic Mean Girls, 19 years ago. ‘Being a goth back then didn’t lead to much more than playing a best friend,’ she says. ‘Now, there are shows like Wednesday.’ Hollywood has fallen for the antihero, and Caplan is ready to capitalise on it. First up is the lead role in the newly released eight-part update of the psychological thriller Fatal Attraction from Paramount+. Caplan takes the role of Alex Forrest, famously played by Glenn Close in the 1987 film – but there are stark differences between the then-and-now stories, not least the more nuanced approach to Forrest’s mental health in the 2023 series. This is something Caplan is thankful for: ‘It’s…