Table of contents for Winter 2026 in Vanity Fair

The Olympic program is never static. Nagano ’98 saw the introduction of snowboarding, now a quadrennial staple, while recent editions of the Summer Games have ushered in the likes of surfing and breaking—the latter of which won’t be returning, despite the memorable exploits of an Australian known as Raygun. Milano Cortina continues that tradition with the debut of ski mountaineering, or “skimo,” a multidisciplinary sport requiring its competitors to traverse a mountain both uphill and down. “You have to be strong, you have to be fast, and you have to be a really, really good skier,” says Catie Friend, who will serve as the English-speaking venue announcer for skimo at this year’s Winter Games. “It’s an all-around showcase of the sport at large.” The skimo races at this year’s Olympics—a…

It was 4 p.m. on a Thursday, and the Technology Brothers had a gong problem. John Coogan and Jordi Hays had justwrapped a taping of their daily cult-favorite podcast, TBPN (short for Technology Business Programming Network), when they realized their 36-inch gong—which they ring to commemorate the fundraising triumphs of their start-up-world guests—was no longer cutting it. They had already blown through two smaller models. Now the towering ceiling of their new Hollywood soundstage was making even the 36-inch set piece feel diminutive. “The Hadrian gong would be a great sponsorship,” Coogan mused. He was referring to the defense tech manufacturer that had announced a $260 million series C on the show that afternoon. Alas, Hadrian had already run the numbers: TBPN’s dream gong wouldn’t fit in the machines the…

On the morning of November 4, 2025, an off-year Election Day, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles was meeting in the Oval Office with the president and his top advisers, men she calls her “core team”: Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff. The agenda was twofold: ending the congressional filibuster and forcing Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro from power. As she related it later, President Donald Trump was holding forth on the filibuster when Wiles stood up and started for the door. Trump eyed her. “Is this an emergency, that you have to leave?” he demanded. It was nothing of the sort—but Wiles left Trump guessing. She replied: “It’s an emergency. It doesn’t involve you.” With that, according to Wiles,…

THE PINUP AND THE PIMP Before it was a horror story, it was a fairy tale. Once upon a time (in 1978) in a Podunk town (Coquitlam, on the outskirts of Vancouver) lived a young girl named Dorothy Hoogstraten. Dorothy, 17, a high school senior, was working her usual shift at a local Dairy Queen when in walked the Big Bad Wolf: Paul Snider, 26, in a floor-length mink, lizard-skin boots, and a Star of David necklace, diamond-encrusted. He was dressed like a pimp because he was a pimp, if an unsuccessful pimp so far. (The year before, he’d moved to LA, got himself a gold limo, a stable of girls, but the girls hadn’t made him enough money—one girl, a thief, even cost him money—the reason he’d moved back…

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Taking an overnight train in Europe. On what occasion do you lie? When I want to sleep with someone. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? “Can’t make your dinner party because I have COVID.” Which historical figure do you most identify with? “Shoeless Joe” Jackson. What is your greatest fear? My children dying before me. Which living person do you most admire? Woody Allen. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Craving the kind of success I pretend to despise. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Using knowledge as a weapon. What is your greatest extravagance? Basking in a modesty I don’t possess. What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Conspicuous humility. What do you…

DARA ALLEN “TEYANA TAYLOR HAS ARRIVED,” P. 66 Allen, the fashion director of Interview magazine and a model, styled Teyana Taylor for the cover. “It’s incredible when shoots can respond to the moment, offering sensitivity or perspective,” says Allen, who is no stranger to styling fashionable risk-takers like Addison Rae and Hunter Schafer. “The most beautiful way to depict hope is to acknowledge what it takes to hold onto it during hardship. Teyana embodied that delicate tension with conviction and grace.” JULIA BLACK “O TECH BROS, WHERE ART THOU?,” P. 34 VF correspondent Black’s introduction to the Technology Brothers began when they dedicated an entire segment of their daily podcast to mocking one of her stories. The fact that she kept watching is a testament to just how entertaining—and informative—they…

For 70 years, Rupert Murdoch hid from confrontation. He fired his mentor by letter, divorced a wife by email, and used one child to fire another. But in a sterile Nevada courtroom in September 2024, the 93-year-old mogul’s money and power couldn’t protect him any longer. He would finally face his estranged children under oath. In early December 2023, Rupert unilaterally altered the irrevocable family trust to install his son Lachlan as his successor. Murdoch’s other adult children from his first two marriages—Prudence, Elisabeth, and James—sued to block the change. The lawsuit set up the final courtroom battle in a long-waged war to decide, once and for all, who would control his empire following his death. Discovery had been like an autopsy of a family’s slow death. Depositions became an…

More than anything, Elias Medini, a 26-year-old fashion critic–cum–content creator–slash–model, needed to see Jonathan Anderson’s first Dior Men show last summer in Paris. “I wanted to witness what I thought was going to be fashion history,” he says. Except Lyas, as Medini is known online, was not invited. Lyas instead asked friends to watch it at his favorite bar, Le Saint Denis. He brought his own TV. Approximately 350 people came. “They just want to gather and share their love for fashion,” he says, “and see it together at the same time.” The best parties are unsanctioned. For Fashion Week in the fall, he upgraded to a larger venue, La Caserne, a fashion incubator with a courtyard, and christened it La Watchparty. A massive wooden re-creation of his MacBook broadcasts…

Zohran Mamdani and Rama Duwaji rode the subway during rush hour to their wedding. Kara McCurdy, the photographer who captured their New York City nuptials, thinks about that a lot now: “It’s crazy to think if we tried to do this today—because we can’t go anywhere with this guy,” she says, acknowledging the stratospheric rise of the mayor’s public profile. But onto the N and W and then 4 and 5 lines they went on a rainy February morning, Duwaji holding a bouquet that Mamdani got her minutes before from an Astoria flower shop as McCurdy snapped them amid wall-to-wall morning commuters. “We get onto this really, really, really, really, really, really mobbed train,” McCurdy says. “I look up and Rama is just like—goo-goo eyes. Only eyes for Zohran. It…

Few flavors of pedant are as irritating as the syntax scold, those humorless hall monitors who smirk as they tell total strangers what nonplussed actually means. So everyone confuses literal with figurative; literally, who cares? It gives me no pleasure to join their ranks. But I can no longer stay silent—because as a culture, we’ve totally lost the plot on what a nepo baby is. The term has been inescapable since 2022, when 25-year-old Canadian @MeriemIsTired tweeted how shocked she was to learn that Euphoria star Maude Apatow is “a nepotism baby” because her mother is Leslie Mann, while her father is “a movie director lol.” To Gen Z readers, the most astonishing part of that message wasn’t that @MeriemIsTired had never heard of Judd Apatow—it was the reveal of…

You already know how the story ends. On July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr.—the son of JFK and Jackie O—and his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, died when the small plane John was flying crashed somewhere off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. Carolyn’s older sister, Lauren, was also on the plane and perished in the crash as well. It took five days for authorities to recover their bodies from the ocean floor. That’s the tragic conclusion Ryan Murphy’s newest TV series inevitably hurtles toward—and also where it begins. Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette opens with the doomed couple’s rather mundane final moments on the ground. Carolyn switches her nail color from a bold red to a blander shade; John hobbles out of his George magazine office wearing…

James landed on Martha’s Vineyard just before 2 p.m. He drove down our driveway in a Jeep our caretaker had left for him at the airport, a model similar to the one he’d driven onto the ferry a month earlier. He walked up the brick path to our door. He wore a mask, so I couldn’t see his whole face, but my first thought was that he seemed happy, his step brisk and optimistic. He was carrying an empty duffel bag over his shoulder. He said he had only 90 minutes until he had to return to the airport. We gathered in the living room, on the side we rarely used, where two white couches flanked a large coffee table. I sat between the girls on one of the couches,…