Table of contents for April 2026 in Harper's Bazaar

YOU KNOW THE OLD SAYING “There’s no time like the present”? One gets the sense that there truly has never been a time like now. What we’re living through is less a moment than a mood: charged, unstable, insistently alive. The present tense has become its own aesthetic: immediate, raw, a little feral. It’s baked into the way we scroll, stream, protest, love, hate, process. The planet is warming. The culture is morphing. Our senses of freedom, independence, sovereignty, responsibility, and humanity have been tossed up like plates and are suspended, spinning, precariously in midair. To be alive right now is to exist in a state of extremes: of radical abundance and shocking scarcity, of collapse and reinvention, of pure exhilaration and utter dread. The systems we’ve inherited—around art, beauty,…

WHY DON’T YOU … DRESS for the weather you want? There is a reason people have always associated spring fashion with magnificent optimism. It is essentially wishful thinking elevated to an art form. Think about the swirly ’60s prints of Julian Klausner’s Dries Van Noten this season or the more-is-more collections of Henry Zankov. Their palettes beg you to see the cup half full! Chloe King, the director of fashion and lifestyle at Saks Global, is the poster child for this sort of radical thinking. Even during winter’s most frigid temps and spring’s rainiest days, King is a cacophony of clashing colors and asymmetric cuts. “I’ll be pairing my weather-be-damned outfits with an opulent opera coat,” King says. “Etsy is bursting with vintage options, and New York made-to-order brand One Of…

THE STRAIGHT LEG This gold-standard cut shines when paired with a slightly oversize tailored blazer. WHY DON’T YOU…? Anchor straight legs with CHIC FLATS, top off barrels with SLEEK BOOTIES, and soften statement jeans with VELVET SANDALS. THE BARREL LEG A more rounded shape adds a cool bent to a collared shirt and suit jacket. THE STATEMENT JEAN Amp up your wardrobe with a more directional pair that’s embellished, embroidered, or printed. THE TECHNICOLOR WASH Pair your most beloved basics with denim in vivid hues like cobalt, bright red, and green. THE WIDE LEG Investing in a slouchier jean is always a good idea—as is wearing it belted with a sharp jacket. THE MINISKIRT The Y2K-era staple is back, but this time with a more grown-up sensibility. WHY DON’T YOU…?…

THE WHITE STRIPES’ anthem “Seven Nation Army” never fails to have a Proustian effect on Bianca Jebbia. Every time she hears it, Jebbia flashes back to the first time she walked into the Marni boutique on Mercer Street in New York. More than two decades later, she recalls entering a futuristic gallery of fashion, with clothes suspended from chrome rails as seriously as fine art, and Jack White screeching on the stereo—as he was in most places circa 2003—and being struck by an immediate, almost cosmic certainty: “This is what I want to be when I grow up.” By this she means not just a woman who wears Marni but an actual item from the Marni Spring 2003 collection. For Jebbia, this was love at first sight. But alas, it…

What ur bod is telling you about your hormones!” reads the text overlay on a TikTok of a gorgeous young woman with long blond hair standing in a barn. She slaps at her inner thighs and abdomen, mentioning boxiness and bloating, neither of which is visible on her. “Everybody’s got a little bit of a hormone imbalance going on,” she says. “But if you have a drastic hormone imbalance, it can be a living hell.” She pulls a teal-colored drink into the frame, saying a “super holistic friend” told her to drink it for its “hormonal-balancing vitamins and minerals.” You can, obviously, buy it through her link. The concept of hormone imbalance, manifesting in shouty captions and too many hashtags about perimenopause or cortisol face or estrogen dominance, is all…

WHY DON’T YOU…? PAIR a ruched or fringed DRESS with sharp TROUSERS in a coordinating COLOR.…

FRAN LEBOWITZ to WEIGH IN on the CONCEPT of NOW. But that was THEN, and this is … a NEWER and (even) more FRAUGHT MOMENT. So we asked for her APPRAISAL on the CURRENT STATE of affairs: WHAT’S CHANGED, WHAT HASN’T, and why REVENGE is BEST SERVED when it DOESN’T DESTROY the foundations of WESTERN DEMOCRACY. Then I BELIEVE pretty strongly that there is no now now. Because we live in an era—or you can say a moment, but it’s unfortunately longer than a moment—where things are not now. They’re either then or when. There doesn’t seem to be a present. WHEN PEOPLE SAY revenge isn’t worth it, it’s not the best human response, that may be true. But I will tell you that any time I’ve been able to…

It’s a beautiful day in Lauren Halsey’s neighborhood. The fog that rolls off the Pacific onto Southern California’s beach cities rarely, if ever, touches what used to be called South Central, the area of Los Angeles immortalized in Boyz n the Hood, Menace II Society, Snowfall, and Middle of Nowhere—which South Central most definitely is not. Smogless sun slaps down from dawn on, and this morning it’s not only reflecting off the tiny gold busts of Nefertiti crowded on Halsey’s delicate earlobes, it’s warming her new extraordinary courtyard, her funkdified quadrangle, her reimagined town square. We’re standing by one of six soon-to-be-activated water features in the 38-year-old artist’s epic new installation sister dreamer: lauren halsey’s architectural ode to tha surge n splurge of south central los angeles. It’s a monument…

FEATURED TRACKS 1 “TRUTH OR DARE” Tyla 2 “FAME IS A GUN” Addison Rae 3 “FOLDED” Kehlani 4 “CAMGIRL >.< !!!” Villano Antillano 5 “DTMF” Bad Bunny 6. “KISSING IN PUBLIC” Destin Conrad 7. “ME & U” Tems 8. “NOT CUTE ANYMORE” Illit 9. “THOOTIE” Ice Spice feat. Tokischa 10. “NIGHT OFF” Isaiah Falls and Sasha Keable 11. “FLATLINE” Justin Bieber 12. “MUTT” Leon Thomas 13. “YUKON” Justin Bieber 14. “HEAVENLY” Judeline and Rusowsky 15. “HOES BE MAD” Cash Cobain and BunnaB Listen to Young Miko’s full playlist exclusively on Apple Music. “They’re all SONGS that are super FUN and UNIQUE, but they’re also about VULNERABILITY—CHOOSING oneself as an act of REBELLION,” says Young Miko. The 28-year-old Puerto Rican singer and rapper, born María Victoria Ramírez de Arellano Cardona, burst…

WHY DON’T YOU…? Smarten up a LONG SHORT with a HIGH-VAMP PUMP.…

Maxim’s is a Paris institution. Founded in 1893 and famous for it gilded belle-epoque interiors, it’s a place where artists, aristocrats, and the style swirl have shared dinners and danced under art-nouveau stained glass and mirrored panels since the dawn of café society. It is also part of Harper’s Bazaar history: Richard Avedon famously photographed Audrey Hepburn at the second-floor bar in an embroidered knee-length Dior cocktail dress for the September 1959 issue. On this January afternoon, Maxim’s is hosting something different, more modern. It’s La Watch Party, a Fashion Month phenomenon orchestrated by 27-year-old French creator Elias Medini, more popularly known as Lyas. The occasion is the Valentino couture show. I’m squeezed in with more than 500 fashion fans, shoulder to shoulder, clutching my phone, inhaling secondhand cigarette smoke,…

Taking this issue’s theme—“Now”—as a filter for where to go right now was an opportunity to focus tightly on three incredible destinations and the highly anticipated new properties opening in each spot. While it’s true that Kyoto has fully entered the zeitgeist—the city, home to Japan’s emperors for more than 1,000 years, has become popular, thanks to its Zen gardens and ancient Shinto shrines with vermillion-red torii gates—it shouldn’t deter a visit. The recently opened Imperial Hotel in the historic Gion district is part of a beloved old-school Japanese luxury chain that is not as well-known outside the country. (Its Tokyo property was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.) Imperial was entrusted with transforming Kyoto’s landmark Yasaka Kaikan theater into an urban retreat with 55 rooms. The interiors are subdued and…