To everything there is a season, and for fragrance that moment is now. At a time of turnover—beachwear out! fall coats in!—it only makes sense to refresh the olfactory cloud that accompanies us into the world each day and, ever so faintly, back home again. The challenge lies in the choosing, but this shopping guide aims to crack the code. Here, we’ve zeroed in on 10 favorite scents, distilling the character of each into a composite portrait that blends travel destination, beauty icon, and runway look.

Have you been dreaming of an art-pilgrimage road trip that ropes in Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field and Georgia O’Keeffe’s New Mexico home? Consider Loewe’s earthy sandalwood-laced scents (the first under creative director Jonathan Anderson), which are dubbed Man and Woman but invite off-label use. If your androgynous leanings skew toward the irrepressibly cool Tilda Swinton, seek out French designer Philippe Starck’s debut trio, which includes an otherworldly, can’t-put-a-finger-on-it blend for him or her, neither or both.

Not that sex appeal is verboten! Lusting after Hedi Slimane’s nightclub-ready frocks? Try Yves Saint Laurent’s Mon Paris, which sparkles with effervescent notes backed by heady jasmine and datura flower. Or skirt south to the Côte d’Azur and let sillage play matchmaker with the new No. 5 L’Eau (at once fresh and moody, much like campaign girl Lily-Rose Depp).

For those with a taste for freewheeling adventure, channel model Edie Campbell—accomplished equestrienne, fashion darling—and saddle up with Galop d’Hermès, inspired by the house’s brushed suede. And an autumn trip to the Catskills, with soon-to-change leaves and beckoning fireplaces, sounds like the right setting to test out Rag & Bone’s debut collection of fragrances, which include Encens and Cypress. Here’s to wrapping yourself up in one—like the label’s urban-cool knitwear counterparts, these are scents you’ll want to live in.

The post One of These 10 New Perfumes Is Your Next Signature Scent appeared first on Vogue.

The rainbow of pantsuits worn by Hillary Clinton has long been the stuff of derision, then cheeky self-deprecation, and lately Instagram homage. Now you can add flash mob to the list, after 150 or so dancers, clad in the presidential candidate’s two-piece of choice, staged a pop-up performance on Sunday in Manhattan’s Union Square Park.

Choreographer-filmmaker Celia Rowlson-Hall and director Mia Lidofsky, who organized the event in less than a week, hosted the party to show solidarity for the candidate. “We’re not just out here to dance—we’re out here to say we support what this woman stands for,” explained Rowlson-Hall, wearing navy pinstripes and a The Future Is Female T-shirt. To assemble their so-called “pantsuit posse,” the pair reached out to friends and colleagues across the cultural community. Washington, D.C.–based choreographer Crishon Landers, whom Rowlson-Hall recently met on the set of Girls, came on board to cocreate the moves, and filmmaker-cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo oversaw a crew of eight camera people for an accompanying video. As for the exuberant cast, there were principals from the Martha Graham Dance Company, members of Broadway’s Fiddler on the Roof, ballerinas, break-dancers, and even young future voters.

While Clinton is known to be partial to Ralph Lauren and Armani, these admirers’ looks had their own flair, as documented by Vogue.com’s Daniel Arnold. “We’ve cleared every Goodwill and thrift store in New York!” Lidofsky said with a laugh, adding that a network of stylists also contributed trousers and blazers. If the costumes carried a political message, so did the choreography, set to Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling.” Pantomiming the chorus, Rowlson-Hall pointed out subtle gestures linking back to broader issues like reproductive rights, equal pay, solar energy, and #BlackLivesMatter. And as the dancers stretched into arabesque, puffed their lapels, and flipped through the air (reminiscent of Kate McKinnon’s somersault as Clinton on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live), the gathering crowd was reminded of the pantsuit’s inherent practicality—whether for nonstop campaigning or a well-timed shoulder shimmy.

The post Power Moves in Pantsuits: A Hillary Clinton–Inspired Flash-Mob Dance Party Takes Manhattan appeared first on Vogue.

When it comes to safety, often there’s a sizeable gap between knowledge and compliance—between abiding by a bike helmet, say, and going blissfully, recklessly without. Why take the chance, when, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wearing a helmet reduces the risk of head injury by as much as 80 percent? The answer can be boiled down to three common complaints: They’re bulky, hot, and not exactly chic. That’s the short list that Manhattan couple Sujene Kong and Christian Von Heifner came up with eight months ago as they sat down for brunch just after a harrowing taxi collision that sent Von Heifner flying over his handlebars (and landing, luckily, in one piece). “We were so shocked, and we couldn’t stop thinking or talking about it: Why don’t we wear helmets?” recalls Kong, explaining that they quickly borrowed a pen and scratch paper from their server and started sketching. “It’s pretty crazy that, within the next 45 minutes, we more or less developed what we were after with Fend,” says Von Heifner.

The result of that rapid-fire brainstorm session—a novel, collapsible helmet design—launches today on Kickstarter, with plans for the first crowdfunded products to arrive late next spring. If their company, Fend, got off the ground in record time, it helps that each partner brings complementary experience to the table: Kong has logged time in the merchandising and accessories divisions at Burberry, Saint Laurent, and Jimmy Choo; Von Heifner, an industrial designer and mechanical engineer, most recently launched a health startup. “I have a 3-D printer at the house and the software to develop the engineering side of it, so we had a working prototype within a week,” he says of their nimble beginnings. They then set about refining the details, including an impact-resistant ribbed shell and a proprietary joint system that enables the helmet to fold to just a third of its size. They’ve teamed with factories in China that manufacture other well-regarded helmet brands, and Fend’s version is on target to clear both American and European regulations (final certification comes toward the end of the production cycle). While the very phrase “collapsible helmet” might have an oxymoronic ring to it, Von Heifner puts any qualms to rest: “At the end of the day, safety is number one.”

Of course, looks are a close second. Borrowing a page from the early iPhone playbook, the Fend helmet comes in black or white. “Very clean and minimal,” says Kong, pointing out the airy, breathable construction. Von Heifner also calls out a Scandinavian influence—a kinship that speaks to the region’s love for both streamlined aesthetics and bicycles. (In that spirit of commuter-friendly riding, Fend is in talks to partner with an urban rideshare program.) If it all sounds too good to be true, there is at least one hiccup: Delivery is still months away. But sturdy things come to those who wait.

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Fend helmet, $120
fendhelmet.com

Photo: Courtesy of Fend

The post Can Bike Helmets Be Cool? Fend’s Collapsible Design Is Poised to Be a Game Changer appeared first on Vogue.

Agnes Martin, the influential painter who quietly carved out a place among the Minimalist and Abstract Expressionist artists of her generation, remains front of mind for many visually minded people a dozen years after her death. Her striped canvases in washed-out pastels and graphite dot the Instagram feeds and inspiration boards of countless fashion labels (The Row, Land of Women), and today COS debuts a 12-piece, limited-edition homage to the painter, timed with the opening of her long-awaited retrospective at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. But there’s another way to bask in those hazy, transcendent hues—say, with a swipe of NARS Cosmetics’s new Rigel eyeshadow (itself a composition of stripes). Set against bare, fresh skin, it’s the sort of whispered statement that invites further reflection, not to mention a trip uptown to Martin’s show.

Consider that just the start to your art-minded itinerary this weekend. Color stories ripe for the borrowing also turn up at two other standout shows devoted to female abstract painters. Downtown at the Whitney, the rigorously spare canvases of the Cuban-born Carmen Herrera—still regularly working in her studio at 101—might spark a newfound appreciation for crisp, modern cat-eyes. As she once said, “I believe that I will always be in awe of the straight line. Its beauty is what keeps me painting.” While acrylic is her medium of choice, yours might be the Sketch Marker liquid liners by Too Faced, available in a rainbow of shades including a green seemingly plucked from Herrera’s Blanco y Verde series.

Meanwhile, the Studio Museum in Harlem pays tribute to the late Alma Thomas, a trailblazing African-American artist who used paint with the expressive precision of a mosaicist. Her saturated palette—evoking cherry blossoms, scarlet azaleas, and the night sky—sets the stage for a bold lip to match, and Dior’s Rouge Dior collection delivers. Along with rich plums, corals, and reds, there’s an inky blue for those who dare to color outside the norm.

The post This Weekend’s 3 Must-See Art Exhibitions—And the Beauty Looks to Match appeared first on Vogue.

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Tonight, televisions in living rooms and sports bars, radios in taxis and 18-wheelers, and live-streams on laptops and phones will all be tuned to the most riveting reality show in the country, by which we mean the second presidential debate. It will undoubtedly be a trying experience for many. The first time around, on September 26, some viewers turned to drinking games and others to silent meditation—or at least a mute-button version of it, testing the longstanding theory that you can judge the outcome through body language alone. This evening, we propose a different coping strategy, one that promises to ease hyperactive expression lines, calm stress-induced inflammation, and counteract free radicals (if not the one on-screen).

We’re talking, of course, about face masks. The goal is to encourage relaxation—but the skin-saving benefits only start there. Verso’s aptly named Intense mask (as we all know the debate will be) aims to promote collagen production and even skin tone, thanks to a retinol-boosted hydrogel. The new small-batch natural brand, OY-L—whose name might coincidentally be muttered throughout the evening—has just launched an Exfoliating mask fortified with healing manuka honey and hemp-seed oil. For those who prefer their bees by way of upstate New York, Farmacy has just launched a version that melts into a creamy, calming consistency and harnesses the antioxidant powers of supercharged echinacea.

Looking for a multitasking product with a reach-across-the-aisle sensibility? Odacité’s Synergie offers a quartet of benefits, including cleared pores (clays, activated charcoal) and renewed radiance (papaya enzymes, fruit acids). And Dr. Dennis Gross’s innovative Modeling mask—a blend-it-yourself formula with a rubbery texture and bright aqua color—not only delivers deep hydration via a combination of hyaluronic acid and marine algae, it also promises to put at least some viewers in a blue state of mind.

The post Why #DebateMasking Tonight Is the Solution to Your Election-Induced Expression Lines appeared first on Vogue.

Fragrance campaigns often spin a make-believe narrative—two models caught in a budding romance, say, or a sly nod to postcoital languor. But Penhaligon’s new Portraits collection lays out a very different sort of olfactory fiction, one that seems to draw on the Jane Austen canon and Downton Abbey, with a dash of the cult-classic murder mystery Clue thrown in.

This is a family of perfumes in the most literal sense: Each of the four scents plays the role (and takes the name) of a colorful personage in an aristocratic household. The Tragedy of Lord George tells of a patriarch confident in lineage, if aloof in marriage—a combination that translates to a woodsy mix laced with brandy, tonka bean, and shaving soap. Next comes The Revenge of Lady Blanche: While she carries a certain refinement and nobility—expressed in a lilting green floral, pairing narcissus and hyacinth—that outward finesse conceals an inner fire. The Coveted Duchess Rose, their just-wed daughter, has a scent to match her blossoming state of being, with musk and mandarin lending weight to her namesake flower. Rounding out the quartet is Much Ado About the Duke, a rich rose bouquet warmed up with leathery, peppery undertones, evoking the theater-loving dandy she (somewhat reluctantly) calls her husband.

If all that elaborate characterization adds up to more than the typical litany of fragrance notes, it follows that the packaging doubles down on personality, too. Each bottle comes topped with a gilded head—stag and panther for Lord and Lady; hound and fox for Duke and Duchess—which collectively nods to hunting-lodge taxidermy and royal menageries. And if those spirit animals and the gendered backstories seem too prescriptive, rest assured that the blends inside are subject to creative interpretation. After all, the next chapter in this winding tale is yours to write.

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Penhaligon’s Portraits Collection, $240 each
penhaligons.com

Photo: Courtesy of Penhaligon's

The post This New British Perfume Collection Delivers Downton Abbey–Esque Intrigue appeared first on Vogue.

Addison Timlin’s character arc in her new film, Little Sister, can be summed up in a single gesture: when she rights the upside down cross in her goth teenage bedroom to reflect her newfound reality as a pious nun-to-be. But there’s another shorthand indication of that about-face: the Manic Panic and black lipstick she pulls out of a dresser drawer.

“Colleen is really an anomaly, having two such contrasting personalities,” says Timlin of her role in director Zach Clark’s wry and intimate movie. We first meet Colleen—an escapee from dysfunctional family life finding solace in a convent—as she’s summoned home at a time of crisis. Her older brother has returned from combat, disfigured from the neck up, largely silent but for percussive tirades on the drums. It takes a retrograde makeover—highlighter-pink hair and Marilyn Manson–esque makeup—for his sister to break through. “That rescue mission she goes on to bring him out of his shell is so lovely,” Timlin recalls of the pivotal scene involving Gwar blaring from a boom box and a bowlful of red Jell-O. (That her mother is played by Ally Sheedy, who famously underwent her own makeover in The Breakfast Club, couldn’t be more perfect. “She’s so wild at heart and so open and so intuitive—she’s just such a badass!” says Timlin.)

The power of a bold hair transformation is not lost on Timlin, who went candy-apple red at age 9 for the national tour of Annie and has been experimenting along the spectrum ever since. With that in mind, we caught up with the actress, currently shooting her next film, When I’m a Moth, in Vancouver, to talk about the ultimate makeup wipes, her devotion to L.A.’s underground dance scene, and whether her Little Sister character might spark Halloween ideas: “It would be nothing short of an honor!”

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Photo: Courtesy of Addison Timlin / @addison.timlin

Little Sister opens with you in a convent, the picture of piety. What was it like to inhabit that restrained styling?
I’m a very small person, 5 feet tall, so I felt kind of drowned in everything: button-down shirts and cardigans and long skirts down to the floor. I liked having that tool as an actor—even though I was so covered up, it made me feel really vulnerable and out of place.

Back at home, everyone is surprised to see you without your goth persona, but it’s your brother’s line—“You look different”—that resonates most.
I love that line so much because it feels like a cheeky wink to the whole thing, and it’s heartbreaking at the same time. That is a big part of the film: what you present as your exterior self versus who you really are, and how that evolves over time. For her, going back into this goth makeup and the pink hair is not dishonest. I think she honors the truth of who she once was, and then there’s the sheer joy she finds in realizing that she can be both.

It’s rare to see the pivotal scene in a film driven by hair and makeup.
Hair and makeup and interpretative dance! The only things that were really in [the script] were the baby dolls and the Jell-O, and then I was free to do whatever I wanted. Dancing is my favorite recreational activity, but I kind of wished that I’d had a choreographed dance so that I didn’t have to be like, “This is me!” But it was so fun to be that silly and childlike.

Your goth makeup is full-on.
It’s a really harsh look, that white-out face with the black eyes and black lips. But I never, ever complained, because Keith [Poulson, who plays her brother] was going through three hours of makeup every single day!

Any secrets to getting it all off?
Just a lot of cotton balls and lotion and those Neutrogena face wipes. They are so great. I hope they send me a lifetime supply! [laughs]

Was that Manic Panic pink hair yours?
It’s a wig. I really wanted to Manic Panic my hair, but because the narrative jumps so much, there was no way for us to cohesively piece that together, unless we shot all the pink scenes and then all the dark scenes. But it was fun to be able to put on different wigs and know where Colleen was [mentally], what state she was in.

Hair color changes aren’t new to you: You went bright red at age 9 for Annie. How did you react to that?
I was thrilled. I took my job very seriously as a child, which is a hilarious sentence. I’ll never forget it. My hair was so red that if you shined a light on it, it looked purple, and I remember walking out of the salon and being like, “Oh yeah, I am Annie.” I wore it as a badge of honor.

Are you experimental these days with color?
I still am. That’s the really cool part about what I do: Every character will be imagined as some sort of look. I did a movie last year in which I had super-short cropped bleached hair; then Little Sister, with a muted brown color; then it was Winona-’90s black hair; and now for this one it’s really long and dirty blonde—I have this gross weave [laughs], but it’s cool. I think I have a certain face or skin tone that can take all these different colors.

Do you have a go-to colorist?
The Meche hair salon [in Los Angeles]. Tracey Cunningham; she’s the best.

You mentioned your love of dancing. Do you take classes in L.A.?
I don’t go to studio classes anymore like when I was a kid; I like Modo Yoga, and I go on hikes with my friends a lot, which is the best. But I have a collection of these really obscure and weird dance nights that I go to like three or four times a week, oftentimes by myself. L.A. is a great city to go dancing. There’s a reggae night that I live for, and there’s this place in Chinatown that I go to like church. Sometimes it’s post-punk ’80s/’90s music, and it’s so magical.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

The post Meet the Actress Behind the Pink-Haired, Goth Makeup–Wearing Nun in Little Sister appeared first on Vogue.

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Hannah and Marian Cheng.

Photo: Nicole Franzen

“Are you full? There are still more dumplings,” Hannah Cheng says encouragingly as I’m nearing the end of my bento box lunch at the new Nolita location of Mimi Cheng’s Dumplings, which opens today. It seems only fitting that she and her younger sister, Marian, also seated around one of the seafoam-blue tables, would treat dumplings as a currency for hospitality. After all, when they opened their original East Village café two years ago, then escapees from the worlds of finance (Hannah) and fashion (Marian), the Taiwanese-style recipes on the menu were none other than their mother’s. During college, the Cheng parents dutifully stocked each daughter’s freezer with dumplings and secret sauce, which lured friends and dorm neighbors. The effect is still the same. “My friend who started Sweetgreen just texted me and said, ‘Dumplings open?’ And I was like, ‘Come by!” Hannah says.

Raised in Rockland County, New York, less than an hour north of Manhattan, the sisters grew up eating vegetables and herbs from their backyard, which their mom reimagined in an ever-changing spread of dishes. Their formerly vegetarian father, for his part, was known to make fresh juices with grab-bag ingredient lists (apple, carrot, pear, and . . . onion). The household’s wellness-centered approach extended beyond food, to things like Chinese herbal medicine, homemade soap with citrus peels, and sun protection. “Oh my gosh, we were the kids at the beach wearing big white T-shirts,” Hannah recalls with a laugh. “I remember a time in Cancún once, where Marian and I were floating in the ocean like jellyfish.”

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The new bento boxes at Mimi Cheng’s Nolita location.

Photo: Courtesy of Kayleigh / @kayleighharrington

That dedication to breaking a sweat translates into a healthy appetite; self-proclaimed “pizzaholics,” they single out the pies at Emily, Roberta’s, and Pasquale Jones. While the sisters’ palate may be wide, their focus on ingredients is precise. They source their pasture-raised pork from Brooklyn’s Fleishers Craft Butchery, and the organic chicken from Pino’s Prime Meats in nearby Soho; the vegetables draw from a collection of nearby farms. Juice fans (if not juice cleansers), they stock bottles of L.A.’s Juice Served Here in the refrigerator case, along with locally made Pilot Kombucha. “The label is beautiful—we’re big suckers for good aesthetics. And [the owner] delivers it personally in her car. It’s awesome,” says Hannah.

That simplicity extends to their beauty routines, beginning with bold shades of lipstick by Bite Beauty: “It’s food-grade, and it stays on forever,” says Hannah. “The W3ll People highlighter is my go-to these days when I’m not sleeping a lot,” adds Marian, giving a shout-out to their West Village stockist CAP Beauty. Fluoride-free toothpaste by Desert Essence and the honey face wash by 2 Note, a Hudson, New York-based line, also get special mention. While their parents, now based in Arizona, have been known to fly to New York with entire checked bags filled with homegrown citrus (so that their daughters can freeze the juice to enjoy all winter long, their mother once explained), the Chengs flew in yesterday with more modest cargo. Their mom packed a jug of orange-peel extract in order to make soap, and their dad brought along his latest healthy concoction: multigrain steamed buns. “It sounds weird: carrot, cranberry, longan, wheat germ?” says Hannah, reading the description off his Instagram caption. “I’ve had them! They’re really good,” Marian responds with a smile.

Mimi Cheng’s Dumplings, 380 Broome Street; mimichengs.com

The post Meet the Workout-Savvy Sisters Behind New York’s Most Stylish Dumpling Shops appeared first on Vogue.

Some of us are impressed when anyone whips off four chin-ups, but leave it to Erin Comstock, the pro snowboarder turned CrossFit coach, to raise the bar. In a video posted last week on Instagram, she gamely accomplishes the task in an electric pink sports bra and black leggings, before turning around to reveal a wide smile and an even wider belly. At 32 weeks pregnant, she redefines the miracle of motherhood-to-be—a notion echoed by the flexed-bicep emojis cheering her on.

“I am constantly learning the power we have with our bodies,” Comstock tells me. After putting on 50 pounds during her first pregnancy, with an accompanying dip into depression, she made it a point to “eat healthier and train harder” this time around. “It has paid off thus far a hundredfold!” she says of the uptick in energy that she partly attributes to her formidable workout schedule (five to six days a week). Amid the current wellness craze and a broader movement toward female empowerment, she’s among the many women who are re-examining the traditional boundaries of pregnancy and carving out their own fitness-minded paths in consultation with their doctors and midwives. (Comstock’s ob-gyn has given her the green light.)

Still, those nine-plus months can be a challenging and unpredictable time, with bouts of nausea and fatigue often mixed in with the excitement and awe. With that in mind, Vogue.com caught up with a group of expectant mothers so in tune with their bodies, they call their workouts work. Here, seven fitness instructors—Anna Kaiser of AKT; Love Yoga’s Chelsea Levy; Bari founder Alexandra Bonetti Pérez; SoulCycle instructor Alejandra Serret; Claudine Lafond of YogaBeyond; Comstock; and SLT’s Allyson Lee Burns, who gave birth to a baby boy two days after we spoke (congratulations!)—offer firsthand perspectives on embracing change, setting boundaries, and maintaining a strong sense of self, not to mention a strong core.

Get Into a Pre-Pregnancy Fitness Groove
All of these women credit a strong baseline fitness level (plus a dose of luck) with the relative ease of their pregnancies. The best way to keep up the momentum during the whirlwind months ahead? Lay the foundation for a solid exercise program before you’re expecting, if possible. “Having a routine where your body craves a workout and your mind is set to exercise at certain times helps you stay on track,” says Kaiser. Comstock agrees, advocating for a community-based structure: “It is very hard to stay self-motivated when you are nauseous, tired, and feeling heavy, but being part of a gym or class will help you stay active and accountable.”

Aim for First-Trimester Workouts—And Trust That the Second Gets Better
While some first trimesters cruise by, others can be notoriously difficult, with fatigue and nausea setting in before it’s time to share the news with colleagues and clients. “Getting myself into the workout was extraordinarily hard—and I love to work out! That’s my job,” Kaiser says, admitting some surprise at the rough start. But it was exactly AKT’s heart-pumping classes­—ranging from dance cardio to toning—that revealed the value in pushing through. “Once you’re there, you feel so much better. It gets rid of the nausea and the exhaustion, and your skin is glowing. You have so much more energy,” she reports, noting that, by the second trimester, an increased blood supply also helps speed recovery. Even Bonetti Pérez’s “horrible” case of morning sickness—a two-month stretch that occasioned trips to the hospital for rehydrating IVs—pivoted on a dime. “Within three days my symptoms were gone, and all of a sudden I felt like a million bucks again,” she explains of the swift return to her trampoline-based Bounce classes. “Now I stick to my workout schedule more than I did pre-pregnancy. You have that extra drive and emotional connection to just be good to your body and to your baby.”

Make Mindful Modifications
With all the changes going on in the body, one in particular warrants special attention: the hormone relaxin. “Its purpose is to soften the connective tissue around the pelvis to prepare your body for labor and birth, but it affects all of your joints,” says Levy, who teaches both prenatal and regular yoga classes. A perceived gain in flexibility—in postures like forward folds and hip openers—might in fact be looser ligaments, so it’s wise to maintain “an awareness of the edges of your body and to stay within those limits when you’re pregnant,” she says. A number of the women have also steered away from twists, crunches, and other superficial ab moves, which can increase the risk for diastasis recti, a separation of the abdominal muscles; Kaiser has instead ramped up deep core work, like diaphragmatic breathing, as well as pelvic-floor exercises. And Lafond, whose Acrovinyasa practice daringly takes yoga off the mat, eased up on inversions in the first trimester (to reduce the chance that the embryo might detach from the uterine wall) and in the third (to avoid the baby shifting out of birth position). That said, all modifications are a personal choice and should be discussed with one’s care providers, she stresses: “I would never want to say that there’s one way to go about pregnancy—what to do and what not to do.”

Find New Ways to Chill Out
With renewed energy comes a drive for business-as-usual sweat sessions, but it’s wise to stay attuned to the body’s ebbs and flows. Serret, never one for midday rests, found that post-SoulCycle power naps helped remedy her first-trimester fatigue. Levy converted her longtime running practice into joint-friendly cardio sessions on the elliptical machine, before segueing to gentler-still swimming—a perk of living in sunny Los Angeles. Even Lee Burns, a “very competitive person” who powered through Barry’s Bootcamp until 33 weeks pregnant, has found the breathing exercises in prenatal yoga to be a welcome change. “Part of me misses the intensity of my hard workouts, but the other part of me enjoys taking a step back,” she says. “And dancing!” adds Lafond. “Not in any sort of formal way, but just putting on music and moving the whole body to stay as fluid as possible.”

Fuel—And Refuel—As Your Body Needs
Aversions and cravings—very real, if not universal—complicate the food aspect of wellness. Serret jokes that her inclinations were what she imagined “a frat boy would want to eat, like big bologna sandwiches with cheese and mayo,” so she devised alternatives like a BLT with turkey bacon and avocado. “I could not look at a vegetable or a piece of meat for, like, three months!” adds Kaiser, who found herself hunting down healthy carbohydrates and turning to protein-rich milk for the first time since she was a kid. It’s worth paying close attention to those cues. “True, authentic cravings are really speaking to you, in a way,” Levy says, pointing out that an urge for bananas might mean a dip in potassium levels, or that a red meat hankering might signal low iron. Eating whole foods is a good goal, she explains, but it’s not a time to be overly restrictive, both for the baby’s palette and the mother’s peace of mind. “There are plenty of other things to focus that worried, anxious energy toward!” (Like the microbiome, says Bonetti Pérez, a probiotic devotee.) Expect a shift in portion size, too. “There’s less space inside as the organs get pushed upward toward the diaphragm,” says Lafond, “so I’m eating smaller, nutrient-dense meals.”

Embrace What Changes (and Not Everything Has To!)
When one’s livelihood is entwined with fitness, it’s only natural that the great unknown of pregnancy might occasion a touch of concern. Kaiser found some peace of mind in learning what comprises the weight gain, rattling off a list of things that each weigh a pound or two: uterus, placenta, amped-up breasts, extra water. “As long as you keep yourself active and have a healthy diet, most of that weight is not something that’s going to stick around for a while. It’s good to break it down and not stress so much,” she says. Levy’s perspective is also grounded in the practical: “People always talk about, ‘Oh, your body will never be the same.’ But the reality is your body’s never the same year to year anyway, you know?”

Some things, thankfully, do stay the same. For the Sydney-based Lafond, the peripatetic travel schedule she shares with her yogi husband hasn’t abated, with recent stops in Bali, Canada, China, and the U.S. With two weeks until her due date, she has even secured her midwives’ go-ahead (and permission from an airline) to head to Australia’s Sunshine Coast for this weekend’s Wanderlust festival. Lee Burns, meanwhile, has found relief in taking things down a notch. “Being pregnant has just forced me to slow down and realize it’s okay not to do a million things all in one day,” she says, though when we spoke last Thursday—a week past her due date—she had at least one task on repeat: “I don’t know how many more squats I can do to get this baby out! My ass is like Kim Kardashian’s right now.” With her son now in tow, all that hard work has paid off.

The post Staying Fit and Healthy During Pregnancy: Real-World Lessons from 7 Mom-to-Be Trainers appeared first on Vogue.

Once someone lands in the stratosphere of their career—in Sam McKnight’s case, among the editorial hair legends in the fashion world today—it’s easy to forget what it took to get there. “It seems strange that I actually fell into hairstyling by accident. I should have been teaching French to 10-year-olds,” he writes in his new book, Hair by Sam McKnight. Uninspired by the hippie scene on his college campus in the 1970s, he found an escape by way of his friends’ salon, Josef, where he got his start “doing cuts for kids who wanted a Bowie look or a soul-boy wedge,” he recalls. “Something just clicked. I was good at hair.”

The rest, as the book vividly lays out, is history. After sharpening his skills in a handful of London salons, including the influential Molton Brown, McKnight soon embarked upon an editorial career nurtured at both British and American Vogue. (Michaela Bercu’s real-girl waves on the November 1988 cover—Anna Wintour’s first as editor in chief—are the hairstylist’s doing.) In some ways, it’s not much of an overstatement to say he had a literal hand in shaping the course of fashion. He was there as Richard Avedon photographed a young Brooke Shields, as Christie Brinkley let loose her golden mane in Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” video, and as a new crop of models soared to “super” status: Cindy, Naomi, Claudia, Kate. His eye for theatrics found favor on Vivienne Westwood’s runways (manifested as prim beehives or gravity-defying confections) and lately at Chanel’s. As the house’s mastermind, Karl Lagerfeld, writes in a mash note at the beginning of the book, McKnight possesses a rare combination of open-mindedness, perfectionism, and infectious humor, which explains their long-running collaboration. “Nothing is ever ‘retro’ with him,” Lagerfeld says. “He can reinvent hairstyles and periods with a fresh and always renewed eye.”

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Stephanie Seymour

Photo: Courtesy of Rizzoli

Hair—along with a related exhibition at London’s Somerset House, opening next month—proves why, forty years on, he’s still in demand. The photos ripped from the glossies are the definition of iconic, and the spectrum of hair on display—bombshell curls, Technicolor fauxhawks, the many chameleonic guises of Tilda Swinton—serves as a bottomless well of inspiration. But it’s the informal snapshots of McKnight—waltzing with Linda Evangelista in an elaborately tiled atrium, or laughing on set with Princess Diana—that provide a window into the man behind the magic. To that end, we caught up with McKnight by phone to talk about his model muses, how the digital revolution is shaping image-making, and why his passion for gardening is the perfect foil for his other well-documented pursuit.

What prompted you to do a book after all these years?
It came about kind of organically. Since Instagram, I found I was getting a lot of interest from old images that I posted of my work, and new work. People were saying, “Why don’t you do a book?” and after a couple of those, you think, “Well, maybe.” Then I found a wonderful woman in London who put my archive onto digital; she also happened to be an archivist at Somerset House, the museum and gallery in London. So then the book, which I had been talking to Rizzoli about, turned into a conjunction with the exhibition.

Was it weird to hit rewind and spend so much time with your archives?
It was the strangest. One of the rooms in my house I gave over to the book, and we had 22 ceiling-high boards. I think we started with 40,000 images, which was an absolute logistical nightmare. With the help of a couple of great friends, we edited it down to a few thousand, and the next bit was difficult: To lose the children that you love and remember dearly was really hard. It’s kind of like your life flashing before your eyes, and it goes right up to the last minute. There’s a mix of new memories, old memories, models, models’ daughters, editors’ grandchildren, stuff you’d forgotten about, and people you’d forgotten about. That was the first time, really, I had reflected and looked back. It was quite emotional.

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Agyness Deyn

Photo: Courtesy of Rizzoli

How will your work be laid out at Somerset House?
When they suggested it, I thought, “Oh my god, there are 10 or 11 rooms! All these rooms full of my old work.” But it’s not that at all. It’s partly pictures, but also they want to illustrate in real terms what it is that us fashion hairdressers do because the first thing someone asks [when they hear] I’m a hairstylist is, “Where’s your salon?” And then there’s an explanation. The exhibition is not just beauty shots; there are fashion shots, we’ve got wigs, we’re borrowing clothes from people, and we’re going to show a backstage area where we have all the equipment we use—basically to try and give an insight into the last forty years of fashion through my hairdresser eyes. And I found that attractive because—I mean, it’s a cliché—but it’s a way of me giving me back to the kids in the industry and showing them what can be done.

You have presided over major moments in fashion: the minting of supermodels, the making of iconic images. Did you ever have a sense that you were making history at the very moment that it was happening?
No, not at all! Because it’s just what we do, isn’t it? Before you’re even done that shoot, you’re actually halfway in your head through the next one. We just don’t have time to stop and savor the moment, which is probably just as well because you’d be so terrified you’d never go to work!

Parts of Hair almost feel like a scrapbook, with you growing up alongside Kate Moss and Christy Turlington. Your career has spanned such a pivotal period.
That’s the luck of timing, isn’t it? Talent is 10 percent, timing is 90, because I have somehow found myself in the right place at the right time.

You’ve shaped people’s careers in terms of hairstyles. Who are some of the people who have shaped yours?
Well, my beginnings were at Vogue: British Vogue and American Vogue. Photographers like Nick Knight and Mario Testino, and also designers like Karl—the last 10 years working for Chanel have been just extraordinary—and Vivienne Westwood in the ’90s. And all the girls. Kate [Moss] has been wonderfully loyal and keeps coming back for more. Princess Diana introduced me to a whole different world in the ’90s. Lady Gaga was very faithful for a few years when she started her career with me. We did lots of stuff, like the meat hairpiece.

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Uma Thurman

Photo: Courtesy of Rizzoli

You launched your career with print. Are you seeing new possibilities in the digital age?
Well, I love my Instagram account. I treasure it; I try to keep it in [the realm of] beauty and humor. I think the iPhone has completely changed how we work. We used to take Polaroids, but there were only a limited number in the box and they were expensive. The iPhone is limitless. It’s made everything recordable; it’s made archivists of us all, you know? But I do think there’s a danger in the widespreadness of all the images. I hope people will start to get more creative and more interesting with it, rather than [images] being sort of throwaway and disposable.

Where do you find most of your inspiration lately?
Getting out and about. My garden is a huge inspiration. It’s a lot of cutting and pruning and growing and fertilizing and taking care. It’s all about color and form, and it’s a kind of organized chaos—my garden is, anyway—which is very similar to the hair I do. But I’m most inspired by the people I’m around. I bounce off people really well. We get to, on a daily basis, work with completely different teams of the most creative people in the world: makeup artists like Peter Philips and Tom Pecheux and Val Garland; photographers like Mario [Testino] and Craig McDean; actresses like Cate Blanchett. Just the mention of their names, the influence rubs off because we’re collaborating and creating images together every day.

The post Hair Legend Sam McKnight on Tilda Swinton, Kate Moss, and Princess Diana appeared first on Vogue.

What’s one ticket to a supercharged modeling career? A daring, identity-shifting haircut. Vidal Sassoon famously bared Grace Coddington’s swanlike neck with his Five-Point Cut in 1964. Julien d’Ys took scissors to Linda Evangelista’s chestnut waves in 1988, launching a pendulum swing of hair changes. And in 2013 Guido Palau reimagined golden girl Edie Campbell with a jet-black shag that brought the mullet back into the conversation. Of course, such transformations call for a double dose of artistry—both the visionary wielding the shears and the person boldly inhabiting the new role. So when Vogue set out to document an about-face cut for the November issue, the casting came easy: Palau took his spot behind the chair, and model-of-the-moment Grace Hartzel sat as his willing coconspirator.

The result—which followed a volley of inspiration-centric texts between them and a couple of days on set in New York City this summer—skirts the line between punk and ultramodern, the sort of thing that calls to mind a CBGB-era Joan Jett while also catching the discerning eye of Tom Ford: The newly shorn Hartzel opened his show in September and stars in the Fall campaign. Now, after she turned heads on runways and sidewalks during fashion month, the Vogue story has landed, accompanied by Lena Dunham’s essay on the liberating power of no-rules, no-fear cuts.

For another insider’s perspective, we caught up with Hartzel by phone during a music-fueled trip to Berlin to talk about her own self-administered hair experiments, the march toward gender fluidity, and her road-tested wellness remedies.

Given the history of legendary models getting legendary cuts, has there been a point in your career when you wanted to break away from the pack?
Totally, because I’m a person who always needs to be reinventing and changing my look. I originally had normal, long hair with a middle part, so I cut my fringe because I was feeling, like, really stuck. That’s what kind of launched my career with Hedi Slimane.

Did you actually take scissors to your own hair?
Yeah, I was 17, on spring break in Florida with my family. I was reading an anime book about this girl who had bangs, and I was like, “Wow, I want to be her.” So I went to CVS and bought cheap scissors and cut my bangs in the bathroom. My parents were like, “You ruined your whole career!” They were really upset and had a whole talk with me, like, “Grace, is this your inner conscience saying that you don’t want to model?” And I was like, “No, I am just so bored with my hair right now!” They look back at it now and laugh.

When did Hedi Slimane come into your orbit?
After that, in September. I had done the show for him before, when I didn’t have the bangs, but then when I had them, I was exclusive to Saint Laurent. He flew me to L.A., and I did the Pre-Fall campaign, the denim campaign, the Fall/Winter, and it went on from there. It was a ’60s thing with the big, fluffy bangs. I felt confident with my bangs. I felt more like myself.

Fast-forwarding a few years, how did you react when you heard about the Vogue shoot?
I was so excited, because I had wanted to change my hair for so long—and to be able to do it with Vogue was something that I needed. It’s good to have someone who backs you, like Hedi backed me with my bangs. I would have cut my hair anyway, but it’s more difficult now in modeling; we’re not as free, necessarily, just because we’re afraid of not getting jobs, afraid of being too editorial, too commercial. And I really trusted Guido.

What sort of discussions did you and Guido have beforehand?
We had been texting and [sending] Instagram photos. We wanted it to be a collaboration. He had this one photo of Blondie that was really cool—it’s a lot like my hair—but we wanted to mix that with Joan Jett and a bit of the Chelsea cut, where they shave the back of their heads and the rest of it is long in front of the ears, with short fringe. But we definitely wanted to create something new. We would sit and talk, cut a little bit, talk some more. Then the next day he cut some more. It was a process.

You seem game for anything—but was there a knee-jerk reaction when he chopped off your hair?
It’s just hair. It’s going to all grow back!

Why do you think renegade cuts are having a moment? Are people craving a sense of identity with social media?
With social media and everything nowadays, it’s actually pretty cool, because when I was going to school everyone would wear Abercrombie; everyone would be in unison. Right when I started [modeling], the models who were doing well all looked the same. You would go to the castings and everyone was wearing all black, long middle part, baby blonde hair, same boring black bag. Now I think it’s changed, where the models who are more unique and have their own personal style are doing better.

What has the reaction been to your new haircut?
Really good. My best friend, Lili Sumner, is here in Berlin, and Lily McMenamy, too. I just saw them the other day, and they were like, “Oh, my gosh, it’s so crazy. It suits you so well!” I feel really good in this hair; it doesn’t feel forced. For a moment [with my old bangs] I was super into Jane Birkin, and I still am. But now I’m starting to create something new. I feel like my hair is a bit futurist, because differentiating between male and female is not really relevant. Androgyny is more popular now.

Do you fit in better in Berlin with your new haircut?
Totally. I am actually probably pretty boring here! We went to our friend’s concert last night, and it was all these people with incredible style, so unique, so retro-punk. The girls had spiky hair, shaved heads. It was really cool.

What’s the latest with you creatively?
Right now I really want to do music, and I have, like, 10 songs I’m working on. I’m studying this music system, Ableton—it’s good for making electronic music or recording live music. And I’m singing on the new track from La Femme. It’s their first full English song. I kind of want my music to be a mix of electronic, synth-wave, punk, but a bit retro disco.

That’s a list of words that could maybe describe your hair. Are you finding freedom in the way you are styling it lately?
If I go out, I can gel up the top part, which is shorter than the rest, and make it into kind of a Mohawk. But I’ve been a bit lazy! It’s cool, because now I don’t have to wash my hair [that often]. It’s healthier for your hair to let all of the oils do their thing.

Speaking of health, how do you manage to stay well with your travel schedule?
I take a lot of really good vitamins, like B complex, which is all energy stuff. And I take this reishi mushroom mix that you can find at Whole Foods—it’s a powder that you mix into water, and it gives you energy and boosts your metabolism. I also have this extract from green coffee that I put in my yogurt. I feel so good all day. And I eat a lot of greens and stuff. In this business you can’t feel like crap—you have to be on all the time!

The post Model Grace Hartzel on the Power of a Gutsy, Game-Changing Haircut appeared first on Vogue.

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For all the noble intentions we have in matters of health, success simply comes down to consistency. Good practices call for just that: practice. With that in mind, the subscription-service model—which runs on autopilot (and autopay) and champions ease above all—proves to be a surprisingly effective wellness partner. Repetition is unavoidable when it literally knocks on your door. Here are four smart delivery companies—a savvy contact-lens brand with handsome packaging and fair prices; an oral-hygiene kit that ensures timely toothbrush swap-outs; a ready-to-blend smoothie service that puts nutritious meals into the busiest of hands; and a tampon-maker dedicated to clean, safe ingredients. Sure, you might think, how hard is it to buy dental floss? But trust us: The rewards—in quality, in convenience, and, yes, in future health—are worth it.

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Photo: Courtesy of Hubble Contacts / @hubblecontacts

Hubble
Ever since Warby Parker put the direct-to-consumer model on the map in 2010, the eyewear start-up’s disruptive approach has been applied to everything from V-necks (Everlane) to razors (Harry’s) to mattresses (Casper). Now, vision comes back into focus with a cheery new subscription service called Hubble, which aims to revolutionize the way we procure our contact lenses. Twenty-somethings Jesse Horwitz and Ben Cogan—founders, friends, and comrades in near-sightedness—unwittingly began their research years ago, “paying out the nose for contacts,” says Cogan, whose curiosity was piqued when his usual order drastically spiked in cost. What he learned—that four large companies control the lion’s share of the American market, with wildly inflated prices to match­—led to a business plan and, soon, a trip to Taiwan, where he and Horwitz found a top-notch (and FDA-approved) factory to help them shake up the lens landscape. (As for the brand’s effervescent-sounding name, which nods to the famed space telescope? “My girlfriend is an astrophysicist,” explains Cogan.) Hubble’s daily-use contacts come at a relative bargain ($30 per month, or $264 for a year’s supply) and in zippy, colorful packaging by the Brooklyn design firm Athletics. What good is a contact-lens reboot if it’s not easy on the eyes?

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Photo: Courtesy of Daily Harvest / @daily_harvest

Daily Harvest
‘Fast food’ is not a label often attached to chef-made smoothies packed with chia seeds and kale, but how else do you describe a 30-second meal? Daily Harvest’s Rachel Drori hit upon her business idea when, as a time-strapped working mom, she found a way to streamline the week ahead: portioning out her fruits, leafy greens, and superfoods into pre-bagged, ready-to-blend mixes. Now, your freezer can be just as conveniently stocked, courtesy of her handsome subscription service, which launched nationwide earlier this year. The 14 recipes, developed with an in-house chef and nutritionist, feature ingredients ranging from the antioxidant-rich (camu camu, cacao) to the plant-powered (hemp protein, avocado) to the blessedly caffeinated (green coffee, matcha). Even the packaging is on point: paper cups with straw-friendly to-go lids. Later this year, Daily Harvest upgrades another mealtime staple—instant soup—with three versions centered around flash-frozen organic produce. Mushroom + Miso comes with butternut squash “noodles” and powerhouse reishi and chaga; Zucchini + Black Garlic riffs on minestrone; and Coconut + Carrot borrows flavor notes from Thai curry. Six-packs for both options, hot or cold, start at $48.

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Photo: Courtesy of Tulip / @tulipclean

Tulip
Your dentist is likely to ask how often you floss (“Why, daily,” you respond), but here’s a question: When was the last time you replaced your toothbrush? After all, an implement for cleaning should be as clean as can be, and the truth is, the bacteria in our mouths eventually wind up hanging out there, too. With Tulip, a new oral-care delivery service that launched this summer, your twice-daily essentials—toothbrush, toothpaste, floss—arrive in a fresh batch ($12) every two months, taking the guesswork out the equation. Tipped in lime green, Tulip’s patent-pending brush is densely packed with ultra-thin “angel hair” bristles and features an activated-charcoal strip for natural detoxification. Meanwhile, the mint paste—FDA-approved and formulated with fluoride—is as crisp in design as it is in flavor. The company will later roll out an expanded catalogue, including four additional colorways for the toothbrush (we’re eyeing the subdued gray), plus toothpaste and floss in both lavender and coconut. With elevated takes on flavor and packaging (not to mention the unshakeable feeling of a gift that snail mail brings), what might once have been framed as a chore is now a newly minted part of your beauty routine.

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Photo: Courtesy of Lola / @lola

Lola
We’ve come to expect a lot from our everyday essentials, whether it’s paraben-free skin care or organic produce. But that same level of scrutiny often isn’t applied to something as routine as tampons. Careful label reading doesn’t even help; exactly what goes into the manufacturing process is something of a mystery, since the FDA does not require transparency. The company Lola, then, is more than a delivery service (which is a boon in itself, sparing you the emergency drugstore runs); it’s also a detail-conscious supplier dedicated to using all-natural cotton that’s free from chemicals, additives, or dyes. The service offers two models (with applicator or without), and the assortment in each box (starting at $9) can be customized, with four levels of absorbency running from light to super-plus. The good work doesn’t end there: Lola, in collaboration with a handful of nonprofit organizations, provides essential feminine-care products to women in need, including those in homeless shelters.

The post 4 Genius Subscription Services That Seriously Up Your Wellness Game appeared first on Vogue.

“Pretty/Dirty,” the title of Marilyn Minter’s first retrospective opening today at the Brooklyn Museum, packs so much into two words. “It has multiple meanings, which I’m always interested in,” the artist explains, offering up an example: “One person’s beauty is another person’s disgust.” It’s a thread running throughout four decades of jarring, provocative work. In 1969, during a weekend home from college, she photographed her prescription-pill-addict mother at home in Fort Lauderdale, dyeing her eyebrows in bed and fastidiously applying makeup. Manicured hands pry apart a langoustine or a ripe orange in 100 Food Porn, a prescient 1989–1990 series soon followed by hard-core (and hot-button) subject matter. Minter riffed on cosmetics advertising with a suggestive lipstick bullet in 1994’s Rouge Baiser; a decade later, she exploded the norms of conventional makeup use in her close-cropped, hyper-sensorial Blue Poles and Glazed.

If Photoshop has become an instrumental tool in her artist’s palette, used to layer together photographic studies for her paintings, she also sees it as something to rebel against. “I had done editorial, and at that point there was this kind of robotic look—no flaws,” she recalls. “I saw these 21-year-olds made into perfection, you know?” And so she relishes the everyday realities often concealed from view—everything from pimples to dirty toenails to pubic hair, which is the subject of her 2014 artist’s book, Plush, and a new painting exhibition at Salon 94 in New York. This past weekend, during a moment of calm between installing her gallery show and the museum retrospective, Minter spoke with Vogue.com about the downside of laser hair removal, the role of artist as activist, and how “Pretty/Dirty” seems to find kinship with another timely two-word phrase: “nasty woman.” “Isn’t that great? It’s a badge of courage,” she says. “Just reclaiming and repurposing.”

Your work has drawn such a wide mix of opinions over the years, especially the hard-core paintings. People called you a traitor to feminism.
Isn’t it interesting how yesterday’s smut is today’s erotica! That’s historical; it’s always like that. Remember, Bettie Page used to be shocking.

What was that time like for you, when your work was lambasted?
It was a big disappointment. I just assumed everyone else thought just like I did and was a pro-sex feminist. I was reclaiming sexual imagery from an abusive history, and it really frightened a lot of feminists; they couldn’t wrap their brain around it. Well, why won’t you make images for your own pleasure?

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Rouge Baiser, 1994.

Photo: Marilyn Minter

Was that reaction the same when you were younger?
Oh, it was virulent in my age group. You had to play down your looks, for sure—not everybody did, of course.

Did that affect how you styled yourself in terms of makeup, hair, clothes?
Oh no, never. But I’ve always been interested in the paradox about fashion: It’s so easy to criticize and have contempt for fashion and glamour, and at the same time it’s one of the giant engines of the culture. The way we present ourselves, it’s how we see what tribe we’re from. You have more confidence and you’re taken more seriously if you feel good about the way you look! I really don’t criticize women that do—

Botox and things.
Right. We’re so cruel, this culture. Women are judged all the time to such standards that you’re going to be constantly failing.

What do you look for in terms of models for your work?
I’m not interested in making another pretty girl, but I am interested in women with character to their faces—and nobody seems to notice, but I do shoot guys, too! I used to look for mixed-race models. I love the idea of an Asian girl covered in freckles because she’s Chinese and Irish or something. And I love blue-eyed or green-eyed or hazel-eyed black people. And white-blonde Brazilians. This is corny, but I like the idea that we’re all going to be a shade of brown at some point in the future. Maybe that is when we’re going to get along a lot better.

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Blue Poles, 2007.

Photo: Marilyn Minter

You don’t shy away from things that are usually perceived as flaws. What attracts you to them?
They’re really just images that everybody knows—everything I paint, everything I do. It’s just nobody’s ever made a picture of it before. Other than medical textbooks, there aren’t any pictures of pimples, but we all know them. We all know what armpit hair looks like growing in. We all know what it looks like to have freckles, but they’re Photoshopped out. So when I was working on that, back ten years ago, I was just erasing the Photoshop. I think the eye craves what it doesn’t see—like this last body of work, in my painting show [at Salon 94] and in the Brooklyn Museum show, too, it’s pubic hair. Pubic hair has been erased from the culture, so I wanted to make a case to women: Shave all you want, groom all you want, make topiary out of it—but don’t laser because fashion is fleeting and laser is forever. I tried to make the most beautiful pictures of pubic hair. You could put these in your living room, they’re so beautiful!

There is a movement again for it—I’m thinking of Petra Collins’s generation.
Absolutely! Petra and Sandy [Kim], and there’s others. And Alicia Keys, wearing no makeup. The backlash has started.

In recent years you’ve supported Planned Parenthood, organizing a benefit auction and collaborating with Miley Cyrus. What prompted you to take activism to the next level?
I’ve always been an activist—I was just another marcher, usually. But that was so easy after watching the TRAP laws being enacted. I was outraged because I remember when abortion was illegal and women got unsafe abortions, and I saw [access to care] being systematically erased. There’s [Mike] Pence saying, “The minute I get in the White House, I’m overturning Roe v. Wade. It’s going to be on the ash heap of history.” That just makes me crazy. How dare they? I got my birth control at a Planned Parenthood clinic. I got my abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic. This was the only safe place back when I was a college student.

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Coral Ridge Towers (Mom Making Up), 1969.

Photo: Marilyn Minter

Did you share her grooming habits or rebel against them?
I rebelled—I was always really rebellious. I was put in jail at 16! I changed peoples’ driver’s licenses, so they could go to the bars and buy booze. They weren’t laminated back in the day, and I could draw in any number. If my mother told me to do something, I would do the opposite. I went from a hippie into a mod to a punk, basically.

Did you take on the punk look when you moved to New York?
I cut my hair off and I turned it purple, and I was teaching to high-school boys at the time! Leather jackets were endemic. That’s such a cliché! I looked like somebody looked in 1977. I used to wear these Cubs T-shirts, skintight jeans, and high-tops or boots. I slathered on eye makeup, and I always wore sunglasses. We thought we were so radical! [laughs]

Has aging been something you’ve embraced?
I’m trying to, yeah. I’m Irish-skinned and I stayed out of the sun, so it’s easier for me because I don’t have a lot of wrinkles. I try and stay in shape because I’m making my best work, you know? When you read about women artists, they get attention when they’re older. So I plan on evolving. I walk everywhere, like 12,000 steps or more a day. I’m 68, but I’ve got a lot of energy because I live in New York City—it’s like an exercise machine, just being in the city!

In the four decades you’ve lived here, it’s really become an amazing time to be a woman.
Well, your generation is so much better to each other. That’s what the boys have always done: They worked as a team until they got to the top, and then they would try and kill each other off! Elena Ferrante put it best when she was interviewed: that competition between women can be really healthy as long as you don’t try and destroy the other one. That’s aspirational, even with my famous women artist friends. Like, Pipilotti Rist just opened at the New Museum, and we’re friends. I love her work, and I’m also really jealous. But I go and tell her how great she is, and that drains the poison instead of [me] trying to kill her off. [laughs] She does it with me, too. We support one another.

The post Artist Marilyn Minter Talks Beauty Norms, the Return of the Full Bush, and her New Retrospective appeared first on Vogue.