No Venice Biennale has felt more roiled in controversy than the current edition. But despite the headlines, the artists are still here, putting in the effort to make some of their most ambitious work to date. Here are six who delivered.

Sung Tieu

When you are invited to the Venice Biennale, you should endeavor to go all out. By this measure, Sung Tieu has met her moment. “It’s been a learning curve,” Tieu tells W, underselling the mammoth effort behind her most ambitious work to date. Tieu has transformed the German Pavilion, which she shares with the late artist Henrike Naumann, by cloaking its entire silhouette with a new one. The shell, made of thousands of tiles, is a trompe l’œil tessellated marble recreation of Objekt Gehrenseestraße, the Plattenbau housing complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg where Tieu spent part of her childhood and the past decade leading bus tours as part of a radical and ongoing artwork about the personally and socially loaded history of the site. Tieu’s Potemkin housing project takes care to recreate the decay and graffiti that colored the building’s final years since its decommissioning in 2003. In its original incarnation, it was little more than nine slab-construction towers that housed over 6,000 Vietnamese contract workers, each allotted roughly five square meters of living space. The title of the work is Ruin: in many ways, it feels like all the years of Tieu’s bus tours through Marzahn and Lichtenberg—the neighborhoods surrounding the former GDR dormitory complex—were building to this moment of erasure, whereby the German Pavilion, a symbol of fascist nationalism, is eclipsed by the true history of its legacy.

Inside the pavilion, Tieu takes the opportunity of a national stage to take pride in a homeland that is much more personal: her mother. Chocolate ladybugs, which have become a visual shorthand for childhood in Tieu’s work, are scattered throughout the space. “I liked the idea of being invited to show in a space, and arriving as a kind of infestation,” Tieu says of her insect hordes. “They feel like they are occupying.”

Gala Porras-Kim

It feels almost too fitting that the halls assigned to Gala Porras-Kim at the Arsenale were originally the rooms in which the tools of the shipyard were put on display—built, from the start, for exhibiting objects. Porras-Kim has established a name for herself in recent years as an interventionist in art’s most prestigious institutions; she embeds herself in them through visual research, and then uses that material to surface questions those institutions are asking themselves, but are not always forthright in sharing.

For her Venice Biennale presentation, Porras-Kim delves into a subject that feels entirely apropos to the environs of a sinking city: decay. More specifically, she is looking at what she calls “institutionally defined damage”—instances where moisture, sunlight, and time have taken their toll on an object now under the care of conservators. Porras-Kim is especially interested in the moments when an object considered irreversibly damaged by the institution that holds it is, through that very same deterioration, finding its way back into alignment. “Everything is getting destroyed anyway,” says the artist, who was born in Bogotá to a Colombian-Korean family, and now lives between London and Los Angeles. “Just how slow and perceivable can we recognize that damage.”

The show includes new and existing work. As part of her longstanding interest in systems of distribution, Porras-Kim takes a deliberate approach to exhibition-making, traveling a core set of works she owns across presentations to ensure continuity with her past. Visitors familiar with her practice will recognize some of what's on view, but the exhibition also introduces new works that emerged from her collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum, which partnered with Porras-Kim for the Biennale's Applied Arts Pavilion.

Lubaina Himid

“So many artists tend to only work in specific parts of the pavilion, or cover it all up,” says Lubaina Himid, this year’s British Pavilion occupant. “I wanted to reveal it.” For Himid, this meant forgoing her usual sculptural moves, her iconic painted cutout figures that she used to fill the halls of the Tate back in 2021. Instead, Himid opted to let her paintings be paintings—ones that hang alone on otherwise bare walls above empty floors.

The space feels full anyway, thanks to a soundtrack pumping overhead—created with Polish-born, U.K.-based artist Magda Stawarska-Beavan, who has been collaborating with Himid for over two decades. The composition greets visitors at the door like a prelude and trickles and pours through the building, ushering them from the entrance to the back, where one can glimpse and hear the lap of the lagoon just beyond. There is an intentional bleed between the world outside and the composed world within.

Himid’s paintings echo this uncanny recognizability. They are familiar but ever-so-slightly wrong—images of boatyards. Images of tailors, of kitchens. They flicker with the initial light of recognition and then get darker the longer we stare. Each carries text, labels that quietly undermine the painting and the room itself. “These are paintings that ask questions,” Himid says. “They ask if flies can ever settle. If water is always useful. If poison can taste delicious.”

Water is a recurring force flowing through more than forty years of Himid’s work. But it takes Venice, a city that was built on water and is now being taken back by it, to reveal just how many things she has been weaving together at once. Trade, colonization, globalization, climate collapse: the water carries all of it, and standing with these new paintings, you finally feel the weight of that accumulation.

Those looking to parse where the satire starts and ends with Himid should spend particular time examining figures’ clothing. Like Venice, steeped in fashion history through Fortuny and the competing fortunes of Pinault and Prada, Himid is deeply interested in the way how one dresses communicates. When in doubt, the clothes are the clues. And you are part of the show.

Sara Flores

Artist Sara Flores has spent the past two years as the subject of a feature documentary, The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs, directed by Èlia Gasull Balada and Matteo Norzi, set to debut later this year. The on-set experience opened a new door into filmmaking, the first fruits of which Flores is debuting in Venice alongside the largest kené painting of her career. Flores has not demurred from the responsibility as the first Indigenous woman ever to represent Peru—she has embraced the specialness of the occasion by pushing herself and her medium to do things she’s never done before.

The film, Non Nete (A Flag for the Shipibo Nation), depicts a sustained image of kené moving in the wind. Kené is the visual and cosmological language of the Shipibo-Konibo people of the Peruvian Amazon. It is not decoration, and it is not pattern in the way we typically use the word. It is a living system—geometric, intricate, endlessly recursive—transmitted through generations of women. Flores learned it at fourteen, from her mother. She has painted every day since.

The pavilion sees that expertise in action via the largest work of Flores’s life, a canvas that took more than four months to complete. The artist worked through it daily, resting only on Saturdays; its scale demanded that kind of commitment, but the process stayed the same as always: listening to the designs, following where they led.

The film’s soundtrack, a whistled melody blown into an ayahuasca bottle at the opening of a ceremony, fills the space with a shaman’s invitation. “What gives the work its strength is that it remains faithful to where it comes from,” Flores says of her pavilion. “If it can stand in that space without changing its nature, then it already carries what it needs to carry. In this critical moment for the planet, in which people fight against one another, its message is as powerful and as simple as ever: we are all interconnected.”

Kandis Williams

If you pass Palazzo Nervi Scattolin at night, make a stop. One of the few examples of Venetian modernism, the iconic building has been given over for the Biennale to the Pier Luigi Nervi Foundation, which is projecting new moving-image work across its facade after dark as part of the exhibition If All Time Is Eternally Present, curated by Chiara Carrera and Marta Barina and supported by Bottega Veneta.

Several artists are featured in this open-air theater, but look out especially for Los Angeles-based artist Kandis Williams, whose contribution, A Travel Guide: Black Gothic in South Korean Horror (2025), feels especially prescient for the city and this moment. It is a tourist ghost story that follows Williams as a foreigner in South Korea. “The barriers to building a cohesive narrative out of a first travel to a different country,” she says, “are how I’m looking to undermine the notion of straightforward documentary films that engage an objectively expert or neutral tone.” The result is something more honest and more unsettling than expertise could produce.

The film tracks the deep entanglement between Black American music and K-pop, and the more uncomfortable questions about image, and who gets to own a culture’s sound. For Williams, the Black traveler is always negotiating more than geography. “The Black traveler has to pass borders and thresholds of meaning from monster to fetish idol,” she adds. “These thresholds are often invisible and veiled in some sense, and hyper visceral in others.” K-pop, with its absorption of Black American music and what Williams calls the role of “images of Black women, especially Black femme pop stars” in “imperialist hyper-sexualities,” is another threshold to examine.

When asked about her inspirations for the work, Williams cites Renée Green’s Free Agent Media and the Negro Motorist Green Book as touchstones. These are works that track, in her words, “subjectivities that have to live and perform on the limits of perception of being human or recognizable as humans.” In Venice, a place so full of specters, it is hard to find a more pitch-perfect, drive-by score.

It is also a kind of teaser. Williams has big things ahead. She is fresh off a show at the Walker Art Center, and gearing up for solo exhibitions at the Rockbund Museum and the Serpentine Galleries. Get used to seeing her name.

Yto Barrada

The French Pavilion’s architecture unfolds like a gift box, a central room with four wings extending outward. The shape inspired Yto Barrada to pursue a subject that could be unfolded in as many directions. She found her seed in a line from the French Revolutionary orator Pierre-Victurnien Vergniaud, spoken in 1793 shortly before he was guillotined: “The Revolution, like Saturn, devours its children.” From there, the associations cascaded. Each room of Comme Saturne, curated by Myriam Ben Salah, takes the theme somewhere new through color theory, labor history, melancholy, the Luddite revolts. To pull it off, Barrada not only had to build up a library of puns and associations, but also put together a team of experts.

She started by moving back to France. Born in Paris and raised between there and Tangier, Barrada has long lived experienced both Moroccan and New York City life. But for this project she relocated the family for the year. “I wanted to work with local makers and collaborators,” she says. She began educating herself in a material she had never worked with before: wool. She found a master dyer specializing in wool, Charlotte Marembert, and an anthropologist of color history, Arnaud Dubois, and brought them together at her dye garden and residency space in Tangier, where the project began to take shape.

What makes Comme Saturne surprising is that Barrada didn’t arrive at the French Pavilion coasting. She is an artist with a long-established, international practice. Her work is held at MoMA, The Met, Tate Modern, and the Centre Pompidou; she could have made something consolidating what is already known about her. Instead, the artist went in the opposite direction. “I’m bored with my own works very quickly,” she says. The pavilion became a laboratory: for a material she had never worked with, for a color theory she had to learn from scratch. The artist burns away the familiar until something unexpected comes through.

Scent is an intimate experience. That’s why switching up your fragrance isn’t just a luxury, it’s a necessity, for creating new moments, sculpting fresh moods, and tapping into the brain’s deeply ingrained scent-memory connection. In 2026, we’re highlighting the perfumes that are classics in the making: rich, multifaceted, unapologetically complex, and thought-provoking incantations that dare to bring unlikely aromatic fusions together. These fragrances aren’t about mimicking or amplifying a single note, they aim to create a lasting, harmonious experience from top to base. We’ll be updating this list all year long, so check back often. You’ll want to wear these scents with confidence, and let your fragrance do the talking—because the only thing that should be overwhelming is how good you smell.

Louis Vuitton Ambre Levant Eau de Parfum

Louis Vuitton Ambre Levant

Here’s the perfect dose of spring luxury, which has already earned its place among Vuitton’s most notable fragrance compositions. A beautiful symphony of mandarin, cardamom, cinnamon, white pepper, and saffron moves into an even warmer register of labdanum, incense, and a subtly mineral ambergris glow.

Loewe Aire Sutileza Elixir Eau de Parfum

Loewe Aire Sutileza Elixir

We urge you to manifest a summer getaway in Mallorca with this sheer, gorgeously composed new fragrance from Loewe’s Spanish Landscapes collection. With more concentrated perfume oils than the original iteration, this version features airier notes of pear, bergamot, and lemon, softened by wildflowers. The whole scent evokes a breathtaking seaside town filled with florals.

Van Cleef & Arpels Fleur de Nuit Eau de Parfum

Van Cleef & Arpels Fleur de Nuit

If you’re searching for a scent that is distinct and polished (and delicately effeminate) this one checks all the boxes. While others chase the usual lab-made signatures, this tuberose and milky vanilla concoction remains a true standout with sumptuous notes that define the term “taste.”

Matiere Premiere Metal Lavender Eau de Parfum

Matiere Premiere Metal Lavender Eau de Parfum

It’s polished, intoxicating, and we love it. This lavender iteration is rendered with a heightened sense of sophistication. The new unisex scent perfectly blends two distinct expressions: lavandin oil and a rich floral absolute that unfolds into an elevated, cashmere-like musk.

Elorea GIT (깃) Extrait De Parfum

Elorea Git Extrait De Parfum

One of our absolute favorites of the year, this silky concentrated scent opens on cool lychee, softens into rose leaf, then settles into amber silk that lingers beautifully. This veers on the light side, but it certainly can be worn layered.

D.S. & Durga Debaser in Bloom

D.S. & Durga Debaser in Bloom

Think of this as a sly reissue of the brand’s signature favorite, “Debaser”—with the same fig-infused haze, but this time it’s loosened with gardenia, white currant, coconut husk, and rosemary flower. And yes, actual cassette tapes make their way into the formula.

Initio Sugar Blast Eau de Parfum

Initio Sugar Blast

Here’s a grounded gourmand we can get behind. This scent is brightened by a flirty lift of coconut, praline, and a splash of rum keep things indulgent, but never heavy.

Nonfiction Dew & Light Eau de Parfum

Nonfiction Dew & Light Perfume

If you love light, clean scents, this one is stunning—it’s harmonious, delicate, but still grown-up. The brand, founded by Haeyoung Cha in South Korea, just opened a new store in NYC’s Lower East Side neighborhood, its first outside of Asia. Dew & Light is a refined floral chypre, with misty peony wrapped in clean white moss and a touch of akigalawood for a perfectly balanced finish.

Maison Francis Kurkdjian Paris

Maison Francis Kurkdjian Paris Kurky

The alcohol-free version of last year’s hit, it’s lighter and creamier but still wrapped in that comforting warmth.

Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue Eau De Parfum

Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue Eau De Parfum

To create a more sensual summer fragrance around citrus notes like Sicilian lemon can be challenging. Often, no matter what the composition, that zesty effervescence dominates the base. But here, D&G executes the blend with real finesse: creamy, woody undertones of frangipani and marigold are lifted by bright bergamot.

Amouage Love Hibiscus Eau de Parfum

Amouage Love Hibiscus

Here’s a spirited take on the sweet floral fragrance that centers on hibiscus and is lifted by citrus, softened by caramel, and threaded through with sheaths of passionfruit.

Guerlain Eau de Popeline

Guerlain Eau de Popeline Fragrance

From the nearly 200-year-old French beauty house comes a cool concept—if this scent were a fabric, it would be bright yellow poplin. Eau de Popeline proves the point with powdery mimosa and a soft apricot lift; it’s a combination tailor-made for spring and summer.

Byredo Sister Dreamer Eau de Parfum

Byredo Sister Dreamer Perfume

This fruity floral, dreamed up with artist Lauren Halsey, is inspired by the South Central gardens that surround her home. The West Side of L.A. is thick with native plants, wildflowers, and fragrant herbs, all humming through notes of juniper, pink pepper, and geranium. Sandalwood and amber drift quietly beneath it all, while the bottle’s sleeve—expressed through Halsey’s vivid, maximalist lens—turns the whole thing into a fragrant little world of its own.

Ojai Wild The Clearing Magician Eau de Parfum

Ojai Wild The Clearing Magician Perfume

A spiritual experience in a bottle, The Clearing Magician by Ojai Wild pairs white sage (good vibes only), jasmine, and lemongrass for a crisp, citrus-lit clarity, with just a whisper of frankincense and myrrh. From seed to skin, born from founder Janna Sheehan’s personal farm in Ojai, it’s a lovely citrus-spell to beautify your wrist—or frankly, any room you walk into.

Tom Ford Taormina Orange Eau de Parfum

Tom Ford Taormina Orange

One of the more satisfying scents of the new season, we are more than ready for the fab sunshine this perfume will surely bring. A thoughtfully created love letter, this is an ode to the fabled hilly landscapes of Taormina, Italy.

Liis Flower Glyph Eau de Parfum

Liis Flower Glyph

A gentle floral where notes of blueberry, honeysuckle, and jasmine mingle softly, drifting across the skin with a quiet grace. As with all of Liis’s fragrances, this one is crafted with organic sugarcane alcohol.

Ex Nihilo Lust in Paradise Eau de parfum

Ex Nihilo Lust in Paradise

To mirror the sultry sunsets on the French Riviera, this perfume is the magnified version of the original Lust in Paradise. This time around, the scent celebrates warmer musks, brimming with red ginger, pink pepper. and jasmine sambac.

Bulgari Man Wood Essence Eau De Parfum

Bulgari Man Wood Essence

Commanding and magnetic (you know the type): now, he’s found his perfect scent. This intense new fragrance is meticulously crafted by Bulgari’s perfumers with a deliberate extracting process to keep notes as raw and pristine as possible. Beginning with Sichuan pepper, it merges into a sophisticated tapestry of austere cypress, velvety cashmere wood, and a bold patchouli and vetiver.

Gamine Altered States Solid Parfum

Gamine Altered States

Here’s an evening scent that puts you at ease immediately with warm, subtly masculine notes. The lovely notes here include intense nutmeg and plum, which unfold with beautiful depth as the night carries on.

Uni Rain-Based Water Perfume

Uni Rain-Based Water Perfume

Softly sensual, this light, pristine scent captures the clean shimmer of dewy rain, softened by peony and grounded in oakmoss. Water-based, reef-safe, cruelty-free, and crafted from upcycled, sustainably sourced ingredients, the vessel is refillable, climate-neutral, and with 1 percent of sales supporting coral farmers, it’s as principled as it is fresh.

Kilian Paris Forbidden Games Eau de Parfum

Kilian Paris Forbidden Games

A more layered, tantalizing take on florals, where succulent peach and honey melt into smooth vanilla, creating a unisex scent that oozes the feeling of joy.

Anti Parfum Kleopatra

Anti Parfum Kleopatra Eau de Parfum

A serene gourmand scent, this is a milky perfume inspired by the fabled baths of Cleopatra infused with bourbon, jasmine, and vanilla.

Escentric Molecules Cologne One

Escentric Molecules Cologne One

This is a vibrant citrus scent that works beautifully for daytime, exuding a super-clean vibe with its execution. We consider this one a lovely pick-me-up all around.

Comme des Garçons Parfums [ ] Dia x Meg Webster

Comme des Garçons Parfums [ ] Dia x Meg Webster

Comme des Garçons Parfums has collaborated with Dia Art Foundation on a new, bespoke fragrance. The scent is called [ ] Dia x Meg Webster (yes, with the brackets. You read that right!). The contemporary arts organization, encompassing 12 sites and locations like Dia Beacon in New York, partnered with the fashion label and American artist Webster, who is known for her sculptures made from salt, sand, and other earthly materials. Notes of geranium mix with a heart of carrot seed oil and mushroom accord, along with a patchouli and sandalwood base—and the bottle comes encased in a polished silver box shaped like a pyramid.

Dries Van Noten Limited Edition Soie Malaquais Gilded Bottle

Dries Van Noten Limited Edition Soie Malaquais Gilded Bottle

Aromatic bliss in a bottle. This one feels like Paris in February, during a twilight wander along Boulevard Saint-Germain, while a hint of romance lingers in the air. Beautiful bergamot with blackcurrant unfolds into a silk-laced rose before settling into a warm, chestnut finish that feels intimate.

Dior Beauty Cuir Saddle Eau de Parfum

Dior Beauty Cuir Saddle Perfume

This is by far Dior’s most equestrian-centric fragrance, inspired by the iconic Saddle bag that defined the early aughts. Leather and musk are definitely center stage here, with a delicate floral note woven into an elegant ode to the house’s signature accessories.

Gucci The Alchemist’s Garden Lignum Idealis Eau de Parfum

Gucci The Alchemist's Garden Perfume

If you can believe it, this scent captures the monumental presence of a giant sequoia tree. With its woody, spicy scent that features creamy sandalwood and a hint of juniper, the perfume is entirely addictive.

eLVes Louis Vuitton Eau de Parfum

eLVes Louis Vuitton Perfume

A new release—and already a favorite this season—the special-edition monogrammed Louis Vuitton bottle feels perfectly suited for a moment of celebration. This contemporary floral pairs CO₂-extracted centifolia rose and mesmerizing lily of the valley anchored by a subtle patchouli.

Hermès Musc Pallida Eau de Parfum

Hermès Musc Pallida Perfume

Brisk, crisp iris and a trace of musk fall on the skin like soft cashmere brushing your collarbone. Pallida here refers to iris pallida (the “pale iris”), one of perfumery’s most precious raw materials. The flower’s rhizomes are harvested, dried for years, and distilled into orris butter, which is why it’s among perfume’s most expensive treasures.

Tom Ford Beauty Soleil Neige Eau de Parfum

Tom Ford Soleil Neige Perfume

Joie de vivre, distilled. This eau de parfum reminds us of snowy winters by the fireside in St. Moritz. Soleil Neige captures a kind of elegance, with bright bergamot, luminous orange blossom, and white florals softened by a whisper of silky musk.

Bulgari Le Gemme Tygar Extrait De Parfum

Bulgari Le Gemme Tygar Extrait de Parfum

Le Gemme Tygar Extrait is pure Bulgari finesse, which hits like an instant aphrodisiac. Citrus and wood are warmed by Peru balsam. Note that this one is on the heavier side of scents, but not in a negative way. It’s just a matter of your preference.

Dolce & Gabbana The One Eau de Parfum Intense

Dolce & Gabbana The One

Ultra-feminine, very Italian, and very Dolce & Gabbana, this is the most earnest love letter to the glam of the brand’s couture dresses. More intense than the original, The One delights with a surprising pink peppercorn spark, plus a floral bouquet that’s stunning.

Tory Burch Sublime Eau de Toilette

Tory Burch Sublime Eau de Toilette

We wore this one one several occasions; each time, we got compliments galore. Tory Burch’s new Sublime eau de toilette is that rare composition of a fragrance: it smiles politely but means business, and is great for office (and after hours). The scent pairs mandarin and rose with vetiver and a faintly leathered patchouli, which is lovely.

Le Labo Violette 30 Eau de Parfum

Le Labo Violette 30 Perfume

Here’s another win for Le Labo: Violette 30 gives violet essence a boost of elevation. The ingredient has long been prized for its softly romantic, calming essence. But by the hand of Le Labo, we get a chicer reboot that features a lovely cedarwood base.

Chanel Allure Homme Sport Superleggera

Chanel Allure Homme Sport Superleggera Eau de Parfum

Allure Superleggera envelops grapefruit in a woody scent that’s unique enough to wear in any season.

Burberry Her Parfum With Cherry

Burberry Her Parfum With Cherry

On the sweeter side, this one feels super-sophisticated. Cherry, amber, and vanilla mingle gracefully, and are never cloying, letting each note breathe and shine.

YSL Beauty Libre Berry Crush

YSL Beauty Libre Berry Crush Perfume

Libre Berry Crush folds raspberry, orange blossom, and a measured hint of coconut into a layered floral. It’s a polished, self-assured perfume that’s impeccably done, with plenty of presence in each spritz.

Miu Miu Fleur de Lait Eau de Parfum

Miu Miu Fleur de Lait Eau de Parfum

This one is for the St. Barts winter crowd—the ones who trade snow for sun and never give up their fresh scents. Juicy mango and creamy coconut bring a beachy sense of softness, while osmanthus adds a smooth floral finish.

Balmain Paris Destin De Balmain Eau de Parfum

Balmain Paris Destin De Balmain Perfume

Balmain’s feminine scent begins with strawberry and a bit of baies rose colliding. Then, peony unfolds with creamy lychee, and sandalwood lingers. Encased in a refillable, gold-capped labyrinth, it’s overall an exquisite scent.

Initio Parfums Privés Lift Me Up Extrait de Parfum

Initio Parfums Privés Lift Me Up Perfume

Musky and a proper tribute to winter, Initio’s latest aromatic spell drapes magnolia and ylang-ylang in a soft veil of vanilla. The scent seamlessly shifts from comforting warmth to a refined metropolitan ease, one that feels confident and calm.

Clive Christian Strange Heavens Out of the Blue Perfume

Clive Christian Strange Heavens Out of the Blue Perfume

We have one word for this one: ethereal. Clive Christian Strange Heavens Out of the Blue blends citrus, jasmine florals, and warm wood into a unisex fragrance straight out of a blissful daydream. And yes, the bottle by artist Domingo Zapata makes you want to keep it on your dresser forever!

Elorea Silk Bouquet Eau de Parfum

Elorea Silk Bouquet Perfume

Delicate but far from forgettable, this floral is precise rather than super-sweet. It’s a fresh and restrained infusion that opens up with watermelon blossom and magnolia before fading into soft woods.

Dior Addict Peachy Glow Eau de Parfum

Dior Addict Peachy Glow Perfume

This peachy take feels like a few elegant steps above the sugary gourmand perfume craze happening on TikTok. Jasmine and vanilla mix with a very cheerful splash of peach, for a distinctive eau de parfum you can wear seamlessly from day into night.

Valentino Beauty Amour Sans Détour Perfume

Valentino Beauty Amour Sans Détour Eau de Parfum

This is what you wear on a winter evening, when the air is sharp and you intend to be remembered. The violet arrives softly, while the smoke and leather follow. It’s all moody lighting, a little flirtatious, with a splash of healthy mischief.

Jo Malone London Amber Labdanum Cologne Intense

Jo Malone London Amber Labdanum Cologne Intense

Bitter orange flashes briskly against the dark, hypnotic pull of labdanum. It’s an elegant unisex scent, one that we imagine will be worn by an assured individual.

Henry Rose London 1983 Eau de Parfum

Henry Rose London 1983 Eau de Parfum

Inspired by founder Michelle Pfeiffer’s memory of a fragrance she discovered and loved on London’s King’s Road in 1983, this parfum is the fruit of a long search for that edgy, cool scent. It just so happens to be one of our favorite clean, non-toxic offerings from Henry Rose, opening with fig, black pepper, jasmine, and waterlily.

Mugler Alien Pulp Eau de Parfum

Mugler Alien Pulp Eau de Parfum Fruity

Alien Pulp is the Mugler fragrance house doing what they’ve always done with perfection: making perfume devotees pay full attention. This is a fruitier version, but still has Alien’s base blended with raspberries and jasmine notes.

Molecule 01 + Champaca by Escentric Molecules

Molecule 01 + Champaca by Escentric Molecules

Here’s a beautiful luxury, almost like slipping into your softest silk blouse. There’s a warm vibe at play—a transportive, woody haze softened by Champaca, a rare flower with creamy depth, and hints of jasmine and tea.

Dior Homme Intense Eau de Parfum

Dior Homme Intense Eau de Parfum

This cologne feels impossibly precise, like someone distilled a modern Neutra house into a scent. There’s powdery amber with crisp, clean edges; we think it caters to the type of man who notices all the details, and expects nothing short of perfection in his life.

Valentino Beauty Born in Roma Donna Purple Melancholia

Valentino Beauty Born in Roma Donna Purple Melancholia

Creamy, fruity, and wrapped in soft vanilla, this new fragrance feels like what the color purple would smell like: part luxury, mystery, and unexpectedly playful.

AllSaints Naked Woods Unisex Fragrance

AllSaints Naked Woods

AllSaints’ Naked Woods is a warm embrace. Wood and amber aromas drift from crisp apple leaves and rhubarb. Soft woods and skin musk make for a calm, grounded unisex scent that’s especially enjoyable during the colder seasons.

Aerin Mediterranean Honeysuckle Soleil Eau de Parfum

Aerin Mediterranean Honeysuckle Soleil Perfume

This is the fragrance that you take on holiday and end up associating with a very good chapter of your life. Clean and sunlit, it blends neroli and orange flower with coconut milk, plus an almost unfairly beautiful tuberose that’ll have you inhaling the scent of your own wrist throughout the day.

Ferragamo Signorina Romantica Perfume

Ferragamo Signorina Romantica Eau de Parfum

Ferragamo’s latest perfume is the kind of cheerful winter fragrance that turns gray skies into sunnier days. Opening with bright Italian lemon and orange blossom before melting into a creamy, citrus-glazed vanilla heart inspired by Anginetti cookies, this is instant optimism in a bottle.

Kindred Black The Priestess Perfume Oil

Kindred Black The Priestess Perfume Oil

Kindred Black’s High Priestess may well become your new fixation. It’s less a perfume than a private ritual, where delicate neroli glows against clove and sandalwood in a devoted composition. Warmed at the pulse, it renders citrus meditative, as though intention itself were the most intoxicating note.

Diptyque Orphéon Eau de Toilette

Diptyque Orphéon Eau de Toilette

This is Diptyque’s love letter to the founders’ favorite jazz club, where we can only guess friendships were forged, ideas flowed, and the air smelled far better than it had any right to. Green tangerine, pink peppercorn, and juniper mingle with woody cedar and musk, capturing the allure of a late night out.

Discothèque Body Heat Eau de Parfum

Discothèque Body Heat Eau de Parfum

Here’s a warm, alluring blend of amber, cardamom, and coffee in a cool, limited-edition glass bottle.

Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb Pretty Peony Eau de Parfum

Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb Pretty Peony

If you love sweet florals, this peony-central scent is bright and special, with strawberry notes dancing through the multilayered aromas.

Jimmy Choo I Want Choo With Love

Jimmy Choo I Want Choo With Love

Jimmy Choo released a lively citrus infusion—raspberry and orange flower are the first things you notice—with whispers of rose and freesia. There’s also a trail of sandalwood and vanilla towards the end of the first sniff that settles nicely.

We have no idea if Rosalía was trying to channel the iconic “red dress dancing woman” emoji while out in Seville, Spain today. Rosalía does dance, and she was wearing a red dress. Though, a closer look at the outfit reveals her own personal style was very much in tact and not outsourced to emoji cosplay.

The singer opted to wear a simple red dress while strolling through the street of Seville. Her sweet, sleeveless number featured a low-cut neckline with a squared silhouette, as well as a fluttering hem that hit just below the knee. Complete with windswept curls, it was a simple and effortlessly simple look that still packed a punch. No wonder fans gathered to cheer her on in the street.

Musically, she’s known for mixing classical influence with edgier sounds. Her outfit followed a similar formula. Her Mary Jane-style footwear included four thin upper straps, embellished with small silver buckles, studs, and pointed spikes. The pair gave her otherwise sweet look—which also included a confectionary, pale pink Dior Book tote by Jonathan Anderson—a sharp edge, affirming her signature penchant for edgy dressing.

With her latest off-duty look, Rosalía proved she can master simple dressing in addition to avant-garde fashion. However, with her signature punky attitude, the singer’s sure to bring her own spin to any look—no matter how basic it may be.

Mother’s Day is still on the horizon—but a dance music mother convention took place last night in Brooklyn. This week, house musician Rochelle Jordan shared a group photo online with a holy trinity of alt-dance and R&B star: Kelela, PinkPantheress, and Tinashe. They had assembled for Pink’s event at the Brooklyn Storehouse. Together, the crew’s members individually showed a different take on going-out dressing, united by an undeniably sleek flair.

Kelela took color-blocking for a spin with a dark blue ribbed sweater and bright red miniskirt. A blue, white, and black leather racing jacket added a motorsport influence to her look. PinkPantheress took on a similar color palette with deep blue capri pants and a bright red bra, layered beneath a sheer blue crop top. The singer and producer returned to her signature small shoulder bag as well, toting a cool brown suede version of the Y2K-inspired accessory.

Meanwhile, Jordan and Tinashe opted for darker ensembles. Tinashe slipped on a pair of black leather pants and a curved crop top, worn beneath a shearling-lined coat. Jordan embraced the drama of early 2000’s dressing in a black and white minidress covered in a zebra stripe print, layered over sheer black tights. Gleaming silver earrings brought a glamorous touch to the house singer’s attire.

Together, all four musicians’ looks were surprisingly coordinated—indeed, it seems great minds think alike. However, each star’s individual pieces and aesthetics remained unique and singular. The only thing missing? A group single that would certainly break the internet.

Foundation is supposed to be the glow-up step in your makeup routine, not the product that’s actually making your look like you didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. The problem? Some of the most common application habits can actually emphasize fine lines, cling to texture, and leave skin looking dull or dated, often without you even knowing it. From choosing the wrong formula to overdoing certain techniques, small tweaks can make a major difference in how fresh, smooth, and skin-like your foundation appears. Ahead, W spoke with celebrity makeup artist Scott Barnes—who has worked on the faces of Jennifer Lopez, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Salma Hayek—about the most common foundation mistakes that can unintentionally age your look, and exactly what you should do instead.

Using matte formulas

According to Barnes, matte foundations were made to “mattify the skin”—that is, absorb oil and cancel shine using ingredients like talc, corn starch, and clay. “They’re great to balance skin that is excessively oily, but if you have textured or dry skin, matte foundation can settle in the pores and lines, emphasizing them and making skin look aged,” he says, recommending a formula with a luminescent, satin finish instead. “These finishes are youthful and always universally pretty, regardless of skin type, skin tone, or skin age.”

Armani Beauty Luminous Silk Oil-Free Foundation

If you’re set on a matte-finish formula, Barnes says prepping your skin is key. You’ll want to exfoliate and hydrate beforehand, making sure your skincare fully absorbs before going in with foundation. Also, he says that because matte foundations are formulated with ingredients that do not reflect light, they can appear flat. Underpainting—applying your contour and highlight before foundation—can help “create dimension and contour that a stand-alone matte formula can’t achieve,” he says.

Tom Ford Beauty Architecture Soft Matte Foundation

Not updating your foundation

According to Barnes, using the same foundation shade and formula you relied on years ago can affect your entire look—as your skin changes, so, too should your formulas. Over time, skin typically becomes drier, a little more textured, and can shift in tone or undertone. A formula that once looked smooth and seamless can start to sit heavier, settle into fine lines, or look flat and dull instead of fresh.

Shade is another big factor. If your undertones have changed (which they often do), an outdated match can make your complexion look ashy or too yellow. The result is makeup that looks more obvious, less blended, and a bit dated overall.

Updating your foundation—whether that’s switching to a more hydrating formula, a lighter texture, or simply a better shade match—helps everything melt into the skin again, reflect light better, and bring back that fresh finish.

Ilia True Skin Serum Foundation

Neglecting skin prep

Skipping skin prep is one of the fastest ways to make even the best foundation appear flat on the skin. When your face isn’t properly hydrated or smoothed, foundation has nothing to grip onto evenly—so it clings to dry patches, settles into fine lines, and exaggerates texture instead of blurring it.

Thankfully, skin prep doesn’t have to be a lengthy process. Start with a clean canvas by cleansing, then follow with a hydrating cream to smooth and prep the skin. “Everyone knows my favorite, favorite is the classic La Mer cream,” says Barnes. “I use it on myself, J.Lo, all my clients—even new models for shoots. Just use a dab, warm it up, and press it into the skin.” From there, Barnes uses the Medicube Booster Pro to help melt the product in and boost circulation before finishing with a few spritzes of Downright Dewy Mist for a hydrated, glow-boosting base.

La Mer Crème de la Mer Moisturizing Cream

Not blending into the neck

Skipping your neck is a subtle mistake that makes a big visual impact. When your foundation stops at the jawline, it can create a harsh line that instantly reads heavy. That contrast can make your complexion look flatter and more mask-like.

This can also throw off the natural continuity of your skin tone. If your face looks more perfected (or a different shade) than your neck, it can highlight unevenness, emphasize texture, and make the overall look feel less polished. Blending a small amount of product down into the neck helps everything look cohesive, lifted, and much more natural—like your skin, just better.

Applying too much product

If your base has been looking a little heavier, duller, or more textured than usual, the application, not your products, might be to blame. You may be tempted to apply a heavy layer of foundation to cover dark circles, melasma, or rosacea, but “too much foundation tends to cake and crease, making the skin look older,” says Barnes. You’ll know you’ve over-applied if you start to see foundation settling into crease lines around the mouth and eyes. Another telltale sign, per Barnes: tilt your face up and slightly to the side—if you notice a visible line of demarcation, that’s a sign you’ve gone in too heavy.

Barnes says that for the most natural, skin-like finish, apply in thin layers with a synthetic foundation brush, working the product in small circles, from the center of the face outward. “After the first layer, go back and retouch areas that need a bit more coverage with whatever product remains on the brush.” If you have problem areas, Barnes says to use thin layers of color-correcting concealers, then use foundation to lightly even out the rest of your complexion and create a smooth, skin-like finish.

Even rockstars enjoy a night at the ballet—just ask Mick Jagger. Last night, the singer and his fiancée, former ballerina Melanie Hamrick, stepped out for an elegant evening at the New York City Ballet’s Spring Gala. For the occasion, both Jagger and Hamrick opted for surprising fashion choices that leaned into rock 'n' roll-worthy style.

Hamrick sparkled on the red carpet at Lincoln Center in a strapless silver gown, featuring ombré sequins for added glitz. Her mirrored silver pumps provided a dash of high-shine metallics, alongside a pair of thin diamond drop earrings. A gleaming diamond bracelet and small pale pink clutch finished her ensemble with added hints of texture.

Meanwhile, Jagger opted to ditch the traditional tuxedo for more eclectic suiting. His black jack, trimmed with inverted white lace, comes from Bode (the never-not-cool American menswear lable, that, incidentally, is also a favorite of Harry Styles). Underneath, he wore a shirt and pants in midnight blue and added a pair of unexpected black hiking boots. A true rock stars style will always keep people guessing.

The moment marked a rare outing for the Jagger and Hamrick, who became engaged earlier this year after a decade of dating. The pair alread share one child together. As gala season continues, it’s clear there’s always room for a fashion surprise on the red carpet—especially with a bit of rockstar flair.

Set design by Marine Armandin at Lambert-Lambert.

Studio Manager: Charlotte Sobral Pinto; Lighting Assistant: Pierre-Olivier Guillet; Digital Technician: Bianca Vigni; Production Assistant: Rianna Murray; Retouching: Forme Studio.

Since 1946, the Cannes Film Festival has been one of cinema's most coveted showcases, drawing filmmakers to the Croisette each May to vie for the industry's highest awards. In recent years, its status has only grown, fueled by a string of high-profile selections that have won over critics, audiences, and awards bodies.

Past editions have launched The Substance, Emilia Pérez, and Anora into the awards conversation, while last year's slate paired critical darlings like Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value and Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident with blockbuster fare like Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning.

This year, the lineup leans arthouse and international, with familiar auteurs like Justine Triet, Pedro Almodóvar, Jane Schoenbrun, Ron Howard, and Steven Soderbergh all in competition. There are a few boldface names, too: Kristen Stewart returns after premiering her directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, here last year. This time, she’s starring opposite Woody Harrelson in French director Quentin Dupieux’s absurdist comedy Full Phil. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver will reunite for Paper Tiger, and Sentimental Value star Renate Reinsve joins Sebastian Stan in Norway-set drama Fjord.

Park Chan-wook takes over as jury president from 2025's Juliette Binoche, making him the first Korean to hold the role in the festival's history.

Television fans will have extra reason to pay attention, too: the cast of HBO's highly anticipated fourth season of The White Lotus, set in part at the festival itself, will be on the ground, with some filming taking place during the real event.

Ahead of the 79th edition, which runs May 12 to 23 and will honor Barbra Streisand and Peter Jackson with lifetime achievement Palmes d'Or, here are 14 releases not to miss:

Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodóvar)

After making his English-language feature debut in 2024 with the Golden Lion-winning The Room Next Door, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, Pedro Almodóvar returns to his native Spanish with Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad). The premise—a successful advertising director (Bárbara Lennie) traveling from Madrid to the island of Lanzarote to grieve her mother's death, while a filmmaker named Raúl mines her story for inspiration—hints at autobiographical territory. Expect another dip into the auteur's color-drenched world.

Avedon (Ron Howard)

Ron Howard turns his lens on Richard Avedon in a new documentary tracing the photographer's groundbreaking career through never-before-seen archives, footage, and interviews with his close collaborators and confidants. Avedon's influence on fashion, photography, and the 20th-century American aesthetic is hard to overstate, and Howard—whose recent docs have tackled The Beatles, Jim Henson, and Luciano Pavarotti—is an ideal director to take on the scale of his prolific legacy.

The Man I Love (Ira Sachs)

Ira Sachs has been on a roll, with Passages (2023) and Peter Hujar's Day (2025) confirming his standing as one of queer cinema's most distinctive voices. He'll present The Man I Love, a drama about an artist in late-'80s downtown New York (Rami Malek) preparing for the biggest work of his career after a terminal AIDS diagnosis. The cast also includes Rebecca Hall, Tom Sturridge, The Bear's Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and The Crown's Luther Ford.

Fatherland (Pawel Pawlikowski)

The biggest draw of Fatherland is its star: German actress Sandra Hüller, who had a breakout 2023 with Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest. This year hasn't been quiet for Hüller either: she stars in the blockbuster Project Hail Mary and won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at Berlin for Rose. In Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski's latest, shot in his signature black-and-white, she plays Erika Mann, daughter of the Nobel Prize-winning anti-Nazi writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler), as the two return to their native Germany at the height of the Cold War.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Jane Schoenbrun)

The first night of Un Certain Regard opens with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, the follow-up to cult filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun's 2024 film I Saw The TV Glow . Like its predecessor, the new film traffics in horror, fantasy, and ’90s nostalgia. Hacks star Hannah Einbinder plays a director tasked with rebooting the fictional Camp Miasma slasher franchise, but when she becomes obsessed with the original final girl (Gillian Anderson), things turn bloody. Sorry, Baby breakout Eva Victor also stars.

John Lennon: The Last Interview (Steven Soderbergh)

Steven Soderbergh's John Lennon: The Last Interview is built around the never-before-released-in-full conversation Lennon and Yoko Ono gave to an RKO Radio team at home on December 8, 1980, a wide-ranging discussion of their album Double Fantasy, partnership, parenthood, and hopes for the future, recorded hours before Lennon was shot and killed that night. Soderbergh pared the nearly three-hour interview down, paired it with archival footage, and, for roughly 10% of the film's runtime, AI imagery—a choice that's sure to spark a conversation of its own.

Paper Tiger (James Gray)

A late addition to the lineup, James Gray's Paper Tiger (the director's follow-up to films like Armageddon Time and Ad Astra) brings extra star power to the festival. Miles Teller and Adam Driver play brothers in 1980s New York whose attempts to make their fortunes pull them into the orbit of the Russian mob. Scarlett Johansson plays Teller's wife.

Club Kid (Jordan Firstman)

Comedian Jordan Firstman makes his directorial debut with Club Kid, in which he writes, directs, and stars as a New York club promoter who discovers he's the father of a 10-year-old son. Until now, Firstman has been best known for his viral social media impressions and a starring role on Rachel Sennott's HBO comedy I Love LA. He's joined by Diego Calva (On Swift Horses) and Cara Delevingne in her first major role in years.

Hope (Na Hong-Jin)

Na Hong-jin returns with his first feature in a decade, Hope, a 2-hour-40-minute sci-fi thriller competing for the Palme d'Or. The story centers on a village near the North Korean border in the aftermath of a tiger sighting, with Squid Game breakout Hoyeon, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, and Taylor Russell rounding out a striking international ensemble. Michael Abels (Get Out, Us, Nope) provides the score.

Her Private Hell (Nicolas Winding Refn)

Nicolas Winding Refn, who won Best Director at Cannes in 2011 with the Ryan Gosling-starring Drive, returns with Her Private Hell, his first feature in a decade. The film weaves multiple storylines through a future metropolis where actresses gather at a glamorous hotel to shoot a Barbarella-style production, while a killer known as Leather Man stalks women across the city. The Danish auteur has assembled a who’s-who cast of in-demand young actors to tell the story: Charles Melton, Sophie Thatcher, Kristine Froseth, and Havana Rose Liu.

Full Phil (Quentin Dupieux)

Quentin Dupieux described Full Phil to Variety as "Emily in Paris in hell—a fever dream, a nightmare version of it." Woody Harrelson plays a widowed American industrialist on a lavish Paris trip with his daughter (Kristen Stewart), with whom he's trying to reconnect, until things slip, in characteristic Dupieux fashion, into something strange involving French cuisine, an invasive hotel employee, and a 1950s horror film within the film. The cast also includes Charlotte Le Bon, Emma Mackey, Nassim Lyes, and Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim.

Fjord (Cristian Mungiu)

Fresh off her Oscar-nominated turn in Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value, Renate Reinsve returns to Cannes as the star of Fjord, the English-language debut of Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, who won the 2007 Palme d'Or for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Reinsve plays a Norwegian mother who returns with her Romanian husband (Sebastian Stan) and their children to her remote birthplace village. After bonding with the family next door, the family becomes the target of suspicion when they're accused of disturbing behavior.

Diamond (Andy Garcia)

Andy Garcia (Ocean's Eleven, Father of the Bride) wrote, directed, and stars in Diamond, his Out of Competition Cannes world premiere, and a passion project nearly 15 years in the making. Garcia plays Joe Diamond, a present-day investigator with the bearing of a classic noir detective, who works the cases that LA's police can't crack. The heavyweight ensemble includes Vicky Krieps, Brendan Fraser, Rosemarie DeWitt, Demián Bichir, Danny Huston, and Yul Vazquez, with Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman reuniting with Garcia after 2005's The Lost City.

The Unknown (Arthur Harari)

The Unknown is the third film from Arthur Harari, who shared the 2024 Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Anatomy of a Fall with partner Justine Triet. This time, he co-wrote with his brother Lucas Harari, adapting Lucas's graphic novel Le cas David Zimmerman, a literary, Kafka-influenced spin on the body-swap genre. Léa Seydoux and Niels Schneider star in the story about a photographer who has a one-night stand with a stranger and somehow wakes up in her body.

For the first time ever, Bulgari became an official sponsor of the 2026 Venice Biennale, a role that will continue through 2030. Supporting the arts is nothing new to the Roman high jewelry brand—the Fondazione Bulgari was launched in 2024 to officially codify decades of patronage, ranging from the restoration of Rome’s Spanish Steps to partnering with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The foundation acts as a sort of cultural bridge across time, nurturing new contemporary artists while helping to preserve historical treasures.

The centerpiece of this year’s endeavor is the Bulgari Pavilion, situated within the Giardini exhibition space, where different countries show the work of highlighted artists in designated national pavilions. Here, the Canadian multimedia rising star Lotus L. Kang—whose work suggests atmospheric environments rather than static assemblages—was commissioned to create a site-specific installation, which she titled The Face of Desire Is Loss.

Inspired by Lara Mimosa Montes’ Thresholes, a book of poems exploring emptiness and voids as generative spaces, Kang suspended large sheets of photographic film from perforated steel joists resembling industrial lotus roots. The sheets weren’t treated with the chemical process that preserves images, so they remain sensitive to the world around them; as the sunlight hits them and the air circulates around them, their colors bruise, fade, and shift. The windows of the pavilion are lined with much thinner 35 mm film strips bearing images of tidal mudflats and spectrograms of birdcalls; Kang rounds out the sensory experience with 49 bottles of spirits placed around the space, referencing the number of days that a soul hovers between death and rebirth in Buddhist culture. Instead of a permanent monument, Kang offers an artwork that is continuously evolving.

A twenty-minute walk from the Giardini, at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, on San Marco square, Bulgari staged another exhibition, in the library’s Salone Sansovino. It features two on-the-rise artists of the Italian contemporary scene: Lara Favaretto and Monia Ben Hamouda. A large installation by Ben Hamouda, the latest recipient of the MAXXI Bulgari Prize in Rome, consists of two fiery neon wall sculptures that dominate the library’s vestibule. The daughter of a calligrapher, Ben Hamouda uses an accumulation of script-like marks to create an invented, nonexistent alphabet. Her piece, Fragments of Fire Worship, feels like excavated relics of a future religion and introduces a visceral energy into the room.

In the main salon, Favaretto presents the seventh and final chapter of her Momentary Monument–The Library, a piece that explores the idea that nothing—not even history—is permanent. The installation is composed of stacks of ordinary donated books placed on a long shelving unit in a grand, gold-leafed Renaissance salon designed to preserve knowledge forever. Inside each tome, like an Easter egg, is a different image culled from Favaretto’s personal archive, that the artist has inserted. With that simple gesture, Favaretto challenges the idea of preservation of knowledge, implying that information is fragile and subject to changes through ongoing processes of circulation and redistribution.

“Jewelry was the first form of art developed by humankind, more than 120,000 years ago,” said Jean-Christophe Babin, Bulgari’s CEO and President, commenting on why it makes sense for the company to support such varied cultural endeavors. “There is great value in work that is done with our hands. Art is the true manifestation of what only human beings can do.”

I recently met a woman who raised me. Her name is Lena Dunham. I was invited to an event for her new memoir, Famesick, at Gloria Steinem’s house, sponsored by Warby Parker. I understand how many twists and turns that sentence took. I live a life that is both deeply unserious and never taken for granted. But I’ve been a self-proclaimed feminist and an internet obsessive as long as I’ve had −4.75 vision, so maybe the cultural crossover makes some sense.

I try not to pedestal people. It’s in no one’s best interest to have idols but it felt impossible not to geek out over the fact that I was somehow sitting cross-legged on the floor of Steinem’s home listening to her drop F-bombs and talk shit about Philip Roth, while in conversation with Dunham, the woman who inadvertently guided me through the shitstorm of my 20s via the blueprint of her hit HBO show, Girls. My entire personality and the early part of my writing career were built on the belief that I was a Jessa, when really I was a Marnie in Hannah’s clothing.

There’s a chance I came out the womb with a Jessa sensibility, but probably not, because she likely resembled a cherub baby, and I was born with jaundice. My internal monologue and hyper-niche, hyper-online brain were molded by women like Dunham and an army of mothers of pop culture that came before me.

I should make it clear that a mother, to me, can be anything. In the larger (read: gayer) sense of the word, a mother doesn’t have to be a parent or even a woman. The title is tossed around a bit too freely these days, but the root of the word, which stems from the Black and Queer ballroom scene, is about leadership, caretaking, paving a new way, and serving cunt. Use that information as a barometer and read along with an open mind.

These pop culture mothers gave me a backbone, a roadmap, an attitude problem, and some of my most basic values and ethics.

Madonna

Madonna might sound like a cop out, but this is a very specific cosign. Madonna became my mother the second I saw what her knees could do during her 2001 Drowned World Tour, and it cemented for me when I FINALLY watched that one interview clip where she gets really hot and demands a fan. "I have a problem with the fact that there is no air in here, and I'm going to die. Open the door NOW!” The most beautiful thing a woman can be is dramatic. This brief exchange between her and some poor scrambling set PAs taught me the art of unabashedly advocating for my needs.

Rihanna

Rihanna is an actual cop out. I don’t care. This is my truth and I haven’t lied in two years. Having a mononym is mother behavior. Rolling a joint on your security’s bald head at Coachella is mother behavior. Having your shoulders back and your titties up and out, especially when covered in Swarovski crystals, is mother behavior. Never being anywhere on time is definitely mother behavior, just ask mine.

Martha May Whovier

Martha May Whovier (Christine Baranski) may not have had any children, but this woman gave natural birth to me when she thrust her hips forward and used a light cannon to decorate her Whoville estate. More domme femmes need to be represented in media. It is a scene that makes any young lesbian sit up straight. Keri Hilson said it first, but pretty girls really do rock. Most importantly, Martha May showed me love is not about looks but about mutual disdain for an opp. And Christmas.

Jackée Harry

I love it when a woman has a mouth on her—what can I say? I have one too, and I’m not afraid to use it, all thanks to Lisa Landry. Jackée Harry in Sister, Sister is a total mess (complimentary). And that’s what motherhood is to me: being both loud and often wrong. Motherhood is having a good blowout and sexual tension with your children’s father. Motherhood is always carrying a quippy retort in your back pocket and being totally insane.

Queen Latifah

Queen Latifah in Beauty Shop. Queen Latifah in Hairspray. Queen Latifah in Last Holiday. Queen Latifah in Ice Age. Queen Latifah in Thom Browne, always. Queen Latifah in Set It Off. Queen Latifah in Just Wright. Queen Latifah in the opening scene of Taxi. Queen Latifah in Bringing Down The House.

The mom from Easy A (Patricia Clarkson)

Behind every great woman is her gay husband. I grew up with divorced parents, so it is always important for me to see healthy relationships on-screen. Rosemary Penderghast (perfect name, no notes) does the kind of soft parenting TikTok moms can only dream about. I would be entertained listening to Patricia Clarkson read a telephone book, but she and Stanley Tucci simply speaking the letter “T” or every single line reading in this scene from Easy A will change the trajectory of your life. It changed mine.

Tyra Banks having never yelled at a girl like that in her life (on ANTM)

I can’t in good faith call Tyra Banks a mother, but I did see the spirit of my mother leap out of her when she berated Tiffany on America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 4. Sometimes you watch a reality TV clip, and you're transported to the bra section in Nordstrom Rack at age 13.

Strega Nona

When someone says bring out your baddest bitch, it’s always Strega Nona for me. She may have been a witch, but she was a caretaker first. There’s nothing more maternal or Italian than a woman who constantly wants to feed you, especially with dense carbs. The story of Strega Nona is a lesson in community building as well as a warning about men who don’t know how to listen to directions (hint: it’s all of them).

The Original Aunt Viv

I need to give (the dark-skinned) Aunt Viv her flowers, a bouquet, honestly, a botanical garden. This is a woman who is caring, patient, and strict with it when she needs to be. There is a dance class scene in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that is burned into my brain, in which Aunt Viv’s skill level is doubted by a group of younger dancers. Not only did it radicalize me about the importance of showing off, but learning the dance itself has proven to be an incredible party trick. An auntie can also be a mother, and we don’t talk about that enough.

Toni Collette

I simply couldn’t decide if Toni Collette was more mother in that one dinner scene in Hereditary that every good gay person is off-book on, or as all the versions of Tara Gregson in United States of Tara, a TV show too many people slept on, but not me! I will avenge you, Diablo Cody!

Teyana Taylor (The Queen of New York)

To be a mother is to be a multi-hyphenate, by the way. From her abdomen in the Fade music video, to her belly and her machine gun in One Battle After Another, to the way she fixes her mom’s dress on the carpet, to the way her daughter fixes her dress on the carpet. My fingers are twitching, wanting to write something sexual, but I already did that with Christine Baranski, and you can just check my Twitter account for that.

The Nutbrown Hare from Guess How Much I Love You

In contrast to everyone above, this is going to sound like a major tonal shift, but please know I’ve been serious this whole time. This book is the reason why my mom calls me Bunny. This is the book that has been ours for forever. This is a book I will read to my future children if I need another way to tell them how much their mother loves them.

If you’re in need of inspiration for your next office look, allow Rosé to provide a slick new take on corporate attire. This weekend, the Blackpink star stepped out in New York City in a subversive version of a classic skirt suit, hailing from Saint Laurent. Worn over a simple white T-shirt, her ensemble featured a collarless jacket and knee-length skirt—each crafted from black leather.

The singer’s nonchalant nod to uptown style, however, was far from the simplicity of an average matching set. Her jacket included silver-buttoned front pockets and shoulder straps, as well as a contrasting brown lining. Meanwhile, her skirt was cinched by a thick, silver-buckled belt to enhance its biker edge.

Leaning into a business-worthy approach, Rosé paired the skirt suit with black nylon tights and a glistening pair of black patent leather pumps—complete with the sharply pointed, elongated toes that have become a signature of creative director Anthony Vaccarello in recent seasons. Saint Laurent’s slouchy, shiny black leather Shortense bag with rounded gold hardware, as well as a pair of thin rounded black sunglasses, gave her monochrome attire a carefree finish.

The corporate-esque set was Rosé’s latest all-black look from the French fashion house while in Manhattan this week. On Monday, the singer attended the Met Gala in a high-slit gown accentuated by a crystal-covered bird brooch. Afterwards, she took on the evening’s afterparty scene in a strapless, silky ruched dress with a wavy hemline, channeling the flair of ‘80s eveningwear.

Despite its corporate origins, the singer’s skirt suit remained nonchalant from its edgy take on ladylike dressing—which was smoothly in tandem with her dark style streak. As a longtime Saint Laurent ambassador, Rosé’s regularly worn its separates and formalwear on and off the red carpet over the years. In fact, her latest Met Gala outing marked her third with Vaccarello, who just celebrated his 10-year anniversary at the brand. Clearly, when it comes to effortless dressing, consistency is key—and Rosé’s got it in spades.

Almost sixty years ago, Ralph Lauren began his career as a designer. He started small, making neckties under the label Polo in 1967. In the six decades since, Ralph Lauren has become one of the most influential fashion brands in not only America, but the world—touching everything from ready-to-wear and accessories, to home goods and even coffee. In celebration of Ralph Lauren’s immense impact on the fashion industry, Thames & Hudson has released Ralph Lauren: Catwalk, the eleventh volume of its Catwalk series and the first to feature an American artist.

Ralph Lauren Catwalk presents a visual timeline of the brand’s history. With words by fashion journalist Bridget Foley and over 1,300 runway images from more than 100 collections, the book documents Lauren’s journey, from his debut womenswear collection in fall 1972 up until fall 2025.

Five years after releasing those first ties, Lauren turned his gaze to women’s fashion, inspired by his wife, Ricky, and her effortless style. Lauren quickly became known for his ability to play with contradictions—mixing masculine and feminine, Western wear with New England prep, and the rugged with the refined. The Ralph Lauren brand has become synonymous with timelessness, and many of the looks that walked the runway in those first collections—pinstripe blazers fitted at the waist, pleated knee-length skirts, and windowpane-checked tailored trousers—could easily fit into a collection today. As Foley says in the book’s introduction, “The consistency is remarkable.”

The images in Catwalk also display Lauren’s aversion to trends, as well as the strength of his design codes. Suiting is prevalent throughout, evolving over the decades—but in a way that feels tied to Lauren’s own whims, not those of time and fads. Lauren is now the longest-running creative director in history, following the death of Giorgio Armani last year, and Catwalk clarifies his endurance.

‘Ralph Lauren: Catwalk’

Ralph Lauren -