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Maya Classic Period (550-900 AD) rare polychrome pottery from the Jay I. Kislak collection, Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. See long file names for additional information.

David Hockey, the English artist whose vivid trans-Atlantic portraits and landscapes made him one of the most influential artists of the last two centuries, has passed away at the age of 88 in his home in London on Thursday. His publicist, Erica Bolton, confirmed the news, though a cause of death was not provided.

He will be remembered as an important contributor to the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. A prodigious artist with name-brand recognition, he dabbled in many mediums, but was most heralded for helping to reinvigorate and redefine figurative painting in an era when abstraction had come to domiante. “David Hockney's enduring legacy reflects his underlying enthusiasm for life, his outstanding sense of humor, his immense generosity, and his investigative curiosity encapsulated by his signature phrase, ‘Love life.’” Bolton said in a statement.

Hockney was born on July 9, 1937, in Bradford, a city in West Yorkshire. He was the fourth of five children for working-class parents Kenneth and Laura Hockney, both of whom David would remain very close to throughout their lives. The young Brit was interested in art from the beginning, and attended to his early education in Bradford, where he was recognized for his talent early on and granted a scholarship to the local art school. To avoid the prospect of being drafted into the British army, Hockney followed the steps of his pacifist father and declared himself a conscientious objector. He then spent two years in alternative service, working as a hospital orderly before enrolling in the Royal College of Art in 1959. It was there that he became associated with the then-fledgling British Pop Art movement. When he graduated from RCA in 1962 with gold medal distinction (which he famously accepted in a gold lamé jacket), he already had London gallery representation.

The artist adopted a fairly conspicuous look around this time. He became known for his brightly-colored plaid suits and mismatched socks, which he complemented with bold, rounded glasses, a rotating selection of clownish headwear, and bleached blonde hair. It is a style he would embrace throughout his life.

In 1961, Hockney visited New York City for the first time and immediately felt a kinship with America. He was taken by the country’s sexual liberation, which sat in contrast to England’s own repression. Having come out at the beginning of the decade, Hockney often depicted homosexuality in his work, despite the act’s illegal status in Britain at the time. The life-study painting he created as a graduation requirement was inspired by a muscleman on the cover of a homoerotic physique magazine. But the Academy did not penalize Hockney for this indiscretion; they celebrated his talents, as did the press.

Hockney took his inaugural trip to Los Angeles in 1963 and immediately embraced the city that would become a second home to the artist. He was inspired by the lifestyle—the palm trees, the modern houses, the celebrity—but also the bright sun and the enriched colors of the landscape. The pools of Southern California specifically infatuated the artist, and he painted a series of them.

During this time, Hockney began teaching at UCLA at met then-18-year-old student Peter Schlesinger in 1966. The two dated for five years, and their breakup led to an especially productive period for Hockney, in which he created Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), which featured Schlesinger as the “artist.” The 1972 work sold at Christie's on November 15, 2018, for $90 million (£70 million). It was, at the time, the most expensive artwork by a living artist sold at auction.

In addition to painting—for which he dabbled in oils, acrylics, and watercolors—Hockney also embraced collaging, printmaking, photography, and drawing. More recently, he adopted new technologies, creating works on iPads and iPhones. He also designed sets for many plays throughout his life, working with the Royal Court Theater, the Metropolitan Opera House, and other venues around the world.

Hockney’s first retrospective took place in 1970 at London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery, marking the beginning of a continuous parade of showcases. In 2017, Tate Britain celebrated the artist’s 80th birthday with a massive show, which later traveled to Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. And just last year, the Foundation Louis Vuitton, in Paris, hosted David Hockney, 25, a retrospective that focused on the artist’s 21st century output, along with the inclusion of some of his most popular works from the 60s and 70s, including A Bigger Splash (1967), Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy (1970–71), and Portrait of an Artist.

Hockney was a celebrity in his own right, often socializing with Andy Warhol, Paloma Picasso, Amanda Lear, Karl Lagerfeld, Tony Richardson, Dennis Hopper, and more stars of the day. He was extremely principled and outspoken on his views, whether they were about smoking (Hockney was a long-time pro-tobacco campaigner) or sexuality. He refused the British Knighthood in 1990, but accepted the Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth II in 2012.

Hockney lost his hearing in his middle age, and he resorted to hearing aids. He began stepping back more and more from public life, preferring instead to spend time with his beloved pet dachshunds and his partner, Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima. Hockney is said to have worked up until his death, painting from his wheelchair in his studio in London for about three hours a day, even as his health continued to falter. “I just go on,” Hockney told W last year about his impressive fortitude. “Anyway, at my age now, I couldn’t really freeze.”

“Boobs are a big part of the show,” says Margo’s Got Money Troubles’s costume designer Mirren Gordon-Crozier. Anyone who has watched the Apple TV+ series starring Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Nick Offerman knows that’s an understatement. Margo follows Fanning as Margo Millet, a college student with ambitions of becoming a writer who drops out after getting pregnant by her English professor. When she decides to keep the baby, she turns to OnlyFans to support her child, creating the sci-fi-inspired online persona Hungry Ghost. So yes, there are a lot of boobs—sometimes even green ones.

Gordon-Crozier was tasked with dressing both Margo and Hungry Ghost, two wildly different versions of Fanning’s character. Fortunately, the costume designer has plenty of experience transforming the 28-year-old actor. The pair have collaborated on five projects, including Margo, and have developed an easy shorthand over the years. “I know what looks good on her and what fabrics she likes,” Gordon-Crozier tells W, “But I always put her in itchy sweaters she complains about.”

Beyond the itchy sweaters, Margo saw Fanning in everything from 70-year-old knits to DIY cone bras while embodying her alien alter ego. Gordon-Crozier also relished dressing Pfeiffer as a kind of Real Housewives of Orange County reject, scooping up every fur-trimmed and snakeskin piece she could find across Southern California for the actor’s character, Margo’s mother, Shyanne. “She’s actually from Orange County,” Gordon-Crozier says of Pfeiffer. “So she was like, ‘This is who I would be if I hadn’t left.’” Below, Gordon-Crozier shares behind-the-scenes details from dressing the Margo cast—rounded out by Nicole Kidman, Greg Kinnear, Rico Nasty, Nick Offerman, and Thaddea Graham—along with exclusive images from the set.

“In the beginning of the show, Margo’s a student, and so I think she's trying to fit in,” Gordon-Crozier says. “She’s emulating her professor's style a bit, while putting her own twist on it. Like this knit [sweater] I got from the ’50s, but underneath she's wearing a red lace top.”

“It was really important for us to get this alien t-shirt right. We wanted to bring in that element of what happens later on in the script, like she’s looking at herself in the mirror and seeing herself in that t-shirt and getting ideas.”

“Margo is in that age range where she's definitely thrifting. She’s also probably taking clothes from her mother's closet, and they have a little bit of a magpie essence to them where they like sparkly and flashy things, but Margo wears them in a different way. So, I definitely wanted to incorporate Shyanne’s wardrobe into Margo’s.”

“For Shyanne, I took a lot of inspiration from the first two seasons of Real Housewives of Orange County before they went into logomania,” Gordon-Crozier says. “Michelle is so game for everything. She really got the character.”

“During the fittings, a big conversation was, ‘Does [Shyanne’s partner] Kenny like the cleavage? Is he okay with the cleavage? Or, does he want her to hide the cleavage?’ We decided to go with something in between. We would veil the cleavage a lot, and then every day, we would move her cross necklace up or down, depending on what Michelle was wearing, so it would lie perfectly.”

“Susie was one of my favorite people to dress,” Gordon-Crozier says of Margo’s roommate, played by Thaddea Graham. “I was really inspired by Rosanna Arquette's daughter, Zoë Blue. She has the most amazing style. It’s very whimsical. She'll wear a slip from the 1800s with a black choker. Susie's really creative, but we don't see that until later, when their basic roommates leave, and she can start being herself. We also found a lot of inspiration from real girls on Instagram with homemade, quirky style. Susie can crochet. She has a glue gun. She knows how to make her own stuff. But she's also figuring out her style. As the season progresses, you see that she becomes more and more of who she wants to be.”

“Susie is kind of the opposite of Margo in a way. She spends a lot more time thinking about her layers and what she's going to wear, who she's going to be that day.”

“Our whole thing with Margo is that she's a bit of a slob, so that's why sometimes her outfits are mismatched. She just grabs them from the ground.”

“Elle’s prosthetics were so good. We wanted to find a way to show her stomach, so we put her in this Poster Girl bodysuit,” Gordon-Crozier recalls. “But she’s not fully the Hungry Ghost yet, so she’s hiding it with a sweet little vintage ’70s cotton top. I think the lace skirt is Free People. She's always a mix of sexy and sweet.”

“This is what Margo wears to meet [her baby’s father] Mark's mother, so this is her dressing up. My assistant is very good at felting so we hand-felted this. We found a preexisting vest and just added those circles on. There’s a vintage ’70s lace top underneath.”

“The older people in this show are a little stuck in the era when they were most beautiful and thriving, before reality kicked in. So Shyanne and Jinx [Nick Offerman], and even Lace [Nicole Kidman] are a bit stuck in the ’90s.”

“That is a Paco Rabanne skirt, which she wears twice. I liked it with the body suit because of the juxtaposition.”

“There are a few repeat hero pieces,” Gordon-Crozier says. “Margo has her hero cowboy boots, which Elle actually took home because she loved them so much. There’s also her hero denim jacket which she wears a lot. She wears this white lace skirt twice. And then the red tassel jacket she wears a couple of times, too. I tried to repeat as much as possible.”

“Lace’s wrestling costume was all made of latex. I’d never worked with latex before so that was an interesting challenge. You can't just cut and sew it. You have to go to a specialist.”

“This was in the beginning, when Margo didn't really know what her OnlyFans character was. We thought, ‘What would Susie have?’ Susie's into cosplaying, elves, and all that underworld stuff. So this is us essentially taking stuff from Susie's closet.”

“This is one of my favorite outfits,” Gordon-Crozier says. “It’s a Poster Girl top and a Victoria's Secret bra. The skirt is vintage from the ’80s. And there’s a vintage belt and metallic boots, which I think are from Santee Alley. This is where Margo and the Hungry Ghost come together. She's a little more confident and she is finding her style. It's a well-thought-out outfit for her—perfect for her going out on the town.”

“This is my favorite Shyanne look. It’s Roberto Cavalli and the boots are Paris Texas.”

“Both Margo and Shyanne are magpies. They like sparkly things. So I think Margo genuinely likes her maid-of-honor dress, even though it probably came right off the rack from Bloomingdale's. But there was something less generic about it that I liked. In reality, it is vintage and we paired it with a Collina Strada necklace.”

“As she progresses into the world of OnlyFans, she has little money and she buys herself some new things. She’s meeting up with [her OnlyFans friends Rose and KC] and she’s playing into what maybe she thinks they would wear too.”

“We wanted [the Hungry Ghost look] to be DIY in a way because Susie is supposed to be making it all,” Gordon-Crozier says. “It's sort of janky, for lack of a better word, in a purposeful way, using things you can get at the store and are easily accessible. It’s a throwback to that [fall/winter 2017] Gucci ad from Alessandro Michele [and Glenn Luchford]. That was a big inspiration. So were the ’60s. We tested the body paint color a lot. Instead of a straight blue or green, we went with a teal.”

“The platform boots are from Dolls Kill. We got a lot of things from there. Elle helped me add little moons and aliens to them. Everything was custom-made and special. We also made the cones with the tassels. I purposely put the cones on the outside. It’s a little tongue in cheek.”

“A lot of [Rico Nasty and Lindsey Normington’s] stuff was from Wasteland, Dolls Kill, and then costume houses like Western Costume or Palace. They just have the wildest things in there.”

“Hair, makeup, and wardrobe collaborated a lot. Here, KC and Rose are cowboys, so we made their hair into lassos. Everyone in my costume department helped bedazzle the hats and belts, and we added the marabou to the bottom of the pants.”

“This is another one of my favorite outfits. The bodysuit is [J.Kim]. I don't even want to say where the skirt is from because Margo probably wouldn't be able to afford it. It’s Bode, but let’s say she found it at Wasteland and got a really good deal.”

“I’m obsessed with this look and the green. That coat is vintage—real mink. We got that from a costume house. Elle looks so good in these body suits, so we just kept putting her in them.”

“We had a bucket on set, and everyone would put their [soda] can tabs in it. We collected hundreds of them and sewed them all onto Susie’s Shadowheart costume. That was fun.”

“Lace was really fun to dress,” Gordon-Crozier says of Kidman’s character. “She’s a lawyer now, so I considered what sort of suits an ex-wrestler would be attracted to. I did a lot of ’90 silhouettes and superhero colors. This one is Thierry Mugler.”

As the golden light of a Hamptons summer evening gives way to cocktails and conversation, guests will gather amid a setting inspired by the timeless glamour of Monte Carlo and the sun-drenched elegance of the South of France. Hosted by Princess Grace Foundation Trustee Richard Kirshenbaum and his wife, this intimate Crown Patron soirée will celebrate culture, creativity, and community while honoring the enduring legacy of Princess Grace of Monaco and her vision of nurturing the next generation of performing artists.

More than a social occasion, the gathering serves as an introduction to the Princess Grace Foundation-USA’s extraordinary mission and the remarkable artists whose careers it has helped launch. Award winners in film, theater, and dance will join trustees, Crown Patrons, Guild members, Monegasque officials, and distinguished guests, creating the kind of meaningful exchange that has long defined the Foundation’s unique community. The evening will also recognize this year’s Princess Grace Awards honoree, acclaimed filmmaker and director John M. Chu, whose artistic journey began as a Princess Grace Award recipient before achieving international acclaim.

The soirée reflects the Foundation’s ongoing commitment to cultivating a community of supporters who understand the essential role of the arts in society. At a time when creative pursuits can too easily be overshadowed by more immediate concerns, the Foundation remains steadfast in its mission to champion emerging talent and ensure that artistic excellence continues to flourish for generations to come.

For Richard Kirshenbaum, hosting this special evening in Sagaponack is both a personal honor and a meaningful way to share the Foundation’s inspiring work with new audiences. Ahead of the Summer Soirée, Social Lifestyle Magazine sat down with Kirshenbaum to discuss the vision behind the event, the importance of fostering connections through the arts, and why Princess Grace’s dream of supporting exceptional young artists remains as relevant today as ever.

It is an honor to speak with Richard Kirshenbaum in anticipation of the Summer Soirée and to share his insights with readers of Social Lifestyle Magazine:

Meghan Forte: What inspired the vision for this Summer Cocktail Soirée?

Richard Kirshenbaum: This is a Crown Patron event for the Princess Grace Foundation—a summer cocktail soirée designed to introduce new people to the Foundation’s mission and its grants supporting the next generation of performing artists, while honoring the legacy of the late Princess Grace of Monaco. The theme and visual cues are inspired by summers in Monte Carlo and the South of France, bringing a sense of elegance and ease to the evening.

Meghan Forte: How does this event reflect the spirit and mission of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA?

Richard Kirshenbaum: The event brings together past and present award winners in film, dance, and theatre, along with trustees, Crown Patrons, younger Guild members, and Monegasque officials. By connecting guests directly with this community, they gain a real understanding of the Foundation’s mission—to nurture and support the next generation of great performing artists.

Meghan Forte: What makes this event unique? 

Richard Kirshenbaum: This is a social summer cocktail soirée. It is designed to feel relaxed and inviting, allowing for connection in a more informal setting among friends.

Meghan Forte: Why was Sagaponack chosen as the setting for this gathering?

Richard Kirshenbaum: My wife Dana and I wanted to host a Hamptons event for the Foundation. It felt like the perfect setting—intimate and ideal for bringing people together in the spirit of summer.

Meghan Forte: How important are intimate gatherings like this in building long-term support for the arts?

Richard Kirshenbaum: Social gatherings like this are incredibly important. They create opportunities for like-minded people to connect, while also educating guests about the Foundation’s work and its extraordinary roster of award winners. These personal connections help build lasting support.

Meghan Forte: Why does supporting emerging artists feel especially urgent right now?

Richard Kirshenbaum: With so many pressing needs in the world, the arts can sometimes be overlooked. Yet it’s crucial that we continue to invest in and support the arts and culture, ensuring that new voices and creative talent have the opportunity to thrive.

Meghan Forte: If this event inspires one lasting takeaway for guests, what do you hope it is?

Richard Kirshenbaum: I hope guests leave with a deeper appreciation for the legacy of Princess Grace of Monaco and her vision of supporting the next generation of performing artists—and feel inspired to be part of continuing that dream.

When the evening draws to a close, its legacy will linger—carried through new connections, shared inspiration, and a renewed appreciation for the arts. What begins as a summer gathering in Sagaponack will become something more enduring: an invitation to be part of a legacy that champions creativity and nurtures future talent. In that sense, the soirée is not an ending, but a beginning—one that continues to bring Princess Grace’s vision to life for generations to come.

Thank you to Mr. Richard Kirshenbaum for taking the time to speak with Social Lifestyle Magazine. His continued dedication to the arts is truly inspiring and helps create meaningful opportunities for the next generation of artists.

Richard Kirshenbaum Professional Website

Richard Kirshenbaum Instagram Profile 
The Princess Grace Foundation USA  Website

The post Celebrating the Next Generation: The Princess Grace Summer Soirée appeared first on Social Lifestyle Magazine.

From the beaded phrases of Jeffrey Gibson’s sculptural weavings to Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s canoe series to Raven Halfmoon’s fingerprint-textured tributes, a new exhibition marks the largest presentation of American Indigenous work in the U.K. to date.

Opening next week, Hold to This Earth at Yorkshire Sculpture Park features nearly 70 pieces by 38 artists, which in turn represent 35 Tribal Nations. “(The artists) reference and honour ancestral knowledge whilst being steadfastly contemporary, asserting a powerful presence and countering narratives of erasure that too often position Indigenous cultures only in terms of the past,” says a statement from Tia Collection, from which the pieces are drawn.

Colossal readers will recognize works by Cannupa Hanska Luger, Dyani White Hawk, Nicholas Galanin, and more. The range of media highlights the diverse materials and approaches that Indigenous contemporary artists use and nods to cultural traditions, heritage crafts, and precious landscapes while also considering socio-economic issues, visibility and representation, and technology.

“Materials such as clay, hide, wool, beads, and natural pigments become carriers of powerful stories, memory, and tradition, rooted in connection to the earth,” says Tia Collection. “Newer modes of expression and understanding growing out of digital culture also speak to the shifting landscapes of Indigenous life in the 21st century.”

Hold to This Earth opens on June 13 and continues through April 18, 2027, in Wakefield. Keep up with exhibitions featuring works from the Tia Collection on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article ‘Hold to This Earth’ Surveys the Abundance of American Indigenous Contemporary Art appeared first on Colossal.

It’s doubly exciting to see that Chief Executive John Lee is launching a public consultation for Hong Kong’s inaugural five-year plan.

The first reason for excitement is that we’ve just experienced a pretty well-run public consultation; the recently updated Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan generated a lot of submissions from NGOs, companies, and members of the public.

The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) seems to have done a good job of taking those submissions into account. In short, we’ve seen a proof of concept that public consultations seem to be effective.

The second reason for excitement is that China takes sustainability quite seriously in both word and deed. In aligning with China, the Hong Kong government has a golden opportunity to step up its sustainability game.

The outline of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan is 83 pages long. However, just as a very rough indicator of how seriously the topic is taken, Article 1, Chapter 1, Section 1 includes several comments about the energy transition and pollution.

Sustainability is considered important enough a topic to warrant some space in the prime real estate of those first few paragraphs, rubbing shoulders with big hitters like GDP and life expectancy. 

It might not be very scientific to measure a topic’s importance by which paragraph it lies in, but it is incredibly refreshing to see sustainability topics getting headline treatment instead of being tucked away on page 18.

In a similar vein, the top number in the Key Indicators of Economic and Social Development is GDP. However, in that very same table, there are binding objectives for carbon intensity goals, PM2.5 levels, and forest cover.

I get the sense that these are not just handwaved in order to hit a game of buzzword bingo – something that corporations are frequently guilty of. Rigorous thought has been put into integrating sustainability into the Five-Year Plan.

At the April 21 press conference, when Lee talked about the public consultation for the five-year plan, sustainability, carbon and pollution were not mentioned at all. Of course, GDP growth and the perennial issues of housing and education are all vital issues that need to be addressed.

However, if we’re talking in terms of five-year plans, it’s probably worth noting that in five years from now, the world needs to have carbon emissions at half of what they are today. And that in 25 years from now – just five more five-year plans away! – we need to be at net zero. Sustainability is vital too.

Of course, Hong Kong’s tiny landmass is not home to vast factories, refineries or farms. Most of the carbon that we emit is from producing electricity to power the towers that are our homes and offices.

So while emulating the priority that sustainability is afforded in China’s five-year plan is important, copy-pasting it wholesale would miss important nuance: that Hong Kong’s carbon shadow is much larger than our territorial footprint.

We import almost everything – food, energy, goods, and even water. The spectre of our carbon emissions haunts not only what we consume, but also the vast amounts of financing that flow across the world from our international financial centre.

Sustainability in Hong Kong is not just about plonking a few solar panels down; it’s a much deeper question about consumption and green finance.

That’s not to diminish the role of sustainability in our own territory; there’s plenty of room for more ambition, not just in carbon but with other forms of pollution.

For example, the Municipal Solid Waste charging scheme’s failure to progress beyond the pilot study means that there’s little push to reduce waste at source.

While it’s true that landfill rates are going down, incineration is going up – in other words, the generation of trash is not slowing down, but is instead just being diverted to the landfill in the sky. That’s not a long-term solution.

I hasten to add that putting sustainability higher on the agenda is not just important for the Hong Kong government. Company boards and executive teams ought to be discussing sustainability during their strategy meetings.

Hopefully, seeing sustainability high on the agenda in the government’s five-year plan will light a fire under corporations to up their sustainability game too.

All told, the idea of a public consultation for Hong Kong’s five-year plan is a wonderful opportunity. Public consultations have a prior form in moving the needle – the Biodiversity Strategy Action Plan has demonstrated that.

And by aligning Hong Kong’s five-year plan with China’s, we can achieve one of the most important things of all – putting sustainability on the agenda.

Spoilers ahead for I Love Boosters

When you want to dress a surrealist world in outrageous color, call up Shirley Kurata. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (affectionately referred to as “the Daniels”) did it for their Oscar-winning film, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and W followed suit for the 2022 Directors Issue. When Boots Riley was planning his latest film, I Love Boosters, enlisting Kurata to do the costumes was likely a no-brainer.

It turns out the admiration was mutual. “I’ve always been a big fan of his work,” Kurata tells W. “Even without reading the script, I told him, ‘Yes, I would love to work with you.’” When the Los Angeles–based stylist and costume designer learned more about the film, her enthusiasm only grew. “I knew we would have so much fun creating some crazy looks for all the characters.”

I Love Boosters, which arrives in theaters May 22, follows a clique of Oakland women who regularly shoplift from the fictional clothing store Metro Design and resell the goods to their local community at discounted prices. The group’s ringleader, aspiring designer Corvette (Keke Palmer), reveres Metro Design’s despotic creative director, Christie Smith (Demi Moore), but not enough to keep her from robbing the woman dry. When her crew, the Velvet Gang (including Taylour Paige, Naomi Ackie, and eventually Poppy Liu), gets their hands on a teleportation device, it takes their Robin Hood–esque operation to the next level.

Anyone who is a fan of Riley (and Kurata) knows better than to expect anything conventional from this film. Like Riley’s other works, Sorry to Bother You and I’m a Virgo, Boosters is a brightly colored commentary on societal issues. This time, Riley tackles unethical labor practices, fake news, and fast fashion. His use of practical effects leaves the viewer uncomfortable at points, but don’t you dare shield your eyes and miss a moment of Kurata’s over-the-top wardrobe. From a velour tracksuit exaggeratedly overstuffed with boosted goods to a plaid dress that erupts in streams of fabric (shown below), Kurata breaks down every wild ensemble from I Love Boosters.

Corvette’s Spiked Jumpsuit

At one point during the film, Metro Design starts selling a spiked jumpsuit that Corvette claims was her original design—one of the few pieces in the film directly attributed to her—and a window into how she actually thinks.

“[Boots] just wrote a description of the jumpsuit in the script, so I made some sketches to make sure I understood him correctly,” Kurata says of creating the piece. When Riley approved the design, Kurata reached out to Philip Seastrom and Lacey Micallef of the Los Angeles–based brand Big Bud Press. “They do colorful overalls, and I asked them to help me conceive it,” Kurata says. “Thankfully, they were able to make all the colorways of the jumpsuit.”

The Stuffed Pink Tracksuit

One of the first physical gags in Boosters comes after a shoplifting expedition to Metro Design. Corvette crams merchandise into her pink velour tracksuit and emerges from the store looking like an overstuffed version of Paris Hilton. Initially, Kurata didn’t think she’d be able to find a set roomy enough to be stuffed, and she was prepared to make it herself. Luckily, Juicy Couture comes in extended sizes, so she was able to purchase a suit from the velour masters.

“We built padding underneath and then actually started stuffing clothes in it,” Kurata recalls. “But we needed to make sure Keke would be able to walk, so I had to test it out. There is a silly picture of me trying on the jumpsuit and stuffing pillows inside.” With that, Kurata confirmed the tracksuit was usable and secured Riley’s approval.

Corvette’s Turquoise Dress

When Corvette sneaks into Christie’s comically slanted apartment, she does so in a turquoise dress of her own design, one that immediately catches Christie’s eye. Riley initially gave Kurata the brief that the dress was to be inspired by Corvette’s parents’ Oldsmobile, which turned Kurata’s attention to cars. “I actually sourced vinyl upholstery and mimicked quilting from car seats,” she says. “There are also some chrome elements in the belt and in her shoes.”

The dress had to be unconventional, as it's established with her spiked jumpsuits that Corvette is hardly a traditional designer. At the same time, there were logistical considerations, like the design’s durability. “She’s running in place in Christie’s apartment, so the dress had to be practical, allow movement, and get attached to a harness. There were a lot of factors, but I had so much fun creating something that I felt like came out of Corvette's mind.”

The Heist Looks

Midway through the film, the Velvet Gang embarks on a robbery spree of every Metro Design store in the East Bay. Rather than trying to blend in, the group dresses in an array of over-the-top looks. “The whole point was that they couldn’t get recognized, so they had to have disguises,” Kurata says. “But we wanted to make sure every outfit was heightened.”

Riley didn’t specify any particular themes he wanted to convey in the script, which gave Kurata the creative freedom to dress up the group however she desired. One such set of ensembles, which Kurata describes as “raver anime,” finds the group in day-glo fur jackets, miniskirts, and Kawaii-adjacent accessories. Another covers the girls in florals, with Palmer in a vintage Moschino dress. Kurata gathered the wardrobe through a combination of brand outreach, vintage shopping, and some good old DIYing. The bag Palmer is carrying, for example, in the floral clip, was hot-glued with flowers. “There was a lot of arts and crafts,” Kurata says.

The Transforming Garments

It's during this montage that the women discover their teleportation device has another trick: It’s also a “situational accelerator,” which turns anything it’s pointed at into its most surreal version. This leads to a scene in which the quartet experiments with the gadget’s settings, transforming their clothing into Dalí-esque versions of the original designs.

First up is Corvette, whose plaid dress erupts in streamers that encompass the room. “I thought it would be cool to go more punk with that look,” Kurata says of Palmer’s long-sleeved dress. Kurata reached out to French designer Solène Lescouët to create the piece. “She’d previously done a collection of spiky, punk-inspired dresses.” Riley wanted to create the effect of lines coming off the dress, so Kurata sourced plaid fabric for Lescouët, who made two versions, one plaid and one black. From there, Kurata collaborated with the film’s production designer, Christopher Glass, to develop the practical-effects approach. In the end, she sewed colored ribbons to the black dress so they could emerge from all angles.

Sade’s dress, meanwhile, came from Rodarte. “They’re good friends,” Kurata says of sister designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy. “I knew Sade’s dress was going to expand and there would be a fabric explosion, and I knew tulle would be a great fabric for that, because it's pretty inexpensive and you could buy bolts and bolts and bolts of it.”

To create Poppy Liu’s dress of dirt, twigs, and leaves, Kurata took a trip to Michael’s and the now-defunct JoAnn Fabrics to buy up panels of grass. “I got leaves and twigs from the yard and just glued them on top of a camo corset,” she says with a laugh. “The glue gun was definitely used a lot because we had a limited budget.”

The most striking look in this scene comes when Taylour Paige’s brown silk Collina Strada dress turns into a fuzzy, anatomically correct bodysuit complete with comically large areolas. “Boots wanted it to look like a Muppet,” Kurata says. “We didn’t want it to look too realistic because that would just be creepy.”

Christie Smith’s Black and White Wardrobe

And while the main group of women is shrouded in an immense amount of color throughout the film, Demi Moore’s tyrannical designer stands in stark contrast, wearing an almost exclusively black and white wardrobe. Her looks are also in direct opposition to her designs, which are monochrome but colorful, with each Metro Design location dedicated to a different solid colorway.

“Because all of Christie’s stores are based on color, I thought it would be funny if she never wore it,” Kurata says. When dressing Christie, Kurata looked to designers like Rei Kawakubo and Phoebe Philo, who dress almost exclusively in black and neutrals. “I talked to Demi and offered that idea, ‘To set you apart from this world, you’re going to be in non-colored outfits.’ She totally loved it.”

Moore actually helped with sourcing her character’s wardrobe. When she went to London prior to production, she picked up a few structural pieces from Comme des Garçons. Kurata got other pieces from a friend who has an impressive vintage archive. The costume designer wanted Christie’s clothing to also invoke the “wonkiness” of her tilted apartment. “I sought out pieces that were asymmetrical and avant-garde.” She also commissioned work from designers like Victoria Yujin Kwon, who created a pair of 3D architectural gray shorts for Moore. “I just loved how cool and unique they are,” Kurata says. “It works so well in her slanted apartment.”

karendore posted a photo:

Karen Dore Photography

Havana Rose Liu wore red to Cannes for a reason. On Monday, May 18, the 28-year-old actor embraced full glamour in a custom blood-red Balenciaga silk chiffon gown with a dramatic drape and a wavy pinned-up bob. It was her first time at the festival, for the premiere of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell, and to calm her nerves, she reached for the color that always grounds her.

“We were deciding between a red dress and a black one, and I was honestly terrified of the red look because it just felt so attention-grabbing. But red is really important to me. I always have a bit of red on, no matter what,” Liu told W the next day while rushing through the Nice airport.

The tradition traces back to her childhood and Chinese heritage. “It was always symbolically important in my household. Most people in my life wear something, even just a red string,” she explained. “I started to get more superstitious as life started to feel bigger and bolder, and it feels like a tiny tether to myself. When there’s no control at all, it’s a way of rooting myself in some sort of ritual.”

Still, committing to the gown took some convincing. “I asked too many people in my life [which dress to wear],” she said. “I was feeling really, really scared of it. But everyone was like, ‘Wear the red dress. Just do it. It’s Cannes, baby!’”

That included her co-star Charles Melton, who had previously attended the festival for 2023’s May December. Unlike fellow Cannes first-timers Sophie Thatcher, Kristine Froseth, and Diego Calva, Melton knew exactly what to expect. “Charles feels like an older brother to me,” Liu said. “Or maybe I'm the older sister. But he was very comforting to all of us, giving us advice about how it would all go down at the premiere.” When it came to the dress, he told her to “go big or go home.”

It’s a fitting mantra for Liu, whose ascent has had its own instinctive ‘just do it’ quality. The New Yorker was discovered in Washington Square Park while attending NYU, signed to IMG, and soon landed the cover of Vogue Italia. Since then, she’s built an impressive indie résumé with films like Bottoms, Lurker, No Exit, and the upcoming Tuner, opposite Leo Woodall and Dustin Hoffman.

In Her Private Hell, Liu plays an actor being stalked by a serial killer played by Melton. The surrealist thriller marks Refn’s first feature since 2016’s The Neon Demon. “He reminded me of the deep and undying value of just being a true and unique artist,” Liu said of working with the Danish director. “We're in this time where IP is being repeated. We're really trying so hard to make things that people will go to see. I also love those movies, but there's this other area of filmmaking that I hope never constricts.”

It’s a sentiment that seemed to resonate at the premiere, where the film received one of the festival’s marathon standing ovations. Whether it lasted seven or 12 minutes depends on who you ask, but to Liu it felt like “a thousand years. I fully vacated the premises of my body. I’ll have to watch videos of the evening to see what I was saying, if my eyes were closed. It was like an illusion—crazy.”

Liu is the first to admit that she still isn’t fully comfortable with the spotlight. “Going into it, I was very intimidated by the whole thing,” she said. “It’s the most dramatic, celebratory landscape for film—so lavish, sparkly, and amazing. I initially had this desire to hide. But all my friends and family told me, ‘You have to step into your light and try to just enjoy it. Go all the way, and meet it where it asks you to meet it.’”

Next up is the New York premiere of Tuner, in which Liu portrays a young woman who plays the piano in order to connect with her late grandmother. The role carries personal significance for the actor, who dedicated the performance to her paternal grandmother. To prepare for the whirlwind ahead, she plans to return to familiar rituals.

“I usually walk the Brooklyn Bridge if I’m feeling out of sorts,” Liu said. “The idea of opposite action has been really heavy on my mind: when you feel like shrinking or hiding, step out, that sort of thing. Even though my desire is to hide in my house and sleep under the covers for three years, I'll be going on my walk, maybe doing a bit of meditation, and then going to my next premiere.”