Elle published a December/January joint issue back in November, with Zendaya on the cover, so it’s bridging the content void — the February issue must be coming soon — with digital covers, like this January edition starring Jodie Turner-Smith. I’m excited to see her get the attention, especially now that she’s shooting her groundbreaking role as Anne Boleyn, about which she says in the profile:
“We can only infer who she was, because she left no paper trail that would hint at her imagination. She’s endlessly fascinating for that reason,” she says. With her portrayal, Turner-Smith wanted to “tell the story of the woman who sits at the center of the myth, and make that story an accessible one—one that’s not entirely about class, but about humanity. Because whether a woman is a queen or a housekeeper, she is not exempt from any of the challenges and trials that women face in navigating their bodies, love, or the patriarchy,” she says. “There’s an opportunity to tell a really human story and for it to feel that much more accessible because a Black woman is playing her.”
The cover itself arrived in moving format, which I can’t put in the slideshow for boring technical reasons, so I’m putting it here and then we can look at the rest of the shoot above:
She is radiant, and her gaze is penetrating, and there are a hundred THOUSAND reasons why I’m not a model but one of them is that I am watching her switch poses and hit them and it looks challenging to me. I would feel like I was flailing, but she’s just smooth as silk. Now, as for Gucci and North Face together… THAT feels like a 2021 Mad Lib. Coming soon: Patagonia x Versace, and Giambattista Valli for LL Bean.
