Editor’s Letter: People Have the Power

We love a hot time. In the middle of a heat wave during couture week this summer, the City of Light was vibrant with a swirl of über-chic fashionistas and dead-cool bands like the Kills and the Virgins, both of whom were in town to rock after-parties. BlackBook flew to Paris for our own convergence of style, art and rock ’n’ roll in the fashion capital of the world. Face time with singular visionary talents Patti Smith and Tilda Swinton on the same weekend? I’m in.

Smith was just wrapping up her exhibition at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art when we talked about inspiration, style and the power of creation in the aftermath of loss. “Fashion is a delight,” said Smith, the epitome of androgynous cool, clad in the same outfit—Ann Demeulemeester T-shirt and blazer paired with jeans and cowboy boots—she’d worn the day before and slept in. No, she wasn’t kidding when she described herself as “a uniform type of person.”

The avant-garde fashion plate Tilda Swinton flew in from Milan the very next day just for our cover shoot. “People are finding new ways, and different ways and unimagined ways of being powerful,” said Swinton during a spirited conversation about fashion, politics and making art in and out of Hollywood. It’s a sentiment that echoes one of my favorite Patti Smith songs, “People Have The Power.”
Swinton’s own powerful choices in her life, on the screen and off, are writ large on the clothes she wears. The indie queen, who stars this month in the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading, has her own innate fashion sense. When I mentioned that Patti Smith asked me to send her love to Swinton, the actress’s handsome boyfriend, artist Sandro Kopp, chimed in: “They both look great in a suit.” Indeed, Swinton is a vision of strength, whether clad in a tux, a colorful Rodarte gown (as she appears on page 79) or one of her favorite sculpted multi-layered pieces from her pals Viktor & Rolf (who took our pop quiz on page 32). Swinton says she’s drawn to clothes that have wit, attitude and artistry—a fitting description for the very wearer of said clothes, and for many of the creatives profiled in this issue.

Our “girl talk” chats with the powerful women Katy Perry and Betsey Johnson, and Jill Stuart and Alexandra Richards, revealed a playful dynamic between artists who inspire one another. And don’t miss Features Editor James Servin’s tête-à-tête with the iconic Valentino, who describes himself as “super-classic.”

This issue, my first as Editor-in-Chief, celebrates the ways we’re moved by self-expression. We nominated our very favorite contemporary style stars, pulled together by Associate Editor Nick Haramis on page 46—some fashionably forward, some classic cool, others just plain freaky—all of whom are possessed of a free-spiritedness that makes us stand up and cheer.