Vogue USA – January 2023
English | 117 pages | pdf | 55.43 MB
The Real Thing
THERE’S A MOMENT OF SERENDIPITY in our cover story this month, which is on the remarkable actor Florence Pugh. When she arrives at a weaving studio in Brooklyn for an hour of loom work and conversation with Vogue’s Chloe Schama, they find a pair of teenage girls sharing the space. Of course Florence, being who she is—which is unfailingly genuine and gregarious—immediately engages the girls in talk.
I saw this quality myself when Florence and I recently attended the theater together in London’s West End; audience members were drawn to her like a magnet (young women especially) and she was lovely to each and every one.
Much is being made of the end of the movie star— it seems Hollywood is not minting them the way it used to. But Florence is proof that an old alchemy still works: Talent plus authenticity equals an actor you can’t take your eyes off of. Florence is dazzling on a red carpet, fearless in her choice of film roles, and so winning in person that you instantly root for her in everything she does. (When our photographer Colin Dodgson asked Florence to pull on rubber gloves and hold a giant salmon for his camera, she said, Why not?)
This is Florence’s second Vogue cover, and while her career continues its steady ascent— she has the lead in a new indie film, A Good Person, and two major blockbusters coming this year—much about her has stayed the same.
She is the product of a warm and charmingly eccentric family upbringing, and remains extremely close to her three siblings and connected to a circle of old friends in London. She’s still brilliantly uncautious in her public utterances, chastising internet trolls who had something to say about the Valentino dress she wore to Couture in Rome this summer. And she’s still adept in a kitchen, which is, of course, the setting for her viral “Cooking With Flo” videos on social media and for our original Vogue video as well, which is out now. Florence is putting the finishing touches on a new kitchen of her very own in South London, where she recently moved after a pandemic spent in Los Angeles. Run into her on the street in her neighborhood, and she might just invite you over. Equally inviting is the rest of this special combined Winter issue, which features a story about Naomi Biden’s wedding, the first of its scale to be held at the White House in more than a half century; a vibrant fashion portfolio celebrating the Lunar New Year, photographed by Theo Liu; and a tale of two Alexes: photographer Alex Webb’s tour of the must-see Alex Katz retrospective at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, with giant tote bags in tow. The Katz show will still be up when you read this, and it’s a showcase for another true-to-self artist. The more of them, the better.
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