Behind Chloe Malle’s First September Issue

0:00This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook.

0:35This is The Run Through. I'm Chloe Mell. And I'm Chioma Nardi. On today's episode, me, Nicole Phelps, and Virginia Smith break down the September issue and talk about some of our favorite stories and shoots from inside the September issue. I am so excited for everyone to hear because this has really been a labor of love and other things. I love hearing the behind the scenes. Choma, I'm so excited to catch up. There is so much going on over here. I know. I know. Are you ready for the solar eclipse? It's not really happening here. I know when I was in France, everyone was talking about it. No, it's like a 9 % eclipse or something.

1:15Okay, okay, okay. Everybody's freaking out trying to get the glasses, but they're all sold out, so we're all making like pins and cardboard. Oh, my God. Be careful. Cardboard. Yeah, but don't hurt your eyes. with your beautiful new sunglasses or glasses. I love reading Naughty by Nature because I feel like I learn about what's happening in Choma's life. Oh, my God. I know I actually have to do stuff now. I actually have to go out into the world. I'm like, oh, no. What am I going to write? But I loved your, I mean, I guess we've got more impressive news than your vacation, but more about that later.

1:48But this September cover was major. Thank you. So major, congratulations. Thank you, Choma. I'm very excited about it. I think Homa and Kaya look so fresh and fun and exuberant. And it really came out of this idea that all of us had when we came back from the shows, which was it was so exciting to see the way that new creative directors were reinterpreting these heritage houses and like really, really reinventing the history and the story that they were telling. and Kaya and Homer, obviously, as second-generation Vogue cover stars, really embodied that. And we all thought that the show, The Shards, which we saw episodes of months ago, you're going to really enjoy it.

2:31It's very watchable and a delight, a costume delight, an 80s tableau. Oh, my God. Tableau vivant. I actually, I need to read, I'm going on vacation next week and I need to read Less Than Zero. I've never read it. I'm so ashamed I've never read it because it's such an important book. It is. I mean, it's been really fun to do Less Than Zero for the book club because I feel like it's the book so far that the most Vogue staffers have actually been getting into. And I see all of our Vogue team, like, posting pictures from their vacation with Less Than Zero. And it really made sense for the Shards because Less Than Zero is a character in the Shards, the book, and the show because the Breddy St.

3:13Ellis character is writing the book in the show. And so it feels very... Oh, I learned that from your podcast with Kyan Homer. Oh, I'd love to hear it. We love to learn. It was really good.

3:25Oh my God, I love that Spencer Singer styled the cover. He's so talented. Everybody talks about that. Yeah, everybody talks about him so much. And it's so cool that you got him to do this. I was so excited to work with him. And he just did such a wonderful job. He works with Stephen Mizell so well. Is it his first American vote cover? No, he's done that. A first American vote cover. Wow. Yeah. And Choma, I just got the PDF of your incredible Venetia Scott, Nicole Kidman portfolio. Venetia was so excited. Yeah, it was very much a love match between Venetia and Venetia Scott, the photographer, and Nicole Kidman, who's kind of the first celebrity in a long time that I've been really starstruck by.

4:07And I didn't go on the shoot. I must preface that the shoot happened in New York, actually, earlier in the summer, just before Nicole went off on vacation. But I do remember feeling very starstruck by her on the stairs of the Met in that receiving line when she was co-hosting. And I just suddenly I'm like, oh, my God, it's like Nicole Kidman. And I haven't had that feeling about a celebrity in so long. She's got just such presence. Wow. It's kind of quiet, kind of like Sphinx-like presence. It's quite intimidating. I know. I thought Giles captured that really well in his article and the way he— I love the scene of her telling him to sort of check the label of her pants and then saying, have you ever done this before?

4:50It was like she's both this amazing combination of approachable and charming, but star power and energy. I think what was it? Was it Susanna Beer who described her as the most seductive person, like not in a sexual way, just that she pulls you in? She really does. There's something about Nicole. I mean, and I love that she's been kind of secretly partying in Ibiza and she's friends with Charlie XCX. Like she's so much, there's so much more to her than you would expect. So, yeah, no, I'm excited for the world to kind of get into it. The shoot I really love too. It's very classic Venetia. It was quite nail biting.

5:29I know, because we couldn't find the right location and so much hinges on location. What was the location? It was somewhere outside of the city. And there was a lot of consternation about how far it would be for the drive. Because, you know, Nicole only has so much time in the world and we want to maximize the time that we're shooting. And our wonderful global head of social, Sam Sussman, went out there and was sending me kind of live updates of Nicole in the rain. and which was so because she really gets into character wow first it was a motel that was upstate new york which i wasn't crazy about we also toyed with the idea of shooting her in this crazy motel in nashville so there was this insane which was a dream i mean it looked like something out of a movie literally looked like a movie set and then we ended up in this fabulous mansion outside of the city just outside of the city but not too far but it was perfect it wasn't it and that mural picture at the end where she sort of disappears into the wall was quite cool so yeah and of course there's always a cat or a dog or something in this venetia loves an animal i also loved it because i loved looking at venetia's house and um architectural digest so it was great to compare venetia at home in ad with venetia's photos of a woman like Nicole in another very different type of home.

6:54It was a fun sort of diptych. It's so true, actually. Very cool. No, very exciting. Oh, Chloe, tell me about your vacation. I had such a lovely vacation. I was in France with my family, my sister and her three daughters, and obviously my own kids for about 10 days. It was such a treat. It was very hot. And as we know, France is really struggling with the heat across the country. But I just sort of accepted being sticky all week. And that was fine. With no AC. No AC. But that's okay. We had some fans, some room fans. And no, we had a great time. We went to skipping stones in a river and shopping at all the markets.

7:38and my kids rode Shetland ponies and visited some hilltop towns and had a lot of ice cream. It was lovely. Sounds so, so good. How's the book club going? As I said, I'm really excited to read Less Than Zero. Yeah, it's been fun to see everyone in our office and on the Vogue app really getting into this one. I think having the Shards coming out last week has amped up the interest in it because the Shards, the book, which Brett Easton Ellis published in 2023 is very good but very long and Less Than Zero is... So I shouldn't read the Shards. I should read Less Than Zero. You can read both but I think Less Than Zero is a more iconic Brett Easton Ellis classic and it is definitely a quicker read and really sets such a specific scene of Los Angeles at a certain moment of early 80s excess.

8:32But Brett Easton Ellis does read the audiobook of the Shards which is fun if you're interested in that. Oh, that's a good idea. Should I have a long drive coming up or plane ride? Yes, exactly. Yeah, the book club has been fun. It was fun to talk to Kaya and Homer about the book and sort of grill them as book club experts. Kaya is such a diligent student. She came in with notes about it. She had compared the shards and less than zero and had really interesting observations about the different characters in each book. And there really are parallels between the two. and god we're bracing ourselves for another heat wave but tonight I'm going to see Arsenal player friendly with my nephews who are in town and it's a complete surprise so I'm glad that we are recording this at this moment because I mean they're seven and nine I'm not sure they're quite listeners of the pod yet but it's going to be a total surprise for them and I think they get we're going to be in the director's box so it's going to be quite cool oh my god what a fun surprise Yeah, I'm excited.

9:32I'm excited. Choma, we're very invested over here in all of the political primaries. It's such a heated moment before the midterms in November. Peggy Flanagan, who has served as lieutenant governor in Minnesota since 2019, won the Democratic primaries on Tuesday. And we've also been very into Francesca Hong, who was running in Wisconsin, but she sadly did not win her seat. But Miriam Kahn won the primary in Connecticut. So there's a lot of exciting energy, but also uncertainty. So it's something that everyone's worth watching and invested in. Also, everyone in our office has been very invested in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's freezing, her egg freezing journey, and has been doing daily videos about the process, which has been fascinating.

10:19And I think so exciting for people to see that being so out in the open. Yeah, I think that conversation is so much more. I think it's great to see people like Alexandria doing that because I still think there's a certain taboo in doing it. And, you know, it's a grueling process. I've been doing it myself. Yeah, I was with a friend last night who is going through it and I think it can just drain you so much. So it's amazing that she is posting videos, working, doing all the things. Choma, what are you doing this weekend? I am going on vacation. Oh, good. Switzerland? Yeah. I'm going to Switzerland and then I'm going to Greece.

10:59So I'm doing, yeah, I'm really excited. You're following the coolcation trend, but not in Greece. Everyone's going north for cooler vacations. I don't think Switzerland is cooler. It's south from here. Even in the mountains? I would think if you were high in the mountains. Yeah, you can get to, I mean, you're right. You know, you can find it. You can definitely find a cool spot, but it's still pretty hot. Like my brother lives there and he's saying that it feels cooler here because somehow it cools down at night here where it just never cools down at night in Europe. And that's the hard part, sleeping in the heat.

11:34All right, that's it for Headlines Today. The run-through will be back in a moment.

11:50This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. Ouch. This knee is killing me. But I can't stop training. The marathon is in two weeks. Let's get on ZocDoc and find a doctor to take a look at that for you.

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12:54Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford. And I'm John Ross. And we're the hosts of Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers. And just because the Oscars are done, for now, doesn't mean we are. Join us every week for coverage of the biggest stories in Hollywood, interviews with today's brightest stars, and so much more. Listen to Little Gold Men every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

13:27I am in the studio today with the run-through co-host Nicole Phelps and Vogue's director of the Global Fashion Network, Virginia Smith. Hello, ladies. Hi. It's very nice to be here. And it's a special episode. We're talking about the September issue, which is Chloe Mal's first ever September issue. I remember watching the movie The September Issue the day before my interview at Vogue 15 years ago. I had to live through that movie. I know you did.

13:57I am so excited for this to be coming out into the world. I feel like we've been really talking about this and working on this for many months. We have a lot to power through, so I'm going to dive right into the cover shoot. Kai Gerber and Homer Gere are our cover stars, and they are both wearing beautiful new Chanel. They are both starring in The Shards, which is Ryan Murphy's newest series and an adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' 2023 novel of the same name, which is a very creepy, sexy book. And the show, which I've now seen, is similarly seductive, and I think people are going to be obsessed with this when it comes out in August.

14:39So very excited. It felt like a natural fit for Vogue. And obviously, Kaya and Homer are Nepo babies we love, children of Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere, who were once married. There's a very funny part in Rob Haskell's piece where Homer recalls telling Kaya when they first met, should we just get it out there, that our parents were married and then they never spoke of it again. but famously Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford were on the cover of Vogue in 1992 shot by Herb Ritz which is a Vogue cover I really love and this is a reference to that you watch the show too right Virginia I watched I think like one episode I was able to see and it's going to be fun for sure Jordan Roth makes an appearance does he really yes I was like wait a minute is that Jordan Roth yes he does I think people will be very as you say Chloe's seduced by the feel of it.

15:35Like it has a very sort of time that to me it's very LA, very in that world. I think people— Technicolor prep. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think people will have a lot of fun and probably August is a great time to debut it. So I do, I agree with you. So Ryan Murphy has gone from the late 90s to the early 1980s. Exactly. And Vogue's current book Vogue Club is read East and Alice's Less Than Zero, which is his first novel that he wrote in college. And he started writing it his last year of high school, which is when the character who's the main character in The Shards is also writing a book. So there's sort of a meta level of the main character in The Shards is writing Less Than Zero.

16:23So everyone should be reading Less Than Zero for the Vogue Book Club. I have it in my bag. So Rob Haskell, who is one of our most trusted chroniclers of celebrity culture and profiles for Vogue, wrote this story about the Shards and Kaya and Homer and the two of them. I feel like this is Kaya's first big leading role on screen. She's done some other acting roles, but this is really, I feel, a big dive into acting for her. And this is Homer's second role ever. He was in season three of Euphoria, to much internet acclaim. And then this is, he's really jumping in headfirst. So it's been exciting to read about these two young people embarking on their careers.

17:12They're both in their early 20s. and Spencer Singer, who is a great stylist, who works with many musicians we love, including summer cover girl Gracie Abrams and Billie Eilish. He was the fashion editor for this shoot and Stephen Mizell obviously photographed it and it feels like this juicy, iconic, great Mizell Vogue cover, which is exciting. Virginia, what was the fashion message and narrative that we were going for with this shoot? Well, when we were discussing the fall collections, we kept talking about this idea of designers sort of looking back at the past to reinvent their future. And that sort of tied in with the whole Nepo baby thing that we were discussing and certainly made sense for our cover stars.

18:00So when we started putting the fashion together, we were looking at those sort of pieces that are very much part of the DNA of a house. So for Dior, we were looking at the bar jacket and how J.W. Anderson has been manipulating proportion and reinterpreting it that way. Obviously, the modern tweed suiting that is being done at Chanel and even how Anthony Vaccarello reinterprets lace, which is something that Saint Laurent has been doing for years and years. And then even how Marc Jacobs reinterpreted his 2018 sort of satin dressing for this season. So that was the starting point to the fashion. And obviously we worked with Spencer Singer for the first time, and he was really such a pleasure to work with.

18:46Shout out, Spencer. Very thoughtful, collaborative, put so much time and effort into it. But, you know, this is his first shoot for American Vogue. So when you start with the September issue and Steven Meisel, the bar is high. So it was a great, a really fun shoot. And it was pretty edited in terms of the fashion because we, it was a lot of pre-planning and we had boards that really, we made sure that we were sort of held accountable to what the point we were trying to make. So it was pretty easy in terms of calling things in. I mean, you and your team did a real fashion history research project.

19:24We did, we did. Laird had to help me out at one point, but we. Virginia mapped out on huge poster boards like a beautiful mind of sort of, this is the 50s bar jacket. This is the modern interpretation. It was really, we took this idea of reinventing your heritage. Sounds like a good digital story, ladies. I know. It was fun. I was really glad that that idea that we came back from the shows with about how do you respect your heritage or the heritage of a house and the codes of a house while still injecting newness and freshness into it. And obviously, that's something that I think about a lot with a brand like Vogue because I love what Vogue is and what it stands for, and I want it to continue to be that.

20:03But how do you make it feel new and relevant in 2026 while also feeling like what you've always loved it being? Yeah, so, Chloe, in your editor's letter, you touched on that, but you also touched on your own parents. It's true. I know because Homer was very reticent to, you know, he has not done a lot of press and this is one of his first acting jobs and he wasn't sure he wanted to be thrust into the limelight in this way in a way that referenced his heritage and his parents. And, you know, I had a call with him and I said, look, as someone with famous parents, you can run away from it, but that's not going to work.

20:43And also, you should be proud of your parents. I'm proud of my parents and that's – they've certainly made me who I am. They've afforded me so much privilege to be where I am. And I think that he can start to forge his own path by acknowledging where he's coming from. And I think that Kaya is really thoughtful about that in her interview with Rob. And she's obviously had a little more time to think about it than Homer because he's, I mean, he just graduated from college two years ago. You know, he grew up not having anything to do with Hollywood, whereas Kaya first posed for Mizell when she was 13.

21:18And we talk about that, Kaya, Homer, and I, in our podcast interview about the cover story and the book and everything that comes along with this story and its references. is. But I want to talk about some of our favorite stories in the issue. Nicole, how did this Demna profile come to pass? Because I feel like Nathan Heller, this could have been a book. Well, Nathan knows Demna from his previous life as the creative director of Balenciaga. He profiled him when Demna was there. So he already had a relationship with Demna, and we were together at Gucci on the Via Meccinate in the studio and Demna's office for a preview the day before the Gucci show in February.

22:10And I think both Nathan and I and Anna, too, who was there, were struck by Demna's sense of, like, ease and confidence. He really, he accomplished so much at Balenciaga, and I think that has given him an assurance that he can take on this new challenge of Gucci. And he's really leading with fun. He talked about fun a lot. He said that I've approached fashion in an intellectual way. You know, I don't need to make a jacket with a pair of pants. And so he's thinking about fun and sexiness, which we obviously saw in that debut show in Milan that opened with a very basic instinct kind of white tight dress.

22:57I do like when Vogue does profiles, and Nathan particularly is a master of this, of where you're really checking in with people over a period of months. And Nathan had this opportunity to be with him in Milan in February and then to attend the resort show and none other than Times Square and to meet with him before the Met. And so there were these checking in along the way of the beginning of this major journey for Damna. So I really enjoyed reading about that. But, Virginia, what was the experience of the fashion for this? Because there's obviously a portrait of Demna, and then there is a fashion story that accompanies it.

23:35Yeah, we ended up shooting this, I think it was two days after the resort show in New York, where actually I sat next to Nathan. And it was such an incredible, you know, blockbuster show. You know, it was just really impressive what they did in Times Square here. Actually, we may have shot Demna the day of the show even, but he made maybe the mistake of having breakfast with Anna the morning of or maybe the morning before his portrait was taken. And she rather sort of politely but pointedly asked him not to show up in all black. And then actually had us dispatch Naomi Elise down to make sure he did not show up in all black.

24:18Poor Naomi. So he was very, you know, good-natured about the whole thing and showed up in a white T-shirt, which is very unusual for him. And he said he told us that he was styled by Anna. We like to push people out of their comfort zones. So once we got the portrait out of the way, the rest was very easy. We took the first re-see the next morning after the show, Vogue being Vogue. I think we beat some of the Gucci PRs there. and I was with Luca Galasso, who was our stylist for the shoot. And we just chose a range of looks to sort of, we wanted to represent, you know, these Gucci characters that Dimna has sort of developed and is developing are so important when he's in his narrative.

25:04And we wanted to make sure we have all those represented in our shoot. And I think, in fact, we do. So it was an easy one, though. I also love that Nathan's story ends with Cindy Crawford closing the Times Square show, and it brings us back to our cover. So I like when everything's neatly coming around. The run-through will be back in a moment with more from inside the September issue.

25:40This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace And there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook.

26:13I'm Vincent Cunningham. I'm Nomi Fry. I'm Alex Schwartz, and we host Critics at Large from The New Yorker. Each week, we pick a starting point. The new novel you can't stop thinking about, the movie everybody's seeing this weekend, and we kind of go galaxy-brand with it. Right, we take the ideas at the center of these things and trace them across history, across mediums, all to get to the bottom of why this particular text is important right now in politics and culture and also in your everyday life. We go highbrow, we go lowbrow, we go everything in between. food culture to meme culture Charlie XCX to Tony Morrison K-pop to the Kennedys from horror movies to heated rivalry from the Oscars to the Met Gala the Golden Bachelor to Wuthering Heights Great Expectations to Desperate Housewives That's what we're talking about over here We're having fun It's Critics at Large from The New Yorker Every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts

27:12Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford And I'm John Ross. And we're the hosts of Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers. And just because the Oscars are done, for now, doesn't mean we are. Join us every week for coverage of the biggest stories in Hollywood, interviews with today's brightest stars, and so much more. Listen to Little Gold Men every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.