Editor’s letter
When I was 24, I moved to New York, started working for a teen magazine called YM and had my first girl crush. Molly Rosen, an editor’s PA, was a hipster with poker-straight blonde hair and Marc Jacobs flats. She was also whipsmart, funny, provocative, and lived on bean salad and chain smoked. I was utterly enthralled. For two years we were inseparable: she took me to East Village dive bars and for brunch with her grandparents in Chicago – I brought her back to England and introduced her to fish and chips and the white cliffs of Dover. Then we fell out (a fraught argument over friendship and fiancés – hers – in Bed, Bath & Beyond) and didn’t talk for almost a decade.
When we reunited, via email in 2012, we were both newly married and pregnant with our first daughters. Molly had quit journalism and launched a cult wedding brand called Stone Fox Bride. She was still as smart, sage and entertaining as before, but somehow more pacific with it – as if life had softened her edges. This month she launches her first book, Love, Lust, And Wedding Planning For The Wild At Heart, so I asked her to share some of her inimitable wisdom on page 58. I hope you find her as irresistibly on point as I do.
Elsewhere, we are celebrating more brilliant women, such as our cover star Nicole Kidman, who reminisces with Jane Mulkerrins on her stellar year on page 44, and Jodie Foster, who discusses politics and motherhood with Stefanie Rafanelli on page 52. In The Year Women Fought Back on page 67, Gina Miller reflects on the impact of Brexit, and Christina Lamb shares her experiences of the refugee crisis, while Anna Bonet highlights the women who continue to fight against inequality and have changed history in the process.
On our cover we promise it’s Your Year to Shine. As we celebrate the end of 2017 (with myriad gorgeous ideas in our party entertaining special and 50 best beauty buys of the year), I feel hopeful and excited for 2018. As Molly says, “Get a handle on the life you want and go get it.” I couldn’t think of a better mantra to see in the New Year.