Editor’s letter
Vogue is known for fashion but fashion is really the prism through which we celebrate and document the culture of eras in which we live. This issue is brimming with talented performers and artists who are defining our times and is led by Billie Eilish, who has been labelled the voice of Gen Z.
This is Billie’s second cover for Vogue Australia; the first one was shot in Brisbane while she was on tour and ran in July 2019. The world had no idea of what was around the corner then, and frankly, as a 17-year-old, neither did she. Superstardom followed for her and well, much has happened to all of us since.
This second cover, which was shot by Australian photographer Emma Summerton and styled by British Vogue’s Dena Giannini, coincides with the release of her highly anticipated second album, Happier Than Ever. Billie collaborated closely on the images and she appears almost supernatural in them, floating high above the noise.
Now 19, and having grown up in the public eye and on the internet for all to see and judge, Billie tells Melbourne-based writer Brodie Lancaster that she wishes her critics would acknowledge that everyone is “incredibly embarrassed and ashamed about their past”.
Elsewhere in the issue Liam Hess writes about nostalgia for the noughties, which has returned millennium style to the runways. (See page 114). One of the best things about coming of age in the 1990s, aside from having seen Nirvana play live and a Y2K New Year’s Eve spent wearing a Michelle Jank lace halter-neck top and low-rise Sass & Bide jeans, is that none of my youthful experiences are online. The internet existed in 2000 but social media did not until Facebook launched in 2004. No one had a smartphone in their pocket to record their own or anybody else’s antics until 2007.
It’s not just the famous such as Billie who have to relive their teens, including mistakes and haircuts, forever publicly. Anyone born in the 2000s might have to, too. But for Billie it is even more intense given the immense focus on her and the strange sense of ownership so many feel for her.
Alanis Morissette was an artist who came to define my 20s when she released the powerful song You Oughta Know in 1995. Inspired by the album on which the track featured, the Australian production of the Broadway musical Jagged Little Pill will open next month. Its writer and the Academy-Award-winning screenwriter behind Juno, Diablo Cody, writes exclusively for Vogue about collaborating with Alanis in Vogue Voice (page 24) this month.
Regular contributor Jane Albert takes a look at a brand new local subscription service for bespoke arts and culture events from a former head of membership for Soho House and her equally successful childhood friend in ‘Turn of events’, page 54, and we highlight the upcoming exhibition of the work of late photographer Linda McCartney at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, page 60.
This month we’ve also interviewed actor Jodie Comer, page 58, about her new film with Ryan Reynolds, and feature a beautiful shoot with the real-life husband and wife Ako Kondo and Chengwu Guo, who will play Romeo and Juliet in the upcoming new production from The Australian Ballet. (See page 122.)
And there’s another extraordinary 19-year-old featured in this issue: Sasha McLeod. Sasha is better known as the indie pop sensation Sycco, who was the highest ranking first-time artist in this year’s Triple J Hottest 100. She had just completed her first sold-out national tour before we photographed her for this issue from page 116, which promoted her first album, aptly named Sycco’s First EP.
Usually I would encourage you to get out there and support live performance by artists such as Sycco, or attend the ballet or an exhibition, but as I write this letter in early July much of Australia is in lockdown again. I hope this issue inspires you with its rich tapestry of talent, despite the uncertain times in which we are publishing it, and assures you that Vogue continues to do what we have always done, which is celebrate and highlight the extraordinary cultural landscape of our times in equally amazing fashion.