EDITOR’S LETTER
Summer should be the happiest time of the year – filled with blue skies, sunlight and escape – but the trouble with insisting on happiness is that this may have the opposite effect. Nothing is likely to make me grumpier than being told, ‘Cheer up love, it might never happen.’ So I won’t be doing the equivalent now.
Instead, I hope that this issue might be a catalyst for enjoyment, as we celebrate the pleasures of the little things in life. Some of our suggestions are blissfully simple – walking alone (without feeling lonely); a dawn chorus of birdsong; a good-natured dog in the office (we are lucky to have the company of Crumble, a gentle King Charles Spaniel that joins us most days at Bazaar).
We’re also publishing a brilliant short story this month by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which makes me very happy indeed; while a number of our most inspiring writers, including Andrew O’Hagan, Esther Freud and Juliet Nicolson, share their favourite travel destinations.
Elsewhere in the issue, we feature the new-season collections in a gloriously multicoloured 40-page fashion story; and continue to explore our archives, revealing the entwined history of Bazaar and Dior; the dazzling wit of Nancy Mitford; and the myriad winged creatures and furry friends that have graced our pages over the years.
‘Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them,’ wrote Nancy Mitford in The Pursuit of Love (a book that never fails to lift my spirits). So here’s to currant cake and Crumble, reading and romance; and above all, to sharing happiness, whenever and wheresoever it may alight…