RENÉE ZELLWEGER

THE REINVENTION ISSUE

FASHION IS ALL ABOUT MOMENTS, and right now we’re in the midst of one of transition. It’s early spring, which for many of us means the shedding of winter layers. But this season, it feels like we’re also somehow shedding the last vestiges of our lives in the pre-pandemic days. Returning to what we thought of as “normal” is no longer the dream. We finally seem to be looking ahead at both the issues right in front us and what might lie beyond them, living in the space between the irrefutable end of something and the blurry fuzz of potential. It’s a feeling we’ve all become well familiar with over the past two years, as so many aspects of our lives have been rocked by the shock of the new: how we live and interact; our ambitions and concerns; the way we understand our place in the world. We tend to notice transformation most when it’s immediate and undeniable—the quick, big, profound. But everything is always in motion. This issue is about reinvention as that kind of process, as one that happens to us, for us, and around us—and one that we embark upon each day as we strive to live fully in the moment. We explore reinvention as a personal project we undertake as individuals, in our private and professional lives, and as parents, children, siblings, partners, and friends. We examine reinvention in the context of the cultural institutions that surround us and what we choose to value and celebrate or rethink and interrogate. And we look at how reinvention is shaping our sense of mission, tradition, and even memory at a time when so much is changing and so much more still needs to change.