Our critics and correspondents on the forces transforming fashion, dining, and the arts—from Saudi Arabia to Paris, the White House to the Edinburgh Fringe.
Photo illustration by Christoph Niemann
Illustration by Max Guther
In His Image
An arch honoring himself, an Oval Office full of gold trim, even a giant ballroom with its own Supreme Court ruling are all part of the President’s aesthetic agenda.
Art work by Willem de Kooning / Courtesy © 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / ARS; Photograph by Robert Lifson / The Art Institute of Chicago
Body and Soul
Willem de Kooning’s drawings capture anger, intimacy, and his troubled era.
Unharnessed
At Hermès, Nadège Vanhée is letting fashion loose.
Illustration by Fromm Studio
Strange Bedfellows
How conservatives, once the advocates of promise rings and purity culture, became obsessed with lingerie.
Photograph by David Corio / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty
Photograph by David Corio / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty
Master Plan
In “Birth of a Culture,” Grandmaster Flash details the miracle of hip-hop.
Illustration by John Broadley
Faking It
Is American sophistication more than make-believe?
Photograph by Eric Helgas for The New Yorker
Follow Suit
Tom Sachs makes a lo-fi version of Chanel’s flagship store.
Illustration by Tracy Chahwan
“New Shoes”
My life in London, the life I had cobbled together with the barest of routines, grew thin and unconvincing. It now seldom felt real.
More from This Issue
Photograph by Evelyn Freja for The New Yorker
The prolific storytelling of This Is Lorelei.
Photo illustration by Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin
Food and the literature of divorce.
Illustration by Javi Aznarez
Seeing it all hang out at the Fringe.
Illustrations by Bill Rebholz