Angelina Jolie covers the new digital issue of Vogue– and this cover is f-cking spectacular.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen cover model Angelina moving like this: she’s playful, she’s exuberant, she is serving, and as the kids say, the face card never declines. Check out her vibe in this video, how much fun she’s having, and how much she’s feeling herself.
The cover story is in support of Atelier Jolie which is launching in November. There’s also an Atelier Jolie capsule collection in collaboration with Chloé “consisting of eveningwear directly inspired by Jolie’s quietly sophisticated sensibilities” and as writer Chioma Nnadi notes, even though Angelina isn’t always breaking the internet with her style choices like Zendaya or Rihanna:
“…her approach to fashion has been hugely influential. Each style move she makes is fastidiously anatomized by fans on social media, and her seeming reluctance to make a spectacle of herself has only contributed to the current yen for all things quiet luxury…”
It’s an astute observation – Angelina’s pieces are always high-end and high-quality, she’s almost always in classics, and she’s been rotating these classics for years. Not only on herself but now, increasingly, on her children, as we saw at the premiere of Eternals a couple of years ago.
Her children, by the way, are involved in this project too. Atelier Jolie is fashion initiative for their family. Angie was with Zahara when they decided that Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s space would eventually be were Atelier Jolie would be headquartered and she’s been collaborating on the designs along with her brother, Pax. Both are part of the Vogue feature.
The pride on Angelina’s face there is unmistakable as she’s looking into Pax’s lens. As we have seen over the years, she and her six children are a unit. And now, in their New York era, they’re moving into fashion and stage production (she’s producing The Outsiders on Broadway) and building a bigger community. Because as she tells Chioma, “I don’t want to be a big fashion designer. I want to build a house for other people to become that.”
Which is why Atelier Jolie brand president and chief operating officer, Helen Aboah, and Giles Duley, advisor for corporate impact, are also part of the story.
“Over the last 20 years documenting humanitarian stories, I’ve seen the negative impact of Western consumerism on developing countries—from child labor, illegal extraction of minerals, pollution from the dyeing of fabrics, exploitation of farmers, and much more,” [Duley] says. “Atelier Jolie can have an incredible positive impact on artisans who have often been unrecognized and undervalued—but we also have an opportunity to start conversations about workforce exploitation, pollution, and waste.” Adds Aboah: “At the top of Angelina’s manifesto is also the idea that we are all creators.”
That’s the goal of Atelier Jolie: to create opportunities for creative collaboration for artisans from around the world and also to amplify an emerging fashion ethos that combines style with sustainability. And part of that is working with materials that can be reused and reimagined to design pieces that can be kept, not just for a season but, ideally, through all the seasons of our lives.
This though is where it gets interesting for Angelina because she alludes to her current season of uncertainty and rediscovery. Atelier Jolie, for her then, is personal. She has external ambitions for what she wants to achieve both for the industry and the people who will be invited to join it but she also appears to have internal motivations for herself, venturing into this new creative space so that she can grow as an artist and experience more healing through the artistic process:
“Sometimes the way you dress says, ‘Don’t mess with me—I’ve got my armor on,’ ” says Jolie. “But I want a woman to feel safe enough that she can be soft. After I went through something where I was hurt, I had a therapist ask if I would try wearing a flowing garment. Sounds silly, but I assumed that pants and boots projected a ‘tougher’ look, a stronger me. But was I strong enough to be soft? At the time, no. I felt vulnerable. Now I wonder if I don’t know what my style is because I’m still understanding who I am at 48. I guess I’m in transition as a person.” She pauses to gather her thoughts. “I feel a bit down these days. I don’t feel like I’ve been myself for a decade, in a way, which I don’t want to get into." She adds that she started doing less film work “seven years ago, only taking jobs that didn’t require long shoots. We had a lot of healing to do. We’re still finding our footing.” Atelier Jolie is part of this process, it seems. “I think part of this has also been therapeutic for me—to work in a creative space with people you trust and to rediscover yourself,” she says. “I’m hoping to change many aspects of my life. And this is the forward-facing one.”
If you’ve been following the headlines, it’s not hard to connect what she’s saying here with what she and her children have been through. We can talk about this some more in the chat on Substack at The Squawk today – subscribe here and join us if you haven’t already!
For now, let’s enjoy more of these images, especially this shot of Angie in one of her Atelier Jolie x Chloé pieces. This bronzy orange slip dress is stunning. But the main event is definitely the velvet cape!
Discussion thread open for this post on The Squawk!
