Table of contents for December/January 2025 in ELLE

“I remember when I was very young, being the only female in a whole cast felt empowering. But after you do one too many of those projects, it’s a lonely place to be the only woman,” Zoe Saldaña says. These days, the actress is feeling a lot less lonely. She is starring in the critically acclaimed Emilia Pérez, alongside Selena Gomez and Karla Sofía Gascón, all featured on page 108. It’s one of several woman-powered films defining 2024, including Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror meditation on aging, The Substance, starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley; the Saoirse Ronan star vehicle The Outrun, which the actress coproduced; and, of course, Wicked, in which Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande hit the highest of high notes while exploring the complexities of female friendship. Gomez, Saldaña,…

Those searching for signs of exactly what the current mood around getting dressed is need look no further than the recently announced reboot of the popular aughts series What Not to Wear; this time around, it’s going by the name Wear Whatever the F You Want. Which is only fitting. Fashion feels less prescriptive, more risky, and infinitely more fun than it did even a decade ago. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the red carpet—notably among stars who weren’t born yesterday. Gone are the days of flattering-but-dull column dresses in neutral tones for women over 40; gone are the sexless pantsuits; gone, in many cases, are modest touches like sleeves. In their place are edgier, sexier looks featuring cutouts, dramatic beading, and look-at-me, body-skimming silhouettes. “The old-school ideas…

Drinking can feel sewn into the fabric of your twenties—those glittery, alcohol-fueled nights on the town, after-work happy hours, and bottomless brunches that seem ubiquitous in our culture. But some of today’s twenty somethings are rewriting that script. “Among Gen Z, the proportion of people who choose not to drink is increasing by about half a percentage point annually,” says Ziming Xuan, a social epidemiologist and associate professor at Boston University. In a 2020 study, 28 percent of college students in 2018 reported abstaining from alcohol, while that number was 20 percent in 2002. What’s driving the trend? We’re long past the days of “Red wine is good for you”—in January of 2023, the World Health Organization published a warning that no amount of alcohol is safe for your health.…

Perspectives AS A LITTLE BOY IN SPAIN, Pedro Almodóvar sat under the table, fascinated, as his mother talked with her friends. He’s still not sure that his mother realized that he was listening or that he was absorbing so much. Hearing the passion, the emotions, the warmth, and the occasional conflict sparked something in him. And throughout his decades-long film career, he has focused on the kinds of deep female relationships that feel absent in cinema. Almodóvar describes this instinct to write about women as almost unconscious. “From a very young age, the imprint that I received is the fighting power of women,” he says. “When I get ideas to tell stories, I gravitate toward the universe of women.” With The Room Next Door, his latest, the filmmaker so firmly…

PARTWAY THROUGH The Substance, a body horror film from French writer and director Coralie Fargeat, there’s a brightly lit, low-angle close-up on Demi Moore’s bare butt. “It’s like, ugh,” Moore moans, “it bugs the shit out of me.” She could have asked for it to be edited, but as much as she dislikes it—and really, show me a woman who would enjoy seeing such a shot of her derrière on the big screen—“I didn’t ask for any adjustments because I knew it was in service of something that was more important than me,” Moore says. “It felt like any hardship, any exposure of my own insecurities, would be worth it if I was part of bringing forward the conversation.” In The Substance, Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, an actress–turned–TV fitness instructor,…

ELLE: Queer is funnier than I expected—it has madcap energy. DREW STARKEY: Yes. In the true nature of Burroughs and his wittiness—that’s definitely something we found along the way. ELLE: There’s a wild scene where you and Daniel Craig’s character drink ayahuasca together, and it’s almost like modern dance. How do you rehearse a scene like that? DS: We had started rehearsing that months before we shot it. We started in New York with these brilliant choreographers, Paul Lightfoot and Sol León, and it involved this kind of interpretive dance to poetry and movements. It started off very poorly. [Laughs] But after that first day, we were comfortable with each other. I mean, it’s such a great way to bond with someone. ELLE: Have you tried ayahuasca yourself? ds: I…

When the costume designer Katina Danabassis was developing a wardrobe for Nora Moon, the playwright at the center of the 2023 film Past Lives, she received a somewhat contradictory request from writer-director Celine Song. “She doesn’t care about clothes,” Danabassis recalls Song telling her. “But she has to look iconic.” Nora’s outfits don’t sound like much. For a day out in New York, she wears a pair of gray trousers, a cream-colored buttondown, and white sneakers. But the trousers, from the Seoulbased brand Arch The, are long and baggy, like luxurious pajamas. The delicate blouse, which Danabassis found in the ’80s and ’90s section of Helen Uffner Vintage Clothing, has “the softest stripe” to it. With only three buttons fastened, the cuffs loose, and the collar tugged to one side…

FOR THE PERSON WHO LIKES TAKING TESTS Sha, Costa Mujeres, Mexico Your college spring break was nothing like this. Just a 20-minute drive north of Cancún and opposite the largest coral reef in the Northern Hemisphere, the first outpost of Sha has opened in the Americas. There are as many treatment rooms as there are guest rooms, offering cryotherapy, virtual reality workouts, and sound baths using traditional Tibetan bowls and gongs, as well as a battery of body and brain diagnostic tests measuring your progress throughout the stay. SPECIAL FEATURES: Balconies on every suite, traditional temazcal ceremonies (coming in early 2025), and snorkeling. FANS: Kylie Minogue, people who love whitesand beaches, and those intrigued by the prospect of stem cell treatments, which Mexico permits and which are offered on-site. (Check…

The first time I saw ovaries was in a middle school health class. The gym teacher awkwardly pointed at a diagram on a projector screen as he informed us that women were born with all the eggs they were ever going to have in life. I remember thinking it was fitting that the female anatomy looked like the top of an hourglass, the ovaries steadily releasing eggs into the uterus like grains of sand, my fertile window slowly ticking closed with each passing period. But it turns out our ovaries aren’t just keeping time on our fertility. Scientists now believe the ovaries play a key role in female longevity, helping to regulate the systems that keep our heart, bones, and brain healthy. “I’m on a campaign to stop calling them…

THE ONLY SURPRISING THING ABOUT Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton playing lifelong friends is that it didn’t happen earlier. Both turn 64 this fall and have children around the same age. Both broke through in the fertile indie movie scene of the 1980s and ’90s and have worked prolifically ever since, with some 150 films between them. They had crossed paths over the years, each a keen admirer of the other’s work. (Julianne’s favorite Tilda movie: The Eternal Daughter. Tilda’s favorite Julianne performance: The Big Lebowski.) So when director Pedro Almodóvar asked Swinton who should be her costar in his new film The Room Next Door, she could think of only one name. Swinton would be Martha, a war correspondent with stage 3 cancer. The role of Ingrid, who must…

NOTHING ABOUT Emilia Pérez should make sense. It’s a graphically violent story about cartels, but also an exuberant musical. It’s a family story and a crime story. It’s shocking—and it’s great. French director Jacques Audiard cast Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascón as Emilia, a powerful cartel leader who has been quietly transitioning while looking to live a different kind of life. Gascón has had a long career in Mexican television and film, but this is her first movie role since coming out as a trans woman. She stars alongside Zoe Saldaña, who plays her lawyer, and Selena Gomez, as her former wife. Gascón, Gomez, and Saldaña quickly bonded on set—and all three, along with their costar Adriana Paz (who plays Pérez’s love interest), won the Best Actress prize at the…

1 The BAG Anthony Vaccarello adds texture to a familiar shape with Saint Laurent’s Le 5 à 7 shoulder bag, crafted from wooden beads. 2 The NECKLACE Sabyasachi Mukherjee looked to 1920s Calcutta for his latest high jewelry collection, featuring pieces like this 18-karat gold pendant set with diamonds, emeralds, rubellites, tourmalines, and turquoise. 3 The SHOE Inspired by the chain link that cordons off the Arc de triomphe, Celine’s Triomphe motif has become a house standby. This season, it found its way onto the brand’s Lympia mules.…

Louis Vuitton’s grand flagship has made a big move—across the street. While the permanent location undergoes renovations over the next few years, the store recently relocated to a five-story space at 6 East 57th Street that retains all the charm of the original, along with some new additions—including the first Louis Vuitton restaurant in the U.S. At the center of it all is a custom art installation in the building’s atrium, a collaboration with the architecture firm OMA. The store, Louis Vuitton’s largest in the country, features ready-to-wear, accessories, shoes, trunks, watches, and more. It also showcases “Objets Nomades”—furniture, home decor, and travel-inspired pieces created by celebrated designers, such as the Campana brothers and India Mahdavi—over four floors. The fifth floor is dedicated to private salons, and the store will…

Hermès celebrates the season in its signature color with L’Orange en Fêtes ($102, at Hermès Maison Madison in New York and select Hermès boutiques). The pleatedpaper sphere holds a fun extra within (spoiler alert: one of the world’s most luxurious lip balms). Hang it by its ribbon, or place one at each seat around your holiday table.…

RARELY HAS A KARAOKE SESSION been so meaningful. Shiori Ito had just answered the final question at the audience talkback following the premiere of the documentary she made about her own sexual assault investigation, when she heard the opening chords of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” fill the theater. Feeling euphoric after having shown her film to the world at the famed Sundance Film Festival, the Japanese director grabbed the mic and started singing. Audience members joined her onstage, and soon she was surrounded by a swarm of “dancing, crying, screaming” women. “We shared so much emotion,” Ito says of the impromptu karaoke session. “I’d never had that experience before, and I can’t forget it.” It was a cathartic release, nearly a decade in the making. The story of how…

AS A SPELMAN COLLEGE HISTORY MAJOR who also holds a master’s degree in American studies from Columbia University, Danielle Deadwyler has a soft spot for period pieces. It’s what has inspired the Atlanta-based actress and performance artist to star in films like the 19th-century western The Harder They Fall and the critically acclaimed biopic Till, about the tragic murder of Emmett Till. She’s also currently in preproduction for Otis & Zelma, an upcoming film costarring John Boyega about the lives of soul singer Otis Redding and his wife Zelma. “As someone who’s been reared in the South, I have to tell the full gamut of our stories,” she tells me over tea in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “That’s what I’m interested in.” With The Piano Lesson, now streaming on Netflix,…

CYNTHIA ERIVO’S ELPHABA HAS MICRO BRAIDS. They’re new for the character, who was made iconic on Broadway with straight hair under her pointy hat. But when Erivo was cast in the new film version of Wicked, her first ask was for the witch to have a textured hairstyle. “It connects to who I am underneath the skin,” Erivo says. “There’s a complete connection between me and her—we’re not just erasing who’s playing this character.” Helping to create this Elphaba—from her freckles to her eye color and nails—was a detailed process that “allowed me to really fall in love with this woman,” Erivo tells me as we’re seated on a couch at the Equinox Hotel in New York. It’s not an opportunity she would have envisioned for herself. There has never…

SAGITTARIUS NOV 22–DEC 21 A reflective birthday season is underway. Use this period for a cosmic reset, then come out swinging at the start of the New Year. Make powerful partnerships a top priority, because 2025 holds a lot of “dynamic duo” energy. CAPRICORN DEC 22–JAN 19 With Mercury retrograde in your restful twelfth house, along with a December 1 new moon, you’re processing all the past year’s intensity. Retreat, reflect, and recharge. When the Sun enters your sign on December 21, you’ll want to be ready for action. AQUARIUS JAN 20–FEB 18 Bid adieu to anything you’ve outgrown in 2024. Next year promises an abundance of passion, creativity, and unbridled selfexpression. It’s time for you to have some fun! PISCES FEB 19–MAR 20 Solidify your network and long-term dreams…