I Am Your Queen

Fifty issues. A golden jubilee – which is either a blink or a lifetime, depending on how closely you’ve been paying attention. More than 10 years after launching with the inimitable Dita von Teese on our cover, we’ve shot icons across the globe – from Karl Lagerfeld and Naomi Campbell to Kylie Minogue, Monica Bellucci and beyond – always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible (even shooting Luka Sabbat during COVID using CGI scanning technology). Now, for issue 50, we turn our attention to gold: not just as a symbol of value, but as cultural currency – a flex, a mood, a myth, a promise, an excess, a permanence, a spectacle. Why does gold still hold us? Why does it seduce artists, crown winners, corrupt kings, and survive every trend cycle and backlash against excess? That tension runs through these pages – embodied by our cover star Golda Rosheuvel, queen of Bridgerton, where gold becomes both adornment and attitude; echoed in high jewelry worn by Ambre, where gold turns sculptural and otherworldly; and redefined in our Gucci shoot with boxer Aadam Hamed, where gold becomes discipline, lineage, earned shine, and the gold-selling streets of London’s Hatton Garden. This issue doesn’t argue that gold is good or bad – it simply accepts its power, and reminds us that power, like shine, always tells you something about the person holding it.