Lifestyle
‘I’m always plotting.’ Teyana Taylor and others on surviving and dressing for the chaos of awards season
Oscar campaigns are not won, they are endured. There are parties, festivals, For Your Consideration screenings, press junkets and talk show appearances. The night before the Academy Awards, I found myself — not an important person in the industry by any means — at two separate parties. Imagine if you’re a nominee, getting shuttled to and fro, shaking hands and making small talk. At the first event, I caught a glimpse of the legendary actor Minnie Driver, who was nominated for supporting actress for the film “Good Will Hunting” in 1998. She posed, smiled and looked as glamorous as ever. And, with an extreme amount of grace, she disappeared through a door in the back. Poof. Gone.
And like magic, she reappeared on the carpet right in front of me, at Chanel’s legendary pre-Oscar dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She dazzled in a sparkling gown, a totally different outfit than the one I’d seen just an hour prior. After years of being in L.A., I’m not particularly starstruck anymore, but at this moment, I was something close to it. How does one glide through the chaos and the camera flashes of Oscar season with poise and perfection? And how do they keep a level head through it all?
It takes a strong will to be a star — to endure the setbacks and the struggles of making it in Hollywood. To stay on top, it takes even more. It takes a team. And one of the biggest members of any celebrity’s team is their stylist. The people who dream up the looks that sparkle at high-profile events, and who make sure that even if you don’t feel perfect, you at least look it.
Stylists are the consigliere, the therapist and the trusted right hand of any Oscar nominee. Without the stylist, Oscars season would look completely different, and probably a bit worse. How do they keep their clients from cracking under the pressure? “It’s just asking simple questions, like, ‘how are you doing today?’” I’m told by the buzzy celebrity stylist known as Turner. She’s the coolest celebrity’s go-to for fashion counsel, working with Natasha Lyonne and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. She says that a huge part of her job is “knowing that everything that is shared in that fitting room stays in that fitting room.” Because once you’re out of the fitting room and into an event like the Chanel dinner, the eyes and ears of the world are on you.
This year marked the 17th occasion of Chanel hosting its Oscar party, an event that insiders see as the last stop on the calendar before the big night at the Dolby Theatre. It’s co-hosted by British multihyphenate producer and entrepreneur Charles Finch, who presides over the affair with the charm and graciousness that typifies the best hosts. The Chanel dinner brings fashion, film and art together in an invigorating way. It’s both one of the most exclusive, sought-after invites in town and a jam-packed, raucous bash. Trying to make my way through the throng of movie stars, filmmakers and other luminaries was almost like an Olympic event. If they were handing out medals for not tripping over Mick Jagger, I should probably win gold.
Mick Jagger at the Chanel and Charles Finch annual pre-Oscar dinner at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills.
(Virgile Guinard / CHANEL)
Awards season itself is its own kind of gantlet. Millions and millions of dollars are poured into the sprawling motion picture economy of Los Angeles to drum up support for the year’s Academy Award nominees. Much of the economic health of the entertainment industry trades — Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, etc. — rely on the avalanche of ad spending and free content that comes from Oscar campaigning. The season just seems to get longer every year, creeping into the spring and summer months, with awards heavyweights like “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” dropping mere months after the last Oscar ceremony. And as artificial intelligence and studio consolidation rock the business, the Oscars are an even more important barometer of the health of the movies themselves.
The demands placed on nominees, especially actors, are heavy. To be out in public, exposed and on display, in a fight for your professional life, you don’t just have to be charming, clever and witty in front of journalists and voters. You also have to look good for the gaggle of photographers that document your every move at events like the BAFTA Tea Party or the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards. Celebrities have to be prepared for the marathon at all times.
Lily-Rose Depp and Gracie Abrams at the Chanel and Charles Finch annual pre-Oscar dinner at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills. (Jon Kopaloff/WireImage)
From left, Gracie Abrams, Lily-Rose Depp and Sarah Pidgeon at the Chanel and Charles Finch annual pre-Oscar dinner at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills.
(Virgile Guinard / CHANEL)
The conversation between stars and stylists begins early, often with collaborative meetings and moodboarding. Spencer Singer styles Chanel devotees Lily-Rose Depp (in a sleeveless vest embellished with pearls and rhinestones) and Gracie Abrams (wearing a beautiful black tweed dress). His process is extremely detailed and centered around the goals of the client. “With a particular project, you tend to go more thematic, or it’s just maybe the place that we’re both in in our lives of loving a particular aesthetic,” he says. “The most fun part is throwing everything against the wall and then pulling out the things that feel strongest.”
Teyana Taylor rocking a thrilling, multicolored shearling coat from the most recent Fall/Winter 2026 Chanel ready-to-wear collection.
(Jon Kopaloff/WireImage)
Sometimes, the client knows exactly what they want and makes the call on the spot. “I’m always plotting,” Teyana Taylor, supporting actress nominee for “One Battle After Another,” told me on the Chanel carpet. Taylor was rocking a thrilling, multicolored shearling coat — look 57 from the most recent Fall/Winter 2026 Chanel ready-to-wear collection. Taylor wore the coat fully buttoned up, ready to throw it off for a dramatic reveal later in the evening. She first saw the coat on the runway and knew immediately that she needed it. “I wasn’t even backstage before I was like, ‘The coat. I gotta get the coat.’ I knew that tonight would be the perfect night for it.”
“I really love this party, because it’s easy to see people that you admire and that you would love to work with,” says Sigourney Weaver of the Chanel pre-Oscar dinner.
(Jon Kopaloff/WireImage)
Sigourney Weaver has been nominated for an Academy Award three times and is one of the most accomplished veterans of the Oscar circuit. “It’s not a grind for me,” she said in a buttery yellow-and-black Chanel coat from Spring/Summer 2026. Weaver relishes the chance to dress up and embrace the glamour of the season. “I’m very informal in real life. I really love this party, because it’s easy to see people that you admire and that you would love to work with. The Oscars themselves are too formal, in a way, unless you’re backstage together.”
Weaver and Taylor both make it seem effortless, but sometimes, it’s not quite that easy. Alexandra Mandelkorn has styled dozens of A-list names (Janelle Monáe, Rachel Brosnahan and Laura Dern among others), helping them get through event after event looking their best. For Mandelkorn, styling is as much about storytelling as it is natural impulse. When starting a project, she asks, “Are we leaning into the character [they play in the film]? Is she an ingenue? Are we trying to have a resurgence or some sort of different look for her, and give her a new identity within fashion and the industry?” Once that’s laid out and the goals are clear, the story can be told. Clothes, like film, are a medium for creativity.
Stylists also have to get creative when things go wrong — and to make sure the cameras don’t capture a bad moment for eternity. “There’s so many things that can happen between the fitting and when you get to the carpet,” Turner says of the many perils of awards season. “Your dress can wrinkle in the car. Your strapless bra can drop four inches while you’re sitting in the car, and then you forget to, like, pull it up once you get to the red carpet. Did your strapless gown also fall when it was in the car, and you forgot to pull it up? And then you get to the carpet, and you look at the photos after, and you’re like, ‘oh, God, OK, noted for next time.’”
Mandelkorn tells the story of a perilous time where a strap popped off Monáe’s shoe. “She wouldn’t be able to walk with that,” she says. “It had to somehow be reattached. We ended up jerry-rigging it using safety pins. Thankfully, you didn’t see the shoe as she was walking.” Zippers can break, buttons can pop off, but stylists have to stay strong for their clients. “I keep upholstery thread in my kit because it’s so strong,” Mandelkorn said. “Generally when a zipper pops, it’s because it’s really tight. The girls love to be in a tight dress, so some of these zippers, they just give way. We make it work, and [fans] never know. You’d never know.”
The risks can be significant, and the rewards might not always come. Five people out of thousands of acting performances in a year can be nominated for an award, but only one wins. The uncomfortable shoes, flashbulbs and endless rides in rented cars could wear anyone down, but underneath all of the work, there must still be joy. Teyana Taylor said it simply: “I get excited because I love to wear clothes. I love clothes, I love fashion. I appreciate the art of it. I appreciate the fabric. I appreciate every garment.”
Nicole Kidman, left, and Teyana Taylor at the Chanel dinner. The spirit and beauty of the movies is alive and well.
(Virgile Guinard / CHANEL)
The attendees of this latest Chanel party were channeling all the joy they could muster before sitting for dinner. Even in a time that feels bleak, the spirit and beauty of the movies is alive and well. As I said my goodbyes and wandered back out into the lush darkness of the Beverly Hills Hotel, I thought about the end of another awards season coming to a close. Hollywood continues to undergo a transition that is shaking the foundation of the entire industry, the most important thing we can all do right now is just that. Appreciate the art of it.
Author Julia Elliott won for her short story collection Hellions.
Forrest Clonts/Tin House
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Forrest Clonts/Tin House
Writer Julia Elliott has won this year’s Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for her short story collection Hellions. The award honors work by women and nonbinary authors in the U.S. and Canada.
Elliott, who also authored the novel The New and Improved Romie Futch and the short story collection The Wilds, is known for blending elements of Southern gothic horror, surrealism and fairy tale. Hellions, published in 2025, includes stories set against backdrops like a plague-stricken medieval convent, a feminist art colony, and small Southern towns.
“This eerie, eclectic, genre-leaping collection takes no half-measures; every sentence of Hellions crackles or crawls,” wrote the prize jury in a statement. “Here, human folly moves against a backdrop of horror and magic … But for all its wildness, there is tremendous control.”
The prize, named after a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, awards $150,000 to one winner each year. Novels, short story collections, and graphic novels by women and nonbinary authors are eligible.
This year’s finalists included Quiara Alegría Hudes (The White Hot), Lee Lai (Cannon), Megha Majumdar (A Guardian and a Thief), and Sonya Walger (Lion). They will each receive $12,500.
The Carol Shields Prize went to writer Canisia Lubrin in 2025.
You can listen to actor Donna Lynne Champlin read Elliott’s story “Hellion” on the Death, Sex & Money podcast here.
new video loaded: The Fashion References in ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’
By Helen Shaw, Vanessa Friedman, Léo Hamelin, Laura Salaberry and Sutton Raphael
June 2, 2026
At around 1 in the morning at the Sassafras Saloon in Hollywood, four masc lesbians in cowboy hats and chaps were dancing on top of the bar while bartenders attempted to continue making espresso martinis beneath them.
One performer crawled into the crowd and between the spread legs of an audience member, licking the air between their thighs. Another wrapped a belt around their girlfriend’s neck while thrusting against her to Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name.” The ravenous audience, almost entirely women, fluttered dollar bills all around, while easily filling the saloon’s 300-person capacity.
Across Los Angeles, countless strip clubs and revue shows were unfolding at that same hour, though none quite like this and likely few provoking this level of frenzy. The night had all the riotous energy of a scene from “Coyote Ugly,” with the choreographed masculinity of “Magic Mike.” Playing on the latter’s name, this was the doing of Magic Mascs, an all-masc lesbian and translesbian revue, by sapphics for sapphics.
Skye Valentinez, from left, Alexa Legend, Daddii Syd and King Captain are members of Magic Mascs, an all-masc lesbian and translesbian collective, that started in February.
“Our idea was to give lesbians what men get all the time at a strip club, but instead of just sitting around and singing ‘Pink Pony Club,’ actually going wild,” said group founder Daddii Syd, a.k.a. Syd Latimore.
The performers, self-described “daddies” — Daddii Syd, Alexa Legend, Skye Valentinez and King Captain — formed Magic Mascs in February. The performance at the Saloon was their third overall, but the group has already become an institution within lesbian nightlife in Los Angeles. They will make their debut during a Pride Month performance on Friday at Womxn Pride’s rooftop party in downtown L.A.
The members come from professional dance backgrounds. King Captain entered dance school at age 12 and taught dance for nearly a decade. Daddii Syd has danced since childhood. Alexa Legend spent years go-go dancing across clubs in the city before joining the troupe. Skye Valentinez, the baby of the group — cherub-faced, smiling through braces — is the newest to performing, though she steps into it naturally, exhibiting the same living, breathing caricature of masculinity as the rest of them.
“No one’s trying to be cisgender,” King Captain makes clear. “We’re not trying to be the kind of men who are born into and fed by patriarchy,” Daddii Syd added. “We’re redefining masculinity.”
King Captain gets their underwear stuffed with dollar bills from the crowd.
Magic Mascs’ success follows a broader trend of lesbians confidently stepping into masculinity before hungry eyes. In the past year, performative masc competitions have appeared across the country, with lesbians — hair slicked back and carabiners dangling from their Carhartt jeans — showing off in front of leering crowds. Magic Mascs feels like a more professionalized version of that phenomenon, less tongue-in-cheek — just tongue.
“We always knew there was a huge hunger for this,” Daddii Syd said.
Their first performance, in San Diego, sold out fast.
“I knew right away we were onto something special,” Daddii Syd said.
Videos of the troupe traveled far across sapphics’ algorithms, especially clips of King Captain, whose devoted fan base — known collectively as “The Castle” — make arduous trips just to see them in the flesh. One fan drove more than 20 hours from Dallas to San Diego to see Magic Mascs. Another sent an edible fruit bouquet from Australia.
Backstage, every gesture from the troupe was ultra-confident. Captain, wearing briefs stuffed with a sock full of rice, talked to me with a leg cocked on the footrest of my stool. Daddii Syd, Alexa Legend and Skye Valentinez stood pelvis-forward, hands behind their heads, flexing ropey muscles. They loved the camera, eyeing it like prey while tipping the brims of their cowboy hats. (“You guys are like the modern-day Beatles,” our photographer said.)
King Captain gets the Hollywood crowd into a frenzy during a recent show.
Everything in the show revolved around their hips. The performers rolled and glided before delivering sudden, mechanical thrusts powerful enough to rattle nearby glasses. Their bodies were taut with effort and exaggerated lust. Daddii Syd performed with her girlfriend Jamie in matching plaid, not leaving much to the imagination as they licked whipped cream off each other.
Alexa Legend, who described herself as shy offstage, eventually stripped down to nipple pasties and a cowboy hat, firing confetti from her crotch into the crowd. King Captain swerved their hips like a powerful mechanical bull. “Oh, Captain, my captain,” someone in the crowd said, hand pressed dramatically to her forehead.
They paid particular attention to a woman in a wheelchair in the crowd — typical of their performances — asking if they could sit on the wheelchair. They received keen consent. “That was, um, very nice,” she told me after, still a little lost for words.
“We’re huge on consent,” Daddii Syd said. At the start of the show, they told the crowd to cross their arms in a Wakanda Forever pose if they didn’t wish to be touched. They checked in constantly while moving through the crowd, leaning close to ask questions like, “Is this OK?” and “Anywhere you don’t like to be touched?”
Captain learned these habits through work in intimacy coordination and under the mentorship of Tonia Sina, among the first professional intimacy coordinators in Hollywood. That ethos of care extended beyond their interactions with the audience and into the way they interacted with one another offstage.
“We want everyone in the crowd to feel gorgeous,” King Captain said before the recent show at Sassafras Saloon in Hollywood.
King Captain, left, and Lauren Henson, a stage kitten for the Magic Mascs, perform together on the bar.
Forming a sanctuary for themselves was just as important to the troupe as emboldening others’ desire. “It’s hard to find other masc friends,” Daddii Syd said. “Everybody’s weirdly competitive and trying to sabotage each other.” King Captain agreed, asking: “Why can’t we all be daddies at the same time?”
Daddii Syd and King Captain, who are both in their 30s, had little butch representation or friendship growing up and they have now become something like father figures to Alexa Legend and Skye Valentinez, who are in their 20s.
“We have to protect each other,” King Captain said. “We have to look out for each other.”
Daddii Syd put her arm around Skye Valentinez and said: “Look at this beautiful baby we have.”
That tenderness carried straight into the night. There was a striking seriousness to the whole performance, which spanned from just past 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Unlike a bachelorette party or the typical male revue, there was no giggling in the room, and no wink of camp from the performers. Here was a rare claim to unabashed public sapphic desire; it was given the scale and seriousness routinely afforded to heterosexual display, like the gleeful bravado of a man striding into Hooters.
By the end of the night at Sassafras Saloon, the performers had stripped down nearly to nothing, pouring water over themselves while the audience roared. The atmosphere felt like one of collective release, a recognition that masculinity and desire don’t belong only to men — that a group of four masc lesbians can be horny, inspire horniness and ultimately stir a hysteria that once greeted Channing Tatum or even the Beatles.
It was the magnitude of the response that night at the Saloon, as on every other night they’ve performed, that’s inspiring their next moves: total domination in sum. The troupe is already planning a national tour through Florida, Dallas and Sacramento, though Daddii Syd’s ambitions extend much further.
“The idea,” she told me, “is to go global. Like a boy band.”
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