We started HommeGirls with a very specific agenda in mind: to create a style magazine for women who love menswear. Less than two years later, that platform has very quickly morphed into a gathering place for anyone who identifies with the HG spirit—which turns out to be way more expansive than we had originally imagined. Don’t get us wrong, we will always love a beautifully tailored jacket, but it’s the energy (and not the clothes) that makes a HommeGirl.
We recognize that energy in the Teddy Girls, whose smart, neo Edwardian look was a response to the austerities of life in London during the second world war: the Teddy Girls tore up the style rule book and their ration cards both. We were excited to discover Ken Russell’s portraits of this little documented subculture. Long overshadowed by their male counterparts, they might very well be the OG HGs.
We see it in June Newton, who while faithfully serving as her husband’s model, muse and accomplice for more than 50 years, quietly established herself as an important photographer in her own right. (Pardon our French, but it’s gotta take some balls to be Mrs. Helmut Newton for all that time.)
We see it in Aaliyah, to whom we pay special hommage in this issue with a heartfelt piece by former Vibe editor Emil Wilbekin. As this issue came together, we kept circling back to the late singer who died tragically in 2001 at the age of 22. Her fearless tomboy style somehow permeates every shoot. But underneath the low-slung jeans, the scant sports bras, the XXXL windbreakers and team jerseys, and the ever present men’s underwear waistband grazing her seemingly always bare midriff, it’s Aaliyah’s gutsy spirit that gives her true HommeGirl cred.
And we recognize it in the new generation of HommeGirls like our cover star Rosalía, the self-described Barcelonina Boss Bitch, who throws some serious curve on our cover. Rosalía’s music defies genres, languages, boundaries (dance, she tells us, is the perfect soil to grow a paradigm of inclusion) and as writer Alessandra Codinha notes, she herself practically defied gravity on the shoot with Cass Bird. The energy around Rosalía is undeniable, and definitely HommeGirl.
No jacket required.
Rosalía photographed by Cass Bird
June Newton photographed by Helmut Newton
Camille Rowe photographed by Misha Taylor
Y2K Rewind by Sofia Malamute