He’s styled everyone from Rihanna to Naomi Campbell. Carlos Nazario’s first book isn’t what you might expect

If you were to put together a time capsule that might reflect what life feels like amid the chaos of the 2020s, what would you choose to include? Which artists and subjects — which bodies or voices — would you feature? And would you have the confidence to even trust yourself with such an ambitious project to begin with?

These are questions that Carlos Nazario knows all too well, having grappled with them extensively while working on his first-ever book, “ Silver Lining ,” an ambitious aesthetic adventure through the zeitgeist as Nazario both sees it and wants it to be seen. The celebrated 38-year-old stylist said he felt an urgent pull to produce something substantial to document this moment in the world — an era in which he feels a unique sense that he is living through history and everything that word implies. But in keeping with Nazario’s reputation for daring, even ground-breaking work, this couldn’t be just any fashion book. It needed to send a message — in Nazario’s voice — to future generations.

“What I wanted to do was to leave a document that suggested that not everyone thinks that way and that there are people who look different and think different and see different, and they’re no less sophisticated, and they’re no less important, and it shouldn’t be treated with any less respect,” Nazario said. “I hope that people can look back on this and think, ‘Oh, wow, that was the start of that,’ or ‘Oh, that looks really different than I thought 2026 looked like.’”

As the newly announced editor in chief of the British fashion title Wonderland , (and contributing style director for Vogue and style director at large for Harper’s Bazaar US before that), Nazario speaks the language of a magazine fluently. His work reflects both a lived-in reality — Nazario, who is Afro-Latino, often champions diverse models — but still plays with fantasy and mythology, as evident in his otherworldly shoot with photographer Tyler Mitchell at the Texas Southern Border to mark the country’s semiquincentennial. He’s styled everyone from Rihanna to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, notably dressing the Democrat for a 2020 Vanity Fair cover in a custom-made white suit (a nod to the suffragettes ) that was designed by a Black man from her congressional district. That was soon after Nazario had dressed Lizzo and Naomi Campbell for Vogue, becoming the first Black stylist to style one of the magazine’s covers since its founding more than a century prior. “The fashion industry can’t seem to get enough of Carlos Nazario,” New York magazine’s The Cut declared in a 2021 profile celebrating the staggering 14 covers he produced in a single year.

David Sims/Courtesy Wonderland

Jack Davison/Oliver Hadlee Perch/Gabriel Moses

But as Nazario’s career was taking off, he felt conflicted. The new decade had begun with a deadly pandemic and racial justice movement, which had each morphed into dizzying culture wars mined by political actors seeking power. It felt like a whirlwind. At the time, Nazario was unable even to enjoy his history-making work at Vogue. Instead, he felt angry that it had taken so long for a Black person to be chosen for the opportunity to begin with.

The 2021 death of his friend and industry peer Virgil Abloh , the acclaimed menswear designer for Louis Vuitton and founder of streetwear brand Off-White, was another push Nazario needed make the shift to editor of his own work. “All of those things happening at once is really what catapulted me into saying, ‘OK, I have to lock in. I have to make this thing, and maybe it’s OK if it’s not perfect,’” Nazario recalled. “I think that fear of imperfection or failure is a lot of times what prevents us from starting or finishing things.”

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But although afraid, Nazario wanted to be bold. A book, rather than a magazine, felt like a “more permanent…complete thought,” and a form befitting the deep questions Nazario wanted to tackle. “I didn’t want people to think about this like another stylist making a magazine,” he said. “The content felt way more serious and way more urgent, and certainly covered topics that I wouldn’t have felt comfortable doing so in mainstream magazines.”

Stretching across more than 300 pages, and containing various pieces from Nazario and collaborators, “Silver Lining” is indeed an ambitious work. It enjoys the free-wheeling sprit of a fashion or literary magazine, but with the permanence and heft of a prized coffee table tome. Themes of race and the corporeal form echo throughout the book. Luis Alberto Rodriguez’s gorgeous black-and-white photos examining the beauty and varying body types of Black men, are followed immediately by an essay by Darnell L. Moore in which the writer and activist navigates memories of his own body, Blackness and sexuality.

Nazario is interested in questions of gender, too. In one project, he and photographer Pieter Hugo traveled to India to shoot a series of sensitive portraits of hijras, a community of third-gender people in South Asia with a semi-sacred status. There is also a striking series by the South London photographer Gabriel Moses, “Bureau of Imagination,” in which models seem to emerge from dark, pop-art canvases, like painted figurines out to reclaim their autonomy. Then there’s the series of inspired conversations between models Alex Consani and Paloma Elsesser, singer Erykah Badu and video artist Arthur Jafa, photographer Ming Smith and musician Solange Knowles — all friends and confidantes of Nazario’s in what can be a ruthless industry. A number of his peers unsurprisingly showed their support for Nazario at his “Silver Lining” launch parties at the boutique Dover Street Market in both New York and Paris leading up to the book’s release.

Frequently, though, Nazario pulls us back into the reality of our moment. In “Red Pill, Blue Pill,” the French-Swiss photographer Thaddé Comar captures portraits of rallygoers in the heated 2024 election season — a time in which a comedian sparked outrage by denigrating Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at one such Trump rally. Then, in “Los Borinqueños,” Oliver Hadlee Pearch and Nazario takes us to that island to spend time with young Puerto Ricans, including the island-born model Joan Smalls, all posed with great dignity and beauty in barber shops, in bed or among nature.

The heart of “Silver Lining” can be found halfway through the book in a deeply felt and intimate conversation between Nazario and his own grandmother, Efna Plaza-Merritt, whom Nazario once had pose for the cover of Vogue Italia, wearing Prada, no less. The pair recall how Plaza-Merritt helped raise her grandson, how her anti-gay bigotry came to slowly be replaced by total acceptance and how she continues to struggle with body image issues as an older woman. Some of her dysmorphia comes from her upbringing and identity as a Black woman, but other parts of it have been taught to her by a fashion industry that her grandson is now firmly part of.

But this is where Nazario feels a unique mission in his role in the fashion vanguard to try to change perceptions of who and what is celebrated. His photos of his grandmother, for example, shine with an ethereal radiance that transforms the lines in her face and hands into markers celebrating her life and impact. And if beauty standards are going to change, Nazario wants to help drive the conversation from the position of power he enjoys. He recalls the 2011 Chris Brown song “Look At Me Now” in which the singer remarked, “I don’t see how you can hate from outside of the club. You can’t even get in.”

That’s an ethos that mirrors what Nazario believes has been among the few silver linings to come from this contentious climate: a growing awareness of what we owe to each other and to the world. “The biggest silver lining we’re experiencing and starting to accept is that we all have to live in this world together,” Nazario said. “We all have a very important responsibility to contribute to the world in whatever format it is.”

如果让你制作一个时间胶囊，来反映2020年代混乱的生活中的感受，你会选择放入哪些东西？你会选择哪些艺术家和主题——哪些人或声音——来呈现？你是否有信心一开始就着手这样一个雄心勃勃的项目？

这些问题卡洛斯·纳扎里奥（Carlos Nazario）深有体会，因为他在创作首部著作《一线曙光》（Silver Lining）时，就曾深入思考过这些问题。这本书是一次雄心勃勃的美学冒险，带领读者探索纳扎里奥眼中的时代精神，以及他希望世人如何看待它。这位38岁的著名造型师表示，他感到一种迫切的冲动，想要创作一些有分量的作品来记录这个世界的当下——在这个时代，他强烈地感受到自己正在经历历史，以及“历史”一词所蕴含的一切。但秉承纳扎里奥大胆创新、甚至突破常规的创作风格，这本书绝非普通的时尚书籍。它需要以纳扎里奥的视角，向后世传递某种信息。

纳扎里奥说：“我希望留下一份文件，表明并非所有人都持有这种观点，有些人外表不同、思维方式不同、看待事物的方式也不同，但他们的才华和重要性丝毫不逊色，也不应该受到丝毫轻视。我希望人们回顾这份文件时会想，‘哇，原来这就是一切的开端’，或者‘哦，这和我想象中的2026年完全不一样。’”

作为英国时尚杂志《Wonderland》新任主编（此前曾任《Vogue》特约造型总监和美国版《Harper's Bazaar》特约造型总监），纳扎里奥对杂志的语言驾轻就熟。他的作品既反映了真实的生活——身为非裔拉丁裔的纳扎里奥经常启用不同背景的模特——又巧妙地融入了奇幻和神话元素，例如他与摄影师泰勒·米切尔在德克萨斯州南部边境拍摄的超凡脱俗的系列，以此纪念美国建国500周年。他曾为蕾哈娜和众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯等众多名人设计造型，尤其值得一提的是，他为这位民主党众议员在2020年《名利场》杂志封面上设计的一套定制白色西装（致敬妇女参政运动），这套西装由她所在选区的一位黑人设计师操刀。就在不久前，纳扎里奥为《Vogue》杂志的封面人物莉佐和娜奥米·坎贝尔设计了造型，成为该杂志创刊一个多世纪以来首位为封面设计造型的黑人造型师。《纽约》杂志旗下的The Cut网站在2021年的一篇人物特写中写道：“时尚界似乎对卡洛斯·纳扎里奥的热情永无止境。”该特写庆祝了纳扎里奥一年内打造的14个封面。

David Sims/图片由 Wonderland 提供

杰克·戴维森/奥利弗·哈德利·珀奇/加布里埃尔·摩西

但随着纳扎里奥事业的腾飞，他内心却充满了矛盾。新十年伊始，一场致命的疫情和一场种族正义运动席卷而来，这两件事都演变成了令人眼花缭乱的文化战争，被那些寻求权力的政治势力所利用。一切都像旋风般席卷而来。当时，纳扎里奥甚至无法享受他在《Vogue》杂志创造历史的工作。相反，他感到愤怒，因为黑人获得这样的机会竟然如此漫长。

2021年，他的朋友兼业内同行、路易威登男装设计师兼街头服饰品牌Off-White创始人维吉尔·阿布洛的去世，再次促使纳扎里奥下定决心转型成为自己作品的编辑。“所有这些事情同时发生，真的让我意识到，‘好吧，我必须全身心投入。我必须完成这件事，即使它并不完美也没关系，’”纳扎里奥回忆道。“我认为，很多时候，正是对不完美或失败的恐惧阻碍了我们开始或完成某件事。”

时尚风尚：文化与服装的交融

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尽管心存畏惧，纳扎里奥仍想大胆尝试。对他而言，书籍而非杂志，更能体现“更持久、更完整的思想”，也更适合他想要探讨的深刻问题。“我不想让人们觉得这只是另一个造型师在做杂志，”他说，“这本书的内容更加严肃、更加紧迫，也涵盖了一些我在主流杂志上不敢触及的话题。”

《一线曙光》（Silver Lining）篇幅超过300页，收录了纳扎里奥及其合作者的各种作品，的确是一部雄心勃勃的作品。它既拥有时尚或文学杂志的自由奔放，又兼具精美画册的厚重感和持久性。种族和身体形态的主题贯穿全书。路易斯·阿尔贝托·罗德里格斯拍摄的精美黑白照片，展现了黑人男性的美感和多样化的体型；紧随其后的是达内尔·L·摩尔的散文，这位作家兼活动家在文中探讨了自己关于身体、黑人身份和性取向的记忆。

纳扎里奥也对性别议题颇感兴趣。在一个项目中，他与摄影师皮特·雨果前往印度，拍摄了一系列细腻的海吉拉肖像。海吉拉是南亚一个拥有半神圣地位的第三性别群体。此外，还有南伦敦摄影师加布里埃尔·摩西的引人注目的系列作品“想象局”，其中模特们仿佛从暗黑的波普艺术画布中走出，如同彩绘人偶般重获自主权。书中还收录了一系列精彩的对话，对话双方分别是模特亚历克斯·康萨尼和帕洛玛·埃尔塞瑟、歌手艾瑞卡·巴杜和视频艺术家亚瑟·贾法、摄影师明·史密斯和音乐家索兰格·诺尔斯——他们都是纳扎里奥的朋友和知己，在这个竞争残酷的行业中，他们与纳扎里奥的合作可谓珠联璧合。不出所料，在《一线曙光》一书出版前夕，众多同行纷纷到纽约和巴黎的精品店多佛街市场举办的发布派对上，表达了对纳扎里奥的支持。

然而，纳扎里奥常常将我们拉回现实。在《红药丸，蓝药丸》中，法瑞摄影师塔德·科马尔拍摄了2024年总统大选期间集会参与者的肖像——当时，一位喜剧演员在特朗普的一次集会上将波多黎各贬低为“漂浮的垃圾岛”，引发了众怒。随后，在《波多黎各人》中，奥利弗·哈德利·皮尔奇和纳扎里奥带领我们来到波多黎各，与年轻的波多黎各人相处，其中包括出生于该岛的模特琼·斯莫尔斯。他们或在理发店，或在床上，或在大自然中，都展现出极大的尊严和美丽。

《一线希望》的精髓在于书中一段感人至深的对话，纳扎里奥与他的祖母埃夫娜·普拉扎-梅里特（Efna Plaza-Merritt）的对话。纳扎里奥曾让祖母身着普拉达（Prada）登上意大利版《Vogue》的封面。两人回忆起普拉扎-梅里特如何帮助抚养孙子，她曾经的恐同偏见如何逐渐被完全接纳，以及她作为一位年长的女性，如今仍在与身材焦虑作斗争。她的部分体像障碍源于她的成长经历和作为黑人女性的身份认同，但另一些则来自她孙子如今身处的时尚行业。

但纳扎里奥认为，作为时尚先锋，他肩负着一项独特的使命，那就是努力改变人们对美的固有认知。例如，他拍摄的祖母照片，散发着一种空灵的光芒，将她脸上和手上的皱纹化作印记，赞颂她的一生及其影响。如果美的标准注定要改变，纳扎里奥希望利用自己所拥有的影响力，引领这场对话。他回忆起克里斯·布朗2011年的歌曲《Look At Me Now》，歌词中唱道：“我不明白你怎么能在俱乐部外憎恨别人。你甚至都进不去。”

这种精神与纳扎里奥认为的在当前充满争议的氛围中为数不多的积极影响之一不谋而合：人们越来越意识到我们彼此之间以及对世界应尽的责任。“我们正在经历并开始接受的最大积极影响是，我们必须共同生活在这个世界上，”纳扎里奥说。“无论以何种形式，我们都肩负着为世界做出贡献的非常重要的责任。”