Zendaya Enters an Era of Risk, Lensed by Steven Klein for ELLE US September, 2023 AOC Fashion

Uber talent Zendaya tells ELLE US September 2023 writer Clover Hope, that at the impending age of 27, she’s “entering an era of risk.”

Reminding Hope that “As I get older . . . I can’t play a teenager for the rest of my life,” Zendaya is fully embracing risktaking. Even the general public continues to identify the star as the youngest actress to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

The actor’s role as teen addict Rue Bennett in HBO’s drama ‘Euphoria’ was already a form of risktaking, compared to her cherub Disney days.

But stepping into the role of Tashi in director Luca Guadagnino’s R-rated, tennis-pros tryst drama ‘Challengers’ leaves her fans asking ‘Disney who?’

The release of ‘Challengers’ has been moved to 2024, sometime in the late April-early summer period, due to the SAF-AFTRA strike. This interview happened before the strike.

ELLE works with Zendaya’s longtime stylist and now creative director Law Roach in a major presentation of femme fatale Fall 2023 fashion from Dundas, Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors Collection, Ralph Lauren Collection, Sergio Hudson, Valentino and more. Bulgari dominates the jewelry presentation. / Hair by Kim Kimble; makeup by Ernesto Casilla for Lancôme

A Party of Three

There are three tennis pros in ‘Challengers’. Tashi is a Serena Williams type tennis phenom who becomes a coach after a terrible injury.

Tashi finds herself at a tournament, and at the center of a human energy field with the two most competitive men in her life, played by co-stars Mike Faist [as Tashi’s husband, Art] and Josh O’Connor [as her ex-boyfriend, Patrick].

Clover Hope uses a new-to-AOC term that we admire and understand: ‘sensual chaos’. And who better to photograph the layers of sexual heat, ambiguity and self-revelation — but also misunderstanding— embedded in human sexuality, than the master of such images Steven Klein [IG].

Anne is so thrilled to have Klein back and in rare form, and only a month after his blistering SKIMS campaign. The pendulum always swings back and forth in life. Thank goddess, human sexuality has returned to fashion world after about a decade in the stockade.

It’s been a real drought of edgy images like Klein’s, but human sexuality itself has evolved mightily. Hence the repressive, hair-on-fire tactics of the right-wing extremists, who are always lurking under our bedcovers.

Today, America’s morality police are out loud and proud, cancelling sex ed classes all over America.

AOC is ferocious about protecting the #MeToo legacy. But every movement has layers of membership, and we’ve always supported the importance and rewards of sexuality in our lives. For us #MeToo doesn’t cancel out enriching sexual relationships among humans.

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When then Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, and Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia, called for an immediate closing of the 2010 “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture”, a show on view at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., AOC protested the action vociferously.

This was the trigger warning of where we find ourselves today as a nation. Similarily Zendaya finds herself in her own modern Hide/Seek drama in ‘Challengers’.

Zendaya accepts that she is a trendsetter and almost always in the public eye. But she remains very discreet about her relationship with actor Tom Holland.

In an opposite move, the Oakland-born star stepped into the blinding spotlight again, joining British singer-songwriter Labrinth at Coachella 2023. They sang their collaborations ‘All for Us’ and ‘I’m Tired,’ featured in season 2 of Euphoria.

Zendaya had never felt so exposed, writes ELLE’s Hope. “I have a lot of negative experiences with the music industry, and being onstage is really the worst,” she explains. “It carries a lot for me, and I was afraid to open that door again. But I was also like, ‘You can’t run away from this forever.’”

ELLE leaves us with a true life lesson from Zendaya, and AOC relates:

“I had to be like, ‘Dude, take a second and look at how special this is. These people are giving you so much love and energy,’” she says. “I’ve never experienced that before. That blew my mind.” She goes into her inner monologue now, just Zendaya speaking to Zendaya. “I had to go, ‘Stop thinking about the fucking technical stuff. Like, it’s fine. Like, whatever. It’s not going to be perfect. You haven’t been onstage in front of that many people ever in your life. Enjoy the fact that you did it. You got over your fear. You did it, and these people enjoyed it with you, gave you love and energy, and were excited that you were there. That’s enough.’”

Check into ELLE at the link in our first sentence of this post, to see all the fashion credits. ~ Anne