Vanity Fair UK

APRIL 2021

SPRING
STYLE!

MAKE
WAY FOR

ZIWE

THE NBA’S

FASHION
ALL-STARS

AT HOME
WITH

Y VES BÉHAR

NAOMI
CAMPBELL’S

GREATEST
JOURNEY

PLUS A N YA
Ta yl or - Joy
Cracking
the U.K.’s
‘Mission:
Impossible’
Case

B i t c o i n’s
Billion-
Dollar
Kingpin

The BREAKOUT STAR
of THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT and EMMA

HAS ALL the RIGHT MOVES

By
HERMIONE HOBY

Photographs by
RYA N MC G I N L EY

TOWARDS A DREAM

louisvuitton.com









Features

30

Opening Moves

BY HERMIONE HOBY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
RYAN MCGINLEY

Anya Taylor-Joy’s
performances in Emma
and The Queen’s Gambit
set her Hollywood star
firmly on the rise.

42 PAGE 30

The Rise and Fall of “I’ll probably
a Bitcoin Billionaire understand
this year in about
BY ADAM CIRALSKY five years.”
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
ADAM FERGUSON

In the Wild West of
cryptocurrency exchanges,
Arthur Hayes is a legend.
Is the man who’s moved
trillions an outlaw or a
victim of frontier justice?

50 Features 64 70

The Velvet Hammer 56 On Point State of the Union

BY YOHANA DESTA Intelligent Design BY LEAH FAYE COOPER BY EVGENIA PERETZ
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ILLUSTRATION BY
KENNEDI CARTER BY MARK ROZZO JOHN P. DESSEREAU Conservative power couple
PHOTOGRAPH BY KATY GRANNAN Kellyanne and George
Writer and comedian At a time when we’ve been Conway went toe to toe in
Ziwe has elevated the hot Looking forward— starved for style, these NBA public over Donald Trump.
seat interview to an and back— with beloved players are transforming America is moving on.
art form. Now, she’s taking designer Yves Béhar tunnel walks into catwalks. Can they?
her revealing exposés as he plots a path to a
to late night. better future.

12 Editor’s Letter On the Anya Taylor-Joy wears clothing by Prada; earrings by Sophie Buhai.
14 Contributors Cover Hair products by Pureology Professional Color Care. Makeup and nail enamel
100 Proust Questionnaire by Dior. Hair by Gregory Russell. Makeup by Kate Lee. Manicure by Kim Truong.
Tailor, Irina Tshartaryan. Set design by Colin Donahue. Movement direction
by Jerome AB. Produced on location by One Thirty-Eight Productions. Styled by
Yashua Simmons. Photographed exclusively for V.F. by Ryan McGinley at
Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu, California. For details, go to VF.com/credits.

6 VANITY FAIR PHOTOGRAPH BY R YA N M C G I N L E Y

Contents /Issue No. 727

“The comedy that I try to make talks Vanities
about the battles we’re fighting, and how
we have to open our eyes.” —ZIWE [P. 50] 17

Features Columns 17 / Opening Act Evan Mock
on rebooting Gossip Girl.
76 26 28
19 / Trending Knit looks
The Case of the Mystics and Clowns Hack the System from head to toe.
Purloined Books
BY JEFF SHARLET BY NICK BILTON 20 / Beauty Olivia Cooke
BY MARC WORTMAN dons moody lipstick for spring.
ILLUSTRATION BY Fascist symbols—from From microdosing
SHAWN MARTINBROUGH swastikas and gallows mushrooms and MDMA 22, 24 / The Gallery A
to death’s head Punisher to implanting magnets Kenny Scharf–anointed slipper;
Acrobatic thieves stole skulls—have become and microchips, biohacking a purse that plays with time.
millions of dollars in rare synonymous with Trumpism. is Silicon Valley’s
artifacts. Cracking the U.K.’s The cartoonish images latest obsession—with 23 / My Stuff Cartier
Mission: Impossible case. are anything but a joke. a dark side. perfumer Mathilde Laurent’s
favorite things.

25 / Books and Totes
New novels and stellar bags.

17

E VA N M O C K ’ S C LO T H I N G BY D I O R M E N ; N E C K L AC E BY É L I O U ; WATC H BY RO L E X ; S O C K S BY LO N D O N S O C K C O M PA N Y.
O P P O S I T E : A N YA TAY LO R - J OY ’ S C LO T H I N G , E A R R I N G S , A N D B AG BY B O T T E G A V E N E TA . F O R D E TA I L S , G O T O V F. C O M / C R E D I T S .

PHOTOGRAPH BY N I C K R I L E Y B E N T H A M APRIL 2021 7

®

Editor in Chief Radhika Jones

Creative Director Kira Pollack Deputy Editor Daniel Kile Executive Digital Director Michael Hogan

Director of Editorial Operations Caryn Prime
Executive Editors Claire Howorth, Matthew Lynch Executive Editor, The Hive Miriam Elder Executive Hollywood Editor Jeff Giles

Director of Special Projects Sara Marks Executive Entertainment Director Alison Ward Frank
Managing Editor, VF.com Kelly Butler Deputy Editor, VF.com Katey Rich

Editor, Creative Development David Friend Senior West Coast Editor Britt Hennemuth
Senior Editors, The Hive Michael Calderone, Claire Landsbaum

Senior Hollywood Editor Hillary Busis Senior Editor Keziah Weir Entertainment Editor Caitlin Brody
Associate Editor Erin Vanderhoof Senior Media Correspondent Joe Pompeo

National Correspondent Emily Jane Fox Politics Correspondent Bess Levin National Political Reporter Abigail Tracy
Chief Critic Richard Lawson Senior Feature Writer Julie Miller TV Correspondent Joy Press Senior Staff Writer Joanna Robinson

TV Critic Sonia Saraiya Staff Writers Dan Adler, Kenzie Bryant, Cassie da Costa, Yohana Desta
Staff Reporter Caleb Ecarma Special Correspondents Nick Bilton, Anthony Breznican, Bryan Burrough,

William D. Cohan, Joe Hagan, Maureen Orth, Jessica Pressler, Mark Seal, Gabriel Sherman
Writers-at-Large Marie Brenner, T.A. Frank, James Reginato Associate Producers Jaime Archer, Maham Hasan

Assistant to the Editor in Chief Daniela Tijerina Editorial Assistants Arimeta Diop, Kayla Holliday
Special Projects Manager Ari Bergen Special Projects Associate Charlene Oliver
Editorial Finance Manager Geoff Collins

Design & Photography
Design Director Justin Patrick Long Visuals Director Tara Johnson
Senior Designer Ashley Smestad Vélez Senior Visuals Editors Chiara Marinai, Cate Sturgess Senior Visuals Editor, Research Tim Herzog
Visuals Editor Lauren Margit Jones Visuals Editor, Research Eric Miles Associate Visuals Editor Allison Schaller

Art Assistant Justine Goode Visuals Assistant Madison Reid

Fashion & Beauty
Fashion Director Nicole Chapoteau
Beauty Director Laura Regensdorf Accessories Director Daisy Shaw-Ellis
Senior Menswear Editor Miles Pope Market Editor Kia D. Goosby

Content Integrity
Production Director Mia Tran Legal Affairs Editor Robert Walsh Research Director David Gendelman

Copy Director Michael Casey Associate Legal Affairs Editor Simon Brennan
Production Managers Beth Meyers, Susan M. Rasco, Roberto Rodríguez

Research Managers Brendan Barr, Kelvin C. Bias, Charlotte Goddu, Michael Sacks
Senior Line Editor Katie Commisso Copy Managers Rachel Freeman, Michael Quiñones Line Editor Lily Leach

Video & Audience Development
Associate Director, Audience Development Alyssa Karas
Head of Programming, Video Allie Merriam Associate Director, Social Media Daniel Taroy
Senior Manager, Analytics Neelum Khan Social Media Manager Tyler Breitfeller

Communications
Vice President, Communications Carly Holden
Associate Director of Communications Rachel Janc Manager of Communications Jackson Chiappinelli
Associate Manager of Communications Dane McMillan

UK Emily Hallie

Contributors
Contributing Art Director Emily Crawford Production Director Kerrie Keegan Associate Editor S.P. Nix
Associate Visuals Producer Michael Kramer Fashion Assistants Samantha Gasmer, Jessica Neises Architecture Consultant Basil Walter

Summit Contributing Producer Graham Veysey Special Projects Art Director Angela Panichi

Contributing Photographers
Annie Leibovitz

Jonathan Becker, Larry Fink, Collier Schorr, Mark Seliger

Contributing Editors
Kurt Andersen, Lili Anolik, Peter Biskind, Buzz Bissinger, Derek Blasberg, Christopher Bollen, Douglas Brinkley,

Michael Callahan, Adam Ciralsky, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sloane Crosley, Katherine Eban, Lisa Eisner,
Bruce Feirstein, Nick Foulkes, Ariel Foxman, Alex French, Paul Goldberger, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Michael Joseph Gross,

Bruce Handy, Carol Blue Hitchens, A.M. Homes, Uzodinma Iweala, May Jeong, Sebastian Junger,
Sam Kashner, Jemima Khan, Hilary Knight, Wayne Lawson, Kiese Makeba Laymon, Franklin Leonard,

Monica Lewinsky, Bethany McLean, Nina Munk, Katie Nicholl, Maureen O’Connor, Jen Palmieri,
Evgenia Peretz, Maximillian Potter, Robert Risko, Lisa Robinson, Mark Rozzo, Maureen Ryan, Nancy Jo Sales,

Elissa Schappell, Michael Shnayerson, Chris Smith, Richard Stengel, Diane von Furstenberg,
Elizabeth Saltzman Walker, Benjamin Wallace, Jesmyn Ward, Ned Zeman

8 VANITY FAIR

Agenda / By Annabel Davidson

@vanityfairlondon

Thai soup by TYME Gem Dior watch by Dior Watches Marie Jo Swim Blanche by Rigby & Peller

FOOD JEWELLERY FASHION

So Jar, So Good Truth of the Matter Strong Suits

There are more home-deliverable diets There’s a pun in the name (Gem Dior Dare we start thinking about swimsuits
and food services out there than we can being a take on “J’aime Dior”, French and bikinis? Even if holidays in the Med
count, but TYME is different. Serving for “I love Dior”)—but the greatest pun are still up in the air, there’s always park
100 per cent plant-based food in glass within this 18-piece collection for Dior bathing—and who would dare suggest
jars with compostable labels, this is Joaillerie by creative director Victoire a new one-piece isn’t deserved by all?
one company that is genuinely plastic de Castellane is the choice of materials. Rigby & Peller may be known for their
free—an industry first. From cacao and Malachite, turquoise, mother of pearl, perfectly fitted lingerie, but their swim-
almond energy balls to full meals based tourmaline, carnelian, tiger’s eye—all wear is just as desirable and is designed
on punchy Indian or Thai flavours, it is those hardstones that aren’t deemed to fit every body. From demure swim-
planet- and people-friendly and utterly precious because they’re not one of suits to 1950s-style bikinis with beautiful
delicious. Goodbye takeaways, hello the four big members of the precious detailing, they’ve got all bases covered.
TYME. tymefood.com gemstone family (diamond, sapphire, rigbyandpeller.com
ruby, emerald), but are just as precious
JEWELLERY in the depth of colour they bring to the Precious Lace Nuage ring by Chopard
game. Gem Dior consists of seven
Strike Gold watches and 11 jewellery designs that JEWELLERY
take these hardstones and march with
Vashi, the jewellery brand that puts the them—across wonky, octagonal watch Lace up their Sleeve
client right in the middle of the design cases and braceleted with asymmetrically
process, is branching out—and the striated cuts of hardstone. This is a pun When Chopard first revealed the lace-
direction in which those branches are on precious that just serves to make it inspired pieces that would go on to be
heading is very promising. With a new even more so. dior.com the impetus for their latest collection,
Covent Garden flagship soon to open, Precious Lace, it was immediately clear
and a new design director in the form Gem Dior cuff by that this was a new icon for the historic
of Liz Olver, formerly of Annoushka, Dior Joaillerie maison. The fully rounded Precious
the brand refresh is set to be exciting. Lace collection sees the most wearable
We particularly covet the Lovestrike designs rendered in high jewellery
collection of stacking rings in different format—making them as suitable for
golds—perfect for layering. vashi.com everyday as they are for the red carpet.
chopard.com
Lovestrike stacking rings by Vashi

APRIL 2021 9

®

Publishing Director Kate Slesinger

Associate Publisher Clare Schifano
Head of Partnerships Lucie Burton-Salahuddin Senior Advertisement Director Emma Heuser Fashion & Jewellery Director Emily Elliott

Health & Beauty Client Manager Octavia Saugman
Senior Account Manager Emily Goodwin Account Manager Natasha Gresh
Events Manager Saffron Altmeyer-Ennis Executive and Partnerships Assistant Georgie Roberts
Directories: Advertising Manager Elizabeth Gray Sales Executives Caroline Hall, Goose Leigh, Camilla Longman
Supplements: Executive & Managing Editor Holly Ross Agenda Editor Annabel Davidson
Art Director Scott Moore Deputy Art Director Anja Wohlstrom Designer Emily Lord
Picture Editor Tanjya Holland Parkin Chief Copy Editor Sarah Edworthy
Copywriter Jessica Burrell Junior Sub-Editor Rose Washbourn Junior Managing Editor Clementina Jackson
Creative Strategist & Producer Hazel Byrne Partnerships Executive Caroline Sillem

Business & Partnerships Manager Charlotte Taylor
Classified Director Shelagh Crofts Acting Classified Sales Manager Emily Valentine
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Manager, India Rachna Gulati Manager, Dubai Prasad Amin
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Assistant Marketing & Promotions Manager Claudia Long
Production Director Sarah Jenson Commercial Production Manager Xenia Dilnot
Senior Production Controller Helen Crouch Acting Production Coordinator Lottie Smith
Commercial Senior Production Controller Louise Lawson Commercial, Paper & Display Production Controller Martin MacMillan
Director of Editorial Admin & Rights Harriet Wilson Editorial Business Manager Caroline Martinez
Communications Director Emily Hallie Chief Digital Officer Simon Gresham Jones
Digital Commercial Director Malcolm Attwells Digital Operations Director Helen Placito
Chief Operating Officer Sabine Vandenbroucke Head of Finance Daisy Tam H.R. Director Hazel McIntyre

Managing Director Albert Read

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10 VA N I T Y FA I R APRIL 2021

The

FOUGȯRE
Fragrance Family

Editor’s Letter

I am reading a novel others. As the novelist Hermione Hoby learns in their conversations,
called The Enchanted Taylor-Joy is still absorbing the accolades and recognition her work received
April, as literal an act of during these surreal circumstances. “I think I’ll probably understand this
wish fulfillment as one year in about five years. I think that’s when it will probably hit,” Taylor-Joy
could ask for in the spring says—a sentiment that makes her both wise and relatable.
of 2021. Written by
Our spring style special goes from A(nya) to Z(iwe), the Nigerian
Elizabeth von Arnim and published 99 years American comedian who has also had a breakout year, with a book of essays
ago, this story of four Englishwomen who rent a and a late-night Showtime series both forthcoming. And along the way,
dilapidated castle on the Italian Riviera for we check in with the NBA, whose players took fashion to new heights this
a month and are transfigured by it (to borrow an past season, drawing attention to social justice issues and independent
operative word from E.M. Forster’s A Room designers in the process. Their pregame tunnel walks—from arena arrival
with a View) opens on a dreary February day in to courtside, within the COVID-safe bubbles that enabled them to keep
London and ends—one hopes; I’m not there working—are giving us all the looks we need to get us to the other side. Q
yet—in Mediterranean sunshine. It was an
instant best seller in 1922, which is perhaps not RADHIKA JONES, Editor in Chief
surprising given the post-pandemic parallels
between that decade and ours. If the 1920s
roared—if our ’20s roar—surely it was a riposte
to the deprivation that came before. I have
not read much fiction this past year. It has been
hard to escape into imagined worlds when the
demands of the immediate one were so dark and
pressing. I hope this book will unlock some
inner visions, as perhaps it did for its readers a
century ago—a vicarious journey, a break
in the clouds, castles on the sea and in the air.

To guide us into spring in our own pages
and look forward to a time when we’re all getting
dressed up to go out in the sun, we’ve enlisted
the delightful Anya Taylor-Joy as our cover star.
Fresh off her win for her lead performance in
The Queen’s Gambit at the Golden Globes—where
she dazzled (even by remote screen!) in a Dior
haute couture gown and Tiffany & Co. jewelry—
and a year out from her definitive turn as Jane
Austen’s Emma in Autumn de Wilde’s exquisitely
directed film (if you missed it in the early days
of lockdown, do yourself a favor and stream it as
soon as possible), Taylor-Joy is on the cusp of
an even bigger moment. Her upcoming projects
include an unnamed David O. Russell film, a
prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road (in which she’ll
play the younger version of Charlize Theron’s
character), and an adaptation of Vladimir
Nabokov’s novel Laughter in the Dark, among

12 VA N I T Y FA I R PHOTOGRAPH BY TINA BARNEY APRIL 2021



Contributors

Clockwise
from top left:
Alexandra
Kleeman, Kennedi
Carter, Katy
Grannan,
Hermione Hoby,
Leah Faye
Cooper, Ryan
McGinley.

Alexandra KLEEMAN Kennedi CARTER Katy GRANNAN C A R T E R : TA R A J O H N S O N . C O O P E R : C O U R T E S Y O F L E A H FAY E C O O P E R . G R A N N A N : R O B E R T L E W I S . H O BY : B E N J A M I N K U N K E L . K L E E M A N : N I N A S U B I N . M C G I N L E Y : LU I S A O PA L E S K Y.

“GOTHIC REVIVAL,” P. 20 “THE VELVET HAMMER,” P. 50 “INTELLIGENT DESIGN,” P. 56

Kleeman says talking to actor Olivia While vibing to Beyoncé’s In proper San Francisco fashion,
Cooke was like making friends with “Homecoming” with Ziwe on set, Grannan’s set was photobombed
the cool girl in the drink line at a show. Carter says, their photo shoot by a nude sunbather on Baker
“She’s undeniably glamorous,” says took on a life of its own. “The direction Beach while photographing designer
Kleeman, “but also has a grounded, was Sunday’s best—looking and Yves Béhar. “Yves was so chill,
very matter-of-fact attitude and so feeling sophisticated,” says Carter. like, no sweat, this happens,” says
many thoughtful observations on how “Something that’s missed a Grannan. “I loved that day, the
costume and makeup serve as an aid.” great deal during this pandemic.” random weird ordinariness of it all.”

Ryan MCGINLEY Leah Faye COOPER Hermione HOBY

“OPENING MOVES,” P. 30 “ON POINT,” P. 64 “OPENING MOVES,” P. 30

“She’s a super trouper,” says McGinley For Cooper, who is drawn to After the first time Hoby spoke
of Anya Taylor-Joy, whom he “unapologetic displays of personal to Taylor-Joy, over Zoom, she
photographed in Malibu, California, style,” the NBA is the best-dressed sent a text to a friend describing
amid rain and hail for this issue. “As league in sports. “Their enthusiasm their interaction: “She’s just the
you know, after the rain comes the sun,” for statement dressing speaks to real deal.” Hoby adds: “Anya seems
says McGinley. “We got the most not only how much fun fashion can be,” to have found a place of deep
electric sunset, followed by a deep blue says Cooper, “but also to its strength security, from which she can be
dusky sky to capture the cover shot.” as a means of self-expression.” fully warm and fully generous.”

14 VA N I T Y F A I R APRIL 2021

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VA N I T I E S

VANITAS VANITATUM

PAGE 18

EVAN MOCK takes on the
next-gen Gossip Girl

G RO O M I N G, AMY KO M O ROW S K I ; PRO DU CE D O N LO CAT I O N BY BAD GAL PRO D U C T I O N S; FO R DE TAIL S , G O TO VF. CO M / C RE D I T S. PAGE 20

OLIVIA COOKE
GOES GOTH

PAGE 23

A PUNK
PERFUMER’S
INSPIRATION

PAGE 25

BOOKS AND
TOTES!

Shirt by Fendi; pants
and sneakers by CELINE
HOMME by Hedi Slimane;

necklace (white gold)
by Chopard High Jewelry;

bracelet by BULGARI;
socks by London Sock
Company. Throughout: hair
products by Oribe; grooming
products by 111SKIN.
Styled by Nicole Chapoteau.

Photographed at
The Carlyle.

VA N I TY FA I R PHOTOGRAPH BY NICK RILEY BENTHAM APRIL 2021 17

Vanities /Opening Act

Moving Pictures

A new book from Dior lauds
women photographers

Island HOPPING Clothing and socks by “Transcending time and F O R D E TAI L S , G O TO V F. CO M / C RE D I T S .
Valentino Haute making messages about
Hawaii-born EVAN MOCK takes equality eternal,” says Maria
Manhattan by storm Couture; sandals by Grazia Chiuri, “is my work’s
Roger Vivier; earring raison d’être.” Her Dior:
Evan Mock may be one of the world’s most Maria Grazia Chiuri’s New
sought-after male models, landing campaigns by Maria Tash; Voice features the work
with Calvin Klein and shows for Louis necklace by Chopard of 33 women photographers,
Vuitton, but the Oahu-born skater and surfer including Coco Capitán,
was still navigating sports endorsements High Jewelry. Laura Coulson, and
when he stumbled into a very 21st-century Brigitte Niedermair, who
industry meet-cute: At a North Shore kickback HE HAS 10 surfboards and “unlimited” photographed Dior’s
in 2019, contemporary artist Tom Sachs skateboards. “We Should All Be Feminists”
clocked Mock’s pink hair and asked him HE BELIEVES IN “bending the laws and not T-shirt from Chiuri’s debut
to say hi to his friend in a skate video. The listening to authority.” collection, inspired by
friend turned out to be Frank Ocean, and HE AND BIEBER had been friends a year before Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s
the video went viral. Now the 23-year-old has their fashion collaboration. “He would say, essay. “I wanted female eyes
traveled with Travis Scott on tour, and not ‘Dude, you’re like the coolest kid in the world.’ to capture these pluralistic
only does he have his own clothing brand, And I’m like, ‘Dude, you’re—who you are!’ ” ideas of femininity and other
Sorry in Advance, he worked with Justin THE DOCUMENTARY FAN is impressed by perspectives on how
Bieber on a line too. Later this year, Mock Searching for Sugar Man subject Rodriguez: women are represented, in
makes his acting debut in the Gossip Girl “The way he lives his life now is so killer, connection with feminism,”
reboot on HBO Max—good morning Upper you can’t reach him.” says Chiuri, “which is
East Siders indeed. HIS PERFECT DATE includes “a little hand the driving philosophy of
holding” at a favorite restaurant where my vision and of Dior’s
HIS DAD, WHO made surfboard fins, tossed everyone knows your name. identity today.”
him into his first wave at age two, “before HE HADN’T SEEN the original Gossip Girl
I even knew how to swim. My mom was on until after he’d shot two episodes of the —MILES POPE
the other side, waiting to catch me.” reboot: “Blair was a white girl boss who had
these little minions, and they’re people of From top:
color, Asian.” The new series, he says, is a lot Candela Capitán,
more “woke,” “blunt,” and “graphic.” photographed by her
HIS CHARACTER, AKENO “Aki” Menzies, is sister, Coco; model
“figuring things out sexually.” Hannah Wick,
IN NEW YORK, “you never know who you’re photographed by
going to sit next to; everything that I wanted to Laura Coulson.
do, I can do here.” Even get easy access
to Hawaii-warm water in the dead of winter:
The day before our interview, he and Sachs
visited an indoor wave pool. “In New Jersey!”

—BRITT HENNEMUTH

18 VA N I T Y FA I R PHOTOGRAPH BY NICK RILEY BENTHAM

1. 3. Vanities /Trending

2. 4. IN STITCHES
5. 1. Hermès tie, £205.
(hermes.com)
Lattice REJOICE 2. Victor Glemaud
cardigan, price upon
Following a year of renewed request. (glemaud.com)
zeal for handicrafts and cozy 3. Valentino dress,
distractions, find a reason £9,100. (Valentino
to celebrate in a retro chic palette boutiques) 4. Tiffany &
of umber, gold, and mauve Co. Elsa Peretti earrings,
£3,700. (tiffany.com)
5. Bottega Veneta bag,
£5,880. (bottegaveneta
.com) 6. Gigi Burris
Millinery beret, £155.
(gigiburris.com) 7. Fendi
bag, £950. (fendi.com)
8. She Made Me
swimsuit, £109. (shemademe
.com) 9. Bobbi Brown
highlighting powder
in Moon Glow, £36.50.
(bobbibrown.co.uk)
10. Saint Laurent by
Anthony Vaccarello shoes,
£755. (ysl.com)

6.

7.

ROSS: HARRY LANGDON/GETTY IMAGES. 2, 3: JOSEPHINE SCHIELE; STYLING, JOHN OLSON. 8.
AL L O T H E R S : CO U R T E SY O F T H E BR AN DS AN D WE B SI T E S. F O R D E TAI LS , G O TO V F.CO M / C RE D I TS . 9.

Dazzle like Diana Ross (photographed in 1982 by Harry 10.
Langdon in Los Angeles) in metallic knits.

APRIL 2021 19

Vanities / Beauty

Gothic REVIVAL resembles nothing so much as the CO OK E: HAIR DIREC TIO N, LUK E CHAMBE RL AIN; SPEC IAL THANKS TO J ACO B PRY THE RCH . AL L OTHE RS: COURTESY O F TH E BRANDS AN D WE BSITES. FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/ CREDITS.
heroine of a gothic novel, a girl about to
Set against a slate of emotional film roles, British actor wheel around and face the monster
OLIVIA COOKE slips into makeup for a moody spring head-on. So it’s surprising to hear her
divulge rock star performance anxieties:
By Alexandra Kleeman “sleepless nights, dreams about it
all going wrong.” Shrugging slyly, as if
It was only a couple of years ago that could channel Lou’s raw, dynamic literally shaking off the seriousness
Olivia Cooke learned how to really power, the character’s hidden strength. of what she’s just said, she adds, “I mean,
scream: a primal, guttural roar set loose when’s the last time you screamed
from the body, the kind of sound that “I think we all in the shower imagine out of something other than fear?”
turns the soul inside out. For her recent that we’re performing to 3,000 people,
role as the withdrawn, hard-driven front rocking out with a guitar onstage. But This merger of the heavy and the
woman Lou in Darius Marder’s Sound of the reality of doing that is so much more buoyant is a signature of Cooke’s work.
Metal, she had six weeks to learn how traumatic,” Cooke tells me over Zoom, She made a name for herself playing
to play the guitar, operate a loop pedal, leaning in so that her dark, expressive the wisecracking gamer Art3mis in
and perform the searing noise-rock eyes loom large in the center of the Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One and
track that cements the acoustic texture screen. She’s at home in London filming an alienated, affect-flattened teen in
of the film’s opening. On top of all that, a new series, and all around her the the cold-blooded indie Thoroughbreds.
she had to tear open a sonic aperture in city is in the midst of another coronavirus But her most recent turns—opposite
her petite frame through which she lockdown. With her wild auburn waves Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal and as the
and daring mouth, 27-year-old Cooke star of the haunting, quietly heartrending
speculative thriller Little Fish—are
evidence of an actor who has learned
to leverage a deep internal steel,
complicating the luminous vulnerability
visible at her surface. With her doll-like
features and deep Manchester accent,
Cooke channels an uncanny mixture of
melancholy, mirth, and mundanity.
And what skill set could be more relevant,
as we crack jokes on Twitter beneath
the shadow of a pandemic, a growing
climate crisis, and rising global fascism?

The full orbit back to March, marking
a year since most everything ground to a
halt, has some people seeing lost time;
others look for clues in the last moments
of life as we knew it. Rodarte’s fall 2020
collection, shown last February in an
imposing New York church, stands out as
a harbinger of things to come: vampiric
allusions, lips like black roses. It was a
mood even before the real mood arrived
a month later, with the WHO’s official
declaration of a global pandemic. By the
time the California label debuted its
spring 2021 collection via a cautiously
photographed look book—winsome
floral frocks offset by holdover plum
lipstick; somber expressions caught in
sunlight—the subtext felt unsettlingly
familiar: the heavy and the buoyant. As
Cooke’s face animates my screen,
that image floats to mind: I can imagine
her painting her lips an inky burgundy,
the rich color a mark of tenacious life.

20 VA N I T Y FA I R PHOTOGRAPHS BY EMMA SUMMERTON

Cooke’s latest role in Little Fish Into the Deep months away, perhaps more. The vision
embodies this determination in the face for makeup, then, that might accompany
of overwhelming pressure. In the film, Dark lipstick—counterprogramming our reemergence into the world melds
Cooke plays Emma, a woman whose for spring—reads the room and reflection with a projection of the way
photographer husband, Jude (Jack forward: dark romance paired with
O’Connell), falls victim to a mysterious imagines a bold reassertion of self resolute clarity. Pallid skin from a long
neurological epidemic that causes winter indoors foregrounds a moody
its sufferers to lose their memories and, 1. lip rich with softness and depth, as if
ultimately, their identity. As Jude’s anticipating the return of kisses on
condition deteriorates, Emma resolves 2. the cheek and conversations hunched
to keep him intact through a regimen over small tables. It nods toward the
of memory aids, retelling the brighter, 3. wondrous strangeness of seeing a face
happier moments of their relationship 4. in person after some time away: bare
even as she struggles to keep her own skin with a hint of blush to freshen
mind whole. Visions of a mask-wearing 1. Kjaer Weis lipstick in Glorious, £44. the natural topography, contrasted by
public anxiously awaiting a cure and (net-a-porter.com) 2. GUCCI Rouge de Beauté oxblood lipstick that serves both as
seeking home remedies on the internet semaphore—a graphic language visible
echo our own experience—but even Brillant lipstick in 714 Jody Wild Mauve, £35. even from a social distance—and a
more relatable, at a visceral level, is the (selfridges.com) 3. Serge Lutens lipstick in Couvre gesture of hope for a maskless future.
firm set and subtle twist of Emma’s Feu, £58. (lookfantastic.com) 4. CHANEL Rouge
mouth as she quietly tamps down her Makeup artist James Kaliardos, the
grief to face the crisis ahead. Coco Bloom in Surprise, £33. (chanel.com/gb) architect behind the vampy lip for
Rodarte’s fall 2020 show, who conspired
This spring brings a change in the with Cooke via Zoom on the makeup
tenor of our isolation, if not its substance: for this shoot, says the look is about
As the pandemic comes closer under anchoring. “We’re easing into spring
control, the potential for levity looms with a little bit of trepidation and a little
on the horizon—perhaps a couple of bit of wear,” Kaliardos says, “and a
little darkness.” We’re in a new era, he
Gown by ERDEM. Styled by Nicole Chapoteau. adds, as we reconsider the way we
Makeup direction by James Kaliardos. think and feel about safety, society, and
our own bodies—and in the transition,
makeup can help reassert something
vital about our inner lives. This moment
calls for a fresh incarnation of the gothic:
still informed by an almost Victorian
awareness of mortality but insistently
alive, the definition of the face’s
contours a declaration of presence.

Little Fish ends on a grace note,
a moment of great loss alloyed with
qualified hope. To prepare, Cooke
called on her own memories of her
grandmother’s dementia, of watching
her mother care for someone who had
once cared for her. “It imprints itself on
your mind,” she says of the experience.
“And you do wonder whether it’ll come
for you as well.” There’s a lesson there
about resilience and return, about
looking ahead even as we root ourselves
in a difficult present. We hold on for
the promise that we’ll be together once
again, in real, lived proximity, our
crisply defined mouths grinning at one
another in relieved recognition, our
uncovered faces warmed by the sun. Q

APRIL 2021 21

Vanities /The Gallery

New WAVE F O R D E TAI L S , G O TO V F. CO M / C RE D I T S . O P P O S I T E : L AU RE N T : MAR I O N BE R R I N . ROS E S : F LOWE RP H O TO S / G E T T Y I MAGE S . 1 : L E CO RBU S I E R . © 2021 AR T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y , N E W YO R K /ADAG P , PAR I S / F LC . 2 & 5 : CO U R T E S Y O F CAR T I E R .
3 : C O U R T E S Y O F P L AY F U L . 4 : C O U R T E S Y O F A P L I . 6 : A R T H U R E LG O R T , V O G U E , 20 0 1 . 7 : TA N YA S I D / G E T T Y I M AG E S . 8 : S A L A J E A N /A D O B E . 9 : C O U R T E S Y O F D E C L É O R . 1 0 : M I R AG E C / G E T T Y I M AG E S . 1 1 : C O U R T E S Y O F TO R AYA .
At Louis Vuitton’s spring/summer 2021 show, innovation met history bag is embossed with Vuitton’s 125-year-old fleur-de-lis logo and
when in-person attendees filed into the freshly remodeled department features two interchangeable straps (the silver chain shown here
store La Samaritaine, a study in Second Empire design, and took and one in branded canvas), offering styling options for now or later.
their seats next to 360-degree cameras that captured the experience —Daisy Shaw-Ellis
for at-home viewers. In keeping with the collection’s focus—and
womenswear creative director Nicolas Ghesquière’s lifelong Louis Vuitton Coussin PM, £2,430. (louisvuitton.com)
preoccupation—of playing with time, the iridescent leather Coussin

22 VA N I T Y FA I R PHOTOGRAPH BY SIGNE PIERCE

Vanities /My Stuff

1. 2.

3.

Rebel, REBEL

Cartier’s platinum-haired perfumer
MATHILDE LAURENT brings a punk
sophistication to the finer things

Q Style File stickers (4). PLANT:

ALWAYS WEARING: Tank Eucalyptus (7). CANDLE:

Divan watch, Juste un Forêts by Christian Tortu.

Clou bracelet, military TABLETOP ESSENTIAL:

5. 4. jacket. SHOE: Converse. Chemistry beakers.
6. FAVORITE BAG: Comme

8. des Garçons gold bag (3). Q Leisure Studies
7.
RECENT ADDITION: Cactus CURRENTLY READING:
10.
11. de Cartier ring (5). STYLE INfluencia; Nez. LISTENING

INSPIRATION: Linda Rodin TO: Max Richter. LIBRARY

and Stella Tennant (6). TREASURE: First edition

of Le Corbusier’s Modulor

Q On Beauty (1). ESCAPE: Hossegor

FACE WASH: Decléor (9). Lake, on the southwest

SHOWER STAPLE: Eucerin coast of France; Corsica,

AtopiControl unscented in my family’s village (8).

bath oil. SKIN SAVER:

Imiza oil serum. MAKEUP: Q The Menu

Erborian BB cream. MORNING CUP: Nunshen

PERFUME: No! I can’t wear Earl Grey No. 106. PANTRY

any perfume while I am ITEM: Blueberries (10).

working. I need a neutral INDULGENCE: Matcha at

environment. COLORIST: Toraya (11). RESTAURANT:

David Lucas. WORKOUT: Papillon, Paris 17.

Kundalini yoga with

Lili Barbery. WIND-DOWN: Q Workflow

Meditation by Martin SCENT MEMORY: My

Aylward on the Mind app. mother’s chypre. DESKTOP

ESSENTIALS: Flowers,

Q Sweet Home Molotow markers,
Notability on my iPad.
9.

FAVORITE CHAIR: Lucas

Maassen. LAMP: Studio OBSESSION: Scent of

Drift Dandelight. DREAM life. INSPIRATION: Roses,

ARTWORK: Wood bench which I usually don’t

by Giuseppe Penone. ITEM like, treated in another

YOU COLLECT: “Fragile” way for my three new

fragrances, called I Only

Love Wild Roses (2).

APRIL 2021 23

Vanities /The Gallery

Sweet

DREAMS

Smiles are on the up
and these indoor-outdoor
slippers, a collaboration
between Dior and Kenny
Scharf, give new meaning
to the idea of happy
feet. The New York artist’s
signature figures—the
jolly likes of which have graced
a Rockaway Beach motel,
Danish bikes, and the walls
of MoMA—marry Pop
art and science fiction to
giddy effect, so that whether
sleepwalking or sidewalk
striding, these psychedelic
slip-ons are game for
the ride. —Miles Pope

Dior Men slippers, £4,700.
(Dior Men boutiques)

F O R D E TAI L S , G O TO V F.CO M / C RE DI T S .

24 VA N I T Y FA I R PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS ALBDORF

2. Vanities /Books & Totes
3.
4.
1.

5.

Novel IDEAS

Greet springtime with hot-off-
the-press page-turners and pretty
new bags By Keziah Weir

S T Y L I N G , S H A R O N R YA N . OF WOMEN POPISHO GOOD COMPANY THE FINAL REVIVAL THE NIGHT
AND SALT OF OPAL & NEV ALWAYS COMES
By Leone Ross By Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
By Gabriela Garcia By Dawnie Walton By Willy Vlautin
FSG Ecco Harper
Flatiron Simon & Schuster
In this sumptuous novel from Betrayal, marital discord, Vlautin’s unflinching,
“So often Jeanette has Britain-born, Jamaica- and the shackles of Framed as the oral history humane noir centers on
wondered how she raised Ross, the residents of expectation lie at the of an unlikely ’70s rock a 30-year-old woman
came from such a woman,” Popisho have “a little heart of D’Aprix Sweeney’s duo written by a journalist in Portland, Oregon, who’s
writes Garcia in this something extra,” a magical propulsive, character- with painful connections dead set on buying the
multigenerational epic “cors”: a widower able to steeped story of two best to one of the stars, Walton’s house she’s been renting
that spans from Cuba infuse flavors with his bare friends—a soap star and a astute debut reckons with with her depressive mother
in the 1800s to present-day hands, a healer plagued voice-over actor—their racial violence, the limits of and developmentally
Miami and explores by her own stillbirths, a man friendship and marriages, storytelling, and fame. disabled older brother—
immigration, the sacrifices who can intuit the truth. and a long-kept secret, “You might find it at times even if it means confronting
of motherhood, and But such gifts, when put to ordinary but devastating, untamed and unwieldy, the creeps who owe
that question: How do we darker purpose (brutal of a lost wedding ring and find that it contains no her and committing some
become who we are? policing, for instance), found in the wrong place. easy answers,” warns corrective thievery.
become burdens. our narrator—happily,
a kept promise. 5. Hermès bag, £3,100.
1. CELINE by Hedi 2. CHANEL bag, price 3. GUCCI bag, £2,030. (hermes.com)
Slimane bag, £1,250. upon request. (selected (gucci.com) 4. Alexander McQueen
(celine.com) CHANEL boutiques) bag, £1,090.
(alexandermcqueen.com)

PHOTOGRAPH BY STUART TYSON APRIL 2021 25

Vanities /Decoder

Mystics and CLOWNS chamber’s door, a rioter’s face peering
in like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
The Capitol riot brimmed with fascist symbols—sound and Then there was the yet blunter
fury signifying everything By Jeff Sharlet collapse of history by meme: a rioter
in the Capitol wearing a hoodie with
O Fascism has been a visual language the words Camp Auschwitz wrapped
ON JANUARY 6, the Trump dream that’s ever since its embrace by futurism, the around a skull. (His name is Robert
proven more contagious than the early 20th-century Italian movement Keith Packer.)
mutant B.1.1.7. finally fully crossed over of art and design. So too, today, a visual
IRL, into the material plane. It was the grotesque that’s left too many of us This is fascism’s visual trap, from
delusion he rode in on in 2016 and grasping for words even as we dwell on the black, white, and red of the
the hallucination in which he himself scenes from the insurrection. If we’re swastika to the death’s head Punisher
walks, no longer a con man, now a not careful, we’ll simply spread the skull that’s become a de facto symbol of
believer. Last summer, when he averted contagion—“echo! echo! echo!”—like Trumpism, from the patch worn by
his eyes from an interviewer as he the battle cry of the right-wing social the “zip tie guy” (Eric Munchel) to the
murmured of “dark shadows,” it was media network Parler, in which an echo pin on Sean Hannity’s lapel. Literally
clear the shadows of his hateful is similar to a retweet. The grinning cartoonish, a language of brute
self-obsession had come home to haunt. fool in a pom-pommed Trump beanie, spectacle that’s hard to ignore. Look,
But what happened in Washington— waving as he makes off with the and you’re cursed by that which is
and at armed protests in at least a dozen House Speaker’s podium (Florida man ugly in the deepest sense; look away,
state capitals around the country— Adam Johnson); another toting a and you neglect the threat at our
was no haunting. For the last four years Confederate flag (Kevin Seefried, of door. Or rather, inside the House. The
(and then some), Trump herded a too- Delaware), between portraits of Vice task, then, is translation—to render
compliant press into pens at his rallies President John C. Calhoun, slavery’s that which seems shocking instead
and used them like props for his rage, most “eloquent” defender, and Charles banal, to root fascist proclamations
turning his mobs to scream at them. Sumner, nearly beaten to death on of revolution in the history that
In one tiny sideshow of the insurrection, the Senate floor for his abolitionism; names them merely small-minded
the screamers knocked down the metal security, guns drawn and aimed manifestations of defeated ideas.
barricades and finally attacked, beating at the shattered window of the House Less than ideas; vanity, dull-eyed.
cameras with flagpoles. One man
preached vengeance: “Start hunting Consider three of our newly
them’’—journalists—“down, one. By. elected representatives: Marjorie Taylor
One!” An insurrectionist in Mary Janes Greene (Georgia), Lauren Boebert
and a pink beret sifted for souvenirs. (Colorado), and Madison Cawthorn
Most took pictures. And yet the attack
was not just symbolism. All of it—the GALLOWS: NURPHOTO/GETTY IMAGES.
spectacle and its instant smartphone
memorialization—comprises the
language of fascism, different mainly in
scale from the trophy photos of lynchings
that once circulated as postcards.

26 VA N I T Y FA I R ILLUSTRATION BY A N T H O N Y G E R AC E

(North Carolina). Each stoked the This is fascism’s North America, who now lends her
insurrection, but they’re notable name to the white supremacist site
not so much for their ideology—other VISUAL TRAP, VDare, and every white woman
members run just as extreme—as for after her in the rancid mythology of
the ways in which they flaunt it. Greene’s from the swastika lynching. We’ve seen this picture
best-known ad featured her in a taut to the death’s head before. Like “ironic racism” or the
black suit and aviator shades, gripping Camp Auschwitz hoodie, it not
an assault rifle next to the disembodied Punisher skull only lacks but actually denies depth.
gray scale heads of three members that’s become It is complex but two-dimensional,
of the Squad. Women of color drained of a de facto symbol a conspiracy theorist’s map of
actual color, because color—blond of TRUMPISM. “connections.” It is flat by design, the
hair, bright red lipstick—like the gun, better to replicate itself—“We Are Ashli
like power, in the white supremacist action is reassurance, the promise that Babbitt,” as one account on the platform
imagination, belongs to whiteness. white “beauty,” and white power, Gab puts it, collectivizing grievance
In the grammar of white supremacy, endure. Men will be manly, women will and martyrdom—copy after copy.
everything does, as W.E.B. Du Bois wear short shorts. Both will carry
observed a century ago in “The Souls of guns. Cawthorn reassures the base that On the National Mall, insurrectionists
White Folk”: “I am given to understand you can support politicians without erected gallows. A cross and a gallows.
that whiteness is the ownership paying fealty to “suits,” weak, whiny This phrase—for that’s what it is
of the earth forever and ever, Amen!” tools such as Lindsey Graham. As in the fascist tongue—bears emphasis
women, Boebert and Greene offer a lest we ever forget the vanity Trump
SO IT WAS that Boebert stormed the model of feminine authority which and his believers mean by the word
Capitol in an ad titled “Mission: uses that power—visualized as an sacred, as in the “sacred landslide.”
Boebert,” released three days before assault rifle—to make them even more What they mean, what fascism always
the insurrection. In it, she swaggers traditionally desirable. Guns, curves, means, is the flattening. Stories
down a D.C. back alley, declaring she’ll they’ve got it all. reduced to memes.
carry her Glock—seen as if by X-ray
beneath her jeans—to Congress because Fascists know, explicitly or implicitly, The cross and the gallows, of course,
Washington’s among the “top 10 that all of these images—Boebert are symbols too, each rich with layers
most dangerous cities.” (It isn’t, but it sexy with her gun, or the horned man of meaning, nuance, and contradiction.
is by most counts among the top 10 flexing in the Senate—do their work But their juxtaposition cancels each
Black cities.) Before that she posed often for them. They cosplay for the same other out. Such is the essence of
with a handgun strapped around the reason Trump danced to “Y.M.C.A.” at fascism’s appeal. That it loathes life is
thigh of her tight jeans and, in at least his rallies—because it works. It draws as obvious as its affection for skulls,
one picture, wearing Daisy Dukes, the eye, it seems to express earnestness but it denies the reality of death as well,
peeking over her shoulder as she and humor at the same time, the by considering it so glibly. Executing
dangled an assault rifle behind her. layers of meaning that can produce a politicians? Lulz. For whom does the
symbol. For instance, the image of insurrectionists’ noose hang? For
Rock-jawed young Cawthorn, a flag distributed by Trumpist lawyer whom does it not? Of course, it’s all just
meanwhile, is more of a concealed carry L. Lin Wood after the insurrection. talk, or “just theater,” as so many
man. He made sure to let his fans—for On a field of black, surrounded by six pundits have declared. Until it isn’t.
that’s what his supporters are—know he white stars—the six states “stolen”
was packing at the insurrection, inside from “our” president?—the image of a We must learn the language of
the Capitol and before, when he ranted white woman is silhouetted against fascism because for the foreseeable
at the rally in the style of the Führer a blood-red Capitol. It is Ashli Babbitt, future that moment will always be
(as he referred to Hitler when he made the insurrectionist killed by a Capitol coming. Learn just enough that we’ll
a pilgrimage to the dictator’s “Eagle’s Police officer; a blue star marks her never have to speak to it, just as
Nest”), wearing a vintage-style shooting bullet wound. An “innocent” murdered scientists study viruses so they can
jacket and tight leather gloves, as if for her patriotism. The actual Babbitt develop vaccines. You have to
cosplaying a fascist of the old school. led a complicated life; the figure in the momentarily see, as fascists do, a world
flag is a visual descendant of Virginia flattened to two dimensions, one in
To the ardent, these images are Dare, the first English baby born in which the horned dude, the “QAnon
like reactionary pinups, thrilling even Shaman,” can pose as both clown
as they lend the illusion of gravitas and mystic, because he’s not really
to the more soberly attired leaders of either, and “Camp Auschwitz” is
the rightist surge, the Hawleys and always now and thus always “funny.”
Cruzes. Beneath the pinups’ gloss of It’s a joke, precisely because none
titillation and transgression, the real of it—the “theater,” the cosplay, the
guns, the shattered glass—ever is. Q

APRIL 2021 27

Vanities /Tech

Hack the SYSTEM become in modern American life.
At the top are people like Mark
Tony Hsieh’s tragic death reveals the dark side of Silicon Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Elon
Valley’s biohacking obsession By Nick Bilton Musk, who have gone from being
like you and me to being the richest
A Hsieh, like many tech titans, found and most powerful people on earth.
success young—he sold his first company But no matter how much money they
AS NEWS BROKE that Tony Hsieh, to Microsoft for $265 million when make, how many people use their
the founder of Zappos, had died in a he was 24 years old and later cofounded platforms or buy their products,
fire the day after Thanksgiving, Zappos, which he sold to Amazon or how high they are on any given list,
it was almost incomprehensible. Near- for $1.2 billion in 2009. Hsieh adopted a it’s never enough. “Mark Zuckerberg
billionaires don’t die in fires, and new work ethic—known as holacracy— doesn’t wake up every morning and
they particularly don’t die alone in a where employees have no job titles say to himself, ‘Holy shit!—2.8 billion
300-square-foot shed, surrounded and self-organize to fulfill the tasks of people use Facebook!’ Instead,
by some old gym equipment, a pink- the company. He came to be known he wakes up every morning and says,
and-white-striped beach chair, as someone who shunned the money he ‘Why isn’t the other half of planet
bottles of Fernet Branca liqueur, and had made (he lived in a tiny Airstream Earth using Facebook?!’ ” one tech
nitrous oxide chargers. in a parking lot) and just wanted to founder told me. Jeff Bezos is no
make the world (or at least Las Vegas) a different. He recently stepped down
Over the past decade, the Silicon better place. But Hsieh was haunted as the CEO of Amazon not to retire as
Valley tech rich have come to be by his success, and had also ventured the richest man on earth or spend
seen almost as deities. They make up somewhere dark, to the extremes of
almost half of the 20 richest people biohacking and food deprivation. In the “It’s all
on the planet, according to Forbes, and months before he died, Hsieh’s body
are quoted, lauded, and defended had deteriorated to just 100 pounds and SYNTHETIC
by legions of fans as if they were some was suffering from lack of nourishment.
sort of doctrinal beings: saints with At one time he had put himself on an and it’s all an
iPhones. When they go on silent extreme 26-day “alphabet diet,” during ILLUSION.”
retreats and meditate for days on end, which he only ate foods starting with The PANDEMIC
it’s seen as proof they are close to the same single letter each day. He was only heightened
some sort of transcendental plane, anxious, depressed, and self-destructive,
and when they return to normal as his longtime friend the singer this.
life, they will explain how we—they!— Jewel said, and in addition to becoming
can fix civilization. Those who push addicted to oxygen deprivation and more time with his family, but to focus
themselves to extremes—by hacking whippets, he was also paying “friends” on other pursuits: the Washington
their bodies, drinking Soylent instead to be around him in Park City, Utah, Post, trying to beat Musk in the new
of consuming real food, or forgoing showing that this public presentation space race, helping push Amazon
sustenance altogether—are not seen as of a transcendental life is really, at to be even more innovative. The next
odd, but considered on the bleeding the end of the day, mostly just bullshit. tier of tech leaders—billionaires
edge, as if they were just doing this to (or decamillionaires) like Hsieh, Snap
show us mere mortals how in control “A few founders will create this CEO Evan Spiegel, and Spotify CEO
they are of their own lives. made-up person and then everyone else Daniel Ek—are also constantly at war
in tech wants to emulate it,” a Silicon with their own demons about how they
Valley venture capitalist told me. “It was got to this rare place, terrified that
the same with Steve Jobs, where people they might lose their standing, and
wanted to wear a black turtleneck and riddled with the angst of impostor
become vegan; now these tech bros want syndrome or worse. According to
to be a part of this spiritual group of people close to Hsieh, some believe
drug users, partying on private islands, the pressures of having made it, both
but in reality, it’s more like a cult.” financially and to a certain level of
tech stardom, were simply too much.
Polls, research, and those screens
we all stare at incessantly show
how important wealth and fame have

28 VA N I T Y FA I R ILLUSTRATION BY M A R I O H U G O

No wonder we’ve entered a new era Ambien to get to sleep each night in 1984 by way of the sci-fi subculture
in Silicon Valley, with the tech elite after the “excruciating” toll running novel Neuromancer but has since
having their own period of sex, drugs, Tesla had taken on him. leapt off the page and into Palo
and rock and roll—often without the Alto, where everyone seems to want
rock, the roll, or even the sex. Last year, Some have even begun building to outdo their cohorts by pushing
a number of rich founders began their own microdosing labs, hiring their bodies to extremes. You’ve got
experimenting with microdosing drugs chemists and pharmaceutical the Dorseys of the world bragging
to make it through the day, as two scientists to make bespoke batches about how little they eat each day,
people with knowledge of these habits of hallucinogens to pop like Skittles the Zuckerbergs boasting of killing
have told me, by taking tiny amounts when reality gets a little too real. During their own food, and an army of
of MDMA and LSD, and a long list of the pandemic, I’ve heard of founders nerds now wearing every tracking
psilocybin mushrooms to help take going to far-off places to experiment device imaginable—from rings that
the edge off, but not so much that you’re with ayahuasca, peyote, and the follow your sleep to real-time sugar
seeing tie-dyed dolphins or 3D cartoon new drug of choice, dimethyltryptamine monitoring devices you inject into
characters chasing you down Market (DMT), a synthetic drug that one your arm—and then experimenting
Street. For Musk, the pressures of being person told me was “like doing 10 years with all forms of starvation and sleep
at the top led the board of Tesla of psychotherapy in five minutes.” habits to show how in control they
to worry about the founder’s use of are of their bodies. There’s intermittent
Then there’s the body hacking, which fasting, working under infrared
first made its way into the mainstream heat lamps, calculating ketones, and
working with “DIY surgeons” to
implant magnets and microchips.

“I THINK THIS is all a result of a
complete detachment from authenticity
by these tech founders. They present
a version of themselves that isn’t real,
and then, when they look in the mirror,
they see how inauthentic they really are,
and the only way they can handle the
illusion they’ve created is through
drugs,” said one Silicon Valley insider
who often spends time with the
biohacking-obsessed ultrarich. “It’s
all synthetic and it’s all an illusion.”
The pandemic only heightened this,
with people slipping into more extreme
activities in their quest for control.

One Silicon Valley founder who sold
his company to Google years ago
told me that the year that followed the
sale—when he had gone from an
average American worrying about
paying rent each month to seeing seven
zeros at the end of his bank account—
was one of the most miserable times
of his life. “You think it’s going to solve
all these problems,” the founder told
me, “but it just creates so many
more issues, both psychologically and
existentially. You don’t know
what to do with yourself anymore.”
For Hsieh, the only thing he could do
was run away from his demons
and the reality in which he found
himself imprisoned. Q

APRIL 2021 29

ingOpe

Already a breakout star thanks to The Witch and Emma,
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY gave such a captivating performance as a

drug-addicted chess prodigy in The Queen’s Gambit that it became a global obsession.
She’s now working with everyone you’ve ever heard of

By HERMIONE HOBY

Moves
30 VA N I T Y FA I R

n- Photographs by

RYAN McGINLEY

Styled by

YASHUA SIMMONS

A NEW QUEEN
Anya Taylor-Joy,

photographed
at Saddlerock

Ranch in Malibu,
California.

Coat by Max Mara;
necklace by Cartier

High Jewelry.

APRIL 2021 31

I The first time we talk, Taylor-Joy is wearing a long-sleeve
slouchy black T-shirt and a toffee-colored scrunchie on her pale
ISN’T THE POINT of stars that they’re looked at? Couldn’t you wrist. Her long white-blond hair is tucked behind her ears, and
assume, then, that stardom and some degree of vanity go hand she’s wearing no makeup I can discern. This bare young face
in hand? For Anya Taylor-Joy, whose indelible performance in contrasts with the vampish scarlet daggers of her nails, a series
The Queen’s Gambit made it a global phenomenon, the twain have of murderous-looking little points. “They’re for the role!” she
clearly never met. When we speak in January, the 24-year-old says, wiggling them. “They’re not my hands!” With a day off
actor is in Los Angeles, shooting a highly secretive movie with from shooting, Taylor-Joy has been going about what she called
director David O. Russell. All that’s known about the film is its “my adulting day”—as in “laundry, cleaning house, all of the
outrageous cast—outrageous not just for the stature of its names stuff that makes you a civilized human being and not this ruf-
but also for just how many names there are. My Google Alerts fian, which I am usually.” This “ruffian” has clusters of orchids
seem to bristle with additions each day: Robert De Niro, Chris on the kitchen island behind her, a guitar propped against the
Rock, Margot Robbie, Christian Bale, Mike Myers, etcetera, etcet- wall, several hefty crystals at her fingertips, and books piled on
era. The project will be Taylor-Joy’s 16th feature film in seven the floor—the strewn evidence of individuality within the imper-
years. Still, with a lineup like this, she’s the rookie of the group. sonally sleek rented apartment that’s home for the time being.

“The movie has been very secretive to all of us as well,” she Taylor-Joy’s grounding, nesting impulse make sense. If her
says over Zoom. “And so suddenly you hear these names and you 2020 was one of vertiginous ascent, her 2021 will be strato-
can’t really…” Pressing her palms across her sternum, she frowns spheric. She will appear in Edgar Wright’s horror movie Last
in the direction of her right knee, as if trying to make sense of all Night in Soho, in which she plays Sandy, an aspiring singer in
this. She explains that it isn’t a matter of being starstruck, not ’60s London with an exaggerated hairdo and understated
exactly. “But you hear these titans of cinema and I’m just like, British accent. (The sneak peek I’m granted includes a pretty
I am a child!” She laughs. “I am a baby. This is insane.” mind-boggling dance sequence, as well as a genuinely bewitch-
ing performance of Petula Clark’s “Downtown.” The girl can
Russell himself has no difficulty explaining Taylor-Joy’s sing!) Taylor-Joy will also team up again with Scott Frank,
presence among the titans. “Anya is fearless and intuitively vul- director and cocreator of The Queen’s Gambit, for an adaptation
nerable and confident in a manner that is uniquely her own,” he of Nabokov’s novel Laughter in the Dark. And then there’s the
says in an email. “She is different and strange in ways that are pop-culture behemoth of Furiosa, a prequel to George Miller’s
fascinating both toward darkness and toward light.” This will brilliantly bombastic Mad Max: Fury Road, in which Taylor-
ring true to anyone who saw The Queen’s Gambit—and virtually Joy will take the title role, a younger version of the character
everyone did. After the show premiered last fall on Netflix, more immortalized by Charlize Theron as a grim-jawed, buzz-cut
than 62 million households tuned in, making it one of the big- feminist outlaw. Whatever incarnation young Furiosa takes, it
gest, most beloved shows of 2020: a “limited series” as major will be a treat to see Taylor-Joy—hitherto mostly bookish and
cultural event. There were days last fall when my Twitter feed elfin in her roles—in an action movie.
seemed to be nothing but discussions of the show and its star.
The aesthetics! The chess! The sexual tension! Also on her docket is The Northman, a Viking thriller directed
by Robert Eggers, costarring Nicole Kidman and Ethan Hawke.
“I think,” Taylor-Joy says carefully, “I’ll probably under- Filmed last year in Northern Ireland (I glean there’s a fair
stand this year in about five years. I think that’s when it will amount of her barefoot on a muddy mountainside), the movie
probably hit.” was something of a reunion for Taylor-Joy: She was just 18 when
Eggers cast her in her first real movie, the seriously unnerving
Clothing by GUCCI. supernatural horror The Witch.

Asked if the actor’s now-global fame surprises him, Eggers
tells me, “I’m surprised it took so long!” He laughs. “I think
some people explode onto the screen. They photograph well
but they’re also able to somehow bare their soul—you can see
through their skin and into their minds and hearts. Beyond
that, she’s a good actress. You can be a great actor and not be
a star, but Anya has both.”

T  HE YOUNGEST OF six kids, Taylor-Joy was born
in Miami but her family moved to Buenos Aires
when she was still a baby. Six years later, they
relocated to London. There a homesick and

Spanish-only-speaking Taylor-Joy refused to learn English for

two years. Eventually she relented (the Harry Potter books were

32 VA N I T Y F A I R

APRIL 2021 33

Clothing by Miu Miu;
earrings by
Bottega Veneta.

34 VA N I T Y FA I R

“She is different and strange
in ways that are fascinating,” says

director David O. Russell.

APRIL 2021 35

instrumental in her learning), but she remained an unhappy irresistible turn last year in the title role in Autumn de Wilde’s
child. For one thing, she was picked on for her looks. delectable adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma.

“Oh, 11-year-old Anya was an awkward phase, for sure,” Before seeing it I’d believed that I loathed period dramas in
she sighs. A few years later she’d be scouted on the street by general and Austen adaptations in particular—spare me all that
Sarah Doukas of Storm Management, the same woman who tittering and simpering in bonnets. And then I watched the film
discovered Kate Moss. But back then, she recalls, “My head and was entirely disarmed, blindsided by delight. As Austen’s
was smaller and my eyes were the same size. I was waiting for most interesting heroine—“handsome, clever and rich,” in the
my head to grow a bit. Make me look a bit more proportional.” author’s famous summation—Taylor-Joy fizzes against Johnny
Rough for any kid, but Taylor-Joy thinks she was particularly Flynn’s rugged and quietly fervent Mr. Knightley. It’s a tooth-
affected because of her upbringing: “My mother raised me to some bonbon of a movie, all tart and effervescent sweetness on
always be looking at things inside of people rather than their its surface, but as with the novel, there’s something substantial
outside.” Taylor-Joy doesn’t stare into mirrors much. “Not at its core. Pert and spoiled and painfully young, Taylor-Joy’s
because I’m running away from myself,” she says, “but because Emma simmers with self-regard before undergoing the
the most beautiful thing about me is my desire to interact with difficult self-disillusionment that clears the path for her grow-
the outside world. And when you’re interacting with the outside ing up. De Wilde had admired Taylor-Joy in The Witch and the
world you’re not looking at yourself, you’re looking at the person similarly dark Thoroughbreds. In both she plays an unassuming
in front of you.”

Such things can sound sappy when written down, but I
sense only pureheartedness. I wonder if it’s that same quality
that made her teen-hood hard: Taylor-Joy loved learning but
found school, particularly its social element, difficult. “All the

“Prior to Emma, I’d just had a devastating breakup. I was
incredibly insecure and very, very unsafe in my own skin.”

information I was being given was: There’s something wrong girl who slips into villainy; in both she remains compelling even H A I R , G R E G O R Y R U S S E L L ; M A K E U P , K AT E L E E ; M A N I C U R E , K I M T R U O N G ; TA I LO R , I R I N A T S H A R TA RYA N ; S E T D E S I G N , C O L I N D O N A H U E ;
with you.” At 14 she went to New York on her own for a two-week when she becomes wicked. M OV E M E N T D I REC T IO N , J E RO M E AB ; P RO D UCE D O N LO CATI O N BY O N E T H I R T Y- E I G H T P RO D U C TIO N S ; F O R DE TAI LS , G O TO V F. CO M / C RE DI T S .
directing program, where the first thing she did was dye her
hair pink in a Chipotle bathroom. “I literally came in from the “I didn’t want to make Emma likable and all that crap,” de
airport and I saw Ricky’s and I was like, Yes, pink hair—that’s Wilde tells me, spitting a word so often invoked in a tedious-
what I need.” Two years later she wrote an extensive essay for ly gendered way. “The ugliness of her personality was as
her mom and dad in which she explained why she was quitting important as the phoenix rising of the better part of her soul.”
high school to try to become an actor. The character has to break through her ego. “That can only
be done by Anya because she understands the difference
We have Jennifer Marina Joy and Dennis Alan Taylor to thank between vanity and confidence,” says de Wilde. “For an actor
for their faith. They read the treatise their youngest daughter to understand the difference is like gold. An actress, especially,
issued them and agreed with its conclusion. because they’re not often encouraged to. She’s my muse, you
know? And she’s the muse of quite a few directors.” I sense
Y  OU’D THINK TAYLOR-JOY might have felt some vin- de Wilde’s vehemence in the way she becomes extravagantly
dication by the time her first big movie premiered sweary as she talks: “She would take all the pieces we’d given
in 2016. Surely here was incontrovertible evi- her—and just fucking nail it. She’s redefining the term ‘movie
dence of her having “made it”? In The Witch she star’ because it’s not a selfish act, it’s a fucking rising up with
the film. She’s not there just to be amazing, she’s there to make
plays Thomasin, the eldest child in a hard-bitten Puritan family other people be more amazing, and that’s what I love about
her. Her radiance, her fairy dust is shared—the light bounces
scrabbling for sanity and survival in the wilds of 17th-century off her and shines throughout the cast.”

New England. Exuding both innocence and cunning, she’s In many ways, shooting Emma was an idyllic experience. “It
was just us in the summer in England—which is beautiful, as
dangerously radiant among her gray, hatchet-faced parents you know—swanning around these massive houses and having
our lunch as a picnic on the lawn,” says Taylor-Joy. It was also,
and the sodden and forbidding hinterland in which the family however, one of the most difficult moments of her life. Taylor-
Joy describes her last few years to me in terms of a video game:
finds itself. But watching herself on an enormous screen for the “Every year has been a different video game level.” With each
new level, she’s had to ask herself questions: “What are the
first time, Taylor-Joy recalls her whole body going cold. “I felt rules? How do I interact with my space?” The most daunting
level to date began with Emma. “Prior to filming I’d just had a
like I’d let everybody down. I was terrified I was never going devastating breakup, and it had challenged everything. I was

to work again.” Instead, well over a dozen award nominations

followed, as well as more name-making roles, including her

36 VA N I T Y FA I R

Clothing by Alaïa;
choker by Saint

Laurent by Anthony
Vaccarello.

APRIL 2021 37

38 VA N I T Y FA I R

“We used to joke on set that we were bringing
sexy back to chess. We didn’t really think that’s what

people would actually think.”

Clothing and shoes
by Prada; earrings by

Sophie Buhai.

APRIL 2021 39

just incredibly insecure and very, very unsafe in my own skin.” from their bedroom (Taylor-Joy’s made a series of winning
She’d also worked relentlessly. “I had just played charac- appearances on late-night shows via video link); the last prop-
erly glamorous thing Taylor-Joy did was attend the premiere
ter, character, character, never taking a second.” Inhabiting for Emma in February of last year, wearing a vintage Bob
roles deeply risks an obliteration of self. In the climactic scene Mackie beaded wedding gown. She seems grateful, though,
between Mr. Knightley and Emma, for example, the script called that this supernova moment has coincided with a period of
for a nosebleed. To the confusion, alarm, and ultimate excite- necessary retreat. The usual hoopla of stardom is the stuff of
ment of her director and costar, Taylor-Joy began bleeding real the Before Times. Right now she’s mostly just excited to have
blood. Learning this, I’m impressed. She, however, has the grace bought a house in London a stone’s throw from her favorite
to joke. “I really bled for the role, people!” Indian restaurant.

At some point in 2019, Taylor-Joy realized she could go into Nonetheless, the world still intrudes. Recently, jet-lagged
an art gallery and know what each of her characters’ favorite after a flight to L.A., Taylor-Joy took a dazed and insomniac
pieces would be and why. “But I had no idea what I liked,” she walk at 4 a.m. Stumbling around, she came face-to-her-own-
says. “I had no clue of what I would choose for myself.” She trails face with a billboard advertising The Queen’s Gambit. She
off, then an air of gentle revelation comes over her: “I’m sitting recounts the progression of her feelings. First: “Oh my God,
here talking to you, and for the first time, I’m like, I know what I I’m on a billboard. As an actor for something I care about,
like. I know what I, as a person, enjoy!… The whole of 2019 was
me becoming a woman, essentially.”

Perhaps she’s finally ready to, in a sense, play herself. “Well,
kinda,” she says, smiling. Tentatively, I ask if she’s had therapy,
and she answers easefully. “I haven’t had any therapy for the
last four years, but you’re speaking to somebody who spends a

“She’s my muse, you know?” says director Autumn de Wilde.
“She’s the muse of quite a few directors.”

lot of time dissecting her thoughts. I’m at a point where it’s like, that’s something that you really wanted.” Second: “The surreal
Okay, you know how you deal with this, you just have to sit with aspect of it, of not being able to trust your eyes.” Finally, she
it and figure it out until it makes sense.” took a picture for her mom, turned around, and walked away.

After Emma was released in February 2020, Taylor-Joy, G  AINING PACE AND sophistication as it goes, The
like many of us, had a lot of time for sitting with things. As Queen’s Gambit kicks off in the Kentucky of the
lockdown hit and London came to a standstill, the movie’s mid-1950s, where we meet nine-year-old Beth,
posters remained on the buses, a moment in time frozen. newly orphaned after a car accident that appears
For many people, it remains the last film they remember to have been a suicidal act on her mother’s part. At Methuen
seeing in theaters. Once Emma became available to stream, Home, a Christian orphanage, small Beth is subjected not
Taylor-Joy says, “I definitely thought, Thank goodness this just to a crime of a haircut (a loveless pudding-bowl bob) but
is something fun that will bring people joy and I’m not play- to daily dosings of tranquilizers. There is solace to be found,
ing somebody that’s been kidnapped and sexually abused.” however, in the figure of old Mr. Shaibel, the janitor, whom
she sees frowning over a mysterious black-and-white board in
Because yes, she’s done a fair bit of that. Enormous eyes are the basement. “What’s that game called?” asks tiny, watchful
highly effective instruments for communicating terror, a truth Beth. And so it’s begun.
not lost on the innumerable directors who’ve cast Taylor-Joy
in horror movies. Plain terror, however, gets boring fast. What Beth’s fateful discovery of chess coincides with her addic-
distinguishes Taylor-Joy is the living intelligence of her perfor- tion to tranquilizers, which she craftily hoards and gobbles at
mances. Even in M. Night Shyamalan’s wearisome Split, in which night, facilitating visions of a giant chessboard on the ceiling
she plays one of three girls held hostage by a man with dissociative above her bed, on which she plots sequences and moves. In this
identity disorder, she’s the smart one of the trio. While the other way we’re encouraged to see Beth’s genius and her substance
two wail, clutch each other, and haplessly fight him—some male abuse as muddled up together from the start—she is as preco-
directors still love a tearful teenage girl in tight clothes—Taylor- cious a player as she is an addict. Soon, teenage Beth, now
Joy’s Casey shrewdly sizes up the situation, deploying logic played by Taylor-Joy with the same “ugly” bangs as her child
to try to get them out of the mess. self (not even this haircut can diminish the spooky symmetry
of the face it frames), is trouncing all the boys, soaring to state
When actors dream of stardom, they most likely don’t champion and beyond.
fantasize about appearing on Late Night With Seth Meyers
How do you make chess, that cerebral and visually non-
spectacular affair, enthralling onscreen? The second most
powerful weapon in the show’s arsenal is the close-up.
The camera hovers with breathy, C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 8 4

40 VA N I T Y FA I R

Top by CHANEL;
jeans by SLVRLAKE.

Throughout: hair
products by Pureology

Professional Color
Care; makeup and
nail enamel by Dior.

APRIL 2021 41

CRAZY RICH EXPAT
Prosecutors have
brought charges—for
failing to establish an
anti-money-laundering
program—against
BitMEX cofounder Arthur
Hayes, shown here
in Singapore in 2018.

42 VA N I T Y FA I R

ARTHUR HAYES created a
cryptocurrency exchange
that has traded trillions.
Now he’s wanted by U.S.
authorities, and insiders
wonder whether he and his
partners are villains—or
victims of a two-tiered justice
system that favors big
banks over brash outsiders

By Adam Ciralsky

Photographs by Adam Ferguson

The Rise
and Fall of
a Bitcoin
Billionaire

APRIL 2021 43

A moved mountains to get her gifted son into Nichols School,
a leafy private institution founded in 1892. “He succeeded at
Arthur Hayes lives large. Like Bobby Axelrod in Billions large. everything, from his studies [to] the sports field, to making last-
Just replace New York with Hong Kong and infuse it with a dose ing friendships,” reads a testimony, featuring Barbara, on one
of Silicon Valley—where unicorns spring from the minds of irre- of the fundraising pages of the school’s website. “Nichols gave
pressible company founders—and, well, you get the picture. One him the setting, the stimulation, and at one point, the scholar-
minute Hayes is hitting the powder in Hokkaido, the next he’s ship to thrive.” Hayes, in return, has given back: underwriting
crushing it on a subterranean squash court in Central—Hong a scholarship that ensures “a deserving student will be able to
Kong’s Wall Street. And all the while he keeps one eye trained experience the excellence of a Nichols education and the life-
on an obscure-sounding currency exchange that he built out long benefits it brings.”
of thin air and through which more than $3 trillion has flowed.
After attending the Wharton School of business, he headed off
Screen-star handsome and fabulously wealthy, the African to Hong Kong, where he worked at Deutsche Bank and Citibank
American banker turned maverick personifies the contempo- as a market maker for exchange-traded funds, or ETFs—hybrid
rary fintech pioneer. But the feds describe Hayes differently: a securities that, not unlike mutual funds, diversify an investor’s
wanted man who “flouted” the law by operating in the “shadows risk but can be traded like stocks. Hayes was just hitting his
of the financial markets.” Hayes’s indictment was unsealed in stride when a pink slip arrived in May 2013. “Bankers tell you
October, and he remains at large in Asia as prosecutors in New everybody has a bullet with their name on it,” he explained one
York hope to arrest him and try him on two felony counts, which afternoon over tea at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore—the
carry a possible penalty of 10 years in prison. iconic hotel featured in the finale of Crazy Rich Asians. He was
wearing his standard attire: skintight T-shirt, jeans, and a pricey
This is a tale of new money versus old, financial whiz kids timepiece (a Hublot Big Bang). “I wasn’t married, had no kids,
upstaging banking’s old guard, and American authorities no obligations. I had been an investment banker, so I wasn’t
attempting to apply 20th-century laws to 21st-century innova- sleeping on the streets. I wanted to build something.”
tion. Prosecutors allege that Hayes and his business partners
violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement and (I interviewed Hayes and some of his cohorts in Hong Kong,
maintain an adequate anti-money-laundering program—to Singapore, and New York in 2018 and 2019. Since the October
weed out bad actors and dirty money. Meanwhile, Hayes’s indictment, I have spoken at length with insiders who know and
colleagues in the cryptocurrency world believe he is being are in communication with Hayes and his two indicted business
punished for building an ingenious product that has baffled partners, Ben Delo and Sam Reed. A number of these sources
lawmakers, bedeviled regulators, and—once it became wildly requested anonymity so as not to prejudice pending legal pro-
popular—posed a threat to some of the market’s biggest players. ceedings; on the advice of counsel, Hayes, Delo, and Reed opted
Adding to the chorus of voices are some high-powered legal not to comment for this story.)
experts who consider the case United States of America v. Arthur
Hayes to be largely unprecedented. But back to that pink slip. Eight years ago Hayes, out of a job,
decided to go solo, combining his knack for designing novel
At a time when the SEC is seemingly doing the bidding of financial instruments with a newfound passion: cryptocurrency.
Wall Street titans—eager to punish the unwashed masses of day Specifically, Bitcoin.
traders for scuttling banks’ and hedge funds’ trading positions
on GameStop and other stocks—Hayes might just be patient Cryptocurrency, it bears repeating, is a digital form of payment
zero when it comes to exposing the hypocrisy in high finance and a method for storing value. It relies on a secure, decentralized
that is now coming into sharp relief. ledger—called a blockchain—to record transactions, manage the
issuance of new “coins” or “tokens,” and prevent fraud and coun-
THE CRYPTO GOLD RUSH terfeiting. Though there are thousands of such currencies, Bitcoin
is by far the most durable, despite having a dubious backstory
Hayes, 35, went silent in October. But the crypto condor has involving an enigmatic creator named Satoshi Nakamoto, whose
not always been so elusive. Born to middle-class parents who existence and identity have never been established. Bitcoin’s
worked for General Motors and were beholden to the ever- blockchain was designed so that only 21 million “virtual coins”
changing fortunes of the auto giant, he split his formative could ever be “mined.” That kind of verifiable scarcity—in contrast
years between Detroit and Buffalo, where his mother, Barbara, with the tendency of the world’s central bankers to print money,
whether in a pandemic or whenever it is politically expedient—
has contributed to the currency’s precipitous rise in price, from
less than a penny in 2009 to more than $54,000 in February
2021. In 2020 alone the coin rose more than 300 percent in value.

At first Hayes was a nobody among crypto’s dank sea of tax
evaders, drug dealers, arms traffickers, child pornographers, con-
trarian libertarians, and wanker bankers pining for a return to the
gold standard. They were united by their disenchantment with
old-school banking and its laggardly pace, onerous verification
requirements for opening accounts and moving money, and a
sense that the relationship between big finance and big govern-
ment had become entirely too cozy. In their view, governments,
starting with the U.S. and rippling outward, believed and acted as
though they had a monopoly on money and resisted the crypto

44 VA N I T Y FA I R

uprising, in which people were investing in reputedly anony- back over the border carrying legal amounts [of cash].” It was
mous digital assets to make a profit, hide their wealth, flip off the a neat trick and relatively lucrative. But the real-world hazards
establishment, or some combination thereof. The crypto gold of schlepping real money across international borders got him
rush initially attracted three types of players: visionaries with thinking: Why not build an online exchange where people could
gold-plated résumés, boiler room sharks who could recite just really profit from their Bitcoin by using derivatives? (A derivative
enough buzzwords to B.S. their way through a capital raise, and is a financial contract whose value is based on the performance of
the inevitable parasites who latch on and try to feed off the others. an agreed-upon underlying asset—in this case, cryptocurrency.)

Not surprisingly, Hayes ran with the smart set. “I bought my It was an idea that would require serious technological
first Bitcoin from Arthur in 2013,” recalled Jehan Chu, a New chops—not only to build, but to persuade a deeply skeptical
Jersey native who followed a circuitous route to the Pacific Rim. crypto community that Hayes had solved for the security and
While an undergrad at Johns Hopkins, he taught himself how to accounting lapses that had plagued earlier exchanges.
code just in time for the first dot-com boom, in the late 1990s.
After he’d worked at a small web development shop in New York, BITCOIN AND BEER
Sotheby’s came calling, looking to Chu to help the auction house
grow its digital presence. “We famously sold the Declaration of In January 2014, Hayes arranged a meeting at a swank rooftop
Independence in 2000,” he exclaimed, referring to one of the watering hole with Ben Delo, a brainy British mathematician
last remaining copies in private hands. After the $8.14 million and programmer whose classmates at Oxford reportedly voted
transaction, the online market dipped, and Chu moved to Hong him the most likely to become a millionaire—and the second
Kong to help Sotheby’s cater to ultra-rich Asian clients, many of most likely to wind up in prison. After graduating in 2005, he
whom had a seemingly insatiable appetite for art and artifacts. worked for IBM, two hedge funds, and, after moving to Hong
Kong, JPMorgan.
In his spare time Chu organized brainstorming sessions for
enthusiasts of digital currencies. What started with five people When Hayes and Delo got together, little about them sug-
at a smoky bar in Sheung Wan, however, quickly grew into a gested they would storm the ramparts. On paper both had
community of thousands. By 2016, he told me, Chu had “turned establishment C.V.s: elite educations and stints at blue-chip
his compulsion into a career,” establishing Kenetic, a venture companies. Yet each was an outlier. Hayes, the scholarly son of
capital firm that trades crypto and has invested in more than autoworkers, had forsaken the regimented and highly regulated
150 companies. Meanwhile, he watched in amazement as his world of investment banking for crypto’s Wild West, where rules
friend Hayes took the crypto world by storm, going from an were made on the fly and regulations were few. Delo, according
artisanal trader to an industry titan. to Sir Jonathan Bate, provost of Oxford’s Worcester College,
“overcame great difficulties in his school career to win a place
Arthur Hayes started small, with arbitrage: buying Bitcoin in at Oxford from a local state school.” In fact, as the child of a civil
one market and then selling it at a premium in another. Things engineer father and schoolteacher mother, he was expelled from
were humming along until October 2013, when he had prob- three grade schools before he was diagnosed with Asperger’s.
lems accessing coins he had sent to Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based At Oxford, where he double majored in math and computer sci-
Bitcoin exchange that helped patrons convert their holdings into ence, he earned what the Brits call a double first, graduating with
“fiat money”—traditional legal tender such as the dollar, euro, a perfect GPA in both subjects.
pound, or yuan. In early 2014, Mt. Gox declared that hackers had
stolen nearly $500 million from its coffers. Unlike most other

Ever eager to make a statement, the firm kitted out its office with
an accessory none of those stodgy legacy companies had:
a large aquarium inhabited, appropriately enough, by live sharks.

depositors—some 24,000—Hayes managed to get his money As the pair mapped out what it would take to turn Hayes’s
out and in the process learned an important lesson: Exchanges vision into reality, Delo—an expert in the back-office work of
constitute a single point of failure in the otherwise secure Bit- designing complex algorithms and high-speed trading sys-
coin ecosystem. Mt. Gox might have been the most infamous tems—said they needed a front-end web developer to handle the
such hack, but dozens of exchanges have been hit, and untold consumer-facing side of things. Hayes knew just the guy, a young
billions—in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—have vanished. American coder and tech evangelist named Sam Reed, whom
Hayes had met after a speech Reed had given in which he’d
Hayes, however, decided to take his money elsewhere. When warned his aspiring-techie audience not to join start-ups, whose
he heard Bitcoin was trading significantly higher on the Chi- owners often exploited and stiffed their coders. When Hayes
nese mainland, he bought a bundle, transferred the coins to an pitched Reed on his idea for a Bitcoin derivatives exchange,
exchange in China, and swapped them for yuan—literally lug- Reed, disregarding his own advice, signed on immediately.
ging around a backpack containing stacks of banknotes. “Over
a period of days,” he recounted, “I physically crossed the bor- The youngest of three boys, Reed had grown up in Manitowoc,
der by bus to Shenzhen with some friends, had lunch, and came Wisconsin. His father had been a network administrator for the

APRIL 2021 45

Air Force, and his mother worked as a newspaper editor. There friend Jehan Chu compared BitMEX to the NASDAQ—“if the
were plenty of old computers lying around the Reed household, NASDAQ was located in Las Vegas.” When pressed about
and Sam managed to get them working. By age 12 he had a paying the potentially catastrophic downside of letting people trade so
gig: debugging and repairing P.C.s for friends and neighbors. much on margin, Chu insisted that personal responsibility has
always been central to the crypto ethos. “You put on 100x?
Reed was much younger than Hayes and Delo, yet he had Make sure you read the fine print. Mommy’s not here to make
been at the crypto game the longest. By 2009, his senior year at sure you don’t fall off the skateboard.”
Washington and Lee, the self-described “Bitcoin hipster” was
mining Bitcoin on his laptop at a time when the currency Hartej Singh Sawhney is another one of the colorful charac-
was next to worthless. Reed racked up roughly 100 Bitcoins ters in the American expat crypto circle. With a turban made,
along the way, but in the process of reformatting a hard drive in his words, from “secret fabric,” and an eponymous line of
accidentally erased the private keys required to access them, clothing—which he describes as Burning Man by way of Pun-
rendering his cache untouchable. (Today those coins would jab—the first-generation Sikh American began hosting Bitcoin
be worth $5.4 million.) meetups a decade ago in Vegas, where early attendees included

“Read the fine print. Mommy’s not here to make sure you don’t
fall off the skateboard.”

Reed was less institutional and more peripatetic than Hayes aspiring magicians and poker players. Now based in Kiev—which
and Delo. He worked for a large defense contractor, found he contends is far more hospitable to digital currencies than the
the corporate world suffocating, and bided his time at a cou- United States—he helps build and secure blockchain companies.
ple of start-ups and freelance gigs before finding his way to Sawhney has been sympathetic to BitMEX’s business model,
Hong Kong in 2013. In an online career forum with his alma insisting, “They are running a pretty sophisticated casino envi-
mater—taped while sitting in a hut in Thailand—Reed shared ronment. But I’m a free-market guy. In my book BitMEX should
crypto-business tips. Among his insights: “In a gold rush, you be able to put up whatever. Their terms are very clear.”
don’t want to mine the gold. You want to sell the shovels.” At
one point Reed remarked that he’d been toying with the idea of The birth of BitMEX six years ago was perfectly timed—yet
building an online exchange to trade cryptocurrencies, explain- dangerously fraught. In the eyes of U.S. authorities, Bitcoin
ing his rationale: “If you can cut the banks out, you cut most was then transitioning from being the favored currency of bad
of the complexity out. You cut out a lot of where U.S. law kind actors (exemplified by the 2013 takedown of Silk Road, the
of gets involved with [anti-money-laundering], know-your- notorious black market for drugs and guns for hire) to being an
customer, KYC, kind of stuff, and you get rid of a lot of the fraud investment-grade asset that institutional players were starting
because all this, you know, internet money is actually verifiable, to buy as a safeguard against inflation—and for its promise of
you know, by design.” outsize returns. Hayes, Delo, and Reed were in the catbird seat
and began to accumulate serious wealth. (All three are billion-
Hayes, Delo, and Reed began working in earnest on what they aires, according to sources familiar with their finances.)
termed the Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange, or BitMEX. Hayes was
the CEO, Delo the COO, and Reed the CTO (chief technology At the same time, though, they were outsiders, suddenly
officer). As buttoned down as those titles sound, BitMEX, at first, playing in an arena that insiders were looking to co-opt. Their
was just three dudes with laptops working out of a Starbucks at high-speed, highly leveraged offerings hearkened back to the
Jardine House, a ’70s-era Hong Kong skyscraper adorned with kinds of potentially toxic financial instruments that would even-
porthole windows. At night they’d retreat to Hayes’s apartment tually draw scrutiny from regulators—and later generate laughs
with beers from 7-Eleven. in Adam McKay’s 2015 film, The Big Short, based on the Michael
Lewis best seller. (Remember synthetic collateralized debt obli-
“A SOPHISTICATED CASINO” gations?) For all its upside, BitMEX came with a vertiginous risk.

BitMEX was billed as “a peer-to-peer trading platform that “This stuff is happening very, very fast—it didn’t exist 10 years
offers leveraged contracts that are bought and sold in Bitcoin.” ago,” explained J. Christopher Giancarlo, who served at the pow-
It allowed users to effectively bet on the currency’s future price erful Commodity Futures Trading Commission under President
with leverage of up to a dizzying 100 to 1. Translation: A custom- Obama and later as the CFTC chairman under President Trump.
er with $10,000 in a BitMEX account could seamlessly execute “Regulation always follows innovation, and sometimes, in
a trade worth a cool $1 million. The lure of the exchange lay in democracies, it follows a little further behind other jurisdictions.”
the fact that people could make big money by putting in rela-
tively modest crypto seed money. For years Giancarlo pressed Congress to enact a comprehen-
sive regulatory framework to cover the crypto sphere. Instead,
In a blog entry on the BitMEX site, Hayes mused, “Trad- legislators have relied on laws from the 1930s—the Securities
ing without leverage is like driving a Lamborghini in first gear: Exchange Act and Commodity Exchange Act—which were
you know it’s safer, but that’s not why you bought it.” His later amended in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Even
so, the rules remain woefully outdated. And so regulators,
according to Giancarlo, must determine how pioneering
platforms—like Hayes’s—are regulated, if at all. “There are

46 VA N I T Y FA I R

something like 8,000 [new instruments] that have been identi- BLOCKCHAIN BRAIN
fied,” he said. In each case regulators have to ask, “[Do they] Jehan Chu, who established the Kenetic venture capital firm and bought
fall on [CFTC’s] side of the ledger, the SEC’s side of the ledger, his first Bitcoin from Hayes, at a Singapore hotel during a cryptocurrency
or nobody’s side of the ledger?” conference in 2018.

MAGICAL THINKING authorities have wide reach, long memories, and an affinity for
knocking people down to size—especially brash upstarts.
Understanding what BitMEX was selling is perhaps less
important than whom the company was selling to. In our early “Arthur is an iconoclast,” his friend Meltem Demirors con-
conversations Hayes insisted that BitMEX was careful to have tended. “He’s not afraid to be controversial, and, you know,
“no American customers” and that technological barriers, such history is not kind to these people.” As chief strategy officer
as blocking U.S. I.P. addresses, kept American clients off the of CoinShares, a digital-asset investment firm, Demirors has
platform—and stateside regulators at bay. been dubbed the Sheryl Sandberg of crypto, which sounds
like a reductionist label created by those she terms “pseudo-
But U.S. officials said that wasn’t the case. It did not escape their intellectual fuckboys.”
attention that BitMEX had plenty of American depositors, many
of whom disguised their location by using virtual private network Demirors was born in the Netherlands to Turkish parents,
software. They were flocking to BitMEX by the thousands. And moved to the U.S. when she was 10, and studied math and
even though Hayes is a product of the banking establishment, economics at Rice. She got her MBA at MIT, where she has
where whole departments are dedicated to enforcing anti- taught fintech and blockchain strategy, specialties she later
money-laundering and know-your-customer requirements, his brought to students at Oxford. It is not hard to see why Hayes
immersion into the deeply libertarian world of crypto seems and Demirors became friends—and kindred spirits. “I feel like
to have blinded him to certain realities. Among them: U.S. an outsider,” she remarked, “in the sense that I’m female, I’m
not funded by Silicon Valley, my mommy and daddy aren’t
rich…. I don’t have the same background as many people in

APRIL 2021 47