As I sit down to write this letter – my final task before the issue goes to press – I always imagine myself speaking directly to you, dear Bazaar reader, and sharing the thoughts, inspirations and emotions that have gone into creating the magazine’s content each month.
Quite honestly, what I feel right now is relief. After months of torrential rain turning my little garden into a sea of mud, spring has finally sprung. The clocks have gone forward, the thick coats have been packed away, and instead of a shrill alarm jerking me from slumber, I’m woken by the cooing of the woodpigeons in the clematis.
The joy that these seasonal changes naturally inspire is woven throughout the May issue, which has a distinctly bright, floral feel, starting with our cover of Nicola Coughlan, the breakout star of Derry Girls who’s now Bridgerton’s leading lady. As it is her character, Lady Whistledown, whose scabrous diary keeps the other protagonists on their toes, we felt it would be appropriate to ask her to write her own story. Her witty, honest memoir starts on page 104.
Similarly truthful and utterly compelling is the piece written by our contributing editor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on page 146. It’s a story we have been discussing for months, ever since she first told me how, during her years of unjust confinement in Iran’s notorious Evin prison, she found unexpected solace in fashion. She and her fellow female prisoners created clothes for themselves, for each other and for their loved ones outside, both as a way of defying the authorities, who wished to strip them of their individuality, and in order to maintain contact with the world beyond
