Florence Pugh knew it was going to be a thing. At Valentino's couture show in Rome this past July, the 26-year-old British-born actor wore a Barbiepink gown with layers of tulle and a completely sheer top. After she tried on the dress, Pugh and designer Pierpaolo Piccioli decided to remove the lining, eliminating any confusion over the intentionality of the gown's transparency. "I was comfortable with my small breasts," she tells me while sipping a glass of rosé from a cozy hotel room in the English countryside. "And showing them like that-it aggravated [people] that I was comfortable."
Pugh received a deluge of internet nastiness. "It was just alarming, how perturbed they were," she says. "They were so angry that I was confident, and they wanted to let me know that they would never wank over me. Well, don't." Pugh expanded on this sentiment on Instagram, excoriating her body-shaming trolls: "Why are you so scared of breasts? Small? Large? Left? Right? Only one? Maybe none? What. Is. So. Terrifying." The post has now been liked more than 2.3 million times.
Fans have come to expect this kind of no-BS fiery candor from Pugh. Since making her big-screen debut in 2015 as a teenage girl reckoning with her own sexuality in Carol Morley's The Falling, she has built a career playing women who refuse to be silenced.
Over the past seven years, she's acted in almost two dozen projects, including her breakout performances in a pair of 2019 films, Ari Aster's indie horror hit Midsommar and Greta Gerwig's adaptation of the beloved classic Little Women, the latter of which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
This story is from the September 2022 edition of Harper's BAZAAR - US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the September 2022 edition of Harper's BAZAAR - US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
The Epic VISION of BARBARA CHASE-RIBOUD
With a MONUMENTAL new EXHIBITION in Paris, the Americanborn ARTIST looks back on a CREATIVE LIFE spent thinking BIG
She's a FREE SPIRIT and an OLD SOUL, a Disney Legend and a Grammy winner.ONE THING MILEY CYRUS is NOT INTERESTED in? Being PREDICTABLE.
Miley Cyrus is sitting in front of the stone-walled fireplace in her house in Los Angeles, holding up two coffee-table books.
Routine HABIT
How executive editor LEAH CHERNIKOFF found a SKINCARE REGIMEN she could finally COMMIT to
LIFE of the PARTY
Dance the night away with looks inspired by PARTY MAKEUP of the PAST. Grab BLACK EYELINER and lots of GLITTER, but leave perfection at the door. Here, how to re-create the coolest EYES, LIPS, and FACE for any FESTIVE OCCASION.
RETAIL Therapy
SHOPPING TODAY often feels more like mindless SCROLLING than BUYING something because it makes you feel SPECIAL. One writer discovers the beauty of a more PERSONAL, CUSTOMIZED EXPERIENCE.
CREATIVE Powers
In this edition, our columnist, DEREK C. BLASBERG, visits the PARIS STUDIO of the inimitable artist SETSUKO KLOSSOWSKA DE ROLA, who was married to one of the most celebrated painters of the 20TH CENTURY and has always approached LIVING her LIFE as if she were CRAFTING a MASTERPIECE
BIRTH Story
NEW MOTHERHOOD is often depicted as a BEATIFIC and BLISSEDOUT EXPERIENCE. Writer SARAH HOOVER'S JOURNEY couldn't have been further from it. In her new MEMOIR, she offers an unflinching LOOK at her STRUGGLE with severe POSTPARTUM DEPRESSIONand how she EMERGED from it.
What WORDS Are FOR
We have been LIVING in “UNPRECEDENTED TIMES\" for 25 years. KAITLYN GREENIDGE reflects on what it means to write through a NEW REALITY.
Tipping POINT
When the PROGRESSIVE A-LIST CLIENTELE of the fashionable workout BALLET BEAUTIFUL learned that its FOUNDER was MARRIED to an ARCHITECT of the MAGA BLUEPRINT to impose an ultraconservative social agenda, PROJECT 2025, many felt SHOCKED and even BETRAYED
SABATO's Way
hor GUCCI creative director SABATO DE SARNO, remaking the storied Italian HOUSE for a NEW ERA isnt about OUTRUNNING its PAST. ts about MAKING some HISTORY ofhis OWN.