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Thigh-high boots, leather gloves and cowboy hats: All the best looks from Beyonce’s Harper’s Bazaar cover
The pop icon says she was inspired by the ‘culture and swag of the Houston rodeo’
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Your support makes all the difference.Since her rise to fame as the lead singer of Destiny’s Child and subsequent solo career, Beyonce has earned 28 Grammy Awards, made her acting debut and launched her own clothing line in collaboration with Adidas.
Despite a global army of adoring fans, fondly known as the Beyhive, the mother of three, who is married to rapper Jay-Z, manages to keep her personal life pretty low profile.
In a rare new interview with Harper’s Bazaar for its September “Icons” issue, the “Formation” singer has revealed that she protects her private life and “inner-self” by “setting intentional boundaries between [her] stage persona and ]her] personal life”.
“In this business, so much of your life does not belong to you unless you fight for it.
“I’ve fought to protect my sanity and my privacy because the quality of my life depended on it. A lot of who I am is reserved for the people I love and trust,” she told the publication.
Also in the issue, she discusses healing generational trauma, turning her “broken heart into art” and her latest Ivy Park collection, which aims to celebrate Black cowboys.
In homage to her iconic status and wide-spanning career, she graces not one but three covers, sporting a variety of looks from designers including Gucci, Valentino and Tiffany & Co.
On one, she poses in a blue denim jumpsuit from her Ivy Park “Rodeo” campaign that has been paired with matching shorts. The jumpsuit has a military-shirt style torso which is fastened with gold buttons, and the Adidas’ trademark stripes run down the sides of both the arms and legs.
The look has been completed with a brown belt that has a large “Ivy Park” emblazoned buckle, and thigh-high stiletto-heeled boots that have also been crafted from the same blue denim.
On another cover, she dons a Stetson black cowboy hat and a black sequined cape draped over a cut-out bodysuit, both by Italian fashion house Valentino.
The chosen accessory, a pair of arm-length, black leather gloves are made by Wing + Weft, a New-York based company that aims to champion marginalised communities by regularly having Black and Indigenous people of colour and LGBT+ people model its products.
The all-black look provides the perfect backdrop for a large, 21-carat diamond pendant by Tiffany & Co, which has been paired with matching earrings.
The pendant features on all three covers. In another, it is the perfect accompaniment for a pale pink and silver dress from Gucci’s Aria collection, designed by creative director Alessandro Michele.
The dress features statement faux-feather sleeves, a lace bodice and a plunging neckline. In contrast, the figure-hugging skirt is covered in silver sequins.
Speaking on the significance of Black rodeos in her home city and across the US, Beyonce told Harpers Bazaar that these cowboys had helped the Black community “reclaim [their] place in western history and culture”.
“We were inspired by the culture and swag of the Houston rodeo,” she added.
This inspiration is seen in another look inside the magazine, in which she gently leads her head against a black stallion. For this look, she wears a black Givenchy dress, with braid detailing and cutouts across the torso and neck.
In another spread, the mother of three strikes a number of poses in a pair of Alberta Ferretti tasselled gold flares, a bold, glamourous take on the traditional cowboy chaps.
A pair of gold-tipped, black Saint Laurent heels are barely visible from under the trousers, which have been paired with a cropped white t-shirt from her Ivy Park collection that has the word “Rodeo” written across the front. In keeping with the cowboy theme, the Stetson hat also makes a reappearance.
The Ivy Park jumpsuit seen on one of three covers also features in a second look, worn undone with a custom-made, bejewelled Balmain crop top. The signature piece is adorned with diamantes and features a choker-style neckline. Simple pear-drop earrings complete the look.
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