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When @mingsmithphoto was a little girl in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1950s, she brought her mother’s camera to her first day of kindergarten. There, she took pictures of students at her predominantly white school. Though those photos were lost, an image she took of her grade school classmates appears in her new book, "Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph." Out in November, it also features the portraits she went on to take of important figures like James Baldwin, Grace Jones, Amiri Baraka and Sun Ra, as well as of anonymous people moving through their lives. “I think the feeling of the person or the event or whatever chooses me,” she says of these subjects. “If I’m walking down the street, it’s the way they hit the light.” Her new photo book also includes photographs of James Baldwin and Grace Jones. Read more about it at the link in bio. (🖋️: @laneflorsheim, 📷: Courtesy of Ming Smith and Aperture)

A phone interview with Carla Bruni is a calming experience. The singer-songwriter’s voice is soft but warm, a little breathy, like in her music. The way she describes her routines—drinking hot water in the morning, songwriting by hand at night—captures her sense of wellness and creativity.⁠ ⁠ Bruni, 52, started writing her sixth studio album at the end of last year. Recording the self-titled project was stalled because of quarantine (which the French call le confinement). As soon as she was able to in June, she and her team went to the studio where she records in Paris and completed the album in a little over a week.⁠ ⁠ “You know what? It was so nice to have no time to do it, ” she says. “It made me wonder if having time is really right because it gives you choice. When you have no choice, there’s another type of production—it’s more alive. You don’t have time to think.”⁠ ⁠ We talked to @carlabruniofficial about her favorite kind of mornings, her process of finding solitude before she starts songwriting and the life-changing piece of advice she received from both her husband and grandmother. Read about it at the link in bio. (🖋️: @laneflorsheim, 📷: @yannorhan) ⁠

: Pinks and blues add flights of fancy to starched shirts. (📸: @ethanjamesgreen for WSJ. Magazine, styling by Anastasia Barbieri, prop styling: @frau.juliawagner)⠀

You might not associate utilitarianism with comfort. Yet architect Massimiliano Locatelli’s vacation⁠ home in southern Italy shows that unpretentious⁠ design can be the greatest luxury. While traveling⁠ in Puglia, near the sole of the heel of Italy’s boot, Locatelli caught sight of a pair of bare-bones industrial buildings. After buying them he transformed the edifices into a kind of summer camp for hosting friends, one that emphasizes outdoor space and low-maintenance materials, allowing him more time for enjoying the rooftop pool and stunning sunset views⁠ and for sharing meals made with fresh local produce.⁠ “Everything works with the movement of the sun,” he says. “It’s about light, nature and space.” (🖋️: @samedford, 📷: @jamesmollison)

: A graceful vision in swingy skirts. (📷: @campbelladdy for WSJ. Magazine, styling: @clarerichardson1, casting: @pg_dmcasting)

: Bold paisleys and florals, mixed with white shirts or pants for contrast, bring a fresh energy for fall. 🍂 (📷: @daveyadesida for WSJ. Magazine, fashion editor: @alexgfisher)

: Vibrant tweed is well-matched against⁠ autumn winds. (📷: @campbelladdy for WSJ. Magazine, styling: @clarerichardson1, casting: @pg_dmcasting)

@cary_fukunaga al­ways en­vi­sioned a cin­e­matic end­ing to his first mega-bud­get film: Af­ter com­plet­ing “No Time to Die”—the 25th in­stall­ment of the $16 bil­lion James Bond fran­chise—the ac­claimed writer-di­rec­tor would dis­ap­pear into dark­ness. What Fuku­naga didn’t fore­see, how­ever, was how long his fade-to-black would last or that his block­buster-in-wait­ing would also re­main hid­den from view.⠀ ⠀ With the world still be­sieged by Covid-19, there is as much fear as fan­fare sur­round­ing the re­lease of @cary_fukunaga’s first Bond film. The buzz around the early trail­ers and the re­lease of Bil­lie Eil­ish’s ti­tle track has faded. Most ma­jor movies have shifted to 2021 or gone straight to video on de­mand or stream­ing. And “No Time to Die” is no dif­fer­ent. In early Oc­to­ber, the film was de­layed once again to April 2021. When “No Time to Die” does fi­nally brave a the­atri­cal re­lease, it will be one of the big­gest and, as Daniel Craig’s fi­nal turn as Bond, ar­guably have the most at stake. Read more about it at the link in bio. (✒️: @alexb718, 📷: @bailey_studio for WSJ. Magazine)

You might not associate utilitarianism with comfort. Yet architect Massimiliano Locatelli’s vacation⁠ home in southern Italy shows that unpretentious⁠ design can be the greatest luxury. While traveling⁠ in Puglia, near the sole of the heel of Italy’s boot, Locatelli caught sight of a pair of bare-bones industrial buildings. After buying them he transformed the edifices into a kind of summer camp for hosting friends, one that emphasizes outdoor space and low-maintenance materials, allowing him more time for enjoying the rooftop pool and stunning sunset views⁠ and for sharing meals made with fresh local produce.⁠ “Everything works with the movement of the sun,”⁠ he says. “It’s about light, nature and space.” (🖋️: @samedford, 📷: @jamesmollison)

Your social calendar might not be filled up right now, but these looks are vibrant enough to make you feel like you’re red carpet ready. See all of them at the link in bio. (📷: @campbelladdy for WSJ. Magazine, styling: @clarerichardson1, casting: @pg_dmcasting)

Designer Jasper Morrison rarely has the chance to reconsider an object or a piece of furniture once his client signs off on it. This month, though, an artfully simple chair he came up with 23 years ago gets a second life thanks to Hermès, which invited the British industrial designer to expand on his work and add two companion pieces. Équilibre d’Hermès, as the new grouping is called, has been two years in the making, but its backstory feels of the moment, in tune somehow with the ponderous, pent-up fall of 2020. Read more about it at the link in bio. (✒️: @samedford, 📷: @romainlaprade)

The Gio Ponti Archives, in the artist’s former office in Milan, features some Ponti originals, including a modular desk and an upholstered armchair, as well as official reproductions by Molteni&C. Take a look inside, at the link in bio, (🖋️: @alicemcavanagh, 📷: @matthieusalvaing for WSJ. Magazine)