Solange Knowles by Naima Green for Harper’s Bazaar US, Fall Issue 2020 . Solange 35, is featured on the cover for the new issue of Harper’s Bazaar that was released on Oct. 13!
The Grammy-winning music artist rocked a LaQuan Smith X Jordash Plunging Halter Top, styled with a black midi skirt from the African fashion line Super Yaya. Solange accessorized her look with jewelry by Sophie Buhai’s $400 Medium Pearl Drop Earrings and Pearl Francis Earrings, both featuring the prettiest pearls, as well as a gold ring from the jewelry designer. The “Binz” singer was just as fashionable within the issue, which also featured pieces from mainly BIPOC designers.
Stillness is goodness.
Ghost catch up. There’s nowhere to run, and all the voices you’ve been hushing, soothing, and cooing yell at you like loud children demanding answers.
The ones you’ve been saying you’d tend to when the time is right tell you there is no other time.
Then your body follows.
And for a minute there, things can get hard.
And every day you make a choice. To honor, listen, and live.
I once drove across the country watching the landscape change as much as my thoughts.
The moving made me feel more at home than I had been feeling in a long while.
I grew up in tour buses watching flashing images out of tiny windows in my bunk, never still enough to memorize names or street signs. Then came the house in Idaho, Houston, back to Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans. Summers in Dakar, Thanksgivings in Jamaica. Movement has been my Holy Ghost.
For a while there was a Big Bang! I was floating and jumping and coasting and cartwheeling and cruising and gleaming, fingers and toes spread wide, palms facing the light, heart beating in cursive. I was jumping in rivers and dancing on tree trunks. It was the most glorious of all my days.
But again, Ghost catch up. And deep, old memories I had stored in hidden parts of myself for decades wouldn’t just stay in my shoulders, or ribs, or chest breaths, or blood test anymore. They came out, and they came out swinging.
Most of the work I’ve made has been about knowing where you’ve been to know where you’re going. Knowing who you’ve been to know who you are becoming. Going home—deep home, past homes, mother’s home, father’s home—to define home. I had answered these questions for myself and that felt good, but I had omitted truths that I just couldn’t stand to make a part of my home. They didn’t belong in my kitchen, or closets, or even in a shoebox under my bed.
My stillness started with my body. It refused to be, to go. I’d look to moss trees asking for answers as if they could talk back to me.
I heard a voice saying you deserve joy. Applause from my loved ones and heroes wasn’t gonna do.
Another voice, a critical one, said you got a lot of nerve chasing joy and freedom when you already have so much, but I went for it anyway.
I honored, listened, and lived.
Some days were a real pain in the ass. Some were the most beautiful days of my life. This was a different kind of joy. I didn’t need to skip in the sun to feel it. Joy was the sleep I got after releasing secrets from my bones. Joy was telling the truth. Joy was making a song that I didn’t care ever saw the light of day. Joy was taking a trip alone, and just sitting and staring at the water and seeing my reflection and thinking to myself, Damn I’m fine. Joy was having nothing on my calendar, and choosing what to do with my time. Joy was having a friend who didn’t care how ugly I cried, always inviting and encouraging me to just be, however that looked that day. Joy was discovery. Joy was having someone show me beautiful worlds of their own and trusting in the journey. Joy was letting go of control. Joy was just sitting. Joy was seeing how far I had come and waving at my shadows. Joy was accepting that the work is never done, but that every day is a choice.
Soon I began to feel things that I never felt before. I began to understand who I was becoming outside of all of the many names I had been given and given myself. I began to love differently. See differently. Seek differently. I began to surrender to the work never being done, but finding joy in that there was room for it all.
I cleared my schedule and took time off from everything else to continue this devotion to the work.
And then we all had to confront stillness. To collectively honor, to listen, to survive.
Some days I am on top of mountains. Some days I am weary. Some days I smile and laugh in ways I didn’t know I could. Sometimes I grieve all of the loss, looking for pillars or anchors to hold on to. Some days I see so much promise in my future despite the chaos around me because I woke up a Black woman with this spirit in my heart. If I move, I am not running. If I move, it is by choice. I feel good knowing that I surrendered and found answers in my stillness.
Blazer, Wales Bonner, walesbonner.net. Boots, Christopher Kane, christopherkane.com. Earrings, Sophie Buhai, sophiebuhai.com.
Tube top, Charlotte Knowles, charlotteknowles.com. Jeans and Belt, Telfar, telfar.net. Earrings, Sophie Buhai, sophiebuhai.com.
Solange is wearing a nude tube top with undercup wires from Charlotte Knowles styled with wide-legged jeans from Telfar.
Solange is wearing an orange cropped blazer and side-tie skirt, and matched the sheen of the co-ord with a pair of Peter Do knee high boots.
Solange wore a black cropped blazer and skirt by designer Lado Bokuchava styled with a pair of pointed heels by Fenty and pearls from Sophie Buhai .
eather Dress, LaQuan Smith, laquansmith.com. Boots, Christopher Kane, christopherkane.com . Earrings, Sophie Buhai, sophiebuhai.com.
Solange penned essays and poems for her cover story, filled with thoughtful prose that arrived during a time of conflict and a n pandemic Amid all this chaos, Solange wrote, “Stillness is goodness. Ghost catch up. There’s nowhere to run, and all the voices you’ve been hushing, soothing, and cooing yell at you like loud children demanding answers. The ones you’ve been saying you’d tend to when the time is right tell you there is no other time. Then your body follows. And for a minute there, things can get hard. And every day you make a choice. To honor, listen, and live.”
In her personal life Solange’ has split from music video director husband Alan Ferguson the year prior after four years of marriage. While making the announcement in Nov. 2019, Solange once again touched on this theme of stillness: “The past 2 years have brought me more physical and spiritual transition and evolution than ever before. My body left me with no choice but to listen and be still. Within that stillness i begin my journey in confronting my worst enemy, fear.”
Source : HarpersBazzar
