COVER STAR: XAVIER DOLAN

WEARS: LOUIS VUITTON AW18 Photography SHAYNE LAVERDIERE Styling WAY PERRY Words BENJI WALTERS

“My American dream wasn’t so dreamy…” So says Canadian cinema’s (almost) grown-up enfant terrible, Xavier Dolan. And from that controversial wunderkind’s nightmares in Hollywood to the perverse thrills of Balenciaga’s fashion fantasies, the summer issue’s enthralled to the id and obeying only the pleasure principle: wherever that may lead. 

So, while Xavier talks, inevitably, of narcissism, his need to be loved and the compulsion to control, Russian Instagram-darling Sasha Trautvein, captured by Horst Diekgerdes, muses on the brutal appeal of his homeland and the enigmatic draw of his tattooed beauty. Meanwhile, Luke Evans, whose complicated masculinity brings depth to even the beefiest action behemoths, muses on the importance of staying grounded and the virtues of not giving a shit and rising Brit-star Jeremy Irvine speaks out on the scandals rocking his industry.

Elsewhere, we break down the summer’s definitive looks and essential pieces through the lenses of Timur Celikdag, Yvan Fabing and Tom Munro, examine fashion and politics’ decadently impulsive new mood, and capture four of London’s revolutionary creative class in the spaces and places they call home. 

“Let us toast to animal pleasures," proposed lifelong hedonist Hunter S. Thompson. We'll second that.