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How does anyone make art in this dizzying moment? In our Now issue, Bazaar speaks to 10 creative people—dancers, comedians, pop singers, writers—about what fuels their work in 2026.
Stylist and costume designer Miyako Bellizzi has brought some of the most memorable movie characters of the past decade to life. Think Julia Fox’s blingy street style in Uncut Gems, Lily McInerney and Chloë Sevigny’s 1950s ladylike styling in Durga Chew-Bose’s remake of Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse, and Timothée Chalamet’s slouchy suiting as he clawed his way back to victory in Marty Supreme. The latter earned Bellizzi an Academy Award nomination, though those in the fashion space were already well aware of her prowess. Bellizzi often takes inspiration from how New Yorkers go about their days, bringing a downtown flavor to her high-fashion editorials; campaigns for Apple, Fear of God, and Nike; and the look of Alysa Liu post her Olympic gold medal. Below, she talks about some of the sources of her boundless creativity.
Something that I love about film is that you’re kind of escaping reality. You’re creating an entirely new story—one that can be loosely based on someone real. But in order to have the grounding of it feeling authentic, you have to envision the characters as real people. I’ve always thought about that when watching films, but especially now, I watch them so differently from how I used to. I’ve always been inspired by real people, and I think that’s why Josh [Safdie] and I connect so well, because we are always really inspired by the everyday nuances of people in the world, specifically New York characters. You have to believe in someone, to have empathy, and to have all of these different feelings toward a person that you would feel about a friend.
There are a lot of unknowns at the moment. Maybe that’s why we just don’t really know where to go. We are recycling different times. Like how the 1980s copied the 1940s. It’s kind of like that in fashion now too. I’ve always been inspired personally by vintage clothing and by different decades and eras. I study it, and that’s why it informs how I personally dress and work now. I appreciate those things, and I’ve always been inspired by those things. I’m not inspired by the glamour of beautiful things. What’s beautiful to me, I guess, is reality.
The reason I find so much inspiration in real people is that I like the way people choose to present themselves; everyone has their own sense of creativity, something that sparks something within their character. It’s a problem I have with today’s world. People are looking to someone else to kind of show them that creativity, whereas before it kind of came from within you, and I feel like people were more experimental. They didn’t really have a larger sense of their surroundings.
Jacket, top, skirt, shoes, Versace.
This story appears in the April issue of Harper’s Bazaar.
Hair: Lauren Palmer-Smith for Oribe; makeup: Homa Safar