Schön! 48 | booboo stewart in cartier + loewe

top + shorts. Ella Mae
shoes. Jeffrey Campbell
necklace. My Dearest World

Connecting from a surprisingly cool LA at 27 degrees Celsius, Emei phones into a sweltering, 40-degree afternoon in Paris. While the climate gap is stark, the heat outside perfectly matches the theatrical, centre-stage energy of Emei’s latest EP. Listening to ‘Night at the Opera‘ feels like we’re embarking on a voyage into the depths of Emei’s emotional universe. The namesake opening song was actually the last song written for the project, serving as the ultimate welcome track and tying everything together retroactively. In it, the very first chorus lays out the map for the entire tracklist; destinations include: the pain, the gag, the drama.

There’s heartbreak dressed up as opera, girlhood rage repackaged as a diss track, and grief folded quietly into a love song about the moon — each track its own act, each one demanding to be felt at full volume. Somewhere between a full moon, a pair of larger-than-life swans, and a stack of dog-eared journal pages, Emei has built a small, self-contained world where every emotion gets its own spotlight. It’s an EP that knows exactly how much it wants you to feel, and doesn’t apologise for any of it.

From conquering creative blocks through “The Artist’s Way” to the therapeutic power of a diss track, Schön! sat down with Emei to talk about finding a flow state on stage, blocking the ‘Noahs’ in our lives, and the thoughts captured within the pages of a dotted Leuchtturm1917 journal.

dress + hat. Erik Charlotte
opposite
jacket. Tabitha Andelin
skirt. Avvenn
shoes. Lidow Archive

Emei, you grew up watching Broadway and knew from a very young age that you wanted to be a performer. What is it about performance that has always fascinated you? 

Ever since I was little, I’ve always loved to sing. It has always been my favourite pastime. Once I started actually performing on stage, it was the one place where I could really hit a flow state. I’m a very anxious person in my daily life. I’m often in my head, also in social interactions or at parties. But when I’m on stage, I feel the most comfortable, and it’s always been a safe place for me.

Funny, since it’s often the other way around. 

Yeah, totally!

Does life, too, feel like a performance from time to time?

For sure. For my birthday, I went to the Met Opera to watch Don Giovanni. There were some parallels to my life, and I was like: “Oh, I hate sharing that.” I wrote the title track of “Night at the Opera” when I was really going through it, and I felt like I had to write about the misery in my life. I felt like I had to make other people happy; like I was on stage, performing for others.

The song “Night at the Opera” begins with “Am I cursed?” Do you believe in curses? 

Oh, I do believe in the balance of karma, that things always weigh themselves out. When a lot of good things happen in my life, I believe something bad will happen too and vice versa. Last year, when I was writing this project, I was in the thick of it, just waiting for that part to pass. However, I don’t really believe in being cursed; I believe in a greater something, that there’s some sort of path or plan that we’re subscribed to.

What’s the most theatrical aspect, and what is the least theatrical aspect of this album?

The most theatrical element is that it’s all rooted in my emotions. That’s the core: asking what the point of love is? That’s so dramatic! I’m just imagining my hand on my forehead [laughs]. The least dramatic part, strangely, is the same thing. The fact that it’s all rooted in my everyday emotions and my journal entries. That doesn’t feel very dramatic to me because it’s so real. It’s not a show. 

In the “Night at the Opera” video, we see Chinese and Venetian Opera Masks,  larger-than-life inanimate swans, and a full moon. Do you feel impacted by the moon?

I have always been drawn to the moon. I don’t know if I have noticed the impact of its cycles on me, but a lot of this project was written through grief and writing about my grandma’s passing. On tour, I have been singing one of her favourite Chinese love songs. It’s about seeing the moon, and it representing love. So, to a certain degree, I’ve always thought the moon to be really romantic. 

Is never loving anyone again really a solution to never enduring pain, or will that cause a different pain in the end? 

I think I’m maybe coming around to that. When I wrote, “What’s the Point!” I was really upset; I just felt unprepared for losing people in my life. I don’t remember signing a contract that told me that if I got close to people, I would eventually suffer from severe heartbreak. I didn’t get the memo! Of course, I know that loving someone puts you in a vulnerable spot, but it was the first time that I experienced all these very intense emotions.

I felt pretty blindsided and angry about it. Now it’s been a year and a half, and I’m slowly getting to the point of thinking: “Isn’t that the objective of life? Aren’t we supposed to just love people, and then we deal with the fact that we have to lose them when the time comes?” So I guess it’s worth it, even though I begrudgingly say that.

We also need to talk about Noah. I think you’re really speaking from, unfortunately, a lot of our experiences with this song…

Noah is a letter to the girls and women to watch your back. You think this guy is empathetic, lovely, really gets you, and always says the right things. But the more perfect someone seems to be, the less real it is. Some people are really, really good at talking and love bombing. Obviously, it’s not about blocking all men who are named Noah. It’s about your very own Noah, whatever they may be called. Whoever you think of when you hear the song, you should trust your instincts.

What’s been the reaction to this song?

It’s been cool because I’ve been getting a lot of DMs from people telling me they blocked their Noah. 

bodysuit. Tabitha Andelin
shoes. Mashizan
opposite
top + trousers. Avvenn
corset. Salvatore Vignola

You’re starting a revolution. 

It’s been great! I love, love, love a silly diss track, and it’s really fun to sing that song. I feel like I’ve always been an angry girl who writes her emotions into music.

Being an angry girl is such a positive thing!

Yes! Through this past year, I learned that you can’t really shut your emotions down. You will have them, and you have to let them exist to get through it. Music is really special and magical in that way because it helps you feel and work through your emotions.

In “Bloom”, you’re talking about the fear of never blooming, and coincidentally, I was re-reading the intro of “The Artist’s Way”, which reminded me exactly of that song…

Oh my god, no way!

Have you done it? 

Yeah, I was doing it when I was writing this. Wait, maybe it influenced me. Tell me more!

She wrote: “I have come to believe that creativity is our true nature, that blocks are an unnatural thwarting of a process at once as normal and as miraculous as the blossoming of a flower at the end of a slender stem” 

Maybe it did influence me! I did “The Artist’s Way” from July to September of last year. I wrote, “What’s the Point!” “Simple Request” and some of “Noah” before starting it, but “Noah” took a long time. I ended up going through some writer’s block, and then, after I finished the book, I wrote “Bloom” and “Night at the Opera”.

Have you done it again since? 

I did it just that one time. However, I just reopened it the other day, since I have been thinking about starting it again.

I love the influence Julia Cameron is having on the world. 

It’s so impressive! This EP is also my first time dancing in a music video. I started going back to dance classes, and I do think that her book was a big part of opening that door for me. 

From the heights of your emotions to a simple request. What’s one simple pleasure you cannot live without? 

Oh, my gosh, my journals. I get so excited to go to the bookstore, to buy a new journal or a good pen. I love stationery!

Which journal is your favourite?

I’m a big Leuchturm1917 girl.

Me too! Dotted, lined or squared?

Definitely dotted.

dress + hat. Erik Charlotte
shoes + socks. Stylist’s Own
opposite
dress. Moschino Couture @ Lidow Archive

‘Night at the Opera’ EP is out now.

photography. Ben Duggan
fashion. Daisy Stackpole
talent. Emei
hair + make up. Jenna Lee
video. Cal Travis Oaks
lighting. Luke Anaclerio
production + creative. Kelsey Barnes
interview. Fiona Frommelt
studio. The Ivory Space

jacket. Any Old Iron
jersey. Adidas
skirt. Snidel
shoes. Nike

Play ball with Ayak Veronica in this Schön! editorial lensed by Julia Sariy with fashion by Beyza Coban who styles Veronica in looks by Adidas, Lacoste, Nike, and more, with make up by Naoko Kitano. Set design is by Holli Kingsbury with set dressing by Allison Sykes.

dress. Maison Margiela
hoodie. Snidel
hat. Lacoste
opposite
shoes. Nike

jersey. Nike
skirt. Sparkle by Karen Chan
opposite
jersey. Nike

sweater. DCV Cashmere
skirt. 2 Madison Avenue
opposite
jacket. Chacott x Snidel

jersey. Adidas
skirt. Bobo Marché
shoes. Tory Burch
opposite
jersey. Adidas

photography. Julia Sariy
fashion. Beyza Coban
model. Ayak Veronica @ New York Models
make up. Naoko Kitano
set design + props. Holli Kingsbury
set dresser. Allison Sykes
fashion assistant. Camila Arias

Lou Stoppard has spent her career refusing to choose a lane, working as a writer, curator, critic, and moderator, and it’s precisely that restlessness that makes her one of culture’s most incisive interpreters. From her early days interviewing icons live on camera to profiling figures like Harry Styles, Stoppard has built a practice around a single, deceptively simple aim: to find something new in people the world thinks it already knows.

This year, she brought that same curiosity to the Miu Miu Literary Club, moderating a conversation on Annie Ernaux’s ‘A Girl’s Story’ under the theme “Politics of Desire.” Following in the Club’s lineage of spotlighting significant women writers — from Alba de Céspedes to Simone de Beauvoir — the discussion wove together journalism, feminist theory and literature to unpack Ernaux’s unsentimental, genre-defiant relationship to memory, shame and self-determination.

Stoppard talks to Schön! about the throughline connecting her writing and curatorial work, what she learned moderating a room of disparate literary voices, and why desire — why we want what we want — remains the question she can’t stop circling back to.

You’ve built a career moving between journalism, criticism, curation, and cultural programming. What skills have carried across all those disciplines, and how has your understanding of storytelling changed over time?

I would hope that curiosity is the trait that unites all my work. I’m pretty ambivalent about arbitrary distinctions between disciplines or forms of working – be it art, fashion or photography, or curating versus writing – and I tend to enjoy projects that blur these boundaries, or situate visual culture within broader socio-political contexts or understandings. I also very much enjoy working collaboratively, which is probably why I undertake curatorial or speaking work: it’s a welcome break from the lonely life of a writer!

You’ve interviewed some of the most closely watched public figures in culture, including musicians and actors whose lives are intensely mediated and there’s a mystification around them. When profiling someone like Harry Styles, how do you move beyond the public image to uncover something more revealing or human?

I’ve always said, since my earliest days of interviewing, when I was in my twenties and working at the moving image platform SHOWstudio and being given the amazing responsibility and access to interview cultural icons, often live on camera, that my only hope from an interview is to get something – just something – new from the person. So many public figures are interviewed so constantly that by default they start regurgitating the same anecdotes or answers, so my hope was – and still is – always to get something new, some fresh understanding – be that from something they said, or just an insight into them, from their demeanour: a moment of insecurity or nervousness or combativeness. I wanted to feel I’d broadened understandings of that person, and their cultural output.

Many of your interviews feel as interested in the cultural moment around a person as in the individual themselves. Do you see profiling as a form of cultural criticism as much as journalism?

Of course. Fame, popularity, relevance are so deeply reflective of the society that bestowed them. I’m fascinated in such moments, or movements – the trends, the obsessions, the moral panics, the shifts in norms, the cycles.

At this year’s Miu Miu Literary Club, you moderated a discussion on Annie Ernaux’s A Girl’s Story, focusing on desire, consent, memory, and self-determination. What aspects of Ernaux’s work felt especially resonant in 2026?

I think Annie’s work has galvanised a cross-generational readership, and she has inspired and engaged so many young writers because of her attention to social norms, hierarchies, class, patriarchy. To see a writer in her 80s speaking to so many women in their teens, twenties and thirties is really exciting. It mirrors, I think, a broader appreciation for the work of women artists of all ages. I think Ernaux’s form is groundbreaking and unique: that’s what has made her such an influence on so many contemporary authors.

She is undefinable, unlimited by genre or conventions of form, be it “autofiction” or “memoir”. I think that liberation is very freeing for writers today. Her form also reflects memory: we move, in our minds, between fiction and reality, what is hazy and what is definable. And she writes about life, sex, abortion, memory, shame in an entirely unsentimental way – bold in its flatness and clarity (“flat” is a term that Annie herself uses for her writing). I think that lack of sentimentality is radical.

The Literary Club draws inspiration from the tradition of literary salons while engaging contemporary political and social questions. As a moderator, how do you create space for disagreement and complexity without reducing conversations to simple positions?

That’s actually one of the things that I think is strongest about the Club: the commitment to weighty discussion, to debate and disagreement, as much as consensus. I see my role as a moderator as being about bringing together disparate literary voices – often from different generations and cultures – in a way that unites them without flattening the uniqueness of their perspectives or histories.

This year’s theme, “Politics of Desire,” explored the relationship between personal experience and larger structures of power. Did any insight from the discussions challenge or deepen your own thinking about desire, agency, or identity?

I was really interested in the part of the discussion where we considered Ernaux’s comments linking sex and writing, as acts. Annie’s project, as a writer, is often about trying to get as close to reality as possible, be that the reality of the girl of 58 in A Girl’s Story, or the realities of family members, of other past selves. In this act, this process of self-making, she writes about a parallel to orgasm. In Shame, she compares writing to orgasm, saying that during orgasm, as when writing, “her sense of identity and coherence is at its highest.” I asked the panellists what they made of Ernaux’s assertion, and about whether we could consider sex a creative act, or an act that mirrors or enables writing, and was curious about a theme that emerged in their responses: the idea of writing and sex as acts that involve searching, or grasping for some kind of resolution, or certainty, a moment of clarity, an end point, of sorts.

The panel on A Girl’s Story brought together voices from journalism, feminist theory, and literature. What do multidisciplinary conversations offer that more conventional literary discussions sometimes miss?

It’s simplistic, but broader perspectives and disciplines make for broader discussions. The blend also allows the literary club to contextualise writers and works within broader social, political and feminist histories.

Fashion houses are increasingly investing in intellectual and cultural programming. What do you think initiatives like the Miu Miu Literary Club can contribute to contemporary cultural discourse when they are done well?

I think the Club is an example of cultural programming done really, really well. The Club is committed to furthering discussion about significant female writers: it’s about sharing knowledge, spreading enthusiasm for amazing talent. Over the years, we have moved from Alba de Cespedes, through to Simone de Beauvoir and now Annie Ernaux: what a joy to have the task of rereading these writers so deeply. And how great to see a fashion brand investing in spotlighting and supporting female writing.

Looking across your work, from writing profiles and essays to curating and moderating public conversations, what kinds of stories or questions are you most interested in pursuing next, and where do you see the most exciting opportunities for cultural journalism today?

Fittingly, given the theme of this year’s Literary Club, I’m always interested in desire: why people want what they want, why they envy, why they return to certain obsessions or habits, what attracts them, what repels them. I think within these questions are fascinating opportunities for writing and debate.

Learn more about this edition of Miu Miu’s Literary Club at miumiu.com.

photography. Courtesy of Miu Miu
interview. Kelsey Barnes