Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the Artists category. Oscar-winning actor and pal Jared Leto profiled him inside the issue, which is out today, and in short discusses why people don’t just like Gucci, but desire it. “I think it’s because they have some sense that Alessandro Michele pours his heart into every single thing he does, and shares with us that ever-so-elusive and powerful ingredient—love,” Leto wrote in the article. The 18 others who landed a coveted spot in the Artists category include Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, John Legend, Demi Lovato, Sarah Paulson, and more. Other influential people selected by TIME editors in categories ranging from Pioneers to Leaders to Titans to Icons include Ashley Graham (profiled by Tyra Banks), Raf Simons (profiled by A$AP Rocky), Tom Brady (profiled by Conan O’Brien), and many members of the Trump Administration, including President Donald Trump (profiled by Paul Ryan), Ivanka Trump (profiled by Wendi Murdoch), and Jared Kushner (profiled by Henry Kissinger), all of whom have made the list for a second time, among others.
This year marks the 14th annual issue, which features five worldwide covers fronted by a member of the TIME 100: singer John Legend, actress Viola Davis, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, philanthropist Melinda Gates, and British actor Riz Ahmed. “Some years the list has the feel of a loose, lively dinner party, people who mostly don’t know each other but would get along if they did. This year is a bit more complicated,” says TIME editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs in her essay introducing the 2017 list. “These past 12 months have sharpened our edges as political debates in the U.S. and Europe, the Middle East and Asia, turned jagged and primal and seem almost perfectly designed to divide us more deeply. In divisive times, it’s tempting to nestle in a comfort zone, surrounded by people who look like us, think like us,pray like us, vote like us,” Gibbs wrote. “Yet many of the men and women on this year’s list are calling us out, using the technologies that connect us to expand how we see the world.”
