CHRISSY RUTHERFORD
In early 2020, Chrissy Rutherford took a leap and left her longtime role at Harper’s Bazaar—only to find herself caught in the pandemic’s lockdown six weeks later. “I was stuck at my apartment, thinking, what am I going to do? Because this was not what I’d planned when I left my job to work for myself.” She began mulling over the next phase of life. “I am very much a spiritual girlie,” she says of her interest in astrology. An aspect of her chart suggested a possible new direction: moon conjunct in the midheaven, a signal for emotional honesty in the public sphere. By January 2021, her newsletter, FWD JOY, was born.
Four years later, balancing writing alongside brand partnerships, Rutherford has settled into a groove. She now lives an hour outside Manhattan, in Westchester County, with her Jamaican parents—an arrangement for a single thirtysomething that she unpacks in the newsletter, alongside topics like books, love, and mental wellness. “That’s always been a goal for me: to talk about the uncomfortable things that people actually don’t really want to talk about,” she says. It’s a lesson in mutual support. “My mom is not fussy about her appearance on any level, but luckily for her, we wear the same size, the same shoe size,” Rutherford says. “And she always loves playing with my makeup, which is funny because when I was a child, that was me playing in hers.” The newsletter itself nods to her father—his birth name is Forward Joy Rutherford—but the message is universal. “No matter where you are in your life,” she says, “joy will always find you again.” That sense of uplift, for body and spirit, also guides her impeccably edited BAG.
