The Brightest: People, Products, and Ideas That Are Changing the Game in 2024

On this list, you’ll find the people, products, and ideas that light up our world, show us the way, and change the game. We’ve got folks sharing their emotions, women making menopause cool, a certain actor/activist/Instagrammer with a cause, and more.

Kristen Kish: The Chef Normalizing Raw Emotions

She’s a brilliant chef, a restaurateur (Arlo Grey in Austin, Texas), a cookbook author (Kristen Kish Cooking: Recipes and Techniques), a TV personality (with shows on Netflix, National Geographic, and TruTV), and the new host of Bravo’s Top Chef. But for all her incredible success, Kristen Kish may be most inspiring when she’s admitting that life isn’t always rosy. “I’ve realized the power of saying what I feel, especially when everything’s not perfect,” she says. Kish is open about her lifelong challenges with anxiety and bouts of impostor syndrome, even in life’s most mundane moments. “I might be at the grocery store, look at my cart, and think, Oh my God, I’m not a chef. You never know what’s going to trigger those feelings.”

Kish’s candor and story have won her many fans. A South Korean adoptee, she grew up in Michigan, attended culinary school, and honed her skills in Boston restaurants before competing on—and winning—season 10 of Top Chef. She became a regular guest judge, until the producers brought her on as host. Now, with Top Chef in its 21st season, she’s on her biggest stage yet. Remarkably, this job gives her less anxiety than you’d think. “I know what I know and what I don’t know,” she says. “At the end of the day, my role as host is simply to be me and be honest. That I can do.” —Jenna Helwig, food director

Sherri Shepherd: The Talk Show Host with Oprah’s Blessing

Late last year, Sherri Shepherd had a surreal moment on the set of her eponymous talk show. She’d spent her formative years watching The Oprah Winfrey Show, so when the original talk show queen agreed to appear on Sherri, it felt monumental. “I get emotional thinking about it because nobody has done it better than that woman did,” Shepherd says. “To have Oprah come on my show and say she was passing the baton to me? The 20-year-old girl inside me was screaming, but the grown-ass woman was like, You did it.”

Shepherd’s story is one of talent, hard work, and hustle. She made her TV debut in 1995 with a short-lived sitcom on the WB and has since appeared on dozens of shows. She was a cohost on The View for seven years, helping to send it into the ratings stratosphere; she does stand-up comedy; she’s written two books (a memoir and a wellness plan); and she supports organizations that help people with developmental disabilities, in honor of her son. “Over the years, people have said no to me about things for various reasons,” Shepherd says. “But I kept at it and believed in myself—and that perseverance paid off.”

Nearly 30 years into her career, Shepherd is still hustling. She’s filming season 3 of Max’s The Sex Life of College Girls (she plays a senator and the mom of a main character), and she’ll soon start taping season 3 of Sherri. “I have lots of people I want on the show: Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Viola Davis!” Maybe Oprah again? —Bethany Heitman

The Zero-Effort Paint Samples

“Yay for the paint companies that realized how annoying it is to dirty—and clean!—a bunch of brushes any time you want to test out new colors. Peel-and-stick paint samples should win a Nobel Prize. Thanks, Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore!” —Lisa Freedman, executive editor

The Washing Machines Made for Pet Owners

“There are so many cool things happening in Laundry World. Take GEProfile’s UltraFast Combo washer/dryer, which now has a pet hair removal function. It blows air to separate hair from clothes before they’re washed, ultimately saving your dryer’s filter.” —Erica Finamore, home director

The Customizable Palette

“In my 17 years as a beauty editor, I had never found a makeup palette that checks all of the boxes. Until I met Renzoe Box. It’s sleek and compact—and it allows you to shop from different companies to build the palette of your dreams. Pick blush from Nars, an eyeshadow from Dior, a lipstick from Mac, and so on. While it’s certainly a splurge, it holds all of my favorites in one spot, making it easy to take my makeup on the go.” — Heather Muir Maffei, beauty director

Charlotte Tilbury: The Thoughtful Makeup Maker

Search for viral makeup products on TikTok, and chances are you’ll find at least one of Charlotte Tilbury’s golden goodies. Born in London, the makeup artist grew up in Ibiza surrounded by artists—her father was a painter; her mother worked in fashion. “I remember studying posters of Brigitte Bardot and Audrey Hepburn in my bedroom and being enthralled by the lighting and what made them look beautiful,” she says. When she was 13, after swiping some mascara onto her barely-there strawberry-blond lashes and feeling instantly more confident, she understood the transformative power of makeup. Now Tilbury is known as the goddess of glow, and her work lights up the runways. With more than 100 Vogue covers under her belt, she has a roster of ultra-famous clients, including Jennifer Aniston, Amal Clooney (she did her wedding makeup!), and Kate Moss.

In 2013, Tilbury launched her own makeup and skin-care line with the goal of bringing the “Hollywood tricks” to the masses. “I wanted to bottle up that lightning and that feeling I had the first time I wore mascara,” she says. The line contains more than 500 products, many of which are top sellers at Sephora. If you doubt the life-changing impact of makeup, consider: “I’ve had women tell me that my products helped them get a new job or get out of a bad relationship.” And in 2019, her brand donated more than $1 million to Women for Women International, a charity that helps survivors of war gain the skills they need to be self-sufficient. —H.M.M.

Jessica Knoll: The Novelist on a Mission

Around the time survivors were telling their stories as part of the #MeToo movement, writer Jessica Knoll told hers. She’d written her bestselling debut novel, Luckiest Girl Alive, about a careerist who reinvented herself after a series of traumatic events during her teens. Knoll eventually admitted that the gang rape in the plot was loosely based on her own assault and the lack of support she received in the aftermath. “A narrative took hold about what had happened. I knew the real story, but no one was interested in my version of it,” she says. She wrote the screenplay (the 2022 movie features Mila Kunis), changing the ending in part to reflect the outpouring of responses she’d received from other women, who said they’d been through a similar trauma.

She wrote her new novel, Bright Young Women, after watching back-to-back TV shows about serial killer Ted Bundy. Knoll was stunned that the judge who sentenced Bundy called him a “bright young man,” glorifying him and minimizing the women he had killed. “There was a different side of the story,” she says. So Knoll set out to tell it. The result is a fictionalized version from the victims’ perspectives that doesn’t give the killer any notoriety, never even using his name. The way it always should have been. —B.H.

The Brilliance of Portable Lamps

“I strongly dislike having to hide cords—and I hate the look of them when they show!—so portable table lamps might be my new favorite trend. You can put them anywhere, outlet or not, and they always look cool, stylish, and totally polished.” —E.F.

The Default Salt

“Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt is the Goldilocks between coarse and fine. It’s easy to pick up with your fingers but not too chunky, and it’s less salty than many other kosher salts. Plus, it has a cleaner, more neutral flavor than table salt. It’s what most chefs use and what we used in culinary school, and that’s good enough for me!” —J.H.

The Vending Machine with Salads

“Farmer’s Fridge! It’s a brilliant concept because it’s fresh salads and grain and noodle bowls from a vending machine. There are more than 1,000 around the country, at airports and hospitals, some Costcos and Targets. They’re stocked regularly. If I’m traveling and my options for lunch are airplane food or airport food, Farmer’s Fridge wins out with good eats that are ready to grab and easy to tote. It’s even eco-friendly: You can return the jars to a machine for recycling.” —Lauren Iannotti, editor in chief 

Kara Swisher: The Button-Pushing Tech Journalist

Kara Swisher has always lit fires in her work. The provocateur has chronicled the egos and excesses of Silicon Valley for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and now New York, making a habit of scorching its denizens. But somehow she’s still embraced by them. “They think I’m one of them sometimes, and that’s a mistake,” she says. One way she’s not like many of them? She gets it right. Swisher was smart enough to consider tech a worthwhile beat early on. She helped popularize podcasting and showed Big Media that live events were a path to growth. Now she does what she pleases. In her new memoir, Burn Book, which is just what it sounds like only more so, Swisher once again cuts those grotesquely wealthy, code-smart chuckleheads down to size. Elon Musk atop X is “a troll king at scale”; Peter Thiel is a “contrarian investor and persistent irritant.”

How does she manage that cockiness in the face of all that, well, cockiness? “I don’t have an inner critic. I don’t know why,” says the pundit, whose latest podcast, On with Kara Swisher, features smart conversations with smart people (Ava DuVernay, Liz Cheney, Sam Altman). “And I don’t listen to other people either.” She credits her self-confidence at least in part to being gay. The fact that people didn’t like her for that made them, to her, stupid and not worth listening to. To be a woman in a bro’s world is impressive. To be a queer person who cut her own path and created a powerful role for herself in that world? Next-level. —L.I.

Xochitl Torres Small: The Voice for Small Farmers

In 2019, right before one of her first official meetings as the U.S. representative for New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District, Xochitl Torres Small was nervous. “I couldn’t psych myself up. It wasn’t enough to say, I am powerful; I can do this,” she recalls. “So instead I told myself that the people I represent deserve to be in this room. And it gave me this ability to walk in and do exactly what I needed to do.” Of course, she could do “this,” and President Biden recognized that, eventually tapping her for two jobs at the USDA.

In her current role, as the deputy secretary of agriculture, “I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can make sure people feel like the USDA is something that’s for them. Because we all have a role in the food system,” she says. She spends time working on online portals for farmers to pay their loans, talking to college agriculture students, making sure soon-to-be moms can sign up for the WIC nutrition program, investing in smaller meat processors, and more.

While she handles the policy side, she offers a few steps the rest of us can take: Lobby your school district to get local foods to kids’ classrooms, and buy your meat close to home. She also suggests chatting up the farmers at the markets. “The best conversations I have with farmers are about why they do what they do and what they want for their kids,” she says. —L.F.

Dani Dazey: The Designer Who Uses Color Like It's Her Job

Dani Dazey has always been bright. The designer was raised in a home filled with saturated colors and splashy paintings—and the vividness stuck with her. “Most people grow up loving color, but along the way, they become afraid of it,” she says. “I’ve just carried it with me.”

As a kid, Dazey loved art, fashion, and interior design, but she thought she could only pursue one of them. She picked fashion and landed jobs designing graphics and textiles for companies like Urban Outfitters. Then she started her own line, Dazey LA. “It was all about color, self-expression, and vintage design,” she says. “About being bold in what you wear in your everyday life.” Her colorful style transferred over to her interior design, first in an industrial Los Angeles office space she turned into a vibrant peach palace, then in her home in the California desert, which boasted ’70s patterns and rich colors. She began posting photos of her spaces on Instagram (@danidazey), people took notice, and suddenly interiors were her full-time gig. Partnering with famed drag queen Trixie Mattel, she designed the incredible Palm Springs motel for the Discovery+ show Trixie Motel (now in its second season), and she’s about to launch collabs with wallpaper, furniture, and fashion brands—proof that you don’t have to pick a lane! Her tip for those who might be a bit color shy: Look in your closet. See a ton of green sweaters? “You’ll probably like that color on your walls,” she says. —E.F.

The Idea of Integrated Grief

“Society used to treat loss as something you could get over, but we all keep our grief with us for a long time—sometimes forever. One interpretation of integrated grief is that you’re letting go of the person you were before your loss and embracing the new person you’ve become. I lost my husband to brain cancer four years ago, and I’m starting to take pride in who I am now, even if I’m not the same as when he was here.” —E.F.

The No. 1 Invention for No. 2s

“Is a Tushy worth it? You bidet believe it! My bathroom breaks have turned into the VIP experience I deserve. The Tushy is sleek and easy to install, has an option for warm water, and helps you use less toilet paper. It makes me feel like I’ve been bumped up from economy to business class.” —Muzam Agha, photo director

The Programs Keeping Food Waste out of Landfills

“Three cheers for the expansion of food scrap pickup in U.S. cities, counties, and even some states— looking at you, Vermont! Less food in landfills, less methane gas in the air, and more compost for growing things!” —J.H.

The Rise of Resale Sites

“I’m thrilled about how sites like Poshmark and Depop are giving fast fashion a run for its money. Not only do resale sites save tons of clothes from landfills, they’re also full of incredible deals. I’m getting married this summer, and I found my silk wedding dress on Stillwhite (a site specializing in preowned wedding dresses) and an after-party dress on The RealReal. I saved so much money. And the clothes’ history only adds to their charm.” —Katie Holdefehr, associate editorial director

The Water Stations Saving Us

“When Elkay Bottle Filling Stations arrived at the office, in the airport, and at my kids’ school, I was elated. Single-use plastic bottles will take us all down! Now I can bring my Hydro Flask through security, tank up near the gate, and never have to beg for a refill of a tiny plastic cup as I dehydrate and slowly turn to dust at 35,000 feet.” —L.I.

The Women Making Menopause Cool

“Not so long ago, if ‘the change’ got any mention at all, it was just a hot flash joke in a birthday card. Now menopause mentions are in Super Bowl ads. Big-name celebs, like Halle Berry, Michelle Obama, and many others, have spoken openly about their experiences with it. Naomi Watts launched her own wellness brand for menopausal women, and the telehealth site Evernow raised $28.5 million in funding, with help from folks like Gwyneth Paltrow and Drew Barrymore. Suddenly hot flashes are cool!” —Amy Maclin, features director