What the hell is a Stylist

and where did all these stylists come from

“…and I want to thank my stylist in case no one else does,” said Robert Downey Jr., upon receiving the Oscar for best supporting actor. Jr was right, no one else thanked their stylists. But you can bet that pretty much everyone there had one. And it’s not like it’s some dirty secret.

Zendaya wearing vintage Mugler - proudly alongside her stylist Law Roach

Stylists seems to be everywhere. They’re out and about on red carpets, doing lucrative brand collaborations, and offering style advice on their own newsletters, and celebrities seem to need them like insulin. What even is a stylist? And how hard could it possibly be?

I worked with the amazing team at Decoder Ring from Slate to make an episode about this. Find the episode wherever you get your podcasts!!!

This phenomenon of the publicly-facing stylist is actually fairly new, although its roots are fairly deep.

The story actually starts long before the stylist was born, at the dawn of the film industry. The early days of Hollywood, in the silent era, were all about showing glamorous fantasy worlds, where the stars were all outfitted in the latest couture from Paris. For many Americans, the movies were the only place they could see what was happening in Paris. After all, these were couture gowns that maybe like 200 people would be able to buy.

The trouble was, Parisian styles fluctuated wildly from season to season, so that it was easy to tell if something was "out.” It kept happening over and over again: as soon as French style would change, it could instantly render an American movie out-of-date and passé.

Joan Crawford’s dress, by famous MGM costumer Gilbert Adrian

The studio system was livid, and actively banned Parisian couture from film. So what were the costume departments to do? They had to come up with their own original designs. And this is the birth of "Hollywood Style"- a hyper-glamorous genre of clothing that was sort of universally appealing and timeless. In other words, a safe bet.

Costume departments in-house at the studio systems, would make couture creations that could define an actor’s persona and career- like Gilbert Adrian’s idea of putting Joan Crawford in padded shoulders.

And French fashion, to be honest, couldn’t care less about this split. Honestly, the feeling was mutual. Movies were considered populist and low brow. Actors were phony and lower-class- not models of elegant clothes befitting couture’s elite, blue-blooded clientele. The notable outlier to this was Audrey Hepburn and her famous friendship with Givenchy. But Audrey was European, a ballet who spoke flawless French. She was the exception that proved the rule.

Here is a more typical case study: when Dior designed a dress for a Brigitte Bardot movie, his customers were furious at him. So Hollywood didn’t like Paris. Paris didn’t like Hollywood.

And so, this Hollywood ban on couture extended off-screen. When movie stars went out to promote their films, their studio outfitted them out (often in a way that was in keeping with their character on screen). There were always gowns and suits set aside for premieres, award shows, fancy dinners, and events for any leading actor. Even Grace Kelly’s wedding dress was made by her costumer at MGM.

Grace Kelly’s wedding dress, by MGM costumer Helen Rose

But then the studio system fell apart. Actors were no longer in-house at a major studio… and neither were their costumers. Functionally, everyone was a freelancer. The stars now had to dress themselves.

Initially, into the 1960s and 1970s, this wasn’t much of a problem. the culture was generally more casual and dress-down. Even the movies themselves were no longer these visions of luxurious glamour- films like Taxi Driver and Annie Hall and Midnight Cowboy showed stories of real people on the silver screen. And so the public did not care if stars showed up to the Oscars looking like… real people.

Diane Keaton, 1978

But as the 70s turned into the 80s, glamour came back. In the eras of excess and shoulder pads, actors were still on their own. And they were struggling to shop for themselves. But it all came to a frothing head in the 1990s- as tabloids, fashion press, and paparazzi hit their stride. The public was realizing that actors, as talented as they might be as pure vessels of emotion, don't exactly tend to have their own developed sense of personal style. In fact, that's their whole thing- they're so malleable and variable that they might even have less personal style than the average non-actor. 

Kim Basinger in a dress she designed in 1990. Cute for a freshman year project!

And so the frenzy began. We watched as Demi Moore appeared on the red carpet in bike shorts. Kim Basinger modeled a dress of her own design, with one arm longer than the other. Finally we could see what the stars looked like when they dressed themselves. And... people hated it. In fact they loved to hate it (as any episode of Joan Rivers' Fashion Police or any People Magazine red carpet roundup could attest). 

Demi in 1989. It’s so deranged I almost love it.

And notably, Jodie Foster in 1989. When she won the Oscar for The Accused, she showed up in a frilly prom-looking dress that she had bought herself in Milan. She was shocked and hurt that everyone made fun of her for it.

Stars needed someone to figure out their personal brand, to procure cool clothes for them and make sure they weren't embarrassed. And at first, this need was met by - of course- clothing companies. One particular designer started it. The bar was set by Giorgio Armani.

Armani’s suits were soft and unstructured, as opposed to big beefy 80s power suits, and came in soft linens and cottons, in shades of brown and green. When Armani was a young upstart designer, his unique suits were only available at Barney’s in New York. So, in Hollywood, Armani had developed a bit of a cult following- mostly from producers, agents, and directors- people behind the camera. But one such fan of Armani’s was John Travolta’s manager. And when Travolta was cast as the lead in American Gigolo, Travolta and director Paul Schrader went out to Milan to meet with Armani and decide what suits would be in the film. But then Travolta dropped out of the movie to do Urban Cowboy and was replaced with an unknown actor: Richard Gere.

Well Gere just looked incredible in Armani. And Armani saw sales increase as a direct result. Armani resolved that this would be his thing. He would get more stars into his clothes. He was the first to reach out to celebrities and pare them down in neutral, casual cool looks. Armani’s first celebrity they reached out to? Jodie Foster of course.

Jodie in Armani, attending for Silence Of The Lambs

Other actors fell into Armani’s warm embrace. In fact, so many actors let themselves be dressed in Armani that, in 1991, Women’s Wear Daily dubbed the Oscars “the Armani Awards.”

Other companies started to follow Armani's lead, reaching out to celebrities and offering to dress them. And then, when the competition got fierce, brands started to offer to pay stars to wear their clothes. But soon the offers- and managing them all- became too much for any one person to handle. It became, in fact, a full time job.

So what exactly does a stylist do? What does the day to day of the job look like? And has this proliferation of stylists made celebrity fashion.... boring?

In this episode, I talk to Jeanne Yang, a stylist who has worked with everyone from George Clooney to Keanu Reeves, two of my all time heroes: fashion journalists Teri Agins and Dana Thomas, as well as Joan Rivers’ daughter, Melissa Rivers.

This was a total blast to work on. Thanks for having me, Decoder Ring!