When is a stylist not a stylist? When they’re an ‘image architect’. That’s the phrase that Law Roach – one of the planet’s most influential, well, stylists right now – uses to describe the way he works. ‘What I do is similar to what an architect does,’ Roach – also known as @Luxurylaw to his 1 million Instagram followers – told The Guardian newspaper in 2018. ‘Surveying, building a blueprint, sourcing materials, all that. But I’m doing it with clothes, jewellery, hair and make-up.’
To see some of Roach’s finest work, just look at Zendaya. In the space of a decade, the actress who made the first red-carpet appearance of her career wearing a polyester dress from the budget chain Target has leapfrogged the role of mere style icon to become something more approaching a fashion empress. Designers from Tom Ford to Pierpaolo Piccioli and Donatella Versace now line up to dress her.
And Roach has been there since the beginning. Indeed, he had his hand on the steering wheel for much of it, manoeuvring Zendaya into her role as fashion royalty. Last year, the duo won a CFDA Fashion Award for their efforts, with Zendaya receiving the ‘style icon’ accolade that has previously been given to Prince, Beyoncé and David Bowie. The long-running partnership with the woman Roach refers to as ‘Z’ has gifted us with some of the most iconic red-carpet moments of recent years – think of the star in a sweeping gown by Rick Owens at the London premiere of Dune and in Versace chainmail at the Met Gala in 2018. It is also part of one of the most carefully masterminded glow-ups in recent fashion history – an impressive result for a collaboration that Law has said began as ‘a passion project’.
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![law roach and zendaya](https://cdn.statically.io/img/hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/gettyimages-1347328049.jpg?crop=1.00xw:0.715xh;0 "UK Special Screening of "Dune"")
The knock-on effect is a client list for Roach that reads like a list of who’s who in fashion and music right now. Ariana Grande and Anya Taylor-Joy are among his best-known clients. But it’s more than celebrity association that has earnt him his place among the fashion pioneers. He is the poster boy for a new era of celebrity styling: a process that goes way beyond choosing an awards-ceremony outfit.
For today’s super-stylists, clothes are building blocks, or characters in a story – and Roach and his ilk are masters at spinning a yarn. His legendary transformation of Céline Dion – who, in the eyes of the public, went from a barely relevant ballad blaster to a celebrated fixture of the fashion world – is now a benchmark against which any stylist’s success can be measured.
Dion was grieving for her late husband René Angélil when she and Roach began their working relationship in 2016. A few weeks later, she stepped out at Paris Couture Week sporting aviator sunglasses and a hoodie from the of-the-moment brand Vetements, emblazoned with an image from Titanic. On one level, the look suggested a woman keen to be seen as in step with the fashion agenda. On another, it was a tender statement about grief: Dion’s ‘heart would go on’ – and her stylist would be there to help her along the way.
For Roach, an activist in an industry plagued with racism and sizeism, there was value in inviting a woman who would usually find herself alienated from fashion’s edgiest side to join him at its centre. His rise to fame tracks neatly with a surge in political dressing. In a world that is plagued by disenfranchisement and despair, there is a desire like never before for fashion to mean something. The role of the stylist has been adapted accordingly. Whether it’s dramatic and deeply meaningful – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arriving at the Met Gala in a gown scrawled with the words ‘Tax the rich’, or NBA players wearing ‘I can’t breathe’ T-shirts after the murders of Eric Garner and George Floyd – or delivered in more subtle terms, the super-stylist is a master of semiotics.
A determination to disrupt the party line defines the role of today’s image-makers and is a way to distinguish the most progressive among them. For British stylist Harry Lambert, a long-time collaborator of Harry Styles, rebelling against gender stereotypes is a creative motivation and a calling card. While establishing himself as a solo artist, Styles left behind his hinterland of floppy hair, Superdry hoodies and spray-on skinny jeans from Topman. A riot of colour, floral prints and carefully positioned feather boas stand in their place.
Styles’ dedication to subversion evokes Bowie or a young Mick Jagger. But there’s plenty of originality on offer, too. It is this that has won over the fashion world. Just as he has secured respect from a music industry that was poised to write him off as another boyband member without the talent to go it alone, he has received the blessing of fashion’s heavyweights, among them Gucci’s Alessandro Michele. Those close to the duo describe the two Harrys as firm friends and collaborators – but the importance of Lambert’s input is impossible to underestimate. In his quest to perfect and deliver an aesthetic that is more than the sum of a few bold suits, he has explored a new frontier in gender politics and created a cultural icon in the process.
The stylist, who started out working for high-street retailer River Island, has had similar success with footballer Dominic Calvert-Lewin. He dressed the Everton striker in a Prada shorts suit for a shoot with Arena Homme+ last year. The resulting cover raised more than a few eyebrows among the footballing community and, more significantly, alerted the world to Calvert-Lewin: a man with the courage to tread his own path.
Lambert has gifted British actor Emma Corrin with the same reputation, setting her up as a fashion risk-taker and earning the star of The Crown a slew of valuable fashionable associations as a result. Corrin, hardly recognisable from her days as an actor on low-budget TV dramas, has a wardrobe loaded with enviable designs by the likes of Schiaparelli’s Daniel Roseberry and Miu Miu. She is a now star in her own right – she is a Golden Globe winner – but it is Lambert’s guidance that has allowed her to find her way as a fashion player and develop a style worthy of her status.
Of course, the very idea that a stylist can become a star, too, is itself a recent phenomenon. It’s now customary for celebrities to tag their ‘glam squads’ on Instagram (and shout about their brand associations), but those behind their wardrobes used to be concealed from public view. ‘Stylists were never celebrated in the way they are now,’ confirms Brooke Wall, founder of global stylist-management company The Wall Group. ‘I remember a point when celebrities refused to credit them. It took a long time to get here.’
Wall started her business with the goal of elevating stylists and the work they do and, over 15 years, she has seen the industry transform. She represents a host of styling royalty, including LA super-stylist Karla Welch, the woman behind the transformation of Justin and Hailey Bieber, and award-season guru Elizabeth Saltzman.
Wall is reluctant to call Law’s vision of ‘image architecture’ a brand-new phenomenon. ‘Stylists have always worked in this way. It just wasn’t talked about,’ she says. She believes that their input as image-makers is often underestimated. ‘You have to differentiate between a shopper who will create a wardrobe for someone and those with the skills and creative power to create a whole persona,’ she says. Wall credits the reinvention of Tracee Ellis Ross, masterminded by Welch, and Selena Gomez’s collaboration with New York-based Kate Young as among the most impressive transformations of recent years. ‘It’s so much harder to reinvent than it is to start,’ she says.
These days, social media ensures that every moment is a possible public appearance. Welch, who credits her work with Justin Bieber as her most creatively fulfilling, revels in the freedom of dressing her clients for an entire lifestyle, instead of just a night on a red carpet. ‘When I was starting out, clothing was seen as armour to face the world in. Now, it is a way to express ourselves within it,’ she says. ‘I find there is so much more freedom in dressing now.’
Welch believes that the role of the modern stylist is to draw out the essence of the person. ‘It can’t just be about clothes; it’s got to be about who they are,’ she says, ‘I really want to tap into that.’
Authenticity is a crucial part of the process. Anna Trevelyan, who has worked with Bella Hadid, Dua Lipa, Rihanna and, currently, Christina Aguilera, embarks on a soul search with her clients before getting to work on their profile. ‘For me, image isn’t necessarily about clothing,’ she says. ‘It’s about style, energy, confidence and creativity. I hate to reduce image to garments alone.’
Trevelyan takes a cartoonish approach with the stars she dresses, exaggerating an aesthetic to create a strong sense of identity. ‘My job is to help elevate the essence of who an artist really is to a fantasy level. Everyone has different sides and aspects to their personality – so we channel that,’ she says.
Those in the public eye may do it more frequently – and with more dramatic results – but the desire to rethink how we dress is something most of us can relate to. We are all evolving beings, after all, and our wardrobes adapt to reflect that. ‘It’s natural to want to grow, to want to change. For artists and designers, it can be the same: leaving one part of your life behind and moving into the next part,’ says Trevelyan.
That need not always mean radical rebrands. Subtle shifts in direction can be an effective way to switch up your look. Trevelyan references Aguilera’s recent pivot from blonde bombshell to redhead as an example. ‘It’s a simple change we did just for the album, but it looks incredible and people love it.’
Celebrities are often inspired to change their look when emerging from a time in their life they no longer wish to be defined by. And it’s the same for all of us – whether we’re emerging from break-ups or embarking on new careers, altering our appearance is a way of drawing a line under what came before. It’s also an opportunity to dress like the person you want to become, hoping that the image becomes a reality.
Demand for personal shopping platform Stitch Fix (which has over 3.4 million users worldwide and is valued at around £1.4bn) is at an all-time high, while Wishi, the site founded by Karla Welch, is also going from strength to strength. Luxury fashion retailer Matchesfashion reports its personal shopping service is more in demand than ever, with customers using its high-end service to kickstart a new chapter in their lives, whether that be a new job or having a baby. It’s a process that goes way beyond the standard retail transaction. ‘Clients are open to new ideas and can be somewhat confessional when it comes to explaining what is happening in their lives,’ a personal shopper at the retailer’s Carlos Place shopping suite in London told me.
Undoubtedly, whether we’re an A-lister or an average Joe, who we are is so much more than what we wear – but on the journey to becoming the person we want to be, clothes are an excellent place to start and the perfect way to tell the story. ‘The key is to love yourself, not lose yourself,’ says Trevelyan. Advice to live – and dress – by.
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