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Gurung and a chic cocktail dress by Huishan Zhang.
“We wanted her wardrobe to reflect the strong fashion
influence in the film as well as support and celebrate a
diverse spectrum of designers,” says Corbin-Murray.
Though their influence can be used to bolster worthy
social causes, the reality is that these power stylists are
flexing compounded celebrity: They are stars in their
own right, acting as gatekeepers for other luminaries.
“It’s a political game,” explains an insider at a top
European fashion house, who was tasked with coordin-
ating looks for VIPs (industry jargon for “celebs”). “Top
stylists don’t just represent one person—they represent
many.” He goes on to explain that he often worked
with power players like Elizabeth Stewart, who is a
stylist for stars like Julia Roberts and Cate Blanchett.
“But she also worked with some talent who I didn’t
really want to dress,” he says. “I wasn’t able to say no
to those requests, though, since I’d risk alienating her
top clients; I had to send pieces that weren’t as good
so they’d be less likely to wear them, but that’s always
risky.” (When Downton Abbey was a must-watch, he
adds, it was tricky because two of the actresses on the
show were “of interest” to fashion brands while the
other leads were not. “Unfortunately, they were all
friends, so it was awkward when they all requested
clothes. I had to send good clothes to the top talent
and then send pieces from the retail collection to the
others.”) Though there is often only a single loaner of
any given look from a runway collection, it’s worth the
stress and cost of shipping it overnight from London to
Los Angeles, Paris or even India. “If the right celebrity
wears a certain style, it really affects sales,” he says.
“The stylist occupies an increasingly powerful role now
because when a celebrity wears something on the red
carpet, it can parlay into being a paid face of the brand,
and that’s become big business.”
Roach is quick to downplay his star power with a
laugh when asked about his own rising position. His
2014
“Lupita + Cinderella
= Lupitarella” tweeted
Micaela Erlanger
about her client Lupita
Nyong’o’s pale-blue
Prada gown and Fred
Leighton diamond
headband.
2015
Riri reportedly found a
photo of Chinese designer
Guo Pei’s show-stopping
five-metre-long canary-
yellow cape on Google
and texted it to stylist Mel
Ottenberg, who tracked
it down for her to wear
to the Met Gala.2019
Gemma Chan—with the
help of stylist Rebecca
Corbin-Murray—made
the case for pockets in
couture gowns with a
voluminous Valentino
frock at the Oscars.only role, he assures us, is to make his clients shine.
That requires collaboration, he adds. “Authenticity is
what attracts us most to a person, so I always try to
figure out who a client is fundamentally.” In fact, Céline
Dion—the current reigning queen of Fashion Week—
felt the pull of Roach’s authentic approach. After los-
ing her husband, René, to cancer in 2016, the diva
dropped out of the spotlight to grieve and regroup, but
she was ready to return to the public eye later that year
and sought out Roach specifically because she’d noticed
the way he fearlessly approached style when working
with Zendaya.
“We’d all grown up with Céline’s music, and we
loved and adored her,” says Roach. Then he met her,
spending six hours in Paris having her try on rack upon
rack of clothing he’d brought for her consideration.
“She danced and made jokes and ran around the room
when she was excited.” Roach dressed his new client
in then cult fave Off-White during 2016 Paris Couture
Week. Then he slipped her into a streetwear Vetements
hoodie emblazoned with an image from the ’90s classic
Titanic. (A meme come to life, the move was the stuff
of internet dreams.) “A few outfits later, she was the
coolest streetwear girl—at 49 years old,” says Roach.
Despite increasingly viral evidence to the contrary
and his self-assigned moniker, Roach tries to humbly
shift the focus back to his clients, explaining he’s really
just enabling their natural style to come through, not
constructing his own vision of their image, as Zoe was
so famous for doing in the early aughts. (Similarly,
Welch has described Bieber as her greatest teacher.)
“I’m in the service industry,” he says. “My services and
opinions are no different from those of the gardener or
the nanny or the chef. It may seem a little more glam-
orous, but it remains a service.” Roach can’t help him-
self, however, from making one tiny clarification that
perhaps belies the real truth. “But I don’t take orders:
not from publicists or mana gers—not from anyone.”