Fashion: The Art of Style.
What does a stylist do? What don’t they do? And why does it matter? The role of a stylist and the process of styling in studio and production settings can often be overlooked and woefully undervalued. It is rare that a shoot is a solely one-man show, and more often than not, the best productions come from carefully considered creative collaborations between photographers, stylists and hair and make-up artists, each bringing their experience, artistry and eye to elevate a project.
Many people can appreciate an editorial, a campaign and/or a single image, and the first question that traditionally comes to mind is “Who shot that?” Sure, that photo may be composed well, the lighting a stroke of technical genius, the right moments and movements of the model skilfully captured. However, the thing that people often miss is that it’s the stylist that builds looks and brings all the elements together.
Stylists weave the visual story through carefully curated compilations. Every outfit is a series of details carefully pieced together with purpose and perfectionism. The tiniest touches finalise a look. Signs of styling done well are when it just really works, but you don’t quite know why.
Days are often spent sourcing the right pieces. The back and forth of co-ordinating loans from PR contacts, purchasing items from retail stores, scouring second-hand resellers, diving into personal archives and even creating pieces to ensure the vision is realised to its fullest potential… all part of the process to create cohesive sequences that meet a brief or bring a creative concept to life. Stylists are constantly finessing and refining on set, but from the very beginning they are also the ones who often drive the casting of talent, develop briefs for hair and makeup and work with photographers to plan and produce the overall project. Stylists champion the works of designers through taste and curation; they fuel the fire of exciting new trends and advocate true fashion innovation. Most importantly, they have the skills and vision to elevate garments beyond basic commercial context or reimagine runway pieces through remixes and reinterpretations.
Many international and local photographers have built household names through their work, but what about their stylist counterparts? True masters of their craft, tastemakers with sharp eyes developed over years of lived experience, as well as the courage to push boundaries, break rules and set trends. Artists in their own right, with the capability to source or design sets, costumes and accessories that elevate the tone of every shoot they touch?
The Pioneers and Innovators - Stylists You Need to Know.
Grace Coddington @therealgracecoddington
You may have seen her in the infamous Vogue documentary The September Issue. Her iconic style approach centres around romanticism, fantasy, strong visual narrative and whimsy. Coddington seamlessly blends artistry with historical references and champions avant-garde design to create large scale, dreamlike fairytale settings. She is known to seek out talent that exude both personal charisma and on-camera presence, casting them as characters which amplifies the cinematic qualities of her work.
Ib Kamara @ibkamara
London-based stylist Ib Kamara is known for his bold, boundary-pushing work that highlights and addresses stereotypes around ethnicity, identity, sexuality and Black masculinity. Blending high-end fashion with sourced pieces and raw materials, Kamara weaves narratives centred around rich West African heritage. Shaping bold surrealistic silhouettes through heavy layering, he re-engineers garments that exaggerate the human form. His instinctual use of bold colour and key accessories, whilst incorporating dramatic draping and twisting techniques inspired by West African dress, brings a signature cinematic or painterly feel to his work. He challenges conventional notions of traditional gendered silhouettes, blending men’s and womenswear across male and female talent to explore and redefine conventional outfitting.
Jack Appleyard @jack____appleyard
Renowned for his highly imaginative, character-driven styling, Jack Appleyard creatively blurs the lines between fashion, costume and visual storytelling. Driven by a world-building approach, Appleyard constructs the big picture with strikingly graphic silhouettes and dramatically surreal set designs. He creates looks with an eclectic blend of sourced vintage and custom-made garments, accessories and everyday objects, often repurposed and recontextualised to create unexpected, quirky, left-of-centre details.
He draws upon historical references, high fashion artistry, subcultural elements and DIY juxtaposition to create images that build tension between everyday reality and fantasy, beauty and rawness, with cultural and creative grounding.
Amanda Harlech @amandaharlech
Harlech’s work is grounded in historical and literary reference. A master storyteller, she builds the internal world and core character of the wearer to convey a complete visual story. Amanda Harlech infuses a romantic and cinematic quality to her work through her unique blending of archival, historical, and key cultural and literary references. With elements out of traditional contexts and reimagines them with modern elements. This juxtaposition is also mirrored in her instincts for pairing textures and tactility as she creates elegant tension between soft and structured fabrics, traditionally masculine and feminine silhouettes, as well as playing with proportion and patina to create depth.
The power of transformation in dressing sits at the core of her style philosophy as she builds out a psyche and persona to then construct an intangible yet distinctly emotive atmosphere that transcends far beyond simple outfitting.
The Common Thread of Training Taste.
What all these stylists possess is the insatiable need to look beyond the confines of fashion to enrich their palette. Art, music, film, books, food, travel, history, nature, and heritage. All these elements of life are constantly shaping their curation, their creative eye and signature expressions. From the beauty in the way they see, emerges the poetic visual language of the way they speak. Endlessly resourceful, creative and innovative, great stylists collect, compose and create the pieces that come together to complete the big picture.
Yohji Yamamoto takes on WESCO’s American work boots, puts one in pristine white leather and somehow makes a boot built for punishment feel completely at home on a runway.