No More Celebrity Stylists Means A Freer Hollywood
Oh that’s cute. Because the economy is dumb these days, famous celebrities have gotten it into their bone-swaddled, pea-sized brains that they can dress themselves. This means no more work for scary skeleton stylist ladies like Rachel Zoe!
Yes, the New York Observer brings us word of the untrending. The economic downturn has caused TV and movie houses to slash their budgets, and personal stylists are one of the first things to go. So that could explain why It girl celebs like Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively have been dressing themselves of late. They’ll go to showrooms and fashion expos on their own and pick out what they like, enraging some of the bitchiest of the fashion bunch:
“She’s the one that looked like a mess in that Nina Ricci dress at the Golden Globes!” sniped celebrity stylist Phillip Bloch [of Lively], who has worked with Halle Berry and Salma Hayek. “This is why you need a stylist. If you go to a designer, their goal is to get you out the door and on the red carpet in their gown come hell or high water. They’re never going to say, ‘This just might not be right for you.’”
Hey girl, hey. Bloch does have a point, albeit a useless one, though it doesn’t address the other reason why celebrities might be ditching their highly-paid helper monkeys. As stylists like Zoe, Stacy London, and Bloch become celebrities in their own right—with reality shows and bitchy newspaper quotes—it begins to pull back the curtain on how our favourite stars look so damn fabulous all the time. No, natural acting ability does not come hand in hand with innate fashion sense. Ha! It’s all very practiced and calculated, sometimes down to what one wears to the grocery store.
So while the Hollywood empire crumbles all around us, celebrities increasingly do not want to be associated with the embarrassing largess of paying someone lots of money to pick out their clothes in the morning. Bloch says this is a cutting out of “the middleman,” which is apt and true. And it’s an unnecessary middleman! Maybe everything in the entertainment industry just got too overheated, too frivolous and expensive. Now’s the time to issue some correctives, so let’s start with the people whose jobs are really just entirely made up.
Of course then we’ll have to march down the line axing everyone from dog walkers to, gulp, people who recap television shows, but if it’ll get America back on the right track, then so be it.
We can’t dress ourselves and we’re damn proud of it. Won’t you join us, rich and famous celebrities? Potato sacks unite!
Image via INF
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
OMG are we wearing hot pants again?! Haven't seen those since the 80s.
deltasierra
@Atilla the Bun: Bike shorts are making a comeback, you know.
@Tardy: yup, it's a romper, frighteningly. an assistant once came to my office wearing something like this and we (cruelly, i admit) spent the whole day mocking her behind her back for wearing a 'onesie' to work. needless to say, she didn't last long. poor fashion sense + inappropriate work attire x inadequate reservoirs of snark = back to temp agency.
Still wearing the ratty bathrobe I grabbed after rolling out of bed. Have yet to brush my hair, either.
Portmanteautally
@jobsworth: There is no such thing as an "honest friend" in Hollywood.
Kitten_Witawip
I pick out my own clothes in the morning. Is that so wrong?
TuxedoUWS
@Tardy: You're right...romper! That makes it...so much sadder.
lawyergay
@jobsworth: thank you. stylists are great for the fashunz shoot but if you need one every day... problems: you got em.
When the stars are having trouble AFFORDING the clothes themselves, rather than people to dress them in said clothes, then I will feel some pity for them--maybe.
From my perspective, the lack of stylists is nothing but entertainment gold. Awards shows and the like were much more interesting to watch when people like Demi Moore walked the red carptet in bike shorts. Without a stylist to rein them in, the complete lack of taste of many celebrities mixed with their need for attention and their total arrogance (which I think would include both not listening to friends' advice on wardrobe and having friends too intimdated to say anything) makes for some high-larious fashion choices.
@lawyergay: Culottes? I believe that is full-on romper. Rompers should be banned for those over 4 years old.
Tardy
@MattyMcboy: Look out, team meeting! Someone will be wearing a polo with the phrase "sassy bitch" Bedazzled on the back tomorrow...
xhack
As someone who worked in the fashion industry-Yohji Yamamoto- for years, i totally disagree with Philip Bloch.These celebs stylists made it a lifetime achievement to teach someone a sense of style while it's take only honest friends to tell you what makes you look good.
Mohamed Ndiaye-Kingué
@xhack: The answer is always a resounding "YES!" to the Bedazzler.
If this means all our favorite celebs are going to start dressing in garbage bags with giant ethnic jewelry a la Meryl Streep, I'm all for it. Rachel Zoe insect people OUT; middle-aged Upper West Side therapist look IN.
Talibabe
I feel their pain. I no longer have a girlfriend to tell me what to buy when I need clothes.
Can you guys help me? Can I wear a burlap sack to work? Should I get a Bedazzler?
Life is hard.
xhack
I admire your, gulp, ability to make a joke at your own expense.
Normally, rambling style in a writer would be considered a drawback. But this great society somehow turned it into an asset, because even a rambling summary is quicker to read than to watch molases-slow real-time TV.
Good luck wherever you go. There is no irony in the preceding sentence.
The Fug Girls had a hilarious exchange about this particular outfit that Lively is wearing.
[Ha!]
I thought the point of stylists was telling you what not to wear so your nipples don't show when the flashbulbs go off?
I want my celebrities pretty and made up. And if it costs lots of money, so be it. Blake, got back to the dressing room with a little helper, and PUT SOME STANK IN IT.
If you have lots of money to buy pretty clothes and surround yourself with a few honest friends, there's absolutely no reason to be badly dressed.
jobsworth
But...who wouldn't look dynamite in wrinkled gray hotculottes and a blazer made out of Wonder bread wrappers?
lawyergay