Power Stylist Kate Young Talks Anna Wintour, Vogue, Red Carpets and More | Magic Hour - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

With a client roster that includes Rachel Weisz, Margot Robbie, Dakota Johnson, Michelle Williams and Selena Gomez, Kate Young has topped the Power Stylist list three out of nine years.

Transcript

00:00I absolutely love being a stylist.

00:04These, Selena wore them and it sold out.

00:08The clothes that you wear tells people who you are.

00:12And with each one of my clients, what I'm thinking about is their body

00:16and their style. And their style is both their taste

00:20and my version of them combined.

00:30I think I always was drawn to fashion. I can't really pinpoint

00:34a time when I wasn't. My first word was shoe.

00:42A lot of my memories of childhood are tied to what I was wearing.

00:46My great-grandmother collected a lot of carpets and antiques

00:50and crystal and it was important to my mom that I know

00:54that these things were precious and that they were special.

00:58There is this real appreciation for like

01:02beauty and art and

01:04adornment.

01:06And I was taught to value that.

01:08That that was a pleasure of life.

01:12I just took it to an extreme.

01:16I grew up in Easton, Pennsylvania.

01:20We came to New York all the time.

01:22I always dressed myself and always chose what I wore.

01:24And I really loved saddle shoes.

01:26And I had like little shoe polish

01:28because I liked to make the white super white

01:30and I'd polish them every day.

01:34When I was super little, I was allowed to read magazines,

01:36the libraries.

01:38I wasn't allowed to read Cosmo because it's racy,

01:40but I was allowed to read Vogue.

01:42And I loved YM.

01:46Sassy was amazing.

01:48I loved Interview when I was little.

01:52I think my family was always supportive of my love of fashion,

01:54but I don't think anybody considered that working in fashion could be a career.

02:00I remember when I was like 16,

02:04a friend's older sister was going to FIT.

02:06And I came home and I said to my mom,

02:08do you know there are colleges for fashion?

02:10And she like laughed.

02:12And that was sort of the end of the discussion.

02:16So then I went to college and I studied English and art history.

02:20At that point I was like, I want to work for a magazine.

02:22I knew I wanted to work for a magazine.

02:24That was super important to me.

02:26It was sort of in my mind.

02:34I tried to live in L.A. for a little while,

02:36but I'm from here.

02:38My friends are here, my family is here,

02:40and I don't know how to do fashion anywhere else.

02:46I got an internship running the closet at Lynn Franks,

02:49and I got to work at London Fashion Week.

02:52It was like eye-opening, it felt great.

02:55I lived in this cool apartment,

02:57and we went out all the time,

02:59and I felt like I had a really good job.

03:01I didn't want to come back.

03:03My parents weren't psyched.

03:05I don't think they were impressed by the whole situation.

03:07Yeah.

03:17I came home for Christmas holiday,

03:19and Kati Corbiaco was the art director at Glamour magazine,

03:22and she had two boys who were my friends.

03:24And I called Kati, and she said,

03:26Oh, Kate Young, I've been waiting for you to call me

03:28since you were 12 years old.

03:30Let's go to human resources.

03:32Sarah Slavin was there.

03:33She was like the human resources god at Condé Nast.

03:36She took me to Paul Wilmot,

03:38and Paul took me to Anna's office.

03:40And this all happened like...

03:42Were you nervous?

03:44Were you nervous?

03:45Yes.

03:46Oh, my God.

03:47I was totally nervous.

03:48I was 20 years old.

03:50Flew back to England, quit my job,

03:52moved out of my place,

03:54started working as Paul Wilmot's assistant,

03:56and Paul Wilmot quit like the second day I worked there.

04:00But I had just met Anna, and Anna's assistant quit that day.

04:03So I went back down to Anna's office,

04:05interviewed with her, and got a job in her office.

04:08So it all kind of like snowballed very quickly.

04:11Anna, what's your office?

04:14You know, I insist on interviewing all the assistants,

04:17because we're going to invest two or three years of time

04:19and training into these young women.

04:21They have to be promotable women.

04:25Tell me about the interview with Anna Latour.

04:29I can tell you what I was wearing.

04:33I remember I was wearing Tom Ford Gucci velvet

04:38dream pipe trousers and Patrick Cox boots

04:41and like a silk shirt probably just like what I have on now.

04:46And then she knew Lynn Franks.

04:49So she looked at my resume and was like...

04:52But she said something to me in an interview.

04:54She was like, you know, this is a tedious job.

04:56This is a difficult job working for me.

04:59But, you know, if you're good at it, it'll be worth your while.

05:04I had a really hard time watching Devil Wears Prada

05:07because my perception of the experience was so different.

05:12I never felt like I was being taken advantage of

05:16or that I was disrespected in any way.

05:18I was like, I'm getting Anna Winter coffee.

05:22I was so excited that like she gave me a couture dress to clean

05:26and I could, I'd never held a couture dress before.

05:28I could like open it up and look at it and like see the beating.

05:31So Vogue was actually the first place where I felt seen.

05:36I felt like, oh, I can talk about shoes for 15 minutes

05:39and you won't think I'm dumb.

05:41You know, I'm going to talk about shoes with two girls

05:43with Ivy League educations for the next 35 minutes

05:46and we're going to be really serious about it.

05:48And it was the first time in my life that I could do that

05:51and feel validated.

05:54I wake up incredibly early and it's often still dark out

06:04and no one else is awake.

06:06Things are still and quiet and I can think and drink coffee.

06:10I just love it.

06:11I have ideas all the time and I'm constantly like,

06:15oh, I should do this. I should do this.

06:18Hello. Hi. Good to see you.

06:21I like this one.

06:23I really enjoy making things and finding an outlet

06:27for creative inspiration.

06:29But the thing that's really exciting about optical is like,

06:32it's not a season like fashion that just disappears.

06:34We just keep selling them.

06:36So the collection is getting broader.

06:38We're not really losing any of the old styles,

06:41which is really satisfying as a creative person.

06:44It's really nice to not have your work just like go away, you know?

06:50What's a good lesson that you learned from Hannah?

06:53No is not an answer.

06:56So if she asks you something and it's impossible,

07:00come up with seven other ways that you're going to accomplish something

07:04very, very, very similar and present them to her.

07:08Done.

07:09It's a great way to know how to work with celebrities.

07:13No is a cop-out.

07:15There's always an alternative.

07:18I think the first celebrity that I styled outside of magazines

07:21was Jennifer Connelly.

07:23We really got along and so that continued from there.

07:30I think this is the dress that Margot wore to the Oscars in 2016.

07:35And this is the sketch from Tom Ford.

07:38There have been times when I've done an award season with clients

07:41where we have a mood board and we have a plan we're sticking to.

07:44And then there are other clients who I just kind of know how I want them to look.

07:50But, I mean, it has to suit them. They have to feel comfortable in it.

07:54It's not like something I create and push on them.

07:58I met Selena because she was ready to change and she was so open to sort of anything.

08:07It was exciting.

08:09And it was like Saint Laurent, Dior and Valentino.

08:12You know, like let's raise the bar.

08:16This is the dress Selena wore to the Victoria's Secret show a few years ago.

08:21I had this idea in my mind that I wanted her to wear a dress that was like a swimsuit.

08:27And that's for the mic pack.

08:30Do you appreciate that?

08:31Yes.

08:32This is Dakota's dress from the Met.

08:34It came with all the embroidery.

08:37I think it's easy to talk to movie stars about movies.

08:41You know, that's what they know.

08:43It's their business.

08:44And it's also easy to talk about characters through the lens of cinema.

08:52And I think it's important to have some sort of voice, some sort of identity.

08:58It's these tiny little gestures and details.

09:02Each person or story or designer needs to have this very clear vision that is maintained throughout

09:09so that it's recognizable and that there's like a strong narrative thread for each client.

09:14I think that whether you like it or not, your clothes say a lot about you to other people.

09:26Celebrities, when they're doing press and red carpet, they're trying to communicate an image

09:31that will help to promote a film and also promote themselves as business people, as actors.

09:38So I want to create an image that's as true to their idea of themselves as possible.

09:48I do this because I really am connected to a magical dress on a real woman,

09:56who is the woman everybody cares about for something she created that touched people this season.

10:02Like the woman of the moment in the most amazing dress walking is exciting to me on a really fundamental level.

10:13Everything's so different from when I first started.

10:15Magazines were king and people bought fashion.

10:19I don't know what's happening anymore.

10:21I'm doing the same thing I've been doing for 20 years, but people care about it now.

10:26I don't care about it now.

10:27I don't care about it now.

10:28I don't care about it now.

Power Stylist Kate Young Talks Anna Wintour, Vogue, Red Carpets and More | Magic Hour

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