00:01I absolutely love being a stylist.
00:04These, Selena wore them and it sold out.
00:07The clothes that you wear tells people who you are.
00:11And with each one of my clients, what I'm thinking about is their body
00:15and their style. And their style is both their taste
00:19and my version of them combined.
00:30I think I always was drawn to fashion. I can't really
00:33pinpoint a time when I wasn't. My first word was shoe.
00:41A lot of my memories of childhood are tied to what I was wearing.
00:46My great-grandmother collected a lot of carpets and antiques
00:49and 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
01:01for like beauty
01:02and art and adornment
01:05and I was
01:07taught to value that, that that was
01:09a pleasure of life.
01:11I just took it to an
01:12extreme.
01:16I grew up
01:16in Easton, Pennsylvania.
01:19We came to New York
01:20all the time. I always
01:22dressed myself and always chose what I wore
01:24and I really loved
01:26saddle shoes. And I had like
01:28little shoe polish because I liked to make
01:30the white super white and I'd polish
01:32them every day.
01:34When I was super little I was allowed
01:36to read magazines, the libraries.
01:39I wasn't allowed to read Cosmo
01:41because it's racy, but I was
01:43allowed to read Vogue and
01:44I loved YM.
01:46Sassy was amazing.
01:48I loved Interview
01:49when I was little.
01:52I think my family was
01:54always supportive of my love of fashion
01:55but I don't think anybody considered
01:57that working in fashion could be a
02:00career.
02:02I remember when I was like 16
02:04a friend's older sister
02:06was going to FIT
02:08and I came home and I said to my mom
02:10do you know there are colleges for fashion?
02:12and she like laughed
02:14and that was sort of the end of the discussion.
02:18So then I went to college
02:20and I studied English and art history.
02:22At that point I was like I want to work for a magazine.
02:25I knew I wanted to work for a magazine.
02:27That was super important to me.
02:29It was sort of in my mind.
02:33I tried to live in LA 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.
02:45I got an internship running the closet
02:48at Lynn Franks and I got to work
02:51at London Fashion Week.
02:52It was like eye opening, it felt great.
02:56I lived in this cool apartment
02:57we went out all the time
02:58and 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.
03:08Yeah.
03:16I came home for Christmas holiday
03:18and Kati Corbiaco was the art director
03:21at 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
03:29since you were 12 years old.
03:30Let's go to Human Resources.
03:32Sarah Slavin was there.
03:34She 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.
03:41And this all happened like...
03:44Were you nervous?
03:45Yes!
03:47Oh my God, I was totally nervous.
03:49I was 20 years old.
03:51Flew back to England, quit my job,
03:53moved out of my place, started working
03:55as Paul Wilmot's assistant
03:56and Paul Wilmot quit like the second day I worked there.
04:00But I had just met Anna
04:01and Anna's assistant quit that day.
04:03So I went back down to Anna's office,
04:06interviewed with her,
04:07and got a job in her office.
04:08So it all kind of like snowballed very quickly.
04:13Anna, which is office?
04:14You know, I insist on interviewing all the assistants
04:17because we're going to invest two or three years
04:19of time and training into these young women.
04:22They have to be promotable women.
04:25Tell me about the interview with Anna and Tor.
04:29I can tell you what I was wearing.
04:34I remember I was wearing Tom Ford Gucci velvet
04:38dream pipe trousers and Patrick Cox boots
04:42and 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 the 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,
05:01it'll be worth your while.
05:03I had a really hard time watching Devil Wears Prada
05:06because my perception of the experience was so different.
05:12I never felt like I was being taken advantage of
05:15or that I was disrespected in any way.
05:18I was like, I'm getting Anna Wintour coffee.
05:21I 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.
05:32So Vogue was actually the first place where I felt seen.
05:35I 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.
05:59I wake up incredibly early and it's often still dark out
06:03and no one else is awake.
06:05Things are still and quiet and I can think and drink coffee.
06:09I 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.
06:17I know. Hi. Good to see you.
06:21I like this one.
06:23I really enjoy making things
06:25and finding an outlet for 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 Anna?
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.
07:08It's a great way to know how to work with celebrities.
07:13No is a cop-out.
07:15There's always an alternative.
07:17I 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.
07:29I 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.
07:52They 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.
08:13You 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.
08:29Do you appreciate that?
08:31Yes.
08:31This is Dakota's dress from the Met.
08:33It 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.
09:01Each person or story or designer needs to have this very clear vision that is maintained throughout
09:08so 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.
09:25Celebrities, 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.
09:47I 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
10:09level.
10:12Everything's so different from when I first started.
10:15Magazines were king and people bought fashion.
10:18I don't know what's happening anymore.
10:21I'm doing the same thing I've been doing for 20 years.
10:25But people care about it now.
10:26I'm really focusing on what did I plan to project myself much for an event?
10:41We need to create a project myself.
