How stylist Kate Young turned Margot Robbie into a style icon - and her new role with Afterpay
This is the woman who helped transform Margot Robbie from a rising star to Hollywood’s golden girl – and how she did it.
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Exclusive: She’s the celebrity stylist behind Margot Robbie’s flawless red carpet looks.
Kate Young transformed the Australian actor from rising style star to into a golden girl – quite literally – the first time they worked together, dressing her in a glittering Tom Ford dress for the Oscars in 2016.
“We met a month or two before then and worked on that dress, and have worked together even since,” New York-based Young said.
“I was coming into a Margot who was quite famous already,” she said, of the actor who attended off the back of her breakout role in The Wolf of Wall Street.
“She’s a beach girl from Australia who is naturally beautiful. That dress, to me, was a really fancy dress – the whole dress was these pieces of gold leather sewn into it … but the shape of it is really unfussy, minimal.
“We wanted it to look like she’d been surfing and came in, blow dried her hair, and put on some lipgloss and this dress, and went to the party.
“So she looked like Margot.”
Dubbed Hollywood’s “most powerful stylist” by The Hollywood Reporter, Young’s other clients include Dakota Johnson, Selena Gomez and Sienna Miller.
Young is a huge fan of Australian designers – partly due to Robbie’s influence. It’s fitting, too, that Young is an ambassador for Australian-owned buy now, pay later service, Afterpay.
“I am always following Australian fashion because of Margot. We like to be as supportive as possible,” Young said.
Young added: “I really like Sir The Label, Anna Quan, camilla and marc – they make great suits, and shorts and jackets that match”.
“Dion Lee is so chic. Michael Lo Sordo is a big favourite, Zimmermann of course,” she said, of the Australian designers.
Young’s role with Afterpay included at New York Fashion Week in September, where the Sydney-founded brand was the presenting partner of NYFW: The Shows.
She co-hosted an Afterpay styling session in the Meatpacking District, spanning street style trends, designers to watch, and tips on how to dress for the new season.
The actual word “trend”, though, isn’t really in Young’s vocabulary.
“I am generally a little bit oblivious to trends,” Young said. “Pyjamas, knits, shorts. In reality, yes, I am totally subscribing to trends … but I think I don’t like the label.”
A VOGUE IDEA
Raised on a farm in Pennsylvania, Young’s big break in fashion came at US Vogue, where she worked for seven years – her first role at the magazine was as an assistant to editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.
“I view it (Vogue) a bit like fashion college. I didn’t study fashion I was obsessed, I loved magazines and shopping, obviously.
“Going to Vogue was like a whole different world. Anna is an incredibly productive person. She does more in an hour than most people do in a day.
“It was, ‘oh OK, this is how people work in New York.’”
Styling Hollywood’s A-list is personal for Young.
“With each of my clients, what I try to do is get to know them. It’s a pretty intimate thing, being someone’s stylist.
“There’s not many people in your life that you get naked around, and that sounds like a basic, silly thing to say, but there’s a vulnerability in that.
“I always try to get into their heads and see how they want to be perceived.
“I am much better at honing people’s own identity and giving a fashion-y, refined version of that, of themselves.”
Ahead of the upcoming party season, Young suggests investing in statement shoes and accessories to add new life to your wardrobe.
“I like to use a mix of designers,” she said. “I like to use more affordable things in the mix, so that it looks more real, frankly.
“Most people don’t dress head to toe in designer, even if they are designer clients.
“Most people will wear Levi’s jeans and Gucci shoes, and a sweatshirt. I think that’s really cool.
“People can splurge on something that’s a bigger investment, like a great pair of shoes or earrings, that can change what they already have so much.”
For a mega-stylist, Young keeps her business operations close. She only has three employees – one each in New York, LA, and London.
“I don’t like having lots of people around. It makes me uncomfortable,” Young said.
“The people we’re working with are really famous.
“I’m very particular, we don’t have like days and days of checking in 20 racks of clothes, I don’t do that. I like it to be very precise.”
Kate Young is a brand ambassador for Afterpay.
Originally published as How stylist Kate Young turned Margot Robbie into a style icon - and her new role with Afterpay
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