Jacqueline McAssey - Fashion Styling

Figure 1.2Muted menswear is shot against a dramatic landscape in this fashion editorial for V Man. Photography: Will Davidson. Styling: Mattias Karlsson.

What is fashion styling?

Essentially, styling is a way of assembling clothing and accessories, to exhibit them in their most desirable or attractive way in order to sell them. This could include, for example, choosing accessories (belt, shoes and jewellery) to coordinate with and complement a dress. Fashion clothing can be styled alone or as a group of products (showing a range of colours), with or without a model. The styling process involves selecting and experimenting with many alternative garments to establish the perfect composition.

I wanted to mix designer things with found things, and used to go to places like John Lewis schoolboys department to get a very eclectic mix.

Melanie Ward

The origins of styling

The first stylists were fashion editors who worked exclusively for fashion magazines. Editors did in fact edit the clothing and fashion pages, and they chose the designers to be featured in the magazine. Under the initial direction of the fashion editor the relationship that really mattered during the shoot was that of the photographer and model. Indeed, during the 1960s it was common for models to do their own make-up and hair and bring their own accessories to a shoot, forgoing the need for a third person. Then, during the 1980s the first freelance stylists appeared, working for new style magazines such as The Face and i-D. As these magazines did not have permanent fashion staff, freelance stylists could apply their inventive fashion ideas across a number of publications and clients. The stylist became an integral part of fashion editorial; a key contributor to the image-making process, who wasnt tied to one magazine or one point of view.

Ray Petri (19481989)

Ray Petri, thought by many to be the first stylist, was known in the 1980s for his Buffalo style; a ground-breaking mix of urban uniform, ethnic dress, sportswear and high-end fashion. His use of real people instead of models (including Black and mixed-race men) in fashion shoots was, at the time, new and exciting. Petri contributed to The Face magazine and worked with designers Jean Paul Gaultier and Giorgio Armani. The creative collective he was part of was also named Buffalo and in the book of the same name, GQ editor Dylan Jones stated that even twenty years after Petris death, Harder than the rest; in the age of the stylist, Ray Petri is still king.