Hollywood’s top stylist has tips for the rest of us

Hollywood's most powerful stylist, Rachel Zoe is the driving force behind today's major front-page trends and she personally decides what Hollywood's hottest stars are wearing. Now, Zoe gives readers full access to the style secrets and tricks of the trade she bestows upon hot celebrity clients like Lindsay Lohan, Salma Hayek and Mischa Barton. In “Style A to Zoe” readers learn how to develop their own personal style and go glam in every part of their life. Here's an excerpt:

Why glamour?
Why not? Sure, as with fashion and beauty or any other aesthetics, the pursuit of glamour is not going to save the world. But life’s too short not to pay attention, get up an hour earlier and stay up an hour later, or even to be wide open to all of its amazing possibilities.

Life’s too short not to take risks. To glam it up! A life of glamour and style makes everything that much more electrifying, that much more engaging.

Think about how we just can’t get enough of the brightest icons of Hollywood, past and present. How much we consume stories and snapshots of the charismatic characters living it up in the fashion glossies or in long-­ago-­published biographies. Or how much, as children, we adored the petite lady living next door who appeared larger than life, a kind of Diana Vreeland figure, draped in incredible caftans and laughing that gregarious laugh. Glamour can come in the form of a suggestion, a hint — like a pair of oversized sunglasses — or it can appear in all its unapologetic glory, blinding bright from the pile of gold bangles on a bronzed wrist or at an informally chic dinner you throw for your friends at a favorite restaurant. It isn’t about fashion.

It’s style. In my book, glamour is pure lifestyle.

My kind of glamour combines California ease with New York high life. It favors modern, even if it’s vintage. It’s browned to a deep Bain de Soleil tan and best served up with a crisp glass of champagne. It calls for a measure of je ne sais quoi. Yet style doesn’t require gobs of resources, fiscal or otherwise. As a stylist who dresses some of Hollywood’s most recognizable and engaging actresses, collaborates with fashion designers for their runway shows and advertising campaigns, and works with brilliant photographers on magazine editorials, it’s my job to know. As a lifelong lover of everything glamorous, it’s my thrill to share it with you.

Dreaming is real
Even all grown up and a part of the global fashion machine, I still love opening a pristine magazine or book and getting lost in the stories and photographs of all the amazing parties and people featured. I study the images. I dream. I tear out pages out for later reference. I admit it’s a bit aspirational and inspirational. But it’s a personal indulgence that has obviously had its professional merits, too, in my decade and a half as a stylist.

The first four years of my career were a crash course into the world of clothes and celebrity. I was just out of college, where I majored in sociology and psychology. Naturally, I went right into fashion. I was twenty-­one and living in the marvelously manic world of Manhattan, as the fashion editor for “YM” magazine, clocking in long hours, schlepping clothes from one part of the city to another, and coordinating shoots and readying starlets for magazine covers and models for editorial spreads.

I decided to break out on my own. I’d already been styling all the teen heartthrobs of the moment — actors, pop stars. I was the queen of teens. As it became increasingly evident that I could make in one week what I did in a year at the magazine, I decided to become a stylist on my own. It was absolutely frightening to leave the safety net of a corporate magazine, with its regular paycheck, benefits, and security. But I immediately started styling the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Jessica Simpson (I met her the day she signed with Tommy Mottola; she was all of sixteen). The schedule was insanely demanding, but I was learning so much that it kept me going forward.

Four years into it, and feeling ready for the next challenge, I headed west. Actually, we headed to Los Angeles. My husband (and love of my life since we met, while waiting tables in college), Rodger, has always stood right there with me. We haven’t looked back. It’s a whole different game in the marvelously manic world of Hollywood. The hours are still ferociously long, and it’s increasingly normal for me to go three weeks without a day (or night) off. Seriously.

But now I have amazing assistants who aid in the schlepping and coordinating. I still tear pages out of magazines, but many of them feature pictures of the fabulous women I have been lucky enough to work with holding their own on the red carpet or laughing it up at a party: Keira Knightley, Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Garner, Mischa Barton, Salma Hayek, Anne Hathaway, Joy Bryant, Cameron Diaz, Demi Moore, Kate Beckinsale. Now that’s dreamy, right?

I was a teenaged fashion queen
Dressing the part certainly got me in the right mind-­set to realize my dreams. I started young. When I was thirteen my friends and I took the train from our suburban ’hood of Short Hills, New Jersey, about thirty minutes from New York City.

They all went to hang out at some pizza dive, and I beelined it to a vintage store in the West Village to buy a $200 mink coat. It was chocolate brown and hip length. I had saved my allowance, my gift money, every single dollar for a year to get it. When I got home, I told my mom it cost $40. She and I always butted heads because she couldn’t figure out why I needed these kinds of things. Of course, she has always been exactly the same. I came right out of my mother’s womb and into her closet.

I swear. Her closet is my earliest memory. As a young girl, I thought she epitomized glamour. Everything about her was and still is beautiful — her hair, her jewelry, her shoes. My sister and I would rifle through her things all the time. Some of my fondest memories are of the three of us sprawled out on her bed. We’d spread out her boxes, the kind you find at the hardware
store to organize nails but are perfect for the endless inventory of jewelry she collected.

Thank God my dad understood. He has a great eye and instinct for beautiful things (my parents have an amazing contemporary art collection), and he has aided and abetted in her collection, especially during their frequent travels. The year after the vintage-­mink adventure, I went with my family on my very first trip to Europe.

Again, I decided to splurge my savings. I walked right into Louis Vuitton in Paris and bought a messenger bag. It draped across my body in a half-­moon shape. I still have it. It’s just beautifully made. I was thirteen going on thirty — thanks to my mom as inspiration (whether she acknowledges it or not). And my aspirations and fantasy life were further informed by my hero, Halston.

To me, Halston was the great American designer and style icon. He was the first American fashion superstar. I would get lost in staring at photographs in books of him and the chicest women alive who sashayed through life in his clothes — Bianca Jagger, Angelica Huston, Jerry Hall. His perfume bottle was even designed by Elsa Peretti! I admit that I always wanted to run with the fast crowd.

To me, the fast crowd symbolized more experiences, more opportunities. Living it up, living with more wasn’t so much about materialism as it was about this fantasy life to be and do. I wanted to dance at Studio 54. I wanted to travel to exotic places. I wanted to do the unimaginable. It was just a matter of “how do I get to that?” So it was beyond a dream come true when I was appointed creative consultant to the storied fashion house in early 2007. I knew collecting all those vintage Halston gowns and old books would come in handy someday! Halston wasn’t alone in my Hall of Heroes either: Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino — I swooned over images of their work as much as the tales of their complicated, thrilling lives. They worked hard and played glamorously. What they all shared was an impeccable personal high style. This style sense was my gospel.

I was always the overdressed one among my friends. But that’s who I was. And since it was my money I figured I was entitled to a mink coat. In my head and in my dreams I aspired to look, feel, and live a certain way. Since I was very little, I always wanted more in life. Not more things, but just better. When it comes to quality, it has to be the best there possibly is. The quality of a well-­made jacket. The quality of time I spend with Rodger eating a deliciously prepared late-­night dinner. Sometimes it’s worth saving up for the good stuff.

That’s particularly the case when you choose an item that will withstand time, maybe not because it’s a classic but because you’ll always love it. A good bag or a pair of shoes or a chair or vase might be more expensive because of the quality, but in the end it holds up longer. As soon as I was old enough to realize the things I wanted in life, I figured out how to get them myself. I never wanted for anything as a kid, and I’m grateful to my parents for that. But I never expected anything either. I never wanted a rich guy who could pay my way through life. I dated guys like that.

The notion of being a kept wife wasn’t for me. Success and happiness don’t come through shortcuts. I wanted to work hard and achieve my dreams myself. I always loved the popping cork on a bottle of champagne. In that very instant, the loud “pop” seems to signal a crazy burst of excitement, conjuring all kinds of thrills: stepping out your front door with the biggest smile and highest heels; hanging out with your favorite people and laughing until it hurts; jetting away from home to an even more thrilling place — living it up because you’re truly alive. There’s an intrinsic charge to those three very simple words: Living. It. Up. It’s about being happy, positive, alive. There’s even something so chic in the brevity of the phrase, as if it were a synonym for style itself. On those nights when we live it up, we feel our most glamorous, our most confident. Right?

MORE FROM FASHION & BEAUTY

Fashion & beauty Section Front

Once again, first lady’s fashion sense dazzles   Slideshow: Victoria’s Secret feisty fashion Heidi Klum walks runway — 6 weeks after baby   Wear the hottest trends for less Flight attendant jets from gray to gorgeous Style 911: Update your weary winter wardrobe Kate Moss’ use of pro-anorexia slogan draws ire Winter wear: Faux fur, knits and fake leather   Transform last year’s coat   Wrap up in a stylish winter coat Fashion & beauty Section Front   Add Fashion & beauty headlines to your news reader: