Lies. Backstabbing. Bribes. Catfights. Stealing. No, it’s not the manuevering that goes into snagging an Oscar – it’s the manuevering that goes into snagging a dress for the Oscars.
Welcome to the world of a celebrity stylist during Oscar season – one in which stealing clients, hoarding clothes, sabotaging colleagues or outfitting a client in a less-than-ideal look because the stylist has been bribed by a label, is all too commonplace.
Tonight’s golden girl Charlize Theron – the odds-on favorite for Best Actress – is one A-lister who has managed to stay above the fray: she is honoring a long-standing commitment to pal Cindy Evans, whom she promised she would hire if she was ever nominated for an Academy Award. Theron is believed to be wearing Yves St. Laurent tonight.
Yet such fidelity and above-board behavior is a rarity.
While few will ever go on the record, stylists’ dirty tricks – on behalf of them and their clientele – are an open secret in Hollywood.
One popular undermining technique, according to many: One stylist will borrow dresses that she has no intention of having her clients consider – so that actresses will be forced to work with her and other actresses won’t look as good as her clientele.
“There’s a group of stylists known as The Hoarders,” says L.A.-based stylist Rachel Zoe Rosenzweig, who lists Jennifer Garner and Rebecca Romijin Stamos among her clients.
“They hold dresses [all week] so that no other stylist can show them to their clients,” she says. “Then they release them the Saturday night before the show – when everyone’s already chosen their [look].”
Lesser tactics include lying about a client list.
“One stylist called [in a dress] for Halle Berry – and next thing I knew, another one of their clients had it on!” says another designer’s publicist. “I don’t work with that person any more.”
Dressing a client in a breakout Oscar gown can catapult a stylist into their own limelight: After putting Halle Berry in a red Elie Saab at the 2002 Oscars, stylist Philip Bloch became a go-to style expert for magazines and was recently featured on an episode of “Newlyweds,” working with Jessica Simpson. L’Wren Scott was responsible for outfitting Nicole Kidman in the pink Chanel confection she wore to the 2002 Oscars, elevating Scott’s profile to such a degree that she now dates Mick Jagger. Andrea Leiberman generated major buzz by putting Jennifer Lopez in a pistachio-green Valentino that was an homage to an outfit worn by Jackie O.
Then there’s the money: a stylist to A-list stars can command up to $6,000 a day. They also get the best seats at the world’s most exclusive fashion shows, dine lavishly at the homes of designers like Donatella Versace, and get paid to share their style advice in books, magazines and on televsion.
All of which can create diva-like behavior to rival that of actual divas.
“I compare the difference between stylists and actresses to the difference between a poodle and a Rotweiler,” says the owner of a downtown PR firm. “The stylist is the poodle – a little dog that makes noise to make its presence bigger. The star is the Rotweiler – it sits patiently and quietly, but you know what it’s capable of doing.”
Hollywood’s biggest and best-known stylist is Jessica Paster, who, for the 2000 Oscars, turned Best Actress nominee Hilary Swank – who won for her role as a girl masquerading as a man in “Boys Don’t Cry” – into the night’s best-dressed, with a green iridescent modern-day ballgown by Randolph Duke. Since then, the actress has emerged as one of the most unlikely style arbiters in recent memory, and is often a front-row fixture at New York’s Fashion Week.
Paster, who’s dressing Sandra Bullock, Diane Lane and Marcia Gay Harden this go-round, is a prime target for critics who think stylists have too much control.
But Paster is annoyed at accusations that she and other stylists wage wars during Oscar season, and suspects other stylists might be jealous of her clientele.
“There’s always going to be a little itsy-bitsy twinge of competitiveness [between stylists],” Paster says. “But I do not [feel it]. I feel that I do beautiful work and I’m at the top of my game.”
While stylists compete against each other for celeb clients, the designers compete among themselves to get the stylists’ attention.
“The amount of exposure that the designers get when an A-list star wears their dress to the Oscars is amazing,” says stylist Rosenzweig. “It’s terrific free advertising.”
But advertising rarely comes gratis.
Rosenzweig says she’s been offered bribes, but has refused. “My reaction was, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,'” she says. “If they want to offer my clients money, that’s up to them. But I use what looks good.”
“I know a lot of celebrities would be horrified to see how [stylists] behave in their names,” says a West Coast fashion PR company owner.
“I’ve seen stylists asking for money to be deposited directly into their bank account,” she continues. “[They’ll threaten], ‘What’s going to be in it for me?'”
“Clothes and jewelry get smuggled like they’re drugs – carried to L.A. on planes in coach class and then swapped on street corners for money,” she adds. “If there was a mystery camera at the corner at Wilshire and Rodeo during Oscar week you would be shocked to see the people who are running money, cash, jewels, clothing – you name it.”
Not every stylist gets away with it, though.
Last year, Derek Khan, who has styled Pink, Mary J. Blige and P. Diddy, began a prison sentence of 1 1/2-to-three years on charges of defrauding eight of New York’s most prestigious jewelers for over $1.5 million. (Khan was convicted of selling the baubles to support his glam lifestyle – as well as paying for Christmas presents for his family and even his mother’s funeral.)
And in the annals of bad behavior, there is The Hoarder of all hoarders.
A publicist for one Hollywood eveningwear company says that this particular stylist comes to their atelier before the Oscars and borrows the entire collection.
“She gets all the best dresses, so celebrities say, ‘Well, if I don’t go to her, I can’t get a good dress,” says the insider.
Perpetuating the vicious cycle: Designers have to work with The Hoarder because celebrities know she’s the go-to girl for great frocks: “And she only has the clients because she has the clothes,” says the publicist.
But he continues to work with her.
“It’s hard enough to have a relationship with the stars – and then you have to get the stylist involved.” He pauses, then plaintively groans, “Why do we have to deal with her?”
“Every season,” he adds, “we get p–d off and say, ‘Never again!’ And then, of course, we’re helping her. Again.”
Besides, he adds, anyone who truly cares about fashion and actually has style shouldn’t be relying on stylists at all.
“When I think of stars and designer clothes, I think of Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy,” he says wistfully. “Not Audrey Hepburn and her stylist and Givenchy.”
2004 OSCARS TREND WATCH
Silk and satin As seen on the runways
Stick earrings Chandelier earrings are completely over
Pearls Sofia Coppola is considering these over diamonds
Fire-engine red lips For old-Hollywood glamour
Smoky eyes(Worn only without red lips)
Bronze skin,super-light make-up J.Lo started it; Charlize Theron knocked it out of the park at last week’s SAGs
Cluster diamonds Studs and bracelets shaped like flowers will be huge
– Reported by Merle Ginsberg