RED CARPET REVOLUTION

When it comes to styling A-listers during awards season, there are a whole new set of rules: a glamorous gown and some bling just isn’t going to cut it anymore. Meet the stylists who are shaking up the scene with their dedication to bigger causes.

- Hannah-Rose Yee

JASON BOLDEN

THE POWER DRESSER

In 2011, Gabrielle Union needed a dress for a swanky Art Basel event. So she called her friend Jason Bolden, then the owner of a popular New York vintage store. He rifled through the racks and instinctively selected an archival Lanvin gown in a geometric pattern (above, centre). “I did a favour for a dear friend and days later the phone rang, and I literally have not stopped working since,” Bolden recalls. “I didn’t know that dressing her for an event was going to snowball my career. It was all kind of a perfect mistake.”

Today, Bolden’s client list is a who’s who of black Hollywood: Union is still on his roster, as are Serena Williams, Alicia Keys, Yara Shahidi, Cynthia Erivo, Taraji P Henson and transgender actor Janet Mock. Bolden, whose process has recently been the focus of a glossy Netflix docu-series Styling Hollywood, could no sooner choose a favourite client than a parent could a favourite child. “They all bring something so different,” Bolden enthuses. “I’m blessed that I get to enjoy and take up space in their lives.”

He sums up his role as less stylist, more motivational coach. “People think that you get a dress and zip it up and it’s beautiful, and that’s not the case,” he says. “For me, it’s like, ‘How do you feel? Do you want to wear your own jewellery? Do you want to wear this really, really uncomfortable shoe?’” Often, they don’t – remember Williams (opposite) in Nike sneakers at the 2019 Met Gala?