The night began at Neuehouse in Hollywood.
It was a conversation full of laughter with fashion stylist and image architect Law Roach and his clients, singer Normani and multihyphenate talent Keke Palmer.
The room buzzed with energy in celebration of Roach’s new book, “How to Build a Fashion Icon: Notes on Confidence From the World’s Only Image Architect.” The audience had purchased a copy and tickets to the talk through Reparations Club, a bookshop and creative space for the Black community and people of color owned by L.A. native Jazzi McGilbert.
“I’ve always been a storyteller, and the clothes have just been the words,” said Roach, who made a mark in the industry dressing Zendaya, Céline Dion, Anya Taylor-Joy, Megan Thee Stallion, Anne Hathaway, Hunter Schafer, Bella Hadid, Kerry Washington, Ariana Grande, Mary J. Blige and Mariah Carey, to name a few.
What the fashion world now calls method dressing — when celebrities pay homage to their on-screen characters through their looks on the red carpet — Roach has been doing for years with Zendaya. It was understated at times, more visible at others, like when the star wore a custom Valentino Haute Couture nude dress with black spiderweb embroidery and a black feathered mask to match at the premiere of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
In his book, in eight chapters, Roach dissects his approach and sprinkles lessons along the way.
“F–k the rules,” he said, when asked the key to creating an iconic image. He’s been playing by his own, but it wasn’t always that way. Roach explained he was dressing established Black creatives like Palmer, Tamar Braxton, Brandy, Monica and La La when he met with an agency early on in his career to get signed, and they passed.
“They said, ‘Oh you just need some work,’ but what they were saying is, optically what I was doing wasn’t enough,” he explained. “So, I made this really difficult decision to say, ‘I’m not gonna work with any more Black girls right now.’ I was making so much money working with the women I was working with. I took a pay cut, from $10,000 a day to $750 a look, just so the world could change their perception of what my work could be. And that haunted me for so long, until I got to the point where I’m like, I can do whatever I want to do. I can do Anne Hathaway and the City Girls.”
Palmer, who led the conversation (and has her own book coming), and Normani, off the heels of releasing her debut solo studio album in June, “Dopamine,” shared their experiences with fashion. For Normani, it was a tool when she felt unseen in the girl group Fifth Harmony.
“As a Black girl in the music industry, but also as a woman in society, always being told that you’re not the standard of because or wasn’t enough…I’ve always used fashion as a way to be vocal,” said Normani. “If there were ever a point when I didn’t feel like I was getting parts in songs, I felt I could really depend and rely on my fashion to speak for me. It’s saved me in so many ways, and it was a form of expression that I was able to use when I felt I wasn’t really given the opportunity to have a voice the way I wanted to or deserved to.”
“Fashion sometimes has a bad name,” said Palmer. “It can feel elitist. It can feel un-inclusive. It can feel like something you’re wondering how to crack into and become a part of. But when you do feel like there’s a way that you can show up and you can crack an image that allows you to show up the way you want to show up, to be preserved the way you feel inside, that’s when you have your fashion story.”
The night continued at The West Hollywood Edition’s basement club, Sunset, for the after party. Janelle James, Gigi Goode, Sir John, Jackie Aina and Symone were among the guests that turned up — and let loose until the early morning hours.
