Supermodel Gigi Hadid had jaws on the floor when she showed up to the Daily Front Row’s Fashion Los Angeles Awards in a sheer white Yanina Couture gown on March 21. It was just one in a string of recent fashion hits for Hadid, who has become as famous for her off-duty style on the streets of New York and Los Angeles as she is walking the runway — and it’s thanks to her stylist, Monica Rose.
Not since Rachel Zoe — who, in the early 2000s, ushered in “boho chic” after putting her clients Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan in floaty chiffon gowns, floppy hats and oversize sunglasses — has a single stylist wielded so much power to decide what’s “in.” Rose’s signature style — “very sexy with a bit of an edge” — includes dramatic coats, bodycon dresses, crop tops and leather.
Those whom Rose has styled — all of the Kardashian and Jenner women, along with Gigi and Bella Hadid, Chrissy Teigen and Jennifer Lopez — are paparazzi favorites with a combined social-media following in the hundreds of millions.
The Watsonville, Calif., native has been a stylist since 2003, but it was a chance meeting with Kim Kardashian — for a 2007 Complex magazine cover-photo shoot — that sent her career into overdrive.
Kardashian’s husband, Kanye West, often gets the credit for the reality star’s transformation into the Givenchy-clad trendsetter she is today, but Rose was the one who set it into motion. “Getting to watch the evolution of her style has been the most rewarding experience of my career,” Rose tells The Post.
“She said, ‘I’d love for you to come to my house and look at my closet, and let me know what I need to do to get on those best-dressed lists,’ ” recalls Rose, 38, who jokes she threw out around 30 Herve Leger bandage dresses in Kardashian’s closet.
Rose skipped the traditional stylist’s route of fashion school or working as an assistant, instead working her way up in LA boutiques like Poleci and Parallel at the start of her career. Photographer Lionel Deluy asked her to style two editorials for Ocean Drive magazine in 2003, and that’s when she decided to make the career leap. Her next big break came in 2006, when she became the key wardrobe stylist for the E! network.
Kardashian wore a white-and-silver Toni Maticevski organza dress to the 2009 Grammys, which nabbed Rose more attention, but the rise of street style over the last few years has also helped catapult her to superstardom. Women like to follow what celebrities wear on the red carpet, but, increasingly, they are more interested in what they are wearing when they are just walking around. Rose acutely understands this.
“Some of my clients are photographed from the moment that they leave [the] house,” she says. She posts all the outfits she styles (along with all of the designer information) to her nearly 1 million Instagram followers — so women around the world can eagerly copy exactly what Gigi and Kendall are wearing.
On the Kardashian family’s recommendation, a very pregnant Teigen started working with Rose in 2015 and subsequently began wearing Kardashian style staples, like duster coats from the Row and Naked Wardrobe bodysuits. The comparisons quickly rolled in, with Us magazine declaring that Teigen was copying Kim Kardashian’s “style playbook” during her pregnancy.
Rose signatures that have caught on in a big way include monochromatic dressing (“I love pairing neutrals together, it just looks so chic”), mixing expensive designer brands such as Zimmermann and Balenciaga with less expensive finds from Topshop and H&M (“It’s how I shop, too!”) and body-hugging clothing (“a good tailor and Spanx go a long way”).
As for pieces that her clients can’t seem to get enough of? Stuart Weitzman Nudist sandals, Wolford bodysuits and Levi’s Wedgie Fit Jeans (so popular since Kylie started wearing them that they are completely sold out).
As Rose’s fame grows (she recently collaborated on a line of jewelry with the brand Sarah Chloe), she wants everyone to remember that no, her job isn’t just playing dress-up. “Everybody thinks [my job] is just putting together a few outfits,” she says. “It takes six racks of clothes to create that one look.”
Written By Leah Bourne
Source: The New York Post
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