Celebrity diaries wiped clean, stylists to the likes of Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and LeBron James pause for breath and ponder what fashion’s new normal will be

They have some of the most coveted – and most exhausting – jobs in the industry, but celebrity stylists have been forced by the coronavirus to swap the fashion and film whirlwind for Netflix and binge watching.

In any other year, celebrity stylists would be existing on black coffee and naps on their clients’ private jets right now. After the gloss of fashion weeks and the whirlwind of April’s Coachella music festival in California comes the luxury-brand gluttony of the Met Gala in New York in early May – where actors, music stars and magazine editors converge to show off their fashion credentials.

From there, it’s on to the south of France and the premieres, gala dinners and rooftop champagne parties surrounding the Cannes Film Festival.

Covid-19 has seen the entire styling calendar crossed through with red pen from now until at least July, and stylists’ fears are about more than just lost exposure. They may have drunk cocktails in the most expensive hotels in the world – and seen the best-looking people on earth in their underwear – but they often live a precarious financial existence.

In the past, studios would pay chunky day rates to those tasked with making their stars look beautiful for award shows and press junkets, but as film has lost revenue to streaming services, stylists are now paid on a per-look basis.

This means that even the most coveted stylists in Los Angeles and Shanghai have to take on an endless hamster wheel of events, red carpets and everyday jobs to make ends meet.

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If you’re a famous stylist for household-name celebrities, you can command around US$500 for a single look, but this usually includes shipping clothes and accessories around the world, tailoring gowns, and dry cleaning them afterwards.

Most stylists need assistants to help with the administrative work – and as a result, few have bulging savings accounts to see them through a time when the entire world is wearing sweatpants.

“To put it bluntly, my business has basically stopped completely,” says Madison Guest, a Los Angeles-based stylist working with clients like Dascha Polanco from Orange is the New Black. “Before the stay-at-home orders went into effect, I was having daily fittings with my busiest clients. Luckily, we had extra outfits on hand, so those have been a big help for the ones I have still doing some online press.”

The cancellation of Cannes has had the biggest impact on Kirsty Stewart, a London-based stylist who works with British stars such as Pixie Lott and Amy Jackson.

“I basically saw three months of work disappear overnight,” she says. “My clients’ schedules are completely cleared and it has become increasingly difficult to call in samples. I have tried to be proactive by prepping for events that I still have in the diary, but brands aren’t sending anything out right now.”

Stewart adds that even when her clients are making videos for YouTube or TikTok, they are wearing casual clothes to do so – although she has sent “some smart loungewear” for that purpose.

Marcus Paul, a stylist based in New York who dresses stars including Jay Z, LeBron James, Pusha T and Desiigner, is equally concerned.

“It has definitely slowed my business down drastically,” he says. “I was going to be working Coachella, and I had my own collaboration coming out with a German label, which has had to be postponed as the factories have shut down and retail has slumped.

“None of my clients have anything in the diary they need styling for – instead they’re using this fallow time to work on their albums or to have a pause. All in all, it’s not great for the industry or for any of us stylists; who knows if, post-pandemic, people will even want to go out shopping.”

Fashion sales have plummeted since February, while global interest in celebrity culture has also fallen. The public raised a collective eyebrow when Gal Gadot coordinated a mass reimagining of John Lennon’s Imagine last month, enlisting Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell and Cara Delevingne, among others, to sing a line each from their glossy mansions.

Madonna, meanwhile, has taken to posting her “quarantine diaries”, the most famous of which shows her lying in a rose-petal-filled bath, describing Covid-19 as “the great equaliser”.

All this means that, even though celebrities could be promoting films or doing interviews online, the public appetite for them simply isn’t there, and many are lying low. Many magazines are going the route of American and Italian Vogue – and opting for an arty cover – while a few are still featuring stars, even shipping over cameras and boxes of clothes to celebrities’ house for a lockdown, DIY photo shoot.

“I believe people will want to see celebs out and about and dressing up again,” says Paul. “But at this moment in time, when we don’t know when things will get back to normal, it’s still far too early.

“Once we have a clearer idea about the future, we’ll have to start communicating and working out how to stay relevant, and in the future, I think there will be far more focus on creating content and having a digital space than there is now.”

Celebrity stylists have been relying on their online platforms for a while. On sites such as Instagram, stylists have become influencers in their own right, some with followings almost as large as their clients’.

“I’ve been working with a few showrooms in LA to create content for them; shooting collections on myself in my home,” explains Jaclyn Fleurant, who lives in Los Angeles and who has worked with A-list clients, including Beyoncé.

Others have pivoted to education and are carving out entirely new roles for themselves.

“Right now, all of my traditional styling jobs have been paused,” explains Andrew Gelwicks, a New York- and Los Angeles-based stylist who works with Nicole Scherzinger, among others.

“Instead – because so many fashion internships have been cancelled this summer – I’ve made a comprehensive six-week, online course called Fashion Career Accelerator, as the next best option for aspiring fashion professionals.”

And then there are the influencers. Fil Xiaobai, who has more than a million Weibo followers and a job working as personal stylist to singer Kris Wu, has continued promoting brands such as Loewe throughout lockdown even though her celebrity commitments have fallen by the wayside.

This is partly because – unlike Europe and the United States, where influencers are feeling the heat as brands cancel contracts – in China that revenue stream has continued, albeit it is down to a trickle until normal life resumes.

The question of what normal life will look like for celebrity stylists post-virus has no answer.

“The future looks pretty uncertain,” says Stewart. “Brands will need to tighten budgets, and artist tours and music festivals are unlikely to happen any time soon, so I expect that will have a huge impact on stylists.

“However, on a more positive note, it gives us the time to pause and reflect on our industry. After all of this is over, we can start to rebuild in a way that is not only more sustainable, but also more creative – and change the future of fashion as we do so.”