It’s no secret that Zendaya’s status as a style icon is thanks in part to her stylist Law Roach. In the past 10 years, the self-described “Image architect” went from a Chicago-based vintage fashion dealer to one of the Hollywood’s top stylists, a career that blossomed as his partnership with his closest client grew.
As the actress makes another round of red carpet and press appearances for the season 2 premiere of HBO’s “Euphoria,” Roach’s influence on Zendaya is apparent once again.
“I firmly believe that the universe puts me in people’s lives exactly when it is supposed to happen,” Roach told FN in November, for an interview and photo shoot to celebrate his Style Influencer awards at the 2021 FNAA. “When Zendaya and I started our journey, it was about being a chameleon. Her style is not having a style — it’s being able to do whatever she wants whenever she wants to do it. I think that’s a trend that I was at the forefront of.”
During Roach’s cover shoot, the stylist also got candid about his resumé highlights, curating a list of 10 of his most memorable looks throughout his career thus far. Zendaya tops the list, of course, in looks from Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs and Moschino, plus a shared red carpet moment at the Tommy x Zendaya runway show, held at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem during New York Fashion Week in September 2019.
Among the moments, Roach pointed to a 2018 appearance on the red carpet for “The Greatest Showman,” where Zendaya wore a butterfly-themed Moschino gown. “She’s in this dress that is a monarch butterfly. She was on the carpet doing an interview and a monarch butterfly came down and fluttered in front of her and touched down on her for a brief second. She turned around and said, ‘Did you see that?'”
But the stylist also points to some of his other clients and the major moments they have worked to create, chief among them Celine Dion. It was Roach dressed the star for her 2017 Grammy Awards performance, in a white Stephane Rolland couture gown, belting out her iconic ballad “My Heart Will Go On” for the 20th anniversary of “Titanic.” “I’m standing back and I’m crying, and then I look around in the audience, and people are crying — like, grown men, rappers, are wiping away tears,” he said. “I actually go back and watch this performance on YouTube a lot.”
It was also Roach who put Dion in a Titanic-themed Vetements hoodie. During a visit to Paris during Couture Week, the singer was spotted leaving her hotel in the sweatshirt, which featured actors Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. “I think this look actually changed my career,” said Roach. “I was afraid to ask her what she thought about it because I thought she would think I was being cheesy. I finally got the courage to show it to her, I said, ‘What do you think?’ And she said, ‘What do you mean what do I think? I think it’s cool, I want to wear it today!’ That’s what it means to be a disruptor, you disrupt the way people see you.”
Roach even looks back on his own red carpet looks, including an appearance at Rihanna’s Diamond Ball in 2017, when the stylist wore a bold Schiaparelli couture look. “The ultimate compliment (was) when the bad girl herself walked up to me and she said, ‘What are you wearing? Are you wearing couture to my party? It’s fab.’ For Rihanna to walk across the room and to give you a compliment… that blew my mind. That’s how Rihanna is about clothes, though, if you’re fly, she’s going to tell you you’re fly. I think that’s why we love her.”