FASHION

Meet Margot Robbie’s Secret Style Weapon

Named Hollywood’s ‘Most Powerful Stylist’, she’s the architect behind the actress’ recent high fashion makeover

If you’ve noticed a change in Margot Robbie’s red carpet identity of late, you wouldn’t be wrong. Gone are the ultra-sexy, plunging dresses and the roster of impact-less gowns from safe designers who will get you anywhere except the ‘Best Dressed List’.

But, recently, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Robbie was peacocking for the street style photographers at fashion week rather than prepping for red carpet events around the world. The almost 26-year-old Australian actress has walked red carpets in everything from an oversized Isabel Marant tweed jacket to a Chinoiserie gown, complete with fur cuffs, from the ne plus ultra for fashion fanatics: Gucci.

Margot Robbie. She of the glossy hair and the non-toured skin, known for favouring shamelessly sexy gowns, wearing something from the Gucci collections by the cerebral, eclectic, off-centre Alessandro Michele… Huh?

Well, Robbie’s secret is out. And her name is Kate Young, the actress’ new stylist and the woman behind effortlessly flawless red carpet presence of Dakota Johnson, Sienna Miller, Michelle Williams and Natalie Portman. Young is the woman who took Selena Gomez from teeny-bopper to fashion power player with Louis Vuitton on speed dial. She’s also a former assistant to Anna Wintour, and Oxford-educated (she graduated with a degree in English and Art History).

Stylist Kate Young at the launch of her sunglasses range

Young, who has twice been crowned Hollywood’s Most Powerful Stylist by The Hollywood Reporter, has been quietly going about reinventing Robbie’s staid fashion image. For this week’s The Legend of Tarzan press tour, Robbie has been spotted in a revolving door of up-and-coming designers. There’s been a striped jumpsuit by Ace & Jig, a delicious, cherry-print wrap dress from DJ Harley Viera Newton’s brand (accessorised with a pair of KY x Tura sunglasses, designed by none other than Young herself) and then, today, that knockout Gucci gown.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHINAerDCTR/?taken-by=kateyoung

And, with the exception of that embroidered Gucci masterpiece – probably custom – all of what Our Margot has been wearing is relatively affordable. Ace & Jig jumpsuits retail for about $250, while those Kytura sunglasses will give you Margot-levels of Old Hollywood glam for the bargain cost of $295. What price chic, we say.  

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHLfA8nDt7F/?taken-by=kateyoung

“I’m better with celebrity [styling] than anything else because I’m good at figuring people out,” Young told beauty website Into The Gloss earlier this year. “I find the women interesting, what they have to say and what they’re working on.”

Young, who is based in Brooklyn but travels regularly to Los Angeles for work, keeps ring-binders stuffed to the brim with inspiration images for each of her clients. “When I work with my clients, I see what’s interesting to them so that we can magnify who they are and give them a more polished and refined visual representation of that image.”

And what about best-dressed lists? “[They] matter to me, that’s my job,” she told a British newspaper. “My job is to make sure [my clients are] on those lists. If they’re not on the list, I’m failing.”

Well, consider this a success, Kate Young.

Related stories