Kate Young is a stylist based in New York. She is the brains behind most of Dakota Johnson, Selena Gomez, Sophie Turner, and Margot Robbie's outfits and her latest YouTube series, Hello Fashion is a wonderful window into how she works to create these looks and what goes on behind the scenes.
Fresh out of university, Kate started her career working as Anna Wintour's assistant – which is a role she still talks about so fondly. As a guest on Monica Ainley and Camille Charriere's podcast Fashion No Filter, she gushes about how exciting it was to do menial tasks like fetching beach towels from Hermes for Wintour to gift to Oscar de la Renta when she vacationed at his home in the Dominican Republic. As someone who shares that enthusiasm for experiencing even the smallest part of the fashion industry, I completely understand why she loved her job as an assistant to one of the most, if not the most powerful woman in fashion. She later worked as a market editor, an editor, and finally, a sittings editor (an older term for stylists) at US Vogue and that set off her career working with celebrities in her early twenties.
She's consulted for brands like Armani Exchange, Victoria's Secret, Ann Taylor, and has styled ad campaigns for luxury brands like Dior, Carolina Herrera and Theory to name a few. On the editorial front, Kate has been a Fashion Editor-at-Large for Interview magazine, and has styled editorials for publications like Porter, Numéro Japan, i-D, and InStyle – it's safe to say she is one of the most sought after stylists in fashion today.
Young's approach to fashion is one I admire very much. She genuinely seems to love all the clothes and accessories she has access to, and very often uses fashion as a form of self expression for herself and her little black book of high-profile clients. In a Hollywood Reporter profile, she talks about how she felt her love for fashion was most recognised and validated during her time at Vogue – she "could talk about shoes for 15 minutes and [they] won't think I'm dumb", which unfortunately is a perception so many people who work in fashion often face outside the four walls of their industry.
Some of my most favourite looks Kate has styled have to be Sienna Miller in Ralph Lauren at the American Woman Project event, in JW Anderson at the Late Show with Seth Myers, Sophie Turner in Isabel Marant, and Dakota Johnson in everything at every event (I swear I'm not biased, I just LOVE Dakota's outfits and am yet to come across one I don't like).
Kate Young is represented by The Wall Group and can be found on Instagram here. The photo of Kate at her desk was taken by Tom Newton in New York, 2016 for Into The Gloss.
