How to get dressed with Brie Welch
The stylist and costume designer on what makes a look good
You know those people who wreak coolness? Like you look at them and kind of squint your eye as you’re sizing them up and down to ascertain how much of how they carry themselves can be translated on your person.
Nothing is ever so satisfying as when you realize they’re also, actually, really nice. Brie Welch, the stylist, creative consultant and very good dancer who lives in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn is one such unicorn with a scrunchie on her wrist and shirt around her waist.
Below, a conversation on the thrill of shopping in store, what most people don’t realize about the task of styling and how you’re really supposed to treat luxury handbags.
Read the last edition of How to Get Dressed with Rachel Tashjian Wise here.
What to wear on the weekend
I wake up, do stretches, go out for coffee — lately, I’ve been taking my notebook with me and doing some morning pages. I like to be dressed in case I’m not going home so this is a good outfit for that.
On the weekends, lately, I’ve been trying to stay around my neighborhood. I think one thing about living in New York that maybe people don’t realize is that it feels good to learn your neighborhood — it helps you to enjoy it and appreciate it more.
Although this past weekend, I went to the Guggenheim uptown and The Met. I like to go see something once a month, mostly because I get into lulls in New York where I’m uninspired. The museums always reignite an interest in a color or a shape or even a word. Like last week, I clocked the word “Pomegranate” and for whatever the reason, have been thinking about it ever since.
Everything I’m wearing is particularly relevant to summer. When I get up to go out of my house, I just want to be able to breathe but also not look like I’m a slob. I do that sometimes, but it just feels bad. If I’m in the neighborhood, I’m picking up packages or sending some back, or getting my dry cleaning, or a juice. If I’m in the city, I’m probably going to dance or getting my shoes from the repairman. I don’t have a great person, but I go for convenience to this place on 13th and 4th and it gets the job done well enough.
The shirt is from Everlane — it’s pretty recent, this was gifted for a dinner. The slip dress is a vintage Versace lingerie dress that I bought from The Room Vintage, a store in Paris.
My sneakers are Bode x Nike, the bag is Proenza white label and the sunglasses are from a brand called Vada.
I also bike around a lot and I would do that in this outfit; I’ve been taking these random bike trips around Brooklyn to discover new neighborhoods. Most recently I found this dreamy bike path in Canarasie, its right along the water and sort of looks like its enclosed in greenery. You almost forget you’re in New York.
Getting dressed for work
No two weeks are the same — it’s rare that I spend more than two days working from home in a week, I’m in the city a lot for shoots, but when I don’t have to go in, I stay here.
I moved to New York like 15 years ago from LA, but grew up in Thousand Oaks. I came here during the recession, my job couldn’t keep me full time and I had a lot of college friends here so it made sense.
At school, I studied fashion design and when I moved here, I interviewed at all these design companies but it didn’t feel right — they were all these random companies that basically copied everything everyone else made so I worked at a pizza restaurant, and then a showroom for Vena Cava and then at a knitting store, then I moved into PR and after that job, I went to work for Garance [Dore]. I was there for 3 and a half years, and it’s already been 7 years since then. [When people ask what I do], I tell them I’m a costume designer and stylist.
When I was working in PR, I met a lot of editors and stylists and my boyfriend at the time had a store so I would help him style things there and then I blindly applied to Garance and got hired. I was fashion editor there, but also wrote all the fashion stories and produced our shoots — I casted and styled them most of them. I left because I needed a change and to branch out on my own. I’d learned so much and gained a lot of experience and I felt confident that I would be okay on my own.
I started reaching out to people who I knew, asking if they needed styling help. It’s definitely a vulnerable position to put yourself in, but I didn’t have another option. I’m also used to trying out a million things before I find the thing that works.
I started working with Katie [Holmes], [as her stylist] when we met through a mutual friend, David, who called me and asked if I’d want to shoot her for a magazine piece. I flew back from a job I was on to do it. It seemed like a really cool opportunity. And she dances too, so we had a lot in common.
The thing you often don’t realize with styling is that even though you’re combining your taste with someone else’s style, you have to respect their taste too. And with someone like Katie — she’s a 45 year old woman who loves fashion and has been in the industry since she was a teenager, so I am always thinking about that when pulling for her. She knows what she likes and I always want to respect that.
There’s also the lifestyle element — there are so many variables that work into how you help someone get dressed. Do they have kids, how do they want to be perceived, both by their kids and the public, what role does the public play in the look, what’s the difference between what they wear for work and what they wear for play.
There’s definitely a big difference between working with brand clients and celebrity clients. I find that the brand clients never like the first thing you show to them. What they’re thinking about is just different. It’s less about how they’re going to look and much more about how they’re going to appeal to the desired market they are trying to attach themselves to. This is why I usually don’t show brand clients the best stuff first.
Hmmm, what’s something more people don’t know about styling? Style someone else (so, not self-styling) is, 90% of the time, very unglamorous. It’s a lot of schlepping and catering to the others and doing it behind the scenes. Only recently have there been more opportunities for stylists to be a bigger part of the final picture that is often seen (so for example, being featured discussing the fashion on set, etc).
In August, I’ll be part of the launch of this platform called The Edité that connects anyone who is interested in engaging with a top stylist via virtual consultation, so as far as taking on new clients, we’ll see what happens there.
This is an ideal work outfit because often when I’m on set, I’m crouching down or on my knees pinning something — I like to wear pants when I work. For whatever reason, the big sleeves don’t bother me. I got the shirt when I was in Paris recently from L’Eclaireur. The pants are Junya Watanabe from Joan Shepp in Philadelphia. The shoes are Armani from The Real Real and the tank is Rick Owens from SSENSE.
I don’t usually buy new things — I mostly shop vintage. There’s a more intimate connection that forms with vintage shopping because of the element of discovery, I think. But I did buy some new stuff recently, when I was in Paris. It’s interesting, you really do get a shopping high from it. Which I think is perpetuated by walking into the brand store. It feels very old school and [when you buy something,] you walk out with this shiny bag that has a carefully assembled box inside and you feel so excited about the new thing.
The treatment is different in a store, and there is an impulse about taking the new thing with you. It’s a rush! You don’t get that with vintage, it doesn’t have the shine of new, so maybe in that way, it’s more honest shopping, but I totally understand why people save their shopping boxes and bags.
What did I buy? A pair of mesh Loewe kitten heels, an Eres swimsuit, the Y Project shirt I’m wearing, an Anne Demeulemeester vest and a Y Project denim skirt.
I’m a big Real Real shopper too — begrudgingly! Because it’s like a trap. You can spend forever on there. And it feels love/hate if you’re also a seller because it sucks when you realize there is like, no way to make money, everything gets sold way under value but then again how much do you revel in finding something you love for so cheap.
My favorite thing to buy on TRR is old suits — the search term I plug in is “pants set” or “set.”
What to wear to dinner
When I’m getting dressed, I usually start with something I’m really excited to wear and then I go the furthest fantasy I can and start scaling it back from there. I usually go through like 8 degrees of scale-back before I land on the thing I’m actually going to pair with the piece that excites me. Which is always what feels best.
What I mean by best is when you’ve figured out a balance that makes you feel internally and externally understood. I never want to feel like a caricature of myself. It’s funny to say because [most people who work in fashion] never want to look like we’ve tried but the irony is that for fashion to work there has to be an element of fantasy, which takes effort! In the instance of this outfit,
I was most excited about wearing this Ann Demeulemeester vest, and I started with a pair of silver jeans —
then wound it back to these mens shorts.
I usually know I’m ready when I feel like, “Oh! This works,” which means a combination of feeling like myself and like I’m not going to have to fuss.
I think when you work in fashion for long enough, you start to need distance from the stuff you’re around all day — you don’t want to wear it as much and it’s good, because you also appreciate it more. It preserves the excitement factor.
The look that has been in top rotation
I’m wearing this outfit anywhere.