Meet the stylist to the streaming stars

NEW YORK – Streaming services cannot get enough of franchises: swaggering shows with sweeping locations, fertile plots and, perhaps most critically, large casts.

Each season of Netflix’s Bridgerton (2020 to present) centres on a different love story among the eight titular siblings. On HBO’s decades-spanning House Of The Dragon (2022 to present), several characters are played by two actors, one younger and one older.

Characters from The Lord Of The Rings trilogy have resurfaced in The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power (2022 to present) on Prime Video, played by new actors. There are crossover cameos aplenty on many of the Star Wars and Marvel shows on Disney+.

These series are also packed with emerging actors – relatively unknown names assuming their first mainstream roles. Join an ensemble, and fame may await.

In this crowded landscape, actors must also distinguish themselves off-screen.

They have to be charming during press junkets – perhaps play with puppies or become a meme – and wear something memorable on the red carpet. Eventually, they may catch the attention of fashion brands or publications eager to attach themselves to young talent.

A stylist is vital to this process: someone who specialises in dressing for the public eye and who can act as a liaison between the talent and the fashion houses.

As it happens, many of these breakout stars are using the same one.

For the first two seasons of Bridgerton, British actor Luke Newton played a supporting role. Elevated to romantic lead for the third season, he knew his transformation – a “glow-up”, as some call it – could not happen only on-screen.

“This is his first big global press tour,” said Holly White, the 33-year-old stylist who began working with Newton in February 2023, more than a year before the premiere of his Bridgerton season.

In those early days, borrowing looks from brands could be difficult.

Fashion houses prioritise requests from high-profile clients, and Newton was not there yet. He wore Mr Porter, an in-house label of the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, to his first event styled by White, a British Vogue party for the Bafta Awards.

At the Vogue Bafta party a year later, he wore Givenchy. By the final stretch of the Bridgeton press tour, which required more than 30 ensembles, he had been dressed by Armani and Versace.

Part of White’s job is cultivating that “leading-man energy”, she said – leaning into menswear trends like oversize suits or wide-leg pants worn with tight (or no) shirts.

“It gives you space to take risks,” she said. “Ultimately, my job is to build confidence.”

While White and Newton occasionally leaned into romantic Regency accents a la Bridgerton, they mostly saw his press tour as “an opportunity, as the leading man, to show the world who he is”, White said.

Generally, her clients tend to avoid “method” dressing. They are early enough in their careers to know they cannot afford to be pigeonholed as one character.

She and Ed McVey, who played Prince William on The Crown (2016 to 2023), discussed forgoing royal blue, for example.

Markella Kavenagh, the Australian actress who plays a hobbit on The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, has avoided fantasy-themed dresses, gravitating towards “certain outfits that really contrast the character”, she said.

She approaches red-carpet dressing almost as a job application, a way to showcase her range. “It’s almost like you’re playing another character on the carpet and seeing how that can attract other roles,” she said.

White, who lives in London and is typically connected to new clients through agents and publicists, joked about being on the Netflix payroll.

Her clients include several members of the Bridgerton cast, as well as the female lead of Season 4, Yerin Ha. She has also styled the leads of the Queen Charlotte spin-off.

India Amarteifio was 21 when Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023) was released. Her co-star, Corey Mylchreest, was 24.

She considers herself only about a year into the “public image side of my job”, she said. “A lot of us, I would say, including myself, are incredibly introverted naturally.”

It became important to her to assume an identity on the carpet that was different from her identity at home, to use gowns to step into her leading-lady role and then tracksuit bottoms to step back into her homebody role.

“Starting out, I was very unaware of the politics of fashion on red carpets,” Amarteifio said. “I’m understanding that it’s so much more than what you wear. It’s a statement. It’s armour.” NYTIMES