Before hitting the 2017 MTV Movie & TV Awards, singer-actress Zendaya showed off her smooth dance moves to Bruno Mars’ infectious track “24K Magic” on Lip Sync Battle with Spider-Man: Homecoming costar Tom Holland. However, once she arrived on the 26th annual ceremony’s red carpet, her sheer, bohemian chic, embellished gown with loose-fitting bell sleeves stole the show. Guiding her fashion trajectory from fresh-faced Disney starlet to a full-fledged style star — she recently fronted Dolce & Gabanna’s Spring 2017 campaign — is self-proclaimed “image architect” Law Roach.
Roach, who recently graced the cover of The Hollywood Reporter alongside Zendaya and fellow client Celine Dion (he also styles Ariana Grande), exclusively talked with Billboard about Zendaya’s stylish red carpet look, receiving sartorial love from Rihanna and what it really takes to launch a clothing line below.
You and Zendaya first met through a client of your store Deliciously Vintage when she was 15. Now that it’s been five years of working together, tell us how Zendaya’s style has evolved over time under your guidance.
Well, I think we both evolved together. She has no fears when it comes to fashion, and it allows us just to try things — different hair and makeup looks — and do things that are definitely on trend and not follow the rules. I call her my style soulmate, and our relationship is perfection. I can literally bring a rack of 20 things, and I’ll have my favorite nestled in the middle somewhere, and she’ll come right back to it and say, ‘I love this one.’ Nine times out of 10 that always happens. And now everything we do is just second nature to us. They way we think, the ideas we both have, it’s almost kinda scary in a (great) way.
What about her everyday style compared to her red carpet looks?
Total opposite. She’s such a tomboy and is just so happy in sweats and sneakers. I’m the one pushing for her to wear sunglasses with a nice bag in the airport in case she gets papped. And she’ll say, ‘Nobody cares about that.’ That part of her is the core of who she is, although for the red carpet she loves to be that other girl that’s super glamorous who people love.
Speaking of red carpet, what is your favorite Zendaya red carpet moment of all time?
Well, they’re all kind of like my babies and it’s hard to love one more than the other. My top three would be The Met last year with Michael Kors where she wore a liquid, fun gold dress with the bowl cut and heavy eye [makeup]. I’m obsessed with that look, and she just looked unreal to me. I also loved the [2015] Oscars — the controversial look about her faux dreads and Vivienne Westwood bridal gown — both of those were really special to me. My third favorite is when she wore a wore a cropped bustier with a skirt and this little petite, army green colored baseball cap to the BMI Awards. This was before the whole athleisure thing came around, and now you see Chanel doing baseball caps with dresses.
You two also work on her wardrobe line Daya by Zendaya. What has that adventure been like?
It’s tough when you don’t just put your name on something. You look at every single design and sketch, you take all the phone calls and go to all the meetings, it’s a learning process. We both love fashion, but when you’re actually producing something it’s a whole other level, and we have to find the time to juggle it all. For us, working as partners, we compromise. If she doesn’t like a shirt that I love, she’ll say, ‘Okay, I’ll keep that shirt for these pants.’ If you’re going to have your hands in it, then you’ll have to work hard for that. We’re enjoying it and growing and learning together; it’s another facet of what we do.
What excites her the most stylewise?
She’s just a character, a chameleon on the carpet, that it’s almost like ‘who are we going to do today.’ Like this year’s Met was an entirely different girl from last year’s Met. That’s what makes her excited because there’s no limit. When you step into something, and you don’t have any concern about what people are going to say the next day, then you’re so free and able to fly as high as you can. And I think that’s what excites us both about when we put on clothes and she steps on that carpet.
Rihanna crowned Zendaya the ‘brown goddess’ of the Met Gala on Instagram. Did you see that?
Yes! We both died. It was all about the full look: her orange lip, the [Dolce & Gabbana tropical parrot] dress, her natural hair. And that’s kind of what I do when I go in, and for me, I have to control the whole look. I can’t just bring the dress, although sometimes we work with hair stylists and makeup artists, it’s always a vision. Once we picked the gown, I dreamt about that makeup and hair, and looked at all the Comme des Garcons past runway shows and saw what she [designer Rei Kawakubo] did with the hair. The hair was always a little bit avant-garde, not such a traditionally pretty look, you know what I mean? It was a combination of both of those things, and for us, it was always about the full look.
Is that why you call yourself an image architect rather than a stylist?
Yes, absolutely. I’m good at starting from scratch and love to work with girls who haven’t fully developed their fashion blueprint or someone who has a certain way that people see them in the world of fashion. Like Celine [Dion], people hadn’t thought of her as a fashion girl, but when I met her, I was like, ‘Oh no, this woman knows [style] and has an incredible archive.’ So I created another blueprint for her so that she can be looked at a different way and get invited to the Met Gala [where she wore custom Versace] and do all of these other things in the world of fashion that she hasn’t been privy to because nobody really knew that a.) That’s what she wanted to do or b.) She was capable of doing it.
That’s how the image architect thing comes in. I want to work with people so well, where you could say, ‘Oh shit, she’s working Law. I knew something had changed, look at her now.’ My thing is that we do a lot of thinking and research. For us, it’s very cerebral. It’s not just ‘Oh, well that’s pretty, let’s go with that.’ And of course I’m not saying any other stylist does that, I don’t know what their process is, but our process is really thought out.
So what is Zendaya wearing tonight for the MTV Movie & TV Awards?
Tonight she’s wearing a stunning piece from Zuhair Murad Couture‘s Fall-Winter 2016/2017 collection. The ankle-length dress is covered in beautiful 3D appliqués and embellishments and has a plunging neckline. Her bronze open-toe heels with an ankle strap are from Le Silla.