The Oscars style guru behind the stars’ red carpet looks

As the Oscars approach, Kate Young – the stylist who dresses Scarlett Johansson, Dakota Johnson, Margot Robbie and others – talks risk taking, intimacy, and why method dressing drives her “nuts”.

On any given Oscar Sunday, Kate Young is sipping black coffee while perched in a movie star’s bedroom. “If the ceremony starts at 8pm, we’re there in the morning,” says the celebrity stylist, who has dressed Scarlett Johansson, Dakota Johnson, Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez for some of their most iconic red-carpet arrivals. “We try on the dress one last time before the hair-and-makeup team begins their work,” she explains. “But also, I’m kind of a nerd about the Oscars. I treat them like a final exam.”

Young’s academic roots go deep. After graduating from high school in Pennsylvania, she studied English and Art History at Oxford University. “They had us write papers once a week, and then defend our arguments in front of the whole class. What great training to stand in front of a movie studio and explain why their biggest, most bankable star should wear something that might be a little risky!” 

Those risks – like the canary-yellow Vera Wang gown she chose for Michelle Williams at her first Academy Award ceremony in 2006 – have helped propel Young to the status of a Hollywood fashion guru. Today she is among the most influential people in fashion.

After university, Young got a job as the personal assistant of Lynne Franks, the UK fashion publicist and one of the founders of London Fashion Week. A neighbour from childhood then set her up with an interview at Condé Nast, the parent company of Vogue. “Anna Wintour needed an assistant, but pretty soon, it became clear I should be working in The Closet,” says Young, referring to Vogue’s legendary walk-in wardrobe. “Back then, models were on the cover of Vogue, and celebrities were kind of an afterthought.” When an up-and-coming actress had a small story in the magazine, she would volunteer to dress them.

“There’s a real disconnect between high fashion and what people actually wear. Celebrities are the first place that most people see designer fashion. But they still have to be human beings – I mean, can they sit down in a couture evening gown? Can they walk in a pair of designer shoes without someone holding their hand? If not, then I’m not interested, no matter how famous the brand is.”

After shoots with then-emerging stars like Sienna Miller and Katie Holmes, Young would often field requests from Hollywood publicists – or sometimes the actresses themselves – for a last-minute gown. “They’d be like, ‘Shoot, I have this party, can I borrow a designer dress? Can you help?’ But I still never thought it could be a career.” 

Young considers the vivid yellow gown that Williams wore when she was nominated for a best actress Oscar for Brokeback Mountain as an early professional coup. “It was her first nomination, and there was a lot of excitement. So we created this very sparkly moment, especially with the jewellery. Because of its colour, that dress was almost a spotlight in itself, and that was very intentional. We wanted people to keep wanting to look at her. That’s the job of a star.”

As Young became a go-to fashion advisor for Hollywood ingenues, television shows like America’s Next Top Model and films like The Devil Wears Prada turned the once-insular fashion industry into entertainment for millions, and stylist Rachel Zoe landed her own reality TV show. Still, “being a ‘stylist’ wasn’t considered prestigious in the fashion world,” Young insists. “It wasn’t until Instagram started that I realised I should be speaking up more about my work.”

When Instagram launched in 2010, it quickly became a tool for celebrities to wrest control of their image from tabloids and studios alike. “They didn’t have to wait around for a magazine to photograph them in a certain way,” says Young. “They could do that on their own. And I realised, I could do that on my own, too.” 

She began posting images of her red-carpet work for celebrities including Natalie Portman and Isabella Rossellini, alongside more traditional ad campaigns for luxury titans like Dior. “Suddenly at Paris Fashion Week, people are coming up to me to say ‘Congratulations!'” says Young, laughing. “Congratulations for what? Admitting what I do for work?” 

Young’s entrance into social media happened just as major luxury brands were making their clothes available through online shopping sites like Net-a-Porter and MyTheresa. “Suddenly, you could see the red carpet from your phone, and then you could buy the same dress as a celebrity, sometimes instantly,” says Elana Fishman, the editor of the Hollywood fashion hub Page Six Style, which keeps close tabs on red-carpet trend cycles. “For a stylist as influential as Kate Young, that means you’re directly impacting what people are buying, all by picking out someone’s outfit as they walk to Starbucks.”

Last summer, the actress Sophie Turner – a client of Young’s – began pairing her Louis Vuitton purse with $200 baggy, pale-blue striped pyjama bottoms from Woera, an independent, female-led clothing brand in Athens. According to Woera founder Natalia Georgala, the trousers sold out “very fast”. In September, similar styles appeared on the runways at Alberta Ferretti and Burberry. Fishman describes this as  as Young’s “ripple effect” on fashion.

As Young gears up for another red-carpet season – her current roster of clients includes Turner along with Julianne Moore, Scarlett Johansson and Dakota Johnson – she says that studios now invest a considerable amount of money to ensure their stars stay top-of-mind on Instagram and TikTok, which often involves them wearing talked-about outfits.

A recent trend, nicknamed “method dressing”, involves celebrities evoking their characters at film premieres and press junkets. (See the Wicked promotional tour, with Ariana Grande styled by Mimi Cuttrell in pink poufs, and Cynthia Erivo in witchy green gowns chosen by stylist Jason Bolden.) “The studios are driving that trend,” says Young, “because the fashion becomes an extension of the movie marketing”. Young points to the success of Barbie and its all-pink-everything screenings as the most famous example. “I understand the impulse behind it, but it drives me nuts,” she admits. “Like, I’m sorry, but Dakota Johnson is not going to wear a spider print every time she talks about Madame Web.”

Instead of bugging out on insect fashion, Young prefers to feature work by as many independent brands as possible, mixing usual style suspects like Gucci and Chanel with made-in-New-York dresses by Jamaican British designer Carly Cushnie, jeans from the teeny vintage dealer Still Here, and jewellery that she co-creates with designer Monica Vikander, as seen on Jennifer Lawrence and Christy Turlington. 

“You want to lend your platform to new talent, to small businesses, to people working with recycled fabric,” she says. “But it has to look amazing, too. I do a lot of research to find clothes that check both boxes.” 

It is time for Young to head to a photo shoot. As we say goodbye, I ask if she has advice for those wanting to enter Hollywood’s fashion machine. “I mean, be kind. Work is so much better when you have friends,” she says. “On a practical level, you’re going to be seeing your clients naked every day. You’ll know when they’re sick or pregnant, or trying to get pregnant. It’s very intimate. It makes you very close to people very quickly.”

Young says she wishes someone told her how emotional the process of styling an actress could become. “It’s not something you can study or prepare for;” she says. “It’s just what happens when someone’s in their underwear and the Oscars are two hours away. That’s definitely one way to bond.”