Profile 003: Jessica Willis, Independent Stylist

Jessica Willis — better known to her friends and clients as Jess — is a freelance fashion stylist from Los Angeles, working in New York.  She has styled some of coolest, most creative musicians (Childish Gambino, Solange) while also creating stunning work for fashion editorials and branding campaigns, from Gap to Numero Berlin to Interview Magazine, Germany.  Here’s a look at her journey.

So Jess what’s the fullest description of all that you do?

Well the fullest description right now, being that I'm independent, is everything. I'm a brand, I'm an accountant, I’m a manager, I’m an agent  — but my official title is a stylist. There's so much that goes into styling that I can say that, working independently, I check off all those boxes because I have to. And definitely, the business part comes into play, heavy. 

So you say you're independent now.  How have you evolved over the course of your career?

It’s kind of a long winded story but I can tell you!  Basically my background is costuming but not formally trained. I'm from California. I grew up in Santa Monica and I was good in school but I wasn’t really a school person; I wasn’t saying, “I want to go to college.”  I just wanted to take the classes that I really liked.  So it was kind of stressful, thinking about what I wanted to do with the future. But I always loved art, I always loved art history, and I was drawn to sculpture. I actually was in Community College taking art history classes and a few credits away from applying to go to RISD [Rhode Island School of Design]. I thought I was going to train to be a sculptor, an artist. During this time I lived at home and I would do projects all the time in my mom's living room or in her kitchen and just make stuff.  I'm an only child so I always found ways to entertain myself. 

There was a film store I would go to called Vidiots in Santa Monica that rented VHS’s and the staff were all cinema nerds.  A lot of my inspiration came from there because I got to see so many great films.  They suggested this film, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?  The opening scene featured Donyale Luna; she was the first black supermodel to cover British Vogue. After seeing her in the opening sequence modeling these beautiful, wearable sculptures, I was inspired to create similar pieces. A friend of mine photographed them and was asked to be part of a group art show, we printed the photos and included them. At the opening, a costumer named Marco happened to attend and was asking who made the sculptures in the photos.  After telling him that I did, he told me that he had a space that he and his friends had just moved into; it was up the street and I should come and hang out with them sometime. 

He and his group of friends were an art collective. They all had just graduated from CAL Arts and one of them was Rick Owens’ wife's daughter. As Rick Owens had just moved to Paris to open his atelier, they had taken over his space; it was two storefronts and was an open market for creativity. I ended up being there a lot.  Everyone had different talents — photography, costuming and design. I learned a lot from them. 

Not long after being there, they booked their first client which was Lady Gaga. So they began  costuming her “Monster Ball” tour which was the first job that I officially worked on with them. 

I decided to drop out of school and started working full time at the studio. After Gaga, work  started rolling in. A lot of celebrity stylists began coming to the studio to get custom costumes made for tours, performances, and red carpets. During my time at the studio we made custom works for Katy Perry, Nikki Minaj, The Black Eyed Peas, and Beyoncé, to name a few.  We also did commercials where we made wacky props; I remember working on this huge human sock man for a Skittles commercial. It was a really fun time. 

The studio taught me a lot: how to sew, how to make patterns, how to construct a garment, and how to work under pressure and deadlines. After being there for a couple of years they sent me on tour with The Black Eyed Peas  for “The Beginning” and “The End” tours, as a member of the six person traveling wardrobe team.  The tour lasted 3 years and went around the world.  When it ended, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do next. I thought about maybe branching off and doing costuming on my own outside of the studio but then realized that wasn't what I really wanted.  I decided I wanted to pursue styling and start securing my own clients.  From being at the studio I had close proximity to the industry, so I utilized it. The first music video I styled was Azealia Banks for her track “1991”.

Oh my god! You did that?!

Haha, yup! I also did her follow up track “Luxury.”   

Around that time streaming was affecting the music industry so the budgets were a little hard for new talent, since most revenue came from touring.  So my mind shifted because I needed to maintain, and I began looking towards working commercially in advertising.  I adjusted my portfolio to appeal to an advertising eye. To do this, I did test shoots with different photographers and changed my point of view and posted new work on my website and Tumblr.  Within that time a major retailer contacted me through another collaborator to join their team.  I ended up moving to Philly to work as a lead stylist at their HQ.  

I worked at their HQ for two years. I learned a bunch but especially how things worked internally in a corporate setting — I took everything in.  From there I decided that I wanted to move to New York and take all that I learned from my entire  journey and put it into my own brand and my own business model.  First year rocked my world.  New York is tough. But I stayed with it, took the hits and continued to meet people, stayed positive and eventually secured some good clients of my own.

How has your work forced you to grow as a soul? And/or how have all the different ways that you've been growing as a soul kind of forced you to grow in your work? 

I feel a lot more confident in my journey now. At one time it seemed to me that I would blindly step into things or approach things a bit naively, because I hadn’t taken the traditional route of College.  But when looking back I see that I always had drive, willingness to grow, and innate strategy.  So I guess my journey has given me the confidence to trust myself and my own individual path.

Also, moving to New York really forced me to face myself.  I mean, New York is like a mirror. It really forced me to see myself in a new light and dig deep, especially because my first year was so hard. I learned you're kind of all you have at your darkest hour -- it’s a unique place because there can be extreme highs and extreme lows that you have to work through in real time in order to move on.  So I really got to know myself and what I was capable of.  I really feel NY gives you some sort of super power. [laughs]

So what is the role of vulnerability in your work?

I would say vulnerability comes through in the way that I operate behind the scenes. I really love collaborating;  collaboration is the source of how I even started. When working at the studio the head designer Marco never treated us (his team) like we were working for him and didn’t offer value to the projects at hand. We worked as a “creative family” and I really valued that. He respected and valued us and in return we all respected and valued him, each other, and the workspace; that care reflected in the work.  So now that’s the same synergy that I try to recreate when putting together my teams. This is really important because to me being creative is a vulnerable  act— so if you can create in an environment where everyone feels safe and valued then it allows the work to come alive with the same energy.

It sounds like there was foreshadowing of where you would go. If you look back over your life are there other moments that you can identify and say wow those were kind of critical for me becoming the person that I am today? 

LA has a mall culture, mall culture reigned supreme  in the early nineties when I was growing up.Myself, my mom and my aunt, and my grandmother  went to the mall every single weekend, not even all the time to buy anything, but just to browse and bond as a family.   We would sometimes  travel far to go to some of the biggest malls in America; funny enough, one of my favorite films is Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown. I love the movie not only because it’s brilliant and because Pam Grier is “G”  but also because a lot of the film takes place at the Del Amo Mall, which is a mall that me and my family frequented the most —I guess that film gives me some sense of familiarity and comfort.

I worked in a mall; my first job when I was 14 was at Hot Dog on a Stick in the food court. [laughs] The mall was really close to my high school so that’s where I hung out with friends, after school and before my shifts. So the mall and or mall culture was a heavy part of my growing up.  So maybe subconsciously I was being set up for the path that I’m on now, being that I was always surrounded by fashion and advertising.

So thinking about that work and all you’ve done so far when you have felt the most authentic and expansive in the work you’ve done.

I feel like all my work is always honest and authentic because I always try to stick to my gut. Everything is a learning experience and an opportunity for growth.  So I don't know if it’s crazy but I don't know if I've had a moment where I'm like, “Oh this is inauthentic to me.”

No, that's a blessing.  It speaks to your internal navigation and you trusting that. When was the first time you felt seen in your industry?

I think that the first time was actually when I worked on Solange's music video, “When I get Home.”

Previously I was just putting out work that felt good and doing my thing, not really thinking of who was watching. On set Solange told me that she had been following my work for a while. And I was like, [laughs] What?! How! [laughs]

That's incredibly gratifying!  And when was the first time that you saw yourself?  When you saw yourself in your flow and in your power and said, wow this is who I am. This is me. 

I think it was my first really big campaign job which came while I was going through a financially and emotionally tough first year in NY. By a blessing beyond me, I secured this major campaign that really saved me.  I was like ok, I'm back in the game! [laughs] 

On set I was really nervous about the job because it was a big company and there was a lot of expectation. I was working on it with a photographer who actually put me forward, which is another amazing thing. 

To backtrack -- he and I had collaborated before. We had a relationship on Instagram for a really long time, when I still lived in LA, that stemmed from us admiring each other's work and aesthetic.  That lasted for about three years before we actually met. Prior to this campaign shoot, the first time we worked together was for a cover shoot for a magazine called Suited, which was my first shoot in New York; I actually still lived in Philly when that shoot happened. He told me about the opportunity and I then met the editor-in-chief of the magazine and decided to do it. I drove up from Philly to make it happen. The story came out beautifully, went viral and put me in a really good position because a lot of eyes saw it; that shoot essentially got me a lot of work.  And because the photographer and I had an established internet relationship and mutual respect for each other's practice, the chemistry on set was amazing. That was the first time I was like, “Wow. I'm in New York. I'm doing a photo shoot with someone that I really admire.” I remember looking at the [photo preview] screen and gagging over what I saw. This was in turn the photographer that would later on pulled me into my first campaign that I mentioned earlier.

I actually recently had lunch with him and was thanking him for pulling me in [to the campaign that made me feel like I had arrived], and he was like, “Yeah, I got the job and they were basically telling me that they wanted to go with bigger name stylists” -- who, at that time, he didn't even know.  So he explained to them, “No, I don't know who any of those stylists are. Energy and chemistry are really important to me on set and I really want to have Jess there.”  And the company was like, “Jess? Who is that?”  Up until that point I had never done anything like this independently.  He called me and said, “Make the deck of your life because I just put you up for this [campaign] and they’re considering it, but you have to seal the deal.” So I went in, made a crazy deck (presentation), and he fought for me. I ended up booking it.  

It was while working on that job that it all sunk in. I was like, “Wow. I'm here.” It's a full production and a big commercial client. I was nervous going into it but then once I got into the flow of it all and realized, I just know how to do this...all my nerves went away and I got to work.  Everything ended up going great and I secured them as a client that I still have to this day.  That really was when I realized, “I’m here.” 

How do you see the industry evolving for people of color for women of color? How is that growing and changing, or is it? 

I think it's growing in fashion because you see more of us now.  We've always been there to a certain extent, but we’re not always visible and or publicized.  There's more visibility now, even though there still aren't a lot of us; I would love for that to change. I would love to see us in more decision-making roles like, Editor’s-in-Chief, Creative Directors, on executive boards, etc… and not just at the creative level. 

So true. It's important to still have space in that room and even more so for black women to be in there. To have that voice in that visibility for so many different reasons, including who we are now and who has to come after us. 

Yeah, and at first I used to always say everything that I'm doing is for my little cousins. I don't have siblings so my little cousins are like sisters to me. I just wanted them to see me traveling and working towards and achieving my dreams so they knew  that whatever path they chose was possible. I'm a first generation creative in my family — so just for them to see other ways of moving and being able to [live]... You can be an artist, you can be a singer.  Just follow your heart.  In my mind that was the message that I wanted to get across to them, but now because of social media I get a lot of young girls that contact me and let me know that they're really inspired from watching my journey, and that seeing me doing my thing makes them feel like they can do it too. 

That’s the biggest pay off I could ever imagine, because growing up I pretty much never saw myself represented in this type of position. Visibility of seeing myself  is something that I wished that I saw when I was younger. I wish that I saw an eclectic mix of  Black women being represented at Fashion Weeks and giving their opinions on shows (side note, I watched a ton of FashionTV). I never saw myself in those places.  If you never see  yourself in those places, how do you even imagine that there is a place for you?

 Who or what has been the biggest inspiration to you? 

I would say one of my biggest inspirations in fashion is the late Alexander McQueen. “Plato’s Atlantis,” his Spring 2010 showing was the first show to ever stream live. Usually I was only able to see shows after the fact on style.com or watch snippets on YouTube, but never able to see real-time with Paris.  I remember being so excited to finally get an insider view in real time.   I sat on my bed and waited in the [digital] queue to get in and be able to watch it live on Nick Knights Showstudio. I remember Lady Gaga tweeted that she had a surprise and was releasing new music at the end of the show, that tweet ended up crashing the SHOWstudios site from the traffic that followed, since it was new technology at the time.

 I was lucky to be able to watch the show; it was glitchy but I think because I was logged in early I was able to see a bit more than most saw. The show was beautiful, and revolutionary and had me in tears. That's the thing about McQueen; he designed with so much emotion and passion which I always felt and admired. Being able to see the show live and feel the anticipation and buzz really made me determined to get to Paris to experience it all in real life. Unfortunately that was his last show, but that moment was really defining for me and definitely inspired me to get to Paris to experience fashion week for myself which I’m so fortunate to do now.  Now you can stream a show live from your iPhone.  It's so wild that McQueen was thinking of utilizing technology this way 10+ years ago.  That’s why he is my biggest inspiration, he was a true pioneer and visionary.

Given all of this and all that you’ve done and the work that she’s been doing, what legacy are you hoping to build and leave behind with your work? 

 I want to make work  for the future.  I want my work to stand the test of time. So I aim to leave behind a timeless but relevant portfolio that hopefully future talents will appreciate and come back to and ultimately inspire them the way so many before have inspired me.