I love this woman Lysa Cooper and I don’t really know her that well but she is my new bff in my head! She recently sat down and did an interview with Vogue Italia and she spilled the tea on the fashion industry, working with celebrity clients like Beyonce and Rihanna and so much more! I was cracking up with her bluntness which I definitely can relate to because people say that I’m like that. Come inside to see what she had to say in her candid interview.
Lysa has styled many celebrities and in her interview she talks openly about working with Rihanna, gives her two scents on celebrities starting clothing lines(lawd) and more, peep what she said, I’m dying laughing lol. To read the full interview click here.
You’ve been in the fashion industry for so long. What is it about fashion that you love?
I guess what I love about fashion is that it’s always changing. It’s always evolving, and it’s always going back and forth. It’s completely unpredictable. It’s fun. It’s vibrant. It’s just that, now I guess fashion isn’t quite that anymore, so you look to the past for it. I’d like to say that it would be great to look to the future. We’ll see what’s around the corner.
What would you like you to see happening fashion-wise?
One of my strongest issues and points with the young women I’ve been working with, is to bring “pretty” back. And I literally mean, bring it back. Pretty means you wash your hair. You smile, and you’re feminine. It doesn’t mean you have to be girly and frilly…just really bringing the beauty of the woman back.
In what ways have you seen the industry change or evolve?
I think we’re all in this weird moment right now and the World Wide Web, as I like to call it because I’m an old lady, has really fucked some shit up. It’s true that there are many pluses to everybody having access to information, but, what happens, when people have access to information, is that they think they are the authority of that information. Or quite frankly, that they made it up themselves. Or even better, that they know better than you do.
So what you’re dealing with is a lot of marketing people, a lot of executives, a lot of people sitting in a room, wearing fucked up shoes, trying to tell me about fashion. And you don’t even know how to get down to the cobbler and fix your heel, and you’re going to tell me what I should be doing? And the fact that marketing is even involved in the hiring is, to me, insane. It’s almost backwards. Shouldn’t we make a beautiful product, and then decide how to sell it, rather than already know what you’re selling and then try to make the product match? It never works and that’s why music has sunk to the level that it has. And that’s why everybody looks like a hooker.
A hooker?
They’ve gone into that Coechella-esque white girl…I don’t really have money, but you know that these shoes cost a $1000 moment. That’s another thing that’s really bothering me. I like a floral print. I like a denim jacket. I like some dirty hair. Throw that all together, that’s not fashion. Everybody is so boring. I’m bored.
You were one of the masterminds behind Rihanna’s image transformation (along with Ursula Stephen and others on the team) that helped propel her into superstardom. What was it like working with Rihanna on the cusp of her transformation?
I worked with her without knowing who she was. She was just some cute girl, and Ellen von Unwerth and I were shooting her. The one good thing she had was Ursula Stephen, who I knew. And so when I walked in, to tell you the truth, the only person out of her crew that I knew was Ursula. And I thought, Ursula is here, so at least I know the level I’m on. Then she wasn’t working yet, with Mylah Morales doing her makeup. Mylah is one of the best in the business. Her hair was to here (shoulder length), and we cut her shit up to here (above her shoulders).
She had a lot of hair back then. And now, there is a lot of hair again. We’ll get into that later. Everybody needs to stop with the hair, including Beyoncé.
So that was how I kind of connected with her. It was on a job with Ellen. They’re all looking at me like “you don’t even know who you’re working with?” And I was like “no, I don’t really care.” She’s cute. She’s nice. She’s an island girl. I had a good time. We did some really sexy pictures. I kept it moving. I’m not a big practitioner of staying too long. Her and Shakira were probably the two girls that I worked with for a long period of time. I’m more of a hit and run kind of a person. I like to hit it and run.
