Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Rachel Zoe and you're listening to Climbing
Speaker 1: in Heels for your weekly dose of glamour, inspiration and
Speaker 1: of course fun. My styling career really really caught fire
Speaker 1: in the late nineties and early two thousands, and I
Speaker 1: at the time was working in the music industry. In fact,
Speaker 1: I was eating, sleeping, and breathing in the music industry.
Speaker 1: I worked with a lot of everyone's favorites. So it's
Speaker 1: very exciting and lots to discuss. So here to help
Speaker 1: me dive into some of my more famous Y two
Speaker 1: K is my producer Mary Elizabeth, So let's get right
Speaker 1: into it. How exciting.
Speaker 2: As Rachel mentioned, for some reason since January, you have
Speaker 2: been getting a lot of requests for quotes or stories
Speaker 2: or trending topics about your experience in your Y two
Speaker 2: K styling era. So, as you mentioned, you started in
Speaker 2: the music industry in the days when music videos were
Speaker 2: the biggest marketing tool for a label and a song.
Speaker 2: So the days of TRL which I was obsessed with,
Speaker 2: the butterfly hair clips, the capri pants, the layering of
Speaker 2: the tank tops. The Y two K fashion is back,
Speaker 2: whether we like it or not, and I think before.
Speaker 2: So I put up in your story for our listeners
Speaker 2: to answer questions or ask you questions that you will
Speaker 2: answer about Y two K specifically, and it, by far
Speaker 2: and away got more responses than maybe any sticker I've
Speaker 2: put on your story like ever. So we're going to
Speaker 2: jump into listener questions that they have about Y two
Speaker 2: K and your contributions to the era. But I thought
Speaker 2: it would be fun first to lay the scene for everybody.
Speaker 1: Also, I want a sidebar. You said late nineties or
Speaker 1: I said late nineties, I wasn't. I mean I was
Speaker 1: like a kid then? Oh sure, for sure? Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: a kid she was to do anything in the night.
Speaker 2: Definitely, not a full adult, definitely not. Yes, I must
Speaker 2: have been wrong on that. So I thought it would
Speaker 2: be fun to first lay the scene for listeners about
Speaker 2: the iconic music videos that you worked on, because all
Speaker 2: the millennials like me who know and love you from
Speaker 2: the Rachel Zoe Project grew up in that era of
Speaker 2: like I said, TRL and waited on baited breath for
Speaker 2: our favorite pop stars to drop their music videos, and
Speaker 2: you were a part of some truly truly iconic ones
Speaker 2: that I don't know if everybody.
Speaker 1: Knows, well, I'll be honest with you, I don't know
Speaker 1: all of them, because I will be very honest with
Speaker 1: you my life from the minute I went freelance, I
Speaker 1: legitimately it's like I always say to you on the regular,
Speaker 1: like it's a blur, actual blurb. Because the music industry
Speaker 1: was on such fire, and the amount of money being
Speaker 1: spent on every aspect of the artists their life and
Speaker 1: all that was so intense, and like the speed at
Speaker 1: which these pop stars were working, shooting, touring, performing I
Speaker 1: and I was like me myself, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: one assistant with like fifty racks of clothes. So I like,
Speaker 1: when you say it, I'll be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: of course they did that. But like if you asked me,
Speaker 1: I could remember probably like a handful of them. And
Speaker 1: like when I hear a song now, like of Backstreet
Speaker 1: Enrique or Jessica Simpson or Brittany, I'll be like, oh
Speaker 1: I did that, You're like, oh, crap, I was on set.
Speaker 1: I was actually on so okay, I did that? Look right,
Speaker 1: I love it, Okay, so let's kick it off.
Speaker 2: I mean, the Y two K Queen was definitely Miss
Speaker 2: Britney Spears yes, and you did work with Britney Spears.
Speaker 2: I did, And you did work on correct me if
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, hit me baby one more time.
Speaker 1: I did. So that was actually one of my very
Speaker 1: first freelance jobs because there was a woman. There is
Speaker 1: a woman out in the world. I haven't spoken to
Speaker 1: her in forever, but Hailey Hill, who was my boss
Speaker 1: at YM magazine. And Haley was the senior fashion editor
Speaker 1: fashion director at the time, and she would get booked
Speaker 1: on these big commercials and stuff, and she was booked
Speaker 1: on Britney's video and stuff through Okay, her manager, Sonya
Speaker 1: Muckel Okay, and Sonya who I remember, like yesterday. I
Speaker 1: think I ran into her in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: It was wild and Haley needed help and she had
Speaker 1: two jobs booked at the same time. Its like one
Speaker 1: of those things. So I was still working at the
Speaker 1: magazine and I think it was being shot on a weekend, okay.
Speaker 1: And do you remember where it was being shot? No,
Speaker 1: Like I want to see Brooklyn Queens, Like I can't,
Speaker 1: you know, like at a stage or studio. I can't remember,
Speaker 1: but that's for some reason feeling familiar. And she called
Speaker 1: me because she needed help and so I went in
Speaker 1: and started just working on it and like pulling the
Speaker 1: clothes and doing the prep and like being on set
Speaker 1: and whatever. And I think at the time, like I
Speaker 1: was so obsessed with being great at my job that
Speaker 1: I never looked at stars as stars, if that makes sense. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think in the moment I knew or cared
Speaker 1: that much that it was Brittany. I knew, but it
Speaker 1: was more like I was such a fashion girl that
Speaker 1: to me, like if you were, like you're going on
Speaker 1: set with Carlagerfeld and Kate Moss, that would have given
Speaker 1: me a cold sweat panic attack. Sure, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And so I think just.
Speaker 2: It worked in your favor that you weren't a fact
Speaker 2: starship or just obsessed with exactly music it served it
Speaker 2: served you well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was able to, I think, maintain professionalism without
Speaker 1: like freaking out because I was so young. Yeah you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I was so young, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt so much older than these I mean kids,
Speaker 1: they were really some of them were, you know, like
Speaker 1: Kevin Richardson was not a kid, right, Okay.
Speaker 2: So that leads me to the next group, which is
Speaker 2: the Backstreet Boy.
Speaker 1: But the Brittany. I want to touch on one seck
Speaker 1: because after I did these few jobs working with Haley,
Speaker 1: that is when that was the impetus for me going freelance,
Speaker 1: really because I made so much money on those jobs
Speaker 1: that I was like, what the hell am I doing?
Speaker 1: This is creative, this is fun, Like I'm out in
Speaker 1: the world. I'm not sitting in a fluorescent lit office,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not locked in a fashion closet. And
Speaker 1: so this was sort of like I just felt alive, honestly,
Speaker 1: And that is when I made the movie to go freelance,
Speaker 1: like shortly after that, because then I got promoted and
Speaker 1: then I and then I went freelance probably later that year,
Speaker 1: left there as senior fashion editor. But it's important because
Speaker 1: as senior fashion editor, I was styling a lot of
Speaker 1: shoots for the magazine and all the covers. Sure, and
Speaker 1: I met a lot of publicists and a lot of
Speaker 1: pop stars and actors, Like that's when I met Gwen Stefani,
Speaker 1: how she got on cover shoots Drew Barry. But that's
Speaker 1: really how you got your foot into this, like music,
Speaker 1: That's how I met the publicist love that later helped
Speaker 1: would hire you to hire me so I made a
Speaker 1: lot of connections there, and then after I was working
Speaker 1: with Brittany, I worked with Brittany on my own a bunch.
Speaker 1: I flew to the World Music Awards to Monaco for
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. I thought I was never going to
Speaker 1: work again, because I got there. I flew with her
Speaker 1: and the bodyguards and like the team, and I just
Speaker 1: remember like I had like no notice. It was sort
Speaker 1: of like you're leaving tomorrow and she she has to
Speaker 1: be out World Music Awards and Monica and you're going.
Speaker 1: And I was so again, I was so young, so
Speaker 1: it was like, okay, you know, I just never unpacked
Speaker 1: a suitcase and like blah blah blah, and I went
Speaker 1: and I remember getting there and I remember that the
Speaker 1: managing team going, okay, everybody break, take a nap, take
Speaker 1: a shower, whatever, And you know, me, Mary like, I
Speaker 1: don't nap, I don't sleep. But what did I do?
Speaker 1: I fucking blacked out. I blacked out. And the next
Speaker 1: thing I remember is security banging on my door telling
Speaker 1: me we had to leave. She was going on stage.
Speaker 1: I had to get her ready. I'm by myself. I
Speaker 1: had no assistant, like I was literally that was like
Speaker 1: one of the most panicing for you in my life.
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine it, but for you to fall
Speaker 2: asleep that hardcore because I know you sleep like because
Speaker 2: it lighted all night, worst sleeper maybe in the history
Speaker 2: of the world, you must have been like truly exhausted.
Speaker 1: But that is that is really and it was terrifying.
Speaker 1: I was like, she's going to miss her performance or
Speaker 1: go on naked because I fell asleep, and I'll never
Speaker 1: work again. And by the way, that was truly the
Speaker 1: feeling and psychology that I had, probably for the rest
Speaker 1: of my career was the was the like, if you
Speaker 1: fuck this up, you're you're not working anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it, You're just so you're working with Brittany.
Speaker 2: How was Brittany then? Was she?
Speaker 1: You know, she was great? This is the sort of
Speaker 1: the beginning of her mega success. She was great, and
Speaker 1: I think she was great. She was cute, she was bubbly,
Speaker 1: she was fun. Was she collaborative with you? Did she
Speaker 1: like getting dressed? Or was she stubborn? Uh? It was more.
Speaker 1: What I very clearly remember was that I was trying
Speaker 1: to I think make her a little uh, sort of
Speaker 1: create a more what do I say fashion. I guess
Speaker 1: maybe less sort of ripped everything, yeah, whatever, And I
Speaker 1: was trying to do a little more fashion than I remember,
Speaker 1: a little more polish. And I remember she was per
Speaker 1: forming share song at the World Music Awards. You know
Speaker 1: what's it? An? A rhythm to oh lad daddity mmm
Speaker 1: mm hmm. Yeah, I remember the name of the song.
Speaker 1: When the beat goes on, Oh my god, thank you.
Speaker 1: My brain hurts from thinking about that. And she was incredible,
Speaker 1: and she had like long hair, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give her this like very share like
Speaker 1: kind of try to do this like Bob Mackie, like,
Speaker 1: you know, just a very like whatever. And I just
Speaker 1: remember it was this long, like I believe, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly from five hundred years ago, Donna Karen like
Speaker 1: did this like custom like cature at that time, because
Speaker 1: we used to do all these awards show dressing looks together,
Speaker 1: like we would do custom things for clients. But she
Speaker 1: was doing this very special. It was like this long
Speaker 1: beaded like almost like a mermaid fishtail long skirt, and
Speaker 1: and basically we put this top on her and I
Speaker 1: just remember like two minutes before, two minutes before she
Speaker 1: went on stage. She went in the bathroom and cut it.
Speaker 1: She cut the guitar, She cut the guitar, She cropped
Speaker 1: the top to just below her boobs. If I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: I cried yikes. Yeah, I mean as the stylist. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you cried.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I cried only because I was like, am I fired
Speaker 1: from Donna Karen?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: For life? Have I ruined my reputation? Yeah? Did she
Speaker 1: hate what I styled? But she looked incredible, she performed great.
Speaker 1: We all went to this big dinner with Prince Albert,
Speaker 1: my god, and at that that was the beginning of
Speaker 1: my very surreal life. Yeah. Really, and that's twenty years.
Speaker 1: Jumped you to Backstreet Boys, which yes, same same management.
Speaker 1: It was with the Firm, a place called the Firm,
Speaker 1: which had Enrique Backstreet and Brittany and I want to
Speaker 1: say in sync, but maybe that's wrong.
Speaker 2: That wrong. For millennial girls like me, you were either
Speaker 2: Backsheater and sink and there was no Well, it's.
Speaker 1: Like are you Edward or are you Jacob? Of course
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. And now with summary term pretty, it's are
Speaker 1: you Conrad or are you Jeremy.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it goes on forever. Doesn't it
Speaker 2: Backstreet Boys equal to basically Beatlemania beyond in terms of
Speaker 2: like beyond the logistics of them traveling touring being right,
Speaker 2: it must have been so insane to not only have
Speaker 2: one very famous client, but five very famous I.
Speaker 1: Can't really explain what was happening.
Speaker 2: Now. You didn't do correct me if I'm wrong. You
Speaker 2: didn't do the Backstreets back music video, right, the one
Speaker 2: where they're like Phantom of the Opera and it's like
Speaker 2: the dance like the Thriller vibes where they're That.
Speaker 1: Might be right when I started, because you started with
Speaker 1: the Millennium album. Was that my first? Or was that
Speaker 1: my last? Into Millennial that I literally cannot remember? You
Speaker 1: can't remember. I have to watch that video, okay, but
Speaker 1: I very very remember.
Speaker 2: Very like Michael Jackson Thriller inspired, they're like dancing, it's
Speaker 2: like sort of a haunted mansion vibe.
Speaker 1: What do I feel like? What were they wearing? I
Speaker 1: could tell by what they were wearing, Like, did they
Speaker 1: look like I styled them?
Speaker 2: No? Because it was so theatrical, right, so like AJ
Speaker 2: has like the Phantom of the Opera mask on it,
Speaker 2: right point, like Brian, I think it was Brian is
Speaker 2: like a werewolf man. Like.
Speaker 1: It was very, very theatrical. I did so many music
Speaker 1: videos with them, and we did think, like there's nothing
Speaker 1: we didn't do, so it's possible. But I remember Millennium
Speaker 1: because that's the all white else. Oh well, yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember that like it was because I remember walking into
Speaker 1: my hotel room. I had been prepping for so long.
Speaker 1: And what you have to remember and I need people
Speaker 1: to try and like visualize what my life was with Backstreet.
Speaker 1: Imagine five kids different like anyone who has five kids.
Speaker 1: You could have ten kids and not one of them
Speaker 1: would be like sure, not one of them would dress
Speaker 1: the same, not one, right, And that's what it was like.
Speaker 1: And it was like five guys that I loved honestly deeply.
Speaker 1: I was so close with them. They were like brothers.
Speaker 1: And Kevin was like a friend because I think we
Speaker 1: were the same age. Kevin was the light, the other
Speaker 1: one yeah group Yeah, and Kevin kind of felt like,
Speaker 1: honestly like the dad of the group, you know, and
Speaker 1: he and I hung out. I loved his girlfriend wife, Kristen,
Speaker 1: and you know, I went through so much with all
Speaker 1: of them. I would say Nick was the baby and
Speaker 1: really felt like the baby, you know, and I genuinely
Speaker 1: think I just remember white ray black, but like Millennium
Speaker 1: obviously was all white. But I remember ideating with that,
Speaker 1: and I remember saying like, it's a new century, it's
Speaker 1: a new like everything should be clean, everything should be new.
Speaker 1: And I remember like creating that and saying like, they
Speaker 1: need to look modern, they need to look cool, they
Speaker 1: need to clean, they need to like look cohesive. And
Speaker 1: that was the biggest thing that I focused on with them,
Speaker 1: was cohesion, because I felt everyone needed to have their
Speaker 1: own style and their own take on the concept, which
Speaker 1: they did, sure, and that was the challenge, right, But
Speaker 1: like we would have if it was five guys. I
Speaker 1: swear to god, I had a minimum of five racks
Speaker 1: per guy. Yeah, so I would stand there with, you know,
Speaker 1: fifty racks of clothes and white, overwhelmed white, white, Doulce white,
Speaker 1: Gucci white, yeah, you name it, white, Zara white, everything white,
Speaker 1: everything right, Calvin white. You know that's insane. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was overwhelming, that's insane. My wardrobe budgets were And
Speaker 1: remember in those days, it was not like computer based.
Speaker 1: We didn't have like the cell phone world like it
Speaker 1: wasn't like that. So there was like Star tax phone,
Speaker 1: so we were not I was not doing expenses on
Speaker 1: a phone. I wasn't taking notes. Everything was paper, everything
Speaker 1: was taxis, everything was food, paper, receipts, everything. So if
Speaker 1: I had like one hundred thousand dollars wardrobe budget, two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars wards budget, I had to account for
Speaker 1: every penny of that. And the worst part is a stylist,
Speaker 1: as any stylist will tell you, is you have to
Speaker 1: lay out that money and then you wait and you
Speaker 1: wait to get reimbursed. Oh, it's a terrible model. That's terrible.
Speaker 1: It's a terrible business model. Literally, it's a terrible business model.
Speaker 1: So every bit of my free time that I didn't
Speaker 1: have was spent taping or glu sticking, TAXI receipts, food receipts,
Speaker 1: tailoring alterations, shipping, purchasing. You know, I had to purchase
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. I had a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: custom made. I would be like down on a street
Speaker 1: getting random like things for a j like feather things,
Speaker 1: or like I would I would get like embroidered or studded,
Speaker 1: Like I would buy a leather vest and have someone
Speaker 1: in a street, just like add studs to it, or
Speaker 1: grammets on the shoes or denim rip it up. I
Speaker 1: would tie things to like a car and drive so
Speaker 1: they would get beaten down. I would wash them. I
Speaker 1: would just try and.
Speaker 2: Like wear things down T shirts. I would teasting. Remember
Speaker 2: the Hi die.
Speaker 1: You name it? Oh my god, I need the job.
Speaker 1: It's too great. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 2: One of my personal favorite music videos that I'm obsessed
Speaker 2: with you working on is mister Enrique Glecia's Hero.
Speaker 1: Oh my God, that song, that video.
Speaker 2: I would wait for TRL because I thought he was
Speaker 2: so gorgeous, and I also like the drama of the
Speaker 2: song in that music video with like Jennifer Love Hewitt
Speaker 2: and Mickey.
Speaker 1: Rourke with no idea.
Speaker 2: I was obsessed with that that.
Speaker 1: Is video and that song. That experience was perhaps one
Speaker 1: of the craziest experiences of my styling career of my life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I will remember that video forever for many reasons. That
Speaker 1: and another Enrique video where he met Anna wife that
Speaker 1: is so funny. And another Enrique video where I styled
Speaker 1: him with Whitney Houston. Oh and that was unforgettable.
Speaker 2: I want.
Speaker 1: And her daughter came to set. But Hero was a
Speaker 1: stressful job. So hero was crazy because it was this director,
Speaker 1: Joseph Kahn, who at the time was the yes, the guy.
Speaker 1: I worked mainly with Joseph Kahan. I worked with Francis
Speaker 1: Lawrence a lot. He did a lot of the video
Speaker 1: so now directs like very major emotions. Yeah. That video
Speaker 1: was in Palm Springs at the MERV Griffin Estate. Okay,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, we stayed at you know, one
Speaker 1: of those great hotels. I remember getting there like two
Speaker 1: in the morning. We had to be on set at
Speaker 1: four thirty. A prop stylist actually died on their way
Speaker 1: to set. It was the absolute saddest thing because she
Speaker 1: drove off the ledge. There was no railing on the
Speaker 1: location we were going to we were shooting, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, like August twenty seventh or August twenty something
Speaker 1: like that desert in the middle of the desert. It
Speaker 1: was just one hundred and four by seven am. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, Alia died. Alia died. You got the news
Speaker 1: that we got the news that she died while we
Speaker 1: were on set in the desert, because she was also
Speaker 1: shooting a music video in the Caribbean. Rage yep, yeah,
Speaker 1: pay cash and so it was all these weird, weird energy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Mickey work was there. I was in a hotel hotel
Speaker 1: with Mickey York and that was wild wild he by
Speaker 1: the way, he couldn't have been sweeter to me. For
Speaker 1: the rocker and Jennifer love Hewittt. I had known because
Speaker 1: we had done a bunch of shoots together, because I
Speaker 1: think she had done like Party of Five. I had
Speaker 1: met her through like y Am and then I and
Speaker 1: then I became her stylist for a bunch of things,
Speaker 1: and so I was doing her and Enrique, and you know,
Speaker 1: Enrique is one of the most professional people you've ever known.
Speaker 1: He he just is and he would show up. He
Speaker 1: is by far and away the most handsome and charming.
Speaker 1: Love that person. Everything you want Enrique to be. He
Speaker 1: and Moore and me styling. Loves to hear that me
Speaker 1: styling Enrique as much as I would try and make
Speaker 1: him a little fancier at times jeans yep, vintage Levi's
Speaker 1: like vintage jeans hoodie type. I got him to go
Speaker 1: sometimes from a baseball hat to a beanie, which ended
Speaker 1: up being like a signature. So that was a moment
Speaker 1: I loved him. I still love him. I always love him,
Speaker 1: and I styled him for the video where he met
Speaker 1: his wife Anna Kornakova, and I styled her as well.
Speaker 1: And I remember so clearly standing behind the monitor because
Speaker 1: I was obsessive about obviously everything and like I looks
Speaker 1: close everything. But I had the thing with me beyond styling.
Speaker 1: I would always I really did everything in terms of
Speaker 1: like I watched the lighting, I watched the angles. I
Speaker 1: would suggest to the directors how it might work better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would sit in all the time. I would try,
Speaker 1: you know, like I was so in it. You were
Speaker 1: very present every part of it. But I remember standing
Speaker 1: behind the monitor and I remember looking at the director
Speaker 1: and looking at Enrique's team, this guy Fernando at the time,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I was just pretty real in
Speaker 1: this one. This may go passing video.
Speaker 2: Everyone might be going on and they've been married for
Speaker 2: a long time and together ever since that. Oh I
Speaker 2: love that so much. Okay, rounding out your iconic music
Speaker 2: video moments, we have to talk about Jessica Simpson. Okay,
Speaker 2: we have to talk about these boots were made for walking.
Speaker 2: I mean, you fully dressed her like Daisy Duke, right,
Speaker 2: she had because that the song was for promotional for
Speaker 2: the movie.
Speaker 1: That was amazing.
Speaker 2: I just had it with long extensions in Yeah, Ken
Speaker 2: Pavis is the tiniest denim shorts you've ever seen ever,
Speaker 2: ever and like a midriff tank.
Speaker 1: Top she looks, and a big belt belt right, that
Speaker 1: belt needs to understand, because I think it's so important.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what stylists do, what I need
Speaker 1: to explain to you is that when you look at
Speaker 1: that video of Jessica Simpson and you look at okay,
Speaker 1: she's wearing these cowboy boots, a big belt, these little
Speaker 1: denim shorts and this crop top. Okay, great, and I
Speaker 1: think we did cool earrings if I remember correctly. She's
Speaker 1: so good in that video, honestly. Yeah. But what nobody
Speaker 1: knows is that to get to that look, there was
Speaker 1: literally fifty belts laid out with different buckles and different straps.
Speaker 1: There was maybe thirty pairs of cutoff denim shorts, maybe more.
Speaker 1: To make sure they were the right fit. We would
Speaker 1: have tailors on set that would make them shorter. To
Speaker 1: make them shorter, then free them so they look vintage
Speaker 1: cowboy boots. I mean one hundred pairs, oh my god,
Speaker 1: and like the t shirts. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: would run up and down Melrose and Librea and go
Speaker 1: all the thrift stores. And you know, it's not what
Speaker 1: it looks like. That's all I'm saying. Well, the simplicity of.
Speaker 2: You know, denim shorts and a tanked up and whatever,
Speaker 2: I think to an outsider goes, oh, that's so easy.
Speaker 1: Anyone could do that now.
Speaker 2: But the amount of a approvals it takes to get to
Speaker 2: the final outfit and.
Speaker 1: Getting the final outfit and then keeping it.
Speaker 2: You know, you're shooting these music videos for more than
Speaker 2: one day, most likely keeping them looking good, having multiples
Speaker 2: to put on if she rips it or drops whatever
Speaker 2: on it or whatever. It's it's more than just a
Speaker 2: pair of shorts and a tank top.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's it always is always, it's always. Oh
Speaker 1: key dokey.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go rapid fire right into our listener Y
Speaker 2: two K questions. Okay, this covers a lot of different
Speaker 2: sort of like Y two K E topics, but let's
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: Let's do a rapid fire. Okay, okay, Question one, who
Speaker 1: is the nicest star from that era that you dressed?
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I mean, you know, the Backstreet Boys,
Speaker 1: like I said, were literally it was like it was
Speaker 1: like almost like I was their sister. Yeah, slash mom,
Speaker 1: you know that always was with them. Enrique, he's an angel.
Speaker 1: He's an angel. You we're so close, Like I love that.
Speaker 1: You're too nice to know it's true. I would honestly
Speaker 1: tell you because anyone that was a nightmare, like I
Speaker 1: didn't have time for honestly, yeah, you know to do it.
Speaker 1: It was nice. And Jessica and I were like related
Speaker 1: literally yeah, like I was part of the Simpson family
Speaker 1: at one point. Oh my god, I love that.
Speaker 2: Okay, who do you wish you could have styled from
Speaker 2: that era? But never got to? I think you could
Speaker 2: do like music or otherwise. I mean maybe j Lo
Speaker 2: Jalen right, because.
Speaker 1: That was like her Jenny from the block. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know you know who else I feel like.
Speaker 2: And I don't even know if you have worked with her,
Speaker 2: but like talking about like more nineties whatever, But Alicia Silverstone,
Speaker 2: I did share horoit.
Speaker 1: I work with her.
Speaker 2: I styled for different shoes, Harrow Smith's music, right, those
Speaker 2: music videos. Yeah, but I feel like she and I
Speaker 2: feel like she could have been like a client of yours.
Speaker 1: Like no brainer, just with her like aesthetic.
Speaker 2: Okay, what accessories from Y two K stand out to
Speaker 2: you the most? Like when you think about just accessories
Speaker 2: and having to like have a thousand options of blank,
Speaker 2: what is it?
Speaker 1: God, I'll be honest with you, Like I should remember coats, coats,
Speaker 1: like jackets and like and like accessories, I mean hats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of hats.
Speaker 2: I feel also with jackets. Y two K had an
Speaker 2: interesting big fabric.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was that techie. It was the that's why
Speaker 1: I keep going like scuba gears. It was neoprene. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was a lot of neoprene, a lot. But the
Speaker 1: thing with me, though, truthfully, I think I'd never succumbed
Speaker 1: to the oversized cargo pant and the like the sneakers
Speaker 1: with the big socks and stuff. And I think that's
Speaker 1: why in its resurgence, I'm like, no, see, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't like it. The I was trying to go
Speaker 1: against the crop top, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: I think for me, I was shifting into like the nineties,
Speaker 1: like this sort of minimalism and the chic and then
Speaker 1: the sort of like over the top, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I was just about pretty. Yeah, but for guys, to
Speaker 1: be honest, my vibe was like just look hot, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like and to me hot was Brad Pitt and thelm
Speaker 1: and Luise Like yeah. To me, it was always trying
Speaker 1: to make the guys, especially with like Enrique, it was
Speaker 1: that like, no, like look like Johnny Depp with Kate Moss,
Speaker 1: like beat up jeans, cool belt, beat up like Chelsea boots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and like a cool like leathers or swede jacket
Speaker 1: with a vintage tea Like to me, that was cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that's where I was trying to take the guys
Speaker 1: because that's where all of like young Hollywood, that was
Speaker 1: the young Hollywood vibe. Yeah, And so I was I
Speaker 1: was able to do that with Enrique. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: Okay, we got this question a couple of times. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, why did thongs become popular?
Speaker 1: And hy two k oh my god. It was like
Speaker 1: a thong. It was like a thong craze.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was even the song Paris Hilton.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think we've talked about Paris Hilton here, yeah,
Speaker 1: like Nicole and everything, because we're talking about music, But
Speaker 1: I mean I think Paris was like Juicy Sweats, which
Speaker 1: was the biggest y two K fashion. That's a thing,
Speaker 1: like I can't we can't forget that. That was Jalo
Speaker 1: Madonna and like the whole velvet track suit of like
Speaker 1: my friend Pam Levy and Gila that created the Juicy
Speaker 1: track suit and that was like rhinestone like bedazzled track suits,
Speaker 1: be dazzled jackets, kits in you know, the bedazzled everything.
Speaker 1: So I think we can't like not mention that because
Speaker 1: I think you're a part of Christina Aguile like all
Speaker 1: of them. And Christina was opening for Backstreet Boys at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's so crazy because she obviously went
Speaker 2: on to be her own.
Speaker 1: Massive success story.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the thongs like coming out of the pants
Speaker 1: with black hairs, and then we did the the low
Speaker 1: sung jeans.
Speaker 2: It's almost like the thong craze happened because the jeans
Speaker 2: were just too low.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was god awfully low. And just to be clear,
Speaker 1: I want to be clear, I was not an advocate
Speaker 1: for that, sure, sure, you know, I mean I think Paris,
Speaker 1: like I have such a clear visual of when I
Speaker 1: met her with like the cropped bleached white platinum hair
Speaker 1: in like a pink velvet sweatsuit with like so low
Speaker 1: but she looked so hot, you know. Yeah, and she
Speaker 1: was so sweet and friendly. Honestly, yeah, but kits In.
Speaker 1: I just keep thinking about kits In. Oh yeah, it
Speaker 1: was the craze. Okay, next up then eyebrows. Just why
Speaker 1: just why is this? I tell you why? Because that
Speaker 1: started because of like Calvin Klein, John Galliano, all the nineties, Supers,
Speaker 1: Kate Moss, they all did it. It would tweet their
Speaker 1: eyebrows off. It was part of the minimal the you know,
Speaker 1: the minimalism movement, and it was all the nineties with
Speaker 1: Matt Brown makeup, you know, very neutral palette, Matt Matt lips,
Speaker 1: thin thin eyebrows, very wafy movement, yep, and very minimal
Speaker 1: no bells and whistles, no jewels, very clean. It was
Speaker 1: the Kate Moss Calvin movement. Honestly. Yeah. And Kate Moss,
Speaker 1: like I mean she was like sixteen, I know, I
Speaker 1: mean she she changed the whole.
Speaker 2: I mean, some of us millennial girls are paying for
Speaker 2: the overtweezing to that.
Speaker 1: I would like to proudly say that my mother. I
Speaker 1: have to thank my mom for not letting me do that.
Speaker 1: That's good because I still to this day have eyebrows.
Speaker 1: Blessed you made it out, you made it out of
Speaker 1: white to k with Listen. I don't have my nineties
Speaker 1: two thousand eyebrows, but I still have eyebrows. Fair okay, Doki.
Speaker 2: Last question, who was your most stubborn client from Y
Speaker 2: two K? Doesn't mean mean or difficult, but who was
Speaker 2: the most stubborn when it came to like getting dressed
Speaker 2: or wearing what you recommended or you know.
Speaker 1: When I think about it, it's like this sort of
Speaker 1: like the Lindsay Miss Nicole. We had so much fun,
Speaker 1: so they weren't. I'm thinking about my music world, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, Brittany, I would say definitely was the one
Speaker 1: who would sort of like change from whatever my well
Speaker 1: after you told me that cutting the couture story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think Brittany was definitely probably the one
Speaker 1: that you know did that. And I think I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about some of the Backstreet boys, like we really collaborated.
Speaker 1: I mean, AJ and I had so much fun because
Speaker 1: he was the most like out there, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: would he was the most costume me.
Speaker 2: He was like a he was like the well, like
Speaker 2: the bad boy of the back show for sure.
Speaker 1: So he was like the Risks taker, Yeah right, the
Speaker 1: most incredible voice. And Kevin was like dressing like my brother.
Speaker 1: It was fun. It was like chasing him to put
Speaker 1: clothes on him. Oh my god, that's I mean, because
Speaker 1: he's just like running around enjoying. And Brian was like
Speaker 1: a gentleman, you know, and Howie was a doll.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is your final question. What was your go
Speaker 2: to look in the Y two k era when you
Speaker 2: were on set, when you were traveling, when you.
Speaker 1: Were black and jeans, Like I would wear dark jeans,
Speaker 1: I'd wear light flare obviously. Yeah, always dark and some
Speaker 1: kind of like black, probably ankle boot, you know, some
Speaker 1: kind of boot and like a like a like a
Speaker 1: black like leather jacket. I had like a hundred black
Speaker 1: leather jackets and that was like my jam, your go to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: stylists always need pockets. Yeah, I think of it so funny.
Speaker 1: Pocket it was so fast. I'd like think about what
Speaker 1: I was even wearing. I can't even like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: never thought about me right, well, because you said you
Speaker 1: like I kept a suitcase pack, so you're just like
Speaker 1: bringing the same things over and over. I'm sure, so weird.
Speaker 1: I flew a lot of private planes. I remember. Oh
Speaker 1: that's fun though. I was on private planes very young.
Speaker 2: Did you witness anyone have a total meltdown on a
Speaker 2: private plane?
Speaker 1: Of course I did spill it. Nope, who ever, honey,
Speaker 1: I witnessed more meltdowns between ninety eight or ninety seven
Speaker 1: and two thousand and eight. Seven, twelve, my wheels are turning,
Speaker 1: and thirteen my styling wave was filled with melt.
Speaker 2: We're at our time for today that you have just said,
Speaker 2: you have just cued us up for Part two Meltdowns.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Part two of this podcast, the Meltdown, The Meltdowns.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening everyone, all right, everybody, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening to Climbing and Heels. If you haven't already,
Speaker 1: please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the
Speaker 1: iHeart app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You don't
Speaker 1: miss a single episode this season, and be sure to
Speaker 1: follow me on Instagram at Rachel Zoe and of course
Speaker 1: the show at Climbing in Hills pod for the latest
Speaker 1: episodes and updates. I will talk to you so soon
Speaker 1: and have a great week month