How Young Hollywood's Gen Z Is Changing Red Carpet Fashion

Red carpet coverage handing out superlatives like “best dressed,” “chicest” and most “fun” have made a surprising turn in recent years: Where the highest honors once went to the expected marquee Hollywood talent—Nicole Kidman, Blake Lively, and Lupita Nyong’o among them—they’re now being bestowed upon a new generation. Specifically, the teens and Generation Z-ers taking over the industry.

Think about it: When was the last time 18-year-old Yara Shahidi or Millie Bobby Brown, 14, walked a red carpet and didn’t end up on a “best dressed” roundup? Young actors have been elevated to the status of style icons, with brands like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci helping them shape their public personas in phenomenal, often custom, pieces.

For the stylists responsible for facilitating these partnerships and shaping their red carpet presence, the work isn’t that different than with their adult clients.

“Everybody wants to feel gorgeous and relevant and super-modern,” says Jason Bolden, a stylist whose roster includes Shahidi, and actresses Storm Reid, 14, and Sabrina Carpenter, 18.

“My main thing when we’re putting looks together is that I want the clients to feel comfortable,” agrees Molly Dickson, whose clients range from Thirteen Reasons Why star Katherine Langford, 21, and Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink, 16, to Molly Ringwald and Jenna Fischer. “We might put on a dress and it might be amazing, but if they’re not comfortable in it it’s not even worth it.”

There are a few additional considerations when dressing stars who are 18 and under. For instance, Sink is steered away from looks that are too revealing or impractical for someone her age, Dickson says. (“She’s sixteen years old and she’s never really worn high heels, so finding the perfect height of heel has been the biggest challenge,” the stylist notes.)

When picking out pieces for A Wrinkle in Time star Reid, Bolden was hyper-aware of the accessibility factor, purposefully dressing her in clothing that’s available at department stores: “Storm [wore] a Thom Browne suit, and then she wore a pair of white Air Force Ones, which anyone can do,” he recalls. “What 14-year-old girl you know is walking around in a suit and heels all day? That’s not realistic.”

Even for the oldest members of Hollywood’s up-and-coming class, conversations about staying age-appropriate arise. Such was the case with Langford’s custom Prada gown for the 2018 Golden Globes, which featured a deep plunge: “It was almost a two-hour conversation between her, her publicist, and I, trying to figure out, ‘will she be comfortable with the lower neckline in the front?,’ because Katherine hasn’t really done anything that low before,” Dickson explains.

Dickson adds that erring on the conservative side distinguishes Langford from other Gen-Z stars who wear “cut-outs and crop tops.” “We don’t ever put her in anything super, super revealing.”

Beyond appearing age-appropriate, there’s also career-building to think about. The red carpet is an essential platform for elevating one’s profile, especially early in an entertainer’s career. By aligning a young face with a distinct aesthetic and reputable designers, fashion can maintain—and in many cases, advance —a young star’s reputation after a breakout role.

“It’s all kind of shaping someone’s style, but also it’s shaping their image,” stylist Chris Horan says of working with his young clients, like actresses Rowan Blanchard, 16, and Maddie Ziegler, 15. Fashion, he adds, “creates the momentum that’s needed to make your career take off.”

Often, one memorable red carpet look is all it takes to boost a young star’s image, but the source must be an esteemed designer for the influence to last. When Dickson arranged for Sink to wear Chanel to the Stranger Things season two premiere, it immediately sparked interest from other designers, she says: “I think when you put someone in a high-end designer that’s very well respected in the fashion industry, a lot of the younger designers will see that, and they also will want to hop on board.”

It’s not always easy to wrangle those samples, though. For some stylists, it might take some persuasion to convince brands that their client could wear the brand well, especially if their first credits aren’t deemed “adult-friendly” or awards-season bait; Bolden and Law Roach, whose clients include Zendaya, previously mentioned that “big brands” hesitated to lend their young clients samples in a roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter.

“Especially with these young girls, I think they’re put into kind of boxes,” explains Horan. “[W]ith Rowan, we had a lot of pushback for a long time because of her age and obviously the show, or the network she was on.” (Blanchard first became known for her work on Disney Channel’s Girl Meets World.)

Across the board, high fashion can convince the public to take young celebrities seriously—and a stylist can be instrumental in shepherding them towards the next phase of their career.

Bolden started working with Carpenter (another Girl Meets World alum) in the fall of 2017, right after she had left the Disney Channel and started to pursue music. They had what Bolden describes as a style breakthrough in November, at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards, when the 18-year-old arrived in a bright-pink, caped Céline dress. “When it came to the follow-up questions the next day, my other stylist friends were calling me like, ‘Holy shit! Sabrina in Céline? That was amazing!’,” he recalls.

Because they’re so young, so much of these celebrities’ fashion is experimental: They’re figuring out what they like, what suits them best, and what that looks like on a very public platform. They’re also not afraid to speak up, and use their wardrobe as a means of conveying their stance on a variety of issues. This is a generation that has come up on social media, after all—and many of these stars have already used their massive followings to talk politics, social justice, and more.

At times, the intersection of fashion and personal values is immediately apparent. There was Millie Bobby Brown’s tribute to the Parkland school shooting victims at the 2018 Kids’ Choice Awards via a custom Calvin Klein look. Yara Shahidi wore a Prada skirt printed with an homage to Angela Davis as “a reminder of the work we have to do to de-criminalize public perception of black and brown bodies” to Deadline’s The Contenders event in April. On many occasions, you'll see these young stars align themselves with certain fashion brands because of their beliefs—and will give them a silent endorsement by wearing them on the red carpet.

“[W]hen it comes to Yara, we look for what the brand stands for as well—it has to speak to her and what she stands for,” Bolden says. “It’s very impactful when she does wear a really big fashion brand because people can kind of look at it as like oh, okay. We know exactly where this stands.”

Another example: While doing press in Los Angeles earlier this year, Sink wore Hiraeth, a new vegan clothing line by Rooney Mara—something Dickson picked out because it “was a great fit, [since] Sadie’s vegan and I’ve always admired Rooney’s style.” After the red carpet wrapped, the actress took to Instagram to share Hiraeth’s ethos and values.

The ultimate goal for these stylists isn’t a prestigious credit or an overnight success story. “It’s about building this beautiful amount of work,” Bolden says, “and not trying to come directly out the gate with this huge range of major designers.” He points to the A Wrinkle in Time press tour as an example: He intentionally saved the most jaw-dropping, extravagant look—a custom pink Prada dress with an open back—for the very last stop, “so it was a proper build-up.”

“I think that fashion’s a way for [clients] to brand themselves as a person, that they’re not one-dimensional,” Horan concludes. “That really helps as they’re trying to get more serious roles—it gets eyes on you to view you in a different way.”