Law Roach says he’s done with styling for celebrities.
The famed Hollywood stylist, who has styled for the likes of Zendaya, Céline Dion, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Anne Hathaway, Ariana Grande, and Anya Taylor-Joy among others, made the shocking announcement on Instagram after the Oscars that he was “retired”.
“I am definitely, 100,000 percent retiring. Nobody can say what’s forever and what will happen, but at this moment, and in my mind, I’m definitely retiring from celebrity styling. I’m not retiring from fashion, because I love it so much,” he told The Cut recently. “But styling, in the way that I’ve been of service to other people, I’m retiring from that.”
The news came after he received the first-ever Stylist Award at the CFDAs last year, as a culmination of his career.
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While it may have come as a surprise to everyone, for Roach, the writing has been on the wall for years.
“I think the real reason is that it’s been building for a while because, you know, I looked up one day and honestly realized that I’m not happy,” he recalled. “I haven’t been happy, honestly, in a really long time. And the culmination of everything that’s been happening in my career these last few days kind of just pushed me over the edge. And it’s just like, You know what? I’ve done everything. I’m very grateful that I’ve been able to move and climb in this industry the way I have.”
The stylist was far from ungrateful for his success, but felt it had come at great cost and personal sacrifice.
“But I can’t say that I didn’t do that without suffering. And I think as Black people in this country, it’s embedded in us to suffer, right? We feel like to be successful, we have to suffer,” the 44-year-old continued. “You suffer through things to get to the other side. You know, you suffer through Earth to get to heaven. You know what I mean?”
“I made that post because I felt like I couldn’t breathe and me releasing that and letting the world know that I’m done with this was the first time that whole week that I really felt like I took a breath, a deep breath,” he added. “I don’t wanna suffer no more. I don’t wanna be unhappy. I don’t wanna be at the beck and call of people and their teams. I wanna take some time and figure out, you know, how to live.”
As for the “politics, the lies and false narratives” he referred to in his post, Roach said it was mostly due to client relationships.
“I think what happens is a lot of times, [the gatekeepers] become intimidated by the relationships I’m able to have with the clients personally. And so what happens is it becomes a thing like I just don’t hear from the client anymore. Or I’m booked for jobs and then, all of a sudden, I’m released,” he said. “And then I’ll bump into the talent at a party or an event or whatever, and I’m always like, ‘Hey, what happened? I haven’t heard from you.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, I know my team reached out a few times, but you were busy. Our schedules didn’t match up.’”
