Making the stars shine
On getting actresses ready for the Emmys, stylist Karla Welch says, ‘May the best dress win.’
Karla Welch is having a good year. Named the No. 1 most powerful stylist in Hollywood by the Hollywood Reporter, she is responsible for dressing some of the biggest names in La La Land and the music industry.
Welch was the stylist behind the sartorial tours de force of both Sarah Paulson and Ruth Negga during the last awards season, and she dressed Justin Bieber for his recent (albeit shortened) world tour. Karlie Kloss, Olivia Wilde and Lorde are just a few of the other names on her client list.
Summer’s final weeks find Welch prepping for another awards season with another duo of contenders: Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) and Tracee Ellis Ross (“blackish”). “We all moan about awards season, but we love it,” says Welch during an interview in July. “I’ve already done all my outreach for the Emmys, so you kind of know who [my clients] are wearing, but you don’t know what they’re wearing yet. I always leave things a little bit open to chance as well. May the best dress win.”
Her clients frequented bestdressed lists last awards season. Does Welch feel pressure in a new one? “I think inherently I always feel pressure, but it’s not pressure I feel externally,” she says. “I place very high expectations on myself and for my clients. For [my team], it’s just making sure ... that we’re buttoned up. We’ve got to cross our T’s and dot our I’s, and prepare, prepare, prepare.”
But it wasn’t always red carpets and stadium tours for Welch. She grew up in the tiny town of Powell River, Canada, working for her father in the clothing store he owned for 47 years. “It made me love fashion, but because my dad was a oneman show, it also instilled a work ethic in me and an idea of customer service,” says Welch, who did everything from dust the shelves to design the window displays at the store.
It’s a long way from Powell River to working with the world’s top designers, and that’s a fact that’s not lost on the stylist. “To get something special made for you — to get to wear someone’s art — is such an honor,” she says of designers such as Nicolas Ghesquière and Pierpaolo Piccioli creating custom pieces for her clients.
Welch may be a master of red-carpet fashion, but it’s not all she does. She is also responsible for making sure Bieber and Lorde — two of music’s biggest acts — take the stage looking the part. “Lorde, for me, is like Picasso,” she says. “And with Justin, he’s so fearless, so it’s fun, and we can go crazy.”
In early August, Welch launched Hanes x Karla, a collection of white T-shirts inspired by one she handmade for Bieber. “I think there is nothing more iconic and democratic than a white T-shirt,” she says. “I wanted to have a well-designed one that was affordable, one that I’d wear over and over again. Justin and I made custom tees five years ago out of Hanes fabric, so I was thrilled to bring our ideas to everyone.”
It seems nothing can rattle the always calm, cool and kind Welch. For her, everything goes back to the work ethic her father instilled in her. “I’m horribly unsentimental about moments in my life,” she says. “The day the Hollywood Reporter told me I was No. 1 on the list, I think I did a ‘Woo-hoo,’ and then I went back to work.”