Zendaya describes him as her “fashion soulmate” and he’s the man responsible for sending Hunter Schafer down the red carpet with nothing but a feather on his chest.
Law Roach, the celebrity stylist who also worked with Celine Dion, Lewis Hamilton, Kerry Washington and Megan Thee Stallion, was becoming almost as famous as his clients.
But then, at the height of his fame, he dramatically retired the morning after the Oscars last year.
Now, after a year of taking stock, he has written a new book, How to build a fashion icon. In this exclusive excerpt, he talks about how the deep insecurities surrounding his fluctuating weight still haunt him.
Law Roach with his most famous client – and best friend – Zendaya in March 2024
“At my heaviest I was over 100 pounds heavier than I am today,” he writes. Photographed in 2012 with Zendaya.
Roach sent Hunter Schafer down the red carpet with nothing but a feather on his chest.
I’ve had an interesting relationship with my body my entire adult life.
At my heaviest, I was over 100 pounds heavier than I am today, and even now my weight can fluctuate from month to month. I’m sure that’s common for many of us. But I am constantly working to inject more love into that relationship.
Clothes can be a constant reminder of the state of your body. The way you fit into a piece can remind you of how you looked at another time in your life. It can really shake you up at times and be extremely rewarding at others. And that happens to all of us: when I wear an item of clothing that was tight before and now seems a little big, it makes me feel good.
But it is important that we all consciously work to improve those feelings from within.
2021 was a great year for me. I had the honor of being on the cover of Out magazine, for its Out100 list, which is very important within the LGBTQ+ community.
I decided to take a new direction for myself. Instead of putting on couture clothes and dressing up, I had the idea of getting naked. I opted for a more ’90s, almost B-boy aesthetic. Think an Adidas tracksuit, Calvin Klein underwear and a simple denim jacket.
But the most important thing is that I decided to show off.
In the cover image I am holding my jacket open, shirtless and with my body for everyone to see. It was an incredibly vulnerable moment that I shared with over a million people.
Roach began working with Zendaya in 2011, when she was just 14 years old and working with Disney Channel.
The pair became fast friends and she describes Roach as her ‘fashion soulmate.’
Posing for the cover of a magazine ‘without a shirt and with my body for everyone to see’ was a vulnerable but liberating moment
I don’t have a well-defined, muscular body. I have stretch marks and all these blemishes. Even when I go to the beach or the pool, I’ve never been the type to take my shirt off; even when he was younger, he always wore a t-shirt.
“I’m not perfect,” I wrote on Instagram when I posted the photos.
‘I have struggled with my weight my entire adult life, even resorting to unhealthy ways to try to stay thin. I decided to get photographed shirtless to help me get rid of some insecurities about my body. Fuck it, this is me.’
He felt sexy and flirty. It felt liberating. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think better of it later. What would my body look like? How would it be received? But this was me.
My mother and grandmother were beautiful and very proud of their appearance, but they were not the textbook skinny types that were considered “fashionable.” And they knew it. But they weren’t trying to be either.
I see many women today who feel bad about themselves and lose confidence when they are not the size they think they should be; It’s often the size someone else thinks they should be.
In our neighborhood, if you didn’t have a big butt and big breasts, you weren’t considered attractive. My mother and grandmother didn’t necessarily fit that mold, but that didn’t stop them from walking through the world exuding confidence.
Law says he dealt with depression on and off as a teenager and young adult (above, pictured as a child, left, and two years old, right).
Kerry Washington presented Roach with the first CFDA Stylist of the Year award in 2022
With his clients Celine Dion and Zendaya at the Met Gala 2019
My mother passed away shortly after I graduated. He was in his twenties and was in a long grieving process. In that moment I went through many thoughts about happiness and fulfillment, about his life and mine. Sometimes death can do that to you; can make you really consider how to make the most of your time on this earth.
My mother faced chronic depression and struggled with addiction. I think a lot of it is hereditary.
I dealt with depression on and off as a teenager and young adult. I don’t blame my mother, but I recognize how I began to adopt some of her coping behaviors. It was a legacy I didn’t want to repeat, so I made conscious decisions to avoid it.
After he passed away, I really thought about the person I wanted to be and took steps in that direction.
As a result of that tragedy, my two younger brothers, who still lived with her, were left without a guardian. So I stepped in to help raise them.
It wasn’t cheap. I needed to make money to support myself and my siblings, so I got a job as a bartender at a big club in Chicago.
I could have found a corporate job—something that paid six figures, included benefits, and put my degrees to work in a more direct way—but something told me not to. So I pushed myself to dream of something bigger.
It’s funny that although I wanted so badly to resist the temptation of a normal nine-to-five job, at the time I had no specific dreams for my future. He certainly couldn’t have known what was coming.
But in my opinion, he didn’t have to know. I trusted myself. I trusted my abilities. I knew it would work. I held on to the feeling that there was something big for me and trusted that when the opportunity presented itself, I would be ready. And I was.
Early in my career, I had one rule in styling and I made sure my assistants followed it: We never belittled or talked negatively about a client’s weight. When we had someone who didn’t have the sample size, we would tell the brands “just so you know, you have an oversample.”
Roach with Celine Dion at the Grammys earlier this year. In his new book, he talks about supporting his two younger brothers after their mother died.
That meant being honest to do what we needed without being destructive or negative to our customers. I would never want to disrespect someone by making too much of their size, and I never have.
The thing about being a stylist is that I know what my clients like and don’t like about themselves. You can’t hide that. I think everyone has experienced insecurity at some point. Although it may seem minor, everyone has hang-ups about their appearance and, depending on the day, it can affect your confidence.
And of course, this doesn’t just happen with customers. Sometimes I look at photos of myself after a night out and, even though everyone else says I look great, I can see an extra fullness in my face, possibly due to tiredness or maybe from too many nights drinking at work events. .
Because of my own personal history with my weight, I immediately see the older version of myself with the slightest body fluctuation. I see the person I was before.
Every day I work on this ability to be able to confidently look at myself and everything that I may perceive as a flaw, but I do not let my judgments stop me from going out into the world with my best foot forward.
Everything ebbs and flows. We can’t expect to feel one hundred percent confident in our skin all the time. Loving yourself means you recognize when you don’t feel safe and allow yourself the grace and time to recalibrate.
Be compassionate with yourself. Everyone has moments of doubt and insecurity. Instead of being self-critical in these moments, offer yourself the same kindness and understanding that you would give to a friend or other loved one. You deserve it.
Excerpt adapted from the new book How to Build a Fashion Icon: Notes on Confidence by Law Roach published by Abrams Image © 2024 Roach Law