Streaming services can’t get enough of franchises: swaggering shows with sweeping locations, fertile plots and, perhaps most critically, large casts.
Each season of Netflix’s “Bridgerton” centers on a different love story among the eight titular siblings. On the decades-spanning “House of the Dragon” (on Max), several characters are played by two actors, one younger and one older. Characters from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy have resurfaced in “The Rings of Power” (on Amazon), played by new actors. (Elves, conveniently, are immortal.) There are crossover cameos aplenty on many of the “Star Wars” and Marvel shows on Disney+.
These series are also packed with emerging actors — relatively unknown names assuming their first mainstream roles. Join an ensemble, and fame may await.
In this crowded landscape, actors must also distinguish themselves offscreen. They have to be charming during press junkets — perhaps play with puppies or become a meme — and wear something memorable on the red carpet. Eventually they may catch the attention of fashion brands or publications eager to attach themselves to young talent.
A stylist is vital to this process: someone who specializes in dressing for the public eye and who can act as a liaison between the talent and the fashion houses.
As it happens, many of these breakout stars are using the same one.
For the first two seasons of “Bridgerton,” Luke Newton played a supporting role. Elevated to romantic lead for the third season, he knew his transformation — a “glow-up,” as some call it — couldn’t happen only onscreen.
“This is his first big global press tour,” said Holly White, the 33-year-old stylist who began working with Mr. Newton in February 2023, more than a year before the premiere of his “Bridgerton” season.
In those early days, borrowing looks from brands could be difficult. Fashion houses prioritize requests from high-profile clients, and Mr. Newton wasn’t there yet. He wore Mr. Porter, an in-house label of the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, to his first event styled by Ms. White, a British Vogue party for the BAFTA Awards.
At the Vogue BAFTA party a year later, he wore Givenchy. By the final stretch of the “Bridgeton” press tour, which required more than 30 ensembles, he had been dressed by Armani and Versace.
Part of Ms. White’s job is cultivating that “leading-man energy,” she said — leaning into men’s wear trends like oversize suits or wide-leg pants worn with tight (or no) shirts.
“It gives you space to take risks,” she said. “Ultimately, my job is to build confidence.”
Modern leading men don’t wear slim-fitting, sharp Savile Row suits anymore. They play with color and fabrics and fit and jewelry. (Just ask the franchise–hopping actor Pedro Pascal.) But they don’t want to look back at these images in 10 years and feel like fashion victims, the stylist pointed out.
“These images will be online forever,” Ms. White said.
One growing trend on the red carpet has been thematic dressing. Think Zendaya for “Challengers,” Margot Robbie for “Barbie,” Kristen Stewart for “Love Lies Bleeding.” These looks get attention, for better or worse, as Blake Lively demonstrated recently while promoting “It Ends With Us.”
While Ms. White and Mr. Newton occasionally leaned into romantic Regency accents, à la “Bridgerton,” they mostly saw his press tour as “an opportunity, as the leading man, to show the world who he is,” Ms. White said.
Generally, her clients tend to avoid “method” dressing. They are early enough in their careers to know they can’t afford to be pigeonholed as one character. She and Ed McVey, who played Prince William on “The Crown,” discussed forgoing royal blue, for example.
Markella Kavenagh, the Australian actress who plays a hobbit on “The Rings of Power,” has avoided fantasy-themed dresses, gravitating toward “certain outfits that really contrast the character,” she said.
Ms. Kavenagh approaches red-carpet dressing almost as a job application, a way to showcase her range. “It’s almost like you’re playing another character on the carpet and seeing how that can attract other roles,” she said.
Ms. White, who lives in London and is typically connected to new clients through agents and publicists, joked about being on the Netflix payroll. Her clients include several members of the “Bridgerton” cast, as well as the rumored female lead of Season 4, Yerin Ha. She has also styled the leads of the “Queen Charlotte” spinoff.
India Amarteifio was 21 when “Queen Charlotte” was released. Her co-star, Corey Mylchreest, was 24.
Ms. Amarteifio considers herself only about a year into the “public image side of my job,” she said. “A lot of us, I would say, including myself, are incredibly introverted naturally.”
It became important to her to assume an identity on the carpet that was different from her identity at home, to use gowns to step into her leading-lady role and then tracksuit bottoms to step back into her homebody role.
“Starting out, I was very unaware of the politics of fashion on red carpets,” Ms. Amarteifio said “I’m understanding that it’s so much more than what you wear. It’s a statement. It’s armor.”
The post So You Want to Look Like a Streaming Star appeared first on New York Times.