"...My absolute favorite part of the job is the being on set, where different work personalities can interact to reach a mutual goal."
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Meet the faculty: Maria Enrica Pappalepore
Date
26 June 2023
Maria Enrica Pappalepore, professor at the Summer Course in Fashion Trend Forecasting and Styling, is a Fashion editor and Creative Director, she collaborated with Rizzoli and Condè Nast as a journalist and stylist.
Let's find out together her vision about the profession of the stylist and its changes that have taken place over the years.
What does it mean to be a Stylist today?
It means mental movement. Being able to slide across different cultures, different scenarios and to show the key role that fashion plays in communicating the change.
What's your approach when you first start styling someone? Do you ask questions, go through their closet?
I love to start creating a contact with the person, try to understand what is the perception they have of themselves, what is their idea of power dressing. I don’t really like to go trough their closet rather to understad how far they want to communicate their persona to the ouside world. It’s a process of getting to know each other, I love my clients to get to know me as well, in order to create trust.
How the role of a stylist has changed with the advent of social media? How do you balance the different creative outputs?
It has incredibly changed! Social media were perceived as a threat at the beginning, discharging the role of the stylist the way we used to know it, trying to “steal” through the democratization of the fashion proposals.I have learned they are nowadays a great resocurce we have, to make the research, to get in touch with emerging designer and understand the innovation coming straight up from the street, beside being a precious way to display our works.
In a photo-shooting scenario how do you manage all the people involved? How do you see teamworking in a set characterised by individualities?
Answering this question I must say first that I am a “people person”, so my absolute favorite part of the job is the being on set, where different work personalities can interact to reach a mutual goal. Having everyone’s opinion is pretty much essential in the materialization of the photoshoot, we all are indispensable bringing our vision in, there must be equity to achieve the result.
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