Stylist and editor Dylan Andrews doesn’t just dress people—he builds worlds.
From the pages of Office Magazine to whirlwind shoot days in Miami, Dylan’s thoughtful approach to fashion is rooted in intuition, intention, and environment. We are reporting live from Dylan’s home in ** redacted ** NYC....
- What is your name?
- Dylan Andrews.
- What do you do?
- I'm a stylist and I'm also a fashion editor, the Men's Fashion Editor at a Magazine called Office. So yeah, I do mostly men's wear styling, and for the magazine, I write articles, do interviews. I do freelance styling as well for brands and for personal clients.
- What does the stylist do?
- I mean there’s so many different types of stylists, but you know, there's people that do editorial and personal styling and inhouse at brands, ecom, but essentially it’s a lot of emails, building relationships, choosing clothes, hopefully making the clothes look good on people. Yeah.
- Cool, what is style to you?
- To me style is an expression of who you are. It's the first thing people see about you or notice about you, so I think it's yeah, an extension and expression of who you are, whether it's who you are as a person in general or just how you’re feeling that day.
- So, how did you get into styling? I mean, how did this start?
- So I went to school for fashion design and every time we’d do a design project, we'd have to do a photoshoot or something to present the clothes, as well as just having it on the mannequin. So, I realized pretty early on in studying design that I actually preferred the creative direction, the styling and putting a photo shoot together, a lot more than I felt passion for designing clothes. So I finished my degree in design, and about just over three years ago, I moved to New York and started assisting stylists. While I was doing that, I started doing my own shoots and editorials and building my portfolio. So I was learning how it works by assisting other stylists, but also starting my own thing.
- So a client comes to you or you have a shoot. How do you put an outfit together? Where do you start?
- A client for an editorial or for, like a personal project, or personal styling?
- Maybe a personal client.
- I guess I start by looking at what they normally wear. I think a very big thing for me is that the person or anyone should feel comfortable in what they're wearing. It should feel true to them. I think if people are wearing clothes that don't feel right to them, it kind of looks off, it looks goofy, so I think I yeah. I start with what their personal style is and then, you know, depending on the event or what the look is for, I look into what the kind of vibe is for that, making sure it makes sense. I have a big directory of brands and I'll go through there and see what makes sense. I often try and choose a mix of upcoming designers and local emerging designers, while also, you know, incorporating the big brands too.
- Just like taking the person, their vibe, how can you fit it into the clothes you're trying to pick out and then also just like taking inspiration from the event…
- A big thing for me is also I like to picture clothes in the environment they’re in, so trying to get a grasp of say they're going to a party, what the venue is and how it's gonna look there, I think that's always so important.
- Like world building.
- For sure. Yeah.
- What's your day to day like as a stylist and a fashion editor?
- Every day is a little bit different, which is kind of the beauty of it and what I love. I like that freedom. Everyday there are always a lot of emails. Depends if I'm on a shoot or have a shoot coming up. So yeah, every day is so different, but always a lot of emails
- This is just kind of general, but what inspires you?
- I love architecture. and interior design, like I said, I really am big on world building and picturing things in environments, so often I'd just be in a beautiful space or you know or in a beautiful landscape and I find that really inspiring. I'm not a hugely musical person, but listening to music really gets me inspired and gets me into certain moods. Having conversation with other creatives that are talented and have interesting points of view. Yeah, family, friends and movies could inspire me.
- That's cool, kind of like all over, you pull bits and pieces from everywhere.
- I think everything could be a source of inspiration if you’re open to it.
- If chosen or decided.
- These books here help a lot. A lot of them are my girlfriends, but going through them and just pulling random references and things like that are super helpful.
- I love print fashion magazines. I feel like those are so fire to just look through
- It's so sad that it's disappearing, but it makes sense it’s the way the world's going.
- And it's expensive to print them, but yeah it's fire.
- There's nothing like flipping through a magazine..
- Do you have a crazy styling story or just a moment where you were just like, whoa, I'm really doing this?
- My craziest styling story: I worked on an album cover and a music video for this rapper. I won't say who because it's really crazy... But we had flew to Miami for it, and it was meant to be the first night was the album cover, and then the second day it was the music video, but the album cover was shooting at night. So the call time was 10 pm, we’re there set up, everything was steamed ready to go. I think it was 1 a.m by the time they told us he's not coming.
- *Actual lols*
- So then the next day we had to do both the album cover and the music video in the same day, and that was a long ass day. It was a crazy , crazy day. The things I found in the pockets after he changed clothes- drugs, money - a wild, wild, wild experience. It was very wild.
- That's so awesome.
- That was the craziest styling experience I might ever have who knows.
- Wow wow that’s so cool.
- And like traveling for work is sick. Its so inspiring. Every time I'm in a bit of a slump or feel a little stagnant, traveling for work, I always feel inspired.
- It just brings you back.
- It can be exhausting though, traveling with trunks of clothes is not easy. I've gone to LA with four huge trunks, by myself and having to wheel them through the airport looking like a crazy person. It’s not easy, they can weigh a ton, but traveling for work is always super inspiring.
- So what is next? I know you are styling, writing, and growing, what would you want to do, would you ever want to design clothes or pivot?
- I think what's next most immediately or in the nearer future is just to continue what I'm doing. More of the same, but bigger, hopefully. Bigger editorials, bigger talent, and hopefully just keep getting better and improving and pushing boundaries. There's definitely other things I'd like to do outside of styling for sure. I don't know if I'd ever design full time again, but I did study design. I’d like to collaborate maybe on a collection with someone and give my voice there. But I'd like to do interior design and furniture one day. I think for right now, I'm just very focused on styling, but there's a lot of things after that I think would be interesting to explore.
- Awesome. What does this fashion week mean to you?
- That's a good question because I feel like fashion week's are very different to different people. For a lot of people, it's just about being outside and seen and photographed every single event and every single show and every party. For me, I think it's about being selective and intentional with what I go to. Because it can be exhausting
- Time and energy.
- You know to be very selective and I think it's a chance to see hopefully some beautiful clothes. Some talented people, whether it's big designers or emerging ones. I think that's the fun of Fashion Week because, you know, you can go to Thom Brown and then LEBLANCSTUDIOS, which is debuting for the first time. I think that's so cool to see the spectrum there. I think it's a great chance to connect with people, with brands, with publicists and other creatives, photographers and yeah. I think it's also a nice opportunity to have some fun with your outfits and try shit that you wouldn't normally wear on a weekly basis.
- Cool cool, most definitely. If I or someone wanted to be a stylist, what steps should they take, or how can they best position themselves to succeed as a stylist?
- I would say yeah, definitely assisting, wherever you can, is a big one. Find a stylist that is doing cool things and who you admire and can learn from and try and do as much with them as possible. I think also styling, like assisting on as many different types of projects as you can, editorial to personal styling to commercial, to ecom. I think having a grasp of all different aspects is so important, so you can see what you're most interested in, but just, yeah. And then I'd say building your portfolio and having well, you can, obviously it's hard as an emerging stylist to be able to pull clothes, but as best you can, build a portfolio and make it look good. Less is definitely more in that sense, quality over quantity and have that portfolio ready to go when you need to send it to someone. I think that's it.
- Perfect. Thank you. ON EST LÀ
