Melanie Ward invented the thought of the trendy stylist: one which picked bits up from in every single place, not only a ‘look’ from a style present. It’s no shock she studied design at St. Martins — how she put garments collectively, with a little bit of a zipper from right here and a little bit of a cut-up t-shirt from there was groundbreaking. She efficiently mixed her style background with ins and outs mixing a Gaultier skinny rib with some Levi’s she had taken aside and dyed, one leg a unique color from the different, after which sewed again collectively.
She additionally definitely gave fashion magazines a leg up, made them related in style circles, made world famend designers and their circles have a look at them and take discover. I’m wondering if The Face or i-D would have ever been as globally influential with out Melanie’s expertise. Dazed will surely by no means have taken the path it did with out Melanie’s affect on me whereas I used to be there, till about 1997, after we had been nonetheless determining learn how to do style. She was additionally the cause I later took the style director job at The Face and launched Pop.
I used to be working at the Katharine Hammett press workplace once I first met Melanie Ward. I used to be fortunate sufficient to be given an internship for a few weeks (with Romaine Lillie, who I met when she was carrying Pucci and gave me tickets to Prince, however that’s one other story). It was the Summer of 1990 — simply earlier than I went to St. Martins.
I didn’t actually know what a stylist was, however seeing Melanie’s “Summer of Love” story in The Face (that includes Kate Moss shot by Corinne Day) made me realise I needed to be identical to her.
Me and my associates in Birmingham had spent the summer time recreating the shoot, with varied denim skirts, Birkenstock sandals and tight small classic t-shirts, coupled with no hair and make up which was in stark distinction to the earlier months attempting to appear like Lady Miss Kier.
I needed to get baggage of charity store garments and blend them with excessive style. As time went on I realised that I used to be by no means going to be a kind of stylists that desperately wanted look 21 from wherever. I used to be fairly completely satisfied placing stuff collectively like Melanie did. (I’ve by no means been wherever close to nearly as good as her however boy it’s been enjoyable attempting).
Her solid was simply all the things I needed to be, horny women wanting like horny boys, horny boys wanting like horny women. The proper pair of silver pants, the proper polo neck. She confirmed that you just simply wanted to search for good garments; it didn’t matter the place they had been from. Her styling transcended class, displaying your background didn’t matter; it was the way you introduced your self.
I nonetheless keep in mind her strolling into the studio carrying Adidas tracksuit bottoms and god she was so cool. I used to be additionally in her agent Debbie Walters’s workplace a while not so lengthy after while she was saying “Yeah, but she needs Concorde, she will never make the meeting unless she’s on the Concorde,” clearly referring to a gathering between Melanie and Calvin Klein.
Of course, Melanie made critical waves in the worldwide style area.
I all the time liked her work with Helmut Lang. It was simply so intelligent: the pants over the face, the bouncy orange factor, her self portraits. She’s the cause I purchased Helmut Lang! As nicely as Gaultier, once I might afford it. The reality {that a} British stylist with a seemingly regular background who made their identify placing her associates in second-hand garments grew to become style director for Harper’s Bazaar US for 14 years… she modified the method all of us have a look at style, in a really worldwide method.
I met her correctly years later at the well-known, very late Marc Jacobs backwards present, after which we went and received extremely drunk at the Gramercy Park Hotel and I went on and on about how she had modified my life and I might by no means have ended up doing what I do with out her unimaginable inspiration. I used to be reminded late final night time as folks exchanged their Melanie tales that each time she was in a room I might go as much as her and say how her work had modified my life, and she or he was all the time a bit bashful and stunned.
I noticed her once more earlier this yr at Kim Jones’ closing Dior males’s present. This week has seen terrible losses in the style business (Louie Chaban additionally handed away). Both Melanie and Louie formed my profession greater than both of them might ever know. They had been each sensible, gifted and had nice imaginative and prescient; each fairly uncompromising which made them so iconic, particular and the greatest.
Katie Grand is a stylist, artistic director and editor. She co-founded Dazed & Confused in 1992, then labored as style director at The Face earlier than launching Pop journal in 2000, adopted by Love journal in 2009, and the journal and artistic company Perfect in 2020.