Outside the Lyrics

-Bad Bunny actually wore a denim and clear crystal version of this jacket.

This is another version of the Woodstack pant in black and gray.

This was worn by Saweetie.

It was worn by Lizzo.

H.E.R.

actually wore these for BET Awards.

-I think there's a yin-yang that happens between fashion and music.

Fashion has to always be a part of the story of music because it's a through line.

Music is a part of that story that you're telling.

When you're doing an audio portion, you need a visual.

Even if there isn't a video yet created, the consumer is already creating a visual what that looks like.

-Every day we communicate with the clothes that we wear.

Before we say a word, our outfit says something about how we see ourselves and how we want to be perceived.

-Consider your style.

Was it influenced by your friends, what you saw online, pop culture?

-That's a complicated question, right?

Because there's a dynamic exchange that inspires our sense of style, one that bridges media, fashion, culture, and us.

A key link in the chain are the stylists and fashion designers who shape our evolving sense of what's fashionable and what's cool.

-Today we're sitting down with Brea Stinson and Brandon Gray, two designers who've styled some of your favorite artists.

They're going to help us understand the vital role that fashion plays in how we experience music and iconic pop cultural moments.

-Today we're talking to Brea Stinson, designer, -Today we're talking to Brea Stinson, designer, stylist, entrepreneur, whose work spans across multiple decades with pieces worn by Usher, TLC, Missy Elliott, and Beyonce.

-I am originally from Detroit, Michigan.

The influence of Motown definitely had its effect on me.

The glamour of all those vintage pictures, the pride that the city had in those folks that came up during the Motown era.

Before I graduated from high school, I often used to design for my friends, their prom dresses, their homecoming dresses.

By the time I got to Clark Atlanta University, I actually opened up a small boutique where I would do bandanas like this, and I would take vintage Levi's and take the pants and make them into skirts.

If you think back, this was during the time of Lauren Hill and, I guess, the emergence of Neo Soul.

I was doing rhinestone belt buckles, rhinestone bandanas, doing the vintage Levi's and reconstructing them.

It was a way for me to make my way through college, pay my bills, buy my books.

I ended up getting introduced to an actual wardrobe stylist through a friend of mine who was in my marketing class.

She introduced me to a wardrobe stylist named Tamika Foster.

She was working with Lauren Hill, Toni Braxton and so I'm thinking, "I can take my little crafty things and pass it on, and she can put my stuff on Toni Braxton, and I'm going to be out of here."

Didn't quite happen that way.

What it did was it gave me an introduction to the industry and all those things that I love that I didn't quite know up until that point that I could turn into a career.

Just seeing the behind-the-scenes of how to properly set up for a photo shoot, seeing her engage with actual celebrities, these stars that have this amazing style, there's a whole team and a whole business behind that.

It just opened my world, really.

After Atlanta, moving to New York, I was able to assist Tamika more often and learn another part of the business, which was the wardrobe styling aspect.

A wardrobe stylist is the person that goes to the fashion show, and you're sitting with the buyers, and you're seeing the things before they're available to retail.

I want to be the first to get that on my client, and that client then influences the masses.

That's the trickle-down effect that I think the movie Devil Wears Prada was trying to explain.

-You're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.

-There's a whole protocol and a system to how things work and how they reach Macy's or these department stores.

-What Brea is describing, that Devil Wears Prada cerulean sweater scene, is exactly why her job is so impactful.

Designers, and in this case stylists, have a direct hand in shaping what we see actors, athletes, and celebrities wear.

Fashion helps an artist communicate who they are and what they're about, even without ever listening to their music.

-Designers and stylists are constantly influencing pop culture from behind the scenes.

Their creativity often molds not just what we wear for a season, but the trends that define eras.

-In the 1970s, British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood helped bring the rebellious look of the Sex Pistols and punk rock to the mainstream.

-Kansai Yamamoto created androgynous and futuristic stage costumes for David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust Tour, skin-tight jumpsuits with flared hems, platform shoes, and silhouettes that didn't adhere to dominant gender norms, all which helped transform Bowie into a global icon.

-Who can forget Dapper Dan?

The Harlem world designer whose iconic looks were worn by Rakim, LL Cool J, and Salt-N-Pepa.

His fusion of high fashion with black luxury and underworld panache influenced early hip-hop fashion and was a key origin for what we now call Streetwear.

I think in addition to designer, stylist, you are a storyteller and a world builder.

-Thank you.

-Because I think that what fashion can do is, number one, help tell a story, help bring it to life.

Creating or imagining spaces that maybe don't exist or allowing for individuals, your clients, to move through those spaces.

-I worked with Jay-Z.

Being able to work with him on the Black album, and I don't know if you remember during that time he was teasing that he was retiring.

It was this huge moment for him to perform at Madison Square Garden.

He sold it out.

There's this vintage tattoo that says Death Before Dishonor, and it's a ribbon around a sword that goes through a heart, and he says that in one of his records on the Black album.

I presented it to Tamika, and I'm like, "You should get this embroidered on the back of a jacket."

This was a time where he was transitioning from the guy who had everybody wearing vintage jerseys to now he's becoming the head of Def Jam.

He was bridging that gap from the young hip-hop artist wearing jerseys to now stepping into this business position.

How do we present him to the world where he's still true to his audience?

Walking around pulling clothes, we're pulling French cuff shirts and diamond cuff links and pairing them with New York Yankee baseball caps.

It created a big shift.

-Yes, and we still see that.

We still see the effects of that.

-Yes, you're still going to see a Uncle Cool Daddy on a Friday thinking he's business casual with a blazer and a baseball cap, and you're like, "Sir."

For a lot of that time when I was just getting started, certain brands wanted to keep their clientele, and they weren't really open to expanding to people, frankly, that looked like me.

Sometimes they would say yes.

Sometimes they wouldn't answer.

There was moments like that where I'm like, "My client deserves something special.

I need to design it."

Her wore this when she sang, I want to say it was America the Beautiful for the Super Bowl that took place during the pandemic.

This is a replica of the jacket that she wore, and one arm is solid armor and bedazzled, and the other arm is soft lambskin leather.

It's soft because this is the arm that she plays the guitar with.

These are pieces of leather from Stevie Wonder costumes that I designed.

It also meant that much more to her because it was somebody that she idolizes, and I was using scraps from his pieces.

-Gray, led by Brandon Gray, uses elegant garments, suits, and other formal wear to tell his clients stories.

He's designed for musicians like Maya, Brandy, Toni Braxton, and Maria.

Just this year, his work was on one of fashion's biggest stages, The Met Gala.

Thank you so much for having us here in your incredible space.

To start, I wanted to hear more about your upbringing.

How did you get into thinking about fashion and design?

-I'm a preacher's kid's preacher's kid.

I come from a long line of heavy in the church.

Always been a runway.

You think about Sunday's best when you're in church, and you put your best version of clothes on, your best shoes on, you shine them up, and you look good.

How did I transition that from the church into mainstream fashion was something that was just already in me.

You can't tell one story without the other.

I think the visuals are so important.

This is one of the pieces from our love letter to LA.

This is the Venice Canal Scarf.

The watercolors of it give you the ability to see the city in a way that sometimes it's a little bit distorted.

I am a Los Angeles, California native.

Inglewood, to be exact.

You have to separate the two.

Where I grew up was very much a little bit downtrodden, but it was ours.

It shaped me in so many different fashions.

This is one of our gradients.

It talks about what it looks like for our city in LA.

This represents our mountains.

The views of people have for the city, it may be a little bit distorted.

What does LA truly look like to me versus what it really is?

There's a different pride that comes with owning the city.

You're constantly fighting what others are putting on the city.

It's your job to make sure that you're articulating LA is so much more.

The love letter to LA was me choosing five different neighborhoods that were just very much influential in what Los Angeles looked like to me.

The Watts Towers was so representative of Black LA when we have our Compton Cowboys and this whole culture that people don't necessarily know is a part of what we are, who we are.

Hollywood Bowl, how it was so influential and so many musical acts that came through there and had amazing times.

Great Western Forum, Showtime Lakers.

That was just absolutely amazing for me.

The Venice Canals, getting an opportunity to see what was our West Coast version of what it looked like in Venice.

There's so many people that are here that don't even know about the Venice Canal.

Of course, Dodger Stadium.

The rich, legacy of Dodgers and the sports world in LA.

So many different walks of life come together.

I just wanted LA to look like the actual melting pot that it is, as opposed to what the depiction from the outside may look like.

-Despite LA having so much to offer aesthetically, culturally, and of course, musically, when it comes to fashion, the city isn't held to the same level of prestige as places like New York, London, or Paris.

We don't have to think of LA as a Constellation Prize.

-I think that there's a network of information that needs to happen when it comes to fashion.

What I mean by that is that although there may be these amazing milleries that are over in Europe, they eventually make their way over here.

Our states, we have the stories.

New York, we have the stories.

Los Angeles, we have the stories.

There's always this space where, even for Fashion Week, we struggle to find LA as this place where fashion can live and be true to what it is because there's this fast fashion sense when it comes to LA.

There's also this development where we're rivaling this same space because we are budding when it comes to brands that are holding down the fort in so many different facets.

Streetwear, we think about Union.

When we're thinking about high fashion, Amiri, we're thinking about GRAY.

We're thinking Sergio Hudson, Rhuigi with Rhude.

We're so many different sides of LA that are homegrown.

I think it's our job to make sure that we champion that and not allow us to fall second fiddle to what is offered in Paris.

-As Brandon and Brea demonstrate, fashion is central to music's power as a means of storytelling and connecting people.

-It influences how we experience the music and popular culture of our lives and shapes how different Los Angeles artists and communities express identity, resilience, and even faith.

Thanks for watching Outside the Lyrics.

-Make sure to like and subscribe if you want more stories about how different communities shape music and how music shapes them.

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