Weather 
They’re the talk of the front row.
It was a sighting that had the fashion world agog — billionairess Lauren Sanchez-Bezos caught walking into the Christian Dior couture show in Paris in January, uber-stylist to the stars Law Roach at her side.
The appearance of the unlikely twosome together, the bust-flaunting Sanchez-Bezos dressed in demure head-to-toe vintage Dior —a signature Roach riff — confirmed what until then was barely even a whisper: that Sanchez-Bezos had employed Roach for a complete remake.
And she was certainly due for one, after disastrous high-profile appearances at events like the second Trump inauguration, where she showed up wearing a corset, leading one commentator to call her a “hooker.”
The pairing is curious, if somewhat poetic. Roach has made his name styling — and indeed even crafting the impact of — some of the most adored celebrities in the fickle world of fashion, including Zendaya, Ariana Grande and Celine Dion. In fact, such is his success that he has dubbed himself an “image architect.”
At the same time, much like Sanchez-Bezos, he has come up from nothing, building his career from vintage store owner from Chicago into stylist, a red carpet celebrity in his own right, and now even a television star.
There’s an obvious reason why Sanchez-Bezos is keen to work with someone so influential as Roach — the notoriously cruel fashion industry has not been kind to her, despite the fact that Amazon, owned by her husband, is the sponsor not just of the CFDA Awards (call them the fashion Oscars, with better dresses and more star power), but this year, for the first time, of Vogue’s storied Met Gala.
Even with Roach at her side, and a new wardrobe in tow, the fashion editors at this season’s couture shows were still hard to please.
“I saw her for the first time in real life at Dior couture,” one of the editors who sat nearby told The Post. “She looks like the type of woman you see in Las Vegas. She can wear vintage Dior, but the way it’s fitted on her body? The way she wears it? She’s always going to look like a cha-cha girl. Everyone rolled their eyes when she walked in, but you couldn’t stop staring — it was a car crash of a guilty pleasure.”
But regardless of the fash-pack’s cattiness, Roach’s continued influence on Sanchez-Bezos is clear. Just this week while promoting her new children’s book, Sanchez-Bezos appeared in a series of modest Roach-inspired looks.
Sanchez-Bezos, of course, is also readying to be a flashbulb-popper on the Met Gala red carpet in a matter of weeks. Her first, and last, outing at the marquee event was two years ago, in a surprisingly well-received Oscar de la Renta confection.
Since then, however, the reviews have tended more toward rants than raves. No wonder she’d like to shift the perception of her image — or that, according to one of fashion’s most prominent commentators, it was global editorial director of Vogue Anna Wintour who acted as matchmaker between Lauren and Law.
“A source told me that Anna knew Lauren Sanchez had poor taste and was helping her the first time she went [to the shows],” Amy Odell, who wrote the blockbuster namesake bio of the editor, told The Post. “Her taste level is not the Vogue taste level.” And with the Bezos’ underwriting this year’s Met Ball, it’s vital that her honorary co-chairs look the part.
(Wintour’s trademark cattiness couldn’t help but sneak out in an interview with CNN, where she referred to Sanchez-Bezos as “a great lover of costume” — before assuring she’d be a “wonderful asset to the museum and the event.”)
Roach, too, has been in Wintour’s orbit for some time. Put on the map by Kanye West back in 2009, he soon began working with his most loyal client to date Zendaya, soon becoming one of the influential stylists in the business. He has worked for multiple editions of Vogue, and was on the masthead of the UK edition for a while.
Still, an editor outside Conde who works frequently with him described the experience as “drama, drama, drama,” while another red carpet fixer who’s been a fixture for more than two decades said, simply, “I’ve never come across anyone like him before — he was very difficult to deal with.”
No wonder that more than one observer suggested that it’s Wintour’s win-win to foist a troublesome contributor off onto a commercial gig with someone like Sanchez-Bezos — pairing them up like this relieves her of some responsibility towards them both.
“Anna wanted to keep her distance with him being involved in the magazine,” noted one veteran of the move.
But everyone’s asking a bigger question than that. Why would someone so top-tier, and seemingly as picky as Roach, need or choose to work for Sanchez-Bezos? After all, he’s lauded for turning Zendaya and Anya Taylor-Joy into endorsement-ready clothes horses.
Money, of course.
“All my glam friends are bitching that studios don’t want to pay any more, and Netflix is cutting rates down to $500 a look now,” one fashion insider explained to The Post. “It’s difficult for folks to make the living they used to.”
The solution, then, is to swap editorial styling for glorified personal shopping, which is far more lucrative.
Indeed, another fashion exec estimated that Roach is likely charging a retainer of up to $75,000 per month to offer style counsel to Sanchez Bezos, plus around $5,000 per day when he’s on the road with her.
Even more importantly, he’s smart to work with someone to whom clothing brands won’t loan samples — whether because they’re not the right size, or simply not on-brand. Women like that, Lauren included, must pony up to buy what they want at retail. And when they do, these days, boutiques and stores kick back 8-10% of whatever they spend to the stylist who accompanies them.
At the same time, some of his most high-profile celebrity clients were rumored to have cut down their work with him — indeed, Zendaya aside, few of the women for whom he’s wrangled red carpets remain clients (His ex-list includes Anya Taylor-Joy, Kerry Washington and Celine Dion).
“He likes to think of himself as talent, and he would turn in his expense receipts which were tens of thousands of dollars,” recalls one luxury exec involved in such a deal, who says one A-lister split from him as a direct result of his diva-like behavior: “She said ‘All these brands are telling me how difficult you are to work with, and it doesn’t look good on me.”
That was three years ago, or around the time, of course, that Roach mysteriously announced his retirement – before quickly bouncing back with gigs like the revived Project Runway and, of course, improving the closet of Lauren Sanchez Bezos.
Zendaya, though, has remained loyal throughout. They’re so close that when she’s booked by a brand for an appearance, it’s contingent on both her and Roach’s schedule.
“He said to me, ‘Zendaya is not coming if the date doesn’t work with me. He’s so ingrained with her that any brand that works with her, he comes with, no matter what.”
The partnership started when she was a Disney-minted tween, and he was running a vintage store in Chicago. Most red carpet wranglers begin as assistants to better-known names, and build a network that way; Roach did not. “There’s always been a chip on the shoulder because he was never an editorial stylist,” notes one editor who works with him regularly. “He’s a survivor who comes from a different world,” says another.
Maybe that’s another thing the pair has in common. Sanchez Bezos might seem irrepressible, but the barbs hurled at her for almost everything she wears are doubtless making a mark.
These two outsiders, snarked at by the fashion élite, could come together and both prove their haters wrong. It doesn’t hurt for Law, of course, that such a comeuppance for his doubters would be so cash-rich, too.
Even doubters acknowledge Law has certain strengths.
“He has a lot of good vintage people on speed dial, and access to special vintage pieces – that special Galliano suit from that collection,” says one editor who knows him well.
“Much as Sanchez-Bezos thinks she can call Oscar de la Renta and get something custom, to go that deep into an archive and think about your look for a whole week of couture? That’s Roach. Everything she wore was amazing.”
His vintage-savvy is the main reason Roach believes his talent is so unique, that editor tells the Post. “He thinks everyone is copying him and nobody can do whatever he does.”
Maybe his mission, though, is less about fixing Lauren’s style than two outsiders clapping at a world that’s rejected them both.
The fashion world might have swagger, but those bitchy insiders don’t have deep pockets – and when someone as wealthy, and ready to buy acceptance, as Lauren appears, it’s easy to see why they surrender.
She wields more power than anyone in fashion likely wants to accept, and she’s now dragging with her a talent who’s already felt how chilly it is to be on the outs with the in crowd.
The snarky observers may well live to regret their sneering, said Wintour biographer Odell.
“We’re in a new moment, where the stealth wealth thing is breaking and it’s more about opulence. Fashion is feeling its way around, and for better or worse, she’s the post person for that.”
Lauren’s certainly cast her net wide, working with multiple stylists over the past couple years since her much-covered wedding in Venice landed her a digital Vogue cover. Still, one red carpet vet doesn’t anticipate this awkward partnership enduring, either.
“I’m just shocked his ego and her ego haven’t clashed. I’m just glad he’s able to find a new lane, because he’s burned a ton of bridges along the way.”
