When I first witnessed a celebrity stylist trick known as “reverse dressing,” I’m pretty sure I thought the stylist was crazy. It was 2018, and I was tagging along with one of my favourite stylists (who shall remain anonymous so she can continue allowing me to shadow her work and invite me into her clients’ homes) while she prepped a celebrity for awards season interviews. We were in the suite of a major actress who was doing press for a film that would eventually earn her an Oscar nomination.
Said stylist had carted with her roughly half a ton of outfit options, enough shoes to outfit an actual centipede, and enough jewellery to hire her own security team. After trying on roughly a dozen outfits that “were close but not quite there,” she snapped her fingers and said, “Let’s try backwards.” Then she did something that genuinely seemed insane: she instructed her celebrity client to put her outfit on backward. Not “pull it on backwards.” Full-on button-the-sleeves-upside-down backward.
As in, the silk blouse was worn with buttons on the waist and buttons down the back. The dress trousers were pulled on facing backwards and belted around her waist upside-down.
She even put the belt through the loops backward.
At first I thought this was some sort of initiation/hazing tactic for moi, the poor fashion writer trapped in an insanity spiral with a stylist spiraling too far beyond my comprehension.
But then she adjusted the fit, stepped back and beamed. The actress looked in the mirror, turning from one angle to another. “So much better!” she said. “It’s working now!” At this point, I was visibly confounded, because this stylist who was moments ago flinging fabrics every which way had finally noticed my existence and raised an eyebrow. “It’s the shoulders,” she said, which helped approximately zero degrees. “If something fits awkward in the shoulders it can sometimes look better back to front, depending on your shape.
American designers cut clothes bigger and for a more athletic frame.” “It’s because my shoulders are actually smaller than my hips,” said the actress. “Most clothes are cut with the idea that your shoulders are wider than your hip area. When you reverse it, it balances out.” I sat there dumbfounded for the rest of our appointment. Was this occult knowledge reserved for celeb stylists??
Some sort of weird superstition?? After speaking to stylists for the past seven years (and off and on before that), I can report it’s neither. It’s science.
Anatomically and sartorially sound genius. Welcome to the weird stylist hack. Not all celebrity stylist tricks are created equal.
Some are slightly out there but still make perfect logical sense (AKA moisture smoothing new shoes). Others sound so insane you can’t fathom they have a real life application until you see them in action (t-shirts as skirts). But they all work.
Even for mere mortals without premieres or Press tours on the calendar. Let’s start with the reverse dressing trick since we’re already here. Yes, wearing a full-on outfit backward isn’t really doable for day-to-day life.
You cannot keep your job wearing trousers with a seat zipper, trust me, I’ve tried. But you can definitely pull inspiration from this technique to wear things upside down and backwards in ways that don’t totally restrict movement. “It all goes back to understanding that clothing is just a fabric. There’s norule book that says you have to cover up in specific ways,” says Jin Park, a stylist known for dressing multiple K-POP artists as well as his work gaming traditional American garments. “A cardigan can be a crop top worn backward.
You can wear a skirt as a tube top. You can wear a button-down upside down and create a totally different silhouette.” Case in point: Park sent me pics of a styling session where he had his client wear an oversized men’s dress shirt upside down, creating an entirely new shape. The buttons became a dramatic peplum at the waist, while the shirttail created a sort of architectural neckline.
A few carefully placed safety pins under bodice kept it sleek and did not appear to come from the men’s department at Banana Republic. It looked like something you’d pay $500 to DIY at Mood Fabrics, not something literally every woman owns in some variation. As I spoke to more and more stylists about their tricks of the trade, I learned that approaching garments with a let’s-use-this-in-a-way-it’s-not-supposed-to-be-used mindset is basically par for the course.
The “customer friendly” story of effortlessly cool celebs wearing head-to-toe perfection is deceiving; what’s actually happening backstage usually has more oddly satisfying engineering than you’d expect. Especially when it comes to the fancy schmancy stuff that no one talks about because duh, SHOULDN’T BE A THING. Enter the sock trick.
If you had asked me what the sock trick was before talking to celebrity stylists, I would have shrugged and said, “Um…I don’t know?” But literally every stylist I spoke to brought up the sock trick unprompted. “Oh god, the sock trick. Promise me you won’t write about that,” laughed Maria Chen, who styles multiple actresses you would recognise if you saw them. The sock trick involves cutting the toe off a thin dress sock, placing it on your thigh, and rolling it down over itself to create a nonslip barrier that basically acts like homemade shapewear for your legs.
Thick enough to keep skirts and trousers smooth and prevent literal panty lines, but thin enough that you can wear your regular underwear without anything being overly bulky. It’s basically targeted shapewear without the torture device connotation. “Oh my God, every celebrity on the red carpet is wearing some iteration of that,” Maria assured me. “It looks like you’re doing pole dancing tricks in the fitting room, but it works.” Spoiler alert: it does, indeed, work. I happened to be wearing an ungodly clingy maxi dress to a wedding a few weeks ago that threatened to out every.single.roll.my.body.makes, so I decided to give the sock trick a whirl.
Sure enough, sliding the dress over my thigh-concealing socks created a smooth tube that hid every imperfection the dress formerly highlighted. I can never dress myself like this again without magical sock garters. Here’s another one that sounds made up but is actually really helpful: moisturizing new shoes. “We put moisturizer; literally just face cream; on areas of new shoes where leather might rub or cause blistering,” says Tomas Rodriguez, whose clients are primarily musicians he styles for tours and stage appearances. “Cuts down on that stiff new leather feeling and prevents blisters before they happen.”” Rodriguez showed me his favourite brand to use (Cetaphil, the mild soap many dermatologists recommend for everyday skin care) and demonstrated how he massages it onto areas like heel counters and toe boxes on a pair of new-ish patent loafers he had laying around.
He then rubbed the excess off with a towel and handed them to me to try on. And you know what? They felt more broken in than they had before I moisturized them with face cream.
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I’ve since used this trick countless times when breaking in new boots or heels that usually give me blisters, and it works like a dream every single time. Yet another stylist trick I had no idea about but immediately loved was the water bottle trick. No, they’re not secretly watering your purse on your back.
But every structured purse or bag you see online that looks damn near impossible to crease has been stuffed with water bottles for easy transporting, stylist Jin Park explained. “The plastic bottles are the perfect size to use as a bag shaper when you’re travelling and don’t want your bag wrinkled,” he said. “We actually travel with empty water bottles from hotels just so we have something to stuff inside bags to keep their shape.” Bonus stylish hack: You can do this with your own jeans to keep them cuff-ready in your suitcase. Last but certainly not least is the art of intentional mismatching. No, this isn’t your mum’s break up jeans and striped shirt mentality. (Although wear that if it floats your boat.) This is strategically picking pieces that “shouldn’t match” to add some visual interest to an outfit that might otherwise be too Matchy McMatcherson. “There’s really nothing less modern than something that’s too coordinated,” Rodriguez says. “If someone comes in and I feel like their outfit or individual pieces are matching too perfectly; shoes to bag to belt colour; I’ll tell them to swap one thing out for the opposite of what you’d normally wear.” Silver vs gold.
Navy vs black. Something silky with something suede. Bulky boots with a flowy dress.
He likens it to adding salt to caramel or chili powder to chocolate. The visual contrast of two “opposing” elements actually makes each look better and more put together than if they matched perfectly. I’ve started doing this myself on outfits I already own, and it’s been a total game changer.
That go-to all black outfit you wear? Try throwing on a pair of red boots instead of black. That floral dress that feels too sweet?
Add some dude trainers instead of feminine sandals. It’s almost as fun as realising you can (and should!) reverse your shirts. Speaking of backwards clothes… Apparently, one of the best tricks stylists swear by is buying clothes in “the wrong size.” I hear you gasping from here.
You purchase something too small for comfort? Aren’t you supposed to size up? Not according to any of the stylists I spoke to, who said they typically tell clients to size down in certain areas and up in others to manipulate exact fit.
One thing I learned early on in my career is that the whole thing oversized top + skinny trousers rulebook is bullshit. Stylists totally ignore that “guideline” all the time, multiple stylist friends told me. “It sounds crazy, but wearing something oversized on top with something else that’s oversized can actually be really chic,” Chen said. “If you intentionally choose an oversized blazer with a pair of wide leg trousers that fit well on their own, suddenly it’s a look.” Same goes for skipping the loose shirts in favour of something more fitted, especially if you’re rocking curvier figures. “The trick is going more fitted, not less,” Rodriguez says. “Yes, even if you have to go down a size in something stretchy to make it fit ‘snug.’ It’ll actually flatter your figure more than buying two sizes up and hiding inside your clothes.” Spoiler alert: It worked. I found a ribbed knit dress I loved in Theory but was hesitant to order my “real” size because I assumed it would be too clingy.
Skeptical but willing, I ordered the smallest size (two sizes down from my original “safe” choice) and couldn’t believe the difference. It still skimmed my curves, but in a way that actually accentuated my shape rather than swallowed me whole. Many of these tricks sound kinda stupid when you first read them.
Or, fine, they sounded stupid to me until I tried them. But just because they fly in the face of everything you’ve “known” about clothes forever doesn’t mean they’re not the real deal. Which is kind of the point: These stylists are geniuses because they’re hacking the very system we’ve all bought into. “The celebrities we dress don’t suddenly become Buddha about their bodies when they step into the spotlight,” Park told me. “Just like you they have insecurities and things they wish looked differently on their body.
We just know how to fix those things. And nothing we do is so complicated that the average woman can’t do it too.” Challenge accepted. I’ve tried almost all of these tips myself over the past few months, and you know what?
They’re life changing. Or at least fashion ob literally spent my entire adult life misunderstanding. I now own three shirts I regularly wear backwards because it totally works (and I always get compliments on “that cool shirt you found”).
I never scared myself out of wearing navy with black anymore.
I don’t even try to match my metals; now I deliberately throw on gold earrings with my silver necklace for maximum drama.
My shoes almost never match my bags anymore, and my entire wardrobe looks more intentional for it.
Trust me, I used to believe most of these tips were stupid. Clothes are clothes. How could wearing a shirt backwards actually make it look like you spent hours picking out that one shirt specifically to wear inside out?
Just try one weird stylist hack this week. Feel free to reverse your clothing. Cut up your socks.
Wear navy with black. Intentionally mismatch your outfits. Buy a top one size too small if you’ve been told you NEED to buy bigger.
I did and it changed my life. Not gonna lie.
