One of the more bizarre details of the Madonna adoption saga is the presence throughout the events of a stylist who also doubles as a nanny and personal assistant. In the first front-page photographs of David Banda, a designer hoodie failing to disguise his bewildered little baby face, the woman carrying him across the tarmac at Heathrow is not Madonna but Shavawn Gordon. On the flight out to Malawi, Madonna apparently asked the stylist/nanny/PA if she was willing to be a “second mother” to any child the singer might care to adopt.
Shavawn Gordon, 33, has a fascinating role in Madonna’s entourage. She has worked with Madonna since the birth of her daughter Lourdes ten years ago, first and foremost as a nanny, but also as a “clothing stylist”. In 2002 she appeared in a small acting role in the much-derided box-office disaster Swept Away, starring Madonna and directed by Guy Ritchie.
Most recently, and most intriguingly, she is also the photographer who, under her married name (Shavawn Rissman), took the blurry, internationally syndicated first shots of Madonna at the Malawian orphanage. This seems to have gone unnoticed in all the speculation surrounding events. Curiouser and curiouser. Is there anything this woman cannot do?
In the seat where once, perhaps, a personal assistant, PR consultant or therapist would have sat, the multitasking stylist-cum-confidante has taken over. In these image-obsessed times, it is simply not a good idea to make yourself responsible for your own image. To appear unstyled is to appear naked and defenceless to the public gaze: without the right image, your words and deeds are meaningless. (Ask Heather Mills McCartney about this. She never had a stylist.) You can understand the attraction: if the main thing you are appraised on is your appearance, the person who defines and transforms the way you look is going to become the one whose judgement you most value and trust.
A job that didn’t really exist until a decade ago is fast becoming one of the most sought- after on the planet. It is, arguably, at the most glamorous and lucrative end of the snake-oil industry. Stylists, once rarely seen or interviewed, are edging their way into the limelight as their remit grows.
Rachel Zoe is the highly publicised Los Angeles stylist to the likes of the actresses Mischa Barton, Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie, heiress and socialite. She is widely acknowledged as having a huge influence on designer fashion internationally. Designers copy what she puts her clients in, and Zoe in turn charges for her services as a consultant to said designers.
Patricia Field, stylist on the television series Sex and the City, has her own clothing line and has become a celebrity in her own right. Carine Roitfeld, the influential editor of French Vogue, is a former stylist. The British stylist Katie Grand has overseen the make-over of several luxury fashion brands. Names such as Arianne Phillips (Madonna’s one-time stylist for big events; I guess that Shavawn just does the out-and-about stuff) and Anna Bingemann (associated with Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts) can make or break a designer’s career.
Indeed, with the stylists’ rising power and visibility, the temptation for them to overstep the mark into self-promotion must be enormous: Carole Caplin’s relationship with the Blairs was never quite the same after she allowed a photographer to take a picture of her applying lipstick to Cherie. It was an intimate styling moment too far.
In these relationships the line between money and love is not clear. While Shavawn Gordon styles, photographs and appears in Ma donna and Guy’s films, she is also, in effect, an understudy for their role as parents. (Indeed, the Daily Mail reported crossly that she was babysitting for Baby David on his first night in London while the Ritchies were living it up at their private club in Mayfair.)
Similarly, Rachel Zoe is an ersatz “big sister”: she accompanies her clients on shopping trips, lunches and dines with them, and generally “hangs out” with them. The only difference is that most of us don’t pay our sisters to come shopping with us. This is what is uncomfortable about stylists. I wonder whether advice is as genuine when you have to pay for it.
There is something disconcerting in the realisation that there are now few images presented to us that are not styled. From “spontaneous” visits to orphanages and appearances on the steps of planes, through videos and concerts, and on to catwalk shows, the resulting images are all the work of a stylist.
Even stars who pride themselves on not using a stylist from day to day admit that they do consult stylists for red-carpet events. When so many “impromptu” paparazzo shots are primped, pre-arranged and pre-agreed – with a stylist who will have decided on the celebrity’s outfit and the setting for the picture in advance – how are we to know what is real life and what is stage-managed? Especially, in the case of Shavawn Gordon/Rissman, where the stylist has gone one step further and even “papped” the photos herself.
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