A Conversation with Luke Storey: Stylist & School of Style Founder

Although styling musicians has earned Storey most of his portfolio, most recently he has been doing a lot of editorial styling for the UK fashion magazine, Fault (www.faultmagazine.com).  Storey has also been the go-to stylist for musician, Marilyn Manson, for the past 4 years, and will be working on the upcoming album and tour. In addition to his styling career, he also owns and operates School of Style, which is a unique training program held at Smashbox Studios in LA and Ace Hotel in NYC.  Storey is currently represented by Artmix Beauty.

Tell us the story behind your favorite wardrobe item

Luke: My favorite item I own is currently a pair of YSL leopard print pony hair sneakers. After 2 years of listening to my partner Lauren relentlessly clown my trashy sneakers I finally caved and got some grown up kicks. The YSL’s were quickly followed by a pair of wicked suede and patent leather Lanvin. I can now see a pattern developing, and have come to understand how women can spend $900 on a single pair of shoes. You really do need a different pair for every outfit!

What’s your most memorable ‘panic moment’?

Luke: My worst all-time panic moment was when I realized that I had gone $10k over budget on a Christina Aguilera/Nelly music video. That is not a typo. Ten thousand US dollars. Producers typically freak if you go even $1k over budget, so you can imagine the shit storm that hit me when I made the call. To make matters worse the budget was only for the background talent and dancers! Probably the worst fail ever in the history of styling. This was 9 years ago, and still easily ranks #1 in my book of disasters.

How did you recover from it gracefully?

Luke: I was only able to pull off a partial recovery. I had actually adopted the job halfway through from another stylist, so there were endless justifications as to why the job went so far over budget-none of which directly being my fault. My mistake was in not letting the producer know how far over budget we were until it was too late to reallocate funds from other departments. In the end I was only able to justify half of the screw up.

What is your favorite era for fashion?

Luke: My favorite era is usually the current one. Even though all art, including fashion, is somewhat derivative there is always something exciting about seeing things for the first time. That being said, I would have to site the late 60’s as being the most dynamic and exciting period in fashion.

What was your big break?

Luke: My big break actually took a few years!  I was assisting a grip of amazing stylists in LA like Trish Summerville, Andrea Lieberman, and B Akerlund. Eventually I started to get some pretty decent “hand me down” jobs from the stylists which I assisted. A few of these turned out to be clients which I still have today, such as Spin Magazine.

Whose closet would you most like to raid?

Luke: Rick Owens

Who are your favorite designers?

Luke: My all-time favorite designer/fashion house is Alexander McQueen.  Other favorites include Givenchy, Gareth Pugh, Comme Des Garcons, Alexander Wang, Marni, and Temperley.

Thanks Luke!  To learn more about Luke and School of Style please visit www.lukestorey.com and www.theschoolofstyle.com. You can find him on twitter @schoolofstyle.