Picture Credit score: Danielle Levi, Courtesy of Danielle Levi
As Kim Kardashian’s stylist, Danielle Levi is aware of the significance of crafting a private picture and creating buzz with each look.
For somebody like Kardashian whose affect on vogue and popular culture is aware of no bounds as a trendsetter, it’s ironic that Levi’s origin story stems from her feeling like an outsider whereas rising up in Los Angeles.
“I grew up in Jerusalem, so I wasn’t bodily surrounded by vogue,” Levi shares of her background. “Once I moved to America as a teen, highschool was a tradition shock. I used to be sporting modest dishevelled linen garments and everybody was wearing Abercrombie — I didn’t slot in in any respect. I felt like an outcast and simply needed to attach with the opposite children and really feel like I belonged, so I began to review vogue, learn magazines, and watch extra music movies. Finally, this grew to become my profession.”
Vogue grew to become Levi’s outlet and a world that she immersed herself in. It additionally grew to become a type of self-expression, from which she created her identification.
“I believed that if I dressed totally different and expressed my character, folks can be serious about connecting with me. To at the present time I costume and elegance others with intention — how I’m feeling and what kind of consideration we need to appeal to.”
With regards to Kardashian’s type, Levi crafts each look with meticulous care together with Kardashian, and to say they appeal to consideration is an understatement.
The reality is, vogue and private type is one thing everybody can domesticate and it’s an artwork type that may go away an impression on these in your orbit.
“Type is a primary impression, it’s the way you’ll be judged earlier than you even communicate — by no means underestimate the worth of this,” Levi asserts. “It ought to attain the max stage of expressing who you might be and the place you need to be.”
A part of expressing your genuine self comes with not following the standard guidelines of engagement on social media and never posting content material like everybody else, one thing Levi enforces on her personal IG feed (@superrrdani), in addition to in her method to styling.
After highschool, Levi needed to pursue the liberty that styling provided her, as a profession. “I needed to discover a technique to permit different folks to attach in a approach that I needed to so badly, as a result of I struggled with that. Once I type, and I will be myself and put seems collectively and create vibes that different women are influenced by, which they will really feel cool in and specific themselves in, I really feel proud.”
She headed to Italy to review design at Accademia Italiana, which helped form the trail she took in vogue by inspiring her to pursue styling versus design.
(This system there was extra technical slightly than the “fantasy and the artwork,” which is the facet of vogue Levi prefers.)
“Finding out vogue design in Italy taught me what I didn’t need to do. I used to be into artwork however we have been taught enterprise, advertising, patternmaking — it was all courses that stored me from feeling like a artistic. I acquired into styling so I may really feel extra free.”
After faculty, she began working as a stylist intern, principally to each movie star stylist in LA. (Aiding everybody from Jennifer Lopez’s to Chris Brown’s stylist.) Finally Levi acquired to Rihanna’s stylist and Interview Journal’s Editor-in-Chief Mel Ottenberg, who took her in as his LA assistant for 2 years.
(That is becoming as Levi all the time liked music and was fascinated by music movies. “That’s the place my love began. I couldn’t perceive how folks regarded so contemporary on the display, however in actuality nobody dressed like that. The reality is, I wasn’t into actuality — I needed to be a part of the dream.”)
And create the dream is precisely what Levi is at the moment doing, right now.
With regards to vogue, Levi will get her inspiration from mixing totally different worlds versus seeking to one supply.
“I like to combine totally different worlds collectively so nobody can copy our recipe. Artwork, structure, anime — every thing.”
(These totally different worlds will be seen with one scroll on her Instagram feed.)
Levi’s recommendation for the lady who needs to reinvent her vogue type? “Be you to the fullest. Discover what you like, what makes you totally different and amplify that.”
As for taking over a brand new look or adopting a signature type?
Levi shares: “Step one is to think about your favourite issues in life, as in colours, vibes, designers, characters — and to buy from that place. This fashion you personal items which are authentically you, so that you don’t get misplaced within the sauce wanting like everybody else. As quickly as you’ve gotten key items which are totally different and characterize you, you’ll be able to add in fundamentals which are good in your physique kind, and play.”
For somebody whose essential consumer is among the world’s most adopted folks on the earth on Instagram, there’s a paradox in Levi’s notion of social media.
She truly stored her Instagram account non-public for a very long time.
“I did not need to learn feedback from different folks. At first, I disabled feedback. So I had an Instagram account, however no person may message me or write something beneath my pictures as a result of I am not doing this for validation or to listen to folks’s opinions about my pics — I am doing it as a result of I need to do it. And since I prefer it. That freedom was actually enjoyable.”
One scroll by Levi’s Instagram grid showcases her evolution from her genuine self and never taking part in by the principles, to her taking part in it “safer.”
Dani Levi’s Instagram feed, @superrrrdani, Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Danielle Levi
“My Instagram feed displays what the within of my thoughts seems like. When you scroll right down to the start, it’s me at my most self, after which as you scroll up I archived most of my pictures and it will get an increasing number of ‘business’ and fewer ‘on the market’, as a result of everybody on this vogue recreation round me tells I must be extra mainstream if I need to succeed and have a social following to get nice offers and purchasers. I nonetheless have folks attempting to place me in a field on a regular basis and telling me what to do with my Instagram. It’s a battle — this stability of staying true to your self and conforming considerably to what the plenty need.”
(Kardashian is definitely the one individual in her life who has inspired her to not hearken to anybody and to remain true to her genuine self.)
As for Levi’s keys to pursuing your dream profession?
“Solely take recommendation from people who find themselves the place you need to be,” Levi shares. “I additionally really feel like folks’s targets are often materials issues, like getting that home, their favourite automotive, or standing. However I’ve seen folks attain these ranges and nonetheless really feel unfulfilled, so I’d say focus in your objective of being at peace as a substitute. The primary steps to this are your small habits like the way you spend your mornings, the way you discuss to your self, who you comply with on Instagram, what you learn, what you watch, who you share your power with, and who has entry to you. Additionally, there’s a lot jealousy whenever you’re developing, so an enormous a part of attending to the highest is to by no means do the envy or insecurity stuff — all the time be the hustler, effectively wisher, the go-getter. Minding the place your power goes and doing all your finest to be the best, as a result of all abundance begins first within the thoughts.”
Between Levi’s expertise and imaginative and prescient, it’s clear that her runway of alternative has no limits.
