Haley Wollens on being a self-taught stylist: From Reality to Myth

What is a fashion image-maker and how does one make it work? For Haley Wollens, it takes resilience. At first glance, the stylist’s career in fashion seems almost like a birthright; an inevitability for a girl that grew up in New York, playing dress up in the anti-fashion boutiques of St. Mark’s Place. But speaking with her, being a full-time creative is a role she is fighting to maintain on a daily basis.

Dropping out of art school to go on tour with M.I.A, pre-Instagram, when it was all about your IRL presence, Hayley helped create one of the first viral music videos. Her portfolio contains many editorials and collaborations with the likes of  Drake and Chloé Sevigny, but there were plenty of rejections along the way, too. These days she’s editing her own magazine, Myth, a culmination of her years in the industry, forging connections with other image-makers.

Here, Haley shares the true cost of being a multi-hyphenate in an industry that loves labels.

I would like to start from the beginning. How did you get into fashion?
I grew up in New York, in the East Village, so fashion was always such a form of communication where I was. I was a few blocks away from St Mark's, the home of American punk. I lived above a music school, so there were children there to play with. These kids were such an example of dedication. My brother and I grew up around very motivated young children. I always wonder if that had an impact on us. For me, fashion has really been a journey. It sounds so cheesy, but I have been playing dress-up since I was a little girl. That was my game. My mum would go to thrift stores and get me gowns and prom dresses from the '50s. The materialisation of these objects was so special. I actually found a birthday list that I made when I was 14, and it had things like Chinese silk robes and bracelets with mermaids on them. I’ve stayed the same person since then.

I grew up in this fantasy of imagining what dressing could be or what I thought a “cool girl” was when I was 12. I feel like I have fulfilled that fantasy. So, what's next? What's my new fantasy about dressing and self-expression besides the fact that I love making outfits and clothes? It’s interesting because, on the flip side, I’m also very low maintenance. I'm not saying I don't have closets and closets of clothes, but it's a really nuanced relationship that I have with them. I just had my 96-year-old landlord up here two nights ago, and they were like, ‘So, what does a stylist do?’ and that’s my favourite question.

"I’m so shocked by the “mainstreamification” of fashion styling now." - Haley Wollens

Was there a specific moment you can recall when you realised that being a stylist could be your profession?
I’m so shocked by the “mainstreamification” of fashion styling now; even my little cousin was going to “fashion camp”. I did not even know it was a job back then. My mother worked in fashion; she was in sales. She worked for everyone—Blumarine, Anna Molinari, and Fiorucci. I grew up with all the posters of topless Italian women in monokinis and a woman getting banged by Santa. So, that had a huge impact on me and influenced my aesthetic. That kind of sexuality was just playful and fun. I always had this plug to things, even though she was really not into fashion personally. She was always like, ‘No, don't be in fashion; it’s the worst,’ and I was like, ‘I’m definitely going to be in fashion.’

My real entry into the fashion world was really the shop culture of the '90s. When I was a pre-teen through to when I was a teen, my weekend would be me and my best friend walking around and hitting all the stores, rarely buying anything. We just went to look, and we lived in Patricia Field’s stores. She had hysteric glamour when it was so rare and so expensive. I had just never seen anything like it. We'd just go to look at the clothes, and she had all this fun jewellery, and Amanda Lepore would be sitting at the makeup booth. There'd be the salons in the back with Sophia Lamar working there.

I ended up working in a store called The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for Judi Rosen, who was known for bringing back the high-waisted jeans. I just idolised her. She became famous for buying all these deadstock stockings and re-dyeing them, making garters for the knee socks. I would be in the back as the intern, painting strawberries and cherries on the garters. I was in heaven. I just loved shop culture. That was my first goal: to have a store in New York.

You really took advantage of where you were, basically.
Yeah, it started with shop culture, but that really died down in the recession, when everything closed. I mean, now New York is a graveyard of shopping. It’s sad. Boutiques were places where you could run into people that weren’t a nightclub or a bar. When I went to art school, when I did need a job, I started working in American Apparel, like everyone else from my generation in America. My brother also worked in shops from a very young age. He was the first guy to sell all the Supreme skaters' gear on eBay when he was 12. It was the first wave of eBay. And he introduced me to the fashion editor of The Fader, who was looking for help. And that's how I started getting into knowing what a stylist was. It was really organic. I wasn't looking for an assisting job. I really didn't even know that existed.

And that was whilst you were still in art school. Were you studying fashion there?
I started studying motion graphics and finished studying graphic design, but I ended up dropping out of school. Through this job, I met M.I.A., which was a really pivotal moment in my career. I basically dropped out of school to go on the road with her. I saw it as my ticket to the next stage, questioning the point of college.

"I learned so much from M.I.A., so I feel so lucky that I had that experience, but I always felt very alone. I never had the typical 'this is my boss, I interned here' situation." - Haley Wollens

Did you see a connecting thread through all your jobs, studies, and styling back then?
The only common thread with all of it was hard work. I mean, M.I.A. certainly didn't think I worked hard enough for her – she was very tough. It was tough love. But I learned a lot from her because she is so hard-working and a true artist. When I hopped off the tour in my early 20s, I was so exhausted. I had never experienced working with a musician, touring with them, with such crazy hours and intensity. Also, styling an artist or styling a personality is sort of the same as working with a creative director of a house. It's extremely psychological. Even more so when it's a person who has to be front-facing, where their expression is themselves. It's intense – you're their closest cohort, and you know everything. You have to make sure they feel good, and you can't always control that. It was just very draining for me at a young age and kind of made me realise what I'm able to take on – which is a lot. But is this healthy? I learned so much from M.I.A., so I feel so lucky that I had that experience, but I always felt very alone. I never had the typical "this is my boss, I interned here" situation.

Do you feel like you ever struggled with imposter syndrome because of that?
Oh, definitely. Creating for someone like M.I.A., who’s such a talent and so established, and having to impress her was really hard. And I often didn’t impress her. She must have thought I was good because she kept me around, but I also had no idea what I was doing. None. I faked it as much as I could. This was pre-Instagram. It was still a time when the perception of yourself was what you were living in the world. Me and my life – having to fake it. There's nothing phony about it, but there is a certain point in your life where even if you don't believe in yourself, you have to fake it, and you have to fake the confidence. It's not that you have to fake being good. When I came back after M.I.A.’s tour, I went to this GHE20G0TH1K party, which was started by Venus X and Shayne Oliver. This was a scene that I wanted to be a part of – diverse and fashionable. I realised I was too exhausted from tour life. I was DJing and throwing parties and just felt really drained. I didn't feel like I had a creative idea in me past a party flyer.

And how did you get out of that?
When I was 25, I felt the need to rebound creatively. I started doing some little test shoots, and one day I was dancing in my bedroom to Blood Orange’s “Champagne Coast” and a light bulb went on in my head. I was watching myself in the mirror, and I just thought about women dancing. I had so many girlfriends who were such great dancers, so I wanted to make an It-girl video in response to this new era of the Vogue-rich-girl-it-girl. I wrote to Dev on Facebook. I reached out to him. I probably had only one fashion story out that I could've sent him. I was just like, “I would love to work with you.”Then, that day, I went on a blog and I saw: “Jeff Hines shoots Champagne Coast video in Bushwick.” It was the opposite of what I wanted. Cut to a Christmas party later that year. I had never met him in person, and I went up to him at the party and I told him how I had the best idea for the video. He told me that he had canned [other one] and asked if I wanted to do it. I went back to my best friend Maya, who’d been doing production, and she helped me organise it. We cast it with $1,500. That was a lot for me. His label was kind enough to pay me back after it broke the internet. That video was, I would say, the real beginning for me. It was the first time as a creative that I made something that truly came out the way I imagined it. And that hasn’t really happened since then.

Did you ever assist a stylist?
I had worked for Mel Ottenberg for a few months after M.I.A. We met at Screaming Mimi's, and he was going to do the Rihanna “We Found Love” video. He was like, What would you pick here? And I picked some things from Screaming Mimi's, and then I was hired. It was amazing working for him. It was really cool to just see a “functioning” studio. He had an amazing studio manager. He had a really well-oiled operation.

Were you pulling from brands?
I knew Michelle Stein, president of Aeffe [the Italian luxury group that owns Moschino], through my mother. When I was doing shoots, I had no idea where to get clothes, so I was calling up Michelle, and she would let me pull from the archives of Gaultier and Moschino.

Pulling from archives wasn't really a thing then, right?
Yeah, it wasn't. For me, vintage was always my gateway. Nothing I was going to pull from current seasons was going to look as good as vintage. The reaction to the “Champagne Coast” video was just incredible. Then I had photographers like Colin Dodgson and Max Farago suddenly asking to work with me. I shot the cover of Double magazine. I had no idea what Double magazine was. It's the worst story ever. I mean, Max loves it because it's so ironic. I had no money. I [said to]  Max, You're going to pay for all this, right?

You were formally introduced to the fact that editorial work is not paid at all.
That was a hard realisation. I had no idea how lucky I was to be a first-time stylist doing Double magazine. It took me ten years to get back in Double. Then that kind of started the editorial period, which was really rough. I was really broke, and my family was like, "You need to get a job. What are you doing?"

"[Styling] is problem-solving. That’s always how I saw it, and that's always what I did. And it was frustrating and disappointing." - Haley Wollens

Did you feel that you had to do all these editorials because it's just what you need to do to have a career in fashion? Did you feel that pressure?
Editorials are like the most fun thing. That's where you get your vision out. I knew I had to do it, but I also wanted to do it. But it was never on my own terms, so I was never happy with it. When you're starting styling, it is about making it work. I never got the things I asked for. All of my shoots are just me readjusting to whatever showed up. I was never in a place to be like, "This is the theme of the story," because you’d get one thing that was in the theme, and the rest is like random crumbs, and you have to make it into something that makes sense. It is problem-solving. That’s always how I saw it, and that's always what I did. And it was frustrating and disappointing. At the start, I thought I had to shoot current fashion. Looking back now, I know I could have used whatever to get my vision across. I didn't have to use pulled clothes.

Did the big magazines ask for current clothes, though?
Yeah, of course, magazines asked, but I was very “green”. I also can see this in young stylists. I can tell that they thought they had to use new fashion, and I feel like that's kind of the worst type of styling. But I am guilty of it, and I've done it like a trillion times, and I'll do it again.

And was there a point where you were like, I can't survive with editorials?
Yeah. I remember the conversation. I was seeing a dentist out of state because it was cheaper. And my aunt was picking me up, and she was just like, "What are you doing? You need to get a job." I was like, You don't get it. I have to be available at the drop of a dime for my next opportunity. I really don't know how I made it, but I did. And I did it on my own, and I wish I could give more information on how.

"When it would have benefited me to be working with a smaller talented designer, I couldn't afford to do that. I couldn’t afford to go to London and not get paid." - Haley Wollens

Do you think now that you’ve started your own magazine you have control, or do you feel you still have to compromise on certain things?
I think it's always a compromise because you just never know what you're going to get. I was making decks on decks, writing to people nonstop, stalking editors, getting ghosted.

I’ve always had this weird thing where I think I’m lazy. Which clearly I’m not, but at heart, I feel lazy. I am looking back at my notebooks from those years and there are just lists and lists of what to do. I was working at it all the time. I know it sounds a lot like: “Then Chloe Sevigny just came in,” but it wasn't like that. I worked my ass off. That is the theme of my career. When I hit college, I didn’t have any support anymore. So, I had to make it.

"For every success, there are 25 failures. I've had amazing meetings that might just amount to nothing." - Haley Wollens

How do stylists become consultants?
I can tell you how I see other people do it. For me, it was really hard because, at the time when it would have benefited me to be working with a smaller talented designer, I couldn't afford to do that. I couldn’t afford to go to London and not get paid. I always really regretted that. Because that really seems the way that most people do it. The first consultant job I ever had was Alexander Wang. That was a very fake it till you make it moment. But I learned so much from that and I had no shortage of ideas. I just wasn't sure how to show up to a consulting meeting and present. Then at the same time, with Mugler, I interviewed the first time and Casey and I talked for two hours. I thought I had it in the bag and I didn't end up getting it. Which is life, because, let me tell you, I don't get most things. For every success, there are 25 failures. I've had amazing meetings that might just amount to nothing. Not everyone has the guts for that. It's a lot. It’s tough. I built up a kind of numbness to it. I think that probably people find me very upfront but actually I’m prepared for disappointment at all times.

"Fashion is so fucked up because it's this story of resilience and rejection and powering forward. And then you're like: Sorry for what? For fashion? For clothes?" - Haley Wollens

Not very many people talk about rejections.
Fashion is so fucked up because it's this story of resilience and rejection and powering forward. And then you're like: “Sorry for what? For fashion? For clothes?” You have to step back and be like: “We're not saving the world. We’re maybe doing something for the culture that is beautiful.” Also, I never had a goal which always scared me because I was so driven with no goal. People always ask me: “What would be your dream house to work with?” I don't know. Maybe they don't exist yet. Why do I only have to pick from the same 20 houses that have existed?

"People always ask me: 'What would be your dream house to work with?' I don't know. Maybe they don't exist yet. Why do I only have to pick from the same 20 houses that have existed?" - Haley Wollens

Tell us a bit about Myth. How did you decide to start something on your own?
I really wanted to understand how a magazine worked.

You wanted your own platform?
I love the collaboration of fashion. That's something that I've always really thrived in. Even though we hear about all these bossy stylists, at the end of the day, it is teamwork. I also felt that I was really inspired by other stylists and how else am I going to have a way to collaborate with another stylist? The term magazine has not evolved enough. You can go back to an old magazine and it's a sign of the times. And I felt that magazines, as beautiful as they were, were becoming more and more distant from the times. I didn't feel like my generation was reflected in the pages. Because at the end of the day, fashion is this way to tell time. I want people to look back at my work and know when it was made. That’s also where the name Myth came from because it's like a myth. It's like a lie that has a truth. That is what fashion can be. I wanted to reset the clock. Also, there are stories that I started five years ago that I finished five years later. Like that first story in the issue with Maria Carlathere's pictures of me. My cousin is in that. My first intern, Meg, is in that. That was shot in 2020 during COVID. A lot of the stories actually were shot in two parts. Breaking out of that typical structure.

"In order to create the mess you see in the magazines, you need precision." - Haley Wollens

It’s good to be reminded every now and then that you don't have to tick specific boxes like finish school, get an internship, or work at a specific place to have a good career. This might be why people struggle to have a career, because everybody's stepping on the same steps.
I'm really torn with this next generation. I think it's so cool that young people are so unafraid to put themselves out there, but it's a gift and a curse. At the end of the day, this business runs on organisation. It does not just run on having a good idea, having good taste, or having good style. In order to create the mess you see in the magazines, you need precision. It's not enough to just have a good idea and I think that people forget that.

Interview: Natassa Stamouli