TRY IT ON
The New Yorker|September 23, 2024
How Law Roach reimagined red-carpet style.
Jennifer Wilson
TRY IT ON

On a muggy morning in late July, the stylist Law Roach was at the Guggenheim Museum, ready to make a scene. He was there to shoot an episode of “The Bittarverse,” a satirical Web series created by the Brooklyn-based jewelry designer Alexis Bittar, which playfully skewers the fashion industry’s élite. Roach was standing on the ground floor of the museum’s rotunda, dressed for the camera, not the weather, in a black padded blazer, matching pants so long they would have tripped him had he not been wearing five-inch platform heels, and a fur stole the size of a body bag. Above him swirled a phrase from Jenny Holzer’s “Light Line” installation: “Your Actions Are Pointless If No One Notices.”

Roach would be playing a version of himself. His character had been invited to the Guggenheim by the “Bittarverse” staple Margeaux (Patricia Black), a snobby fashion maven living on the Upper East Side. “Margeaux’s been watching him come up, and she appreciates his hustle, his ability to fuse street with glamour,” Bittar told Roach and Black. There was also some rivalry: Margeaux was afraid of losing her front-row seat at New York Fashion Week to the ascendant Roach. “They’re both cunty,” Bittar added. “It’s a little ‘A Star Is Born.’” Action. Roach traipsed through the glass doors of the lobby, tossing his stole in Black’s general direction. “A gift for mother?” she inquired. “A gift from mother,” Roach said, improvising. “Cut,” Bittar called. “Beautiful!”

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