Stylist Who Is Sick Of Clothes!

She has worked at some of the world’s most prestigious magazines, is an advocate for sustainable fashion and goes weak at the knees for the rev of a Formula 1 engine. Step into Grace Lam’s fantastical world as Lauren Sams meets the stylist who is sick of clothes.

- Lauren Sams

The thing you need to know about Grace Lam, noted fashion stylist, former assistant to Edward Enninful and part of the launch team of Vogue China, is that she is obsessed with Formula 1 racing. So obsessed that if it doesn’t come up naturally in conversation (because when would it?), she will find a way to work it in. “It’s not so much the cars,” Lam says. “I love the noise. I love that so much can happen in such a short amount of time. It’s the most exciting thing.”

So exciting that she planned to work at a dedicated F1 magazine after graduating from her Central Saint Martins graphic design degree programme (“Doing what, I had no idea,” she adds with a laugh). But the day before she could send in her resume, “I got a call from Edward Enninful,” she says, referring to British Vogue’s current editorinchief. “And so I became his assistant instead, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Besides, my boobs aren’t big enough to be an F1 grid girl,” she jokes. (The other thing you should know about Lam: She is very, very funny—a trait she says was honed by years at boarding school in England.)

Lam, now 48, made a name for herself as a quirky, offbeat stylist who injected humour and sass into her work early on. A selfconfessed “nonfashion fashion person”, Lam has a career that spans iD magazine and Vogue China, and has collaborated with brands including Clinique and Estée Lauder. She has a truly global aesthetic, owing to stints in Paris, London, Hong Kong and New York, but these days, Perth is home to her, her photographer husband, Jason Capobianco, and their son, eightyearold Theo.