“Check, check, check, check,” a familiar voice came over the speakers as cocktail hour was winding down and dinner guests began taking their seats in a sprawling, private estate in the Hollywood Hills on Tuesday night.
The space, buzzing with conversation, suddenly became quiet as all eyes turned to the man with the microphone. It was Kevin Hart.
“Oh my God,” he exclaimed, scanning his audience. “Hollywood’s finest.” He wasn’t exaggerating—among the crowd were Armie Hammer, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mary J. Blige, and Chadwick Boseman, all clients of the stylists being honored at The Hollywood Reporter’s annual dinner.
Hart, however, was on his way out. “Let’s unblock the gate,” he said to laughs. “I got a little thing called a wife and a baby at home.” He continued, all in one breath: “I gotta go. Everybody here though, you look good. This is stylin’ at an all-time high. Let me out the fucking gate. O.K. Thank you. Start the music again.”
“He doesn’t stop,” Ashley North, Hart’s stylist, had said just moments earlier. “He doesn’t stop ever. He makes things fun. Work is always fun with him.”
North was also one of the honorees at the dinner, hosted by The Hollywood Reporter’s Carol McColgin and Booth Moore alongside Jimmy Choo’s creative director Sandra Choi. This year, the number one spot in the stylist rankings went to Kate Young, who works with a roster of bold names—Margot Robbie, Michelle Williams, Sienna Miller, Selena Gomez, Natalie Portman, and Dakota Johnson.
With award season behind them, the A-listers were out to support their respective stylists. Hammer was there for Ilaria Urbinati; Paltrow for Elizabeth Saltzman; Blige for Law Roach; and Boseman for Ashley Weston, who was one of four stylists to land her own cover alongside her celebrity client for T.H.R.’s “Stars of Style” issue.
It was a particularly special moment for 30-year-old Weston, the youngest of the cover stars, who is rising as a stylist just as Boseman—the breakout of Black Panther—is reaching another level of success as the film continues to break records. The two have gotten close as she’s accompanying him on trips all over the world, and next, she was looking forward to heading to New York City to prep for the actor’s hosting gig on Saturday Night Live next month.
The other three cover stars were Elizabeth Stewart with Gal Gadot, Elizabeth Saltzman with Saoirse Ronan, and Samantha McMillen with Elle Fanning, who was also in attendance.
“I didn’t know that I was going to do that,” said Fanning of her recent catwalk debut at Miu Miu as she sat next to her sister Dakota (who’s also McMillen’s client). “I thought I was gonna go [and] just watch the show, and then a couple of day before—literally two days before—they were like, ‘Hey, would you like to close and open the show?’ I obviously said yes. That has been my dream forever, like I think [it is for] a lot of girls, but I was very nervous. It was really cool, though.”
Dakota had shared a video of her sister’s walk on Instagram, but wasn’t actually there to see it in person, she confessed. “I made it look like I was,” she admitted. “I had to leave. It was a big secret, and I knew about it, but I couldn’t stay, and it was a bummer. But yes, I feigned that I was in the audience.”
But tonight was about their stylist, McMillen. “It’s very surreal,” McMillen said to sum up the evening. “It’s so nice, so generous.”
She paused, looking around. “This place is incredible . . . it feels like you could walk out onto the city.”
The setting of choice was indeed incredible. Known as the Stanley House, the $38 million home, with an interior designed by Lenny Kravitz, had a breathtaking, 270-degree view of L.A., complete with, naturally, an infinity pool.
Expected but missing at the long, rectangular dinner table was recent Oscar-winner Allison Janney, who took home best-supporting actress for I, Tonya. “She has the stomach flu,” explained her stylist Tara Swennen, who dressed the actress for the Oscars. “We reached out to a couple of designers and a few threw their hats in the ring as far as sketches,” said the stylist. In the end, the actress took the stage in a red Reem Acra number. “We knew we wanted to do custom, and it was the first one that really jumped out at us. . . . She was so humble until the very end, and it was such a lovely ride.”
As the night came to an end after dinner, Blige was holding court at the center of the table with Boseman and a few others. Weeks after making history as both a supporting-actress and original-song nominee for her work in Mudbound, Blige was swaying to the music and in the mood for some tequila—but not just any tequila. All it took was a quick chat with her bodyguard, who returned moments later with an impressive looking bottle that she was ready to share with those around her.
“It was in the car,” she said. “Cheers.”
