Celebrity stylist Jacqueline Zenere likes to spend as much time as possible with her clients on the days of big award shows. Ideally, she would have met Britt Lower, whom she’s dressed since her Severance debut, at 9:30 a.m. as she entered the hair and makeup chair in her room at the Fairmont Century Plaza. Instead, Zener spent most of the morning attempting to track down golf umbrellas in a quest to shield the actress’s dress from Los Angeles’ imminent downpour. That, however, is the life of a stylist. In reality, Zenere had only minutes alone with Lower before she was whisked away for tonight’s Golden Globe Awards.
That said, this day was weeks in the making. “Britt is still new to the scene. So we're trying to tell this cohesive story, that she's really dexterous in terms of the way she wears fashion.” She began with a champagne gold gown at the Emmys then went for fierce edge at the Gotham Awards. Tonight, it was about embracing the editorial nature of clothing. Together, they selected the final look from New York designer Bach Mai’s Pre Fall 2023 collection. The gown is a strapless feat of construction, an inky black velvet with a framboise moire skirt. The final product is somewhere between one of Cristobal Balenciaga’s masterpieces and the Oscar de la Renta cady pink dress SJP wears in an episode of Sex & The City—you know what we’re talking about. “It is already so surreal to have my first moment on a major awards show red carpet, but I am truly honored to be dressing Britt Lower,” the designer Mai adds. “Not only is her performance in Severance truly stunning, but she is such a dynamic, intelligent, beautiful, and kind person and I am so proud to be able to call her a Bach Mai woman.”
The day’s playlist ranged from that of Lower (Patti Smith and other folk songs) to Zenere’s own pump-up soundtrack of Rage Against the Machine, Fiona Apple, and Drake. The range of happenings ahead of tonight's award show was just as vast. Below, Zenere takes us through the process of getting ready whether that’s a quiet moment of meditation, aggravating an old soccer injury while steaming, or Lower snacking on a salad as she squeezes into her gown.
“I think there's always this beautiful moment of silence when it all comes together and we're just all taking it in. I had Britt watch this incredible documentary on the plane called Fire Of Love. It's about two vulcanologists and I highly recommend it. She was really taken by it and she just kept saying, ‘I'm a volcano. I'm about to erupt.” Funnily enough, there was a big volcanic eruption this morning that she sent a link to the team this morning to get us all going. It's kind of an inside joke, if you will. But once she was in that look, there was just,I guess, relief, but then tremendous excitement. She really was a sight to behold."
“Britt really understands and appreciates fashion as an art. The way I operate with my clients is like an art director, so I'm really seeing the whole image. We're having discussions about hair and makeup days in advance. With Britt, she's still new to the scene. So we're trying to tell this cohesive story, that she's really dexterous in terms of the way she wears fashion. The really cool thing about her is when she does put a gown on, she kind of lets it become a story in and of itself. The narrative with her is we did the Emmys look, which was a gold champagne, kind of classic Hollywood. I wanted the public to see her in a really glam way because on the show, she's very pared back, [very little in terms of] hair and makeup. And then, we went to Gotham, I wanted to show that she's a cool girl, all black, really severe. And then today we kind of took it into an editorial world where we saw her wearing volume, wearing gloves, not such ‘pretty’ hair and makeup. We really wanted to just push it as much as we could.”
“In terms of accessories, it was a lot of dress so it didn't need much. I'm really fond of jewelry that isn't what we see every day. The earrings have little black daggers at the end and they gave us that edge that we were looking for.”
“In terms of hair and makeup, we hopped on about a week ago. Kenna is such an artist. Molly R Stern, as well. They collaborated on the Emmy’s. For some reason, [my head] went to like vintage Barbie and it did kind of translate into that. If you see her hair in profile, Kenna was able to create almost a mohawk. Again, it was really trying to [channel] red carpet but turn it on its head. We did not want to make it too pretty."
“I got there late today because I was trying to source this umbrella. Normally, I would be right there at the beginning of glam, just monitoring things as they come. But the team started around 9:30, I got there around 10:30. We were lucky enough to have a photographer there. I needed her to photograph Brit as we were making progress because I needed to see how she was looking on camera. It's one thing to look [at something], in person but it’s not the same as seeing how it looks on camera. For example, she had some blush on that in person you almost couldn't detect it but on camera it was kind of streaky. So we needed to take the blush down, then we needed to take the eye shadow down, we had to take the lip completely off. So hair and makeup, I think we started at 9:30, I was putting her in the dress at 12:45. I was putting her in the car at 1:30.”
“Britt was starting to get a little jittery because the dress is so cinched that, you know, you can lose oxygen a little bit. So we had her eating a salad standing up. As a stylist, I get the least amount of time with her. I think in actuality I had two minutes with her. Everyone's moving really quickly and the dress has three layers to it. There's a belt, there's an in-line bustier. And then there's the final zipper. That's always the hard part is to keep the tempo moving and allow myself the time I need for last looks.”
"And then Molly did this incredible thing where she suggested—honestly my gut instinct was like, ‘I don't know’—we put two little dots on the outside rim of her eyes. She did it and it really took everything to a whole new level. It was stupendous. It is so important to collaborate with all these people or else it just doesn't look cohesive. And that's really my job.”
“I've been a huge fan of Bach Mai’s work. I was looking at his latest collection and this is the final image. This dress in particular actually reminded me of that Sex & The City Oscar de la Renta with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Once she put it on, it just clicked. As a stylist, you wait for that click where it's like, ‘okay, this is it.’ Actually, my other client Olivia Palermo wore bBach to an event recently. I actually didn't dress her, but she paired the dress with boots. It was such an unusual pairing and we decided to give that a try. Once we put those boots on, they really [provided] this whole other cool element."
“Britt has the most eclectic music taste that I've ever experienced. There's folk, there's Patti Smith. There's such a blend and it's really lovely to listen to. Her hair stylist was also her date. We needed to press his look too so that added a bit of levity. Britt usually takes a minute to meditate before she gets in the dress because, you know, it's a lot of people touching her. There's a lot of conversations, there's a lot of concern. We're telling her, ‘relax your mouth,’ ‘relax her neck,’ ‘drop your shoulder.’ For me, I try to put my headphones in, even for a minute or two, it really focuses me or else I can get a little scattered.”
“A grande iced Americano is a must. I always journal. I don't know if you've heard of the book The Artist’s Way but I've I've taken up this thing where I just journal for three pages [each day]. I blast music on my way to set or to see everybody because it really gets my excitement going. Music is such a tool for me. It really helps me to stay focused."
“[In the car], she had butterflies for sure. This is her first Golden Globes. She kept it quiet, no music. She was focusing on breathing—because she needed to get as much oxygen as possible with that gown."
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