Style is a serious business, but no one has made a career out of it quite like Olivia Palermo. She talks fashion, future plans and reality Tv with Pandora Sykes.
Olivia Palermo is a pro – and I’m not just talking about her infamous fashion smarts. No, it is the New Yorker’s impenetrability that is masterful. She should run online seminars on how to remain implacable. I’d sign up in a heartbeat: it is a major talent to remain so composed; so utterly unruffled.
She is friendly, easy company, but the woman known for her ability to cause a Tibi blouse to sell out in 24 hours (Palermo should surely be credited for putting fashion’s recent ‘off-the-shoulder’ trend on the map) deftly bats back every question via vague non-sequiturs and polite side-steps. When asked whether she has experienced any sexism as a young female businesswoman, for example, she offers: “I grew up with a learning disability, so things were always a bit challenging. I had to create my own support system.” On whether she would call herself a feminist, she says, “I like to be quiet about my views.” An enquiry about the paparazzi, and whether devoted Palermo-istas ever overwhelm her in their quest for selfies – fans follow her into bathrooms and even into the elevator of her apartment building – is met with a humble, “I just do my own thing.” On friends in the industry, she stalls: “I won’t name them; I’m very respectful of their privacy.” And about America’s fragile, politically charged times, her words are evasive, though if you sniff carefully, there’s a whiff of opinion in there: “I never discuss politics, because it is so personal, but it’s important for America to make a stand. We are open to every culture in the world.”
Does she ever put a foot wrong, sartorially or otherwise? Lose that inimitable poise for even a second and spill some of her secrets? There are no pap pics to be found of Palermo inebriated, or biting her nails. There aren’t even any of her looking annoyed. “I’m not a rebellious person,” she says. “I grew up with a lot of structure. I’ve always wanted to be the best role model, for myself and for my parents.” Case in point: six days a week, while the rest of us are hitting snooze, Palermo starts her day with 75 minutes of the Tracy Anderson Method workout. “If I have to leave at 6am, I’ll workout before,” she says. Exercising at 4.45am? Even in the exacting world of fashion, that’s commitment.
She might be reticent on the flammable subjects, but the 31-year-old loves to talk about clothes, and describes them in lascivious, lengthy detail. Today, she is dressed in trademark polished style: a navy, balloon-sleeve Burberry knit; black leather Paige pants; Roger Vivier satin buckled sneakers; lots of vintage gold jewelry. As oft-described, she is doll-like; it is pretty much impossible not to feel unkempt while in her company.
Palermo is, of course, famous for her styling tricks (belted layers; tactical cocktail jewelry) and her clever, specific mix of high-street and luxury fashion. Her personal style has garnered her an extraordinarily large and loyal fan base – 4.7 million Instagram followers and counting. Rarely a day goes by when a press release doesn’t go out from a brand in the throes of ecstasy because Palermo has worn (and subsequently sold out) one of their pieces. The secret to her success? Her fashion choices are never alienating nor threatening; she can speak to women of all ages, across both the high-street and high-fashion sectors. As the face of British high-street brand Coast, she speaks to the not-particularly-fashion-obsessed woman in her forties; on the front row of Valentino, in her animal-print mini, she appeals to fashion-hungry millennials. She is sartorially persuasive: before I met her, I would have told you that her style didn’t really speak to me; it felt a pinch too glossy for my eclectic tastes. But then I came away really wanting a navy balloon-sleeve knit – clearly it transmutes, like osmosis.
“It’s about mixing and matching,” she says of her covetable look. “My aunt has always said, ‘If it’s great, it’s great – and it doesn’t matter how much it costs.’ Fashion is for every woman. You can see if she’s into it: her eyes light up when she talks about it. I love seeing a woman looking amazing walking down the street in New York, when you can see her confidence. I just think: ‘You go, girl!’”
Such is Palermo’s ability to make the purchase of specific pieces seem mandatory that her power is courted by multiple labels. Currently the face of beauty brand Aerin, Max Mara off-shoot label Max&Co. and Banana Republic, she is also, newly, the digital face of Swiss luxury watch and jewelry brand Piaget (“Piaget’s jewelry is easy; you can just throw it on and have a little extra zhuzh”). In her role as a brand ambassador, she wears and photographs a brand’s clothes, styles campaigns for them and does an online curation of their product. Basically, she filters their stuff through the Op lens and makes it sell like hot cakes. A most modern polymath – model; social-media influencer; stylist; brand consultant; philanthropist; entrepreneurial founder of website oliviapalermo.com, which has a full-time team of its own – she says that she “wears many hats. Everything goes hand in hand”. So does it irk her when she is described as a ‘former reality Tv star’? “It doesn’t bother me,” she replies mildly. “But a label should probably be somewhat accurate. I do more behind the scenes than people realize.”
Palermo married German model Johannes Huebl, 39, in 2014 and they live with their Maltese terrier, Mr Butler, in Dumbo, Brooklyn. As hunkily handsome as his wife is doe-eyed adorable, Huebl is regularly photographed with Palermo at events. Being in the same industry strengthens their relationship – they even have the same manager. I don’t ask her if she is planning on starting a family soon – as a woman of a similar age, I know that question to be both invasive and inappropriate – but then she would likely sweetly stonewall me if I did.
When Palermo married Huebl in Bedford, New York, she surprised her fans by opting for a three-piece outfit by Carolina Herrera – a cream, ostrich-feathered cashmere sweater; white shorts; a front-split tulle skirt – in lieu of a princess dress. Why no fancy frock? “I wanted something low-key.” She doesn’t wear a wedding ring; her yellow-diamond engagement ring rides solo. Why is that? She smiles. “I just like to do my own thing.” There’s a seam of steel in there – not everyone turns ‘doing their own thing’ into a global business.
The daughter of a real-estate developer and an interior designer, Palermo was born into “a very close family” in the leafy, affluent suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1986. Her only sibling, a younger brother named Grant who shares the same jawline and delicate features, works for the Op brand. Her ‘break’ came in 2006, when Manhattan society photographer Patrick McMullan snapped her at an event, anointing her as a burgeoning It girl. In 2008, the then 22-year-old joined the cast of structured reality Tv series The City – like a real-life version of Gossip Girl. I, along with everyone I knew, was obsessed with the show. But Palermo’s character in The City was far from her genial public face of today. Quickly cast as an ambitious upstart, she became known as the magazine intern with a penchant for getting backs up. Her role in the program inevitably stemmed from a society scandal in the year previous, when an email written by Palermo to her debutante frenemies, apologizing for “[getting] off on the wrong foot”, was ‘leaked’ to gossip website Socialite Rank. Palermo asserted that the letter was fake; one month later, the website folded. That can’t have been an easy year, I suggest.
“It was an interesting time,” she says diplomatically. “There is always an agenda [on these shows], whether you are on board with it or not.” Later, she adds, “There is so much garbage out there. I just ignore it.” She dismisses social-media trolls as mere “noise”. There is no ***** in the armor. If it’s a mask (and it could well be – who can be this composed all the time?), it doesn’t slip. Palermo knows the potency of a great soundbite and she has no interest in making any headlines, thanks.
In a 2014 interview with The Edit, Palermo said that in the future, she would launch her own brand. Three years on, is she closer to actualizing that ambition? Needless to say, she remains poker-faced; she won’t be revealing her masterplan to little ol’ me. “I have my hands full with the brands that I work with,” she says, though that work is a vital education, “for if” – hedging, always hedging – “and when I start my own [label].”
Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if an OP clothing brand launched next week. Like I said: a pro.
