Not many reality TV stars go on to achieve credibility in fashion, but OLIVIA PALERMO’s knack for sleek styling has won her a reputation as one of the world’s best-accessorized women. She talks to JENNIFER DICKINSON about heel heights, starting her own label and the importance of a skinny belt.
Olivia Palermo is a woman with a plan. A 10-year one, and that’s just for starters. The precise, polished, put-togetherness that typifies her look? It’s a way of life, not just a way to dress.
She arrives at her favorite New York cafe, One Girl Cookies in Dumbo, Brooklyn (a cobbled skip and a jump from the home she shares with her new husband, model and photographer Johannes Huebl), running late but not in the slightest bit flustered. Palermo doesn’t do flustered. Thanks to the regularity with which pictures of the 28-year-old are posted on fashion websites, the reality of Olivia Palermo is exactly what you would expect: glossy, shrewdly highlighted, regularly blow-dried hair; gray winged eyeliner that brings out the warmth in her hazel eyes. She is toting a carefully sourced local-store shopping bag and wearing artfully draped black separates (by Tibi and Witchery) with animal-print French Sole flats. No heels? “Are you kidding?” she scoffs. “Not in Brooklyn. Running around the cobblestones really wouldn’t be good.”
In Palermo’s case, the clothes really do maketh the woman. She entered public consciousness via the New York social pages in 2006, aged 20, spotted by photographer Patrick McMullan as an exceptionally well-dressed young woman among the city’s elite crowd of well-dressed young women. The sleek, perfectly accessorized look she has become so well known for is not something that has been carefully acquired over the years – polished has been part of the Palermo repertoire since her early childhood. “My mother and grandmother are very pulled together. They never leave the house without being completely, 100% presentable and that was instilled in me at a very young age,” she says.
Her uncanny knack with a skinny belt and – cobblestones aside – an apparently effortless ability to run in heels (“It’s never a problem,” she confirms) came to international attention when Palermo was cast in MTV’s fashion reality show The City, which saw her working for Diane von Furstenberg and later in what some might consider to be her spiritual home, the accessories department at US ELLE magazine. Opinion was divided over the series itself and which of the stars it was ‘acceptable’ to like, but it was Palermo and her finessed sense of style that really proved the long- lasting success story. In 2011, she capitalized by starting her own website, oliviapalermo.com. “It came from my travels and my friends constantly asking me, ‘Oh, I’m going to Berlin, I’m going to London, I’m going to Madrid... Can you recommend any great spots to visit?’ So [the site] evolved through my experiences of travel, places I like, people I like, and shows.”
It’s a small but very popular and lucrative enterprise, though Palermo isn’t satisfied yet, by any means. “I have three people that work on the editorial side on a daily basis, an entire team who handle the back-end, and myself. I have my hands full at the moment. I would love to start my own [fashion] house but it’s not the right time. I feel like I can do it in stages and when the timing is right to do it, then I will.”
In the meantime, she’s satisfying her design desires through collaborations: last month, she launched her first range of shoes with footwear brand Aquazzura. “I’ve known Edgardo [Osorio, the brand’s designer and founder] since his first collection and he’s become a great friend of mine,” says Palermo. “I only want to team up and design with people who I have a solid relationship with. There is a very small handful of shoe designers of whom you can say [the shoes] are aesthetically phenomenal and fit like a glove – Manolo [Blahnik] is one of them, and Edgardo. With this, we wanted to create shoes every woman wants in her wardrobe. Edgardo and I both like a little toe cleavage, and [the heels] had to be high. The heel is actually the highest he’s ever done, so it was a bit of an experiment, but I think it came out well, they’re still walkable. You don’t want to waddle in the street.”
Needless to say, Palermo the planner has a strategy for this project. “Every relationship I go into has a long-term perspective, it’s not a one-off,” she says. “We didn’t do flats for FW14, but I love them so we may well do them next season. It’s hard because there’s so much. We could have done a flat or a kitten heel, but we can’t do everything at once.”
It’s her attention to detail that gives Palermo the edge. Few people, no matter how chic, are able to give such precise styling advice when put on the spot; in Palermo’s case, the problem is not getting started, it’s being able to stop. (You’re going to want to cut and paste this.)
“As you get dressed, take a look to see if anything needs to be done,” she instructs. “I tend to go with the detailing. I have endless skinny belts. My favorite ones are from [British high-street brands] Whistles and Reiss, actually. There is always a place for a big belt, but sometimes when you’re layering pieces you need to hide the belt and a skinny one does just that.
“A lot of the time proportions are really important – people fluctuate in size, sometimes they’re a little thinner and a belt can really change that and give you extra tightness. It really helps to just keep it all together. If you have a quarter of an inch too much fabric, you can play around with it, fold it.
“What else?” she continues. “Take a razor blade to a sweater if it’s bobbling – it takes the balls off. Double-sided tape is also one of my favorites – if you’re out and your hem rips then you can do a little fix to it. Keep some long thread with you – it’s really good in case a necklace breaks. Oh, and if you want to roll your sleeves up and they won’t stay, push them up with very thin hair elastics.”
When the 28-year-old married Johannes Huebl earlier this year, her choice of outfit surprised and impressed. In place of a Park Avenue princess gown, she chose a full tulle skirt and simple cashmere sweater by Carolina Herrera. “I had a semi-idea of what I was looking for, but I surprised myself,” she says. “Carolina did a fabulous job and I loved the sweater with the feathers. They’re both wonderful pieces that I can wear again if I choose to. I love wearing clothes over and over again.”
If her Instagram followers (she has just under one and a half million of them) feel robbed of their white dress moment though, they needn’t worry. “We always planned to do a small civil ceremony with just family and our best friends,” says Palermo, “so that’s what we did. And later, either this year or next year, we’ll do something that’ll be…” A big party? “Not a big party, no. I don’t want a big party!” she says, surprising yet again. Palermo is not one for frills and fripperies for the sake of it, you see. Besides, it’s not in that 10-year plan of hers. “I’m not an ‘in the-moment’ person,” she shrugs, “I look at everything from a long-term perspective. You can’t be shortsighted. There’s always room to breathe, change and alter the plan – I like to have a little bit of wiggle room – but it’s about focusing on work now. And hopefully in a 10-year period I can look to designing a little bit more.”
So then, 2024, the House of Olivia Palermo – place your bets now.
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