Has anyone else noticed that Selena Gomez’s looks have been giving off a certain hot-girl-shit energy lately? The bright red dresses on the red carpet. The va-va-va-voom corset tops. The sheer everything. According to her stylist, Erin Walsh, that’s not an accident.
Gomez has been vocal about body positivity and coming to accept and love her body as it changes. In January the actor posted then-and-now pictures of herself in a bathing suit—one photo shows Gomez wearing an animal-print bikini a few years ago, and the other, more recent photo shows her in a black-and-white suit as she looks now.
“Today I realized I will never look like this again,” she wrote over the first photo, continuing, “I’m not perfect but I am proud to be who I am. Sometimes I forget it’s okay to be me.”
Gomez began working with Walsh, the celebrity stylist responsible for Anne Hathaway’s “Anneaissance,” in 2023. Walsh’s approach to style is all about embracing oneself, and Gomez’s body positivity is reflected in her outfits, which are calculated to best show off her, ahem, assets.
“I feel like for whether you are Selena or whether you are, you know, stay-at-home mom in Ohio, there are hacks to the system like corsets, for example, or even structural pieces,” Walsh, who has partnered with Rakuten for New York Fashion Week, tells Glamour. “They make you feel held.”
She continues: “The only way that you’re gonna highlight your best features is when you, number one, acknowledge what you feel vulnerable about and what makes you a little bit nervous. And then by looking at that you know how to support it, how to hold it.”
When you feel literally supported by your clothes in this way, says Walsh, you then feel empowered.
Take the extra-spicy red Oscar de la Renta dress Selena Gomez wore to the VMAs in September of 2023. “That look was major because—and I spoke with Selena about this—she felt great,” Walsh says. “She felt like the best version of herself.” Walsh notes that the color red can help bring out a person’s confidence simply due to our own associations with that color.
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