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Meet the women whose vision goes far beyond the clothes.
Styling is one of those jobs people notice only when it’s done perfectly, and even then, the credit often goes to the designer, the artist, or the photographer. But behind every iconic look is a stylist shaping the story, curating identity, and translating culture into something you can see and feel.
Stylists treat their work as a full creative practice and make a major statement in the visual world of music, fashion, and film today. Across decades and continents, Black women have been at the forefront of this work, building careers, defining aesthetics, and mentoring the next generation—all while making it clear that styling is more than putting together clothes: it’s authorship.
This piece looks at some of these women who shaped the foundations of global fashion, as well as the rising stars whose eccentricity and distinct voices are defining the look of now.
Karen Binns has been in this industry for more than forty years, which means she was already doing the work before most people thought to call it that. She came up in the 1980s downtown New York — the same world that produced Basquiat, with whom she worked closely. Her entry into fashion came through designer André Walker and his Paris catwalk shows, where she learned early that a designer's vision lives or dies in the styling.
What Binns does and has always done is translate. For Tori Amos, across some of that artist's most provocative visual eras, she translated a musician's inner world into a coherent, evolving visual identity. She brought the same skill to Estelle, Neneh Cherry, Naomi Campbell, Wizkid, and Tiwa Savage. Her consultancy work with designers like Ashish, Bianca Saunders, Feben, and Maharishi goes beyond dressing; she understands what each brand is arguing, who it's talking to, and how to sharpen that argument visually. She doesn't impose a point of view; she amplifies the one that's already there.
In 2025, she was appointed Global Fashion Director of 10 Magazine. She is also a co-lead of the British Fashion Council's diversity and inclusion initiative, and has been mentoring emerging stylists for years.
Shiona Turini built her editorial foundation at all the right places, from W Magazine to Teen Vogue, CR Fashion Book, and Cosmopolitan. Then, she decided to step away and build something she could more likely own.
Born in Bermuda and now based in Los Angeles, she has become one of the most versatile and influential stylists working today, moving across editorial, film, television, and world tours with ease. With Turini, the question is never whether she can do the work; it is which direction she is going to take it next.
The "Formation" video in 2016 brought her the widest recognition, but her work on HBO's Insecure is what best reveals the depth of the practice. Joining the show in its third season, she and the show’s creator, Issa Rae, made a decision to feature a Black designer in every single episode. This helped small labels gain visibility.
Her CDGA nomination for Queen & Slim confirmed she can navigate feature film costume design with the same precision. For Apple TV+'s Lady in the Lake, set in 1960s Baltimore, she went deep into archival street photography of the period to anchor her choices, which tells you something essential about how she works. Turini is a researcher; she knows that clothes carry memory, and she treats that seriously. The Hollywood Reporter named her one of Hollywood's top twenty-five stylists.
Thobeka Mbane has carved her place as one of South Africa’s most influential stylists, as well as an African cultural strategist and curator. Hailing from Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, she didn’t start in fashion by design but found her way into it through an early love of colour, self‑expression and storytelling, which today informs every look she creates.
Over the past decade, Mbane has styled some of the continent’s most visible talents, including former Miss Universe Zozibini Tunzi, musician Sho Madjozi, rapper Nadia Nakai, and Kenyan comedian Elsa Majimbo — bringing a vibrant, intentional aesthetic to red carpets, campaigns, and editorials. She has also been behind key fashion moments, such as styling visuals for DJ Black Coffee, including his Madison Square Garden show looks that continue to travel with his performances.
Mbane’s work isn’t just about clothes; it’s about representation and storytelling. She champions African designers like Orange Culture, RICH MNISI, Viviers Studio, and MMUSOMAXWELL in her styling, ensuring local voices are visible in global fashion conversations. In 2024, she was recognised with the Tastemaker Award at the Sustainable Fashion Awards, a nod to her influence in promoting inclusive, culturally specific fashion that pushes conversations around diversity and sustainability.
Ade Samuel grew up in the Bronx and started learning about fashion from a very young age. Of Nigerian descent, she moves effortlessly between Hollywood red carpets and Lagos editorials, bridging American celebrity branding with West African fashion’s global rise.
Her editorial roots include Teen Vogue and CR Fashion Book. In February 2016, she styled an Essence cover with Teyonah Parris, Yara Shahidi, and activist Johnetta Elzie, a visual moment that helped shape the mainstream idea of “Black Girl Magic.”
She has worked with various stars, including Michael B. Jordan, Daniel Kaluuya, Cynthia Erivo, Letitia Wright, and Yvonne Orji, trust her not just to dress them, but to help build their brands. Projects like A Love Letter to Africa, shot in Nigeria for Essence, brought together the country’s top photographers, designers, and stylists in a deliberate act of creative advocacy.
Samuel is also the founder of Oju Magazine, a lens of culture, which she hopes to launch in September 2026.
Solange Franklin Reed is a New York-based fashion editor and stylist who has quietly become one of the most unmistakable voices in fashion styling, building a career in cultural clarity but wide in its influence.
Reed’s work first drew broad attention through her instinct for pairing unique voices with distinctive wardrobes, whether on red carpets, magazine covers, or custom campaigns. Her client roster includes Serena Williams, Solange Knowles, Kerry Washington, Victoria Monet, and Whoopi Goldberg— women who are not just style icons but cultural forces in their own right. With each assignment, she brings an eye for nuance: the right silhouette, the right reference, the right moment of clarity that turns a look into something memorable.
Her approach is intentional without being overt; she dresses people in a way that is true to their presence, not just to what’s trending. That skill was recognised by The Fashion Awards, where she was honoured in the New Wave: Creatives category. Beyond celebrity styling, Reed’s work has appeared in major editorials for publications like Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar, further solidifying her footprint across global fashion platforms.
Dunsin Wright’s path into styling started on the more traditional route, exploring corporate work in fashion PR at Karla Otto, which gave her a front-row view of how the industry operates.
From there, she moved on to working in-house with Lisa Folawiyo, which really watered the ground for her growth. Being part of a small, hands-on creative team meant she was involved in everything, from shoots to fittings to production. That proximity to the full process is where she began to understand her instincts and realise that styling was not just something she could do, but something she could build a career around.
On meeting Tems randomly at a press shoot, connecting with her and then growing into a creative partnership, what they have built is rooted in genuine friendship and a shared visual vision, evolving alongside one of the fastest rises the genre has seen.
Dunsin has been styling Tems since 2020. That means she has shaped the visual identity of an artist who moved from Lagos underground favourite to Grammy winner and Oscar-nominated songwriter in just four years. Each look is intentional and built for a specific moment.
In December 2022, she also staged 2121: Speculative Everything in Lagos, a fashion exhibition that brought together African designers to imagine fashion a century into the future through an Afrofuturist lens. It is the kind of project that shows how she thinks beyond celebrity and the red carpet.
Tsitse Olugbemi, who goes by Tsi Tse, is building one of the most recognisable visual signatures in Nigerian styling right now, and you can see it from a mile away. As the founder and creative force behind Sise Label, she doesn’t just create outfits; she curates a unique identity, merging bold fabrics and unexpected pairings.
While her practice spans fashion and creative direction, where she styles editorial projects and pieces for her own label, she’s gained major traction for the way she approaches wedding and engagement styling. From stylised pre‑wedding moments to bold reception looks, she treats wedding wardrobes as more than rituals but as fashion moments that can be expressive, eccentric, and superb.
What sets Tsi Tse apart is how she has made branding a part of her style. Her work doubles as a living lookbook where mood, texture, and personality come together. You scroll once, and you just know it’s her work.
These women show that styling is more than assembling clothes but that it also speaks to shaping culture, telling stories, and creating lasting visual legacies. From red carpets to editorials, music videos to exhibitions, they translate identity into form, amplify voices that need to be heard, and carve spaces for the next generation to follow. Black women have always been at the heart of this work, and today, they are defining not just what fashion looks like, but how it feels, moves, and speaks across the globe.
