麻豆约拍

Megan Lawton

There are numerous books, documentaries and articles detailing the life of Amy Winehouse but now we’re hearing from Naomi Parry, her former stylist. She spoke to the 麻豆约拍’s Who You Don’t See podcast; a series which celebrates the people working behind the stars.

Naomi and Amy started working together in 2006, which if you’re an Amy fan, you might remember is the year she released Back to Black. In the chat the stylist speaks about touring the world with Amy and all the chaos involved.

Listen to the episode with Naomi here.

As Naomi reveals on Who You Don’t See, “Amy was the architect of her look”.

So the statement cat eye and beehive that became synonymous with her image was all her own work.

Naomi adds, “at first, she had a glam squad which she called the ‘trashettes’. It was me, her makeup artist and hair stylist Talia. But by the end, it was it was just me and her. She didn't really like having her face touched at that point”.

If you followed Amy’s career, you’ll know she wasn’t shy when it came to experimenting with fashion. What you might not know is that this approach applied to her choice of underwear too.

“I discovered early that Amy was very specific about her underwear”.

“She liked to wear like frilly French knickers and always wanted to wear a bra and always wanted to have chicken fillets”.

“The second outfit I put her in was a Julian McDonald flapper style dress for Jools Holland which ended up being a bit of a disaster. Her choice of underwear wasn’t conducive with a sheer dress that bunched up over everything.

“I was trying to tape and pin it, but she was wriggling around on stage and pulling it around”.

In Naomi’s eyes, it was a fashion disaster, that she thought might end her career.

“Backstage I thought I'm probably going to get sacked, but it was fine. And actually, what was good about it is it was completely different to what anybody put her in before”.

In the early days of working with Amy, Naomi explains it was difficult to get designers to loan her clothes. Towards the end it was a similar story.

"Back in 2006, Amy was a relatively new artist and getting the first brand to lend can be tricky”.

"Often you can be met with a lot of ignored emails or they’ll say, ‘sorry we don’t have any outfits in the office’”.

This was an attitude that changed after the 2007 Brits. “When she won a couple of awards, she became a household name and labels started sending us stuff. I'd arrive at Amy's house and there would be bags and bags of Versace and all these other brands”.

But as Amy became more volatile, designers withdrew their clothing offers.

"We started getting the emails again saying ‘we don't have anything in the office at the moment’ and I totally got it”.

“As fickle as it might seem, PR’s are just looking after their brand. But there were a couple of brands that really stood by her like Dolce Gabbana".

It's something Naomi felt difficult discussing with Amy.

“Obviously, I never told her. You’d never say to an artist, ‘this brand doesn't want to loan to you anymore because of your life choices', especially when they're struggling. So I was just like, let's do our own brand”.

Cue a clothing collection designed specifically for Amy...

Towards the end of Amy’s life, the clothes Amy wore had been personally made for her by Naomi. In a climate where designers had stopped sending Amy clothes, it felt like the only decision.

Curated for the popstar, each garment was tailored to her needs. Remember those frilly knickers mentioned earlier? The dresses were looser fitting around the hips to accommodate those layers.

“Everything was really thought out and I had styling things built into them, because she wore frilly knickers we had like a slightly wider panel at the back”.

“We built in Spanx pants to smooth out her silhouette”.

Naomi tells Who You Don’t See, she “had zero time to get those dresses together, probably around eight weeks and I think we had one fitting.

"But she wore one of them on the first night of tour, and she absolutely loved it. She was so excited she kept it on after shows. She felt proud and excited she was wearing things no one else in the world had”.

Those same dresses that bought Amy so much joy are now difficult for Naomi.

“When the tour fell apart the dresses started to represent how sad the situation was. There's a lot of sadness around them, but there is also love because they are just her".

“To me, even though she never got to wear them, they are a little part of her”.