Drake’s Stylist Juliet Charlotte Has Seen All Your Memes

Drake has been the punchline in culture many times, but—online trolls be damned—he’s been dressing better than ever. Chalk that up to his new-ish stylist, New Jersey native Juliet Charlotte. The 27-year-old started her career working with Ye and his fashion brand, Yeezy, as part of his wider styling team. Now that she’s a year into working with Drake, she’s based in Toronto. She also styles the up-and-coming Canadian singer-songwriter Chxrry, whose debut album U, Me & My Ego was released earlier this year.

Charlotte is a singular kind of stylist, particularly in that she prefers to buy pieces—some new, most archival—to build archives for her clients instead of borrowing clothes that any other celebrity could wear. In her first-ever interview, she tells VF about dressing Drake, and addresses the many memes. Spoiler alert: She’s seen them and remains unfazed—she even found some of them funny.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Vanity Fair: How did you get into styling?

Juliet Charlotte: I started styling five years ago now. I had just turned 21. Kanye’s team reached out to me, his GM [general manager] at the time, this guy named Laurence Chandler. They were like, “Are you a stylist? Can you come in and do some fittings with us?” I was literally a college student working a retail job, and I was like, Yes, I am a stylist. Of course I can [laughs]. It was around the time of the pandemic, when Ye was at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium and working with Demna. I walked into this room and there’s Demna and all these Balenciaga clothes and Ye. I just wanted to work. I was excited, and I just pretended that I knew what I was doing. I ended up working with him up until maybe two years ago now. I learned a lot from that experience, and then I took on new clients. I worked with [rapper and singer] Molly Santana, and now Chxrry and Drake.

Why do you think they thought you were a stylist?

I was going to school for fashion in New Jersey, and I didn’t actually know which area of fashion I wanted to enter. I just knew that I always loved clothes. When the pandemic happened, all the stores closed, so I had to find a new way to make money. I started to make angel number necklaces, and it just blew up and it was really profitable for me. Looking back, it’s kind of embarrassing, but I was young and it allowed me to buy clothes that I wanted. I would take pictures and post on my Instagram just casually. It wasn’t like I wanted to be an influencer or anything, I just wanted people to see the way I dress. It was a very casual thing, but Yeezy is very reference-based, and I guess I kept showing up on mood boards at that time. So Ye was like, let’s just get this girl in here.

I was part of a bigger team, and Ye would throw me into different roles. So it wasn’t always just styling. Sometimes I was working on e-commerce or doing campaigns, or sometimes it was Bianca [Censori]’s wardrobe. It’s really collaborative at Yeezy. There’s so many talented people that work on everything together.

I was wondering if there was a Ye or Yeezy connection, because I noticed an aesthetic throughline with your personal style. What would you say is your aesthetic, your “thing,” as a stylist?

The Yeezy background definitely helped make me this way, because I want to simplify everything and strip down everything and just be like, let’s just do the absolute best version of whatever you want to do. I’m always trying to declutter. And I really think that came from working with Ye, because he just wants to strip everything back and make it just simple but beautiful and effective.

Drake is a maximalist when it comes to his style, and I appreciate that. I don’t want to just throw my personal style on anybody that I work with. I really want to take what they love and be like, “Okay, let’s do the best version of this.” Working with him, I really just try and keep it in his world and keep it to things that excite him.

Have you always been into vintage fashion? Or is it something that you’ve developed with Drake to build that into his wardrobe?

Obviously we just had that Hermès by [Martin] Margiela moment, which I really enjoyed and I thought it was fun. But I’m really interested in taking pieces, just random vintage pieces that didn’t get such a moment in the past, because that Hermès piece already had its moment on the runway. It’s fun to bring it back, but the way that I like to shop is finding vintage pieces that didn’t get a moment and reinventing them. Obviously there’s a lot of amazing designers right now, but I’m also not so into over-consumption, and just what we’ve turned into. I’d really rather shop vintage as much as I can.

Drake is someone who has such a wide range of influences and sounds. When you work on looks for him, are you trying to pull from this really wide range of inspirations and aesthetics, or are you trying to be a little more focused? Do you try to speak back to the music or do you just try to be a little more focused on just the look?

Sometimes we’re pulling inspiration from Michael Jackson or Liberace, or another artist. But, for example, we’re in Texas right now. He just bought a ranch in Texas. It’s so beautiful. When I first started working with him and I came to the ranch, I’m like, “You are a ranch owner. You’re not larping this aesthetic. You literally live it.” I was really inspired by the saddle shop that’s nearby and all these different stores because it’s two hours away from Houston. He was already wearing [Western clothing] when I met him. This is just a different variation of it. The Western stuff is heavily in his style now, loves vests. I take what I see in his everyday life and see what we lean on more. Like even this mob boss type of thing—he’s really interested in Italian culture, and I’m Italian, so that influence comes in as well.

He has had such a long and prolific career, and he is often self-referential. Do you ever reference early moments in his career?

We did just pull back in his “FOMO” video. We did a variation of the “Hotline Bling” outfit that he wore. But we really don’t draw back too much, I think because he’s just evolved so much as a person. I’ll still send him some looks and be like, “Oh, you ate this,” [laughs]. I have met him as the person that he is now and I’m like, “Okay, he just turned 40. Let’s just be elevated and grown.”

Chxrry is building something really strong. What’s it like to work with both an artist that has been working in the industry for so long while also with someone who’s so green?

Chxrry and I have become best friends in the process, so we’re just figuring it out together. We’re the same age. She’s so early in her career that I’m sure she’ll have many evolutions, but for now it’s just about having fun.

With Drake, he just loves clothes and is pretty easygoing, but there’s obviously a lot more pressure that’s involved because he’s so established. It’s very different, but equally as rewarding.

I have to ask about the birthday outfits. I thought they were great, but I’m curious if you planned a birthday weekend wardrobe or if you are more casual about it?

Well, October’s a crazy month, so there’s so much stuff going on so I did a lot of preparation. We knew that we wanted to do a beautiful suit, but we actually had three other suits that fell through before that one. Last minute, our atelier had just made that tux for him, and then I got the brooch, we put on a bow tie. It all came together at the last minute, and that Chanel scarf I had just bought that morning in New York. The Hermès shawl I bought the day before we left for the trip in Canada. Everything is really just down to what he’s feeling like that night. We can do all this preparation, but that night if he’s like, “Actually, I just feel like being more chill or I just want to do this,” we just pivot, and we always figure it out.

I like that he seems to wear only things he owns, when many celebrities wear borrowed clothing. Do you also do that, or do you prefer to just buy things?

On the record [laughs], I hate pulling. I hate loaning. I hate all of that. It gives me anxiety. I hate if it was my stuff and it was out in the world and you just never know what happens. It could get messed up in travel, and there’s just wear and tear. Things just happen. I know it’s a huge part of styling, but for me, I’d rather just source the pieces myself and have them be a part of our archive and a part of our collection.

With someone like Drake, who is so big, you want there to be an archive of what he’s done and worn, otherwise it’s all lost in brands’ sample closets. I have to ask about the memes. People had so much to say about the Hermès by Margiela. As the stylist, what do you think of that?

I love a joke. I love a joke we can laugh about, but I still love the look. I don’t feel less than or like, “Oh God, it’s a meme.” I still love the look. I think it was amazing. Even when we did “FOMO” and he was wearing that leather jacket with the fur on one side, that was a women’s Saint Laurent piece. I love when men do things that are out of the box, or that isn’t just pants and a shirt. Why not wear a fringed shawl? I was into it, but I could appreciate the joke and I did think some of them were funny.

Pumpkin Spice Papi was really funny. If anything, becoming a meme nowadays adds to the look. It’s already a Halloween costume.

Yes [laughs], I’ve seen that. I was too young, but I always think that if we had the internet the way that we do now, what would people say about Michael Jackson or what would they say about Prince? I’m sure there would be so many memes. There would have to be.

You mentioned the Saint Laurent women’s jacket. Something that I always really liked about Drake’s style is his willingness to just go there and have fun with fashion. There’s something really cool and really refreshing about that.

It’s really just fun and it’s really just down to what we’re both happy with. And as a man, if you’re really comfortable with yourself and comfortable, and you know who you are… He gets so many opinions projected on him all the time and he just doesn’t care. He still chooses what he likes. It doesn’t change his mind. I think it’s just because he’s so confident and comfortable with who he is. It’s really refreshing to work with somebody who’s not like, “Oh no, I can’t wear that. That’s crazy,” or whatever. If anything, he’s just like, “Oh yeah, fuck it. Let’s do it.” He’s really just excited to try new things. And even the fringe shawl, we spoke about it afterwards and he was like, “Yeah, it was sick. I loved it.” There’s nothing that can change his mind.

People may not think I’m the best [stylist] or whatever, but I like it. I don’t trust anyone else’s opinion because you’re not in my shoes, so you can’t really tell me how I should do it. Drake as a person has so much fun with his life. He had a blast for his birthday weekend. He doesn’t care about comments and neither do I. We don’t sit there and read them. We’ll give a chuckle if it’s funny or share a meme, but keep it pushing. We have fun.