“I’ve never felt really hot or beautiful until late in life,” Talia Cassel says, despite being a mere 27 years old. She’s in her Lower East Side studio before running over to Lena Dunham’s house.
Cassel has been styling Dunham for the past few years, orchestrating the buzzy outfits donned by the Girls creator for her recent book tour. A copy of Famesick sits on a filing cabinet next to MM6 sunglasses and some of the little rosette-like cockades that Dunham wore on the Famesick press circuit.
The chemistry between them shows. Today, Dunham is moderating a Q&A with designer Isaac Mizrahi at Film Forum for the restoration of his legendary 1995 documentary Unzipped.
She’s wearing custom Mizrahi just for the occasion.
When Cassel started styling, she always said Dunham was her dream client. “I’ve watched Girls a thousand times, obviously,” she says.
Serendipity stepped in. Dunham’s previous stylist, Michael Handler, was looking to step down.
“You’ll love her, she’s so fun. She has bunnies running all over the place,” Handler told her.
Cassel stepped in for a New York Times shoot before later taking over full time. It was during the shoot that she came up with the idea of using the rosettes.
After getting the gig, she went to Retail Pharmacy, one of her favorite stores in the Lower East Side, which stocks fun statement accessories alongside hot local indie brands like Twink Next Door, Blondita, and Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen. It was there she found a rosette with two bunnies on it.
“I feel like a rosette is a kind of professional nod. But then [with the bunnies], it was kismet,” Cassel said.
After the shoot, Dunham wanted to make the rosette her signature.
Dressing Dunham for a book tour, Cassel took a refined sartorial approach, looking at pantsuits and dress sets for inspiration. “I just thought it was classy and chic and professional.
It felt on brand since she was turning 40 this year,” Cassel said. It was a new approach for the young fashionista, who previously dressed rapper Travis Scott and indie rock band Fckers.
“I might come in a sexy latex outfit,” she laughs. But Dunham’s looks became an instant success.
Instagram and indie fashion mags blew up, and Cassel started doing profiles. She felt like she skipped a step, suddenly becoming a hot ticket seemingly overnight even though she’d worked as a styling assistant for years and behind the scenes with brands like Miaou.
Years before she ever started working in fashion, her parents said she was always obsessed with clothes. Cassel grew up in Long Beach, California.
While her parents both immigrated from South Africa, they met here in the States. “I’m very grateful for the way it shaped me and exposed me to so much,” she says.
She’s been to South Africa about fifteen times. Growing up Jewish and invested in dressing well, she was naturally a big fan of The Nanny.
“There was just something about her charisma and confidence,” she says of Fran Drescher. “It made me excited to be a woman and an adult and just have the freedom to dress however I want.” She divided her time between going to synagogue with her conservative parents and being inspired by Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears.
It’s clear in the way she dresses–simple, sexy, confident—jeans and a white baby tee. She brings up Britney’s iconic VMA look with black lace.
“I think it’s just the sultriness and then the teased hair. She’s so wild and free, and I always just remember my mom describing me as this messy hair.
I’m a very type-B person.”
On the way to Dunham’s house, we talk about the latest fashion gossip as Cassel answers email. “I am someone who really loves to be comfortable,” she says.
“I’ve been talking about this to my friends, and they say, ‘You need to dress for the job you want,’ and I totally agree with that, but at the same time, I’m not a pretentious person, so I'm going to wear heels to work. I want to be comfortable.”
Cassel is a gracious host. She shouts out her mentor, the stylist Zoe Radford Scott ,and thanks the many cultural figures she’s worked for, like KATSEYE, and showrooms like Shop 925 in Los Angeles.
“My first photoshoot ever was with Gabriette, it was really cute.” She says working with Anna Delvey was “amazing, professional, and lovely.” She’s fresh from dressing the singer Blu DeTiger for the VMAs, whom she also calls “lovely and really fun to work with.” She says the key to styling is to become an assistant and then start making relationships. “If I was a really Type-A person, in a perfect world I would have a master spreadsheet that says ‘New York showrooms’ and ‘LA showrooms.’”
Asked what brands she’s currently into, she immediately says Chanel. “I would say right now that’s been my obsession,” she says.
“I’ve been really trying to grow my collection.” Indeed, she’s carrying a small black pouch from the brand this day. She also loves a lot of new brands like No Scene Girls and Matières Fécales, the latter of which is providing Dunham with a custom look for her next press tour.
Soon, Dunham and Cassel will reunite for a promotional tour of her forthcoming film Good Sex starring Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo, Rashida Jones, and Meg Ryan.
Cassel has had a hand in most of Dunham’s big looks. She designed the jewelry that the starlet wore to the Met Gala and dressed Dunham for Taylor Swift’s wedding, perhaps the buzziest and most talked-about cultural moment of the summer.
At the Gala, she wore a gorgeous red feathery sequined dress designed by Alessandro Michele for Valentino, though Handler was the primary stylist for that event since the look had been in the works for the better part of a year. For the princess of pop’s wedding, Dunham wore a fuchsia pink Christian Cowan dress and a blooming periwinkle flower on the chest.
Cassel calls both events a dream come true. She thought working with Travis Scott was going to be her big break, but it was Dunham’s bright, bubbly outfits that have skyrocketed her fashion reputation.
After stopping off at Dunham’s house to prep her for the event, Cassel has to go home and pack for Paris Fashion Week, where she’s been invited to the Rick Owens show. Eventually, the stylist says she wants to dress pop stars like Zara Larsson and Underscores.
“I think it’ll happen. I’m a very big believer in manifestation.” The scope of her clients (and their budgets) may vary, but Cassel always approaches it from a similar place: she wants them to feel comfortable and confident.
“Working with an up-and-coming artist is fun because you’ll grow together. Even though I’m established, I think that I have more learning to do.” She appreciates that Dunham has the budget for customs, but knows that’s not the case for everyone.
“With Lena not being sample size, and everything she's gone through with her health and in the media, society doesn't see her as a fashion girl," Cassel told Marie Claire earlier this year. But no one can turn searching for a green Chanel flat at Duty Free into a Homeric saga like Lena Dunham can.
“Lena is a fashion addict like me. We can talk about it for ages,” Cassel says.
When we arrive at Lena Dunham’s house, the Too Much showrunner is in full glam. Soon she has to take a break to hold her very young baby. Cassel snaps a picture before discovering that Dunham’s beloved Tiffany bean earrings are lost. She immediately swipes to eBay to find a new one.
Everyone in the room presses Cassel on what she’s going to wear in Paris as she worries a storm will ground her flight (it didn’t). “I love when Talia gets dressed up,” Dunham says, shifting the baby in her arms.
“It really does it for me.” Cassel floats around doing her stylist duties, prepping Dunham to slip into the custom Mizrahi, a cute little gray shift with a white collar, patch pockets, and a giant pink bow at the neck: classy, fun, and yet still professional. She’s debuting her shoulder-length bob, looking not unlike Mary Tyler Moore, coincidentally a big inspiration for the collection Mizrahi debuted during the filming of Unzipped.
There isn’t too much time to debrief, since Dunham is late getting out the door. Cassel is busy futzing with shoe options from an awe-inspiring closet stacked with heels: The Row, Margaux, Prada, and more in every color imaginable.
Boxes of J. Crew, presumably from their gorgeous collaboration with Eckhaus Latta, litter the floor.
Cassel decides on simple white kitten mules with a fine point. Everyone nods their approval.
And with that, Dunham has to get to dinner and then off to Film Forum, and Cassel exits onto the stormy street. I wish her luck in Paris and walk to the subway.
On the train, I immediately start scrolling TheRealReal.