Lady Gaga's Stylist Goes On The Defensive

In the current issue of W, fashion stylist Nicola Formichetti is quoted relating a rather damning anecdote about his time at Dazed & Confused magazine. Formichetti says he once walked off the set of a shoot with the techno-world music fusion group Zohar. What had the band done to offend Nicola Formichetti? The stylist didn’t like that they were “fat.”

One shoot, which involved dressing a rock band, was particularly unfortunate. “I was only used to dressing models and skinny kids,” he recalled. “And I turned up and it was, like, three fat guys. I just left. That was the last time I tried to work with fat people. I think one of them was Ali G’s brother. It was so ghetto.”

There’s lots to gnaw on here: the silliness of a stylist refusing to dress certain clients based on body type, the irony of a fashion insider like Formichetti casting such a refusal in the language of “telling the truth,” as though the fashion industry were some kind of haven of body-positivity and self-acceptance he was boldly challenging, the casual racism of a remark like “ghetto,” and also the downright weirdness of Nicola Formichetti apparently mistaking the fictional character Ali G for a real person. The Lady Gaga connection. No wonder the quote spread round the Internet.

Formichetti took to his public Facebook last night to issue a rebuttal. He loves fat people, says Nicola Formichetti! It must be true, because he styled a shoot with plus-size models. (An admittedly pretty great shoot, at that.)

“i really hate when writers just write whatever they want…” wrote Formichetti. “‘i dont work with fat people…’ why would someone say such a thing?!”

Though he stopped short of directly saying he was misquoted by W, Formichetti did say, “dont believe everything you read on line please…” The comment received 206 likes.

“i always worked with different body types. beauitful sammy for dazed with mariano vivanco GOD MAKES NO MISTAKES -AMEN FASHION”

“dont believe all what you read”

For all of the above, [sic].

But that’s Formichetti’s public Facebook. On his personal Facebook, where the stylist who often works with Lady Gaga allows strangers to see his profile pictures, he seems to find overweight people humorous. Refinery29 pointed out Formichetti has counted each of these shots as a profile picture.

His friends left a variety of mean comments: “damn those sample size clothes…” “skinny jeans are not for every one” “front bottom!”

And some that seem to elucidate only their own body issues: “it pic like this that makes me stop eating all that fast food.”

As for the central issue here: I contacted W magazine for a response to Formichetti’s allegation that the quote was the product of its reporter’s imagination.

The magazine went over the transcript of Formichetti’s interview with writer David Colman, and checked the audio recording. “W firmly stands behind its reporting of its interview with Nicola Formichetti,” said a spokesperson.