The full conversation has been transcribed and edited for length below.
Keke Palmer: Law, you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing for a long time. We’ve watched how you transform people’s lives, careers through fashion, but there’s obviously so much more to that. So I want to talk to you about why now, for a book?
Law Roach: March of last year, I kind of stepped away from the business for a while. I just needed some time to reflect. I needed some time to learn how to love myself and to put myself first. So I did that. And during that time I thought — because I had been of service to people for so long in a certain type of way, I wanted to figure out how to be of service to people in a different way. So many amazing women said that I’ve helped them build confidence to go on the carpet or to create this character or to wear this dress. I thought, if I can bottle that up and give it to the everyday woman, that will make me feel good.
Keke Palmer: I want to fold you into that conversation, Normani, because I know you and Law have worked together. Tell me about what it was like when you first started working with him, and kind of what your idea of fashion and how it grew.
Normani: I was really young. I was still kind of trying to find my groove and my identity. I remember there was a time that we went out we had lunch, and I was really impressed by [Law’s] ability to take the time with me and really just make me feel confident. Especially as a young Black girl coming out of a very successful girl group, trying to find my identity. [Law] really helped me find my footing at an early age. I really appreciate you taking the time and seeing something in me that maybe I didn’t even necessarily see in myself.
Keke Palmer: I think fashion sometimes has a bad name. It can feel elitist, it can feel exclusive. It can feel like something you’re wondering how to crack into and become a part of. But when you do feel like there’s a way that you can show up, and you can craft an image that allows you to show up in the way you want to show up, to be perceived the way you feel inside…I think that’s when you have your fashion story. Law, speak about it in your book: about vision. What is the key to creating an iconic image that feels authentic to you? It feels like there’s so many rules in fashion, but I feel like you don’t follow any of the rules.
Law Roach: For me it’s like fuck the rules, right? And I to speak to your point about about fashion not always feeling welcoming to us when I first started. I tell this story all the time. You know, I was working with icons. Tamar Braxton and Brandy and Monica and Lala and all these Black girls say, you too early in the beginning. I went to this agency to get started, they looked at my portfolio, and it was just like, oh, you know, you just need some work. What they were trying to say was that optically, what I was doing wasn’t enough. So I made this really difficult decision to say, I’m not going to work with any more Black girls right now. And I was making so much money working with the women I was working with. I took a pay cut from like 10,000 a day to $750 a look, just so that the world could change their perception of what my work could be. And that haunted me for so long, until I got to the point where I’m like, I could do whatever I want to do. I think it’s a little better now.
Keke Palmer: But what do you think that is that we’re rubbing up against? Because I actually saw an interview you did where you spoke about mixing historical moments with the modern story that you’re telling. How do you tie those two worlds together and make it feel accessible?
Law Roach: I think I’ve always just been a storyteller. The clothes have words to the story. I think it’s really entertaining for people to see it done that way. You know, they call it method dressing now..but Zendaya and I have been doing it for so long. What makes me feel good is that when people see the clothes, it starts a conversation, and it makes people feel good.
Keke Palmer: And I mean, as a storyteller myself, I was always wondering what’s going on with the medium of fashion. Whether it’s fashion or it’s art, there is always a story being told. If you see masters like yourself do it, it’s really beautiful. So for you Normani, what has fashion become in your world?
Normani: Fashion has really become, I feel like one of my best languages. This is typically hard for me. I’m always just very typically shy, like I don’t always have, I guess, my best way with words, which is why music is so important. Dance has always been my best form of expression, as well as fashion. I think also not only as a Black girl in the music industry, but also just as a woman in society that had always been told that she wasn’t the standard of beauty or wasn’t enough. I always used fashion to be vocal. If there were ever a point when I wasn’t getting parts on the songs, I could rely on fashion to speak for me. It was an outlet that saved me in so many ways, and it was a form of expression that I was able to use when I felt I wasn’t really given the opportunity to have a voice the way that I wanted to, or deserve to.
Law Roach: I think we take for granted just how powerful fashion is, and how powerful clothes are. We are visual. Before anybody gets a chance to hear your hear you speak or your point of view, they see what you look like. Everybody in this room chose what they’re wearing for an exact reason. Because it made you feel some type of way when you put it on, right? So when you follow the feeling of what clothes you know give you, then you know you’re doing the right thing.
Keke Palmer: I think it’s an important part of self mastery. My book is called Master of Me, and I talk a lot about the process of getting to point A to point B— I feel like there’s a process to mastering yourself that you talk about in your book. What do you think the key is to self-mastery in terms of perception and how you show up?
Law Roach: I think we’re all searching for the ultimate confidence, right? And for the for me, the ultimate confidence is, fuck what you think. I’m aware what the fuck I want. And I think I’m like, 97.5% there. I always like to tell a story of the woman that you see walking down the street, and she has like, green hair, and a blue scarf and a red shoe and a white shirt and purple lipstick. And you were looking at her, you like, she looked fucking crazy. But if you take a minute and think about it, she chose that outfit knowing that people were gonna either laugh with her or laugh at her. But she did it because it made her feel a certain type of way. Her confidence carried through it. So you start to look at yourself like, damn, did I wear enough color today? She starts to change your perception of what you’re wearing on, because she’s so confident. That’s why I wrote the book. It’s an easy read. Eight chapters, and at the end of every chapter there’s a lesson to help you get closer to that confidence.
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