Wendy’s stylist Memsor Kamarake dishes on host’s stage ensembles.
“We’d filmed the promo for the Soul Train Awards some time before the actual show. They were thinking Vegas, glam –– a lot of the references were very 70s. I ended up meeting the Halston designer, Maria Mazelis and she facilitated getting the samples for her. We do a lot of tailoring but that literally fit her off the rack. This gave us a kind of lease on life to go bigger, bolder brasher, tackier –– Vegas, all the things that Wendy loves and I kind of want to restrain.”
“We actually had this made by my friend Cesar Galindo; he has a line Czar by Cesar Galindo. I asked for two dresses, and he whipped up seven in 24-hours. We ended up having to take it in a little bit more at the waist. By nipping in the waist it accentuated the bosom more and we normally don’t do much of that on the TV show. We thought what could we do to give it a little more va-va-va-voom.”
Gown by Cesar Galindo, Jewelry by Swarovski, cuff by Robert Lee Morris, Belt by Dolce & Gabbana, Fishnet tights by Nude Barre, Shoes by J. Crew.
“If anyone knows about a showmanship moment it’s Laquan, and whilst that wasn’t apart of his collection, I just knew he could ruffle something up pretty quickly. We had to get an outfit in 4 days. The day of the live show we picked up the dress and she tried it on literally before she went out to do the first open of the show, and thankfully it fit. It weighed a ton, but it just seemed so light. The minute we pulled it out the bag, Wendy loved it.”
Dress by LaQuan Smith, Bangles by La Ruicci, Shoes by Manolo Blahnik.
“Wendy has always said she wanted a catsuit, it’s been a long running story. She’s always wanted to wear one on the show and I’d laugh and roll my eyes and give her a jumpsuit in crepe de chine or denim. So we thought, this is the time and the place. It fit into our shimmer moment and it fit to a T.”
Catsuit by Cesar Galindo, Shoes by Manolo Blahnik.
“I am super blessed that Wendy’s body is snatched. She was bold enough to go with it and knowing it was going to show every inch of her body. Wendy is 100% comfortable with what her body looks like, she herself has joked that she’s shaped like a capital P, but there’s no better place to show said confidence then on a stage in front of millions.”
“She was introducing Stephanie Mills who was performing the song ‘Home’ so the idea was to look like she was at home. And that is exactly how Wendy looks when she is at home. That is her own sequins Chanel robe, and the slippers where by UGG but we covered them in Swarovski crystals. She is a fan of a Norma Desmond turban moment and we added a Swarovski brooch to the middle of it.
“She wore this when she was introducing Jodeci. It’s a black velvet romper suit with fringe beading under the sleeve by K. Milele designed by Keke Peterson. I brought one of the samples for Wendy to try on and it was a little small and she was like, ‘Can Keke make something custom?’ It was Wendy’s favorite look of the night.”
“Her favorite shoe is the Manolo Blahnik BB pump in 105mm. She was like, ‘if I’m not wearing this, I’m not wearing anything else.’ So we actually pulled in a selection of BB’s. For someone who used to wear 6” heels and teeter, bringing the heel height down grounds her and she just appears more confident on stage.”
“I didn’t want to have the weight of all those beads coming into a simple spaghetti strap. There needed to be function still, so we needed a wider strap. Wendy was going to wear her bra so we needed to cover that.”
“We were going for big, bold shiny, pretty much everything we can’t do on the talk show.”
“I always remembered loving that Dolce belt, so the idea of making something old, something new –– I’m not afraid to do that. And she absolutely loved it, it was something that showed, ‘hey I lost weight, look at my snatched waist.’ She tends to love more sort of classic, bold jewelry pieces.”
“There’s that classic line in the Sister Sledge song ‘He’s The Greatest Dancer,’ and it goes ‘Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci,’ that’s what we were going for.”
For more backstage access follow Stylist Memsor Kamarake on Instagram @Memsor.
