Style Counsel

Paul Stura loves clothes. The New York City–based fashion stylist brings an accessibly aspirational vision, along with an obvious enthusiasm, to everything he does, whether it’s styling runway collections for Tommy Hilfiger or creating advertising campaigns for Bergdorf Goodman. His work reflects an untucked elegance that manages to look dressed up without ever feeling buttoned down. All in all, an apt description of Stura himself.

Stura got his start in the late 1980s, while living in Chicago, working retail in high-end clothing stores. “The first job I ever did was for a friend of mine, who was shooting Elle Macpherson,” he says. “Honestly, what I really liked back then was that in two days, I made what I normally made in a week. I liked that, and I liked the freedom of it.”

Still, Stura kept his day job for few years. “I didn’t start really styling until 1991,” he says. That same year, he began working with photographer Carter Smith, and in 1995, Smith convinced Stura to move to New York. After that, things began to happen very quickly. “Almost immediately, Carter became very successful. And if you have his work in your book, it opens doors. But if you don’t do a good job, they’re not going to hire you back.”

Stura did a good job. In fact, he did a lot of good jobs. These days, his résumé includes ad campaigns for companies such as Anthropologie, A/X Armani Exchange, Banana Republic and Macy’s, and his editorial styling has appeared in magazines including Details, Elle, L’Uomo Vogue and W. He finds inspiration everywhere, but if pressed, he says his favorite source is the street. “I love the reinterpretation of something,” he says. “When you’re young, you look at something and think, ‘I cannot afford that.’ Remember when it was about the little boy blazer? I think that was about the kids on [Manhattan’s] Lower East Side who were buying little boys’ blazers they got at thrift stores and wearing them with their tight jeans. Then it made it to the collections.”

His personal style is informed by a blend of high and low. “I love clothes, but I don’t like to look like I have on ‘look number 12’ from a runway,” he says. “My secret weapon is a great blazer, over sweatpants, over ripped jeans, over a suit. It makes it work. I like good, expensive clothes, but I like to mix it up. I don’t like to look precious. And I like a heavy, beat-up shoe. Something that grounds a look. Something that doesn’t look too new. And a thing around my neck. For a while it was a bright pink shoestring with my house keys on it.”

It’s this ability to play with contrasts that has also helped propel him to the upper echelons of celebrity styling. A partial list of the clients he’s worked with reads like some Hollywood casting director’s dream team: Matt Damon, Ryan Reynolds, Justin Timberlake, Julianne Moore.  Of course, working with celebrities is poles apart from working on a corporate advertising shoot. “With celebrities, it’s different, because they’re not models,” says Stura. “They’re not there to make the clothes look good, and there’s nothing I hate more than making someone wear something he doesn’t like, because you’re not going to get a good picture. And maybe the publicist told you the guy was a 31, and maybe he lied. Sometimes, you get a guy like Ryan Reynolds who can wear anything, but won’t wear anything. And the more famous they are, the less time you have with them.”

In advertising, Stura says it’s all about understanding what the client needs. That’s not always so easy. “Sometimes, you do a job and you work with an art director who hasn’t been so specific with the client, and the client doesn’t dig the clothes. I learned early to buck up and take it and make it better, because it’s just clothes and you can go get more. That doesn’t happen so much, because I ask a lot of questions.”

When it comes to finding the garments, Stura likes to do it the old-fashioned way. While he’ll scout for shoot looks on style.com, he actually prefers to go on appointments. “I’d rather see it, and I’d rather touch it. I don’t like technology as a vehicle for me to do my job. I like to shop.” Tactile he may be, but there’s no denying technology’s impact. “It’s made the world of fashion, which has such mystique, available to kids,” he says. “If you live in a small town, you’re not going to get a good magazine. So that’s amazing.”

Two decades of industry experience has given Stura perspective on more than just technology. “The good thing about this business is the same as the bad thing about this business. It’s about a moment,” he says. “It’s disposable.” And he could do without the fashion industry’s obsession with status. “The idea of hierarchy is strange to me. ‘He’s an A photographer, he’s a B photographer, he’s a C photographer.’ I don’t think you always have to fly first class, stay in the best hotel, have the latest bag. I don’t think those things represent style. I would like to change that. And I don’t like the dismissiveness: ‘Oh, he’s not important anymore.’ Or, ‘She’s amazing, because someone famous shot her.’ What if she’s actually really ugly? And,” he adds, “I’d like to see more diversity.”

When he talks about fashion, Stura tends to bring it back to the real world. “I always say, if you were making ads for only New York and Los Angeles, you wouldn’t sell any clothes,” he says. His favorite shoots, it turns out, have been the ones where he gets to work in that milieu. “We went to Austin once and shot real people for Arena. I did something like that in Morocco, and in Mallorca. We go somewhere and we wing it. I think really amazing things happen spontaneously. I think that’s why I like to walk around and do my shopping.” Perhaps it’s his connection to the street that keeps him grounded, in demand, and most importantly, happy. After all his time in fashion, Stura says simply, “I still like doing what I do.”

—Lara Ewen

Paul Stura Photograph: Terry Tsiolis