Styling Hollywood Recap Review: Episodes 1 and 2. We chanced upon the show Styling Hollywood on Netflix and, although we did not really plan to watch it, we decided to click on it and immediately fell in love. In fact, we loved it so much that we decided to do these recaps.
Why did we fell in love with the show? It’s a bit hard to explain why but one of the things we love about it is its wholesomeness and peacefulness which reminds us of Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up. You know, its just normal people doing normal things. We also love the behind-the-scenes look on Hollywood glamour which reminds us of Kathy Griffin’s Life on the D-List.
Lastly, we just love, love, love the show’s cast who are making it in a very competitive business without being catty or crazy or delusional. They’re just good people and how can you not love good people in a town like Hollywood?
(Caveat: Because we decided to write this recap after only the third episode, we’re gonna keep our fingers crossed that the upcoming episodes will continue to be good and wholesome and not feature any contrived fighting, manipulative crying, and over-the-topness which are common in other reality shows. Damn you, Andy Cohen.)
The first episode introduced us to the main stars, celebrity stylist Jason Bolden and his husband interior designer Adair Curtis. We must say that we are very happy to watch a show featuring a successful gay black couple. We love these two and we cannot decide who we love better. They are good people, as we said above, so it is easy to root for them.
The two co-founded JSN Studio which is featured heavily on the show because that is how we learn about the couple’s interior designing and styling work for their celebrity clients.
We also meet the supporting crew: assistant and model Melinda Elvenes (who was crowned Miss Norway 2010), operations manager Kafia Ahmed (who apparently has a love-hate, you’re fired-you’re hired relationship with Adair), and assistant stylist John Mumblo (who described himself as a self-proclaimed former child star). Like their bosses, they are good people too.
Our cast is helping design the Gabrielle Union/Dwyane Wade home so we get to meet Gabrielle in the first episode. Now, Gabrielle is famous as an actress but was she a comic first before she focused on acting? We ask because she brought us some quips which made us decide to stan her forever.
Gabrielle uttered the most memorable quote in the first episode when, anticipating how her husband will react if she buys a pre-owned but very expensive couch, she went: “D would be like, ‘I ain’t fight my way out of the South Side of Chicago to put a $20,000 used old-ass couch in my house'”.
Damn! We’re gonna say that whenever we are tempted to buy something expensive which is not justified by it’s usefulness. Haha.
We meet other clients in episode two — Yara Shahidi, Zazie Beetz, and THE Taraji P. Henson — as they were styled and dressed by Jason for the 2018 Emmy Awards. All went smoothly with Yara and Zazie but the original dress for Taraji had a hole in it so Jason and John had to scramble to find an alternative dress that is right for her.
We were nervous that Taraji would go all Cookie Lyon on Jason when he brought only one dress to her styling but she was nice about it and actually liked the dress. For the record, when we googled how it was received by critics, Taraji and her Giambattista Valli Haute Couture made it to the best dressed list on Harpers Bazaar and Marie Claire Magazine. That’s pretty good for a replacement dress, no?
GIF of the day. For us, the GIF of episodes 1 and 2 would be this one where Kafia and John are talking about their work for JSN Studio. John is asking for advise on how not to eff up after he failed to tell his boss about the fact that the tailor is not repairing the Giambattista dress and Kafia is giving him some sisterly tips. Way to go, sisters!!!
Okay, that’s it for the first two episodes. Watch out for the other Styling Hollywood recaps.