A recent phone call has Todd White’s head spinning.
“I just had a call today and learned that I need to put together a mood board for a music video that, potentially, has 16–20 looks,” he says, shocked, over the call. “I’ve never done anything like that before.” As if that’s not wild enough, the tight timeline to which he potentially has to adhere makes it even scarier. “You get these calls sometimes where you have 48 hours to pull something like this together.”
Easy-peasy — at least for a stylist and costume designer of White’s caliber. He’s an industry heavyweight, a creative director who’s been tapped by rap’s leading women like Megan Thee Stallion, Latto, and Coi Leray to curate the iconic looks you see get tens and thousands of likes on social media. No matter whether they’re shutting down the red carpet, gracing the cover of a magazine, or filming a leading commercial, White’s fingerprints can be found all over their fittings —- and he’s just getting started.
It all came from sending one direct message in 2017 that changed his life forever. “I always say yikes because I feel like without that moment I wouldn’t be here,” he says. “I’m so grateful that I just took that chance.”
White didn’t just wake up a few years ago and say, “I want to be a stylist.” Since he was a kid in Cincinnati, he had a serious love for all things fashion. “I’ve always been attracted to art in general, but specifically fashion just because of the glam of it all, luxury designers, and the celebrity aspect.” When he turned 16, he decided to pursue it after graduating from high school.
That’d lead him to Kent State to study fashion merchandising. While he was there, he became even more immersed in fashion, with a job at Forever 21 inspiring him to focus on women’s fashion design. White collaborated with a friend around this time, who studied photography, to create Fashion Haus — a showcase for their creative direction skills. “I kind of came up with this idea with my photographer friend at the time for how we can practice for the future,” says White. “The idea was, I’d style, he’ll shoot, and we’ll come up with concepts for people who want to build a portfolio for modeling or if someone has a brand, and they need some sort of creative concept for an upcoming release.”
At the same time that White was waist deep in preparation for his fashion career, Megan Thee Stallion was exploding onto the rap scene after making “The Houston Cypher” her bitch and dropping her debut EP Make It Hot in 2017. Her aura and lyricism were unmatched. Anybody who was anybody knew that she was next up. White discovered her music around this time and instantly became a fan. Wanting to become a part of her story, he decided to shoot his shot and hop into her Instagram DMs with a proposition.
“I got hip to her music and was really inspired by her,” he says. “One late night, I just randomly decided that I would DM her and see about the possibility of styling her for upcoming shows and projects.” Not anticipating a response, he was shocked when she got back to him pretty quickly. “I can’t remember if it was the next morning or a few hours later, but I know it didn’t take that long,” he recalls. “This was a time when she only had about a hundred thousand followers.”
After that message, he linked up with her a few weeks later. “We met in New York while I was there for fashion week,” he explains. “She had a show, so we connected and vibed. We really hit it off. After that, I would meet her in other cities to dress her or at least help with whatever she would wear.”
As Megan grew in popularity and people started to see her as a fashion icon, White’s styling work got its share of the spotlight. “Our work during that era was huge because of the mega star that she’s turned into,” he says. “That opened up doors for me to get other people’s attention.”
Those “other people” are some of the biggest stars you see on social media and hear on top playlists, like Latto, who he’s draped in custom threads from Onrushw23fh and Michael Schmidt, and Uproxx Cover Star Coi Leray, who he’s laced in Karl Kani. He continuously finds creative ways to capture his clients’ personalities in clothing. To do this, White has an ideal process that helps him come up with these iconic looks.
“Most of the time, I’m turning on some music, and I’m deep diving into whatever creative may have been shared with me by the artist,” he says. “Depending on who you’re working with, you have to dissect what era they’re in at that time so it all makes sense. Then, I’m doing a deep dive. I’m on Pinterest, I’m on Instagram, I’m on TikTok. I want every platform that has anything to do with fashion, and I’m pulling references, I’m taking notes on up-and-coming designers, [and] I’m looking at seeing what is current from a runway show.”
“This process takes me a few days,” he continues. “Once I get that mood board or creative of what I see, I like to hop on the phone with the client to go through everything. Because more times than not, you’ll come up with a really nice mood board and not get any notes or have any notes. And then the day of the shoot comes and the artist, the client can hate everything — which usually only happens if there’s not been any communication.”
White is very open and honest about not just his process, but also how clients can react. There are times when people will love his creative direction. Other times, they can find issues with it — which is par the course when you’re a stylist working with so many different clients. “You want people to like everything that you do, but you’re not going to always get that reaction,” he admits. “Sometimes they hate it, and you have to come up with something completely different, or they love it, but things could be better.”
Tight turnaround times for creativity can also put a damper on the process — but even those can work out too. “I’ve had clients where we’ve had 24 to 48 hours to put everything together, including fitting on the day of the shoot, and things go bad,” he says. “But then somehow, at the end of the day, the shoot ends up turning out great and the client is thrilled. Those are the moments, the stressful days, that I live for.
“Something as simple as an assistant not showing up on time or a UPS delivery arriving late can really throw off a shoot — but when the final shot is wrapped, you’re able to reflect and be excited that you pulled off something nicely together,” he adds.
White has no plans to stop styling anytime soon, even though he’s achieved practically everything he’s ever wanted — but there are even bigger aspirations that he’s been thinking about pursuing. “I would love to get into film -— specifically, horror films,” he says. “In a perfect world, I’d love to do a slasher film and be a part of the costume design and wardrobe.”