A year on from the fires that devastated Los Angeles, Vogue Business takes stock of fashion’s recovery and rebuilding efforts as part of our series, Refashioning LA, assessing where the city’s fashion and apparel industry is headed in 2026.
For the next few weeks, Hollywood will briefly feel like Hollywood again. Awards season has kicked off and the entertainment industry has descended on Los Angeles for the relentless run of ceremonies, culminating in the Academy Awards in mid-March. Though these days, the influx of actors and executives makes their absence for the rest of the year all the more noticeable.
Many one-time Angelenos now spend much of the year elsewhere — on-set in Atlanta, Vancouver or Australia, for example — and some have left the city altogether. It’s a shift driven less by lifestyle than by economics. Studio budgets are shrinking, and filming has shifted out of Hollywood as other states and countries introduce tax credits and offsets that make moviemaking cheaper. Last year, production in LA reached an all-time low, according to an October report by non-profit FilmLA.
“I think everyone can definitely feel the effects of shifting budgets, including the talent,” says Kent Belden, CEO of The Only Agency, which represents celebrity stylists including Dani Michelle and Sam Woolf.
This is having a knock-on impact on fashion. Traditionally, studios have set out styling budgets for talent doing press tours. But in recent years, those budgets have shrunk. One stylist says she marvels when she sees reports on how much big-budget movies make, and how successful they are, only for her rates per look to sit in the $500 to $700 range.
“These media companies and studios are huge corporations. They’re public companies. They’re always looking to save money,” observes Karla Welch, who styles talent from actors Renate Reinsve to Tessa Thompson.
“The studio budgets are not sustainable,” says stylist Britt Theodora, who works with the likes of director Celine Song and actor Pete Davidson. “I have a studio, I have a full-time employee, I work with multiple freelance assistants, I have tailors. There’s a lot of work that goes into these looks.” Sometimes, she says, you expect a big, 20-look press tour — and it winds up just needing a couple of looks. But you still have to put in the work.
The tide may be turning, at least when it comes to film budgets. In June 2025, California governor Gavin Newsom increased tax credits for film and television production from $330 million to $750 million a year. One stylist, who works in fashion and film rather than with celebrities, says she expects these to bring movie and commercial work back to LA. In December, Newsom announced that 28 film projects have received financial support through the recently expanded tax credit program, which bodes well for 2026.
Fashion publicist David Siwicki, who was in town in December for his LA press days, is feeling optimistic. “After the writers strike, the fires… there have been a few bumps in the road and hard times for LA,” he says. “I know it’s still tough for the industry here, but it felt like a good moment for us to come back and connect with people in-person.” Siwicki’s built rapport with big-name stylists including duo Wayman and Micah, Welch, Elizabeth Stewart, and Jamie Mizrahi, he says. “It’s great to have that in-person time with them. That’s the most valuable.”
The tax incentive may bring production home, but this doesn’t mean studios will invest any more than they are now in talents’ fashion. Stylists expect that, now the current precedent has been established, the status quo is unlikely to shift. In Belden’s view, budget constraints can foster new opportunities. “[It] opens the door to finding more ways of being creative and building relationships directly with brands to offset budgets, which only benefits stylists and their talent,” Belden says.
But this also means navigating brand contracts and relationships with smaller financial cushions to fall back on, and stokes concerns about creative freedom for stylists working with independent brands if major houses dominate awards season schedules via strict contracts. How is Hollywood’s fashion set pushing forward?
Shifting brand dynamics
Big brand contracts used to be considered as bonuses on top of studio fees, but people now rely on these contracts as a source of consistent income, Welch says. The shrinking studio budgets that are driving filming out of LA are thus inadvertently impacting the way fashion shows up in Hollywood. These brand deals, which amount to millions of dollars, tend to come with exclusivity and full-look clauses, which means talent can be limited in what they’re able to wear outside that given brand. They’re especially pervasive during awards season, as larger players typically opt for the top awards moments to showcase looks on their talent partners.
“It’s the dream to get your girl a contract — but then [she] has to only wear that brand,” Welch says. This is a disservice, to the talent and the brand, she argues. “Of course, you always are going to have the brand list of major competitors that your person can’t wear, and that to me is very fair. But [people] seeing your talent in something other than just that brand is a value to them. They can have other moments, and then your moments become more impactful.”
Welch tries to push this approach. For example, she frequently styles Sentimental Value’s Reinsve in Louis Vuitton, as well as in independent brands like Renaissance Renaissance and Meryll Rogge. Stylist Danielle Goldberg strikes a similar balance with her clients. Dior ambassador Greta Lee is known for championing independent New York talent, including Colleen Allen, Diotima, Luar and Still Kelly, all of which she’s worn since the Dior announcement.
It doesn’t always work as hoped. Welch said she had planned for a client to wear a look from an indie brand to the Gotham Awards last month, but their bigger brand contract prevented it.
Meanwhile, talent who don’t have contracts to fall back on sometimes have to subsidize studio rates, she says, for tailoring, for example. This is where watch and jewelry placements can be an effective way to foot the bill for the fashion and labor costs, Theodora says. “We’re girl mathing everything.”
Silver linings
Though local filming has gone through the wringer, for celebrity styling, things haven’t been all bad since the pandemic, Belden says. A number of bright spots counteracted budget concerns. “The celebrity styling landscape experienced a massive reset post-pandemic that led to a surge in opportunities for stylists and glam teams,” he says. “There was an increase in in-person gatherings across the board, whether it’s sporting events, red carpets, or press events — which increases the demand for our artists.” The rise of streaming has been a plus too, he adds, in the sheer amount of talent that then needs dressing for promotion. Welch agrees, adding that the massive amount of content permeating our screens nowadays means there’s always work.
This brings opportunity for smaller brands to get some more skin in the game, even as red carpets remain the domain of major houses. Siwicki, who founded agency David Siwicki Communication, held his second press day in LA in December to get in ahead of peak awards season, when he knows talent will be out and about promoting whatever contenders they’re part of. “I like to go after the new collections come out in October, at the start of awards season,” he says of this new strategy. Most of Siwicki’s designer clients — which include Meryll Rogge, Renaissance Renaissance and August Barron — are better suited to daytime events than red carpets, he says. This means opportunities to dress talent for events like talk shows and press days.
It’s another balancing act. “If someone has 20 things in a week, I want to be cognizant of, ‘Do they actually get a moment from wearing this look to an event that no one’s going to see?’” Welch says. Plus, some smaller brands don’t have the budgets to ship their clothes, so it’s up to the stylist to weigh if a look is worth picking up the FedEx bill for. “The days of a FedEx account are gone. That’s just not the way it is anymore. No studios are giving it up,” Welch says.
For brands, though, it’s important to get in front of these stylists and onto talent, even for smaller promo events. There’s variation there, too, Siwicki adds. “Some of these shows have a lot more promo built in, it really depends on what it is,” he says. “Like, are they going to do the New York morning shows, or is it just going to be premieres and video interviews?”
One PR representative for a larger fashion house says it’s important to dress talent for the smaller awards events, despite the lesser coverage, so that the stylists will think of them for the larger ones. There’s real value in this, Theodora says. “The people who loaned in the beginning, I’m always going to be so [grateful] to,” she says. “You just don’t forget that, because not everyone gets to work with a fashion darling right off the bat.”
One silver lining of these shifting Hollywood dynamics — including the shrinking studio styling fees — is that awards season is no longer the be-all and end-all for many stylists, Theodora says. As of now, none of her clients are nominated this season. “As a celebrity stylist, I still get in my head about, ‘Oh, I didn’t have anyone for awards season this year,’ but I’m still growing as a business,” she says. “I don’t need awards season to grow my business anymore. There are lots of other opportunities.”
Ask her again in 10 years and she may have a different answer, she jokes. Insiders are confident that awards season will persist in its significance. “Movies are always going to get made, and the awards season I don’t think is ever going to go away, it’s very much baked into the entertainment industry,” Welch says. “And thank goodness. I hope it continues to inspire people because I think that is so necessary for its survival.”
Still, the bidding war between Netflix and Paramount (the latter of which released just eight movies in 2025, with none shot in LA) signals uncertainty ahead. This means stylists will need to get even more savvy with their fees and budgets, while brands retain their red carpet power. Welch hopes that this may beget an evolution in the way brands think about their ambassadorships. “A little more freedom within that system is super necessary for everybody to be successful,” he says. “It’s necessary for luxury and fashion brands to participate in a more meaningful [and flexible] way. They might see more returns.”
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