Toadstool handbags and Britney Spears’ dress: How Blake Lively reset the Hollywood fashion rules

These days, celebrity stylists are almost as famous as the stars they dress; and rightly so, given the spoils that can be derived from being an excellent dresser. Without Law Roach – a man so exalted that he eschews the “s” word and refers to himself as an “image architect” – Zendaya may never have become a Louis Vuitton ambassador. Anne Hathaway, meanwhile, may not have secured a similar deal with Versace, had she not polished up her look with the help of stylist Erin Walsh. 

If A-listers and stylists go together like cats and cream, Blake Lively is a different animal entirely. Long beloved for her “girl next door” beauty, the 36-year-old actress really is as relaxed and low-maintenance as she appears. She doesn’t even use a stylist, a fact that is highly unusual for someone at her level of fame.

As a busy starlet, Vogue cover star (fronting no less than the much-coveted September issue) and mother of four children under 10, Lively has more cause to employ a stylist than many of her peers. A-lister or accountant, we would all love a little help in the wardrobe department. It’s hard enough choosing an outfit for a late summer wedding, never mind a gruelling press tour with the eyes of the world upon us, poised to annihilate us for the slightest sartorial slip.

But as her most recent red carpet appearances prove, Blake Lively is having the time of her life. At the New York premiere of her new film It Ends With Us, she wore a rainbow-hued Versace dress that less confident dressers would have rejected for looking OTT. But it’s arguably one of her greatest charms that she flies above the parapet of this season’s trends, rejecting catwalk edicts about print, trouser shape and hue. Minimalism? Lively doesn’t know her. Instead, she embraces sequins, frills and bows with the wild enthusiasm of a five-year-old.