The Enigma Behind the Enigma 

Rita Zebdi, 33, likes to keep herself away from the spotlight due to the nature of her close circle of friends that primarily includes Frank Ocean. There is close to nothing about her on the internet, merely her personal website and credits from previous jobs that any stylist could ever dream of - GQ, i-D, Nike and Stüssy. Her Instagram profile is a dead-end too, purely consisting of her work and is almost like a styling portfolio. Here, Zebdi uncovers the mystery and walks us through her work with Frank Ocean, her styling process and her favourite project. 

 

Born in Paris and raised in Morocco, Zebdi spent most of her childhood and adolescence in Marrakech before moving to Los Angeles to study communications in university. Although her course wasn’t fashion-focused, she always felt like being a stylist was an inevitable path for her, saying “I’ve had an opinion about how I wanted to dress since I was a little girl - (I) knew I wanted to work in this industry in some capacity, but it took some wandering before I landed on styling.” 

Her intuition was right after all, having her first breakthrough in 2012 when she styled Frank Ocean. “I met Frank at his studio when he was recording Channel Orange. We first worked together on his 2012 MTV Awards performance - that was the beginning of a long friendship and working relationship that I hold dear.” Since then, the pair have worked closely on countless projects together such as Ocean’s visual album “Endless” where Zebdi sourced a wide array of rare vintage clothing and has even gone to become Stüssy’s permanent stylist for lookbooks. 

 

Zebdi is also the mastermind behind Ocean’s most viral outfit from 2019’s camp-themed Met Gala where he wears all black in a Prada Anorak over a tailored suit with a film camera as an accessory. At first sight, his ensemble is boring and the very opposite of camp, a term associated with glamour. However, upon closer inspection of Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp,” camp is “the attempt to do something extraordinary.” Zebdi nails this with his ensemble, being extraordinary in its ordinariness and making a louder statement when put in the context of the Met Gala where going over the top is the norm. Meanwhile, Ocean simply embodies his casual personal style and his love for analog photography. This is how Zebdi approaches her styling as she says, “personal aesthetic is the springboard I build on and explore - staying true to who they are is important.” 

 

As with any stylist, it’s always hard to pick one project as a favourite but Zebdi reminisces on one she’s particularly fond of. “I’m proud of the styling for the Nike x CPFM collaboration with Dexter Navy - we created about twenty individually defined characters in a slightly off-kilter, dreamlike world.” This was a different approach for her, being accustomed to using the client’s aesthetic as the main source of inspiration but found this change of pace to be quite interesting. “It was a mixture of Japanese historical / cultural references, a kitschy American athletic / thrifty vibe, and modern streetwear. Playing with all these elements and devising ways to combine them was a lot of fun,” she says. “I spent hours digging through vintage costume houses on eBay, on Japanese online marketplaces, and made custom pieces like a flyaway resin coated scarf or an exaggeratedly oversized Japanese style sun hat. Unfortunately, most of these images aren’t published, but they live in a folder on my desktop, and I’m still proud of the work that was done.”

 

Zebdi’s star-studded resumé is down to her versatility as a stylist. Not only does she cater to her clients’ own aesthetic, she can also step into a fantasy world to create new characters in incredible detail. But above all, she aims to inspire artists to expand on her work. “If an image I styled can serve as part of someone else’s mood board for their own work, then I’d say that’s a nice takeaway.”