Adrien Rabago

Hollywood Fashion Stylist on How to be Red-Carpet Ready for Real Life

Adrien Rabago has spent 25 years dressing people in Los Angeles, from actresses on red carpets to brides finding "the dress" to two very famous soccer players who needed twelve jerseys instead of two, two days before the shoot.

She founded Adrien's Closet in 2009 to make elevated dressing accessible beyond celebrity circles, and in this conversation she pulls back the curtain on what styling actually looks like behind the glamour: the steaming, the pinning, the returns, the paperwork, and the constant last-minute fires that come with production work.

Carolina and Adrien actually go way back, one of those funny things that happens once you've been in LA for 20 years and your paths keep crossing.

Carolina was thrilled to head into Adrien's Closet for her Tribeca looks, and Adrien even surprised her with an outfit for this very recording! So if you are watching on YouTube, you can experience the flowy fabulousness.

Clothing can shape identity, confidence, and how we are perceived. It can absolutely change how you walk into a room. There's real research behind this, including the concept of "enclothed cognition," coined by Northwestern researchers in 2012, which explains how what we wear doesn't just signal something to the world; it actually changes how we think, perform, and feel about ourselves.

We also dig into the real difference between a stylist, a designer, and a costume designer, how wardrobe communicates trust or authority or struggle before an actor says a word, and why quiet luxury might really be a response to overwhelm.

Adrien also opens up about dressing women through body changes, including postpartum, and what it means to help someone feel confident in a body they're still getting to know.

Tune in!

xx cg

“It seems Glamorous, but it’s a grind.”

- Adrien Rabago

Episode Transcript