The rising stylist started out first as just a wardrobe assistant for Beyoncé but soon became Blue Ivy’s head stylist.
Dominican fashion stylist Manuel Mendez started working for Beyoncé during her “I Am” world tour in 2009. Only then working as just a wardrobe assistant. He would then leap to become Blue Ivy’s stylist after spending years working with the Knowles family on and off again.
In a past interview with Be Latina, Mendez describes the experience of styling Blue Ivy like shopping for a niece.
“Blue’s mom liked my style of work and organically I became her stylist,” he told Be Latina. “Now Beyoncé has two other babies [Rumi and Sir] and I’m evenly excited to help her curate their wardrobe.”
He is responsible for some of her most iconic like her 2018 Wearable Art Gala outfit and her 2017 Grammy outfit.
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Mendez is a proud Dominican that goes to the Dominican Republic at least once a year to get recharged. He got into fashion by watching telenovelas with his mom and grandmama, who are some of his greatest inspirations.
Being an Afro-Latino in a whitewashed industry is not easy for Mendez who reveals some of the struggles he’s faced in an interview with Hello magazine.
“Being an immigrant boy of color from the Dominican Republic in this world, is not easy, explains Mendez in the article. “I’ve been told no a million times. The most hard one was, ‘You are not what we are looking for.”
Since styling Blue Ivy and her two siblings, he has gone on to style several other celeb children. His current roster includes: Royalty Brown, and Stormi Webster, along with twins Jessie James Combs and D’Lila Star Combs.
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Though styling his life passion and also making time to advocate for fair representation in the fashion industry.
“Equity for people of color in every aspect of the industry is deeply needed,” he said in a feature with CFDA.com. “There isn’t fair treatment and there isn’t enough kindness and understanding toward people of varying backgrounds and cultures. An increase in diversity and inclusion across the industry would presumably offer more people of different backgrounds more opportunities to succeed. We must identify, then eliminate the barriers to entry that have prevented certain groups from fully participating in the industry—at all levels.”