Lotta Volkova is a key figure behind the upsurge of Vetements, a label whose use of gratuitous corporate branding, oversize fits and contorted silhouettes marks a subtle antagonism and post-ironic embrace of commercialism that challenges established notions of luxury and creativity. Vetements’ slant is complimented by Volkova’s quasi-punk sensibility, which she translates into a stark, contrarian and purposefully ugly aesthetic. Her self-reflexive styling highlights fashion’s contradictions and mixes social codes, presenting youthful images that are inflected with a disdain for fashion conventions; think tourist-style symbolism and the presence of bland corporate logos mixed with decidedly punk chokers and badges.

While Volkova’s most notable work is with Vetements, she also lends her touch at Balenciaga; Volkova styled its [Fall 2017 campaign](Fall/Winter 2017 campaign), which features washed-out yet visually appealing corporate office types. Volkova also styles for Gosha Rubchinskiy. The images they produce collaboratively present a spirited outsider sensibility (this synergy likely a result of the pair’s shared Russian heritage), with models styled as post-Soviet punk and skater stereotypes. The inclusion of styling details like shoelaces used as belts—a skateboarder’s makeshift method to keep their pants up—indicate a personal knowledge of these stereotypes.

Juxtaposed to Volkova’s work is Stephen Mann’s quiet, pensive styling. The images produced by Mann resound the impeccable fabrication and attention to detail of the brands he works with, like Arc’teryx Veilance, Missoni and Kiko Kostadinov. Mann disregards the pace demanded by commercial fashion, instead creating romantic images that allude to the history and the craft of the labels he collaborates with.

Mann’s aesthetic emphasises garment construction and texture along with the natural environment that the garments function in. This is apparent in the “Wanderlust” editorial he styled for Numéro Homme magazine, which features images of different forest roads alongside a model wearing various trekking outfits that respond to the slight deviations shown in each natural environment.

In the spread, featured in the Fall/Winter 2016 issue of Numéro Homme Berlin, the Mann-styled model wears garments that seem to clash; high-tech looking Kiko Kostadinov pants and Hoka One One hiking boots are paired with an extravagantly decorated 19th century-looking velvet Gucci jacket. Nonetheless, the coupling of these pieces is seamless when considered in the context of the historical development of outdoor clothing. The jacket looks like something a horseman would have worn on a forest trail long ago, while the pants and boots are ultramodern—brought together they articulate the storied continuum of clothing designed for the rigors of the outdoors.

Apparent incongruity amid labels and garments is typical of Mann’s styling. He styles for Arc’teryx Veilance—a Vancouver-based label known for using high-tech fabrics and clean lines to produce pared-back performance clothing—but also for Missoni—an Italian luxury label identifiable by their iconic, richly-textured melange patterned knitwear. Contradictions reveal a more complimentary relationship, especially considering these labels’ regard to both brand history and rigorous construction methods. Both respond differently to similar environmental conditions using their uniquely developed traditions. In the same way, both brands—even with their different aesthetics and practical uses—organically benefit in a similar way to Mann’s styling touch.

Mann works with subtlety. His styling gently plays with expectations. Alongside the work he has done for heritage labels, Mann’s styling for Kiko Kostadinov’s Spring 2018 show drew on (as noted by Vogue) the grisly mood of 2000’s American Psycho—models worn sheer stockings pulled halfway over their faces, giving them the wry expression of Patrick Bateman. High-tech fabrics and metallic button closures were used throughout the collection to produce an attractive sterility and clean utility with the Bateman-esque sharpness of American Psycho. However, the clean lines and utility of the collection are offset at intervals throughout the show by jackets tied at the arms around some models’ waists, easing the mood and refocusing the viewers’ attention.

Volkova and Mann demonstrate the importance of the relationship between history, fashion and the image. At the core of exceptional styling is an obsessive alertness to the visual currency of popular culture and the ability to communicate meaning through the minutiae of the fashion image. The work of veteran stylist Olivier Rizzo epitomizes this creative obsessiveness and attention to detail.

This is exemplified in his iconic image of Raf Simons muse and model Robbie Snelders posing with Mickey Mouse painted across his face while he wears a Raf Simons hoodie that is slightly torn at the neckline, underneath a tailored jacket. With a slight turn of details, Rizzo’s image embodies a youthful disruption of established norms, articulating the playful agility that is required of stylists who take disparate symbols and recode them into visual representations that lend the garments a desirable aura.

Rizzo has mentioned that skateboarding is one of his central influences. Skateboarding is a form of physical expression that operates within, while disrupting established codes—always just ahead of the curve. Like styling, skateboarding takes elements from a given context and reinterprets them into a form that is dynamic and can be grasped by willing participants. In other words: Like skating, styling is free-form creativity, affected by the influences of the world around the skater while being directly influenced by the personal choices of the skater him/herself.

However, Rizzo’s aesthetic is more restrained and refined than the typical “messy skater style.” Instead, Rizzo draws more pointedly on the exuberance and disruptiveness of skateboarding. In comparison, Volkova directly translates stereotypes like the ‘skateboarder’ into her images to illustrate how fashion shifts and mutes subcultural codes (effectively turning “style” into “stereotype”). In contrast to the post-modern literalism of Volkova, a subtly exuberant and disruptive sensibility is palpable throughout Rizzo’s work, in his images, hats are often worn tilted upward in a blithe way and neatly tailored garments are worn in a louche manner, never restricting the model’s body.

Rizzo’s pedigree includes work with some of fashion’s most notable designers and publications—Raf Simons, Prada, Dust magazine and V magazine are just a few of his past and present partners. Recently, Rizzo styled the Raf Simons Spring 2017 campaign, which recalls the aesthetic of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. For the campaign he plays on Mapplethorpe’s frank-but-sensitive black-and-white photographs, whose work often examined themes including BDSM and homoeroticism. Rizzo incorporates leather biker caps and black bondage straps tightened across models’ throats in an obvious allusion to Mapplethorpe, but lightens the mood with the seemingly careless and relaxed way the models are styled in the clothing; the turned-up, ruffled collars of Raf’s shirts show a body that’s free from the bondage of implied BDSM accessories and connotations.

Melanie Ward worked alongside Helmut Lang at his label through the 1990s and early-2000s. The images she produced remain highly influential and important today—much like Lang’s designs. Her images function as a de facto index to the iconic garments designed by (and ultimately destroyed by) Helmut Lang. They’re a window to his design world and sometimes the only way that his more elusive garments are available to the public.

Lang and Ward blurred the line between the runway and the street, rejecting fashion’s inaccessible luxury, while embracing the tangible and quotidian. Take Lang’s iconic “Painter Jeans,” which invert the relationship between luxury and labour. Careful not to overplay the reference to the laborer’s uniform in the Spring 1998 show, Ward styled the jeans with a clean white shirt, which she tucked into the jeans, finishing the outfit with a sleek pair of derby shoes for a look that embodies a more discreet, common elegance.

Ward’s body-conscious aesthetic, which attends closely to the way Lang’s tailoring, layering and intricate detailing works with the body, is present throughout the campaigns and shows that she worked on. She creates a democracy amongst forms, in her images—subtle bondage straps, layered T-shirts, weighty jackets—garments and the models’ bodies are given equal attention. There is sexual tension in the images generated by the sense of exposure, which draws attention to the reciprocal relationship between the body and the garments.

Ward, like Rizzo, Mann and Volkova, dissects various social and fashion codes, rendering images that translate designers’ collections into wearable garments that have character, history and meaning. The images they create influence the relationships we have to labels and clothing—the meaning we derive from garments, our desire for them and the value we attribute to them. Moreover, as is the case with the work Ward did with Helmut Lang, stylists have the potential to index designers’ garments and distil the transient aura that they have created in the larger fashion conversation.

Just like it’s hard to imagine the designs of Raf Simons without the earlier ground covered by Helmut Lang—without images like those Ward helped to style in her time, it is hard to imagine how Helmut Lang’s design could be seen in the same light. By extension, it’s Ward’s work that would naturally go on to influence the likes of Volkova, Mann and Rizzo—directly or indirectly. Regardless of the specifics of their respective works, these four are just a few of the names that remind us how stylists shape the way we understand, wear and revere labels.