New York Times: Arianne Phillips

Newspaper The New York Times did a portrait of Madonna’s stylist Arianne Phillips, titled ‘’Who’s That Girl?’’…

Arianne Phillips is Hollywood’s wardrobe mistress, Madonna’s style confidante and a global trendsetter. Just don’t call her a celebrity stylist. She talks about her work with Madonna…

‘‘The work is totally collaborative, and that’s why I’m drawn to it. I never wanted to be the center of attention in a social scene. I never wanted to create a ruckus.’’

Phillips and Courtney Love became ‘‘inseparable’’ on the set, and it was Love who fixed her up with Madonna, despite Phillips’s hesitations. ‘‘I never fantasized about working with Madonna. I appreciated what she did but didn’t imagine we had similar sensibilities.’’

As it turned out, the two got along famously, sharing as they did an interest in bringing cinematic, literary and artistic references into play. Phillips, who believes a stylist’s job is to interpret, to elevate her client’s ideas to another level, insists that Madonna is neither ‘‘didactic’’ nor ‘‘micromanaging’’ and knows how to listen. In an e-mail message to me, Madonna praised Phillips for creating ‘‘a world of magic’’ and observed that ‘‘she never imposes her own style or allows the trend of the moment to dictate what she is working on.’’

With the exception of two movies — the ill-fated ‘‘Swept Away,’’ in which Madonna played a rich woman who dressed in luxury labels, and ‘‘One Hour Photo,’’ in which Phillips used pieces from Prada and Dolce & Gabbana — she hasn’t done much partnering with fashion designers in film because, as she says, ‘‘I feel I do that in my Madonna world.’’

From: Absolument Madonna