I crossed my fingers.
Mari
I don’t know who Ryan spent her time with after coming back from Seattle, but it wasn’t me. Kylie Cameron, I guess. And Wilder. I saw her out with him once or twice and walked the other way.
It was ... a tough time for me. I still wasn’t completely sure what had happened between us. It was summer, I was working hard at a marketing internship in downtown LA, and my boyfriend, Ben, was back home for the break. So I kept busy and tried not to think about it.
I barely saw anything of Ryan until the promos forDiatribe’s launch came out—they’d reshot the whole campaign when the guest artists came on.
I remember standing on Spring Street in Chinatown and staring at the billboard with my jaw hanging open.
Ryan’s red hair was cut and straightened into a chic long bob and bangs. Her signature red lipstick and cat-eye liner had been exchanged for soft pink and natural bronzer.
Her look had completely changed, and she’d changed along with it.
Fifteen
Tatiana Degroode,Ryan’s personal stylist and fashion consultant
I’d been working with Ryan Holding in the background for many years—specifically for her tours—but it was theDiatribealbum when Mr. McIntyre approached me and extended my contract to full-time.
Ryan wanted something fresh and new for this album. The curly mass of hair, the red lip, the overdone eyes—it had taken her as far as it could. She and I had many talks about her philosophy behind it. We reworked the material for the album and then made a plan for the year forward, the year it would earn her the nomination for Artist of the Year. Because yes, she did receive that nomination.
It was 2012 then: a time of great shifting in the celebrity landscape, I felt. Katie Holmes’s split from Tom Cruise, Miley Cyrus’s controversial pixie cut, Whitney Houston’s death. Beyoncé, a mother. You feel these things, you know. The energy was ripe for Ryan to step into a new era of her career.
Diatribewas no longer bluegrass, and Ryan had come to grips with that. This would be her first album as a full-fledged star, a woman. No longer a teenager, no longer the Ryan she had been when she started out. And all the guest musicians on the album attested to that.
The hair—yes, the hair was the biggest part. That was a clear change. We cut it, added bangs, made it sleek and elegant. We colored it closer to a brighter red, almost a strawberry blond, removing the lowlights. Ryan and I examined the look she had created thus far, this sort of 1940s chic, and asked ourselves:How could we bring it into the future?2012 was more pastel, more soft, understated. We went more natural and smoky; she did not need the stark makeup. She was confident in the woman she had become.
And if not, then it would only be a matter of time. The look would make it so.
Because it was a style fit fortheArtist of the Year.
Skip
I remember when I got the call from the AMAs. I was making coffee in Madcap’s little kitchenette, and I recognized the number on my cell; I answered so fast I knocked the pot over, and it spilled all across the counter. There I was, talking with the head of programming at the American Music Awards, who was telling me that Ryan had been nominated, nodding along as I’m sopping up scalding coffee from the floor.
I had this feeling like I wanted to tell Ryan right away. I don’t know—this was the first album where things had felt really tough, like there was a lot riding on it, and she’d worked her ass off. She’d really turned it around. So I wanted her to know that it had worked.
I ran all over the goddamn studio until I found her shut up in the lounge with Wilder, the two of them working so hard on something with their heads bent together that they jumped when I barged in.
“We got it, Ryan,” I said. I must’ve been grinning ear to ear. “Well—yougot it.”
“No way,” she said. She stood up. “The AMAs?”
“Believe it, kid.”
And she screamed.
Tatiana
We dressed her in a champagne gown. She is so tall, that one. A long ball gown of taffeta with a tight bodice and dramatic skirt, and big diamond earrings. Hollywood, the old Hollywood she loved, but understated. The dress had a slit that went all the way up her left leg. Tall nude heels. She towered like a Venus but held herself well—I had to tell her early in our relationship, stop hunching, stop hunching, don’t apologize for the space you take up. I will not work with women who hunch.
Back straight, chin lifted, or the clothes will wear you. Move deliberately and with grace, and no one will be able to deny you.
Stand tall.
Mari
