In 2023, stylist Nancy Kote posted a slo-mo video of herself using her feet to paddle a large round purse in the air like a kitten. On them, she wore a pair of vintage white Vibram FiveFinger shoes with grey striation. The video, mysterious and off-kilter, sent me into a fit! Now, the freaky shoe is everywhere. Basically: wherever there’s something sartorially cool going on, Kote was on the scene at least a year before.
Currently, Kote is Clairo’s personal stylist, collaborating with the musician on headline-making dresses and viral tour looks. Kote has a closet that’s the stuff of legend— a mix of garments that someone sartorially less in touch with their third eye might smirk at, but which, in Kote’s capable hands, turn into confection. I went over to Kote’s New York apartment, where we drank a savoury buckwheat tea that she brought back from a recent trip to Japan and played dress-up.
What’s your closet like?
I’m a huge collector of knick-knacks. Often they’re things I find on the street, or at some random flea market or antique shop or $1 store. I have this one scrap fabric that’s from the 1960s—and it’s actually a fishing pole holder! But it’s really beautiful, and I’ve used it before as a belt. I like collecting pins, and old jewelry that I break apart. My assistant Grace jokes that I always bring my bag of treasures: yarn, feathers, buttons, just flying out of some bag.
A lot of my inspiration comes from the scrappiness of nature. I’ve always been resourceful, I didn’t grow up with a lot of money. I’m first gen, my family’s Albanian, and they moved to Staten Island when I was born. I was going to discount stores like Rainbow or Telco, which, honestly, were iconic, and speak a lot to my current style.
How did you get into styling?
I never thought that I was gonna be a stylist! Didn’t even think I would be in fashion. I started as more of a photographer. I have these spy camera glasses that look just like average reading glasses. There was a period of time where I spent a year or two filming things only through spy glasses. I started styling with Heaven I Stay, this art collective and vintage resale shop I started with my friends.
What designers do you love?
Nozomi Ishiguro, Atsuro Tayama, Masaki Matsushima, and Ne-Net. I’m not really the type of person who will drop racks on some crazy archival piece though.
Do you follow trends?
I can’t follow trends, I don’t have the body type that can exist within that realm. I can’t subscribe to wearing something because it’s a cool designer, or because it’s the hot trend right now. I don’t wear dresses much because I don’t feel that comfortable in them. But if I do, it has to be a silhouette that subtly enhances the shape of my body: darting and cinching at the waist, that early 1900s silhouette, where it has a bit of a puffy sleeve, broadens your shoulders so that your waist looks smaller. Sometimes I’ll see a shirt that’s built like that in the most ridiculous, ugly fabric, but I’ll love it. To me, the silhouette is one of the most important parts of fashion and expression.
But you’ve started a lot of trends. Like, oh my god, the toe shoes—I do directly trace it back to you.
I’m really a cuckoo-unaware kind of girl. But people have often expressed this sentiment to me.
What’s the Oracle telling you right now?
I’ve been obsessed with frogs and toads.
So you feel like the frogs are coming.
Muck boots—I’m always in them. Shadows, rocks, the color of a tree. Natural tones are what I’m drawn to the most. Recently I found this piece of palm—a shell casing. It looked like armor, replicating that natural, bodily shape. I used it as a shirt in a shoot. With the trend cycle, I think all the people who did Trad wife are trying to phase out of that and turn into something else. Not like a real tree camo vibe, but more natural. I’ve always been obsessed with hats and obscuring the face.
What other designers would you like to work with?
There’s a lot of European designers that I find just like, so, so fresh and, so genius—Shaina Belcourt, Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard, Aurembiaix, Michelle Del Rio, Ellen Poppy Hill. In New York you don’t really have the opportunity to be expressive and risky as a designer. In Europe, you’re offered grants and things are just less expensive. Here, the only way you can have a runway show is if you’re sponsored by, like, Coca-Cola.
Talk to me about Clairo’s Grammys dress.
It was Claire’s first Grammy nomination so it had to be the most special thing possible! It took me at least a month to finally decide to do a custom dress from scratch. I wanted it to be romantic, dramatic, sultry—precious, but too precious. Her music walks this perfect line: it’s so sweet, but there’s an undertone of sexy. It’s like how showing your shins and your ankles is more sexy than wearing a mini skirt. I was looking at a lot of Galiano. I’m a big corset girl, so that had to be there. Claire Sullivan had to make the dress. It was such an awesome collaboration between the three of us.
How’s it been styling for Clairo’s tour?
It’s completely different from styling a shoot or an interview. The clothes have to relate to every song, to the energy on stage. They have to fit perfectly—no pinning. You’re viewed from every angle. With editorial, you can be funky. But tour looks have to be tailor-made, built for movement. Onstage, the artist is presenting the truest version of themselves in relation to their music. It’s different for every performer. Taylor Swift is in a custom bedazzled bodysuit. Charli XCX is in, like, ripped-up little panty shorts. It’s costume!
I loved that striped dress.
My god. I know, that one’s really cute. It’s from Elizaveta Rakhmankulova. She hasn’t made that many things. It’s cool that she’s received a lot of praise for this adorable fucking dress. I’ve had so many people be like, wait, I want to buy it. And I’m like, “Me, too! It’s sold out!”
