What to say about Louise Roe?
Well, apart from her ability to positively rock a pair of short shorts, mini minis, headbands of any sort, and hats of any description, this stunning UK-born, US-based TV presenter, fashion journalist, and stylist is, I predict, about to become a household name.
Hailing from London and now based in LA, Louise has been the co-host for E! Entertainment’s Perfect Catch, E!’s Fashion Police, and reporter for the BBC’s Clothes Show. Louise also contributes regularly to E! News, awards season coverage, Project Catwalk, Britain’s Next Top Model, GMTV, Style Network’s How Do I Look, and 10 Things I Hate About Me. The face of US Vogue TV, Louise was voted among the top 10 Women in Fashion 2009, by both Mens.Style.com and FHM.
Phew, girl's been busy.
I first came across this beauty-with-brains in Addicted to Boob Jobs, a BBC doco she presented.
Her natural flair in front of the camera struck me - as well as her ability to connect with all her subjects... even if some of the women she interviewed wanting breast surgery were doing it for whacked out reasons. Nope, you couldn't pick up judgement of any sort from her. She was the consummate pro journo.
When I interviewed Louise recently - while she was in town for a whirlwind Aussie trip - she explains her work ethic.
"Yes. 100%, there was no judgment and a completely honest approach to interviewing all the women in the doco. I feel like a) nobody has the right to judge anyone in life and b) from a journalist's perspective, if you start judging someone or make them feel uncomfortable, they will clam up and you won’t get anything out of them at all; it’s kind of a two pronged reason behind what I do."
Louise actually spent her gap year in Sydney as a 19 year old, and nine years later, she says she has seen an evolution in Australian style.
"I can remember going out and seeing Sydney girls making a real effort. It's not that they don’t now, but it’s definitely gone a little bit more boho, a little bit more relaxed. I think that girls here now make each style their own; I genuinely have the most affinity out of all cities with Sydney fashion, because it’s got that kind of bohemian vibe, but they also enjoy wearing bright colours and great shoes and they’ll take a risk, and mess it up a bit, and wear that beachy hair. And to me, that’s what style is about. To make it your own, and just have a good attitude with it all."
She knows style when she sees it. She spectacularly replaced US Elle magazine's Olivia Palermo (another style crush of mine) on the reality show The City, for the Badgley Mischka post-show interview with the designers.
After Olivia's failure to get backstage at a Marc Jacobs show (hmmm, looked perhaps a l'il staged), Louise confidently stepped in at the eleventh hour, grabbed a mic, and ad-libbed like a completely confident pro.
"Genuinely, I go to Fashion Week, I'm in New York a lot, and I knew Whitney (Port, also from The City) a little, and it just honestly happened that way [stepping into the Elle TV hosting role]. Joe Zee and Erin Kaplan at Elle are two of the most hardworking people; they genuinely do that job for real [Erin is director of PR at Elle; Joe, creative director at Elle]. They're on their Blackberry between filming and they're on their phones the second we’re not filming.
"The makeover show I do now - called Plain Jane - is very much unscripted and ad libbed, and it deals with real women and real emotions. Seeing that it's unscripted, it’s very much a case of just going for it; no-one knows what’s gonna happen, and I love that!
"And yes it was a real honour to be asked to work with Elle; but with Plain Jane, I was offered that show then went back to LA to do it and to be honest I'd always go back and work for Elle again, and I may do, but having my own makeover show was pretty awesome – I couldn’t really refuse that!"
We will be seeing much more of Louise Roe very soon. And what's not to love about that?
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