So what, exactly, is going on here? Is the issue at hand really “pure economics,” as one stylist told The Cut in the wake of the Leslie Jones debacle, or is there a grimmer reality (one involving size-0 tunnel vision) at hand? To get the insider insight, I spoke to top Hollywood stylist Ilaria Urbinati, whose clients include Shailene Woodley, Ginnifer Goodwin, Lizzy Caplan, Nina Dobrev, Laura Dern, and Lady Antebellum.

Money is partially to blame, she concedes. “Designers—for what I believe to be financial reasons—are only making one sample of everything, and it’s the same sample that goes down the runway (shared by stylists, editors, and the sales team). So it’s always model size, and the average age of a model today is 14 to 19, so it’s basically a negative size. You would not believe how small these samples are—even my skinniest clients have a hard time being zipped into these dresses.”

Tailoring is crucial as a result, with Urbinati regularly letting out more fabric to accommodate her clients’ bodies when borrowing from the more diverse array of store stock is not an option. “Brands don’t even produce store stock until about six months after a collection is shown on the runway,” she explains, “which means only older seasons are available to loan in [a range of] sizes.”

But wearing an in-store item is an industry faux pas, of sorts, as both designers and celebrities hope to avoid snide tabloid coverage and the requisite “who wore it better?” lists.

“The brand has to pay for those items to be taken out of store stock,” as well, says Urbinati, who notes that they have very limited budgets. “It would need to be a celebrity getting [a lot of] press coverage for them to justify the cost … so a lot of stylists just don’t want to go there.”

Once upon a time, movie studios might have pitched in to help stylists actually purchase the clothes, she says, but thanks to a weaker economy, those days are over.

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