Selena Gomez on Her Rise to Style Stardom: 'I Wasn't Always the Designers' Top Choice'

And now she's the face of Louis Vuitton

Photo: Angelo Pennetta/Vogue

In addition to her day job (as a mega superstar singer and Instagram phenomenon), Selena Gomez has situated herself as “one to watch” within the fashion industry. She attends Paris runway shows, makes us do double-takes with her street style outfits and to really seal the deal she recently nabbed a big-time advertisement campaign with none other than Louis Vuitton. In a new interview she spills how that partnership came to be and why her rise to style superstardom was a long time coming.

While it’s sort of assumed all famous people just automatically know one another, it’s actually a total misconception — they need to make awkward introductions like the rest of us. But Gomez found a cute way to break the ice with Louis Vuitton’s creative director Nicolas Ghesquière: She got his email address from a mutual friend and sent him a note.

From that first email, Ghesquière was hooked. “I was immediately intrigued by her spontaneity and curiosity,” he says. And he already was a fan: “Actually, he loved my song ‘Good for You,'” Gomez tells Vogue. “That was the real icebreaker.”

These days, Gomez attends his runway shows, joined him at the Met Gala this year and serves as the brand’s latest campaign star. And she does not take that achievement lightly. “Let’s just say I wasn’t always the [designers’] top choice,” Gomez says.

When she’s not posing for Vogue or Louis Vuitton, she’s focused on making her style look simple and easy. “I like to find things that are unconventional and make them look classic,” she says, “because if I’m forcing something, you can just tell.”

She’s also enlisted stylist Kate Young to help her make Louis Vuitton’s latest collection work with her style. “Vuitton especially can be tricky—it’s futuristic; it has straps all over it. But Selena’s version looks young and cool and less conceptual,” says Yong. “She makes fashion suit her demeanor.”

It’s safe to say the days of designers not returning Gomez’s emails are over:

What do you think of Gomez’s Louis Vuitton ads?