'I don’t work with a stylist:' Blake Lively reveals secrets behind most iconic looks

Blake Lively, left, and Ryan Reynolds attend The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "In America: An Anthology of Fashion" exhibition. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

After stunning us all with this year’s Met Gala look, Blake Lively has shared some of her fashion secrets and revealed that she does not have a stylist.

“I don’t work with a stylist, I never have,” she said as she talked us through some of her most famous looks - from The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants to her many acclaimed Met Gala dresses.

Speaking to Vogue as part of the Life in Looks series, the actress, who has three children with husband Ryan Reynolds, revealed the secrets and stories behind some of her most recognizable outfits and debunked the theory that she has dressed to match the Met Gala carpet.

Lively has had many memorable looks both on and off the red carpet. But was her Gossip Girl character, Serena van der Woodsen’s fashion that got her that all-important invite to the Met Gala.

Blake Lively stunned at the most recent Met Gala with a dress that transformed to reveal a long, blue train inspired by New York architecture.  New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Lively wore Ralph Lauren to her first-ever Met Gala but said she believes she was only invited because her character wore a memorable yellow high neck Ralph Lauren dress from the spring 2008 collection to an on-screen wedding.

Speaking to Vogue, she said this dress was one of the most critical fashion moments of Gossip Girl.

“I ended up wearing Ralph Lauren to the Met," she said. 

That was my first year that I was invited to a Met Gala and I think they only invited me because of this dress.

She said the impact of the fashion on the show was “greater than anything else” with each character having a very specific and distinctive style.

However, her Met Gala 2018 Versace dress was her “favourite look of all time”. With the theme of ‘Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,' the A Simple Favor actress stunned in the gold and maroon look.

Blake Lively at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Benefit Gala 2018 in New York. Photo: Ian West/PA Wire

“I get very involved in the design of the dresses. I don’t know if it’s just that I’m a Virgo or that I need a life,” she joked.

With this, she revealed that her ongoing trend of matching the carpet each year for the event has been a complete accident. 

Moving on to her most recent Met Gala dress, also by Versace, Lively said that she wanted to look at architecture from the gilded age, as per this year’s theme.

New York has been such a critical part of who I am. It’s the place I choose to live. It’s the love of my life, other than my family.

Blake Lively attends The Met Gala which focused on Gilded Glamour this year. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

The look was inspired by the Statue of Liberty which was originally a copper colour before the blue-green colour that it is now.

“Instead of me performing, I wanted the dress to perform,” Lively said.

But the inspiration from New York does not stop there. The lines within the dress pay homage to the Empire State Building while the draping on the side was another “tip of the hat” to the Statue of Liberty.

The blue element that Lively revealed on the red carpet incorporated the constellation ceiling from Grand Central Station. 

Being able to include elements of this particular landmark was a bit of a “full circle moment” for Lively with the first scene of Gossip Girl set at the iconic station.