I’m baffled when others don’t know June Ambrose. How you not know the god of Juniverse?
Allow the introduction, Mrs. June Ambrose: style architect (Jay-Z dubbed) behind many industry big wigs looking the part based on a spiraling prescription specifically built for rebranding purposes. The Antigua born stylist humbly paved her way from a marketing internship at Uptown MCA Records to an industry ironclad mark journeying towards an empire twenty years in-the-making.
Remember the Mo Money, Mo Problems video with Diddy, Mase, and the late B.I.G.? If the video rings a bell, then those red, shiny suits are lingering too. Yep, June’s work. That reference may fall short on the impressive side, but the style denotes influence and appeal ahead of her time. She convinced two virile rappers to undertake metallic fits, if that’s not notable, then decades of redefining top echelon clients echoes her clout.
The style maven repertoire includes the likes of Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall, Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, and Kelly Ripa to name a few. While the mother of two, 10-year-old son Chance and 7-year-old daughter Summer, has been in the background for years, she’s unveiling with a docu-soap on VH1 Styled by June debuting March 19.
It’s a makeover docu-soap, the 40-year-old says. It’s about the evolution and the emancipation of the celebrities we love and I’m helping to rebrand and bring them back in a very positive light. It’s emotional, it’s honest and it’s fun, said Ambrose to NY Daily News last month.
Ambrose’s family came to the States thirty years ago when the stylist-in-training was repurposing curtains for her Barbie doll dresses prompting the young June to practically read every book on costume-design.
It’s not ironic at all that I got into it later on in life, she says. Styling has become embedded in my DNA.
Though the style aficionados mother had her own clothing store in the West Indies, June wasn’t privileged to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology, but beefed up her innate fashion sense through inspiration on the streets of New York City.
In LA, your car is your armor. In New York, our sidewalks are our runways we define ourselves through fashion.
After trying her hand at investment banking, lack of interest in the field forged her leave dismissing a salary and benefits for an internship.
I learned much about using money productively, and it helped me find my entrepreneurial spirit. But it was not the creative environment that I desired, and I knew if I stayed I would never be happy.
Her parents were perplexed with the decision, yet the now sought-after stylist has never been compelled to convince.
Like if I was dressing you up, it wouldn’t concern me that other people don’t understand what you are wearing, she says. I don’t care. It’s all about stepping outside the box and living the way you want to live and expressing yourself how you are. That’s what I’m about.
No regrets! I look back at my body of work and think it was worth it.
Besides motherhood, wife to husband-manager Marc Chamblin, an upcoming VH1 docu-soap, a line of turbans and sunglasses, a published author, and personal stylist to a revolving door of high-end clientele, June is also embarking on her own women’s contemporary clothing line for the fall season.
Check June out next Monday on VH1, trust me the pleasure will be all yours.
By Deidre White
Style by June supertrailer:
Get More: Styled By June, Styled by June , June Ambrose , Celebrity Stylist , Stylist to the Stars
