There is a magical, walk-in closet in lower Manhattan double the size of a tennis court. Perched above Cooper Square, Albright Fashion Library is a seven-thousand-square-foot showroom housing a forty-thousand piece collection of designer fashion. The archive runs the gamut from Tom Ford-era Gucci gowns and Phoebe Philo Céline mules to king-sized Jacquemus straw hats and micro-mini Loewe leather satchels.

Patricia Black is the collection’s creative director. She draws on her encyclopedic knowledge to pull looks for major film and TV productions, fashion shoots, weddings, yacht-bound rehearsal dinners, awards ceremonies, and all manner of other events.

Patricia is a formally trained actor. Whether dressing a celebrity for Cannes or memorizing Lady Capulet’s lines for a Zoom production of Romeo & Juliet, Patricia approaches all her roles with a vested interest in other people: their costumes, their characters, and the stories that animate both.

In the late 90s, you came to New York for a one-off styling gig and your career took off from there. Can you talk about that trajectory?

I arrived from Atlanta, where I was a housewife. I had just found out I was getting a divorce. I had a friend in the city, who was a makeup artist; he said, “Come to New York, get out of there.” So I got out of there. I stayed a month. There was a lot of traffic coming through his house. A photographer mentioned he’d be in Atlanta, and said he’d give me a call when I went back. He was kind of cute, so I was hoping he would. He called and asked if I could give him my take on a woman. He told me to pull some clothes. I went to Saks, to Neiman’s, to all the little places in Atlanta. When he printed the pictures from our shoot, some guy asked, “Who styled that?” Then that guy gave me a job, and then another person gave me a job. Then I met a photographer who was coming to New York to shoot Dionne Farris from the band Arrested Development — one thing led to another.

When did you realize fashion was important to you and something you wanted to pursue?

I don’t know that I ever thought about things in terms of ‘fashion’. I ran away from home very young. I witnessed a lot of things at a very specific time; I saw David Bowie and what the world could look like and what we could be. He redefined the boundaries of clothing, makeup, sexuality and really gave us permission to define ourselves as we wanted to be, not as anyone else wanted us to be. Life as a young runaway informed many of my choices. A bunch of drag queens saw me and took me home with them. One shaved my legs, another plucked my eyebrows. I was all dressed up. I showed up to the clubs, and the owners were like, “Oh my god you’re so beautiful!” So they put me in all the shows. I was always one of the doo-wop girls in the back, but I didn’t care because I got paid, and I got to be in the nightclub. And then, of course, the applause comes and that’s always helpful. Growing up, I took community theatre and all the art classes and dance classes. I’ve always been a performer. I wasn’t afraid of being in the spotlight as long as what was happening on stage was authentic.

What’s your process when styling someone?

I think about the story we want to tell. Maybe that’s the actor side of me — there’s always a narrative. I try to find out as much information as I can: where is she going, who is she going with, who’s sitting at the table with her. For example, she’s going to the Met Ball, she’s a finance lady, and she doesn’t have a model figure, but she’ll be sitting with every top model — my job is to make sure she feels like she belongs at that table. I want her to feel confident and comfortable and glamorous and beautiful, and to stand out.

I always start with “who, what, where”. Is she going fishing? Is she looking for a husband? Is she going with a husband? It’s important to meet her and to get a sense of her personality, because I want it to look like she pulled her clothes out of her own closet. I want it to feel like she’s wearing something from her world. There’s a lot of stuff at Albright I would never borrow. We have a lot of Hermès handbags, but I would never carry an Hermès bag, because I don’t have a helicopter pad in my backyard. I would feel like an impostor. But I guess I’m attracted to people who are a little uncomfortable in their skin. How can I help her walk into the room and feel like she belongs in the room?

Is being honest a big part of what being stylish means for you?

Yes, it’s all about knowing who you are and where you come from. There are little things you can do to ‘up’ it. You can take a designer piece and blend it with something you already have. But it’s important to remember who you are and what your life is. You don’t want to be a poser.

Do you think post-pandemic fashion will be fundamentally different than it was before March 2020?

There was a second during the pandemic when the sky opened up. No one was driving and few people were out. We had time to be reflective about our actions and our footprint. I hope we come out of this with a new appreciation for what we already have in our closets. Instead of constantly making new purchases, we need to ask ourselves, “How can we share and borrow the things we already have?”

This past year and a half has obviously been a weird time for fashion and the arts in general. Creative people have struggled to find inspiration and motivation when it felt like their energies should be focused on more “practical” and “utilitarian” matters. What would you say to people who might think of fashion and the arts as frivolous?

Art is the relief. Staying creative and keeping the imagination going — that’s what’s most important. What is it that we do? We imagine. I’m imagining a better me, a better you, a better life, a better world. Whatever I can add to all of this is not mine to keep, it’s mine to give away. We have to keep passing things on.

Outside of Albright, you’re currently working on a production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie in which you’ll be playing aspiring poet Tom Wingfield, who works in a shoe factory. What is it about the play that speaks to you?

Well, this is a memory play. It’s about the illusions that come with memory. A magician gives you an illusion disguised as truth. But this is truth under the pleasant disguise of illusion. It’s Tennessee Williams’ biography so you get an understanding of who he was and the struggles he had with his own sexuality. In doing research for the play, I came across this quote of his: “My queerness, or whatever you want to call it, is a part of me – like my heart or my pancreas or my blood type. I don’t feel I need to or should wear it like a placard or announce it constantly, and I’ve taken my fair share of denigration for this. I am militant for humanity, and homosexuals – queers, gays, whatever the current and correct title – are humans. I deny nothing about myself – my history, needs, desires – and I don’t think we should tell anyone how they should live their own humanity.”

I’m playing Tom, but I’m not assigning any gender to it. I’m just doing me. Some people scream out loud everything that they are and what they do. I’m just human. I’m just a citizen of the world doing the best I can, as you are, and you are, and you—

There’s this other thing he wrote that I love: “You’ll become a better writer and person when you realize how brief and brutal and glorious life is. I promise you’ll develop a filter, and the filter is art, and the art will burn through the brutality; the art will use it as kindling. Look back for the people walking the same path you got through and extend a hand.”

I thought that’s cool. That’s very cool.

ALL FASHION COURTESY ALBRIGHT FASHION LIBRARY