Chaise Dennis grew up on Minneapolis’ North Side, descending from a fashionable family. His great-grandmother Bernadette Anderson was Prince’s unofficial foster mom, and several of her children were the Purple One’s bandmates and tailor.
Dennis launched his career as a personal stylist at Nordstrom Mall of America, wrote a lifestyle column for Insight News and hosted a fashion radio show for KMOJ (89.9 FM). After moving to Los Angeles, he started styling celebrities for red carpets and magazines, including actor Edward Norton (for premieres of the Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown”) and Apple CEO Tim Cook (gracing the cover of Variety).
We checked in with Dennis after he dressed Tramell Tillman of “Severance” in a custom, white-on-white tuxedo for his best supporting actor Emmy win. Dennis shared what it’s like to style Hollywood stars and how Minnesotans can up their fashion game. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
You’re saying it right. My mom confused everyone with the “i.” Everyone’s under the assumption that it’s going to be like “chaise lounge.” [Excuses himself to take a call from Tillman.]
[Laughs] No, we’re prepping for three big events and they’re all kind of back-to-back-to-back. So we’re just coordinating logistics, because he’s filming “Spider Man” and timing and everything is all over the place.
The FAIR School Crystal [a fine-arts magnet for middle schoolers] was the first place I really discovered a love for all things arts and potentially entertainment. Theater was the first thing I fell in love with, and then, of course, when you’re in theater, you put on costumes.
And having hip family members didn’t hurt.
My family does have some legendary allure behind them. My great grandma [Bernadette Anderson] had a street named after her last year and she’s kind of an icon of Minneapolis. She raised her six kids along with Prince, so my uncle André [Cymone] and Prince created all of the incredible music of the late ’70s in her basement. I felt like I’ve had them to look to stylistically. As well as my grandma and my grandpa, who were models in Minneapolis — she was a Miss Black Minnesota.
And your great aunt Sylvia Loveless-Amos helped Prince turn his sketches into his singular, flamboyant couture?
She’s an unsung hero. If you look at all of the imagery from the late ’70s, early ’80s, when the Minneapolis sound traveled nationwide, all of the looks had been designed by her, from creative direction to fabrication. Today, I look at mood boards and I see collections that come down the runway and Prince is a constant reference.
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