Styling celebrities is no easy task. Celebrities such as Maluma, Sofia Richie, and more, owe their fashionable looks to designer and businesswoman, Hilda Batayneh. Hilda joined us to share the story of her success in the fashion industry.
While she always had a love for fashion since she was a child, she originally started studying pre-med in college.
“You know, I read a quote and it said, ‘Choose a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life,’” says Batayneh. “And so it kind of set me back for a minute. It made me think, do I love medicine? Do I want to continue this step? Or am I just getting great grades in my science classes? And is that truly my passion? So you know, I had to say what do I love? I love clothes. I love fashion.”
She then graduated from the University of Michigan and applied to Parsons. From there, she began her fashion journey in New York City.
In 2011, Hilda created Reunited. Shortly after, she had her first collaboration with Olivia Culpo.
Batayneh says, “Olivia is one of the stories of like, if it's meant to be it's meant to be. Her manager, Nikki Bohannan, has become a very close friend. [S]he said, ‘You know, I got this email, I don't open every single email, but I opened that email. And I was like, something's telling me to open this email.’ And so we met, virtually before virtual was a thing because we were in New York, they were in LA, and we just clicked and it was great chemistry. From there the relationship began.”
Most recently, Hilda collaborated with international Latin music star, Maluma on his new clothing line at Macy’s.
Batayneh says “for me, it was a big challenge in my career, because here you have this international star who is you know, huge all over the world who is a style icon and I had to say, how am I going to bring his vision to life so I study people, I study their fashion, I look at them from afar.”
To see some of Hilda’s looks, visit reunitedclothing.com
