The story of Ana Sotillo, the Madrid-based stylist behind Lamine Yamal’s off-pitch wardrobe, begins not with a fashion course or an internship but with a rapper looking at someone else’s clothes. That is how the Ana Sotillo Lamine Yamal stylist relationship came to exist at all: a set of personal choices so legible and coherent that they prompted an invitation to recreate them for someone else.
Sotillo was working as a model when Spanish rapper Recycled J noticed her wardrobe and asked her to work on one of his music videos, effectively translating her own aesthetic into a commission. The model had always been more drawn to the stylist’s role on set than to what happened in front of the camera, and the collaboration gave her the nudge she needed to cross the line. She did so, and never looked back. A decade on, she continues to work with Recycled J, while her client list has expanded to include some of the most watched athletes in the world: Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior, Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal, and motorcyclist Fabio Quartararo.
How the Ana Sotillo and Lamine Yamal Partnership Began
The connection with Yamal came through the Adidas Spain team. The two got along immediately. ‘We got along really well from the start,’ Sotillo says, ‘and he has great taste.’ She describes his style as ‘effortlessly cool, fashion just comes naturally to him’, a characterisation that is borne out by his off-pitch appearances: Yamal is regularly photographed in Pharrell’s Louis Vuitton menswear, paired with chunky Timberlands, embellished denim, and the occasional Marty Supreme jacket. The look is a particular register of contemporary footballer style: luxury house credentials offset by streetwear volume and weight. Sotillo navigates that territory fluently.
What distinguishes her approach, though, is the use of Yamal’s platform to foreground younger designers who might not otherwise appear in that context. She weaves in streetwear label 424 and Milan-based PDF Channel, the work respectively of Guillermo Andrade and Domenico Formichetti. ‘I really admire both Guillermo Andrade and Domenico Formichetti,’ she says. The gesture matters: a footballer of Yamal’s visibility wearing an emerging label is a different kind of endorsement from the usual major-house alignment, and it says something about Sotillo’s priorities as a stylist. She is interested in the ecosystem, not just the prestige tier.
Seville, Fashion Magazines and the Long Road to Madrid
Sotillo grew up in Seville before moving to Madrid twelve years ago, and her formation was entirely self-directed. As a child, she was absorbed by fashion magazines, attempting to recreate her favourite covers by making her own versions of the outfits and copying the models’ poses. ‘Caring about personal style and feeling genuinely interested in fashion and brands has always come very naturally to me,’ she says. ‘It’s something I’ve felt instinctively from a really young age.’ Her maternal grandmother, she adds, ‘played a big part in that and really helped me connect with that world.’ There is a continuity here between the child remaking magazine covers in Seville and the adult remaking a rapper’s wardrobe in Madrid: the same impulse, applied with increasing precision.
Football, notably, was never part of her education. ‘I’ve never really been a huge football fan,’ she laughs, ‘but I’m seeing it from a completely different perspective.’ With Yamal due to make his World Cup debut for Spain later this month, she finds herself counting down to the tournament. ‘I’m really excited!’ she says. ‘I’m also really looking forward to seeing the different national teams arriving and what they wear. I always enjoy watching those moments and talking about the looks with friends.’ The sport, for Sotillo, is context rather than subject. The clothes are the point.
Asked who she would most like to style beyond her current roster, she does not hesitate. ‘I can say with total confidence it would be Justin Bieber,’ she says, citing Bieber and Jaden Smith as ‘two of the first mainstream men I remember seeing when I was younger who dressed differently, taking risks with colour and wearing more unconventional silhouettes.’ Working with Bieber, she says, ‘would definitely be a dream for me.’ It is a telling choice: less about celebrity magnitude than about a specific kind of sartorial courage, a willingness to dress against expectation that has always, it seems, been the thing Sotillo finds worth pursuing.
