This is going to be a major year for Zendaya. Hot off the heels of her longtime stylist Law Roach semi-confirming that she secretly wed her partner Tom Holland (“The wedding’s already happened! You missed it!” Roach teased at the SAG Actor Awards last month) and stopping by Las Vegas for a little fun, tonight she’s presenting the award for best director at the 2026 Oscars with co-star Robert Pattinson.
The actor’s go-to team—Ernesto Casillas for makeup, Ursula Stephen for hair, and Roach for fashion styling—were all on-hand to help her get glammed up for the moment.
When we chat, Casillas has just sent Zendaya off to the 2026 Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards, where she wore a dress that paid homage to both an iconic Whitney Houston cover and Sex and the City. “That was such a fun look,” he says. “We played with some metallics on her eyes.” It was also a moment of surprise, the makeup artist tells me. “She was like, ‘We can do more of a lash.’ I was surprised and excited.”
It was Roach who brought Casillas into the Zendaya universe about three years ago. Now, he says, the two of them are in a great glam groove. “At first, we didn’t deviate too much from the textures and colors that we like,” he says. “But now, we’re playing outside of that.”
Tonight, Casillas created the actor’s burnished glam with Prada Beauty. “My signature is beautifully layered skin with dimension, a pop of color, and glow,” he says, adding that Prada’s new Touch Blush was the perfect final pop for a monochromatic beauty look. When we chat, the fashion look—which the makeup artist calls a “grown and sexy dress” by Vuitton, paired with jewelry from Cindy Chao and a Rolex timepiece—has been selected, but glam is still a little up in the air. But when the star walked on stage, it was clear they decided to “go with the monochromatic vibe,” Casillas suggested they would do. “It’s a smoldering, bronzy, brown eye. Same thing on the cheeks. And keep the lips a little more hydrated looking, but still within that monochromatic color scheme.”
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He adds that Zendaya has recently started changing up her incredible eyebrows. “Zendaya does her own eyebrows,” he says. “If they need a little bit of a trim, she’ll take care of it. As of late, we’ve been going for a slightly thinner brow. It’s lightly filled in, not as much of a statement brow as she used to do.”
