Before Beyoncé changed the game with her world tour for Renaissance in 2023, where she wore custom looks by designers as famous as Marc Jacobs and Ralph Lauren, as critically acclaimed as Gareth Pugh and Mary Katrantzou, and as buzzy as Telfar and Coperni and turned the stage into a runway. Before Solange became the patron saint of indie fashion, wearing looks by both rising stars and insider-favorites including Vaquera, Luar, and Diotima; and her son, Julez Smith Jr. became a popular catwalk model. And before the Knowles sisters became bonafide fashion stars, there was Ms Tina Knowles.
The family matriarch gained recognition in the aughts as the stylist, costume designer, and stage-mom for Destiny’s Child. Knowles is the woman behind some of the most memorable pop culture looks of the 2000s, like when the group won their first two Grammys in 2001 wearing matching green looks she designed, or when Beyoncé attended the Oscars in 2009 in a custom gown by Knowles for her label, House of Deréon. She also designed costumes for a number of films Beyoncé starred in, including Dreamgirls and Cadillac Records.
Photo: Kanya Iwana / Courtesy of St. John
Which is to say, Ms. Tina, as the world has come to know her, planted the Knowles flag in the fashion world, which makes it all the more surprising that only now, at 72, she is fronting her first-ever solo fashion campaign.
Knowles is the star of the creative relaunch of St. John, the American luxury house founded in California in the ’60s. Its new creative director, Humberto Leon, who co-founded Opening Ceremony and was co-creative of Kenzo alongside Carol Lim, brought Knowles into the fold.
“Humberto and I go back quite a bit,” Knowles says, calling from set in between shots while Chaka Khan’s “I Feel for You” plays in the background, “he’s one of my daughter Solange’s best friends.”
Knowles first connected with the designer when he and Lim designed some custom Kenzo looks for Beyoncé to wear on tour. Leon also designed Solange’s dress for her wedding with Alan Ferguson in 2014. When Leon shared with Solange that he would be taking on the helm and St. John, he says, the artist mentioned that her mother was a very big fan of the label back in its heyday.
Photo: Kanya Iwana / Courtesy of St. John
Photo: Kanya Iwana / Courtesy of St. John
Humberto Leon is the new creative director of St. John.
Photo: Kanya Iwana / Courtesy of St. John
Knowles says that St. John was, in a way, a Knowles family staple.
“When Beyoncé was at the High School of Performing Arts, her first year in high school, she had this idea to wear really straight leg jeans and little pumps and these cool jackets and all the chains,” she says, recalling that St. John also offered “the most incredible jewelry.” “So she wore these little jackets, my jackets with her jeans to school, which was quite a sophisticated look for a 10th grader,” Knowles says, noting that when she met one of Beyoncé’s teachers years later, she said “she dressed so ‘grown.’”
“I’m thinking that she’s saying she’s showing too much skin,” Knowles says, laughing, but really it was these St. John looks.
True to form, Leon’s version of the brand is a different. “Some of the things that I’ve [put] on today are really beautiful,” says Knowles, “a bit edgier and sexy, which I think is a great refresh of the brand.”
“When I spoke to her, she was like, ‘well, if you’re there, then I know it’s going to be chic,’” Leon says when she asked Knowles to be in the campaign. “Solange was like, ‘you know, Ms. Tina, she’s the St. John girl,’” the designer recalls. “I felt like for this first campaign, it would be exciting to bring in somebody who truly loves the brand, and knows the brand and can really be an ambassador for the brand,” he says, “and there’s nobody more mega than Ms. Tina.”
Photo: Kanya Iwana / Courtesy of St. John
Knowles was one of the first celebrity stylists to become a household name, though now many—say Rachel Zoe or Law Roach—have become stars in their own right.
“I absolutely love it,” Knowles says of stylists coming to the forefront. “I respect it, because I know that as a stylist, it takes a lot of work and a lot of dedication,” she continues. “For it to be recognized like it is now, and that people are finally really getting paid and respected for fashion like any other form of art, because it is a form of art.”
She has some designers she’s been keeping an eye on. There’s Olivier Rousteing, the former Balmain creative director who is now at Rabanne and most recently dressed Beyoncé for the 2026 Met Gala, and Sarah Burton, who led McQueen for a decade before taking on Givenchy.
Knowles also has some sage words of advice for those struggling with finding their own taste: “I would tell them to figure out what makes them tick, what excites them,” she says, “because I think people having their own sense of style is just that. If you’re the cookie-cutter person that goes and buys every designer or brand and you don’t put your own personality into it, then I think, yes, you’re a good dresser, but you don’t have a great sense of style.”
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