Law Roach Shares His Best Money Advice—and the Luxury Fashion that’s Actually Worth the Price
Welcome to Profits & Losses, GQ’s new questionnaire about money that asks someone of note how they made it, lost it, spent it, grew it, and think about it.
A luxury that’s worth its price: Hermès bags, which I collect, because of the craftsmanship and the experience of being able to acquire them. If you’re buying one, you’ve been invited to a special room, and you can basically have whatever you want. It doesn’t feel like somebody’s rushing you to make a purchase. Bottega is worth it for the exact same reasons.
A luxury that’s not: Overpriced ready-to-wear. And I’ll leave it there.
Something (other than Hermès bags) that I own multiples of: Socks from Berluti. They put my initials on them. They just feel good, you know?
The best money advice I ever got: Pay your taxes. The government lets you slide a year, and then another year, but by the third year they want all that money and you don’t necessarily have any of it. With a 9-to-5 job, the taxes come out, but when you’re a freelancer, it’s something you have to worry about. Once I went to get some money out of the ATM and my balance was at zero. I ran into the bank in a panic. I’m like, “Somebody’s cleaned out my accounts.” It was like, “No, it was the IRS.”
The wage at my first job: I worked at a mental health facility when I graduated from college, and I was making $22,000 a year. So that was $600 every two weeks or something. When I quit that job, my family were like, “Oh my God, you quit that good job with those good benefits.”
The paycheck that made me realize my career is working: It was a slow crawl. When I first started styling, I was charging maybe somewhere around $700 a day. When I was getting better at the job, I raised my prices. So it was $700, then it was $1,500, then it was $3,000, then it was $6,000. Now it depends on who I’m working for and what I’m doing. I’m not Linda Evangelista. I’m never going to say I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.
“I feel poor when…” I never “feel poor.” I would never use that term, because there’s power in what you say and what you say about yourself. If there’s something I can’t afford, it’s just that I can’t afford it at that moment. I would love to own this apartment in Paris, but not at this moment.
“I feel rich when…” I feel accomplished when I can go into a store and not look at my bank account right after I buy something. I don’t think rich is the right word, but I feel comfortable.
A recent investment: I bought the house next door to a house I already owned because I didn’t want anybody else to live that close to my property. It’s gonna become basically like a compound.
A missed opportunity that haunts me: I had the opportunity to invest in something one time, in a different field, but it was during COVID and we were all afraid of never working again, especially freelancers. I could’ve probably multiplied my investment by 8 or 9 or 10.
Most precious thing I have that I didn’t buy: A pair of beautiful emerald earrings. I was admiring them, and the person who owned them just gave them to me.
My private-plane philosophy: It’s worth it when you have to be somewhere at a certain time and commercial is just impossible. I was doing costumes for Ariana Grande’s tour, and it was the first night, but then the next morning I had to be at rehearsal for the Tonys. There was just no other way to get there in time.
The Bottom Line
You must get a ton of free stuff. How do you feel about it?
A lot of times, when I get things for free, it’s not the thing I would buy myself. I’m a consumer. I love spending money at certain places, with certain people. It’s an ecosystem: I do well enough to afford things, and if I shop with the same salesperson at the same store, it’s consistent money for them too. It’s not me just buying shit for the sake of buying shit.
Do you think about who gets your stuff when you’re gone?
All the time. My real vice is auctions. I do all of them: Kerry Taylor in London, Christie’s, Bonhams. I do some smaller, independent auction houses. eBay. I always think about me amassing this incredible collection of art and fashion and that it will all be auctioned off. It’s going to be an amazing auction. I don’t really drink. I never was into drugs. I don’t smoke cigarettes. I’m not a partyer. I’m not, you know, promiscuous. My real vice is auctions—that’s my addiction. I get competitive and then…I think I black out. Say, I’m participating in an auction that’s in Europe. I’ll wake up at 2 a.m. in LA to start this auction, and then I’ll go to sleep, and I’ll wake back up and check my email, and I’ll have a bill for a crazy amount of money. I’m like, “When did I even bid on this?”
Do people treat you differently since you’ve become very successful?
Let me tell you something about that: I only care about it so I don’t have to stand in line. That’s it. I love when people see me in line and are like [ushering motion]. One of my favorite restaurants in Paris, Loulou, can be a really hard reservation to get. One day it was me and four friends. We were 10 minutes away. It was like, Oh, of course you can come. Favorite thing in the world.
A version of this story originally appeared in the September 2026 issue of GQ with the title “Profits & Losses with Style Genius Law Roach”
Source: www.gq.com
