Getting your Trinity Audio player ready… “I’ve known fashion pretty much my whole life,” stylist Ivy Coco Maurice tells ESSENCE over the phone. She’s in Jamaica working on a research project, which is the Island she spent most of her summers growing up. It’s also where the Jamaican-American learned about fashion in the first place.
“My grandmother was a designer and she has the title of being the pioneer of fashion in Jamaica,” she says. Her grandmother, Ivy Ralph, created a menswear suit called the Kareeba, right after Jamaica established its independence in 1962. The suit gained acclaim in the 1970s when Michael Manley, then Prime Minister of Jamaica, popularized Ralph’s original design.
“It basically changed and redefined how people saw independence, especially for Black nations, Black islands,” she says. To the point, the Kareeba was featured in the Costume Institute’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition which raised a record-breaking $31 million dollars at the 2025 Met Gala.
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As a child, she would spend time in her grandmother’s shop after school. Then, early in the morning, would wake up to the sounds of sewing machines and Christian music. Walking into the cutting room in their home, “I would take the scraps and try and make my own pieces of garments,” she says. “I would mess up the sewing machines,” she laughs, as her grandmother tried to teach her hand sewing and bagging up clothes for special orders to get her off the machines.
As she grew up, Maurice went to school for Retail Management and Economics at Syracuse, then somewhere down the line, ended up assistant styling a Calvin Harris and Rihanna music video “This Is What You Came For.” Styling 150 people for a party scene, “I knew that I was never going to be a stylist,” she says. It wasn’t until after college did she start to pursue creative marketing and gaining recognition from one of her most famous clients yet: her mother.
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“You’re helping so many of these other people and brands with their vision,” she recalls her mother, Sheryl Lee Ralph, telling her. “Help me.” So, she did. “At first, I was very scared to work with her,” she admits. While she technically started styling her mother in 2018 for her podcast, it wasn’t until 2021, when Ralph began starring as “Barbara Howard” in the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary, did Maurice have access to notable designers.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 15: Sheryl Lee Ralph attends the 28th Annual Critics Choice Awards at Fairmont Century Plaza on January 15, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association) Now, going on six years later, “it’s just really been a beautiful experience,” Maurice reflects. More than just a mother-daughter relationship, she says other mature women see how shesrc="https://media.essence.com/vxcjywbwpa/uploads/2026/05/GettyImages-93308775-scaled.jpg" alt="Ivy Coco Maurice On Styling Her Mother Sheryl Lee Ralph" width="400" height="590" />NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 22: Actress and singer Sheryl Lee Ralph attends the opening night of “Dreamgirls” at The Apollo Theater on November 22, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images)
The following year, Mauricedecoding="async" src="https://media.essence.com/vxcjywbwpa/uploads/2026/05/GettyImages-2172267474-scaled.jpg" alt="Ivy Coco Maurice On Styling Her Mother Sheryl Lee Ralph" width="400" height="600" />LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 15: Sheryl Lee Ralph attends the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
A third look she recalled was a casual yellow Altuzarra dress and burgundy St. John boots for Daytime Television early 2025. “She was super chill, super relaxed,” Maurice says. “I love that she can go from being super chill to super dressed up.”
While in their fittings, Maurice says her mother often turns on black-and-white movies which inspires her references across decades. “I think Turner Classic movies is probably the number one thing that plays,” she says. “We’re usually looking at fashion from certain decades, from period pieces, and watching old movies, looking at the garments,” and remembering the iconic costuming the industry often forgets.
“I take a lot of pride in archives. I take a lot of pride in going into different types of consignment shops and [looking through] magazines,” she says. And, of course, her familial and cultural roots. “I definitely see myself as an archivist because I actually hold a lot of pieces from my grandmother’s collections in the ’70s.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 01: Sheryl Lee Ralph attends the 32nd Annual Actor Awards at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on March 01, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images) And, even her mother’s personal wardrobe. “I just remember my mom being out of town and I would go through her closet and I would try on clothes from different eras of her life,” she says as one of her childhood memories. “I believe in preserving the past and I believe in history.”
At this year’s SAG Actor Awards, for example, the theme was 1920s. “That one was everywhere,” she says. “When people give a theme, one thing about Sheryl Lee Ralph she wants to commit.” While other actors gave modern interpretations of their fashion, Ralph embodied what thedecoding="async" src="https://media.essence.com/vxcjywbwpa/uploads/2026/05/GettyImages-2254673201-scaled.jpg" alt="Ivy Coco Maurice On Styling Her Mother Sheryl Lee Ralph" width="400" height="599" />SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 04: Sheryl Lee Ralph attends the 31st Annual Critics Choice Awards at Barker Hangar on January 04, 2026 in Santa Monica, California.(Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association)
The same whimsy she had at the Actor Awards could be said for her look at this year’s Critics Choice Awards as well. There, Mauricedecoding="async" src="https://media.essence.com/vxcjywbwpa/uploads/2026/05/SnapInsta.to_496808335_18501288736009420_5360052127693496726_n.jpg" alt="Ivy Coco Maurice On Styling Her Mother Sheryl Lee Ralph" width="400" height="500" />
“I’m almost redefining the female fashion of reggae in a way, which I think is really cool,” Maurice says. At the same time, she’s busy reimagining her grandmother’s historic atelier, House of Ivy. At the end of the day, “it’s really just a blessing to have more reasons to come back home.”
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