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Celebrity designers: Chic or just plain cheap? | Philstar.com
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Fashion and Beauty

Celebrity designers: Chic or just plain cheap?

CULTURE VULTURE - Therese Jamora-Garceau -
It wasn’t so long ago that fashion designers stooped to doing cheap chic for mass-market retailers. First there was Isaac Mizrahi for Target, which became so successful the once-broke designer was able to resurrect his couture line, not to mention snag his own talk show.

Sensing the start of something big, other designers followed suit, from Karl Lagerfeld to Cynthia Rowley to Stella McCartney. Most recently, Seventh Avenue wonderboys Proenza Schouler did a diffusion line for Target, which sparked a frenzy among fashionistas salivating over their famous bustier tops, as well as proles eager to try on the Hamptons look.

But there are frenzies, and then there are frenzies.

In this celebrity-obsessed era, when lowbrow diversions like Lindsay Lohan can push Linda Evangelista off the cover of Vogue, it was only a matter of time before celebrities started encroaching on the turf of fashion designers. Hey, if Señor Puss in Boots, Antonio Banderas, can create a fragrance, designing clothes can’t be that much of a stretch, can it?

Hence, the advent of the celebrity designer.

Last March, Madonna launched her "M by Madonna" line for H&M to a worldwide frenzy — such was the stampede that velvet ropes came up outside stores to keep the throngs at bay. (I happened to be in Europe last month, and even in a remote outpost like Warsaw, you couldn’t turn around without seeing a huge Madonna advert on every bus stop and street corner.)

A week ago, supermodel Kate Moss unveiled her collection for British high-street megastore Topshop to a similarly rabid reception — I wouldn’t be surprised if catfights erupted over the last pair of hotpants in a Size 4.

Sarah Jessica Parker will soon launch a collection of sportswear called Bitten. Carrie Bradshaw does clothes? Yes, but the high-style icon is going low-end: every item in her line will cost US$20 or less. Parker believes that "Fashion is not a luxury, but a right," and promptly emblazoned that tagline on her cool T-shirts.

Former model-turned-actress Milla Jovovich has gone back to modeling for Mango. With design partner Carmen Hawk, Jovovich will issue an upcoming MNG collection.

Then there are the music divas: Beyoncé with House of Deréon, Gwen Stefani with LAMB, and J. Lo collaborating with Andy Hilfiger on the brand Sweetface. Kylie Minogue was snapped up by H&M to concoct summer bikinis in case Madonna’s spring clothes don’t perform as expected. Says the retail giant, the Bondi babe personifies the "glamorous beach lifestyle."

The fact that most of these women have probably never picked up a needle and thread is beside the point. They are icons of great personal style and the most-copied women in the world, and that’s all that matters to fast-fashion honchos.

Madonna, for one, started her design career with a tracksuit. Always in need of the perfect workout outfit, she designed the gym duds last year for H&M, and it snowballed from there.

For "M by Madonna," the Mistress of Reinvention said she didn’t want to do a huge line of clothes and wanted to keep the color palette simple. So she turned to her closet for inspiration, or rather, she showed part of her wardrobe to a team of H&M designers as the basis of her taste and style. Inspired by the vintage clothes Madge had collected since her Desperately Seeking Susan days, the result is a 26-piece line of black, white and neutral pieces made for the high-and-low mix. Even the most jaded fashionista’s closet will easily accommodate these expensive-looking jersey dresses, puffed-sleeve tops, cropped jackets and crisply tailored pants — the type of clothes Madonna said she wanted to wear and keep on. Sleek but without much drama, the only hint of her stage persona is in the plunging kimono dresses and the very "Confessions on a Dance Floor" stretch leotards.

Summing up her first design experience, Madonna said it was tougher than she expected to design clothes anyone could wear.

If wealthy Madonna can afford to be one of the most well-dressed women in the world, Kate Moss is indisputably the most stylish woman in the world. As Vogue put it, "the whole world craves the contents of her closet." And there you have the makings of the perfect celebrity partnership: the cool, "rock chick by association" Brit model tying up with Brit emporium of coolness Topshop. Canny big boss Philip Green signed on the supermodel for two whole years, which is like giving the rest of us a license to frolic in Kate’s closet.

Just like Madonna, Moss’s design process consisted of opening up her inner sanctum to a Topshop team. From this hallowed ground she pulled the holy grail — one-of-a-kind vintage finds that aren’t available anywhere else, natch — and the team revised the clothes to her specifications.

Unlike Madonna’s well-edited collection, with Kate Moss Topshop you’ll be spoiled for choice: over 80 pieces for summer, featuring the trends that Kate made famous, from painted-on skinny jeans to gladiator sandals; men’s vests to the fabulous little cocktail dresses that always make it to the pages of the tabs. Moss’s magic is that she knows how to style herself, and she knows exactly what works on her. Whether it will also work on the rest of us is the million-pound question.

As far as I can see, the main designer "qualifications" Kate and Madonna share are fame, vast wardrobes they can pick through at will, and a talent for vintage shopping.

But are women deluding themselves that by donning a Kate Moss ensemble they will, by osmosis, absorb and exude her singular style? For one thing, most of us don’t have Madonna’s yoga-mama body or Moss’s model-lithe frame. The tiny halter dresses that look mouthwatering on Kate would look pretty unforgiving on anything other than a teen or twentysomething.

Another thing: isn’t copying vintage clothes practically stitch for stitch fashion’s form of plagiarism? Granted, they’re stealing ideas from a lot of dead or really old designers, but it’s still stealing. Moss admitted to ripping off her square-sequin dress from a similar number she wore by Chanel, and as far as I know, Karl Lagerfeld is still alive and kicking.

What’s next? Nicole Kidman for Debenhams? Sienna Miller for Zara? (British high-street brand River Island is reportedly already duplicating and selling Miller’s look on a regular basis.) Maybe in the end nothing matters but that we are given a chance to buy into the dream these celebrities are selling. That sequined top or pair of aviators is special because it was filtered through a fashion icon’s sense of style, and so bears a bit of stardust, even if a million other people are clamoring to be let in on the dream. In the meantime, don’t be surprised if you see me skulking around our local Topshops — I’m feeling that a Kate Moss outfit would go perfectly with a pair of M by Madonna shades and a Proenza Schouler for Target bag.

CLOTHES

KARL LAGERFELD

KATE

KATE MOSS

MADONNA

MOSS

PROENZA SCHOULER

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