Television has always been an unlikely venue for fashion-forwardness (unless you count Sex and the City, and that was on cable), so no one was more surprised than myself when I started tuning in not just to watch the crooning, but also to see what new hippie outfit Bo would wear, or what diva dress Vonzell was going to belt it out in.
But over the past four seasons, Idol has morphed into an invaluable catwalk for American style, and new trends are born or made on the Idol stage.
Take the black embellished tunic Carrie Underwood wore two weeks ago. Prior to that, the 22-year-old college senior from Checotah, Oklahoma, seemed like your average all-American girl in search of a style.
"She’s not used to wearing designer clothes, so getting her out of her jeans has been a challenge," notes American Idol’s stylist Miles Siggins.
After a few sartorial missteps that included a flowered sequin dress with Dolly Parton hair (which Simon Cowell dissed as looking too "Stepford Wives"), Carrie went for simpler separates, teaming jeans or pinstriped pants with embellished tops.
Her first breakthrough came when she sang Pat Benatar’s Love is a Battlefield, a rock song that required an image overhaul from her country roots. Siggins helped Carrie find a black satin top with real South Sea pearls, which appealed to Underwood’s love of sparkle. The top was backless, which the small-town gal wasn’t too comfortable in, so Siggins tied it just enough to show some skin, and paired it with custom hand-painted jeans. Cowboy boots and a belt from Carrie’s own wardrobe pulled the outfit together.
After that tentative stab at style, Carrie’s down-home interpretation of one of the season’s top trends (a tunic is a caftan rendered more flattering and wearable) created lightning in a bottle, and tunics took off among the viewing public, who rushed to buy similar versions from brands like Free People and Chloé.
Her main rival, Bo Bice, 29, is her opposite in that he knows exactly who he is and dresses accordingly. Bo has never pretended to be anything more than a long-haired Southern rocker in the vein of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers (coursed through Seattle grunge and Eddie Vedder), and his integrity, coupled with an innate rock-star charisma, have made him the frontrunner.
In addition to resurrecting blues-based white soul, Bo could also spark a ’60s "Summer of Love" revival among men. Known as a devout Christian and "hippie perfectionist" back home in Helena, Alabama, Bo has resisted all attempts by AI’s stylists to give him a Bon Jovi-type makeover.
"They tried to do highlights, they tried to cut his hair – Bo says no," said his mother, Nancy Downes. (Bo also said no to Willie Nelson-style braids and straightening with a hair iron.) Far from being a recent affectation, Bice’s mom can’t recall a time when he didn’t have long hair. "Bo’s hair used to be down to his waist," she says. "We just hated him because it was so beautiful."
Most of the vintage-looking rocker threads Bo performs in are actually sewn by his grandmother, Madge Schofield, while accessories like a jade necklace he recently wore are designed by Helena artist Lora Popwell.
While Bo is most at home in Western shirts, fringed leather jackets and frayed jeans, his most memorable outfit was the charcoal suit he wore to sing For the Love of Money by Gamble and Huff. Bo wanted to reflect the lyrics, Siggins recalls, so they came up with the idea of a suit, and were lucky enough to find a three-piece pinstriped one in a vintage shop on Melrose. Bo added a diamante "$" belt for humor, and wore the suit bare-chested with Roman Paul jewelry and Hobie aviator sunglasses to retain a rock-star vibe. Siggins says the leather flip-flops that cost more than the suit were Bo’s idea, because he wanted to take the bling level down a notch.
No talk of Idol style is complete without mentioning Nadia Turner, the 28-year-old from Miami who livened up the top 10 with her surefooted fashionista instincts. With her two-toned afro and one-shoulder tops, tiny miniskirts and high heels, Nadia reminded me of hot mama Pam Grier in Foxy Brown (or maybe Beyonce’s take as "Foxy Cleopatra" in Austin Powers). Like Botticelli’s Venus, she sprang from obscurity with her image fully formed.
"She was so sure of her style that the Idol experts just showed her where to shop," says Siggins. Nadia would take care of the rest. When singing Time After Time she even dared to wear her hair in an eight-inch mohawk, but unfortunately her taste in music wasn’t as unerring as her taste in clothes, and Nadia didn’t make it to the top five.
Another crowd favorite was Constantine Maroulis, 29, the Greek "god" initially pitted against Bo Bice because he was the other "rocker." I use quotes here because like Randy Jackson, I never really bought Constantine’s claims to rock fame. He may have had the long hair, retro jeans, duster jackets and boots, but the former Rent lead was pure theater all the way. When the theme was ’90s music, the New Yorker also paid lip service to how he loved grunge and Nirvana yet sang a Bonnie Raitt ballad onstage (can you say poseur?). Still, I have to give Constantine his props – once he was booted out the competition got a lot more boring. His unique presence (to me: a more unctuous Rex Smith; to my husband: Barry Manilow meets Alice Cooper) is sorely missed.
Once Constantine was gone, the only males worth looking at were Bo and Anthony Fedorov, 20. The Ukrainian-born Fedorov actually had more style when he auditioned, with his square glasses, spiky hair and tailored suits. Idol’s stylists watered his image down quite a bit for the voters, dispensing with the glasses and decking him out in head-to-toe denim for more American appeal. Personally, I preferred him in his formal performance duds – the sharply cut pinstriped suits and trademark specs that made him look like a blond Harry Potter.
Until she was voted off last week, postal worker Vonzell Solomon, 21, carried the torch Nadia dropped as most glamorous black woman. After Simon criticized her early on for wearing a cowboy hat and boots, Vonzell rapidly honed her style from spirited Baby V to sophisticated Lady V; from gospel girl to full-blown diva-in-training. Vonzell’s penchant for the latest trends like cropped pants worn with sparkly tops, and lately slinky evening gowns with stilettos, are an offshoot of her love for shopping. Like Bo, Vonzell has promoted homegrown talent by wearing clothes from The White House/Black Market, a Florida fashion shop, while the Sanibel Diamond store donated a $5,000 pendant for her to flash on Idol. From the looks of it, Vonzell inherited her flamboyant style from her family – yes, those fully pimped-out dudes in hats cheering loudest in the auditorium.
"No matter what they put on, it looks right," Idol judge Randy Jackson says of this year’s contestants. "They’ve got more style than any group we’ve ever had."
And that counts for a lot in the music biz, where, it seems, image goes a long, long way.