June 12, 2007
Celebrity Bashing by Designers
By Tom Ryan
With Paris in jail and Lindsey in rehab, we’ve probably all heard (or done) enough celebrity bashing recently to last a lifetime. But now it’s coming from an unlikely corner: young fashion designers.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, the success of many celebrity fashion lines may be impeding the development of young designers – taking up shelf space that should reserved for their talent. The new celebrity competition only adds to challenges long facing new designers, including the contraction of department stores, difficulties getting financing, and the fickleness of consumers.
Times fashion writer Eric Wilson called the circumstance “a great paradox” for the fashion world.
“For decades fashion has courted celebrities,” he writes. “It encouraged pop stars who moonlighted as designers, like Sean Combs, Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani, to stage runway shows for flashy jeans and confectionary hot-pants ensembles. Mr. Combs, partly for his oversize personality and courtship of key players like Anna Wintour and Tom Ford, was nominated for awards for years and won for best men’s wear in 2004.”
“It seemed harmless fun,” adds Mr. Wilson. “But now a number of designers are not so sure.”
The most obvious area where celebrities are affecting designers is in fragrance sales. In today’s environment, celebrities can quickly gain a fragrance deal whereas it takes years for traditional designers to build a strong enough name to attract a company such as Estee Lauder. With the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker, Jennifer Lopez and Paris Hilton jumping into the high-end department-store tier of the fragrance business, celebrities have grabbed 10 percent of that $2.8 billion market, as of 2005, whereas a decade ago their presence barely registered.
But celebrity success is also limiting new designers’ success in apparel. Historically, designers such as Calvin, Donna and Marc Jacobs would make more than enough money on sizeable denim and sportswear businesses to offset any losses in smaller, more experimental haute couture collections. Now, Sean Combs and Jennifer Lopez and others have found success with jeans and sportswear at department stores.
Many are targeted toward the middle market, such as Sarah Jessica Parker’s new line at Steve & Barry’s debuting last week and Madonna’s line at H&M. But many are finding success in the contemporary or bridge area competing much closer to the designer’s turf. These include two lines from the Olsen twins (Growing Pains, Full House) selling at Barneys and Neiman Marcus.
“Celebrities have made it harder for real designers,” said veteran designer Vera Wang. “It’s a big open field out there now, like the Wild, Wild West. You could be competing against a television or movie star for a fragrance deal, and that’s an added pressure for designers. We’re working really hard to keep our heads above water, and does the public differentiate, or care? Those are big questions. The most obvious impact is in fragrance, but certainly in apparel we’re feeling it now as well.”
Mr. Wilson openly wonders what this means for the fashion industry if even high fashion is increasingly driven by celebrities rather than craftsmanship?
“Doesn’t that skill and artisanship matter to consumers, compared with the brute marketing muscle behind a line like, say, Kate Moss’s recent collection for Topshop, which was copied from pieces by other designers that were in the model’s closet?,” asks Mr. Wilson.
But Diane Von Furstenberg, the president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, argued that most celebrity collections, unlike those of its high-end members, are intended for a mass market.
“I can see that the young designers fear they can get overpowered,” she said, “but they shouldn’t, because talent wins out.”
Discussion Questions: Is the fashion industry relying too much on fame to drive sales rather than developing design talent? Should the industry be giving more support to designers who drive fashion trends? If so, how?
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Don’t think for a minute that these celebs are actually designing anything. There’s a designer in the background doing the work, that the celeb then approves, likely with a bit of minor suggestion and tweaks.
Celeb “designs” are about brand marketing. Pairing a big name with one kind of talent with a no-name having a different kind of talent.
As for the no-names without celebrity connections, they may have a harder scramble but no matter how you shake it up, the cream will always rise to the top.
It sounds to me as if there’s an opportunity to pair the work of the young designers with the names of the celebrities.
Why just have the Kate Moss name on copies of the clothes that are already in her closet when clearly there’s talent out there to create something fresh?
Then, as the lines come to succeed and the designers build the sales numbers under the celebrity names, they can come out behind them–exactly as they used to do in the old couture system, where the senior designer carried the brand until the young designer’s name got its chops.
For every famous celebrity that comes out with a new line they should be required to sponsor a student designer from a college of their choice. This would allow those without the “fame” to get noticed and may even keep the celebrity “in check” a bit (having to be a positive influence).
Seems rather odd to hear designers complaining that consumers appear to be choosing fashion over, er, fashion. Clothing and fragrances are completely subjective–and the fashion industry has built itself around the idea of telling people that what they bought last year at the industry’s urging is simply not going to cut it this year. It’s fun, it makes money, everyone including the consumers are in on the game. So how can anyone complain if celebrities want to play, too?
That said, the industry should not eat its young, and they should be figuring out ways to bring along new talent. Designing for celebrity lines should be a decent apprenticeship, opening doors into the bigger fashion houses and making a name for yourself within the business.
Celebrity tie-ins and licensing deals aren’t a new phenomenon. Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds fragrance was first marketed in 1991. There have been celebrity fragrance and cosmetic deals for over 100 years, involving stage and vaudeville stars, silent and sound movie actresses, radio and TV stars. Celebrities have always been paid endorsers for clothing and certain retailers as well, so having their names as the “brand” is a logical next step. Regardless of the endorsement, Diane Von Furstenberg is right: over time, if the clothing is ugly or the fragrance is lousy, no celebrity can save it.
Celebrities have the built-in “brand name” recognition that newer designers lack, even if they don’t have any innate fashion talent of their own. Most of the designers with their own brand cachet have been active in the business for many years–think Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren as the two most prominent American examples–and have the business savvy along with the design point of view to maintain their positions at the top. As a result, they have the market power to control a lot of key real estate in mainstream department stores.
Department store consolidation has led in turn to a bland, homogenized shopping experience. If you’re running Macy’s, you’re interested first and foremost in pushing your private brands (INC, Alfani, and so on) before driving your better business…which in turn is dominated by the “brand names” of the industry (CK, Lauren). So there’s very little room for the “next Calvin” to emerge without the aggressive support of risk-averse retailers, and without an obvious talent rising to the top.
I agree with Diane Von Furstenberg–talent will out!
Isn’t this true of most fields in our extremely competitive economy?
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Don’t think for a minute that these celebs are actually designing anything. There’s a designer in the background doing the work, that the celeb then approves, likely with a bit of minor suggestion and tweaks.
Celeb “designs” are about brand marketing. Pairing a big name with one kind of talent with a no-name having a different kind of talent.
As for the no-names without celebrity connections, they may have a harder scramble but no matter how you shake it up, the cream will always rise to the top.
It sounds to me as if there’s an opportunity to pair the work of the young designers with the names of the celebrities.
Why just have the Kate Moss name on copies of the clothes that are already in her closet when clearly there’s talent out there to create something fresh?
Then, as the lines come to succeed and the designers build the sales numbers under the celebrity names, they can come out behind them–exactly as they used to do in the old couture system, where the senior designer carried the brand until the young designer’s name got its chops.
For every famous celebrity that comes out with a new line they should be required to sponsor a student designer from a college of their choice. This would allow those without the “fame” to get noticed and may even keep the celebrity “in check” a bit (having to be a positive influence).
Seems rather odd to hear designers complaining that consumers appear to be choosing fashion over, er, fashion. Clothing and fragrances are completely subjective–and the fashion industry has built itself around the idea of telling people that what they bought last year at the industry’s urging is simply not going to cut it this year. It’s fun, it makes money, everyone including the consumers are in on the game. So how can anyone complain if celebrities want to play, too?
That said, the industry should not eat its young, and they should be figuring out ways to bring along new talent. Designing for celebrity lines should be a decent apprenticeship, opening doors into the bigger fashion houses and making a name for yourself within the business.
Celebrity tie-ins and licensing deals aren’t a new phenomenon. Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds fragrance was first marketed in 1991. There have been celebrity fragrance and cosmetic deals for over 100 years, involving stage and vaudeville stars, silent and sound movie actresses, radio and TV stars. Celebrities have always been paid endorsers for clothing and certain retailers as well, so having their names as the “brand” is a logical next step. Regardless of the endorsement, Diane Von Furstenberg is right: over time, if the clothing is ugly or the fragrance is lousy, no celebrity can save it.
Celebrities have the built-in “brand name” recognition that newer designers lack, even if they don’t have any innate fashion talent of their own. Most of the designers with their own brand cachet have been active in the business for many years–think Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren as the two most prominent American examples–and have the business savvy along with the design point of view to maintain their positions at the top. As a result, they have the market power to control a lot of key real estate in mainstream department stores.
Department store consolidation has led in turn to a bland, homogenized shopping experience. If you’re running Macy’s, you’re interested first and foremost in pushing your private brands (INC, Alfani, and so on) before driving your better business…which in turn is dominated by the “brand names” of the industry (CK, Lauren). So there’s very little room for the “next Calvin” to emerge without the aggressive support of risk-averse retailers, and without an obvious talent rising to the top.
I agree with Diane Von Furstenberg–talent will out!
Isn’t this true of most fields in our extremely competitive economy?