From Victoria Beckham to Rihanna, celebrities are increasingly trying their hand at fashion
Celebrity-endorsed fashion lines are becoming big business as more A-listers exert cultural influence in the retail sphere
It’s almost not enough any more for a celebrity to be content with winning a Grammy or a Golden Globe, or even an Oscar. These days, it appears that the most well-rounded
and successful celebrities must also be fashion designers, leveraging their style and public profiles into brisk sales on the department store floor.
From Victoria Beckham, Hilary Swank and Jessica Simpson, to Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Richie, they have all parlayed their significant followings at the box office or concert stadium into impressive retail businesses.
Simpson, who was previously best known for wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes in the Dukes of Hazzard remake in 2005, and who was a reality TV show star before that, has gone
on to build a fashion and accessories empire – her brand reportedly brings in US$1 billion in sales a year. Victoria Beckham’s brand, which operates at a much higher end of the market – her dresses are well over HK$10,000 – has been around since 2008, and annual sales are around the US$40 million mark. Paris Hilton, who has gone from socialite to reality TV show star to tabloid fodder to model and DJ, now has some 60 boutiques around the world selling jeans, T-shirts, bags and accessories under her name, and plans to open another 200. Sales of her 20 fragrances alone, according to reports, have brought in US$2 billion since the first was launched a decade ago. Swank is the new kid on the block - the American actress recently launched Mission Statement, an athleisure brand that offers clothes that are as fashionable as they
are functional. Asian celebrities are also jumping on the bandwagon - Chinese supermodel Lu Yan, for example, established her own fashion brand Comme Moi last year and the brand is now stocked by prestigious retailers such as Lane Crawford.
The question most often asked about “celeb-designed” lines is, Just how much do those celebrities have to do with what shows up on the shelves of the stores bearing their names? Do they simply license out their names and then sit on the sidelines, or are they in the design studio, comparing swatches and picking out colour palettes?