Celebs hijack fashion

AT THE HEIGHT of New York Fashion Week, the serenity of the established design houses was disturbed by an unusual event. Rapper entrepreneur Sean 'P Diddy' Combs sold a stake in his clothing company, Sean John, for a reported $100m (£60m). That tidy price reflected the fact that, like several other fashion companies started by music celebrities, Sean John is starting to outsell wellknown brands such as Tommy Hilfiger.

While successful fashion designers are used to becoming celebrities, it is a new phenomenon for celebrities to become successful fashion designers. Substantial fashion businesses are springing up based on the brand name of singers and actors, selling their sartorial style to their legions of fans. And America's established fashion houses are getting worried.

Celebrity fashion design has all the hallmarks of a bandwagon gaining serious momentum. Stores all over the US carry clothes and accessories bearing the label of star entertainers. Jennifer Lopez, Eminem, Mariah Carey, Queen Latifah, Snoop Dog, Nelly, 50 Cent, Eve and even Jackie Chan want to get the world to dress to look just like them. And they are succeeding.

Among the first to jump on the bandwagon was the gun-toting music producer Combs - formerly Puff Daddy - who launched his Sean John clothing line in 1999. It has become big business, turning over $500m last year. Jennifer Lopez saw the opportunity, perhaps when she was P Diddy's girlfriend a couple of years ago, and launched her own clothing line, JLo. Her company, Sweetface Fashion, had $130m in sales last year.

Hip-hopper Jay-Z's Rocawear clothes range is another of the leading celebrity fashion labels while Mariah Carey is offering a line of accessories under her own name. Gwen Stefani, the blonde singer in No Doubt, launched her new line of handbag - replete with guitar straps, metal studs and Gothic lettering - last month.

The phenomenon is most concentrated among hip-hop stars - celebrity designing is all about relentlessly urban street fashion largely as defined by music videos. Anyone who saw the film 8 Mile, for example, knows what to expect from Eminem's line, Shady Ltd - plenty of sweatshirts with hoods, T-shirts bearing slogans with attitude, woolly hats, leather jackets and baggy jeans. For women, there tends to be more glamour and less material: miniskirts barely wider than a belt, slinky satin tops, a lot of Lycra and velour sweatsuits.

But it's not all glamour, as long as it sells. Queen Latifah, the ample hip-hop diva, is designing bras that fit women of her shape. 'I've had trouble finding things that didn't make me look like I was wearing something that a construction guy could use as a harness, or the Coast Guard could use to lift someone out of the ocean,' she says. She clearly had the right instinct because Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, is carrying her Curvation line of bras.

The celebrities do not design the outfits themselves - they employ people to do that - but they set and approve the style. But the celebrity names sell clothes. For musicians, the key is that videos have turned music into a highly visual experience. What the performers wear is often as least as important to their fans as what they sing. it's a simple case of branding the performer with his or her fashion style and then leveraging the brand by selling the clothes to a wider audience.

Celebrity fashion designing is almost unknown in Britain. But now that America has made the leap, it is

probably only a matter of time before the same phenomenon starts appearing in Britain and the rest of Europe.

How much momentum does this bandwagon really have? When hip-hop passes on, will the fashion lines of the hip-hop celebrities vanish with it? In many cases, the answer is yes. But there are signs that the more savvy players are already adapting and adjusting, turning the fashion labels into a brand in their own right, separate from the celebrities who spawned them.

Some of the earliest exponents of celebrity fashion are already showing this chameleon flexibility. P Diddy's Sean John line is moving away from its hip-hop roots with outfits this year inspired by the Matrix films - long coats, tight leather, high boots, and not a velour sweatsuit in sight.

Russel Simmons, possibly the original hip-hop celebrity designer, launched Phat Farm in the early 1990s. His clothing label is now better-known than he is - a transposition devoutly wished for by the celebrity's financial backers, if not by the celebrity himself.

Jennifer Lopez may also last. She began as a Latina singer, moved into Hollywood acting and then retreated to the softer fringes of hip-hop, so she clearly has the essential adaptability. Her clothing range will no doubt follow her changes, as will her fans. Celebrity is a potent marketing tool. The more refined and aggressive the marketing of celebrity fashion becomes, the more the established designers need to worry.

Perhaps, as one expert opined, it is time for Donna Karan to hit the headlines with a teenage lover or for Ralph Lauren and Georgio Armani to get into acting. For the time may not be far off when creating nice clothes isn't enough. Designers will have to offer their own character and entire lifestyle to their clientele. In short, they may have to be celebrities before they are designers.