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Strategies & Market Trends : Can you beat 50% per month? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (8456)	6/9/2005 9:35:45 AM
From: Smiling Bob	Respond to of 19256

TAGS - growing up fast 3.97 x 4 IN WSJ today New Reality With Her Own Line, Pop Star Rides Rise In Celebrity Fashion Upstaging Upscale Designers, Jessica Simpson Prepares For Big Launch in Stores Nixing a 'Cheesy' Touch By TERI AGINS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL June 9, 2005; Page A1 LOS ANGELES -- In March, while the designers of the high-fashion world were finishing up their runway shows in Milan and Paris, Jessica Simpson was here making the final cuts for her debut fashion collection. One pressing question: What to do with the chicken and fish. The 24-year-old pop singer and reality-TV icon had come to the Sunset Boulevard headquarters of Tarrant Apparel Group to review her coming clothing line, "JS by Jessica Simpson." She spotted the slogan "Chicken or Fish?" embroidered on a knit top. It was an inside joke: On her hit MTV reality show, "Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica," when confronted with Chicken of the Sea tuna, she had famously asked: "Is it chicken or is it fish?" Ms. Simpson, dressed in rolled-up jeans, high-heeled boots and a plunging gauze top, made her suggestion: "Instead of the words, maybe you could show a chicken and a fish with a question mark in between them?" She then shifted her focus to some samples of distressed jeans. Once largely the domain of elite designers in New York and Europe, fashion is increasingly being influenced by celebrities. Like Jennifer Lopez and Donald Trump, Ms. Simpson sees a fashion line as the next logical step in building herself as a brand. "Fashion just comes natural to me," she says. At a time when much of the $173 billion apparel industry has been experiencing sluggish growth, celebrity brands are booming. Stars from Gloria Swanson to Johnny Carson have put their names on clothes in the past. But in recent years the number of celebrity collections has soared as young consumers, in particular, take more of their fashion cues from actors and pop stars. Celebrities with thriving clothing collections include Gwen Stefani, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Nelly. Ms. Lopez is racking up an estimated $200 million in annual sales of her fashion and cosmetics line. Singer Beyoncé will introduce a clothing line later this year. Speedy Cycles Behind the rise of celebrity brands is a speeding up of fashion cycles. Department-store and designer collections today must compete against specialty stores, discounters and cheap-chic chains such as Zara and H&M that quickly roll out the hottest designer runway looks. For manufacturers and retail chains eager to drum up big volume in a hurry, celebrity lines promise instant name recognition without having to spend millions of dollars on brand marketing. "You've got a better chance getting in the door with a product under a celebrity name as opposed to an unknown designer name," says Terry Lundgren, chairman and chief executive officer of Federated Department Stores Inc., the nation's largest department-store chain. Upscale designers have a harder time gaining broad retail distribution today than they did during the designer boom that began in the 1980s. Back then, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Donna Karan began to blanket department stores with midpriced fashion collections, jeans and fragrances. By contrast, top American designers such as Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors have made high-fashion headlines for nearly two decades but are just now beginning to generate big retail volume.