Ok, normally, I wouldn't even post anything like that, but this article actually had a few hopeful things to say about people actually NOT buying into all that garbage. If Bloomingdales refuses to carry most of it, I take it as a sign of hope. I don't think this will last long. The only celebrity lines I see enduring are those that are targeted at the malls and are cheaply priced. This part does not bother me, because it does not aim to be designer clothing, it's simply kitsch, and, to paraphrase Clement Greenberg, kitsch does not pretend to be art, all it wants is your money.
O.K., He’s Sexy. Can He Design?
LOS ANGELES
WHAT’S sexy to you?” asked a disembodied voice playing over a
speaker in a barrel-shaped theater in Hollywood, straining to be heard
over the sound of a thousand camera shutters clicking at once.
“Mmm, sexy,” the voice of Justin Timberlake answered, his words
echoing. “It’s not the clothes. It’s the way you wear them. Sexy is a
state of mind. It’s about that attitude ... attitude ... attitude.”
Mr. Timberlake, in the flesh, was sitting dead still on top of a
speaker box while the previously recorded interview played on, his
silver argyle Vans splayed apart and his head hung low under a slim
black hoodie. He sat that way for several minutes, a pop buddha
preaching the dharma of bringing “SexyBack,” motionless as people moved
lights all around him and B-boy dancers polished the floor with their
chests. Then in a blink, he was sitting next to a reporter on a
bleacher with his arm on his shoulder.
“I’m stressed as hell,” Mr. Timberlake said. “How was your flight? When did you get in?”
Aw shucks, Mr. Timberlaaa —
Oh. The performer had just as quickly gotten up and was standing by
the runway, watching models rehearse for the first fashion show of a
collection called William Rast, a year-old collaboration between Mr.
Timberlake and Trace Ayala, his best friend since childhood. The
singer-designer was stressed. He was aware of the critical trouncing
delivered to other celebrities who have attempted to commercialize
their personal style with a fashion line.
“I don’t want to look like a celebrity who is cashing in on celebrity,” Mr. Timberlake said. “That’s my fear.”
Although Mr. Ayala designed the clothes, it was Mr. Timberlake who
was making the fashion show a production, selecting the music,
conceiving the set, taping the fake red-carpet interview as a sly
statement on the hyped nature of celebrity collections — it would play
as other celebrity guests took their seats — and personally casting the
dancers and models.
Monday afternoon last week, the day before the show, several of the
models were moping or chomping on gum, unable to manage a fairly
uncomplicated routine that required one turn and one half-turn. One
stomped down the runway like a Clydesdale, comically attempting the
signature march of Gisele Bundchen. Mr. Timberlake made a bug-eye face,
then pretended to stumble across the room.
As most music-conscious people have heard, Mr. Timberlake is
bringing sexy back; that is, his contagious single of that title has
dominated global pop charts since September, and it has even been used
as a punch line by Al Gore, when he appeared on the Video Music Awards and said he had heeded Mr. Timberlake’s call.
Critics have praised the album with the single,
“FutureSex/LoveSounds,” the second solo album by Mr. Timberlake,
formerly “the cute one” in the boy band ’N Sync. In another step toward
his transformation into an adult act, Mr. Timberlake has taken on
serious acting roles, including a part in Nick Cassavetes’s crime drama
“Alpha Dog.”
And now he wants to expand his claim on sexiness to fashion, with a
runway show he and Mr. Ayala named “Street Sexy.” Showing restraint,
Mr. Timberlake did not plan to play his hit until the finale of an
after-party concert following the fashion show. He seemed well aware
that its popularity is in danger of becoming oppressive.
“At least I didn’t bring Lycra back,” he said.
What has been interesting about Mr. Timberlake’s approach to fashion is that, unlike other celebrities turned designers like Sean Combs,
Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé, he had not heavily promoted his involvement
until last week. Mr. Ayala, 25, who worked with Mr. Timberlake as a
personal assistant and designed clothes for ’N Sync, convinced the
singer to start the collection a year ago, after being approached by
Danny Guez, the owner of the Los Angeles denim company People’s
Liberation.
Mr. Timberlake’s name was kept off the label to avoid the overt
appearance of cashing in on his celebrity, but he approves all of the
designs and comes up with some of them. William Rast, named after two
of Mr. Timberlake’s and Mr. Ayala’s grandfathers, began selling $180
boot-cut jeans at Bloomingdale’s and a handful of other stores. The
idea was that the partners would perfect their basic designs before
making a more ambitious fashion statement.
Ever since Mr. Combs, building on a career as a rap impresario,
introduced his Sean John collection in 1998, the fashion industry has
been overrun by music celebrities. But so far the success of Mr. Combs
— he was named men’s wear designer of the year in 2004 by the Council
of American Fashion Designers — has been more the exception than the
rule. There have been reports of production problems for Ms. Lopez’s
line, exaggerated sales figures from Russell Simmons, and a lawsuit against Jessica Simpson, claiming she did little to promote her own line.
“We have departments for clothes, not celebrities,” said Frank
Doroff, a senior executive vice president at Bloomingdale’s,
paraphrasing the store’s late, legendary fashion director, Kal
Ruttenstein. “Quite a few of the lines we feel are not appropriate for
Bloomingdale’s, or that they really don’t sell.”
The rollout of William Rast has been limited. In early interviews,
Mr. Guez gave sales projections of about $15 million for the first
year, but he declined last week to say whether his company, which went
public in December, had met that target. Still, Mr. Doroff said it is
one of the two celebrity lines carried by Bloomingdale’s that have
connected with shoppers, along with L.A.M.B. by Gwen Stefani.
Mr. Timberlake has been savvy about his image since beginning his
solo career in 2002. He has successfully erased the taint of his
adolescent romance with Britney Spears, and he transferred the stigma
of an infamous wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl almost entirely
onto his duet partner, Janet Jackson.
He has worked with the stylist Joe Zee, the editor of Vitals magazine
(now defunct), to transition his own look from a wardrobe of leather
eight-ball jackets, gold chains and faded jeans to a more adult one of
rakish fedoras, skinny monochromatic Dior suits and three-piece tweed
suits from Yves Saint Laurent.
Before the September release of “FutureSex/LoveSounds,” Mr. Zee said
he flew to Los Angeles to present the singer with photo-collages to
inspire his look for the album’s marketing, showing him pictures of
classic Hollywood rogues like Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.
“He got it right away,” Mr. Zee said. “He’s far more advanced than
Madonna was at his age. You can only imagine where he’ll be when he
gets to 45.”
Mr. Timberlake’s music, his performances and his style could be
described as deliberately unconstructed, as though he had practiced in
front of a mirror a few times before trying it out in public.
“My style changes like the seasons,” he said. “I’ve grown up in the
business, and I’ve had the double-edged sword of having everyone see my
odd years. You can document them on the red carpet, and they are
absolutely hysterical. I look back at some of the things I wore when I
was 17 and I wonder, what was I thinking? Obviously, I was 17.” He is
now 25.
His approach to creating a fashion brand comes across as intently
studied, surreally so when Mr. Timberlake, with a glass of sauvignon
blanc in his hand, speaks of his desire to build a total lifestyle
collection, using fashion-industry jargon as if to demonstrate his
seriousness.
“In my opinion, there are lot of denim brands out there that miss
the point of jeans,” he said. “Jeans are a canvas. I see a lot of jeans
that if I was to wear them, I would have to work my outfit a-round them.”
Tuesday night, an hour before the show, Cameron Diaz, Mr.
Timberlake’s girlfriend, was sitting on the runway, talking to friends
in the front row, and tugging the back of her sparkly shirt down over
her William Rast jeans, so as not to expose herself to guests on the
other side of the runway like Patrick Dempsey, “Dr. McDreamy” of
“Grey’s Anatomy.” Also in the house were Eve, Wilmer Valderrama,
Michelle Trachtenberg, Paris and Nicky Hilton and Mr. Timberlake’s
former boy-band colleagues Lance Bass and JC Chasez. They made their
entrances on a carpet of black Astroturf.
What’s sexy to you?
“Him,” Mr. Bass said, pointing to his boyfriend, Reichen Lehmkuhl. “I think confidence is sexy.”
Mr. Lehmkuhl added, “Sexy is when someone knows how to be confident and how to tell someone else they look good.”
Mmm. The show included women in short denim skirts and men in
ultraskinny jeans with cuffs that rolled back to midcalf, good for a
celebrity runway show but not much different from what one would
encounter at a Diesel fashion show or one of Dsquared. It was amazing,
really, that they were having an elaborate event for a collection of
just 20-some pairs of jeans and T-shirts, styled as the competing gangs
from “The Outsiders.”
The greasers wore their hair styled into mullets, with western
gingham shirts and rockabilly gold bow ties on white blouses; the
preppy socs wore similar pieces, tidied up with a pale yellow cropped
cardigan, for example, and Tretorn sneakers. A few short prairie
dresses, and a retro plaid sports jacket over slim khaki pants for men,
represented the expansion of William Rast; the fireworks were saved for
the dancers.
The B-boys somersaulted over one another, their sneakers at moments
within inches of celebrity airspace, and a group of lascivious-looking
women bumped and ground their way along the stage, one reaching over
into the lap of Mr. Bass, writhing to a Prince song with a name not
suitable for publication (which doesn’t really narrow it down).
“What really makes clothing sexy is what you do with it,” the voice of Mr. Timberlake said as he took his bow with Mr. Ayala.