Celebrities Turned Designers...Yay or Nay?

 
**NOTE: I am aware Carla has done a piece on Zoe already (see here). But we have differing-ish opinions. So here we go....***

Over the years, our culture has shifted away from the 'celebritizing' of supermodels (refer to the heyday of the 1990s and prominence of Turlington, Brinkley, and Campbell) and turned towards the sculpting of our actors and singers into new fashion icons. Noticeably, nearly all the covers of prominent mags now feature these stars, as opposed to the models that once graced the pages and adverts inside.

People like Jessica Simpson, P. Diddy, Justin Timberlake, Kanye West and Rachel Zoe have taken their celebrity status a step further, and actually begun designing.

I'd like to talk about Rachel Zoe. Yes, she has an advantage--already being a part of the fashion industry--but her job was always to pull looks together, not to construct them from nothing.

My love for her is illogical to say the least. I wish I could sit her down and feed her bagels until the bones were no longer visible through her leathery, orange skin. But once I began watching her show The Rachel Zoe Project, I was hooked.

For a girl that loves clothes, designers and accessories as much as I do, this show is equivalent to porn. Zoe has a studio full of haute couture, bags and shoes and gets to play dress up not only with the A-list clientele that she styles, but herself. She rubs elbows with the best designers in the industry, and sits front row at every major fashion show in New York and Paris. The last episode I watched featured Prabal Gurung, Michael Kors, and Oscar de la Renta. Drool.

The show is now in its fifth season and the stylist has come full circle in her fashion journey and turned towards designing.

Although nothing in her collections has been innovative or daring, the clothing is made for a chic woman looking for wearability. It is young and cool...a successful venture in the foray of fashion. While others are still putting cork wedges on their runways (*cough Jessica Simpson cough*), Zoe has managed to translate her fashionista sensibilities into a successful multi-million dollar business venture. As Zoe would say, that's pretty 'maj'. 

Check out Zoe's latest offerings for Fall/Winter 2013:
F/W 2013

And here's her take for this summer:
S/S 2013


...A clip for your viewing pleasure. It's hard to take her seriously (she's almost a caricature of herself), but it's a guilty pleasure nonetheless.

Posted by: Kiran

Rachel Zoe: Legit Designer or Stylist Extraordinaire? SS12

I'll admit it. Something about Rachel Zoe has always bothered me. It was probably the rumours a few years ago that she was telling already skinny clients to stop eating and get thinner. These stories seemed justified by the fact that Zoe herself is so thin.

All of that aside, however, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and check out her first Fashion Week offerings. I have no problem admitting that Zoe's designs, while not exactly groundbreaking, are not bad at all. The looks are chic, fun, and suited for daytime, weekend, resort and nighttime. The thing that struck me was that all of the models seemed to be wearing Zoe's own signature wavy hairstyle, and all seemed to be wearing clothes that she, herself, would wear. Indeed, when it was announced Zoe would be designing a line and turning her name into a lifestyle brand, she herself would be wearing the clothes. 

I couldn't help but wonder--is this something all designers do, but we don't notice as much because not all designers are stylists-turned celebrities-turned designers? Or is Zoe simply a consummate stylist who has designed a line of clothes that she would pick for herself and for others? The odd thing about this line was that there didn't seem to be a central piece of inspiration or theme that linked it together as a cohesive collection. Instead, it presented 30 outfits containing trends that have been around for some time that were not necessarily bound to each other. 

I even took the five minutes to put together a fun little diagram to express what I mean re: Zoe's models being her clones:

Also, a quick screen shot to demonstrate how her line is just a little disjointed somehow, and really seems to be a mish-mash of fairly on trend outfits rather than an actual collection. View the whole slideshow HERE.  Maybe I'm out of line with this. I'm pretty sure it's what Victoria Bekham did with her first few collections (Posh Spice Clones)--does it matter where designers draw their inspiration? I'll let you be the judge. 

Posted by: Carla