Fashion Reverie Spotlight: Teri Agins’ “Hijacking the Runway”

Fashion editor Teri Agins is the first to admit that she knew very little about singer Jessica Simpson when Simpson became a national phenomenon on the MTV reality show chronicling Simpson’s romance and marriage to singer Nick Lachey.

But when Agins, working on a 2005 story for The Wall Street Journal, heard the business numbers being discussed around Simpson’s jeans line, she was intrigued. (The jeans line ended up tanking because of cash flow and marketing issues behind the scenes.)

But Agins knew she’d hit on a story that went far beyond Simpson. The result, a new book called “Hijacking the Runway: How Celebrities Are Stealing the Spotlight from Fashion Designers,” (Gotham Books, $28).

“I’m a business reporter at The Journal. I never did write fashion show reviews,” said Agins, who focused on how marketing had changed the fashion world in her 1999 book “The End of Fashion, The Mass Marketing of the Clothing Business.”  “I really don’t care what the clothes look like. From a business standpoint, good clothes are the ones that sell. I have always looked at this through the prism of business.”

In doing interviews for The Journal as well as her book, Agins said it became apparent that regardless of what fashion elitists thought about clothing lines by celebrities, the lines were selling well, much to the chagrin of many on the design side of the fashion world.

“For designers who are competing with these (celebrity lines) it’s all so troubling. These celebrities come in and just leap frog everybody else. They have the notoriety and now they’re representing or manufacturing a product that is consistently selling and hello, that’s the goal of the game,” Agins said. “And, to be honest, a lot of these brands look good and are very affordable. There are some stellar designers who have to compete with that. The designers are behind the eight ball. They have to find a way to deal with this.”

“And just saying, ‘well these designers don’t really do the designing’ doesn’t mean a thing to the consumer. The consumer is buying because they like the look and the price is right. I interviewed some people who didn’t even know that Jessica Simpson was a singer. They didn’t care. They just like her shoes.”

Simpson’s jeans line didn’t become a big splash—Agins said there were marketing and cash flow issues behind the scenes. But it was clear that the Simpson jeans line was the tip of a potentially huge iceberg. That this was a phenomenon was confirmed by a subsequent interview Agins did with Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren.

“This was back in 2005 and Terry told me then that he believed the celebrity hook was going to the next thing in fashion marketing. At that time Macy’s had already had a lot of luck with Donald Trump’s suit line which had come out in 2004,” Agins said.

And Agins said the other part of the equation was the rise of celebrities, including those made famous from reality shows.

“In the 21^st century, celebrities have such a big footprint in pop culture,” Agins said. “You think of the reality shows, the fashion [television] shows like ‘Fashion Police,’ all of ‘The Real Housewives’ shows and then you had television shows like ‘Sex and the City’ and it’s very clear that fashion is now front and center in pop culture.”

“And who’s making the fashions come alive by wearing them? It’s celebrities.”

In “Hijacking,” Agins follows the trajectory of celebrity fashion lines, going behind the scenes to talk with fashion business executives like Vince Camuto. Camuto’s name is ubiquitous these days thanks to his eponymous fashion and accessories line.

But Camuto is also the mogul behind the current (and profitable) Jessica Simpson lines of shoes and clothing as well as the line of shoes and handbags by socialite Tory Burch. In “Hijacked,” Agins traces Camuto’s fashion lineage back to his beginnings as a shoe merchandising whiz (he’s the founder of Nine West shoes).

“When you see who’s behind some of these lines you realize that, from the business end, these are big business. The Camuto Group is a very sophisticated company. This is not just some fly by night operation,” Agins said. “You also see the importance of infrastructure. You’re talking about things like branding partners, things that most people have never thought about.”

In addition to the behind the scenes stories about the rise of accessories, and the power of celebrity-fronted lines and the business operations that create, market and fund them, “Hijacked” also includes an 18-page index of celebrity fragrance and clothing lines.

“People keep asking ‘Is this good or bad for fashion?’ Well this is what it is. This is the world we’re in,” Agins said. “People say ‘Well Jessica is not a designer.’ Well no, she’s not. But Jessica is just fine. She’s not trying to impress anyone. She’s not trying to be Balenciaga.

“I don’t think she’s getting into the CFDA. But she’s doing a good amount of business. According to Camuto, her brand generates about $1 billion at retail in more than 22 product categories annually.”

And, Agins added, the quick success of the Simpson and Burch lines are forcing the fashion elites to take notice.

“Both of these women [Tory Burch and Jessica Simpson] have seen their brands rise to become billion dollar brands in less than 10 years,” Agins said. “No one has done that on 7^th Avenue or in Europe—have a brand come out of nowhere and in 10 years become a billion dollar brand.

“These two have just leapfrogged over everybody. So I rest my case. Hijack.”

—Karyn D. Collins