Finding Jobs with Celebrity Fashion Labels

Jobs in fashion can easily entail working for a celebrity and a signature fashion label that banks on the star's famous name. Some look down on celebrity fashion labels, including some of the celebrities themselves.

It was probably late at night. The post-Oscar bash had been swinging for a while and Christina Aguilera, the steamy pop starlet, gave a celebrity journalist a mouthful. Celebrity fashion lines, she said, were "tacky."

"I have always thought that it's one of those things that just makes people look like they don't know what to do anymore," she continued.

Aguilera Forgets Her Own Fashion Foray
Who was Ms. Aguilera referring to? No doubt Jennifer Lopez, Sean "P-Diddy" Combs, and her old friend Britney Spears but, sadly, she had apparently forgotten herself. When news got to England, bosses at Basic Box, a trendy fashion line, were incensed. The 24-year-old Aguilera was scheduled to launch an up-market clothing line for the company next June.

"That's a very strange thing to say when she's got her own range coming out," a Basic Box insider told the Daily Mirror. "It annoyed a lot of people who've been working really hard on the clothes. Dealing with Christina has been very difficult, but she signed the contract."

Aguilera Loses Fashion Label
Within hours Aguilera's lucrative fashion contract with Basic Box was void with angry executives considering further legal pursuits. No modern celebrity, despite their own opinion, can avoid marketing their name through a clothing line.

Fashion Jobs with Celebrities
If you're thinking of pursuing a fashion career, chances are good these days that your path may cross that of an ambitious celebrity. At any given time, dozens of celebrities are trying to sell their fashion tastes to the mass market. Some last; most don't.

Celebrity Fashion, Behind the Seams...
One fashion designer who took a job working for Jennifer Lopez's clothing line described the process in Time Magazine:

"Jennifer would bring us tear sheets from fashion shows and hint that that was what she wanted. For example, she likes real fur. But department stores like Federated don't buy real fur for juniors, so we would try to incorporate faux fur into the line so it would fit our price point."

While she enjoyed the experience, the designer says she wasn't too sorry to go when an opportunity opened up at a more conventional (non-celebrity) fashion label.