Why the high street is being swamped by celebrity clothing ranges

The dress is not the first thing you notice, of course. It's the woman wearing the dress. Beautiful, elegant, a certain "screw- you" insouciance. Kate Moss. One of the most instantly recognisable faces in the world. And she demands to be looked at, really looked at.

That's the thing with Kate Moss. That's why she's become the world's most ubiquitous model, selling us everything from make-up to handbags to ready-to-wear. You stop and look. There's something about her face, and all that she represents, that stands out from the other equally beautiful but somehow less interesting faces in the fashion mags.

In a fashion market where brands spend over £700m on advertising - and that's without the £500m that gets spent on cosmetics and toiletries, often by the same fashion houses in the same glossy magazines - standing out from the crowd is a marketing must.

So you notice Kate first. Then you notice the dress. It, too, is beautiful. A striking blue, lovely halter collar. And this time it's Kate's dress. No, not one she's been "lent" by a famous designer in the hope she'll wear it out in front of the paparazzi. Kate's dress, designed by Kate. She chose the shape, the colour, the fabric.

Now it could be your dress, if you're quick. It is launching in selected Topshop stores on 1 May, part of the new Kate Moss Topshop collection.

Topshop is betting millions of pounds and its street cred that the dress and the rest of her designs (stripy shorts and waistcoats, cocktail dresses with a twist, satiny masculine suits, floaty girly dresses) will have us slavering to get the Moss "look".

Welcome to the world of celebrity designers. For, dear cynics, this is not simply Moss as model: gorgeous face, gorgeous figure for hire. This is Moss as fashion collaborator. Somewhere within the DNA of the Kate Moss collection is the spirit of Kate herself, apparently. Buy the denim hot pants, buy a piece of Kate.

And Topshop is quick to stress the level of attention paid by their star turn to the clothes that bear her name. In fact, the departure of Topshop's brand director, Jane Shepherdson, within weeks of Moss coming on board suggests that she definitely made her presence felt.

As the box accompanying this piece (see right) shows, she is just the latest in a growing line of celebrities who are now becoming "brand architects" - extending their own brands, and coming off the covers to get into bed with serious retail businesses. Madonna's just done it in 32 countries with H&M, Lily Allen is launching Lily Loves clothes in 312 stores across the UK, northern Europe and the Middle East on 9 May.

Except that we're not fooled. Moss, Madge and Lily - sure, they know plenty about clothes, all right. Mostly the sort of clothes few of us can afford. But does anyone really think they can do a better job of designing our high-street fashion than the retailers' own designers, the guys who have spent years studying their craft and their market?

Of course not. This is not about supplementary designer talent; this is about a shrewd, multi-layered marketing strategy that works seamlessly from initial product concept through to advertising, PR, and the bottom line.

Not surprisingly in this cut-throat market, the retailers themselves are cagey about exactly how the deals are cut. H&M insists this is not just about licensing the Madonna name and face; this is about partnership. "Madonna had a key role in the collaboration," says an H&M spokeswoman. She says they chose Madonna because "we share the same view of fashion, a desire to express ourselves in a unique and individual way".

Except that there's actually nothing unique and individual about the M collection. This is not celeb designer-fashion-as-PR-stunt - all hype and little stock. This is nationwide distribution of so much clobber that you'll see your friends in it. So there hasn't been the sort of gold rush that H&M saw when it launched its limited collection with Stella McCartney last year; which is great news if you've got your eye on one of Madge's trenchcoats.

Moss's line for Topshop will be a little more exclusive, there are just one or two hundred copies of some of the pieces, but the 91-item collection will be updated through the seasons, so there's always reason to go back in store to check out what's new.

Neil Mason, a senior retail analyst at Mintel, believes that introducing a limited collection, like Kate Moss's at Topshop, adds to the appeal. "The celebrity's status in itself is enough to make these lines work, but there's no doubt that when a retailer limits the supply it generates more interest, a real kudos for the people who manage to get their hands on a coveted item."

So it's no surprise that many of the shoppers scouring the rails for the more elusive pieces from the Kate Moss collection will not be wearing the clothes themselves. Within hours they'll be up on eBay, the subject of a frenzied bidding war.

With this sort of interest from shoppers, it's not hard to see why these retail tie-ups can be lucrative deals for the celebrities themselves. Green is said to have paid £3m to sign up Moss, but as the two are poised to take the collaboration worldwide, it's likely Moss will also get a share of the profits.

For shops like Topshop, H&M and New Look, celebrities are a crucial element of the marketing mix. Fashion is snappy, disposable, quick, quick, quick. These days, the fierce competition on the high street means stock has to move through at pace. Which is a marketing challenge. There's little time to build brand values around a range, to nurture an image; that has to be done instantaneously but also consistently. Look at Marks & Spencer's campaign starring Twiggy; big name, famous face and they're pumping out lots of ads, quick turn-around. The models are the glue that holds the different campaigns together. Madonna, Allen and Moss will do the same for their retailers - they're all brands that provide a sort of shorthand, a rich seam of positive credentials that other brands can piggyback. Instantly recognisable, Madonna equals funky, healthy, confident, in charge. Lily Allen is cool, now, outspoken, individualistic. And Moss is the epitome of personal, accessible style: streetwise, edgy, a little bit dangerous, always beautiful.

But, you might wonder, are they worth the money? Madonna is a decade or two older than the teen-to-twenties H&M heartland; she's a mum; she's, well... not quite the hot musico she once was. But the fact remains that she's ubiquitous. The clothes, the ad campaign, the PR - all will work around the world wherever H&M wants to take it. That's cost-effective marketing for you.

The same with Moss. She's a risk. In fact, pinning your valuable retail brand on to a single celebrity is always a high-risk strategy. Kate Moss has proved this herself. When those infamous grainy pictures appeared and she was dubbed Cocaine Kate, several brands that had signed her up as their "face" ran scared and pulled the plug. But history has proved the Moss brand to be a resilient one; she reportedly made over £30 million in the year following the scandal.

The risk, the whiff of danger, that's undoubtedly part of her appeal. And so far Topshop's boss, Philip Green, appears to have made a shrewd move with Moss. She is, after all, a global brand, famous in plenty of places that Topshop isn't. As he begins laying plans for his US invasion, taking the Topshop proposition into America's retail heartland, it's no surprise that Moss will be there at his side and her collection will be the draw that gets the fashion pack moving.

Talking of danger, there's no cast-iron guarantee, of course, that these affiliations will fly. In fact, the more of them there are, the more the novelty wears off. The media stop getting excited; the punters stop getting excited. You see it in the perfume industry, where every celeb from Sarah Jessica Parker to Jade Goody has launched their own smell. Most of them tend not to linger. Even when the brands seem like a great fit, there's no guarantee. Take Naomi Campbell. With several been-and-gone fragrances to her brand-name, she's never quite cracked the perfume big time: Naomagic never even made it to the UK.

Nevertheless, as Mike Matheson, the chief executive of the PR and brand entertainment agency Cake, which signed Kylie up for Evian as "the spirit of youth", points out, celebrities are already part of the marketing architecture for some brands: "Many brand managers sit in a room and say 'if our brand were a celebrity, who would it be?' so it is not a giant leap for them to hire a famous name.

"Celebrity tie-ups can be structured in two ways. There are straightforward endorsements, where celebs effectively become the 'face of', which means 'I wear/eat/shampoo this product so it must be good, right?' And licensing deals, pioneered by the likes of Michael Jordon and Nike, where a percentage of sales goes to celeb. These tend to have minimum (and sometimes maximum) earnings. Some are legitimately involved in design, some may just sign it off. The Kylie deal was done directly between the brand agency and her management. Then checked over by lawyers. But in the USA where the market for such deals is much more active - and ferocious - lawyers are the front-line deal-makers."

If the association is right, he adds, the two brands - celebrity and retailer - can feed off each other. "Famous people equal fame and in a media environment that is fame-hungry and increasingly costly to cut through, there is an economic argument too."

Of course, retailers pay big bucks for this: Moss' £3m-plus, Madonna's rumoured six-figure deal plus a share of the action. But consider that a top notch "face" like (omega) Moss or Liz Hurley can command fees topping £1m simply to star in a single ad, and the sums start to make sense. Uma Thurman's just pocketed a reported £18m to promote Virgin Media.

The logic behind the budgets makes sense if you flick through any glossy mag: you'll find almost as many pages of ads as you will editorial. This month's Vogue is a doorstopper, and carries ads for Chanel, Prada, Dior and, yes, H&M and Topshop. Put a celebrity in your ad (is that Uma wearing Tag Hauer? Liz Hurley in Monsoon?) and you stand a better chance of standing out from the crowd.

But celebrities in ads are nothing new. Getting your celebrity to infect your product, to become part of your product, your brand DNA, now that's a different game. And it's one the media are happy to play, giving your brand plenty of free column inches, amplifying the association. Again, the latest issue of Vogue is a case in point, with a splashy interview with Kate Moss, all because of the Topshop collection; you can't pay for exposure like that.

The rise of the celebrity mega-brand is in some ways a logical follow-on from the longer-standing, cosy relationship between stars and fashion PRs . A good PR company with a range of fashion clients will have a department dedicated to winning celebrity endorsement for their brands, sending out beautifully wrapped packages of designer bags, clothes and jewellery in the hope that a famous somebody will be snapped wearing them.

The luxury freebie might seem like a pointless exercise when you consider it is the privilege of those who can actually afford to buy the products in the first place. But for the chance of a full page in the Daily Mail or the fashion mag society pages, it's an invaluable tool in the marketing armoury, and these "endorsement" campaigns are executed with military precision.

It was only a matter of time before the recipients of such goodies, seeing how valuable their endorsement could be, would want to cut out the middlemen and launch their own ranges.

According to Martin Loat of the PR company Propeller, which measures how much PR exposure these sorts of deals can attract, retail partners such as H&M and Topshop will benefit from millions of pounds worth of free media coverage.

"Sure there will be a lot of editorial for these collections," he adds. "But on this occasion, it's a case of never mind the width, feel the quality. The media madness surrounding these launches creates a level of intrigue and resonance that classic photo-led fashion advertising would find hard to match."

And the competition for our fashion purse has never been fiercer, Loat says. "It's war on the high street as the likes of H&M and Topshop fight over market share of the text-and-MySpace, Saturday-hang-out generation. So cut-through and buzz is vital. You've got to get the kids talking about you."

Publicity-wise, it helps that three big celeb collections are appearing in store almost simultaneously, too. Loat says: "The fact that such celebrity-designed collections have arrived together like London buses has given the media something they prize more highly than a pair of Manolos - a trend to comment on."

And let's not forget that these are celebrities that themselves thrive on publicity. That's what celebrities are: amorphous clouds of PR. All this exposure is pretty good for the Madge, Moss and Allen brands and, assuming the fashion collections are a success (odds on), rocket fuels their next venture. In the case of an ageing pop star or a 32-year-old model, it also offers the opportunity to extend their careers and their earning potential just that little bit longer.

Because that's really what this is all about: taking a brand - a celebrity brand - and driving it into new, but logical, areas. If Lily Allen, the baby brand of the pack, is canny, she can build all of this into her career strategy. The Lily Allen lipstick. The Lily Allen MP3 player. If Madonna's anything to go by, the possibilities are endless: from singer to actress to author to model to director, to designer. The Madonna brand has nicely extended. If yoga mats or macrobiotic health food follow, well we're ready for it.

And Moss? Well. She's spent decades wearing the clothes, its not hard to see why she might find it fun, and profitable, to make them. So next up, how about Kate Moss festival wellies? The Kate Moss mobile phone? Kate Moss eye-bag concealer? In the world of celebrity brands, everything's possible.

Claire Beale is the editor of 'Campaign' magazine

Grand designs A brief history of fashion endorsement

By Sarah Harris

The friends

It all began when stars of the Hollywood golden era breathed fresh life into the austerity of post-war fashion, by forming mutually beneficial "friendships" with the designers of the day. The creative partnership between Marlene Dietrich and Christian Dior during the 1940s and 50s helped resurrect her career and refuelled public interest in haute couture fashion. Dior designed her costumes for a number of feature films, including Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950), which won him his first screen credit - and her a new couture wardrobe. Then in 1951, Dietrich sealed her comeback at the 23rd Academy Awards in a show-stopping Dior sleeveless bolero jacket and black satin gown. The next day, headlines screamed "Glamorous Marlene steals spotlight!" Another famous fashion pairing was born in 1952 when Audrey Hepburn (left) asked Hubert de Givenchy to design her costumes for Sabrina. When she first tried on his grey flannel suit, Givenchy said: "Something magic happened... she gave life to the clothes." In 1953 Hepburn received an Academy Award for Best Actress wearing brocade, floor-length Givenchy, and for the rest of her life he was her image-maker. "They were made for each other," said Givenchy's director, Dreda Mele.

The muses

In Greek mythology, muses were the goddesses who inspired the creative process of poets, painters and philosophers - but later they became the goddesses of celebrity whose glamour embodied and inspired the great fashion houses of the day. The love affair between Grace Kelly (right) and Hermès began on a spring afternoon in the Hermès showroom when Kelly tried on gloves, scarves and handbags, "like a little girl in an ice-cream shop" according to her favourite costume designer, Edith Head. So, when in 1956 the actress appeared on the front cover of Life magazine carrying a large snakeskin Hermès handbag to conceal her pregnancy, it was renamed "the Kelly" - a move that catapulted the brand to public awareness by endowing it with the ephemeral scent of star quality. The only other celebrity the fashion house has ever named a bag after is the 1960s actress and singer Jane Birkin (left). Legend has it that the leggy star was spotted by the Hermès president, Jean-Louis Dumas, carrying an overstuffed canvas bag on a flight to Paris. He asked her whether she would like them to design a more practical bag, so she drew him a rough sketch. Today "the Birkin" is one of the top-selling luxury bags in the world: priced from £3,000 to more than £40,000, it has featured on TV shows like Sex in the City and Will & Grace. Not only has the Birkin name become immortalised in high-quality leather; but the star now gets 10 per cent of all purchases and has set up a charity to which Hermès makes annual donations. Sounds like a good deal.

The rappers

Hip-hop stars were among the first celebrities to cash in on the lucrative relationship between music, celebrity and fashion after the Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons founded his Phat Farm line in 1992 and propelled urban rap culture into the mainstream. Spreading the hip-hop gospel of high-price designer labels and blinging accessories, rap star Sean Combs ,aka P Diddy (right), leapt on the bandwagon in 1999 with the Sean John range of branded T-shirts, hoodies and jeans aimed at teens desperate buy a slice of his glamorous lifestyle. But, however much we love Puffy, it's safe to say that his "garms" are hardly high fashion, which just goes to show that celebrity clothes lines are less about selling good design and more about selling the sartorial image of their celebrity designers. And it does sell: the Sean John range earns Puffy around $450m every year, and since then (not to be outdone), Nelly, Eminem, Jay-Z and 50 Cent have all followed his example and brought out their own lines. So even when the bikini-clad women in jacuzzis and souped up "bimmers" are all but a distant memory, these canny hip-hop sensations will be laughing all the way to the bank.

The pop stars

It's no secret that image has always been an intrinsic part of the pop star's appeal, and today's stars have become wise to the potential for transforming their personal image into a brand. JLo (left) is a veritable commercial powerhouse. Even if you have trouble remembering the last time you saw her curvaceous posterior wagging at you from a music video or cinema screen, you will remember seeing shelves bursting with JLo Glow perfume and body shimmer, or her Sweetface velour powder tracksuits and jeans. However eminently forgettable her music career, her clothing label, Sweetface Fashions, (founded by Andy Hilfiger) raked in $375m in 2004, and has continued to do well through the sheer adoration of her teenage fan-base. Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Beyoncé Knowles and Jessica Simpson have also followed suit - but it's not just the Americans. The British high street has become awash with greedy pop stars signing their names to one-off clothing lines. "M" by Madonna for H&M is the most recent example, and Lily Allen (below) is launching her own capsule collection for New Look in May. But she insists, in a subtle reference to Kate Moss's new line for Topshop, "[New Look] have responsible role models like me... unlike Kate Moss and that fucking billionaire who's thrown a load of money at her." Ah, there's nothing like a little celebrity rivalry to send clothes flying off the shelves.

The young ones

It's official: teenage celebrities are taking over the world. Barely out of school, child stars and the celebrity children of stars have been flogging clothes like they were the elixir of youth - and making a tidy sum in the process. Troubled Hollywood twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have turned their particular brand of sickly sweet, high-school, screen sweetheart fame into a multi-million-dollar business. They made their screen debut on the US soap Full House at the ripe age of nine months and have since have made numerous films, released a load of albums, (though neither can sing) and launched a hugely successful teen fashion brand, mary-kateandashley. Combined with sales of their lifestyle and entertainment products, their glitter-crop-top and denim mini-empire has generated close to $750m. And it doesn't stop there: Kelly, 22-year-old daughter of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, also wants her piece of the pie. After several failed attempts at a music career, in 2004 she launched a fashion line, Stiletto Killers, with friend Ali Barone, and in 2006 became the face of the British chain Accessorize. Even spoilt, knickerless hotel heiress Paris Hilton (right) plans to launch an upscale clothing line to match her classy fragrance, Heiress - somehow, I can't see her bothering to design a range of underwear. Youth and fame rarely last forever, and in these cases the brands may prove more powerful than the individuals themselves.

The fashionistas

Kate, Naomi, Elle, Milla - they are the women we'd all like to be, and when they put their name to a fashion label we believe it might just be possible. Kate Moss's eagerly awaited capsule collection for Topshop is out at the beginning of May, and it will work because she has genuine fashion credentials. And rule one of the successful celebrity fashion-line is credibility, according to Uche Okonkwo, author of Luxury Brands and Celebrity: an Enduring Romance. She writes: "The celebrity must have a high level of expertise and talent in their field. These merits bring value to the brand and suggest the brand is only associated with the best." Moss is currently heading campaigns for Burberry, Longchamp, Calvin Klein and Versace. All she has to do is say "skinny jeans" and we all say "how skinny?" She carries a £2.99 charity bag from Superdrug and we all rush out and buy one - frankly it's pathetic and lucky for Kate, it will also prove lucrative. But it was Elle ("The Body") MacPherson (left) who was the trail-blazer when it came to cashing in on her fashion credentials. She launched Australian lingerie label Elle MacPherson Intimates in 1990, which has since gone global, generating £40m a year. Not just a pretty body, then. And in 2003 model Milla Jovovich teamed up with fellow model Carmen Hawk to create high-end fashion label Jovovich-Hawk, which now sells in stores around the world, including Harvey Nichols.

The desperados

For some celebrities, a fashion label represents a last-ditch attempt to salvage an unremarkable career largely consisting of hot air and OK spreads - Victoria Beckham, for example. When her mediocre music career dried up the Queen Wag set her steely gaze on the world of fashion and in 2004 designed a load of jeans for Rock and Republic called VB Rocks, earning her £250,000 per year. And last summer, rocking Victoria launched a range of sunglasses, which she casually modelled at the World Cup. So successful has she been at forging a "fashion career", she could almost write a book on it. Hang on, she did: That Extra Half an Inch: Hair, Heels and Everything in Between (2006). Swimwear can also be a goldmine for the flailing celebrity, as Liz Hurley (below, centre) and Kelly Brook discovered. In 2006, when the presenting, acting and modelling dried up, Brook launched a line of lingerie and swimwear for New Look. And even if you can't remember a single Liz Hurley film apart from Austin Powers, her glittering lifestyle won her enough fashion kudos to bring out her own line in luxury bikinis last spring. Even dear old Jordan managed to sign a £2.8m deal to design the Katie Price Lingerie collection for Asda - to cater for the more generously endowed lady.

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