Wearing John Malkovich

CNN

John Malkovich is used to people circling him. Whether it's fans asking for an autograph or reporters pressing for a quote, the actor's public appearances rarely pass unnoticed.

However, there's one place where he becomes just one of the crowd -- when he's picking out fabrics at a fashion fair in Paris.

At the Premiere Vision fair in Paris, the Hollywood star can be found among fashion industry professionals, hunched over fabrics, handpicking which ones will make it into his clothing line for men.

Malkovich, well-known for starring in movies such as "Dangerous Liaisons" (1988), "Burn After Reading" (2008) and, of course, "Being John Malkovich" (1999), is carving out a new career as a fashion designer.

"I've always had an interest in it and always loved doing it," Malkovich told CNN. "I like design, I like details, to me it is just another form of self-expression."

For Malkovich the fabric fair is his idea of heaven. He is there to pick new materials for his second line of casual menswear, "Technobohemian," which he describes as "part of a concept to try and make art and surround yourself with art."

He hungrily examines textile after textile as he looks for fabrics that could use in the collection, his face lighting up every time a new material catches his eye.

"I'm a little bit of a fabric lunatic," he admits, "so I could wander around this place for years."

Unlike some other celebrities, whose involvement in their respective fashion ventures is limited to just lending their names, Malkovich evidently participates in every stage of the process, despite his heavy filming schedule.

"I design everything and do all the sketches and choose all the fabrics," he says.

The maverick actor acknowledges that this might not be the best time to start such a business venture, but refuses to let the current economic climate hamper his pursuits.

"It is a tough time right now, fashion-wise. There is not a lot of people throwing money at new clothes. But I love that work, it interests me in itself."

Malkovich's involvement with the world of fashion is nothing new for the dandy actor. He's modeled for Yohji Yamamoto, Prada and Comme des Garcons and has directed short films for his close friend and fashion designer Bella Freud.

He studied costuming and has collaborated with costume directors throughout his movie and theater career.

His penchant for fashion took a new turn in 2002 when he launched his clothing company, Mrs Mudd -- a "sister" to his movie company, Mr Mudd.

At first, his creations were available only to a select group of friends, including Johnny Depp, Spike Jonze and Javier Bardem, but later they became available to the wider public.

In typical Malkovich style, his clothes balance between classic and eclectic.

For his first menswear line, dubbed "Uncle Kimono," the actor claimed inspiration from a series of unconventional characters, such as the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef: Malkovich sketched a Mullah-style, long coat after hearing that Zaeef had been exiled for "wearing his turban too fashionably."

"Generally, I come up with a name that has something to do with what gave me the impulse to draw it," he tells CNN from his company's headquarters in the fashion town of Prato, Italy.

It's here that Malkovich's sketches become a reality.

"Working with him is very easy because he has precise ideas," says Riccardo Rami, his partner at the fashion venture. "And if things need to change, he always adapts to the situation easily."

But his flair for fashion does not necessarily translate to a sense of ease within the industry.

"Do I feel comfortable in this world?" he asks. "No, not really. But you could probably say that about me in any world. See, if I could just do the work and not ever have anything else, I'd be very happy."

Burberry Bringing The Stars Along

AP

Burberry and its creative director Christopher Bailey made a triumphant return to London on Tuesday night, winning over a star-studded audience at the glitziest event of the capital's fashion week.

Bailey, who has helped transform the once staid brand into a fashion powerhouse, showed a series of short dresses, including many with a trench coat theme familiar to longtime fans of Burberry.

There was just enough of the traditional Burberry plaid to keep traditionalists happy, while younger fans were drawn to the soft, sexy lines of the dresses, most of them in beige (long associated with Burberry) and pale greens and yellows.

Victoria Beckham arrives for the show by designer
Burberry during Fashion Week, in London

"I thought it was beautiful, and very poetic," said Hilary Alexander, fashion director of The Daily Telegraph newspaper. "The heritage was there, but it was like a ballet, a dance."

The crowd, including Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow, former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and "Harry Potter" star Emma Watson seemed impressed with the variety and vision of the show.

The front row also included American Vogue editor Anna Wintour, "Slumdog Millionaire" stars Dev Patel and Freida Pinto — and Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, a prominent member of the British government known for his snappy dress. He said the show brought Burberry from the past into the future.

Korean actress Lee Na Young arrives for the show by
designer Burberry during Fashion Week, in London

"It was a reinvention of the Burberry look," Mandelson said. "The fabrics were great. It's 21st century Burberry at its best."

Bailey used sequins and bright metallic silver fabric to set off some of his jackets and tops, adding glitter to the look, and also used padded shoulders for emphasis on several of the combination trench-dresses that were an important theme of the show.

Belts were used for shape, and the models looked extremely feminine, their long flowing hair and natural makeup bucking a trend toward androgyny seen in other shows this week.

The Burberry show was the largest and most eagerly anticipated of London Fashion week thus far, and the crowd arrived early to sip champagne or elderflower coolers on the steps of the Chelsea College of Art and Design near the River Thames. Harold Tillman, chairman of the British Fashion Council, said the week has been a tremendous success, with large crowds filling many shows. He said the trend toward prints had been noticeable.

"There have been so many good, good shows," he said. "There are great designers, showing freshness, fearlessness. It's so exciting, it really is."

Burberry chief executive office Angela Ahrendt said before the show began that it was an honor to be back on the catwalks in London, where the company has long been based.

"It's a phenomenal honor," she said, gesturing to the gathered crowd. "We are a British brand. For Christopher Bailey, who's British, he can finally come home and share his talent with the rest of the country."

The show marked the return of Burberry, long an iconic British brand, to the London Fashion Weeks catwalk. In the past, the heritage brand has preferred to launch Milan.

Other British designers have followed suit — including Jonathan Saunders, whose show earlier Tuesday featured dollops of vibrant color alongside some of his signature geometric prints.

Saunders trotted out vibrant pink, day-glow yellow, and neon green fabrics softened by translucent white dresses, while fellow fashionista Amanda Wakeley showed why she was queen of the soft fluid drape in an Indian-inspired collection.

Wakeley's collection drew on monochrome desert hues of saffron, copper, sand and cinnamon. The maxi dresses in viscose jersey, satin and chiffon reflected a light and airy touch, accented by oversize gold and silver coils around the neck or waist by designer Maria Francesca Pepe.

Some of the shortest dresses did not have enough length to complement the flowing fabric and too much sand can make any woman's outfit a bit dull, but the show was still a master class in timeless elegance.

Celebrity Fashion The Latest Recession Casualty

Story from the Wall Street Journal

Last Thursday night, hundreds of shrieking girls mobbed the fifth floor of Saks Fifth Avenue's flagship store in New York and snapped pictures of pop star Justin Timberlake, there to show off his new fashion line.

If only his clothes were as popular as he is.

Mr. Timberlake, 28, is co-founder of a fashion brand called William Rast. The brand started in 2005 as a premium denim line, but the process of expanding it into a "lifestyle" collection with dresses, outerwear and other apparel has proceeded more slowly than expected. The company didn't hit its first-year sales targets until its second year in business.

"Being a celebrity gets your foot in the door, but once you are there, people go, 'OK, now what?' " Mr. Timberlake says.

The struggles of William Rast, which didn't show in the New York Fashion Week tents this week, are a sign of the times. The downturn in high-end fashion is hitting celebrity-backed brands hard. Many are disappearing. U.S. sales of celebrity-licensed products fell to $2.9 billion last year after peaking in 2006 at $3.5 billion, according to the Licensing Letter, a trade publication.

The result is a growing graveyard of celebrity brands. Jennifer Lopez's six-year-old Sweetface line was shuttered this summer, a casualty of the economy, a spokeswoman for the singer says. Reality-television star Lauren Conrad closed her upscale collection in March after just a couple of seasons. Other celebrities no longer appearing on clothing tags include reality star Heidi Montag, pop singer Mandy Moore and Nicky Hilton, Paris's sister.

André Benjamin, one half of the rap duo OutKast, unveiled his Benjamin Bixby menswear line with a big party at Barneys New York during fashion week last year. Now, Barneys no longer stocks the line. A representative for Mr. Benjamin didn't return calls seeking comment.

Ms. Conrad later announced a deal with Kohl's Corp. for a more affordable collection, which launches next month; a publicist says Ms. Conrad put the upscale line "on hold" to focus on Kohl's and plans to relaunch it next year. A publicist for Ms. Montag says the Heidiwood collection "was intended to be a one-year deal" and that Ms. Montag is still interested in the fashion industry. Representatives for Ms. Hilton and Ms. Moore didn't return calls seeking comment.

"Every D-level celebrity who thought they could make a quick buck by designing a handbag or whatever is going to disappear," says Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. "And I think that's a good thing."

Celebrity branding isn't a new phenomenon. But the rise of magazines and blogs that track celebrities' every move has given people like Mr. Timberlake, named GQ magazine's best-dressed man this year, more clout in influencing mainstream fashion trends than some designers. The growth of celebrity lines has also been fueled by department stores' demand for unique products amid growing competition from specialty stores and cheap-chic chains like Zara and H&M. Star lines have been a fast way for retailers to generate buzz.

But not every celebrity brand is ready for the growing competition. "Regardless of the personality behind the label, the product must be on trend to be successful," says Ron Frasch, president of Saks Fifth Avenue. Shanice Rogers, a 21-year-old Timberlake fan from Neptune, N.J., says, "I first had an issue with celebrity brands because everyone was doing it." Still, she has a hat and T-shirt by William Rast: "I like the style," she says.

Mr. Frasch cites L.A.M.B., a five-year-old brand designed by the platinum-haired singer Gwen Stefani, as one of the few celebrity labels that the retailer carries. Ms. Stefani, who presented her spring 2010 collection last Thursday, says that instead of creating an eponymous line, she intentionally called the label L.A.M.B., which stands for "Love, Angel, Music, Baby," the title of one of her albums. "I always envisioned it being something that would be able to stand on its own four legs," she says.

Mr. Timberlake is one of the most successful entertainers in the world, with six Grammy awards and two Emmys. Yet getting taken seriously in the fashion industry has been harder than he anticipated. "If you want something to stick around, it's going to take a while," says Mr. Timberlake, who has a 50% stake in William Rast. The company, co-founded with Mr. Timberlake's childhood friend Trace Ayala, is named after the two men's grandfathers, William Bomar and John Rast.

William Rast was launched at Bloomingdale's as a premium denim line; the jeans quickly got picked up by other upscale retailers, including Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. In 2006, Mr. Timberlake and Mr. Ayala unveiled a full lifestyle collection at Los Angeles Fashion Week, featuring styles such as leather vests for men and sweater dresses for women, followed by a performance by Mr. Timberlake.

Loretta Soffe, general merchandise manager for women's apparel at Nordstrom, says the various styles "weren't well integrated." Nordstrom bought the jeans but passed on the rest.

"Our biggest misstep was that we wanted to do it all," Mr. Timberlake says. Colin Dyne, chief executive of People's Liberation Inc., which owns William Rast, says he cringes when he thinks of that first collection.

Mr. Timberlake and Mr. Ayala overhauled their business in mid-2007, shaking up management and narrowing the scope of their line. They lowered prices by 10% to 15%. Jeans, which previously started at $180, now start at $165. The two also hired design duo Johan and Marcella Lindeberg, of the J. Lindeberg brand, to help school them in fashion design. The company spent $1.4 million for the Lindebergs' design services last year.

Ms. Soffe says that after the new designers came in, the look of the collection improved significantly. Nordstrom began carrying William Rast's sportswear as well as its denim last year.

Mr. Timberlake, who was at first cautious about being too closely associated with the brand, has taken a more active role. He was the face of William Rast in its most recent ad campaign. He has also gotten more involved in designing. On seeing a woman's motorcycle-jacket sample for spring 2010, he suggested altering it to lace up all along the sleeves, instead of just around the cuffs.

Mr. Dyne declines to give sales figures for the label but says that after sinking $5 million into it, he expects it to be profitable for the first time this year.

Owing largely to its high-profile founder, William Rast has been a hot ticket at New York Fashion Week for the past two seasons. Its collections, featuring Southern-inspired looks like fringed and studded leather jackets, generated positive reviews. In the current economic climate, however, the founders chose to skip a splashy fashion show. Instead, they threw parties at stores in London, Berlin and Paris, followed by a presentation at Saks in honor of "Fashion's Night Out." Next season, William Rast will be back on the fashion calendar, the founders say. The company has signed leases on three retail locations and is planning to open 40 William Rast boutiques in the next few years, Mr. Dyne says.

"I don't want to build a clothing brand where people will see it and go, 'I am going to wear this because Justin Timberlake says I should wear it,' " says Mr. Timberlake. "We are looking to build something we believe in."

Beth Grande, a 28-year-old university employee in San Francisco, recently bought a pair of William Rast jeans when she saw they were being offered at a 50% discount on Hautelook.com, an online retailer. "I usually don't like celebrity brands…but these jeans fit so well and were so cute, I made an exception," says Ms. Grande. "I find that many people to whom I mention William Rast don't even know that Justin Timberlake is associated with the brand, which I like. "