The Red Carpet and Luxury Brands: Selling the Dream

The cancellation of the Golden Globes Awards ceremony this weekend will severely hurt the Los Angeles local economy, which is already ailing from the on-going writer's strike. Parties won't be thrown. Champagne won't be swilled. Limos won't be rented. Hotel rooms and restaurant tables won't be booked. Instead, everyone from caterers to hairdressers -- the service employees who are usually working at a frenetic pace during awards season -- will instead watch a low-key press conference to announce the winners on television and count their losses, which some experts estimate will total nearly $100 million. Imagine telling retailers that Christmas has been canceled, and you get the idea.

But the industry that will suffer the most from the rolling up of the Globe's red carpet is the international luxury fashion and jewelry business. For brands such as Christian Dior, Giorgio Armani, Harry Winston, Chopard and Versace, dressing a nominee for the Golden Globes, the Emmys or the Oscars is a goldmine in advertising. When Julia Roberts picked up her Academy Award for Best Actress for Erin Brockovitch in 2001 wearing a vintage black silk crepe column that Valentino had lent her from its archives, the Rome-based house reported that the moment was worth $10 million in publicity. "If you've got the right actress or actor walking up the red carpet, saying that designer's name over and over, you get the heat, it's validation and you've got the world," Lisa Schiek, former director of communications for Gucci Group, told me. "The magnitude is awesome."

Dressing celebrities for red carpet events has a long history: Harry Winston kicked it off back in 1944 when he lent some diamonds to his friend Jennifer Jones to wear to the Oscars when she won best actress for The Song of Bernadette. But the corporate-sponsored dressing of celebrities really came into its own in the late 1980s when the companies started going global and mass and saw stars as perfect ambassadors to spread the message to the new middle market consumer. Giorgio Armani led the way, dressing so many nominees and presenters for the 1990 Oscars that it was dubbed the Armani Awards in the fashion press. Soon nearly every major luxury house had an office or staff member whose sole job was to outfit celebrities, and many brands hosted private salons in the week leading up to the ceremonies, to pamper -- and hopefully dress -- those attending the main event.

For some stars, turning to designers for help was a necessity. After a receiving a heap of criticism attending the 1989 Oscars wearing a baby blue antebellum-style frock, Jodie Foster realized she was not a fashion natural and accepted Giorgio Armani's offer to dress her for the next go-round. The relationship lasted for years, to Foster's great relief.

But for others, luxury's offer to lend clothes, jewels and shoes has been like the goose laying the golden egg. First, celebrities asked to keep the clothes or jewels they were officially borrowing. Then they asked for perks such as all-expenses-paid trips to the designer's fashion show in New York, Paris or Milan. Now they want cold hard cash. It's known in the business as Red Carpet Revenue. Agents work out the agreement with the brands -- often in the six-figure range. In return, the celebrity must mention the brand a set number of times on camera and to reporters. If it's earrings, the actress must wear her hair up. If it's shoes, she must give them the occasional flash.

And of course, most consumers have no idea. Thanks to the quiet collusion between celebrities and luxury companies, we buy the brands that stars wear -- though usually entry-lever items, such as perfume, scarves, handbags, and wallets, often covered with the brand's coveted logo -- because we truly believe stars have innate taste and style, not because they were paid to wear it. According to a study conducted by the Cotton Incorporated Lifestyle Monitor, 55 percent of young fashionable women say "they look to celebrities for fashion direction." And nearly 18 percent of all women -- stylish or not -- say that celebrities influence their fashion sensibilities.

Which is why the morning after a major red carpet event, my email inbox is filled with releases from fashion houses boasting who wore their dresses, shoes, jewels, handbags and tuxes to the event. And which is why the luxury fashion industry suffered collective heart failure this week when the Golden Globes ceremony was canceled. If a celebrity is photographed wearing your brand on the red carpet of the Globes or the Oscars, "you'll get a hit once a month for years," explained Carol Brodie, founder of Bespoke Branding, a luxury consultancy. "Americans spend billions of dollars on luxury brands because celebrities wear them."

In most industries, when money is exchanged under-the-table for services rendered and deny such deals publicly, it's considered payola, bribery. But in the world of luxury brands, it's modus operandi. Luxury executives call the practice "selling the dream." In fact, they are simply hoodwinking consumers to rake in the profits. Next time you see a star wearing the same brand at every red carpet event and blathering on about the talent of the designer, chances are it was a business deal. And you'll be witnessing the caliber of performance that in Hollywood would win an award.

Read more about the strike on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.

Comments

[larry278]

This can deepen & prolong the growing recession. This could also elect Democrats on the 1st Tue of Nov '08.

[hopeless277]

Why should I give a flying fig about fashion designers and hairdressers? Hell, I don't even give a damn about 3900 American, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead.

Sincerely,

The American Public