Andreatta chooses a selection of dark blue to charcoal grey suits cut with wider lapels to give Harvey a strong masculine look, conveying power, authority and confidence while oozing enough sex appeal to rival other Tom Ford enthusiast, Daniel Craig as Mr. Bond.
Harvey’s love affair with Tom Ford ensures that he is always armed for legal battle wearing only the best and always ready to win.
The use of costume and statement wardrobes in film, television and music is one example of the power of fashion collaborations to create icons and construct characters/performers as their own kind of brand. Performers use fashion to create an icon that taps into what we want to be and, vice versa, collaborations with the fashion world give us the opportunity to become Mini-Madonnas and Baby-Beyoncés should we so desire.
Fashion is the perfect vehicle to transmit, market and ultimately commodify that brand identity; performers collaborate with designers and global fashion houses to design, produce or even just put their name to new collections which their fans can purchase in hope of emulating their idols.
Beyoncé’s ‘Mrs. Carter in H&M’ collection was full of glitzy, glamorous items inspired by her own personal style – and timed perfectly with her Mrs. Carter Show World Tour. The fashion collections of Beyoncé, Madonna and Rihanna demonstrate that most collaborations enjoy significant yet fleeting success by capitalising on a popular, transient image of the individual’s personal style and contemporary success captured in a commercialised form.
Someone like Victoria Beckham, however, proves that fashion and celebrity collaborations need not be fleeting. VB kickstarted her impressive fashion career with ‘VB Rocks’, a collaboration with Rock and Republic. VB was not content with simply relying on being ‘Victoria Beckham’, her brand has evolved and progressed in ways that collaborations usually do not.
Just like Sofia Coppola’s collaboration with Louis Vuitton, it is obvious that it is genuinely a passion for the industry that drives VB. Both Coppola and VB have allowed their brands to develop, creating collections which are deeply embedded in the fashion world, being attentive to its changing trends and needs. Crucially, they have developed evolving brands each with a core essence that reflects their own personal style, stamping their mark on the fashion world while refusing to merely capture and commodify their ‘celeb’ status.
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