Celebrities from Sarah Jessica Parker to David Beckham to Taylor Swift are often referred to as style icons, especially in connection with their expansion, through licensing or collaborations, into apparel and accessories.
Some celebrities have become so defined by their style that their identification as style icons often transcends any mention of the career that made them famous in the first place.
Many examples are people with roots in some aspect of the fashion industry. Model Ines de la Fressange, for example, is frequently portrayed as a style icon and has inspired a line of apparel with Uniqlo and a curated collection for the catalog La ReDoute, among other collaborations.
Similarly, style icon Carine Roitfeld, former editor-in-chief of French Vogue and owner of CR Fashion Book, has collaborated on apparel collections with partners ranging from Barney’s to Diane Von Furstenberg, while Caroline Issa, CEO and publisher of The Tank Group in the U.K., did a 25-piece collection with Nordstrom in 2014.
Many of these so-called style icons have eclectic careers that extend across many facets of fashion and lifestyle. Alexa Chung, for example, is a model, blogger, author, TV host, and spokesperson. Her signature collections have included apparel with AG Adriano Goldschmied and J. Crew’s Madewell brand and makeup with Eyeko.
While the term style icon is largely a matter of semantics—a marketer can define almost anyone as a style icon if they so choose—such a positioning is increasingly meaningful in licensing. Through social media, reality shows, red carpet appearances, and/or paparazzi photographs of their daily lives, many models, fashion editors, bloggers, actors, athletes, and musicians become associated with a distinctive, recognizable style. And that connection certainly enhances their relevance when it comes to fashion-industry collaborations.
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