NEW YORK — The rush to dress stars on the red carpet is no longer just what gown they wear. Now, it’s what the stars have on underneath, as well.
Innerwear companies are joining the stampede to tap into consumers’ fascination with all things celebrity by signing deals with a raft of stars in creative marketing efforts. Meanwhile, such lines as JLo Lingerie by Jennifer Lopez at The Warnaco Group, Pamela Anderson Intimates at Vandale Industries and Elle Macpherson Intimates by Bendon keep the Tinsel Town connection percolating.
Anne DiGiovanna, vice president of marketing at Warnaco, said sell-throughs of fashion items within the JLo Lingerie collection “continue to be very strong. Key items have been very well received.”
Best-selling items have been baby dolls, lounge sets and bras and panties in fashion colors.
Regarding Pamela Anderson lingerie, Linda Elton, president of private label at Vandale, said, “The steam is still there. She’s very involved with her new TV show, ‘Stacked,’ and she’s been wearing camis, bras and chemises on the show. There are definitely consumers who relate to her.”
Some companies are taking different approaches to meld the celebrity lingerie connection. It often involves using the image and persona of entertainment divas to pitch bras and undies to starstruck consumers. Ideas range from celebrity breakfasts, spots on TV talk shows, reality show casting calls, charity cocktail parties at major retailers and sporting events.
Music and film star Queen Latifah expanded her role in the world of lingerie in June as creative consultant for design, packaging, advertising and marketing of the $100 million Curvation brand at VF Corp. Although a spokeswoman for Curvation since 2002, her new 21-year contract calls for her image to be used for the first time on packaging and point-of-sale materials.
Further cementing the celebrity connection with the public will be the brand’s marketing platform — confidence and women’s empowerment — which VF and Latifah will take to a higher level at the new Sugar Water Festival in 20 cities this summer. Latifah said there also will be the first Confidence Awards in early 2006, an event she likened to a “bang-up concert” similar to the MTV Awards.
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Meanwhile, VF tapped into the top spectator sport in the U.S., car racing, which boasts a fan base of 75 million, when it paired its Vassarette lingerie brand with race car driver Shawna Robinson in April.
Sara Lee is another big player in the celebrity lingerie game. Mo’Nique, Sara Lee’s new spokeswoman for the Just My Size bra brand for full-figured women, hosted a casting call at the W New York Union Square Hotel that drew 500 hopefuls for an upcoming TV reality special on Oxygen called “Mo’Nique’s Fat Chance.”
Mo’Nique, an actress who plays the role of Nikki Parker on UPN’s “The Parkers” and play herself in a motion picture called “Soul Plane,” also pulled in hundreds of reality show wannabes at two other casting calls in Atlanta and Los Angeles. The show airs Aug. 6.
In March, Sara Lee added some glitz to its Wonderbra campaign following the Academy Awards at a media event at the Macy’s Herald Square flagship, where stylist to the stars Philip Bloch talked to more than 100 shoppers about red-carpet cleavage.
Now, Sara Lee is using the image of actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, who starred in the motion pictures “The Tuxedo” and “Garfield: The Movie,” in national print ads for the new Hanes Perfect Panty that broke in June. The hangtag says “Look Who We’ve Got Our Hanes On Now.”
In other creative moves, designers such as Josie Natori, chief executive officer of the Natori Co., hooked up with soap opera star Susan Lucci of ABC’s “All My Children” in April to cohost a cocktail gala at the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship here for the Women in Need charity.