At Fashion Week, Jennifer Lopez Offers More Castoffs Than Creavity

NEW YORK - There were a lot of things on the runway on the last night of New York Fashion Week when entertainer Jennifer Lopez presented the clothing collection that bears her name. It is unclear whether fashion was one of them. To her credit, there were probably more models of color than on most of the catwalks this season. And while there were any number of television crews and celebrity hunters roaming between the aisles and ambush-interviewing anyone with a familiar face, there was little chaos.

There was high-wattage synergy and audacious me-ism on display. Lopez may very well have set a new standard for branding in the fashion industry. The fashion show will be the subject of an MTV documentary scheduled to air later this month. The gift bags were stuffed with bottles of Lopez's fragrance Miami Glow as well as her latest CD, ``Rebirth.'' And the runway was awash with a parade of mini-me's as models were done up to resemble the various versions of Lopez that have been etched into the pop culture record.

The show was a lesson on how to dress like Lopez on the cheap -- without the stylists, the loaner clothes and the many, many carats of diamonds both borrowed and bought. Is that fashion? Or just an elaborate fan club come-on in an era when admirers demand more than just an autographed picture and a T-shirt, and stars willingly oblige?

Lopez presented her collection -- the one in which she has very loudly gotten ``more involved'' -- under the tent in Bryant Park, the last show of the week during which designers have presented their fall 2005 collections. The tent had been transformed from its usual configuration of a U-shaped runway into a grid of walkways that allowed the models to meander through much of the audience trailed by an MTV cameraman circling around them like a buzzard with a battery pack.

The show was called ``The J-Lo Story'' and was organized into three parts. The opening segment celebrated the up-from-the-Bronx part of Lopez's life. There was a lot of cropped denim, hot pants, tiny jackets and hoop earrings. Apparently Lopez did not own a coat during this part of her life and spent much of the winter dressed in miniskirts. Part 2 of the story coincides with Lopez's success as a singer. This is the period of dating Puff Daddy, avoiding gunplay and pleading with her fans not to be ``fooled by the rocks that I got, I'm still Jenny from the block.'' In this part, fur is introduced into Lopez's wardrobe as well as oversize sweaters that fall off the shoulder, fuzzy sweats and hooded ponchos. The final third of the show, with even more fur -- including one flying-saucer-size fur hat worn by the model Naomi Campbell -- reflects the entertainer's arrival as a star in music, movies and tabloids. This is the era of Cris Judd, ``Bennifer'' and Marc Anthony. Overall, the collection recalls a host of her more famous looks, although there are no references to the infamous green floral Versace gown that plunged to her navel. After all, the collection is mostly aimed at the teen set.

The look of the collection is young and lively, and between the tight jeans and the ruffled miniskirts there is plenty that might capture the attention of a teenage girl or even a young woman. But the essence of fashion -- good fashion, at least -- is that it looks forward. Even when it finds inspiration in the past, it looks for ways to make the 1940s or the 1950s seem fresh and relevant. The two collections on the runway -- J-Lo by Jennifer Lopez and the more expensive Sweetface -- look like a scrapbook of styles from the Lopez closet. It is a rolling rack of castoffs.

Celebrity is a kind of embalmment. And celebrity designers operate on the principle that consumers will want to purchase knockoffs of their past glories.