CULTURE

Jessica Simpson Steps Out in Head-to-Toe Vetements

She's actually a perfect brand ambassador.


Celebrity Sightings in New York City - May 10, 2018
Tal Rubin

Rumors of Vetements‘s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Why, none other than noted international fashion mogul Jessica Simpson stepped out in a logo-print dress from the Zurich-based label last night while visiting New York City and taking her family to catch the Tony-nominated production of Disney’s Frozen on Broadway. She paired the ruffle-trimmed dress with a set of heart-shaped sunglasses and a pair of statement-making silver platform boots also from the Demna Gvasalia–designed label. The Spring/Summer 2018 dress, by the way, retails for $2,150, while the boots are an additional $1,580.

Simpson showed off the outfit to her 7.3 million Twitter followers in a family snapshot alongside her former NFL player husband Eric Johnson and their two children, Maxwell Drew and Ace Knute Johnson. “New York Broadway adventure,” she wrote. The image, incidentally, almost perfectly echoed how Vetements originally debuted the dress. The brand decided to opt out of a traditional runway show for its S/S 2018 collection and instead premiered the looks on regular people the company’s creative team had found around Zurich. Simpson’s dress premiered on a mother with her own husband and young children in tow.

Vetements has since paired the dress with the boots in subsequent imagery.

Vetements was founded in 2009 by Gvasalia amidst secrecy, but thanks to its panache with cleverly turning everyday clothes into high-fashion items and pulling off attention-getting shows in places like the basements of infamous Paris sex clubs, the label soon became a favorite of celebrity trendsetters like Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Kanye West, and various Jenners. Gvasalia’s star rose to the point that he was picked to lead the house of Balenciaga.

Balenciaga continues to be one of the hottest brands in the world, but this has led some to worry that both the brand and, coincidentally, its somewhat more attainable price points were leading to an erosion of Vetement’s buzz and business. The company has vehemently denied it as mere hearsay, however. Fashion buyers at shops also stepped up in WWD to dismiss those rumors as fake news.

Incidentally, Vetements has found an increasingly interesting cult of celebrity fans. Whoopi Goldberg wore one of the brand’s most famous hoodies on an episode of The View. Céline Dion is a bag fan, and Mitch Grassi, a member of YouTube–popular a cappella group Pentatonix, has a noted Vetements addiction.

This is perhaps not coincidental. Gvasalia himself soon grew wary of Vetements being just a cult label for the cutting-edge cool kids of the world. “I felt suffocated by that new wave that we became part of with Vetements. It got to the point where I got fucking bored of it; being associated with nightclubs, Paris youth, the gang,” he told British Vogue last year.

The brand has since refocused on style for the street as worn by all types of people; hence that Zurich-shot lookbook. That’s an ethos Simpson herself can certainly appreciate. While she hasn’t released new music in a while, she doesn’t really need to. Her own line of clothing, the Jessica Simpson Collection, reportedly does more than a $1 billion in sales every year. “There’s life in the whole world beyond L.A. and New York,” she once told Forbes. “I understand Middle America and their mind-set.” And while Middle American may not be ready quite yet for Vetements, Simpson was in New York and perhaps she wanted to get into the New York mindset during her stay. Hence, a head-to-toe designer look in black and white. After all, she too credits her business success with forgoing cool kid cred and focusing on real people.

Related: Flash Back to Jessica Simpson’s 2006 W Cover Story

Vetements Spring 2017 Kicks Off Paris Haute Couture

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

Photo by Isabel Martinez.

1/23