So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star : The big names in music count on stylists to give them a look that will sell. And it isn’t easy: ‘You don’t rush about saying “This is fabulous, darling.” ’

Imagine Garth Brooks in a shag haircut and leopard-print spandex pants. Or Kurt Cobain of Nirvana in one of Garth’s black hats. How about the En Vogue girls in plaid flannel shirts and slashed blue jeans?

Impossible. These musicians, along with their MTV peers, are known as much for their carefully cultivated fashion sensibilities as their musical styles. And behind nearly every successful band a stylist works to orchestrate the right look.

Stylists’ contributions to a performer’s success may be ignored at Grammy time (Feb. 24), but their importance is recognized in the music business.

“It is not unusual for production and talent companies to invest up to five or six figures in an artist before they are marketed to the world,” says Cleveland O’Neil, owner of a talent management agency. “The more packaged an act is in terms of style and identity the easier it is for a record company to market the act.”

En Vogue is a packaged act, says O’Neil. And their success prompted him to put together his own all-girl, a cappella group, Mix Match. The three California teens were signed last fall, their stage style was created in December and, if all goes according to schedule, O’Neil expects a record contract by the end of March.

O’Neil called a stylist before he rang up the record companies because looks are crucial to a band’s success. An inadequate performance can be adjusted on a mixing board. It is left to the stylist to tell an artist that his rat’s-nest hair or 20 extra pounds have to go. Stylists must forge a connection with the performer to deal with such sensitive issues.

“I have to like the person and love the music to be able to do what I do,” says Arianne Phillips, who dresses Lenny Kravitz, Vanessa Paradis and a new band called Charles and Eddy.

What she does often causes waves. Four years ago, Phillips, 29, put Kravitz in bell-bottoms and a disco top for the American Music Awards. She says she received hate calls and a lot of flak from industry people who thought she had gone too far.

Now that bell-bottoms are a hot item, she feels vindicated. Kravitz, she says, never wavered in his support of her choices, and the two still shop together.

More difficult than putting together stage clothes, says Phillips, is dressing musicians for the cover of Rolling Stone. Because an appearance there is considered a hallmark of success, artists tend to be cautious about what they wear, she says. But Phillips tries to persuade them to push the envelope. “As a stylist, that is what I can do to help illustrate what they are about.”

Because the Red Hot Chili Peppers were known for taking their clothes off on stage, Phillips painted the naked foursome red for their Rolling Stone photo session. After Ice T spurred a heated national debate with his song “Cop Killer,” she had him wear a police uniform. And the stylist dressed 6-foot-5 Mick Fleetwood in a wedding gown for Rolling Stone’s 25th anniversary issue. “Fleetwood loves to dress in drag,” she says.

Dressing some recording artists is as simple as bringing a rack of clothes to the studio, but for others it involves a dedicated team that has spent years honing the image.

Pat Naderhoff, a 44-year-old outspoken redhead (red hair, a penchant for outrageous shoes and a flamboyant personal style are common denominators among stylists), has been working with Aerosmith for more than six years.

Naderhoff began her career in rock ‘n’ roll on the road, as Donna Summer’s road manager, then managed the tour wardrobe for Prince and Vanity 6. After deciding tour life was too crazy, she put down roots, apprenticed with an established wardrobe costumer and struck out on her own.

While most stylists receive a $350 to $500 day rate from the record or talent management companies who hire them, Naderhoff gets a yearly retainer to dress Aerosmith for album covers, videos, editorial photographs and tours.

Her job is to stick with the high-testosterone rock ‘n’ roll style--big hair, bare chests and tight pants--and infuse that formula with elements that look more today than yesterday.

Still, she says, the clothes shouldn’t be so far-fetched that the fans can’t imitate them. “They have to be able to say, ‘Wow I could do that.’ It makes them happier.”

On the road, the four band members need at least 10 outfits each, says Naderhoff, all of which--even the leather goods--must be washable. And some performers need duplicates or triplicates of favorite pieces.

The cost of a tour wardrobe can go into the thousands of dollars. But, Naderhoff points out, the high-rollers are used to spending a bundle. Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler pays $500 for his offstage shirts.

“Drummers usually wear the least amount of clothes,” observes stylist Jillian Kreiner. “You can never put them in jackets, they are too restrictive. And guitarists don’t want to have much going on around their waists; belts and buckles will mess up their guitars.”

Heavy-metal bands are the least flexible about changing their style, says the reed-thin, red-haired stylist. “They think they are extremely sexy, with all that big hair, too much spandex and the bondage gear. At lot of them are trying to imitate the Motley Crue look from the late ‘70s.”

To sell recalcitrant rockers on a new look, Kreiner uses two words: “Jim Morrison.”

Stylists recognize that musicians can be overpowered by their clothes. “Cyndi Lauper and Boy George are incredible talents, but their looks did them in,” says Arianne Phillips. Madonna has also had strong images, she says, “but she has a keen aesthetic and keeps reinventing herself. Change is vital.”

Kim Bowen, who has dressed En Vogue and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, says a musician’s “true beauty is in their voices and music, not in having a model’s good looks. Some celebrities have horrible things inflicted on them just because it is fashionable. They become some dreadful stylist fantasy.”

The stylists have a short list of designers who make no-fault stage clothes: Jean Paul Gaultier for his sense of humor, Dolce & Gabbana for menswear, Gianni Versace for flamboyance. John Richardson, Anna Sui, Rifat Ozbek and Azzedine Alaia also get a lot of music-video exposure. And Thierry Mugler is the hands-down favorite for glamour dressing.

“He allows women to look frighteningly glamorous,” says Bowen. “Lots of cleavage, tiny waists and curves. It is not a passive form of glamour.”

It takes a big-name act to pique designers’ interest, though. “If you work with Madonna,” says stylist Bowen, “designers will send you virtually anything. For them it is free advertising.”

Bowen’s relationships with the designers go back to her days as fashion editor of Australia’s Harper’s Bazaar and as editor of England’s terribly trendy Blitz magazine. She began styling the big guns in London--David Bowie, Elton John, Tina Turner--and recently moved to Los Angeles to escape the cold.

To dress lesser-known performers stylists often rent clothes--for a percentage of the retail price--or borrow or buy. Many stores charge a restocking fee for returned items. To stay in a retailer’s good graces, it helps to buy a third of the borrowed clothing, says stylist Lynne Bugai.

Stylists like to shop for their clients at trendy Sunset Plaza and Melrose Avenue shops as well as San Fernando Valley thrift stores, for the grunge look. “Any thrift store close to a bingo parlor is good,” says Bugai, who has dressed Alice in Chains head-to-toe in thrift-store finds. She’s found jackets from the early ‘70s, shirts and jackets with whip-stitched edges and platform boots at the Rose Bowl flea market.

Working with the anti-fashion crowd, notes Bowen, requires a special approach. “You don’t rush about with padded hangers saying, ‘This is fabulous, darling.’ ”

Instead of wheeling in racks of designer clothes, Bowen brings her thrift-shop finds in a brown paper bag. She just leaves the sack in the corner of the dressing room, and someone eventually starts picking through it.

All this recycling of early ‘70s fashion has caught some performers in a time warp. Naderhoff recently dressed Neil Young in a fringed jacket shockingly similar to one he wore on a ‘70s album cover.

Others are first-time hippies. For Jon Bon Jovi’s recent album cover, Bugai scrounged a $125 fringed leather jacket from a thrift store and rented a similar one for another band member from Western Costume that had to be aired out for two days before it was fit to wear.

Some looks can only come from scratch, stylists say. “Like if you’re doing something for the Black Crowes, you won’t find it in the department stores,” says Bugai. “That’s when you beg your designer friends to make something.”

Henry Duarte, Richard Tyler and Maggie Barry of Van Buren are among the most called upon L.A. designers. Duarte (Jon Bon Jovi, ZZ Top, Terence Trent D’Arby, Aerosmith), known for his cutting-edge styles, is one of Bugai’s favorite collaborators. Tyler (k.d. lang, Seal, Janet Jackson) is sought out for his exquisite jackets, and Van Buren (Cher, Billy Idol, Lenny Kravitz) is the source for those who like their clothes anatomically explicit.

After bands hit the big time, they look upon stylists as one of the perks of their profession. Having a rack of clothes in the studio gives them one less thing to worry about, says Naderhoff. But they also begin to depend on clothes to enhance their performance. “Musicians tell me that if they aren’t wearing the right thing, they can’t play. They depend on their wardrobe to give them the rock ‘n’ roll attitude,” says Phillips.

On the down side, though, because musicians rarely choose their stylists, says Naderhoff, they’re “not shy about saying they don’t like what you’ve done or if something doesn’t fit right.”