Now they’re the stars

THEY have dressed Lindsay and Nicole, Gwen Stefani and the Olsen twins. And now they want to dress you, too.

Celebrity stylists, once relegated to entourage status, are stepping out from the shadows of their famous clients with licensing deals, clothing and jewelry lines. They’re consulting for fashion mega-brands, appearing on TV shows, even posing for pictures on the red carpet.

It makes sense when you consider their influence. The past decade in fashion might best be described as the era of the celebrity stylist. As the liasons between designers and their red carpet mannequins, stylists are the ones who create and validate trends, which then trickle down to the public through paparazzi photographs. Stylists may agonize for weeks over a single celebrity outfit, but the result, that elusive thrown-together chic, has helped usher in the latest layering trend, which will be dictating the way we all dress come fall.

Rachel Zoe created the now ubiquitous 1970s glamazon style for Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie last summer. The look -- bronzed bod and long blond tresses, slinky jersey dresses and messes of gold necklaces -- circled back and turned up on the Gucci runway for fall.

Andrea Lieberman’s multicultural sensibility has guided Gwen Stefani’s stage costumes, as well as her popular L.A.M.B. clothing line. And as arbiters of the classic Hollywood look a la Catherine Deneuve and Sophia Loren, Estee Stanley and Cristina Ehrlich transformed Mandy Moore and the Olsen twins from ‘tween tarts into polished cover girls.

Zoe is now the biggest star stylist, photographed almost as often as her clients and repped by Creative Artists Agency. She has a coffee-table book in the works, TV offers on the table and a new line of luxury handbags in collaboration with Judith Leiber. Stanley and Ehrlich are designing a new collection of suck-it-in or push-it-out undergarments for Frederick’s of Hollywood, following the launch of their own clothing label last year. And Lieberman is crafting fine jewelry for Mouawad.

In some cases, their newfound fame has made stylists as difficult to reach as the divas they work for. Now they, too, have layers of publicists, assistants and agents. And they travel all the time. Between the Cannes Film Festival and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards, it was nearly impossible to reach Zoe by phone for weeks. And you can forget about face time.

“It’s very awkward when people are screaming my name on the red carpet,” Zoe said by cellphone outside the Newsroom Cafe last week, in between fittings with Kate Beckinsale for the MTV Movie Awards. “I like the focus to be on the girls. But that said, I have to keep myself challenged and interested.”

Zoe has consulted on the “down low” for several large fashion houses, but the Leiber deal represents the first time she has come out publicly as a designer. Frank Zambrelli, creative director of the New York-based accessories brand, was not available for comment, but Zoe said he approached her last year, after she put five celebrities in Leiber bags for the Oscars.

The bags are very Zoe (think Gucci, except with more hardware). Minaudieres and satchels come in exotic alligator and python, with snake-like medallions inspired by an 18th century doorknocker from a building in Paris. The Rachel Zoe for Judith Leiber collection, $2,000 to $10,000, won’t be in stores until fall, but Zoe has already started selling the bags on the red carpet. “I took them out every night in Cannes and I think I sold like 50 of them.”

As for the future, Zoe would love her own jewelry line and envisions becoming a creative director of a design house one day.

“I definitely think it’s a logical step,” she said. “Though it makes more sense if someone is finished with styling and then goes into design. It’s difficult to do both. And I do know designers who are [upset] because certain people are borrowing samples and copying them. You do run the risk of that.”

Ehrlich and Stanley debuted their clothing line, Miss Davenporte, last year -- sweet-looking heart print silk shirtdresses, trumpet skirts and lady coats with a vintage feel, $200 to $1,000. Ron Herman buyer John Eshaya was the first to bite.

“These girls have amazing taste and they see everything,” he said. “They get a feel for what’s not there, so they end up making clothes they need to put on their clients and we benefit from that.” Eshaya even hosted a party for the designers, which was of course attended by many of their famous clients and covered extensively by the media, which didn’t hurt sales.

Ehrlich, a former professional ballet dancer, started out styling commercials in the 1990s, and Stanley was “queen of the boy bands,” working with the Backstreet Boys, among others. The two joined forces five years ago.

“Jonathan Antin has a TV show, makeup artists have cosmetics lines, so why wouldn’t stylists start designing?” Ehrlich said, reclining on a beat-up couch in her Fairfax Avenue studio, where a typical day involves haggling with design houses, accepting FedEx deliveries of dresses and conducting fittings.

Still, she is careful not to step too far into the spotlight. “You have to understand the food chain,” she said. “You won’t find us in the pages of Us Weekly or In Touch or at the dinner table with Anna Wintour and Steven Meisel.”

The Frederick’s deal makes sense, she said, because stylists have real expertise when it comes to the physics of undergarments.

“People who don’t live in Hollywood think these women have no problems. But from chicken cutlets to Spanx to invisible straps, it’s gnarly. We want to come up with solutions for women who don’t have us in their lives.”

Though stylists are really only famous by proxy, the public is becoming more aware of them every day, according to Frederick’s spokeswoman Yolanda Dunbar, who said Ehrlich and Stanley will have a role in marketing the still unnamed line when it hits stores for the holiday season. “People are realizing the support celebrities have in presenting themselves. It’s far beyond hair and makeup.”

Phillip Bloch was the first celebrity stylist to successfully brand himself in the early 1990s, at first dressing celebrities for TV appearances and magazine shoots, and later for the red carpet. In 1998, he published a book and in 2000, he launched a line of jewelry for the Home Shopping Network.

But he really saw his star rise in 2002 after dressing Halle Berry in the sheer burgundy Elie Saab gown she wore to accept her Oscar. Bloch talked to nearly every media outlet in the world about the dress, and soon became a style commentator on TV and a spokesman for such diverse brands as Cadillac, Gillette and Visa.

Recently, he was tapped to makeover Mattel’s Ken doll. And he’s also been acting and producing (naturally).

Lieberman may have earned her styling stripes working with Gwen Stefani, but she actually has a formal design education (a rarity in the image-making industry), having graduated from Parsons School of Design in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in fashion. Instead of jumping on the Seventh Avenue track, she bought a plane ticket to Africa and stayed for two years. She came back inspired by tribal jewelry and intent on running a store until a friend asked her to style a music video for a new band called Rusted Root. That led to work with P. Diddy and Eve, and her big break, dressing Jennifer Lopez in that unforgettable plunging green Versace gown for the 2000 Grammys.

“Who could have predicted anything like that?” Lieberman said recently, while sipping a glass of South African wine poolside at her Sunset Plaza home.

An avid traveler and student of the world’s fashion tribes, she has helped imagine Stefani’s many looks -- pirate, Rastafarian and Alice in Wonderland -- all of which are referenced in the L.A.M.B. clothing line, which Lieberman consults on, along with the designer Zaldy. And last year, the 146-year-old Mouawad company gave her the chance to create her own jewelry. Priced from $500 to $25,000, the Designs by Andrea Lieberman collection is sold at stores such as Maxfield and Bergdorf Goodman. Inspired by nature, the pieces are updated classics such as delicate bamboo-shaped bangles and stacking rings in beige gold peppered with tiny diamonds and charm bracelets with raw stones, instead of perfect ones. And yes, Stefani has worn them on the red carpet.

Lieberman has just returned from a trip to South Africa, paid for by the Diamond Information Center, and what she saw there will undoubtedly show up in all facets of her work.

“Designers have responsibilities, they work in a corporate environment. They don’t get out as much. But stylists have become these bizarre free agents,” she said.

“We are always out there looking for inspiration at vintage shops and costume shops, people-watching in airports. For me, I get a lot of inspiration from travel and adventure. Stylists have become fashion editors.”