IF you’re a J.Lo fan, and even if you’re not, MTV’s new documentary, “Jennifer Lopez: Beyond the Runway,” shows the much-married singer/actress in a role we’re not used to seeing in the gossip columns – businesswoman.
Call her what you will – star, fashionista, garmenta, icon, or as some have, “my wife” – but the megastar has managed to make celebrity-monicker’d clothes credible. You just get the idea from looking at ’em that she’s more than the name behind the behind.
In fact, like them or not, everything in her Sweetface clothing line looks like something she’d actually wear. And has.
This year, J.Lo relaunched the line during Fashion Week in a very public fashion show, leaving herself wide open to the jeers of not only the fashion press, but to other “legitimate” fashion designers who make clothes and only make clothes.
(You know, people who can’t make movies to cover their losses if a line tanks.)
By allowing cameras in, she also opened herself up to criticism (or not) of the millions who don’t get frontrow seats (or any seats) to the fashion shows – MTV’s viewers. The documentary by Erica Forstadt takes us from design concept to her first runway show.
We come away with two clear views of Lopez: One, she’s a hard-nosed businesswoman who knows what she wants and isn’t about to be bulldozed no matter how many air kisses her minions and partners give her; and two, she’s able to make her demands in a much nicer way than her press clips would ever have made us believe.
This can’t be the same woman who supposedly has to have perfume sprayed in front of her as she walks!
(Remember that one?) In fact, when she’s presented with the first set of designs only three months before launch, and it’s way below the number of garments she expects – and way below her standards – she sends everyone out of the room before discussing it calmly with her top designer.
Unfortunately, “Jennifer Lopez: Beyond the Runway” wasn’t edited by press time yesterday afternoon, so I got to see it up until the nervewracking moment when Naomi Campbell and a lot of other impossibly beautiful, attitude-y models took to the runway. Was it a success? Did the socialites without backsides of their own, the fashion press, and the celebrities in the audience boo, cheer, jeer, or remain unfazed?
The Post’s Orla Healy said, “[The line] is definitely what 16- and 18-year-olds will want to wear – Paris Hilton meets Nicole Richie, or better yet, Paris meets J.Lo.
“But, she’s dreaming if she really thinks 35-year-olds would wear them. But they’re flirty and fun and totally frisky and will sell like crazy.”
Whew! I was so worried. I mean, what if the marriage doesn’t work out?
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“Jennifer Lopez: Beyond the Runway”
[***] (three stars)
Tonight at 10 on MTV
