But to do that, I had to finalize the divorce. Nick and my dad continued to fight over how much money I had to give him. I finally asked my dad and my business manager what the sum was. They said Nick wanted a certain number, and honestly I don’t remember what it was. If it sounds crazy that I can’t remember, it was crazy to me that we had that kind of money to fight over after just three seasons of a show. We were both blessed by God, but Nick had a better lawyer.
“Just give it to him,” I said. “You all gotta stop. Just give him the money. He deserves the money.”
“No way, no how,” said my father.
“Dad,” I said. “This is for my freedom, and you can’t put a price on that. Do it.”
He relented and agreed to pay him the money just to be done.
“I’ll make it back,” I said. “I promise, I’ll make it back.”
And then I did. Give or take a billion.
16
Playing Dress-Up
June 2006
The fit models walked into the showroom one by one to line up in front of us. I looked over at my mom, and she was beaming. Next to her was Beth Pliler, my old dance teacher, whose smile widened with each model’s step. Mom was the president and creative director of the Jessica Simpson Collection, while Beth was brand manager.
“The stitching on that one,” I said, pointing at one shoe. “Let’s make it—”
“Tonal,” my mom and I said at the same time. We laughed. The Collection was a godsend for us. Starting a fashion line was my mother’s dream, one she’d held on to since she was a little girl. My great-grandmother, who had a sixth sense, used to watch my mom cut paper dolls to dress them up in scraps of fabric. She gave my mom a Dearfoams slipper box to keep them in. “This is your dream box,” she told her. “One day, you’re gonna be a fashion designer.”
“What’s that?” she remembers asking.
She always styled me when I started out, and during Newlyweds, people would contact her to give me clothes to wear. Mom noticed that what I wore on the show would then sell out in stores. Since everyone was always asking my mom what I was wearing, she wanted to cut out the middleman. She told my dad to find someone willing to do a licensing deal so we could just make the clothes ourselves.
One thing that was important to us was that whatever we did had to be affordable. I had a shawl, a simple cream one, and girls constantly asked me where I got it. It was from Barney’s, and I felt bad telling them that because the price tag was out of reach for a lot of my fans. I wanted to give them the feeling of luxury without having to spend a lot of money.
Dad put out feelers and approached Vince Camuto, who became our fairy godfather. He was a footwear legend who had created Nine West, then sold it for about $900 million. Vince was a suave but kind mastermind who first learned what women really wanted to wear when he was a poor Lower East Side kid who started out as a cobbler and then charmed his way to the floor of a store on Fifth Avenue, selling to rich New York City ladies. When my dad approached him, Vince was nearly seventy, and I think he was too busy working to know me from MTV. He asked his son John, who had seen me on Newlyweds, what he thought of me.
“I’d bank on her,” John said. And my life changed.
It only took one dinner with Vince and his beautiful wife, Louise, for us all to click. I talked about my own passion for dressing girls going back to childhood, when I styled everyone for prom, and I would sometimes pick out clothes to buy myself because I knew it would also look cute on one of the girls in youth group. I’d lend them out, and it made me love the piece even more. With Vince, I was adamant that I make clothes that could appeal to all women. “Not everybody has the body of someone who lives in New York or Los Angeles,” I said, and Vince smiled. “I want to sell to the average girl because I love that girl.”
Vince had built an empire on footwear, but he didn’t just want a shoe license with me. He saw the potential for a lifestyle empire. Vince paid me fifteen million for the master license, and people thought he was crazy. “Jessica really is America’s sweetheart, and I think her fans will grow with her,” he told Women’s Wear Daily when we announced. “If this is not a one-billion-dollar or two-billion-dollar brand, I’ll be shocked.”
He built a seven-thousand-square-foot showroom for me in the Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square in New York, and then went to Italy to find these gorgeous chandeliers and white marble fixtures to put in the showrooms in both Macy’s and the Southern chain Dillard’s. It was a sign to the customer, and to me, that this was a serious venture. My mom created an office for her and Beth right over the garage of her house. She was at it almost every day, creating the color palette and picking out materials and fabrics. Beth helped with logistics, and we gradually involved more family friends, still keeping the operation tight.
We started the line with shoes, specifically a high-heeled red cowboy boot that cost $69. With Vince, everything was for the love of shoes. We all wanted to make money, too—and we did right away, but Vince showed me how important it was to put your heart and soul in the sole of the shoe your customers are walking on. The cowboy boot sold out immediately, and we brought in $50 million in wholesale goods the first year alone.
As we expanded to denim and sportswear, then handbags, home, and accessories, my mom and I hired designers in every category. We would collaborate with them in an initial design meeting, suggest a color palette and styles that we thought should be part of the brand. The design team would then go do their magic and come back for a second “mid-design” meeting where we would see mock samples so we could make tweaks and changes. From there, we would have a “final design” meeting, where we see the finished samples that would be making their debut on the market. That’s where we would pull the pieces that just didn’t work and add finishing touches to the collection.
My mother could execute ideas like none other. She brought all the efficiency and penny-saving of a preacher’s wife to her new calling. Then I would do eight- or ten-hour days at the showroom, either approving or tweaking the designs. I have an attention to detail that sometimes drives me crazy, but while being a perfectionist is hard, when it comes to design, it is so rewarding. If I asked for a change, I would remember it the next time I saw the piece. I think people were surprised by how involved I wanted to be. I trusted my mom with the keys completely, but I still liked to get in and drive every now and again.
Which is what I was doing that day in the showroom. One of the fit models was new, a cute girl with long brown hair, pulled back. She was willowy and graceful, and kept turning her heel to better show the shoe.
“Would you buy it?” I asked her.
She paused, her eyes widened. This happened with the new models every time. They were so used to being treated like mannequins by designers, so they didn’t expect that I was genuinely interested in how they felt wearing the shoe or the accessory. The fit models make the rounds of all the showrooms, and they know the quality of other people’s stuff. I want to know if they will wear the shoes. And can they actually walk in them?
“You’re not hurting anybody’s feelings,” I said. “We’re in these meetings to fix things. You’ll still get paid if you hate the shoe.”