But for the 52-year-old Schwartz—founder, president and design director of ABS, a $40 million firm of stylish, moderately priced women's clothing, the sincerest form of flattery is imitation—the more shameless the better. Within a month of the March 24 awards, ABS had created and shipped the first of a line of seven celebrity-inspired knockoffs—called Oscar Watch—to upscale stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus and the six ABS shops around the country. For example, Schwartz's version of Nicole Kidman's lavish Dior gown, commissioned for Oscar night and worth thousands, goes for a mere $250 (volume, cheaper fabric and less attention to detail account for the difference). His first big copycat hit was a $235 version of the Carolyn Bessette Kennedy wedding dress, designed by Narciso Rodriguez for Cerruti. So far, more than 28,000 have been sold.
Not surprisingly, Schwartz irks many top designers. "It is very upsetting," says Vera Wang (a copy of her asymmetrical Oscar gown for Holly Hunter is in ABS's Oscar Watch collection). "No sooner do we get a dress done and it's on his line. If this happened in any other industry, people would go crazy."
But if the look-alikes strike many as crass, they do make dollars—and sense. "People aspire to look like a lot of these celebrities," says one Manhattan department-store merchandiser. "They want to feel they can somehow put that dress on and feel like them." As for shoppers who spend $5,000 for designer frocks, "Stupid!" Schwartz says. "Trend suckers!"
Not that Schwartz deems every celebrity rip-off-worthy. He dismisses Madonna, for example, as a "punker" and adds, "No one relates to Farrah Fawcett!" He prefers what he calls "this new breed—Gwyneth Paltrow, Patricia Arquette. Elegant gals."
And he's always looking for new styles around Los Angeles, where his company is based (he also has a Manhattan showroom) and where he lives in a four-bedroom, French country house with his wife, Pam, a homemaker, and their children Danielle, 12, and Johnny, 4. "You have to live [fashion], breathe it, eat it," says Schwartz, who was among the first to jump on the retro '70s look after it showed up in the '93 European collections. "I am the fastest," he crows.
Speed and brashness have earned Schwartz grudging respect. Alan Mill-stein, president and publisher of the Fashion Network Report newsletter, calls Schwartz a "larger-than-life character, like out of Guys and Dolls."
A garmento from the get-go, Schwartz learned the biz from his father, Daniel Schwartz, who sold dresses in Manhattan, and his mother, Sue, who ran a retail shop in Long Beach, N.Y., where Schwartz grew up. Even as a boy, he claims, he was ahead of the wave. "When I'd get a new pair of Levi's, I'd run down to the beach, jump in the ocean and roll around in the sand," he says. "Now they call it stone-washing, but I was doing that in '56."
After finishing high school in 1962, he got a job in the mailroom of a New York City brassiere company, then moved on to coats. He founded ABS after relocating to L.A. in 1979. Now, feeling like a winner himself with Oscar Watch, he's toying with a line for men. Real men, that is, not male trend suckers. "I would never spend $900 for a suit," says Schwartz. "I'm not getting ripped off!"
TOM GLIATTO
NANCY MATSUMOTO and CYNTHIA WANG in New York City
- Contributors:
- Nancy Matsumoto,
- Cynthia Wang.
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