Seconds after walking into an L.A. restaurant, Frank Nuovo looks stricken. He frantically frisks his designer duds. "Oh my God," he cries. "I've forgotten my cell phone."

Nuovo probably feels he might as well be naked. After all, as chief designer for Finnish cellular-phone giant Nokia, the 3 8-year-old former jazz drummer deserves a big slice of the credit for transforming the jingly things from geeky gadgets to high-fashion statements. Among his innovations: phones with interchangeable covers in outfit-coordinating hues and, one of the company's newest models, a stainless-steel number (cost: about $500) that is the current must-have accoutrement of Hollywood glamor gabbers. "The chrome finish doubles as a mirror, which is important for someone in my business," jokes one owner, The Practice actor Michael Badalucco. Others the company counts among its phones' users include Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow.

"I wanted to take a technology object and make it into a personal accessory," explains the California-reared Nuovo, who caught the phone-design bug early: As a child he liked to sculpt Star Trek communicators out of clay. He also loved music, and beginning at age 11, he achieved local renown as a professional drummer at clubs and private bookings. "My parents had to drive me to jobs," he says, laughing. (Later, Nicole Brown Simpson hired him to play for O.J.'s birthday.) Nuovo went on to attend design school, then in 1989—while designing patio furniture and auto interiors—he went cellular for Nokia, which named him head of its global design team six years later.

Now the L.A.-dwelling husband of Trina, 37, a graphic designer turned full-time mom, and father of Avalon, 4, and newborn Anton can boast that one of every three cell phones sold worldwide bears his stamp. (He also oversees Nokia's lower-end models.) He adds that Paltrow gushed about her phone when he bumped into her recently. "She got really excited and said, 'It's so cool. I love it,' " he says. "I felt like a fashion designer."