Beyoncé Goes Under the Radar

Daily Fashion Juice
Tuesday, July 19, 2011

For Her New Look, Beyoncé Goes Under the Radar

Beyoncé Knowles wearing a red fur stole from the designer Alexandre Vauthier.

Greg Gex

  PARIS — Beyoncé Knowles’s latest chart-topping album hit stores less than a month ago. But it is not the singer’s music that has the fashion world buzzing. The fourth album by the artist, titled “4,” features a fold-out cover that looks more like a glossy fashion magazine spread than a record sleeve.

Greg Gex

Beyoncé Knowles wearing a fur stole by Alexandre Vauthier on the cover of her new album.

Dominque Maitre

A model wearing the same fox fur stole, embellished by the Lesage embroidery house with Swarovski crystals, in Mr. Vauthier's spring/summer 2009 haute couture fashion show.

Ellen Von Unwerth

A form-fitting lemon-yellow mini-dress by the student designers Leah Rae, who is studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, also made it into the album spread. 

Greg Gex

Ms. Knowles in a dress by Maxime Simoens on the ‘‘deluxe’’ album cover.

Shoji Fujii

Mr. Simoens purple dress on view during his catwalk show. 

As with other leading pop music divas like Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Katy Perry, fashion has always played a big role in Ms. Knowles’s artistic persona. In her music videos, she uses outfits to take on different roles — from sexy diva in sky-high heels and a leotard in “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” to joyous bride in a wedding dress for her latest video “Best Thing I Never Had” — while onstage, revealing ensembles spice up her live performances.

The difference, this time, is in her choice of designers. Instead of sticking to major fashion houses like Versace, Gucci, Prada or Chanel, the singer has thrown the spotlight on a number of up-and-coming designers whose names are likely to be unfamiliar to all but the most diehard fashion followers.

Ms. Knowles’s creative director, Jenke-Ahmed Tailly, along with the singer’s stylist Ty Hunter, pointed her in the direction of these designers. “The album is a musical gumbo of everything Beyoncé likes,” said Mr. Tailly in an interview by telephone. “Each song really has a different personality so we decided to do the cover like an editorial for a magazine, with each song having its own style.”

The album’s cover image illustrates the singer’s embrace of under-the-radar creators and features Ms. Knowles wearing a fox-fur stole by the cult French designer Alexandre Vauthier embellished with Swarovski crystals by the Lesage embroidery house. Mr. Vauthier’s work also shows up inside the fold-out cover, as does a pair of “Daisy Duke” shorts by the young French designer Julien Fournié, who founded his brand only three years ago. Even student designers got a look-in: Leah Rae, who is studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, created a form-fitting lemon-yellow mini-dress for the album spread.

“It was important to Beyoncé that the choice of clothing not be about the brand but about the quality of the work,” said Mr. Tailly who, with the creative consultant Melina Matsoukas, brought Ms. Rae’s designs to the singer’s attention.

For the “deluxe” version of the album, which features extra songs and remixes, a photograph of Ms. Knowles in a purple-and-black beaded dress by the 27-year-old French designer Maxime Simoens replaced the fur stole as the cover image. On the back of both versions of the album, the singer is photographed in a vintage Azzedine Alaïa jacket and some gravity-defying high heels by the 36-year-old Dutch designer Jan Taminiau.

Having Ms. Knowles wear their creations has already helped these niche designers garner a higher visibility on the global fashion stage.

Mr. Vauthier, for example, has seen his collaboration with the singer evolve. For her headlining gig at the Glastonbury Festival in Britain last month, Ms. Knowles wore a gold mini-dress by Mr. Vauthier, chosen at the last minute over a preplanned ensemble at the suggestion of Ms. Knowles’s husband, the rapper Jay Z, the designer said. Worn with a wide belt and a pair of black hot pants, that outfit helped generate a lot of interest in Mr. Vauthier — a fact that was apparent at his fall-winter haute couture show this month, where leading fashion critics and buyers braved four flights of stairs and an overheated room to view his latest collection.

“I dress women who have something to say,” said Mr. Vauthier, who clothed Rihanna for the cover of her single “Hard,” and whose designs have been worn by the pop singer Roisin Murphy and the actresses Sophia Loren and Isabelle Huppert.

For Mr. Simoens, discovering that his dress had been chosen for the singer’s “deluxe” cover was, he said, “a beautiful surprise” since he had previously been told that his designs had not been selected. It was only when a fan notified him via Facebook that he realized he had made the cut. “She is a style innovator and an avant-gardist,” he said of Ms. Knowles’s fashion choices.

Mr. Tailly, the creative director, said that the singer’s quest to collaborate with new artists did not end with the clothing.

Alongside renowned photographers like Ellen von Unwerth and Tony Duran, Ms. Knowles also tapped the young French photographer Greg Gex to shoot the cover art. “I showed her his work,” said Mr. Tailly, “and she decided to give him a chance.”