Selling LAUREN CONRAD, the BRAND!

Lauren Conrad is famous for being on a reality show. But what she really wants is to run a merchandising empire.

Ms. Conrad, 22, is the star of "The Hills," the reality show that was MTV's highest-rated program last fall. For the past two years, cameras have captured her days as a fashion-magazine intern and nights as a club-hopper who flirts with guys and spars with friends. To translate her fame into a fashion career, she and her father have hired a team of Hollywood-industry advisers and signed several licensing and endorsement deals. The process isn't always smooth. The network that made her famous won't promote her enterprises on air. And Ms. Conrad, determined to assert her fashion vision, sometimes ignores the suggestions of her more seasoned advisers.

Ms. Conrad styles a model for her first fashion show.

"I'm sure a lot of people don't take me seriously," she says.

Many young celebrities are trying to follow the success of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who parlayed roles on a TV sitcom into a multimillion-dollar conglomerate that has sold books, videos, films and clothes. Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton have made licensing deals based on pop-music success and a famous last name. Ms. Conrad represents the next generation of branders -- reality stars who are famous only for their willingness to let cameras into their private lives. Last week, Ms. Conrad's nemesis on "The Hills," Heidi Montag, announced her own plans to launch a clothing line. And from E! Entertainment Television reality show "Sunset Tan," tanning-salon owners Devin Haman and Jeff Bozz recently came out with a line of tanning moisturizers.

To keep themselves in the spotlight, Ms. Conrad and her contemporaries are willing citizens of a tabloid world. During a recent breakfast interview at an outdoor café in Los Angeles, Ms. Conrad said she suspected a photographer was taking pictures of her from across the street. She declined to move to an inside table. Instead, she looked left and right before taking quick bites of her egg whites. "No one eats pretty," she said.

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Less than three hours later, Ms. Conrad sent her breakfast companion an email with a photo attached of her enjoying her eggs. She had found the photo after a Google search. "Haha they always get it!" she wrote.

Ms. Conrad's team monitors the star's symbiotic relationship with the press. It's essential that she hit the hot spots, where tabloid photographers lurk. Yet because Ms. Conrad's corporate relationships benefit from her good-girl image, they want her to go to a lot of parties without partying a lot.

When Ms. Conrad turned 21, her publicist, Nicole Perez, sat down with her client to discuss responsible drinking. "It's the same conversation you'd have as a parent with a child," she says. Ms. Conrad's parents watch over her, too, by logging on to gossip blogs. If their daughter appears too tipsy in a photo, she hears from them. "We will tell her to ratchet it back," says her father, Jim Conrad.

She is a target for hangers-on because of her fame. Yet many guys in Los Angeles won't date her for the same reason, she says. Stars of other reality shows are often contractually barred from showing up on rival programs, and aspiring actors don't want to jeopardize their credibility by appearing on those shows. An off-camera boyfriend is not explicitly forbidden by her contract with MTV, she says, but it violates the spirit of her deal. "This is what I signed up for," she says.
In episodes that aired last fall, Ms. Conrad had a casual relationship with Brody Jenner, the 24-year-old son of Olympian Bruce Jenner. The younger Mr. Jenner has tried to achieve his own reality-TV success on the short-lived "Princes of Malibu" on Fox. Last year he was featured on the E! reality show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians." Ms. Conrad says that she and Brody "have an odd relationship" but she is happy to have him in her life. "He's a cute guy who's OK with filming," she says.

Ms. Conrad's journey from adolescence to celebrity-tabloid fodder began in 2004, when MTV producers chose her as a central character on "Laguna Beach," a reality show about high-school students. It was "just something fun for Lauren to do," says her father from the living room of his cliffside home in Laguna Beach. Mr. Conrad, a 48-year-old architect and real-estate developer, now helps manage his daughter's career. He does not take a fee.
The star makes money on her clothing line only if it is profitable. Kitson boutique owner Fraser Ross says it's selling well. Will it catch on with nonfans? "It's too early to tell," he says. Ms. Conrad teamed up with leather-goods maker Linea Pelle on a line of bags ($45 to $350), sold online only. The company says it has sold "hundreds."

Soon after the program's debut, the Conrads hired an agent, Max Stubblefield, who now works in the alternative television department of United Talent Agency. At their first meeting, Ms. Conrad said she wanted to be a fashion designer. Mr. Stubblefield recommended a simple strategy: Only accept opportunities with a tie to fashion. "We always ask, 'What does this do for the brand?' " he says.

In 2006, MTV approached Ms. Conrad, who was then enrolled in fashion school, with the idea for "The Hills." The network would get her an internship at Teen Vogue and follow her four days a week as she learned about fashion and Los Angeles nightlife. Last fall, a first-run episode drew an average of nearly four million viewers, more than half between the ages of 12 and 24, according to Nielsen Co. In one episode, she shouts to her roommate in a crowded bar: "I just found an adorable boy from London with an accent who's leaving tomorrow. Jackpot!" (The next installation of episodes begins Monday.)

Mr. Stubblefield began fielding licensing and endorsement offers after the show's debut. Since 2006, Ms. Conrad has signed up for deals with a toy company, a leather-goods maker and a cosmetics line. Ms. Conrad's team says it has refused a number of other offers, including a jewelry-licensing deal with a home shopping network. A department store offered to pay a six-figure fee to put her name on a clothing line but wouldn't give her any design input. "I wanted to have full creative power," she says.

To help her get her current clothing line, MTV approached Steve Friedman, the owner of Tangerine Promotions in suburban Chicago. The firm specializes in "tchotchkes, trinkets and trash" with company logos, he says, and MTV is one of his biggest clients. Although Tangerine has no experience in contemporary women's apparel, Mr. Friedman agreed to team up with MTV. The two companies share the financial risk.

Celebrity licensing deals are generally based on large advance payments and a royalty rate, often about 10%. "These are glamour deals that are largely based on the intangible appeal of a celebrity," says Aviva Rosenthal, a partner at Act III Licensing, an agency in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Ms. Conrad received no advance payment from Tangerine, but it did grant her creative control. Of all of her commitments, she says, "I spend the most amount of time on the line, and it's the thing that makes me the least amount of money."

Ms. Conrad says she's trying to create a line of clothes that she and her friends would wear. Her latest collection, for fall, is made up primarily of strapless dresses and halter tops in white, black and deep purple. She has insisted that her pieces be made from high-end cotton jersey and manufactured in the U.S. Prices range from $44 for a tank top to $220 for a dress. While the cost is high for the young fans of "The Hills," Mr. Friedman says he is unconcerned. "This isn't a souvenir line," he says.

Shortly before Ms. Conrad's first runway show last Tuesday, she met with several advisers and assistants to prepare. Accessories were a focal point. "We need to fall it up," Ms. Conrad said, as she gave a pair of leather gloves to a model in a strapless dress. Ms. Conrad explained that her trip as a Teen Vogue intern to Paris influenced her designs. As she recorded which accessories the models would wear, she called out, "How do you spell 'beret'?"

On hand that day were Sherry Wood, a Los Angeles fashion designer with 25 years of experience who was hired to oversee the line and mentor Ms. Conrad, and Jeffrey Relf, a runway-show producer. While Ms. Conrad selected high-heeled shoes for most of the models, Mr. Relf told her some of the models needed to wear knee-high boots for dramatic effect. When one model tried on the boots, Ms. Conrad said, "If a girl walked down the street in this, I wouldn't think it was cute."

"We are talking about the runway, not real life," Mr. Relf said.

Later that afternoon, Mr. Relf explained that experienced designers usually defer to his advice, and that Ms. Conrad had finally agreed that a few models would wear boots. "Lauren's open and that's not how a lot of celebrities are," he said.

During the show, however, the models did not wear boots. "It didn't look good," Ms. Conrad says.
Earlier this year, Kitson, a boutique in a Beverly Hills shopping district, offered to host a party to celebrate the collection. Kitson parties are known for attracting a lot of press. Ms. Conrad preferred to have the party at Intuition, a smaller boutique in an area with less foot traffic. Her publicist, Ms. Perez, says she pushed for Kitson, telling her client: "Lauren, we could make it huge -- every magazine would cover it." The party was at Intuition. "It didn't get a lot of coverage," Ms. Perez says.

"I try really hard to separate myself from other celebrity brands," Ms. Conrad says.
Her first collection, for spring 2008, just arrived in stores. The Lauren Conrad Collection now appears in nearly 500 boutiques. A spokeswoman for Holt Renfrew, a Canadian department store, says that in the last two weeks, the line has generated a 28% sell-through rate (the percentage of items bought at full retail price) at its nine locations. An average sell-through rate at the stores is just over 10%.

The line hasn't benefited from exposure on "The Hills," because cameras do not follow Ms. Conrad when she works on the clothing line. "The celebrity that comes from the show, we don't cover," says Executive Producer Adam DiVello. Ms. Conrad says she is happy the line is not on the show because it would detract from her credibility as a designer.
The job of promoting Ms. Conrad to an older audience falls to Ms. Perez. She has gotten her client on the cover of teen magazines. But Ms. Perez hasn't been able to land what she considers a coveted prize: a cover of Cosmopolitan magazine.

"Playing yourself on reality television isn't to our reader the level of accomplishment that you need to have on the cover of Cosmo," says Kate White, the magazine's editor in chief.
Ms. Conrad says she will continue to work hard to prove herself as a designer. She's designing a line of T-shirts. She wants to do "a best friend project" -- most likely a line of furniture -- with one of her roommates. And she plans to launch a charitable foundation. "I don't think I should be criticized for taking advantage of an opportunity to realize my dream," she says. "It'd be silly not to."

Really interesting, could it be Lauren is actually very savvy?