NEW YORK — The last thing Foxy Brown wants to be is ordinary — and there’s a fat chance of that.
A month shy of her 25th birthday and nearing her 10th anniversary in the music business, Brown is rolling out a signature fur collection and releasing her third album, “Black Roses,” in 2005.
Known for her brassy style and designer war chest, Brown prides herself on veering left when everyone else is heading right. Instead of designing tight jeans and tiny tops as have J.Lo and Ashanti, Brown is taking things up a notch. A “Foxy” fragrance and “Pink” energy drink are in the works, and upscale footwear, handbags and jewelry collections are being considered. She also hopes to appear in a Louis Vuitton campaign.
“If I stop rapping tomorrow, I want to be known as someone who didn’t do the norm — who broke barriers,” she said.
Many credit Brown for ushering in a brood of female artists and showing them the power of sexually charged style. Her risqué lyrics still make her mother shake her head from time to time. Growing up in Brooklyn, she, Jay-Z, Lil’ Kim and the late Biggie Smalls grew up within a 10-block radius of each other. At 15, her single “I’ll Be” with Jay-Z wound up selling 2.5 million copies.
For an interview Wednesday at PM, a night club here, Brown arrived in a nude-colored Cosabella tank, a Joe’s Jeans miniskirt “she ripped herself” and Yves Saint Laurent platform sandals. “Fashion to me isn’t anything that any stylist can give you,” she said. “Female rappers today really need to be told how to throw it on. I can throw on a sweatshirt and Nike sneakers and be fly or wear a Dolce & Gabbana pinstripe suit and have the same effect. I’m just like, ‘Didn’t I teach you? You need to pull out some old Foxy covers.’”
Style wasn’t always her forte. Her signature look in junior high school was Guess jeans, a Polo teddy bear sweater, Air Jordans and a long ponytail. The daughter of a Trinidadian welder and a kindergarten teacher, Brown grew up “Inga Marchand” in Park Slope.
She’s using both names in her new career as a designer. Marchand is the label for her higher-end collection and Foxy Brown is the label for the more affordable label. Marchand wholesales between $3,000 and $6,000, and Foxy Brown ranges from $595 to $9,000. Accessories start at $200. Both collections are housed at 499 Seventh Avenue here. Projected wholesale volume for this fall is $1 million, according to John Petras, president and owner.
“I’m not like a lot of other [celebrity] designers who just stamp their name on their collections,” Brown said. “Alexis & Gianni called from Paris to say they found chinchilla with violet undertones, and I said, ‘Get that. Buy that.’”
Alexis & Gianni, a Westbury, N.Y.-based fur company, initially sent Brown’s accountant a sable bikini to try to woo her to be its spokeswoman. Brown said, “I thought, ‘I don’t wear fur bikinis any more. That’s very 1996.’ But I called to thank them, and it was well made.”
That conversation led to others and eventually a partnership. But the ride wasn’t always a smooth one. Aside from the apparel business being more difficult than she imagined, Brown said there were a few roadblocks along the way over her insistence to make the collection young. If it’s possible, Brown has made fur even more flashy, stretching and sewing together skins into styles with tapering arms and flaring sleeves.
Brown said she stuck to her guns, following the advice of her friend, Claudinette Fushard, the designer behind Fusha Designs who is married to Wyclef Jean. “She is not just a rapper or a singer. She’s very creative as a designer. I think that’s going to be a shock to a lot of people,” Fushard said.
Brown doesn’t pull any punches about her design inspiration. “I’m not going to lie. I cheat a lot. I look in magazines, I go in stores,” she said. “I went into Fendi and saw this brown chinchilla. I didn’t take their idea but I got the whole brown thing.”
Clearly recognizing that fashion is about promotion almost as much as style, she plans to design and send fur coats to Mary J. Blige, Beyoncé Knowles and Naomi Campbell as holiday gifts. She is also working on a Persian lamb coat for Oprah Winfrey, whom she considers to be “the voice of reason for black America.” Variations of those coats will be available to consumers later this year.
Brown is also a fan of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, but thinks Rice should be more vocal. “So many young black people want to hear what she has to say,” Brown said.
Rice isn’t on her gift list, though. Brown said she is “definitely 100 percent for Kerry” and will do anything she can to support him. She’s eager to see how effective P. Diddy’s “Vote or Die” campaign will be and is well aware of how influential musicians can be.
“I didn’t think voting was that important until I heard it from a powerful person like Puffy. ‘Vote or Die’ those are strong words. I’m going to vote this time,” she said. “When we [musicians] say something, it becomes almost biblical.”
This extends even to the commercial arena, with hip-hop artists holding immense sway over the tastes of consumers. When Jay-Z said throwback jerseys were passé and button-up shirts should replace them, fans followed, Brown said. A similar scenario unfolded when he said 4.6 Range Rovers are in, and BMW SUVs are out, she said.
Brown’s personal style is more free-form. Marc Jacobs is her “all-time favorite” designer, but she also likes Yigal Azrouël, Zaldie, Dolce & Gabbana for suits and Luella Bartley bags. Brown has worked Jacobs’ and Bartley’s names into her raps, and said she is lobbying hard to be in the next Louis Vuitton campaign. In 1998, she appeared in Calvin Klein ads.
Aside from designer stores, Brown has been known to shop at Filth Mart, C. Ronson and Lower East Side thrift stores to dig out vintage Gucci. “Gucci to me is very everyday. I’ll wear Gucci sandals with a Gap skirt and a Luella Bartley bag to go to the nail salon,” she said.
“Now with me, I’ve never been a person who had a stylist. I transform my look into anything I want,” she added.
Frankie B. and Luella Bartley routinely send her freebies. “I don’t know the last time I paid for a pair of jeans. Every designer pretty much sends free clothes,” she said. “I love goodie bags but I don’t mind paying for things either.”
Sometimes.
Asked if her baby blue Hermès Birkin bag was a gift, she said, “I wish!”
But instead of the going rate of $8,000, the rapper arranged to pay half.
Brown said she recently inquired about a celebrity discount at a Park Slope boutique and the saleswoman asked, “Why do celebrities need one? You’re rich.”
“Well, we spend more than everyone else and you get some publicity,” said Brown, before being given a 20 percent discount.
As for what defines star status, Brown said, “Puffy said to me a while ago, ‘There’s a difference between being a rapper and being a star.’ Someone can make a great record and be known for their music. Then there are people you still care about whether they have a new song out or not.”
Brown said she was coy early on in her career. “In the beginning, I was ashamed to say I was actually smart. I thought that didn’t go hand-in-hand with hip-hop.”
But following her mother’s advice, she was more eloquent in interviews. Brown holds fast to her roots. She recently bought a Park Slope brownstone, just two doors down from the one she grew up in and next door to her grandfather’s. Brown declined to name the selling price, other than to say brownstones on the block range between $1 million and $1.2 million and she got a deal. The brownstone is an investment and she plans to close on a house in Saddle River, N.J., in September.
When it’s time to write new music, she holes herself up in her childhood bedroom surrounded by posters of Biggie Smalls and Salt-N-Peppa.
“I don’t go to St. Barth’s. I go back to my bedroom. It brings the rawness out of me. That’s where I didn’t have a palatial estate in New Jersey — all I had was a black-and-white notebook,” she said. “I make a habit of not going to vacation places. How do you get hip-hop on a yacht? I go back home and see the winos on the corner and see the liquor stores. I write it, record it and then I go home to the estate.”
But back in Brooklyn, things aren’t so cushy. “My mother still makes me wash the dishes and take out the trash. She always says, ‘You’re Inga here,’” Brown said. Locals think otherwise, slipping notes under the front door and showing up 10 at a time.
Brown said the motto she lives by is, “People come into your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime. Every time I’m approached by someone, I ask myself, ‘Are they here for a reason, a season or a lifetime?’”
Nearing the end of a five-year relationship with reggae artist Sparga Benz, Brown said she is “heartbroken” and has immersed herself in work. “But I tell you I make my best albums in pain.”
She has been subpoenaed to testify in Lil’ Kim’s (Jones) perjury trial, which has been postponed until February. Jones is accused of lying in a federal grand jury investigation into a 2001 shooting that allegedly involved members of her entourage outside Hot 97’s studios here and left one man wounded. Prosecutors claim the shooting was sparked by a dispute between her and Brown. Brown said she wishes Jones well.
“It would be a devastating blow for the hip-hop community to lose such a presence as Lil’ Kim,” Brown said. “As I’ve said before, I wish her the best. I really do. I didn’t want to see Martha go to jail, I don’t want to see Kobe [Bryant] go to jail and I don’t want to see her [Lil’ Kim] go to jail.”
For now, Brown is focused on her role as a designer. She hopes to stage a fashion show at Cipriani’s in September around the same time as 7th on Sixth. She plans to wear a white suit and take a bow at the end of the show, but she won’t perform. “I want to be recognized in a different way.”
She’s Gotta Have It: Her six essentials for fall Hermès Birkin bag. A “big, big” pair of Jackie O shades. M.A.C.’s Chai lip gloss. (She once missed a flight to London because she left JFK to go home and get it.) A good book. For her, it’s “The Da Vinci Code.” Joe’s Jeans. Pink Gucci suede and fur boots.
Top Picks for People Watching and TrendSpotting Paris fashion shows. “I’m a fixture at Bryant Park.” “My mother’s living room couch, watching her get dressed.” The Caribbean. “I love to see someone with dark,glistening skin, a colorful head wrap and a pretty skirt, even if they’re washing that skirt in the river.”
Foxy’s Best-Dressed List “Hands down,” it’s Gwen Stefani. “She breaks the rules and does what she does.” Beyoncé Liya Kebede Angelina Jolie Scarlett Johansson. “Whatever she puts on is just dope to me.”