What’s in a Name? Lots, If It’s a Star’s : Fashion: Linking a celebrity to clothes, jewelry or perfume can create instant appeal. But there are no guarantees; remember Telly Savalas suits?

Elizabeth Taylor is designing jewelry for Avon. She’s not hunched over a work bench with a jeweler’s loupe screwed to her eye, but she’s directing those who are. Her big hands-on moment will come when the money starts rolling in.

Taylor is the latest in a long line of famous names to become a fashion label.

Occasionally the star and the product are a match made in merchandising heaven. Mikhail Baryshnikov “designs” dance wear and Jaclyn Smith “designs” clothing and accessories for Kmart. As with Taylor, their role is to pass approval on the actual designer’s work and--most important--to allow their names to appear on the labels.

Other stars have played this role with disastrous results, their business deals lasting no longer than some Hollywood marriages. Farrah Fawcett, Jerry Hall and Telly Savalas come to mind, although their products (perfume, swimwear and suits, respectively) have been long forgotten.

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When Kmart needed a fashion image for its stores in 1985, it couldn’t advertise clothing like a traditional department store--it didn’t have brand-name merchandise. So the company hired Jaclyn Smith. Her name and image gave it the cache it was looking for.

“Jaclyn’s name got her customers into the store when we were not known as a fashion store,” says Joy Corneliussen, manager of celebrity and events for Kmart.

Since Jaclyn Smith’s sportswear collection debuted eight years ago, more than 30 million pieces have been sold, says a Kmart spokesperson.

What’s in it for The Name?

Stars typically take home about 6% of the wholesale sales. Scale is anywhere from 5-10%, depending on the power of the player. Often there is a $25,000-minimum to $250,000-maximum guarantee, depending on performance. Contracts usually run for three years with a renewal clause that is also based on the product’s performance.

What’s in it for the customer?

“People invest in a product that has a brand name or celebrity endorsement because they attach a certain value or emotional connection to the name,” says Jeffrey Ceppos, a Connecticut-based consultant who has negotiated deals for Paloma Picasso. “If they wear the item, there is a potential reward if someone asks them about it. People can say, ‘It’s an Elizabeth Taylor,’ and from that statement they garner a psychic reward.”

That little psychic stroke just might save a manufacturer hundreds of thousands of dollars. After all, it takes years and huge advertising budgets to establish a brand name. When a manufacturer enlists the aid of a celebrity it is an opportunity to get instant recognition.

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When Avon unveils Elizabeth Taylor’s jewelry later this year, it will not only capitalize on her name, but on her famous film roles.

There will be several pieces that have roots in her history, such as the Cleopatra cuff. One necklace is a look-alike from her famous cache of sparklers, the 25-carat yellow, heart-shaped Taj Mahal diamond that Richard Burton gave her for her 40th birthday. And there is the “Elephant Walk” brooch and matching earrings.

Ceppos cites the new Anaheim hockey franchise--the Mighty Ducks--as another example of capitalizing on established names. He predicts the Mighty Ducks will be a top seller of team-logo merchandise this year because, he says, the names “Michael Eisner, Disney and the Mighty Ducks are all under a concept umbrella that has been pre-sold--just like Elizabeth Taylor has been pre-sold for over 40 years.

“There is another hockey team, in Florida, the Panthers, that is coming in the same time as the Ducks. But you’ve never heard of them because Michael Eisner is associated with one and not the other. That is what brand names are all about--looking for shortcuts,” Ceppos says.

The cable shopping networks have recognized the financial gains that can be made from celebrity alignments. “They have gone to great lengths to invent designers and resuscitate fading celebrities to sell on their shows,” says New York-based retail consultant Alan Millstein. Ivana Trump, Joan Rivers and Diane von Furstenberg have racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars selling their apparel and jewelry on cable.

“The cable shows are in the same posture discounters were in the ‘70s--they need credibility. They can’t crack the big names on Seventh Avenue, so they hire Victoria Jackson to hustle skin-care products,” says Millstein. “It’s the irony of the American consumers’ passion for status that these ‘celebutramps’ can get away with it.”

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But there are celebrity fashion lines that do fail.

Jane Fonda had the Midas touch with exercise videos, but when she tied her name to aerobic wear she lost her touch. All signs pointed to a good match, yet it didn’t last.

“It was her politics and timing,” says Norm Zwail, president of Weekend Exercise Co., which produced Fonda’s aerobics line. He was considering another line of celebrity-endorsed exercise wear at the time, but the Fonda launch-and-burn gave him second thoughts.

“We had some trepidation in lieu of the failure of celebrity designer names, but signing Mikhail Baryshnikov was a no-brainer,” he says.

The Baryshnikov dance and exercise wear has been around for seven years. What started as a $2-million annual business has grown to $35 million in annual wholesale sales.

Even fashion designers have failures when they try to cross over into foreign territory. “Bill Blass turned down coffins but he put (his name) on chocolates,” Gordon says. That failed.

“Apparel is the easiest entree for most licensing. It’s easy to set up an apparel factory as opposed to an automobile business. All you need is fabric and sewing machines,” he says.

Still celebrities often leave their licensing partners in the lurch. Just when Elizabeth Taylor’s and Cher’s fragrances were peaking, Taylor’s health problems and Cher’s movie commitments torpedoed major publicity tours. (Fragrance manufacturers have found star perfumes sell well when the star is in attendance. When they don’t show neither do the customers.)

“Lost opportunities like these can be accurately regarded as disasters, especially when one considers that the effective (and profitable) life cycle of a fragrance is probably less than three years,” reports Donald Davis in a report for Drug & Cosmetic Industry.

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Another reason so many of the deals fall apart is “they are not researched,” says Mort Gordon, who handles licenses for designer John Weitz, who has 29 licensing deals. “Not every brand name will transfer to every product. Everything starts with the product. Price and name is secondary.”

Esther Williams was pulled into the business by a survey done to test the recognition factor of her name. Excelsior, her first partner in swimsuits, had done the polling.

“They were surprised to find that 54% of women aged 18-35 knew my name and what I did--that I was a swimming star. And they said they would trust me to come up with a good product. Of the ones from 35 on to infinity, 94% were aware of me. It was amazing,” recounts Williams. “We sat down and they had a lot of sketches of my look from my movies, but it was those statistics that got to me.” Her line of swimwear is in its fifth year of operation.

There are some new kids on the labels. Recent signings by headliners are creating clothes that are appearing at a store near you:

* Rapper Mike D of the Beastie Boys has a line of sportswear called X-Large, a workman’s oversized functional style that has a following among young men. His clothing appears in trendy boutiques, and he and two partners have stores in Los Angeles, Tokyo, New York and San Francisco. A second Los Angeles location is scheduled to open next month.

* The Country Music Duo of the Year, Kix Brooks & Ronnie Dunn, are designing a line for Panhandle Slim in Fort Worth, which debuted last month. * Miles Davis ties are joining the John Lennon ties in the men’s furnishings areas of stores as a new sub-group takes its place among celebrity licensees: the deceased. W.C. Fields, Elvis and Marilyn Monroe have all been sighted on products that were generated after their deaths.

* Hot off the beach is a new line of swimwear from an old “Dallas”-ite, Charlene Tilton. Her first 24 suits premiered in Florida recently. The label says Charlene Tilton Iridescent Wave collection and the prices run from $32 to $64.

And recently the Disney machine tooled up for a line of television-character clothes. It has always done well spinning its animated characters onto clothes. Now it is cashing in on live ones.

“Blossom” clothes are manufactured by Enchante, a Los Angeles-based company that specializes in junior sizes. “The producers were getting so many letters asking where the wardrobe comes from and for actual products, they figured there must be a need for merchandise,” says Enchante’s designer Glynn Barrish-Carroll.

While the manufacturers’ representatives quizzed the actors about their likes and dislikes, they never bothered to talk to the costume designer. The resulting preteen collection of clothes is more “the attitude of the show than the actual clothing,” They are priced $14-$48 and sold at Robinsons-May and other area stores.

Even though the licensing landscape has become littered with the failed attempts by celebrity designers, it hasn’t abated the flow. The field has just gotten bigger. Where it used to take a star of some standing to grace a label, now we have star sub-species--has-beens, dead rock ‘n’ rollers and famous but irritating teens.