Denim company's jeans measure up to founder

NEW YORK (June 30, 2005) — If you've bought a pair of designer jeans in the past decade, chances are you're familiar with Paige Adams-Geller's work.

One of the top fit models for luxury denim makers, Adams-Geller has been hailed as "the best butt in the business." The prevailing theory in the industry was that if a pair of jeans hugged her curves the right way, they'd do the same on the rear ends of everyone else.

A year ago she decided to cash in on her assets and started her own company, Paige Premium Denim.

So far, the response has surprised her. Typical exchanges between Adams-Geller and consumers always focus on the fit, not fancy embellishments or a recognizable logo. "They said, 'Finally we have women designing for women.' That was a really big surprise for me," Adams-Geller reports. "They were looking for another basic. I didn't have to try so hard to be different. I had to try hard to be better."

Since its launch, Paige Premium Denim has made its way into high-end retailers such as Fred Segal in Los Angeles, E Street Denim in Chicago and Bergdorf Goodman in New York. Nationally, select Neiman Marcus stores carry the jeans as well as chic local boutiques. Adams-Geller learned her collection had sold out of a shop in Wisconsin after her stepson received a text message from friends who go to college there.

Basic five-pocket jeans start at $169, and the fall line ventures into trousers, skirts and jackets in a variety of washes. Next spring, Paige Premium Denim plans to add men's jeans and a junior line named City of Angels, which will have a lower price point in the $88-$130 range.

Born in Wasilla, Alaska, Adams-Geller, already named "best dressed" in high school, left for the warmer climes of California, where she graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in broadcasting and communications. She didn't even know what a "fit model" was back in 1993 when an industry veteran first "discovered" her and handed her a business card.

"A couple of months later, I decided I might as well give her a call and find out what this is all about," she says, learning that she had the right stuff. "My proportions were really, really good for a fitting."

Adams-Geller, 35, stands 5-foot-7 1/2 and wears a size 6, equivalent to a 28-inch waist.

"It's a very popular size," she says.

Designers use a fit model as both a muse and guinea pig to get a sense of how clothes look on the body. It's a preview of what actual customers will see and feel when they go into the dressing room.

When women find jeans with that ever-elusive perfect fit, Adams-Geller says, "it's usually because a fit model is close to their body type. A lot of times the fit model will encompass who they see as their customers."

"They get to work off a real body and ... keep measurements accurate," she says. "It was a way for a model to continue working and keep a healthy body image."

In 1998, she met Michael Glasser and Jerome Dahan as they were about to launch Seven for All Mankind, the Los Angeles-based company that would fuel the current luxury denim craze.

Suddenly, customers were willing to spend upward of $100 - and sometimes much more - for blue jeans.

"It started to have a cool, edgy sophistication and I thought it was different than what denim had been in the past," Adams-Geller says. "It was wild. Because Jerome was so particular about the fit, we would fit every day. Once it got down to the stores, it sold like crazy."

She adds: "It became like a denim epidemic. Everybody wanted it."

Seven's fit generated a lot of buzz, and that led many A-list Hollywood celebrities to start wearing them. No one knows better than someone who is photographed constantly how important it is to have jeans that flatter the figure.

Denim also is integral to the L.A. look and designer jeans became one of the fashion trends that migrated from west to east as people across the country adopted a hip, casual style. The terrycloth loungewear from Juicy Couture would be the other major West Coast fashion contribution over the past few years.

"I always had a love-hate relationship with denim," Adams-Geller says. "Back in the '80s it was skintight denim. You had to lie on your bed to zip up. It was either very 'boysy' looking or very skinny."

Once other manufacturers recognized the power of a flattering fit, Adams-Geller's career took off. When Glasser and Dahan split to start their own denim lines, each asked Adams-Geller for fittings.

But Adams-Geller knew a model's life isn't a model life forever, and it was her therapist who encouraged her to think of a long-term plan.

"She asked me to ask myself what I wanted to be doing five years from now," Adams-Geller says. "She said, 'Why don't you start your own line? I think you could do it.'"

"There's really no line out there that's connected with a face, with a person. There's no Ralph Lauren in denim, no DKNY in denim," she says. "I really felt that I could have an outlet, not only creatively, but really helping women feel good about themselves."