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It seems that there are a lot of celebrities endorsing various clothing brands these days, even outside the realm of sports-related items. I can't walk through the mall anymore without seeing famous faces on big posters in storefront windows. I'm not talking about celebs that have their own clothing lines, like Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Pamela Anderson, or Jennifer Lopez. I'm talking about celebs that are paid to wear a clothing brand that is already well established. Because of high visibility in the form of magazine and tabloid coverage, as well as the talk-show circuit, celebrities and clothing endorsements often go hand in hand. But does this kind of advertising work? Would you buy a certain brand of clothing just because your favorite celebrity wears it? What if a star you don't like started endorsing a brand that you do like? Would you stop buying that brand?

Personally, I have never bought something just because a celebrity endorsed it, although there have been some things that I have wanted. For example, in the movie Legally Blonde, there is one scene in which the main character, Reese Witherspoon, is wearing a Gucci blouse. None of the other characters makes a reference to the blouse or anything like that, but it is clearly noticeable because there are Gucci logos (interlocking G's) all over it. I thought it was a great-looking shirt, and I was ready to buy it just from seeing it in that movie. Well, I guess that's more of an example of product placement than celebrity endorsement, but you get what I mean. Besides that one blouse, which I wasn't able to find in any stores near me, there have only been a few other random items that I was perhaps interested in checking out, but never actually purchased.

I don't think I would buy a brand of clothing I've never tried just because of a celebrity, either. I have never bought Hanes, for example, and no one in my family has ever had a preference for that brand one way or the other. Will I buy a Hanes item now that the company is using stars such as Marisa Tomei, Damon Wayans, and Matthew Perry as spokespeople? Probably not, since I don't particularly care for any of those stars anyway. But even when I do like the stars, it doesn't necessarily translate into spending my hard-earned cash because of them. When I lived in Japan during my sophomore year of college, Brad Pitt was pitching Edwin jeans over there. I had never heard of that brand, and even though I really liked Brad Pitt at the time, I didn't rush out to buy Edwin jeans just because he was their spokesperson.

Recently, I have found some celebrity endorsements to be a real turn-off. For example, I have shopped at the Gap for many years because their clothes are comfortable, reasonably priced, and fit my body type pretty well. But ever since they signed Sarah Jessica Parker as their spokesperson, I haven't wanted to go into the store. For whatever reason, I just don't like Sarah Jessica Parker, and it annoyed me to see her posters on the Gap walls, in their catalogs, and on their website. It sounds kind of silly now that I am writing it out for other people to read, but I really did stay away from the Gap just because of their celebrity spokesperson. I wasn't actively boycotting them or anything like that. I just sort of unconsciously avoided the store. When Parker first signed the endorsement deal, it was reportedly supposed to be for three years. Luckily for me, though, something must have gone wrong along the way because now the Gap is using a different celebrity as a spokesperson (Joss Stone). Since I don't know anything at all about this person and since her pictures don't annoy me to an unreasonable degree, I will once more start shopping at the Gap.

I don't know how much celebrities affect other people's clothing choices, but I like to think that I am an average consumer. That means it's entirely possible that more people are turned off by celebrity endorsements than are persuaded by them. But then again, clothing companies probably wouldn't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on celebrities without first doing a lot of market research, so maybe I am the one who is completely wrong on this issue!