The Sunday Times (Feb. 3rd 2002)

What’s Up, Dork?

Gwen Stefani's oft-ridiculed DIY dress sense has become the height of fashion. What's the No Doubt singer's secret, asks Lisa Verrico

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, Gwen Stefani was something of a geek. Her band, the Californian quartet No Doubt, made watered-down ska-punk songs, and, in Britain, she was famous mainly for her dodgy dress sense and for dating Gavin Rossdale, from the equally gruesome British rock band Bush.

But a reinvention worthy of Madonna has turned the heavily made- up platinum blonde into 2002's unlikeliest style icon. Winner of the Rock Style gong at the recent VH1/Vogue fashion awards - although she looked like a bag lady next to the winner of Sharp Dressed Man, the smartly suited P Diddy - Stefani, 32, has started a craze among American teenagers for DIY outfits that recall Madge in her Desperately Seeking Susan days. There is nothing bling bling about her look: she colours and customises men's string vests, sports old stripy socks on her arms and hangs heaps of costume jewellery around her neck. But laugh at your peril, for her oddball style is suddenly being hailed as the height of cool.

As a style leader, Stefani had an unpromising start. Growing up in California, she was overweight at 12, and was put on a diet by a doctor. She got into fashion after watching musicals such as Annie, and persuading her mother to make her a replica of a dress from The Sound of Music for a school talent show. By 16, she had discovered ska, slimmed down and dyed her mousy-brown hair bright blonde, and was sifting through second-hand stores and making her own outfits.

Two years later, she joined her big brother Eric's band, No Doubt, after the original singer, John Spence, committed suicide. Their first two albums bombed, but their third, Tragic Kingdom - made without Eric, who left to become an animator on The Simpsons - was a huge global hit, selling more than 10m copies.

For No Doubt's first hit single, Just a Girl, Stefani dyed her hair pink and wore bindis, a look that is still followed by some of her female fans, who use the internet to debate which is the best of her oddball styles.

But her amazing transformation in the public mind from kook to mainstream style-setter started only last year, when she collaborated with the Ruff Ryders rapper Eve on the UK Top 10 hit Let Me Blow Ya Mind, and with Moby on his US-only single South Side. Both songs boasted award-winning videos in which the singer looked sexy rather than silly, despite her dated hairstyle, black roots and lashings of dark-brown lip liner.

Next, she made it onto the cover of Vanity Fair's music issue in October, alongside the likes of Beck, Missy Elliott and Beyonce from Destiny's Child. Finally, No Doubt were invited by Bono to support U2 on their US tour.

Now, thanks to a host of trendy dance producers, including William Orbit, Nellee Hooper and the Neptunes, No Doubt's new album, Rock Steady, is set to be the biggest hit of the band's 15-year career. In the first week of its release in the States, it went straight into the Billboard Top 10, selling more than 250,000 copies. Out tomorrow, Rock Steady's first single, Hey Baby - a mishmash of electro, hip- hop and dancehall, produced by Sly & Robbie, and featuring the Jamaican MC Bounty Killer - is already all over the radio.

Meanwhile, the cartoonish video, in which Stefani unveils yet another new look (sparkly bras on top of her vests, a graffiti- covered suit and matching baker-boy hat), is a mainstay on MTV on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Hey Baby is about me being backstage at a No Doubt concert," says Stefani. "It's interesting being the only girl in the group, watching all this rock'n'roll stuff going on. We get lots of girls coming backstage trying to pick up the guys. I just watch them hanging out and flirting.

"A lot of Rock Steady was inspired by those after-show parties. Every night on our last tour, we threw dancehall parties. Then we'd go out clubbing. That made us want to write songs we could dance to, which we'd never done."

The recording of Rock Steady started last year in London, at a studio owned by Dave Stewart, one of Stefani's all-time heroes. Then there were sessions in Jamaica with Sly & Robbie, and in LA with Ric Ocasek, formerly of the Cars. But it was when the Atlanta-based producers the Neptunes (whose clients have included Michael Jackson, P Diddy and Britney Spears) wanted to work on one of their songs that other big names began jumping on the No Doubt bandwagon.

Orbit offered to produce the poppy Making Out, slated as the next single, and Hooper contributed to four tracks, including the Neptunes- penned Hella Good, which opens the album. Even Dr Dre and Timbaland got involved, although their songs have since been dropped from Rock Steady.

"I worked with Dre on the Eve track," says Stefani. "Then he wrote a song especially for us, called Wicked Day. It's quite a slow jam, so it didn't really fit on the album, but it will show up eventually. The Timbaland track was done after we were more or less finished. It's a really cool song with a disco vibe, but we just didn't have room for it."

The irony of pop's geekiest girl turning down tracks from Dre and Timbaland isn't lost on Stefani, who still describes herself as "a dork". Even her boyfriend, Rossdale, was said to be none too enamoured of her look at first, and bought her Prada dresses and Gucci shoes to improve her image.

Fortunately, Stefani ignored his advice and continued to make her own clothes. Now, so smitten is Rossdale with his newly hip girlfriend that he recently announced their engagement, even though it wasn't true at the time, and has taken to carrying a cardboard cutout of his DIY-dressed beloved with him on tour. So, who's the dork now?