Women's Wear Daily (March 21st 2007)

O.C. Girl

Gwen Stefani gives plenty of shout-outs to her native Orange County on her new album, and showed even more love for her hometown on Friday, when she came out for a rare in-store appearance at South Coast Plaza's Nordstrom store in Costa Mesa, Calif. Dressed in a L.A.M.B. plaid bubble skirt and striped sweater, the singer greeted more than 100 shoppers for a private fall 2007 L.A.M.B. shopping event. "This was a really difficult collection to design," said Stefani, perched on a sofa in the department store's spa before greeting the crowd. "I was recording my new album at the same time, so I had, like, two days to do it all. My schedule is so crazy, I don't even remember saying I would do this event."

Stefani said the fall collection, which features preppy-punk plaid toggle coats, flutter-sleeved hoodies and wide-leg wool trousers, was inspired by "that late-Seventies, early-Eighties Michelle Pfeiffer stuff. And I always put an animal print into the collection. Designing is like baking cookies. You get sick of the [taste] really quickly, but then someone comes along and says, 'Wow' and you enjoy it all over again."

Stefani's husband, Gavin Rossdale, joined his wife on the couch with the couple's son, Kingston, but rushed off when the baby started fussing, saying brightly, "Well, that was fun." Stefani, who is about to embark on a world tour, shot the first ad for the L.A.M.B. fragrance - which will hit stores in September - earlier in the week. For the campaign, Stefani had to be dunked underwater. "It was torture, but it was great," she said. Later on, the singer addressed the audience with some basic retail tenets, Orange County-style: "It was a dream of mine to design clothes....That you guys came out to support me is like, whoa, tripped out."