People (Nov. 10th 2015)
Gwen Stefani Reveals She 'Stalked' Petco Until They Let Her Design a Pets Collection
It’s a well-known fact that the only thing in the world that’s better than a dog is a dog wearing clothes. And now, thanks to Gwen Stefani, your dog can be the best, most stylish pup on the block.
The singer and The Voice judge teamed up with Petco to launch the Harajuku Lovers collection for pets, which includes dog toys, clothing, hair accessories, and even hats — Yes, you read that correctly: hats for dogs. You’re welcome, world — in fun patterns that feature emojis, Union Jacks and ska-inspired checkerboard. But while the line might seem like a “no-brainer” for expanding the Harajuku Lovers line, Stefani revealed that it actually took some time to convince Petco to allow her to design the doggie duds.
“I wanted to do this collection for so long because the people that I work with around me that I love, they wanted so desperately for me to do a line of dog wear and toys and things like that,” Stefani told PEOPLE. “And it’s really hard — we had to really stalk them to let us do it, and we got it and so now, here it is and it’s really exciting.”
After finally convincing Petco to help make her dream of styling animals possible, the next challenge that the singer/designer faced was narrowing down all of her ideas into one cohesive, 20-piece collection, which retails between $6.99 and $19.99.
“It’s the same process you do when you design anything, it’s just with [the Petco line], they had specific categories that they wanted filled, and we just were trying to come up with things that seemed like were so cute that they just kind of signified my style,” Stefani explained, adding that she wanted people to be able to look at the collection on dogs on the street, and be able to identify it as a Harajuku Lovers design.
And if you happen to be a fan of Stefani or No Doubt’s music, that shouldn’t be hard to do at all: “We went back to the beginning of time when I first discovered music and was really into discovering ska music, [and] music out of England. And that was the reason we started doing No Doubt, so you can see the British flag and the record and you can see [ it in] the little hat and checkerboards and things that just represent that time period.”
“There’s also the old with the new. At the time that I was designing the collection, I was doing “Spark the Fire” with all the emojis and things like that so you can see that in the hair accessories, the emojis. So, it’s kind of a combination of old and new [influences] through the years.”
The project also allowed Stefani a chance to treat both her and her best friend’s pets (who played a major role in the creation of the line in the first place) to the kind of “silly, fun” toys and accessories that Stefani’s childhood pets never got to play around with.
“We never had any of these things growing up,” Stefani said. “When I had my dog, it was more about, you know, cutting her hair and all of that stuff, because they didn’t really have dress up clothes for dogs at that time, that I could find or that my mom would let me spend money on.”
But don’t think being owned by Stefani or her friends entitles you to special treatment when it comes to getting to play with the line in advance. When asked if her friends’ dogs had any input on the final products, Stefani laughed.
“No, we didn’t do any animal testing of the products before. I mean maybe Jolie [Clemens, Stefani’s friend and business partner] might have secretly let her dogs try out the chew toys but she didn’t tell me about it.”