TINA KNOWLES Her destiny is dressing young performers

Their personalities change when her girls put on their costumes and makeup.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK -- Tina Knowles knows all about the drama and difficulty that comes with wardrobing a teenager. Or teenagers.
She has dressed her girls to shop at the malls, go to parties and perform on stage: Her daughter is Beyonce Knowles of Destiny's Child, and Tina Knowles considers the other members of the group, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, her "daughters" by proxy.
Choosing clothes for the Grammy-winning R & amp;B singers has been a balancing act, Knowles says. She knows that sex sells, but she also has a mother's instinct and she doesn't want to see Destiny's Child in too-skimpy costumes.
"Their rears are always covered and if they're wearing a bra top, it's a big bra top," Knowles says. "Sure, for the Grammys they wore shorts and a bra top, but they'd never wear that on the street."
Her advice on how to get the group's coordinated-yet-individual look is featured in the new book "Destiny's Style: Bootylicious Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle Secrets From Destiny's Child" (Regan Books), which Knowles wrote with Zoe Alexander.
Natural look
The first thing she wants young girls to know is Destiny's Child isn't always so glamorous; the singers' wardrobe isn't only made up of skintight, belly-baring outfits, and they don't always have big hair and heavy makeup.
"They are beautiful but they're not that beautiful when they wake up in the morning," says Knowles of her daughter, Rowland and Williams, who are now in their 20s but started singing as preteens.
"If you see the girls when they're not working, there's no glamour. They're in jeans, T-shirts and flat shoes -- it's what I wear, too. There is a look for stage and a look for everyday."
And Knowles also urges parents wary of their children's trendy tastes to pick their battles carefully. "Don't make such an issue about clothes and fads. Instead, instill good values to work hard and be smart, and give them support," she says.
When Beyonce wanted to get her navel pierced when she was 16, Knowles says she opposed the idea at first, but then after she realized Beyonce could get a tattoo instead, she relented.
"(The piercing) bugged me because I was worried that other little girls would copy her ... but then I said 'If it's something that can be changed back to the way it was, and it's not dangerous, then let it go.'"
Although each of the young women are now working on solo projects, Knowles says she still spends 60 percent of her time acting as stylist, coordinating the costumes when they appear together and helping each one define her own style as she ventures out on her own.
(The rest of her day is spent serving as vice president of her husband's record label and dressing her other daughter Solange, who is releasing an album of her own. Knowles also owns a hair salon in her hometown of Houston.)
Not her style
Beyonce likes billowy, peasant-style clothes, reports Knowles, but she has to be careful because her curvy figure isn't the ideal mannequin for many of these looks.
Kelly wasn't interested in clothes at all as a young girl but she has turned into "the biggest fashion plate of them all," according to Knowles. She favors trendy styles that show off her legs.
Michelle is the opposite, she always wears pants. It took Michelle a while to determine what her "style" was, Knowles says, but after looking through gazillions of racks of clothes and accessories, she became an educated shopper who knew what matched her more classic sensibility.
Knowles says she asks Beyonce, Kelly and Michelle what they don't want to wear and then avoids those things, but if the wardrobe was limited to what they said they wanted to wear, they wouldn't be the fashion icons they are today.
One for all
Magazine editors, TV producers and photographers would be concerned when she'd show up carrying only a single bag for all three of the women but Knowles says she has dressing them down to a science.
The one-suitcase-for-all scenario plays against the public image of Destiny's Child being a bunch of divas but, as Knowles explains, the women are very aware of their public and private personalities.
"The girls get another personality when they put on their costumes and makeup. They're divas on stage," she says. "We've been insistent that they stay humble."