After the Rihanna for River Island presentation during London Fashion Week, its namesake designer, the biggest pop star on the planet, came out for a bow. Accompanying her was a boyish, mustachioed fellow. Most of the audience had no clue who he was. Beaming, he turned to Rihanna and applauded.
This was Adam Selman, Rihanna’s costume designer, who worked with her on the collection. You’re probably more familiar with Mr. Selman than you think. He makes the costumes the singer wears for appearances and videos — those that are not culled from high-fashion labels — like the pink faux-fur bomber from her 777 Tour and the white halter dress from the “Battleship” premiere. The list is long enough to stock a department store. One creation is particularly ubiquitous: the pineapple bikini in her Vita Coco ad.
“I made a mini-collection,” Mr. Selman said, “a whole rail of pineapple clothes. She came to the set and loved it. Every country we go to, there’s a billboard with that pineapple bikini.”
Mr. Selman’s relationship with Rihanna goes beyond pineapples and is close to symbiosis. “Our working relationship is seamless,” she said. “I am so particular and hands on with everything I do, and that can be difficult, but with Adam, it never is. Oftentimes, I describe what I’m thinking for my show or my collection, and his execution is exactly what I wanted.”
In the Rihanna for River Island presentation, slicked-hair bad girls paraded in variations of the Michelle Pfeiffer “Scarface” slit dresses, cheeky skirts and T-shirt dresses that looked like tied-on shirts (complete with sleeves used for belts). There were more exposed midriffs than in a belly-dance troupe.
In fact, the clothes were clever and tough, yet feminine and wearable — and largely affordable, with prices like $200 for a jumpsuit and $75 for zip-back knicker shorts. They go on sale Tuesday at Opening Ceremony stores, and the New York flagship will celebrate with “RIHtrospective,” a museum treatment of her past outfits. In England the line will be hyped by a Mario Sorrenti advertising campaign.
A few weeks before the River Island debut, Mr. Selman was in his scruffy garment district studio, an inauspicious locale for a major player on team Rihanna. “There are a lot of furriers in the building,” he said. “In summer they stretch out big pieces of fur and dry them on the rooftop, and clumps drift past.”
He was brought in to work with Rihanna on her 2011 Loud Tour by his boyfriend, Mel Ottenberg, her stylist. The gig was intended to be temporary, but he kept being called back, and it’s now a full-time job.
“We bounce ideas off each other,” he said of Mr. Ottenberg, “but it gets to a point where we’re like, ‘O.K., we can’t discuss Rihanna at dinner, we have to shut it off.’ ”
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