Rocker, Model Fashion Men's Clothing Firm

Royal Underground, started by Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx and former St. John face Kelly Gray, features high-end apparel.

By Leslie Earnest
Times Staff Writer

August 10, 2006

It's like mixing a tongue stud with a tiara.

She was the face of an upper-crust women's clothing company that dressed first ladies and chief executives. He is the heavily tattooed bass player for heavy-metal band Motley Crue.

Now, former St. John Knits International Inc. executive Kelly Gray and Nikki Sixx have joined forces to launch a line of men's clothing.

Apparel from Newport Beach-based Royal Underground, whose clothing includes $100 T-shirts, $900 cashmere sweaters and $1,200 leather jackets, will begin arriving in high-end stores such as Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus in early November.

"Too many of today's fashions have skulls or look tattered and worn out," the songwriter said during an interview Monday as he and Gray were boarding a plane. "I think there's something cool about that, but you can step it up a notch and have something a little bit on the classier edge."

Although the pair will co-design the clothing, their public styles could hardly be more different.

As the signature model for St. John until last summer, when the Irvine company began using younger women such as Gisele Buendchen and Angelina Jolie — the blond-haired Gray was groomed to perfection.

Sixx — along with his rock band mates — was partial to leather, tattered clothes and heavy makeup.

Gray, 39, who met the 47-year-old Sixx at one of his concerts, says he initially spooked her.

"He scared me so much in his makeup," said Gray, who also held executive titles at St. John. "I called him Mr. Sixx and he didn't correct me."

Nonetheless, the pair discovered "this great rapport and great chemistry" when they had lunch together in June, she said.

"Our relationship reminds me somewhat of the working relationship of my mom and dad's," she said, referring to St. John founders Marie and Robert Gray.

Her parents, she said, are pleased about the new venture, which was first reported in Women's Wear Daily, and "absolutely adore" Sixx, who was born Frank Carlton Serafino Ferranno.

"They're thrilled," she said. "They call Nikki their tattooed son."

Gray has been immersed in the apparel industry for much of her life, but the bassist said he also has experience designing clothing, including outfits worn by the band.

"To me, fashion and music go hand in hand," said Sixx, who wrote most of Motley Crue's songs as they went from a local sensation on the Sunset Strip to one of the top names in the so-called hair metal movement of the 1980s.

He even started a clothing line about eight years ago, called Outlaw, Sixx said.

"I invested my own money," he said, and "lost a quarter of a million dollars."