Who

With some generous help from her music mogul husband, Damon Dash, Rachel Roy has become a star on the fashion scene with her line of feminine womenswear.

Backstory

Roy was raised in Northern California by an Indian father and Dutch mother and grew up in a strict Seventh-day Adventist household. Her fashion career didn't get off to a very glamorous start: When her father decided that she should start paying rent, a 14-year-old Roy took a cashier's job at Contempo Casuals. She attended a Christian college in Maryland before moving to New York to pursue a career in fashion, working in retail at BCBG and as a personal shopper and stylist. She landed her big break, both professionally and personally, when she met rap mogul Damon Dash at a Madison Square Garden boxing match in 1998. After the two began dating, Dash hired the 24-year-old to work on the Rocawear clothing line he'd co-founded, and she soon became creative director. In 2005, Dash cut ties with Rocawear and sold his stake to partner Jay-Z. Roy left, too, founding a clothing line of her own with financing from Dash.

Of note

Although Roy's line quickly won praise from critics and fashionistas, it was her and Dash's social connections (and her exotic beauty) rather than her design skills that ensured a flood of press and a long line of celebrity followers. Since 2005, her clothes have been spotted on the backs of Jessica Simpson, Sharon Stone, Jessica Biel, Penelope Cruz and Lucy Liu, and Roy's also earned high-profile admirers like Vogue's André Leon Talley and Oprah, who invited the designer on her show in January 2007. The fact that Roy seems to spend more time at parties than actually working on her label hasn't detracted from its appeal. Sales are up, former Givenchy president Marianne Tesler signed on as CEO in May of 2007, and former Bloomingdale's chairman Marvin Traub acquired a significant minority stake in the company through his investment fund, TSM Capital. In June 2008 the Jones Apparel Group bought a 50% stake: The three-way partnership between Roy, TSM, and Jones will enable major expansion including shoes, perfume, freestanding boutiques, and a diffusion line.

Personal

Roy's first husband was Yinka Dare, the 7'1" Nigerian basketball player who died of a heart attack at 32. When she started dating Dash in 1998, the hip hop mogul was dating Aaliyah (who, of course, would end up dying young, too). The couple had their first child, Ava, in 2001 and tied the knot in a quickie ceremony in 2005, reportedly because Roy was incensed to learn that Dash had fathered a child with another woman the year before. (Adding insult to injury, perhaps, the baby was named "Lucky.") Roy recently gave birth to the couple's second child, Tallulah.

Habitat

Dash and Roy live in a two-floor duplex inside the Atalanta Building. (The 5,142-square-foot loft has a room just for Dash's collection of sneakers.) They also own a manse in Beverly Hills.