Katie Holmes is newest Fashion Week design star

NEW YORK (AP) - Katie Holmes, greeting well-wishers in a black leather blazer and gold beaded heels, became the latest celebrity to take a serious stab at fashion with her Holmes & Yang preview at New York Fashion Week on Wednesday.

The celebrities who once lined the front rows of these seasonal previews in party dresses have increasingly made their way backstage into positions of power.

Celebrity names are commonplace on mass-market brands: The Kardashian sisters, Venus Williams, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, Avril Lavigne, Daisy Fuentes, Heidi Klum and reality stars Whitney Port and Lauren Conrad each have department-store brands.

But a handful have also become serious fashion forces. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are among the most imitated - or sincerely flattered - United States (US) designers for their brand The Row, and this year were named top womenswear designers by the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Victoria Beckham's previews are among the week's most hotly anticipated, and paparazzi-free.