French fashion brand Ungaro taps Lindsay Lohan as part of new design team

Lindsay Lohan joins Ungaro as artistic adviser

NEW YORK — Lindsay Lohan’s high-fashion shopping habits are well documented — and now she’s putting that to work: The house of Emanuel Ungaro has hired her as artistic adviser.

The French fashion line is pairing Lohan with a new designer — Estrella Archs, formerly of Prada, Emilio Pucci and Nina Ricci — for what it’s calling a new consumer-led business model.

“A designer only-led fashion house isn’t enough, so we’re adding a super consumer who gives us a direct channel to consumers,” said Ungaro CEO and president Mounir Moufarrige.

Lohan, in a phone interview from a hotel where she said she was trying to organize her outfits, acknowledged she is a clotheshorse. “My house is like a three-story closet.”

Moufarrige visited Lohan at her Los Angeles home — and concurred. “You have to sit on the floor because the settees, chairs and tables are covered with clothes and accessories.”

So far, Lohan said her role as adviser has included combing through her wardrobe and putting together several head-to-toe looks so Moufarrige and Archs could get a sense of her style. Lohan, who already sells her own line of leggings called 6126, also offered her own sketches.

“It’s a team effort,” she said.

Archs said she is enjoying the collaboration and is fascinated by the “Hollywood type” actresses and musicians Lohan surrounds herself with. She described their partnership as “two women talking about fashion — it’s very interesting and dynamic.”

Meanwhile, Moufarrige said Lohan will give an “electric shock” to a label that has aged along with its customers.

He said he isn’t concerned about the attention Lohan gets in the tabloids, noting that she also has been on the cover of many major fashion magazines. “I don’t know any celebrities who doesn’t have controversy,” he said. “You look at Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich. Ungaro was controversial himself, he said he dressed women to seduce men.”

The first joint Lohan-Archs collection will debut during Paris Fashion Week on Oct. 4, but Lohan has already started wearing some of the pieces. A Grecian, one-shoulder blue dress she wore recently is the perfect balance of sexiness and comfort, she said.

While she wants the clothes to be well received, Lohan said she can’t be too worried about what everyone else thinks: “Putting too much pressure on yourself when there’s enough already takes the fun out of it.”