Who

The ice skater-turned-club kid-turned-fashion phenom founded trash-chic clothing label Heatherette with Traver Rains, and now has solo lines of clothing and shoes.

Backstory

Richie Rich, of course, isn't his real name: Once upon a time, the Northern California native was known as Richard J. Eichhorn. According to Richie, he was just two when he first took up ice skating and went on to train with Kristi Yamaguchi, becoming the 12th ranked skater in the U.S. before touring the world with the Ice Capades. (Sadly, the records of his extraordinary accomplishments on the ice seem to have been lost to history.) But wherever he was in his teenage years, by the early '90s Richie had emerged as a promoter on the San Francisco club scene and later decamped to New York, where he joined Michael Alig's merry band of scenesters, promoting parties at venues like the Limelight and befriending other club fixtures like Amanda Lepore, James St. James, and Kenny Kenny.

Following the scene's demise—Alig, of course, went to prison for killing a drug dealer and Limelight owner Peter Gatien lost possession of the club amid charges of drug dealing and tax evasion—Rich started promoting parties for nightlife veteran Susanne Bartsch. He also started putting his energies into fashion, forming Heatherette with his then-boyfriend, former rodeo cowboy Traver Rains, whom he'd met through Bartsch. (Rains was Barsch's son's riding instructor.) The label caught a break in 1999 when one of Patricia Field's buyers, Sushi, spotted Rich wearing an appliquéd Heatherette top and ordered 20 on the spot. After Foxy Brown saw the tops in the store, she asked Rains and Rich to design her outfit for the MTV Video Music Awards. Heatherette soon bagged a slew of celebrity clients including Lil' Kim, Gwen Stefani, and Britney Spears, as well as initial financing from Diandra Douglas, the ex-wife of actor Michael Douglas, and fawning attention from David LaChapelle, who featured their clothing in print and on video.

Of note

Heatherette's ultra-kitsch Barbie-on-ecstasy clothes ("It's what's on the outside that counts!") attracted publicity from the get-go, mostly thanks to wild runway shows featuring the likes of Anna Nicole Smith and tranny muse Amanda Lepore. That the fashion press didn't take the label very seriously hardly seemed to matter. Rich and Rains created one of Fashion Week's most popular spectacles and their shows invariably attracted a long list of outré celebs like Kimora Lee Simmons, Kelis, Paris Hilton, Lydia Hearst, and Kelly Osbourne.

In 2005, Heatherette landed its first major backers when FUBU owners Norman and Bruce Weisfeld invested $6 million in the label. The deal helped Rich and Rains expand to new retailers, but ultimately led to the label's demise, when the Weisfelds backed out of the Heatherette deal and Rich and Rains parted ways. Since then, Rich has gone on to design a clothing line for the mall-punk chain Hot Topic and a shoe line, Rox and Riley. He's also come out with a high-end solo collection, which debuted at New York Fashion Week in February 2009.

On the side

Richie is keeping plenty busy. As well as releasing an album, Celebutante, in November '08, he was picked to be the new face of MAC and appeared in a series of ads modeling a "hot pink" collection. He says he's opening a bar with Jenna Jameson and planning to write a book, too.

Personal

Richie has a longtime boyfriend named Joe Korniewicz and lives in the East Village.