As we know, Jessica Simpson is a clothing, shoe and handbag mogul. She’s now taken to talking about her business, and her relationship, instead of going on about her bodily functions and hygiene. It’s a better media strategy to say the least. Soon-to-be mummy Jess covers the most recent issue of Lucky Mag. The interviewer met with her at her office, and they paint a picture of a thoughtful but goofy woman running a multi-million dollar business. It’s a nice turnaround for her. In Lucky, Jess talks about her weight gain being an issue in the tabloids, and says that being an average size helped her brand and earned her compliments from fans. She also said she’s “still confident” no matter her size. It’s a nice message actually.

When she started dating Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and gained some happiness weight, she was cruelly mocked by the press after she was shot in high-waisted jeans onstage at a country music concert. Simpson’s size became a newsstand seller and the subject of running jokes in tabloids and blogs: “What happened to the hot chick from Newlyweds?” But everything seemed to shift when Simpson did the unthinkable: Instead of spending six hours a day on the Exercycle and going on a juice cleanse, she ditched that celebrity ideal and said, “I like the way I look.”

And did women respond. Her fans rallied around her on Internet message boards (“No matter what size Jessica Simpson is she is gorgeous!”) and on the street: “All kinds of women started coming up to me and saying what an example I was setting by not constantly dieting,” she tells me as we sit at a conference table in her airy, high-ceilinged showroom. People stopped seeing her as the ditzy blonde with the hot body, and instead Simpson became a real person with real, familiar struggles. “Everybody fluctuates, but I’m open about my weight and I’m still confident,” Jessica says. “I didn’t cry about it too much.”

Ironically, as her waist grew larger, both her life and her fashion business, which she launched in 2005, improved dramatically. “I got so much scrutiny for putting on extra pounds, but I think that the decision not to make myself anorexic was actually great for branding,” she says. “Because when you’re really, really skinny, not everybody can relate to you.” All those supportive ladies, it seems, went out and bought what Simpson had to offer: affordable apparel in all styles. And all sizes. The Jessica Simpson Collection is now expected to bring in almost a billion dollars by the end of 2012. That is at least one zero more than most other celebrity fashion lines, and more than the GDP of Grenada.

Today, Simpson obviously enjoys her role as fashion mogul. “I love this green!” she says, touching a piece of fabric pinned to a board in her showroom. The walls are decorated with enormous, gorgeous photos of Simpson modeling the clothes she designed. Below them hang inspiration boards with photos ripped from magazines, along with actual pieces of hers—a floral-top bikini is pinned to one board, a pair of aquamarine shorts is tacked up to another, bangles sway on a third. “We should do a skirt like that,” she says, pointing to a photo of a model in a long denim skirt with a really high slit. As someone behind us takes notes, other people scurry past, opening Fed Ex shipments of fabric samples and scheduling a photo shoot involving a bathtub full of fake diamonds. Tina Simpson, Jessica’s mother, who is co–creative director of the collection, hovers in the distance. “I do the fun part,” Jessica tells me, “and I let them stress about the details.”
Simpson says her personal shopping habits have changed: “I’m more particular now because I know what things are costing the manufacturers. So I know when I’m getting ripped off!”

When I ask for specifics, she says, “Mom, what’s that itchy fabric that I hate?”

Tina, across the room, yells, “Well, you’re not a big fan of stretched satin!”

Jessica says, “Oh, gosh. But we sell so much of it!”

Tina holds up three bridesmaid-looking dresses in jewel tones. “We have a beautiful array of stretched satin,” she says. “And we sell the haboobie-joobies out of these things!” Everybody laughs.

[From Lucky]

So it sounds like Jessica’s mom is the brains of the operation. She couldn’t even remember the name of the fabric she hates. Meanwhile Jess says she’s in no hurry to get married at all. She told Lucky “When I got engaged, everyone thought I would get married immediately, but I have not put a single dress on, and by the time this comes out I will not be married! We’re just enjoying being engaged right now—and that’s honest.” Well that’s another smart decision on her part, whether she made it consciously or Eric is getting cold feet or whatever. We’ve heard up until now that it’s Jessica who is putting off the wedding after she learned that she was pregnant, and that her family doesn’t approve of freeloader Eric.

This interview was conducted before Jessica made an announcement about the pregnancy, and of potential babies and possibly slowing down her business she said “I feel like I do chill out, but I also want to keep this going. If it has my name on it, I want my stamp of approval to be on it. I want to keep my customers coming back. So it’s going to be important to me in these next years to stay focused on the collection.” So will Eric be a stay at home day while Jess runs her empire? I never quite saw her that way before.

Photos courtesy of Fame and Lucky magazine