Atlanta's Andre 3000 Style Icon

His budget is bigger. His raw materials have improved. His aesthetic isn't quite so street. But Benjamin Bixby, the name of Benjamin's new clothing line, is definitely the musician-actor-designer's twisted take on American classic clothing.

Not twisted sick, but twisted in the way that only a man who wears jodhpurs and riding boots with no horse in sight can put a spin on things.

"I wanted to do classic clothing with an edge to it, and I think that's what Benjamin Bixby is," Benjamin said during a recent appearance at Neiman Marcus, where the collection is sold. The line is also carried at Barneys CO-OP in Phipps Plaza and has been picked up by stores including Colette Paris, Harrods of London and Holt Renfrew in Canada.

To get inspiration for his collection, Benjamin dug deep into Americana archives until he reached 1930s college football. The modern translation is polo shirts emblazoned with a giant X, a brown leather varsity bomber jacket, oxford shirts with a hot-air balloon emblem, classic khaki pants and accessories ranging from striped knit ties to newsboy caps. The pieces have the tailored look of traditional menswear in fabrics such as tweed, corduroy, cashmere and ... is that a floor-length fake fur? (Yes, but for display purposes only. It's not part of the collection.)

This isn't Benjamin's first foray into fashion. Around the time he designed those tartan pants in OutKast's "Hey Ya!" video with material sourced from local fabric stores, an investor came along to fund a clothing line. It went something like this ...

Benjamin: "Why don't we do this?"

Investor: "Nah, with FUBU [a popular urban clothing company], that's the look right now, so why don't we just do it?"

Benjamin: "We don't want to just look like FUBU."

End of conversation.

"I guess when they are putting up all the money, you don't have any say," Benjamin now realizes.

Lesson learned.

His latest venture is self-funded, though he is in talks with potential investors. The catch to being the boss means having to do it all, and fashion was something Benjamin knew little about in much the same way he knew little about the business of music or acting before he got involved in those industries.

"Everything that I'm a part of, it's the same," Benjamin said. "I didn't know what I was getting into with music. It was just me and Big Boi like, 'Hey, let's write some lyrics and start making these songs.'"

We know what happened with that little experiment.

Still, with fashion, had Benjamin known better, he might have scaled things down and focused on four or five categories instead of a full collection. "I was trying to make a whole collection that would be in your closet, not knowing that you have to track down every piece in a different factory. It's kind of difficult," he acknowledged.

It didn't help that Benjamin's fashion terminology was weak. A placket to him was "the front part of the shirt when you button it up." Fortunately, all those years drawing comic book characters as a child gave him the skills to sketch the duffle coats and the green felted vests swimming in his head.

Despite his hands-on involvement with the brand, Benjamin is subjected to the collective fashion biz groan reserved for yet another musician-turned-actor who wants to play clothing designer. While that reaction makes him feel like something of an outsider in the industry, it has also made him more determined to build a line that will stand up under scrutiny.

After all, he's a trendsetter who had everyone in his neighborhood wearing turbans when he slapped one on to get through the grim stage of growing dreadlocks. And he was the only man during the Neiman Marcus appearance wearing a wide brim fedora and cuffed jeans.

When hasn't he felt like a fashion outsider? Or at least dressed like one?

For sure, the average guy won't reach for the plus fours — the just-below-the-knee trousers most commonly seen on the golf course that are part of the Benjamin Bixby fall lineup — and Benjamin says he's OK with that. He offers traditional flat fronts in the same tweed for the guy who isn't quite ready to go there with short pants.

On the flip side, he also doesn't expect to see too many André 3000 clones trolling the globe. The Benjamin Bixby guy, he says, is one who gets dressed because he loves clothes.

A guy who puts outfits together as if he were making art.

The kind of guy who might instinctively take a razor blade and drugstore dye to a pair of jeans, just to make them his own.

"Everything that I'm a part of, it's the same. I didn't know what I was getting into with music. It was just me and Big Boi like, 'Hey, let's write some lyrics and start making these songs.' "

ANDRÉ BENJAMIN