Fashion & Beauty

Diddy’s personal shopper dishes on his fetish for ‘happy socks’

Personal shopper Derek Roche was in France last year for the Cannes Film Festival with his boss, Sean “Diddy” Combs.

The day before the screening of “Killing Them Softly,” Diddy decided to fly out the singer Cassie to accompany him to the event. Roche was responsible for putting together the perfect look for her at the last minute.

Roche brought along 35 tuxedos for Combs’ trip to Cannes in May, since the celeb wanted a new look for each event. But when it came time for the “Killing Them Softly” screening, Combs had a particular white tux jacket in mind — and none of the shades of cream that Roche had picked fit the bill. The rapper wanted a whiter white, so the two men set out on a last-minute shopping spree and ultimately came up with the Brioni jacket pictured.WireImage

And Combs is very particular — even about how his dates are dressed.

After Roche called in a favor with his publicist friend at Roberto Cavalli, Combs, Cassie and the shopper went to the Cannes showroom.

None of the cocktail dresses the publicist pulled suited Combs. The hip-hop mogul demanded to see the best in the collection — the seven-figure, elaborate, full-length gowns.

“Where the real dresses at?” Combs asked.

The frazzled flack took them to the secret vault — where the haute couture pieces being held for actresses attending the festival are kept. That was where Diddy found two gowns — a sexy black one and a daring gold number — that he wanted to see Cassie model.

“But that one is reserved,” the publicist said apprehensively, referring to the $50,000 black dress. “We can’t give you that one.”

“Get Roberto on the phone,” Combs snapped.

The designer gave Combs the green light to take both gowns — and Cassie later wowed the red carpet in the dramatic, tight, textured black one.

“At the time, I was about to have a nervous breakdown,” Roche, who also shops for Nicki Minaj, Kobe Bryant and Ne-Yo, tells The Post. “But I’m being paid to get the best of the best for my client.”

“Mr. Combs is Mr. Combs, and he isn’t used to hearing ‘no,’ ” he adds. “He is the one who tests my limits and boundaries.”

Welcome to the surprisingly stressful world of personal shopping.

“Ne-Yo’s signature piece is his hat,” Roche says of the crooner with the receding hairline. The singer demands an impeccable fit and a short brim, so the camera can still catch his eyes. For Jennifer Hudson’s “Think Like a Man” music video earlier this year (left), Roche brought dozens of hats, but none worked. He finally found this perfect pork-pie look at JJ Hat Center on Fifth Avenue, where he had an assistant snap a photo of it before having it FedExed to LA.

Lifetime’s new series, “Million Dollar Shoppers,” which airs tonight, follows Roche, 31, and fellow New York-based shoppers Barbet Smith, 47, and Amy Salinger, 34, as they deal with their dramatic city clients.

In the premiere, we see Smith dealing with Stacey Garson, a New Jersey stay-at-home mom looking for an outfit to wear to her daughter’s bat mitzvah. The catch? The kid gets final approval over Mom’s dress.

That drama was small potatoes compared to one outrageous Upper East Side client Smith worked for a few years ago.

“There was one woman — I had to sign a confidentiality agreement, so I can’t divulge the socialite — I did her soup to nuts. Her money was new to her. It was exciting, but she didn’t know what to do with it,” Smith tells The Post.

Sean Combs wanted to dress to theme at this September 2010 concert in Glasgow, Scotland. So Roche set out to find the perfect, authentic kilt from a local man who custom-makes them, then paired it with Givenchy boots, a couple of diamond cross chains and Combs’ signature fitted Yankees hat. “You want to know a secret? He’s not wearing any underwear under that kilt,” Roche reveals. “If you look at the video, I’m turning my head because I didn’t want to see his manhood. I love my clients and all, but that’s too much . . .”Getty Images

“I did her house — auction, silver, paintings. Then we hit Valentino, then Dennis Basso and furs. I did her Christmas shopping. We got pots and pans [for] her personal chef. And then I bought her a car at BMW on the way home on Park Ave.”

Smith spent nearly half-a-million dollars of that high roller’s dough.

But you need to be more than handy with a credit card to make it in the competitive field. Some shoppers have years of fashion experience behind them. Roche has worked for Patricia Field (the “Sex and the City” stylist), Ralph Lauren and Condé Nast. And Salinger got her start styling for Oprah Winfrey’s show and TLC’s “What Not To Wear.”

While some personal shoppers are also stylists, there is a difference. Shoppers go to stores on their client’s behalf and edit down choices for them; a stylist helps create a client’s image.

While Smith, who got her start shopping for wealthy pals on Long Island, sometimes gets an hourly fee for her troubles, the economics vary widely. Some shoppers charge the client a percentage of their total purchases, usually about 10 percent, while others are paid a retainer fee to be at the client’s beck and call for a period of time. According to Forbes, in-demand personal shoppers can rake in an annual salary of $100,000 or more.

Smith, an impeccably put-together brunette, explains that the first step to booking a gig is dressing the part.

“It’s a visual thing,” she says. “As a shopper, you put your best pump forward, always.”

Much of the business, though, is referral-based.

“Rich people like talking to rich people, and my clients are walking billboards,” says Salinger.

She says it can be stomachturning to see how blasé the filthy rich are about their designer duds: “Some people have so much clothing that they don’t even understand what they have,” says Salinger. “I’ll walk in and see a Dolce & Gabbana shirt that costs $900 scrunched up on the floor. To that person, money is just some green paper that you throw around.”

Personal shopping isn’t all BMWs and Gabbana, though. Roche says he’s in charge of even the most mundane purchases for his main client, Combs.

“Mr. Combs loves his ‘happy socks’ — fun designs from Paul Smith or Rob Kardashian,” he says. “We labeled them ‘happy socks’ because they just make him feel good — it could be polka dots, it could be stripes or lightning bolts.

“I’ve [bought] everything from compression shorts for the gym to Ralph Lauren boxer briefs.”

Roche says he’s never bored. But pleasing celebrity clients who want everything five minutes ago is certainly a challenge.

“That ‘Devil Wears Prada’ thing — it’s real life,” he says. “People look at it for entertainment, but it is real!”