Fashion Designers, As Seen on TV
Two weeks ago marked the date that Andy Warhol, in one of his many 15 minutes of fame, made a guest appearance on The Love Boat. On the episode that aired October 12, 1985, a midwestern housewife fears that Andy, played by Andy, will tell her husband her secret past as a Warhol Superstar. We would have loved to have properly commemorated that show, but Warhol on The Love Boat has become a fabled lost episode, one so hidden that we would wonder if it had ever really existed—if it wasn’t for a screen shot captured from someone’s YouTube video that was here and gone in a fleeting Internet minute. While I’m dying to see Andy on The Love Boat again (I surely saw it as a kid and just didn’t know it at the time), the episode got us thinking about people in fashion crossing over to appearing, and even acting, on TV—to varying degrees of success. And once we started researching, we were surprised at how many there were. Paco Rabanne on I’ve Got a Secret, Isaac Mizrahi on Fame, Edith Head on Columbo and Giorgio Armani, Jean Paul Gaultier and Paco Rabanne appearing on a Spanish series called Corazón, Corazón. Read on for a video list of our favorite designer appearances and let us know which ones we missed.
YVES SAINT LAURENT ON WHAT’S MY LINE, 1965
He says little more than “yes” and “no” as the panel tries to figure out who he is and he tries to figure out what the heck all these goofy Americans are even talking about, but Yves does it so sweetly, it charms. our. socks. off. Then when he finally utters a whole sentence, “Je suis enchanté de vous voir” (I’m happy to meet you), we just want to wrap him up, take him home and feed him glass after glass of warm milk. Incidentally, What’s My Line was way fashion friendly, also featuring the likes of designers Elsa Schiaparelli and Oleg Cassini, longtime Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown and model Suzy Parker.
SEAN “P. DIDDY” COMBS ON CSI MIAMI, 2009
Okay, so he’s more of a musician than a designer but Diddy’s Sean John label is a CFDA Award winner, and there’s no denying his ties to the industry. Combs admitted that he was a disaster on the set the first day of filming his multi-episode bit as a kinda-shady attorney on CSI Miami. He struggled to get his lines and said he was intimidated by “all the technical stuff.” When asked what he did to prepare for the role, he sheepishly said he just paid attention at his own trials. Thankfully, his part only lasted two episodes, so he could go back to being a fashion designer or rap mogul or whatever it is he does or does not do best.
JEREMY SCOTT ON THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, JULY 2010
It wasn’t too much of a stretch for Scott, who dresses Madonna, Lady Gaga and, as he points out on the show, Miss Piggy, to play the role of, yup, a designer on a daytime soap. But as we’re discovering, designers come off better on game shows where they get to just ad lib and be their fabulous selves rather than when they have lines to remember. The acting in this episode reminds me of watching a high school play (even more so than soaps usually do), but Scott gets at least a three-shoe rating from us just for showing up in that glorious matador jacket.
JEAN PAUL GAULTIER ON ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS, 2003
JPG gets to be his charming self as a guest star on this episode of the popular British sitcom—in which Twiggy, Christian Lacroix and Zandra Rhodes have also guest-starred—in which Patsy and Edina have slyly booked Edina’s baby granddaughter for a fashion shoot at the zoo. All Gaultier really has to do is react to the hilarious antics of the two immature, chain-smoking, alcoholic old ladies, which isn’t hard to do. Apparently even to someone in the fashion world, their behavior is cringe-worthy. We don’t get as much of the silver-haired French fox as we’d like, but we don’t mind the laughs you have to sit through to get to him.
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2 Responses to “Fashion Designers, As Seen on TV”
I love YSL in this clip!
I just learned that the Love Boat had an entire fashion designer themed episode during its 5th season called—what else?—The Fashion Show, that included Geoffrey Beene, Halston, Bob Mackie and Gloria Vanderbilt! It aired 10/3/81. How do I not know these things? I’ve seen EVERY episode (though granted it’s been 1,000 years).
Here’s the episode summary:
A married pair of model agency owners clash; one of their models has captured the captain’s eye; Julie becomes a showstopper when she models in place of her beautiful model friend who has fallen in love; a cosmetics king searches for a unique woman to represent his new product; the daughter of a clothing manufacturer loses his latest line with the help of the man she loves.
Naturally, this season is not available on DVD. Sigh…