PAGE 8
TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2013
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TELEVISION
Betsey Johnson stars in reality show
MCCLATCHY TRIBUNE
Designer Betsey Johnson heads up her own reality show, premiering on the Style Channel May 12.
MCCLATCHY TRIBUNE
PASADENA, Calif. — Fashion's perpetually childlike Betsey Johnson has known the dizzying peaks of popularity and the wretched valleys of despair. Yet the designer, who set fashion trends for more than 40 years, is rising again with her own reality show, "OXO Betsey Johnson," premiering May 12 on the Style Channel.
Known for her Pippi Longstocking hair, her over-the top designs and kooky vivacity. Johnson shares the camera with her daughter, Lulu, in an intimate look at her work and their mother-
daughter relationship.
Having overcome breast cancer, Johnson saw her empire — including 63 retail stores — slip into bankruptcy last year. But she remains
"... I was very excited about a reality show that would show — especially my fans — what I do in fashion."
unbowed as the creative director for her brand, specializing in accessories, swim wear, a dress collection and soon an aerobic line.
"I didn't ever want to do a reality show that came into my personal life because I need my separate, personal, alone downtime," she says, jangling five bracelets on each wrist and slipping on a crocheted sweater over her ruffled pink bustier and black pad pushers.
"But I was very excited about a realty show that would show — especially my fans — what I do in fashion. Then Lulu, in the last year, has been about the changes she's going through. We're both still in a very changing place and it's been a fascinating eight months of recording our lives."
And what a life she's had.
Johnson never wanted to be a fashion designer. "That was the last thing," she says, "because I grew up learning from my mother and the neighbor how to sew. I loved making things and sewing and arty-craftsy, Girl-Scout things ...
I never took a fashion course. It's the perfect category for me now because it involves showtime and arty stuff, and I've been designing prints and creating prints. That's very 'art school.' It was art and knowing how to sew and growing up in leotards in dancing school — costumes that fascinated me," she says.
The middle child of three from Connecticut, she admits that she was always a bit hyper. "You're born with different energies and whatever I've always had this good but bad drive. I don't love it. Because it's living in a world of kind of like panic and worry. Worry warts,
BETSEY JOHNSON Fashion Designer
everybody in Connecticut are worry warts. You want to be liked, so you worry. I'm a worrier, and I have a lot of energy and I like to do things. Lulu wakes up smoooood. I
wake up, 'OK, what am I going to do? Where am I going today?
'What is the duh, duh, duh?' So I wake up kind of anxious, in a way.
I love deadlines. I'm good with deadlines. When I was a little girl in dancing school I got the discipline part."
What she didn't get was the marriage part. Johnson, 70, has been married three times. Lulu's father was not one of them.
"I just was incredibly in love and optimistic and went for it. In terms of paperwork, my first husband, pssssst, he didn't care. It's over, it's over. My second and third, it was difficult. The third was really difficult because he was such a brain child. And the second one died. We met, we married and divorced in three months. My private life gets kind of mixed up. That's why my work comes along and directs me and saves me and grounds me and keeps me going."
In spite of her optimism, she does have regrets. "I wouldn't have had such a long-distance relationship with my last husband. Soon as we got married and lived together for three weeks, we were divorcing. We never got the opportunity to live together. I was in New York and he was a computer guy so he had his own company in London, then he was in Palo Alto, and he had ex-wives and the kids out there. And he loved San Francisco and I didn't."
Her career began when she won a design contest fostered by Mademoiselle Magazine. The win swept her to London.
"That was the summer of '64,
mods, rockers, Beatles, Rolling Stones. Everyone was just on the verge. The '60s came from London and it was just like spring beginning to pop. And Mary Quant and Biba. And the women at Mademoiselle were extraordinary, wonderful woman. I was there for my guest editorship and we stayed at the all-girls' — no men allowed — Barbizon Hotel. It was a whirlwind and we worked on the college issue.
"But I couldn't pay my rent. After the Barbizon I lived in a five-story walkup under the Brooklyn Bridge.
And I thought, 'What can I do to make more money?'
What she did was design a T-shirt made of crocheted material topped with a velvet ribbon. Everyone was surprised when mail orders began pouring in. "I had to go home every night and make four of them and on the weekend had to make 10 of them. After 300 yards of fabric, I was done... I liked doing that, then I realized maybe I'll do my four of five favorite T-shirts and T-shirt, flippy, mini things. I make a little drawing. It was very logical. Nothing brilliant."
NATIONAL
Obama jokes at banquet
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama joked Saturday that the years are catching up to him and he's not "the strapping young Muslim socialist" he used to be.
Obama poked fun at himself as well as some of his political adversaries during the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner attended by politicians, members of the media and Hollywood celebrities.
Entering to the rap track "All I Do Is Win" by DJ Khaled. Obama joked about how re-election would allow him to unleash a radical agenda. But then he showed a picture of himself golfing on a mock magazine cover of "Senior Leisure."
"I'm not the strapping young Muslim Socialist that I used to be," the president remarked, and then recounted his recent 2-for-22 basketball shooting performance at the White House Easter Egg hunt.
But Obama's most dramatic shift for the next four years appeared to be aesthetic. He presented a montage of shots featuring him with bangs similar to those sometimes sported by his wife.
"So we borrowed one of Michelle's tricks," Obama said. "I thought this looked pretty good, but no bounce."
Obama closed by noting the nation's recent tragedies in Massachusetts and Texas, praising Americans of all stripes from first responders to local journalists for serving the public good.
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