Flamboyant fashion designer Betsey Johnson charms fans in New Orleans

Betsey Johnson is adorable. The flamboyant fashion queen appeared at Dillard’s in Lakeside mall Saturday (June 22), to the delight of hundreds of fans that packed the ground floor of the department store. Johnson has made a 35-year career of creating happily hectic clothing and accessory designs that run 180 degrees counter to the notion of a conservative working woman’s wardrobe.

Fortunes were unkind to Johnson in 2012, when she was reportedly forced to declare bankruptcy in the wake of the nationwide economic belly flop. Her former fashion empire may have come apart at the seams, but she’s quickly stitched together a comeback and, judging by the crowd at Dillard’s, her fans are eager to help her re-attain former glory.

Johnson’s public persona falls somewhere between the ideal doting grandmother – she proudly showed the crowd a pink heart drawn by one of her grandchildren to celebrate the occasion -- and Keith Richards.

Flamboyant fashion designer Betsey Johnson rocks New OrleansWatch as acclaimed clothing and accessory designer Betsey Johnson discusses the fun side of fashion as she thrills fans at Dillard’s department store at the Lakeside shopping center in New Orleans (on Saturday, June 22), with special appearances by television personality Micah Jesse and DJ Kalkutta.

Disco music, perfume and electric anticipation wafted through the air as Johnson descended the escalator behind a uniformed security guard. She tossed handfuls of pink rose petals as she wound through the throng of her adorers. Her appearance was charmingly chaotic. Her cascade of blonde hair was totally untamed. Her arms clattered with a moving mosaic of bracelets and baubles. Her pants were ventilated with ragged slits at the thighs. Her eyes glittered with chrome eyelashes that matched her chrome tennis shoes. Her shoelaces were fluorescent yellow, her lipstick was scarlet and abundant, and her low-slung tutu was magenta. She was a lithe, 70-yer-old pop culture pixie, dancing down the aisle with a custom-made black and pink second line umbrella.

When she took the microphone to address the crowd, she was meltingly gracious.

“What a trip,” she said. “Thank you guys. Thank you so, so, so, so, so much. I meeeeean, I don’t want to die and go to heaven, but this is the closest thing to it. Dillard’s, thank you so, so, so, so much. They made me this umbrella for today. I love this store; they buy all my stuff …”

Truth is, she used a more colorful word that stuff.

Fashion designer Betsey JohnsonDoug MacCash / NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Before her appearance, I got to talk with Johnson in a dressing room near the gift-wrapping department. The pink roses still had their petals attached at that point. Champagne was served. She slumped in a black leather chair, with one leg draped elastically over an arm – I’ve read that she cartwheels on the runway at the end of fashion shows.

She was a hoot.

Reflecting on her formative period in the 1960s and 70s, she said it’s really no big deal that she used iconoclastic icon Edie Sedgwick as her number one model or that she got to know Andy Warhol, or that the Velvet Underground asked her to design their clothes. That’s just what happened when you hung out at the Chelsea Hotel and Max’s Kansas City nightclub-restaurant back then. The master pop artist only spoke to her once or twice, she recalled. “Hi Betsey,” he said. “You look good.”

"I like color and little things to look at all the time" -- Betsey Johnson

“Andy was a man of few words,” she said.

I’ve since read that Johnson was briefly married to Velvet Underground member John Cale.

Johnson said she loves New Orleans. The stops on her tour sort of blend together, she said, but the Crescent City is distinct. Considering our penchant for costuming, she said she could live here.

So, what’s the difference between costuming and fashion?

“For me, not much,” she answered. “… because I really come from being a dancer, performer, costumed ‘til the cows come home. I think costuming requires more chutzpah, talent and occasion. I mean, you kind of need Mardi Gras to justify yourself, right?”

Cyndi Lauper – known for her upbeat eccentric wardrobe – was the entertainment at Johnson’s 70th birthday bash. So I asked Johnson if, fashion wise, girls really do just wanna have fun?

“She is and was my kind of gal,” Johnson said of Lauper, “and she really helped my little fashion mission, whatever. She was just like, ‘Entertain yourself,’ right? That’s number one to me. Have fun with it and play around, and she showed that in her words, in the song and the way she looked. She was about just having fun with it. And the way to have fun is to entertain yourself with your clothes and with your gadgets (she was referring to jewelry). I like color and little things to look at all the time.”

Johnson and her daughter Lulu are the focuses of a Style Network reality television show titled “XOX Betsey Johnson.”

I asked Johnson where the reality leaves off and the television begins – or visa versa?

“It’s all one mush,” she said. “I don’t think there is a beginning or an end.”

Johnson said she’d lost her cell phone a day or two previously, which made her aware of how mechanical and inter connected the world has become. That digital universe has become reality, in part, she said. 

The payoff for Johnson fans Saturday was the chance to have their photos taken with the designer. Anyone who made a purchase was entitled to a moment on the couch with Johnson, who hugged and held hands with practically everyone as the flashes popped. She sang happy birthday to one lucky devotee. One woman screamed disconcertingly with excitement as she approached Johnson. My daughter, who was keeping me company, said that she saw a woman so overwhelmed by the experience that tears flowed down her face.

The article is from http://www.nola.com/fashion/index.ssf/2013/06/flamboyant_fashion_designer_be.html