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02.08.2010
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By Tom Fitzgerald & Lorenzo Marquez; Photographs by Fadel Barisha
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TALKING TO ROBERT VERDI IS like riding a roller coaster: mostly, you just strap yourself in and hold on tight. A fixture on fashion, home design and entertainment television for a decade, Verdi has already carved out a singular career for himself; but as he prepares to put himself in the spotlight in a whole new way with the launch of The Robert Verdi Show on LOGO,we sat down, kept our hands and objects inside
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the car and held on
while he took us on a high speed ride through his life, his career and
his hopes for the future.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in a little town in New Jersey called Maplewood, which is kind of like [Dr. Seuss’s] Whoville: a little sort of enclave.
So what made little Robert Verdi from Maplewood want to become a lifestyle expert?
I was kind of a hustler my whole life. I was pretty much selling everything I could get my hands on. In first grade, at the top of the school year, my mom would buy me construction paper and crayons and pencils, and I would inevitably do something to change them and make them more fabulous: I would get ribbon and tie three crayons together and sell them as three-crayon sets with colors that I thought went well together.
Because lemonade stands are so unfabulous.
My first grade teacher at the parent-teacher conference said, “You should just take him out of school and let him open a store.”
Did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up?
I think it was always to be a jewelry designer ... to have created a modern jewelry house, like a modern-day Harry Winston or Cartier.
Yet your career has gone in so many other directions–– from fashion commentary to home design to celebrity styling to appearing as a TV personality.
I would never have done anything if I really knew what it took to do what I’ve done. ...It’s not like you’re selling, say, a tie at Bergdorf Goodman, and someone says “Oh, I don’t like polka dot ties.” You’re the polka dot tie. That’s why I say that being naïve going into entertainment was actually good because nobody would really walk right in with their eyes wide open and want to be kind of punched in the stomach and punched in the face every few minutes.
Then how did you get into television anyway?
I wanted to change the face of television for gay men. One of the shows
I watched was called Party Talk, which was kind of like a gay Access
Hollywood. ...Lauren Ezersky was reporting on Party Talk on men’s
fashion, and I called the executive producer and I said, “I think it’s
really strange that you have a straight woman reporting about men’s
fashion to a gay audience when gay men are so prevalent in fashion and
not prevalent in television...” And he said, “Could you do better?” And
I said, “Sure!” And he said, “Send me your reel,” and I said, “My real
what?” But I ended up working for them for the next three years.
How did you make the leap into home design from fashion?
When I moved to New York, I was ambushing designers at trunk
shows: Isaac Mizrahi, Randolph Duke, Marc Jacobs, and trying to create
a partnership where I would create the jewelry for their shows. None of
them ever hired me. ... I’d been in New York for months, I didn’t have
a job and I had to have something to keep me going.So I applied to
Bergdorf Goodman, Barney’s, and ABC Carpet and Home. They all offered
me a job. ... Anyplace where they sold men’s clothing, ... I knew I’d
leave my whole paycheck there. So I decided to work at ABC Home because
I had a studio apartment, and what was I gonna buy?
So I’m in ABC Carpet and Home on a Saturday and Sandra Bernhard
comes in, and she was like, “Honey, do you work here?” And I said
“Yeah.” She said, “Great. Come over and fix my place up. I need it to
look like Morocco.” And I was like, “Why don’t I refer you to a
decorator?” And she said, “No, no, no, honey. I don’t need a decorator.
I need you to do this.” And she was really adamant and really funny,
and so I said, “Okay, let me come look at the apartment.” I really just
wanted to see Sandra Bernhard’s apartment.
Lo and behold, I go there, and she and I just really hit it off,
and I took the job and I did it. So she ended up introducing me to a
lot of people, like Courtney Love, and I started doing apartments.
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And how did you get into celebrity styling?
I was on the set of Desperate Housewives
because I was shooting a segment series for E! called “Inside the
Wardrobe Closets of Our Favorite TV Shows.” ... I walk on the set, and
Eva Longoria was in a scene. They yell “Cut!” and she glances over at
me, screams, runs over and literally jumps in my arms. She said, “I
always thought you’d make the best gay friend.” And I said, “Oh, great!
I have no idea who the f**k you are.”
Okay, I didn’t really
say that. I said, “Listen, let me give you some unsolicited advice. I
work in fashion back in New York City. When you’re ready to roll out on
to the red carpet, call me and I’ll introduce you to some designers
because I don’t think you should just wear the same old LA designers.”
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We found all the gowns for her to wear that entire season, from
the Emmys to the Globes to the Grammys. We ended up having up such
great results that she called me again and she was like, “I want to do
more. I’m going to Cannes. What should I wear?” So it ended up being a
new part of my business. Again, word of mouth, and I wind up styling
everyone from Kristen Wiig, Kathy Griffin, Hugh Jackman, Terrence
Howard and Fantasia.
Now you've reached the point in your career where you have your name in the title:
The Robert Verdi Show airing on LOGO.
It’s kind of the Spinal Tap
of reality shows. I think we make fun of the reality show genre a
little and [I] poke fun at myself. I often wonder if people will take
it seriously, but everything in there is born of a real situation
that’s exaggerated...
What else do you have planned?
I’m planning my own funeral because I want to know what everyone’s
going to be wearing. That would be the one day that I do care about
what everyone’s wearing. And I’m casting the front row.
What [else] am I planning? Kind of everything. I’m working on a
fine jewelry line right now. I want to do a skin care line because ...
I’m obsessed with skin. I’m working on an info-tainment website where
it’s all informational and lifestyle and it would be a portal, with
fashion and home design, and it links to all of the things I do
together.
So are you going to be gay Oprah or gay Martha Stewart?
From your mouth to God’s ears. Yes, that would be a dream come true.
If there's gonna be a gay Oprah...
I don’t know that it’ll be me. I see [nowadays] that there are a lot more unique gay characters on TV. We’re no longer in the ghetto of hairdresser/makeup artist/party planner/fashion expert/home design. People didn’t perceive that gay men have opinions on politics, education, healthcare reform or the elderly. Television has defined us — and it does this to absolutely everybody — so that we have to live within the parameters of some certain limitation in order to explain to the viewer who we are. But [culture portrays gay men as] these queeny minstrels, which is a line I’m always trying to break. ... We’re more than just, “Put this icing on this cake and you’ll have a great time!”
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But isn't your career based on those, what you call "minstrel show" roles of design and style?
I’ve built a world around these things because they’re things that are important to me in my own life. I care about how my home is decorated; I care about what I’m wearing; I care about what plates I use on Thanksgiving or whether there are fingerprints on the wine glasses because I would be grossed out if I had a dinner party and there were greasy fingerprints
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on the wine glasses. So those things are important to me and I’m fine sharing them with the
world. I think the perception of me is that I go around judging people
about how they live — and I don’t. If people want to serve their meals
on paper plates, that’s great. I’m not telling people how to live; I’m
telling them how I like to live.
Enjoying Tom and Lorenzo's chat with Robert Verdi?
Read on for more from their conversation - exclusively here on Metrosource.com!
TOM AND LORENZO:
Did you have dreams of growing up to critique fashion on television?
ROBERT VERDI:
I did not have cable TV growing up. I grew up at the founding of the MTV generation without MTV. So I move into my apartment in New York, and I needed to get cable because obviously with all the buildings you can’t get reception in New York. I was not working because I was trying to get my jewelry business started, and I found these gay-centric shows that were riveting to me. It was the first time there was a mirror of me on television. For most of America, there’s someone like them on television, and for me there was never anybody on television like me. So I ended up pushing my way into television, and I used what I had — which was a passion for fashion — but my passion wasn’t about dressing up other people; I just liked getting dressed up, and I liked fashion. I don’t really care what anybody else is wearing. People think I do, but I don’t. That’s been imposed on me. I don’t care what you’re wearing; it doesn’t affect me. People have made it seem like I care what Madonna is wearing or what J Lo wore on the red carpet, when in reality I don’t give a s**t.
TOM AND LORENZO:
But you do a lot of red carpet commentary.
ROBERT VERDI:
I do, but I still don’t care. I’m more interested in how it affects business, how it affects things like social psychology, how it evolves and how fashion helps shift the social structure. So many psychological aspects of society are influenced by fashion. That’s more interesting to me than whether red is a “hot color.”
TOM AND LORENZO:
What fascinates you about fashion?
ROBERT VERDI:
What fascinates me are those aspects of fashion that shift cultural norms. Here’s an example: the 1950s, young girls started wearing the poodle skirt, the circle skirt, which became very popular, Grace Kelly wore them and they were very in vogue. At that moment in history, American families were all acquiring automobiles and it gave young folks an opportunity to get away from their parents’ homes and there’s only one reason for a 16- or 17-year-old to want to get away from their parents’ homes; to have sex. They didn’t have a place to go, so they were all having sex in automobiles. Teen pregnancy rose dramatically in the fifties and it was partly because teen girls wanted to wear poodle skirts and they were easy to get up when you’re in a car. That’s an example of a social situation that shifted a fashion trend that fascinates me because it’s all so interwoven. Today, as an example -- I think you guys are about my age – when you were growing up, did you have clothes that you only wore on Sundays?
TOM AND LORENZO:
Oh, yeah. “Church clothes.”
ROBERT VERDI:
So did I. You went to church on Sundays and there were always the little girls that were like Nellie Olson on Little House. They always had the fanciest dresses. Then there were other girls like the Ingalls; they were always wearing the shabby linen things. The same dress every week. That girl that always had the nice new dresses, her father was always some local merchant or real estate developer or something like that. The point is, you always knew who she was and why she had such nice dresses. Fashion was classist and it actually revealed a lot more about you than it does today because today you can live in a Section 8 housing project and have Jimmy Choo boots and a Gucci bag. Fashion is no longer an honest representation of who you are; now it tells people who you want to be.
TOM AND LORENZO:
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
ROBERT VERDI:
I think it’s good. I think it allows people to create experiences for themselves that they wouldn’t otherwise have. I certainly falsified myself into the world. I played the role. I came from a very modest background and spent everything to look the part, and I eventually became it.
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