Oh thank gawd LuLu Johnson, layabout and moocher offer of mother and designer Betsey Johnson, is alright. She happened to be in LAX when a shooter started shooting, but don’t panic! She’s okay! Sort of. She needs help, people! I mean look at that carpeting she’s lying on, it’s what, negative twelve thread count? And I’ll bet the line at Starbucks is so long that her assistant won’t be back with her venti no foam skinny iced chai latte for at least a half hour. Won’t someone think of the (D-list) celebrities?

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Reprinted with permission from www.hautetalk.com

We’re back, I guess. It’s been a tumultuous week, but it looks like XOX Betsey Johnson will be on the Style Network Thursday at 8:30 p.m., at least for now. This is good, because Betsey is ramping up for her first show under the Madden brand—a retrospective that spans her entire ninety-year career. Brandon brings in models for a go-see. The models have to “bring the party to the guests.” Betsey and Brandon are giving bizarre instructions, with Betsey yelling, “More! More! More energy!” as the girls clomp around the workroom. Betsey then teaches one of the models how to strut and be sexy in a tough girl way which involves ungulating like a giraffe on steroids after a few cocktails that may or may not have been roofied. After More party, more bigger, more smiles, more hips, more sexy, own it rock it! More! More! the go-see is deemed a “complete disaster,” and Betsey and Brandon go in search of strippers.

Bestey has a personal appearance at Nordstrom in Los Angeles. It’s her first public appearance since her bankruptcy, and Betsey is not excited about it at all because she does not like Los Angeles. LuLu, on the other hand, is excited about going to Los Angeles on Betsey’s dime because she is meeting with a licensing agent. But LuLu refuses to share a hotel room with her mother because she’s not seventeen anymore. I’m not sure what’s different about an adult unable to support themselves and a seventeen-year-old, but whatever.

LuLu meets with her assistant, Ashley, to pick up Ashley’s sketches that showcase all of LuLu’s looks. LuLu deems it, “just the confidence boost I needed” for the trip to Los Angeles. The sketches are…cute? They’re teensy tiny and LuLu says they are the first thing a licensing agent needs to see to know that LuLu knows how to put together a collection. Which is funny, because LuLu didn’t do the sketches, even a little bit.

Oh gawd, Betsey has a rooster bag that I want. It’s a yellow leather bag with a rooster face on the front, and even though every cell in my body is telling me that it’s ugly, I still want it. Give. Me. That. Bag!!! LuLu is annoyed because Betsey stores some of her clothes in LuLu’s guest closet. Guest closets are not something that normal New Yorkers have, by the way. And, as a reminder, this is the apartment that Betsey purchased for LuLu. So technically, this is Betsey’s closet and everything else is really the guest quarters. Also, guest quarters are not something that normal New Yorkers have, either.

After arriving in Los Angeles, Betsey and LuLu, visit Betsey’s old store on Melrose Place and Betsey laments over how the neighborhood has changed. Yeah. That’s why you went out of business, the neighborhood changed. She claims “the litigators” told her that she couldn’t put a sign in the window thanking her customers. Erm, I happen to be a litigator (for reals, not kidding) and, yeah, I’m guessing that’s not exactly what they said. LuLu is strangely happy that the glory days of her mother’s retail stores came to an end because now they have a second chance. You do realize that Betsey filed for bankruptcy, which is not a happy occasion? And that it’s still not about you? I guess maybe LuLu’s glass is half full (of booze).

Betsey and LuLu wake up super early with raspy, cottonmouthy voices and full faces of make-up. They talk about how nervous they are for their respective days. Then, Betsey starts looking through boxes for her “lucky gold lame tutu dress” which apparently is just like an American Express card because Betsey never leaves home without it. She wears it for the Nordstrom event with her best blonde wig and biggest shiny baubles, and the Madden people arrange for hundreds of women to be at the store to greet Betsey. Aw. It’s a nice event and ends in a split.

Over at ACI Licensing, LuLu and Allison meet with The Other Andy Cohen who mentions his client Cynthia Rowley and nobody else recognizable. LuLu presents the logo and “line sheets” which look like doodles. Andy watches like a professor flipping through a student’s portfolio, and although LuLu tells him, “We personally love, like, vintagey colors?” Andy is not thrilled. Allison mentions Bloomingdales as a store she would like to have her products in, but stores like that with their fancy clothes and walls are of no use to Andy. Instead, he is all about QVC and HSN. And you can almost hear LuLu’s pride shrivel up into a tiny little raisin that doesn’t even have a chocolate coating.  Then, The Other Andy Cohen extinguishes the last shred of LuLu’s dignity and says, “The last thing somebody probably needs in the world is another pair of shoes and another sweater.”

With the meeting an unmitigated disaster, LuLu has to think fast. What does she have that nobody else has…what can LuLu Johnson offer to the fashion world…if only my mother was here to tell this Other Andy Cohen what a great designer LuLu hired with Betsey’s money….And then, with a deep breath, LuLu falls just short of snarling, Do you know who my mother is? while still keeping that, So you know who my mother is, right? vibe. The Other Andy Cohen nods his head and notes that LuLu comes from “a tremendous fashion heritage,” and promptly cuts Allison out of the picture by changing the company name to “LuLu Johnson.” Yeah. We hear you, The Other Andy Cohen. You’re going to use LuLu to glom onto the Betsey Johnson brand. Good on you, and goodbye, Allison. It was sort of maybe a little nice not really knowing you at all.

To add insult to injury, Betsey then convinces LuLu that Allison doesn’t really do anything, so it’s okay to cut her name out of the brand. And with that, the Johnsons head back to New York, where Betsey does an interview with Reuters (which she calls Rooters), about casting models for her fashion show.

Next week, the fashion show.

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Reprinted with permission from www.hautetalk.com

Betsey has a big meeting with Madden and Fashion Week on her mind, but she finds time to wander around Central Park. She approaches an artist street vendor and somehow it turns into Betsey drawing the vendor, where we learn that “caricatures are really hard….I never could shade….” The end result is whimsical, bordering on awful.

Betsey noisily arrives at Steve Madden and meets with Zina and Gabriella to go over the plans for Fashion Week. There are three components to the show: a retrospective; the Betsey Johnson branded accessories; and prom dresses. Betsey “needs” rose petals all over the floor, “with strippers and drag queens and trannies…elephants or robots.” Well, at least it’s elephants or robots. Then, Betsey insists upon hiring Poor Brandon, who previously let her know that he was on Hail Hiatus.

LuLu and her assistant, Ashley, meet so that Ashley can show LuLu the designs for LuLu’s line. In other words, LuLu doesn’t design her own clothes, even though “this is the first time I put myself out there as a designer.” You can tell from the dynamic that Ashley is being a teensy bit taken advantage of because of her age (uber young) and LuLu’s industry influence (an uber famous mother who happens to be an investor in LuLu’s company). But good for Ashley, she lets LuLu know that she is about to go over budget with the design revisions. We then learn that none of the twenty-five licensing agents LuLu contacted will work with her, so Ashley’s, er, I mean LuLu’s designs may never see the light of day.

I can only imagine how much money was dangled in front of Poor Brandon, because he decided to end Hail Hiatus and join the Betsey Johnson team. They meet in Betsey’s apartment, where she explains that they have ninety looks and four weeks. This is Brandon’s sixteenth show with Betsey, so he knows the drill. Betsey and Brandon visit their new workspace, which is huge and bright and clean. Betsey shows off her branded products, which are made from Betsey’s doodles. Yup, there’s the five dollar bill scarf, the bunny bag, and he straw hat from last week.

Later that day, Betsey receives her Amex bill, and there’s fifteen grand on there that LuLu needs to explain. Ah, youth. Specifically, youth that can’t seem to support themselves despite being given every advantage an opportunity in the world. And now Betsey’s kicking at LuLu’s door. She used her mother’s card to buy vintage clothing, fabrics, and everything else she needed to get her business together, but forgot to run it past her mother first. If you’re a grown adult with children and your mother is supporting your Upper East Side pilates-toned ass, you need to shut up and take your lumps instead of insisting that your behavior is normal and correct. But instead of, you know, getting a job, LuLu goes out and gets a tattoo. It’s super original—stars.

Betsey is sketching runway looks for a show that’s four weeks away, which is a lesson in how mass-produced clothing happens. Instead of designing clothes and accessorizing the collection, Betsey is designing clothes to go with the already-produced branded products. Hmm. That doesn’t sound right….

At LuLu’s apartment slash workspace, Allison and Ashley finalize their collection so that they will be ready to meet with “potential licensees.” I can only imagine the stories Ashley has about these two yahoos. “Unfortunately it’s going to take a lot more money to pay Ashley….” Ashley sits there, awkwardly watching her bosses figure out where they’re going to get the money to pay her for the work they’ve asked her to do (*cough* ask Betsey). Oh, Ashley. I hope you’re journaling.

At therapy, LuLu explains that she doesn’t like the whole money thing being thrown in her face. Oh, ha! Betsey gave LuLu the apartment as a wedding present! So if LuLu had to support herself for realsies, she’d be living in a cardboard box in a transitional Brooklyn neighborhood and sending her kids to *gasp* public school. But, thanks to her mother’s generosity, she has a posh lifestyle and can call herself a fashion designer. So LuLu, really. You have two choices—either suck it up, or support yourself. Instead, LuLu goes for Option Three and walks out of therapy because she thinks Betsey is trying to humiliate her.

After all of that, LuLu goes to dinner with Betsey and hits her up for more money. “All I’m asking is do you think you could help me with a little more money to pay Ashley just for this project?” Betsey reminds her that she started her business with practically nothing. Betsey wants LuLu to learn the whole business, “the business side, the design side, the song-and-dance side.” But LuLu is not a fan of learning (and why should she be when there’s a human ATM machine sitting next to her) and resorts for cutsey face which is just the most embarrassing display I’ve ever seen. But it works, and Betsey gives her what she asks for because she’s proud of LuLu for asking before taking. Ugh. There isn’t enough therapy in the world to straighten out this pair.

Next week, Betsey’s workspace turns into a mess worthy of Hoarders.

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While some shows are winding down, others are just getting started. There’s one in particular that I’m kind of really looking forward to, and that’s XOX Betsey Johnson. It starts Sunday, May 12 at 8 p.m. on the Style Network (I don’t know, check with your cable provider), and follows Betsey and her daughter, Lulu, as they try to rebuild the Betsey Johnson brand after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year. I know, right? I had no idea.  It’s not like I’ve shopped for a hot pink tutu in the past [counts fingers] eleventy years. But when I wanted that hot pink tutu, I could always count on Betsey Johnson to delivery it in all of its totally inappropriate glory.

I’ve seen a few clips and the show looks realer than most reality television, and Betsey is a riot. At seventy years of age, she’s still doing cartwheels and splits on the runway. It’s definitely worth a watch, if only to find out where exactly she’s hiding the fountain of youth. Oh, and check back here for recaps every Monday where I will be breaking it down and spelling it out.

Photo: Kent Miller Studios, Macy’s Inc.

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