After Cindy Crawford dissed Vassilios Kostetsos during a recent episode of “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen,” the supermodel apologized. But the Athens-based designer is still dealing with the fallout.
Asked by the Bravo show’s host to name one designer that she hoped to never work with again, Crawford took a minute and then said, “OK, Vassilios. He was a swimwear designer in Greece. I’m just gonna go rando. I answered it, but I didn’t offend any big designers.”
The 58-year-old Meaningful Beauty founder did offend Kostetsos though, despite having posted on Instagram an image of herself in one of his runway shows with the caption, “From the archive…so many fun looks walking for @vassilioskostetsos. P.S. sorry for the mix up — I guess I fold under pressure! If you know you know. Sending a big kiss.”
Reached in his Athens office Monday, Kostetsos claimed that Crawford contacted him beforehand to say her response had been edited “to prepare” him. The designer said, “When I listened, I was shocked. I felt very, very sad. I have a lot of respect and admiration for Cindy. I treated her fantastically, as I did with all of the supermodels.”
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Noting that the global fame gained by Linda Evangelista, Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and others had not yet made them household names, Kostetsos said he first invited Linda Evangelista to Athens to walk in a show in March 1990. In October of that year, Crawford and other supermodels were welcomed to the country’s capital city, which was not as intercontinental as it is today.
Accustomed to flying the supermodels to Athens via Lear jets or first-class commercial flights, he claimed that Crawford flew on the Concorde. Afterward, she needed to get to London after the show to shoot George Michael’s “Freedom” music video. Crawford’s catwalk took place in a stadium filled with 4,000 attendees, he said. Even though Kostetsos responded to Crawford’s post with a throwback runway photo of her and noted how she had been “applauded by thousands of guests,” he said her initial comment was damaging, nonetheless.
With two stores in Greece and distribution through specialty stores internationally, the 57-year-old designer speculated that some people, including his clients, could take Crawford’s on-air comment at face value. “Look, of course, it does [matter] because Cindy is a supermodel. She’s very important and her opinion counts,” he said. “It’s a strange situation because everybody was shocked by the news.”
In addition to the Bravo viewers, who watched the episode, more than 116,000 people had viewed it on TikTok as of Monday afternoon. Representatives for Crawford could not be reached for comment Monday.
“I don’t know how she mixed up my name. Anyway the whole situation is over. But it’s very bad for me because I am very popular in Greece and all over the world,” he said. “It’s big damage to my name. The big thing is it’s on all the channels and on social media.”
In his only interview about the situation thus far despite numerous media requests, Kostetsos said the situation is not good for any of his clients, for himself as a personality, or for his company. However, he reiterated his respect and admiration for Crawford. And having done television interviews in the past, he understands that responses are routinely edited in taped interviews and that people sometimes get nervous. Kostetsos suggested that perhaps 34 years after the fact Crawford hadn’t remembered what happened.
More recently, the designer created the “Passion for Fashion” video with the model-turned-musician Carla Bruni. Released in April, the video features archival runway footage of Bruni and other top models. He also dressed Bruni, a friend and client, when her husband served as the French president.
Asked about Bruni being under investigation related to the alleged Libyan financing of her husband’s 2007 presidential campaign, he said, “I don’t care about that, because I respect her so much.” (Last month Bruni was charged with witness tampering and associating with wrongdoers to commit fraud.)
Meantime, Kostestos is celebrating France in other ways, having recently staged “L’Olympien Art Couture” at the Embassy of France in Athens which was an homage to the Summer Games underway in Paris. The fashion event featured a finale with designs inspired by the French flag and the Greek flag.
