If you’re going to hand out fashion awards in New York, you’re going to need a top-notch tux.
“I’m making (mine) into shorts,” cracks Joel McHale, who is actually wearing a custom David Hart suit for Monday’s Council of Fashion Designers of America awards, to be held at NYC’s Hammerstein Ballroom. And actually, “I was always a clotheshorse," he says. "It drove my mom crazy."
McHale is no stranger to the podium; he's hosted events including the 2014 White House Correspondents Dinner, the 2011 Film Independent Spirit Awards and the 2015 ESPYs. But this will mark the first time he’s cracked jokes in front of sartorial stars such as Anna Wintour and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.
How fashion literate is McHale? “I’ve never been to fashion week,” he admits, but did get schooled on finer threads while hosting The Soup. “There was a clothing budget, so I began to wear some very elegant clothes, some of them I still have," he says. "And I love them, from Gucci to Burberry to Zegna, Tom Ford.” (And McHale's got opinions on neckwear. “I think I got rid of 150 skinny ties awhile ago," he says.)
At the CFDAs, otherwise known as the fashion Oscars, the Olsens’ The Row will compete for the Womenswear Designer of the Year award against Joseph Altuzarra of Altuzarra, Marc Jacobs, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler and Kate and Laura Mulleavy for Rodarte. Menswear nominees are Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne of Public School, Marcus Wainwright and David Neville of Rag & Bone, Tim Coppens, Thom Browne and Todd Snyder.
McHale’s fashion splurge comes straight from that list. “I did buy some Thom Browne dress shirts," he says. "And they are super expensive.”
Also on Monday, the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement award will be presented to Norma Kamali, while Donna Karan will be honored with the Founder’s Award and Alessandro Michele of Gucci will be given the International award.
Winners will also be named for accessories and Swarovski awards for womenswear and menswear. And since the CFDA Awards are not televised “I’m sure crazier things will be said than usual,” he says.
After A-listers pose on the red carpet with their designer dates (and sip champagne on the way to their seats), Michael C. Hall will perform a tribute to David Bowie and Jennifer Hudson will close the show. McHale says he was a “big, huge fan of David Bowie….he was much more than just a musician. He was a cultural icon.”
How's life after The Soup (which McHale hosted for 12 years before it got the ax last November)? Pretty tasty.
McHale will start shooting his CBS show, The Great Indoors in August. In it he plays a Bear Grylls-type adventure journalist who gets saddled with a desk job after years reporting in the wild. Now working with Millennials in a Buzzfeed-ish office (with Stephen Fry playing his boss), “it’s about relationships and generations, and is really a work-place comedy,” he says.
So will that new suit go back on Tuesday?
McHale laughs. "They built me a suit because I am so much larger than most people,” he says. “I don’t know who it would fit other than Frankenstein.”
