The Pastel Hell of One of Kimberly Guilfoyle's Favorite Designers
PoliticsOn Wednesday, I wrote about Kimberly Guilfoyle’s Cinco De Mayo, which included a Latinos For Trump event with Guilfoyle and other terrible guests singing President Trump’s praises and calling for a wall between the United States and Mexico. But what really captured readers’ attention wasn’t Guilfoyle’s repugnant politics, but rather the poofy blouse she wore while making “Mexican lasagna” on her Instagram Story that same day.
As if knowing what we really wanted, Guilfoyle made an Instagram post Wednesday night showing off her blouse, which included a link to its designer.
Meet Sheridan French, the Ft. Worth, Texas-based designer responsible for Guilfoyle’s Laker colored ikat top and a few of Guilfoyle’s other favorite looks.
(Yes, she has other poofy-shouldered blouses in even more colors.)
French’s website notes that “design is in [her] blood,” and according to a 2013 interview, while French was studying for a master’s degree at St. Andrews (yes, that one), she became an intern in Prada’s London Press Office. Upon graduating, French says she was offered a full-time job, but turned it down to go back to Texas, start a family, and make clothes for aging evil Southern sorority sisters with sons named Daxton and daughters named Laycee who want to make America great again.
While French doesn’t disclose much about her politics now, scrolling through her Instagram to the time before her account became her primary branding tool shows that she’s an anti-abortion, God-fearing, “traditional American values” loving Trump supporter. This tracks, especially considering the fact that her ex-husband, Bo French, is a private equity investor who has run for Congress twice (and lost twice) on Republican tickets, promising a restoration of family values and harsher penalties on undocumented immigrants.
Sheridan French doesn’t explicitly cater to the MAGA set, but she doesn’t have to, because her brand’s Hilton Head aesthetic does it for her. The upscale South Carolina resort town literally calls their gated communities “plantations” and is home to the exact kind of easy, breezy frocks that French specializes in. Did these knee-length skirts just call me the N-word? I think they might have!
French’s website reads, “Sheridan’s brand is a celebration of color and her own inimitable zest for life, and her wish for you is to feel as extraordinary wearing her designs as she has been enthusiastic in creating them, allowing your individuality to shine through.” But while color is certainly bursting from French’s designs, they’re definitely not bursting in the models’ melanin. There appears to be one token woman of color and zero black people representing the handful of models that French uses to show off her designs. While it’s best that black women aren’t modeling for a brand run by a Trump supporter, the lack of representation is still… funny. At least Reese Witherspoon’s Draper James—another brand aiming at cloying, nostalgic southern charm—has the foresight to remember that there are black women who gravitate toward preppy shit too. The only black person I’ve seen in my cursory scroll of French’s Instagram account are children in Africa and a black police officer that some people prayed over in a Starbucks a few years ago.
Black women of a certain age fuck with colorful caftans too, Sheridan!
But no matter, enjoy these photos that scream Terrifying Alpha Delta Pi Recruitment Video Girls All Grown Up:
Casual lounging in a casual home:
The grabbing-a-healthy-snack-for-my-son-Jaycen look.
The final bosses you have to defeat to get inside the Women For Trump VIP event.