If you happen to be an ensemble cast member from season two of the hit HBO show The White Lotus, it seems there was a very good chance that you started your year off by returning to the general European vicinity of the Four Seasons Taormina to sit front row at a fashion show.
It all began back in mid-January, when Adam DiMarco (who played nice guy Albie in season two) hit the runways shows for Dior and Prada during men’s fashion week in Milan. Elsewhere in town, Theo James (aka mean tech bro Cameron) attended the Giorgio Armani show alongside his co-star Will Sharpe (aka meek tech bro Ethan), who later ran into another key player in the HBO multiverse, Murray Barlett — who previously played harrowed hotel manager Armond in White Lotus season one and, more recently, post-apocalyptic lover Frank in episode three of The Last Of Us — in the front row at Loewe. Then, Sabrina Impacciatore (Armond’s season two managerial predecessor, Valentina) sat front row at a different J.W. Anderson production, the Loewe designer’s presentation for his eponymous brand, wearing a catsuit screen-printed with a beachy sunset. (Simona Tabasco, who played the charming local sex worker Lucia, was there, too.) When in Italy, right?
Adam DiMarco at Prada.
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Will Sharpe and Murray Bartlett at Loewe.
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
Then, at New York Fashion Week, Meghann Fahy (Cameron’s shrewdly zen wife Daphne) sat front row at Proenza Schouler, and Tabasco and Beatrice Grannò, who played Lucia’s on-screen partner-in-enterprise Mia, hit up Michael Kors together, in the same week that they posed alongside each other in a Valentine’s Day-themed campaign for Kim Kardashian’s intimates brand, Skims. Meanwhile, the lithe Jon Gries (who portrayed Greg, the conniving husband of Jennifer Coolidge’s character Tanya McQuoid) actually walked in the Eckhaus Latta runway show, sporting a filmy chartreuse knit top and a pair of tailored linen trousers. Turns out, per the New York Times, Gries’s girlfriend is a friend of the brand; the designers, presumably fans, asked him to model in the show.
Gries admitted to the Times that he’s not much of a fashion guy—“I wear only corduroy pants,” he said. But luckily, before he set out on his debut runway walk, he received clear, non-fashion instructions: “They said, ‘You’re walking down the streets of New York, and your mind is somewhere else.’ And I said, ‘You mean like you’re listening to headphones?’ And they said, ‘Exactly.’”
Jon Gries on the Eckhaus Latta runway.
Rodin Banica/Getty Images
Finally, this week brought women’s fashion week in Milan, where actress Haley Lu Richardson, who played quirked-up personal assistant Portia in season two, sat next to the drag queen Alexis Stone, who happened to be wearing full facial prosthetics impersonating Coolidge, who played Portia’s boss in season two. (Paper confirmed that Coolidge was supposed to actually attend the show with Stone, but then ended up having to be on another set for work.) Elsewhere in the pop cultural universe, Richardson—a confessed teenage Jonas Brothers superfan—also featured in a very fashion-heavy music video for the band’s new song that dropped Friday.
The ephemeral format of The White Lotus, which sees an almost entirely new cast each season, feels well suited to the increasingly pop-culture-phenomenon-driven celebrity guest lists to sit front row at high fashion runway shows. And while neither the real-life Coolidge nor Aubrey Plaza (Harper) have made it to the front rows this season, this is still an impressive gauntlet. Meanwhile, Michael Imperioli (who played Albie’s downbeat, sunglasses-wearing dad Dominic in season two) has remained in full Michael Imperioli mode by staying put in New York City, where in the last month or so he’s showcased his ornate Manhattan home for Architectural Digest and played a live show with his band at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn. Salute to that!
