Star struck by Dunedin designer's tea towel

A New Zealand-made tea towel has reduced Hollywood star Ryan Gosling to tears of embarrassment.

The actor was mortified when he was presented with the towel during an interview for his new film Gangster Squad.

The cloth is the handiwork of Dunedin designer Colleen Pugh, who sells her designs online as part of her "Dear Colleen" label.

It features three hand-drawn versions of Gosling and lines like, "Hey girl, I bet you'd rather be doing these dishes."

"There's a lady in New Zealand that makes dishtowels with your face on them," says interviewer Grae Drake - to Gosling's horror.

When Drake asks him "Would you wash dishes with your own face?" Gosling dissolves into laughter, hiding his face and crying: "it's like looking at the sun - I can't stare directly at it".

Colleen Pugh said she came up with the idea for the tea towels a couple of years ago.

"I had no idea it was going to happen but do remember sending an order to Hollywood and thinking how funny and wondered if it was going to someone who knew him but never really dreamed it was," she said.

Pugh said she first heard of the interview when Drake commented on the "Dear Colleen" Facebook page.

"I'm mostly just really embarrassed. I've only been able to watch it once."

Pugh said she chose Gosling for the dishtowel because of his popularity with women and that he was "easy on the eye".

She has sold a couple hundred of the Ryan Gosling towels over the last six months.

Dear Colleen has run a number of other tea towels with celebrities on them. At the end of 2011, Pugh made a Rugby World Cup cloth featuring the All Blacks which she believes is now owned by the archives at Te Papa.

- www.nzherald.co.nz