Dunedin designer Colleen Pugh with her Ryan Gosling
tea-towel. Photo by Peter McIntosh.
Sales have soared for the Dunedin designer who
embarrassed Ryan Gosling by putting his face on a tea towel.
Designer Colleen Pugh, who runs the label "Dear Colleen",
drew some embarrassing attention to herself when her tea
towel - which featured three hand-drawn versions of Gosling
and lines like, "Hey girl, I bet you'd rather be doing these
dishes" - was presented to the Hollywood star in an interview
last month.
Gosling was mortified, saying it was like "looking at the sun
- I can't stare directly at it".
Media caught wind of the interview, and Pugh noticed sales of
the dishcloth started to rocket.
After selling 300-400 of the towels since June last year,
customers ordered the same again in the week or two after the
video went up.
That was quite a handful for a one-woman shop.
"It was quite big sales, about 300 sales in two weeks and
bulk of those were within the first four or five days ... I
managed to clear the local stationery shops out," she said.
Most of the sales have come from Canada, the United States
and Australia, with sites like the Huffington Post picking up
on the story boosting sales offshore.
And while the attention might have caused Pugh to be
"red-faced", she has no regrets.
"This happened and it's weird and crazy and makes me very
happy to live in the internet age," Pugh wrote on her blog
(http://dearcolleen.blogspot.co.nz/).
"I kind of love the fact I'm painted as a crazy fan girl who
spends her days drawing pictures of Ryan on homeware. I
really wish that was true."
Pugh says the next dishcloth on her list will be a
"celebration of marriage quality".
"It's such amazing news and such a landmark event for New
Zealand."
- Herald Online
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