Designer Ivy Supersonic, who's made a number of hats for Tommy Lee through the years, discusses considered one of her most well-known creations forward of the brand new Hulu collection concerning the couple, 'Pam & Tommy.'
Of all the enduring appears worn on Hollywood pink carpets within the ’90s, Pamela Anderson’s 1999 MTV Video Music Awards hat stays one of the vital memorable. In attendance alongside her ex-husband Tommy Lee, the actress donned a white corset, sequined pants and, most notably, an enormous pink feathered hat — a glance that has been paid homage through the years by the likes of Kim Kardashian, Kelly Ripa and Kacey Musgraves. Over 20 years later, simply forward of the premiere of Hulu’s Pam and Tommy collection, The Hollywood Reporter spoke with the lady behind the accent, Ivy Supersonic, who additionally designed related feathered cowboy hats for Lee’s Strategies of Mayhem music video for “Get Bare.”
It was 1998, at a celebration on the Playboy Mansion, when Supersonic first met Lee. As Supersonic remembers it, the Mötley Crüe drummer had simply gotten out of jail — a six-month sentence for battery in opposition to then-wife Anderson — and regardless of Lee and Anderson’s notorious intercourse tape leaking only a few years prior, Supersonic didn’t know a lot concerning the rockstar.
“I actually wasn’t accustomed to Tommy,” the designer says. She later confirmed that she had by no means seen the intercourse tape, both.
That evening, Supersonic was attending the Playboy celebration along with her boyfriend on the time, Slick Fifty drummer Jesse Dylan Baird, who arrived donning considered one of Supersonic’s iconic feathered cowboy hats.
The Mötley Crüe drummer appreciated the feathered hat a lot that Baird provided it to him proper then and there. “I used to be somewhat peeved,” Supersonic remembers, in response to Baird giving her hat away. “However that was his idol. What was I gonna say?”
And that was that.
That's, till Supersonic obtained a shock name from Lee, who was in want of one other hat.
“He was like, ‘Yo, what up, dude? It’s Tommy Lee,'” she says of the decision. “He’s like, ‘You realize, I really like this hat, however I've dreads and I’m rising out of it. It doesn’t match me.'” Supersonic — who was heading to L.A. quickly after — provided to fulfill Lee so he might pick a few of her different hat designs.
From then on, Supersonic and Lee cultivated a friendship — one the place Supersonic all the time had a hat on-hand for him.
“At any time when he had a girlfriend, I might make her a hat,” Supersonic says.
In 1999, Lee quickly give up as Mötley Crüe’s drummer, and began his personal rap-metal band, Strategies of Mayhem, whose tracks would characteristic the likes of Fred Durst, The Crystal Methodology, U-God, Child Rock, Snoop Dogg, Lil’ Kim, George Clinton and Combine Grasp Mike. That very same 12 months, Strategies of Mayhem launched the observe “Get Bare,” which partly chronicled the stolen intercourse tape incident. Lee apparently wrote the tune whereas in jail. “He would write the lyrics, after which he would name his house and drop the lyrics on his voicemail,” Supersonic says.
In want of some equipment for himself and his back-up dancers, Lee enlisted Supersonic to design some feather cowboy hats for the “Get Bare” music video — a possibility that led to the creation of considered one of Supersonic’s most recognizable hats.
“Pam simply noticed the entire thing with the hats [in the “Get Naked” video], and he or she got here as much as me and mentioned, ‘Hey, so I’m [presenting at] the [VMAs] subsequent week. Might you make me a pink feathered cowboy hat?’” Supersonic remembers. “I made her this pink feathered — I can’t actually name it a cowboy hat — it was simply an Ivy Supersonic feathered hat. It was very large, pink and fluffy. I believed that she would love it, and I hoped she would.”
The hat in query went on to turn out to be an iconic search for Anderson, with Kardashian West dressing up as her for Halloween in 2018. (Anderson wrote on her Instagram in response: “So humorous …. @kimkardashian as me for #halloween @mtv awards (what was I considering?) ha.”) Ripa wore a mondo-sized model of the hat in 2003 and Musgraves wore a glance that some thought of an homage (in purple) on the 2021 VMA’s.
“So I [made the hat] and I didn’t actually know what to anticipate as a result of, effectively, you understand, Tommy wasn’t all the time courting Pam,” the designer says. Certainly, Lee and Anderson had been divorced since 1998. “And so I gave the [pink] hat [to Tommy] and he was like, ‘Oh dude, it’s sick. Pam’s gonna adore it.’”
It was at that second that Lee additionally determined he would go bare to the VMAs — constructing on the theme of his “Get Bare” tune — below a trench coat, alongside Anderson in her fluffy pink hat.
“I used to be like, ‘Nicely, your tune is about getting bare. So that you gotta simply go bare, get a trench coat at Barney’s,” Supersonic remembers. “He wore Burberry.”
As for the awards present itself, Supersonic stayed house that evening, uncertain if Anderson would find yourself carrying her hat. “I simply sat house in my studio condominium on Irving Place on the Zeckendorf Towers and watched it on this small little TV that my cousin gave me,” she remembers. “I used to be like, I simply can’t go together with them as a result of I don’t wanna take that likelihood that she’ll really feel like I’m taking the highlight.” Upon seeing Anderson carrying the hat, Supersonic was stoked. “Dude, she wore it! I used to be like, that’s dope.”
The following day, Anderson appeared on Dwell! With Regis and Kelly. When the actress was requested about her fluffy pink hat of the night prior, she known as out Supersonic for making her the accent.
“She mentioned, ‘My good friend Ivy Supersonic made me that hat,’ which was actually nice,” Supersonic remembers. “[Later] in 2003, Kelly [Ripa’s] producer known as me and mentioned, ‘Kelly desires to be Pam Anderson for Halloween. Might you lend Kelly a hat?’”
In her profession as a hat-designer, Supersonic additionally remembers receiving a name from Paris Hilton as soon as within the late ’90s. “She wished to get a hat, and I mentioned $2,000, after which I simply heard ‘click on.’” Unbeknownst to Supersonic, Hilton was seemingly nonetheless simply a youngster on the time.
As of late, Supersonic notes that she’s nonetheless in contact with Lee. “I nonetheless discuss to Tommy, yeah,” she confirms. As for the Hulu present that recounts the occasions of the couple’s notorious stolen intercourse tape, Supersonic is wanting ahead to seeing it.
“I’m so excited to look at it,” the designer says of the present. “I don’t know if my hat is in it, I imply, I might hope it's. I don’t understand how that works. However Tommy and Pam — they have been the ‘It’ couple then; I assume they’re gonna be the ‘It’ couple perpetually.”
In regard to the costume designs on the present for Anderson and Lee (performed by Lily James and Sebastian Stan, respectively), Supersonic says she was by no means approached for any perception or use of her hat designs.
Nonetheless, Supersonic says of the collection, “I believe it’s gonna be superb. However I really feel actually badly for Pam. That’s such a private factor, one thing so horrible to occur to someone. And now she has to relive this entire factor.”
“Individuals most likely suppose as a result of [Pam] was on the quilt of Playboy so many occasions — like probably the most ever — that it’s OK. That for some motive, they might take that liberty and it’s superb. However, I don’t suppose it’s superb,” she provides concerning the launch of the intercourse tape.
Pam and Tommy premieres on Hulu on Feb. 2.