Cat Deeley on Being a ‘Rubbish’ Model, the Best High Street Stores to Shop in London, and Her Thoughts About Her Crooked Nose
Photography by Nadya Wasylko
Styling by Mary Fellowes
Hair by Bradley Irion
Makeup by Amy Strozzi
Even when Cat Deeley is complaining, you can hear the smile in her voice. “I’ve woken up here to a very gray day in LA. It’s actually raining!I’m trying to muster up the energy to take my dog on a hike before I do yoga, but I don’t know if I’m going to win today,” she says on our cross-country phone call. “It’s great for California, but it’s not very good for my motivation unfortunately.” She laughs, and I don’t believe for a second that she’s going to hide under the duvet.
Deeley, 38, doles out motivation, encouragement, her signature huge smile, and good-natured banter as the host of Fox’s popular dance competition show, So You Think You Can Dance, which started its 12th season earlier this month. She’s been a sunny presence and a sounding board for contestants since she started on the show in 2005, sporting enviously wavy hair and a wardrobe to make a fashion junkie weep.
Her love of fashion runs deep. Deeley, who is English, started her career as a model in the ‘90s when she was 14, but she says she was “rubbish” at it. “It was never Vogue. It was the cutesy, teen magazines,” she says. “It was the time of ‘heroine chic’ and no matter how much shading you put under my cheekbones or black you put under my eyes, I don’t look unhealthy. I just don’t!” Plan B was become the next Julie Andrews and plan C, a TV presenter. So she sent an audition tape into MTV, got the gig, and a career was born.
Now she gets to enjoy fashion, instead of working in it. Though Deeley works with a stylist occasionally— French stylist Nicolas Bru, whom she loves for his “slightly undone” European aesthetic—she does her own thing on the show, often supporting her fellow countrymen. Stella McCartney, Matthew Williamson, Temperley, and Burberry are amongst her favorites (she likes Saint Laurent and Isabel Marant, too). London’s known for its high street brands, and she frequents Miss Selfridges, Oasis, Whistles, and Monsoon when she’s home, and Topshop, of course. “I don’t think the Topshop here [in the US] is as good as the one in the UK. It’s like a different selection somehow, I don’t know why.”
The trick to looking good on the red carpet, she says, is to be absolutely head over heels in love with your outfit. “I always think the way to go is if you don’t put something on and say, ‘Wow, I love it,’ then you should just take it off,” Deeley says. “Put it on like a suit of armor and go out and face the world.” But just because she’s mastered looking good at events, doesn’t mean she particularly enjoys them. “I’m quite clumsy and I don’t like all the shouting. I’m just always the person who’s going to have something in their teeth or my skirt tucked into my knickers,” she laughs, before clarifying. “That actually hasn’t happened, but I’ve definitely stumbled. It’s this fear that I have of the unknown, of what could happen.”
In May, Deeley hosted the Critics Choice Awards for the second time. She says she hates public speaking—which one imagines is a problem for a TV host—but combats nerves by over-prepping, memorizing all of the presenters and nominees, learning the lighting and camera requirements beforehand, and nailing her timing. “The monologue at the beginning has to be tight and really honed. We go to a million award shows a year, so no one wants to be sitting there all night,” she says. “Get in, get out. Now let’s drink champagne and dance!” (A good philosophy for life if you ask me.)
We need to talk about Deeley’s hair. It’s absolutely magnificent, and this is not hyperbole; even she knows it. “I’m quite lucky because my hair actually does what you tell it to do,” she says, unlike no woman anywhere else. “Sometimes I’ve been to events and I’ve been reading a book in my garden, jump into the pool, twist it on both sides, shake it out and I’m ready to go. I’m quite annoying.” She calls out Kerastase shampoo and conditioner, Oribe dry texturizing spray, and Pantene leave-in conditioner as favorites (but even they won’t transform your hair into Deeley’s).
Living in LA, Deeley is surrounded by plastic surgery, faces that have been pumped, cut, and re-shaped regardless of profession. And she’s fine with it, as long as it’s your choice. “I don’t think it should be about other people commenting on anything to do with your looks. It should come from you,” she says. Which is why she won’t be getting a nose job, despite the Internet taking her crooked nose to task. “I’ve even seen it discussed in a boxing forum,” she says. “It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Personally I really like imperfections. Imperfections are what makes people beautiful. They separate you out from everyone else. As woman we’re not told that quite often enough.”
Speaking of facelifts, SYTYCD is getting a bit of work done this season. Rather than the usual guys vs. girls format, this season the show is trying a “stage” vs. “street” competition, led by fan favorite choreographers Travis Wall and Twitch, respectively. Deeley thinks the new format will give non-trained dancers more exposure and possibly even change their lives. “And that to me is incredible. That’s not a reality show anymore,” she says.
“You don’t dance to become rich and famous. You dance because you cannot imagine your life not doing it. It’s really amazing to do something because you love it, and to do it really well,” she says. Clearly, the same could be said of Cat Deeley herself.
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