Richard Gadd is a 35-year-old man with an estranged sense of style and little knowledge of fashion. And yet the comedian will this afternoon make his debut at Paris Fashion Week, having received a golden ticket to Jonathan Anderson’s spring/summer 2025 presentation for Loewe. “Do you have a list of who might be going?,” Gadd asks me a couple of days before the event. “Because I don’t know where I’ll be sitting, though I’ll be placed next to Anna Wintour I should think.” There are few endorsements of someone’s rising star quite like getting a seat at Anderson’s table – the designer’s seasonal guest lists are barometers for who and what is popular, plucking big names from the centre of viral internet cycles and placing them on branded step and repeats. The protagonists of Succession, Heartstoppers, and whatever film Luca Guadagnino happens to have released within a six-month time period, have all been burnished on his front rows. The guy from that show is always at this show.
But Gadd, of course, knew that. “Oh, I was certainly aware of Loewe,” he says. “I knew it was a big, classy brand. And so many amazing people have been in its adverts, which proves I’m on the right track, and that the 10 years I spent performing at the Edinburgh Fringe was all worth it. I’m well up for the ride and seeing how it all works. And it’ll be nice to go all dressed-up and looking smart because I’ve always been known as a fashion icon. Well… no, I haven’t. That was a joke.” Gadd likens his own relationship with clothing to that of a long-lost relative, severed from contact at birth. “I can’t say I’m the most fashionable man in the world and so I’m glad we’re reconnecting this weekend. I’m going to be dressed in a red jacket and boots and trousers and stuff like that. I have wardrobes full of jackets, actually, because I love a good jacket.” He is hesitant to offer style advice to readers of this magazine and cringes when I ask him to name a style icon. “Erm, David Beckham?,” he says, unsure.
“I have spent most of my life in jeans and white T-shirts,” Gadd continues. “I mean, a red T-shirt would be adventurous for me.” I tell him this sounds a lot like Anderson’s uniform of Uniqlo sweaters and Levi’s 501s. He replies: “It’s just me and Jonathan Anderson at the cutting edge of fashion these days.” To be whisked off for a long weekend in Paris – “I don’t know anything about the hotel but I’d imagine I’ve been put up somewhere nice” – is still a novel experience for Gadd. His ascent to fame has been sudden and often turbulent. “It has been difficult and overwhelming at times,” Gadd says of his newfound prominence. “But the show has done some remarkable things. Referral rates for stalking charities are up 47 per cent and sexual abuse referral rates are up 53 per cent. It brings me to tears.”
There are welcome dividends to the fame game. “I went to see Scotland at the Euros and a cameraman spotted me in the crowd,” Gadd says. “Either that or he accidentally panned to me, I couldn’t figure it out. That moment went viral and was, like, trending at number seven on Twitter. I’m used to going up to the Fringe with £100 in my pocket, a treadmill and a monkey costume, and so it’s surreal to me that I can’t even go and watch football games like I used to.” There’s an air of excitement to Gadd’s voice at this point, as if he’s always known that being an anonymous member of the public was never his lot in life. “I’ve worked hard to be recognised. And I don’t mind being filmed or photographed. I thought I’d be far more awkward than I am, but I’m finding it all quite relaxing.” How far, then, do these ambitions spread into fashion? “Oh, I wanna take over the whole sphere!” he says, with a laugh. “I want to stay in the fashion world, learn a thing or two, and maybe incorporate some nice styles into my own life.”