New Video Series Bonkers Closets Peeks Inside Some Truly Wild Wardrobes
If MTV’s Cribs were made for the Fashion Week set, that show would be Insider’s new web series Bonkers Closets — where viewers literally get the inside scoop on the wildly luxurious wardrobes and dressing lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Just two webisodes in with a third on the way, Bonkers Closets truly lives up to its name. From Instagram-famous Singapore socialite Jamie Chua’s fingerprint-secure, multimillion dollar luxury wardrobe (which would no doubt make Anna Wintour swoon) to the two-story, 2,000-square-foot disco-themed closet awash in animal prints belonging to Orlando’s infamous “Queen of Versailles”, the Insider show and host Aly Weisman pack a lot of labels and dreams into each six-minute video.
In the first episode, audiences are treated to the modern Hollywood Regency insanity that is Chua’s 700 square feet walk-in closet, which is so valuable — just the sample of wardrobe shown on camera totals well over a quarter of a million dollars — that it’s secured with fingerprint access. Inside, Chua flaunts her custom closets with their windows to frame all her cocktail frocks, gala gowns, Chanel tweed, Gucci silk, and more over-the-top couture like works of art. To the rear of the closet, walls of lucite display cases contain more than 200 Hermes bags and more than 300 pairs of designer shoes. In an alcove, there’s a full size mirrored dresser that doubles as a Harry Winston-esque wonderland full of diamonds, pearls, and other precious collectible baubles and bling. Somewhere, Carrie Bradshaw just fainted — this is way more over-the-top than Big’s closet.
In the second episode, it’s on to meet the infamous lady of the most expensive and one of its most controversial single-family homes in America: Jackie Siegel, the self-proclaimed “Queen of Versailles” and subject of the eponymous 2012 documentary about her gargantuan 90,000 square foot private home in Orlando (which has been under construction for 10 years, and still has yet to be finished). But her 2,000 square foot, two-floor closet at “Versailles” is fully functional, as we see in Insider’s tour with the “engineer turned beauty queen.”
Strobe lights, swivel couches, more zebra print than a zoo, and one very mod swing chair set the aesthetic tone for the rooms — plus an entire wooden curio cabinet dedicated to Siegel’s dozens of beauty pageant crowns. On the tour, we see more than 200 pairs of shoes stored in open-shelving bookcases behind a black velvet curtain, and an entire closet of quintuple-digit rare designer furs that should come with its own PETA security squad. “Diamonds is my number one favorite color, but if you want to call it glitter, you can call it glitter,” Siegel tells Weisman, while her favorite bedazzled Gucci pumps, Judith Leiber purses, and Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses get the full Vanna for the cameras.
While both webisodes seem like a weird display of wealth at a time when so many are struggling — another reviewer even said these closets could incite a class war — they’re also 12 minutes total (so far) of voyeuristic escapism. As ladies used to say in the Depression, if you feel down “just put on a little lipstick” — or, in this case, virtually try a multimillion dollar closet on for size. Like watching Frances McDormand in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.
Next up in episode three: a tour of where Sir Ivan stores his capes in the 15,000 square foot medieval castle (complete with sex dungeon) he calls home in upstate New York.
Head to Facebook to watch episodes of Bonkers Closets.