RuPaul Charles and Diane von Furstenberg are guests on Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Photos: Courtesy of McGee Media)
“All of this has existed as sort of myth-folklore in my mind, but to actually see it is pretty amazing,” says RuPaul Charles when he learns the names of his enslaved Louisiana ancestors, in “Fashion’s Roots,” a new episode of Finding Your Roots. The multimedia superstar learns about how two others in a branch of his family tree in the Bayou State became free people of color when 95 percent of blacks in Louisiana were enslaved.
“Fashion’s Roots” also takes a look at the family background of the famous wrap dress creator, Diane von Furstenberg, whose mother survived Auschwitz after being arrested as a 21-year-old worker for the Belgian resistance. A generation earlier, the family had been a part of a prosperous, well-established Jewish community in Thessaloniki, Greece. The fashion icon learns the fate of her father’s relatives in Russia during World War II. “Even if you save only one life, behind one life is a dynasty,” says von Furstenberg.
The show’s third guest, award-winning dress designer Narciso Rodriquez, came to host Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. with a specific request. “Narciso wanted to know about his ancestors who came from the Canary Islands,” says Gates; Rodriquez knew nothing beyond his grandfather’s birth there. “It’s just been such a mystery for everyone in the family,” says the dress designer. Incredibly, Gates takes Rodriquez’s Canarian ancestry back to the 1400s, unfolding in a fascinating story.
“Fashion’s Roots” ends with what Gates calls a “significant match” in DNA for RuPaul and one of the show’s guests from a past season. Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. airs Tues., Oct. 13, 202, at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS.