California Apparel News

A Q&A with the reality show’s Tim Gunn

He’s often the voice of reason in the design room on “Project Runway,” Bravo TV’s Emmy-nominated reality show about up-and-coming fashion designers. Tim Gunn serves as mentor to the designer/ contestants, clarifying the weekly challenges, and offering encouragement or suggesting they take a different approach while they are constructing their designs.

Gunn’s day job is chairman of the department of fashion design at Parsons The New School for Design in New York. He took the top spot in 2000 after nearly 20 years with the design school. His years of working with students have provided him with a keen eye for good design and a judicious manner when critiquing the “Project Runway” designers’ creations. And he’s funny. All of which has made Gunn the de facto star of the reality show, now in its third season.

California Apparel News Executive Editor Alison A. Nieder recently caught up with Gunn to discuss the show and its designers—and to share a little “behind-the-scenes” gossip.

California Apparel News: Did you realize the show was going to be such a hit?

Tim Gunn: Never in a million years. I was thrilled to be part of it, but I thought it was going to be this little walk around the block and it will all be over. I never dreamed this would happen. I’m having the best time of my life.

Did you know you would play such an integral role?

I was brought in as a consultant, initially. These are the [same producers as HBO’s] “Project Greenlight,” and they really didn’t know anything about fashion, so they were looking for someone in the industry to help them. They asked me if I would go on the auditions and I said, “Sure, I’d love to.” Then they really felt they needed someone in the design room to probe and query, because they were afraid the designers would be so caught up in their work that there wouldn’t be any dialogue. So they created this role and I got it, I’m thrilled to say. But I really thought I could end up on the cutting-room floor. They really didn’t need me. They needed someone to pose the questions or make comments, but then they could just have the designers responding. So who knew? I didn’t. It’s phenomenal, and I’m glad most people—I won’t say all—respond well to me.

How much direction can you give them?

I can’t tell them what to do. I can ask them why they are doing something. I can ask them if they had considered any other options. I may have a vision for what I’d do with it, but I’m not that designer. I’ve learned this from working so long with students. I need to take a very neutral path. I need to leave my sensibility about what I’d do to it at the door. Because it’s really about them. With a good deal of frequency, I will say, “Look, if this is really what you want and you really believe in it, just be prepared to respond to the judges on the runway.”

Who comes up with the challenges?

It’s a very big collaboration. It begins with the [show] producers, Bravo, [host] Heidi [Klum] and I get involved. There are a lot of people in it. I usually say that designing by committee doesn’t work. This is one case where the more brains and voices involved, the better the challenges get. We’re aiming to have things that don’t seem too contrived.

We do have some sponsor-driven challenges, and we’re careful that it still seems real-world. The Macy’s challenge [in the Aug. 2 episode]—in many ways, nothing could be more real-world than that. The look went into production.

My refrain with the producers of Bravo was that we could repeat the challenges season after season because we have a new group of designers with new DNA and we’d see new work. Because that happens at Parsons. We don’t change assignments every semester; we change them sometimes. But I always love to see what a whole new group of students will do with an assignment that another group did X, Y and Z with.

Except that your incoming students aren’t watching every week what your current students are doing.

Right.

I have a question about the equipment. I know that in Season 2 the machines weren’t working and [Los Angeles designer] Andrae[Gonzalo] had to re-thread them.

The Merrow machines, yes.

And I was reading on [Los Angeles–based Season 2 designer] Nick [Verreos]’ blog that he was surprised to see that pattern paperwasn’t provided. How did you set the criteria for what they could use?

Muslin [cloth] and pattern paper we intended to always have fully stocked. There was a little aside with [New York–based designer] Zulema [Griffin] in Season 2, and it turned out that she was sequestering things so other designers couldn’t use them. I didn’t find out about it until after she was out and the other designers told me. I said, “Why didn’t you tell me when she was still here, when it made a difference?”

They said they were afraid. So I just said, “That was ridiculous, because we would have fixed it.”

What tools do they have?

We supply pattern paper and mediumgrade muslin and dress forms and the sewing machines, and they’re outfitted with bobbins, needles and with white thread, initially.

But they’re responsible for bringing scissors, straight edges, French curves— whatever things they feel [they need], within limits. It’s their own equipment. We don’t supply those things. And generally speaking, they’re going to bring what they normally use in their construction life—those that are making clothes.

Obviously, you have an orientation where you go over what they can and cannot use?Oh yes, indeed we do.

Because we’re based on the West Coast, we’re always interested in the West Coast designers. Have you noticed any regional differences in the designers, either in terms of their skills or their personalities?

Generally speaking, the Los Angeles auditions brought out a lot of activewear designers, swimsuit designers, and our feeling was that in terms of that experience solely, it was rather narrow and limiting. But I’ll just add that last season, half the designers came from Los Angeles. And in Season 1—I know Jay McCarroll won that season, and I have great respect for him—but for me, the strongest designer of Season 1 was [Los Angeles designer] Kara Saun. [In Season 3, six of the 15 designers are from California.]

In terms of stereotypes that go with Los Angeles—that it’s activewear or swimwear or over-the-top red carpet gowns—among the stronger designers we saw much more diversity in their work. If you’re a strong designer, then you’ll succeed wherever you are in whatever environment.Did you find in the auditions that you were dealing primarily with people who had their own lines or people who were coming from working for a larger manufacturing company? It tends to be much more entrepreneurial in California.

I think it’s an industry environment that supports that, which is wonderful. I say to my students all the time, the chances are more likely for success if you’re going off on your own to make it there. Yes, we did see more people who were doing their own work—more than in New York, where we saw more people who were working for other people. Of course, my first question [to them] was: “Are they going to give you a month off to do this?” So, in terms of that characteristic, yes, that’s absolutely true. I asked about the personalities. Of course, when I was writing that question, I was thinking of [Los Angeles–based Season 2 designer] Santino Rice. He’s a good West Coast personality.

Oh, yes. Along the same lines, Andrae is great TV.

He is great TV. I have to say, when we came out of the Season 2 auditions, he was, for all of us, the No. 1 person, because he just took over that audition and we were completely seduced in a matter of seconds. And he kept us seduced. We really didn’t know about “the Santino” Santino until he arrived on the show.And Nick, he’s a natural.

Oh, Nick is fabulous. If I’m going to be stranded on a desert island, I’ll pick Nick.