What a fierce pair!
Project Runway winner Christian Siriano and show creator Tim Gunn make it work on stage at this week’s taping of Bravo’s A-List Awards. The show, which honors the best in pop culture, fashion, beauty, food and design, is hosted by Kathy Griffin and will air June 12.
The Chicago Tribune recently spoke with Tim Gunn about the victory of Christian Siriano on this season of Project Runway.
Here are excerpts from the interview:
Q: Every time I saw Christian’s age next to his name on the screen, I’d remember, “He’s only 21!” It’s just astounding.
Tim Gunn: “It is astounding. When we had the auditions in New York, it was the last stop on the audition train. We’d already found a ton of great people with maturity and experience. When I saw Christian’s paperwork, I turned to the producers and said, ‘Why are we seeing this kid?’ And they said the people doing the prescreening saw something in him. And I said, ‘OK.’”
He came in and he had been in the room about 10 seconds, and I said to my fellow judges, ‘This is an old soul. This is not a 21-year-old kid.’ The work blew me away. I’ve spent my life working with young people, working with students. The closest I’ve ever come to a real prodigy is the Proenza Schouler boys, Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez. But Christian just blows me away.”
Q: His work has such vision for someone so young. It has that couture vision.
Gunn: “It’s staggering. But that collection on the runway – it was wearable. You wouldn’t be a shy wallflower, but it was wearable.”
Read the full interview now.
In case you haven’t heard, Britney Spears is a pretty big mess these days.
So, would Tim Gunn help make her over?
“I would refuse,” he recently told People magazine “There is no amount of money and I’ll tell you why: I can’t want you to succeed more than you do. And it’s obvious that she doesn’t want to succeed. I think of her right now as being in exile from the human race and she needs major, major help…
There was a time that we were all marginally amused by it and then it just became a repugnant horror show. No, I wouldn’t even be remotely interested in [making her over].”
Gunn added that he feels “deeply sorry” for Spears, but asked: “Who would trust her with children? I hate to say that — the whole notion of separating children from their mother — but she is a basket case!”
According to the Project Runway mentor, a different Hollywood mother has the best style:
“I’m so tired of saying Angelina Jolie, but she never disappoints. She’s always occasion appropriate, whether she’s picking up the kids somewhere or walking on the sidewalk on Rodeo Drive, on the red carpet or at a premiere, she doesn’t look like she’s trying too hard.”
With the season four premiere of Project Runway set for November 14, Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum recently talked about the success of their reality show on a conference call with reporters.
So, why has the show been such a hit over the years?
“I think people truly love talented people. They make something with their passion, with their love, and with their hands,” Klum said. “People love to watch talented people at work and watch what they can do. It’s as simple as that.”
Project Runway has been nominated for seven Emmy Awards over the last two years, while also winning the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Reality Program this year.
The show has been criticized for allowing contestants with bigger personalities to advance over people with more design talent. However, Klum and Gunn each took that criticism personally.
“That’s preposterous! A big part of the audition process is narrowing it down to 120 semi-finalists and any one of them could win this. The talent is there and the personalities just become an aspect of it,” Gunn said.
Klum agreed.
“Anyone who has watched the show and is a fan of the show would agree with us. If you’re not a designer and you don’t know what you’re doing, you won’t even make it on.”
Tim Gunn has a new reality show coming out, aptly named Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.
The fashion maven talked about it with Us Weekly…
Usmagazine.com: With so many makeover shows for viewers to choose from, what makes Guide to Style unique?
Tim Gunn: For one, our show is not an intervention. These women have self-declared their need for help - they share being in a fashion rut. We’re not telling [participants] what to wear. It’s really an education about who they are, with whom they interact and how they want the world to perceive them. It’s the semiology of dressing. It’s all about the message that our clothes send and how the world perceives that.
Us: What wardrobe pieces are essential to complete the perfect fall look?
TG: If you don’t have a basic black dress, you’d better get one. And you can certainly do that for $200 or under.
Us: Which Project Runway designer could most benefit from your fashion know-how?
TG: That’s a great question. God, I don’t know - maybe Diana Eng from season two. She’s our little math and science nerd and she kept saying that her own personal style wasn’t a priority for her, but if you’re going to be in fashion and especially if you’re going to be a designer, you’d better send a message about what you can do for your customer.
Us: Do you keep in touch with any of the Runway designers?
TG: Austin Scarlett and I spoke recently, Daniel V’s doing really well. Robert Plotkin is working for Laundry. I’m in touch with a lot of them – those who want to stay in touch. We have our own Alumni Association now!
Us: Lastly, what can we expect from season four’s crop of designers?
TG: I love the fact that people will be surprised this season, and what I’ll tell you about this season is that there were 120 semi-finalists, and any one of the 120 could have won the whole season. I don’t think anyone in the audience is really going to know - challenge to challenge - who’s going to win and who’s going to be out.
That didn’t take long.
We recently reported that Bravo was looking for a female to co-host with Tim Gunn on his upcoming reality show, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.
The network has now found that special someone: Veronica Webb. The press release identifies her as:
“One of the world’s leading supermodels” and “a journalist, essayist, author and actress.” She’s also “the first African-American woman to sign a major cosmetics contract.”
“We think Veronica will make the perfect complement to Tim — she’ll add a little sass to his class,” said Bravo VP Frances Berwick. “She not only brings extensive fashion expertise to the series, but she will be someone for our makeover subjects to lean on, creating a fun, comfortable, yet educational experience that our viewers can learn from.”
No matter what, though, she’ll never be Heidi Klum. Sorry to break it to you, Veronica.
Bravo is searching for a female sidekick to co-host Tim Gunn’s forthcoming series Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.
The new show’s “producers have mounted a furious search for a female cohost,” Radar reports. According to a woman who auditioned for the job, they don’t think Tim Gunn can host the show by himself because he’s too smart and not exciting enough.
“A source who auditioned for the job was told that the show’s producers felt Gunn, who will offer up style and make-up advice to schlubby civilians, was a bit ‘too highbrow’ for viewers, and they needed a ‘more down-to-earth and fun’ female presence to balance him out,” Radar reports.
The show “was set to start taping [last] week,” according to Radar, so “the continuing search for Gunn’s go-to gal may delay the release date.”
Bravo had no comment.
We weren’t kidding when we said Project Runway star, Tim Gunn, would be sharing a table at last week’s White House Correspondence Dinner with Sanjaya Malakar.
Each reality TV star was a guest of People magazine.
Gunn looks really psyched to be posing in a picture with the American Idol castoff, doesn’t he?
So much for those rumors that Project Runway casting calls for season four were a disaster.
At least according to one of the reality show’s stars.
Fashion guru Tim Gunn says Bravo seems to have found enough designers to start its own clothing label, never mind film the popular series.
“We just finished auditions, and I will tell you, we found the most phenomenal designers,” Gunn recently told The Seattle Times. “We could cast three seasons with the talent we saw.”
Earlier this month, Bravo announced that the upcoming fourth season of its Emmy-nominated Project Runway series will not air as part of its Summer 2007 programming schedule; it will instead premiere in late 2007.
Casting for the series began in late March, and despite being busy with his new job as chief creative officer for Liz Claiborne; working on his new book, “Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style;” and casting for a Bravo reality series version of the upcoming book, Gunn was part of the process.
Never one to shy away from offering criticism to Project Runway’s designers, Gunn apparently took the same approach to book editors who asked for clarifications on such Gunn-isms as “faux bois!” and “sturm und drang!”
“The editors said, ‘Change these words, change this reference,’” Gunn said. “And I said, ‘You know something, I can’t do that.’ If this is a problem for the reader, they can sit with a dictionary in their laps.”
Sounds like the Tim Gunn we all know and love.
File this under “Random Gatherings.”
People magazine has assembled a slew of reality TV stars and pseudo-celebrities to fill its table at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner tomorrow night.
To begin with, Sanjaya Malakar’s hair-raising adventure will continue at the event. The recently dispatched American Idol contestant will attend the ceremony atWashington Hilton.
He’ll be joined by People’s guests that include: Valerie Bertinelli, Tim Gunn from Project Runway, Zac Efron of High School Musical, comedian Eddie Izzard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
