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September 5, 2007 2:50 pm
Tomorrow marks the debut of Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style on Bravo. Just in time for his launch party tonight at the Soho Grand, we caught up with the Project Runway star and Parsons alum about his latest reality endeavor.
What’s your show about?
It’s a new interpretation of a makeover show. These people contact us and say, "I need help, I’m in a fashion rut." Veronica Webb and I arrive at their house—we’ve given them about 20 minutes of warning. We review what she’s currently wearing, then have a whole excavation of her closet. Then we really disarm our subject by having Veronica declare that she wants to go through her underwear drawer. The point of that is really to say we can’t fix the outside unless the infrastructure is good. Among these eight women, not a single solitary one of them has been wearing the right bra size. Veronica takes the subject underwear shopping, and they get it right.
At this point, what are you doing? Strolling the men’s section?
I’m not there at all. Veronica and the subject are alone, and they head off to Macy’s to find the ten essential items that I think every woman should have. I surprise her later that day in the dressing room, and then we all hit the retail floor together. We look and see what we can find. At the end of the day, we’ve done it. I’m making it sound simplistic, but it’s agonizing. It’s incredibly hard work.
What else?
Then I have a big surprise, which is to take her to a high-end designer and have her try on that designer’s clothes and really have that moment of engagement with the person who created the dress or whatever. It’s magical for her. She really feels special. And it’s something that I’m thrilled to do.
Will you be rating the styles of people at the party?
I only do that if asked. I had a psychic tell me that the third eye takes a horrible toll on her because she can’t sift out whatever it is she’s getting from people around her. She said, “If I’m in the grocery store and I’m sensing something from the woman next to me squeezing tomatoes, do I say to her, ‘Don’t go home now, go to the movies and go home later.’? She’ll think I’m crazy." I would be the same way if I were in constant evaluation of people’s clothes on the street. It would drive me nuts.
I was wondering where you were going with that.
That’s where I was going. I have to screen it out, or else I’d be handing people little note cards saying "Think about the length of that skirt." Unless it was a dear friend of mine and I could talk to them privately—I would simply say to them, "You know something, if that’s the look you wanted, you sure have a good one." It’s a line I stole from I Love Lucy.
—Sarah Cristobal
Photo: Djamilla Rosa Cochran/WireImage.com
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