Transcript of Tim's Podcast - Fit For A Queen - Continued

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Hey you guys! Here is the podcast for episode 2—all 33 minutes of it. Here are the guidelines I have used that will make this easier to read.

Sometimes I have edited Tim’s words a bit to make this more readable. I haven’t deleted anything really, except when he stumbles over words before choosing the one he wants to use. I’ll just give you the word he ends up using. Anytime you see (()) That means it was a side comment made by him. I’ll use italics to signify his laughter or any other sounds I hear him make. If you see [[]] then that is me making a comment about something, or adding something for clarification. So you can always disregard the [[]] at your leisure.



Anyways—Sorry about not having epi one up…my computer ate it. But let’s get on with Episode 2:



Miss America Episode [Or, I dislike Vincent, but he is better than Zulema]:



Hi, I’m Tim Gunn and this is my podcast for the Miss USA episode. As we enter into this new episode Keith is the winner and has immunity so he cannot be eliminated from this challenge and Stacey is out, regretfully. She is good, she has a lot of potential but somebody had to go! But, we have lost her at this point.



So we enter into a new challenge. Heidi introduces Tara Conner, Miss USA, to all the designers on the runway and explains the challenge. They are going to design the gown that she will wear to the Miss Universe pageant. This is a big, big deal. Most aptly and formidably demonstrated by the fact that the evening gown competition at Miss Universe is 1/3 of the voting. So it is really significant and really big. You can feel the buzz around that runway from the designers. They are very excited and, in some cases, they are very terrified! (Laughs) But it’s good. It is a wonderful challenge and we have a real client before us!



So then I meet with the designers in the workroom and I have Tara with me. We talk again how big this is, and how important it is, and Tara talks about what she is looking for in a gown. What is really interesting is that she uses the term “red carpet” as oppose to “pageant.” She said, “I really don’t want something that is pageant-y, I want something that would look great on a red carpet.” There really is a difference. You can see in Kayne, in particular, you can see that resonating in him. He knows that difference and he is _nothing_ if not a superb, sublime pageant gown designer. And he knows the difference between that and red carpet. Laura is clearly very comfortable with evening wear. We have Keith our winner, who has only made one dress but won a challenge with it…I know he was a little daunted by this but at the same time he was a little arrogant, so he isn’t going to show too much of that. Vincent is…confident. Angela is fearful. Katherine has never done anything quite this ambitious, and various parts of the room there are various reactions to this. I then explain to the designers, having thanked Tara, that they will have 30 minutes to sketch, and that they will be pitching their ideas to Tara. Tara and I go off and we leave them alone.



So, Tara meets with each of the designers, they each have their little audition, she absorbs all of this and she will select seven of them. Those seven will serve as team leaders and each of the seven will in turn choose a team member. We go at it. Tara is really a very excellent critic. She knows what she likes, she knows what looks good on her and most of the designers listened and responded to what she said in a very articulate way. In some other cases we had some Episode 2 stubbornness where “my idea is so strong and so powerful that she will change her mind about what she likes.” …Okay, I don’t think that is going to work.



Tara announces that her seven designers are Keith, Uli, Vincent, Laura, Malan, Jeffery, and Kayne. Kayne was last and I could tell (I kept watching him) he was turning into a wreck. I produce our wonderful magic and scary velvet bag and choose their names, and that is the order in which they will be choosing their team mate. Laura is first, she selects Michael. Kayne is next and he chooses Robert. And I have to add (I am going to interject at this point) that I became aware of this craziness that actually didn’t take place in front of me. It was Angela campaigning to Kayne cause she knows he is experienced with this area…campaigning to Kayne to put her on his team! When I learned of this I…well…I have a lot to say about this topic, and unfortunately I learned about this after this challenge was over and I have a lot say about some of my behavior during this challenge which you will not see in the show [HUGE thunder outside]. Oops! If anyone heard that thunder, it’s the Gods getting angry at me! I have to say the reason I was peeved with Angela when I learned all of this was because I was very supportive of her in the conflict she was having with Vincent. Once I learned about this koo-koo-ness, it really amended my whole point of view. Kayne did not choose Angela, mainly because she was so persistent! If she merely lobbed out that she would love to work with him, it might have been a nice thing, like, “oh, I’m flattered, thank you so much”, but instead, I gather she was nagging, haranguing, and relentless! That doesn’t work with any of us.



Back to the selections. So Jeffrey chooses Alison, Malan chooses Katherine, Uli chooses Bonnie, and Keith is now faced with Bradley or Angela. He chooses Bradley and says it’s because he is the only acceptable person now because he wasn’t about to choose Angela. I don’t know, given she was the last person standing, whether this behavior was demonstrating itself during the 30 minutes of sketching was as irksome to everyone else as it was to Kayne, but I suspect that it was. But I didn’t know about all of this again until later. I just thought they didn’t like her bubble skirt! (laughs) I didn’t know they were responding to a behavior, and clearly they were. I would have too!! So Vincent is the last designer to choose [Thunder crashes again—how ominous—Gods just don’t like Vincent!] and has no choice other than Angela. A team made in heaven, it is not.



At this point the design is determined and the teams are determined. I say the design is determined because the seven designers chosen by Tara and their team member will execute their team leaders design. [whoa that sentence doesn’t make much sense on paper—but you get what he is trying to say] It is not a question of, “oh right now we are going to collaborate, we are going to merge these two concepts into one.” That wasn’t going to happen.



So as soon as the teams were chosen we were ready to shop. Off we went with a budget of $300 and the designers had two days for the challenge. During the shopping expeditions, I am the time-keeper and I am walking around making certain everyone is aware of our time constraints, and I do the countdown. 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever it is. Well, Angela was doing her own countdown and it was really annoying to Vincent. It explained why when I came to them as a team, I would get these looks like, “we already know this!” (laughs) Well I didn’t know that, but I wanted you to hear it from me. The tensions were mounting even at that point and I very aware of it and it seemed that, in terms of even the fabric selection, Vincent was dominating (and by saying that I’m not implying that he shouldn’t have been) and Angela was shrinking. So the chasm that was already there between them was getting wider and wider and wider. Even at that point I scratched my head and asked myself “what is going to transpire in the workroom?” We’ll see.



Placing the designers in teams this early in the season…I really loved. It was a time for them to bond at least two by two which is manageable. I mean, there are still 14 of them—that’s a lot of people. For me and for the audience, you can wrap your brain around seven designs…it is really hard to wrap your head around 14. I was relieved that we were proceeding this way and again, I liked the bonding that was happening. With one exception, the relationships were really good and friendships were formed and they lasted as long as the designers lasted…it was a very good thing.



We return from shopping and at this point I really want to get into the workroom and fully understand what the designers are—but I don’t. I let them work together for a while so at least by the time that I do come into the workroom and make my rounds there is something tangible there, there is something to be seen…there is something more than just an idea in the ether. So I left them alone for a number of hours and returned later that afternoon or evening. There are varying degrees of progress…I mean most were still working in muslin at that point. It is good to go through the whole muslin prototype and work out the silhouette. I was worried about Kayne and Robert because the dress in muslin looked so big (and I mean big!) and exuberant. And I looked at Kayne and I said, “remember, its red carpet not pageant.” “Oh no its red carpet its red carpet don’t worry!” “Alright…”

Umm…Uli and Bonnie were working very confidently and seemed good, seemed fine.



I was a bit perplexed with Keith and Bradley because it looked as though (and I’m not saying this can’t work) each had assignments, it was as if, “Well you do the top and I’ll do the bottom..” Well, how are those things going to come together? This has to happen. As long as they were having consistent dialogue and were checking I thought okay, leave them alone and let them do their own style.



Jeffrey and Alison seemed to have very good synergy. Jeffrey was clearly in charge and Alison seemed like a good sous chef and I saw the muslin and didn’t fully understand it. Jeffrey assured me that once they worked in real fabric, I would. But I said, “this is a template…I mean fabric in a way is decoration on top of it and this template disturbs me.” At any rate, it was early, I thought let them do what they are doing.



Laura and Michael were getting along like they had known each other for years and seemed to be in great shape, and I thought wonderful.



Then on the other side of the room, we have Vincent and Angela. So palpable was the tension between them that I could feel it on the other side of the room. It was profound and unsettling. I don’t like conflict, that is why you will never find me stirring up a pot when it doesn’t need to be stirred (a pot of stuff, that is.) [….what?]. I’m not comfortable with conflict, I don’t like having to mitigate conflict, but it is also one of my roles, and it is a role I have at Parsons that I have to do too frequently sometimes. At any rate, I stepped into listen and asked just what was going on. Vincent instantly is dismissive.

[I am going to point out who he is acting/etc. It’s a longish conversation and I don’t want to lose anyone]

(Mimics Vincent’s voice) “Oh nothing, nothing Tim! You can go away, nothing is happening, everything is fine!”

Well I said, “everything doesn’t look fine, it doesn’t sound fine it…it doesn’t feel fine.”

[V:] “No its fine there’s nothing wrong!”

[T:]“Angela…?”

[A:] “Well…we aren’t really getting along very well…”

[T:] “Well, what’s the issue?”

[A:] “Well Vincent want’s to do everything himself.]

[V:] “That’s not true! I don’t want to do everything myself!”

[A:] “Yes you do!”

[V:] “No I don’t!”

[A:] “Yes you do!”

[T:] “All right…there’s no conflict? This looks like conflict…so what are you doing to resolve this?”

[V:] “There’s nothing wrong, there’s nothing going on!”

[T:] “Alright, I’m around if you need me. I’m walking away from this right now.”



I’m looking at the other designers who are all rolling their eyes, like “oh, if you only knew.” Of course, I didn’t know about the Alison [is that about Vincent calling her the wrong name, or did Tim just call her the wrong name?] stuff of earlier, and I wish I had! I don’t want this to sound like I am favoring one or the other. I think of them all being my kids in a way, but given Vincent’s words that he used to me…[reference the prior scene] I mean, what do you think, that I’m some sort of idiot? I was much more inclined to listen to Angela, who I thought was at least not in a state of denial or wasn’t in a state of misrepresentation. I left the room feeling “I would really like to know from Angela, alone, what is really going on.” But I thought, let this play itself out a while longer cause it could resolve itself at the same time I don’t want to have to be breaking the two of them apart if I don’t have to.



Malan and Katherine. I saw this big top, big giant top. I remembered saying that it, and the fabric, the look of it, the ruching…that it looked like it had been carved out of a log…as I think of it now, it was like a giant piece of fudge that they had formed. A confectionery it was not, leaden it was, like my mother’s fudge (forgive me mother). I could tell by Katherine’s face, though she has no experience in evening wear—this would not be the evening wear she would experience. Malan is a very very thoughtful individual and designer, I mean he really is. He is very talented so I was trying to extract from him, what was going on with this, was it going to evolve into something that would be an amendment of what this thing was, and I guess, first and foremost, did he think it was working? He said he did think it was working, and I asked him what client? And that we have a client here, and she is diminutive in her own way. She is the second shortest Miss USA in history…this is not a tall woman, so she doesn’t want to look like she just came out of the forest primeval as not a water sprite, but as a Yule log. I was worried about it because there is a client, not just a matter of having our judges there and expressing their own point of view and taste level about this—we have a client who is going to say that dress is mine and that one is not. I dislike this one the most! So I was worried about that. Katherine was looking at me knowingly, like oh you are reading my mind. Malan is looking concerned, and I respected that. I thought, “good, you should be concerned.” Unlike Mr. Vincent[the way he says Vincent is classic. Holds on to that V and goes up in his voice—Tim does not like Vincent. Not in any way] next door to him (sorry Vincent). So I thought again, I’ve dropped my little grenade, let me step away from this and lets see how they resolve it.



In the spirit of transparency and to make up for what I didn’t give you in podcast one, having not seen the show, I am going to bring to your attention a whole series of things that were edited out (I knew that they would be.) The reason I knew that they would be was because our producers actually stopped all the activity in the room to bring me out. (laughs hard) Ask, “Tim…what are you doing?” Because I was having a private tete-a-tete with Angela. It was in front of everybody, but it was Angela and me, sort of head to head, I elbow the worktable, my chin on my hand…Angela in a similar position where I was just talking to her. She had nothing to do, Vincent wouldn’t let her anywhere near him. As a matter of fact I had walked in the room earlier and he actually said to her, I want you to step three paces away from me, I want you three feet back! (which is not three paces but he kept changing it) And I thought, what is this?! Is she some kind of poison [yes!] and she is going to infect him? [Tim is getting excited and stumbling over his words a bit here] It was extremely disrespectful and it really made me want to blow. I was close to blowing, and there is a whole thing with me, and Angela, and Vincent where I am challenging them to tell me what is going on, again…this is for the second time! And at this point the dress is much more fully developed, and, frankly speaking, it’s a homely bag of garbage (I’m sorry). I say to Vincent, this does not look like design, this looks like dress making, and not nice dress making. He’s being his… “I don’t hear you, I don’t see you, I don’t want to know what you have to say”… self. Its like “yeahyeahyeah I got a dress to do Tim, Goodbye.” And Angela is saying “I really don’t like this either, I’m concerned about it.”

[here we go again]

[V:] “Well you haven’t helped! You haven’t participated! You’re voice doesn’t matter!”

[T:] “Wait a minute…the two of you are going to be presenting this. Albeit Vincent, it is your design that Tara chose, but Angela is part of this team—“

[V:] “She’s not part of the team!”

[T:] “This is bad. And part of the challenge is the relationship the two of you have. It is the classic, ‘make it work!’ and this is not working. You need to listen to Angela—(I have to say I was putting it all on him at this point.) And you need to enlist her support and she needs to buy into this design, she could sell you out on the runway—“

[V:] “Well I could sell her out!”

[T:] “Well, indeed you could, but you could both go. I have no idea where this is going to go with eliminations, I really don’t. It could be decided that two people are going and at this moment—I know what I’d decide.” And then I reminded them that I’m not a judge.



I was irate to say the least. I left the workroom. I was really unsettled, I was tense, I was pacing in the hallway, I felt really bad for Angela and I wanted to give her some support. So I went back in the workroom. She was at her workstation because she had no where else to go,(she certainly wasn’t going to be working with him) and I just wanted to have a little therapy session with her. Upon reflection it was more of a therapy session for me. We were both venting about him. I have to say, it wasn’t as if I had just met him, I had had the experience of challenge one and that preposterous look on the runway—I mean..I’ll never get over it. Well…yes I will, but its still fresh in my memory. [stumbling, figuring out what he wants to talk about] The look was preposterous…what was (what is the right way to express this?) irritating to me, and an irritation I couldn’t get rid of, was his intractability in the workroom about supporting the design. About how great it was, how wonderful it was, oh the judges are going to love it...and then the judges didn’t love it and he does an 180 degree about face and says, “Oh yeah I was concerned about the hat oh yeah I was concerned about this—“ No, you weren’t!! You weren’t concerned about it at all! You completely dismissed me and said “I love it, get away from me!” …Okay. Face the runway. So, I already kind of had a case against Vincent. I hate to say it that way.



This is when the producers pulled me out. They said, “Your ire against Vincent is so strong and so profound and so evident to all the other designers, this isn’t good. We can’t have the designers lose confidence in you. And through this unbridled support for Angela and for Angela, poor Angela—“ And again, I upon reflection, she was definitely part of the problem. She wasn’t the poor victim I was making her out to be. I was going to have to work with Vincent by hook or by crook anyways…and I have to say, Zulema he is not…I will take Vincent over Zulema any day!



It was a bitch slap, and a necessary one. I mean, our producers have the greatest integrity, they have the greatest respective on things…and I was getting very myopic. I was extremely grateful for them, and it was a good wakeup call for me. It was like pow! I did my own about face. It wasn’t suddenly I was yelling at Angela, but it was a matter of…I had a perspective now. It was like, okay there is more happening here. The producers through their own little minicam system know everything that is happening everywhere. I only experience what I experience. The producers, God bless them, don’t fill my head with unnecessary stuff. At the time it wasn’t necessary to tell me what Angela had been doing earlier in the workroom and how the other designers were responding to her, because they were getting that from the interviews that I don’t see until the show airs. So I don’t know what is going on or what people are really thinking. They did me a kindness and I am grateful to them.



We had two days for the challenge, this is the morning after. The models are coming in, they have two hours to prepare everything and looking around the room, there is a lot of unfinished work—still. We had a deadline at midnight the night before, and I am beginning to think that by episode two, the designers are already well, “the models will come in and we’ll have time to finish all this.” Well, you never know how much time, really, and again there is a lot to do. In the case of Malan and Katherine, we still had a dress that was way too long, and what are you doing with this? Oh we’ll get that when the model gets here. What are you going to use, crazy glue? The dress is entirely too long, they are going to get it on the model, measure it, and then cut it. Well, send in the models…about 30 minutes later I’m in the room, and I am really staring with incredulity at this skirt. The reason I am is because a good two feet has come off it. So it went from being entirely too long to this…ridiculously…horrifying length. Its that length that will take the most beautiful creation and make it a homely, unacceptable piece. The hem was too short—it was about her ankle, and it had been fairly roughly cut so you had lots of fraying—it was a mess. And because it was so short, they couldn’t hem it! Or else it would have been even worse. So, I held up the two feet of extra fabric, and say “I know you only have 90 minutes…but you don’t see a solution in here?” And Katherine looked at me sort of like “Bingo!”



I didn’t see them again until we were leaving the workroom to go down to the runway. And there it marched…that same horribly roughly cut, too-short hem. I looked at Malan and shrugged, and he said “we had a lot of work to do on the top..” But I said, “You know something, that hem is at eye level of Nina Garcia…this is not good for you.” I felt kind of sick, frankly.



So off to the runway, we have our runway presentation, Heidi calls the designers onto the stage, she calls the models onto the stage, declares the two best and the two worst will remain on the runway, and the rest will be spared! Laura and Michael are spared, Keith and Bradley (Keith has immunity, but I have to say the dress was good), and Jeffrey and Alison. There is no question who is at the bottom, it is Malan and Katherine and its Vincent and Angela.



So we have Kayne and Robert and Uli and Bonnie there who are the best looks. And they are, they really are. I was a little concerned about the fit of the dress that Kayne and Robert did…but this speaks to her experience, Tara could see through it and how it could be amended for her. She was really projecting herself into each of those gowns. Uli’s dress was, for me, the most modern, the most contemporary, the most ‘now’...but that also caused me to say, this may not be the right dress for Miss Universe. Kayne and Robert’s design…their work together...it was a very editorial moment. It was something you could really see in a magazine. It would have pizzazz and would be memorable.



Malan and Katherine’s would be memorable, but not for the right reason. The thing was a hot mess, I’m sorry, but it was just a hot mess. The top was big, lumpy sack…that skirt…you couldn’t even look at it other than that fraying hem! Short fraying hem. Then Vincent and Angela…when it is all said and done, it was a very simple column. Some of the judge’s comments, I felt, were extremely generous. I think Nina loved the back. It was not well constructed. In fact, I had said to them when we were still in the work room, “Are you going to steam this?”

“Oh we already did!”

“You did?” …and then I looked closer and realized all the puckering was because of how it was sewn. And of course, Vincent playing the martyr, “I had to do it alone! If I had had some help, it wouldn’t have happened!”

Gimme a break. Save it.

It had ridiculous epaulet sleeves. I mean, talk about ‘beam me up Scottie!’ I mean, where were they going? Judy Jetson’s birthday party? It was just ridiculous kind of thing. But thank god she wasn’t wearing a hat. Cause you can imagine what that would have looked like. If Angela had been helping, I’m sure Vincent could have done a hat! [dripping with sarcasm] …we wouldn’t have wanted to see it.



Though it was between the two of them, I knew where it was going. I mean, I simply knew that it was going to be the Malan and Katherine dress—I could feel it. Of course we then have the painful, “Who do you think should be out?” questions. Katherine says, Malan, it was his design. She was right, but it’s still painful to hear. And Malan, being responsible and having integrity says, “Yeah..if someone should go, I should go. I hate to go at this moment, but it should be me who goes.”



Our winner is Kayne, which I have to say, my heart skipped, I was so thrilled! I mean, he is our pageant designer. I mean this is what he does! This is his passion. Frankly, he is incredibly good at it! Had he not won this, I was thinking, oh he is going to have to go home to Oklahoma and board up the store! Now he can go home and put a big crown on top of the store! [Tim is so cute at this point. He is really happy for Kayne] It is great for him, and he really earned the win, he deserved it. I just loved the fact that this was his challenge and he should really win this…and he did. It caused me to reflect upon the Barbie challenge of season 2 when Santino said that, “I grew up with Barbies, this is my thing! And for that I’m going to win this!” And then of course he didn’t, and it was a devastating loss. And in my own way, because of all the braggadocio, I was embarrassed for him. And Kayne didn’t even need to open his mouth about how badly he wanted to win this. Everybody knew, because everybody knows his background. I mean, who knew about Santino and Barbie?...one wouldn’t guess that. So it was a thrilling, thrilling

win.



I have to say, if anybody thinks that being a character keeps you on Project Runway…witness the departure of Malan. There is a character! He is also a good designer and I was really sorry to see him go. But someone had to. I regret that we weren’t able to see more of what he could do, and frankly I regret we weren’t able to see the interaction among him and the designers would be and how it would develop. It would have been interesting, I have no doubt. But we see very little of him…and then he’s gone.



In our next challenge, Heidi tells the designers that they are to use a fashion accessory as the inspiration for their design…and I just have to say…I don’t think anyone of you will be able to guess what it is.