Q: If you could create your own challenge, what would it be?
Zac Posen: I desperately want to do the Zac glamour red carpet challenge.
Q: Very cool. What would you require of them?
Zac Posen: Something that is red carpet worthy, that is news, a dress that is photographable, that presents their point of view as a designer but is appropriate for that major one red carpet, super-star moment.
Q: Sitting in Michael Kors’ chair, do you feel any pressure to come up with the kind of zingers that we hear from him?
Zac Posen: Pressure. Well I think when you have somebody on a show for a decade, a rapport with the flow of the show and the audience - it was a huge challenge.
I was nervous about taking that, but I also wanted to really stay true to my point of view and how I see fashion.
I try especially to encourage the best out of each individual creator. I will say that this season we had to turn up the volume with the group of contestants because it was no longer team challenges, to push them to do their best work possible and understand the incredible opportunity that they have by being on the show to expose a wide audience to their work.
I have on set, tried to come up with visual analogies for the viewers. You have to keep it entertaining while giving critique; and that’s really how I started. And Michael has given incredible guidance and support through the process to me.
Q: In terms of the talent that you see on the season, some of the designs that they’re creating, are there any designs that will become trends for the new fall season?
Zac Posen: Are there trends? Absolutely. What’s interesting about being a part of the show is you see which designers have a true points of view and are going to be trailblazers and create their own trends. And then there’s the designers that fall into sort of the safety of being within trend.
I’m always going to be more interested from, just from what kind of designer I am, at people who are going to push and take the risk. And the reason I come to that is because there’s so much clothing out there in the world; an excess of wearable clothing at every price point. And so, when you’re having a platform on television, I want to see who’s going to push themselves to come up with the next idea.
I definitely think that as this season progresses, you’re going to see some of the designers start to play, you know, with what I call more wearable, sculptural clothing; and even elements of simplicity that we as the design panel really praised. When something is sculptural, wearable and has a level of simplicity to it, andit’s just effective; then that’s a winner for sales and creativity.
The viewers will have to keep watching to see when this happens, but at the end of the day, cleanliness is next to godliness. I think when something hits all the components, it’s really good.
You know, I think that with Dom's designs, she has such an incredible ability to work with prints and as we go into fall, that’s certainly going to be, you know, continuing to be a big trend, "print play" we’ve seen on the runway; we’ve seen a lot of play with proportions; a lot of what I call "surprising skin in the midriff, " continues to be a trend; and then we still have sort of (jumper) pants, you know, as a trend, that I hope will dissipate, but that’s still very present on the runway this season. Drop crotch. As Heidi Klum calls them, “poopy pants.”
Q: Which guest judge have you enjoyed working with the most and who gave the most compelling critiques?
Zac Posen: Well Kelly Osbourne is a super star. I mean not only is she obviously a really, one of my best friends in the world, and I adore her, but she is excited about fashion. And she loves it. And she thrives on it. So she was an exquisite judge.
Kate Bosworth was a really good judge. Allison Williams, who’s going to be coming up soon, got really sort of hands on, you know, and so she was a terrific judge.
And Jesse Tyler Ferguson, you know, for me is the surprise hit judge of the season. But it’s still wonderful, because when you’re shooting almost every other day or every three days and you’re living on the filming stage as your reality, you know, it’s really fun to have those guests come into your life and share how they perceive fashion. And it’s a great dialogue. I wish there could be more on television, more film of the dialogue that happens because we talk for about five hours. For that ten seconds of feedback.
Q: If you could use one to three words to describe the rest of the season, what would they be?
Zac Posen: Wow. OK. Three words. Surprising. Intense. Exhilarating. And one more - Creative.
Q: Our readers have strongly disagreed with the first two eliminations this season. And I’m wondering if you regret any of the decisions that the judges made, either last season or this season? Would you take anything back?
Zac Posen: I never live with regret. I think there’s always a moment of reflection; sometimes, when I see the work, it drastically changes from in person to on camera to on television. Clothing miraculously photographs very differently, and that’s not an excuse, it’s just an interesting point of view, when I’m tweeting and I have that reflection period.
There’s all kinds of reasoning for how the panel comes to a final conclusion. And trust me, we never have the same opinion; very rarely do we have the same opinion on what gets eliminated. I probably would have eliminated the burnt clothing because I just didn’t think there was much there. But at the same time, potentially some, somebody has a strong point of view, you have to be able to give them props.
I’m always more interested in more ideas than no ideas. And I’m not ever interested in seeing the Chic banal, or another pretty dress. It’s not, there has to be more than that into it. And then the same for the "slutty cat toy." The reasoning for keeping them on was seeing more ideas. Except for the very extreme sort of fitting misstep in the crotch area. You know, besides that, the clothing was made and executed quite well, so we wanted to give him an opportunity to see if he could take our advice and progress from there.
But that being said, it’s an amazing dialogue with the fans to see, you know, who should be eliminated. And there’s so many components that go into the final decision. And, I have to take Nina’s points of view and Heidi’s and then Tim’s experience and his sort of back-of-house eyes, all into consideration to get the final verdict. But often there are people that aren’t on the cutting block that end up in sort of the safe zone, that I think should be on the cutting block. But I have to go with the flow.
Q:Today is Tim Gunn’s 60th birthday; would you like to send out a message to Tim?
Zac Posen: You bet. Well I’ll send one out from my phone. What a smashing, handsome, elegant and wonderful man Tim Gunn is. I mean he’s going to have another joyful, and full next 60 years of his life ahead of him. He’s a joy to work with everyday, and a gentleman; and he’s a mentor for the designers, but he’s also a mentor to me and to the whole set with his warmth, elegance and level of professionalism. I really admire and take great joy that I get to work with him on the show.
