Hasta La Ideas

Fashion and costume designer Chris March learned a lot from Project Runway. Reaching the final round of the beloved reality competition show during its fourth season was not only a major personal and professional accomplishment but also a crash course in the power of television. “The second the show started, I started getting all of these e-mails, and then I would get a million hits a month on my website,” he tells us in this second installment of our three-part Media Beat interview. “I had no idea what television could do.” Click below to hear more about his experience on Project Runway, why he considers the show a “pop culture phenomenon,” and what it all means for the future of fashion design.

You can also view this video on YouTube.

Part 1: Inside Chris March’s Madly Fashionable World

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Bill Powers purchased his first work of art—a Terry Richardson photo of “ToeJam the Clown”—in 1998, shortly after taking the editorial helm of Blackbook. Since then, he’s built an art collection that includes works by Richard Prince, Elizabeth Peyton, Dana Schutz, and Irving Penn; opened New York’s Half Gallery with partners Andy Spade and James Frey; and co-founded Exhibition A, the online art hub that offers affordable editions by some of the big names on Powers’ own walls. Tonight he is back on Bravo to dispense more good-natured yet constructive criticism on the cable network’s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. So which of the new contestants should we keep an eye out for? “We’ve got Michelle, who has worked for Marilyn Minter and had also been an assistant to Josephine Meckseper. It’s interesting to see someone with that background,” he says. “Or Kathryn, who went to Yale grad school for photography, versus a toymaker, The Sucklord. I think it really is a nice spectrum.” We chatted with Powers about the reaction to Work of Art, the judging process, and what’s in store for the new season (KAWS!).

1. How would you characterize the reaction—particularly that of the art world—to the first season of Work of Art?
I understand people’s skepticism. I mean, it is reality TV, right? Personally, I was really flattered at how many contemporary artists I admire watched the first season, whether it’s Cecily Brown or Rob Pruitt or Jeff Koons or Rachel Feinstein. That meant a lot to me that those people would watch and get into it. People said that the show reminded them a lot of grad school and that a lot of the personalities and the work that was produced was reminiscient of that. There’s always somebody getting naked. There’s always somebody tackling social issues. And there’s a photographer, who’s probably better suited to commercial photography, making fine art pictures.

2. Are there certain aspects of season two that you think will surprise people?
I was always surprised by the range of materials employed, and what somebody can make in four or five hours is pretty impressive. And I would ask viewers to remember that it’s a lot of pressure to say, “OK, here’s the theme of the show this week, now make something and we’re going to show it tomorrow as if we’re picking people for the next Venice Biennale.” I feel like people at home or on blogs sometimes can be looking at this work as if someone had a year in their studio to make it. They have five or six hours sometimes to make what you’re seeing. I know that’s part of being a part of a competition series, but to see something that you like and that someone made in a few hours? Most working artists today spend weeks if not months putting together a piece. I think that people are, if I can borrow a term from Jerry [Saltz], “demonstrating radical vulnerability” by their participation on the show.
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With over a decade of fashion and styling experience as an editor at Vogue, correspondent for Today, and co-host of TLC’s What Not to Wear, has Stacy London ever given out bad advice? Like saying those white pantyhose were a don’t, only to see someone like Gwen Stefani make it a why-didn’t-I-think-of-that do?

“No, I’m never wrong,” London said jokingly in our Media Beat interview. “No, not about other people’s style. But my style? Oh, boy, have I made mistakes.”

“Everybody makes fashion mistakes… and they’re not even really mistakes. There is no failure [in fashion],” she continued. “The fact is fashion and style really is about confidence. You can’t make a mistake if you’re confident enough in yourself to pull things off.”

London also answered some questions from our @mediabistroTV followers on jeans for real women, the white watch trend, and how to dress for “day to night fabulousness.”

You can also watch this video on YouTube.

Part 1: Stacy London: ‘It’s not just about the clothes. It’s about the psychology behind them’

Part 3: Wednesday, London reveals her biggest career challenge and gives tips to aspiring fashionistas.

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A fresh season of Project Runway is upon us, and Thursday’s episode will feature the contestants’ first field trip to Mood Designer Fabrics. (The season nine opener required them to rework their own pajamas, assisted only by a smattering of Mood-supplied trimmings and dye. It was not pretty.) The reality competition show’s favorite one-stop materials shop, home to 40,000 square feet worth of fabric and a Boston terrier named Swatch, recently got its close-up in The New York Times. Writer Adriane Quinlan visited the Sauma family, which has owned Mood since 1993, to watch last week’s Project Runway premiere and talk textiles:

What began as a family store has become an empire with a wholesale division, a home décor wing and a Web site started last year to supply internationally. The expansion is partly helped by the show, which does not pay to film in the store in exchange for mentioning Mood on air. (Yes, designers do pay for the goods they carry out.)

When the show began, [Philip] Sauma said, it was “a bit weird” to see the workplace onscreen. Now he just notices things to improve: shelves to be moved, bolts to reorganize. Still, it is always strange to see the host, Tim Gunn, petting his brother’s dog, Swatch. “Sometimes he sees himself on television,” Jack Sauma, the store’s founder and Philip’s father, said of the dog. “And he moves his head like, ‘Who was that?’”

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Looking for an edifying alternative to summer movies (all of which seem to star Jason Bateman and/or wizards)? Grab some Sno-Caps, dim the lights, and click on over to the Independent Television Service’s Indies Showcase. Launched today, the free online film festival will offer up 20 documentaries by independent filmmakers as ITVS celebrates 20 years of funding, presenting, and promoting award-winning documentaries and dramas on public television and cable (we have them to thank for PBS’s Independent Lens series). Each full-length program will stream for free for three days on the ITVS website. Among the documentaries on deck are Paul Fierlinger’s Still Life with Animated Dogs, King Corn, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, and Please Vote for Me, which follows a third-grade class election in Wuhan, China (a talent show and a debate is involved). Look for the full film line-up to be posted in the coming weeks. The ITVS Indies Showcase runs through September 22.

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