All Smiles at 9 AM: Tim Gunn and Nick Verreos at Season 8 Project Runway LA CastingsLast week, I had the pleasure of judging--for SIXTH SEASON IN A ROW!!!!--the Castings for Project Runway, Season 8. The producers of the show have been scouring the country for the next Top American Fashion Designer and they have gone to NYC, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta...
and last week was the final Los Angeles Casting at the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Blvd. Casting Executives "preselected" from thousands and thousands of applications and their picks were the ones that we, the Casting Judges, saw at these sessions. Approximately 50 designers--mostly from California--representing cities (sounds like a Miss USA!) such as San Francisco, San Diego, Palm Springs, and the Los Angeles area of course, came to this final round of casting.
I was so happy to be reunited with Tim Gunn. It's always so wonderful to spend time with Tim since our schedules are so crazy--especially his--that we don't get to see each other much.
Vintage Nick and Tim: Nick Verreos gets mentored by Tim Gunn, Season 2 Project RunwayI was also especially excited to see Miss Zoe Glassner, Senior Shopping Editor at Marie Claire, whom I've also had the pleasure of judging past Project Runway castings with. We had a great time seeing all the designers and we scrutinized every seam, every unnecessary ruffle and bow, and every wonky--and not-so wonky hem!
No Wonky Seams! LA Casting Panel, Zoe Glassner, Tim Gunn and Nick VerreosMaybe since it was "the end of the road-trip" for them--Zoe and Tim had NO PATIENCE for "I just wanna do this as a hobby..." and the "I Hate to sew and CANNOT draw...but I wanna be a fashion designer" nonsense--and trust me, they would let them "have it". Sometimes, I was the Paula Abdul of the group--or shall I say the Ellen DeGeneres-- with my "What Tim and Zoe are trying to say is..."LOL! But all in all, even Tim remarked that we may have found one of the "Best" of the entire Season 8 Casting process, here in LA. Well, we shall soon see!