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AE: Tim Gunn is a huge fan favorite. He comes across as so nurturing on the show, but I've read that Angela has claimed he sabotaged her by praising her to her face only to trash her on his blog. Could there be a devious side to our favorite fashion guru? What's your take on the situation?
RB: I don't think Tim's stupid, personally. I wouldn't say devious, because I don't think that's his character, but I think Tim is like everyone else. His role is to aid and keep himself impartial. The thing that makes this whole show even more interesting is hindsight. By the time it airs, everyone is going to … form other opinions that at the time of filming might not have existed, so who knows how much of that will affect what Tim is commenting on. I don't think he's someone who would deliberately set out to belittle or destroy someone, but when looking back on the thing and with footage to watch, it's kind of like, “Hmm. You know what, I look at this challenge now and I do see where Angela was whatever.”

KG: I kind of agree. My conception of how much time Tim was going to be around when we were working was completely off. I thought he'd be around a lot, but he actually came in and made these quick 30-minute cameos once a day, and then was swept away and had to do other things. The time we got to be with him was very appreciated in value. Angela was the queen of taking the positive from what people say. It would be a five-minute-long conversation talking about how it was the probably the wrong direction and not the right fabric … but then he'd say, “But I did like the color.” She'd turn it into, “The color was fabulous. Tim loves the color.” That's all she got out of it. I'm not saying that's bad. We all had to do that at times just to talk ourselves into believing in our creations.

RB: Just to get by!

KG: That's something where I feel she may not be remembering the whole conversation at the time. I definitely do not think Tim would be two-faced or change his opinion maliciously.

RB: I think, too, that like Kayne was saying, Tim is spending a very brief amount of time with each designer, and giving everyone feedback to keep them going and move them along, and if they're in what he perceives to be a wrong direction, to kind of help change it. But he's as wrong as he is right, and we all learned that living there and working through it. You couldn't set too much store in it. You had to just be true to what you were trying to do.

Laura Bennett would take a turn around the room and give you her opinion unsolicited, or Keith was fond of telling everyone what he thought. Everyone has an opinion and you could let it sway you, or you could let it not. Like all things, you just had to be strong with what you were thinking. Sometimes you'd tank and sometimes you wouldn't. Tim, I'm sure, probably said encouraging things, then looking at it later was wondering, “What the hell was I thinking?” It's very different when you step away from it.

AE: You guys seemed to have a lot of fun working together on the Miss USA dress. Was it as much fun as it looked like on TV?
KG: It was more fun, honestly. They cut out all of our wonderful jokes. They cut all of our fabulous fun times making fun of Laura.

RB: They did. They picked a minimum of our repartee and maximized the whole Vincent/Angela debacle, which was kind of a shame. We provided light-hearted humor to all of those who were sick and tired of all the fighting and kvetching.

KG: It was literally a blast. I could not have had more fun. I was confident in that challenge, even though I was still very scared. I mean, there's Nina Garcia, and Vera [Wang] and Tara [Conner] who I related to more, but there are three other judges who have to decide the winner. And they're not pageant people! Everyone thought Robert and I were a shoo-in, but I was like, “No! You have no clue. Everyone here is talented and they're going to make pretty dresses. Whether they'll be right for Tara or not, we'll find out.” We did not think we had it won by any means. Especially after Tim came over. We expected Tim to be jumping up and down and saying he loved it, and he was just like, “Hmm.”

RB: He took this kind of long exhaustive breath, like he was looking at an alien. Not the reaction we wanted.

KG: Yeah. Every time I expected him to be jumping up and down, which I know now is not Tim's character, but it would have been nice every now and then to just see a little more enthusiasm. [Laughs.]

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