Interview with "Project Runway" winner Christian Siriano

AE: Did you tell him Tim Gunn was coming over or did you just –?
CS: I didn’t. No, I didn’t that day. I told him a couple of days later.

AE: Oh, god. Did he think you were just being rude?
CS: I don't know. Actually, you know what? I asked him the other day, and I was like, “Did you think I was mean?” He was like, “No, it was okay.” He was like, “I wasn’t mad.” I was like, “Okay.”

AE: Well, it sounded really sweet when he wrote about you. You have to go check it out.
CS: I can’t wait to read it.

Siriano with Brad Walsh

AE: How come when Tim and the cameras visited you, they didn’t show your family or friends like they did the other contestants?
CS: I know, right. They cut me out.

AE: Why’d they do that?
CS: I’ve asked a couple people that. From what I heard from Tim, he just said that there wasn’t enough time and they were trying to focus a lot on Chris [March] and Rami [Kashou], because obviously one of them was going to be out in that episode. Chris really deserved the time – usually the contestants that leave, they get the majority of the time.

AE: All right. That makes sense.
CS: It just is respectful, which is fine. I mean, yes, I was actually very upset with it, ‘cause I had my roommate here and really good friends of mine, and I showed like other family photos that they didn’t show, and they cut my friends out. And I was like, “Oh, that’s lovely. I look like I have no heart and I have no friends.”

AE: Yeah.
CS: But, you know, it’s okay, no worries. No regrets anymore. I could care less what they do now.

AE: It seemed to me that Tim truly seemed to be a fan of yours, that he really liked you personally and he liked your work. Did you get that feeling, too?
CS: I don’t want to shoot my own foot, but I think Tim and I got the closest on the show together. I’ve seen him at different events and things recently, and we’re just really close and I just like love him so much, and he’s so supportive of me. And I think he just really believes in me, and he just sent me an e-mail today saying he can’t wait to chat, ‘cause I just want to pick his brain all day long about everything. I have lots of questions. But he’s like so supportive of me. He’s like willing to do whatever I need to help.

AE: You know, you seem so sure of yourself and to have such a strong sense of what you want to create and where you’re going, but I also felt, especially more towards the end, that it seemed like you really listened to Tim. Does his opinion really matter to you? Not that it would change what you’re doing, but that you think about it.
CS: Oh, yeah. I definitely always think about like he says and his opinions. And in all honesty, what you don’t see is that the only critiques that he gave me [on screen] were the only critiques he ever gave me.

Everything else was like so much praising that it was actually hard for me to edit my collection, because he was giving me so many good compliments that I got scared, ‘cause I was like, “Give me some negatives.” So I was asking for negative things and he told me. And he told me what he thought and I went for those things, and some things I changed and some things I didn’t. It just depends. I’m pretty decisive on what I do. I don’t really like to think about it too much, ‘cause I think that’s when things go wrong.

AE: I know that feeling, too. That happens to me in interviews.
CS: Yeah. Don’t think about it. Just do it.