Interview with "Project Runway" winner Christian Siriano

AE: I read in an interview with you that you said you wanted to save Britney Spears because she needs the gays.
CS: [laughing] She does. I know.

AE: Tell me what you’d do.
CS: Oh, my god. Listen, have you ever noticed Britney has no gays? She has no little fairies running around helping her. I don’t understand that.

AE: I know.
CS: It’s really horrible. Now I said to a producer once that I wanted to do a reality show called Project Britney instead of Project Runway, where I would take Britney for the next six months and I would do hair, makeup, wardrobe every day for her and become her personal staff every day. And then of course I would be, hello, the thanks that everyone has to give for saving Britney, ‘cause I would totally save her whole image and – oh my god, it would be flawless.

AE: But do you think she’d let you?
CS: No, she would never, no. She would never let anybody. I think that’s her point, like you know, everybody was doing that all her life, so she’s kind of rebelling. I mean I think it’d be fun. Most designers would never want to dress a celebrity like her, but I wouldn’t mind trying to like work her back into shape. It’d be fun.

AE: It’d be fascinating.
CS: But my new project is Victoria Beckham.

AE: That also brings me to another little interview with you, that I think you might remember from back in January, where you said you wanted to have a three-way with her and David Beckham.
CS: [laughing] Oh my god, that’s so funny. And how funny is that? And I didn’t even know she was going to be the judge.

AE: I know. Do you think she knew you said that?
CS: I really hope not, ‘cause I don’t want her to read that, ‘cause it was a joke.

AE: Go ahead; disclaim it now. I’ll print it.
CS: Yes. I did not mean it. Well, I kind of meant it.

AE: So I also heard that you really, really wanted this win for a lot of reasons. One of them is that you were broke and you had no idea what you were going to do. What would you have done if you hadn’t won?
CS: I have no idea. That’s why I cried on the runway. I wasn’t prepared for not winning. Luckily, in the last couple weeks, I’ve had amazing responses, and I did a benefit, and I’ve got some backers, but at the time I had no idea what I was going to do. I think I would have been okay, but I didn’t think I was going to get the response that I’ve been getting. So yeah, I was just nervous, really, but I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

AE: No, you sure don’t. But specifically what are you going to be doing now?
CS: Well, there’s lots of things coming up, maybe some movie stuff, but the only thing that’s set in stone is I’m definitely going to show next season in New York. That’s like the main goal right now, to really go more of the fashion route, and hopefully I’ll be in some stores for spring. [laughs] And then definitely meeting with Victoria Beckham.

AE: And, you know, maybe she’ll bring David along.
CS: I know, and we’ll see what happens. You never know.

AE: In the last episode it was kind of amusing, Rami said that you have a lot to learn. And I was curious: what do you have to learn?
CS: You know, that comment, it is sticking in my head actually a little bit. We chatted about it, and it’s kind of upsetting that he thinks that my clothes are so over the top and I have so much to learn. Yes, I do have a lot to learn, but I don’t think I over-design. Maybe other people think so. I think I’m really good at it, actually. So I don't know.

I have a lot to learn about the industry, about sales and about marketing, yes, of course. But he has a lot to learn, too, which I don’t think he realizes. You know, I’ve heard this from designers all the time; you can be 60 years old, even Roberto Cavalli said he’s still learning. So I think that Rami's being a little bit arrogant when he says that, but I think he was just in the drama moment.

I mean, yes, not every woman can wear my pieces, but there’s a lot of pieces in my collection that women can wear. My pants are so wearable and would make any woman’s legs look amazing, and I have a lot of wearable jackets. But the thing is, he’s trying to please everyone, everyone in the industry and every customer. Well, that’s not how a designer works. I mean Cavalli’s customer is different from Diane von Furstenberg’s customer. Like, it’s a different woman. And honestly, I don’t need to dress every woman, as much as every designer would love to. I have a client that I want to dress.