Tim Gunn - Gunn's Golden Rules

GUNN’S GOLDEN RULES

Gallery Books

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Copyright © 2010 by Tim Gunn Productions, Inc.

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First Gallery Books hardcover edition September 2010

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Designed by Joy O’Meara

Manufactured in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gunn, Tim.

Gunn’s golden rules : life’s little lessons for making it work / by Tim Gunn, with Ada Calhoun.

p. cm.

1. Gunn, Tim. Project runway (Television program). 2. Clothing and dress—United States. 3. Life skills—United States. I. Calhoun, Ada.

II. Title.

TT507 .G858 2010 746.9'2092—dc22

2010012417

ISBN 978-1-4391-7656-6

ISBN 978-1-4391-7767-9 (ebook)

CONTENTS

Introduction

RULE 1

Make It Work!

RULE 2

The World Owes You … Nothing

RULE 3

Take the High Road

RULE 4

Don’t Abuse Your Power—or Surrender It

RULE 5

Get Inspired If It Kills You

RULE 6

Never Underestimate Karma

RULE 7

Niceties Are Nice

RULE 8

Physical Comfort Is Overrated

RULE 9

Talk to Me:

There’s Always Another Side to the Story

RULE 10

Be a Good Guest or Stay Home

(I Won’t Judge You—I Hate Parties)

RULE 11

Use Technology; Don’t Let It Use You

RULE 12

Don’t Lose Your Sense of Smell

RULE 13

Know What to Get Off Your Chest

and What to Take to the Grave

RULE 14

When in Rome … I Still Wouldn’t Eat

Monkey Brains

RULE 15

When You Need Help, Get It

RULE 16

Take Risks! Playing It Safe Is Never Really Safe

RULE 17

Give Back (but Know Your Limits)

RULE 18

Carry On!

Acknowledgments

GUNN’S GOLDEN RULES

INTRODUCTION

On Project Runway, I enter the workroom and offer my thoughts—as a mentor, not a judge—on the designers’ work. The advice I give most often is to “make it work.”

That’s not just a catchphrase. It’s a philosophy I’ve followed my whole life, and I credit it with all the wonderful and surprising success I’ve had as a TV personality, teacher, and writer. What “make it work” means is that you should use what you have on hand to transform your situation. It’s always possible to use whatever tools you have at your disposal to create something that you’re proud of and that gets the job done.

Far too often in classes I’ve taught I’ve seen students throw out a lot of hard work and start again from scratch. They may wind up with a good garment, but they aren’t learning the skills that are essential to excelling in a creative field: patience, innovation, and diligence.

I love to see students trying to learn as they go along. The designers and artists I admire spend their whole lives learning. Everything they make may not be a commercial success, but every bit of effort they make gets them closer to realizing their vision.

One of the things I admire about Project Runway is that it’s really about developing creative design work. I’ll never forget a woman coming up to me at an airport and saying that she loved Runway because she felt it set such a good example for her nine-year-old daughter. “It demonstrates that good qualities of character—like hard work and persistence—pay off, and cheaters never prosper,” she said.

Well, that was one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me. I love to think that we’re setting a good example in that way.

Few people remember it now, but Project Runway was quite controversial in the beginning. It took the mystique out of the fashion world and said, “This is a demanding, gut-wrenching industry. You need a really strong drive and love for the work in order to be successful.”

I guess we shouldn’t have been shocked, but people in this industry did not react well. They thought we were taking the glamour out of fashion. The design world had been enshrouded in a kind of veil of mystery, and Project Runway pulled it back to let the world see it for what it was, warts and all. We got some very nasty reviews and some very harsh comments from our colleagues.

But we wanted to tell the truth. And the truth is that in this business, crazy crises happen, like when you’re waiting for the knits to get off the boat from China and the show is tomorrow and the boat doesn’t dock. What do you do? Remove fourteen looks from the show? You make it work, somehow. It’s a fashion 911, and you have to respond to it. You can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.

Now the industry has bought in to the show’s concept completely, and everyone pretends they loved Project Runway all along. Well, I’m happy that the show’s become so popular and that everyone is so full of praise for it, but I do remember those early days, when we were treated as though we were magicians telling everyone how the rabbit got in the hat.

I like to think that my role in the fashion industry has been a bit like Project Runway ’s position among reality shows, which is a voice of simple reason. Let others be shimmery and flashy and brilliant. (And no one loves daring geniuses more than I do.) I will always be there in the wings saying, “You need to be good to people. You need to take your work seriously. You need to have integrity. You need to work with what you’ve got.”

A woman behind me in line at Starbucks the other day introduced herself as an assistant at a popular women’s magazine.

“Are you taking a break?” I asked.

“No, I’m here getting coffee for everyone.” She laughed a bitter laugh and showed me a mile-long list.

“It’s all in the details,” I said. “Do everything one thousand percent. You could be editor in chief some day!”

I’m afraid she thought I was teasing her, but the fact is I am constitutionally incapable of being snarky. I’m not throwing out barbs and making fun of people. I believe in giving a dimension of seriousness to the whole enterprise of creating and talking about clothes, even to red-carpet reportage, and I’m very proud of that.