When I asked if his parents let his sister wear his creation, he said emphatically “Um, NO.
That pleather tube top dress was uh, thrown out right after I did it.” So, what do you do about the now-useless couch, the abused sewing machine and the questionable dress (besides secretly rejoice that you no longer have a pleather couch) You call up your best friend, who happens to be the sister of to call in a favor by way of an internship for the boy. You call in some more favors back home, and you send him back to London to stay with friends. Then you wait to see if the madness will pass. Of course it doesn’t. Madness as deeply set as to cause a 14-year-old boy to carve up a couch for a dress for his sister does not pass easily. So you send him on to , and you watch him produce some really nice stuff, and you begin to grow proud. You probably secretly congratulate yourself for being one of the very few computer geniuses that actually owns a sewing machine. “I think that my father, for a while was not 100% okay with it, but my mom was. Once, you know, I got into college, and you know, started working and the energy and they started seeing some of the stuff I had been producing, I mean they are so proud of me now. Like, they are even more proud when they found out when I got on Project Runway. They have been big supporters of me” And they ought to be. He’s been a very busy boy and very active and succesful in the costume world. In fact he’s off right now on a big job in Europe with imminent fittings looming on the horizon. He was not even able to take a few minutes to send me some photos of his work to post for you. Ah yes, nice work if you can get it. “It just looks like my fall schedule is really, really crazy. It’s going to be very interesting. You know, I think my whole life is going to be turned upside down. You know, I’ve been so used, to like, be working quietly behind the camera, and now it’s just ‘oh Jesus’. You know people have been stopping me in my building and saying ‘You’re on Project Runway” Yes, I think he knows that. Of the future, he says “ Well, I have something that is really, really big that I’m actually working on right now which unfortunalty just yet I cannot release. Let’s just say it’s a world tour for SOMEBODY.” Okay folks. You heard it here first. If you have the urge, I bet you can go figure it out.
Back in February there was another rush of work as he was invited to participate in the , where he worked the runway to try to get his gown on one of the Oscars presenters—that is, one of the models that brings out the statue to pass it on to the award announcer. He didn’t win, but he had a great time doing it. “I love designing red carpet, so this was so much fun for me to do.”