Fashion Wire Daily March 31, 2005 - NEW YORK - "I've always been interested in design but never felt myself worthy of fashion," confided Tim Gunn.

Kind of an unlikely admission, coming as it does from a dapper-looking guy who is the chair of Parsons School of Design's Fashion Department and who was recently thrust into the national style spotlight via his role as mentor to the fledgling designers on Bravo's reality show, Project Runway.

But Gunn, who has been a Parsons faculty member for more than 21 years and said he's "not anti-fashion but more of an architecture person" (having studied English literature and sculpture at Yale and the Corcoran School of Art + Design), claimed that being appointed chair of the fashion department in 2000 "has been an incredible education," fashion-wise. Which is how we had come to find ourselves at the Banana Republic flagship store in Rockefeller Center (626 Fifth Avenue; 212-974-2350) late one recent Monday afternoon.

"I had been Associate Dean of the school for God only knows how many years [eleven, actually] and I was a very conservative guy because I thought it was appropriate," the gentlemanly Washington, D.C. native explained when we entered the Art Deco-inspired store. "Brooks Brothers and Ralph Lauren — that was my vocabulary. But being in the industry around all these fashion designers and young kids who are very fashion conscious, I was beginning to feel uncomfortable in my own skin. I thought, you know, I need to be a little more hip. I need a black leather blazer."

That sartorial realization led him to Saks Fifth Avenue, where he dropped $950 ("my clothing budget for a year") on a Hugo Boss leather blazer. Afterward, Gunn happened across the street to Banana Republic ("which, at that time, was not in my vocabulary — I thought of it as the khakis place") where he found a "very close facsimile" for a mere $399. He snapped it up and returned the Boss blazer.

"The fit of everything right off the rack here — every suit, every dress pant — is fantastic for me," he told us. "Plus, it has that classic tailoring with a little bit of modernness to it, a little bit of an edge. I've never turned back."

So it was a lucky break for Gunn then, when Banana Republic signed on as a sponsor of Project Runway and sent him boxes of clothing to wear on the show. Because one would assume, since he wasn't being paid for his involvement and was acting as a kind of defacto ad for BR menswear each week, that he would at least get to keep the clothes, right? Wrong.

"Every single solitary item went back — including the socks!," he groused with a laugh. "Given my loyalties — I've spent thousands of dollars here — I was kind of stunned by the whole thing. Stunned."

Hmm...maybe BR was planning to auction off Gunn's used socks on ebay (get ‘em while they're, errr...hot)? Or perhaps the garments will be displayed in a glass vitrine at this flagship store, as were the creations of Austin Scarlett, Wendy Pepper and some of the other Project Runway luminaries?

In any case, Gunn's enthusiasm for all things Banana remains undiminished, as witnessed by his choosing it as the site of our Shopping With excursion, and by the fact that even today he is outfitted, head to toe, in BR finery.

"I'm really committed to the label and to Deborah Lloyd, the head designer," he said. "I love her work — she's phenomenal — and I love the store."

Duly noted. As we made our way down the wide center staircase to the men's department, we asked Gunn what he thought about the outcome of Project Runway and the fact that underdog Jay McCarroll beat out favorite Kara Saun.

"I was thrilled by it," he said. "Jay needed to win that. Kara Saun is a fabulous designer and a wonderful person, but she is [already] very well grounded in Los Angeles; she has a customer base. We had to get Jay out of Lehman, Pennsylvania!"

But just as Gunn was not aware that Wendy Pepper was "a calculating sociopath" until he watched the finished episodes like the rest of us, he also had no inkling of McCarroll's design chops until a few weeks into the taping.

"I thought he would be one of the first few off," Gunn admitted. "I thought, how far can his personality take him? It really was not until the Banana Republic challenge that I thought, ‘Wow, this is a formidable talent to be reckoned with.'"

And McCaroll's winning collection "was filled with huge risks that could have crashed and burned, but didn't," added Gunn. "I applaud that level of risk taking because it says something about the designer's commitment to their work as opposed to pleasing an audience. I love Kara Saun's work, but her collection was safe. It was what we expected of her."

Doing the unexpected is something Gunn admires in Parsons students, too. In fact, the school's alumni roster reads like a Seventh on Sixth schedule: Donna Karan, Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui, Badgley Mischka and, more recently, Proenza Schouler, who were named Designer of the Year in 2002, which was the first graduating class under the new curriculum Gunn instituted upon joining the fashion department.

"The department had remained almost unchanged for fifty years," he said while examining the topstitching on a slim black suit. "It was pretty cobweb-covered by the time I got there. My objective was to bring a new point of view to the curriculum and to look at it very objectively and, ideally, to energize it."

Gunn did this by doubling the amount of classroom time devoted to design and replacing the year-end graduating class fashion show with a thesis review process in which every graduate has to "defend" their collection to a panel of top fashion designers and industry professionals, among other things. And in 2007, Parsons will launch the first American Masters Program in fashion design.

"Believe it or not, no history of fashion [class] existed when I came to the department," said Gunn as he lingered in front of a display of "very elegant" striped and solid shirts, some with contrasting Liberty Print fabric inside the collar and cuffs ($68 - $98). "The department felt they didn't want the students over encumbered with influences. It's like, wait a minute. That is what the whole industry is about: Influences. So now there is a required three semester sequence of fashion history. And business; we look at things through that commerce lens. We call it the C word and fashion is the F word."

Gunn dismissed a display of patterned ties with the R word ("retro") and declared a table of brightly hued polo shirts "too golf-y." We discussed the retail boom in the West Village ("it's ridiculous") while perusing a table full of slouchy Gen X jeans and rumpled t-shirts before Gunn spotted the sleek knee-length $180 trench he'd been coveting since his last visit.

"I heard this coat was on sale for $94.99 and it is!," he said gleefully. "Do you mind if I try it on?"

He did, and it fit him to a T. "It's really great," he enthused as he studied his reflection. "Everything drapes very beautifully. What do you think?"

We told him we agreed with PR contestant Mario, who had dubbed Gunn a "hot bitch" during the reunion episode.

"Three years ago I don't think I owned anything that was black except a pair of shoes," he replied with a laugh. "I've really changed, and I have to say I've never felt better about myself."

He took off the coat and continued browsing, stopping to admire a "very English" floral button-down that felt far more Simon Doonan than Tim Gunn. A polka dot tie was deemed "a little too kid's birthday party," while a hard-to-match yellow and brown striped shirt was given a big thumbs down. "I think this shirt, like the cheese, stands alone," quipped Gunn.

Having scoped out the entire men's department, we paid for the coat (which came to $72.22 after a repentant sales person gave the beyond-thrilled Gunn a 30 percent discount), then headed over to his other favorite store, Saks Fifth Avenue (611 Fifth Avenue; 212-753-4000).

As we crossed the street, he told us about a Jay McCarroll look alike who had been working the New York fashion party circuit. "I saw him Saturday at 54th and Broadway," he recalled. "He came up to me and said, ‘Tim Gunn!' and I said, ‘I would like to exclaim Jay McCarroll, but you're not. He practically ran away..."

The Big Gunn (as we like to call him) is as loyal to Saks as he is to Banana. "It offers a nice complement to the Banana Republic experience and, for the most part, it's a little — if not a lot — higher end and has a diversity of designers. We have a long-standing relationship with Saks."

Parsons is, in fact, honoring the venerable department store and its CEO Fred Wilson at their annual fashion benefit in May, and the school's Adam and Sophie Gimble Design Library is named for one of Saks former powers-that-be.

Gunn was in the market for moisturizer (behind every hot bitch stands some serious skincare), but insisted we take a twirl around the seventh floor men's department first, where he stopped to check out Edun, the new organic, free-trade line designed by Rogan Gregory, Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson.

"Respect the people who make it, where we make it, the materials," Gunn read aloud from a jacket's hang tag.

"I have to say they look good," he opined. "Very innovative."

Minutes later, having speed-walked the floor, we found ourselves back near the elevators in front of the Lab Series For Men counter, which was displayed on shelves in front of a vanity table and lucite chairs.

"I love these chairs," gushed Gunn, plopping down in one of the see-through seats. "Don't you love these?"

He popped back up and ran a finger along the products until he found what he was looking for. "Eye Rescue," he intoned. "How much is it? $23.50? Can we do that? This will do it. Sold!"