Entertainment News
2006-03-10
Chloe Dao wins
Project Runway
Chloe Dao, an
aspiring designer from Houston who came to America as a
child from war-torn southeast Asia, won the second season of
Chloe Dao, an
aspiring designer from Houston who came to America as a
child from war-torn southeast Asia, won the second season of
the Bravo fashion-competition hit Project
Runway on Wednesday, netting a $100,000 cash prize
to start her own clothing line. "Are you kidding me?
No way," said a genuinely surprised Dao when the
Emmy-nominated show's judges named her the winner over the
other two finalists, both openly gay—recent
fashion school graduate Daniel Vasovic and Santino
Rice, an outspoken Californian who emerged as the reality
show's star and chief villain.
"We loved what
you did," supermodel Heidi Klum, the cable-TV show's
host, told Dao. In choosing Dao, who will also receive a
2007 Saturn and a splashy layout in Elle
magazine, not to mention bragging rights and
invaluable media attention, judges Michael Kors,
Elle editor Nina Garcia, and actress Debra
Messing cited the perfect construction and fit of the 13
designs she showed during last month's Olympus Fashion Week
in New York City.
Her looks, which
skewed toward the formal, were decidedly assertive and
structured but elegant, with a dose of glamour. By
comparison, the judges found Vasovic's collection to
be sophisticated and rangy, but lacking a unifying
theme, while Rice's was criticized for being too safe,
missing cohesiveness and, in some cases, ill-fitting.
Vasovic told the judges his looks were meant to meld
Japanese sleek with a military influence, a theme that
Kors said was lost on him. And true to form, the
often-arrogant Rice told the audience at his show, "I'm not
just good TV, I'm a great designer."
The win by the
relatively low-key Dao was somewhat of a surprise as the
judges and the other contestants had questioned her "passion
for fashion" and showmanship during the run of the
series, in which contestants competed in weekly design
tasks that ranged from creating outfits for a garden
party out of flowers, leaves, and other organic
material to designing an outfit for Barbie or redesigning
the clothes on their own backs into a party
outfit—all on a tight deadline.
Sixteen aspiring
designers competed during the second season of the show,
which has proved a hit with critics as well as audiences and
scored an Emmy nomination for best reality series.
(Chris Michaud, Reuters)
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