When we spoke last summer, Tim Gunn revealed shocking news. It was the kind of seismic admission that threatened to upend the fashion industry and throw celebrity culture, as we understand and comprehend it, off its axis: He had been wearing sweatpants.
The former Project Runway star and current co-host of Amazon Prime Video’s Making the Cut, the third season of which just premiered, is known for his impeccable styling and signature bespoke suit, even braving the humid Manhattan summer in designer layers. The thought of him in any sort of casual wear is preposterous—let alone sweatpants.
“I was sitting around in my apartment in my stiff upper-lip, stuffed-shirt clothing and then I thought, this is ridiculous. I’m really not very comfortable,” he told us at the time. “I segued into wearing my pajamas all day, every day. Then I thought, now I really feel like a slob. I feel like Ralph Kramden.”
It got to the point where Gunn spelunked into the back of his closet to find the t-shirts and sweatpants he would wear to his fencing lessons. Lest you think he had really lost himself, he was also quick to be defensive: “I never left my apartment! I will tell you that. I wouldn’t even go down to get the mail.”
It goes to show how much the pandemic affected all of our behaviors and, in Gunn and Making the Cut co-host Heidi Klum’s cases, what it would take to pull off their already ambitious fashion competition series.
Catching up over Zoom, Gunn seems to still be reeling over that dark period. “Oh, I remember that conversation…” he laughs, wincing. Klum chimes in to chide him: “You still owe me a photo by the way! You were going to send me a photo of you in a sweat suit and you never did.” She leans into the Zoom camera: “Thank you for reminding me.”
When Making the Cut premiered in the spring of 2020, it was a serendipitously timed bit of escapism as the world shut down. The series was a poignant passport, with episodes whisking viewers away to Paris, Tokyo, and New York each week—a Herculean effort of reality-TV production. Last year’s second season was filmed in a COVID-safe bubble in Los Angeles, a format that has been replicated for Season 3. But while the circumstances of a pandemic necessitated a pivot away from the globe-trotting vision of the series, there has been no sacrifice in scale—or the level of fashion.
Klum and Gunn first started appearing on Project Runway in 2004 (a baby born the year it launched would be in college now, if you want to feel old). At the time, the show revolutionized the fashion world by granting access to the public, showing viewers how designs are created and encouraging them to participate in the industry. The pair left the show in 2017, because they had a vision for how to expand the mission of the competition to explore marketing, merchandising, retail, and branding—all things that the constraints of Project Runway couldn’t let them do.
But now there’s Making the Cut. Designers from all over the world, most of whom already have their own lines and companies, are recruited to compete not just for who can create the prettiest dress, but who has the most potential to launch a viable, successful global brand. The marketability of their designs is baked into the framework of the series: Each week, the winning look is made available for purchase on Amazon immediately. Concerns like body inclusivity, gender fluidity, affordability, and sustainability are paramount. At the end of each season, the winning designer receives $1 million to invest into their brand.
Now that the third season is streaming—and we’re all wearing real clothes instead of sweatpants again—Klum and Gunn chatted with The Daily Beast’s Obsessed about their evolving plans for the show and what it takes to keep wowing them, all these years of fashion reality TV later.
At the end of one of the early episodes in the new season, judge Nicole Richie tells the winning designer that she can’t wait to buy their look, and the designer says, “I’m going to buy it, too!” It was a really cute moment, but also proves what makes this show so different—we can wear the clothes!
Klum: Yes. It's pride. You're so proud that we picked your look. It gets produced, and it gets shipped into 260 countries around the world. It feels amazing.
Gunn: Also, on the part of the designer, I think there's also an element of disbelief. This can't really be happening. In fact, it is!
There’s a similarly cute opening scene to the season, a comedy bit between the two of you. People obviously forever tie the two of you together because of these shows. But how much of your actual friendship revolves around fashion?
Gunn: Do we talk about fashion, Heidi?
Klum: We don't talk about fashion outside of the show, no. Then it's more about the children or how New York is going. We talk about other things. We talk so much about fashion when we're on the air that, when we're off the air, we talk more about personal things.
Gunn: It's like, ‘Enough already!’
All the joking about the sweatpants aside, I do wonder how much you think that these last two or three years of the pandemic and the way it's changed our entire lifestyles has changed the fashion world? Has it changed what you’re looking for on Making the Cut?
Gunn: Well, we still want clothes that innovate, that show creativity. We need them. I'm always saying we don't need another t-shirt. There are plenty of them out there.
Klum: Yeah, that's not what we're all about. We are about fashion and, thankfully, now we get to go to events again, to birthday parties, on dates. You know, those types of things where you want to wear something fabulous. We're thankful for… those sweatpants days[being over.
I have to say, I miss them a little bit.
Klum: That was all comfy and all, but we also want to glam it up. I feel like we're back now. We don't want anything that's somber or boring or something that you can find already. It's a design competition show. That means you need to come up with something new. I don't know how they do it, to be honest with you, because you feel like you've seen it all already. But no! That's what's so amazing.
It is wild that there’s still a way to surprise you guys.
Klum: You give them an assignment and they design something that we haven't seen before. There's always a little twist to something, or they do the combination differently, or the colors different, or put, I don't know, fabric together that you would never think of putting together. They still keep surprising us, and that's what makes it so fabulous.
Gunn: We hope people want to start dressing up again. We really do.
Klum: We want to dress up again! We want to have fun again! And look cute!
I want to talk more about continuing to be surprised by new things after doing this for so long. I say this with empathy, as someone who covers pop culture and sometimes finds myself scrambling to understand what's current and what the taste is of the younger generation. So I'm curious as to what it's been like, as fashion has changed, and younger people with different aesthetics have different ideas about what fashion is—especially the morality of fashion, and its sustainability, and questions of gender. What has it been like for you to react to the new generation’s ideas about what fashion is?
Klum: For me, for example, if you look at my Instagram and who I follow, it's mainly designers, many different designers from all around the world. So if I can't personally be present at any of those shows, I sure am watching all of them. And doing three TV shows a year, I need I-don't-know-how-many outfits—probably 200 outfits a year, just to be on air. I have an amazing stylist, who finds all the most amazing things from all around the world. If it is the biggest designers, medium designers, people I've never heard of before—I love that.
So there's rolling racks and rolling racks and rolling racks. For example, now I'm shooting America's Got Talent [Klum is a judge]. I want to have something cool and different every week, because I also want people to see what is out there. So I need to be [wearing] the coolest clothes and know what's on trend and what color or what style or what shape. Obviously I don't have the time to do all of that by myself, but I have an amazing stylist who finds me all these different things.
Gunn: And people have a high expectation of you. And, Kevin, when it comes to issues of sustainability, for instance, and gender fluidity, it's what buoys me about the younger generation, that they're concerned with these things. And we certainly see that in this season of Making the Cut as well. These are positive movements forward for the fashion industry. And for the world at large.
Klum: More so than ever, I feel like our designers now really do think about Mother Earth. There's a lot of upcycling. What fabrics can we use, so that it is gentle for the planet? Or gender fluidity, you said that earlier, they don't think so much anymore within that box. 'This is for girls. This is for boys.' I feel like there is more melting right now. So they all are thinking about all of those issues already. We don't even have to tell them that anymore.
Many years ago, we had to tell them, 'Hello, there's many different body shapes and sizes...' I mean, now they have gotten with that. But many, many years ago when we introduced this [idea], they were like, 'Hell no.' They were angry at us. They're like, 'I can't do that. This is the size I'm designing for.' And as far as I'm concerned—and I know I speak for you too, Tim—that to us is not a good designer. If you're a good designer, you have to design for any shape and any size and any age. That's someone that we're looking for: someone who really thinks about everything.
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