We’ve already learned about Carmen Webber’s big personality per Tim Gunn, but with Victorya Hong, do we have our first real diva alert for the next season of Project Runway? According to Tim, ”She’s dogged, determined, tenacious.” When pressed by Entertainment Weekly to clarify if this meant difficult, Tim simply responded, ”You’ll see. You will see.”
Well, if she might be one to watch out for, you’d never guess it from her Bravo interview video. In it, she comes across as mellow and laidback as she discusses her personal philosophy of living by the Golden Rule, and how, as a kid, she designed clothes that her mother would then sew for her.
Despite this, and the fact that she currently has her own fledging collection called na be, she actually took a pretty major professional detour for a while.
Victorya headed to fashion capital Paris after her undergrad studies, but her international lifestyle was supported by six years of work as a journalist, not a designer. However, once she was ready to make the move, she didn’t dither. She has said, “I literally woke up one morning and knew,” and she packed her bags, headed to New York, and enrolled in the Associates program at Parsons.
She’s worked at several major fashion companies, apparently, but then decided to start her own line. She called it na be after the Korean word for butterfly, because, she has said, “I thought it was the perfect [name] for my label because design is very much a process for me, and transformative in so many ways.”
Design is also apparently a pragmatic as well as aesthetic concern for her, as she says she focuses on wearability with her designs. The fashions listed for Spring ’08 on the website appear to be a series of comfortable and wearable mini-dresses in a mixture of saturated and pastel colors.
She still apparently has an eye for an edge, though, favoring designers like Ghesquiere, Elbaz, Marc Jacobs, and listing patent leather ankle boots and colorful tights as her “fashion musts” in her Project Runway bio.
While her fashion and manner seem composed, Tim’s tip about her determination might mean she is one to keep an eye on when season 4 of Project Runway begins.
– Leslie Seaton, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Sources: Entertainment Weekly, BloggingProjectRunway.com, Nabeny.com, Bravo
Images courtesy of Bravo and Nabeny.com
Staff Columnist, BuddyTV
