Project Runway Roundup: Kenley Auf’ed, Doesn’t Like How The Press And Producers Treated Her

By Julie Zied
Fancast.com

To Project Runway viewers, 25-year-old Kenley Collins seemed like season five’s answer to Santino Rice: loud, outspoken, often difficult, and well, throw in whatever other adjectives you want. I caught up with the New York resident - after being auf’ed on Wednesday night’s season finale - to find out whether those perceptions hold any weight, or if it was just another case of Magical Elves magical editing. Hold on to your bobbins!

How was it watching last night?

It was fine. It was like watching any other episode. It feels like it happened so long ago.

When you were on Regis and Kelly a couple weeks ago it still seemed like it was a sore spot.

Well yeah that episode was hard. I felt like the competition turned sour. It was so much fun in the beginning. Then all my friends were all off and it was me against three others. Watching it was tough. And I hate how the press commented about me. It was a little hard to watch that episode in particular.

Do you think throughout the show you were portrayed inaccurately? Do you feel like the producer’s were attempting to vilify you?

I was portrayed inaccurately in some parts, yeah. They just take the worst thing you could possibly say and put it on there. It was kind of directed in one way with me, and that was negative. There’s more to me than just negativity I guess….[background: come on, I’m doing an interview!]

Who was that?

That was my boyfriend.

We never got to see your personal life, even when Tim went to go visit you and check out the collection.

Yeah, I had my best friend who is practically my sister who I grew up with, and my boyfriend there that day. We all had breakfast with Tim, and had mocha’s. It was a whole big thing! But they don’t show my family even though they showed everyone else’s in that episode.

Wow.

Yeah, see. Things like that. ‘Kenley’s alone. She doesn’t have anyone. All she does is work and is lonely, and pushes people away!’

So you don’t think that you have a polarizing personality?

I just think I’m very animated. With me, what you see is what you get. I’m very honest and truthful and I think it just comes across as rude.

You mentioned on the finale that you hadn’t been in touch with your family over the past three years and you were really looking forward to seeing them. Was that just because you’ve been living in New York and don’t get a chance to see them all the time? Or is it something more personal?

Yeah, it wasn’t anything like I had a falling out with my family or anything. I moved away from home right when I graduated high school, and I didn’t really stay in touch. I went to visit my family at most once a year. Then when I moved to New York I didn’t really stay in touch a lot. I didn’t talk on the phone with them a lot. They didn’t really know what I was doing here. They knew I had a job in fashion and stuff, but they didn’t really know. To me it was just cool they were there to see what I’ve learned and what I’ve become. It was shocking to them. They had no clue what I’ve been doing here.

They knew you could sew though, right?

They knew I could sew, but not from scratch like I did. This was hard core learning from the past three years. I used to just reconstruct vintage, and that’s completely different. That’s easy. They knew I was into fashion. They knew I was doing my own thing. It was always just a little hobby of mine that they never really took seriously. I majored in Marketing and I just got a job in fashion sales, then I got promoted to design. Then I just started working really getting into it, and I wanted to make it a career.

You also mentioned your dad had a big influence on your collection. Obviously the ropes, with him being a tugboat captain, were part of it. What other aspects of your line were influenced by him?

Probably just that. They show what they want to show, what makes good TV. I had a lot of inspiration in the line. He had a lot to do with it, obviously with the rope, also with the water prints and the colors which basically represent Florida. You know, bright and sunny. That was basically the inspiration: being on a boat, being on the water, living in Florida, always being around anchors and stuff. It’s an inspiration of my style period.

You mentioned sneaking into the tents last year at Bryant Park…

I did. Me and my friend that I worked with, we worked at this really cheesy missy-wear company and we were at work, and shows were going on. We worked right by and we kept seeing all these people, so we were like ‘let’s get in!’ So we tried to get in and this security guard was like ‘what are you doing?’ So we were like ‘oh, we have a pass!’ And we didn’t, so we got kicked out.

Whose show were you trying to see?

It wasn’t a show. We just went into the tent alone.

Oh, thought you were going in to a show…

No, we didn’t get in. We didn’t even make it that far. [laughing]

(left to right: Kenley’s winning dress, Balenciaga Spring 2008 Ready-to-Wear, Kenley’s wedding dress, Alexander McQueen Fall 2008 Ready-to-Wear)

So you didn’t make it into the show, but something you were criticized for this season was saying you didn’t look at other designer’s collections, yet you were perceived as a “copycat” on a few challenges…

The past year I haven’t been looking at collections. I can say I really have been out of the loop on collections right now. You know I’ve flipped through a few things here and there, but I’ve been out of the actual fashion industry for almost a year. When I was in the industry I was getting Women’s Wear Daily every day, and I was on Style.com every day, and we had to look at a style site for design, so I was very much in the loop when I was actually working for someone else in the industry because I had the luxury of those things, but honestly when you’re working on your own line and can’t even afford a magazine, you don’t have the luxury of looking at other lines. You don’t have time. Honestly I was so sick of looking at other collections from work. It was just this past year. I told the judges that I’d been out of the loop with collections. I didn’t know which dresses they kept saying I knocked off. But what my research really is, is history: 30s, 40s, 50s, and that’s what I look at. I try to stray away from looking at other collections.

So you weren’t doing that job for the past year?

No I wasn’t. I was selling my own line in boutiques. I quit my job to start my own thing. I was making really ugly clothes and was really unhappy, working ‘til you know, 1 o’clock in the morning in a cubicle, doing illustrations on a computer, so I was unhappy. I started bartending and working on my line at the same time. Then I started teaching sewing, which I still do now.

Where are you teaching?

I teach at a place called Sew Fast, Sew Easy, which is also called Stitch and Bitch Café. You can register for my classes online. It’s like a small, two-classroom type thing with at the most 9 students in each room. It’s in the fashion district.

Sorry to be harping on your perceptions of yourself on the show, but you were a real character this season…

I know, every editors dream!

Do you feel at all remorseful about anything? Do you think you did anything wrong? Or conversely, do you feel like there were a lot of positive things people just didn’t get a chance to see?

I think that’s it, exactly. Pretty much from day one Korto didn’t like me. She had this nasty attitude towards me. So, when I feel that I have the same thing back. It was just kind of ups and downs with her, and Leanne too. Leanne she kind of took under her wing, she was like her sidekick or something. I don’t know. I’m an individual. I just became the outcast, I guess probably because of me…When I feel like someone doesn’t like me I don’t really try to make the effort to try to make them like me. I think that’s what happened. As far as doing anything differently, I came on the show to get my line and my name out, and that’s what I did. It worked and I’m having things being sold on my website. That’s what I came on the show to do, and that’s what I did. As far as talking about people, I feel bad about saying mean things. Sometimes I cringe when I say something so harsh about someone because I know it probably hurt them. I know it hurt me. I regret saying some things.

Is there anything in particular?

Well yeah. Daniel is one of my best friends right now and he got really upset at me. I don’t really remember saying it, but it was edited weird when I said ‘Daniel cracks me up,’ then it clicks to something else with me saying ‘he’s talking about sophistication and I don’t see it.’ I don’t even know when or why I said that, because he was my best friend on the show. Then they show me laughing on the runway, and it looks like I’m laughing at him. And the Suede thing, it was pretty harsh what I was saying about him, saying he was a bad designer. Other than the way I acted towards people to their face, I was very nice to people. I felt like I was very respectful. I was never nasty to anyone. I just did my thing. I think maybe my personality is very strong, and it got to people. But the people it got to, I just kind of stayed away from.

What about in respect to the judges and Tim? Taking their criticisms and listening to them? Do you think that you valued their opinions?

I was always eager to see what they had to say. There’s some respect there, but I never really compromised my designs. I’m very passionate about what I do, and if you’re not a passionate artist, don’t be an artist at all. I think that defending my outfits was simply because the judges just became so repetitive. Heidi would say the same thing three times, like ‘those are horrible! I can’t believe they walked down the runway!’ So, and you’re out there for four hours listening to this, and people need to realize that. So, yeah, they did get reactions out of me. I’m shocked that no one was the way I was. It just became like jabs over and over again. I just got annoyed, like ‘alright! I heard you the first three times, now you’re just doing it for TV. Making sure you get that comment on camera and get my reaction.’ So they really did get the best of me.

So you have some regrets personality-wise, but what about design-wise? Is there anything you look back on and say ‘this is something I absolutely loved and I stand by it,’ or ‘this is something I wish I’d done differently.’

Yeah, you can see in the competition, I started off really strong. Then I got tired and weak and uninspired because people were leaving, I was tired. We were going to bed at 3 in the morning and waking up at 5:30 or 6. It’s draining. The inspiration kind of leaves you. People tried to stomp me down on the ground, but I put up with it. I did get a little weak, but even if I did have a doubt in my designs, like the gown in the last [nature] challenge…of course that wasn’t my best work! I looked at it and thought ‘yeah, there are some serious issues going on with this, but I’m going to go up there on the runway and defend this dress like it’s THE best dress ever put out there. Period. I stand by my work no matter what. I think you can’t argue with that. If the designer loves it then that’s the most important. You need to be sure of yourself and sure of your decisions.

What about when you were working with Keith, it seemed like a bit of a struggle because…

It wasn’t actually, we worked really well together. I’m actually one of the best people to work with, because I can really put my guard down and say ‘OK, I gotta work with them.’ Keith picked me for a reason. I was very opinionated, and thank God I was, otherwise that outfit would have been horrifying.

And it wound up in a win for you guys, so obviously there was something there that clicked…

We were the best team there was in that room. Everyone had issues working together. Keith had no problem working with me and I had no problem working with Keith. And you can tell on the show I didn’t really even like Keith or like his designs, but I do work really well with people. That’s what people don’t see. They see me arguing with judges. They see me being competitive with other designers. They don’t really see that I do work really well with buyers and clients.

What’s up next for you?

I’m always going to continue teaching. That’s what I love to do. I’m manufacturing my clothes and my headpieces and there selling off my website www.Kenleycollins.com.