Christopher Straub: The ‘American Beauty’ Of ‘Project Runway’

Christopher Straub will be the first to tell you “I’m not a pretty dress kind of guy,” but was it his lack of pretty that got him auf’ed on last night’s episode of ‘Project Runway,’ or was it, as the judges claimed, his lack of experience?

“It’s true,” Straub of Heidi & co.’s assessment. “I don’t work with fine fabrics. My experience has always been with inexpensive materials.”

On Friday, Straub, who is currently working on a handbag line, chatted about his time on the show, and how his aha moment at the Getty Museum is kinda reminiscent of a certain Kevin Spacey film.

With choosing algae-covered rocks as your inspiration last night, you said that finding the beauty in mundane things is representational of you…how so?

It’s easy to see something that everyone else calls pretty, pretty. It’s a lot more difficult to see the beauty in something that people see as flawed or ugly. One of my thoughts was that the algae was so pretty but to the museum they might have gone to that fountain twice a year and bleached it out to remove it. It’s almost like a paper bag on the ground: someone’s gonna go ‘that’s gross,’ and clean it up, but I was taking the pretty out of the situation and going for the beauty of it.

So you’re essentially saying you’re the Wes from American Beauty of Project Runway?!

That just came to my head as I was saying that! The plastic bag is my algae-covered rock!

How did you really feel about “Meana Irina?” Was she that bad?

You know, it took til the 11th episode for them to say Meana Irina, and we were calling her that from the very beginning. We were all laughing, like ‘finally they showed it!’ I remember one time Irina said ‘I heard the name you guys were calling me,’ and I said ‘which one?!’ Irina had a very clear position within the cast, and it was the no-nonsense, a little bit self-indulgent designer. It really didn’t bother me when she criticized me. Even last night on her Facebook I wished her good luck. I mean, she’s talented and there’s no question about that. Would I have handled it the same way? No. But we’re different people and that’s what makes the world kind of exciting.

Going into last night’s episode, were you surprised to be the last boy standing?

Going into the 3rd or 4th week if you’d have asked me who the last boy standing would have been I probably would have said Nicholas or Ra’mon. They had an amazing amount of talent. I thought if I was going to be there, then one of them would have to be there with me.

Were you at all disappointed by the lack of consistent Michael Kors and Nina Garcia appearances this season?

That didn’t really bother me, who the judge was. I don’t know what amount of information the guest judges had prior to coming on the show, but it was interesting to have a fresh eye, where if you had made mistakes before, you possibly could be saved by the new eyes of the judges. But really overall I didn’t think of it as an issue. I think the viewers were probably a lot more upset than I was. They wanted to see them and hear their point of view. I can totally respect that.

What did you think about Heidi?

In one of the waiting rooms there was this huge blown up cover of Marie Claire magazine with Heidi Klum on it. When I first saw it I remember looking up at it and going ‘Wow! That’s Heidi Klum.’ Then towards the end it turned into ‘Hey, that’s the lady who yells at me on the runway.’ It kind of changed my perception, but you gotta give it to her. She’s exactly what she’s supposed to be. It’s not like how I am with Tim Gunn. I still totally gush over Tim Gunn. A complete puddle. I should apply for the next season!

Lets talk about the two biggest characters this season: Mitchell and Johnny.

Mitchell has a great eye for style. We all got along with him. He was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my entire life. No one at any point wanted him to go, although I did think we had an understanding that we all knew he’d go early. And then Johnny - If there were one person who I would have lunch with the least, it would be him. I didn’t feel that our personalities meshed at all. Towards the end of the season people were calling me delusional and not understanding my place on the show, and I think he was the one who was delusional, delusional of his own abilities. Was he a character? Yes. His designs were amazing but his execution wasn’t that strong.

He was also struggling with being a recovering addict.

I didn’t even know that part! That was all with Tim. It was interesting watching the show. When I first watched it I was with Ra’mon and the two of us looked at each other like ‘Meth?!’ We didn’t know it was that bad, that he was off crying and admitting to addiction.

How was it watching last night knowing the inevitable outcome?

Watching it was a unique experience. If I was going to dread one episode, this was going to be it. I’m in New York now, so I called Carol Hannah and told her to come to my hotel room and watch it with me. We watched it together and it was nice to have her there. It wasn’t all that tragic, but I was impressed with how they edited this episode. They made it the end of the journey in a respectful way and not making a joke about it. They really aired my thoughts. I’m aware that I’m an artist and I’m trying different things, and I’m not the pretty dress kind of guy. They made me look more self-aware than they had in the past so I appreciated that.

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