Mondo Guerra Spills All About His Project Runway All Stars Win

by Hilary George-Parkin | 12:03 pm, March 24th, 2012

Mondo Guerra took home the grand prize on this Thursday’s finale of Project Runway All Stars, beating out competitors Austin Scarlett and Michael Costello. Following the win, the designer celebrated with family, friends, and a few choice words about his future plans and what really went on off the runway.

In an interview with The Cut, the 34-year-old came off as likable as ever, though as he says, this season “wasn’t really about personality. It was really based on work.”And work they did.

We produced the best runway shows that I’ve ever seen on any of the seasons, consistently. Every single week it was really, really good. And when Rami got kicked off, say, that’s when you really realized, “Wow, nobody’s safe here.” As talented as these people are, and as you think you might be, you know what? You realized that does not guarantee anything.

It’s true: the quality of work we’ve seen this season has been, on the whole, far and beyond that which has been produced in seasons past (it wasn’t called All Stars for nothing). Mondo’s designs impressed the judges week after week, however, and he fêted his well-deserved victory with 600 of his closest friends in his hometown of Denver, CO – the newly appointed capital of chic thanks also to the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective, which opens to the public tomorrow.

He spoke as well with WWD about coping with criticism and his ambitions for the future.

On the greatest challenge of doing Project Runway:

Being a human. The viewers, as much as I love them, have a lot to say. Out of 30,000, two might have negative comments and that hurts my feelings.

Aw.

On his forthcoming line:

“‘I want it to be all about me just like [John] Galliano is all about Galliano. I was compared to him in season eight. Don’t you remember? Michael Kors said so.’”

Season eight, of course, aired about a year before the Galliano debacle. But we say as long as Mondo keeps fighting the good fight for HIV/AIDS awareness and restrains any impulse to shout bigoted slurs at strangers, a line that’s all about him sounds right up our alley.

[NYMag | WWD]

mondo guerra Project Runway Project Runway All Stars

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