The Latest Project Runway Castoff Has Us Feeling All Warm and Fuzzy - Stylehive

This week, the designers got to change it up! Instead of frantically combing the aisles at Mood for raw materials while trying to abide by an impossibly stringent budget, they were given access to anything and everything at the Hershey's Flagship store in Times Square, with no budget, and the freedom to create a €˜wearable€™ outfit of their choice. At first the crew embraced this challenge like- well, like kids in a candy store. However, it didn€™t take long for the difficulty level of this challenge to sink in. As usual, Christian finished in ample time, and became a little TGIT (Tim Gunn In Training) as he critiqued and advised his cohorts. While some reacted to his opinions with the proverbial eye roll, Sweet P was rattled enough to start all over. While it seemed as though she and Jillian- whose design was crafted using Twizzlers - would never finish on time, both designers took Tim's mantra to heart and made it work.

In the end, Rami, whose design was a big hit with guest judge Zac Posen, was declared the winner, and Elisa was out on account of her bleak "Macabre" creation that lacked joy.

I just spoke to the quirky designer, and I have to say, contrary to the way she is portrayed on the show, she actually makes A LOT OF SENSE and as I sit here smiling like an idiot, feeling warm and fuzzy about life, I have to pay tribute to how utterly infectious her upbeat, insightful, life-loving attitude truly is! Read on for my interview/therapy session with the latest Runway casualty, where we discussed the show, the contestants, life, love, regret, style, and so much more. (It€™s long, but a worthwhile must read!).

Stylehive: What did you think about last night€™s challenge?
Elisa: Well I was thrilled to go to the Hershey€™s Store! For ten years I lived about 4 blocks away and my daughter and I would go there for birthdays and that kind of thing, so it was thrilling. And I love working with alternative materials, it€™s really a blast.

Stylehive: The judges claimed your design wasn€™t avante garde, which is what they have come to expect from you. How did you feel about their critiques?
Elisa: Well I€™m a third generation art brat, my parents are very successful artists, and my grandparents were artists, and I sort of grew up in a critique environment, you know, having gone to undergraduate and graduate school in art. So each time I was on the runway, I basically saw it as, I don€™t put people above you or below you, everyone€™s equal, so I just took their criticisms, and I kept what I thought I could utilize for my future and I disregarded what I didn€™t think was applicable. I don€™t know if I totally agree with what they had to say. That being said, I had actually done almost every single thing that they suggested. I€™ve done maybe like 25+ versions for the Holly Sullivan Gallery. I had a woman entirely as a Sugar Plum Fairy, entirely encrusted with sugared lace, so I€™d played with the concept they were proposing that I do so many times- but as a creator and an artist, why would I do the same thing over again? So I did what was inspiring to me, because I€™m the creator. I€™ve used foods, and I€™ve sued chocolates, and I€™ve used various things on women€™s bodies to sort of play around with the idea of sensuality and consumerble-ness- I€™d already done that quite a lot. So their suggestions were great, but I€™d already done them. So as a maker, why would I do that over again?

Stylehive: If you could go back, is there anything you would have done differently?
Elisa: No probably not, I actually stand by my design and I liked my design. Basically, she€™s a chocolate bar and the whole idea of €˜the woman as an edible object€™ and that whole thing. If you want to get into avante-guarde, it€™s a pretty conceptual idea. But you also have to keep in mind that I was trying to make a Gretel- and Gretel, who turned down sugar, basically was wise- it was a paradox, even though she was the thing she was turning down. But I personally don€™t see sugar as a good thing, I see sugar as a drug, so again, perception definitely directs interpretation. And I don€™t see sugar as this positive light, I see it as something people have to fight with constantly, especially women, because instinctually, we want more of it.

Stylehive: Both you and Sweet P were criticized for having designs that lacked joy and were on the boring side- why do you think you were sent home?
Elisa: I think when you get into process of elimination, it€™s completely arbitrary. You can€™t really take it personally. I personally am glad that Sweet P stayed because for her, there was much more attachment to being on the show, and trying to get the ultimate prize of getting to Bryant Park. . For me, having just been chosen, I felt like I had already won. I also come from the line of thought that €˜winning doesn€™t always look like winning,€™ you don€™t ever really know what you€™re gonna win. So I also felt very free, like I knew I would be fine. I actually ended up having to reassure my friends and my colleagues from the show- €˜No really, I€™m fine!€� It€™s taking the context of maybe it€™s the near death experience, or maybe it€™s just having been a creator, and a maker, and a mother and a partner for so long, you know that there€™s a life beyond and it's how you take those experiences and apply them to the next one. So I wanted her to stay, it would have been more hurtful for her, for her to go.

Stylehive: Who are your favorite designers left?
Elisa:Well I have to be incredibly fair, and I would have to say that I was honored to be a part of the entire group because all 15 of them are incredibly talented people, there€™s not one of us that€™s not talented, and so it€™s basically just getting to the top of the mountain in a different way. So I can€™t really pick and choose a favorite, every one of them has a different strength for how they do what they do. And I was the one in our private circle, saying, €˜none of us walks away a loser, there€™s no way, we already are talented. How we utilize this experience is how we get to win.€™ So I hope that each person, no matter whose left right now, actually gets to take that with them and that they can make it work for them. We get rewards all the time in life, whether or not we actually choose to use them is whether or not we win. Look at what you get to do. You get to be a part of union, cultural dialogue, that€™s an incredibly powerful, wonderful thing to do and out there, there€™s some ten year old girl who wants to do that, or some 14 year old boy who wants to be part of that. That€™s the thing I kept trying to say to people, don€™t take this to heart, you know, learn from it, but don€™t take it as a statement about what you do.

Stylehive: How was the overall Project Runway experience for you?
Elisa:Surreal, definitely! At one point I was joking and said it€™s a surreal-ality show, it€™s not a re-ality show. Our experience was basically like a vision-quest, it is a huge physical, mental, psychological, creative undertaking. My experience was nothing by positive, it was really great, incredible, I€™m really proud of the whole experience, and hopefully positive things will come out of the €œcharacter€� that I was. Because, like before I was talking about that 10 year old girl- if there€™s someone who can relate to the person who forever will be proverbially outside of that big white box, that€™s the role that I€™ve been cast in, but that€™s also the role that I€™ve played and that is my role. I finally gave up on being that person who fit within the norm of it all- if there€™s a person who can find strength in that, then it€™s all served its purpose. But, for the record, if you want a nasty, terrible, tragic, love story, I hated, hated, HATED being away from my partner, could not stand it. We were a mess! If they showed what we were like on the telephone, it€™s like beyond embarrassing! It€™s unbelievable, because we were like crying, and I hated that part of it. And I hated being away from my daughter, that totally sucked, but she€™s a pre-teen so she was fine! So that was the worst part of the show, the biggest challenge was being away from the people that I loved and that love me.

Stylehive: What€™s next?
Elisa:Well, I did LA Fashion Week, and my husband and I just did a stint of three shows in three different galleries. And I€™m not preparing for New York Fashion Week and I also just started a whole series of drawings and actually ended up selling half of that series to a collector in Dallas, and now I have to do more so I have more to show!

Stylehive: What is your advice for women who want to achieve a thoroughly unique sense of style, because it€™s not an easy thing to do these days, with so many people following the same trends and such.
Elisa: I honestly am one of those people that€™s like, if you wear what you love, and you wear things given to you by the people that you love, you create your own style, because you can€™t help it. You can€™t help it if you gravitate. Like my recent most terrifying thing for my daughter is I gravitated toward a 1980€™s hot pink puff coat, and it€™s sheer, completely obnoxious, like florescent orange on the inside. And I get comments on it, and compliments all the time. But, does it terrify my daughter that that€™s what I€™m wearing? Yeah, but you know what? I love it, and it€™s great, and it looks great, and people comment on it because they think it looks great. Confidence is the greatest way of creating style, and you only get that if you do things and wear things that you love, and that people who love you give to you. And you€™re right, it€™s really hard right now to create your own distinctive sense of style. My daughter€™s an artist and a writer and she€™s into this neo-punk, and we came up with this idea of calling it €˜Chick Punk,€™ because it€™s a little bit cutesy too. And I just keep telling her, if you€™re gonna do a style, make sure you do your variation on it, because in essence, everything€™s already been done.

I would also like to say, just because I have the opportunity and I feel like I have to be responsible, I would like green- being conscientious about what we put on our bodies, to be the new luxury item and the new style. Like be aware of where you€™re clothes come from. Whether you€™re buying clothes that are made out of fabrics that will never bio-degrade, or clothes that have been made by eleven year olds in other countries, or clothes that prostetate you- like 14 year olds trying to look like they€™re 25, this type of thing. Having awareness about your style comes with a responsibility. We as women get to explore who we are with our clothes much more than men do- that being said, it can also be our way of changing how we€™re seen, and it€™s very important to be aware of how we do that. Fashion has incredible power to change, culture and everything. If only it can change the planet as part of its responsibility, then it€™s really doing something magnificent.