Style Under The Gunn

If anyone on this summer's TV critics tour got a better reaction than the "High School Musical" kids, it was the "Project Runway" fashion maven who's striking out on his own in a couple of weeks with a Bravo series called "Tim Gunn's Guide To Style," which debuts tonight on Bravo. Maybe Gunn wasn't quite as swarmed after his press conference, but not even Zac Efron's words were as intently received by the assembled and frequently underdressed media.

"Why do you think that woman love you so much?" was a not-atypical question, which Gunn tried to hand off to his Emma Peel, co-host Veronica Webb, before consenting to answer with just a hint of a sigh.

"Well, I'd like to believe that people respond to the fact that I am a truth-teller, but that I'm thoughtful and respectful of who they are," said the impeccably well-spoken Chief Creative Office of Liz Claiborne Inc. "I mean, I have a profound respect for the human race. Am I disappointed by certain aspects of it? Of course. We all are. But I really believe in the right of all people to choose, and I believe that we're not all the same by any means. And I don't know, I think it's perhaps the thoughtfulness and respect that woman respond to. And I find that men tend to respond to it also."

Take that, inarticulate sitcom stars and reality show freaks. One of the fall's most anticipated TV series stars a guy who speaks in complete sentences, doesn't swear and actually cares about the human race. Although that "right to choose" he was talking about is more a matter of cuffs or no cuffs than anything, you know, political.

"Could you address the difference between style and fashion?" someone else asked.

"You know, I believe it's easier to talk about the difference between fashion and clothes, because we all need clothes," Gunn said, effortlessly finessing the issue, if there is an issue. "We don't need fashion. We want it, but we don't have to have it, and just because there's an article of clothing hanging on a hanger doesn't mean it is fashion. It may just be clothing. I believe if it is fashion, then inherently there's style."

Whew. I mean, I have no idea what he said there, if anything, but it sounded really good.

That's why I'm predicting nothing but success for "Tim Gunn's Guide To Style" when it begins the first week of September. Gunn and Webb will spend an hour each week guiding some style-challenged woman through a major makeover (read: near total change) of her wardrobe. And this guy is so smooth, they'll never know what hit them.

"Well, it's undeniably a makeover show. I wouldn't pretend to say that it isn't, just as my book is undeniably an iteration of a makeover book," Gunn said, charming us now with his candor while deftly slipping in a plug for his tome. "But when doing the book - I'll begin with that - I was intent upon not having it be like every other book that's out on the shelves right now, but really needing to have its own integrity as a work for writing. I mean, as a 'for instance,' the 'Tim Gunn's Guide to Quality, Taste and Style' has no photographs.

"There's nowhere in the book where you can turn and say, 'OK, let me read the captions on these photographs and that will tell me what I need to do.' That was on purpose. That was by design. Because the book is really about probing. Who are you? With whom do you interact? How do you want to world to perceive you. It's the semiology of dressing. And that answer is different for each and every one of us. And that is the core of the show."

He's a beautiful man, no?

"Veronica and I do not walk into our subject's house and say, 'OK, we've summed you up. You're this size. You're this shape. And if you wear these silhouettes and in these colors, then you'll be fine. Goodbye. Oh, and by the way, the van with your new wardrobe is parked in the driveway.' It's really the antithesis of that," Gunn said.

"And therefore there's a lot of emotion that is, that bubbles up in the course of doing the show," he said. "I'll give you an idea of the structure. We begin by delivering a verbal contract that says 'Are you ready to come on this journey?' Because this journey requires that you do all of the work. Veronica and I are there to support you and to help guide you, but the onus of responsibility is really on you. And it's going to be difficult. It's going to be daunting. And it's going to probably be very emotional. Are you really ready to embrace this degree if challenge?' And that's the only way we can move forward."

Webb said women's reactions are generally not very daunted.

"There's such an outpouring of love for Tim," she said. "And I think because over the last four years people have had Tim in their homes every week (on "Project Runway"), people trust him. And they know that he can be incredibly critical, but never crushing. And it's really sweet to see the faces as they light up and fling open the door. It's like Obi-Wan Kenobi to the rescue."

But without that tacky bathrobe, natch.