Lala Q&A with Kevin Christiana on Life, Design and Success

I had the great pleasure of visiting Project Runway contestant Kevin Christiana at his studio in the garment center. We chatted about design, inspirations and his three colossal mens and women’s collections that he is releasing this fall. With Rachel Ray on his side, a TV show on the horizon and a soaring design career, there isn’t a thing that this charismatic personality can’t conquer.

What inspired you do both menswear and womenswear?
I worked for my cousin Susana Monaco in womenswear and i went to FIT for menswear and there’s a lot of tailors in my family. I have a huge Sicilian family. It started with when you have certain problems of what your body type is? I’ve been short my whole life, so I started fixing my own pants with the sewing machine in the basement. I was a theater major at the time and I got into a workshop program where I was doing costume design. My cousin started her line, so I asked if I could intern for her. At the same time I was doing womenswear, I said why don’t I do menswear at FIT. So that’s how the whole thing came about.

Do you think your background in tailoring and your culture has influenced the way that you design?
Absolutely. I’m very much a visual person. My research and inspiration comes from people and atmosphere. So living in a city like New York, it has that gotham feel to it. With that whole Gotham City feel, you the Europeans that settled here and built these ginormous hand carved buildings with beautiful railings and intricately detailed doorknobs. All those little things my eye just attracts to. Then just watching people walk down the street, if there’s 10 people walking by I’ll say ‘hats, shoes, shirts, pants’. It just all comes to me and that’s how I end up sketching on a park bench and people watch. Some people get it through magazines, some people get it through reading books, I just get a visual.

So whether it be people from manhattan or any walk of life, you gravitate towards?
Manhattan has a piece of everything here. I’ve travelled the world and seen everything that they have to offer everywhere else. And that of course inspired me but I realized that the reason why I am attracted to New York is because there is a piece of everything in one place. If you wanna hang out and feel like you’re in a piazza in Italy, you can go down to SoHo or Little Italy, sit down and have some expresso. That’s the closest you get to Paris or Italy, its built here, its great.

Its like traveling around the world in one city!
I think a lot of people from Europe as well really want to come to New York City, its their plan. So you have people coming here and opening up restaurants right in front of the boat. So its kinda cool, I dig it.

Who would you say is the woman that you design for?
Its kind of the woman that I am attracted to all the time. Its not one specific person though. The vision is more like an attitude with a sense of success and style. I like to design for women who know who they are.

What is the inspiration for the Fall line of Mynt 1792?
Its deconstructed menswear going into womenswear. Its very item driven, so I wanted to take the trends that are going on and pop them out with different fabrications. Everyone wants that perfect boyfriend jacket and everyone wants that perfect biker jacket. I just wanted to do something different and its my way of coming back on the scene after taking a break for awhile. Being confused and kicking that can down the street when I closed my last business and wondering what was next. It’s like here is opportunity, here’s what’s going on. I don’t like re-inventing the wheel with design because it doesn’t create longevity. People trend-forecast for a reason. So its everyone’s hottest version of what that is. It is a return. Its a smarter version of coming back on the scene, which is what all this is for fall.

So this is your proclamation that you’re here!
I’m back, I’m here. I feel how I felt when I was at FIT again. I was so inspired, I was so aloof. This is the most amazing thing. I’ve lost that through the years because the business kind of jaded me a little bit. Now I feel like I’m back because after 10-12 years of doing this, to get the recognition and the respect at this point, it recharges you.