Project Runway’s Victorya

December 11, 2007 njaiyo 2 Comments

Our favorite show, Project Runway is back for its fourth season!! One of our favorite designers, Victorya, 34, has already managed to win the highly coveted challenge of designing an outfit for Sarah Jessica Parker’s clothing line, Bitten. So we just had to find out more about her.Our favorite show, Project Runway is back for its fourth season!! One of our favorite designers, Victorya, 34, has already managed to win the highly coveted challenge of designing an outfit for Sarah Jessica Parker’s clothing line, Bitten. So we just had to find out more about her.

Like most 1 ½ and 2nd generation Asian Americans, Victorya was born in Asia (Seoul, Korea) and spent her childhood in the United States (Virginia). After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago, she traveled to Paris to fulfill a lifelong dream to live in the fashion capital of the world. What was to be a six-month stint, turned into a six-year sojourn, working as a journalist taking her from Paris to Brussels.
In 2002, Victorya enrolled in Parsons Associate Degree program in New York City. Since then, she has worked for several major companies in the industry, before striking out on her own with her own label na·be, designing clothes that she and like-minded women want to wear.

This Project Runway season has more talent than ever so we just had to find out a little bit more about this girl who is a self confessed “new fan” of the popular hit show and what she really wants to get out of being a contestant on Project Runway.

Victorya Hong

ASIANCE: Have you always been a fan of Project Runway?

Victorya: I was a little late in watching Project Runway. Season 3 was probably the first season that I caught from the very start. I think I sat home one weekend and watched a Bravo marathon of the show to catch up.

ASIANCE: Who were your favorite previous Project Runway designers?

Victorya: I don’t know if she was my favorite on the show, but I’d say that Kara Janx has probably seen the most success as a designer than anyone else. She has her own label, and by the looks of it, she seems to have established a sustainable business selling her designs since being on the show. For a young, independent designer, that’s quite an accomplishment.

ASIANCE: What did you study at the University of Chicago?

Victorya: I studied a very obscure major called Fundamentals: Issues and Texts. The U of C is big on the western canon of great books. Basically, Fundamentals allowed you to ask a philosophical question and study that question through the canon. One of your texts had to be studied in its original language. It’s a very academic study, and I, at one point, seriously entertained the idea of entering into academia.

Victorya Hong

ASIANCE: Wow! Well what do hope to gain from being a contestant on Project Runway?

Victorya: I can answer that in one word: Exposure.

ASIANCE: What style would you classify your designs as?

Victorya: I always ask myself a series of questions when I’m designing. Would I wear it? What would make me wear it over something else? And would I go into my closet and wear it again and again?

ASIANCE: Who are your favorite designers?

Victorya: I look at a lot of designers, but there’s a triumverate to whom I usually look to first: Alber Elbaz for Lanvin, Nicolas Ghesquiere for Balenciaga, and everything that Marc Jacobs is doing, for his own label and at LVMH. But it can change every season. I loved Dolce & Gabbana’s latest collection for Spring 2008. All the girls looked like walking canvases of art.