Photo: BravoTV.com
Name: Tim Gunn
Age: 53
Job: Chair, Department of Fashion Design, Parsons; Mentor, Project Runway
Neighborhood: West Village
Who’s your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
Depends on my mood. Up: Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Down: Thomas Wolfe’s character C. Green, who leaps to his death from a hotel window in You Can’t Go Home Again.
What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in New York?
Restaurant: Gotham Bar & Grill. Other: At the home of my dear friends Bea and Jerry Banu.
In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job?
Put out fires!
Where do you get your coffee?
Home: My corner deli on West 4th Street. Work: Michael and Marie’s cart at 40th Street and Seventh Avenue
What’s the last thing you saw on Broadway?
Three Days of Rain. (Poor Julia Roberts.)
Do you give money to panhandlers?
No. When I was new to NYC, I gave money to everyone. But I quickly learned that my bleeding heart was a fast road to the poorhouse.
What’s your drink?
A Manhattan on the rocks.
How often do you prepare your own meals?
Fourteen nights out of fifteen.
What’s your favorite medication?
Over the counter: Advil. Prescription: Retin-A.
What’s hanging above your sofa?
My sofa sits in front of a ten-foot-long Coromandel screen.
How much is too much to spend on a haircut?
I spend $14.50, so anything over that.
When’s bedtime?
Around midnight.
Brunch: pro or con?
Pro, but I brunch infrequently; say, three times a year.
What’s your thread count?
I dunno. It falls somewhere between comfy and dermabrasion.
What do you hate most about living in New York?
Exorbitant rent. How is it that we’ll agree to pay $2,700 per month to live like a college student?
What’s your brand of jeans?
Banana Republic.
When was the last time you drove a car?
Last August, during my visit to preview the collections of the season-three designers. I drove a Saturn Sky. It was sublime.
Who should be the next president?
Pick a Democrat, any Democrat!
Times, Post, or Daily News?
Times, but I buy the Post and Daily News on Sundays, too.
Yankees or Mets?
How about both? I’m like Switzerland when it comes to sports.
What makes someone a New Yorker?
An intensity of emotions hiding behind a veil of calm, but all the while poised to implode or explode at any given moment.
