Chloe Dao [p.2]

During an intense elimination round of the show, competitors and judges questioned Dao’s level of passion and commitment. Contestant Santino Rice, now infamous for his bitchy comments about other competitors, said Dao was a “brilliant patternmaker,” but an average designer. The comment stunned Dao into silence. Judges Kors and Garcia questioned Dao’s drive and passion to be the winner of Project Runway.

In fact, Dao got a lot of heat for saying on air she questioned wanting to win. Typical of most reality TV, words can get twisted or taken out of context. As Dao explains it, she never questioned if she wanted to win Project Runway. She questioned whether she wanted to be the next great American Designer.

“The show is really about finding that next great American designer. This means being the next Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein. You have to put in 15-20 years at this. You become a mass market. It’s a serious commitment. Do you want to be gone from your family and friends that long? Do you want to let that be your life?” says Dao.

Instead of letting the criticisms wreck her spirit, she used it as fuel to prove her critics wrong. After she made the finals, she came home to Houston and prepared herself to kick ass. She put all of her energies into creating a line that would win Project Runway.

Working alone on the 12 looks for her fashion show was a daunting task. She tried to create a line that looked worthy of the drama of a fashion show venue while trying to work outside her normal comfort zone.

“There were days when I had to call my friends to say ‘Tell me I’m a good designer.’ Everyone’s going to be a fashion critic. Everyone has an opinion. When you’re the one everyone’s criticizing, it sucks,” says Dao.

After working alone for months with the $8,000 she was given for the line, Dao returned to New York to face off with her challengers. The other two contestants, Santino Rice and Daniel Vosovic, were both more heavily favored than Dao. Rice was favored for his sense of visual drama, a talent fit for the fashion show forum. Vosovic won more design challenges than any other designer during the show. Of the other contestants that got eliminated, none of them picked Dao to go home with the title.

The three designers were exhausted by the time they got to New York to present their 12 looks. But the show was not finished torturing the designers yet. The producers surprised the three contestants the day before the fashion show with one last challenge. They had 24 hours to make a 13th look for the show.

The three contestants were dismayed at the thought of having such little time to design and finish yet another look. They had hoped to use the time to fit their models and finish the details of their original 12 looks. Dao broke out into tears with this announcement. The stress had gotten to her.

“By then, I thought I had nothing left in me. I was so over it. The level of stress on this show is so crazy,” says Dao.

But Dao and the other designers dug deep and completed their 13th looks. The runway show was on. Dao greeted the crowd before her models walked down the runway and compared the experience to having an “immaculate conception.”

“This is my baby,” Dao said of her line.

After all was said and done, after the last model strutted down the runway with the last look, Dao’s “baby” out-performed and out-impressed the judges.