What made you want to do Project Runway to begin with?

Oh, um, I wanted to… at first I wasn’t going to do it. But then my friend sort of convinced me and kind of dared me to. When the second season casting came about they were like, “Oh my God, you should do it; you should do it.” I was like, oh no, you know, I’m better than that; I’m a teacher; I teach fashion and I already have my clothing line and then the sort of “shoulda, coulda, woulda” mentality sort of kept coming along in my head, and it’s sort of like, I don’t wanna miss opportunities, you know, and so I just thought about doing it, and also, I’ve been designing for about, I’ve been in the industry for about twelve years at the time and going through a lot of companies and have worked in a lot of different areas.  I started my line in 2001 and have shown in LA Fashion Week and did a bunch of stuff and I’ve never felt I was getting anywhere. It was like I was still struggling and I was doing fierce dresses but nobody, or not the right person, was noticing, so I felt I needed like some sort of a push.  I just don’t have the kind of money that Gwen Stefani has -- you know what I’m saying? And so I felt this could be the push and as it turns out, it was. So I can’t even believe I doubted it, you know? But you know, you have no idea going into things like that, and I’ve never done a quote, unquote reality show, so you never know, so it’s like, just do it, but I thought… I just felt like I needed a push ‘cause I wasn’t getting any younger and I was working so, so hard, and I was like when is it gonna happen, and I thought maybe the show will do that.

Looking back, would you have done anything differently?

Oh, gosh, if um… I think I say that I might have done something differently, like for example, like I might have not gotten so affected where when one of the designers took my model but when she did that, that sort of brought me down and my whole level of competition or sort of feeling, sort of broke down a little bit, and then subsequently the challenges for me, I didn’t have all of my heart into it and I think I was just feeling the pressure of the environment and being in the like, top five, and not being able to talk to anyone and stress, and things that were stressful got even more stressful and I think I would have not let myself get affected by that, it just had the prize at the end. I think I would have been not so emotional in terms of letting that take over, like, “Nick, it’s 100,000 dollars.” It’s, you know, you get to show at Fashion Week, so I think I would have been a little more savvy in regards to that.

What would you say is the best thing that came out of Project Runway for you?

Um, that it got to sort of showcase me, and my line.  It costs about $100,000 a year to get a PR agent to get you out there, and I didn’t have to pay for it through Project Runway, and so it’s like, for me it’s like, it’s immeasurable, you can’t measure the amount of money that I would have had to spend. Who knows, I could have probably gotten to where I am, but it might have taken longer, on my own, but um, you know I think that yeah, I think that came about, and then this sort of side career, which I never sort of guessed would come out of being asked to give fashion commentary and be asked to, you know, go on the TV Guide channel and talk about the red carpet, about you know, different awards shows, you know, give fashion commentary. And then to be asked… you know, the AP just called me; was it this morning? This morning, like, the Associated Press wanted my quote on the diversity of models. They would have never known - Nick Verreos who? – two years ago, and to me it’s like, you sort of get a sort of respect in that regard, so to me it’s like a whole side career that I never, you know that’s not why I did this show, but then to be asked to do, I love it, because I’m in academia, I’m a teacher, I studied fashion, I know it, as opposed to, you know, a lot of people on TV don’t really know it and yet they’re like, “Ooh, that girl should wear that red dress,” and you’re like, “Really?” but for me it comes from like I have a resume to back it up, you know, so that’s something wonderful that has come out of the show and especially, I wasn’t a finalist, you know, and for me to have, you know, for people to still want me, you know, that’s great.

Do you still keep in touch with anyone?

I’m so surprised that I keep in touch with a lot of people and it makes it hard.  Like especially, you know I just went to the finale in Fashion Week on Friday… oh, yesterday, my God, everything is so crazy, and everybody wanted to see me, like Jay McCarroll, the winner, he called me at 6:30 in the morning; he’s like, “The day is here; when are we meeting; I’m coming to your hotel.”  And then I’ve got Chloe, the winner from my [season], calling me, and then I have designers that I was with,  John Wade and Raymundo Baltazar, different designers, called and it’s like I guess I’m sort of a middle man to everyone and I’ve made a lot of friends, which is really good, so I do keep in touch.  I keep in touch with Jay McCarroll, I keep in touch with Chloe Dao, like I said John Wade, and Daniel Vosovic; he was out in LA a couple weeks ago and we had dinner, so I try to keep in touch with most everyone and that’s something that’s really nice; I didn’t expect to necessarily meet and create friends out of it, but my personality is about that.  You have a lot of people who do these things or do these shows, who say, “I’m not here to make friends.” I can’t even say that ‘cause I’m not like that; you know, it’s like, I’m just that type of person; I’ve met a lot of the new designers and they came up to me. Like, I don’t know, you watch the show? Okay, Ricky, the crybaby, he came up to me; I’ve never met him in my life, and we were in the fashion show, so it was about to start and he’s like, “Nick!” and I was like, “…Hi!”, and he’s like, “A friend of mine tells me that I need to be friends with you; I think that we’re going to get along.” You know, it’s like, I mean of course we have the commonality that we’re all Project Runway designers, so you know, but that doesn’t mean that we have to be friends, but he’s like, “I know that we might have something in common,” or “You’re a nice guy and I should get to know you.”  I think that’s a nice, a nice thing. 

So you must get recognized all the time?

Yeah, out and about, it’s nice when like all of a sudden people are just walking and then like, “Oh my God!” and like they’ll turn around and they’ll stop me and it’s nice, it’s funny, sometimes, I was telling somebody, it’s hard when let’s say, you’re at the airport and you have, you got three hours of sleep and you’re hiding, like this has happened to me, and I’m hiding eating like a big breakfast burrito, and then all of a sudden like, four people will come up and they’re like, “Um, I’m sorry that you have half a burrito in your mouth, but can we take a picture?” You know, and part of me wants to, like, slap them, but just for, like, 1.2 seconds, ‘cause I’m like, how wonderful is that, and you’re making their day, and like I have to think about me, and what if I saw somebody that I respected and you know you can make that person’s day, week, whatever it is, but it’s nice, because I know that this can be taken away tomorrow, so you know, I think it’s nice to be recognized, and for a good thing, you know, for my talent, as opposed to being recognized for something like “Oh, we saw you on celebrity rehab,” you know?

Now, after Project Runway, what is the average day for you like?

Oh, I’ve never been asked that.  An average day, well, it depends -- I teach twice a week, so when I do teach, basically I wake up, I go on the computer for about an hour, and then I get ready, and then I go to work for nine hours.  I teach the fashion design students at the fashion school in Los Angeles.  Other than that, I wake up and I get on the computer and I basically try to answer one of the 124 emails and then deal with the Myspace or deal with the Facebook, or deal with the blog.  I have a blog, I have a website, and I also write for Bravo, so I always, some deadline is due. So I have to type something, or get something done, and basically just run the business, and if I’m making, designing a line, I’ll spend my time also working on the line as well, you know, and then just draping, doing the patterns for it, but it’s basically sort of just a lot of running the “Nick Verreos.” But it is a lot of, it can change any day because in the middle of the day we get a call from a stylist that they want something for an actress and so we have to get the clothes together and then we have to send them for that, or you know David will tell me, “Do you know you have your blog for BravoTV.com due tomorrow?” and I’ll be like, “Oh my God.” You have to start it tonight and you have to write a recap and it’s due at 7:00 AM, oh, my God, you know, but to me it just keeps it exciting. You know but generally it’s just a lot, sort of administrative or design duties if I’m not teaching those days.

How did you get involved in teaching?

I was asked soon after I showed at LA Fashion Week; there was sort of a buzz about me, and this happens in LA; it’s sort of like an up-and-coming designer and I got good reviews and a lot of magazines sort of called me; this is before Project Runway, called me a sort of up-and-coming get-to-know designer, you know, and so I got a buzz about it and the school I went to, the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, called FIDM, they called me and they were like, “Would you like to come back to sort of speak to the students about your experience ‘cause you’re like an up-and-coming designer?”  So I did and the directors at the school said the feedback was so good, they said, “Hey, how about, would you like to come back and teach at night?” and it was right at the perfect time where I was really struggling with my line and I was deciding to, like, pull back a little bit, ’cause it was just, I was not happy and I was like, you know what, let me try this, and I loved it. And before I knew it, it went from like one evening class to two to three and then all of a sudden, I’m teaching six classes and I just loved it, and the feedback was great from the department, and so that’s how I started.  I think I’ve been doing it for like, five years now.

What are you teaching?

I teach, right now I teach the advanced design students.  The school, it’s a fashion institute, and they pick ten of their best graduating fashion students and they get to create a collection.  They get a year, nine months actually, to create their collection but they’re handpicked, like about one hundred students turn in applications, portfolios, and then they’re handpicked, and then I’m sort of the Tim Gunn.  Me and another instructor, a much older, respected, we’re sort of the Tim Gunns; we mentor and instruct and guide the students to create their first ever collection and then at the end of the year it’s shown at a huge, huge, fashion show event; you know, it’s like, here are our top ten designers, so I love doing that.  So I teach that; I also teach some patternmaking classes, draping, things like that.

What would you say your design process is like?

I sketch, sketch, sketch.  All the time, so much so that David has several folders, files, things with all my sketches.  I’m always sketching and I have notebooks and I’m always coming up with ideas and sort of putting it on a back burner, so then when the time comes, literally -- David is my design partner, by the way -- he’ll just start pulling them out and laying them on the floor and be like, “OK -- this, this, this, this.”  If I feel like those are too old, I’ll do new ones.  I start with a sketch, the idea, and then I go into the fabric and then pick which ones we wanna make, and then I do the patterns and the draping.  Lots of designers start with fabric first; it’s all about the fabric.  For me, it’s more about the sketch.  Sometimes I do get influenced by fabric, where I see this gorgeous, you know, $800/yard fabric and for some lucky reason I get it, and then I’ll create something from that.  Sometimes it inspires me, like recently I did a gown for a client called “Basil Hayden’s,” which is actually a whiskey.  They asked me to design a one-of-a-kind gown and I had some ideas and I went to the fabric store and I saw this gorgeous, copper… it looked like whiskey, ‘cause the Basil Hayden is a whiskey, it looked like whiskey-colored sequins, like this big, all of it, and I turned to David and am like, “I don’t care how much this costs, we’re buying it.”  You know, I like, had a vision.  Sometimes I do get inspired by fabric, especially if it’s… expensive.

What else inspires you?

Music, art… I’m not one of those that… I wish I was more of like, a person who recognized art and was about gallery openings and this and that, but I love going to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and I like a John Singer Sargent painting, the Goya paintings in Spain at the Prado Museum; I’m inspired by that.  Sculptures as well, foreign cultures -- India, South America, the Mediterranean -- I’m inspired by that.  I’m also inspired by the society, like the upper class sort of, the royals and the lifestyles of the rich and famous in Europe, you know it’s like, that all comes into place, so that inspires me. And then out of the blue, house music, you know, and so I love working with it, it sort of inspires me.  I guess that turns it into sexy, sensual dresses and music -- I can just see my woman sitting at a lounge drinking a martini with one of my fabulous dresses, you know, listening to my music.

How would you describe what you design?

I would say it was sexy, yet not vulgar.  I do a lot of dresses, gowns, influenced by Grecian draping, influenced by my background -- I’m half-Venezuelan, half-Greek and so that influences me.  I wanna make women look gorgeous, you know; I think women are my muses.  I grew up with women: my mom, my sister, my grandma, and so I just want to make them look beautiful.  I have this vision, even though sometimes it might not be real, but I feel like every woman deserves the right to have her red carpet moment and to just be treated like a goddess, so when I’m thinking about what to design for them I’m thinking of a woman being a goddess, so I would say it makes the woman feel good and sexy and confident at the same time.

Do you have any projects in the works and what are you looking forward to taking on next?

Well, I get back tomorrow to LA and I have to watch the Grammys, ‘cause Monday I have to tape an after red carpet, you know, wrap-up show with Lisa Rinna, and sort of it’s the Joan Rivers show; I’m one of the experts, so we’re gonna have to talk about that.  I think I’m also gonna do a post-Oscars red carpet comment show, so I’m looking forward to that as well.  And possibly coming up with a line: LA Fashion Week is in March so maybe coming up with a small line, maybe to show, but I don’t like to show necessarily on a runway; it would be like a gallery exhibit kind of thing, and just invite, you know, a few select friends and have the models stand on podiums and so I’m looking forward to that. And the finale, the show of the class that I teach, is at the beginning of March, March 1, so we’re almost done; my students are almost done, so you know, we’re finishing up with that, and yeah, just a lot of work.

What have you found to be the best piece of advice you have been given in relation to working in the fashion industry?

The best piece of advice… I would say two things.  Even though I really didn’t take his advice, but a mentor of mine told me, and I was still in school, two things -- never wake up to your work, and do not put down a pencil unless you have money in front of you.  And the third thing, it’s a business; it’s not necessarily about art. It’s a business; it’s a fashion business, so you can’t forget that because a lot of people might, because you are working with art; you are designing it, and then when it comes to selling the clothes, and a lot of fashion students especially forget that it is a business as well, and then once you get out in the industry, it does come to you as a shock, because you might not have gotten the business training for it. And I’m just telling you from experience because it happened to me, so I would say the advice that I got was to realize it’s a business, so make sure to also know that end of it. So there’s several, I guess, pieces of advice.

And last of all, what do you think of this season’s Project Runway?

What do I think, at first I was a little taken aback, because in the beginning Tim Gunn and Heidi, in the commercials and interviews, would be like, “This is the best season EVER,” and I was sort of like, well, what were we, chopped liver?” You know, and so they said the “most talented” and “most experienced,” and I’m like, I’ve been in this industry for fifteen years.  I just took it personally and I took it personally for people like Chloe, or Jeffrey, people that I thought were fabulous and experienced in their own right and successful as well, but I know that they have to do that for marketing purposes. So I was a little let down because I just didn’t think that they were all that. Now seeing, I just saw the finale fashion show and I think that they are good, talented designers, it’s just I think that people for this season were, you know, what I’ve been reading from the fans, that they were a little let down.  They look for a “Nick,” or they look for an “Andre” or a “Santino,” and it’s just not gonna be.  Unfortunately, the people who are doing the show now come with a different mindset, whereas we didn’t know what we were doing, so we were sort of ingénues, but now I think a lot of the people showing up are a little more like, savvy, television savvy, more knowing like, what to say, what to do, how to have like… and knowing… seeing now what it’s done for me, or it’s done for previous winners, so it’s like they go with a definite mindset, you know.  But I like the show; it’s just, I’d like to see more fresh blood, like more young students fresh out of school.  I’d like to see the “mom,” you know, because I think that really sort of adds a human touch to it and makes it less serious, and I think it’ll be for better TV watching because in the end, it is a TV show.  It is a competition show, but you also need people who will make you want to watch it, you know, but I think it’s good; I think it’s a good season.