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Monday, January 24, 2011

Gunn's Golden Rules: Chapter 1 - Make It Work!

As we all know, Tim Gunn is a style aficionado well known from his show Project Runway. He has also been an instructor at the Parson's New School for Design for many decades. In 2007, he joined Liz Claiborne as Chief Creative Officer and has penned  Tim Gunn's Guide to Quality, Taste and Style and hosted a show on Bravo called Tim Gunn's Guide to Style.



Gunn's new book Golden Rules we learn a different aspect to what Gunn may consider style - manners and etiquette. Gunn's introduction stresses the importance of manners and civility toward others and in my personal opinion, considers etiquette just as important factor of style as clothing and makeup. Gunn's rules are therefore, are his "thoughts on what constitutes a life well lived".

Chapter 1 is titled Make It Work! For those of us who are familiar with Tim Gunn, we are well familiar with this saying. Gunn uses it constantly on Project Runway as he mentors the contestant. Simply put, Gunn has helped his students and contestants on his shows to use the tools at their disposal to the best of their abilities. This means that they have had to think outside the box. Rather than starting from scratch, Gunn says to diagnose the flaws of the situation and make it work! It is only through this can we "reach a new level of understanding about...abilities to successfully problem solve."

This chapter has some very interesting stories from Project Runway and his years teaching that illustrate his "make it work" mantra. I won't bog you down with all the stories - I'll stick to the really interesting ones in later chapters. However, I find this rule to be very significant for today's world. We must make it work in today's economy. Many people have had to retool their entire lives due to job loss, foreclosure, etc. It also forces us to look at what we have and think of new uses for it. I'm constantly looking at my wardrobe and figuring out new ways to wear something.

What have you had to do to Make It Work?

Next up Chapter 2: The World Owes You....Nothing

2 comments:

Anonymous said...Reply to comment

Bampitt--I don't watch television, but have been aware of Gunn and I like this mantra "make it work" as I'm learning to apply it to my closet! Thank you for this series.

Unknown said...Reply to comment

@Terri Thanks, Terri, for joining in. This is the first time I've done something like this. I hope you like it. Hopefully, we can get more participants.