Daniel Vosovic
American fashion designer (born 1981)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Daniel Vosovic Jr. (born March 25, 1981) is an American fashion designer best known as the first runner-up in the second season of the American reality television series Project Runway.
March 25, 1981
Daniel Vosovic | |
|---|---|
| Born | Daniel Vosovic Jr. March 25, 1981 |
| Education | Fashion Institute of Technology |
| Occupation | fashion designer |
| Television | Project Runway Season 2 (2nd) |
Early life and education
Daniel Vosovic Jr., born to his parents Daniel Vosovic Sr. and Sharon, had grown up in Lowell from age thirteen onward.[1] There, he attended art-related classes of and graduated in 1999 from Lowell High School.[2] Then he attended Grand Rapids Community College, including its courses on clothing construction and fashion design, and then graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.; New York City) in 2005.[1][2] When he was an undergraduate, he competed at the Milano Studia la Moda (Milan).[3] Also, he worked at the Woodland Mall location of Banana Republic for several years.[4]
Vosovic is of Serbian and Slovak background. The father of his grandmother operated a tailoring company in Serbia. Vosovic also has a sister.[5]
Project Runway season 2 (2005–06)
Challenge wins
Daniel Vosovic Jr., a 24-year-old aspiring designer from Lowell, Michigan, first competed in the second season of the series.[2] He won five challenges before the Fashion Week. As Lorilee Craker of The Grand Rapids Press noted, "Vosovic was not an obvious frontrunner" initially because "[h]e wasn't flamboyant enough" to garner more airtime in post-production results. Nevertheless, his challenge wins and "clean and savvy clothing creations" made him a viewers' "favorite to win" the season.[1]
In the fourth episode,[a] where he made his first challenge win, Vosovic was the leader of his winning three-person team for the team lingerie challenge. In the challenge, a team must design three pieces under one "vision"; his team's "vision" was Lederhosen-based.[8] His second challenge win occurred in the sixth episode: creating "a day-to-evening ensemble for Banana Republic."[9] Required by the challenge, Vosovic partnered with Andrae Gonzalo,[4] who shared Vosovic's second challenge win.
Vosovic's third challenge win occurred in the eighth episode: creating photos of whatever inspired a contestant and then selecting only one for a dress to base upon. He selected a photo of a Japanese orchid as his inspiration.[10] He then won the fourth time a challenge where he was required to use "real plants and flowers",[4] earning him an immunity from elimination. The judges heavily panned a design he made in the tenth challenge of the season, but he was automatically safe due to the immunity.[11][b]
Vosovic's dress—"a gleaming navy gown [...] cut high up the thigh"—for the final pre-Fashion Week challenge in the eleventh episode—designing for the supermodel Iman—was criticized the series's judges, especially by Nina Garcia who deemed it "[s]afe and a bit boring". Nonetheless, he earned his fifth challenge win, securing him a finalist position.[12] Before Vosovic became a finalist, the series's very first winner Jay McCarroll found all the four remaining contestants, including Vosovic himself, "kind of boring".[13][c]
Fashion Week finale
For the Fashion Week, Vosovic envisioned his thirteen-piece[d] collection including "earth tones using brown floral lace prints" and a "white swing coat with brass buttons".[14] He named Oscar De La Renta and Narciso Rodriguez his inspirations due to their "calm and organized" runway shows.[1] To further enhance his collection, he featured wooden-handled handbags.[15]
For the more recently assigned thirteenth outfit—a "sleeveless shift dress in cream mohair"—to complete the collection, Vosovic chose an eliminated contestant Nick Verreos as his assistant.[15][d] The judges complimented him but criticized his whole collection as "too safe" and for resembling neither Japanese culture nor military as intended.[e] Vosovic became the first runner-up to the season's eventual winner Chloe Dao.[15][f]
Jen Chung of Gothamist noted how Vosovic's collection resembled the clothes sold at Banana Republic stores.[15] Tenley Woodman of Boston Herald factored his inexperience for becoming a runner-up, despite mentor Tim Gunn's "constructive criticism".[17] A Boston Globe critic found all three finalists' collections shown in the Fashion Week "disappointing" and further wrote that Vosovic's collection was "officewear [sic] meets a tassel."[18]
Post-Project Runway activities
After the taping of Project Runway concluded,[g] Vosovic established and then developed his own eponymous official website, such as uploading photos of his thirteen-piece collection, before the Fashion Show finale aired.[16] Onscreen on Project Runway, after the Fashion Week results, judge Michael Kors offered Vosovic a job.[15]
However, Vosovic reportedly turned it down and designed uniforms for a then-newer chain Nylo Hotels.[20] He created a twenty-outfit collection for the employees of Nylo: dresses for females; button-down dress or polo shirts underneath sophisticated blazers for males.[21][22] The collection was also sold publicly in gift shops of Nylo's locations. For Nylo's gift shops, he also designed other accessories, like "luggage, handbags, Dopp kits for men, robes, [and] jewelry".[21] He also designed sportswear for Nylo.[23]
Then Vosovic worked anonymously and low-profile for fashion companies. By 2014, he completed his two-year Fashion Incubator program, sponsored by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), to improve his business skills.[24]
Vosovic authored his photo book Fashion Inside Out, released on the week of October 26, 2008,[5] and published by Watson-Guptill Publications, about his coverage on the fashion industry. The book also contains his interviews with Project Runway host Heidi Klum, fashion designers Diane Von Furstenberg and Todd Oldham, and other notable fashion figures. It also contains a foreward by Project Runway mentor and designer Tim Gunn.[25]
Personal life
Vosovic is openly gay. As revealed in the series, he already came out to his family before Project Runway.[26][27] By late October 2008, Vosovic shared a "five-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment" in New York City with his four old schoolmates from his high school—two males, two females—"a baker, a math teacher, a graphic designer and a shoe designer."[5]
Bibliography
- Vosovic, Daniel (2008). Fashion Inside Out: Daniel V's Guide to How Style Happens From Inspiration to Runway and Beyond. Photographs by Michael Turek. New York City: Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8230-3217-4. LCCN 2008016862.
Notes
- Nick Verreos was eliminated in the tenth episode, placing him fifth.[11]
- For the Fashion Week finale, the finalists—Vosovic, Chloe Dao, and Santino Rice—were assigned to construct twelve outfits for their own collections within five months after the second season's pre-finale taping on their own $8,000 budget. Later, they were assigned the final challenge of the season: with an assistance from an eliminated contestant of a finalist's choosing, build a thirteenth outfit to finish the collection within two days before the Fashion Week show on their own additional $250 budget.[28]
- Santino Rice became the second runner-up when Rice was eliminated first before Vosovic and Chloe Dao.[15]