Gunning for gold: Tim Gunn visits Pitt

Even though Tim Gunn has penned three books with a fourth on the way, he didn’t recommend trying it to the audience at Pitt Monday night.  

“If you have written a book — hats off to you, if you’re thinking about it — don’t,” Gunn said.

Gunn said this in jest and went on to explain how writing a book was quite an arduous process for him and required a great amount of collaboration.

Borrowing from the title of his second book, the Pitt Program Council lecture, dubbed “Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Lessons for Making It Work,” was originally thought to include insight on the fashion industry and awareness about LGBT, depression and suicide issues. But Gunn mostly stuck to his book of the same title and his experiences in the fashion industry. 

Lindsy Steinberger, the lecture director of PPC, said they “get a broad basis about what they’re going to talk about” from research before the event.

Pitt Program Council estimates that 485 students attended the lecture in the William Pitt Union Assembly Room.

Gunn fans are most likely familiar with his popular catch phrase, “make it work,” which first caught on when he was still working as an educator at Parsons. Gunn elaborated on this well-known philosophy during the lecture.

Gunn said that “making it work” teaches you that you can’t just abandon things that are not going well and makes you work with what you have. According to Gunn, this strengthens you and your quality of work.

He began as an educator and innovator for the reinvention of the design curriculum at Parsons in Manhattan, but Gunn is better known for his mentoring role on Lifetime’s “Project Runway.”

Gunn thoroughly engaged with the audience and provided a word of advice for almost every story he told.

When first starting his book, “Gunn’s Golden Rules,” Gunn was writing from the perspective of an “irked New Yorker” surrounded by people who couldn’t tear themselves away from technology. But the main idea soon turned into a collection of personal stories and anecdotes.

Gunn is a firm believer that you should truly “own” who you are — one of the very first things that he said was “know where you come from.”

He “doesn’t care what you wear as long as you take responsibility for it,” because we are perceived by our appearance, and he feels that it’s important to be aware of appearance when going out in public.

Gunn is not huge on trends for that reason — he doesn’t like having the authority to tell people what or what not to wear and he doesn’t. He said that he is often cynical about them, because they vary so much, but he also likes the shifts, because it gives people the freedom to wear what they want.

He said that it’s OK to be whatever you want, but just “don’t be an axe murderer.” 

During the Q&A portion of Gunn’s lecture, an audience member asked him to elaborate on his support of PETA and the Humane Society, along with his distaste of fur in the fashion industry.

Gunn sees no reason to wear fur, but he also has a problem with faux fur as well. He said that he prefers imitation fur and animal skins to not only be fake but also to look fake. He believes that we should be environmentally and ethically responsible, and he jokingly finished his statement by saying, “If you want to wear it, kill it.”

Gunn was highly receptive to student questions, and he even offered students who went up to the mics an opportunity for selfies and hugs onstage. 

Pitt junior Mary Brooke Umhau said that she “loves Tim Gunn because he’s approachable, honest and a great mentor.”