I'm very well, except I have a little bit of a cold. This is really exciting for me. I didn't know about Torrid before, so this is really fascinating.

You said, "Andraé Gonzalo will be here?" That's great! Did they have questions? That's marvelous!

That's lovely! Fabulous! When I found out about Torrid and when Rich (from Torrid Marketing) contacted me, seriously I was like, "Oh good, this will answer a big question of mine." People are like, "Oh, I love your work but you probably don't make them in my size." It's a really heartbreaking thing to hear.

That's really hard. Everyone is really good for different reasons. Santino is a really, really seasoned designer. He's got lots of experience, so that makes him really good. It's definitely a toss up between the boys of 35D. As ridiculous as it sounds, I count myself as one of the really good designers. It's not ridiculous, but it sounds pompous. I would say I'm up there, and certainly Daniel Vosovic is really one of them, too.

No, I wouldn't do it again. The genre of reality television is really tough. It's a very stressful environment and you're told all of this up front, but you really can't know how it's going to be for you. I don't think I'd go on another reality television show - you are always wired for sound. It's kind of a strange environment to be in. I'm glad I've had that experience and to know what it's like, but I don't think I could do it again.

Yeah, yeah. Definitely. At the reunion show they ran this whole set of clips of all of us saying nasty things about each other, and it was really shocking to hear me say this cruel thing about Emmett. I think I likened him to the worst evil in the whole world, which is kind of melodramatic - and different from how I experienced him in the long run. I think a lot of those things that you say are momentary things, and they're also within a very strange context. My experience of Emmett McCarthy outside or since… now I will have almost known him for a year. So, those thoughts that I had initially, I think at the time are so out of context now because I know more of who he is as a person. I'd only experienced him in the single dimension. [Now] we've met each other in more dimensions than just the ways there are on the show.

Yeah.

See, I don't know, it's funny. I've always been this kind of ridiculous, theatrical person. I'm an easy target, so I take it all with a grain of salt. The funny thing is that he was making jokes about everybody all the time and I guess maybe just the funniest stuff was about me. And… well, Tim Gunn. I guess, probably, we're the easiest pair of people to make fun of because we both have this sort of ridiculous, larger than life persona. I think people - I'm sure this is true for Tim Gunn in his life and also in my life - there are a lot of people that just can't believe that I'm for real. It makes for good comedy, and it's kind of flattering, too. Santino's a tough guy. If you're the butt of his joke, in many ways it's kind of an affectionate thing.

That would be Daniel V. We worked really well together. We're both trained in very similar ways. He went to FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) and I went to Otis (Otis College of Art and Design), here in Los Angeles. Both schools have an emphasis on technical things and also working through the design process from sketch to fabric. He's a nice sketcher, so we could kind of use that. It's really hard if you're not able to work out your ideas on paper when you're working in a team because the paper doesn't lie. If you can both agree upon a sketch then you don't have to continually check in with each other all the time. He was the easiest designer to work with for that reason.

Yeah, I was surprised. Since I was working with Santino I really, really wanted him to win. I had become friendly with pretty much everybody on the show. There wasn't anyone that I was like, "We're done. I'll never speak to you again!" I wanted them all to win for different reasons, you know? I think Daniel is really skilled and talented and had done such good work throughout the show. He deserves it in that sense. And I really wanted Santino to win. He deserves it because of all the work he's done in the past 10 or 15 years. He's been slaving away in anonymity in Los Angeles, and other people have been getting the credit for his work. I was like, "This guy, he really, really deserves to get his break."

No, I hadn't heard of him. I'd seen his work, but I didn't know that it was his. That's what's interesting. And then, Chloe of course is such a darling. Both she and Daniel did such interesting things with shape, and I love that. We've been living in this period in fashion where the clothes are so body sub-conscious. It's about referencing what people's bodies look like as opposed to using the human body as a jumping-off board. I like to think that has it's place and it's a really exciting thing to do in terms of design, but a lot of my inspiration as a designer comes from work from the 60's, and time periods when the clothes referenced the body but weren't conformed to it - where they used the body as a canvas. I thought Chloe's collection was starting to do that again. I was like, "Oh, this is exciting." I thought she really took a lot of chances and really went out on a limb in terms of fashion.

That's a funny story. I was back helping Santino with finishes touches to the 11th hour. We were more panicked than anyone else, to the point that I was in the back with the models and I was like, "Gosh, can I get out there still?" I thought, "I'm going to have to be back here and watch it on the monitor," and it was kind of lousy. Then, at the last minute it was like, "Okay, we have to seat Andraé Gonzalo." It was really funny because I guess the only way for me to come out - because I had a seat in the front row - was down the side of the runway. I came out and there was this kind of collective gasp and then everybody applauded me. I had this grand entrance. It was a nice feeling too, because you know, I didn't make it to the final three. It was nice for like 30 seconds to have the whole place applauding for me, because they weren't going to do it that day.

Oh God, I don't know. It's such a mercurial thing. The challenge that I got out on, the plant thing, everybody did such interesting work on that and it all came together really beautifully at the last minute. Maybe I could have added a little more color to it. I had thought about maybe dotting it with little flowers all the way through, it would have been really pretty, like the topiary was blooming. I have tons of regrets that they didn't get it, but for the most part - no, actually, completely on every outfit (except for maybe the one where I'm crying) - everything I set out to do I accomplished. Then it was up to them to judge whether they liked it or not.

Oh gosh… there are so many. I loved the musical. We had so much fun singing! One of the really grand moments that I wish you could see - and that I'll never see, it's sad - we were all walking home back to the Atlas apartments and it was me and Santino and Zulema, and we were all singing "Just My Imagination." You know, that Temptations song? And we were just kind of like improvising. It was really fun. There were several moments like that where we would all sing together. I used to sing in choirs when I was a kid, so singing with people is like a really wonderful, bonding moment. And then, of course, it was really obnoxious that Michael Kors was like, "Lighten up, it's just fashion" because it's never just fashion. If it was just fashion, if it didn't mean anything, we wouldn't have fashion; we would just have garments. These aren't just coverings for your body, these are expressions of who you are as an individual. Then the fact that Santino made it into a whole song is hilarious. It was a marvelous sort of last word.

That was fun. We all lined up and brought some of our work down and signed a million papers, then had an interview talking about what we do. There we were talking to all these people we'd seen from TV - it was really kind of shocking - and then filming us, too. It was the first taste you get of being on camera and the whole thing.

You know, we're forbidden to have any sexual contact with anyone. It's part of the contract. I don't know that that's true about every reality show. They really try to keep things above board on this show. It's a really good thing.

I think I always loved fashion, all my life. It was something that was really important to me, ever since I was a kid, you know? People made fun of me and I found that they treated me differently depending on what I wore. So I started to use that as a kind of… to survive. I'd gone to study the theater right out of high school, but it wasn't quite the right way. I knew I wanted to be some sort of an artist, and then I came out and dealt with the whole homosexuality thing, which was really hard too. I always thought, "Oh I could be a fashion designer, but then everyone would think I was gay," so as soon as I was gay I was like, "Oh God, I could pursue that dream." It's funny, taking that big risk and saying, "You know what, this is who I am. Deal with it," allowed me to go and do almost anything else that I wanted. It was like the one thing standing in my way.

I do! I get a lot of E-mail messages, and it's amazing. I'm still shocked every time I read it. Some of them are really heart wrenching and really touching. You never think that just doing what you do on TV is going to effect people the way it does. It's a lot of exposure and a lot of buffoonery, too! (He laughs) It's nice that there are so many people that have written and said, "I am really inspired to follow my dreams." Every time I get that E-mail where someone says, "I'm taking a risk because I saw you were able to do that. You inspired me to just go for something that I was afraid to do," I just think, "Thank God. It was worth something." It wasn't an easy process, so sometimes you think, "Gosh is all the suffering in vain?" And then obviously when you get a message like that… you know.

Now I've got to figure out where all the chips are going to fall. It's a fascinating thing to be involved in Torrid here today. It's really put me in an interesting place. It's one of those things, I think, as a designer, you're afraid of. Some of my commissions are women that are plus size, and it's a really new territory for me. I don't have a mannequin that's the right size. It's a really exciting design challenge to be making these women gowns. It's such an interesting market. I think that Hot Topic is one of the only ones that I can think of that are really addressing this issue. It's fascinating to me in that respect. I'm still doing my own stuff, hopefully getting together a collection that should see the light of day - not this Fashion Week, but the next LA Fashion Week, which will be like the spring of 2007. What else… I'm doing a few speaking engagements, talking about the show, talking about design. I'd actually love to do a little bit of teaching. That would be nice.

Yeah, I would. I don't have the resources, and it's scary, too. It's a different scenario. They don't train you for this in school. Coming over here I was thinking, because a plus size body is shaped different than a non-plus size body, it should also liberate you in terms of design. I think all through the history of fashion we've been augmenting [straight] sizes so they fit plus sizes. I've never seen someone approach it from square one, like, that this is the shape, and then just work around clothing that shape. That, actually, really fascinates me and would be something that I would love to explore in terms of a line. If the right people approached me about it, I don't know, it might be possible given the viewers of the show and the resources that are available now. I'd love to explore it.

(Andraé laughs) I'm still looking for my chiffon. And I can always use more, so if you want to send me some. Yeah, it's definitely a new beginning. It's actually like starting all over again. I'm quite a butterfly now. I'm a caterpillar no more!

Great! He's really, really great. It's really lucky to have someone like Tim Gunn in your life. Whether it's on a television show or just in your process to have someone that can see your blind spots. Tim is really good at that. I would have conversations with him about what I want these clothes to say and he would tell me if they were saying that to him. Several times he would be like, "Whoa, I'm not getting that," and I would be like, "Really? Well I'm glad you said so." Then as a designer I have to go back and figure out exactly how to get the clothes to speak properly. Usually it was really effective.

Absolutely. There was a lot of reminding. I went to a school whose curriculum was very similar to that of Parsons (Parsons School of Design). It was a lot of remembering of things, like, "Oh yeah I remember that from school."

It's so hard right now. I'm just doing them on my own, like literally, people contacting me directly.

Through my site, through E-mail. It's mostly people from Los Angeles. I need some help, it's really true, to blow this into a much larger business. But, hopefully that will come. I've been hitting the pavement.

No, that's gone. I had to close it to go to New York. The only thing that was keeping the shop alive was that I was working another job, and that was subsidizing the rent and everything. I had to take a leave of absence from that job in order to go to New York for a month, and once I knew I was going on the show I was like, "I can't do this. There's no money for this." I had to just pack it up and hope that everything turned out well on the show. That's when I break into tears, it's like, "Oh no, I could be going home after all that." I gave up everything. Not just the stupid jeans, I gave up everything to be on the show. So that's why I'm crying. (He laughs, sort of sadly) People still call to find out what the hours are… and it's closed. I don't have it anymore.

Yeah, it's added incredible value to the work I do. It's really, really hard when you are a creative person in America. Whether you're a fashion designer or a painter or a writer, it's really hard to get paid what you're worth. We have a strange structure in this country, or maybe it's just western culture in general, but art is considered somehow like play, and it's not. That's the biggest change. And then of course it changed my career in terms of like, now there is this other dimension to it, like personal appearances. You embrace that as well. I need to put out an album now, because everybody who sings has a fashion line. It seems like every creative person in this country has to diversify. I mean you really have to P. Diddy your way around.

Oh, that's a good question. Strange things! Certainly like individual commissions for gowns and things like that. It's not all just offers; I'm actively pursuing it. One thing - I'm toying around with moving to New York, so I'm looking for a job there. It's funny, it's not so easy. Just because you can do it on TV doesn't necessarily mean that [you can do it]… I mean, that's the mentality. "Oh, maybe you're just a TV person and not an actual designer." Just because you go on a reality television show, it doesn't change everything. And also, it may be too early. The dust hasn't quite settled.

I think one of the biggest mistakes is probably hiding. Some of the most unattractive clothes are the ones that are designed to obscure the body. It's funny because I said all that stuff about referencing but not referencing about it - there's a difference. It's when the clothes are sort of pretend or make believe that a plus size woman is not a plus size. Any sort of self-hatred that goes into the design, that's a mistake. The minute that you say you're a fashion designer - even before I was on television, now it's even worse - but the minute you say that at a party, someone will say to you, "You need to make clothes that aren't for someone who's pencil thin, because there's just not enough options." One of my teachers in art school realized that she was a big person, just larger than life. She actually has large hands and things like that, and she said, "I realized that people are going to stare at me early on, and I decided that if they were going to stare, I was going to give them something to look at." I've always thought that is the best way to deal with this design…. just create.

Stick to your guns. And then also, know what your guns are! You have to, in this situation and whenever you're an artist, you have to know what makes you tick and what's important to you. Before, when I was afraid that people might think I was gay I couldn't take risks. And then I found that when I was able to accept that and embrace the weirdness of my life - what makes me different from other people - and just say, "You know what, this is how I am," then I was able to go out there and take risks and play with the unknown, which is of course what you have to do when you're designing. You always have to go out there and literally "boldly go where no one's gone before". Sometimes you really get screwed, but you have to be prepared and the only way you can do it is by knowing what's important to you and who you are as an individual.