There’s a reason Mondo Guerra shared his story about being HIV positive on the reality show “Project Runway.” It’s just at the time, he wasn’t quite sure what it was.

In hindsight, though, Guerra thinks he was compelled to it because “now I have the ability to bring attention to a cause,” he says.

“Things happen for a reason,” he adds. “Now that this is my life now, it has brought some opportunities. I think it’s inspired a lot of other people to be courageous and step forward.”

He also can raise money for AIDS research in a new partnership with online retailer Piperlime. Mondo, a “Runway” fan favorite this season, designed two limited-edition T-shirts to launch Wednesday, to coincide with World AIDS Day.

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David Valdes Greenwood was 15 when he climbed to the highest arch of a bridge in his small Maine town and got ready to jump.

It was 1982. He was distraught over a pastor’s Sodom and Gomorrah sermon that his homosexuality would bring God’s wrath down on everyone around him. He didn’t think his friends, family and fellow churchgoers deserved to suffer because he was gay.

“It had never occurred to me that I would wound people by my simply existing,” Greenwood said. “And it seemed kind of true.”

So he became that boy on the Sophie May Lane Bridge in Norridgewock. Thankfully, a neighbor walked by and shouted for him to stop fooling around up there — and he listened, then he fled town the first chance he got.
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By MADELEINE MARR

Got a fashion dilemma? Consult Nina Garcia’s Look Book: What to Wear for Every Occasion (Voice, $23.99). In the easy to flip through guide, the Project Runway judge and Marie Claire fashion editor steers even the most clueless fashion victim through various style mazes. The Colombian native knows about what-to-wear conundrums these days: Garcia’s pregnant with her second child (a boy), and is battling the bump in the dog days of summer.

What do you think of our Miami style?

Really fresh and fun. Women there have a great, eclectic, sexy, beachy look that I love — they aren’t afraid of color, and of course you can’t miss the South American influence.
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A bigger “Project Runway” is coming to a television near you.

Host Heidi Klum says each episode will be 90 minutes long when the reality show returns July 29 on the Lifetime network. That’s 30 minutes more drama each week.

Aspiring fashion designers compete for a $100,000 cash prize to help launch a clothing line.

After spending a season in Los Angeles, “Project Runway” is returning to New York City. And the show is moving to an earlier time slot: 9 p.m. instead of 10 p.m.

As any fan of Project Runway can tell you, Michael Kors, purveyor of American sportswear that straddles the line between luxurious and practical, is perhaps fashion’s most quotable designer.

“If you didn’t do that jacket in fleece, I would have been like, ‘Give me a Xanax, I’m asleep,’” he told one budding designer on Runway.

Kors’ biannual New York shows are among Fashion Week’s most reliably dazzling, with plenty of star power in the front row and lustworthy clothes on the models. Late last month the designer brought his spring collection of shift dresses and featherweight sweaters to Mar-a-Lago, in honor of the upcoming Palm Beach Heart Ball.
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Let’s make this quick: It’s over. Project Runway Season Six limped to the finish line with a win for nominal villiainess Irina Shabayeva, but really, is an eye-rolling, shoulder-shrugging Georgian mean girl that much of a villain? Read the full story

First off, those who were hoping last week for a recap of the first part of the Project Runway finale, apologies… Our recapper is getting over a particularly nasty case of the flu, and was in no shape to recap much of anything. She’s getting better though!

As a treat for your patience, here’s a look at the second half of the finale… where Tim Gunn is not exactly happy with the designers:

(Thanks, Access Hollywood for the clip!)

Have you ever been deliriously excited when you’re almost at the end of an interminable task? The preparation for your SATs? That huge pile of laundry? Moving cross-country? Painting the Sistine Chapel?

Okay, maybe not that last one, but you know what I mean. That’s how I feel this week. The agony that is Project Runway season 6 is almost at an end, and I can feel it, almost like I’m Dorothy and I’ve clicked my heels three times. I want to go home, which in this case is New York City, where in my dreams season 7 is better and Michel and Nina never leave.

Which, according to press reports, they won’t. So we have that going for us, which is nice.

As for this week’s show, I have a confession. Thanks to my penchant for peeking, I saw the final collections months ago, so I figured out who our final three were weeks ago. This week’s shocking double elimination wasn’t so much shocking as expected.
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Logan, wave goodbye. We’ll still see your silver pants from a thousand miles away.

Sorry, I get ahead of myself, but this episode was another in this season’s long line of “Make a pretty ensemble/dress, designers!” My eyes, they glaze over. What ever happened to “Here’s some Tupperware. Design a garment!”

Last night’s challenge even went so far as to bastardize from this season: Make a companion piece to your best (i.e. winning) design from this season. Oops, sorry, Logan. We’ll just pick out your prettiest gown, since you were never a winner.

And since the theme of this season seems to be black/white/turd brown, we were once again left with no color on the runway. Or at least, no vibrant colors.
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