Didn’t I Feed You Yesterday?

by Laura Bennett

  I arrived home a mere hour after I had left, frozen and gleeful. I announced to the gathered sleepy faces that I had made it through to the next round. My next task was to make a three-minute bio video to send to Los Angeles. I had exactly one day to figure out how the hell I was going to make it on the show. Peter was thrilled by the whole prospect, and immediately took charge.

  “If we shoot footage today,” he said, “we can edit it tomorrow and get it to FedEx by nine P.M. That should get it to L.A. in time.”

  Since the odds were good that the producers wanted me because I stood out, we decided that the video should be about my personality and not about fashion. We began constructing our theme: older glamorous urban woman with a scary number of children. We did our best to set me apart from all the young gay designers fresh out of fashion school. Peter shot me in the center of a dizzying, death-defying, highs peed video of our loft, complete with four boys running around, a swinging skeleton chandelier above, my pet tortoise, a massive cage full of birds, and of course the dress forms and sewing machines behind me, a subtle homage to the requisite “interview shot” from the show itself. I meanwhile stood placidly in the center of this storm and confidently claimed that the breakneck speed of PR would be like a vacation for me.

  It was a mad dash to FedEx but the video went off in time, and at that point. I waited eagerly to hear back from the producers whether or not I had been chosen. No word came. Weeks passed. Hamsters were born and died. The seasons changed. There was nothing to do, and no one to call. The wait was excruciating. Then one May evening my cell phone rang. The screen read “unlisted number.”

  “Laura, this is Tim Gunn,” the unmistakable voice said.

  “Tim Gunn?” I practically screamed. He gave me the good news and asked me to keep it a secret—apart from my neighbors, who must have heard my shout. Filming would start in two weeks. I began to prepare for what would be the most unreal reality of my life.

  After I hung up and the initial shock wore off, I realized I had two problems: my daughter, Cleo, was due to graduate from high school during sequestered shooting, and I was about eight weeks pregnant. I might already have been knocked up at the audition, but it seemed so unlikely that I would get to the second round, much less be cast, that I conveniently ignored my compromised condition. I instantly made up my mind that I would put Cleo first if she wanted me to, and that nothing I did for the show could imperil the baby. I’d had five uncomplicated pregnancies at this point, and could certainly tell whether anything was amiss. I decided not to mention the bun in the oven until absolutely necessary, assuming that productions of this scale have certain liability concerns—I worried that if the producers knew they would replace me at this point in the game. On the other hand, if I made it through enough rounds to start showing, they would have to work the pregnancy in, like when a soap opera star has to spend three months of shooting behind a potted plant, or is “suddenly impregnated by her own evil twin.”

  I called Cleo, who had been just as nervously waiting to hear from Tim as I had been. She was thrilled.

  “I’ll miss your graduation,” I said, heartsick at the words. “It’s your choice. If you want me there, I will turn down the show.”

  “Are you nuts?!” she yelled at me. “This is so exciting! You have to do it.”

  With Cleo’s blessing, I moved ahead and followed the shows orders to the letter, and prepared my family for my departure. The older boys were happy to see me go: Peik because he was always happy to see me go anywhere, and Truman because he was my partner in crime. The younger two didn’t really get it—being three and four, they hadn’t yet grasped the concept of time—and I knew that their collective amnesia would pave over any hurt feelings in the long run. I packed a couple of suitcases and my own sewing kit, and moved into an apartment six blocks from my home. I could literally see the boys’ bedroom window from mine. We could have used a flashlight to communicate, if they’d only known where I was.

  Moving into the apartment with its tiny bedrooms and even tinier bathroom was a snap after my six-people-to-two-bedrooms lifestyle. Many of the other contestants were used to living in houses and had trouble getting to sleep in the middle of noisy Manhattan. I had that edge from the beginning, as I am indifferent to regular sleep patterns—and can fall asleep practically anywhere and wake on a dime. Years of babies do that to you: I haven’t slept through the night in ten years. I wear sleep deprivation like a navel-baring cocktail dress—anywhere, anytime.

  Our first challenge started the minute we walked into our apartment: make an outfit out of something in the suite. For as much as I had been looking forward to the challenges, tearing apart my apartment was not exactly a thrill, especially when we returned exhausted to the demolished apartment that night, one designer already Auf Weidersehened off the show. Though tired, I was proud of my sexy little mattress ticking coat with its bathmat collar: It was the first garment I had ever sewn for someone other than myself. In a way I think that my lack of formal training was an advantage. I wasn’t restricted by the “right” way to do things, so I just figured out the fastest or easiest way. Other contestants wouldn’t dream of leaving raw edges on the inside of a garment because they had been taught that it was unprofessional. I had no such hangups, and could better spend my time executing more-intricate ideas. As long as my design passed the runway test—does it look good to the judges at thirty paces?—then finishes be damned.

  If you think what the designers go through on Project Runway looks hard on TV, in real life it’s even harder. Trust me. First of all, “this week’s challenge” did not give us a week to recover each time. We were given a new assignment every day or two, back to back to back. Remaining creative was nearly impossible at that pace, and it’s no wonder that contestants started to crack so early in the competition. I’m not very good at faking how I feel, and since I was newly pregnant and prone to fatigue, my goal in the first few challenges was to keep my head low, design quick, execute quicker, and take a nap while the other designers were fussing over how to properly drape their fabrics. Of all my six pregnancies, this was turning out to be the easiest, and I was determined not to whine or complain about any of my symptoms. I don’t get morning sickness, but I do get bone tired, so any bit of sleep I could grab I went for it. This, unfortunately, led to endless footage of me sacked out like a princess. It’s not exactly a great way to make friends with a dozen or so people who already want you to go home so they can move up. Luckily, I didn’t care a bit what other people thought, and if my ability to get the work done fast made them nervous, so much the better.

  The days were long. Work invariably finished at midnight, and then we were woken up at six thirty by a camera in the face and the entire day would start all over again. I exacted a modicum of revenge by sleeping naked and throwing off my covers in the morning just to torture the cameramen.

  Elimination days between the challenges were a bit easier physically, but much more draining emotionally. The fifteen-minute runway and judging segment would take the full day to shoot, during which time no one had a clue whether they would be getting das boot or not. There was generally a mad dash to finish the garments before it was time to dress the models; then the waiting began. Naturally, there was a camera catching every expression as we all internally freaked out about what might happen on the runway. The minute the elimination segment ended, the next challenge was announced and the gerbil wheel started squeaking all over again. This cycle repeated about a dozen times in a six-week span, and added to it was the minor detail that I was increasingly pregnant.

  EVERY TIME HEIDI STOOD ON THE RUNWAY AND INTRODUCED A “SPECIAL guest,” I would say to myself, “Please, let it be Peter. Please, let it be Peter.” Was I thinking that there was going to be a “Fashion Inspired by Architecture” challenge and Peter was going to be the guest judge? I was too tired to be rational. For the “Every Woman” challenge Heidi announced that there would be special guests and just as I was saying to myself, “
Please, let it be Peter,” my mom appeared. I burst into tears. I’m not sure whether I was happy to see my mother or sad not to see Peter, or just being a hormonal, sewing freak of nature, but there she was, along with a mother or sister for every designer on the show.

  I would have to say that conceptually this was the worst challenge of the entire season. None of these everyday women knew that they had come to New York to walk on the runway in “designer fashions.” They were told that they would be doing interviews about us, sharing stories of how wacky we were as children, and showing pictures of us butt naked on a bearskin rug. Many of the women, especially the larger ones, were uncomfortable with the idea of strutting their stuff on national TV, and they simply weren’t prepared to be that emotionally naked. Plus, the designers were all so exhausted by the time our relatives arrived, we were all skating on thin brains. The competition was a combustible situation in the finest of hours, but the combination of body-conscious women and hot-headed designers was lethal. The episode was a bit of a disaster, with the least-svelte women crying on the runway because they were so uncomfortable in what they were wearing—fashion can be cruel that way, but even crueler when the wearer is someone you love.

  Reality television is real. The producers never tell you what to say or what to do. They end up with hours of footage from many different cameras, and they will edit and distill personalities for the sake of telling a story, but generally the camera doesn’t lie. If Omarosa claims she’s really not a bitch, and she was merely edited to look that way, you can rest assured that she really is a bitch. During your waking hours cameras are on and you’re miced—it’s really not possible to be someone that you’re not. You become so accustomed to having a camera in your face you actually forget it’s there.

  On day two of the Every Woman challenge, we all went to Tavern on the Green as a special treat for the mothers and sisters before they would be completely humiliated on the runway the next day. My mother and I were standing on the brunch buffet line as Michael Kors approached with his mother.

  “Mom,” he said, “this is Laura and she has five children!” Being an only child, Michael is fascinated by my brood and always introduces me this way.

  “Well, I’m actually working on number six,” I said, patting my belly. It just slipped out. I had no problem telling a complete stranger I was pregnant, or springing it on the entire production team in such an offhand way, but I had completely forgotten that my mother was standing next to me and that I hadn’t yet taken the time to tell her. She stared at me, mouth agape, and took a few seconds to regain her composure.

  “What?” she finally managed to croak out. “Oh, Laura. You are not serious!”

  By her shock and awe you would have thought I was an unwed teenager under her parents’ roof. I’m not sure whether she was horrified about me having yet another baby or about the way she found out, but it made great television. It was just about then, I later learned, that the producers started referring to me as the “story line.”

  MY PERSONAL LEAST FAVORITE PART OF THE SHOW WAS FLYING TO Paris. Under any other circumstances, I would have been thrilled to have a first-class ticket to Paris. Everyone else was so excited, I’m sure I looked like an ingrate, but it just felt wrong not to tell my husband I was leaving the country. And, let’s face it, flying over the ocean is no treat when you’re forty-two and pregnant. I think I left my ankles someplace over Iceland. Once we were in the City of Lights, it wasn’t like we could pop open the champagne and enjoy a sidewalk café, two of the best parts of any trip to France. In fact, we spent the entire time indoors, in an unair-conditioned space, during an intense heat wave. Poor Angela, who was by far the most excited to go to Paris, was eliminated practically as soon as she exited customs and had to turn back around.

  Our challenge was to make a haute couture outfit, which was then featured on a canal boat on the Seine, the only time we were let out of our dank cave. My dress looked great on the boat, but the starched frill collar apparently soaked up the humid air off the river; by the time it got across the ocean and onto the elimination runway in New York, I was shocked to find myself at the bottom of the group. My dress had been well received in Paris, and it didn’t occur to me that the damage done during transport was that significant. Thank God Vincent made an awful upholstery fabric dress that sent him packing; it would have been embarrassing to be sent home with that still up there on the runway.

  A couple of challenges later, I made it into the final four, and we were all let out of our prisons for two months to toil on our collections. Thrilled to be out of the company of my captors, I headed straight for Peter’s office. I wanted to see him the most. The entire time I was sequestered, people would ask, “Don’t you miss your kids?” “Sure, but I miss my husband more” was always my answer. I mean, I knew him first, and he is the person with whom I share the events of my day, the one who helps me solve the problems that overwhelm me. He is the only person who will tell me if my butt looks big. I need him. He had no idea we were being released, so he was considerably surprised to see me waddle into his office. He walked my bloated and exhausted body home and on the way revealed to me that though he didn’t know everything, he did know quite a bit of what I had been through. He had found a connection. Manhattan is an island after all. Your brother-in-law’s housekeeper’s sister may be a ticket agent at Delta, or the lady who owns your dry cleaner’s ex-husband is the security guard at Parsons. I’m not sure exactly how Peter got his information, but through the subway grapevine, Peter knew that my mother had visited, and that I had gone to Paris. He knew that I had won only one challenge, and—most important, he said—he knew that the baby and I were fine. He was angry about our sleep schedule, so he had made it a habit to call the production assistant who was in charge of the contestants every morning at five A.M. and hang up, for revenge. He even came to Parsons once, bluffing his way past the security guard and even making it all the way to the workroom, but we were out, possibly digging through garbage for the materials for our next challenge.

  I’m constantly asked how, with five kids, I managed all the work required for the show. The truth is, my husband had a much harder time than I did. As contestants, we were completely sequestered until the finale break. There were no soothing phone calls to toddlers or trips to the drugstore. Every contact with the outside world was carefully monitored and recorded, which limited both spontaneity and sentimentality. I’m not really the type to get all blubbery with a camera in my grille. We didn’t have any free time to read magazines or watch TV, which was a good thing because we weren’t allowed to anyway. For six weeks, Peter completely pulled the weight of the four kids at home. He was father and mother at the same time. By comparison, competing was easy. For the first time in seventeen years, I didn’t have to feed or bathe someone else, I didn’t have to worry about anyone but myself, and I was the one being taken care of to a great extent. The producers drove us everywhere we needed to go, provided endless food and drink, and even told us when to sleep and when to sew. It was a lot like being a fashion-conscious toddler.

  Once liberated, I took a day off to hear about everything that had happened while I was away—who lost how many teeth, what boy hit which kid, who learned to do what at which summer camp—and then set to work, knowing that whatever I was about to create, it would have a lot of handwork on it that only I could execute. By the time Tim came for his midway visit, I had more than half my garments completed. It was great to see him, though when he warned me that everything was looking “too Laura” I decided I didn’t care if I lost as long as everything I made was as beautiful as it could be. It was during this visit that he told me why he had initially quailed at my audition: he didn’t believe that I had made those three dresses myself. The work was too intricate, he said, I didn’t look like I had the patience to string beads and sew them onto a dress. I laughed, discreetly touching his arm.

  “How do you feel now?” I asked him. “Should I sign up for classes at Parsons?”r />
  “Laura”—he looked at me in his trademark semi-serious way—“you could teach classes at Parsons.”

  “Thanks,” I said, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by all that had happened since that first phone call, and with all that was still to come—the finale and the upcoming birth of my sixth child. “I might just do that.”

  During our shooting hiatus, the show began to air and people started recognizing me on the street. This was totally unexpected, and I was eager for Peter to witness a sighting. One day, instead of going to work, he came with me to Mood Fabrics, a store featured prominently on the show and a place I knew I would score. We spent a good half hour feeling up fabric, and not one person came up to me with the now familiar “Are you Laura from Project Runway?” I finally gave up; then, just as we were exiting the store, a woman approached. I nudged Peter to pay attention and put an open look on my face.

  “Excuse me,” she said, looking at my husband. “Aren’t you Peter Shelton, the architect?” So much for budding celebrity.

  WHEN WE RECONVENED FOR FASHION WEEK, I WAS SUSPICIOUS OF the intricate finishing work done on Jeffrey’s collection. For the most part I got along well with the other contestants, even Jeffrey, who would say nasty things about me in the safety of the interview room but never to my face. He only picked on the weaker contestants in person—or, in the case of the Every Woman challenge, their mothers. Still, we all shared our tools and critiques and generally were pleasant to one another.