Make It Work

Bravo TV Project Runway host Tim Gunn helped fourth years dress for success.
Photo by Jane Haley

Fashion icon Tim Gunn offers dress-for-success guidance As fourth-year students prepared for the job search, University of Virginia Fourth-Year Class Trustees invited Tim Gunn, host of the Bravo TV reality shows Project Runway and Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, to help them make their wardrobes ready for the work force.

Graduation may be the time to put away those sweatshirts and flip-flops in favor of tailored suits and blazers, Gunn told his Old Cabell Hall audience of 800 fourth years. “It is simply a fact that when you transition from college to the workplace, it’s a change,” Gunn said. “The clothes we wear send a message about how we want the world to perceive us.”

While he visits colleges infrequently, Gunn said he was motivated to come to U.Va. by his admiration for the school as well as his family ties to the institution. “My sister is an alum [Kim Gunn Gundy, Rhetoric and Communication Studies ’78]. My brother-in-law is vice president of the Darden Foundation [Vice President of Development Jay Gundy, MA Rhetoric and Communication Studies ’79]. My niece is in the class of ’08 [Wallace Gibb Gundy, Classics ’08],” Gunn said. “I love this university. I am a huge fan of Thomas Jefferson, and I love students. I am thrilled to be here and I am honored.”

Gunn also answered questions about business suits, shopping on a budget and dressing in a sophisticated, age-appropriate manner. U.Va. students are better prepared than students at other universities, he said: “There is that preppiness that happens here, but it’s authentic. I think that the transition for students from U.Va. into the working world will be less of a challenge than it will be for students at a lot of other campuses.”

About Uggs and Crocs, he said, “I flatter them to call them footwear.”