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American fashion designer (born 1981)
Daniel Vosovic
Born
Daniel Vosovic Jr.

(1981-03-25) March 25, 1981 (age 45)
Grand Rapids, Michigan
EducationFashion Institute of Technology
Occupationfashion designer
TelevisionProject Runway Season 2 (2nd)

Daniel Vosovic Jr. (born March 25, 1981) is an American fashion designer best known as the first runner-up in the second season of the American reality television series Project Runway.

Early life and education

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Daniel Vosovic Jr., born to his parents Daniel Vosovic Sr. and Sharon, had grown up in Lowell from age thirteen onward.[1] There, he attended art-related classes of and graduated in 1999 from Lowell High School.[2] Then he attended Grand Rapids Community College, including its courses on clothing construction and fashion design, and then graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.; New York City) in 2005.[1][2] When he was an undergraduate, he competed at the Milano Studia la Moda (Milan).[3] Also, he worked at the Woodland Mall location of Banana Republic for several years.[4]

Vosovic is of Serbian and Slovak background. The father of his grandmother operated a tailoring company in Serbia. Vosovic also has a sister.[5]

Project Runway season 2 (2005–06)

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Challenge wins

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Daniel Vosovic Jr., a 24-year-old aspiring designer from Lowell, Michigan, first competed in the second season of the series.[2] He won five challenges before the Fashion Week. As Lorilee Craker of The Grand Rapids Press noted, "Vosovic was not an obvious frontrunner" initially because "[h]e wasn't flamboyant enough" to garner more airtime in post-production results. Nevertheless, his challenge wins and "clean and savvy clothing creations" made him a viewers' "favorite to win" the season.[1]

In the fourth episode,[a] where he made his first challenge win, Vosovic was the leader of his winning three-person team for the team lingerie challenge. In the challenge, a team must design three pieces under one "vision"; his team's "vision" was Lederhosen-based.[8] His second challenge win occurred in the sixth episode: creating "a day-to-evening ensemble for Banana Republic."[9] Required by the challenge, Vosovic partnered with Andrae Gonzalo,[4] who shared Vosovic's second challenge win.

Vosovic's third challenge win occurred in the eighth episode: creating photos of whatever inspired a contestant and then selecting only one for a dress to base upon. He selected a photo of a Japanese orchid as his inspiration.[10] He then won the fourth time a challenge where he was required to use "real plants and flowers",[4] earning him an immunity from elimination. The judges heavily panned a design he made in the tenth challenge of the season, but he was automatically safe due to the immunity.[11][b]

Vosovic's dress—"a gleaming navy gown [...] cut high up the thigh"—for the final pre-Fashion Week challenge in the eleventh episode—designing for the supermodel Iman—was criticized the series's judges, especially by Nina Garcia who deemed it "[s]afe and a bit boring". Nonetheless, he earned his fifth challenge win, securing him a finalist position.[12] Before Vosovic became a finalist, the series's very first winner Jay McCarroll found all the four remaining contestants, including Vosovic himself, "kind of boring".[13][c]

Fashion Week finale

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For the Fashion Week, Vosovic envisioned his thirteen-piece[d] collection including "earth tones using brown floral lace prints" and a "white swing coat with brass buttons".[14] He named Oscar De La Renta and Narciso Rodriguez his inspirations due to their "calm and organized" runway shows.[1] To further enhance his collection, he featured wooden-handled handbags.[15]

For the more recently assigned thirteenth outfit—a "sleeveless shift dress in cream mohair"—to complete the collection, Vosovic chose an eliminated contestant Nick Verreos as his assistant.[15][d] The judges complimented him but criticized his whole collection as "too safe" and for resembling neither Japanese culture nor military as intended.[e] Vosovic became the first runner-up to the season's eventual winner Chloe Dao.[15][f]

Jen Chung of Gothamist noted how Vosovic's collection resembled the clothes sold at Banana Republic stores.[15] Tenley Woodman of Boston Herald factored his inexperience for becoming a runner-up, despite mentor Tim Gunn's "constructive criticism".[17] A Boston Globe critic found all three finalists' collections shown in the Fashion Week "disappointing" and further wrote that Vosovic's collection was "officewear [sic] meets a tassel."[18]

Post-Project Runway fashion design career

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After the taping of Project Runway concluded,[g] Vosovic established and then developed his own eponymous official website, such as uploading photos of his thirteen-piece collection, before the Fashion Show finale aired.[16] (Onscreen on Project Runway, after the Fashion Week results, judge Michael Kors offered Vosovic a job.[15])

Vosovic designed uniforms for a then-newer chain Nylo Hotels.[20] He created a twenty-outfit collection for the employees of Nylo: dresses for females; button-down dress or polo shirts underneath sophisticated blazers for males.[21][22] The collection was also sold publicly in gift shops of Nylo's locations. For Nylo's gift shops, he also designed other accessories, like "luggage, handbags, Dopp kits for men, robes, [and] jewelry".[21] He also designed sportswear for Nylo.[23]

Vosovic further worked anonymously and low-profile for fashion companies.[24] In 2012, he was accepted into the Fashion Incubator program, sponsored by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), so he was able to improve his business skills.[24][25] By 2014, he completed his two-year Fashion Incubator program.[24]

Fashion Inside Out book (2008)

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Vosovic authored his photo book Fashion Inside Out, released on the week of October 26, 2008,[5] and published by Watson-Guptill Publications, about his coverage on the fashion industry. The book also contains his interviews with Project Runway host Heidi Klum, fashion designers Diane Von Furstenberg and Todd Oldham, and other notable fashion figures. It also contains a foreward by Project Runway mentor and designer Tim Gunn.[26]

Nina Garin of The San Diego Union-Tribune scored the "usefulness" of the book zero points out of ten, writing that it "does not help the average woman", despite "its pretty exterior". As Garin noted, the book is more of an autobiography about Vosovic himself and "a ridiculous vanity project" but well suited for Project Runway fans, "fashion students", and "Vosovic's parents."[27]

Project Runway All-Star Challenge (2009)

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Vosovic re-competed on the two-hour Project Runway All-Star Challenge special, which aired on August 20, 2009, on Lifetime network, the same day when the sixth season of Project Runway premiered.[h] He was given a $1,200-budget and designed first three pieces for the red carpet collection intended for the red carpet premiere of a then-upcoming 2009 film Nine starring Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, and Kate Hudson.[28][29] Then, to complete it, the fourth one made from materials of a restaurant that the returnees dined in. Vosovic was crowned the winner, earning $100,000 for him to establish his clothing line.[28]

Judith Neukam of the Threads magazine named Vosovic's collection her "least favorite" and thought that the collection resembled "exercise clothes" and was not as good as those that she praised by the remaining of the top four—Chris March (season four), Sweet P. Vaughn (season four), and Korto Momolu (season five). Neukan further deemed Vosovic's collection as something easy to pack for vacation and his fourth "restaurant" piece as resembling "Captain Blue with her hair spray jets."[28] Ji Hyun Lee of Examiner.com found his collection "mediocre" and "a horrendous concoction of blue and white t-shirts and pants."[30][i]

Kelly Lynne questioned Vosovic's collection. Lynne found one of his dresses "hot" with "nice" shape and "creative" fabric selection but criticized his "bubble mini skirt and mesh tank top" and his "restaurant" design.[31][j] Despite favoring Vosovic in his original season, Missy Schwartz of Entertainment Weekly called Vosovic's "restaurant" design "a true horror" and seconded a reader's comment describing it as "a 'suicide bomber' dress". Schwartz also described Vosovic's "shiny black dress" as if "someone doused the sides with Wite-Out" and then used "push pins" to close up the sides.[32]

Lynne and Schwartz believed that the first runner-up Korto Momolu instead should have won the All-Star Challenge special.[31][k][32] Schwartz further reported a poll shown on the Blogging Project Runway blog.[32] Out of 2,029 users taking survey, eight percent thought Vosovic deserved to win, while fifty-six percent selected Momolu.[33][34] On the contrary, Cynthia Boris of SheKnows.com considered Vosovic and Korto Momolu her "top two choices".[35]

Other post-Project Runway activities

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External videos
👁 video icon
 "Whatever You Like" by Anya Marina on YouTube

Vosovic portrays one of customers in the 2009 music video of Anya Marina's rendition of T.I.'s song "Whatever You Like".[36][l] On March 13, 2010, he received his Visibility Award from the Philadelphia Regional Steering Committee of the Human Rights Campaign at the Committee's 14th Annual Gala Dinner.[37]

Personal life

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Vosovic is openly gay. As revealed in the series, he already came out to his family before Project Runway.[38][39] By late October 2008, Vosovic shared a "five-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment" in New York City with his four old schoolmates from his high school—two males, two females—"a baker, a math teacher, a graphic designer and a shoe designer."[5]

Bibliography

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Selected filmography

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Year Title Medium Role Note
2005–06 Project Runway season 2 Television Contestant First runner-up
2009 Project Runway All-Star Challenge Television Contestant/returnee Winner
2009 "Whatever You Like" Music video Customer Rendition by Anya Marina

Notes

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  1. ^ The first two episodes of the second series aired as the two-hour collaborated premiere on December 7, 2005.[6][7]
  2. ^ Nick Verreos was eliminated in the tenth episode, placing him fifth.[11]
  3. ^ This would include the fourth-place contestant Kara Janx. Nonetheless, Jay McCarroll enjoyed Santino Rice's "arrogant and funny" personality and somewhat "weird" works for being the only works of the season with "a clear point of view."[13]
  4. ^ a b For the Fashion Week finale, the finalists—Vosovic, Chloe Dao, and Santino Rice—were assigned to construct twelve outfits for their own collections within five months after the second season's pre-finale taping on their own $8,000 budget. Later, they were assigned the final challenge of the season: with an assistance from an eliminated contestant of a finalist's choosing, build a thirteenth outfit to finish the collection within two days before the Fashion Week show on their own additional $250 budget.[40]
  5. ^ According to Vosovic, the ninety percent of the judges' feedback on Vosovic's collection were positive, but most of an hour of original judging scenes was edited out.[16]
  6. ^ Santino Rice became the second runner-up when Rice was eliminated first before Vosovic and Chloe Dao.[15]
  7. ^ The Fashion Show, i.e. the finale, was filmed on February 10, 2006.[19]
  8. ^ The second runner-up Santino Rice from the second season also competed in the All-Star Challenge special.[28]
  9. ^ Ji Hyun Lee of Examiner.com praised All-Star Challenge collections by returnees Uli Herzner (season three), who was one of the bottom four, and Chris March, who was placed fourth before the top three, whose collections Lee thought were "poor" and not as good as March's.[30]
  10. ^ Kelly Lynne (now Tinsley) also worked for The Ann Arbor News.
  11. ^ Lynne topped Korto Momolu's All-Star Challenge collection above all others, including Vosovic's.[31]
  12. ^ Actors Justin Kirk and Michael Stahl-David also portray the store customers in the music video. Anya Marina portrays the sex shop employee.[36]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Craker, Lorilee (February 15, 2006). "Reality TV makes him style star". The Grand Rapids Press. Grand Rapids, Michigan. p. A1. NewsBank 10FD2B00DE11AD78.
  2. ^ a b c Craker, Lorilee (December 4, 2005). "Local designer to compete on Project Runway". The Grand Rapids Press. p. G3. NewsBank 10E57724D6DE33C8.
  3. ^ McFarland, Melanie (February 27, 2006). "On Pins and Needles – Are You in or 'Owt'?". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. p. D1. NewsBank 110108E793DE6530.
  4. ^ a b c "Dressed for success". The Grand Rapids Press. February 15, 2006. p. A1. NewsBank 10FD2B0083CCABE8.
  5. ^ a b c Vosovic, Daniel (October 26, 2008). "Project Runway winner Daniel Vosovic's home is like a truly real reality show". Chicago Tribune (Interview). Archived from the original on May 5, 2016. Retrieved March 15, 2026.
  6. ^ Balta, Victor (December 5, 2005). "Fashion reality TV show focuses on real talent". The Daily Herald. Everett, Washington. NewsBank 115E23BED9B544B0. Two of the initial 16 contestants will be gone by the end of the first hour, and a third will say goodbye by the end of the night.
  7. ^ "Area roots on Runway". The Grand Rapids Press. Grand Rapids, Michigan. December 8, 2005. Weekend section, p. 2. NewsBank 10E672831039ABD8.
  8. ^ "Vosovic wows Runway". The Grand Rapids Press. Grand Rapids, Michigan. December 22, 2005. Weekend section, p. 2. NewsBank 10EB09B442D956F0.
  9. ^ "On the Runway". The Grand Rapids Press. January 12, 2006. Weekend section, p. 2. NewsBank 10F2052153AB1090. The source does not mention Andrae Gonzalo as part of Vosovic's duo team for the sixth challenge of the second season.
  10. ^ "Project Runway update". The Grand Rapids Press. January 26, 2006. Weekend section, p. 2. NewsBank 10F69DC9D99FE7F0.
  11. ^ a b "The final four". The Grand Rapids Press. Grand Rapids, Michigan. February 9, 2006. Weekend section, p. 2. NewsBank 10FB3CCDC2F18A40.
  12. ^ Craker, Lorilee (February 16, 2006). "Still at it – Lowell designer makes it to finale". The Grand Rapids Press. Weekend section, p. 23. NewsBank 10FD896770395E10.
  13. ^ a b White, Tanika (February 12, 2006). "Off the Runway and down to earth". The Baltimore Sun. p. 3E. NewsBank 10FD77091A2C0AF0.
  14. ^ Long, Colleen (February 10, 2006). "Project Runway takes off at New York Fashion Week". Associated Press. NewsBank 110051C1DA780BF8.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Chung, Jen (March 9, 2006). "Does Anyone Sew Around Here?". Gothamist. NewsBank 186F380159B05EC8. Designers back to the runway, and Heidi tells Santino auf wiedersehn first—and he feels bad.
  16. ^ a b Craker, Lorilee (March 14, 2006). "Designer Vosovic gets attention despite loss". The Grand Rapids Press. p. E1. NewsBank 110611B0DA9C2240.
  17. ^ Woodman, Tenley (March 9, 2006). "Dao sews up victory on Project Runway". Boston Herald. The Edge section, p. 47. NewsBank 1305F292069C8528.
  18. ^ "Dao Wins Runway". Boston Globe. March 9, 2006. p. C16. ISSN 0743-1791. ProQuest 404997298.
  19. ^ Sewing, Joy (March 10, 2006). "Chloe Couture – From Runway, to her way". Houston Chronicle. p. A-1. NewsBank 11048A4085306A38.
  20. ^ Conlin, Jennifer (August 6, 2006). "In Transit: One-Upmanship As Designers Restyle Hotel Uniforms". The New York Times. Travel section (#5/#TR), p. 2. ISSN 0362-4331. ProQuest 1942283702 (print); ProQuest 2225769551 (online).
  21. ^ a b "Vosovic Making It Work". Grand Rapids Magazine. October 2007. pp. 72–77. Archived from the original on December 24, 2007. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  22. ^ "Design of the Times". Grand Rapids Business Journal. December 17, 2007. News section. NewsBank 1420010439102B68.
  23. ^ White, Erin (November 23, 2008). "Read It: Fashion Inside Out by Daniel Vosovic". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Fort Worth, Texas. p. F8. NewsBank 1249C9DE9029A260.
  24. ^ a b c Givhan, Robin (July 24, 2014). "Not Quite Making It Work". The Washington Post. p. C-1. ISSN 0190-8286. ProQuest 1547800113 (print), ProQuest 1548156222 (online). Also republished by Star-Courier (Kewanee, Illinois), July 26, 2014, p. B12: NewsBank 14F50A654A1CFD40
  25. ^ Paton, Elizabeth (August 3, 2012) [2012-08-02]. "Creative and commercial". Financial Times. London. Business Life section, p. 12. NewsBank 140726FC56549D20 (print), NewsBank 1407270BCC786200 (web).
  26. ^ "Style briefs: 10-24-08 – Snuggle Up". The Kansas City Star. Kansas City, Missouri. October 24, 2008. p. E12. NewsBank 1240672FDFC5F4F8.
  27. ^ Garin, Nina (January 10, 2009). "Fashion guides promise fabulous style advice, but do they deliver?". The San Diego Union-Tribune. p. E-3. NewsBank 125B7B01B7682888.
  28. ^ a b c d Neukam, Judith (August 24, 2009). "Project Runway All Star Challenge". Threads. Retrieved March 22, 2026.
  29. ^ Carlson, Erin (August 21, 2009). "Runway champ campaigns for Kidman to wear dress". Associated Press. NewsBank 12A8976E92CDEB48.
  30. ^ a b Lee, Ji Hyun (August 21, 2009). "Project Runway judges get it wrong on All-Star Challenge". Examiner.com. Project Runway Examiner section. NewsBank 13420439743B8178.
  31. ^ a b c Lynne, Kelly (August 24, 2009). "Project Runway: The All-Star Challenge". Fashion Is for You. Blogger. Archived from the original on January 23, 2010. Retrieved March 29, 2026.
  32. ^ a b c Schwartz, Missy (August 21, 2009). "Korto was robbed! What the #%*& were the judges smoking on last night's Project Runway: All Star Challenge?". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on August 24, 2009. Retrieved March 29, 2026.
  33. ^ K., Laura (August 20, 2009), "Reactions to the All-Star Challenge", Blogging Project Runway, Blogger (The URL of this referenced is filtered out.)
  34. ^ "Who Should Have Won the Project Runway All-Stars?". Twiigs. August 20, 2009. Archived from the original on June 8, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2026.
  35. ^ Boris, Cynthia (August 21, 2009). "Project Runway recap plus weekend TV's best". SheKnows.com. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
  36. ^ a b Kuchik, Natalie (November 16, 2009). "Anya Marina releases star filled video for 'Whatever You Like' cover". Examiner.com. Chicago Music Industry Examiner section. NewsBank 13423739F4EEBC48.
  37. ^ "Putting your social life in perspective". Philadelphia Gay News. March 11, 2010. News section. NewsBank 188A377DE2DB7A28. Retrieved March 24, 2026.
  38. ^ Craker, Lorilee (March 2, 2006). "Last wrinkle – Finalists thrown another chore in first half of show's finale". The Grand Rapids Press. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Weekend section, p. 24. NewsBank 1102170286551BE8.
  39. ^ Urban, Robert (March 9, 2006). "Project Runway's Exciting Second Season Comes to a Close". AfterElton. Archived from the original on December 26, 2007. Retrieved December 16, 2007.
  40. ^ "Modest designs on the future". Tampa Bay Times. March 10, 2006. Arts and Entertainment section. NewsBank 131DFC4E6FC5BC80.

Further reading

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External links

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