Christian Siriano's fierceness uncovered

This has been the reality-show decade. Ten years of faux actors and an endless stream of klieg-lit banality, bad behaviour and hormonal, steroidal, raging ambition. The concept of turning a television camera on a group of unscripted non-actors was not a new invention, but this was the decade in which it thrived and ultimately spiralled out of control.

It wasn't merely that more people were clamouring for their few moments of fame, it was the degree to which every place and every person became fair game for the cameras.

One can no longer bank on that sort of common sense because so many folks have become exhibitionists. Average people become characters and caricatures once the camera shutters open. They expose family secrets; engage in physical confrontations. They glide uninvited into a White House state dinner because in their faux reality that's where they are supposed to be.

The diminutive designer Christian Siriano was one of the characters churned out by reality TV. He was a winner of the New York version of Project Runway Season Four. The most memorable aspects of Siriano's time on the fashion competition show were his penchant for dramatic hats and his affection for the word "fierce" in describing his own work and the phrase "hot tranny mess" in assessing the work of the other contestants.

Immediately after being crowned the winner of Project Runway, Siriano had his own show during New York fashion week. He had a proper publicist and the show was organised in a modest loft space that was packed to the ceiling with former contestants, admirers and fashion folks who were curious to see the truth behind what reality TV had wrought. Since then he has produced three more collections. And he recently went to Washington, where he presented his spring 2010 line in a charity fashion show for Autism Speaks, hosted by Saks Jandel. He also brought along a stack of his Fierce Style books, with the proceeds funding his fledgling line.

As the reality show victor, he won $100,000 (Dh367,115) to launch his collection, but after taxes it was closer to $50,000 (Dh183,558) and most of that went into the bank because, "I've always had good money sense," he says. Instead, in addition to the money brought in from his book, he has used cash earned from freelance work with brands such as Payless to finance his modest line.

Success on the show, it seems, did not mean that he was instantly wooed by patrons looking to lavish him with cash. Reality television made him famous; the real world brought him back down to earth. But that is all for the best, he says, because self-financing keeps him focused and frugal. "You know what your means are because they're YOUR means."

Siriano sits, unrelaxed, on the edge of a lounge chair in one of Saks Jandel's salons. His collection hangs a few feet away on several rolling racks, but his spring show's finale gown, an explosion of strawberry-coloured tulle, hangs in a corner like a very large and exquisite Rose Bowl float. The 24-year-old Siriano is short, but he is also quite thin and with aggressively straightened hanks of brown hair sprouting from beneath a charcoal hat. He is a bit of a waif, but less elfin than he appeared snuggled up next to Heidi Klum, the towering Project Runway host. In his distinctive, flat voice, one can hear the shadows of sarcasm, as if it has been such a constant in his daily patter for so long that its unmistakable rhythms are burned into his speech pattern.

It is as though Siriano is still shaking off the exaggerated persona that defined him on TV.

Show, not industry

After so successfully navigating the faux reality of television and riding high on that fast notoriety, he has been faced with the burdensome facts of the fashion industry. Project Runway hasn't produced any award-winning designers in the way American Idol has produced Grammy-winning singers. Part of the reason for that, Siriano says, is because the design show is more about entertainment than mentorship. "They're a TV show; they're not part of the industry," he says.

Judge Nina Garcia has been helpful, he says, and often chooses pieces from his collection to include in the pages of Marie Claire. But the buyers, the folks who are most concerned with the retail bottom line rather than the fireworks of editorial fashion, have been the most helpful. They are quick to offer advice, as well as constructive criticism.

Michael Fink, the former women's fashion director for Saks Fifth Avenue, "told me after my first season that I should focus on evening, that evening was strong and I should have a wider range of choices".

"The stores are always saying you have to be adapting," Siriano says. "Make sure things come with sleeves or that they can be made longer."

Thanks to the economic downturn, Fink is no longer with Saks. And stores are loath to invest in unproven brands. But Siriano has never known anything other than a tough market. This is just how it goes.

One might think that having a bravura personality would be to Siriano's advantage. Except that when contributors to Autism Speaks pop into the store and begin perusing the collection in advance of his show, he sits quietly watching. He does not leap up to introduce himself. He doesn't make a sales pitch. He doesn't take this opportunity to brag about the signature azure and cinnamon-coloured prints in the collection that were inspired by aerial photographs of the Amalfi Coast in Italy a place that he has imagined but never visited.

Siriano even seems a bit bashful, when the stakes are high. Could this be the same swaggering reality show star who had no problems letting his competitors know when they had failed to impress him?

Certainly the aesthetic vision is the same. Thankfully, he no longer relies on catchphrases. But even more reassuring is the fact that Siriano the designer who is just starting his career is much more authentic, much more genuine, than the TV star whose slick veneer is falling away.