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www.ExpressGayNews.com • August 12, 2002 • Q1 CYMK Cover Story Suite Success Fashion Designer Mark Montano Carves Out Another Niche with Super New Book By Ian Drew goal to improve the environment of youth Mark Montano has a career based on living spaces, thus improving the way they magic. sleep, their ability to study and, ultimately, Not only has the 33-year-old sorcerer of the way they feel about themselves. That is style whipped up prodigious fashion why I took the job writing for a teen fashion collections for years on end, he has also been magazine in the first place. Style is about a cherished monthly visitor in the rooms of environment, and environment creates, teenage girls by creating their dream setting inspires and makes us feel safe and in one fantabulous swoop. In each comfortable so we can do better in life. installment of his monthly Cosmo Girl ID: How did you ever get the creative magazine column “Cool Room,” he waves juices to do this anyway? Did you grow up his wand over a different adolescent like a young Martha Stewart, always fixing sanctum, transforming drab bedroom up rooms? surroundings into colorful flights of fancy MM: I was always really encouraged by chartered by each young lady’s innermost my parents to make my own room the way I fantasies. wanted it to be. I could do anything I wanted Next month, at the same time that he will to it because it was my space. Because of Fashion Designer Mark Montano send his spring clothing parade down the that, I experimented a lot. I didn’t have a lot Bryant Park runways, he will release of money, either, but I was able to come up blue eyes will look fantastic in a light blue Warhol, Miro and a lot of 20th century artists, Super Suite, a book showcasing with great things. It helped me in how I room. And when she looks at herself in the and I think everything we see or do is his reinvention wizardry through approached my life. You don’t always mirror in that room, she will look great and influenced by what many of these artists the rooms of 15 lucky damsels have to go out and buy a $1,500 feel great. created. Just simple packaging, color, space in distress. set of shelves. There ID: So what are you looking forward to and how we look at the world was changed “The interesting thing is a chapter in the doing with your boundless creative energy by them. For me, when I am designing a about the book is that it is a book where I made next? collection or working on a space, I am very lot more sophisticated a really cool MM: I really want to do my television inspired by how all artists deal with the same than you might think,” modern bookshelf show based on this concept. There are so things. says Montano. “There out of glass many interior design shows out there, but ID: Do you feel lucky about all the are a lot of really fishtanks, which are they are all focused on just making rooms success you have had? amazing ideas for really cheap to buy. pretty. That’s fine, but I don’t think they really MM: I am lucky because, even when I redecorating a room That’s something that explore what’s most important, which is how was young, I never had to work for anybody on a budget in could be for any age environment and beauty shape our lives. It else. I was always most happy when I was there.” category. By coming up is so important to me. When people discover making pottery, painting or sewing, and I Montano has been with stuff like that, you are it, they find they can have beauty in every thought to myself, ‘If I could just sew or paint transforming and reinventing the world encouraged to think out of the aspect of their lives. or make stuff every day for the rest of my life, around him since his Colorado childhood. box and more creatively. If you can ID: Has this second career affected your then I would be really happy.’ That’s what I He interned with Oscar de La Renta before do that in your life, you can get ahead. life as a major fashion designer? get to do. Whatever medium I choose, beginning his career with a grant from The ID: What is the process you used in MM: It allowed me to stretch my whether it is making clothes or putting books National Endowment for the Arts to design redoing the rooms for the book? creativity beyond just thinking about together, it’s all the same to me. I feel really costumes for the Teir Throne Dance MM: I really approach it from more of an clothing. Sometimes, in careers, when you fortunate about that. Company in New York City. arts and crafts perspective. I think about what focus on the same thing for too long, it can In 1989, Montano opened his signature someone would do if they had a tiny budget be really boring. I have been a fashion boutique in New York’s East Village. He drew to re-create a room. Basically, I work with designer since I moved to New York, so it notice from trend-conscious fashionistas, really bright paint colors, fabric, bedding and was an opportunity to do something else. It funky girls-about-town, major magazine whatever I can find at a really good price to felt fresh and really good when I started it, editors and the celebs who take cues from change the major bases of the room. and I have become efficient at it. them all. Everything else is extra, from trash cans to ID: Can you give me a peek into your It was because of that reputation that bulletin boards to lighting, but it all works new collection? his next heap was bestowed upon him. together. For example, in the Asian-themed MM: The theme is about freedom. Not “The editor-in-chief of CosmoGIRL! was room featured in the book, I used a lot of really freedom in the Americana sense, but in my apartment, and she was impressed with storage containers made out of food more the freedom that we have to project the how I had decorated it,” recalls Montano. containers and frames made out of image that we want through what we wear. “She thought I should do a guest article for chopsticks, and we took that theme and every When I design, I try to pick a theme that one month where I would redecorate a girl’s component of it and figured out how to expresses how I am feeling that season. I room in much the same way. I did, and she incorporate it in that room. You also must don’t really follow the trends like a lot of liked it so much that they offered me the job. have good lighting for studying, and a lot of other designers. In the past, when I have Even though I had a full-time career as a pillows because girls want to be comfortable. done things like “circus housewife” or fashion designer, they said they would make ID: Is there anything you avoid when “gangster girl” or “women of the it worth my while.” putting a room together? Metropolitan,” the themes didn’t meld with Last year, Montano set out to bring his MM: I don’t want to paint the walls what was going on in fashion, but the women uber-popular column into book form with the depressing colors or colors that are too who buy my clothes are very individual, help of portrait shutterbug Matthew Rogers vibrant or too disturbing. Red has too much strong personalities that don’t really want to and a longtime friend, writer Carly energy, so if you paint a room red it tends to look like everyone else anyway. Sommerstein. He is now pitching a TV make you nervous, whereas if you paint a ID: What inspires all of your projects version of the book to several networks, and room black it will make you depressed. There the most? he is keeping busy by putting together is a psychology of color that I follow. I try to MM: Of everything I do, I think art another how-to book that he describes as use colors people look good in. A girl with inspires me the most. I really love Picasso, “everybody is going to want to have it.” The statement is no blanket declaration or smug bit of conceit. With Montano, everybody usually does want whatever he has to conjure up. ID: Why did you want to put the concept of “Cool Room” into book form? MM: I thought we needed to reach out a little bit more and touch girls who don’t read the magazine. I wanted to give them a resource guide for where to get things to start improving their environment. The book is really an attempt to help girls create a better environment for where they spend most of their time in their rooms. That is really my Q2 • www.ExpressGayNews.com • August 12, 2002 CYMK www.ExpressGayNews.com • August 12, 2002 • Q3 CYMK Theater Memorable Performances Highlight Forgettable Play ‘Rachel & Julio: A Love Remembered’ Makes World Premiere Review by Mary Damiano While the play needs work, the There is a moment close to the end of performances are flawless.

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