This Year’s Model
Apparently, according to some obscure publication called Esquire, Joseph Pineda is the best-dressed "real" man in America. It is a measure of my legendary politeness as a host that, during our on-air conversation in tonight's episode (airing at 7:30 p.m., and repeated on Friday at 10:30 p.m.), I never mentioned the glaring fact that Esquire's fashion researchers didn't bother to put me in the running for this accolade. Still, I have to admit, Pineda did look sharp -- especially after the grueling drive from Richmond (where he lives and works as a real-estate agent) to our San Francisco studios.
He was helping me explore the subject of fashion -- a new passion of mine ever since my whole family got hooked on Bravo's fashion-designing reality show Project Runway. As Heidi Klum says on that program -- repeatedly, and in her bracingly clipped Teutonic accent -- "In fashion, one day you're in and the next [pause for dramatic effect] ... you're out." 
So we wanted to make sure we got to talk with Pineda and our other guests, local clothiers Umay Mohammed and Marie Biscarra of Nisa, before the cognoscenti could deem them "fashion-backward." (Though having met them all, I predict that they will forever remain way ahead of the fashion curve.)
I also wandered over to something called "Fashion Boot Camp" (part of San Francisco Fashion Week), where I received expert advice on how I might leverage my aquiline features into a lucrative modeling career. It all got pretty intense. By the time photographer James Reid was done with me, I felt almost too sexy, if such a thing is possible. ...
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5 comments October 2nd, 2006
