They tried to keep it under wraps. But it was love at first stitch for designers Daniel Feld and Wesley Nault (above, right) on the new season of “Project Runway.”
“I knew the minute I saw him on the rooftop,” says Nault, referring to the 16 designers’ first introductions to each other and to host Heidi Klum and mentor Tim Gunn. “Daniel was kind of playing coy, but I thought it was kind of cute because he was a little nervous.”
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“I thought he was the kindest, sweetest person,” says Feld. “I kind of got butterflies right away.”
These two have a lot in common. Both hail from Massachusetts; Feld is from the Berkshires, Nault is from Blackstone.
They share the same alma mater, N.Y.’s Fashion Institute of Technology, and were there the same year, 2003. “We probably saw each other in the hallways, but we never spoke,” says Nault. And they’ve both had the experience of working for fashion’s A-list: Feld worked for Donna Karan. Nault interned at Marc Jacobs. Nault, 23, was shown the door after challenge number two, in which his cocktail dress out of environmentally friendly fabrics fell flat.
“His ambition got the better of him,” said judge Michael Kors about Nault’s ill-fitting brown mini-dress.
Nault said he was distracted – in a good way. “When I got voted off, I felt like I should have been thinking more about that,” he says. “But the only thing I could think of, the only person I could think about, was Daniel. It just made it twice as hard to deal with.”
“I felt absolutely horrible,” says Feld, 25. “You’ll see that in the [upcoming] shows. I was just in shock when they came and said he was eliminated. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. But Kenley, another contestant, came to me and said, ‘Wesley says: Make it to the end for me.'”
Given that the contestants were captured on film over a one-month period in July – and that Nault was eliminated in the second episode – these two young designers only had five days together.
But the couple broke show rules by communicating with each other the day after the elimination. Nault passed Feld a note, and Feld gave Nault a silver bracelet. “I later got in trouble for that,” says Nault, “because it wasn’t allowed.”
Most reality show producers salivate at the idea of romance developing between contestants. But there isn’t a single frame in either of the first two episodes to illustrate that these two had designs on each other.
“We were trying to keep everything private,” says Feld. “Every time we were holding hands, or had our heads resting on each other, and the cameras would turn towards us, we’d never let them catch us.”
Did they ask the producers not to show the romance? “We didn’t ask that, no.” says Nault. “We just made sure that we kept it from them.”
Gunn first became aware of the situation when he saw the guys holding hands while sitting next to the runway, waiting to be judged, but he says that the integrity of the producers would ensure discretion anyway.
“If anyone looks at ‘Project Runway’ as ‘Project Hookup,’ they’re going to be disappointed,” Gunn says.
But the word is out now and the romance has only blossomed. “We’re still together and it’s going very well,” says Nault.
“We’re collaborating on a new line together,” says Feld. “And we’re creating a business plan and trying to get investors. We really do understand each other and share the same aesthetic.”
Still, there have been some snags in this new partnership. “Things that are said on the blogs create stress,” says Nault. “Not everyone has the nicest things to say. So it’s been kind of hard on the two of us.”