Alison jets from 'Runway' to her own line
NEW YORK -- The wall of humidity, combined with a persistent drizzle, has left the pedestrians of Greenwich Village looking like they just stepped out of a sauna -- fully clothed. Hairstyles are blatantly disobeying gel. Clothes are sticking in inappropriate areas. And then there's Alison Kelly.
``I'm so sorry I'm late," she says, slipping into a tiny cafe, looking crisp and fully in control of her sartorial destiny. ``When I was walking over, a stylist for a Victoria's Secret model stopped me to ask if I would make her a dress for the VMA's [MTV Video Music Awards]. She wants a dress just like the one I'm wearing."
Kelly, who is wearing a lilac gray baby- doll dress with elaborate pleats, is perhaps the most beloved ``Project Runway" contest ant to receive the dreaded auf Wiedersehen and double kiss of death so early in a season. The day after the 26-year-old Cape Cod native and Massachusetts College of Art graduate was told to pack her bags, bloggers around the country tore into ``Project Runway" judges and producers for dismissing Kelly, and keeping designer Vincent ``It Gets Me Off" Libretti, claiming that the decision was based on who makes for better television rather than who creates better fashion.
``A lot of people had pegged me for the top three," Kelly says. ``It caused a lot of controversy, but it's given me a lot of attention."
She was ejected after stumbling in a challenge that required her to create a dress out of materials culled from a New Jersey recycling plant. In addition to designing the recycled outfit for a model who was noticeably larger than others on the catwalk, Kelly's model was also given an unfortunate Minnie Mouse bow hairstyle.
``It's not what I asked for," she says in steady diction that brings Drew Barrymore to mind. ``And when my model walked out on the runway, I was horrified."
Kelly is using the positive buzz from the show to launch her own clothing line. Beginning in January, the web site Shopbop.com will sell a collection of dresses for spring from Kelly's label, which she calls Alison Dahl (from her Swedish grandmother's last name, Dahlgren). It's a line of easy-to-wear dresses in washed jersey fabric and raw silk. She assembled the collection in just a few weeks, an unheard- of task. But for a woman who has spent her life immersed in self-expression, putting together a clothing line on a tight deadline is a logical progression.
Growing up in Osterville, Kelly says she was a hyperactive child. Her mother, a middle-school art teacher , kept Kelly and her sister busy with art projects, including sewing. In high school she was the artsy girl who went through stretches wearing nothing but black. She left the Cape after high school (``It was so white and middle class. I really wanted to see the world ") and went to Mexico, where she studied silver smithing in San Miguel de Allende.
``My dad went with me. He said `If I hate it, you're coming home.' He didn't want to leave , he liked it so much," she said.
After Mexico, she studied fashion at an intensive program at Lorenzo de'Medici Scuola de'Arte in Florence, Italy. She then transferred to MassArt, where she graduated with a degree in fashion design.
``She had a global perspective because she had studied in Italy," says Sondra Grace , head of the fashion design program at MassArt. ``It gave her confidence, and she explored things in a much more open way. She had a message, and she had a voice, and it was solidly grounded in the clothes that she created."
She graduated from MassArt in 2003, and moved to Los Angeles (to be with a now ex-boyfriend). Kelly started the audition process to appear in the first season of ``Project Runway," but accidentally destroyed the digital video she had created for her audition, and never bothered to make another. In retrospect, she says it is best that she waited.
``I really wasn't ready," she says. ``I don't know if you can ever be ready for an experience like that. There's no way to prepare. When we were filming, I just told myself not to get too stressed out. When you're there, you go through so many emotions and so much turmoil, but most of the time you're thinking `I can't believe I have this opportunity. I'm really here!' "
Since the show ended, she has stayed in touch with Malan Bre ton , Uli Herzner , and Jeffrey Sebelia , whom she describes as ``really nice, down-to-earth, and funny." During her stint on ``Runway," Kelly was best known for designing dresses that reference the past, but in a forward-looking manner.
``When you hint at the past, then people can relate to your clothing. They see something comfortable there," she says. ``They're more apt to wear it."
So comfortable, in fact, that she's receiving offers from the rich and beautiful to design party dresses, although she remains politely tight-lipped about possible clients.
``I'm so busy all the time that I haven't been able to absorb it," she says. ``But it's pretty flattering. It's hard to get around anywhere without people taking pictures. I used to get a lot of attention before `Project Runway.' People used to come over and say `I love your dress, who are you wearing?' Now it's that, times a thousand."
Christopher Muther can be reached at muther@globe.com. 
