An Open Letter to Tim Gunn: I am a real woman!

First things first: I am a big Project Runway fan, and you play no small role in that. You appear to be one of those rare people who is infinitely likable. Everyone should have a little Tim Gunn sitting on their shoulder. Thanks!

And now to the meat of the matter: I just watched the “real women” episode of Project Runway, Season 10. Every season there is one such episode– where the designers have to design and fit a client who is not a professional model, and is instead a woman proportioned more like the rest of the country. The “real women” challenges are particularly interesting; they highlight some of the assumptions made by the designers, separate the versatile wheat from the one-size-only chaff, and also allow us viewers to connect more closely to the whole process.

Each season, the women selected for the challenge are thematically linked. This season, we saw women whose friends had nominated them as desperately needing a makeover. In years past, we have seen brides-to-be, women who lost a lot of weight, daughters going to the prom, mothers of the contestants, and so on.

And so I would like to propose the theme for next season: women with fashion challenges imposed by medical need.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m talking about me, here. Chicks with insulin pumps. And Continuous Glucose Monitors and a bunch of other junk taped to their bodies.

Most of the time, I wear my pump like a pager, clipped on to my waistband. Really hip. When I got married, I strapped my insulin pump to my leg with a piece of velcro that I then hooked on to my underwear with a safety pin and string. When I wear a bikini, I have so many tubes and wires and puncture wounds all over the place that I have had to carefully cultivate an attitude of “Screw it,” and just deal with it. I rarely wear dresses because figuring out how to attach my medical devices to myself and still be able to see and use them is a headache.

I would love to have a Project Runway designer make me a fabulous outfit that takes into account my particular medical needs. Please? I nominate myself as the diabetic client, and then there are the women missing limbs; in wheelchairs; on dialysis; with dermatological sensitivities; and the list goes on.

Think of the possibilities! And the stories that can be told! Educational for the audience, and also heartwarming. This is a perfect idea, you must agree. 

C’mon, Mr. Gunn– what do you think?

Yours truly,
The chick with the insulin pump

Karmel Allison

Karmel was born in Southern California, diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at the age of nine, and educated at UC Berkeley. Karmel now lives in San Diego with her husband, where she is loving the sunshine, working in computational biology at the University of California, San Diego, and learning to use the active voice when talking about her diabetes.

Karmel Allison

Karmel was born in Southern California, diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at the age of nine, and educated at UC Berkeley. Karmel now lives in San Diego with her husband, where she is loving the sunshine, working in computational biology at the University of California, San Diego, and learning to use the active voice when talking about her diabetes.