Katherine Gerdes

Receiving Heidi Klum’s auf weidersehen on Bravo’s hit TV show Project Runway may be just what Minneapolis’s Katherine Gerdes needed to jump-start her career. She recently left her cushy full-time gig as an associate textile designer for Target Corporation to pursue her passion full throttle and continue developing her namesake line, sold exclusively at Design Collective—where we first discovered her while scouting designers for our “Custom Made” feature last October.

With a personal uniform of tattered jeans, comfy hoodies, and tennis shoes, Gerdes is more engaging than the introverted designer portrayed on the show. But don’t let the sprite young designer’s sweet nature fool you. She won’t be underestimated. To prove that she has both the technical execution and innate fashion sense it takes, she is keeping up with all the show’s challenges, subjecting herself to the same rigorous time constraints, budgets, and rules the designers still on the show must follow. Her design for the INC challenge included a fitted jacket paired with a flirty tank and wide-leg tartan pants. For the fashion-icon challenge, she paired skinny indigo jeans with a printed chiffon halter and a distressed gold leather jacket designed for songstress Janis Joplin. Gerdes lets her fans and customers be the critics, posting on her website her final designs as well as her take on the challenge and methods of execution.

While muses on the show run the gamut from bag ladies to beauty queens, Gerdes more often takes inspiration from home-décor magazines than she does from any celebrity or fashion icon. She lets a color palette or a detail dictate the direction of her line. “I follow fashion and trends, but I try not to pay too much attention to them,” says Gerdes. “My main goal is to keep everything wearable—clean and simple with twists and details.” That sensibility is exactly what attracted Design Collective owner Christina Nguyen to Gerdes’s line; “[Katherine’s] stuff is very wearable, yet she pays a lot of attention to details.”

Although Gerdes has yet to receive any job offers, she continues to design, and dreams of working for a snowboard apparel company. The Twin Cities has her for now, and whether it’s a distressed jacket from her ready-to-wear line or a custom-made gown, the spotlight will be on her as she further develops technically, experimenting with more textiles, forms of tailoring, and embellishment.

Find Katherine Gerdes at Design Collective, 1311 W. 26th St., Mpls., 612-377-1000, katherinegerdes.com