Mondo Guerra

Mondo Guerra in 2010

Armando Thomas “Mondo” Guerra (born June 6, 1978) is a Mexican-American fashion designer who finished as runner-up on Season 8 of Project Runway, and later won the series' first season of "Project Runway: All Stars". Mondo also came out as HIV positive on the show.

Guerra was also the first contestant on the show to come from Denver, Colorado.^[1]

Guerra is a fifth-generation Mexican-American from the Denver area.^[2] He attended high school at the Denver School of the Arts.

Project Runway

Guerra was on the eighth season of Project Runway, aired in 2010. After placing in the top, but not winning, on a number of challenges, then placing in the bottom but not being eliminated in the seventh (Resort Wear Challenge) episode, he won the challenges on the eighth (Jacqueline Kennedy Challenge), ninth (L’Oreal Makeup Challenge) and tenth (HP Pattern Challenge) episodes.

During the tenth challenge, he revealed to the judges that his pattern of bright, bold plus signs on a pant was inspired by his HIV+ status, and that he had been keeping his HIV status a secret for ten years. He also won $20,000 for the ninth challenge, which involved both a “couture” look and a “ready-to-wear” look.

Guerra came in second place in the final competition held at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week at Lincoln Center in New York City. Gretchen Jones came in first place, and Andy South^[3] came in third.

Project Runway Executive Producer Heidi Klum (who had pushed for Guerra to win over Jones in a lengthy ^[4][5] split debate over the winner) appeared in a modified version of one of Guerra's final collection gowns for the Los Angeles premiere of the movie Black Swan^[6] a few weeks after the airing of the final episode.

Guerra was the winner of the 2012 series Project Runway: All-Stars, beating out Season 1 designer Austin Scarlett and fellow Season 8 designer Michael Costello.

Other Notable Work

On November 30, 2010, Guerra appeared with Liza Minnelli, Kenneth Cole and Cheyenne Jackson on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange to ring the opening bell and usher in World AIDS Day.^[7]

Also in commemoration of World AIDS Day, he designed a limited edition of T-shirts, one with a Day of the Dead sugar skull and one with a tree of life. These shirts were sold on Piperlime.com starting at midnight on December 1, 2010.^[8] For each shirt sold, $20 was donated to amfAR.^[9] In his statement to Fox News Latino for his motivations in doing this, he said, "“The Day of the Dead is celebration of our loved ones who have passed. When I was thinking of World Aids day I wanted to create something very true to who I am, and what I know. Who I've known and miss and those people in my life that still fight this disease. It’s about love and continuation.” ^[10]

References

External links

• Official website
• Project Runway on MyLifetime.com
• Interview with Poz-I-Am Radio
• Interview with The Body Magazine