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"After failing to impress the judges with his white shirtdress, 26-year-old AJ Thouvenot found himself in the bottom two and faced elimination during last night&amp;#039;s runway show. We caught up with the St. Louis native to discuss his time on the series and his plans for the future.  Were you surprised at being eliminated? &amp;quot;After seeing what my team was doing, I definitely had an inkling that we didn&amp;#039;t pull it off and I had a chance to go. The thing is that you&amp;#039;re never sure, even down to that last second when you&amp;#039;re on the runway. I was definitely in one of those places where I would have loved to stay and show what I could do but I represented myself well and I was okay to go at that point because I knew I could handle it.&amp;quot; At the end of last night&amp;#039;s episode, Tim accused Gretchen of bullying your group. What was your reaction? &amp;quot;I was really surprised that he called out a specific contestant by name because I&amp;#039;ve never seen that happen before. But it was one of those things where it was really nice to have someone like Tim Gunn, who was a really great mentor, to sit down and be like, &amp;#039;Look, it was this girl&amp;#039;s fault but you guys took her advice and you didn&amp;#039;t have to&amp;#039;. I think that he was just trying to sit us down and tell us not to follow anyone else in the future. I was surprised but I felt like it was an important lesson to learn and it&amp;#039;s something that I take with me.&amp;quot; Your aesthetic is very out-there. Did you have any doubts about how the judges would react to your style before going on the show? &amp;quot;I was really worried about Nina in particular because one of the things about my aesthetic is that I like things that are in bad taste. I think bad taste is what pushes fashion forward, so people that take fashion risks like Bjork or Katy Perry are what we really remember. I definitely had to scale that back on the show but I think I did well. I was able to show my style and still compete so I was really happy with that.&amp;quot;  You seemed to grow more anxious with each challenge, was there a reason for that? &amp;quot;It was really tense and stressed up until the point when Betsey Johnson came in as a guest judge. She kind of understood where I was coming from and appreciated what I&amp;#039;d been doing despite the fact that I was in the bottom. It kind of gave me a burst of energy and after that, during the Philip Treacy challenge, I made one of my best designs of the competition. I definitely hit my stride late, maybe too late, but I think I was better at the end than i was at the beginning.&amp;quot; You didn&amp;#039;t seem happy with your shirtdress, which the judges also criticized. Why didn&amp;#039;t you choose to work on something you were more familiar with? &amp;quot;I really wanted to prove that I could do more, that I could do something completely different than [the judges] had seen. And I did, but it just wasn&amp;#039;t good. Different and ugly isn&amp;#039;t necessary an improvement. But I was really trying to prove myself and it was hard. The fabric I had was really not meant to be used for what I was using it for, as well, which slowed me down.&amp;quot; Do you think that you could have impressed the judges given more time? &amp;quot;Of course, I would have loved more opportunities. Anyone would want another chance to show what they could do because you could really change people&amp;#039;s opinions and surprise them. I would have loved more wacky and crazy challenges where I could show my fun style, but I do feel that I was able to show my aesthetic of using lots of colour and lots of prints. I still got to show that in the other challenges so I was really happy with the work I produced.&amp;quot; Would you have done anything differently if you had to repeat the experience? &amp;quot;I would love to revisit the party store because I think I really could have turned it out. But it&amp;#039;s okay going out the way I did. I am really happy I was able to represent myself and we worked as a team and didn&amp;#039;t call one another out. I wish I could have done something more earlier but I&amp;#039;m just looking forward to seeing what I can do now that I&amp;#039;ve left and I&amp;#039;m concentrating on what the next step is.&amp;quot; What was your favourite part of the Project Runway experience? &amp;quot;My favourite part was definitely getting to meet these 16 other people. They were people from all different parts of the country and all different walks of life and age ranges. You never really get a chance to collaborate with your peers. Even though you&amp;#039;re competing, you get to work with some of the best of the best which is once in a lifetime. So the best part is the friendships I formed while I was there. It was awesome.&amp;quot; Tell us more about your label TrashBiscuit - do you have plans for a future collection? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a collaboration between me and my partner Ryan Coyne. We kinda got started making dresses in our basement and doing custom T-shirts. It&amp;#039;s something that we&amp;#039;ve built some interest in and now since the show has kind of wound up for me, we&amp;#039;re certainly gearing back up and looking to doing some more [runway shows] and to come out with some real tangible products because right now we only do custom work. We just launched our website and hopefully soon we&amp;#039;ll have some accessories for people to browse and buy. Hopefully by September is the goal, but yeah, it&amp;#039;s totally fun and in my style, sort of a kids&amp;#039; playroom aesthetic but also really wearable.&amp;quot; Who would you like to see win the competition? &amp;quot;April&amp;#039;s my girl, I love April. And Andy... he&amp;#039;s one of the most talented designers the show has ever had. So definitely those two.&amp;quot; Project Runway airs Thursdays at 9/8C on Lifetime "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/project-runway/interviews/a268740/aj-thouvenot-project-runway/>