{"id":124742,"date":"2017-10-18T05:17:58","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T09:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=124742"},"modified":"2017-10-18T05:17:58","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T09:17:58","slug":"project-runway-fashion-designer-mychael-knight-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/18\/project-runway-fashion-designer-mychael-knight-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Project Runway’ fashion designer Mychael Knight dies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Designer<\/a>
Designer Mychael Knight at Charleston Fashion Week (Photo By Photo by Ed Kavishe\/fashionwirepress.com – www.fashionwirepress.com, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Georgia\u00a0fashion\u00a0designer Mychael Knight, who was a finalist on the popular TV competition show \u201cProject Runway,\u201d died Tuesday at age 39.<\/p>\n

Knight died outside Atlanta surrounded by family and friends, said friend Jerris Madison, the editor and photographer of Obvious Magazine, a\u00a0fashion, lifestyle and cultural publication.<\/p>\n

An official cause of death has not been released, but Knight had extensively shared his five-year struggles with irritable bowel syndrome, writing in now-deleted Facebook posts that he suffered chronic abdominal pain, a \u201cleaky gut,\u201d extreme fatigue and exhaustion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was innovative, unapologetic, kind and giving,\u201d Madison said of Knight. \u201cHe made sure that anybody who was in his core circle, his family, his friends, didn’t have to want for anything. He was just an amazing man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knight appeared on Season 3 of \u201cProject Runway,\u201d which aired on Bravo, finishing fourth that year. He returned for \u201cProject Runway All-Stars,\u201d finishing eighth on the show that now airs on the Lifetime network.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are saddened to hear about the passing of a member of the Project Runway family,\u201d said Lifetime spokeswoman Dee Perez in a statement. \u201cIt’s a loss of a great talent and we wish his family peace and solace during this difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knight spent his childhood in Montgomery, Alabama, but graduated from Washingtonville Senior High School in Washingtonville, New York, in 1996. Later that same year, he began his freshman year of college at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia. In 2001, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in apparel design and merchandising.<\/p>\n

After completing his undergraduate studies, Knight broke into the\u00a0fashion\u00a0industry in Atlanta by working as an intern at Wilbourn Exclusives in 2001 before becoming a\u00a0fashion\u00a0stylist in the music industry in 2002.<\/p>\n

In 2006, Knight became a contestant for \u201cProject Runway,\u201d and went on to win that season’s fan favourite award. The next year, he introduced his label, Mychael Knight, on BET’s \u201cRip the Runway\u201d and he designed a line of custom tees for the Starbucks Corp.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Knight launched Kitty & Dick, his lingerie label for men and women, and his unisex fragrance, MajK.<\/p>\n

Madison said \u201cProject Runway\u201d definitely helped expand Knight’s brand, which caught the eye of celebrities like Toni Braxton, Sheri Shepard and Eva Marcille, who ultimately became his clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis name was still on people’s minds,\u201d Madison said. \u201cThe industry is very competitive, but he continued to do it his way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madison said Knight, who had been living in Los Angeles, was always sharp and chic in his personal style and that carried over into his collections.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe died doing what he loved,\u201d Madison said. \u201cAnd you can see that in his final collection presented (last month) at New York\u00a0Fashion\u00a0Week. It was amazing. The industry has lost a true innovator. Mychael was just getting to that point where people were saying ‘Hey, I remember this guy.’ He was about to be huge and really wanted to capitalize on affordable sportswear for women of all sizes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to his parents, Michael Sr. and Pamela Knight, Knight is survived by two sisters.<\/p>\n

\u201cMychael meant everything to us and we loved him dearly. He was generous and so full of life. This is how we choose to remember his legacy,\u201d the family said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Funeral arrangements were pending.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Georgia\u00a0fashion\u00a0designer Mychael Knight, who was a finalist on the popular TV competition show \u201cProject Runway,\u201d died Tuesday at age 39. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":124744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[22075,28369,28368],"class_list":["post-124742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fashion-and-beauty","tag-project-runway","tag-jerris-madison","tag-mychael-knight","mauthors-chevel-johnson","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}