Diana Eng (born in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

) is a

Chinese-American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from m ...

fashion designer Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...

, author and fashion technologist based in New York. She is best known as contestant on the second season of the

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

program ''

Project Runway ''Project Runway'' is an American reality television series that premiered on Bravo on December 1, 2004. The series focuses on fashion design. The contestants compete with each other to create the best clothes and are restricted by time, mater ...

''. Eng is a co-founder of an art/electronic group called

NYC Resistor NYC Resistor is a restricted membership private club hackerspace with 25 members in New York, inspired by Chaos Computer Club and other hacker organizations. ''The New York Times'' describes it as "kind of frat house for modern-day mad scientis ...

, and authored a book called "Fashion Geek".

Early life

She attended

Stanton College Preparatory School Stanton College Preparatory School is a preparatory high school in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. Stanton College Preparatory School is a highly selective school that offers both the Advanced Placement and the International Baccalaureate ...

and later the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She graduated with a BFA from RISD in Apparel Design in 2005. In 2005, prior to graduation she participated in ''Seamless: Computational Couture,'' a fashion show hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with fellow RISD grad Emily Albinski, together they designed a dress that with the push of a button would inflate into a ball gown shape. Shortly after the ''Seamless: Computational Couture'' show, she appeared on

Project Runway

During the on the second season of the

program ''

,'' in the fifth episode, in which designers had to create a party dress for

Nicky Hilton Nicholai Olivia Rothschild ( Hilton, October 5, 1983) is an American socialite, fashion designer and model. She is a member of the Hilton family by birth, and a member of the Rothschild family through her marriage to James Rothschild, a grandso ...

, contestant

Daniel Vosovic Daniel Vosovic (born March 25, 1981) is an American fashion designer and a finalist in season 2 of the reality show ''Project Runway''. Biography Vosovic was born March 25, 1981, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and raised in the nearby city of Lowe ...

referred to her as "

Dirty Diana "Dirty Diana" is a song by American singer-songwriter Michael Jackson. It is the ninth track on Jackson's seventh studio album, ''Bad'' (1987). The song was released by Epic Records on April 18, 1988, as the fifth single from the album. It prese ...

" because of the way she danced at the party. Eng was eliminated in the sixth episode, during the

Banana Republic In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighboring ...

challenge, along with fellow contestant Marla Duran. In the finale,

Chloe Dao Chloe Dao ( lo, ໂຄລອີ ດາວ) (born June 15, 1972) is an American fashion designer and television personality who lives and works in Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southe ...

picked Diana to help with the final challenge of designing an additional garment. Chloe was selected as the winner of Project Runway Season 2. Eng's work has been featured on the cover of ''i-D'' magazine and in ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

''. Eng held a major fashion show after the success of ''Project Runway'' and had model

Diana Georgie Diana most commonly refers to: * Diana (name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Diana (mythology), ancient Roman goddess of the hunt and wild animals; later associated with the Moon * Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997) ...

as the opening catwalker.

Work

Diana, who helped popularize the term "Fashion Nerd," earned top honors at Yahoo!'s 2006 "Hack Day". Eng authored a book in 2009, ''Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech'' is a DIY book that teaches how to make electronic fashions published by

North Light Books F+W, (formerly F+W Publications and F+W Media), was a media and e-commerce company headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1913, F+W published magazines, books, digital products (including e-books and e-magazines), produced online video, offe ...

. Diana Eng holds an

Amateur Radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...

licence with the call-sign KC2UHB and has made instructional ham-radio videos. In March 2010, she joined the

ARRL The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the largest membership association of amateur radio enthusiasts in the United States. ARRL is a non-profit organization, and was co-founded on April 6, 1914, by Hiram Percy Maxim and Clarence D. Tuska of ...

Public Relations committee. In February 2010, she held a one-woman fashion show at Eyebeam entitled "The Fairytale Fashion Collection" featuring garments with EL wire,

LEDs A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (cor ...

and various sensors. In 2013, she was featured in

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

's ''

The Next List ''The Next List'' is a 30-minute weekend television program on CNN. It aired every Saturday afternoon at 2:30 pm ET/PT and was hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. CNN announced cancellation in September 2013. Each week, the show profiled innova ...

'' where she demonstrated her use of integrated conductive thread that enables a dress to light up without any traditional wiring. In this episode, Diana Eng was filmed shopping for inspiration at CJS Sales in the garment Center of NYC Eng is a contributor to

Make (magazine) ''Make'' (stylized as ''Make:'' or ''MAKE:'') is an American magazine published by Make: Community LLC which focuses on Do It Yourself (DIY) and/or Do It With Others (DIWO) projects involving computers, electronics, metalworking, robotics, woodwor ...

and Craft (magazine).

References

External links

Diana Eng biography at the Project Runway official siteDiana Eng blogDiana Eng and Emily Albinski's fashion label, Black Box NationDiana Eng websiteDiana Eng book
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eng, Diana 1983 births Amateur radio people Amateur radio women American fashion designers of Chinese descent American fashion designers Artists from Jacksonville, Florida Living people Project Runway (American series) participants Rhode Island School of Design alumni American women fashion designers 21st-century American women

Early life

Project Runway

Work

See also

References

External links