Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum Talk Project Runway Upcoming Season
Entertainment Weekly has a big feature on the return of Project Runway.
Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn talk about the move to Los Angeles and the exciting challenges ahead.
The first challenge was tackling the logistics of moving from pedestrian-friendly New York City to car-centric Los Angeles. To avoid wasting precious sewing time in traffic, Murray and Rea set up base camp in the city's remote downtown area, making sure key locales — like the sewing room at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising — were within walking distance of the Los Angeles Center Studios' soundstage. Mood Fabrics, which has supplied designers with their materials for five seasons, even opened up a temporary, Runway-only satellite location of their L.A. store near the show's headquarters. Shooting in star-studded Los Angeles, meanwhile, provided a bonanza of celebrity guest judges, including Christina Aguilera, Eva Longoria Parker, and Lindsay Lohan. It also helped inspire an entirely fresh crop of challenges. "L.A. can be the most laid-back and the most glamorous," hints judge Michael Kors. "It's the land of bikinis and gowns." Fittingly, this season the designers will take on challenges centered on the beach and the red carpet. They'll also create garments as a tribute to movies and Hollywood.
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Miraculously, in this age of Internet spoilers, the identities of the 16 contestants have remained a secret all this time. At the season ender, which taped in February at Manhattan's Bryant Park, the three finalists hid backstage and sent their collections down the runway anonymously. Though photos of the garments are widely available on the Web, the producers and judges aren't worried about viewers figuring out the winner after a handful of episodes. "Somebody might start as the weaker designer," says Garcia, "but they come back as a dark horse and wow you. It's even sometimes a surprise to us." Either way, viewers are still likely to get their dose of seam-popping drama. "We have a challenge, the outcome of which will have the blogs going crazy!" says Gunn. "I'm surprised I didn't need CPR when it all came down the runway, because I'm still in such a state of shock about it."
We're so glad that Mood fabrics has decided to open a store in Los Angeles just for the show. We've been watching Bravo's replacement for Project Runway, called The Fashion Show. The show stars Isaac Mizrahi and Kelly Rowland and we're enjoying it. But one thing we miss is contestants fighting over huge bolts of chiffon at Mood while Tim tells them to hurry up. We also don't like the fact that Isaac isn't allowed to mentor the contestants when he goes back to talk to them during a challenge, because he's also a judge. He so clearly wants to explain where they're going wrong and we really want to hear what he has to say. Kelly Rowland is so clearly biting her tongue most of the time that we wish she was allowed to speak freely.
But back to Project Runway. The next season debuts on the Lifetime channel on August 20th. How in the world are we supposed to wait that long for the premiere?
