Project Runway News (Page 4)

According to WWE.com, Project Runway is about to get a lot tougher!

Five WWE Divas will be appearing on the show on Wednesday, February 6. The wrestling woman appearing on the show are Layla El, Maria, Candice Michelle, Torrie Wilson and Michelle McCool.

Here's how Bravo describes the upcoming episode: "Every designer has a muse and in this challenge, the designers must use their unexpected clients â€" the WWE Divas â€" to create a fantasy and use their designs to tell a story."

Across the reality TV airwaves last night, it was an evening centered around looking good. Let's find out what happened on Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants and Project Runway...

Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants: The penultimate episode of Crowned begins with the five remaining teams discussing Team Beauty is Skin Deep's shocking exit. Rachelle consoles Christan and Ada for not having had a chance to say good-bye to their roommates. -- BuddyTV

Project Runway: Heidi Klum greeted the designers with her usual perkiness and first called out the losers from the last challenge: Lisa and Marie. Ricky lamented his shaky status, aware tha the had to impress the judges because he has been at the bottom so many times recently. -- Reality TV Magazine

Daniel Vosovic, runner-up on season two of Project Runway, says it's not hard to watch the current version of the series.

"I really want to be jealous of someone," he said of the new season. "I really want to say, ‘Gosh, I wish I would've designed that!'"

However, Vosovic is just not that into the current competitors.

"I'm still waiting for that really big, wow moment," he said. The show was better, he insisted, back in the old days. "Everyone now is so damn professional. I want that young, raw talent where it's more of a risk."

Jack Mackenroth dropped out of Project Runway this week.

He talked to People magazine about the decision:

Take us through your last day on the show.
I just got to a point where I couldn't even concentrate. I was exhausted. As the bacterial infection spreads, within 48 hours, you get a fever. My work was suffering and I was like, "You know what? I really don't want to leave but I can't stay here." It was not an HIV related thing but I have to be extra cautious.

So getting treatment and coming back wasn't an option?
There was an issue of contagion so I didn't feel comfortable. It's bacteria. Anyone can get it by touch. So that's not fair. And number two, [the medication] is such a strong antibiotic that it takes two hours to administer [intravenously]. It's four hours a day that I would have been gone.

You're very open about being HIV positive on the show. Have you received any feedback from viewers?
I get a lot of emails that are really touching from people that just found out they're HIV positive. I try to answer all those and I read all of them and it's amazing. If I can do a little bit of good in that respect then I've won at the end of the day.

We hear you're dating Top Chef's Dale Levitski?
I always thought he was hot! On my MySpace page there's this little section that says who do you want to meet? And I put I want to meet Dale Levitski from Top Chef! I just threw it out there into the universe. And so a friend of his saw my page, told Dale, and then Dale messaged me. We started chatting and then we ran into each other at a party in New York City and we just clicked.

The latest season of Project Runway premiered November 14.

For those that need a quick refresher, though, People has provided the following designer profiles on this year's cast:

Christian, 22
Why will viewers be talking about you this season?
I'm the youngest on the season. I don't have as much industry experience, but I think I have just as much design experience with high fashion working with the designers that I have. Maybe that's shocking.
Tell us about your hair.
I have what is called a bi-level haircut. Basically one side is very, very short. I've had this particular little thing for about a year. Before that I had a Mohawk. I look back on it, it was so awful. It was really, really big and it looked like a big bird.

Rami, 31
Have you ever heard that you look like Nigel Barker from America's Next Top Model?
I've actually heard that somewhere. I don't think I look like him. I guess if two guys shave their heads, suddenly they look alike? [Laughs] But I will tell you it's a compliment because I think he's a good-looking man. I'll take it.
You've already dressed a number of A-list stars. Do you have a dream celebrity to outfit?
Oh, without a doubt Cate Blanchett. First of all, she's very, very amazingly talented. She's a beautiful person and she constantly exudes glamour on the red carpet. In terms of a woman who expresses elegance in the way she dresses, she is definitely the right person for me.

Elisa, 42
Fill in the sentence. I'd never be caught dead wearing . . .
Something that was too tight. I don't believe in discomfort. I think that's really important. If you're thinking, like, bad clothes, then I'm most likely not to be caught dead in wool. I'm allergic to wool. I itch all over.
What makes you relatable and buzzworthy?
I hope some population out there, young or old, that relates to feeling awkward and knows that if you just persevere, it really will be OK. It really will be all right.

Click here to read all the Project Runway profiles.

With the season four premiere of Project Runway set for November 14, Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum recently talked about the success of their reality show on a conference call with reporters.

So, why has the show been such a hit over the years?

"I think people truly love talented people. They make something with their passion, with their love, and with their hands," Klum said. "People love to watch talented people at work and watch what they can do. It's as simple as that."

Project Runway has been nominated for seven Emmy Awards over the last two years, while also winning the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Reality Program this year.

The show has been criticized for allowing contestants with bigger personalities to advance over people with more design talent. However, Klum and Gunn each took that criticism personally.

"That's preposterous! A big part of the audition process is narrowing it down to 120 semi-finalists and any one of them could win this. The talent is there and the personalities just become an aspect of it," Gunn said.

Klum agreed.

"Anyone who has watched the show and is a fan of the show would agree with us. If you're not a designer and you don't know what you're doing, you won't even make it on."

Project Runway is returning on November 14. How do we know this?

Heidi Klum said so:

"Watch the new season of Project Runway beginning Wednesday, November 14th, only on Bravo (check your local listings)," Klum posted on her website last month. "I consider it to be our best season yet!"

Meanwhile, here's a look at the cast of the new season:

- Carmen Webber, a 37-year-old from Charlotte, NC

- Chris March, a 44-year-old from San Francisco, CA

- Christina "Kit" Scarbo, a 26-year-old from Los Angeles, CA

- Christian Siriano, a 21-year-old from Annapolis, MD

- Elisa Jimenez, a 42-year-old from El Paso, TX

- Jack Mackenroth, a 38-year-old from Seattle, WA

- Jillian Lewis, a 26-year-old from Long Island, NY

- Kathleen "Sweet P" Vaughn, a 46-year-old from Los Angeles, CA

- Kevin Christiana, a 30-year-old from Fairfield, NJ

- Marion Lee, a 39-year-old from Tyler, TX

- Rami Kashov, a 31-year-old from Ramallah, Jerusalem

- Ricky Lizalde, a 35-year-old from Escondido, CA

- Simone LeBlanc, a 32-year-old from San Francisco, CA

- Steven Rosengard, a 30-year-old from Chicago, IL

- Victorya Hong, a 34-year-old from Winchester, VA

So much for those rumors that Project Runway casting calls for season four were a disaster.

At least according to one of the reality show's stars.

Fashion guru Tim Gunn says Bravo seems to have found enough designers to start its own clothing label, never mind film the popular series.

"We just finished auditions, and I will tell you, we found the most phenomenal designers," Gunn recently told The Seattle Times. "We could cast three seasons with the talent we saw."

Earlier this month, Bravo announced that the upcoming fourth season of its Emmy-nominated Project Runway series will not air as part of its Summer 2007 programming schedule; it will instead premiere in late 2007.

Casting for the series began in late March, and despite being busy with his new job as chief creative officer for Liz Claiborne; working on his new book, "Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style;" and casting for a Bravo reality series version of the upcoming book, Gunn was part of the process.

Never one to shy away from offering criticism to Project Runway's designers, Gunn apparently took the same approach to book editors who asked for clarifications on such Gunn-isms as "faux bois!" and "sturm und drang!"

"The editors said, 'Change these words, change this reference,'" Gunn said. "And I said, 'You know something, I can't do that.' If this is a problem for the reader, they can sit with a dictionary in their laps."

Sounds like the Tim Gunn we all know and love.

Bravo, along with show producers the Weinstein Company and Miramax, announced last week that Tim Gunn would be back to knock another season's worth of straight-talking design sense into the often feuding aspiring couturiers.

"I am thrilled to make it official that I will be back in the workroom for season four of Project Runway," Gunn told E!. "We are in the midst of casting the designers now, and I can already see that it will be another amazing season."

As previously announced Heidi Klum, will return in her capacity as host and judge on the show, alongside designer Michael Kors and Elle fashion editor Nina Garcia.

In December, Entertainment Weekly reported that Gunn was the only Runway player without a new deal, sending TV blogs into a tizzy with speculation that he would not return. In the months that followed, he changed day jobs, moving from chair of fashion at Parsons The New School of Design to chief creative officer of Liz Claiborne and got more TV gigs.

First, Bravo gave him his own series, Tim Gunn's Guide to Style (based on his book of the same title), and then he guested as a TV reporter on ABC's Ugly Betty in February. All the while, his Runway future seemed uncertain.

However, Gunn's importance to the series wasn't lost on producer Harvey Weinstein, who credited the fashion guru's "passion, creativity and dedication" to making the show "such a commercial and critical success."

While the new cycle of Runway won't air until this summer, the casting process kicked off last week in Los Angeles. Gunn, along with a contingent of the Emmy-nominated series' producers and last year's winner, Jeffrey Sebelia, gathered together to whittle through the wannabes, each of whom was required to show up with a sample of three articles of clothing and a portfolio.

Gunn told E! News that while such outré personas (think inaugural winner Jay McCarroll, season two finalist Santino Rice and Sebelia) were expected on the fashion-centric show, the primary criterion for prospective contestants was "design aptitude, not personality."Continue Reading...

According to TMZ.com, the L.A. casting for the new season of Project Runway was a fashion disaster.

Sources say auditions held two weeks ago at the downtown Standard Hotel had a record low turnout. Because lines were not very long, production staff members were "scrambling" to contact more up-and-coming designers to show up.

As the incomparable Tim Gunn would tell them:"Make it work!" Perhaps the fear of being "auf'ed" by Season 3 winner Jeffrey Sebelia, who was a judge during this weekend's session, kept all the wannabe Donatellas and Gallianos away.

Other Project Runway alumni were spotted at the session, including Season 2's Nick Verreos and Santino Rice. Despite the L.A. faux pas, the new season of the highly addictive reality show is scheduled to premiere this summer.