Project Runway

About Project Runway

Project Runway is a Peabody Award-winning American reality television series on the Bravo network which focuses on fashion design. The contestants compete with each other to create the best clothes and are usually restricted in time, materials, and theme. Their designs are judged and one or more designers are eliminated each week. On April 7, 2008, the show's producers, Weinstein Company, announced a five year deal that would relocate the show to Lifetime Television, beginning with Season 6. In response, NBC Universal has filed a lawsuit against the Weinstein Company, for violating its contract rights. Lifetime is moving the location of the show to Los Angeles, instead of New York.

Project Runway uses progressive elimination to reduce the initial field of 12 or more fashion designers down to 3 or 4 before the final challenge. Each non-finale challenge (the scope of one episode) requires the designers to develop one more new garment to be presented at a runway show. The challenges include to creating a garment from non-traditional materials, such as recycled materials (Season 3) or items from a grocery store (Season 1),or using the 'clothes off their backs' (Season 2), or designing for a certain person (such as figure skater Sasha Cohen or Miss USA Tara Conner), corporate fashion line (Banana Republic or Macy's INC), or specialized theme (such as a "cocktail party"). The designers are given a stipend and limited amount of time to finish each garment (from as short as half a day to two or three days). Often the designers work independently, although on some challenges contestants must work in teams. Once the deadline is reached, the designers must dress their models and select their hair, make-up, and accessories. Each model walks down the runway, and the garment the contestant made is rated by a panel of judges, scoring each dress in a number of categories from 0 to 5. The judges then interview the designers and share their opinions before conferring as a group and selecting winning and losing designers based on their scores and other considerations. Generally, the loser of each challenge is eliminated from the competition, with host supermodel Heidi Klum wishing him or her "Auf Wiedersehen" before they depart; thus elimination from the show is sometimes called "being auf'd".

After the final challenge, the remaining three or four designers are then told to prepare a complete fashion collection to be presented at New York Fashion Week at Bryant Park. The finalists are given 12 weeks and $8000 for this task which they perform at their own homes or studios; while some construction work can be outsourced, the majority of the garments must be created by the designers themselves. Prior to the show, the finalists return to New York City to perform final fitting on their models, and also may be thrown an additional challenge, such as designing an additional outfit to fit the collection. The ultimate winner is selected by the judges, and receives $100,000 to start his or her own design line, a magazine spread in ELLE Magazine, and a mentorship from a design firm; later seasons have also included a new car as part of the prize package.