Portland Fashion Weekly

Project Runway All-Stars,Making it Work With New Hosts and Judges

I’ve been a Project Runway enthusiast since season 1, and though my interest waxes and wanes based on design talent, you can ALWAYS count on Heidi, Kors, Garcia and Tim Gunn to provide entertainment and wax philosophical on an otherwise uninspired episode. Doing prep for this past October’s Portland Fashion Week, I caught wind that Michael Costello would be featured on an upcoming “All Stars” edition of Project Runway— I was pumped! Maybe now some of the rightful winners will get another shot! Maybe some of the designers that were a hare too green would come back and flourish! Maybe a concentration of tried and true talent working alongside each other would translate into a creative commune uptopia of fashion!

Episode one billed the selected “all star” designers as “the most daring and controversial” and also “the best vs. the best”, though I think those descriptions may be mutually exclusive. I was relieved to see Michael Costello and Mondo Guerro revealed first— two designers that proved strong competiton in season 8. As the designers arrived one by one, each talked of bringing their A-game and being ready to prove themselves. I have to admit, I was shocked and a little disappointed to see that ALL judges and the host have been replaced. I can kind of buy their explanation that it’s to “clean the slate”, but theirs were the voices of alternating reason/comfort and disdain that we came to know and love!

Regardless of the hosts, the talent is definitely there this season. Check out the winning and losing looks from the first two episodes:

Episode 1 Winner: Rami Kashou (can you believe everything she’s wearing came from the 99cent store?)

OUT: Elisa Jimenez (Judges didn’t care to read this design)

Episode 2 Winner: Ausin Scarlett (As designer Kara Janx put it, Austin’s “PA-POW moment)

Out: Sweet P (Mind you, the challenge was to create a dress for the OPERA)