Project Runway
Project Runway is an American reality television series that premiered on Bravo on December 1, 2004. The series focuses on fashion design. It was created by Eli Holzman and was hosted by Heidi Klum from 2004 to 2017. It has a varied airing history, with Bravo originating the first five seasons, followed by Lifetime for eleven more. The show has had over 30 international adaptations.
The contestants compete with each other to create the best clothes and are restricted by time, materials and theme. Their designs are judged by a panel, and one or more designers are typically eliminated from the show each week. During each season, contestants are progressively eliminated until only a few contestants remain. These finalists prepare complete fashion collections for New York Fashion Week. After the runway shows, the judges choose the winner.
In 2008, the show won a Peabody Award "for using the 'television reality contest' genre to engage, inform, enlighten and entertain."
In 2018, in the wake of The Weinstein Company's bankruptcy, the show then returned to Bravo. Klum and the designers' mentor Tim Gunn both left the show in 2018 to helm another fashion competition show, Making the Cut on Amazon Video. American model Karlie Kloss followed Klum as the new host, with season four winner Christian Siriano replacing Gunn as mentor.
In 2025, Heidi Klum returned as the host of the show.
Format
Project Runway uses progressive elimination to reduce the initial field of 12 or more fashion designers down to three or four before the final challenge. Each non-finale challenge requires the designers to develop one or more pieces of new clothing to be presented at a runway show. The challenges range in creative diversity to test the designers' ingenuity while maintaining their personal fashion design aesthetic. These challenges may include creating a garment from non-traditional materials, such as: apartment furnishings, recyclable materials, items from a grocery store, edible food items, plants and flowers, using their own clothes that they happened to be wearing, designing clothing with materials from a party store, or designing for a certain high-profile person ; or designing for a corporate fashion line ; or centered on a specialized theme.File:Heidi Klum, Michael Kors, and Nina Garcia.jpg|thumb|left|Project Runway judges Heidi Klum, Nina Garcia, and Michael Kors
The first several seasons were filmed in New York City, at The New School's Parsons School of Design. They shop for materials at a fabric store in New York's Garment District – unless the challenge requires otherwise. The designers live together, grouped by gender, at Atlas New York during Seasons 1–3 and at New Gotham during Season 4. Along with the network change to Lifetime, the location changed from New York to Los Angeles for Season 6 only. While on the show, the designers are prohibited from leaving the apartments without authorization, making unauthorized communication with family or friends, or using the Internet to research designs. Designers are also forbidden to bring pattern books or similar how-to materials with them during the show, or risk being disqualified from the competition.
The designers are given a budgeted stipend to select and purchase fabric and notions, and then provided a limited amount of time to finish their designs. Often, the designers work independently, although on some challenges, contestants must work in teams or as a single collective group. 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, who score each look in several categories from 0 to 5, and often provide personal annotations and comments regarding the presented designs. Each contestant does a voice-over while the model is walking down the runway. The judges then interview the remaining designers who garnered the highest and the lowest scores, and share their opinions while listening to the designers' defense of their outfits, then confer as a group in private. The panel then announces the winning and losing designers based on their scores and other considerations. Typically, the winner receives immunity for the next challenge, and therefore cannot be eliminated. As the season progresses, immunity is disregarded during later challenges to prevent the designers from getting an easy pass in the final & crucial rounds of the competition. Other incentives given to the contestants aside from winning immunity include: The winning garment may be featured in print media, integrated into a limited edition look for a particular clothing brand, or sold at an online fashion store. Generally, the loser of each challenge is eliminated from the competition, with host Klum giving him or her a double air kiss on the runway and wishing the eliminated designer farewell her catchphrase, Auf Wiedersehen, before they depart. Thus, elimination from the show is sometimes called "being auf'd"—a play on words as it can be interpreted as offed—and designers who receive an unusually large amount of camera time, solely to lay a predicate for their elimination from the show, are occasionally described as receiving "the 'auf' edit".
After the final challenge, the remaining three designers are then told to prepare a complete fashion collection of twelve looks to be presented at New York Fashion Week in Bryant Park. The finalists are given 12 weeks and $8,000 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 must return to New York City to oversee model casting, hair and make-up consultations, finishing touches to their clothes, final fitting on their models, and possibly an additional challenge, such as designing another outfit to blend in with the collection. Their receipts are also handed over to the producers of the show to determine if they went over budget or had outsourcing done as favors, both of which are against the rules. If rules are violated, they may be forced to eliminate a crucial aesthetic factor in their presentation ; or the judging panel might lower their scoring, if they insist upon using a forbidden item. The ultimate winner is selected by the judges, and receives $100,000 to start their own design line, a feature spread in Marie Claire magazine, and a mentorship from a design firm. The winner is also given the optional opportunity to sell their collection on bluefly.com. Subsequent seasons have also included a new car as part of the prize package. Prior to its 2009 dissolution, the automobile company Saturn furnished the winners' vehicles.
Female fashion models, who work with the designers throughout the season, are also in the competition. Each week, as the number of designers dwindles, the number of models is also reduced. Models are randomly pre-assigned to a designer during the first challenge, but from the second challenge onwards, the designers are able to choose the model with whom they wish to work. During weekly model eliminations, the models stand on a runway with Klum, in front of the seated group of designers. The models appear by wearing the same outfit. The designers then pick their models in sequence, based upon their respective scores in the previous design competition. Originally, model selection happened at the start of every episode save for the first. The winner of the previous challenge receiving first pick, and the other designers picking models in order through Klum's random draw of large red shirt buttons with their names stored in a black velvet bag. However, there were times when only the winning designer was given the choice to pick with the following choices: either keep their previous model, take the losing designer's model from the last challenge, or switch models with another competing designer. Beginning with Season 6, model selection appears on a companion program, Models of the Runway, usually near the end of that show. At the end of the weekly model selection process, the one unpicked model is sent home. This losing model is also given host Klum's air kiss and Auf Wiedersehen before leaving the runway. Included in the prize package for the winning model is coverage in Elle magazine, featuring the winning designer's twelve-piece collection as part of her prize. However, certain challenges may not require the models at all, such as: giving a competing designer a head-to-toe makeover, designers creating their own looks, designing menswear, or creating a garment for a specific client. Airing of the model selection ended starting season 8.