Trivia / Project Runway

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• Channel Hop: From Bravo to Lifetime then back to Bravo after The Weinstein Company's bankruptcy.
• Corpsing: The extended cut for the Barbie Challenge showed that Santino was trying hard to not burst laughing when Andrae's sobbing went on for more than 10 minutes.
• Creator Backlash: Heidi and the judges are usually quiet if they have negative opinions on a season, but Tim Gunn has made comments on multiple occasions complaining about the direction a season went in.
  • On multiple occasions, he called the Season 8 judges “crack-smoking judges” for what he believed to be erratic decisions for winners and eliminations, and was vocal that he believed Mondo should have won over Gretchen. Given he called Gretchen out on her controlling behavior in one episode, this is hardly surprising.
  • In an article for the Washington Post, Tim called Season 14 winner Ashley Nell-Tipton “the worst winner in the history of the show”, and believed her win was tokenism meant to pander to the plus-size fashion community, going so far as to say her clothes wouldn’t look good on a woman of any size.
• Development Hell:
  • The show went off air for a year between Seasons 16 and 17, due to legal troubles following the bankruptcy of their production company The Weinstein Company and acquisition by Lantern Entertainment. The seventeenth season debuted in early 2019 and was called a "reboot" for the show, with changes including a Channel Hop from Lifetime back to Bravo, Karlie Kloss taking over as host for Heidi, and Season 4 winner Christian Siriano taking over as mentor for Tim.
  • Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic heavily affecting some parts of the United States resulting in lockdowns, it took a year before Season 19 began.
• Follow the Leader: Following the development troubles between Seasons 16 and 17, two new fashion competition shows popped up to try and capitalize on the format:
  • Making the Cut on Amazon Prime Video, which was created and hosted by Heidi and Tim following their departure from Project Runway. It's run two seasons so far.
  • Next in Fashion on Netflix, hosted by model Alexa Chung and Queer Eye's Tan France. This series places an emphasis on global fashion and features contestants from around the world. It's also run two seasons so far.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: On the contrary, there have been a few challenges involving children over the course of the show's run, and they often humanize the designers. No matter how much tension exists in the workroom, or how sassy/bitchy a given designer is, they tend to be on their best behavior with kids.
  • A great example was Viktor Luna during Season 9's avant-garde challenge, in which the designers were paired with student artists; in the Confession Cam at the beginning of the episode he expressed reluctance about working with kids, but then proceeded to be good-humored, respectful and patient while his endearingly bossy 12-year-old partner gave him an earful on what he needed to do differently with his design.
  • And episode 11 of season 10 plays this straight by forcing the designers to take care of baby dolls that cry (the type given to high schoolers in Scare 'Em Straight sex ed classes) while the actual babies are more cooperative, even though Dmitry's falls asleep and has to be carried by his mom while "walking" the runway.
  • They've also had to work with dogs, such as in the Lassie mini-challenge in All-Stars 4. The dogs do cooperate with having clothes put on, but they do bark a lot; one even pees on the red carpet.
• Role Reprise: The Betty Boop episode in All-Stars has her be reprised by Sandy Fox.
• Romance on the Set:
  • For Daniel Feld and Wesley Nault in season 5.
  • Invoked with Logan Neitzel and Carol Hannah Whitfield from season 6, although it never went beyond ship tease.
• Star-Making Role: Arguably, the show did a lot in popularity for most people involved.
  • Tim, Nina and Michael became even more prominent in the media.
  • Christian Siriano is currently the only Project Runway winner who has been working big ever since.
  • Despite not winning, Michael Costello also got very popular among celebrity Red Carpet looks.

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