Project Runway: The Season that Never Happened…

At the beginning of the sixth season of Project Runway there was much trepidation. After a long legal battle between Bravo and the Weinstein Company, the sixth season of the fashion design show would be airing on a new network. Lifetime, the aforementioned new network, and Runway producers were quick to assure show fans that this shift would not affect the production of the show. Viewers were promised more of the same; and in the very worst way this new season delivered with an influx of guest judges, uninspiring challenges, and lackluster contestants all of which conspired to make every episode of this season a bland copy of the last.

Okay, just to be clear. I’m a fan of Project Runway; I have long been a fan of Project Runway, since it first debuted. It had reality, drama, practiced artisans exercising their craft. It had high stakes, gambles, passion, and style. In short, it was almost… magical; seeing a piece of fabric being folded and draped and pinned to create a masterpiece (See: Season 4, Episode 8, Christian Siriano’s dress, although that hardly seems an appropriate word.) The road to making fashion, as shown in forty-seven minutes (plus commercials) was quite enthralling.

Not so the latest season. And they’re right (the producers, that is), there’s not much new about Lifetime’s Project Runway. Yes, there’s a new city, but that really means nothing in the terms of the show. But, aside from the revolving door of guest judges (which is so irritating, Where’s Michael and Nina?) there’s pretty much nothing else new. And that’s a problem.

Each episode of Project Runway has a challenge; a good challenge is designed to make the designers think out of the box to view their world and design. It forces them to bend their ideas of fabric and construction, or it makes them seek inspiration in the oddest places. A good challenge throws the contest so far out of their comfort zone that they are forced to re-examine what they know about design. This is the glory of the show. And the designers are only made stronger because of this. This moment is just so dramatic and so tension-filled that viewers are left spellbound wondering, how in the world is this ever going to work. And this question, lingering in the air, is what draws you to the show, being able to see a work of art being unfolded right before your eyes. Sigh.

In this newest season, there were no “good” challenges. Or perhaps I shouldn’t say “good;” let’s say strong. (Although to be fair, they weren’t good either.) There was no innovation, no forward thinking; which, as we learned in previous seasons is crucial to being a designer. All of the challenges were just blah. There was nothing truly daring about them. And so, over the course, each episode ran into the next with horrifying mediocrity. We’ve seen this all before. There’s nothing exciting. The challenges are all uninspired unlike those of seasons past. Do you remember dresses made from flowers? That’s out. Finding inspiration in graffiti? Out. Building a dress out of a car? “Auf Wiedersehen.” Instead, what we have are the formulaic remains. Begin show, make dress. End show, show dress. Parade random celebrity guest judge whose various tastes in fashion is questionable. The end…

Would that it were, except it’s not. The seventh season of Project Runway premieres in January on Lifetime. Hopefully, the producers have found some inspiration by now, because the style of the show is beautiful, the new clean look, it’s nice. I really do think that this move to Lifetime can be salvaged because the only other major problem with the show is that all of the contestants are just boring. This is mostly because we never get a chance to see how spectacular they can be during the challenges. In the challenges, when the contestants are going through the breakneck process of design we learn about their character, their tenacity, their drive. And it is this that makes us root for them, it endears them to us and makes us vested in their lives. Without that, who really cares? It all might as well not even happen.

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Thursdays at 10pm EST on Lifetime

Photographs courtesy of Lifetime and IMDbPro