Project Runway is embroiled in a nasty legal battle over a lucrative, five-year deal that its producers signed in April with Lifetime, taking the show away from Bravo, which has carried it since it began in 2004.
Filming for season six is well underway, but the show may well find itself homeless once production wraps. On September 29, a judge ruled that Lifetime violated Project Runway's exclusivity agreement with Bravo's parent company NBC.
Replacing producer Magical Elves is Bunim-Murray, the company behind classy hits like "The Real World" (1992) and "The Simple Life" (2003). Under Bunim-Murray's control, the show will be filmed on location in Los Angeles instead of New York, which means no more Parsons, Mood Fabrics or Bryant Park. When asked about the show's new look, Heidi Klum only said that "Runway" is receiving a "facelift."
A facelift, however, is long overdue. Though the ratings don't show it, bloggers and viewers have grumbled for weeks that season five fell flat. Producers struggled to find a compelling story line a la Santino Rice's Tim Gunn and Andrae Gonzalo impressions (season 2), Jeffrey Sebelia's wars with Angela Keslar's mom (season 3)or Keith Michael's illegal possession of pattern books (also season 3).
Season five was not without a few bright moments of its own.Producers finally struck gold when Kenley Collins transformed from giggly girl in the corner to disrespectful, nasaly villainess.
The talent this season, however, ran on a bell curve -- a handful of designers (Leanne Marshall, Jerell, Korto Momolu) were very good, and a few were downright awful (Suede Baum's cotton-candy monstrosity at New York Fashion Week was an insult to "Project Runway's" credibility). Most contestants, however, would not have even made it past the audition phase in previous seasons.
Even Tim Gunn admitted that the contestants this time around were less talented. "They keep walking around telling each other how great they are, and I keep saying to them, 'Someone is gonna' go home,'" he told OK! Magazine in August.
Tim is right. Maybe two or three challenges produced a truly superior effort across the board -- notably, the car-parts challenge in which Leanne's winning look was an adorably high-fashion leather minidress, and Korto somehow wove seat belts into one of her signature bell-sleeved coats. More often, episodes turned out like the fashion makeover for recent college graduates, in which all but one client looked disgusted while modeling the design.
With the bar set so low, the final runway show at Bryant Park exceeded expectations. Kenley's designs were inspired and crafty without looking too retro-Chiquita Banana. While all season long we witnessed Kenley's eye for fit and construction, it was still surprising how well she reconciled her exuberant point of view with restrained technique.
Korto's collection was even better. Mixing influence from her Liberian heritage with her affinity for rich fabrics, she designed a set of bejeweled dresses tailor-made for an exotic cocktail party.
Leanne, however, presented the most finished and expensive-looking collection of the bunch. No "Project Runway" designer in five seasons has imagined a motif as clean and original as Leanne's dreamy pale-blue and cream waves. Her diverse and cohesive collection -- featuring shorts, pants and dresses -- rightly deserved top honors.
Superior Bryant Park show withstanding, this season still sucked, but Project Runway's" Lifetime makeover may be the answer.
After five seasons, it's finally occurred to me that Project Runway does not belong on Bravo.
Once just another movie channel, Bravo has reinvented itself as a youth-focused network anchored by original reality programming and a hip and zippy brand aesthetic. Its original productions -- Kathy Griffin's "My Life on the D List" (2005), "Real Housewives of Orange County" (2006), "Shear Genius" (2007) and "Work Out" (2006) -- share smart, tight editing, the promotion and creation of outre personalities and a general ideology of self-betterment from the outside in.
Conceptually, "Project Runway" fits the Bravo mold. To hook in viewers who would not know the difference between a half-loop stitch on china silk and a half loop-salchow jump on ice, "Project Runway" edits in character, conflict and drama. Celebrities like Natalie Portman, LL Cool J and respected fashion industry icons like Diane Von Furstenberg show up regularly, following the Bravo celebrity formula. In many ways, "Runway" is Bravo's perfect series.
I've realized, however, that for all the mileage Project Runway has given Bravo -- a Peabody Award, multiple Emmy nominations, 4.22 million viewers for its finale and massive hype -- "Project Runway" is ill-served by the Bravo-Magical Elves treatment.
The show is at its best when it showcases fashion, building intrigue from interactions between designers who happen to be people with personalities, rather than vice versa.
With Bravo's snappy editing, viewers get now-you-see-it-now-you-don't glances at the mannequins and cannot fully digest the designs.
"Top Chef" (2006) benefits from this style -- there are natural limitations with a televised competition based on culinary taste, so the edits are cheats for the audience. But fashion is visual; we don't need the quick-cut editing to help us decide which designs are better than others.
More camera time spent on the creative process would not necessarily compromise drama and characters. In fact, characters would develop more organically if we paid more attention to their design sensibilities.
Emphasizing fashion should give the show greater respect within the industry, which in turn could address the lackluster attendance by fashion editors and VIPs at the Project Runway Bryant Park show.
Season five ultimately gets props for awarding Leanne, but it remains to be seen whether the revamped Project Runway puts the focus back on the product, and in so doing lets us into the heads of our designers.
