Project Runway Season 15 Premieres After New York Fashion Week

For the 15th season, Project Runway unhitches itself from New York Fashion Week all together, premiering at the beginning of the regular fall TV season.

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It’s been a long, slow process, but Project Runway is finally just a television show. When Lifetime won the battle for it back ten years ago, fans feared this would happen. But the change in their relation to the fashion industry has been gradual enough that those still watching may not even notice now.

When Project Runway began in those heady days of the earlier aughts, it had grand pretensions of being “The American Idol of the Fashion Industry” and producing successful household name designers the same way Idol was launching Kelly Clarksons and Carrie Underwoods. The season air date revolved around the major milestone that was New York Fashion Week. The production planned the seasons so the Top Four or Five would be left the same week that Project Runway would show in the tents. One or two dummy collections were always included to prevent total spoilers. And the finale of the show aired just as Fashion Month was wrapping up in Paris.

Once the move to Lifetime came, the creep began. By Season 10, the show was debuting late enough in the summer that the full Top Ten would still be left the same week as the show in the tents. Presentations of all ten collections ran over an hour. (Most fashion presentations are 15 minutes, tops.) Therefore, over half the presentations were dummy collections. Those in the know complained the show lied to audiences that only the Top 3 or 4 showed at NYFW. It cheapened this supposed “Grand Prize.” And yet, for five weeks, everyone would pretend they were competing for a chance, when we at home already saw their collections on line weeks ago.

Then last year, there was an interesting twist. Project Runway tried an experiment where, despite the Top Ten all still being on air, they only had the Top 6 show at Fashion Week, anonymously. It worked. Some collections were easy to guess, but others were not. But the important discovery the production made was that the audience had changed. For instance, those like the Tom&Lorenzos fashionistas had long since stopped covering it. Nowadays, most viewers don’t even realize they can find the collections on line.

And that is why, children, for the first time, Project Runway will debut concurrent with the traditional fall television schedule. It returns on September 15th. That’s a full week after the finale collections (and a couple of dummy ones) show at NYFW.

And why shouldn’t they? If it doesn’t matter how many contestants are left on the same week as NYFW, why does the show need to be airing at all? Moreover, after years of trial and error, the network has two popular spin offs of the program. Project Runway: All Stars has been signed for two more seasons. (Even if the show is really more Project Runway: With Contestants You’ve Seen Before.) The delightful Project Runway: Junior is also signed for two more years. It is more important to have everything line up, so premiere and finale dates do not cause the middle program to be badly interrupted by Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

The Season 15 Contestants!

Speaking of those contestants, let’s take a look at this year’s batch of fresh chum…. Err, I mean, fresh talent! Entertainment Weekly posted it earlier this month.

Brik Allen (26), Baton Rouge, LA
Laurence Basse (41), Los Angeles, CA
Sarah Donofrio (34), Portland, OR
Ian Hargrove (30), Chicago, IL
Tasha Henderson (33), Shreveport, LA
Nathalia JMag (23), Framingham, MA
Linda Marcus (55), Milwaukee, WI
Cornelius Ortiz (24), Boston, MA
Roberi Parra (32), Miami, FL
Jenni Riccetti (22), San Francisco, CA
Kimber Richardson (42), New York, NY
Erin Robertson (29), Cambridge, MA
Dexter Simmons (32), Oakland, CA
Alex Snyder (30), San Francisco, CA
Rik Villa (31), Los Angeles, CA
Mah-Jing Wong (28), Philadelphia, PA

"Guest judges for the season include actresses Priyanka Chopra, Emily Ratajkowski, Nina Dobrev, Camilla Belle, Jaime King, Shiri Appleby, Sabrina Carpenter, and Carly Chaikin as well as Today anchor Savannah Guthrie, fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff, Project Runway Junior judge Kelly Osbourne, model Lucky Blue Smith, and Marie Claire editor-in-chief Anne Fulenwider. Klum and Posen will return as judges alongside vet Nina Garcia (who calls this an “emotional” season) and designer mentor Tim Gunn."

Next: Check out more Fashion posts at Culturess

Project Runway returns to Lifetime September 15th, 2016 at 9pm. We’ll be recapping.

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