OK, let us breathe a sigh of relief and joy: Project Runway is BACK!!! As many of you may know by now, Season 7 Project Runway is debuting this week (Thursday night of course!) and someone was either reading my BLOG or... they realized it was the 21st Century and Project Runway needed to be in HD!!! (hello???). I am so excited the show is back and (SIGH) it will not be in Los Angeles anymore at my fabulous Fashion Institute of Design and Merchadising/FIDM campus (yes, all those LA-haters can be happy that it's back in the Big Apple). We can rest assured that Michael Kors and Nina Garcia's contracts got signed--all the T's and the I's were crossed--and yes, they will be seated in those judges seats every week.I was honored to have been asked to judge the Los Angeles castings of Season 7 at the chic W Hotel , along with Tim Gunn and Marie Claire's Zoe Glassner. Here are a couple of the first "Casting" videos of the new Season 7 Contestants and my thoughts (as best I can remember):
Amy Sarabi:
We were all instantly fascinated by Amy. If I remember correctly, she was from the San Francisco Bay Area and she worked in the Gap Design Team. Her designs were as far from Gap as one could get! I loved her construction, her ruffled and pleated bolero jackets. The garments she brought in were flawlessly made and oh-so-directional. To me, she was a Stand-out. Should be a front-runner.
Anna Lynett:
Anna's designs were sublime and had a "quiet" elegance about them, if I remember. Her designs didn't scream, they whispered. It is hard to tell in this casting video, but her garments were actually really nice and made us "stand-up" and take notice (I'm sure you guys are like "All I see is a lot of boring gray!"). Her demeanor was very sweet--she might get "eaten up" by the "Reality Show" machine however...
Stay tuned for more of my Season 7 Casting Nick Verreos Memory Lane...