I know where I was on December 1, 2004. I was seated, mere feet away from a Sony TV set, watching an impossibly fey and effete whisp of a man construct a cocktail dress from corn husks. This was the first-ever elimination challenge on the first-ever episode of Project Runway, and I was there. I recall being there, surrounded by my college crew of — god, I guess we were retroactively post-punk/mod revivalists, as insufferable as that sounds now — absolutely transfixed by Bravo's televised queer revolution. I hosted viewing parties for Project Runway Season 1 — at my parents' house, where I still lived, because I was the only one with cable and a living room. I even dabbled in pop culture blogging for the first time, as evidenced by this passage I unearthed from my MySpace archives:
2/25/05: Project:Runway's finale was awesome, although the fight I got into with my mom wasn't. I'm glad Jay won, I thought that Kara Saun was totally wrong in the whole shoe debacle, and I feel sorry for Wendy because everyone is so mean to her and because her clothes were really ugly.
I was 20 years old when Project Runway debuted. I lived in Tennessee, I thought I was straight, and I thought I was going to be the next Joss Whedon. Wow, how things change! But through all of those changes, as I came out, moved to New York City, began a career as a legit pop culture critic, and Joss Whedon being accused of being a sex pest, I watched Project Runway. From Bravo to Lifetime and back to Bravo, I never stopped watching. And I never stopped rewatching ...
... until a few years ago when every streaming service replaced every season with the chopped up, 40-minute versions of every episode — a fact that I separate out with a hard return because this is a problem that needs to be addressed! Anyway.
And now Project Runway, after a two-year hiatus, is finally back on TV with a new network, a (technically) new host, and a brand new vibe. If anyone is qualified to judge the new season, to ask questions like "Who is Season 21? Where is she going?" — it is I.
Project Runway Season 21, Episodes 1-2
"New House/New Rules" / "Feel the Burn"
Director: Ramy Romany
Host: Heidi Klum
Mentor: Christian Siriano
Judges: Nina Garcia, Law Roach
Cast: Caycee Black, Belania Daley, Antonio Estrada, Jesus Estrada, Veejay Floresca, Alex Foxworth, Yuchen Han, JosephMcRae, Joan Madison, Madeline Malenfant, Ethan Mundt, Angelo Rosa
We're gonna start these recaps a li'l differently — okay, primarily because I missed getting Episodes 1 and 2 recapped due to unforeseen family matters that kept me away from the episodes until days after they aired across Freeform, Hulu, Disney+, and whichever other streamers Disney has acquired since I started writing this sentence. Because I am who I am, and because Project Runway is the show it is, I am going to break down what we've seen of this new era, scrap by scrap and stitch by stitch to see if it forms a wearable garment. Are the hems finished? Is the booty hanging out? Will Season 21 end up on the worst-dressed list?
The Host & The Mentor
The big selling point of Season 21, and arguably the only reason the series is back, is the return of original host Heidi Klum. Klum and her (previously) inseparable partner Tim Gunn served as host and mentor for the first 16 seasons of the series, and it took one of the biggest scandals and reckonings in Hollywood history to split them from the show they launched.
What happened? Well, Project Runway was originally produced by The Weinstein Company, which ... yeah. The dissolution of TWC in 2018 led to a major behind-the-scenes shakeup, which cut Lifetime out of the picture, left Klum and Gunn as free agents (making a home at Amazon with the glossy yet short-lived Making the Cut) and Project Runway back on Bravo. Christian Siriano, winner of Project Runway Season 4 and now one of the most successful designers in fashion history, became the mentor with Season 17; he also became the de facto host for Seasons 19 and 20.
Season 21 presents a pairing that could be called the best of both worlds, if the ends justified the means. We get the return of Heidi Klum, one of the best competition show hosts to ever do it (no shade to Karlie Kloss, who did not ask to be Jared Kushner's sister-in-law and therefore the target of the only headline-worthy moment of PR's second Bravo era). By her side is Siriano, whose involvement in Season 21 means maybe even more than Klum's, TBH. Siriano is a true unicorn, a series winner who is one of the most effortlessly charismatic reality TV presences in the genre's history and also one of the most well-respected and successful names in his field. I actually think you'd be hard-pressed to think of any other reality TV show winner who is as successful in their field of expertise. Like, Kelly Clarkson didn't win a daytime TV talk show host competition!
But this union, which has a full-circle kind of feel to it, only feels wrong because of the absence of Tim Gunn — the most important figure in reality TV history. The TL;DR version of this bummer of a tale is that the team behind the show's revival never asked Tim Gunn to come back — and left Klum in the dark about that. And when Klum tried to fight for Gunn, Gunn graciously stepped away instead of making it a whole thing. That sucks. And while I think Siriano and Klum are great TV and potentially great together (we've seen very little of them both on screen so far), the show forgetting Gunn makes me sad.
Whatever weird vibes may have existed while all of that was getting sorted out haven't carried through to the show itself. Klum and Siriano are as great as ever, even if I do think Klum was underused in these episodes. We did get Siriano telling a designer, Antonio Estrada, that one of his interns could knock out his design in twenty minutes. Siriano's playful yet blunt mentorship style remains one of the show's highlights. The more Siriano the better.
The Designers
A season lives and dies by its designers, and Season 21's crop is — good? Great? A mystery? The first few episodes of a season are always hard, when there's a dozen new personalities vying for attention. This is a problem on every competition show, from Survivor to Drag Race. Some are gonna immediately shine as heroes (Ethan Mundt, a.k.a. Drag Race Season 13 standout Utica Queen), some are going to be edited as villains (Veejay Floresca), some will stir up drama (Antonio, who literally asked if he was being Punk'd when he landed in the bottom in Episode 1 — name a more millennial reference!), someone will make you squint your eyes and tilt your head in a WTF manner (Joseph McRae, who boldly insists that everyone call him Josephmcrae — until he gets in front of the judges, it seems) and one sad contestant will get the first-out edit (Caycee Black, who has literally done this before).
The problem with the designers that I see after the first two episodes is that I still don't feel like I know any of them beyond those broadest of archetypes. I still don't know who Belania, Alex, Yuchen, Joan, Madeline, or Angelo are as designers or where they fit in within the show's narrative. Even Ethan, who I've already seen in a full season of television, feels a bit distant to me. Like when judge Law Roach accuses Ethan of letting his team fuck up because he knew his design was great ... did he? There's a lot of tell (every designer had something to say about Veejay's bitchface) and not much show (Veejay doesn't like other designers sitting down at a sewing machine she already threaded ... okay, and ...?).
None of this is a problem with casting, though.
The Production
Let's talk about it! Unlike seemingly every other show of its kind, of its generation, Project Runway has been passed around more times than a — uh, bag of popcorn at an afternoon screening of a family-friendly animated summer blockbuster. Sorry, I realized that metaphor was going to a place. What I mean is, if you're as interested in TV production as I am (wow, that was my college major when Project Runway premiered!), there may be no better show to study than Project Runway. Now on Season 21, we've seen the exact same format and episode structure as filtered through countless combinations of production company, showrunner, director, etc.
Season 21 looks different from previous seasons, likely due to the arrival of Ramy Romany as director. Romany previously worked with Klum on Making the Cut, and when I clocked that, my critiques clicked into place. Making the Cut was an intentionally huge show, what with the Bezos budget. It was international, the runways were spectacles — it was more fashion documentary than competition series. The production team for Project Runway, however, hasn't changed; Alfred Street remains the production company, as it was in the most recent Bravo seasons. Those seasons felt editorial, intimate, elevated, a step above the brightly-lit industry standard that we get on Drag Race and Top Chef.
So what we're getting with Season 21 is the standard, narrow reality competition show scope as filmed with a wide documentary film style. The lighting feels more natural, the camera seems to be further away from people, but the setting is still reality TV work rooms. It's an interesting juxtaposition that I'm not sure works just yet.
The biggest change, and the one that I think is really holding the show back, is the edit. Why are these episodes 45 minutes long? Is this a Freeform mandate? I fully admit that not every show needs the full hourlong edit (90 minutes with commercials). Survivor routinely struggles to fill that time as the number of castaways dwindle. But we all saw what happened when Drag Race lost a third of its runtime in Season 15. The first footage to go was Werk Room stuff, the character building interactions between queens. Considering how rushed these two episodes felt to me, and how I was left feeling like I only got to know the Estrada twins, makes me yearn for 15 more minutes with these designers.
As it stands, with the truncated runtime, it feels like the show is going for quick hits of drama and snappy clapbacks over the more natural "character" building that we've seen in the past. I'm thinking about, for instance, Meg Ferguson's drawn out, Karen-esque, white guilt meltdown in Season 19, Episode 2. Or, because we're doing twins again, the truly bewildering rollercoaster ride of the Buitendorp twins in Season 16. Like, was I gagged over some of the exchanges between the Estradas and Law? For sure. Will I remember them in a few weeks? Probably not.
The Challenge(s)
This is probably the 300th design challenge that we've seen issued to a cast of designers, so you can't fault them for being kinda bland. We've seen Disney princess/villainess challenges before (Season 16 literally had a Disney's Descendants 2 challenge) as well as activewear challenges (Seasons 8 and 12 at least). The surprise doesn't come from the challenge. It comes from the designs. And the winning looks by Ethan (that bat-winged evil queen eleganza!) and Belania (the way she played with those athleisure separates and that pattern!) were killer.
Oh, wait, Jesus won over Belania. He made a good jacket.
And Josephmcrae has come out the gate swinging with a signature silhouette of bulky AF tops with goofy hats. I can't wait to see how he applies that to literally every challenge!
The Judges
God bless Nina Garcia, the only person who has been present for every single season. And also, god bless Nina Garcia for not being afraid to flat-out disagree with Law Roach, the competition judge du jour. Truly, if there are two reality TV judges who are not afraid to voice their opinions and stand by them, it's Garcia and Klum. Never forget Klum's impassioned arguing for Mondo to win Season 8 over Gretchen!
But I also have to give it to Law Roach, who seems to have either mellowed the fuck out or figured out how to be a TV show judge over the last five years. Granted, Legendary — HBO Max's criminally disappeared ballroom competition series — was a more heated environment, thus leading to Law Roach threatening to fight contestants in the parking lot outside. His time on Drag Race over the last few seasons saw him on better behavior, even as he shamelessly flirted with Onya Nurve's dad. He's actually incisive and insightful on Project Runway, giving good TV (flat out saying he hated a look that was in the top). And, I mean, he also made a designer cry by saying that his attitude was "despicable." So, we're in for a ride with these three.
The Verdict
For viewers who are returning to the series after a few years (or decades) away, the Season 21 premiere feels like serviceable reality competition TV. The personalities and format are comforting, but there's a preference for spice over seasoning. For viewers who have stuck with Project Runway for ohmygod 21 years, I am incredibly elated that the show is back and garnering the kind of wider attention that I wish its return to Bravo had earned in 2019. We're in Project Runway's new era. Now the show has to figure out what Freeform's reign will look like.
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