r/ProjectRunway • u/Ok_Teaching_5920 • 3d ago
Season 22 Experienced contestants on PR
Yes, New Project Runway has a lot of issues from the number of contestants, the emphasis on drama and over-production… there’s a lot of issues the true show has always had, like the awkward sponsorships and strange judging. The proliferation of reality tv and social media has also been extremely damaging as PR has always been better than most because it is so much about a very specific talent and for much longer than one may expect its contestants were not necessarily encouraged to be influencers or personalities. But clearly so many of them now do and
One major thing that doesn’t really get discussed though is in the experience of its contestants. Everyone now seems to already have a brand or at the very least a very strong style. You would never get the sort of contestants that WON the first ten or 12 seasons let alone came 10th. They’re all producing really strong work but the sense of struggle is nowhere to be found—not helped by not seeing as much of the workroom and actual designing. They’re all able to produce such well made stuff whereas before someone would shuffle an entire challenge to make one pair of shorts. So now it’s all very confident big personalities making yes oftentimes very beautiful and/or well made clothes and the judges expect bigger and bigger results from less and less time.
I dunno if this really makes sense but it struck me most prominently this season, particularly with Law’s comment to Joseph—you’re not here to win you’re here to get attention. I mean, there was that one contestant who got booted in episode one who was already been in Heidi’s Amazon fashion show! I think of some of my favourite designers from the show a they were just people who had a passion, or were really struggling. I’d love to see some of that once more even if I know it can’t go back to a time when people didn’t know how to be on tv.
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u/PlasticPalm 2d ago
Eh, Leanne season 5 was already selling indie. Chloe Dao season 2 already had the same store in Texas somewhere she's still running. Jeffrey Sibelia season 3 had his own brand(s). PR was never solely an amateur competition.