LOS ANGELES – Bravo put on an impressive event for Emmy voters on Tuesday as they paired their two big Reality-Competition series, “Top Chef” and “Project Runway,” for an evening of conversation and delectable morsels. On hand were “Top Chef’s” executive producer and host Padma Lakshmi, judge Gail Simmons and executive producer and showrunner Doneen Arquines. “Runway” was repped by new host and executive producer Karlie Kloss and producer and mentor Christian Siriano as well as Dan Cutworth who executive produces both programs.
“Runway” just returned to Bravo after 10 years on Lifetime. The fashion designer competition was originally on Bravo from 2004-2008 until The Weinstein Company, which owned the show, got a better deal with Lifetime. After Harvey Weinstein’s fall from grace in 2017, Bravo snatched the show back and put it in the hands of Magical Elves, the program’s original production company and the entity that has also shepherded “Top Chef” for 16 seasons. The show’s departure from Lifetime also saw longtime host Heidi Klum and mentor Tim Gunn shockingly part ways with the program (they got a new deal with Netflix). In their place, Kloss, a superstar model, and Siriano, the season four winner of the show, have ushered in a new workroom and two new permanent judges, fashion designer Brandon Maxwell and Elaine Welteroth, the former editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue. Longtime judge Nina Gracia is the only survivor of all three iterations of the series so far.
For Siriano, transitioning from contestant to world-renowned designer (he’s dressed everyone from Michelle Obama to Lady Gaga) to a mentor for all the stressed-out contestants was “very hard.”
“I’m very different from the past mentor, but I’m a working designer in the business and I have 30 people in my office that [I hear the same thing from the contestants] ‘Oh, it’s a red carpet challenge. This is for Beyonce.‘ ‘Well, I just dressed Beyonce two days ago. She’s not wearing that,'” Siriano says as the audience laughs. “And it’s not coming from a mean place, it’s coming from a very real world place. They are like ‘Oh, this is my vision.’ I’m like ‘I get it. It’s fabulous. I’m sure it’s interesting to some people, but it doesn’t work in this type of scenario.’
Siriano continues, “I’m coming from someone who has turned it into a very successful career, whatever that means. People buy clothes, that’s nice. What they don’t always understand is that it’s a different platform and I was there and I won the show and I’m employed. Almost every time I’m usually a little bit right. Not always. I’m never ‘I don’t like that.’ It’s more like “You’re not finished.” “It’s not something Karlie Kloss has never worn. Karlie Kloss has worked every major runway in the world how are you impressing her?” Also, Nina is the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine. She sees hundreds of pieces of clothes a day. It’s hard to impress her. So, when you do it’s extra amazing. You need Nina after the show. It’s annoying. I have to suck up to her every day!”
For Kloss, the experience of just seeing one side of the competition during the runway versus what is going on backstage was more jarring than she expected. She notes, “We judge on the quality of the execution and the idea and theme. And Christian sees all the nitty gritty, the catfights, the drama and the blood, sweat and tears and it’s really hard while filming for Christian to bite his tongue and not say, ‘No, no, no, no. You don’t understand. They were in tears about 30 seconds ago and the garnet was a disaster and the model finished sewing it. They don’t deserve to win this challenge.'”
Siriano continues, “It’s so annoying. Especially from being a contestant to now. Also because fashion is so different because it’s so visual. I think about what I see. ‘They can’t make this? How will they do the next stage?’ But [Karlie, Nina, Brandon and Elaine] are judging quick on the one look so that’s really sometimes really great designers make it through and some great designers don’t make it through. Every challenge you never know. Which is why the show is so great in its own way. That’s what makes it so exciting.”
“Runway” has enjoyed 14 straight years of Emmy nominations in the Reality-Competition Series category while “Chef” has earned 12 nods and won once in 2010. Perhaps that’s why there was so much love given from Lakshmi and Simmons to their “Runway” counterparts for what turned out to be a 45 minute Q&A. Once you’ve won it, the pressure might just be off. Still, Simmons had one funny anecdote that was worth sharing regarding the extremely long deliberations the judges’ tables have had over the years.
“I have very distinct memories of the finale episode of those first five or six seasons where we would do judges table for 10-12 hours,” Simmons says. “One in particular season finale in Puerto Rico we were deliberating through the night and then the sun started to come up and we were shooting outside and the light changed. And they had to change all the lights to constantly. I put my head down on the table and fell asleep for 20 minutes and they have pictures of me fast asleep. And then we finished judges table at 7 or 8 in the morning and then we had a party in a hole in the wall to spend another four hours because we didn’t want to leave each other. Now they are four or five hours which is still a long time of speaking about 10 plates of food.”
Speaking of food, the night ended with “Top Chef Kentucky” winner Kelsey Barnard Clark and finalists Sara Bradley, Eric Adjepong, Michelle Minori and Adrienne Wright creating some wonderful dishes for the always hungry Television Academy crowd.
“Top Chef” last season is currently available to watch on the Bravo app. “Project Runway” airs Thursdays at 8 PM on Bravo.
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