Content area
Full text
Meet the new cast of Project Runway
It isn't about eating bugs or luring studs. Yet Project Runway, which begins its fourth season Wednesday, is one of the most popular reality shows on TV.
How did a series about watching creative people think, draw and sew end up setting ratings records for the Bravo network, inspiring a passionate Internet community and becoming an influential force in fashion?
Because on TV, fashion is the new food.
Early in this century, bammed-up by Emeril Lagasse and the Food Network, we became a nation of culinary junkies. We got addicted to shows about eating and cooking, which we watched while lying on the couch in our sweats scarfing down frozen pizza. We found endless discussions about real vs. fake wasabi fascinating. We turned chefs into rock stars.
Eventually, some of us got bammed out. Still on the couch in our sweats, we began noticing that Sex and the City wasn't the only clothes-happy show on TV. We found the Style Network and soon were obsessing over makeover shows, shopping shows and celebrity red- carpet shows. The great debate became Jimmy Choo vs. Manolo Blahnik. For us, fashion arbiters became the new rock stars.
Best case in point: Tim Gunn, Project Runway's den mother to the designers. He has gone from relatively unknown teacher at the prestigious Parsons School of Design to a nationally worshipped fashion commentator with a book (A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style); his own makeover show on Bravo...