Project Runway's seventh season concludes tonight -- so who's going home with $100,000, a bunch of new computers, and a mentorship with a condescending agency? Before we find out if Seth Aaron, Emilio, or Mila is the winner of Project Runway, Movieline is revisiting its interviews with all of the eliminated designers. After the jump, we select the best quote from each of our Q&As with the auf'd artists.
Christiane King on defending herself against Michael Kors:
"I was really proud of my dress. I do a lot of partial draping, not entire draping that you see all over the place. That was one of Michael's criticisms, and I said, 'No, that's not me. What I do is partial draping, and I hope you like it.'"
Pamela Ptak, on being "too boring" for the show:
"It's kind of like having someone saying, 'Now, now, play nice' every five minutes, which is like, 'Please. Another Hermione Granger, great.' It's like, 'You're not playing right. You're not fun. Let's find somebody who's fun.' And I don't blame them. The producers know the back-and-forth [with the judges] is intriguing."
Jesus Estrada on Tim Gunn:
"I don't know if you saw, but I never actually listened to Tim Gunn. It was one of those things where -- I mean, I was a fan of Project Runway once, you know? It's one of those things where every time I saw someone talking to Tim Gunn, they ending up going home. I wanted to design what I wanted to design; I didn't want anyone else to tell me what to design. Actually, I was shocked, because Tim had mentioned that my dress was nice."
Ping Wu, on her hostile partnership with Jesse Lenoir:
"It is true -- it was very shocking working with someone like Jesse. First of all, he is a professional actor. This factor I did not pay attention to until much later. I personally think he is so much -- craving for personal attention or screentime in front of the camera. You know, I think his behavior was -- I mean, what you saw on the screen was not even 1% of what's truly going on. His worst behavior was completely cut off from the screen. I think that played a huge role -- he really made a soap opera out of nothing. We could have worked together and really utilized my vision of design rather than arguing with me constantly. This is the first factor. The second is, he's a straight man -- very young, 24 -- and I am a woman. This macho mentality plays some kind of role, for sure. Also, the third point is I think he's also very calculating of this game. Because he would've been safe regardless [during the challenge] because he's under me, by theory. So he can get out of notice by playing nasty. I don't know if he is truly that character, or if he just made a show. But in any case, he made me unable to function as Ping Wu."
Anna Lynett on being forced to work with a male mannequin during her last challenge:
"I was working on a men's suit mannequin instead of a female mannequin, I think that I made some decisions about how the top part fit that were very last-minute. Unfortunately you don't get that in the episode at all, but the kind of dress form that I had to work on was completely wrong for working on... It was really unfair, honestly."
Janeane Ceccanti on her decoy collection at Bryant Park:
"The Bryant Park collection. Um. Yeah. How do I say this? It was really nerve-wracking, yes. And I don't think it was up to my potential. The biggest fricking runway in the United States, and I fly in under again. I haven't had any time to stop and think and breathe and have a full idea in a long time, and that's what I want to do right now. I want to step back a little bit, get my thoughts together, come back in a year or six months, or something, and maybe start from there. I feel like I need to do that. I feel like I'm even further behind than I would've been [without Runway] anyway."
Jesse Lenoir on Ping Wu, whose sewing skills he called into question during judging:
"The sewing comment literally came about through questioning and questioning and questioning. It had gotten to that point. There were a couple moments where [Ping said], "How do I do this? Should I cut it here to here? What kind of stitch do I need to do on this section?" There were little things like that. It worried me to the point that I probably took on more work than I should've, because I felt like if she didn't understand some of these things, then, you know -- how could I trust her to necessarily build this other thing?"
Ben Chmura on his least favorite collection at Bryant Park:
"I have to say, the only one I was a little weirded out with was Jesse's. Some of the looks got a little costumey for me. I actually went back and looked at his collection again. Having the plain pins attached to the clothing -- some of it got a little gimmicky for me."
Amy Sarabi on her infamous "hair bowl" dress:
"I knew the silhouette that I wanted to create, I'll say. I didn't know if I
was going to be able to engineer and create it in that amount of time. And whatever was going to go inside, that came second to the actual garment. In the end, what disappointed me the most, over the fact that I have crazy hair extensions in it, was that the garment itself wasn't standing up the way I wanted it to, or envisioned it to. That was what really bothered me. Aside from the hair being something really random to stuff inside, the actual garment wasn't the way I envisioned it. So that's where I think the problem really lied. And was I happy with the garment in the end? No. [Laughs.] I'd be lying if I said it was. It was crazy."
Anthony Williams (first elimination interview) on Heidi Klum:
"In my mind, she's a beautiful hanger. In my house, hangers don't talk."
Jonathan Peters, on the judges' stubbornness and Maya's self-elimination:
"I don't think it was fair that she was painted as a referential designer by the judges. I don't think that's true at all. Maya is a very thoughtful, very introverted designer. To kind of pigeonhole her -- and the judges have this tendency to pigeonhole everybody, by the way -- if you're a 'referential designer,' you're a referential designer forever. If I'm making [model] Cerri's legs look short and wide, I'm making Cerri's legs look short and wide forever. There's no convincing them otherwise. And so, I think for Maya, coupled with the stress and looking at the runaround -- we're working every single day with two, maybe three hours of sleep -- it starts to wear at you, you know?"
Anthony Williams (second elimination interview) on Mila's attitude:
"You know what, I am amazed by her on this show. I am amazed how a grown woman -- an old, grown woman -- goes to a reality show where she has to audition, and looks around the room and doesn't see anyone that is competition for her. Do you know how big your balls have to be to say something like that?"
Jay Sario on Mila's Bryant Park collection
"It was expected. It was black and white. It's the stuff she's been doing over and over and over again over the past challenges. If you look at her portfolio, it's black and white. I didn't really see that as a threat."
The Full Interviews
· Maya Luz
· Anthony Williams (First Elimination)
· Ping Wu