Washington DC – Day 6 (May 29, 2005): Project Runway

I wasn’t planning to spend most of the day watching TV, but it turned out just that. Salman went home for the weekend, so I planned to explore more of this city. I had been doing that for the past week and would continue to do so for the next month. So, I turned on the TV to see what was on and to keep me company while I cooked and ate my lunch (you know, sometimes it just feels weird without at least some noise in the background).

So as I flipped through the channels, Bravo (http://www.bravotv.com/) came up with its show “Project Runway.” The show was a competition/reality-based series involving a group of aspiring fashion designers. So, initially, there were 12 amateur designers, who later got eliminated one by one throughout the series. The winner would supposedly receive marketing exposure to the industry and $100k to fund their own product line. Sounds exciting, right? Well, not in the beginning. I thought it would be just another reality show. But man, the competition itself was something! I mean, they were only given a short amount of time to design and make the clothes for whatever the challenge was for that week. That means they had to pick the material, measure them, sew the fabric, choose the model, etc., for less than a day most of the time. So, I got hooked for more than six hours watching the series marathon (they were re-runs, after all).

As the winner was announced, I thought it was a fair judgment, compared to some other reality series. Like most reality TVs, lots of drama were involved, but mostly I liked to watch the finished products and the designs (some were good, others were just outrageous). Overall, I think Project Runway is watchable, and you might learn a thing or two about the fashion design industry. See it for yourself at www.bravotv.com/Project_Runway to learn more about the show and maybe catch the next re-runs.