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Project Runway Season 6 Designers

Posted on Jul 9, 2009 in Fashion

Darlings, our long national nightmare is over! Project Runway is on its way back!

Today’s the day, kittens. MyLifertime.com released the goods on all the designers we’ll be making fun of lovingly critiquing in the months to come. Since we’ve got an agonizingly long 6-week wait for the premiere of the new season, let’s take a gander at the little ragamuffins, shall we?

And ragamuffins would be the right word. This may be the group with the youngest median age of any other season. Although the fact that it also contains the oldest contestant to ever appear on the show may skew that number. EASTERN EUROPE REPREZENT, Y’ALL! Plus, a couple cute guys! And thankfully, we spot a couple potential freakshows. We say “thankfully” because our first impression of the group was that a lot of them look surprisingly normal and low-key.

But enough of our thoughts. We turn the floor over to you, our minions. Get your bitchpants on, roll up your sleeves and get to some pre-judging, bitches. Which ones are the bitches? The airheads who can’t sew? The gay ones? The delusional ones? The ones that are going to send all their friends and family here to post anonymously and tell us we’re all a bunch of losers? Get crackin’! You’ve got a lot of ground to cover!

Oh, and check out Lifetime’s just-gone-live new Project Runway page! It is LOADED with stuff!

Althea Harper
Age: 24
Birthplace: Dayton, OH
Current Home: Brooklyn, NY
Favorite Designers: Rodarte, Vivienne Westwood, Zac Posen, Yohji Yamamoto, Versace, Preen
Style Icon: Victoria Beckham
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: Christian Siriano, Season 4

Althea has always loved to draw, but it was at the young age of ten when she found her niche for fashion. She recently graduated from The University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning. Althea also received additional training at Central St. Martin in London. She’s interned at Anna Sui, Zac Posen, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Victoria’s Secret and Garden Inc. Her fashion designs are inspired by Bridgette Bardot, 30’s glamour and architecture.

Why she’ll win?
Althea believes she is an extremely talented designer, with the drive and determination that is essential for succeeding in the world of fashion. Her strengths as a designer include her creativity, taste and draping ability.


Tim Gunn:”Everyone [thinks] she’s only on the show because she’s a tall blonde beauty,” admits Gunn. “But she’s extremely talented. She’s going to blow people away.”


Ari Fish
Age: 26
Birthplace: Kansas City, MO
Current Home: Kansas City, MO
Favorite Designers: Lucy Orta
Style Icon: Russell Ferguson
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: None

Ari is a self-taught designer who has always been interested in craftsmanship but doesn’t sketch or drape her designs. Her design career happened almost accidentally when she realized that many of her artist friends needed makeovers and started designing clothes for them. Her fashion sense is influenced by geometry, ergonomics, American Indian ritual wear, nomadic tribe wear and athletic apparel. Ari attended the Kansas City Art Institute and is currently an indie-designer for both women and men and also helps to run a gallery. Her previous jobs have included copy clerk, hotel maid, dough maker, gallery assistant, gardener, coffee and tea barista, maintenance person, secretary and retail associate.

Why she’ll win?
Ari says, “Why not?” She describes her creativity level as “sky’s the limit” and is extremely detail oriented. She can also sew very quickly.

Tim Gunn: “She’s deeply conceptual,” Gunn says of the self-taught Kansas City, Mo., native, who doesn’t sketch or drape her designs, but sews fast. Her influences include geometry, ergonomics, nomadic tribal wear and athletic apparel.


Carol Hannah Whitfield
Age: 24
Birthplace: Anderson, SC
Current Home: Brooklyn, NY
Favorite Designers: Valentino, Oscar de la Renta
Style Icon: Audrey Hepburn
Favorite Past Project Runway Designers: Santino Rice & Daniel Vosovic, Season 2; Michael Knight & Laura Bennett, Season 3; Jillian Lewis, Season 4

Carol Hannah’s first garments were created for her Barbie dolls at age seven, but her career path was firmly cemented in fifth grade when the then-tomboy took a survey that revealed that she would be well suited to become a fashion designer. A graduate of the College of Charleston with a degree in Business Administration, Marketing, and Art, Carol Hannah is currently a freelance designer. Without formal design training, she taught herself pattern-making and draping from library books from the 60’s and 70’s. Her past fashion related jobs include a buyer for a catalog clothing company, bridal consultant for Maddison Row and a sales associate at Banana Republic. As a designer, she loves to mix architectural and organic elements together. She is also inspired by the Charleston landscape.

Why she’ll win?
Carol Hannah believes she’ll win because she’s “that flippin’ good!” She has the confidence, talent, and determination to make it to the end, and, while she is young, she already knows who she is as a designer.

Tim Gunn: “She’s young, just out of design school,” says Gunn of the South Carolina native, who currently resides in Brooklyn, N.Y. But “people will be disarmed by what they see her achieve.”

Christopher Straub
Age: 30
Birthplace: St. Louis Park, MN
Current Home: Shakopee, MN
Favorite Designers: Valentino, Zac Posen
Style Icon: Victoria Beckham
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: Christian Siriano, Season 4

Self-taught designer Christopher made his first garment when he was 14 – a pair of clown pants . Nowadays, he prefers simple designs and describes his style as “clean and fresh.” Christopher likes to incorporate volume into his designs, finds inspiration in fabrics that catch his eye and avoids anything too “matchy-matchy.” He is currently a visual merchandiser and freelance designer.

Why he’ll win?
Christopher says, “Personality + Talent = Success, and who could argue with that?”

Tim Gunn: “Christopher is very sensitive, very emotional. He wears his emotions on his sleeve,” Gunn says of the Shakopee, Minn., resident, who appreciates volume, eye-catching fabrics and Victoria Beckham.

Gordana Gehlhausen
Age: 45
Birthplace: Yugoslavia
Current Home: San Diego, CA
Favorite Designers: John Galliano
Style Icon: Grace Kelly
Favorite Past Project Runway Designers: Uli Herzner, Season 3

Originally from former Yugoslavia, Gordana grew up in a small Serbian Village in Bosnia. She has always been very creative and had a unique style of dress, knitting her first sweater when she was only seven years old. Gordana attended college in Germany, earning a Linguistics degree before she moved to Atlanta, GA. There, she fine-tuned her design skills by creating a children’s line and later moved to Charleston, SC, where she opened her first women’s boutique, GOGA. While still maintaining her store in South Carolina, Gordana recently relocated to San Diego and opened her second women’s wear boutique, GOGA by Gordana, featuring her own designs.

Why she’ll win?
Gordana believes she will win because she works hard and won’t ever quit.

Tim Gunn: The Yugoslavia-born designer now owns a boutique in San Diego. Expect a lot of “textile development,” says Gunn. “It wouldn’t be a case of going shopping and using the fabric she brought back. She’d do things to it.”

Irina Shabayeva
Age: 27
Birthplace: The Republic of Georgia
Current Home: New York, NY
Favorite Designer: Jean Paul Gaultier
Style Icons: Sophia Loren, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: Rami Kashou, Season 4

Though an immigrant from the former USSR, Irina would never be mistaken for anything but a full blown New Yorker. Currently living on the Upper East Side, Irina attended Parsons The New School of Design, where she first realized her true design potential. Her aesthetic is focused on sexy and ultra-feminine designs with a European flair. She describes her biggest weakness as her desire for instant gratification.

Why she’ll win?
Irina says she’ll win because she is “the best” and will “save the world, one dress at a time.”

Tim Gunn: A native of the Republic of Georgia, she counts Cleopatra as a style icon. And Gunn admires the designer’s sense of proportion and fit. “Her models look as if they’ve been in for a dozen fittings,” he says, “and they haven’t.”


Johnny Sakalis
Age: 30
Birthplace: Long Beach, CA
Current Home: Los Angeles, CA
Favorite Designers: Alexander McQueen, Viktor & Rolf, John Galliano,
Nicholas Ghesquiere, Yves St. Laurent
Style Icons: Isabella Blow, Diane von Furstenberg, Anna Wintour, Madonna
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: Christian Siriano, Season 4

Johnny is a graduate of The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, whose previous work includes being the small leather goods specialist at Gucci and assistant store manager at Hugo Boss. Johnny draws the influence for his designs from music, movies, books, pictures and, especially, people. His proudest designing moment was creating a wedding dress for a bride who cried with joy after seeing the dress.

Why he will win?
Johnny believes he will win because he has a strong creative flow, great sense of color and originality.

Tim Gunn: A graduate of the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, Runway’s new West Coast home, “Johnny will be polarizing,” Gunn says of the L.A. resident. “People will love him, or hate him.”

Logan Neitzel
Age: 26
Birthplace: Blackfoot, ID
Current Home: Seattle, WA
Favorite Designers: John Galliano, Tom Ford, Mason Martin Margela
Style Icon: Karl Lagerfeld
Favorite Past Project Runway Designers: Nick Verreos, Season 2;
Jeffery Sebelia, Season 3; Christian Siriano, Season 4

As a self-described “guys-guy,” Logan loves extreme sports, cars and fashion design. Logan held a slew of jobs including bartender, concrete foreman, retail sales associate, a buyer and construction worker before he decided to pursue a career in fashion. As a child, he was taught by his grandmother how to work with leather. When Logan is not creating clothes, he is working on his ’67 Mustang. Logan’s strengths as a designer are creating street wear and edgy rocker looks. If he wasn’t a designer, he’d be a stuntman or a racecar driver. Logan is also a nationally ranked snowboarder.

Why he will win?
Logan says, “Why wouldn’t I?”


Tim Gunn: “Logan’s from Seattle, and you get a crunch-granola feeling in what he does,” Gunn says of the self-described “guys’ guy” who likes snowboarding and cars as much as he likes John Galliano and Tom Ford.

Louise Black
Age: 32
Birthplace: Temple, TX
Current Home: Dallas, TX
Favorite Designer: Christian LaCroix
Style Icon: Isabella Blow
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: Jay McCarroll, Season 1

Louise began her professional career as a pharmacy technician and clinical lab tech before moving into the world of design and fashion. A self-taught designer, the first garment Louise ever made was her own wedding dress! Louise is now a self-employed fashion and accessories designer, who first began her business by selling her hand-sewn pieces on ebay. Her corsets and clothes have a distinct retro flair from the Victorian and Flapper eras. Louise is currently attending El Centro College for formal design training, which she feels has boosted her technical skills and advanced her design vision. Her designs are influenced by history, as she loves to mix fashions from past decades to come up with new styles. She also finds inspiration in modern architecture, shapes and volume.

Why she’ll win?
Louise believes she’s a little insane, and the fashion world is ready for a shake-down!


Tim Gunn: “Thoughtful, contemplative, and never a hair out of place.” A fan of Christian Lacroix, the first garment the former clinical lab technician ever made was her own wedding dress.

Malvin Vien
Age: 24
Birthplace: Englewood, CO
Current Home: New York, NY
Favorite Designer: Himself (He likes what he has to say)
Style Icon: The farmers of rural China
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: Jay Carroll, Season 1

Malvin attended college at the University of Redlands, where he earned a degree in Social Medicine and Creative Solipsism through the University’s Center for alternative studies. He gained some of his early design training at the university’s costume department and later went on to study fashion design at Parsons The New School for Design. Malvin’s designs are inspired by vagabonds, beatniks his travels in rural China, Japanese ghost stories and insect anatomy. His fashion must is to have the courage to wear what makes you feel right.

Why he’ll win?
Malvin believes his designs have substance and a philosophy which separate him from other designers. He understands that fashion goes deeper than aesthetics, marketing or business.


Tim Gunn: “When you see this guy, you won’t believe he’s from Colorado,” Gunn says of Vien. Talk about an eclectic fashion palette: His style inspirations include rural Chinese farmers, Japanese ghost stories and insect anatomy.

Mitchell Hall
Age: 26
Birthplace: Melbourne, FL
Current Home: Savannah, GA
Favorite Designer: Valentino
Style Icon: Tom Ford
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: Austin Scarlett, Season 1

At a young age, Mitchell’s talent for fashion design was clear, as he often found himself sketching gowns for Disney princesses. He went from working at The Gap in high school to studying fashion design at Savannah College of Art and Design. The first garment he ever made was a skirt for his introduction to sewing class in college. Mitchell is currently the creative director for three contemporary women’s boutiques, including a Vera Wang Bridal Salon.

Why he’ll win?
Mitchell believes he will win with his use of high-end fabrics and his keen eye for contemporary women’s fashion, coupled with his ability to work well under pressure. He also enjoys the rush of competition!

Tim Gunn: “Mitchell looks like he just stepped out of Gossip Girl and I think that’s who he’d like to design for,” Gunn says of the Savannah, Ga., resident, who is a creative director for a Vera Wang bridal salon.

Nicolas Putvinski
Age: 27
Birthplace: Moscow, Russia
Current Home: New York, NY
Favorite Designer: Olivier Theyskens
Style Icon: Marlene Dietrich
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: Rami Kashou, Season 4

Nicolas realized his designer potential at age 15 when he made a pleather tube top dress for his 12 year old sister. An immigrant from Russia, Nicolas spent most of his childhood in San Diego, CA, and had only three weeks to learn English before starting school in America. Nicolas went on to study design at the Fashion Institute of Technology and received further training at Izquierdo Studio in New York. Nicolas has had a number of works commissioned by W Magazine and Vogue, and some of his greatest fashion achievements include designing a dress for Marchesa and serving as the lead assistant to the costumer who makes the famous angel wings for Victoria’s Secret. This past February, Nicolas created a gown for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Oscars Design Challenge.

Why he’ll win?
Nicolas believes he will win because he is innovative, a master at fabric manipulation, works well under time constraints and has a fabulous personality to boot!

Tim Gunn: Born in Moscow, he’s had designs commissioned for W and Vogue – and may be a bit of a fashion snob. “If you have such a bad taste in your mouth about American fashion,” Gunn has wondered about the F.I.T. grad. “Why are you here?”

Qristyl Frazier
Age: 42
Birthplace: St. Louis, MO
Current Home: Brooklyn, NY
Favorite Designers: Gaultier, Halston, Oscar De La Renta, Givenchy, Doo Ri, Zac Posen
Style Icons: Halle Berry, Whitney Houston, Gwyneth Paltrow
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: None

Qristyl has been intrigued with fashion and design since the age of 15 when she sewed a black and white print cheerleader-style mini skirt. She studied fashion design at Stephens College in Columbia, MO, and went on to work as a stylist assistant and technical designer before making designs for her own company, Qristyl Frazier Designs. She has designed clothes for Queen Latifah, Angie Stone and Wendy Williams and is extremely proud that she can step out of the box and create beautiful designs for plus-sized women which, she terms, “plus sexy.”

Why she’ll win?
Qristyl believes she is a well-rounded and well-respected fashion designer and has been waiting for an opportunity like Project Runway since she first arrived to New York.
Tim Gunn: Hailing from St. Louis, Mo., her style icons include Halle Berry, Whitney Houston and Gwyneth Paltrow. “Qristyl is a hoot,” says Gunn. “She likes a lot of color, and print. She’s entertaining to watch.”

Ra’mon-Lawrence Coleman

Age: 31
Birthplace: Chicago, IL
Current Home: Minneapolis, MN
Favorite Designer: Marc Jacobs
Style Icon: Diahann Carroll
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: Daniel Vosovic, Season 2

Graduating high school and attending college at the young age of 15, Ra’mon’s (then a pre-med major) discovered his passion for fashion when he signed up for a performance art class and was tasked with creating costumes. Ra’mon went on to study at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at SAGA Industries in Denmark. Ra’mon’s body of work includes stints as a bridal designer for Linda Campisano, designer for PriceWalton Couture, assistant designer for Gary Graham and designer for International Fur Trade Federation. Ra’mon currently designs for Target’s Massimo Black line and is working on designs for his own label, ra’mon-lawrence.

Why he’ll win?
Ra’mon believes he’ll win because he has a distinct point of view that appeals to a wide market and plans to bring a modern aesthetic with an avant garde twist to his clothes.


Tim Gunn: “He’s someone who in my view thinks entirely too much,” Gunn says of the Chicago resident, whose favorite designer is Marc Jacobs. “I was constantly surprised in the workroom – suddenly, there’s a new design.”

Rodney Epperson

Age: 50

Birthplace: New York, NY
Current Home: New York, NY
Favorite Designer: Yohji Yamamoto
Style Icon: None
Favorite Past Project Runway Designer: Christian Siriano, Season 4

Rodney, who likes to go by his last name, Epperson, is a self-taught designer who grew up in Harlem. In the early 70’s, while still in high school, Epperson began designing and focused on the deconstructed look. He later enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and, although he never completed his formal training, he went on to become a window dresser for Charivari in the 80’s and 90’s and currently does visual design for retailer H&M. He has designed clothes for some high profile clients, one being India.Arie. Epperson and his wife are parents to four kids.

Why he’ll win?
Epperson believes he’ll win because he is coming to the series with a unique approach and feels that it’s all about timing: “It’s my time to shine.”

Tim Gunn: “He is the most senior in terms of design career and reputation,” Gunn says of this self-taught designer who grew up in Harlem, N.Y. “He has a distinguished career. He’s elder-statesmanlike.”
Shirin Askari
Age: 24
Birthplace: Tulsa, OK
Current Home: Garland, TX
Favorite Designers: Elie Saab, Jaques Fath, Christian Dior, Hussein Chalayan
Style Icon: Katherine Hepburn
Favorite Past Project Runway Designers:
Rami Kashou, Season 4; Leanne Marshall, Season 5

While other little girls were playing with their dolls and changing their clothes, Shirin was busy making the clothes! She was taught how to sew at four years old by her mother, and, by the age of seven, she was designing and making her own dresses. She went on to design and sew headscarves in middle school before she received formal training at the University of North Texas where she earned a BFA in Fashion Design. Shirin is currently a freelance designer and previously served as an assistant tech designer for Fossil. She often draws her inspiration from the fabric; she creates the garment after seeing how it feels and drapes. She is also influenced by classic movies starring Fred Astaire, Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

Why she’ll win?
Shirin believes she has an eye for fashion, an unbelievable drive and a strong knowledge of how to give the client what he/she wants, while still being creative.

Time Gunn: “She’s young, she’s pretty, she’s articulate,” Gunn says of the Garland, Texas, resident whose style icon is Katharine Hepburn. “I’m not sure what is distinctive about her, other than the fact that she’s good.”


Tim Gunn’s Quotes: Meet Project Runway’s Newest Designers! [People]
[Photos and Bios: myLifetime.com]



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