Project Runway Season 3 Begins

Project Runway has been a hit for Bravo from the beginning because it has several significant differences from the average reality TV show.  The first and most important is that the contestants on Project Runway actually have to do something that takes a very specific and hard to acquire skill - design and make clothes in apallingly short timeframes.  

Despite this basic premise of Project Runway, every season has been graced with contestants who just don't have the requisite sewing skills.  What as the most shocking in Project Runway's first two seasons is how long people without those essential skills lasted.  Project Runway's third season promises to be a very serious competition largely because for the first time, the least skills sewer was the first one ejected from the competition.

When Stacey retreated to hand sewing on a tight deadline because she couldn't work a basic professional machine, I knew she was doomed.  I'm a very amateur sewer and costumer, but I know how to use a machine.  Stacey had to go, eventhough this first episode of season 3 of Project Runway had designs far more hideous than hers.  When it comes time for Project Runway Season 4, the casting process should perhaps include a basic skills test for finalists that isn't about design quality but basic garment construction so that Project Runway views get the opportunity to see more extraordinary work from evolving designers and less people who skipped the first semester of design school.

As with all reality TV shows, Project Runway's third season features some basic personality types, although if we've learned anything from previous seasons of Project Runway, designers are people who understand image very well, and who they are at the beginning of the show is not always who they are at the end.  Perhaps one of the best cases in point is Jay from Project Runway's first season.  Largely overlooked, Jay just chugged along, until he astounded everyone in Project Runway's finale.  No one saw him as a serious contender in the beginning.