Project Runway featured three strong competing collections in its finale, but only one took the prize.
Project Runway winner Irina Shabayeva won the prize during the November 19 finale by basing her fashion array on a city.
“My collection is really about New York,” she explained, then revealing 13 outfits that had the theme of shielding women from the city without looking like armor. Her collection included slick leather vests, big coats, pleated dresses and oversized knits.
Althea Harper and Carol Hannah Whitfield, the other two competitors, were runners-up; Harper’s theme was futuristic and Whitfield’s was based on gothic architecture and fairy tales.
Shabayeva was cited by judges as using too much black in her collection. Still, host Heidi Klum named her the winner and she’ll get a Paris vacation, fashion agency representation, a fashion spread in Marie Claire magazine and $100,000 to invest in her fashion line.
This season of Project Runway is the second to air on the Lifetime channel, rather than Bravo, where it had been. The change coincided with the release of Klum’s new book, Rankin’s Heidilicious, a coffee table book full of revealing images. The pictures suggest her reported breast augmentation, though Klum has spoken out against plastic surgery in the past.
“There’s something odd when you’re 35 or 40 and ironed to the max. You change with time, and it’s fine,” MakeMeHeal.com quoted Klum. “Everywhere there are these stand-up cards saying, ‘Have a little silicone while you get your roots done.’ I want to be the opposite of that.”
