'A very easy yes': Heidi Klum returns to 'Project Runway' Season 21
In fashion, good things always come back in style.
"Project Runway" returns for Season 21 on July 31 with its first host Heidi Klum for a two-episode premiere (Freeform, July 31 at 9 ET/PT, and streaming on Hulu and Disney+). The competition for fashion designers will continue to air in weekly installments (10 ET/PT).
"It was a very easy yes for me," Klum tells Paste BN of returning. Klum, 52, left the series that aired previously on Bravo and Lifetime in 2018 after 16 seasons.
She and the show's original mentor, Tim Gunn, departed to create Amazon Prime's similar fashion faceoff "Making the Cut," which had a three-season run. Model Karlie Kloss assumed Klum's "Project Runway" role, followed by Christian Siriano. Siriano, the winner of Season 4, resumes the role of mentor for the 12 contestants vying for a $200,000 cash prize, a feature in Elle and a mentorship with the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
"I helped create the show, and I love the show, and it's my first baby," Klum says. "Why not come back to my first baby?"
Preserved in Klum's mental baby book is a memory from the very first episode, when designers had to transform finds from the grocery store into styles the judges would salivate over. Austin Scarlett, who placed fourth for the season, fashioned a strapless cocktail dress out of cornhusks.
"We had to refrigerate that dress so that it was still good the next day for the runway," Klum remembers. "Such a to-do," she adds, but the design "set the tone the very first episode, very first season, what 'Project Runway' is all about, and it's about the creativity and what these individuals come up with."
The results are judged this season by Klum, Elle magazine Editor-in-Chief Nina Garcia (who has appeared on every installment) and celebrity stylist Law Roach. Other famous faces stop by to assess the contestants' work, including former judge Michael Kors, comedian Nikki Glaser, and Klum's friends Tyra Banks and Sofía Vergara. Siriano, 39, provides guidance through honest critiques.
"I turned (my win) into a multimillion-dollar company, and I have dressed every major famous person pretty much in the world on every major red carpet," Siriano says. "So when I give them advice, it's not just because I worked in fashion for a little while. I literally am working in fashion right now."
Klum describes Siriano as "basically Tim Gunn's and my baby." She fought hard for Gunn to be a part of the show to no avail.
"I asked many times for him – if he could also return," Klum says. "And not to take anything away from anybody, but I've just obviously always loved working with him."
But ultimately Klum is "not the network," she says. "I'm not the people who are putting everything together. It's like a big puzzle. For me, Tim was always part of this puzzle, and it was not up to me that he was not there at the end of the day. Put it this way: I would have loved to have him there."
But she and Siriano, who has dressed her over the years, have so much fun on the set.
"Literally, we can't stop laughing," Siriano says. "We can't stop joking. It's hard sometimes to get the lines out."
But when it’s time to judge the designs, they know how to get down to business.
"I keep in mind things that I've seen/worn already," Klum says. "What is out there? Do we need it? Does it cut through the noise?"
And the competition is stiff, like starched jeans, according to Siriano.
"One of my favorites is Ethan (Mundt), who was on 'Drag Race' and a drag queen, and I think he's really, really talented, but getting him out of drag costuming was important to make real fashion," Siriano says. "The females this season are very strong. The men are very boisterous, but I will say that the females are some quiet killers, which I like."