Lifetime has revealed the identities of the 16 fashion designers competing on Project Runway's tenth season, which will premiere Thursday, July 19 at 9PM ET/PT and continue to feature an expanded 90-minute episode format.
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Like the show's last three seasons, Project Runway's tenth season is being filmed in New York City, the home of the show's first five seasons. The season's finale runway show is scheduled to film at Lincoln Center during New York Fashion Week.
The public got their first look at the contestants on Friday night when each designer showed off his or her collection in New York's Times Square while participating in the first challenge of the upcoming edition.
The live runway show -- intended to celebrate Project Runway's tenth anniversary -- forced the contestants to not only prove they have "creativity, skills and passion" to Project Runway judges Heidi Klum, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, along with guest judges Lauren Graham and Patricia Field, but they also had to reveal their ensembles to a critical audience in a popular spot.
Field, who is a designer and stylist that served as the very first guest judge on Project Runway's first-season premiere, will return to the judging panel for the show's tenth season. Tim Gunn will continue to serve as a mentor to the contestants.
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The winning designer will receive a grand-prize package featuring $100,000 from L'Oreal Paris to start his or her own line, a fashion spread in Marie Claire magazine, a brand new Lexus vehicle, a $50,000 technology suite from HP and Intel to create his or her own vision and a business, and the opportunity to design and sell an exclusive collection at Lord & Taylor.
Lord & Taylor will also host a challenge during one of the season's episodes that will allow consumers to purchase a designer's work in the store's Fifth Avenue flagship. In addition, the model paired with the winner of Project Runway will also appear in the designer's editorial feature in Marie Claire and receive $25,000.
The 16 tenth-season designers are:
- Alicia Hardesty, a 27-year-old from Brandenburg, KY, who currently resides in Los Angeles, CA
- Andrea Katz, a 58-year-old from Oceanside, NY, who currently resides in New York, NY
- Beatrice Guapo, a 29-year-old from Orange County, CA, who currently resides in Marina del Rey, CA
- Buffi Jashanmal, a 32-year-old from London, England/Dubai UAE, who currently resides in New York, NY
- Christopher Palu, a 24-year-old from Brooklyn, NY, who currently resides in Massapequa, NY
- Dmitry Sholokhov, a 33-year-old from Novopolotsk, Belarus, who currently resides in New York, NY
- Elena Slivnyak, a 28-year-old from Kiev, Ukraine, who currently resides in Daly City, CA
- Fabio Costa, a 29-year-old from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, who currently resides in Brooklyn, NY
- Gunnar Deatherage, a 22-year-old from LaGrange, KY, who currently resides in Louisville, KY
- Kooan Kosuke, a 30-year-old from Himeji-shi, Japan, who currently resides in Queens, NY
- Lantie Foster, a 48-year-old from Sacramento, CA, who currently resides in New York, NY
- Melissa Fleis, a 31-year-old from Rogers City, MI, who currently resides in San Francisco, CA
- Nathan McDonald, a 33-year-old from Zanesville, OH, who currently resides in New York, NY
- Raul Osorio, a 27-year-old from Canoga Park, CA/Honduras, who currently resides in Minneapolis, MN
- Sonjia Williams, a 27-year-old from Boston, MA, who currently resides in Woodside, NY
- Ven Budhu, a 28-year-old from Berbice, Guyana, who currently resides in Kew Gardens, NY
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski