Project Runway is increasingly an exercise in hoping for moderate success, for both the contestants and production.
Photo: Zach Dilgard/Bravo
In the early aughts, before Bravo became synonymous with Real Housewives, Scandoval, and the Andy Cohen empire, the cable network built on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s unexpected cultural omnipresence with Top Chef and Project Runway, a pair of competition shows ostensibly centered on, respectively, cutting-edge cuisine and high fashion. Nearly 20 years later, they’re Bravo’s only remaining competition series, and both have become legacy institutions in the reality-TV space. When Top Chef convened international contestants for its 20th season and Padma Lakshmi announced…
