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Project Runway is Designing for the Real Women of New York City

From police officers to school teachers, the designers are giving these hardworking women the dress of their dreams.

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More Season 17 / Episode 11

01:45

Preview Project Runway is Designing for the Real Women of New York City
01:12

Show Highlight Tessa Clark Cuts Up Her Design Minutes Before the Runway
00:49

Preview How Often Has Tessa Clark Used Black on the Runway
01:05

Preview Tessa Clark Is Making Pants for the Dream Dress Challenge?

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Read more
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Venny Etienne

Dallas, TX

Haitian-American designer Venny Etienne knew he had a desire to be immersed in the fashion industry when he started styling for local fashion shows in his hometown of Brooklyn at the age of 20. He attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and later transferred to Wade College in Dallas. He graduated Salutatorian of his class, receiving a BA in merchandising and design and the Founders Award, the highest award given to a student of the graduating class. However, he credits most of his initial creative expertise to Milan-based designer and pattern maker Shingo Sato. Currently residing in Dallas, Venny credits this move for his evolution as a designer. While many thought leaving New York would be detrimental for his career, he was quickly embraced by the Dallas fashion scene and made a name for himself through networking and local fashion shows. In 2018, Venny won the 2018 Fashion Group International (FGI) Rising Star in Dallas. FGI also gave Venny a full scholarship to attend the Paris American Academy in Paris to further his development. To date, Venny has dressed some of today’s trendiest celebrities, including Cardi B and Michelle Williams. He travels to garner inspiration for his Levenity brand, which is part of recognizable American sportswear. Always sophisticated, with an edge that makes it extremely special.

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Jhoan "Sebastian" Grey

Jhoan "Sebastian" Grey

Cali, Colombia

Fashion designer Sebastian Grey is no stranger to the high-end market, with 10 years’ experience working with renowned designers like Lina Cantillo and Andres Otalora. Colombian-born Sebastian worked in his family’s leather business while growing up, learning his skillset for detail and precision by listening to what the customer wanted and keeping up with pop-cultural trends. Sebastian was inspired to go into fashion design after attending a ballet performance with his parents and ended up attending Incolballet, a fine arts school two hours from his hometown. It was there that he began paying close attention to the details of the outfits being constructed for the dancers and how the outfits came alive and told stories through expressionism. He also learned the discipline to accomplish his goals that he continues to carry with him to this day. Sebastian attended the Academy of Professional Drawing in Cali, Colombia, where he majored in fashion design. He won a scholarship to attend Instituto Marangoni in Miami, Florida where he continued to develop and define his collections and capabilities as an artist. His collections as a professional designer have been seen all over Colombia, and he has owned and operated stores in Cali and Medellin under his Sebastian brand. Sebastian’s vision and hope is to take the United States and abroad by storm with his sophisticated concepts, unconventional construction methods, and attention to high-end detail.

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Renee Hill

Renee Hill

Philadelphia, PA

Renee Hill fell into fashion design through her mother, who was a seamstress when she and her four siblings were growing up. Renee did not realize her passion for design until much later, after she raised a blended family of nine children and ended a 20 year marriage. In 2013, she attended Moore College of Art and Design, followed by Made Institute, where Renee studied pattern making and tailoring, inspired by her mother who made beautiful ball and bridal gowns. Renee has been a professional designer for five years, but it was only within the past three years that she started her own brand. She’s a visual designer who is inspired by everything around her, from walking around new cities through her travels to visiting museums.

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Sonia Kasparian

Sonia Kasparian

Portland, Oregon

Sonia Kasparian has always been an artist, and as a child growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, she used drawing to escape and express herself. In elementary school, she studied at the Chicago Art Institute on weekends in a program for skilled young artists to learn more about various types of art, from drawing to sculpture. Always curious to learn more about different facets of art and design, she tried various programs within the school, and while she was intrigued by architectural design, she ultimately enrolled in a fashion design program. While her first love was fine art, she graduated from Otis/Parsons in Los Angeles and graduated Designer of the Year with a BFA in fashion design with the plan to work in the corporate world to make money with her designs and eventually move back into fine art. Thirty three years later, Sonia has had stints working at Nike, designing NBA apparel and Team USA Olympic apparel for the men’s and women’s beach volleyball teams, Quicksilver, Roxy, and O’Neil as their Director of Global Branding. Sonia designed OP’s original monokini and created Roxy’s signature board shorts. These days, Sonia creates bespoke couture and bridal pieces instead of working for a larger company, to focus on one of a kind pieces. She continues to pursue her passion for fine art and building homes as time allows.

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Kovid Kapoor

Kovid Kapoor

Brooklyn, New York

Kovid Kapoor was born in the Indian Himalayan valley town of Dehradun. Growing up in a military family, he moved around to various Indian states with varied cultural identities and traditional art forms that influenced him. He realized that clothing serves a larger purpose than just shielding the human body—it provides representation, identity, and self-expression for everyone. Kovid attended the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Hyderabad, for his BFA in fashion design before moving to the United States and attending the Academy of Art University in San Francisco for his MFA in fashion design. In America, he realized that the language of fashion was very different from what he was used to back home. Overcoming this obstacle has allowed him to balance the two aesthetics from his teachings in both countries for his personal brand. He continues to be inspired by women, either from his childhood or from fantasy and mythological tales, and his designs celebrate these great figures and feminine wisdom.

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Frankie Lewis

Frankie Lewis

Louisville, Kentucky

Frankie Lewis is a self-taught fashion designer who gained experience in the fashion world by way of creating costumes for her local theater in inner-city Louisville, Kentucky. She first learned to sew in college and worked as a seamstress and designer making local theater costumes for her theater major at the University of Louisville. Frankie is extremely passionate about her designs and hopes that they will help inspire people to believe in themselves. With her former line, Ann DeEvelyn, and her upcoming line, Frankie Lew, she includes fashions for all types of women, inclusive of plus sized options. She pushes the envelope with sexy, chic pieces up to size 24. Frankie continues to change and evolve as a designer, currently focusing on structural and linear designs, but is open to seeing where the wind blows her next.

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Lela Orr

Lela Orr

Monroe, LA

A true Southern girl, Lela Orr brings her eco-luxury aesthetic to this season of Project Runway. After graduating from Parsons School of Design, she pursued a career as a designer and has owned her own brand, Ferrah, for the past three years. Lela founded Ferrah on the premise of being eco-luxury, and, as of 2018 the line is cruelty-free with zero waste. Lela has been using all-natural fabrics and dyeing processes since realizing how wasteful the fashion industry can be. She first became interested in fashion after going through international Vogue magazines while growing up with her grandmother. Realizing that fashion is more than clothes and more like wearable art, Lela followed her passion to pursue a life designing. Whether she is listening to Rihanna or Patsy Cline in her studio or drawing inspiration from important women in her life like her grandmother, Lela can’t believe she gets to make a living doing what she loves.

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Jamall Osterholm

Jamall Osterholm

Cranston, Rhode Island

Jamall Osterholm is a Rhode Island native whose designs focus on futurism. Always creating art, Jamall realized that working with fabric and thread as a medium allowed him to connect with his work on a deeper and more personal level. He draws inspiration for his designs from his personal experiences as a queer black man, and it has allowed him to create art that not only is meaningful to him but also inspires others. Since graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design, Jamall has focused on designing futuristic pieces that draw from the past. His designs reinterpret various time periods in which he places himself in a position of power. Recently, Jamall’s third collection opened the Spring 2019 New York Fashion Week in September through a collaboration with the CFDA.

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Nadine Ralliford

Nadine Ralliford

Stone Mountain, GA

Jamaican-born Nadine Ralliford has always had a love for fashion. Since childhood, Nadine has loved sketching and creating her own ideas from scraps and old clothing. Realizing how creative Nadine was, her mother, Dolce Ralliford Jones, started to involve her more in the arts by sending her to special programs that would enhance her skills. She was inspired by her mother since she would dress for every occasion and loved high fashion. Her mother also made sure that Nadine knew different cultures by allowing her to travel through Asia and Europe. Nadine attended FIT in New York, FIDM in Los Angeles and received her BA from AIU and a degree from MIT. Nadine is now a professor of fashion and has created her own brand, Ralliford Hall Designs, which features a collection that appeals to women of all ethnicities.

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Gary "Garo Sparo" Spampinato

Gary "Garo Sparo" Spampinato

New York, NY

After moving from North Carolina to New York in 1995 for a chance to showcase his designs at Absolut Alternative Fashion Week, Garo Sparo has never looked back. He specializes in corsetry, couture, and made-to-order bridal. He also designs and fabricates costumes for a wide variety of performers as well as commercial and film clients requiring sculptural and special effects-based work. As a result of his innovative designs and extreme technical skill, Garo has become known for his conceptual fashion. His designs move forward to explore a more independent future while simultaneously paying homage to the past, combining classical compositions such as 1950s glamour and Victorian silhouettes with contemporary styles. He believes that fashion gathers in crowds, travels when we do, and lives most deeply when worn. The art of fashion is revealed through construction, and his work is sewn with support and respect for the sovereignty of movement. Garo’s fashions can be found in numerous brick and mortar boutiques and celebrities around the world, including Madonna and Daphne Guinness, the former muse of Alexander McQueen who became his exclusive client after McQueen’s passing.

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Hester Sunshine

Hester Sunshine

Santa Fe, NM

Hester Sunshine finds inspiration as a designer in everything around her. Hester has been designing her whole life and calls New York City home, after a few stints in Santa Fe, New Mexico during her adolescence and to help take care of her parents who still currently live there. Since she could speak — and demand that her parents dress her in fashionable clothing — Hester began to dress herself and sew with a children’s safety needle to create designs for her dolls. She sold her doll designs to classmates, and by sixth grade, she had graduated to selling her own children’s clothing to friends after trading her safety needle for a real sewing machine. Hester attended Parsons School of Design with a double major through Eugene Lang College. Unfortunately, she was kicked out of Parsons during her junior year and finished her degree abroad at Central Saint Martins in London before returning to complete her major at Eugene Lang. She proudly holds degrees in fashion design, history, and theory. Hester describes her fashions as colorful clown couture with a vintage punk rock edge, and she is influenced by current and past trends as well as art history. While she has been a fashion outsider most of her career, after being kicked out of Parsons and struggling with industry acceptance, Hester is now on the path to finding her place in the fashion world.

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