ProjRun Rewind: S01E01 - Innovation

The very first episode of the very first season of Project Runway!  Things are new, Heidi is extra stilted, Micheal Kors looks fresh, Nina Garcia is cool as ever, and Patricia Field lends Sex and the City cred.  We're off to a great start as the smallest number of contestants ever (!) flood into Parsons, New School for Design.

I can imagine the anticipation of these twelve designers, as they were brave enough to embark on a journey without knowing what to expect from the relatively new world of reality TV.  Notably, that would become a character flaw for one of them.

Supermodels have all the luck.

Heidi meets the designers outside of Atlas, with their luggage strewn about on the New York sidewalk. Amazingly, she doesn't seem to have aged very much in ten years.  

This would also be the only season that would house men and women together in the same apartment!  How lucky are Wendy, Robert, Nora, and Kevin?  Hardly?  Very?  Regardless, it was the first and last instance in Project Runway history.  Once they all get settled, and we rundown a few of the contestants history/portfolio pics, the group returns to Parsons, where Heidi unleashes the first challenge, rather coyly.   

"The first challenge is about innovation, and we will judge you on that.  I want you to design a sexy, glamorous dress, for a night on the town." Heidi states, also noting that "Tim will take you to a store where all the designers go."  How fortuitous?  Heidi brings out the models, offering the helpful tidbit that model selection is ever so important, as "a model can make, or break, your outfit."  Quite the truism.  I wish every season started with a model selection, as it helps to establish the girls, while putting the designers in charge of their own fate (somewhat).  

Why is this not a part of every season??

To cap off the day, the designers, models, Heidi, and Tim make their way to the top of the Atlas Apartments, where the most amazing thing happens.  Heidi leads a convoy of models across

a NYC rooftop!  So, with designers acclimated to their work and runway spaces, and now with models in mind, they are finally off to Moo---... oh wait, no Mood yet.  That scamp Heidi left a particularly interesting contingent out of when explaining the challenge.  They are off to Gristedes Supermarket!   Thankfully, the sound department helpfully syncs in some Psycho-string sound effects, because the look of utter terror on the contestants faces weren't enough.

Quelle horreur!

How will our industrious designers fare?  Will they all buy tablecloths?  What can you get with only $50 at a New York City supermarket? Find out in the next posting!  Or, you could go to Google, Wikipedia, bloggingprojectrunway, or any other source of internety news to find out... but they won't come with my judgey judge judgement.