Project Runway Redux

With the third season of Project Runway starting this week, I thought it would be fun to look back at the top four designers over the past two seasons and compare their work after the show. Just comparing websites of the second season contestants with the first season, it's clear the second season is taking the lead here - with the top four from the second season all having slick, up-to-date websites. While on the first season side, only two designers even have working websites (Austin and Kara Saun). Wendy Pepper's domain has lapsed, and Jay's just has an opening image claiming that a new website will be up on July 1st.

Kara Saun's site runs smoothly enough, but the flash animation is too fast, the fonts are immature, and the final navigation is not slick. Her collection can only be seen through grainy video feeds. Plus I'm weirded out by her need to declare herself "The Professional".

Although his site was well-designed to reflect his own personal style, Austin Scarlett only shows the collection he created for the show. The biography portion mentions that he opened his own studio in NYC, but I can find no further evidence that he has done anything beyond the show.

Chloe Dao, the winner of the second season, has several collections featured on her boutique's site. I couldn't find any personal website for her, but clearly all of her energy is being put towards her Houston shop. In fact she is having a show tomorrow night to coincide with third season premiere featuring her own designs and those of her fellow contestants Kara, Emmett, and Nick. Tim Gunn is even scheduled to appear.

Daniel Vosovic's site, like Austin's, only features his collection from the show. That is disappointing. His designs were always a favorite of mine. He is also writing a blog for the third season of PR, and his site claims that he is designing the uniforms for a new hotel in Atlanta, but I can find no evidence that this happened yet.

Although I couldn't find a site featuring his work, true to what you would think, Santino Rice has a blog. He talks about the show a lot, and seems to have a little bit of a grudge with his castmates. In terms of fashion, he made a dress for one of the MTV VJs to wear to their movie awards show. But other than small custom dresses for C-list celebrities, I had a hard time finding any further work from him. Note, he's not showing anything at Chloe's show.

My favorite part about Kara Janx's site is the piping plan she uses as her background image. No idea why she picked that, but I'm having fun trying to figure out what type of building it is for. She is clearly designing like mad, with seven different collections to show on her site, including a Fall '06 collection. Plus her site design is insanely slick - definitely the best designed site.

From what I've read, this season's contestants are for the most part well on their way to being professionals, so I can't wait to see what they can do.