SPOILER ALERT: This contains details about the winner of Project Runway season 21.
“She’s what we call in the business, a ‘c*nt’,” Ethan (a.k.a. Utica from RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13) tells Project Runway mentor Christian Siriano as he motions to fellow designer and competitor Veejay (whom we will get to in a minute).
It’s the first episode of season 21 of Project Runway with new rules, new judges, a new set, a new vibe, and a new home. The first challenge is a team challenge, and Veejay isn’t being a team player; it is planting a seed for some of the best reality competition TV that I have seen in a long time. Not only is it good reality TV, it is that rare instance where the level of drama is just as elevated and exciting as some of the looks the designers made.
The casting of this season was clever. At first, I thought casting twins Jesus and Antonio was going to be a repeat disaster of season 16 twins Shawn and Claire. Although there were parallels, they were a totally different beast. Jesus was a returning contestant who competed in season seven and was eliminated in episode four during a Campbell Soup label challenge:
Like Tim Gunn, designer Michael Kors was one of the pillars that made a strong foundation for Project Runway, and ever since he left, no one could really quite fill that void of brilliantly biting criticism. The show didn’t necessarily need someone to replace Kors; they needed someone to satisfy that critical energy that he had. They tried to bring in a musical chair of judges like Zac Posen, Brandon Maxwell, and Elaine Welteroth, and they did their job, but the energy wasn’t there.
After 11 seasons of being Kors-less, Project Runway has finally got its mojo back with Law Roach tagging in as the new judge, and as we have seen on Legendary, his play as seen in this clip from episode one, which wildly mirrors Jesus’s critique with Kors from season seven.
But the crown jewel of the season is fellow Filipina and crowned winner of the season, Veejay Floresca. Making history as the first Filipino and first trans winner of Project Runway, she won the whole shebang with a conceptual collection inspired by — of all things — the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
From episode one, Veejay, who also competed on the Philippines iteration of the franchise, became reality show catnip but in the most authentic way possible. It was clear she wasn’t trying to get camera time, and despite what the twins were saying, I genuinely don’t think she meant any malice with her opinions. She just says what she thinks with absolutely no filter and doesn’t think of the consequences. She even says that this has gotten her in trouble in the past — but I’m sure that the $200,000 she won has melted all those worries away.
The finale dress? A gorgeous chainmail gown worn by another trailblazing trans icon, Mimi, the first trans model to appear on Project Runway.
As Utica pointed out, Veejay was seemingly acting like a c*nt at the beginning of the season. From the jump, she is unfiltered with her opinions and thoughts. It is said with no malice and blunt honesty. However, there are times when she says it with a sneaky wink. Was it a strategy? Was she just doing the work? Who knows? But it was good TV. It was just as good as the twins, making it a huge point to announce that they were twins to everyone, even though it was blatantly obvious.
Three personalities of this nature are a recipe for good TV, and we got our wish:
For the record, they all kissed and made up.
This redux of Project Runway is the perfect example of how it is possible to retool existing IP and make it fresh again. The new iteration of the fashion reality competition that originally premiered in 2004 on Bravo and now, in 2025, has landed on Freeform under the umbrella of the Mouse House. Before that, it was bouncing around a bit from Bravo to Lifetime, and the concept of the show was still there, but it seemed like it had lost its character.
After a 2023 all-stars season, I thought it would be the final season we would ever see, but when they announced that Heidi Klum would be returning for a new version of the reality competition with the world’s most prominent “image architect” Law Roach coming on board as judge alongside OG judge Nina Garcia, my interest was piqued. And as much as I loved Tim Gunn as a mentor, I fell in love with Christian Siriano as a mentor during the all-stars season when he shared a very special moment with Rami, who was the runner-up to him on season four.
I was skeptical of this season (I’m a day one Project Runway fan), but the return managed to retool the franchise while resuscitating its spirit that got lost in the last couple of seasons. It was still a winning season that exceeded my expectations with appearances from Lisa Ann Walter and Chris Perfetti from Abbot Elementary as well as Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande and the films’s Academy Award-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell. And if you caught her the clip above, the legendary Tyra Banks.
And the speaking of Tyra, I loved how Law gave all of us a famous “We were all rooting for you!” moment. More than that, Utica, gave us some behind-the-scenes tea about Tyra’s appearance on the judge’s panel at her weekly Project Runway viewing party she co-hosts with Detox at Roscoe’s Tavern in Chicago. And it was some good-ass tea…
And with that, Project Runway is officially back and it is indeed serving cunt.
