Project Runway started in 2004 on Bravo network before getting sold to Lifetime Television in 2006. The goal of this show is to focus on fashion design and to compete with one another to create the hottest new fashion line and to become the next top fashion designer. Since the show started in 2004 it has always been hosted by famous top model Heidi Klum. Klum influence on the show is that she knows what the high-end industry wants to see on the runways as well as being an establish designer herself. Each week the designers are given a challenge to design something of the judge's request. At the end of the week each contestant is judge and one, or more if needed, is kicked off and sent home till there is only one left standing.

The rules of the show are very simple. Each season starts off with at least twelve fashion designers and then each week the judges narrow it down till there is only three remaining. Each week the designers are asked to create several pieces of new clothing to be presented at the runway show at the end of the week. The type of challenges the designers are given can range from being a certain theme such as beach attire to having to be made out of only certain types of materials such as recyclable items. The designers are tested in creativity as well as being able to maintain their own personal design aesthetic. The designers are only allowed to be in minimum contact with outside people while participating in the contest in order to make sure that designs are all originals. If any of the given rules from the show are broken the designers are subject to dismissal.

An interesting factor that goes into this show is the female models are also apart of the competition, Models of the Runway, which airs right after Project Runway. Each week as the number of designers goes down so does the number of models. At the beginning of the season each model is assigned to a designer and after the first week of elimination the designers get to choose which model they would like for the next week going in the sequence of who scored highest for the week. After the designers present the models to the judges and the clothing is judged the models then come out on their own to get judged and evaluated by the designers themselves. The models are presented wearing only a black dress, no shoes, and hair tied back in the middle of the runway with host Heidi Klum. Here the remaining designers pick which model they would like and the one model remaining is sent home.

Project Runway has had an increase in viewers since it switch over from Bravo to Lifetime. It generates interest from college fashion students who have the same dream of becoming a top designer as well as female audiences aging from eighteen to mid-forties. The rise of this shows popularity has sparked interest in other fashion media by allowing the designer who wins the show as well as their model to be presented in magazines and work for specialty stores or brands. This has given viewers more of a chance to incite scopophilia because not only does it attract people to watch the show but also to go out and buy the magazine or look for their clothing in stores.

This site contains different elements of analyses for Project Runway showing images of the different types of designers, models, and clothing. The idea is to express how femininity is apart of the show by applying how viewers often give in to the show in different ways such as subjecting the designers and models, giving in to the “idea” of what clothing is in or not in, as well as what the idea model is. The results of my multiple analyses, descriptions of images and clips of the show, and explanations of appellation, the viewers should be able to see the effects of what the show does to our society views on fashion and how that is applied to women and men. The show and analyses will allow the viewers to see what makes Project Runway so appealing to the eye and lead audiences to gain the ability to perpetuate their own idea about the fashion industry.

Putting enfaces on psychoanalysis, discourse analysis, and audience studies different theories and methods will be applied to Project Runway. Psychoanalysis is looking to show viewers how Lacancian theories can be applied as well as examining pleasure, desire, and gaze. The ideas of scophophilia and voyeurism also can be represented in psychoanalysis. Discourse analysis will represent Project Runway in a way of showing how society looks at designers and models in a way of wanting to be like them and how the fashion industry tells us what is acceptable and what is not. Any finally audience studies will show how people create relationships with the show and how they do that.

Psychoanalysis	Discourse	Audience