Project Runway’s Althea Harper Steps It Up

Project Runway’s Season 6 standout Althea Harper has not faded into the silence as some of the show’s previous designers have done but instead has worked steadily – building a business and a following among celebrities, a-listers, and fashionistas alike.  Adding yet another notch to her belt, both Kourtney and Kim Kardashian have taken a liking to the New York based designer – with Kim donning a dress from Harper’s Fall 2010 Collection for the Season 5 promo shoot of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”.

The sleek lines and mesh cut outs of the dress worn by Kardashian were inspired by both the Futurism movement that originated in Italy during the early 20th century and the female form.  Harper’s designs seamlessly incorporate both draping and tailoring, and have garnered lots of attention in the fashion industry for so beautifully enhancing the female figure.

I had the opportunity to meet Harper during the run of Project Runway’s 6th season, and I immediately found her kind and generous nature to be incredibly refreshing – especially in an industry that is so often overrun with elitism and entitlement.  Harper continues to design in a very distinct style, as the self-designed dress that she was wearing when I met her also incorporated incredible lines and mesh cutouts, much like the one seen on Kim above.

I’m thrilled to see Harper finding so much success and continuing to follow her passion beyond Project Runway and I’m eager to see the debut of her 2011 S/S collection next month.

Project Runway Party Video Recap!

My head is still spinning from covering Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and basically feeling like I had a full-time, real person’s job for roughly a week.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved every.single.second.  I am already making plans to return in February, to attend the final week in the tents at Bryant Park.  Not only did I have an amazing week at the tents, but I was fortunate to wrap up my week by covering the Project Runway Reception and Screening for Lifetime Moms.  I made the awesome video below for you, so you can feel like you were right there with me.

We were able to attend a reception at the Hearst Tower (where I totally had a “Confessions of a Shopaholic” moment when I was going up the escalator!) for Project Runway’s current season, after which we all piled into a lush executive theater to watch the 5th episode of this season!  You’ll find three of my favorite pictures below, but you can see all of my photos from the Project Runway Party in my Flickr stream.

These two were really, really nice!  I was originally standing to the left of both of them, and they insisted that I jump in the middle.   If you watched last week’s Project Runway, you saw Louise puncture her finger with the sewing machine — I asked her how she was doing, and she showed me that her fingers healed nicely.  She did share with me that she was so upset at the camera men when that happened, because there was one guy on each side of her, and both of them kept filming, neither of them made a move to help out.  Ahhh, the woes of reality TV.

Irina was the winner of the challenge in the Episode that we watched (where they used newspaper and she made that awesome coat with it!) and I had a great time chatting with her afterwards.  She was really nice — you can see her waving to me and my ubiquitous Flip Cam at the end of the video.

Then, of course, there was Althea Harper, whom I absoultely adored.  I talked to her mom for quite a while when Althea was on the red carpet being interviewed, and she and Althea both invited me to Althea’s Fashion Show the next night.  Unfortunately I coudln’t make it, but they were both so, so sweet – and I was really impressed with Althea in general.  We chatted about Tory Burch (I had just attended her show/presentation the day before), how it is to work for/with her, and about the fact that she designed what she was wearing.  She was so down to earth, it was like talking to an old friend!

I was so impressed with the entire cast of Project Runway Season 6 – they were all cheering each other on, supporting each other, applauding and squealing when Heidi told each of them that they were “safe”.  Watching that episode with them spoiled me, really, and just made me want to have a Project Runway party with all of them each week so that I could continue to feel the camradarie.

Think my mom will clap with me this week everytime we discover someone is “safe”?  It’s worth a try.