Korea does Project Runway

by javabeans

Project Runway is coming to Korea. Cable channel On Style is producing and airing the competitive reality show for fashion-designer aspirants, having bought the rights to produce Project Runway Korea from the show’s international distributors, Fremantle Media.

Because the production rights have been bought from the purveyors of the original show, the Korean version will follow the exact format as the U.S. show, with twelve contestants completing one design challenge per week, each of which will result in one cut. The winner earns a cash prize and a spread in a fashion magazine, and just as U.S. finalists show at New York Fashion Week, Project Runway Korea finalists will present at Korea’s Fashion Week in the fall. Apparently there are strict guidelines that the show must follow regarding filming style, editing, set design, challenge content, etc., in accordance with the original format.

Project Runway has already been shipped overseas to countries like Canada and Malaysia, although this is the first time a well-known foreign format will be applied to a Korean reality show. Applications for contestants will be open until July 13, and the program plans to air in September.

I’m… interested to see how this shapes up. What I like about Korean reality programs, like I mentioned about Mnet’s cable reality show I Am a Model, is that they actually focus on the challenges and the stated purpose rather than highlighting interpersonal conflicts, which we see more in American faux-reality programming. (By the way, if you’re following I Am A Model on Imaginasian, it’s shaping up quite nicely. I dig that the pro models running the challenges, unlike Tyra, actually want their model-aspirants to succeed, and are frank about their business. I was actually pretty surprised that they would show one girl’s plastic surgery so honestly, although the actual procedure was so subtle that I could hardly tell the difference.) But then again, with the format so rigidly prescribed by the licensing company, maybe Project Runway Korea will just be more of the same. Which, granted, can be pretty decent as far as reality shows go.

Via Hankyoreh

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