By DEBORAH STARR SEIBEL

Posted: 12:00 am
July 13, 2008

"We don't have a Christian," says Tim Gunn, "Project Runway's" mentor and style guru, as he considers the latest crop of scissor-happy designers and harks back to last season's wunderkind and breakout star, Christian Siriano, 22.

"Runway's" fifth season, still in production and returning to the airwaves this week, has 16 new contestants, none of whom has grabbed Gunn by his elegant lapels in quite the same way.

"This season has an entirely different DNA," says Gunn. "They're from different parts of the country and their personalities are so potent that I'm exhausted when I leave them. They are excellent as designers and as technicians, but they're doing a lot of second-guessing. They'll say, 'What do you think, Tim Gunn? And what do you think the judges will think?' I feel sort of drained."

This season, the designers face the usual headaches of limited budgets and impossible deadlines. But for the Bravo producers who made this show into a weekly obsession for its 5 million fans, it is a last hurrah: "Runway" will be getting what is expected to be a major makeover as it changes networks, producers and home base for season six.

"It's a bit like breaking up with someone you love," says "Runway's" executive producer, Dan Cutforth, who will be "auf-ed" when the show moves to Lifetime Television and Los Angeles next season. Cutforth is part of the Magical Elves production team, which has signed a deal to stay with Bravo's parent company, NBC Universal.

"It was our decision and we made it for all the right reasons," says Cutforth. "But nevertheless, this show has been a big part of our lives for four years. And just riding up in the elevators, I'm constantly struck by this slightly sad sense. It's tough."

Cutforth says he learned valuable lessons from all four seasons. "Season one, we learned that watching people sew would, in fact, be interesting to an audience, which was a big fear beforehand. Season two, we had an upset in the judging. I think a lot of people were surprised and kind of annoyed that Daniel Vosovic didn't win and Chloe Dao did, but it didn't seem to hold the show back. Season three, I learned that we could [produce] two seasons in a year and it wouldn't kill us. And season four, I learned that the show could be off the air for almost a year and still survive."

But Cutforth doesn't have much time to reminisce because the cameras are still rolling. "And it's a real horse race," he says. The show is facing its tightest turnaround ever, filming through early July, then on the air mid-July. It's been so tight, in fact, that the show's tried-and-true store for fabric, notions and other materials, Mood Fabrics, wasn't available when the designers needed to shop on a Sunday.

"Mood would have opened for us, gladly, but the building Mood sits in couldn't," says Gunn. "So we were scrambling. I told the designers, 'This is a Make It Work moment, because you will not have access to the range of things that we have access to Monday through Saturday'."

Gunn and the rest of the famous on-air faces, including judges Heidi Klum, Nina Garcia (who will be referred to as Elle magazine's editor-at-large, despite signing a new contract to begin work as fashion director for Marie Claire Sept. 2) and Michael Kors, will stay on the runway through season five.

Klum and Gunn have been signed to follow the show to Los Angeles for season six; while Garcia and Kors are still in contract negotiations.

Gunn, for one, says he's ready to move on. "After five seasons, I think it's time for us to embrace a new threshold," he says. "As much as I love and would die for the Magical Elves producers, I really am a change agent. I think it can be a healthy thing to have new producers come in and look at this, unencumbered."

But first he has to get through season five. Gunn has become attached to the new group, even if there is no Christian and even if they over-think. "This is the first season where I haven't felt some antipathy towards one of them," he says. "There's always been one where I thought, I can't wait to get rid of this person. This season, I don't feel that way. So the eliminations have been very hard. What I tell them is this: 'It's like the Olympics. Somebody is going to lose by a fraction of a second'."PROJECT RUNWAY

Wednesday, 9 p.m., Bravo