Season 8 Premiere - Empire Hotel NYC

Project Runway Designers from several seasons joined Heidi Klum on Wednesday night at The Empire Hotel for the Season 8 Premiere. All photos Killian/WireImage.

Logan Neitzel - Season 6

Carol Hannah Whitfield - Season 6

Ben Chmura - Season 7


Althea Harper - Season 6

Christopher Straub - Season 6

Ivy Higa - Season 8

Nicolas Putvinsky - Season 6

Private Sale of Season 7 Collections

Need another reason to get excited about the Project Runway Season 8 premiere tomorrow? How about access to an exclusive members-only sale featuring runway collections by winner Seth Aaron Henderson and six of the top designers from season 7!

Seth Aaron created a runway-ready collection that has never been seen by the public ... a collection full of eye-catching graphics and modern cuts that is being made exclusively to you.

Starting at noon (Eastern/9am PST) on premiere day (July 29th), Seth’s secret collection, along with the entire runway collections shown by Season 7 designers Jay Nicolas Sario, Anthony Williams, Janeane Marie Ceccanti, Amy Sarabi, Ben Chmura and Jesse LeNoir, will go on sale at SeenON.com. But you must be a member of SeenON and sign in early to get one of these hand-made, one-of-a-kind pieces, because once sold, they’ll be gone forever. Not a SeenON member yet? Click here for your exclusive invitation.

Ben Chmura - Garment District 813 Fashion Show

Photo: Brian James

Project Runway Season Seven designer, Ben Chmura showed his colorful resort collection "Lamia's Wrath" to a packed crowd in Tampa on Saturday night.

Click here for professional photos of the show from d rich photography.

Here are more photos from Brian James.

More here from drunk camera guy.

Click here for a review from Tampa's Creative Loafing.

Garment District 813 from D RICH on Vimeo.

Ben Chmura Resort 2010 in Tampa May 1

From the press release:

Ben Chmura is known for making small references to the past while still making efforts to design for the future. With his first resort collection, Lamia’s Wrath, he has done it again. Lamia is a Greek character that was famously rumored to be cursed by Hera and transformed into half woman and half serpent. Chmura has taken inspiration from John Keats’ poem “Lamia,” and John Waterhouse’s ethereal depictions of the character.

The collection is saturated in shades of vermilion, aqua, textural ivories and neutrals of raw silk, silk linen, silk faille, molded bleached wicker and metallic silks. Chmura has also distressed and refaced crocodile embossed platform pumps with a rose gold color and incorporated pink sequined, netted overlays that wrap around the shoe in a serpentine manner. There are moments of draping that will reflect the Greek inspiration without it seeming contrived or forced. Chmura’s intent is to offer a collection full of color, texture and extreme fusion of past and future silhouettes while making women feel beautiful empowerment, like Lamia herself.

Ben plans to move to New York this summer.

Click here for more information.

Top 5 Looks: 4th Place

Ben who?

Early on in every season of Project Runway it is difficult to tell one designer apart from the next but eventually everyone gets to face the judges on the runway. After the first four episodes of Season 7, Ben Chmura had produced consistently strong designs but they only managed to land him in the safe category. And with very little screen time, we barely had the chance to get to know who he was.

We finally got a glimpse in Episode 5, "Run For Cover". In the "biggest challenge in Project Runway history", the 12 remaining designers were tasked to create a design for Heidi Klum that would grace the cover of Marie Claire magazine. And they were given very specific instructions to make a bold visual statement from the waist up.

Ben nailed that message with his teal, yellow and black wrap dress that he called "Madame Butterfly on acid". In a challenge where very few designers heeded the call to color, Ben delivered and found himself facing the judges as part of the Top 3. He would eventually lose out on this challenge to Anthony, but we finally found out a little about who he was - a good guy and a talented designer.

Congratulations Ben, you made one of the BPR Top 5 Looks of Season 7!

From The Mailbox

Click here for Malan Breton's "Musings" on the week in celebrity fashion from OK! Magazine.

Anthony Williams was the special guest during Gawker's live-blog of last night's episode. Click here to read all of the comments.

Click here for a new interview with Daniel Vosovic.

Attention Tampa Bay: Ben Chmura original designs are available at a local boutique. Click here for more information.

BPR Love for Ben Chmura

Photo: myLifetime.com

Project Runway Season Seven designer, Ben Chmura talks about his experience on the Lifetime show.

A highlight: Ben's finale collection was inspired by Ray Bradbury's, "The Martian Chronicles."

Click here for the podcast.

Click here for Ben's finale collection.

From the Mailbox

Photo: Mike Anthony Moffa

Jesse LeNoir and Ben Chmura served as celebrity judges for the "Out of This World Fashion Show" in Orlando on Saturday March 6th. Click here for more information.

Click here for a new interview with Carol Hannah Whitfield from the Charleston City Paper.

Click here for a new interview with Laura Bennett from BlogHer. A highlight: Laura liked Jay's collection the best in the Project Runway Season Seven Finale Show.

From the Mailbox

The Project Runway Season Six DVD is now available. Click here to order from Amazon.com.

Click here for a new interview with Ben Chmura from Tampa's Creative Loafing.

Click here for a new interview with Anthony Williams.

Click here for a great review of the Malan Breton Fall 2010 show from NY1.

Results In - You Were the Judge Episode 5

Our polls for Episode 5 are closed. You disagreed with the judges and felt that Ben Chmura deserved the win. Click here to see the results. You agreed with the judges and thought that Anna should have been the 'auf.' Click here to see the results.

Check back with us tomorrow for our Episode 6 poll.

Images courtesy of ProjectRunway.com.