Project Runway Canada is back!

Darlings, Project Runway Canada returns for its second season on January 27th!

The press release:

"(TORONTO – December 3, 2008) – The tantrums, the tears, the divas - fashion isn’t always pretty...The 2008 Gemini Award Winning Project Runway Canada returns for an all-new season making its network premiere on Global Television with encore performances on SLICETM.

Beginning Tuesday, January 27 – 10pm ET/PT Project Runway Canada, primetime’s most fashionable reality series, returns with heart wrenching, edge-of-your seat excitement TV fans will love.

“Given the knock-out hit Project Runway Canada was for Slice™, we couldn’t be happier the series is coming to the much broader audience of the conventional platform,” said Karen Gelbart, SVP, Lifestyle Content, Canwest Broadcasting. “From A-list celebrity guest judges to the intense competition amongst the passionate designers - viewers will not be disappointed.”

Style icon and international supermodel, Iman, returns as Host and leads a panel of expert industry insiders who will judge the talent and skills of 14 promising new designers from across the country. Respected Canadian fashion designer Brian Bailey will once again act as mentor to the designers as they take on weekly fashion challenges.

“We are beyond thrilled to bring Project Runway Canada to Global viewers this year”, says John Brunton, President and CEO of Insight Production Company Ltd “The stakes, the competitors and the drama are all bigger and better, so we can’t wait to share this with a whole new audience.”

Vying for top-spot as the next Canadian fashion star, Project Runway Canada design contestants compete in dramatic challenges hoping to seize their breakthrough moment. Handpicked from across the country, this season’s fashion designers come from an array of backgrounds, hailing from Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal, Hamilton, Barrie and Toronto.

Faced with do-or-die tasks and extreme pressure, these aspiring designers endure the added stress of living under the same roof. Only one designer will win it all – a cover and feature spread in ELLE Canada, a professional portfolio photo shoot courtesy of L'Oréal Paris, a 'Runway to Retail' business mentorship with Winners, and $100,000 to start their own fashion line.

Resident judges Rita Silvan, Editor-in-Chief of ELLE Canada, and Shawn Hewson, Creative Director of Bustle Clothing will be joined by an exciting line-up of celebrity guest judges each week, including actress Elisha Cuthbert, fashion model Coco Rocha and designer Wayne Clark.

Project Runway Canada premieres on SLICE™ Saturday, January 31 at 9pm with encore presentations Mondays at 10pm ET/PT."


Here are the Project Runway Canada Season 2 designers:


Name: Adejoké Taiwo Age: 24 Hometown: Calgary, AB

“My parents’ Nigerian background really influences my design sense. I find the fabrics inspiring and the silhouettes completely different from North American culture. It’s exciting.”


Name: Baylor Orlando Age: 37 Hometown: Montreal, QC

“Fashion should be used to make people beautiful, happy, comfortable and outrageous!”


Name: Brandon R. Dwyer Age: 22 Hometown: Barrie, ON

“Project Runway Canada is an amazing opportunity to get my face and clothing out there and become more of a household name. The mass public needs to know that I exist!”


Name: Camille Prins Age: 28 Hometown: Toronto, ON

"The people that know me best would probably say that I'm the hardest worker that they've ever seen. They know me for working around the clock and for making a lot of sacrifices for what I'm trying to accomplish right now in the industry."


Name: Christie Clayton Age: 30 Hometown: Vancouver, BC

“I want to succeed because I feel like there’s a responsibility for me as a person to leave a legacy for my family, for myself. I think every human being has a responsibility to the world to be the best that they can be at whatever they can - that’s how we evolve.”


Name: Danio Frangella Age: 33 Hometown: LaSalle, ON

“There are Canadians that go abroad and work at the forefront of the fashion world and choose to come back and develop the Canadian fashion scene and not give up on it. I am one of those people.”


Name: Genevieve Graham Age: 30 Hometown: Vancouver, BC

“I would actually consider myself to be a little bit of a fashion savant. I didn’t sew as a kid but I was always manipulating clothing. I always had a very strong sense of style. Then one day I just kind of picked up a sewing machine and went to it.”


Name: Jaclyn Murray Age: 26 Hometown: Winnipeg, MB

“I am very competitive. Board games, fighting over who gets the last egg roll...whatever! Competition keeps things lively, energetic and not boring - I am anything but boring.”


Name: Jason Meyers Age: 31 Hometown: Hamilton, ON

“I see myself going straight to the top in the fashion world. I’m not going to sell myself short of anything.”


Name: Jeff MacKinnon Age: 41 Hometown: Toronto, ON

“I have worked in the industry for years, always for other designers. It was a great opportunity to learn the craft and the business. But fashion has changed…I have to put myself out there because being in the background doesn’t work for me anymore.”


Name: Jessica Biffi Age: 25 Hometown: Toronto, ON

“I’m really sort of outgoing and a little bit goofy. If you’re so caught up in yourself then you miss out on other things. I’m kind of a dork sometimes…but a dork who can do killer designs.”


Name: Kim Cathers Age: 29 Hometown: Vancouver, BC

"I think life is all about being torn down and broken down and then building it back up again. And what you have in the end will be bigger and stronger than what you ever had before."


Name: Margarita Voultsos Age: 24 Hometown: Montreal, QC

“I’ve had some major achievements in the industry but I’m ready to make a bigger noise. I’ve been shaking up the underground enough and I’m ready to blow up.”


Name: Sunny Fong Age: 32 Hometown: Toronto, ON

“I’m very serious when I need to be and I’m very crazy when I’m not serious. When people get to know me, that’s where they discover and understand that there’s this yin-yang to my personality.”

[Photos: Courtesy of canwesttvmedia.com]