RSSWest Valley grad named to cast of TV's 'Project Runway'
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Super-fab Yakima native Blayne Walsh, 23, is among the fashionistas trying to make the cut and earn the title of top designer in season five of the Bravo channel's "Project Runway."
The 16 contestants were officially announced Monday. The new season begins at 9 p.m. Wednesday on Bravo.
Walsh, a 2003 West Valley High School graduate (full name: Richard Blayne Walsh), just returned home to Seattle after shooting the popular reality show in New York.
In the drama-fueled competition, aspiring fashion designers take on weekly challenges and vie for the opportunity to show their own line in front of an audience of industry movers and shakers at New York Fashion Week. The show is hosted by supermodel Heidi Klum.
It was after the end of the last season that Walsh decided to apply.
"Heidi said, 'Do you have what it takes?'" remembers Walsh. "Yes, I do!"
He flew to Los Angeles for the open casting call and "they must have loved me, how could you not? I'm irresistible," quips the charismatic Walsh, a barista at Hotwire Online Coffeehouse in West Seattle.
Walsh has been artistic and creative since he was a boy, says his proud mom, Pam Warren. But it wasn't until his senior year of high school that he began dabbling in fashion design.
"We had no doubt he would make it (on to the show)," says Warren, who isn't allowed to talk about any specifics of the competition. "He is so creative and so talented."
After graduating from West Valley, Walsh needed to figure out what he really wanted to do, he says.
"Fashion design kind of made sense," says Walsh, who left Yakima to attend the Art Institute of Seattle.
He cites John Galliano, Yohji Yamamoto and Diesel as his favorite designers, and says neon anything is a fashion must.
"It just makes me so happy," beams Walsh. "If you cut me open, neon would spill out."
As for competing on "Project Runway," he calls it a humbling experience that's about more than egos.
"I design clothes because I love it," he says.
* Kim Nowacki can be reached at 577-7680 or knowacki@yakimaherald.com.
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