Dubai: Buffi Jashanmal’s last Project Runway dress failed to impress judges in Thursday’s episode, leading to the Dubai-bred designer’s elimination from the reality show — but that’s their problem, not hers, she says.
Although she was tasked with making a day-to-night outfit by the fashion show’s judges — Nina Garcia, Heidi Klum and Michael Kors — in which she was to present her own aesthetic, they “didn’t get what I was trying to say, didn’t get what I like”, Jashanmal told reporters in the US on Friday, a day after she was cut from the show.
She told the Hollywood Reporter she’s happy because she didn’t compromise her style for the challenge, in which she made a zebra-print dress with a coral chiffon overlay.
“I don’t think I did my best, but I definitely see it as Buffi-ish, so if they don’t get it or what I do, then that confirms to me that I knew what I was doing as a designer.”
Kors described the look as “a hairdressing smock, like she was cutting her hair... There was a fire in the beauty salon, she belted it, and she ran out in her zebra dress. The whole thing is just weird.”
Jashanmal said the judges constantly put her down, and she didn’t fit into any of the judges’ “boxes”.
“If Heidi can’t wear it, she doesn’t like it. If Nina can’t see it in a magazine, she doesn’t like it. If it has too much colour, Michael doesn’t like it. I don’t fit in any of their boxes. But I went into the competition wanting to be true to myself ... and not do anything that wasn’t me.”
While Jashanmal appeared to have a spat with fellow contestant Christopher Palu, who offered her some more fabric to replace the chiffon on her dress, she said they are friends and she didn’t mean to upset him.
