Fashion Model: Chatting on the Phone with Heidi

We're totally BFFs now!

Yesterday we got to sit in on an hour-long conference call with Heidi Klum and what seemed like a couple dozen reporters and bloggers. It was a tightly managed affair and there weren't really any bombshells dropped. Each participant got to ask one question and we're giving you the highlights. Guess which question we asked!

On what to expect with the 90-minute format:
"No specific format, it's what kind of story is happening naturally."

"If the designers have a fight, we might stay on that story or if someone has trouble sewing something."

"Also, sometimes the Q&A is really interesting, we might show a little bit more of that for one episode."

"When we're sitting and doing our chat in the director's chair without the designers, sometimes it's so intense and there's so much back and forth, we might show more of that."

"For example, today is elimination day and it'll go on for four, five hours and we only show ten, fifteen minutes. Now we have the freedom to show certain things much longer than we ever could before."

On Models of the Runway:
"Models of the Runway is not returning. I personally liked the show, we had fun and people can now understand what's like for the girls and that's what we wanted to show."

On the Season 8 designers:
"I never like to give too much away, but I feel with this batch you can see five, six designers that stand out by their over-the-top looks."

"We have one designer who always wears over-the-top clothes, he always looks very funny."

"There's also another girl and she's very opinionated. She basically never stops talking ever."

"It's been a real battle among four, five designers."

On possible double or triple eliminations this season:
"We only do it sometimes if it's really necessary."

"We usually have one go per episode. We've had two eliminations but it was because we really didn't like both of the looks."

On the talent on the show:
"When we're doing the big casting and people are coming, you never really know what they're made out of, what they can really do and it shows pretty much in the first two episodes who really has a lot of talent."

"I'm always looking forward to what they've got, how good are they really and who can sustain the pressure when they're here, because it is exhausting."

"Sometimes our designers make things and I say 'Really, that's all you came up with? You're not supposed to make clothes, you're supposed to make fashion.' There are definitely people that are really really talented and there are some that aren't."

"I don't love when it's already obvious to us in the very beginning who might be going to the finale. I prefer when it's a real battle among them for who's going to be making it to Fashion Week."

On keeping the show fresh season after season:
"It is hard, you get influenced by things you see and do, there's always something new happening in the world and that give you ideas for challenges."

"Everyone chips in, the producers, we come up with ideas, bring it to the table, some ideas work, some don't."

"I always love the unconventional challenges, because they have to make clothes out of unconventional materials. I think that really shows their creativity and I think viewers also appreciate that. We had Betsey Johnson for one of those and she was great."

"This time we started with 17 designers and we met at Lincoln Center, which is the new place for Fashion Week. I give them a challenge [go through each other's luggage to find materials to make an outfit] and whoever does not make it through that challenge will officially not be on the show and will not move into their apartments. We gave them a last twist before they unpacked their bags."

"I'm very proud of one of the challenges. I bumped into Philip Treacy at the Oscars and I told him that we've never had a hat challenge; to make an outfit that goes with one of his hats. We brought him over to America and he brought fifteen of his most wildest, craziest hats and each designer got to choose a different hat and they had to design something that goes with that hat."

[Designing for Heidi this season] "You will [see that] but I'm not going to tell what it's for. They will be designing something for me specifically."

On judging the designers:
"I think Michael, Nina and I are tougher than our guest judges. I feel that sometimes they have a hard time saying what they really think. We've been doing it for a few years now, we don't hold back anymore. When I think about us in the first season, we were thinking it, but not necessarily saying it."

"After we're done, the guest judges say 'I really wanted to say this and that, but I felt bad.'"

[Selma Blair as a guest judge] "She's a beautiful woman, she's a style icon, she wears great clothes, she has a great sense of style. She was a great judge. I didn't know how funny she was to be honest with you. She was hilarious."

On the perception that she's the "mean" judge:
"Oh God, that's not good [laughs]. I don't know, you tell me if that's true. We're not like 'Oh, your role is to be nice, your role is to be this...' I don't know, sometimes I say positive things when I see something positive and I give compliments to the designers I think deserve them and when there are things that I dislike, I tell them. I don't think I necessarily do it in a mean way, I'm trying not to upset people, I just tell them what I really think. I don't really hold back. I definitely think that I've changed over the years. In the first two seasons I was a little shy and now I say what I think and I tell them why."

On other shows with very similar format (i.e., most of Bravo's reality competition lineup):
"In a way it's a pat on our back. It is a compliment. We started that many seasons ago, there wasn't anything like it, and ultimately, if other people do a better job, then we have to be on our toes and make sure that we still produce a great show season after season."

On the show going back to L.A.:
"I don't think it is [an option]. I think the network decided not to do that. Why? I'm not sure. People seem to respond better being in NY. In the beginning they said it was going to be back and forth, but I think they changed their minds on that."

On whose designs Heidi has worn more often post-show:
"I would say Christian Siriano. It's not that I dislike some of the other designers. I think he has the most business brain of all of them. He doesn't forget to send things for you to wear, he sends lookbooks, asks me to pick something to wear at this event or on the show."

On Project Runway producing a designer who's truly a future great like the McQueens and Valentinos of the world:
"Maybe some day; they have to start somewhere. The clothes they have created [McQueen and Valentino] are so spectacular, so out of this world, that's why there's only a few. I don't know if you can put our designers in the same box, I wouldn't do that."

More Season 8 Episode 1 photos: