'Project Runway' returns bigger and bitchier

The new format isn't changing the show, mentor Tim Gunn said during a conference call last week, but viewers simply get to see a lot more of what really happens.

"When I reflect upon Season 7, we barely see the Q & A between the judges and the designers," he told reporters. "We barely hear anything out of the deliberation. You get a sound bite, when in fact the Q&A and the deliberation go on anywhere from four to six hours. So you think about it, if you just want to be a fly on the wall, it's very easy to fill in that [extra] time."

As for the ruthlessness of the first episode, Gunn and Heidi Klum have said that they remain honest.

"When there are things that I dislike, I tell them," Klum told the Ft. Worth Star-Telegraph. "But I'm not purposely mean."

Here are a few more sound bites from Klum, Gunn and Lake Forest resident Peach Carr, who at age 50 is the oldest contestant on "Project Runway."

TIM GUNN (from the Lifetime press call last week)

On having 17 contestants: "We couldn't make up our mind once we got it down to 17 about who should go, so we're using the first challenge to determine that. So in a way, the first episode is the last stage of the audition process."

On what's new: "There's an additional beat in the season and that is a one-on-one camera interview with me about things that are happening and frankly about the outcomes. I'm my candid, honest, truth-telling self and that means I don't know how much of that they're actually going to put in the show."

On the designers: "They're fragile in terms of their emotional well being. They're fragile in terms of their ego ... So I always felt as though I was tiptoeing around glass that I didn't want to break while still delivering what I'm responsible for delivering and what's good for them, a truth-telling session in the work room and an opportunity for them to look anew critically and analytically at their work."

More on the designers: "They're eager for feedback, and in some ways, they can't have enough. It reaches the point where I simply say, 'You need to be responsible for the decisions that you're making. They're not my decisions. It's not my work. You have to be responsible for this.'"

On a team project: "There is someone who reveals him- or herself ... as being this big bossy boots and it will be interesting to see how people respond to that episode because there was not to be a team leader among the team members."

Three words to describe the season: "Oh dear. 'Hot' because New York has never been hotter, and we've spent a lot of time outdoors ... 'Emotional:' I'm probably more emotional this season than I've ever been. It has to do with how hard everyone's working and how--I'm welling up right now--how lovely everyone is ... 'Frustrating,' and it goes back to the judging ..."

On not being a judge too: "The producers had wanted me to step into the judges' circle and I refused to do that. It's 'No. I'm not going to.' I don't want to do anything to either undermine them ... or to potentially influence their decision making in a future challenge."

HEIDI KLUM (from an interview with the Ft. Worth Star Telegraph)

On changes this season: "If, say, one of the designers has a fight with someone, that will be taking more space up in the show. Or if someone has trouble sewing something, we will follow that story. Sometimes the Q&A is really interesting. Or when we're sitting and doing our chats in the director's chairs without the designers, sometimes it is so intense, we might show more of that than usual. So it's really going to be the same as what people already know, just more of it."

On the designers: "I think you can see five or six designers stand out. We have one designer who always wears very over-the-top clothes. He always is very funny. We always have a chuckle when we see him coming. There's another who is very opinionated and she basically never stops talking. Ever! We start rolling our eyes."

On keeping the show fresh: "It is hard. But there is always something new happening. For example, we have one challenge that I'm very proud of. I bumped into (London-based milliner) Philip Treacy at the Oscars and I said: 'Why don't you come and do "Project Runway?" We've never had a hat challenge.' So he brought, like, 15 of his wildest, craziest avant-garde hats, and each designer got to choose a hat and design something that goes with it."

PEACH CARR (from an interview with the Chicago Tribune)
On Heidi Klum: "One hundred times more beautiful in real life. She is very smart and she has a wicked sense of humor."

On Michael Kors: "Real sarcastic and very harsh. When he likes something, he loves it, and if he doesn't like it, you feel like you are burning his eyes by having him look at it."

On Nina Garcia: "Really opinionated. She is either tickled or not amused."

On Tim Gunn: Next to her husband, Gunn is the most amazing man she has ever met, Carr said: "He is a phenomenal human being. He was clam and very helpful with his critiques."

On filming: "The cameras are on you every second. You have to think about them because they are so close to you--I mean, you can almost taste the lens. And if you were panicked, they were there."