Dressed in a smart gray suit and pink striped tie, Runway mentor Tim Gunn looks dashing as always. It's a recent May afternoon, and the man who rallies frenzied designers with his trademark ''Make it work!'' is sitting in a Manhattan hotel room, taking a break from interviewing applicants for the seventh season. ''After five seasons, the show needed a booster shot,'' says Gunn, his blue eyes peeking out over the top of his glasses. ''Los Angeles is indisputably the home of the red carpet. It's the home of film and television costume, and it has a celebrity dimension that New York doesn't have. Watching the first elimination this season, I thought, Wow, we should be here.''
But when fans first got wind of the cross-country move last spring, they flipped. They'd already been fretting about the April 2008 announcement that Runway was leaving Bravo for Lifetime. One month later, news of the relocation to L.A. surfaced, and in June, another bombshell dropped: Bunim-Murray, of The Real World fame, would be replacing Runway's longtime show-runners, Magical Elves. For Runway's most rabid devotees, the changes were just too much. Message boards exploded with complaints and fears: Was the beloved series about to morph into The Real World of Runway: Hot Tub Couture in Hollywood? Fortunately, the new bosses were all about the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it approach. ''Lifetime was pretty clear with us: It's a wonderful show as it is,'' recalls Murray. ''There was no desire to change what made it so great.'' Adds exec producer Sara Rea, ''The format is perfect. So it really was: Here's what it's supposed to look like; let's just go do it.''
The first challenge was tackling the logistics of moving from pedestrian-friendly New York City to car-centric Los Angeles. To avoid wasting precious sewing time in traffic, Murray and Rea set up base camp in the city's remote downtown area, making sure key locales — like the sewing room at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising — were within walking distance of the Los Angeles Center Studios' soundstage. Mood Fabrics, which has supplied designers with their materials for five seasons, even opened up a temporary, Runway-only satellite location of their L.A. store near the show's headquarters. Shooting in star-studded Los Angeles, meanwhile, provided a bonanza of celebrity guest judges, including Christina Aguilera, Eva Longoria Parker, and Lindsay Lohan. It also helped inspire an entirely fresh crop of challenges. ''L.A. can be the most laid-back and the most glamorous,'' hints judge Michael Kors. ''It's the land of bikinis and gowns.'' Fittingly, this season the designers will take on challenges centered on the beach and the red carpet. They'll also create garments as a tribute to movies and Hollywood.
NEXT PAGE: ''We have a challenge, the outcome of which will have the blogs going crazy! I'm surprised I didn't need CPR when it all came down the runway, because I'm still in such a state of shock about it.''
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