You Need to Stream ‘Project Runway’s’ Lifetime Seasons on Hulu Right Now

There’s a whole lot of hubbub this week surrounding Project Runway with plenty of people proclaiming that the long-running reality competition show is back. It’s back on Bravo, the network it debuted on back in 2004, and it’s back with a brand new host, mentor, and lineup of judges. The Season 17 premiere is a big return, for sure, but now that the spotlight is back on Runway in a major way for the first time this decade, I cannot emphasize this enough: the show never went away!

The show aired a whopping 11 seasons on Lifetime from 2009 to 2017. If you stuck with the show, then you’re fully aware that it continued to make it work for twice as long as it did during its original Bravo run. For everyone that peaced out way back when but have come back with the relaunch, I feel compelled to let you know that most all of the Lifetime seasons are available to stream on Hulu right now–and you need to watch them. Seriously, right now.

I know there was a strong feeling of betrayal when the show moved from Bravo to Lifetime because I felt it too. The show helped cement Bravo as the network for gay artsy/poppy reality shows in the mid-’00s, and Lifetime was the network for melodramatic female-driven revenge movies starring former sitcom actresses. The two networks didn’t have much overlap, and I think people (myself included) wrongly assumed that Project Runway would morph into an entirely different show. Maybe there would be challenges inspired by sexy-yet-dangerous cyber stalkers, who knew? What actually happened, and you will know this the instant you start a Hulu binge sesh, is that Project Runway didn’t get soapier. It got better.

The first two Lifetime seasons, 6 and 7, were snoozes (although Season 7 did introduce us to the sparkling PR all-star Anthony Williams). Luckily for you, Hulu’s selections skip those two and start right off with Season 8, the hands-down best season in Project Runway history. Take it from someone (me) who’s rewatched every episode of Project Runway in the last two months: Season 8 is the show’s zenith.

No hate to the original Bravo seasons, which are all as legendary as you remember. Jay McCarroll, Austin Scarlett, Wendy Pepper, Andrae Gonzalo, Santino Rice, Jeffrey Sebelia, Christian Siriano, Chris March, and more all remain reality TV icons. Those first seasons are scrappier and looser. There were safety issues (a room full of needles and no medics in sight), bad microphones, flaky models, and a slapdash editing style that left many of the top and bottom designs unremarked-upon. It’s fascinating, engaging, historic television–but Lifetime got it right. In retrospect, the Bravo seasons were the rough draft for the reality/competition perfection of Lifetime’s Season 8.

We love reality shows for the formula, because only when you know exactly where each episode is going are you able to be surprised by the variables (like the contestants). By Season 8, Lifetime had the formula down, even as episodes added on 20 minutes of content. The designers were better than ever (Mondo Guerra and Gretchen Jones felt like co-winners, as the judges’ debate between the two of them was so heated), the personal drama was richer (Michael Costello’s fear of being forced back into the closet!), the camaraderie was deeper (Valerie Mayen’s goodbyes to everyone, maybe the most beautiful sendoff in reality TV history?!).

But what’s great about Season 8 is what’s great about the entire Lifetime run. The show finally knew what it was doing, and that confidence allowed the show to excel in what it does best (showcasing fantastic designers like Fabio Costa, Amanda Valentine, Ashley Nell Tipton, Laurence Basse, Ayana Ife–I could keep going!) and double-down on everything viewers loved, specifically Tim Gunn.

If you watch those early Bravo seasons, you’ll be shocked by how little Tim Gunn is in the show. A mentor sesh here, a shoe-receipts-related referee moment there–the Lifetime era enhanced Tim’s involvement in the show by giving him the Tim Gunn Save (which allowed him to veto one elimination a season) and allowing him to trot out the high and low looks for closer inspection during runway judging. The Tim Gunn Save wasn’t just a gimmick, either; it gave Tim, the mentor that worked closer with these designers than any judges, a real say in the show. It’s telling that all but one of the designers he saved made it to the finale. Plus, Season 8 has this moment:

Beyond Tim, the judges also got way better during the Lifetime era too–and yeah, I know that Michael Kors left the show after Season 10! Here’s a hot take: Zac Posen’s tenure (Seasons 11-16) gave us a way more balanced and better panel. Michael Kors is great. He’s a legend. He knows his fashion and he knows his quips (god bless him for introducing “whack-a-doodle!” into my vocab). But Kors, a giant personality, took up a lot of oxygen. Posen, younger but still wildly intimidating, allowed for the panel’s real star, the incisive Nina Garcia, to get more screen time. In Season 10, that screen time included… critiquing babies.

Heidi Klum, a magnetic host from the start, blossomed into a true champion of the underdog and the bizarre, fighting sparkling-tooth and manicured-nail to defend designers from marginalized groups like Season 11’s Patricia Michaels (the first Native American to compete on the show) and Season 16’s Ayana Ife (a Muslim designer who slayed with a modest fashion collection). She even championed brilliant weirdos like Season 8’s Mondo and the Lifetime era’s truest, greatest treasure, Kelly Dempsey a.k.a. Kelly from the Deli.

And while the show still hasn’t figured out how to do a menswear challenge (like Season 11’s painfully hilarious male stripper-themed disaster), they finally opened up the runway to models of all sizes in Season 16, following Ashley Nell Tipton’s Season 15 win with a plus-sized collection that literally redefined the show. The Season 16 finale included two of the show’s most breathtaking runway moments, courtesy of designers Margarita Alvarez and Ayana Ife.

That finale also included a moment wherein designer Kentaro Kameyama revealed his, uh, inspiration to Tim.

I could go on and on about how great this show has been for the last decade, about the ridiculous challenges inspired by everything from Yoplait to Shopkins, about THE TWINS, about Ken Laurence’s always distracting bowtie chest tattoo–I could drag you down the Project Runway All-Stars rabbit hole to hang out with Alyssa Milano! But if I have not yet convinced you to give all these seasons a shot, then don’t listen to me. Just stream these seasons for Swatch.

Stream Project Runway on Hulu