Sew much drama on 'Project Runway All Stars'

• The show's fourth episode airs Thursday on Lifetime at 9 p.m. ET
• The challenge: Create a look from a photo submitted by a fan
• The winning creation will be featured in USA TODAY

NEW YORK — The first thing you notice: just how meticulously Carolyn Murphy enunciates for the cameras.

Episode 4 of Project Runway All Stars is taping at the Parsons School of Design. The room is cavernous and dark, with wires all over the place.

Murphy says the intro. Speaks slowly and clearly, in a manner that seems odd in regular life but works perfectly on the small screen. Producers, publicists and other guests watch quietly from several rows of chairs directly across from the raised catwalk platform.

"Good evening, designers. This week's challenge was truly for the fans," she tells the dressmakers assembled ahead of her in two rows. They sigh in appreciation and excitement, perhaps real, perhaps styled for the cameras.

The stage is spot-lit. And statuesque blond model Murphy, the host of the show's second season, is introducing the catwalk show about to take place. She'd walked in earlier with the two regular judges, Georgina Chapman and Isaac Mizrahi, laughing and chatting, their sense of camaraderie visible. The two guest judges joined them a bit later: designer Charlotte Ronson and teen blogger Tavi Gevinson. Now, all four, plus Murphy, face the runway, and the show is about to begin. Ronson leans back in her chair, looking slightly bored. Gevinson, decked out in retro attire, is sitting up and looking around, her legs crossed.

The challenge this time: take a photo submitted by a fan through social media and create a look inspired by it, with the winning creation featured in USA TODAY.

What airs on Lifetime lasts 42 minutes. But it takes an entire media and showbiz village to put it together. What you see on air actually happens: Yes, the model's silhouette really is visible before she's out on the catwalk for all to see.

Upstairs, where the judges go during taping breaks, the digs are a lot more comfortable, with better catering and personal touches. Chapman, one of the judges, sits back on the couch in her dressing room and shows off a picture of daughter India on her iPhone. She's the co-founder of red-carpet staple Marchesa, and her husband, Harvey Weinstein, is one of the show's producers.

She's been on the original Project Runway, enjoyed the experience, and said yes when All Stars beckoned. Chapman says she doesn't play favorites on the show.

"Each runway has to be judged on its own merit. I want to see how each person grows as a designer. I only see what's on the runway and I don't know the back-story. It's not about personality and it's not about drama, for me. Are the clothes good or are they not? It's as simple as that," she says.

She and the other judges try to avoid biting comments in favor of helpful tips and feedback. When she was an up-and-comer, says Chapman, "No one was ever mean to me. Everybody was very supportive. If there was criticism, it was constructive. So I want to give constructive criticism. These designers have been on a runway show before and they know what they're coming into. You try to give your opinion and hope it helps them as a designer. My opinion may not sit with them, and that's fair enough. It's all objective when it comes to design. I don't see the point in crushing anybody."

In Mizrahi's dressing room, right next to Chapman's, there's an assortment of shoes for him to choose for each taping, and a screen to give him some privacy. He's quieter and more reflective than the outgoing persona you see on TV.

He says that unlike the show's competitors, who have a limited amount of time to design something, he would probably flounder under pressure. "I'd be able to design thousands of looks but I don't know if I'd be able to make them. Honestly, maybe? Probably not so well. I used to sew. I was great at sewing. But it took me forever. I'm very perfection-oriented. I would choke in 24 hours," he says.

Perhaps the most girlie room is where Murphy gets gussied up. There's a mirror with dozens and dozens of lipsticks and shadows lined up in front of it, with the same hair and makeup guys you see on the show doing the models applying makeup here, as well. Murphy is vivacious and generous, allowing this reporter to borrow a few of her tools to become slightly more presentable. Does she ever get bored with saying the same thing over and over for TV? "Oh, it's fun. It's great. I'm used to it," says Murphy.

The show's work room is across the street, in a nondescript Garment District building. No reporters are allowed inside, because cameras are always rolling as the designers sit at their machines; the small, tight control room is located to the right of it. There's also the kitchen, where the designers can take a break, complain, moan, have a bite to eat. The clothiers work around the clock once they learn what their latest challenge is. The minutiae, the painstaking labor, the long hours and repetitive tasks are what viewers don't see, thanks to quick and skillful editing.

If the Oscars show is the flashy, camera-ready side of fashion, then the Project Runway work area is its lining. The digs are humble. The rooms are small. The hallways are cramped.

"A lot of people don't realize what it takes to go into an actual garment. It's an hour-long episode but for us it's 16-hour days. We put so much into the garments under really tight time constraints," says contender Anthony Ryan Auld. "At the end of the season, people get tired, their energy flags and they are stressed out. It may come across as bitchy or whiny, but it's not necessarily that. A lot of people don't see the time it takes to make what we do."