'Fashion is Not for Sissies'

It's 10 a.m. on July 15, and supermodel-turned-TV mogul Heidi Klum looks impossibly cool gliding through a stifling 95-degree studio in New York's Fashion District in a skintight Jitrois black leather dress and 5-inch Christian Louboutin pumps. "We ran over here from production, so it's the only thing I had," she says of the not-so-breathable fabric. Within moments, her Project Runway co-star and designer Michael Kors strides out of an elevator -- aviators on -- and beelines to Klum. Between filming episodes of Lifetime's Emmy-nominated reality series -- which features 16 budding designers competing to show at New York's Fashion Week and win $100,000 from L'Oreal to, in theory, launch their own line -- the co-stars, along with Marie Claire fashion director Nina Garcia and former Parsons fashion-design department chair Tim Gunn, convened for a discussion with The Hollywood Reporter. (Interviews with Harvey Weinstein, Jane Cha Cutler, Desiree Gruber, Rob Sharenow, Jonathan Murray, Sara Rea and Jane Lipsitz were conducted separately.)