The Wildest and Most Inappropriate Outfits in Project Runway History

Fashion is very subjective, and there’s always a lot of room for interpretation. The same outfit can be seen as a bold statement by one person, the height of fashion by another, and an absolute nightmare by the other. And yet there have been some looks on Project Runway that made everyone collectively think “Nope, absolutely not.”

Project Runway first aired in 2004 and has been running ever since. This show thrives on risk. Designers are expected to create something outrageous, push the envelope, shock and amaze with their creations. And sometimes this produces absolutely incredible results, and other times it makes us cringe. Let’s take a look at some of the most memorable ones.

Emilio Sosa’s hardware-store almost-swimsuit

Project Runway loves to challenge the designers to create fashionable pieces out of materials that were never meant to become clothes. So when Emilio Sosa had to create something out of hardware store materials, we knew it was going to be tough. He ended up using a pink cord and washers to create a sort of chainmail-adjacent bikini that seemed to be held together by Emilio’s hopes and dreams. The judges decided that it barely counted as fashion or even an outfit at all, it was flimsy, undersigned, and oversexed. Basically, a wardrobe accident waiting to happen.

Blayne Walsh and Stella Zotis’ zodiac catastrophe

Team challenges are famously hard because when each person has a vision they’re trying to push, it’s really hard to compromise. Blayne Walsh and Stella Zotis were supposed to create a zodiac-themed outfit, but what they actually made looked more like a weird cosmic nightmare. The outfit didn’t look cohesive at all, it looked like a few bad ideas strung together with belts. Michael Kors famously criticized the colorful scraps of fabric that covered half of the model as “making it look like she’s pooping fabric.” There’s no coming back from that.

Sandro Masmanidi’s playsuit malfunction waiting to happen

People on the show are pressed for time and have to come up with an idea and make it come to life in a matter of hours, so sometimes the garments end up badly designed, poorly constructed, or just not very tasteful. However, Sandro managed to tick all three of those mistakes at once with his parachute playsuit creation. The item of clothing looked weird, fitted badly, and was so poorly constructed that it resulted in the models’ nether regions being squeezed to the point of popping out. It was a literal wardrobe malfunction in the making.