Season 7

Top Designer Season 7 is the seventh season of the television show Top Designer. The first episode aired on January 13, 2011.

Season 7 featured the return of the show to New York City, following a move to Los Angeles for Season 6.

Returning as judges are supermodel Karolina Kurkova, fashion designer Marc Jacobs, and Elle editor-in-chief Anne Slowey. Tim Gunn returned as a mentor to the aspiring designers.

Like the previous season, a designer from a former season had the chance to compete on Season 6 through winning an online vote. The contenders were Karolina Rosberg ( Season 6 ), Nadine Gorbold ( Season 2 ) and Linus Steinsland ( Season 6 ). Ultimately Karolina Rosberg received the most votes and joined the designers to compete in Season 7.

The winner of this season of Top Designer will receive an editorial feature in an issue of Elle magazine, a cash prize of $100,000 to start his or her own line, an opportunity to sell the line on Bluefly.com, and a $50,000 technology suite from Hewlett-Packard to create, design, and run his or her business. The winning model of this season will receive a $25,000 cash prize and take part in the winning designer's fashion spread in Elle.

This season was dubbed "Team Edition" as the designers had to work in teams for the majority of the competition.

Designers
The 16 contestants in Season 7 were:

(ages listed are the designers' ages at the time the show was taped in the fall of 2010.)

Season 7 Challenges

 * Ep. 1) On the runway Abigail was told, had she been on the winning team, she would be a strong contender for the win.
 * Ep. 2) Abigail and Danny were told, they had received very high scores, but their overall team score pulled them down.
 * Ep. 3) On the runway, Danny was once again told he had one of the highest scores of the week.
 * Ep. 4) Laila was told to be grateful that she was on the winning team, as she had one of the lowest scores. Team Sewstoppers were told, none of them did bad, but because none of the did really well, they didn't have high enough scores to become the winning team.
 * Ep. 7) Even though Danny is registered as LOW, the designers said his score wasn't really a low score, because all designers did well that challenge.

Episode 1: Back to New York
Original Airdate: January 13, 2011

The designers learn that this season every challenge is a team challenge. They are placed in to two teams of eight. The winning team will have a winning designer and one from the losing team will be out.

The designers were asked to create a garment that represents who they are as a designer. They selected five fabrics each from a wide selection provided by Mood. The designers were preassigned models for their challenge and given one day to complete their design.


 * Guest Judge: Nicole Richie


 * WINNER: Dawid (Team Make It Work)
 * ELIMINATED: Sennet (Team Sewstoppers)

Episode 2: The Fashion Farm
Original Airdate: January 20, 2011

The designers were asked to create a party look from a burlap potato sack for their models to wear to an industry event. As the clients for this round, the models were allowed to choose their designers.


 * Guest Judge: Lauren Hutton


 * WINNER: Claire  (Team Make It Work)
 * ELIMINATED: Julie  (Team Sewstoppers)

Episode 3: The Highs of Fashion
Original Airdate: January 27, 2011

The designers were taken to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and shown ten iconic looks by famous designers such as Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior, Madame Grès, and Cristóbal Balenciaga. They were then asked to create mini-collection consisting of high-end signature looks worthy of a master collection.

On the second day of the challenge, the teams were asked to create three "looks for less", using only 10% of the budget.


 * Guest Judge: Matthew Williamson


 * WINNER: Karolina (Team Make It Work)
 * ELIMINATED: Zak (Team Sewstoppers)

Episode 4: Design Your Heart Out
Original Airdate: February 3, 2011

The designers were asked to design a look for a Fashion Week gala. The looks were required to feature the color red and elements with Campbell's branding, and were modeled by women who had been impacted by heart disease. Designers had a budget of $100 to purchase fabrics and other elements and one day of time to finish the design.


 * Guest Judge: Georgina Chapman


 * WINNER: Danny (Team Make It Work)
 * ELIMINATED: Morgan (Team Sewstoppers)

Episode 5: Run For Cover
Original Airdate: February 10, 2011

The designers were asked to design three outfits for the cover of Elle magazine. Each team was assigned a season. The winning design was worn by Karolina Kurkova on the cover of Elle Magazine in the fitting season.


 * Guest Judge: Joanna Coles


 * WINNER: Abigail (Team Winter)
 * ELIMINATED: Laila and Lili (Team Fall)

Episode 6: A Little Bit of Fashion
Original Airdate: February 17, 2011

The designers were asked to create a fashionable children's look to be modeled by a group of girls aged 5–9. Later the designers were asked to create an additional companion look for their adult models.


 * Guest Judge: Tory Burch


 * WINNER: Miroslav (partnered with Karolina)
 * ELIMINATED: Ela (partnered with Greg)

Episode 7: Hard Wear
Original Airdate: February 24, 2011

The designers were asked to create an innovative look and an accessory from materials sourced from a hardware store. The teams had to create a cohesive collection.


 * Guest Judge: Isabel Toledo and Stephen Webster


 * WINNER: Miroslav (Team Gray)
 * ELIMINATED: Madison (Team White)

Episode 8: The Elements of Fashion
Original Airdate: February 24, 2011

The designers were asked to create a look inspired by one of the four classical elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire.

As the winner of the last challenge, Miroslav was allowed to choose his own element. After that, two designers were allotted to each element. The designers got to choose their element in the order in which Tim drew their names out of a bag.

The designers and their elements were as follows:


 * Guest Judge: Rolan Mourey


 * WINNER: Claire (Team White)
 * ELIMINATED: Greg (Team Gray)

Episode 9: Takin' It To The Streets
Original Airdate: March 3, 2011

The designers were asked to create looks inspired by a distinctive New York City neighborhood.

Team White chose Harlem and Team Gray chose Upper East Side.


 * Guest Judge: Francisco Costa and Molly Sims.


 * WINNER: Miroslav (Team Gray)
 * ELIMINATED: Claire (Team White)

Episode 10: Hey, That's My Fabric
Original Airdate: March 10, 2011

Karolina started off the episode by announcing to the designers, that for the remainder of the competition, they would be working alone.

The designers were asked to design and create their own print fabric as the basis for their looks.


 * Guest Judge: Vivienne Tam


 * WINNER: Dawid
 * ELIMINATED: Hunter 

Episode 11: Sew Much Pressure
Original Airdate: March 17, 2011

The designers were asked to create a red-carpet look for Karolina Kurkova.


 * Guest Judge: Jessica Alba


 * WINNER: Karolina
 * ELIMINATED: Danny 

Episode 12: The Big, Top Designers
Original Airdate: March 24, 2011

The designers were asked to create a look inspired by the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.


 * Guest Judge: Cynthia Rowley


 * WINNER: Dawid
 * ELIMINATED: No One