From whole cloth, a hit

I knew I should be paying attention to “Project Runway” when, back in its second season, a friend -- a country-rock-rugged sort of fellow I had associated with baseball rants and guitar solos but until then never with anything relating to women’s clothes -- started talking with some authority and passion about contestant Santino Rice one night at band practice. (For or against Santino Rice, I can’t remember, but you were pretty much either for him or against him.) And everyone else there seemed to know what he was talking about.

To watch it was to love it. Even for someone with a low tolerance for reality games, “Runway” is a seductive experience. Like its foodie twin, “Top Chef,” it plays upon a common desire: to be able to take the flotsam and jetsam, the scraps, the tail ends, the remainders of life and make of them something wonderful. Watching it done is the next best thing.

That is the stuff of fairy tales -- to turn nothing into something in no time at all, with riches and a crown the reward. And host Heidi Klum does have something Brothers Grimm about her: You can imagine yourself (in lederhosen, perhaps) encountering her in some dark Germanic forest -- she would not be wearing lederhosen, though if she were she would look better in them than you do -- and receiving from her some difficult task you will fail at your peril: making a dress out of things bought from a supermarket (Season 1), say, or found at a recycling center (Season 3).

And then there is Tim Gunn, sympathetic, instructive -- not exactly a fairy godfather, but someone who could probably play Geppetto in a pinch. Or Jiminy Cricket.

Where the fairy-tale analogy breaks down is that on “Project Runway” the victors need not be good-hearted, merely good at what they do. Indeed, the show encourages a little not-so-good-heartedness for dramatic effect. But while interpersonal conflict, which is inevitable given the close quarters in which the contestants live and work and the pressure under which they toil, is what gives the show narrative color, the competition still comes down to delivering the goods. You can try to work the judges -- although this is tricky, as acid, flamboyant Season 2 finalist Santino found when he attempted to play to their perceived conservatism and was attacked for being safe -- but you still have to make a dress that works.

With every year, the competition gets stiffer, the credits more impressive -- none of these people is just sewing for a hobby. Not every one will respond equally well to the particular challenges of the show, of course, but even the Olympics are full of losers, and all it takes is one bad week to send a talented designer packing.

Indeed, no one is cut from “Project Runway” who does not declare on the way out a firm belief in his or her vision and ability to get on in the rag trade. (A recent article in New York magazine made the point that reality-show success does not correlate with success in the real world -- the reality that “reality” used to mean -- which, by extension, should be equally true of failure.) In a contest so close, judges’ decisions are invariably controversial -- viewers rose up in mass puzzlement at last season’s choice, tattooed rock couturier Jeffrey Sebelia -- and that too seems to be by design: Disagreement equals engagement.

In the end it is all a matter of taste. That’s what makes clothes horse races.

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robert.lloyd@latimes.com