Rami Kashou Talks Elimination, Dating and... More "Project Runway?"

Rami Kashou

When the current roster of designers for Project Runway: All Stars was announced, one of the clear favorites was Rami Kashou. Kashou, who nearly won Season 4 of Project Runway (Christian Siriano took the prize that year), has always been a fan fave not only for his good looks but also for his even-tempered approach to the often-stressful competition and his skilled and stunningly beautiful creations. Case in point, while some of the other designers during the All Stars season have been caught up in drama (Michael Costello and Jerell Scott in their copy-cat drama in last week’s episode, for example), Kashou kept his head down and produced design after design that had him winning the first week’s competition and repeatedly earning high scores.

AfterElton.com spoke with the charming Kashou before last week’s episode aired thinking he would stick around through at least the finals, so imagine our surprise when Kashou was the latest designer ousted for an outfit that the All Star judges – supermodel Angela Lindvall, designers Isaac Mizrahi and Georgina Chapman along with guest judge Cynthia Rowley – were not fans of.

During the eliminated designer press call last Friday, Kashou spoke with journalists and sounded at peace with the outcome of the show. But he also made sure to voice his thoughts on how his last design was judged. “I honestly feel that Georgina was the fairest judge, in my opinion, and her opinion - because I admire her work so much above all - matters to me the most,” he explained. “I am very pleased with the things that she said because I honestly felt that she judged me fairly.”

It’s definitely arguable that last week’s runway show should have led to someone else being eliminated, Kashou continued to stand by his design. “In terms of my outfit,” he said, “originally the whole design was based around the jacket and the pants. It was one fourth the top showing and it was just interesting to me how the main focus suddenly became the top… I don’t think that my outfit was necessarily the worst, and I still stand behind the design of the jacket and I’m so glad in the editing they decided to include what Georgina said about it because I worked hard…”

This beautiful outfit is the one that sent Kashou home last week. (Robbed!)

AfterElton was on the press call and had a chance to ask Kashou a few direct questions.

AfterElton: Rami, can you talk about the season and the dynamics with the judges? I know as a viewer it’s been different not having Tim Gunn, Heidi [Klum], Michael [Kors] and Nina [Garcia] on the show. Can you talk about that from your perspective?
Rami Kashou: It felt, the whole time, I felt a greater distance between us and the judges. It felt like there was a much closer relationship – not close in terms of like we were close – but it seemed like there were producers more involved than judges. I don’t know. Honestly, I’m just thinking of how I felt and how it - the whole experience - felt and that’s pretty much all I can tell you about that.

It was definitely a very different experience from my last season, maybe because it was a different production group, I don’t know. But it just didn’t feel like…honestly, this is the way I see it. It’s a game show and not everything may have to be exactly how you expect it or want it to be or hope for it to be, but in the end it certainly can’t hurt for me whether I like the style of the judging or not.

It’s still a reality show and we all know that reality shows…there are so many reality shows out there that I feel like viewers are savvy enough to figure out the dynamics or the ingredients of a reality show and that’s just how these things play out and…last night’s challenge, they just decided that I no longer needed to be in the competition and I was totally at peace with that and I’m thankful for the opportunity and that’s how I would answer that.

AE: Was it tough not giving the outcome of the season when talking to people? You were very good about not giving anything away when we talked recently.
RK: It was not hard to not talk about it with people. I think obviously you can’t, but was it a release? Absolutely. I was just glad to be outside that experience due to things I cannot talk about but there were some pretty difficult things to witness and see and that’s all I can tell you.