Project Runway Season Six

The Bizarre World of Ari Fish

Aug 21, 2009 Amber Fraley

Kansas City Designer Ari Fish brings a fresh, freaky perspective to Project Runway's sixth season.

The sixth season of Project Runway debuted recently and cast member Ari Fish may well be one of the most unusual cast members the show has ever seen. Who says that all eccentric artists come from the west and east coasts? Fish, who wore turquoise shorts over a colorful, psychedelic bodysuit whilst skipping around the work room like a six-year-old from Mars, is a 26-year-old artist and designer from Kansas City, Missouri. While everyone else busily sketched his or her first design, Fish loudly asked, “What if you don’t sketch?” then promptly did a handstand and ‘meditated’ on her first design.

Spoiler alert! Don’t read if you don’t want to know the outcome of the first episode of the sixth season of Project Runway.

Ari Fish: Conceptual designer

The designers were asked to create looks for the red carpet, which apparently meant absolutely nothing to Fish. She opted to stay true to herself, creating a silver, satin, hexagon quilted mini-hoodie-dress that Tim Gunn worried might end up looking like a “halter diaper.”

In the makeup room, rather than let the makeup artists do her model’s hair, fish grabbed a comb, stuck her hands into her model’s red mane and began to vigorously rat her model’s locks into a matted mess, telling her, “I’ll try not to damage your hair.”

When called out on the runway to explain her design, Nina Garcia asked Fish which red carpet she thought her model would be walking on, Fish replied, “The VMA's like 20AD. I want her to also go and receive her Nobel Peace Prize on the same night. I mean, it sounds really wild, but that's the kind of aesthetic I was going for.”

Too bizarre for Reality TV?

In fact, Fish made for such good television that I was utterly convinced that no matter how bizarre or un-wearable her designs were, the judges would allow her to stick around until she was one of the last five or so contestants, if for nothing more than for the ratings.

Sadly, this was not the case. The judges—which included surprise guest judge Lindsay Lohan—ultimately decided that they just didn’t “get” Fish. They couldn’t decide if she was joking and poking fun at their profession or if she was a conceptual genius who was just way over their heads. So, rather than deal with her, the judges decided to eliminate her, and Fish became the first designer of season six to be “aufed.”

If you’d like to read more about Ari Fish, check out this article and photo gallery about her in Ink weekly.

The copyright of the article Project Runway Season Six in Reality TV is owned by Amber Fraley. Permission to republish Project Runway Season Six in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Ari Fish