Typically, Project Runway rolls into Fashion Week with a huge swath of catchphrase-aspiring designers already cut. However, ongoing legal battles are forcing the new, still-delayed season to employ some subterfuge for Friday's big show.

Tim Gunn talked to New York to reveal exactly how the show will go on without spoiling the eventual, held-hostage season to come:

How is this show going to work?
 You'll see the whole construct of it, but needless to say, the designers whose collections are presented will not be presenting their collections THEMSELVES, because then everyone would know who they are.

Oh.
 So you'll see collections from extremely talented people, but you won't be able to place the designer with the collection.

So it's just going to be a bunch of clothes?
 Yeah. But not unlike any fashion show, except that you know it's Diane Von Furstenberg or Carmen Marc Valvo. In this case, you'll see the number of collections we present, but you won't know whose is whose. [...]

So it seems like no one will be able to go backstage, because then they'd see the designers, correct?
 Let me put it this way: We could put all the designers in front of you in a room. You wouldn't know who they are.

Great, just what Project Runway needed: Lost-ian flash forwards that make us comb for clues all season to determine which sassy, skinny gays will put together the collections we've already seen. Add some nosebleeds, a confused Heidi Klum asking, "When are we?" and the smoke monster supplanting Fern Malis as the final judge, and we'll finally have the answer to the eternal question of "What exactly is the island?" (Manhattan, of course.)

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