Varvara Diakonenkova will make her Project Runway 2026 debut on Thursday, stepping into the season premiere as one of 22 contestants. The 23-year-old West Philly designer enters a bigger field than the show has used before, with a $100,000 cash prize and industry mentorship on the line.
West Philly to Project Runway
Diakonenkova, who goes by Bobby, has lived in West Philly since moving from Moscow in 2021 to study fashion design at Drexel. She said she had been drawing and designing garments since she learned how to hold a pencil, a background that makes her run on the show feel less like a one-off appearance than a real test of where her work stands against a national field.
She applied after seeing an open casting call, then sent in a video she described as a joke made while she and her friends were tired and laughing. “Honestly, it was like 2 a.m. and we were all tired to the point where you're delusional and laughing,” she said. “I made this really funny video that I edited with stupid iMovie music in the background, and then I got a call the next morning.”
Heidi Klum and 21 rivals
Season 22 brings back Heidi Klum, Law Roach, Nina Garcia and Christian Siriano, and the show is entering its 22nd year on the air. The larger field turns every episode into a tighter elimination race, with 22 designers chasing the same prize while the mentors and judges reset the standard for what survives from challenge to challenge.
Diakonenkova’s own design method is built around themes she can connect to personally. “It's hard for me to find a poetic theme and evolve it without really, deeply relating to it,” she said. “With trends, I try to stay away from that. I'm dodging those things.”
The sewing problem
That approach becomes more complicated because she has one obvious weak spot: “I absolutely hate sewing,” she said. “I just don't have the patience for it.” In a competition built on making clothes under pressure, that is the kind of admission that can shape how far a designer can go, especially when the show is asking contestants to turn ideas into finished garments fast.
She said the experience challenged her creatively and emotionally more than she expected, and it left her with a deeper appreciation for Philadelphia. She also has used design as a storytelling medium to touch on domestic violence awareness, oppressive governance in Russia and the American Dream, saying, “Obviously, I can't speak on everything because some things just haven't affected me, but it's really important for me to continue speaking about my country … my family, my friends that are being silenced.”
The Thursday premiere gives Bobby the first public answer to the only question that really matters now: whether a West Philly designer who jokes about sewing can translate that point of view into enough finished work to keep moving in Season 22.
