Jude Mikulencak has turned a Brooklyn tailor shop into his own runway prep for Project Runway. The 23-year-old New Orleans native is one of 22 other designers competing on Season 22, which returned July 9 at 9:30 p.m. EDT/PDT on Freeform and streams shortly after on Hulu and Disney+.
“Unlike most 23-year-olds, Jude Mikulencak mostly wears clothes he’s hand-sewn, measured and designed by himself at an antiquated tailor shop in Brooklyn.” That routine is more than a style quirk; it is the workhorse behind the contestant’s profile, and it helps explain why a talent agency scout noticed his work on Instagram in November.
Brooklyn work, New Orleans roots
Mikulencak spends three to four days a week, 10 to 12 hours each day, making suits at the Brooklyn shop, using century-old sewing machines. He also mostly wears garments he has made himself, so the clothes on screen are likely to look more like a working tailor’s portfolio than a reality-show costume rack.
That background gives Season 22 a contestant with a clear production line: design, measure, sew, repeat. For viewers, the useful thing is not just that he is from New Orleans, but that he arrives with an active shop-floor discipline rather than a fresh start inside the competition. Varvara Diakonenkova joins 22 on Project Runway 2026 makes a similar point about how cast additions can change the field before a single challenge lands.
April pickup in Brooklyn
In April, a black van picked Mikulencak up from his Brooklyn apartment, and he signed a nondisclosure agreement before appearing on Season 22. The sequence says more than a casting notice would: selection came quickly, then the show pulled him into its own sealed-off production process before the season reached viewers.
He was born at Touro Infirmary in Uptown on Valentine's Day 2003, and his Czech name came down from his grandfather, who immigrated to Houston. He went to Holy Name of Jesus School and later attended a specialized arts program at The Willow High School, a path that tracks toward the kind of hands-on work he is doing now.
22 designers on Freeform
Season 22 puts Mikulencak in a field of 22 other designers, which means every episode functions as a test of not just taste but speed, construction, and consistency. Weekly airings on Freeform, with streaming on Hulu and Disney+ shortly after, give his work a wider audience than a local atelier ever could.
The practical read is simple: his competition is now public, serialized, and measured one episode at a time. How far Mikulencak advances on Project Runway Season 22 is not answered yet, but the first thing to watch is whether the Brooklyn tailor can turn those long hours at the machine into repeatable wins under the show's clock.
