B.C. designers land spots on new season of Project Runway Canada

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Two B.C. designers have made the cut for season two of Project Runway Canada.

Serena Kealey and Dillon James Hayes will join eight other Canadian designers who will put their skills and design visions to the test as they compete for the title of Canada’s “Next Great Designer” and a prize purse of $100,000. The show premieres Nov. 20 on Crave.

Host and judge Coco Rocha returns and is once again joined by judges Jeanne Beker and Spencer Badu and mentor with Aurora James.

Vancouver’s Kealy launched her label, Chalanse, as a teenager and made her Vancouver Fashion Week debut at age 18. Since then, the young designer has done wardrobe and styling for celebrities including Tate McRae, Molly Grace and cast members from Yellowjackets. She recently dressed Mission’s own superstar Carly Rae Jepsen for a magazine cover. Kealy has a runway show planned for November and is getting ready to launch a hat collection and ready-to-wear couture line.

“At just 22, being a part of Project Runway has been my lifelong dream and destiny,” said Kealy in an email to Postmedia. “Fashion is my calling and I know I am meant to be Canada’s next great designer. I am unique, young, and driven for this career.”

Kealy found out she made the show when she got a call while out getting herself a sweet treat.

“I was enjoying a warm summer day by taking myself on a drive to McDonald’s to get a McFlurry,” said Kealy. “One of the executive producers called me and asked me to pull over. I pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot and called him right back. When he told me I was cast, I started screaming and crying. My dream had come true, and I was so ready for it.”

Kealy added that doing the show was an honour and that she has made “friends and connections for life.”
The designer explained that competing on Project Runway is an “intense,” experience that has contestants on camera for long hours.

“You have to be really hungry for the opportunity,” said Kealy. “Luckily, it is so worth it to me and I found the challenge of it all to be majorly rewarding and exciting.”

Hayes, from Kamloops and Vancouver, comes to the show an honours graduate from the London College of Fashion. After training with designers CIMONE and Emilio de la Morena, he returned to B.C. to work on his own label, DEON.

With a nod to his Métis background and his perspective as a neurodivergent designer, Hayes works across menswear, womenswear and streetwear with a commitment to gender-fluid design, sustainability, reclaimed and deadstock materials. Aside from designing, Hayes is working on a book that offers steps to surviving fashion school.

“I’ve wanted to apply for Project Runway Canada since 2015, but I definitely wasn’t ready then,” said Hayes in an email to Postmedia. “By the time I graduated from my first university, the show was on hiatus. Cut to 2026: I had just moved back to Canada and set up my new studio when I saw the announcement for Season 2, and I just knew it was my time.”

When Hayes found out he was cast, he said he felt a “mixed bag of emotions,” but “mostly excitement.”  Though filming the reality show has been a high-speed experience.

“Everything moves so fast on the show! I work fast, but this show is on a different level,” said Hayes. “Being part of this show and this cast was an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience.

“I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this, and to show Canada and the world, that I have what it takes to run my own fashion label and that Canadians know fashion!”