'Project Runway' returns with a bit of Boston

Last spring I featured Mass Art fashion grad Maya Molina-Araujo in a story I wrote about outstanding local fashion school grads. Well, it looks like Maya has graduated to the big time. She's a contestant on season seven of "Project Runway," which starts next Thursday on Lifetime.

She has changed her name to Maya Luz (because it's easier than a hyphenated last name, she tells me), but here's what the artist formerly known as Molina-Araujo told me back in May about her style and her senior collection:

What was the inspiration for your collection?

It was inspired by the dark side of fashion. The collection is called "Fashism." I started designing clothes when I was 14. I knew I loved fashion, but I knew there were some things about it that I didn't really like, such as the elitist attitude and this glamorous lifestyle that is only for some people. It was inspired by the idea of people who are fashion slaves and fashion victims. I created a ball-and-chain bag, and that's the idea behind that. It's very tongue in cheek.

Who do you see as the customer for your pieces?

There are other designers who have the same idea. You create one piece as the inspiration for other pieces. I can create something really crazy and unwearable, but from that I can draw inspiration and make something really marketable as well. A typical person may not wear some of the pieces in my collection, but then there are other pieces that they would wear. I think the bags are very marketable. 

I heard that you've applied to be a contestant on "Project Runway?"

I did, and they invited me to a casting session. So I'll be going later this month to meet with them. I'm going to show my collection to the producers, and we'll see where it goes from there. I'm also leaving at the end of the month to work for the British designer Hannah Marshall. I'll be doing an internship in London with her.