Two Hawaii designers have made it onto “Project Runway.”

Andy South and Ivy Higa will appear in Season 8 of the Lifetime fashion design competition that starts airing July 29. Actress Selma Blair will join the cast to help decide which of the 16 finalists will be in or out from week to week as the show leads up to New York Fashion Week.

South’s selection follows the impressive finish of fellow Honolulu Community College student Jay Sario, who finished in fourth place during the television fashion design competition’s seventh season. South, who shortened his name from Southiphong for commercial reasons, graduated from HCC in 2007 and has been designing locally ever since.

In 2008, South was one of more than a half dozen local designers to enter a fashion design competition judged Blayne Walsh, and was named winner by the Season Five “Project Runway” contestant. He has since worked with successive classes at HCC, appearing on stilts during the 2009 senior show, “Masquerade.”

HIGA IS a University of Hawaii art graduate who worked at Neiman Marcus prior to moving to New York, where she enrolled at Parsons The New School for Design, home base for the TV series.

She worked in the design department at Donna Karan and Lafeyette 148 before launching her own Ivy h. brand in fall 2008. Higa presented her first New York Fashion Week collection in September 2009 for Spring/Summer 2010.
This marks her second attempt at making the “Project Runway” roster of designers. She auditioned for the show in Season 4, which launched Christian Siriano’s career.