Exclusive: Anya Tells Us Who Designed Her Favorite Season Nine Collection, and More

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We recently learned that some of the folks at HP are regular readers of our Project Runway recaps. Fortunately, they like them, and as sponsors of the show they were able to arrange a one-on-one interview for us today with Anya Ayoung-Chee, who was just announced the winner of Season Nine.

Obviously, we had a lot to discuss. The whole interview will be transcribed and up on Monday, but in the meantime, here are a few choice tidbits, including info on why we saw the decoy designers sitting in the audience when they shouldn't have been there, who Anya would have picked as the winner, and her new haircut.

Racked: Congratulations about last night! By the way we love your hair.

Anya Ayong-Chee: Thank you. I just cut it all off! It's still pretty much the same though.

Racked: We were at the Fashion Week show in September, and on TV last night, they showed the decoy collections' designers sitting in the audience. From what we understood they were all backstage. Were they going in and out, or was there a second taping?

Anya: We filmed the top four collections first, early in the morning, that's how they got them in the audience. Then the decoy designers went backstage and we showed all nine of us for a bigger audience.

Racked: Aha! That makes sense. We noticed that Oliver's hair was all messed up so we were trying to place it in the timeline.

Anya: (Laughs) Yes, Olivier was still scrambling at the last moment, so that might be why.

Racked: Taking into account all of the collections, not just the final collections but the decoy ones as well, who do you think should have won, if it wasn't you?

Anya: Oh I definitely think Laura. I think her collection was extremely strong and the best work that I've seen her do. I think she was very smart to put out a very strong collection even though she wasn't in the top four. I'm very proud of her. I loved it.

Check in with us Monday, to read Anya's thoughts on her design background, Joshua's personality, and Tim Gunn's Trinidad visit. Let's just say the show's editing can obscure the facts a bit...

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