Kristy Hinze brings power poses and drive to her first hosting role, writes Nicole Brady.IN A WHITE towelling bathrobe and her hair swept back off her face, Kristy Hinze is lying on a couch catching up on sleep she's lost since jetting in from New York to host the final episodes of Foxtel's latest reality success, Project Runway Australia.

She really is quite lovely in person, much softer than the television conveys. And while one expects models to be skin and bone, Hinze appears more athletic and in proportion. This woman jumping up from the couch seems more robust than the standard model turned television starlet.

Or perhaps this is where her onscreen identity merges with her offscreen presence. As the host and leading judge of this first Australian season of the Runway franchise, Hinze has been required to do the nasty stuff. The humiliate-the-talent time. The "Luis", loooong pause, "you're-out" scenes, as over 10 weeks she has steadily booted nine weeping designers off the series.

"That part is really tough, it is heartbreaking," she explains. "It's something that no one wants to hear and it's something that not many people take great pleasure in saying ... But it's a competition and only one person can win it."So conscious is she of the ghastliness of the elimination moment, she has striven to do it perfectly.

"It is crushing. I get quite emotional and I can only do it once. There are no second takes there, I think that would be too brutal and I'd refuse to do that twice to somebody."The quest to do it right is a hallmark of Hinze's work, say those behind the scenes at Fremantle Media, the production company making the show. They say Hinze has made an easy transition from still to TV cameras, requiring only a small amount of coaching.

Attribute this in part to her experience as a backstage TV reporter at many fashion events, a stint at acting school and probably also to the fact she is an admitted addict of the original US version of the program and loves the work of its host, German model Heidi Klum.

"I saw one episode when I was sick in New York and got all the episodes (of the second series) and watched the lot from start to finish in a weekend," she says."I found it incredibly exciting when they approached me to do it and I jumped at the chance."But from the outset Hinze has sought a different niche for herself than the one occupied by Klum.

"I have been very adamant with the producers, and I think they agreed with me, that I wanted to be me. I didn't want to look like I was trying to be the Australian Heidi Klum. I wanted the show to take on more of an Australian feeling. I think people in Australia are a lot softer than in New York ."

As it has developed through this first series, Project Runway Australia has proven itself to be a strong spin-off of a highly successful original. The concept involves 12 fashion designers required to live together under fairly stringent conditions. Each week the contestants undertake a challenge in a ridiculously tight timeframe. At the end of each challenge - which requires the design and construction of, for example, an evening gown - the outfits are paraded down a runway by professional models and judged. The designer of the outfit deemed the worst is given his or her marching orders by a stern-faced Hinze.

But where this show works - and other reality shows have failed - is in the talent. The judges and designers have been very well cast."The characters are extreme and entertaining but I don't think they are as bitchy and nasty as in a lot of reality shows," says Paul Franklin, director of factual programming at Fremantle Media.

Local fans of the US Runway were initially unnerved by the almost religious observance with which the local adhered to the template of the mother ship, to the extent the judgement scene seems to replicate everything right down to the position of the runway lights.

Franklin explains that when the original has it so right, why mess with it? "Other territories around the world have strayed away from the format. Certainly in the UK, the first series they did with Elizabeth Hurley (as host) ... they had huge problems because they strayed off format and when they went to put it together in the editing suite it just didn't work, it came out very cold.

"From my point of view, when a format comes to Australia, look at where it works, look at the best versions and then take the best stuff from it."As the temperature seems to drop in the rather drab dressing room Hinze has been allocated at ABC television's Elsternwick studios - the runway elements of the series have all been shot here, the work room scenes were all shot at the Whitehouse Institute of Design in the city - I remark that while television looks so glamorous, more often than not the conditions are anything but. Yet to Hinze, the ABC dressing room and its red couch offer the sort of sanctuary models are rarely afforded.

"This is the reality of my world, it's all smoke and mirrors. I mean, this is great." She sweeps her arm to take in the surrounds. "I've got a red couch, and if it's not leather it's certainly pleather!""The glamour of fashion photos, that is the fantasy. People look at photos and want to buy 'that dress' because they've seen a photo and they want to buy that fantasy, but the reality is I've been freezing my butt off and it's 14 degrees below outside."

Which brings me to a question I have been pondering since the first episode. Why, when she addresses the designers, does she always stand with her legs so far astride?"Do I?" she answers, apparently puzzled. Then she jumps up and adopts the pose: chin up, hands on hips and feet wide apart. "Oh, that's the strength thing, it's a power pose. "If you stand like this," she says, "it's a confident pose, it's a superiority thing. It's like, 'this is my show and I'm going to find the next top designer'."

The final episode of Project Runway Australia airs Monday at 8.30pm on Arena."I have been very adamant with the producers, and I think they agreed with me, that I wanted to be me. I didn't want to look like I was trying to be the Australian Heidi Klum. I wanted the show to take on more of an Australian feeling. I think people in Australia are a lot softer than in New York ."

As it has developed through this first series, Project Runway Australia has proven itself to be a strong spin-off of a highly successful original. The concept involves 12 fashion designers required to live together under fairly stringent conditions. Each week the contestants undertake a challenge in a ridiculously tight timeframe. At the end of each challenge - which requires the design and construction of, for example, an evening gown - the outfits are paraded down a runway by professional models and judged. The designer of the outfit deemed the worst is given his or her marching orders by a stern-faced Hinze.

But where this show works - and other reality shows have failed - is in the talent. The judges and designers have been very well cast."The characters are extreme and entertaining but I don't think they are as bitchy and nasty as in a lot of reality shows," says Paul Franklin, director of factual programming at Fremantle Media.

Local fans of the US Runway were initially unnerved by the almost religious observance with which the local adhered to the template of the mother ship, to the extent the judgement scene seems to replicate everything right down to the position of the runway lights.

Franklin explains that when the original has it so right, why mess with it? "Other territories around the world have strayed away from the format. Certainly in the UK, the first series they did with Elizabeth Hurley (as host) ... they had huge problems because they strayed off format and when they went to put it together in the editing suite it just didn't work, it came out very cold.

"From my point of view, when a format comes to Australia, look at where it works, look at the best versions and then take the best stuff from it."

As the temperature seems to drop in the rather drab dressing room Hinze has been allocated at ABC television's Elsternwick studios - the runway elements of the series have all been shot here, the work room scenes were all shot at the Whitehouse Institute of Design in the city - I remark that while television looks so glamorous, more often than not the conditions are anything but. Yet to Hinze, the ABC dressing room and its red couch offer the sort of sanctuary models are rarely afforded.

"This is the reality of my world, it's all smoke and mirrors. I mean, this is great." She sweeps her arm to take in the surrounds. "I've got a red couch, and if it's not leather it's certainly pleather!""The glamour of fashion photos, that is the fantasy. People look at photos and want to buy 'that dress' because they've seen a photo and they want to buy that fantasy, but the reality is I've been freezing my butt off and it's 14 degrees below outside."

Which brings me to a question I have been pondering since the first episode. Why, when she addresses the designers, does she always stand with her legs so far astride?

"Do I?" she answers, apparently puzzled. Then she jumps up and adopts the pose: chin up, hands on hips and feet wide apart. "Oh, that's the strength thing, it's a power pose. "If you stand like this," she says, "it's a confident pose, it's a superiority thing. It's like, 'this is my show and I'm going to find the next top designer'."