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“Mission Catwalk” debuted last year on TVK and was immediately compared to “Project Runway”, as both are reality series that focus on fashion.  The “Mission Catwalk” Facebook page describes how the show was conceived when KTL group and a number of fashionistas and other professionals joined together with Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts to invest their time in promoting local fashion designers and to help assist with the growth of the local fashion industry.  Their aim is to discover and then nurture the burgeoning talents of Jamaican designers for the international market.

In typical reality TV show style, “Mission Catwalk” asks its contestants to compete against each other by completing a series of challenges and exercises designed to hone their various skills and talents.

Each episode of the series is set at the new fashion department at the Edna Manley College and contains four segments, which consist of whatever that week’s challenge happens to be, design production, a runway show, and concludes by eliminating the unfortunate designer of the week.

Season one lasted thirteen weeks, and each week a new designer was cut by a panel of judges, culminating in a battle between two designers at the Miami Fashion Week.  The winner of the premiere season won the opportunity to show their new collection at the Miami International Fashion week 2011, $250,000 to help them produce their own line of clothes, a scholarship to enhance their studies at Edna Manley College, $200,000 worth of equipment to help them set up their own studio, a fashion spread in a Caribbean magazine, a contract to sell their designs at Ammar’s, among other prizes.

The host of Season One was Keneea Linton-George, the mentor was Sandra Kennedy, and Novia McDonald-Whyte and Carlton Brown were regular judges.  Guest judges included Romai Gordon, Yendi Phillips, and Nada Abuzaid.

This season, which debuts on TVJ on Tuesday, March 20^th, two designers have been added to last year’s thirteen for a total of fifteen contestants.  Season Two was launched at the Courtleigh Auditorium in Kingston.  Designers will hail from Belize, Barbados, Jamaica, as well as Trinidad and Tobago so they can all compete for this year’s prize.

Linton-George, who is the producer of the show as well as its host, announced that there were originally twenty contestants, but that five were eliminated after a preliminary challenge.

Once again, each episode will run an hour and will be comprised of challenges and exercises that will help develop a designer’s potential … or see that they are eliminated.  Using motorcycle boots and motorcycle helmets may help them or hurt them; only the judges know for sure!  Back again are McDonalde-Whyte and Brown as regular judges.  Announced guest judges include Nadia Kahn and Claudia Pegus.

This year, the contestants will be living at the Courtleigh Hotel in Kingston.  Grand prizes include a $500,000 fund to start their own clothing line (courtesy of National Commercial Bank) and the chance to show their new collection at the London Fashion Week 2012.