Lunch with “Project Runway” fashion guru Tim Gunn? About $250

                                         Tennis lesson with Andre Agassi?  About $2,750

                                       Meeting Oprah Winfrey backstage? Priceless — or close to it.

Viewers on charity online auction site www.charitybuzz.com were offering $13, 000 in early bidding to meet America’s favorite chat show queen as part of a celebrity fundraiser that also offers a singing lesson with Aretha Franklin, a vist to the set and meeting with the cast of TV medical drama “House”,  lunch in the Bevery Hills Polo Lounge with Warren Beatty, dinner with Bill Cosby in New York, a private magic show from David Blaine and many other opportunities to get up close and personal with A-list stars.

The fundraiser is organized by the Robert F.Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights in Washington to support its work on issues ranging from modern slavery to torture in Darfur.

New lots will be added every day to the auction, which  closes on May 28.

Eight weeks away seems to have done Kenley some good. 

She appears to  have lost much of the attitude that has won her few fans in and outside the Project Runway work room,  and boy! — that feathered wedding dress was darn cute, very Kenley, and gave her an ultimately well-deserved ticket to Bryant Park.

It’s aways fun to see the designers back in their homes and with their families as they design their collection for the finale. Jerell’s story was moving, Korto’s Liberian heritage fascinating, and a nervous Tim Gunn on that tandem bike with Leanne — priceless.

But no friends or family for Kenley?

Jerell’s sad “Auf” ing at the last hurdle left an all-female lineup for the finale for the first time in five seasons of the show.

Are the ladies up to the challenge? 

Pass the Kleenex please!

After a fairly lackluster season, Project Runway is turning into a real drama both on and off the runway as the Bryant Park finale looms.

Tears, fights, group hugs, bitterness and backstabbing  — and Kenley is STILL hanging in there despite (or possibly because of)  her constant eye-rolls and stubborn refusal to take constructive criticism that  has stunned the  divas of the  design world she aspires to join.

Kenley’s scaly pink reptile gown  predictably failed to wow the judges in a challenge that was inspired by flowers. But when Korto turned in a surprisingly wobbly effort with an orange and yellow dress deemed too pageanty, Kenley won another chance to redeem herself and fight for a place for her collection in the New York Fashion Show finale.With the eventual winner looking too close to call between quiet Leanne and sweet natured Jerell, it may be the contestant reunion special that has all the fireworks this season.

Make that work, designers!

 Judge Fern Mallis had it right. “Stella was not stellar” in the Diane von Furstenberg “Project Runway” challenge.

But the leather lovin’ rock star designer made the most gracious exit after being “Auf’d” from the show after yet another poorly sewn outfit.

With the first smile we’ve seen on her face , Stella thanked the judges, said she had learned a lot, and admitted; “My ego was too big to be here anyway.” 

But she was back to her defiant self in the post-exit confessional, declaring “I’m a rock star. That’s who I design for. If you like my stuff, come buy it. If you don’t, keep walking. I don’t care.”

Meanwhile, mousy Leanne is emerging as the dark horse of the season after winning two consecutive challenges and establishing herself as probably the most flawless contestant in terms of execution.

Her blue, silky 30’s vintage dress with the ruffled back won the most coveted prize of the season — a place in an ad campaign with true fashion diva Diane von Furstenberg who reduced Kenley to tears  — and an unlucky 2nd place.

Fashion guru Tim Gunn has given Disney teen star Miley Cyrus the thumbs down when it comes to style. 

 ”(Miley Cyrus) is just a little too tarty, forgive me. I don’t want her to look like she’s going into a convent school, but it’s just a little too much for a 15-year-old. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was 25,” Gunn told OK! magazine.

The “Project Runway” mentor, who also has his own show “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style”,  had the opposite advice for actress Katie Holmes, who has transformed her look in recent months with a short haircut.

   “She went from looking like a little farm girl to looking like royalty,” Gunn said. “Now she needs to push back a little so she doesn’t look too dowdy or old.”

“Dowdy”, “Tarty” — has the usually oh so polite Gunn been taking lessons from “American Idol” king of mean, Simon Cowell? What do you think?

 Keith’s desperate attempt to change his “collage” style to please the “Project Runway” judges succeeded only in winning him a tearful exit and a trip back to Utah after another wacky challenge using recycled car parts.

But despite the tears, the whining and the drama, Season Five of the popular fashion design contest is showing signs that the show is losing its cutting edge.

Whether its the contestants themselves, the recycling of some past “Runway” challenges, or  the blatant cross promotion of upcoming Bravo shows and commercial  sponsors,  much of the sparkle seems to be missing this season.

Tim Gunn, whose polite but pointed mentoring stitched the show together, seems listless in his now brief visits to the workroom, rarely going beyond his ”make it work” mantra. Is Gunn too busy working on his own TV shows these days?

The designers, for the most part, seem to lack that winning combination of personality and  talent that made past favorites Christian Siriano and Santino Rice so watchable. This year’s Leanne and Korto have the talent but seem camera shy, while Blayne’s dressmaking skills often fall short of his ego.

Gunn appears unimpressed with the current crop. “They keep walking around telling each other how great they are and I keep saying to them, ‘Someone is gonna go home’, ” Gunn told OK! magazine this week.

In the words of host Heidi Klum. “In fashion, one day you are in and one day you are out.”  So we wonder, is ”Project Runway” in need of its own fashion makeover?

Fashion Design TV show “Project Runway” got off to a cracking start for its new season Wednesday night, swiftly sorting out the good, the bad and the just plain ugly among clothing designs that featured way too many tablecloths and shower curtains in its Season 5 premiere.

Even oh so polite Tim Gunn, the show’s star along with Heidi Klum, could barely restrain his horror at the number of contestants who opted for the easy way out in the grocery store challenge by choosing to make outfits out of tablecloths, shower curtains and garbage bags.

 ”I think the judges are going to  say you guys are a bunch of slackers,” Gunn said, dismayed.

And indeed, Gunn was right. Stella, who threw her outfit together in the last few minutes after complaining all day about the ”ugly, cheap-ass garbage bags’ she had selected, only narrowly avoided getting “Auf’d” by Heidi.

It it was Jerry’s white plastic shower curtain horror raincoat topped off with yellow plastic gloves that really freaked out the judges.  Judge Michael Kors said the dress underneath the coat looked like “a handiwipe gone wrong”. But when Nina Garcia termed it “what you wear when you’re killing someone” you just knew it was curtains for Jerry.