YC native runs away with title on 'Project Runway'

When Leanne Marshall was announced as the winner of Bravo's fifth season of "Project Runway" Wednesday night, Pat Marshall screamed.

"I was just numb, I couldn't believe it," Pat Marshall said after her daughter was announced the winner.

Pat Marshall said she knew her daughter could take the top prize.

"I am her mother, so I always believed in her," she said. "Before all this, I knew she was going to be big."

"Project Runway," a reality TV show on Bravo, challenges its contestants to create new designs each week. The show started with 16 contestants in July. Each week a contestant was eliminated until it was whittled down to three during last week's show. The final three, including Leanne, were able to show a line of clothing they created in New York's Fashion Week.

As winner of the season, Leanne will be featured in an editorial in Elle magazine and receive $100,000 cash to create her own line. That line of clothing will be sold on Bluefly.com and she will also receive a new 2009 Saturn Vue hybrid.

Pat Marshall along with roughly 50 family and friends gathered at Marshall's home in Yuba City to watch the final show.

Family and friends said each week they watched Leanne — a Yuba City native — make it one step closer to the top prize.

"Everything she did was beautiful, I loved every piece," Beverly Marshall, Leanne's grandmother, said of her granddaughter's clothing featured on Wednesday's show. "This is so exciting."

Beverly Marshall said she recognized her granddaughter's talent for the arts when she was a young dancer.

"She was a beautiful dancer," she said. "It just goes to show that whatever art she's involved in she will excel."

Leanne Marshall studied at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise in San Francisco.

After graduating in 2001, she moved to Los Angeles for a short time before she returned to Yuba City to design ads for the Appeal-Democrat. She moved to Portland in 2007 and began her own clothing line "Leanimal."

Now, Pat Marshall said Leanne can expand her business with the prize money. An opportunity, she said, her daughter deserves.

"It's been a tough go," she said. "But she's determined and when she's determined to do something she doesn't quit. It's not over yet. This was a big boost."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Andrea Koskey at 749-4709 or akoskey@appealdemocrat.com