HI RES PHOTO Heidi Klum gets naked for Project Runway Season 9 ad

Clothes… one day they’re on and the next day they’re off!

Check out the sexy new promotional photo for the upcoming ninth season of Project Runway featuring host Heidi Klum modeling her hot couture birthday suit with a cut-off pink tie, a very large pair of scissors and the Tim Gunn mantra “MAKE IT WORK” painted on her arm. (Click photo to enlarge)

Just like the poster itself, Heidi was rather straight forward in addressing it’s raciness stating, “This is definitely sexier than past campaigns we’ve done for Project Runway.”

The hot spot is part of the Lifetime network’s aggressive bid to shed their “women in peril” image and feature women who are strong, successful, sexy and even brazen. The new direction is a direct result of Lifetime’s relatively new head honcho (honcha?) Nancy Dubuc, who orchestrated a similar image makeover while heading up the History Channel. Here’s what the rather frank Dubuc had to say at the RealScreen Factual Entertainment Forum in Santa Monica earlier this month:

“The critics who say we shouldn’t have done what we did to History – we’d be where Lifetime is now [if we hadn’t]. Viewers are incredibly promiscuous people – they don’t watch networks, they watch TV shows.

“History had to be able to run away from the black and white, World War Two [stereotype] – switch that off. Lifetime has to do that with [its] ‘women in peril’ [stereotype].”

I’m sure Dubuc has her critics for seemingly pandering the History Channel’s brand to the least common denominator, but no one can argue with the HUGE success such shows as Axe Men, Pawn Stars, American Pickers, Ice Road Truckers and Swamp People have had. And no matter how negatively you feel towards reality programming, there are still bad reality shows and good reality shows and it appears that Dubuc can tell the difference.

^ Heidi Klum poses with Lifetime Network president Nancy Dubuc at the Project Runway Season 8 premiere in New York City on July 28, 2010. (Photo: Janet Mayer / Splash News)

For that reason I’m looking forward to the new season of Project Runway, which kicks off July 28. Not because I expect there to be an alligator boot challenge in which the contestants have to capture their own alligator, but because Dubuc understands her audience. As evidence of that, Lifetime has already announced a list of A-list guest judges that includes Zoe Saldana, Christina Ricci, Kim Kardashian and Malin Ackerman.

Although the marketing strategy has gotten an overhaul, the basic premise of the successful reality competition will remain the same. The only major difference is that there will reportedly be more contestants initially and they will have to plead their cases to Heidi, mentor Tim Gunn and judges Nina Garcia and Michael Kors as to why they should be one of the lucky 16 designers to compete for the big prize.

And speaking of the big prize, it remains relatively unchanged as well. This season’s winning designer will receive $100,000 from L’Oreal Paris to start a line, a Marie Claire fashion spread, a $50,000 tech suite from Intel and HP to create a business and the opportunity to sell an exclusive collection through Piperlime.com.

Here’s a little bonus video about the image from E! News:

Top photo: Liftetime / Splash News