Will Rast of Funk Art
@ Fort Reno
Q:What's your song for summer?
A:"'I Ain't Nobody's Baby' by Sharon Jones."
DID ANYONE EXPECT a different outcome?
Leanne won and Korto placed and Kenley and her horse-teeth showed, as it were. The collections told the whole story, no travesties of fashion justice took place, the snail is on the thorn, etc.
Except.
Tim Gunn should not have been a judge. I understand from his recounting of the frantic backstory that his position on the tribunal had all the inch-by-inch inevitability of the slow-cooked frog in the parable. But by the time he ended up fricasseed on the plate, his role as the "Project Runway" mentor, advice-giver and sometime adversary was compromised by his role as a judge. He'd seen the work in the designers' ateliers, watched it grow in the Parsons workroom, he's walked the vines — as the owner of Arrowine says in that local ad that play 7,394 times per episode — and came into the judging process with opinions, an understanding of how closely the designers listened to him, and the inspiration themes in place. Well, not Kenley's, because she's an ass and refused to tell him.
As Tim tells it, J. Lo came down with a headache in her foot, no other celebrities were willing to ring the opening bell — even Fern Mallis, who was there and is an awesome judge? — and at 10 minutes to showtime, Heidi hauled him into her interrogation dungeon and put the big Teutonic boot to the man. (I may be interpreting some of this.) Why not just scrap the fourth-judge position? Three is a tie-breaking number anyway.
But because the collections were so distinct and, really, none of the work was a departure for the ladies, the clear points of view on the runway made for a clear winner.
WHEW! WE ARE baby steps away from the tents at Bryant Park and all hell is already breaking loose.
Thanks to the heady new "Project Runway" universe of shifty, ever-changing rules, we're looking down the barrel of a Leanne-Korto-KENLEY showdown and it's gonna get — hell, it already is — ugly as toads.
Jerell won last week's challenge, got for his troubles a big basket of bupkis, was sent back to Do Not Pass Go along with the purported loser and the other two, and That Bitch put her hands in the air like she was just crowned Miss Pretty Pink Pony Princess.
What. A. Mess.
And now he's out, his inability to edit himself or use a steam iron or style a model or just take one thing off, Diana Vreeland-style, having doomed him to Austin Scarlett-worthy fourth place, fair and bloody square. For myself, I never care if I don't see another high-necked sheath of puffy party dress in two lifetimes, but off we trudge to Finale, Part Deux, stilettos in hand, coat askew, so exhausted we're seeing bobbins in our sleep. Talking bobbins. Hang in there, pigeons — we're so close! Pass around the Red Bulls and let's get this Bataan Death March started — woot!
Our scissor-monkeys have three months and $8,000 to design a collection, one of which will be tossed in the trash along with Nina's Elle contract. Kenley immediately calls sabotage "by all the other designers." It's so unfair. So unfair that she has to design a line along with these, these peons, these little nobodies. The peasants, they sure are revolting.
THE BRAVO-SANCTIONED title of this episode was "Nature Calls" — a perfect metaphor for a piss-poor season with particularly excremental judging in this episode.
All I want — all any of want — and have wanted for weeks is for That Bitch Kenley to get off our screen. Not only would fans of the show breather easier, but her fellow contestants would enjoy a more convivial workroom experience, the judges would not have to endure her grimacing, sassing and eye-rolling performance on the runway, and poor Tim Gunn would not have his perfect ears pinned back by the ravings of this shrew. Add to that, Miss Thing herself would know failure, something to which she should get comfortably accustomed. Every time she ekes through with some unwearable abomination in a print that looks as if the entire Natchez Garden Tour threw up on it, she is reassured that she's an "edgy" super-genius and everything she touches turns to Chanel. And this, pigeons, this is not true.
So, of course this posting is going to be all about her, which is as she wants it and as the episode shaped this segment of the season. We begin with Kenley whining that Leanne sabotaged her by posing poorly in her insane Consuela-goes-to-the-mall "hip-hop" look the week before. This girl! Her resistance to accepting that she might every be the source of her own failure is mind-boggling.
POODLES! PIGEONS! POSSUMS! Puppies! Plankton! Did you wait for me, the rose wilting between your teeth, the champagne growing warm, the violinist striking up "Time After Time" time after time?
It was a day of disasters, beginning with the fact that I lost my garbage can. Did the cleaners hide it? Who does that?
So, tears, tears, tears of regret for the late post. Let's get to shredding these bitches.
Man, I took a million notes during this thing and you know what I have to say about it? Nothing.
As in Season 2, the designer will be designing for each other, meanwhile each wearing a design someone else designed for them. (It's fun to type "design" a lot. Not as much fun as "throughout," but fun.) It probably took three seasons for the producers to figure out how to streamline this gangbang of sewing, stitching and modeling, and it's still what Gossip Girl calls a fustercluck.
The challenge was presumably crafted to hoist the contestants from Comfort Zone to another province, either Step It Upville or Incapability Island, and it's a measure of the show's distressing devolution that everyone landed on Clueless Atoll, sharing around their one coconut. After, of course, the producers aufed the only person who could have rocked this challenge to Canada Day. Poor Stella Barbarella — how much would you have given to be watching that episode in her batcave over a bowl of gluten-free chicken claws? Ratbones is all, "Don't cry, baby. Have some more more of my blood; that always picks you up."
NOTHING MAKES SENSE anymore. I'm not seeing what the judges are seeing. Kenley may be delusional, but I'm beginning to wonder whether La Vache Qui Rit is just the victim of spores the government has released or something. I mean, judging from the judging in this episode, I'm delusional, perhaps we all are.
Heidi comes out wearing an itty-bitty back dress with the interior shoulder strap showing and introduces some "very special ladies." A freaky oversize hobbit silhouette behind the PR scrim turns into a middle-aged woman. But the wrinklies on the runway are not the designers' clients, to Leanne's relief, as "None of us wanted to design for a bunch of old ladies, to be honest." Oh, be honest, do, Leanne. I'm sure you'll want to wear fabric-noodle-covered miniskirts well into your 50s. See? Delusional.
The clients are the ladies' daughters, who have recently graduated from college and are about to enter the professional world, they need workplace-appropriate outfits. What they really need is hair makeovers — clothes you can buy, but these chicks have some skank-ass headsuits.
Kenley gets Anna, who is wearing a loud vintage plaid dress and is going to be an assitant buyer.
Korto's Megan is thinking about med school and likes dresses. She's very pretty.
Jerell's gotten artsy Caitlin, who's a great clotheshanger with an androgynous look.
Leanne's client, Holly, is looking to become Leanne-in-an-alternate-universe, an elementary-school teacher. She needs to look authoritative, but has a passion for animal prints. Uh, this won't end well.
Suede's got Avital, who majored in photography, and wants something easy to lug equipment around in that's still interview-professional. Understandably, she wants pants, which is "not Suede's thing" — because he's lazy, retarded and, what's the word? Oh, yeah — delusional — but he's "gonna have to go down that pant road." Man, if running up a pair of trousers is the psychological equivalent of performing major surgery, maybe Suede's in the wrong profession.
Joe's client, Laura, is going into graphic design, likes bright colors and has a nose ring. At Mood, he hunts for a pinstriped fabric. The spores, I wonder whether they're in the water or the air.
"From drag queens to college graduates with nothing in between. This is the world we're living in," moans My Heterosexual Viewing Companion, who's given up on this episode and buried his nose in "The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Volume 3."
IT'S NEVER TOO early to start thinking about Halloween. I don't know when this season was being filmed, but clearly the greatest holiday of the year was on all the designers' minds. This year, I'm thinking of roping a pal into stepping out with me as Kim and Aggie from "How Clean Is Your House?" A male friend, if possible. La, la, la, just trying not to think about the fact that Leanne got porked by the fashion gods once again.
Gah.
The very special guests promised in last week's teaser turn out to be the eliminated designers. They will team up with the still standing to create avant-garde looks based on the astrological sign of one member of the team. Terri acts as if the ousted scissor-monkeys are incredibly rude to thrust their presences back into the workroom. I'm sure Keith "Sulky McBitterpants" was thrilled to be back.
Weirdly, they're all either Sagitarius, Aquarius or Libra. It's telling, if you believe in this tripe, that the ousted designers are the wild cards — a stray Cancer (Kelly), Stella, Emily and Wesley are Scorpios, Jennifer's a Taurus (which is kind of funny), Keith a Leo. The one anomaly among the remaining designers is the sore thumb, Straight Joe, who is not only an Aries but an utter meatball about this challenge which, like every other challenge, like the view outside his window, the current CBS prime-time lineup and his morning bagel is a threat to his hard-won heterosexuality. Hang on to it, Joe! It can slip from your grasp at any moment!
Tim Gunn hands the teams a fake-ass "dossier" containing the common mythologies of each sign and leaves the teams to disintegrate into puddles of passive-aggressiveness and chiffon. Man, these people do not work well with others. The drag queen episode has less drama.
THE SCISSOR MONKEYS try to switch it up this week, and all I can say is ... stop that.
Words like "fashion legend" are thrown around on this show like so many Keithy scraps, but all this crying wolf mean when the wolf finally does show up — fangs and breastbone bared, hair akimbo, fiercely wrap-dressed — the designers have used up their drama on Natalie Portman or whatever and it's all they can do to applaud wanly. Oh, who am I kidding? Those bitches go INSANE.
After pushing through a huge set of doors upon which "DVF" is drawn in 10-foot-high black lettering, moaning, "Where are we?" "I wonder who it will be?," the ragsters are led into the regulation stadium that is Diane von Furstenberg's atelier. In case they still don't get that this is special — or in case they haven't been watching the 10,000 DvF American Express commercials that have been blanketing the airwaves — la Furstenberg herself appears at the tippy-top of a three-story-high white-ass staircase and descends with all the pomp and nobility of freakin' Turandot. There is shrieking; there is gasping. Kenley cries like a newborn, Jerell is entirely verklempt. DvF herself looks fabulous, but she needs a little color on her face. Just some tinted gloss — anything.
The challenge is to design a look inspired by Fursty's Fall 2008 collection, whose theme is "A Foreign Affair." Holy cats, now we're talking! Let's just count off the deliciousnesses:
1) Marlene Dietrich
2) Cabaret singer
3) Spy
4) Berlin
5) Shanghai
6) DvF's own fabric closet
Continue Reading "Runway Jury: What Becomes a Legend Least?" »
MORNING AT ATLAS apartments. Keith brushes his teeth. With a crash, the door opens and a white-bearded, starved-looking old man, nearly naked but for a loincloth, stumbles into the bathroom.
Keith: "Mmf?"
Soothsayer of Terrible Prophecies: "DOOOOOMED!"
We all saw this coming. Shrederella had about 5 minutes and counting left to win the judges over before they tired of his fabric-rending antics and sour attitude. The editors, sick unto death of the boy, conspire to make him look extra super evil in the editing, which is the only way anyone on reality TV can look evil, because they're all really good people who got screwed by bad editing.
Then again, no one in the cutting room made Keith say this: "I deserve this more."
Or this: "I don't know how to get out of Utah."
Or this, to his model: "Watch the breathing."
That's right, bitch, don't breathe, because I've stupidly underestimated your size even though I have your stats right here and even though human beings can't physically get any smaller than models, I've gone and run out of fabric for this ugly, poorly made, hole-gaping skirt-thing an enterprising 12-year-old wouldn't claim in 7th grade Home Ec. Did I say you could breathe, woman? Cut that out!
Continue Reading "Runway Jury: It's an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World" »
GUEST JUDGE USEFULNESS-O-Meter: RuPaul goes to 11.
This was the "Project Runway" we've been missing: entertaining personalities, strong tastes, a fabulous runway show, drama, drama, drama. Of course I'm referring to the clients, not the designers.
Jesus Christ on a unicycle, people, what a relief this is from watching the Olympics with My Heterosexual Viewing Companion. He mutters dark invective against his nemesis, Bela Karolyi; yells "Loser!" at the screen every time an American gymnast competes; confuses the Japanese with the Chinese out of inattention ("She's not 16!"); and screams "Aieeeee! Gluglugglug ..." during the diving routines — each and every time. Even on the replays. My nerves are about wrecked.
Thank god for drag queens.
Dawn breaks in the Atlas apartments, and who knew — Stella sleeps in a cute watermelon camisole. Daniel and Blayne greet the day by insulting Keith's swathes of chiffon. It's a point well taken, although the show's judging tends to tip unpredictably between two considerations, what have you designed for me lately and overall body of work, so even if they're bored, we're bored and the waiters at Lucky Cheng's are bored with Keith's one note, how more of the same will be received is unclear.
So, as promised, Chris March swans out in the insane Valkyrie costume seen in last week's previews, shocking our dewy baby lamb designers. Please, Suede, like you've never worn a halved disco ball as a bra. Blayne calls it too much drama, which is just stupidlicious. At least Terri's into it.
DANIEL'S "HIGH-END" is the new Jennifer's "surrealism."
Guest Judge Usefuleness-O-meter: 10
"I have very high-end taste": 5
The designers are going to create a look for a "high-powered and glamorous professional woman." Who doesn't exist. Blayne hopes it's not Hillary Clinton. I hope it is, because that would be a real high-powered glamorous woman and not one who's six feet tall, beautiful, actress-thin and played by Brooke Shields.
For it is a challenge to create an outfit for Brooke's character to wear on NBC's "Lipstick Jungle." So what they're making isn't office-to-dinner clothes but TV-show costumes. Just say it, show. And stop pushing the horrible "Lipstick Jungle" on us; I'm still smarting from the cancellation of the far superior "Cashmere Mafia."
Anyway, Tim Gunn trots Brooke out and Stella looks as if someone hit her with a frying pan. Especially since she had high hopes for the challenge, to wit: "I would like to design for Sharon Osbourne, Queen of Rock. She's a businesswoman."
And that, producers, is what's called a good idea.
I hope this challenge doesn't involve incorporating the lame red sash Brooke's wearing as a belt — are we still on the Olympics challenge?
Addison Road