Clothes!

Yesterday I accidentally discovered Uniqlo. Obviously, the store existed before I arrived in SoHo and, thanks to the many posts devoted to it on Gothamist, I did know that it was there, but I hadn’t realized that it was so close to my destination. I saw it immediately upon exiting the subway and was very curious, but wanted to get to Helen Wang before the store closed. I figured that Uniqlo was larger and on a main street and would probably stay open longer, and I was correct on all three counts.

I tried on lots of pretty, girly dresses at Helen Wang, but apparently Helen is not interested in the fact that some of us have boobs. The size 6s and 8s fit everywhere except for across my girls, which made me sad. A LOT of that stuff was gorgeous, and I guess it’s probably a good thing for me that I couldn’t fit into most of it. There were some sun dresses that fit okay, but I found them a little boring. I ended up getting a cute, loose-fitting dress that put me in mind of something that Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl would wear. I really don’t know what that says about me. I’m still putting things together in my mind, but if I go somewhere formal for New Year’s Eve, this is definitely what I’d wear.

So I meandered after leaving Helen Wang, and went into some other stores on Mercer. Lots of sales, but nothing that I would buy even for any reason other than the fact that it was a good deal. So off to Uniqlo I went, where the first thing I saw was really a cute cashmere pullover for $40. It really makes no sense that they can sell things so inexpensively (not that I’m complaining, just confused). Initially, I picked up one of those, but when I went to the fitting room for the first time, I saw that that shirt had some schmutz on it. I’m not picky, but I’d like to believe that my clothes are clean when I buy them (because it’s not like I wash them before wearing. Shut up). Also, my like for the shirt was closely tied to the high quality fabric at a low price, and I felt little admiration for the item itself, so I passed on getting a newer, hopefully cleaner shirt.

I tried on a cute white pea coat that put me in the mind of this Bailey 44 coat I tried on earlier that day, but which cost $341. It wouldn’t have been the most I’d ever spent on a coat, but that’s not exactly the best rationale ever for buying something, now is it? The skirts at Uniqlo were kind of cute, but the lengths did nothing for me. They were either too long and made me look stumpy AND frumpy or too short and made me look trashy. I did end up buying a cute corduroy pencil skirt that my mom cautioned me against wearing to work (as if I ever would). I was just about to leave when a cute, extremely personable salesguy came by and offered me his opinion on the pea coat (I was looking for it in black, but he thought the white looked better). He also talked me into trying on skinny jeans, which he said would look really good on me (he was right, damn him) and a pale lavender shirt, which I’m not completely sold on, but can appreciate in the abstract. I got that same shirt in several colors, but I did draw the line at the shade of green he tried to get me to buy it in; I’m not a fir green kind of person.

In the end, I got a lot of stuff that I like but didn’t necessarily need, so I decided that I should end my night by buying something that I did need: new sneakers. I have owned my Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars since the night in September of 2006 of the Heroes series premiere, and decided that the broken elastic and ripped side of my shoes meant I could go ahead and replace them without feeling wasteful. I got home exactly 30 minutes after boarding the bus at Port Authority, which was pretty sweet, and my evening only improved when I found out that Monday was the season premiere of Chuck and Life, and that this week’s Gossip Girl was everything I dreamed of. I watched Chuck while eating dinner, and then watched Gossip Girl during the changing breaks in the new fashion show of that I put on for my mother. I’m only halfway through Heroes because those people are kind of boring me right now, but I hope that I’m in a better frame of mind to watch it tomorrow.

This is the best picture my mom took

but this is the best picture of the dress...

What does it take to get rid of that girl?

Kenley is like the Teflon Don, the way she keeps flirting with elimination and annoying the crap out of the judges, only to be reprieved before getting auffed. Why is she still on this show? She’s ungraciously defensive, moderately talented, and supremely annoying. And, of course, I just saw a preview for next week where she dishes up more of the same petty, juvenile behavior that she has exhibited all season. I would be happy to see that promo and take it as a harbinger of her doom, but the other designers were also expressing anxiety and crying on the runway, so it’s too soon to take the pins out of my Kenley voodoo doll. Plus, after last week’s episode, I just knew she would be toast, and she wasn’t, so I have to make an effort not to get too excited.

I didn’t necessarily think that Suede should have gone home for the boring rock and roll outfit that he made Jerell, but I would not argue that, cumulatively, his missteps outweighed those of the other designers. Despite his relentless use of the third person, somehow Suede wiggled his way into my heart (just a little), and I was actually slightly sad to see him go. He’s like that annoying, boozy barfly whose futile attempts to speak in complete sentences and be taken seriously are so funny that you’re a little sad when the bartender finally cuts him off and pours him into a cab before the night is over. Now who’s going to entertain you?

Still, it’s not so much that Suede’s talent is one that I’m going to miss (I’m not saying that he isn’t talented, but I’m not going to lose sleep next week wondering what he would have made if he’d remained on the show instead of Kenley). It’s just that I hate Kenley’s attitude so much, I’m not inclined to be fair or reasonable about anything related to her. Her sense of entitlement is making me ill. I’m all for self-confidence and pride in one’s work, but she takes these perfectly good qualities to unreasonable levels. In Kenley’s world, any time that somebody doesn’t just adore her stuff, it’s not because she’s made a mistake or interpreted the challenge incorrectly, it’s because that person JUST DOESN’T GET IT. She cannot conceive of a universe where her best effort isn’t right the first time out, and doesn’t understand why others don’t love her as much as she loves herself. She lacks perspective and cannot accept criticism in the spirit in which it was intended. How does she expect to learn anything from 1) a well-known desinger, 2) a former fashion magazine style editor, 3) a pretty freaking awesome supermodel, and 4) any number of guest fashion luminaries if she won’t listen to their advice long enough to see how it might apply to her designs? I really admire Tim for even trying to explain to her how her attitude is getting in her way, but I am in no way surprised that she immediately discounted everything that he’d said to her. She’s a brat, and I use such a childish word because she seems to have an attitude more commonly found in 15-year-old girls.

I continue to be impressed with Jerell. He really has made such great strides from where he was at the beginning of the season, and although his attitude sometimes resembles Kenley’s, at least he has the talent to kind of back it up. It would have been really interesting if he’d won four challenges in a row, and his work is such that I would not have felt that Korto was slighted if he’d won tonight. I’m glad that Korto won tonight, if only because that meant she actually cracked a smile on the runway. Usually, she looks like the judges just offered her a choice between the dungeon or a day in the stocks.

Also, I know it’s not fair, but I’m unreasonably excited that there will be at least two female designers officially going to fashion week this year (as opposed to being decoys). It seemed like the women of of season five really had the chops that were mostly lacking in their male counterparts, and I’m excited to see who wins. [Full disclosure: thanks to the wonderful Jezebel, I have already seen the collections of the five designers (those still in the competition, plus Joe and Suede) and know which are in my personal top two, but I don’t pretend to be able to guess what the judges will think.]

Other thoughts:

I’m not even remotely interested in that design show after Project Runway, but the tiny Asian guy with the horrible little voice makes me want to do damage to my ear drums. I know it’s horrible to make fun of somebody for something that he has no control over and that he cannot change, but his voice just bugs me so much. I program my dvr to continue to record for a couple of minutes after Project Runway is over (I’m paranoid about missing something), so this isn’t the first time that I’ve gotten this particularly unpleasant surprise.

Poor, dumb, Joe

I always get concerned when people blithely dismiss what Tim has to say, because he often seems to know how the judges are going to feel about a garment. I cringed at Joe’s confidence in his design, in the face of so much serious criticism. Even if he wasn’t willing to listen to Tim, he really should have been concerned at the way the Mean Girls (Kenley and Jerell) gleefully mocked his suit. Would they have done that to a piece that could be considered strong? Doubtful. They were so confident that his design was hideous, and that alone should have made him go back and make some changes.

Kenley seems to be all about trashing people, and it’s hilarious that she has the nerve to talk about anybody else having a limited vision or talent, when she’s clearly making the same thing over and over, too. She has no room to talk, and I like that Heidi sort of called her out on that. The mean girl in me thinks that it will be very satisfying to see what happens when Kenley and Jerell end up turning on each other. That expression on Kenley’s face when she didn’t win was definitely a step in the right direction.

AND WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT MESS ON JERELL’S HEAD??? Dear god, that man is nuts. I can’t believe that he allowed himself to be photographed for a national magazine wearing that crap. It looks like a vine attacked his hair. I hope that gets photoshopped out.

I don’t usually remember what happens in the previews from one week to the next, but I find it amusing that everybody’s commenting on how off the mark Kenley is. I also think they even showed a bit of one of her overly defensive responses, coupled with Tim telling her to ditch the attitude and sarcasm, and I seriously just cannot wait.

Other thoughts:

I kind of loved Nina’s “I will say no more” to Suede. Maybe she’s also sick of his tendency to speak of himself in the third person and knew enough not to engage him in conversation.

Will Korto ever win? I think that her consistent excellence seems to work against her; maybe the judges have come to expect amazing garments from her, and they’re not as highly valued as they might be from another designer.

It seems to me that, in their individual interviews, this group of designers is more likely to focus on the other designers than themselves. I guess a lack of self-absorption is nice, but they don’t ever have anything nice to say about the competition. It gets a little difficult to see such negativity every week. Where’s the love??

Blayne, I get; Terri? Not so much.

Ah! So this is about the episode of Project Runway that aired on September 10. I wrote most of this while I was watching the show for the first time and then finished and forgot to publish it!

The challenge this week was to create an avant-garde outfit based on the astrological sign of one of the two designers on the team. Just judging by their reactions upon being told the theme, I sort of doubt that a lot of these people understand what avant-garde means. And I think that Tim understands this. I think the producers are kind of evil geniuses, so their idea of having people who lost work with people still on the show is pretty hilarious. The tension in that room must be almost unbearable. I would hate to be Keith. Poor Keith. He just never catches a break, does he?

Kenley and Emily are so annoying together. Kenley by herself is a lot to take, and giving her a sidekick in her cockiness is not helping matters. What are you so chipper about, Emily? When this is done, you go home. Suede must have been really really stressed out. He forgot to use the third person when talking about himself. For this reason, and this reason alone, I will acknowledge his existence today.

I am not impressed with Kenley’s outfit, and the way that she gets so defensive whenever the judges off any criticism makes me cringe. 1) It’s totally unprofessional to argue with people who are offering their opinions on your item and 2) sometimes I respond that way to criticism, and it’s humbling to see how immature and ugly a reaction it really is.

I felt that a lot of the items made for this challenge were pretty fugly, and I guess I’m biased because she was hilarious and talented, but I’m bummed that Terri had to go home. Also, her items consistently received very high marks, and even if they were disappointed by her outfit and her inability to play nice with Keith, I think she was deserving of another chance. Blayne has been making weird and unflattering outfits almost from the get-go, and I think that he was being kept around for entertainment value, until the producers realized that everybody has a really leathery friend whose brain has been fried by the tanning bed. Being tanorexic is not entertaining for more than 5 seconds (although Blayne’s stock did rise when he unironically called Stella “leatherface”). I didn’t get Jerells’ dress at all, and though that Leanne should have won. I guess they didn’t want to give it to her three times in a row. Leanne makes great clothes pretty much all the time now, and I think that this is her competition to lose.

STELLA!!!

It’s kind of funny that I got traffic last week based on my post about Keith. I’m strangely flattered that, of all the people out there snickering at Keith, a blogger at the SL Tribune found it in his heart to single me out. I doubt that any New York sites are clamoring for my take on Stella’s exit, but I’m going to give it to you all anyway.

The loser: I thought that Stella’s earlier outfits were really interesting, and I’m sad that the quality of her work decreased so appreciably. Also, I like the way she says “leathuh.” Have you noticed that the last three people eliminated had been in the bottom two the week before their departure? Or was it four? There was the boring “surrealist” person who I refuse to look up and she went home at some point in recent memory, so I’m just going to say four here. So at least the judges are paying attention to who isn’t bringing the awesome. If pattern holds, I guess Joe might be out of here next week, but his previous work was was kind of all over the place in quality, so he might bounce back and end up winning the challenge.

The Winner: I was happy for Leanne, because at the beginning of this season I couldn’t figure out which one she was, and now I recognize her before they put her name up on the screen. Progress. Plus! Her dresses are really cute and I would wear some of them. Not the one that won tonight, though; I am an Amex cardholder, but I’m 99% sure that dress would not look any good on me. Also, she’s funny, and the previews for next week make it seem like she was kind of pissing off Kenley which, in my eyes, can never be wrong.

Everybody else:
A lot of people are getting sick of Terri, and I guess she may be more annoying than they edit her to seem. But two of those people are bitchy Kenley and bitchier Jerell, so what does that mean? While I’m not sold on her being annoying, I do find it easier to see what the other designers mean when they talk about her not having many looks. Everything she makes is excellent, but all really similar. I wonder if the judges are going to mention that soon. I think that if it all hadn’t been so well-executed, she would have had problems before this. They don’t usually let designers coast on the same design for this long even, so she may be overdue, or maybe her stuff just isn’t as similar as I think it is.

Korto makes me really nervous, because during the runway shows she gets heaps of praise and doesn’t seem at all happy with it. What does it take to make this woman crack a smile? She’s often really excited and hopeful about her designs in the workroom, but not so much later on. I wonder how much enthusiasm helps your case, and whether she isn’t doing herself a disservice with the extreme stoicism. Blayne isn’t as orange as he used to be, and his designs have also improved as the show has progressed. I believe that these two facts are related. I refuse to give Suede any serious thought until he stops using the third person so frequently.

The price I pay for vanity

I bought these shoes for Christine’s wedding:

Gorgeous shoes of death

They are really pretty, but I suspect that they might not be the most comfortable things ever. I’ve been wearing them for the last fifteen minutes just to get used to them, and I feel like they’re restricting the blood flow to my feet. AND I’M NOT EVEN WALKING AROUND IN THEM. This is not a good sign.