Even better than the “real woman” challenge

Project Runway week 2 – I’m writing this as I watch the episode, so don’t judge me for my use of the present tense!

I don’t know why, but I really like this group of designers. They’re not bitchy yet, and they seem really happy to be with each other and still in the competition. There’s even a level of cooperation that seems more universal that usual. Everybody seems to be getting in on the fun. They seem more functional than previous years’ groups, and I feel like most of them would not annoy me in person. Gordana is awesome, and watching her crack up with Ra’Mon when he said “semester” instead of “trimester” was pretty terrific. Maybe his passion for fashion wasn’t the only reason he decided against a career in medicine.

I’m happy to see a pregnancy challenge. It’s good when the competition goes in new directions in terms of what is being asked of the contestants. I like that the designers are really thinking about what pregnancy clothing means, and considering things like the gap between maternity clothes and regular fashion, and what will be comfortable on a pregnant woman.

It’s hard to hear Ra’Mon second-guessing himself now, when he did so well last week. It’s a shame that he seems to be ignoring the positive comments his dress garnered, and paying so much attention to the judges’ advice against being too safe. I hope he doesn’t shoot himself in the foot by going too far away from where his natural inclination will take him.

Rebecca Romijn is, once again, seeming like the most awesome person ever. I would babysit for her and my eighth grade love Jerry O’Connell whenever…

Oh my god, what is happening on Sandra Bullock’s head in the “All About Steve” commercial? There are no words for how wrong that color/style combination is on her…

Oh, Malvin. He’s talking Ari-talk right now, and I think we all learned how well that turns out. I really really want to like him, but he’s beating the quirk drum just a little too hard right now. Tim’s “cuckoo has already happened,” is pretty much my idea of heaven. He didn’t say it aloud, but you know that sentence was continued in his head as “Bless Ari’s little heart.” I wish Tim Gunn would come to my job and critique my performance. “Oh Nicole. I really want to like what you told that woman, but you know that there’s another edition of that book in storage, right?” I guarantee that I would be more productive and awesome and my ideas would be fabulous. Project Library would rock so much.

Whoa! Look at Mitchell being an underminer. I want to believe that he’s being this way unintentionally, but it seems like a particularly brilliant strategy. “It looks better from back here?” Oh, you cad! I don’t know what it says about me that this made Mitchell go up in my estimation.

While at the hospital earlier today (not for myself) I saw two pregnant women today who were actually in labor (I think my fallopian tubes crossed in sympathy), so watching these otherwise skinny models glide around with their basketball bellies and lack of waddles is sort of killing me.

Qristyl, who smarter people than I have dubbed Spell Check, is super bitchy. I find it laughable that she is the one who is talking about unfortunate choices in style and what is and is not au courant, considering that she was nearly sent home last week for bad sewing and questionable taste. How quickly they forget.

Carol-Hannah is wearing a beautiful dress. It’s halfway through the episode and I can’t remember what her design for this challenge looks like, but I hope it’s as least as cute.

Ra’Mon just mentioned Stella! and Leathuh! What a nice callback. And it’s cool to see that the designers have an awareness of what happened on previous seasons, which we already know, but they don’t always seem to want to acknowledge. This is why I don’t get it when they pretend that they have no idea how this show works. HELLO, you’re on the sixth season already. The time for disingenuousness has passed.

Aw, Malvin way to rally. I appreciate his acknowledgment that some of the other designers have something to show and say, as well. Confidence is one thing, but it is really off-putting when a designer refuses to even acknowledge that any of his or her competition could possibly be playing at the same level.

Now it’s time for the runway challenge! Heidi explains the rules, and that there’s no Michael Kors. Noted designer Monique Lhuillier bravely tanned in his place and then took over his chair. Way to take one for the team, Monique. The judges are all female, and they’ve all been pregnant, and woe is the designer who tries to BS them about a design that is just not working. They shall lay the smackdown with a quickness!

I really liked Logan’s top, but overall thought his design was pretty generic. Shirin, who is probably already my favorite of this season, had a dress that was awesome on its own, and then added a fabulous coat. Somebody must have told her how much I like coats. Nicholas’s model looked like a pregnant streetwalker. Christopher had immunity, but I thought that he took a good risk and his top was great. Spell Check’s dress looked like she threw an orange sack over her model and then cut a couple of holes. I gave her an extra week to gain some taste, but I can see why the judges were concerned about her overall lack of refinement. Epperson’s look is okay. I’m not sure how I felt about the jumpsuit. Louise’s dress was cute, but I think that her model’s belly was more pregnant that some of the others’ and the whole outfit ended up looking slightly comical.  Gordana, as I’ve come to expect, made such a great outfit. Johnny toned down the emotion by a factor of a thousand this week, AND made a beautiful dress. I have a feeling that my love for him will exist in inverse proportion to how much he emotes. I hate hate hate what Malvin made. I feel for Ra’Mon. I don’t think that his dress is amazing, but I would have been interested to see what he could have made if he wasn’t worried about avoiding the appearance of safety. Mitchell’s look is tight and unremarkable. Carol-Hannah’s dress is okay. I like the ruffly jacket she put on top of it, but the draping around the pregnant belly seemed a little trippy to me. I love Althea’s dress, but her model’s girls are barely contained by the fabric, which sort of ruins things. There’s nothing worse than the feeling that one of your boobs could make a break for freedom at any time. You can’t relax in a dress like that. Irina’s dress seemed pretty safe, but was super cute.

I can’t believe that Spell Check is safe. Ra’Mon’s dress had definite faults, but they seemed to be laughing with him, as opposed to at him. That’s okay, right? Malvin, I thought you weren’t supposed to mention the Mother Hen thing. Oh, wait. That was the chicken thighs thing. Oh, Heidi. I love you. Mitchell, the underminer, HA. HA, to you, sir! Too tight t-shirt and too short shorts. They love Shirin like I do. I’m wondering if maybe two weeks of underwhelming is all that Mitchell is going to get. We’ll see. Rebecca mentioned the bowling ball bag thing in regard to Ra’Mon’s dress. Awesome. Hey, I never said that Mitchell was wrong in his critique of Ra’Mon; it’s just that it wasn’t nice. Or helpful.

I don’t know that much is added to the program to hear the judges discuss the top and bottom looks. We don’t hear them say who won, and the editors are trying to tiptoe around accidentally revealing anything before the final commercial break. It’s tedious. Since I can’t find out the results at this point, the only thing left to do is watch how the judges interact with one another. It’s funny when it’s obvious that a judge really likes or doesn’t like something; they’re all pretty much decided on their opinions by this point, and yet they try to convince one another to adopt their opinions. All the tension makes me want to suggest a group hug. Nina shot down Louise’s dress, even though Rebecca quite liked it. I ended up feeling like Nina was questioning Rebecca’s taste for not feeling the same way about the dress that Nina did. I think I found the drama that was missing from the workroom.

Okay, it’s time for them to reveal the winners and losers. Somebody’s gonna cry. I knew that Shirin won when Rebecca looked in her direction. It would have been cruel to look her way and then say that Althea won, and my imaginary friendship with Rebecca could not have survived such a Meredith Viera-like move. Yay!! Ra’Mon is in. Okay, is it going to be crazy or sloppy that’s out? I think that crazy is going to live to work another day.

Am I right?

No. Continuing their streak from last week. Mitchell barely manages to survive the competition, and the oddball designer gets the boot. Sorry you got auffed, Malvin. You were fun to watch, although you probably couldn’t have realistically lasted much longer than week 2, anyway. I guess Lifetime is less accepting of crazy contestants than Bravo. I wonder how long Santino, Wendy, or Angela would have lasted if they were on the Lifetime version of Project Runway…

Project Runway West

First: Tim Gunn is awesome. He’s so cool, and even when faced with the craziness of some of these designers, he manages to convey both his support and his doubts. I wish that all people could have a Tim Gunn in their life.

I’m really happy that this first challenge was to design for the red carpet, instead of making an outfit out of stuff in the apartment, the clothes off the designers’ backs, trash, or supermarket finds. Those have been done to death. I was concerned when Ari said that she didn’t draw, but only because that made me think of Angela, which is always unfortunate. It’s good to know that the shameless promotion of Mood could continue with the show’s change of venue; for a second there I was worried that the designers would have to go to a Michael’s or A.C. Moore for their silk charmeuse. I don’t know if it was this group of designers, the way the editors spliced the show together, or some combination of the two, but the atmosphere in the workroom seemed pretty good. People were stressed and working hard, but I didn’t see anybody get the side-eye or be on the wrong end of a harsh word. I wonder how long this can last.

It might have annoyed me in episode five or so, but since this was the premiere, I didn’t even mind Johnny’s meltdown. He did have a valid concern, and I think that the other designers were amazingly supportive in a way that one might not have expected, given the newness of their acquaintance. Plus, Tim talked him down from the ledge and he mad it into the top three, so I hope he can carry his confidence forward, because if he does this again, I will not take it as well.

I’m shocked at how happy I was to see Nina Garcia and Michael Kors. Nobody can bitchslap a designer like those two. it was great how excited the designers were when they saw Lindsay Lohan. Nobody is that excited to see her, except for the paparazzi. I feel slightly ashamed at how surprised I was at her coherence. I know she’s not all “Dur, Sam, argh,” all the time, but I still didn’t expect her to speak as well as she did.

There were a few designs that I looooved. Shirin, Louise, Gordana, and Irina’s dresses were super. I liked Ra’Mon and Johnny’s dresses, too, but not as much. I thought that Christopher’s dress was okay, but not amazing. I was surprised that none of the women I mentioned were included in the top three. In fact, the whole top three was men; what’s up with that? I think that it would be interesting if, for one season, the designs came down the runway without the judges knowing who made them. For this to work best, I think the designers would not be able to be in the room, either. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that female designers did better when the judges didn’t know who made things. Plus, this would prevent designers from being pigeonholed as good or bad, and stop people from coasting on past successes or being punished for past disappointments. Blind judging, Project Runway. Think about it. If you use my idea, though, I’d like some credit (and free clothes).

I’m happy that Michael Kors managed to include the phrase “taste level” in the very first show. Is that a record? How can they already be worried about Qristyl’s taste after viewing only one of her designs? Going into the runway show, there were a couple of people who I worried about, but there was so many unfortunate things going on in that room that there wasn’t anybody who was a lock to go home. I was pretty unimpressed with Epperson’s dress. It looked like something that you’d wear to a fancy funeral, if such a thing exists. I’m glad that Mitchell wasn’t sent home. His dress sucked because he was given improper model measurements, not because he’s unable to design well.

I think it was nice that the person who won the first challenge was a non-fashion school graduate, because the nonnies seemed really self-conscious about everybody else knowing stuff they didn’t. I just hope they don’t spend the rest of the season harping on their feelings of inadequacy, because that would not be interesting. Of course, the loser also didn’t go to fashion school (I think!), either, but I don’t think that’s why she had to go. Her outfit was insane, and she knew that, but I think she missed the part where somebody else had to be interested in it, too. I agreed that Ari should go. She definitely had a point of view, but I can’t imagine it ever lining up with the judges’ enough to do her good on this show. And it was nice to hear her say that she learned that one should take risks responsibly; it is wearying to hear rejected contestants go on about how they were misunderstood, without acknowledging that there might have been more to it than that.

Given the fact that this is the first season of Project Runway to be cast using the Bunim-Murray people (of Real World fame), I’m surprised that there were no fist-fights, drunken hookups, or attempts to bond in a conveniently located hot tub. Malvin’s hair kind of pissed me off when I first saw it, but he doesn’t seem obnoxious, so he and his coif have grown on me. I still have zero respect for the spelling of Qristyl’s name, but from here on in, I’ll only have to see it once an episode, so I think I can keep my rage at bay. Plus, she’s on thin ice already, so if she doesn’t straighten up and fly right, she may be going home soon, meaning that I’d have to see her names zero times an episode. This would also be acceptable. The closest I came to being annoyed was with Logan’s “I’m more of a guy’s guy” comment. What did that statement add to my life? Not a thing. Maybe that’s why I thought he was going to be a pain in the ass.

Sew excited!

Yes, you’re right; I should be stoned for that horrible pun. Still, I can’t hide how happy I am that Project Runway will be coming back to the airwaves on August 20th. Today Lifetime put up their Project Runway web site and introduced this season’s contestants. I try not to put too much stock in the pre-airing bios and such, but a couple of people already seem like they’re going to be difficult. And not just difficult, but reality-tv difficult, which involves visible efforts and obvious attempts to coin a catchphrase. Below are my picks for the three people most likely to make me want to hurl footwear at the tv, based mostly on photos.

1) Malvin Vien – Look at that hair and those dead eyes and tell me that he’s not going to be a problem. Go ahead, I dare you.

2) Logan Neitzel – He just looks like he’s going to be a pain in the ass.

3) Qristyl Frazier – I refuse to believe that this is how her name was spelled at birth, and I am angry with her for doing this to my eyes.

And I just realized that my Project Runway category was mysteriously eaten in the move over from WordPress.com, so I guess I’ll spend my evening re-categorizing old posts.