Still enjoying the heck out of Project Runway (and, hey, that Project Jay was actually original and interesting rather than predictable reality-showish). I realized last night that I like all of the final three and will be sad when they can't all win. Going into the episode I thought Daniel would (and should) win, but now I'm thinking Santino on both counts.

Santino's backstory was interesting. I liked how his hard life basically boils down to, "I'm hideous and received all the worst and strangest endowments of the human gene pool." I'm used to seeing beautiful people with their uglier families and wondering how they ended up the way they did. This was the opposite... two fairly attractive parents merged and Mother Nature selected the worst features of each. I imagine being an ugly gay man must be difficult.

I was pretty much sold on him and Andrae and Nick (well, I was sold on Nick from the beginning) when they started doing operas and musicals around the workroom. "Whaaaaat hap-pened to Annnn-drae?"

I was terribly disappointed and surprised that Santino didn't win. I felt that his collection was far superior in execution and creativity to the other two. I suspect Tim Gunn agreed, and you've got to trust that awfully lovable man (gee, did he have proud tears in his eyes as he wished them all good luck?).

I really couldn't understand the judges' comment that the breasts of Santino's clothes were ill-fitting. While Chloe's definitely were the most perfect in fit, his were excellent and quite tailored too. I was baffled at that comment being levied at Santino, because I thought for sure it was meant for Daniel... I saw at least two of Daniel's tops in which the sides of the breast were flapping open, and those were the instants when I realized he couldn't win. But they praised his fit. What the hell?

Two weeks ago, I thought Daniel was the most talented and should win, but I completely changed my mind over the past two episodes. Not only did Santino emerge for me as the most talented (though I would've liked to see what Nick would have done), but Daniel's collection looked incohesive and far too off-the-rack... at Ann Taylor or Banana Republic.

At least, if Santino couldn't win, Chloe did. Some pieces in her collection were beautiful (the long blue gown with the '40s/'80s shoulders was amazing), but I felt it wasn't very creative (also a little too off-the-rack) and it was terribly repetitive. She used a small amount of fabrics in far too many pieces... no way should she have used that patterned green fabric on three almost identical dresses.

Oh, well. I imagine having the runway show will be enough to launch all three (including Kara, who got the "fake" runway show so no one at Fashion Week would know who the final three were -- I have to go over to the Bravo site now to see the video of her collection). Winning's nice but they're probably all on their way. Even those who didn't make it to fashion week.

I saw Jay in the audience and started thinking that he's really going to self-destruct, piddle it all away. He already rejected the prize money in favor of licensing deals... not sure what's up there.

One of the contestants on this season's Project Runway is an employee where I work. So, everyone is talking about it here. I don't know him but I'm keeping my ear to the ground to see if any good gossip is to be had. I'll keep you updated.

Ooh, which one?

I am watching this season. I think their retaining of talentless people just because they're troublemakers is becoming more conspicuous. They ought to cut it out. Vincent is a nutter and should've been cut the first episode, or certainly in the one where he crazy-sexist-backstabbed Angela. I don't like her, but I thought he was completely in the wrong there... and it's infuriating that he succeeded in manipulating the judges' opinion of what had happened. Angela getting to stay also reeks of reality-TV-driven decisions. I know they have a disclaimer about that, but that doesn't make it right.

Yeah, Angela so deserved to go last episode, her creation was awful!! As much as I didn't like Vincent the ep before last, he did make me giggle with his insane laughter over the doggie hat.

But that hat was nearly as awful as his previous hat. Man should be burned at the stake to preserve hatkind.

I liked some '80s fashion quite a lot. But the '80s fashion he does is awful.

His name is Robert. I don't watch the show but he was on the winning team that designed Miss America's dress for Miss Universe, though he was not the team leader.

Oh, I like him. He seems like a nice person and talented, too. Which may be why he's not getting much screen time at this point.

Thanks for the new thread, powers that be.

I was really worried that Robert would be eliminated last night, and I'm glad he wasn't. Though I think he and Bonnie are both pretty good and just had a bad night.

I have pretty serious Vincent dislike. (My mama taught me not to hate.) I really wonder how he got past the pshyc evaluation because dude is clearly not sane. He has yet to design anything that couldn't have come out of a Simplicity pattern book. As far as I can tell the only reason that he's still on my televison is that in each challenge someone else has laid a bigger egg, not because any of his were any good.

A Simplicity pattern book from 1986.

I'll hate him for you. I think his horrible hat ensemble in the first challenge was the worst and should have gotten him booted off. I think he's only being kept around for the drama. He and Angela should have lost a few of those times.

The man is a basket case. I meant that on several levels.

Vincent is insane, but I think Angela has redeemed herself in the last two challenges.

Loved Michael's Pam Grier outfit, it motherf**king rocked and I also liked Kayne's Madonna outfit (I've liked all of Kayne's work so far).

Bradley was amusing, but a bit out of his depth. Robert's Jackie O outfited sucked.

I like the twist in that the models had more choice, good way to shake things up a little.

I was glad that Michael won, since his outfit was good and he hadn't won yet... but I admit I rooted for that in spite of the fact that I thought Kayne's outfit was slightly more deserving. I think Kayne looked justly put out when he lost.

How stoned is Bradley? If that's not the explanation, I don't know what is.

Last night's challenge was really unusual and excellent. I think they misstepped by not having the designers design for their own mothers. I really wanted to see that and I think it would've made for more interesting designs and television; but they sacrificed it to some idea of what would make high-drama reality TV.

This is a weird season... the judges seem to be off every time. I hate Jeffrey, but he so clearly deserved to win the recycled challenge. And Kayne's dress was a thin hair more spectacular than Michael's outfit. This week, I think Ulli's outfit was above the rest of the field. See also the multiple travesty voting-offs. Though I thought this week's voting off was fair... Robert's outfit was probably the worst. Still, I thought Kayne's outfit for Michael's mother was beautiful and right up there with Ulli's.

For some reason it was entertaining to hear Ulli's mother bark "Und I am Heidi." And then chatting in German with Heidi Klum... man, what a brusqe language. I'm disliking Klum more as time passes. I think she's not only classist but weightist. Everything with her is "cheap" or "expensive" -- the latter seems to be the beginning and end of all compliments. And then there she was last week, barking like Frau Farbissina, "She looks so FAT. But it is FAT. Who wants to look like FAT Minnie Mouse?"

I didn't think Allison's model looked fat. It was actually a nice sculptural dress... right in the middle of the pack.

Finally, Angela is gone... and deservedly, this episode as with most episodes. She really has no taste or sense of what looks good. I guess she'll bob off to be a hobo hippie bag lady somewhere.

But, damn, the way they chose to vote someone off this week was cruel. Too much so, even though it was a reality show. If it were me and someone tried to fly me back home from Paris after an hour, I'd somehow accidentally get lost on the way to the airport... and show up several days later.

Relieved that Kayne wasn't the one who got sent back, just because it looked like the episode was going that way and he'd have been so crushed to miss Paris. His outfit was what it was... still, did anyone else think that the judges both in the U.S. and France said excessively nasty things to him on the runway? Or was it the fact that he was so obviously sensitive and hurt about it that made the moments cringe-worthy?

I listned to Tim's podcast . Angela got to spend a day in Paris.
I can't believe that we're down to the final 6 and Vincent is still in it.

The multimedia offerings for this show are great. I enjoy the podcast, and I've been making my way through the voluminous bonus footage. Illuminating... one of the producers reveals that Vincent went crazy and threatened to leave the show because production washed his shirts instead of dry cleaning them. And at the very beginning, Vincent sees that the hotel rooms haven't been restored yet and declares seriously that it's like a regular reality show and he's too good for that. Then you have Laura explaining to the French designer judge that she likes to look glamorous because she never knows when she'll meet her next husband... doesn't she have a husband at the moment, or is she trying to project an image that's not her reality? And then there's Malan wearing what appears to be one of those old-fashioned fox stoles with the head still attached, hanging over his shoulder.

I am a bit behind and just saw the challenge with the moms. I didn't like it because you know some of the moms probably took it personally when their dresses came out looking bad. Especially Angela's mom, who seemed hesitant to be on the show at all. I think any of the other designers would have told her something along the lines of, "Don't worry I'll make you look gorgeous" and she would have been fine. I guess it does show that being a designer isn't just about creating fashion, but about the people skills to work well with clients, etc.

I haven't seen the latest ep, but I'm telling ya I was so shocked that Angela didn't stand up for her Mum. I think the outfit Jeffrey made was one of the worst items of clothing I've ever ever seen.

And as a "bigger" person I was sickened by the designers 'I don't know how to design for this size of a person'. Blah.

The whole ep left me with a very sour taste in my mouth.

That's true. You probably have to massage a lot of ridiculous client egos. Though I've noticed the designers doing that before the runway show with the regular models, probably in an effort to hype them up.

I did think that Angela's mom was difficult and possibly making Jeffrey's challenge hard because she knew about the trouble between him and her daughter. And turning on the waterworks seemed excessive and unjustified. "Nobody talks to me like that"? You must have led a really charmed life, lady.

Guy is seriously unglued if he can't keep a minimum of perspective because the show misunderstood launder and dry clean . This is not a vacation at the Club Med. This is a production. You have made a bargain. They get to make your life generally uncomfortable and have you design clothes from all kinds of crazy shit for all kinds of crazy hours, and capture everything you do on film. Then edit and broadcast said film to millions who get to analyze it and post generalizations about you on the internets. You get to be "famous" for about three months.
That's the deal. And your dignity and your laundry preferences do not factor into the bargain.

Regardless of her being difficult or not, Jeffrey is a giant douchebag who needs to grow up. And his outfit sucked. Tight pants + shiny crotch = badness. Michael was robbed.

Angela should have been gone episodes ago. I missed the episode where Keith left - but GOOD RIDDANCE.

I thought that the judges were a bit unfair to Uli given that they said "You're designing something for you as a jet setter" and she did that. Judge the item on its merit itself, not on whether or not you've seen that style from her before.

It'll be interesting to see who the final 3 are. I don't think Kayne will be there..I'd like to see it be between Uli, Michael and Laura.

I think Ulli and Michael will definitely be two of the three (barring stupid upsets). And Laura's probably the third.

Wow - watching Angela's exit interview makes me like her. She's very gracious about the whole experience.

Whee! I guessed that Vincent would be eliminated when I saw that dress. Freaking no-talent loon should've been gone in the first episode.

I imagine there will be much rejoicing in Tim Gunn's podcast.

Either Laura's carrying an alien baby, or her belly is betraying something about the slowness of series production. They imply that all these challenges are following one day after the next, but that baby seems to have grown a month or two in a week.

Last week and this week, I was wondering why they kept cutting to a shot of the Italian flag — green, white and red, instead of the French blue, white and red. Then I realized that some cinematographer decided that the whole French-exterior montage should have an arty green cast. Good thinking, dude.

Not as much as I would have expected. Tim thought the dress was bad, don't misunderstand. But he could have been much harsher.


Laura was wearing a serious girdle for the jetsetter challenge. I think she has stopped doing that.

Not seen the most recent episode, but I caught up with all of Tim's podcasts on the flight from London to Hong Kong.

I.flove.Tim.Gunn. His laugh is fantastic and the insights to the show and the production process are excellent.

Bleh. I have this nasty feeling that Jeffrey is going to win. With the exception of his yellow plaid coutre dress I do like his style - it's just too bad he's such an ass.

I think he's going to come in third. On this show the villian comes in third.

Except that Santino should've come in first... hmm, didn't he come in second? Daniel was third, I think.

Funny, the yellow plaid dress was one thing of Jeffrey's I did like. I found his skinny-pants-rocker-dork look bad.

I don't think Jeffrey will win. I think Michael is the golden boy. It could also be Uli, though I think her chances weaken as her work starts to seem repetitive.

Bringing back Vincent and Angela was too much of a reality-TV stunt. I'm glad it was negated by their inevitable second losses... they just aren't talented, and the production should've seen that that was more important than some dumb idea of stirring up excitement. If you're eliminated, you're eliminated. It was as much a slap in the face to the viewers as to the contestants, since we find Vincent and Angela just as annoying and undeserving as they do. If one of them had come back and unseated Uli or Michael, it would've been unfair.

I think the judging was dead on, though. They went back into the nutter pit from whence they'd come, and Kayne was the next least talented.

Hmm, what about next week? Michael will go on (to win the series, almost certainly). Uli is more skilled than any of them, probably, but she is repetitive and only seems to do dresses. It's a toss-up between Jeffrey and Laura. Her clothes are more aesthetic and stylish, but she also isn't very flexible... while Jeffrey's style is mostly inflexible and ugly, but he comes up with the occasional nice piece.

Awww man, was sad to see Kayne go - he was my favourite.

What a bunch of whoey brining Vincent and Angela back - waste of time and space.

Now that Kayne's gone, I want Michael to win.

The reunion was interesting — and I'm delighted they showed the bonus footage of Vincent going crazy — but as always with these reunions, I feel like they raise the big controversies and then don't get to the bottom of them. They never press the people making the statements; they just move on and show a wacky montage.

Also, seeing Angela's mother's breakdown again, I was more struck with the feeling that those were crocodile tears. For the first several seconds, you can see the mother squinching her face up as though she's trying to make herself cry, and no tears are coming out. Then a few seconds later she seems to be genuinely upset. I don't know. If she did do it on purpose, is it because she was trying to disadvantage Jeffrey on the show for her daughter's sake? Or is she a longtime practitioner of the art of maternal guilt, and does it to everyone? She's got some problems, whatever. "No... body... talks to me that way."

Also, I wonder whether I'd react the way Angela did (i.e., saintly martyrdom) to the incident, as though mothers are the most holy and defenseless creatures on earth. If someone "made" my mother cry, I'd be angry and possibly get involved. But I'd also fear for the other person. My mother can defend herself.

Finally, a logical outcome. I was happy with how they ranked the final four, thought it was just right.

You could tell last week that Michael had really misfired. His runway show was "Prostitutes of Many Nations." I think he is skilled but has poor taste (at least now), so he shined when doing challenges that imposed external restrictions, but when let loose to do his own thing, this is what he creates.

And Laura's collection had some nice touches, but I wasn't sure whether I liked anything or not. Uli's collection had some pretty outfits in it (my favorite was the white wrap-around blouse that flowed over the white shorts), but other pieces looked a little amateurish to me.

I don't really like Jeffrey, and I didn't like most of what he did during the series. But this was something else. I keep thinking about how hard it must be to come up with even a single outfit that's wholly original and has never been done before... and almost his whole collection was that way. Creative, unusual, focused, beautifully detailed. His collection deserved to win. (I even thought that the substitution of the white leather jeans in that one outfit made it better than it would've been with shorts.) I gather that most of this year's final designers learned from last year's "13th look" debacle and brought extra garments... clever them.

I confess I was 95 percent fooled by last week's master-of-manipulative-editing promo and thought he was going to be kicked out before the runway show, which would've been tragic.

Garments, looks... I've been watching too much of this show. Next thing you know I'll be like Tim Gunn, exclaiming, "That's a nice pant."

I think it's really a shame that Christian won. Some of his clothes throughout the series showed talent, but I think his final collection indicates that he just has bad taste. I thought the collection was ugly and silly... it looked like a fashion student's class projects. When the vertical two-tone ruffled dress come out, I thought I saw the judges trying not to laugh. They certainly looked like they hated it, but I guess looks are deceiving.

Overall, I preferred Rami's work throughout the series, and liked a lot of the pieces in his final collection. But, surprisingly, since I didn't like her look during the series, I found myself thinking that Jillian edged him out. Her final collection was the most beautiful, unusual and striking, and I thought it had a very cohesive look. It really looked like a professional designer's show you'd see at Fashion Week.

It was a really good year in terms of talent, and it was nice how much the contestants seemed to like and support each other. It was a touching moment with Rami and Christian when the winner was announced. Rami can afford to be so gracious, since he's already a professional with a career; it's true that Christian needed it more.

I only really liked Christians last two outfits - the two tone dress and then the massive feather one.

I liked Rami's work but didn't like the colours and I didn't feel much of a cohesion in Jillian's collection.

I hope Christian makes the most of this opportunity.

I would have loved to have seen Sweat P's and Chris's collections - Chris was my favourite the entire competition. During the reunion show when they showed his montage of laughing, I nearly peed myself.

I did like Christian's massive feather dress. Rami's last two, the evening gowns, were stunning also. I didn't mind the colors in Rami's collection — thought the black-red ensemble with the startlingly red-headed model was an excellent use of color. But his cap sleeves and billowy unstructured look, while perfectly placed in this moment in fashion, aren't things I like much. It's like a nation of women emulating eggplants.

Chris was a lot of fun, and his final collection was far superior to what he'd shown before and what I thought him capable of. Those clothes were gorgeous and amazing in detail. I think the problem was that it's hard to imagine a broad commercial market for clothes by Edward Gorey. I think there's a definite market among goth ladies and eccentrics; it's just niche.



Now that's just mean. :)

Heh. It has been a long week.

Get a load of "Saturday Night Live"'s "Project Runway" sketch.

Sadly, this is just going to encourage Christian.

"Project Runway"'s Kenley arrested for throwing a cat at her ex.

Why does this remind me of Willow's throwing a puppy at a bee?



What a cliche this girl is. I bet she was wearing cat barrettes and clothing from a Smith Street thrift shop at the time.

Based on the description of events, it sounds more like she dropped the cat on top of him while he was sleeping... which seems easier (and more sensical) than tossing a cat horizontally.