Friday, January 04, 2008

Where is this store again?

I was all set to post my Project Runway thoughts. I was so excited! What could be more fun than talking about outfits made from stuff at a candy shop? The first really fun challenge of the season!

But I can't get Bravo's website to load, so I can't post the pictures. Which makes things difficult. I'm currently trying to find something to work with so I can do this post. The pictures are just going to have to wait.

First, I want to say I'm completely baffled by the model selection. It comes down to those three and Ricky picks the one that I think has had the least attractive poses/walking in the bunch. I'm rather confused. And I agree with popular sentiment: where have the models even BEEN this season?

Also: What did they do with all that candy? Please tell me the chocolate got eaten or saved or put into cookies for the homeless or something!

If you can get the Bravo website to work, be sure to check out the outfits!


Ricky:

I was actually surprised that Ricky wasn't called out in the top on this challenge. He really understood the spirit of the challenge and from the audience's POV he seemed to execute the idea well. These were Ricky's two weakest points, so go Ricky.

It was fun, it was whimsical. It was not just something off-the-rack. It was one of my favorites, even though it's not something you could wear to a party.


Kit:

I'm amazed nobody stopped to be amused at Kit using Kit Kat bars. No jokes? No comments? Did I miss them? Come on! It'd be so easy!

I like Kit's skirt, a lot actually. I find it interesting that three different outfits made use of the Hershey's label vertically in a rather similar way (Ricky, Chris, and Kit). But at one point Kit says something to the effect of "Should I just use one Kit Kat bar?"

Yes, yes you should have. The top just loses all focus the way it is, and with one artistically placed wrapper it could have been really neat. Instead the entire outfit put together is just too much, too busy. She looks like a store rack instead of a model.


Elisa:

The Meiling Syndrome strikes again. When the show started, I didn't like Elisa. I thought she was crazy. But then the second episode started to change things a little. I thought she was crazy but I really liked the outfit she and Sweet P put together. It wasn't too much later that I read about her car accident on the internet, and I gained new respect for her. Then seeing her talk about it in the episode, seeing her work, I just started to like her so much in spite of myself.

I honestly don't think Elisa should have been eliminated either. Though I think her outfit went the wrong direction, and it was a misstep, I think Sweet P's was more off than hers. When she started talking about making a sort of faerie dress for her daughter, I thought "Wow, this is going to be so neat."

I admit, I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. The outfits people came up with at FaerieCon were some of the most fanciful and fun things I'd seen in ages. I want to see what the Chocolate Faerie would look like!

But when she started talking about Gretel I realized she meant Fairy Tales, and I thought "Well, that can still be pretty cool!" But I don't think the concept actually came through in the dress. It has to be in the dress, because the garment has to speak for itself.

I'm sorry that Elisa is gone, hopefully she won't become one of those Project Runway stars who drop off the radar and stop updating their websites.


Kevin:

Bored now. It's an nice enough outfit, but it doesn't stand out. It's not FUN. This was a nutso challenge and he turned in the same kind of thing he's been making. It shows he has skill, but creativity? Not on display.

Side note: Why are they all so patient and willing to listen to Christian? I'm supposing they might trust his judgment, but I certainly wouldn't. I guess they don't get to hear all his derisive comments.

Which brings me to...


Christian:

Hey, Christian, here's a tip: this challenge was about stretching creatively. Making something zany out of unconventional materials. Stretching your artistic muscles. It was not about making a simple dress and covering it with wrappers, nor was it about being so constantly dismissive of the materials. So you're better than Reeses Cups? What does that prove? Nobody likes a diva.

In season two, I liked Chloe's flower dress a lot. Until I read a review of the episode that said they couldn't stand the praise it got because it was just leaves glued on muslin, it wasn't really trying to make something of difficult materials. I realized they were right. Which means Christian's outfit is just...blah. Besides, it didn't move or flutter, or have sculptural qualities...if it had at least had some of the presence of Michael Knight's coffee filter dress it could have been redeemed. Heck, Chloe's leaf dress actually made a fascinating pattern that really thought about color and texture.

This dress looks like Christian thought the challenge was stupid so he didn't bother really doing it.

On a side note: how did he find so many Reeses Cups that would come right off the wrapper like that without leaving smears of chocolate behind? And they looked like minis, I NEVER get the minis out of the wrapper that cleanly. Maybe that's why I dislike the dress so much, because I want to eat that candy without getting chocolate on my fingers.


Chris:

This garment is interesting, but not fascinating, when viewed on it's own. The thing that makes it so worthy of praise is that Chris made it. If you visit Chris' website, you see some of the things he's made with similar design challenges. Heck, I'd actually seen his salad-fixings dresses on tv before on some talk show. He could have done anything with this challenge. Like he said, he could have made the parade float. He could have done that in his sleep, I'd wager.

Instead he thought about what the judges have said about him and took a step to prove he has range. He said "They might just be waiting for me to fail and overdo this. I'm going to prove a point." And then he actually proved his point.

Normally the judges are annoying about things like this. They spend three episodes telling somebody "You're too costumey, you're too costumey!" Then they give them a costume challenge and go "Where's the costume? You're out!" Instead this time they praised Chris for showing what he was capable of. Kudoos, judges. When did you get so rational?

Sidenote: a lot of fuss has been made about Chris' departure and return. I can see both sides of the argument but quite frankly, I don't think it's as big an issue as people were making it out to be. Besides, it's all said and done now.


Sweet P:

As I said earlier, I think this should have been the dress to be out this week. For some reason, while I find Sweet P to be a perfectly nice person, something about her getting by week to week bugs me. This dress was flat out boring. It might have been made well, but she clearly couldn't handle the challenge. She waffled about and couldn't settle on a design, and ended up with something clearly made in a couple hours.

Again, very little creativity on display here. Again, creativity was the point of the challenge. It's a cute outfit, sure. But it's got nothing. And if I remember correctly (again, can't find good pictures right now) the front of the top was just off somehow. It bunched up, and looked disproportionate. I honestly can't understand why they judged this to be better than Elisa's dress.

Sweet P also has this habit of always looking so shocked and dismayed on the runway. Actually, she just over-emotes all the time. She's not quite at Andrea or even Angela proportions, but I really want her to be understated sometimes. I don't think it's doing her any favors in the judging to be constantly going "Ooooooh, ooooh, really? It's really that bad?"


Rami:

I probably would have given the win to Jillian if it wasn't for the fact that Rami's outfit just looks better. Jillian's was more creative, to be sure. But Rami's is just cute. You could probably sell that if it wasn't made of paper.

The model wore it well, the styling was on point. It was just fantastic, and Michael Kor's was right, it fits her like a dream. It's the kind of thing you expect to see in advertisements.


Jillian:

Jillian deserves about a thousand bonus points for effort and innovation. The skirt is sort of a cop-out, but the bodice is beautiful. I'm personally not a fan of those bodices that move as one piece around the model's body instead of fitted TO her body. But this one does what it's supposed to do and does it well. She made a great pattern out of Twizzlers of all things.

One random thing, when the model was leaving the workroom she had glasses on, I'm assuming her own glasses. For some reason I decided this was brilliant styling and couldn't wait to see her walk down the runway in them, but they were gone for the runway show.

Don't ask me why, but I loved the idea of some cute, red plastic square glasses on that model in that outfit. Something to make the outfit even more of a juxtaposition of sexy, childish, cute, and beautiful.


Victorya:

I actually put Victorya's outfit below Elisa's on my scale. What WAS it? It had no personality, no color, nothing neat or interesting. It was just a bunch of ruffles, most of them not showing off the Hershey's patterns which was the whole point.

And instructing her model to walk that way was a seriously bad decision. Since you didn't get enough of the York idea from the dress, you couldn't even make a case that it was the York commercials used to have that whole winter theme going on. If she had gone somewhere with that and really went all the way, that could have been neat (and shown she knew the brand). But instead it's just a weird off-white frilly apron dress.

There's nothing that I understand about it. The only reason I think it deserved to stay over Sweet P was that it was a little more difficult to make, appeared to be made a little better, and at least Victorya had a vision and went with it instead of changing her mind.

Overall, I'm so glad the challenge was fun and interesting. Can we please continue to do this PR? Please? Next week, make it autoparts or something!