Down and Out in Denver

Mondo's Jackie O-inspired Creation

Congratulations to Mondo Guerra, who took last night’s win on Project Runway.  You may recall that we here at DOD have come to be rather fond of Mondo after his turnabout on the Michael C front last week.  Of course he’s also from Denver!  While Ivy’s outfit was pretty — we were not so fond of Christopher’s, also in the Top Three — Mondo was the only one who seemed to actually take the Jackie O part of the challenge to heart.  Would she have worn this outfit?  Maybe not.  But could you identify her in the oversized herringbone and the well-cut stripes? Indeed you could.  So bravo Mondo, for a cute outfit, for following instructions, and for his first PR win! (His outfit, however, was another matter.  While it is very difficult to make a boy that petite look chunky around the middle, that cummerbund did the trick.)

On to other matters: January Jones was quite an improvement over last week’s Kristen Bell, but really, who wouldn’t be?  Her outfit, however, not so much.  Black shirt and jeans?  This is Project Runway, Jan!  Step it up a notch.  Granted, don’t step it up so far that you look like you did at the Emmys:

January Jones at the Emmys

But still, a little effort would have been appreciated.  We didn’t hear as much from JJ as I would have liked, though she did get in one great one-liner.  Did you hear?  After Michael Kors bemoaned Andy’s choice of footwear for his model, calling it “what Nicole Kidman wore for Cold Mountain,” January piped up: “And her hair is from ‘Far and Away.’”  Apparently JJ can think on her feet!  (Speaking of judges: did you hear?  Jessica Simpson will be the guest judge for the final. To say that Alastair and I are shocked and appalled by this is, well, an understatement.  Jessica Simpson.  Fashion.  Rarely do the two meet.)

While I liked Michael Drummond’s sense of humor, his outfit was pretty hideous.  I will be sad to see him go, but I will not miss his do-rag/hat/glasses/earrings combo look.  Too much going on above the neck, Michael D!  Really, there is often too much going on above the neck on many of our designers this season.  Gretchen seemed to be sporting some Heidi braids in her interviews last night.  Mondo had a weird headband in his.  April regularly does some strange buns, and don’t even get me started on the craziness that occurs north of Andy’s shoulders.  I get it, kids, you’re fashion designers, you need to express yourselves.  But this is all a little much.

My final word on the show, and it relates to a concern I’ve had for quite some time.  What is with the constant use of the word expensive?  That word is thrown around — by designers, by Tim, by the judges — as if it is, by definition, a good thing, synonymous with attractive or stylish or even another of my least favorite words, classy.  Expensive does not mean any of these things: it simply means that something cost a lot of money.  I understand that when designers are given no more than a couple hundred bucks (and sometimes much less) at Mood, it is an accomplishment to have something look like it was made from costly fabric.  But expensive, in and of itself, is not necessarily a good thing (see above photo of JJ’s dress).  And expensive is not necessarily the opposite of cheap.  Strictly speaking, of course, it is.  But the word cheap has taken on a life of its own.  It can now be applied to actions as well as goods and while it clearly still refers to matters of cost, it’s also about taste as well. Using the word expensive the way they all do presupposes that if someone is willing to spend lots of money on something, ergo it is attractive.  This is specious logic.  The whole point of Project Runway is to demonstrate that beauty can be created in very little time and with strange (and sometimes cheap) materials.  Let’s do away with “cost” as a means of complimenting!  Expensive as an unqualified good should be eliminated from these people’s vocabulary.  We’ve all witnessed expensive dresses in the worst-dressed categories of every tabloid and post-award show wrap-up.  They were ugly.  And they still cost a fortune.

Last night I was en route to San Francisco to see my Gentleman Friend for the long weekend — and to celebrate my birthday — so was unable to catch Project Runway as it was aired.  But the folks at Lifetime — unlike the stingy Bravo crew who hoard their episodes, releasing only one or two — graciously include all Project Runway episodes at mylifetime.com.   I’m really coming around to Lifetime, I have to say, even if they have given up The Golden Girls to the Hallmark Channel.

Peach Carr

This post will have to be brief — I’ve got fun things to do in the city, after all — but I would be remiss if I did not mark the occasion of Peach’s departure.  Was her dress the worst?  Indeed it was. Did she know it?  She sure did.  Peach Carr was a realist.  And that was pretty refreshing on a show of bloated egos and insecurity masked as arrogance.  She also — despite constant self-deprecating references to her own age — was a thorough delight and I am going to miss her.  She did keep up with the young ones.  And she did make me laugh.  And she also — take note, Gretchen Jones — managed to be both funny and interesting without constantly saying nasty things about other people’s designs.  There is a lesson here.  What impressed me most about Peach came at the very end; it was pretty clear that everyone there was going to miss her.  There were tears.

So we here at DOD join with the remaining contestants in wishing you a very fond farewell, Peach Carr.

Gretchen Calls the Shots

April may have summed it up best, and it is from her that I take this post’s title, though even she had no idea what was in store for Team Luxe when she asked the question above. Hitler as a point of reference is undoubtedly extreme, but Gretchen proved herself the ultimate Project Runway villain last night.  And clearly she had already been practicing.

The sad thing, of course, is that while Gretchen is clearly a backstabbing, egocentric, arrogant evildoer, she is probably the most talented of the bunch.  She’s also tall, stylish, articulate (if verbose), and pretty.  Damn her!  Our only consolation is that this time she got a little comeuppance, and from the usually reticent Tim Gunn.  But first the episode…

As we settled in to watch PR last night with Alastair’s homemade caesar salad (anchovies!), a Fat Sully’s pepperoni pizza, and a bottle of chilled pinot grigio (97 in Denver yesterday!), we knew things were gonna get nasty as soon as Heidi announced a team challenge.  And big teams, at that.  I will admit that I didn’t think that the military lace gang had a shot from the get-go.  Yes, they had Valerie (who is probably our one hope to take down Gretchen), but they also had Casanova and April. Further, they were proposing Military Lace as their theme and fabric.  How could this end well?

And indeed I have to say that I don’t think that either collection actually worked out all that well, though Alastair and I both agreed with the judges that Team Luxe was the worst: ill-fitting, drab, baggy, and largely lifeless. But Team Military & Lace also just seemed a little tacky to me.  I kind of agreed with Ivy and the dreaded Gretchen that it wasn’t remarkably cohesive sometimes.  The blue popped up from time to time (the outfits of Peach and Valerie) but always seemed a little out of place.  And some of the lace and extra hardware appeared a wee bit tacky to me, like a shopping spree at Forever 21 or some such. But clearly it was leaps and bounds ahead of Team Luxe, who may have been all kinds of cooperative but also sent an ocean of beige boringness down the runway.

Gretchen and teammates in happier times

Let me just say that from the moment that Team Luxe vowed backstage that they would not turn on each other, I knew we were in for some true fun.  Because there was no way they were going to stick to it.  And indeed they did not.  I can see, of course, why they all turned on Michael Costello.  Not only did he have immunity (as the judges continually pointed out), but what the judges don’t seem to see is that he appears to be remarkably unskilled, and the other designers really did spend a good deal of time helping him out.  It doesn’t help matters that they were all so irked at what they believe (and I agreed) was his undeserved win of the week before.  But oh, Gretchen, you need to just shut up!  If you could keep a  lid on it, most people (the DOD boys included) wouldn’t hate you so much.  But she just can’t stop herself.  In the beginning she kept on bossily repeating — choking back the tears — that the judges needed to be “mindful” of how cooperatively they had worked and how proud of their collection they were. And then, when push came to shove, all of them — save A.J. — turned on Michael.  And Gretchen completed her 180 revolution, claiming falsely that she had never liked the collection and had tried valiantly to salvage it with styling at the last minute. At least Gretchen was reprimanded by the judges when she appeared in the final two, but it was clear to all watching that it was A.J. who would be saying auf wiedersehen.

Bless your heart, Tim Gunn.  Rare are the moments when he expresses any sort of opinion about what happens on the runway. (Long-time viewers may recall an earlier moment where he called out a designer who had lied outright to the judges.) But he went after Gretchen this time around. I cannot wait to see the fallout from this episode next week!

See our Season Finale Wrap-up Here.

Gretchen Jones

Above is one of the terms entered on a search engine that got a reader to us here yesterday at DOD.  I saw the search term before I watched Episode 3 of this season of Project Runway.  In other words, I didn’t yet understand why someone would use that final word to describe Ms. Jones, the two-time challenge winner.  Now I’ve seen Episode 3.  I get it.  While I would probably not use that particular epithet, I can understand why someone else would.  Gretchen Jones is odious.  Not only has she let her two challenges go directly to her head, but she cannot stop talking about herself and others.  She takes herself way too seriously and, as the other designers made quite clear last night, inserts herself into conversations and design consultations where she is simply unwanted.  This is not just a matter of talking big to psych out the competition (though she also does that); many of her most egregious boasts come in the one-on-one-with-the-camera interviews.  She’s starting to remind me a little bit of last season’s Egomilio Sosa.  In short, she needs to get a grip.  She may be good but she will soon become Enemy #1 if she doesn’t watch herself.

So while I would have preferred to see the win go to Valerie (the Susan Lucci of Project Runway, as she amusingly put it) because I liked her dress the best, I was pleased that Andy nabbed the top honors away from Gretchen.  His dress was innovative and stylish, if a little ill-fitting on the upper half. Was Sarah’s dress the worst? Probably so.  Am I going to miss her wry and down to earth demeanor?  Absolutely.  Casanova has been so consistently tasteless that I feel like giving Sarah another shot might have resulted in something interesting in a future episode, whereas Casanova is always going to deliver more of the same. Stay tuned, kids.  This season is gonna get ugly…

Update 8/27: And indeed it did.  See a more recent post on Gretchen’s shenanigans.

See our Season Finale Wrap-up Here.

I also watched Project Runway last night.  And before I discuss the actual competition, let me address what seems to be a significant change in the format.  Yes, it’s now 1.5 hours and we’re all excited (though not about the many, many commercials that one must either watch or fast forward through). But what has happened to the model competition?  What about any focus at all on the models?  I understand that they have decided to eliminate MotR, but have they just permanently assigned models to designers? Will there be no choice of model by designer at all?  Where is Heidi’s velvet bag?  Where are the silk slips?  What of model-designer friendship and loyalty?  It is possible that, abiding by the silly conceit of last night’s show that the season had only really begun once there were 16 designers, next week’s episode will begin with the model choice.  I do hope so, not only because I like the model drama, but because eliminated designer Nicholas D’Aurizio’s model is stunning and I don’t want to see her go.

On to the drama of last night:

I do hope that little Mondo can make some friends.  I’d be happy to be his Denver gal pal when he returns to the Mile High City, but in the meantime he needs someone in New York with whom to kvetch and giggle.

My Gentleman Friend and I don’t understand how Christopher Collins, who is certainly cute but not exactly stunning, has emerged as some sort of supermodel on this season.  Heidi commented on it in Episode One and one of his flatmates referred to him as “the hot one” last night. Cuter than the rest, to be sure.  Hot, we think not.

The clothes: How did A.J.’s yellow creation not land him in the bottom three?  I take it that his collapse meant he recognized he should have been there.  Maybe this will make him see sense.  Ivy’s little gray dress was well tailored but so nondescript as to be forgettable.  Also a candidate for elimination in the near future?  I thought Michael’s shiny, short, and flouncy number was pretty hideous.

Mondo and his model

Overall, I have to say that I wasn’t so impressed.  Was Gretchen’s jumpsuit cute?  Sure, but it wasn’t thrilling.  Ditto for Valerie’s little red dress.  Mondo’s creation was at least more interesting and I’m pleased that he garnered some recognition for it.  I was delighted to see Heidi follow through on her threat to eliminate more than one designer.  That said, I sort of feel like Peach should have been accompanying Jason up to the workroom instead of Nicholas.  I fear that may soon be her fate…