Bridal Showdown

I was partly groaning, partly giddy when they announced that the four finalists would need to make a wedding gown which would determine who showed their collections at Fashion Week.  Ample time and money to design the gown of their dreams?  Oh, and of course they were asked to make a bridesmaid’s dress at the eleventh hour.  Let’s see what the top four came up with:

Let’s start with Jerrell:

Looks like she fell in the gutter.

Ok, so I see what he was going for with for the bride.  We’ve seen similar sillhouettes/construction from high-end bridal wear designers.  But the dirty color?  The exploding bust?  The flowers springing forth from her head? Not exactly how I’d wanna look on my wedding day (or what I’d what to see coming up the aisle). Freak-ay.  The BM dress looks decent to me, but almost seems too tame compared to the drama that is the bride.  I can’t decide whether or not I’d want to attend this wedding.  At the very least, it would *interesting.*

Korto:

She's not crying tears of joy for the bride.

I appreciate what she’s trying to do with colors and textures, but in the end it looks like a bride and bridesmaid on safari.  The texturing around the bride’s torso reminds me of corrugated cardboard, and her poor maid just looks sad.  I would be too if i had to wear a halter dress made out of grocery bags.  However I see the method behind the madness – there’s real constructino going on – and her collection looks like it rocks, so she deserves to be in.

Kenley:

Cute if you're 5'11" and 125 lbs

Kenley needs to learn once again that it pays to look at current fashions.  Kors says that ALexander McQueen just showed a similar wedding dress.  Kenley REFUSES to believe that a similar silhouette exists out there in the world.  C’mon Kenley, you live in BROOKLYN.  Are you in complete isolation from ALL THINGS FASHION?  I don’t think so.  Also the BM dress?  Kors says that every girl would want to wear it. Sorry, but most of the girls I know (including me) would FREAK if they had to wear that.  Can you imagine four of those in a row?  Most of the girls I know like dresses to a) cover their undies and b) flatter their hips, not inflate them to cartoonish proportions.  Kenley, you’re allowed to wear the McQueen-eque gown on your wedding day (I’ll refrain from jokes about the kind of guy who’d want to marry you) but please, please do not make your girls wear that BM dress.  It just ain’t dignified.

Leanne:

Ahhhh.....

Ahhh…. Leanne’s pieces were like a breath of fresh air.  Yes, THIS is a good high-fashion interpretation of what a wedding should look like, and there’s a small chance that real women might wear this.  The garments are soft and flowing, and follow the wave aesthetic of her collection.  The colors are more traditional and they LOOK GOOD.  Way to go Leanne, you understand that brides want to look beautiful. 

And in the end… it’s the freakiness that is Jerrell that just doesn’t make the cut.  I find it a little funny that we were being set up to see him, Leanne and Korto as the finalists (Tim doesn’t even meet any of Kenley’s friends or family when he goes to visit her.. wtf?)  But in the end, the ladies triumphed.  I think it was the right decision.

I’ve got my money on Miz Leannimal.  Anyone want to make a wager?

Sewing and Glowing, with Aussie Accents

I wasn’t aware until recently that Australia has its own version of Project Runway (um, so does Canada, Malaysia, Norway and the Philippines, according to Wikipedia), which aired this summer. Thank God for Youtube, because I doubt it will ever air in the U.S. (Also thank God for Youtube because I don’t have a TV). Aussie PR is a decent franchise, with similar-but-less-memorable counterparts to the U.S. version. There’s blonde super model host Kristy Hinze, who is less shout-y and manages to have even less personality than Ms. Klum; peppy mentor and Greg Proops doppelganger Henry Roth:

Time's up - tools down!

And of course the requisite bitchy fashion industry judges standing in for Kors and Garcia. There is even an echo of Season 4 winner Christian Siriano in Philippines-born, sass-talking Mark Antonio – both in his ludicrous hair and personality, as well as his sharp designs:

Beh-NAH-nahs ah my FEY-vor-it!

While it’s not of the same caliber as the version we know and love, it’s good for those of us who get twitchy mid-week, jonesing for our weekly dose of delicious catty runway drama. Here are some things I love about it:

• More swearing than the U.S. version (witness: Helen: “You fucking stole my block!”  Oren: “Bitch.”)
• Accents, obviously. Mark Antonio has what sounds like a cockney Australian accent (if there is such a thing). It makes everything sound SO much better.
• The $$$ seems to matter more than the prestige: Helen (a Wendy-Pepper-esque figure) keeps repeating during one episode where she’s convinced someone’s been cheating, “a HUNDRED GRAND is at stake.”
• Excellent quotes. See the following:

“If I had breasts I would’ve put one on myself and had the ultimate bikini top.”
“Keep sewing and glowing.”
“There’s no way I’m going to put a dog on that catwalk.”
“I felt like an Asian lady haggling for cheap bananas in Vietnam”

(The last one is especially delicious in Mark Antonio’s accent – you just have to hear it.

Youtube user qiriri can hook you up with Season 1.

Oh, the Humiliation…

Of looking like this (which was, incidentally, and somewhat unfortunately, the winning outfit):

Punk... it's so not hot right now.

on the day you’re eliminated. It was your turn to go, Suede, but I’m sad it had to be like this

(Btw, it totally reminds me of the ice skating challenge in season 2 where whats-his-name met his demise while clothed in a hot-pink ice skating shirt).

High-waisted Horrors

Wow. To me, this looks like a vintage pencil skirt with a baggy crotch and some pant legs tacked on. Apparently to Kenley, it looks “totally hip hop.”

It reminds me of another unfortunate incident in which an attractive young woman was powerless against the hideousness that is pegged legs and a sky-high waist:

Obviously there is a lot of misfortune going on here, but the 80’s mom-pants are fashion enemy number one.

All of these atrocities give high-waisted pants a bad name. I owned the best pair of high-waisted jeans EVER in college – they came up an inch or so below my navel and flared out ever so slightly at the bottom. They made me feel like a seventies goddess and I wore them everyday. I cried when I returned from my semester in Ghana (i.e. four months of eating fried plantains and wearing wrap skirts) and they wouldn’t zip. My point is, when pants have a *civilized* rise — that is, not up to your boobs, nor barely covering your private areas — they can be flattering and very, VERY comfortable. I hate pulling up my jeans before I sit down to avoid showing crack, and I hate the way lower-rise jeans cut straight into your curves and make your love handles (ok, MY love handles) spilleth over.

While I would take off the top two inches from the waistband of these pants, I think they are the right idea when it comes to a high waist, and flatter the female form:

As for every day jeans with a reasonable rise, I like Joe’s Jeans quite a bit, and have worn the same pair of Provocateur style jeans for the last two years straight. This style is their ‘petite’ model, and while I’m 5′6″, I believe I chose them because I was too cheap/lazy to tailor the ‘regular’ 34″ jeans. They are amazingly sturdy and well-made, and the waist hits just right. My next pair of jeans will probably be their ‘Muse’ style, which is similar but slightly more high-waisted.

What do you think: is a certain degree of high-waistedness acceptable?

Is it just me…

Or did NONE of the garments from last week live up to the promise of avant-garde?

Clockwise from top left: Leanne, Suede, Kenley, Terri

Blayne, Jerrell, Korto, Joe

Last week all previously eliminated designers had to endure the great humiliation of returning to the show to be matched with another designer and to serve as their assistant as they created “avant-garde” outfits based on one of the design pair’s astrological signs. Are the producers running out of ideas? Because I’d be happy to share some suggestions (maybe they could have a suicide bomber vest challenge to really stir things up?)

Some of the outfits above are certainly pretty. Leanne and Korto have made gorgeous outfits as usual, and while not avant-garde per se, they are solid enough that I’m sure they will both be in the top three, along with Kenley. I assume Suede will be out next (nice try with the whole flashy-personality thing, but honestly, he’s annoying and hasn’t produced anything great), followed by Joe, then Jerrell. Actually, maybe Jerrell will be in the top three, instead of Kenley. I’m sure a little digging around on the net could produce some answers, but I’d rather not know, so please do not tell me.

On a final note, while Blayne certainly deserved the boot, I was a little sad knowing that we’ll never see the likes of this again:

wtf?

Maybe if he’d saved that one for the avant-garde challenge, he’d still be around. I guess we’re stuck with “serious” fashion from here on out