Project Runway Season Six Premiere!

DAHLINGS –

I spent much of the past day trying to think of a title incorporating a pun on “meth.” Such as “Television’s Best Meth-ed” or “Making A Meth Of Things.” But one has one’s standards, and hence the title.

This refers to Johnny S., who spends much of the program (pardon the pun) proclaiming that he’s a recovering addict, having a meltdown because he’s a recovering addict, manning up to face the challenge because he’s a recovering addict, etc. It makes for some decent drama. In fact, he has a sweet scene with the ever-loveable Tim Gunn, who helps Johnny face his fears and man up. Who knew Tim was an abuse counselor as well as a fabulous man about town? What hat does this man not wear?

The new, shiny, postponed Season Six of Project Runway has everything the old Bravo Project Runway had going for it. And more sophisticated cinematography; obviously the Los Angeles influence. Sixteen designers are competing for the usual, you know the drill, mes chers amis.

The other Los Angeles influence seems to be a disproportionate amount of young, attractive designers. For instance, Carol Hannah Whitfield, a 24-year-old Southern blonde, who says “I'm not expected to have qualities like, uh, intelligence, or…lost my train of thought.” There is another vacuous blonde, Althea, and the obligatory young man with weird hair (and a deliberately misspelled name: Malvin). At first, Christopher Straub annoys with his stylistic quirk: large baseball hats worn at an angle, which give him the look of one of those “cute” little boys in 1950s sitcoms.

However, this is definitely the most multicultural mix since the series began. The tall gentleman with the dreads goes by the single name of Epperson.

From left: Malvin, Shirin, some guy, Carol Hannah, some other guy, Epperson, Mitchell with his mouth (thankfully) closed.

Ariel is the obligatory free spirit, who doesn’t sketch. This is how she creates (which is appropriate, because her dress looked like it had been pulled from her butt, pardon my non-french).

The designer who got on my nerves the most was Mitchell, who has huge yellow teeth. For some reason, whenever he was on camera all I could see were those dirty-butter colored Chiclets. Of course I immediately warmed to Qristyl, who described her style as not plus-size, but “plus sexy.” A woman after my own heart.

The challenge was to create a red-carpet look. As on the All-Star challenge, the same judges were in attendance: Michael Kors, Nina Garcia, and Heidi Klum. The guest judge was…Lindsay Lohan.

Lindsay Lohan, who is even more D-List than most of the runway audience of The Fashion Show.

The real surprise was that she had intelligent comments about the designs. Who would have thought she was capable of forming complete sentences?

Johnny's design was terrible, and the comments it elicited all ran along the lines of: "If I imagine this as a completely different dress, it would be beautiful." Oh, well, at least he didn't get auf'd. He would have been on the street scoring in no time. The members of my viewing party thought that Malvin would get the boot, because he sent the model down the runway basically naked with a thin blanket of flesh-colored chiffon over her. But no; his hairdo evidently saved him.

The other surprise was that Ariel, who seemed goofy enough to keep around for a while, got auf'd for her truly horrendous design. Usually, goofiness trumps ability on Project Runway.
Christopher won for a fairly ordinary dress.

But I noticed that R'amon Lawrence's dress is the one they copied for sale. Somehow, that switcharound is also tres Los Angeles.

And the beat goes on.

Ciao,

Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog