Project Runway Goes "High Brow" with Diane Von Furstenberg

DAHLINGS –

Didn’t Leanne surprise us all by winning her second challenge in a row? The challenge was to design for Diane Von Furstenberg, fashion legend and whose brow lift was carefully lit. (Was that an Iphone in her cleavage in the beginning? Qu'est-ce qu'un beau toucher commune. Look it up.)



Leanne's dress was simply stunning, I have NO criticism to offer. (Please do not faint.) Despite my earlier criticisms, she has stepped forward and proved to be the threat she claimed to be. The clumpy jacket, one did not care for, but that dress was absolutely sensational! Diane Von Furstenberg is offering it to American Express customers, and has only changed the color from cobalt blue to purple. And of course, lost the heavy jacket.



Although your faithful correspondent believes that Korto should have gotten the win. That beautiful gown! The yellow and print! The faux lamb jacket! All absolute perfection, and SO DVF. However, Korto has a slight attitude problem. If only she could smile graciously when she does not win instead of sulking. Her sullenness might cause her to be auf'd. (This is said with love, dahlings!)



As a judge, DVF was a tremendous improvement over Rachel Zoe. And Fern Mallis did an excellent job. She is head of IMG, producers of Fashion Week, which starts...tomorrow!



AND Laura Bennett…this may be heresy to some of you out there, but I wish she was on the program every week. I have not had a chance to comment on her since my earlier PR entry some time ago. (Her “excuse me?” to Keith the week before was one of the great Project Runway moments.) Her comments, her eye, absolutely on target.

Heidi the Hun surprised me too, dahlings. Her runway outfit was in quiet good taste, and the first one to be an appropriate length for her age!



Again, do not faint, but I was sorry to see Stella go. After all these weeks, I’ve gotten used to her. However, she insisted on sending the same ideas down the runway again and again, refusing to compromise her "rock and roll" aesthetic. It certainly bears no resemblance to MY aesthetic. Over the past two weeks, some of the designers have been listening to Tim Gunn and modifying their designs, but Stella would not. It was remarkable to see how upset the other designers were to see her leave, and quite touching.



However, at least it was Stella and not Joe. Although Joe’s design was ill-conceived. He might have slipped by if he hadn’t used that hideous shiny fabric for the shawl. But that shawl took the outfit from “tawdry” to “cheap”.



Blayne thinks MARY KATE OLSEN is a fashion legend?? He probably thinks Rachel Zoe is a model of understated good taste. His design was a disaster. (There is NO reason for Blayne to still be there except that some people think he makes “good television.” Good television according to whom?)



I know that Kenley was completely overwhelmed by the prospect of designing for DVF. She chose to make one perfect dress rather than multiple pieces. One has to admit, what she wore on Runway Day was beaucoup plus créatif than what she sent down the runway.

What she sent down the runway:


Her own design off the runway:


One major cavil: The plot of "A Foreign Affair," as Diane Von Furstenberg outlines it and as the designers mangle it later, bears NO relation to the plot of the actual movie! It was made in 1948, set entirely in post-war Berlin, and directed by the great Billy Wilder.



Marlene Dietrich plays a glamorous entertainer, true, but she is NOT a spy. She sings in a tawdry nightspot and lives in near-poverty. However, she is an ex-Nazi, protected by a corrupt American captain (played by John Lund). Jean Arthur, a famous comedienne of the 1930s and 1940s, plays a prim Congresswoman sent to investigate conditions in Berlin and the morale of the troops there. Arthur falls in love with Lund, and Dietrich is exposed and turned over to the MPs. No Shanghai, no New York. Edith Head designed Dietrich's costumes, which ranged from beaded gowns to ordinary streetwear and of course, a trenchcoat.

I very much doubt Diane Von Furstenberg actually saw the movie, and should fire the assistant who told her the plot. Just my non-humble opinion.

My dear readers, you know my opinion of vintage sellers who have no sense of history. If designers spent an evening with a few DVDs instead of looking at photographs, how much richer the design world might be for it!

See you under the tents!

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Project Runway - Drag Queens and Chris March, Oh, My!

DAHLINGS –

How many of you, mon bien-aimé lecteurs, feel that last Wednesday’s Project Runway was one of the Best Challenges in the history of the program? And with THIS sorry lot of designers, no less!

Your faithful correspondent absolutely squealed with delight when her much loved huggy-bear, Chris March, came out, dazzling as ever, as Brunhilde to announce the challenge: dressing drag queens. And I don’t squeal easily.

(At least in this episode, Heidi the Hun did not even attempt to outshine the contestants—it seems that she learned from the Women’s Wrestling challenge last season.)

Heterosexual plus-sized females (such as myself) can learn so much from drag queens. Such as how to move a large body for maximum femininity, how to hold your head high when the rest of the world thinks that you should fit the norm, and how to be fabulous at all times (at least whenever you leave the house!) And many of us do not have to worry about five o’clock shadow.

The single most “barfalicious” moment in the episode (to quote Leanne, who bears a strange resemblance to a mourning beagle), was Suede’s talking about daydreaming about his dead grandfather.

I think he is hallucinating from lack of sleep. Or perhaps the hair dye from that blue scrub-brush on his head is infiltrating his brain. Mais sérieusement, dead grandfather? Urging Sludge—er, Suede—to sprinkle seeds on Hedda Lettuce’s outfit?

Hedda was rightfully unhappy with the extremely unflattering results, and made a few changes of her own before taking the look to the runway. Don’t you KNOW that you do not cut a long glove to hit the single widest part of a person’s arm? When I watched the runway, I wondered if Hedda herself had altered the gloves. (Later I learned that indeed she had cut them; from experience, I know that rolling long gloves can create an unsightly bulge at the elbow if you have any flab there at all.) The outfit would have made the bottom three if Hedda hadn’t put all of her considerable skills to work on the runway!



Joe was the surprise of the episode. It took him a bit of time to grasp the concept, but perhaps he has a drag queen just waiting to be released! Here we see him discovering how the other half lives:



He designed the perfect outfit for the ever-delicious Varla Jean Merman, giving her an Ann-Margret look that was the rightful winner!


Terri, who has costumed drag queens, understood their aesthetic, and did an amazing job with Acid Betty, but my viewing party felt it was not true drag. Just what it was, we could not reach a consensus. Still, well done, Terri!

In the workroom, Blayne was still using that lame “licious” catchphrase, including “neonlicious.” (Hence Leanne’s “barfalicious” comment above.) Tim’s line about his costume looking like a gay pterodactryl could not be topped, so I will not try. As usual, none of the designers listened to anything Tim Gunn had to say. What is the MATTER with these twerps? One wonders if Tim goes outside onto the fire escape and screams afterward.



But dream of dreams, having dearest CHRIS MARCH critiquing the costumes in the workroom! Project Runway heaven!


He was deeply underwhelmed with Keith’s design, as who wouldn’t have been? More scraps of fabric…the man has a scrap fetish. I wonder if he sneaks around MOOD after closing hours and picks up stray bits of fabric in the night. His client, Sherry Vine, was obviously VERY unhappy on the runway.



As would anyone who was not on very powerful hallucenogens.

This week’s judge was Rupaul, who looked oddly messy and toned down. I’m not sure what look she was going for…administrative assistant who spent the night in bed with her boss, got up and forgot to comb her hair? Rupaul, we barely knew ye. Where, oh, where was the GLAMOUR that is your signature more than any others? However, unlike pitiful Sandra Bernhard, he had some excellent critiques. (One glaring exception: Keith’s dress.)



The winner was Joe, and there were shrieks of delight! Varla worked it as only she can. Absolutely drag perfection and it fits her fun, feminine personality in every way.

The loser, AT LAST, was Daniel. He designed—yes—a cocktail dress for Annika Greenkard, who bears rather an unnerving resemblance to a six-foot-tall drag Bernadette Peters. He declared that sequins would make him “throw up.” Now he can take his much-vaunted “taste level” to somewhere it will fit right in—Wal-Mart.



Although I did feel sorry for the dear boy during his exit interview, but he was probably just too young to be there.

Ciao,

Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Project Runway - Team Challenge

DAHLINGS -

Once again I have been delayed from dictating this blog-thing by a series of events, many of them far too mundane to detail. However, thanks to some clever wheeling and dealing by yours truly, my fall shops will be stocked with:
Nelly De Grab designer fashions in LARGER SIZES
Fur coats of every type and description in LARGER SIZES
Incredible vintage clothing in LARGER SIZES
Not to mention designer handbags, scarves, compacts, and shoes! It is all truly astonishing, and I am know you will share my pleasure after Labor Day.

So that means I have barely had time to think, so this week's Project Runway recap will have to be extremely short! My apologies.

Yes, weren't we all amazed that Jerrell and Stella made such a wonderful team, and such a lovely outfit? Personally, I don't agree with Brooke Shield's taste at all. But unlike Sandra Bernhard, she had interesting comments to make and an understanding of her style. (Why not, she's been in the business almost longer than she's actually been alive!) And why is being short-waisted a bad thing? Yours truly is long-waisted, which is quite hard to clothe. No one should be singled out for something so utterly minor!

The winning design, by Keith and Kenly, was hideous, and reminded me of some unfortunate tall bird with dull flapping feathers and a colorful head. At least Keith got to pick the print.

I also liked Blayne and Leanne's design, much to my amaze. When Blayne remarked, "I have friends in the music business," one's first thought was: "Blayne has friends?" The man is such a pill, as my dear darling Mama would have said. And Korto, please, don't be a disappointment to us all! Your attitude is steadily deteriorating with each episode! Soon you will be mud-wrestling your opponents in the workroom!

That's all for now. I promise to have a more comprehensive write-up later this week about the next episode, which features my darling huggy bear CHRIS MARCH!

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Project Runway - Hello, Olympics, Goodbye, Dali!

DAHLINGS –

The Olympics have started, but it’s the end for Jennifer, whose mantra was that her vision was “Holly Golightly at a Salvador Dali exhibit.” Poor deluded little thing. This week’s challenge was to create outfits for the female athletes at the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics. Simple enough, wouldn’t you think?

Non. Not for this bunch.

Most of them were thrown into a designing tizzy, resulting in some of the oddest athletic wear I have seen since I was accidentally taken to a Burning Man some years ago. Jennifer could simply not grasp the concept, and ended up creating Olympic Barbie:

What this outfit has to do with the Olympics, with athletics, with China, I have no idea. And neither did she. Which got her promptly, and understandably, auf’d. Since I only noticed her in the last episode, I cannot say that I am sorry, although I am hoping Leatha Stella gets the biker boot soon. Is it me, or she sending the same sad outfit down the runway again and again?

For some reason, one kept flashing on John McCain at that biker's rally, listening to the bikers waste gallons of fuel gunning their motors as he ridiculed tire gauges.

But I digress. Joe was spot on when he said, “There’s too much drama because there’s too many queens around.” He quietly went ahead and created what your faithful correspondent felt should have been the winning outfit, even with that odd hemline. (It should be noted that many of the so-called even hemlines this season have been, on close-up, as they say, “craptastic”.) This was one of the few times the cliché of the straight man’s fondness for sports actually came in handy.

However, he lost to Korto, whose outfit was nice enough, but not terribly exciting for moi. But at least the curvaceously creative Liberian native is still on the show, which is a plus in more ways than one.



Speaking of queens, was that a collective sound of lustful panting that arose when Apolo Ohno skated up to the designers? Even Tim Gunn looked as though he was thinking, “I’d love to get that outfit off your supremely muscled diminutive physique and show you that this older chap can still do a few gymnastics of his own.”

Commandant Heidi began the show by looking as though both her spray-on tan and sprayed-on leather pants had been heavily greased. Perhaps she had just finished roasting one of her children over an open spit. For the runway, she wore an odd chain-mail outfit, that like most of her runway outfits, are letting her evil side show more than ever. They might need to have an exorcism on the set after the series ends at this rate.

Getting back to the designers and their utter bafflement at the challenge, take a look at this horror by Jerrell:



Didn’t Minnie Pearl once wear that hat? The outfit is a puffy pouffy nightmare, dahlings, no doubt about it. With capri leggings, no less. (And if, like tanorexic Blayne, you don’t remember the Beatles, surely you won’t know who Minnie Pearl is. But I care not.) Like most of the designers, he threw caution and intelligence to the wind. It is a miracle he did not get auf'd. Perhaps it was because during the runway he was actually wearing something more interesting on his head than Kenley.

Daniel sent a cocktail dress, of all things, down the runway! Isn’t he capable of designing anything else?? Are we going to be seeing cocktail dresses made of tin foil, cocktail dresses ala Jane Austen, military cocktail dresses? Of course, one cannot top Michael Kors’s comment that Daniel’s dress looked as though it came from “the Republic of Cocktail Land.” Daniel is the Sweet P of this season, slowly inching his way to a complete mental breakdown. My heart breaks whenever they show him in the workroom, agonizing over his latest...cocktail dress.

For a little fun from the last episode, compare this latest photo of last week's judge Sandra Bernhard with the poster for her upcoming revival.



As I wrote previously, someone has too much time on their hands. Unlike moi!

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Today's Fashion Tip:

Do NOT let this happen to you or anyone else you know!

Terrifying.

Project Runway Makes "New York At Night" Milwaukee

DAHLINGS -

As much as your faithful correspondent hates to admit it, this is one of the most boring bunch of designers I have ever witnessed. The idea of having lunch with any one of them makes me want to turn off my Blackberry and hide.

Mon dieu, who is Jennifer and where did she come from? Has she been on the show all of this time? Suede, as much as I dislike him, stands out because he has a discernible personality. Even if it is an overly self-confident teenager who talks about himself in the third person. The Fashionista refuses to talk about herself in the third person--

Oh, damn, it's catching.

This week's challenge was to take pictures of New York at night, and be inspired. Can you imagine what Chris March would have done with this one? Or Christian? Or even Neckthing (Jeffrey Sebalia)? But no, a parade of dreariness made its way down the runway.

However, there are two designers I particularly like, and one of them made the top three, and the other won this week's challenge! The first, of course, is Terri, who has been greviously overlooked in previous episodes. Yours truly thinks her beautiful floaty dress over pants should have won; it had all the style, sophistication and what some like to call "street" that the others lacked. Even though I generally detest dresses worn over pants (one sees know-nothing college girls in them constantly), this had more of the feeling of a tunic.



The second is Kenley, who has a delightful 40s personal style, bright red lipstick and always something fascinating on top of her head:



However, her dress had something grotesque on its side. Rather like those things they remove from people on the Discovery Health Channel. While I did not care for the design (besides the ill-advised tulle, it looked tight, hot and uncomfortable), I have enjoyed her other designs, and she is extremely creative.



The guest judge was D-list actress Sandra Bernhard, there to flog her upcoming one-woman show tour (which has already run Off-Broadway and been made into a movie...someone has too much time on their hands). Ms. Bernhard seemed to have had bad plastic surgery less than a week before the show. She had nothing of interest to say, which only added to the air of ennui surrounding this week's episode.



The comments about this dress simply were offensive.



"Vintage," of course, was used as if it were a four-letter word, the stuck-up swines. And yes, it was a tad matronly, but what about Keith's toilet-paper dress? That had absolutely nothing to do with his inspiration. At least whoever-it-was tried.

Emily was auf'd for her little black can-can vomit dress. How can one have a new you-know-what ripped by the august Mr. Gunn and then say something as purely idiotic as "Tim gave my dress a mixed review, but I like it"? Why is no-one listening to the man? Tim Gunn is the good cop, for goodness sake!

Perhaps now that there are fewer designers, I might be able to remember who they are. But perhaps not.

Oh, here's a little tid-bit: Nina Garcia showing off her effervescent personality at Mood.



How can one look at anyone else when she is onscreen?

Actually, it's easy. At least this week she bestirred herself to greet the designers, unlike last week.

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Inside Bluefly.com - Mass Producing Suede's, Uh, Dress

INTERIOR: Bluefly design room. Table of overworked fashion designers and assistants staring in horror at Suede's design. The head designer gazes at his lackeys, about the choose the unfortunate who will replicate the dress-thing for mass consumption on Bluefly.com.

FIRST DESIGNER: "Oh My Sweet JESUS, I cannot reproduce that thing! It looks like a uterus badly wrapped in gold ribbon. " (PAUSE) "I don't? Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you..."

SECOND DESIGNER:"Pleeeeeeze don't make me, pleeeeze. Mother of mercy, it looks like some alien space creature puked up blood and an old prom dress! Pleeeeze, I promise to do anything if you won't make me do this. I'll make you double espressos every morning. I'll suck you silly if you let me off the hook this time. What? Oh, God bless you, I can sleep tonight."

THIRD DESIGNER: (Realizing it is on him): '"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..."

As camera irises up and out over his screaming figure.

Voiceover in black:
"Suede is happy now. Suede is very, very happy. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Project Runway: Hayden Panettiere In A Woodchipper

DAHLINGS –



Joe is clearly as amazed as moi at Suede’s win.



For THIS???



Here the model is thinking, "I don't remember buying entrails at Mood."


I think the headline sums up my feelings. I was simply stunned, as were my viewing companions. Our heads whipped around as we stared at each other in shock.

“Suede?”

“Suede??”

This horrendous thing, the result of the challenge (not only dressing your model as your client, but having the model pick out the fabric, and it had to be "eco-friendly," God help us all), won!



It is at those moments one hears Patou screaming in the night.

Your faithful correspondent thinks that Terri was robbed. Not even in the top three! And her creation was barely seen on television in the runway show.



Stella, meanwhile, faced with the challenge of not working with her beloved “leatha,” whined, whined, whined, in her cartoonish Fran Drescher accent. Her champagne satin dress was dull and not worthy of being in the top three. However, Stella’s work was far superior to what one of the contestants called “Team Brown Ugly Fabric.” Wesley's, uh, creation:



No wonder Wesley was auf'ed, although I would have preferred to see the last of Leanne, the self-described "silent fashion assassin." A real assassin does not break under pressure, little girl.



My guests were wondering, why aren't the designers listening to Tim the way they did in previous seasons? One guest hypothesized that now that three of the judges are extremely known quantities, the designers are working more to please Heidi, Nina and Michael The Overly Made Up than they are trying to express their creativity.

Frau Heidi Klum was in full dominatrix mode, in a black bustier and miniskirt, the usual sadistic glint in her eye. Guest judge Natalie Portman had a terrified, deer in the headlights look in her eyes when she first came out. And she gamely tried to dodge being poked in the eye by Heidi's bustier as the German witch towered over her.



Natalie did seem genuinely sad at the outcome, the one spot of human emotion amongst the judges. Some have said it was because of Wesley being auf'ed, but I think she realized what a mistake she had made in inflicting Suede's dress on the great American public.

One pities the poor Bluefly designer who has to recreate it for consumer consumption! One hears his/her screams joining Patou's in the night.

More later,dahlings -

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Project Runway's Season Five Train Wreck, er, Premiere

DAHLINGS –

Forgive me for taking so long for writing about the season premiere of “Project Runway.” The viewing party took more recovery time than one expected!

One’s first thought as the purported designers all filed into the bedrooms at the beginning was, “Who are these people, and why do I get the distinct impression most of them smell bad?”

No wonder Tim and Heidi met them outdoors on the roof. One hopes the hosts were upwind. And does anyone have news of the person killed by Tim's champagne cork?

I am not certain of who I find the most annoying of the hellish trio of Suede, Blayne, and Stella. A 37-year-old man that calls himself Suede deserves to be beaten in an alley with a 2 by 4, but that is just my humble opinion, as they say online. And as I mentioned earlier, his penchant for talking about himself in the third person is something that should only be reserved for pretentious poseurs like Madonna (oh, my apologies, she is his principal influence. What a surprise.). One of my guests yelled at the screen, “Somebody grab that bastard’s blue tuft and yank it out by the roots!”

Blayne has the double-whammy of having atrocious taste and being extremely hard to look at in close-up. Particularly without his cap-thing. I wanted to kiss Tim Gunn for causing almost all of the designers urinate on themselves by denouncing them for using tablecloths. It’s so good to have him back, isn’t it? "De-ziners, gather round! You suck already and it's only the first challenge! How am I supposed to keep my sanity and world famous savoir-faire around you people?"

In any event, Blayne's “girlicious” design was “girl-trocious”. The poor model looked like she was wearing old Kotex pads stitched to her front and back, or as if she had a terrible yeast infection that had exploded over the front of that mesh bathing suit. Yeeeecccch.



As for Stella, what gutter did the producers pull her out of? 42 year olds who dress and sound like sullen tweens are not your faithful correspondent’s favorite kind of people. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll have a heroin overdose before the end of the series. (Imagine the problems the producers would have, keeping THAT news off the Internet!) That hideous dress, so devoid of inspiration—did anyone else notice that she did not start putting anything together until they had roughly four hours left? What was she doing in the meantime, besides whining?



Perhaps she was busy in the loo shooting up.

Most of the designs got the thumbs-down from my guests, and I was hard-pressed to remember who had designed what, even with a scorecard. There are so MANY designers at the start! Heidi Klum was so eager to start ripping out the designer's jugulars on the runway she virtually needed a drool cup. Nina Garcia was, as usual, a cardboard cut-out in a chair, Michael Kors has single-handedly bought out all of the Cover Girl Dark Matte Makeup in every Duane Reade in New York, but Austin was delightful. So girlish, so soignee', so playing to the camera!

My personal favorites were by Daniel and Korto. Although the poor boy needed a Xanax, the plastic cup dress actually looked wearable, as long as you didn't venture out into the summer heat:



As for Korto, her dress showed taste, style, and originality, even if she did use a tablecloth:



Naturally, I particularly liked that her bio on the official Project Runway site stated that she designs for "real, full-figured women." It will be interesting seeing her tackle one challenge on PR: dressing those stick figures they are given for models!

The winner, Kelli, made an interesting, creative dress. Others have objected to the coffee filter bra, but I thought it was a smart use of limited materials. At least she did not use a tablecloth.

STOP THE PRESSES! A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

My favorite "Project Runway" designer ever, CHRIS MARCH, is blogging about this season as only he can! It is truly hilarious, dahlings, and I have a link to it on the right. Your viewing experience isn't complete until you've read his blog (after you read mine, of course).

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

"Project Runway" Has Begun...Oh, Dear.

DAHLINGS -

Is it just moi, or did Tim Gunn choke on the word "diverse" when he was greeting the designers on the rooftop? At least now one understands why we weren't allowed to see them in the show promos. That annoying Suede had better stop talking about Suede in the third person. I was sorry for the Asian gentleman who got the bump (I'm slightly tired and cannot remember his name...Ken...Bob...Jeffrey? Oh, Jerry.). Yes, his design did look like a serial killer, but that's actually an original thought. When was the last time you saw a slasher-movie themed runway show? (Now, now, no jokes about Christian Lacroix. The man is seriously depressed.)


And Heidi's new look for the show "bumpers" (those little in and out of the segment pieces where they ask you to text or something equally moronic) makes her look like an anorexic Pamela Anderson. And those ankle boots! Mon dieu!

More tomorrow, dahlings. I must attend to my viewing party guests.

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog