Judging the Judges: Diane von Furstenberg RTW Spring 2009 Collection

Our check from Diane cleared, so now we can say nice things about her collection.

Click here to see the collection>>

[Photo: Courtesy of frillr.com]

If You're Not Watching The Rachel Zoe Project...

Then darling, why not?

We admit that we weren't exactly on the edge of our seats waiting for the show to debut, but it has worked its way under our skin and now we consider it must-see reality television. We can't say we were ever Rachel's biggest fans in the world before this show but now all we want to know is how we can get our resumes to her. Seriously, Lorenzo weeps at this show in a "What have I done with my life/it's not too late to join the circus" manner that Tom finds vaguely disturbing.

Too often, reality shows revolve around people that not only aren't interesting enough to warrant them, but all too often have deluded themselves into thinking they're more interesting than they actually are. You know which ones we're talking about.

Not so with Zoe. Say what you will about her profession and her standing in it, the fact is, the life of a top Hollywood stylist is pretty damn interesting and entertaining. Sure, it's not curing cancer, but there's a trainwreck-in-motion fascination with watching a high-strung stylist with high-strung assistants careen around trying to find the perfect frock for her no doubt high-strung clients. And even Rachel in her calm moments can survey the wreckage and declare it nowhere near as important as "world hunger." Even if we don't believe she really thinks that, her sense of humor about the insanity and inanity of her life is funny and surprising. "When I started in this business I was 21 years old. I was the girl trying to break through security and trying to get in and even getting a standing seat let alone a seat. Seating in the front row at fashion shows that 's a big part of the dream for me." Lorenzo, whose favorite movie is Working Girl, cheers her through his tears.

Joining her in the fun are assistants Taylor and Brad, both of whom are straight out of Central Casting. Taylor is from the "angry, unapproachable rock/punk/goth chick "file ("Taylor doesn't have friends. She doesn't like people.") and Brad is of course a page straight out of "acerbic, high-strung queen." The thing with the genre of reality television that can best be summed up as "follow a rich/famous person around all the time," is that more often than not, the rich/famous person in the title isn't all that interesting on their own and the key to making them pop off the screen is giving them a strong set of sidekicks. Mission fucking accomplished.

If we had to sit through an hour of Rachel complaining about...well, everything, and saying "I die!" every time something pleases her, honeys, we'd be fighting over the remote in seconds. Think of it like this: if you've ever watched Absolutely Fabulous (and if you haven't, what the HELL are you doing reading this? Go!), Rachel is basically Edina and Taylor and Brad are Pats and Saffy. That's pretty much all you need to watch the show.

And then there's the clothes. If you love fashion TV, then this is a feast. Again, Lorenzo wept a bit. "Stores lend us on approval until we decide what works. We take them to set, we do a fitting with the clients, we pick a few options, then we buy what we need and return the rest to the stores." That's Lorenzo's idea of heaven.

In last week's episode (and continuing in tonight's) Team Zoe is off to New York for fashion week. You would think they were storming the beaches of Normandy. "I need a ton of options. I'm looking at great blouses there are great for press interviews, I'm looking for great shoes, great bags...I'm looking for everything I can use to style my clients." Of course there's the usual reality show shenanigans of playing to the camera, "heartfelt" confessionals, and manipulated situations, but watching them rush from show to show trying to catch Michael Kors, Oscar de la Renta, Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein - and still trying to find time to see lesser known designers and get to look at their collections while still in the studio -"There's only one sample. Nothing has been produced for sale purposes, for stylists, for private clients, nothing has been produced for buyers. There's literally one. Everyone needs to share that collection and it's next to impossible." - darlings, by that point, Lorenzo is curled up on the floor and questioning his own fabulosity.

But you'll love it! Promise!


Check out the preview for tonight's episode:



[Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com - Videos: Bravotv.com]

It's Kenley, Bitch.

Alright, there's only one dress left and we barely have anything to say about it so we might as well get started.

Jerell had the easiest time of it this challenge. Partially because he had a pretty model that could pull off the look he was assigned (unlike most of the designers) and partly because the look he was assigned was the broadest and the easiest to pull off.

You say "pop" and that can mean a lot of easily identifiable looks. Jerell chose the Britney/Pussycat Dolls look. It's not one we would have chosen, but we can't blame him for going there.

His instincts were, for the most part, good. He pulled off a look that had a slutty vibe and showed a decent amount of skin but also kept her covered up enough so as not to look vulgar.

Personally, we don't LOVE the look but we think he nailed it nonetheless. He would have been our pick for the winner. Not because it was the most inventive look - far from it - but because it was the most recognizable.

You couldn't really picture any artists from other musical genres wearing the other designers' outfits but you could instantly picture Britney in this.

That's not exactly a check in the "creative'" column for Jerell but it does speak to his practical sense.

As does the choice NOT to use this hideous fabric. Seriously, girl. You had us worried there for a second.

Say what you will about Kenley (god knows we have), but she's got the bland pretty looks and the youth (not to mention body) to pull off a Britney pastiche fairly well. Jerell understood that so he went for the most obvious choice.

And we really can't fault him for that but we do have criticisms.

The little vest looked a little too Sonny Bono for us. The way the skirt turns into the collar wasn't all that flattering to her midsection and made it look a little thick.

And the cups didn't look they were capable of supporting anything; they just looked tacked on. He's lucky his model was perky enough (boobs, not personality) to pull that off.


[Photo: Barbara Nitke/Bravo - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]

Episode 12 Previews

The girl designers have had it with Kenley but she doesn't care because who needs them anyway? In other news, Jerrell snaps.



Everyone hates Kenley because she's a "go getter!" In other news, Kenley is delusional.

[Videos: Bravotv.com]

Mad Men S2E9: Six Month Leave

We have to suppress our knowledge of the sometimes seismic events that occurred throughout the '60s when we watch this show because for the most part, events happen far off camera and are only obliquely referred to by the characters, more often to provide ambiance than any sort of reflection. For the most part, Mad Men looks at an era not through its major events but through the eyes of normal people reacting to the millions of minor events in their day to day lives. It is, in some sense, a more accurate take on history or at the very least, it's a take that does a good job of faking the feel of accuracy.

The common refrain about the '60s is that they "really started" when JFK was assassinated in November 1963. Unless they do something radically different between seasons 2 and 3, it looks like we're not ever going to see the events of that day from the points of view of the Mad Men characters. Supposedly there will be time shifts of up to a couple years between every season and since we're in August of '62 with 4 more episodes to go, it's looking like Season 3 will be starting at some point well after the assassination.

Why bring this up? Because last night they did use an event as a backdrop for the entire episode and it's not one we ever would have thought of: Marilyn Monroe's death. It's not that outside events are never referred to on the show, but ones to which nearly every character has some sort of reaction are rare. The only others we can think of are the crash of Flight 1 (which was really only used to tell a Pete story and then dropped) and Kennedy winning the election (which was heavily featured to drive home the point that Sterling Cooper is seriously behind the times).

There was a motif last night that was used so often and with such a heavy hand that we almost got bored with it: scenes of characters waking up. From Betty and Freddy passed out on their respective couches, to Joan in Roger's office, to Don being woken up by an angry Mona in his office, the message seems to be that everyone's waking up to something. This being Mad Men, we're not going to be told what, but it felt to us that this moment, for these people, is when The Sixties started.

Freddy woke up to a world that simply wasn't going to excuse him any longer. It's no longer the good old days of office tall tales about hard-drinking ad men doing outrageous things. It's a new era and Freddy just doesn't fit anymore.

Joan woke up to the realization that the world can treat women like her (and Marilyn) pretty damn shabbily and, judging by her scene with Roger (which, like every scene she has with Roger, crackles and spits sexual tension while slogging under the weight of an ended affair), she might still be in love with him - or coming to the realization that she actually did love him once.

Don and Betty both woke up to lives even emptier than the one they shared.

The only one not shown waking up is the one who's already wide awake: Peggy. We've been saying for a while that if we had to guess at the characters' ultimate fates, our guess would be that Peggy will eventually wind up with Pete. We don't know if that's going to be the case, but there does seem to be some sort of relationship building between them, above and beyond their previous clandestine one. Pete seems to respect Peggy on some level and their youth and the weight of the roles they play sometimes force them into these strange little alliances. We can't picture Peggy storming into anyone's office to tell them off the way she did Pete and not only was she completely comfortable doing so - in fact, it felt like one of the few times she ever let her mask slip - but Pete wasn't even remotely angry or put out about it. Pete won't even let his own wife mouth off to him but his first response to Peggy's rage was to ask for a chance to explain himself.

It's notable that Pete and Peggy were the only ones to have any sort of real reaction to Freddy's indiscretion. Everyone else was either laughing it off or trying to explain it away, but Pete reacted with extreme revulsion and Peggy reacted with a tenseness that makes us think she's not gotten this far in life without knowing at least a couple drunks along the way. She is appalled but immediately wants to fix and forget. Her reward for being the only prudent and empathetic person in the firm is a promotion so big that it left our heads spinning. Taking over the Senior Copywriter's accounts is a HUGE leapfrog for Peggy and we hope two things: 1) that the men in the office don't give her TOO much shit for it and 2) that she'll get a big enough raise and take Joan and Bobbie's advice and get herself a new damn wardrobe.

Another aspect of the episode that makes us think that this one was overtly "about" the era: suddenly the silent black people in the background are speaking up and they have stories and inner lives of their own. The Drapers' maid offered some damn good advice for Betty ("Splash some cold water on your face and go outside. You'll see that everything is right where you left it.") but it was the elevator man's poignant statement about hiding in plain sight - something he does every single day to earn a living - and how it couldn't help Marilyn that spoke to the changes that are just around the corner. That, and Roger's bemused announcement that another agency had hired a "colored kid."

As for the Draper marriage, from where we're sitting, this one looks dead in the water. We can't imagine that's where the writers are going with this because without her marriage to Don, Betty would drift too far away from the Sterling Cooper universe to still remain in the show and we just don't see that happening. Betty's deteriorating even further and when she's not dazedly wandering around in a housecoat with a glass of wine, she's setting her friend up to do the thing she herself doesn't have the nerve to (and for the crime of having a seemingly happy marriage). Still, she doesn't seem inclined to invite him back and he came right out and admitted to Roger that he's not sure he even wants to. Of course Roger being the needy, immature man that he is, he took Don's statement in the worst possible way. The Sterling marriage always served as a prediction of where the Draper marriage is heading but in another huge leapfrog move, Roger chucked it all and went for Joan II, Jane. We didn't see that one coming at all and we can't WAIT to see Joan's reaction.


[Photos: Courtesy of amctv.com]


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Country Style Noodles

Oh, right. An episode aired last week, didn't it?

It would be difficult to determine exactly which designer had the toughest job but it's probably a tossup between Kenley having to make Leanne look hip hop and Leanne having to make Korto look country.

We know one thing:

Their failures were about equal.

Oh kittens, this is bad. This is really bad. But y'know? The more we think about it the more we think this might have been the toughest challenge of all of them. Not just because Korto has about as much in common with Shania Twain as we do, but because "country" as a definable look doesn't really exist anymore.

Think about the top female country stars of the last ten years or so and they've all pretty much adopted a generic pop look. Outside of putting her in a cowboy hat or a Minnie Pearl dress, Leanne didn't have many options and the options she did have were painfully cliched.

Still, that doesn't totally excuse this look. First off, that purple is not such an eye-catching color for what the judges apparently decided was a stagewear challenge.

Secondly, the color doesn't really "say" country. Of course, we're not sure what colors do, but then again, we're not contestants for a 100-grand design prize.

Then there was the whole "Mary Ann" look with the knotted waist and the knotted kerchief at the neck. Foregoing the fact that you can't get much more cliched than that, we tend to think one knot per torso should be the limit.

One thing we really don't get is the Wonder Woman belt and the accompanying flash of gold in the yoke of the shirt. We get the yoke part - more of that country kitsch thing - but why gold?

And finally, while there isn't really a definable female country look anymore, we wouldn't necessarily make the leap that a tight floor length skirt was just what was needed here. I mean, if you're going to do the country kitsch thing, you might as well put her in a denim swing skirt or something as easily palatable. The whole silhouette just felt wrong to us.

Sorry, Noodles. This was not one of your better efforts.

[Photo: Barbara Nitke/Bravo - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]

PRG Toons!

Magical Elf Alex comes through for us while we earn a buck and looks at the musical styles the producers may have missed.





[Illustrations: Alex Cox/Projectrungay.blogspot.com]

In or Out: Victoria Beckham

Victoria Beckham (with accessory) attends the launch of the Beckham Signature Fragrance Collection at Macy's Herald Square in New York City.




Antonio Berardi Fall 2008




The dress is pretty hot but it looks better on the model. Of course the rubber leggings/platform boots thingie is way too much, but come on. She's fucking Posh and we expect no less. Love the hair and makeup. Half in and half out, we say.


More pics:




[Photos: WireImage/Celebutopia]