The Fashion Show: Report Card Time!

Alright kittens, let's do this.

As you are aware, a television program debuted on the Bravo network last night to much fanfare. This television program was brought to you by the fine folks at TRESemmé and featured obnoxious gay men, bitchy women, hungry models, and dress forms. This program was not Project Runway. And apparently, "not Project Runway!" seems to be the number one complaint about the show, alongside "too much like Project Runway!"

Ladies, we're reading over your comments on last night's post and we're reading the various columnists and bloggers around the world wide web of wonders, and frankly, we don't get what all the fuss is about. OF COURSE it's not Project Runway, while at the same time being incredibly derivative of it! That's the WHOLE POINT. Were there times we missed Tim, Heidi, Michael, or Nina? Sure. But y'know, speaking for ourselves only, we have always been fans of the show Project Runway taken as whole; we're NOT fans of the imaginary "The Michael Kors Show," or "The Tim Gunn Show."

Were there times we missed the PR crowd? Sure, especially in the workroom. But we stand by what we said earlier: it's better for them not to have a mentor at all rather than shoving in some poor guy who'll wind up constantly getting compared to Tim Gunn and found lacking in that department. Kelly Rowland was fine. No better or worse than any other reality show host. Mizrahi, though. That girl needs to TONE IT DOWN. For one, he was way too mean in his judging comments. We all like a little bitchery in our reality television but he was eviscerating some of those poor slobs. Enough with the high-school level mean girl bitchiness, Heather. The other problem area is in his presenting. Honey, we have the gay gene too and we find it incredibly difficult to NOT speak with our hands. We get it. Honestly we do. On the rare occasions when we've been interviewed on camera, it appears like a small flock of birds is flapping around us as we speak, but alas, it's only our hands; our gay, gay hands. But you, Missie. You have been on television for years now AND you're getting paid for this shit, so get those gay hands under control, girl.

Anyway, our point is, we don't quite get why some people are being so vehemently negative about this show. If you like Project Runway, then why on earth wouldn't you like this show? It has literally all the exact same elements. We find it hard to believe that THAT many people watch PR ONLY for the host/judges/mentor. Like we said, we love them too, but we didn't go into last night's show expecting to see them or even see a close approximation of them. We expected to see crazy designers bitching at each other while they try to complete impossible challenges and then end it with a runway show of hungry models parading the results around for judging. Done and done. Mission accomplished.

As for the designers themselves, they seem fine to us. A mix of the professional, the newly graduated, the struggling for years, and the delusional. A typical mix. So typical, that it almost seems like certain designers were cast because they inevitably bring up comparisons to previous PR contestants. But there's real talent there and a wide range of styles and backgrounds. We're definitely interested in seeing more of their work.

Let's see....what else? The sets! Come on, you didn't love that runway set? That was MILES better than PR's bargain basement plywood runway of doom. We originally had reservations about the whole live audience thing, but it really does a fine job of replicating the feel of being at a fashion show and we liked hearing opinions from fashionistas without being limited to the three judges. We also liked the Harper's Bazaar mini-challenge thingie. It was short, fun, and creative.

One thing we absolutely HATED with a passion was the staging on this thing. In fact, the whole show seems overproduced at times. Just point and shoot and edit it later, bitches. All of these staged conversations between the judges out in the hallway or back behind stage are lame as hell and none of the judges are good enough at pretending they're having a totally spontaneous conversation. There's too much speech-making and line-delivering as well. Loosen up a bit.

We will have much more to say in the coming days. After all, we've got a lot of dresses and harem pants to rip. For now, we'll say we enjoyed it but that's probably because we went into it without any illusions about what it was: a replacement for Project Runway. It's early days, so we're fine with waiting it out to see if the show surprises us in any way.

Now let's get bitchy!

Congratulations, little Asian Christian Siriano!



We had our doubts about a Rubik's Cube-inspired dress (and truth be told, that just sounded like a cute soundbite to us) but this was a fabulously unique little design and he executed and styled it perfectly. As per the show's format, you can buy this dress here.

You have to admit, being able to buy each week's winning design is a cool little twist.

The bolero jackets were exceedingly lame and we couldn't believe how much drama revolved around such a bland little clothing item, but James-Paul made it work for him. Basically, by ignoring the jacket altogether and just making a kickass dress to go under it.

Love the belts.

And the construction of the skirt is pretty interesting.

We're not entirely sold on the hem, though.


As for the loser...
We were utterly convinced that Strawberry Shortcake was going home, especially after Heather Mizrahi's outrageously bitchy "You should never work in this industry at all" takedown he delivered to her.

And so, the only cute guy on the show gets sent home. It's funny, Tom turned to Lorenzo and said with the voice of experience, "I bet he used to be fat. Former fatties have big heads and they tend to wear their clothes too tight." Tom knows this due to his big head and his former tendency to wear his clothes too tight.

Irony. We don't know whether Dr. Johnny Fever or whatever his name was was actually a former fattie, but he sure dresses his models like they were. We've never seen anything so tight in our lives - and we used to go to circuit parties.

She's walking like they tied her knees together. You can bet this was one model wishing she was clomping down Project Runway's 3-foot catwalk instead of this one.

He might have gotten away with the skirt as a fit issue if he hadn't designed that "HERE THEY ARE, BOYS" top to go along with it. No, the judges, even though they acted like the girls at the cool table in the cafeteria, pretty much got this one right. Bye cute guy. We'll miss you every time we look at Merlin parading around in his short shorts.

Much, MUCH more to come, bitches.


[Photos: BravoTV.com - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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