Ripping the Collections: Kara, Part Two

This is just gorgeous. Once again, Kara pairs two colors to great effect.

And once again, she manages to achieve a look that we would normally hate - a bubble skirt over pants - and have it look chic and cute.

On the other hand...

No. Sorry, no. These two queens have their limits.

Ignoring that, we just don't like the outfit overall. The colors (surprisingly), the distracting suspenders, that thing she's got around her neck - none of it's working for us.

On the other other hand...

Wow. This is really breathtaking.

Just a beautiful combination of colors, plus the heavy trim in the bodice and the double straps, the full skirt and high waist -- It's all pure Kara Janx and the effect is stunning.

One interesting thing about this collection is that it was all about working a small set of of themes over and over again. The beauty was found as much in the combination of designs as in the designs themselves. She took the bodice from the previous look and combined it with the skirt from her second look.

Result: a great look.

We're in love/hate mode. If you check the video, it moves beautifully and certainly the colors are beautiful. And we liked the similar full skirt in the first look...

...but this was just too full and the waist was too high. She looks like a Barbie cake.

Loved this look. Young and chic and flattering.

Kara's practically built her empire on her kimono wrap dress, so the look might seem a bit ubiquitous (especially since Madonna ripped it off for H&M) but that doesn't negate how striking this is. Eye-popping colors, perfect fit and proportions, and striking model all create the perfect look. Gorgeous.

It appeals to our inner drama queens to declare Kara's lack of a win (or even a national showcase) as a tragedy, but if it's a tragedy, it's one with an awfully happy ending. She's working like a champ, churning out beautiful, chic designs that are gaining increasing attention. Like Emmett, she's a perfect example of someone who might not have been the right fit for reality television, but in the end, their talent won out anyway.

Well kittens, we have exhaustively written about all 3 seasons of Project Runway and this post brings that to a close. At this point, we're ready to declare ourselves the world's foremost Project Runway experts. We've got our Ph.D's in Runwayology.

Unfortunately, this also brings the daily content to an end for awhile. We're not going to post just to fill up space, but we will be posting on a semi-regular basis about things PR-related, including upcoming trips to see Laura, Emmett, and maybe a few other surprises. We will of course be blogging Season 4 like gangbusters the second it starts and maybe even check in on St. Tim every now and then. Until then, if you miss us, you can always check us out on Tom & Lorenzo and very shortly we'll be announcing a slight shift in the status quo over there. As always, Watch What Happens, Poodles! Loveya!


[Photos: FirstView]


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Ripping the Collections: Kara, Part One

Darlings, now comes the time when we examine the great tragedy of season 2: Kara Janx's decoy collection. Why a tragedy? Because if she'd still been in the game, we're firmly convinced this collection would have garnered her the win. Put bluntly, it blew the other collections out of the water. For whatever reasons, she struggled in the competition but when left on her own she produced a funky, urban, wildly colorful, up-to-the-minute collection that we think would have looked incredible photographed for the pages of Elle - or any other magazine for that matter.

Since photographs never really give you the entire story and one needs to see clothes moving on a body to get a sense of them, watch the video first. We love the walking music!

Let's start the show.

Gorge. This is what we mean by sophisticated colors. She has a color sense that rivals Jay's (and that's a huge compliment coming from us). Compare this to the rather basic pinks that Chloe used.

We've never been big fans of the skirt-over-pants look, but Kara managed to do it in a way that no one else does.

One thing Kara really excels at is fitting a woman's bust. It seems like a minor compliment but considering all of the other collections had fit problems of varying degrees, it's one that should be made. She always manages to highlight and support the girls without looking vulgar. She should do a line of bras. If she can get these two 'mos to stare at racks...

GORGEOUS colors. Love the full, high-waisted skirt, which is very much on trend.

Don't love the tights, but unfortunately, they're also on trend.

We also loved the styling in this collection. The hats weren't a gimmick; they were a through-line that brought the whole collection together and gave it a youthful feel.

*clunk*

We tried to like this one, but it's not working for us. Too much of a fleeing-Chernobyl-with-all-
your-clothes-on-your-back feeling. Sometimes the high-waisted full skirts work and sometimes they don't. And we really don't like the jacket fabric.

Tom's mother had that couch through most of the '80s.

We're not big fans of this kind of look but we're fussy middle-aged queens, so take it with a grain of salt. It's very much on trend, youthful and well-made.

Love the jacket and the shorts and kinda-like the sweater, but you're never going to get us to love the white tights or the orange fingerless gloves.

When it comes to that layered, "urchin" look, we'll take this one over the previous one. We're not too keen on the fullness of the pants (or is she wearing a skirt over them?), but that's about the only criticism we have.

Love the fabric and tailoring for the jacket. The green shirt is an unexpected bit of color and girliness. Kara has a great sense of styling. She can put things together that others either wouldn't think to or wouldn't be able to.

This is Kara's 13th look and it's stunning.Who thinks of putting those two colors together? Yet it works beautifully.

Not much more to say than that.


[Photos: FirstView]


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Ripping the Collections: Chloe, Part Two

The good news: We almost-love everything in the second half of her collection!
Tha bad news: That means this is going to be a really boring post!

Gorgeous. Our second-favorite look in the whole collection.

Love the lace peeking out from the hem, the unusually placed seams, the keyhole, the color, the proportion. Near-perfect look.

The only slight criticism we have is that the bust doesn't seem as well-fitted as it should be.

Like bordering on love.

We wish she had spread out some of these more subdued looking pieces instead of slamming us with all that pink and gold all at once.

The only thing we don't respond well to is that shrug, which has a flimsy, fussy quality to it. And is it us or does that thing look... crooked somehow?

Another like bordering on love. This is a good example of why we don't particularly like the color story in this collection. The colors are all too...what's the word? Well, the word that comes to mind is "unsophisticated." They're so crayola, so basic.

We do like this design, but the fit on this thing is all kinds of wonky. It almost looks like she's wearing something a size larger than she is. And we do like the cutout in the back but we think she went a little too far with it.

We still don't love her prints, but we like this better than that green and pink one.

It's another fairly basic dress, but it's pretty, the trim bumps it up, and like almost everything else in the collection, it's well-made and well-fitted.

We do hate her styling choices, though. Every model has the same lop-sided hairstyle.

Again, we wish she had rethought the order of the looks because it's odd that she would have two similar dresses walking down the runway one after the other.

We go back and forth on this one, mainly because of our unlove for the print, but the shrug makes the look here.

Grace, you fabulous Amazon. We LOVE this one. Absolutely gorge.

See, THIS is a more sophisticated blue than that crayon blue she had earlier. We wish she had done the entire collection in shades like this instead of the blinding pinks, golds and blues.

The proportions on this look are perfect and the beautiful placement of the seams and cutout on the back take what could have been a basic dress and bumped it up to something unusual, striking and beautiful.

Despite the previously stated problems we had with this collection, all in all, it was dramatic and memorable and demonstrated a high level of craftsmanship as well as an expert's understanding of how to make fabric look beautiful on a woman's body. Was it for everyone? Clearly not, but in our view it was the unmistakable winner of season 2. Whether you agree with the judges or not, the fact of the matter is, Chloe had the best post-show career of any contestant. She's going places and isn't that what the whole competition's about?

Tomorrow: The stunning collection of Kara Janx.


[Photos: FirstView]


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