Bitches, we are EXHAUSTED. And just a
tiny bit hung over. We had a blast last night. In fact, for whatever
reason, this was one jammin' finale party compared to the other reality show wrapups we'd been to (although those Shear Genius bitches run a close second). Apparently, Season 4 was the drinker's season. Although that doesn't explain the tipsy designers from Seasons 1, 2 and 3. Even Tim himself was feeling mighty mellow by the end of the night.
Let's start at the very beginning because someone once told us it's a very good place to start.
We arrived at the Tribeca Grand a little after eight with unofficial PRGayBoy #3, Emmett McCarthy and Official PRGay Photographer, the commenter you all know as "Gorgeous Things." Seriously. We told TRESemmé we needed to bring our own photographer and bitches, we are so money that they agreed to send us another ticket. We have ARRIVED, darlings!
In fact, we couldn't help but be a little sentimental and nostalgic about the whole thing. This was (believe it or not) only our second PR finale party. It's funny, it was the finale party for Season 3 that really started the ball rolling for us. That was the night that we met Laura and Peter for the first time and that was the night that Tim uttered the immortal (to us, anyway) words "You're in the inner circle now!"
Well, not to brag or anything (okay, just a little) but last night, what we assumed had been a simple polite compliment on Tim's part eighteen months ago felt like it had really come true. We really ARE in the inner circle! Or maybe just slightly outside it. Our reputation had preceded us and thanks to the shameless whoring on our parts, everyone there seemed to know who we were. Oh, don't get us wrong. It certainly wasn't OUR night by any stretch of the imagination. No, the night clearly belonged to Rami, Jillian and Christian.
Still, when Andy Cohen, the Senior VP of Production and Programming for Bravo comes up to you and says "You guys are fucking HILARIOUS!" can you blame us for being a little proud? Or when Tim broke away from the endless parade of interview and paparazzi requests just to give us both a big hug and kiss and then immediately, in as
soto a
voce as one can manage in a room full of screaming photographers took us aside and said "Did you see that
Gawker piece on me? Totally untrue! I was never there! I can tell you I was home that night. ALONE." Tim darling, consider us your official debunkers of hanging-out-in-gay-bars-frequented-by-escorts rumors.
Anyway, we're tired and this post is all over the place, isn't it? As we said, this party was bigger and louder than previous ones. The amount of press there was kind of amazing.
We couldn't get NEAR any of the S4 designers for quite awhile because all of the ones in attendance: the final 3, plus Sweet P, Chris (who seemed really overwhelmed by the whole thing), Ricky, Jack, Carmen, Kevin, and VictorYA were behind the velvet ropes (and the big scary bouncers) answering interview requests and posing for pictures. So we decided to start drinking instead.
In our mingling travels, as we tried to flag down the occasional spring roll or Cosmo, we ran into Nora Caliguri from S1 who looked absolutely adorable (still a shock to see her with long blonde hair) in a kickin' gold metallic cocktail dress that's part of her upcoming line. "Upcoming line?! You HAVE to let us feature it on the blog!" She's so cute because she just tilted her head and said "Really? You guys would do that?" We also met her equally as cute sister who was wearing an equally as cute dress from Nora's line. We complimented Nora so much on her Miu Miu boots that we actually took a picture of them.
We also ran into Kayne, who... um, had a somewhat understated response to our presence but who nonetheless graciously posed for some pictures. Christian's model Lisa was there in a Christian Siriano original and it was (of course) fierce. She was sweet and posed for a couple photos with us, as did Ted Allen of Queer Eye and Top Chef fame. Confession time: Tom
has a total crush on him and he barely did anything to hide it. Miss Jay McCarroll was also making the rounds but one thing we learned from seeing him in action at Bryant Park is, the press STILL loves him and they clamored after
him as if he was the winner of Season 4.
In our travels we met Faran from the
Fashionista blog and literally bowed down before her. It became a mutual admiration society as we all told each other how fabulous they are and how much each blog was loved by the others. She is adorable and very kind and if you bitches aren't checking her blog out on a daily basis, you're crazy.
We went around harassing all the models for pictures but let's face it, they're models. They LOVE to pose for pictures. To a gal, every single one of them was sweet and gracious. We spoke to Lauren for a bit and wondered where Jillian was since she was nowhere to be seen. Lauren told us that the two of them had been in a car accident that day (!) but they were both fine. Which proved to be true when Jillian showed up not long after looking absolutely gorgeous. She really is a very pretty girl and had on a beautiful dress that made us wonder if she was cold.
At one point, Ricky came over to us and asked for a piece of gum. Now, we had heard through the grapevine (okay, from Laura) that Ricky thought we were mean and being the forward bitches that we are, we called him on it. "We're not mean! It's all said with love!" He laughed and said that he loves what we do and doesn't care what people say about him because he knows it's all just entertainment. Now bitches, THAT is the correct attitude to have.
With the mingling out of the way and the magic hour of ten p.m. approaching, we headed into the theater to watch the show. Unfortunately, we spent so much time mingling that there were no seats
left and we had to stand in the aisle. We didn't mind, we were just thrilled once again to watch the finale with the very designers who appeared in it. Tim, on the other hand, was nonplussed. "You don't have
seats? But you're the Project RunGay Boys!" We love you, Tim.
Everyone settled in, Tim gave a brief speech about how thrilled he was with the way the season played out and how proud he was of the designers. The lights dimmed and we were once again reminded of just why we spend so damn much of our time blogging about this show: because we love it. The excitement in the room was palpable and Christian was clearly the star of the night because practically every line he uttered (and let's face it, he got some good ones last night) was met with raucous cheering and clapping, mostly from the section Jack was sitting in.
Yes, we noticed our 2-second cameo and we felt like we had magically been sucked into our televisions screens. We poked each other excitedly at the sight of our big heads onscreen and grinned from ear to ear. Of course, no one else noticed.
During the commercial breaks, the sound was cut out and the room buzzed with chatter. Every time the breaks ended, multiple shushings hissed from around the room. It was just so much fun and the feeling in the room was positively electric.
Each collection was met with applause, as if we were all sitting in the tents watching it live. This crowd was PUMPED. When it came time for the judging, the press was allowed into the room and they all pointed their cameras at the finalists in the front row. People reacted with shock when Jillian was let go so abruptly but everyone gave her a round of applause. Of course, the room EXPLODED when Christian won. In fact, we didn't hear the last 5 minutes of the show at all.
After that, things wrapped up pretty quickly. They handed Princess a check so obnoxiously large that it looked like he was having trouble holding it.
We made our way down front and introduced ourselves to Jillian, who of course, already knew who we were. She is sweet and funny and when we told her that we were rooting for her and thought her collection should have won, she seemed genuinely touched by that. She told us she's working on eliminating her monotone and we laughed and told her not to change a thing. She introduced us to her business partner, who told us that she was launching a line and gave us his business card. You can bet that we'll be checking back on that for all the details.
We also met Carmen who, we have to say, is absolutely beautiful in person. She was, after all, a model. She complimented Gorgeous Things on her hair and we immediately turned around and complimented her on hers, which was done up in a big bouffant-y bun. Jack came up and called us bitches in that I'm-joking-but-not-really way and we just laughed him off and told him he loves the attention.
After that, we headed out to the lobby where quite a few people were visibly, deliciously drunk. We said our goodnights to Jay and Nora, Kevin and Ricky and anyone else who crossed our paths. Tim was once again swamped by cameras as was (unsurprisingly) Christian, so we never got a chance to get near either one of them to send them our well wishes. Instead, we headed out to the tables where the swag bags were and snatched far more than our alloted amount.
Hey, we never said we had class.
Click here for more>>[Photos: WireImage/Ann Steeves-ProjectRunGay]
Poodles, before we look to the future of Season 6, one last, loving look back.
In the midst of a "real woman" challenge that left our comments section in flaming ruins for the week (nothing like utilizing a bunch of real women who've lost weight to push the emotional buttons of the viewers), Jack Mackenroth, that Chelsea Muscle Mary who had already endeared himself to the viewers, found himself in the midst of a health crisis.
To be more specific, he had a MRSA infection and this, coupled with the fact that he had a compromised immune system because he's HIV positive, caused a bit of a concern both on his part and on the part of the producers.
As Jack struggled with the decision as to whether he should stay or go, his fellow designers, to their credit, showed great concern and affection for him. There was one, however, that got a mighty strange edit out of it:
Victorya, who for some reason, looked almost pissed off about the whole thing (granted, she always looks like that). It turns out (although you never saw this on the episode), she was FURIOUS with the producers for not offering to shut down production until Jack could get medical attention and get back on his feet. That's certainly admirable, but highly impractical. It would have been nice to give Jack the chance, but at that point they had no idea how long it would take for him to recover, and each day that the production delayed would have cost the producers tens of thousands of dollars. It's harsh, but that's the reality of it.
In what was probably the most tearful scene in the history of the show, Jack said goodbye to his fellow designers. It wasn't the kind of delicious drama that results from egos clashing, but it was the only time the show actually made us cry.
In the end, Jack made the decision to put his health and well-being before his ambition and opted to leave the show and seek medical attention. As we recall, he was fully recovered within a week, but unfortunately, the show had moved on by that point and replaced him with the recently auf'd Chris March. We still think Jack should have tried out for the next season but he appears to have moved on since then.
There were so many reasons to dislike the cat-thrower from Season 5 and so many scenes that could have gone here, but nothing sums it up like the moment it all came to a head with the judges in the final pre-Bryant Park episode, "Nature Calls."
"I wanted to stay away from pretty."
"The petals, they don't look very elegant either."
"I wasn't going for elegance, Heidi."
"You get very defensive, Kenley."
"It is a little bit annoying the attitude, no?"
"Like right now, what you're doing right now."
"What??"
