Okay, as I enter the final and most heinous month of pregnancy, I need a little indulgence, and the new (and perhaps, final,
sigh) season of
Project Runway has arrived just in the nick of time. I don't know what's better: watching super suave Tim Gunn (my teaching muse) tell the designers they're all a bunch of uncreative "slackers" (oh, how many times have I wanted to use that term with my students) or reading the
Project Rungay blog (
"Project Runway and Fashion from a Bitchy Gay Perspective"). The judges are in fine form this season, already punchy and biting, although I can't say that I entirely agree with their winning and losing selections. Yes, the surface treatments on the vacuum cleaner bags that comprise the bottom section of
Kelli's dress are brilliant. But, that bodice? Good God, those flattened, burned coffee filter boobie holders are ridiculous.
However, I was more shocked when poor, sad sack, awkward
Jerry was eliminated for the killer nurse raincoat getup. I agree, it was hideously designed, constructed and styled, but there appeared to be some sort of concept, flawed though it was. But this:
Honestly, I just can't abide this garbage bag monstrosity by Cher's evil twin: the tacky, tasteless, un-age-appropriate
Stella. A friend of mine made a sexier, punk rock princess frock out of a garbage bag in the sixth grade. True story. Let's hope they don't keep this talentless freak on the show just because she's an "interesting" personality.
Last night fashion and politics collided (okay, maybe only in my mind) with two momentous finales: the third and final presidential debate and the season (perhaps series) finale of Project Runway 5. Okay, so I was kind of rooting for Korto's subtly Africanesque collection with it's gorgeous colours and restrained use of over-sized beads. That green halter dress was a stunner and I don't think the garments were particularly overworked (once she wisely, unlike Kenley, ditched the crazy wedding dress). But, ultimately, Leanne's cool (literally with all those diaphanous blues) intellectual approach won out. It was hard not to draw a connection between the judges' response to Leanne's collection and those bizarre squiggly lines of biofeedback from the supposedly undecided focus groups watching debate no. 3. As a recessional malaise sweeps over the country, content appears to be reigning supreme over the cult of personality. Obama's calm, cool, collected, look directly into the camera and try to stay on topic approach seemed much more presidential, as the talking heads like to say, than McCain's bizarre tangents, random accusations, twitching, eye rolling, evident discomfort and apparent seething rage. Tim Gunn and the American people have spoken: the time has come for quiet thoughtfulness, intelligent solutions, environmental awareness and the ascendancy of the slightly nerdy. Hooray.
