The eighth season of Project Runway premiered on Lifetime a few weeks ago. As I mentioned a while back when news of the new season was just making it around the blogosphere, I will be writing about Project Runway every week as each fashion designer-hopeful is eliminated from the show until there are just three, precious designers left who get to show their collections at Fashion Week. Well, that was my intention, anyway--to write about Project Runway every week. Let me tell you, a week is a really short amount of time. I had started a post about Project Runway the day after it first premiered and now that every episode is 90 minutes long (instead of 60), there is a lot of stuff to cover. A lot. Things got a little chaotic on the writing front for a little bit and sitting down and preparing my thoughts on each episode has not been the easiest of tasks. But finally, here we are, writing about Project Runway and I know we have three episodes to cover, so this weekend will be a Project Runway Weekend and here is the first installment for your Saturday morning reading. Today we are going to go over the season premiere and tomorrow, keep a look out for a recap and ample amounts of thoughts and criticisms on the second and third episodes.For a few weeks before the season premiere of the show, we knew that there was a twist. There are 17 designers who traveled to New York to be on the show, with the understanding that they would indeed be on the show. The problem is that Project Runway only has 16 designers compete on the show every season and, as Tim Gunn put it, they just couldn't narrow down the designers to 16 before the premiere of the show, so they brought them all and the season premiere is the last phase of the audition process for the designers.
We find out about this twist nearly 12 minutes into the premiere and by then, I already knew who I didn't want to see on any more episodes based on personality alone. The personalities on this season are eccentric, to put it mildly. Every season there are usually a few plain people, a few people who don't think they're plain but really are, a few with some real talent and who I get excited to see, a few who think they are going to be the next big fashion designer but just make a huge mess every episode and then, there are the people whose personalities or attributes grate on my nerves and I'm done with them before I even start. I had two people slated into this position by 12 minutes into the season premiere.
Casanova is a designer who is originally from Puerto Rico and who claims to have designed for all types of clients and occasions, but barely dressed his model for the first runway show.
He has a very thick accent that I would have appreciated having subtitles for, especially when I can only guess what he is saying. Case in point: "I was so nervous thinking oh New York it me or I it New York or New York take me or I take New York from the balls." And that is precisely the moment my forehead landed forcefully into the palm on my hand. But when it comes down to it, if you are unable to design and produce a garment that covers your model's body, you have no right being on a show where you are expected to do just that.
Jason is the second person I would love to see go home. Jason wears a bowler hat. No, he doesn't think it's stylish or that he looks awesome in it, he just think it makes him look intimidating and no one will start with him. I don't know what he thinks he has to gear up for here, but I doubt he's going to walk into the Atlas Apartments and get jumped. But even if someone did have it out for him, why does he think that people would see the bowler hat on his head and immediately say "Oh no! Not a bowler hat! Never mind, we don't want to mess with this guy!"
Gretchen, a hippie/bohemian chick with hippie/bohemian/minimalist style walks up to him and they introduce themselves to each other and immediately, Jason asks her what her nationality is. She slowly tells him Irish and German and asks him his nationality because that's called being polite, and then I know what he's doing. He just wanted to tell someone that he's 100% Italian and the only reason I can think of is maybe he wants Gretchen to go to the other designers in the house, when she meets them of course, and tell them all that Jason is 100% Italian and look, there he is! The guy with the bowler hat! And no one is going to mess with him. I can only imagine how thrilled I will be when he gets to go home.
There are a few designers I really like, though. For one, I really like Peach. I do not like her "ladies who lunch" designs, but I do like her personality and her humor about being the oldest (50 years old) designer on the show. She doesn't shy away from communicating with or hanging out with the other designers, but embraces it with really great humor. I also love Sarah, who seems to have my taste in clothing. As she puts it, "Is this totally gross and ugly or is this like, the cutest thing you've ever seen?" I also like Mondo, who is a little different, a little intriguing, super cute and he brought a denim kilt with him. All the other designers are kind of fading into the background for me, at least for now, but I'm sure their personalities will begin erupting and I'll have a whole new set of people I like and dislike after a few more episodes.
The last phase of the audition process for the Project Runway designers was to take a piece of clothing they packed in their suitcase and to hand it to the person standing next to them. That is the garment that must make it into each designer's final design--in some way. Some designers had a bigger problem with this than others. Mondo ended up giving away a really awesome looking denim kilt, but he brushed it off and moved on. The one designer who could not let the challenge go however, was Casanova, who took a pair of brand new designer pants out of his suitcase--pants that cost $1,070. Now, I don't know why he would take these pants that were obviously very precious to him out of his suitcase to begin with, especially since he kept commenting on how they had never been worn and their price tag. Luckily, by the time he saw his pants getting ripped and cut apart he let the pants go and moved on to complete and utter avoidance of the topic. Glad to see he's going through the steps of loss quickly and effectively.
After much speculation about how the extra 30 minutes of Project Runway would be spent, we see that the runway shows and judging are very much more involved. What was a little baffling to me was that we heard nothing from the models on the show. Not one, solitary thing. They were just decoration and we don't even get to hear them speak. We see the designers dressing them, taking them to hair and makeup, bringing them to the runway, we see them walk onto the runway, off the runway and that is it. I suppose the Project Runway producers (and Heidi Klum) decided any footage of the models just wasn't worth seeing, but that didn't stop the show from completely objectifying one of the models through the mouth of Bowler Hat Jason. He has already made it a point to tell us all that he is straight, that he likes to intimidate people through wearing a bowler hat and asking them about their nationality to completely freak them out, but when he was attempting to dress his model, he felt the urge to tell us all that his model is quite busty "for a model." Imagine that, all models not coming in one shape and size. But not only does he feel the need to call attention to her breasts, but also divulge that they are completely distracting and then hints to wanting to sleep with her. Yes Jason, we get it. You're straight--and tremendously sexist, which you proved once you said that your model was "yours." I feel sorry for any model who is forced to work with you because you have successfully weirded me out and I cannot wait for you to go home. Really.
When the designers brought their models to hair and makeup, you could tell some of them were full of nerves and some had absolutely no idea what they were doing. Peach wanted the hair stylist to tell her how her model should look and Casanova was telling the makeup artist how to do his model's hair. Kristin, who has a background in graphic design and is an "accidental fashion designer" forgot about her model while she was in hair and the only makeup that wound up on her model's face was bright red lipstick.
When Tim Gunn alerted the designers that they would be walking their models to the runway, Casanova did not have his model dressed. He popped into the model's dressing room and in seemingly no time at all, popped back out saying he was done. Tim Gunn was absolutely aghast at Casanova's garment because frankly, she looked like she was in cheap lingerie that she tried to put on not just in the dark, but also in a broom closet. While I try to keep it in my mind that the designers only had five hours for their first challenge, there's just no excuse for how undressed Casanova's model was.
During the runway show, Casanova actually said "It's sexy but it's not vulgar" to describe his garment. I could not help but laugh. A lot.
The judges for the season premiere runway show were Heidi Klum, Michael Kors, Nina Garcia and Selma Blair. I'm not sure why Selma Blair was there, seeing as I had completely forgotten about her entire existence. She hasn't been doing much at all lately and I can't remember the last time I saw her do something. She did look very polished and put together and I have always loved her hair, so I guess there's that.
As if I did not dislike Bowler Hat Jason enough, his garment is hideous. It was put together with staples (because of his model's gigantic, huge, larger than life breasts, he tries to say) that were very visible and he made it from a kimono. You know what he did with the kimono? He turned it around and put it on his model backwards.
The winner of the first runway, in a unanimous decision by the judges, was Gretchen.
Her dress was super classy and pretty and something most women would definitely love to wear. However, there really wasn't much to it. I would have liked to see something besides a pretty black dress.
The biggest outrage of the premiere, for me, is who was sent home. McKell was sent home for a styling mistake and "side cleavage".
It breaks my heart that McKell was the only one to be sent home and Bowler Hat Jason and his backwards kimono with pins and staples galore and Casanova, whose garment was described by Michael Kors as "she's a pole dancer in Dubai", got to stay.
I have very high hopes for season 8 of Project Runway and I can only hope it gets a little more exciting than the premiere as the season progresses.
Check back tomorrow for recaps and lots of thoughts on the second and third episodes of Project Runway and leave your thoughts on the premiere in the comments!
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