Custom Design

This bag is worth discussing. I came across the Burberry Prorsum Medium Osprey Leather Tote and I had an overwhelming need to look at it closer. While I couldn’t put my finger on why I needed to look closer, I knew I had to.

As much as I can appreciate the signature Burberry plaid, I really love how they continue to put out other fabulous bags that might not jump out as Burberry until you look at the label. This bag completely fits that bill. This silver leather tote has the slightest fringe effect throughout the bag. I barely think fringe when I see the bag, but we can work with it. I love how chic, eccentric and unique the bag is. You definitely do not see something similar every day.

The one handle looks completely fabulous and supple has a 5″ drop. If you choose to put it on your shoulder, it will fit snugly, but it won’t be uncomfortable. The ruching at the sides pull the leather and its fringe in a clever way to draw the eye and curiosity in. Open up the bag and you will find black designer-stamped lining, two internal sections and a couple of pockets. This bag made an appearance on the runway and I’d love to have it make an appearance on my arm. I might dare to say this is one of my favorite Burberry bags I’ve seen in a while. Do you like this look or do you prefer the traditional Burberry bags? Buy through Net-a-Porter for 1695.

Original post by Shannon Mahoney

In the fashion industry (and, increasingly, in any industry), the phrase “Chinese craftsmanship” is usually an implied pejorative. Fairly or unfairly, things that are made in China are generally assumed to be less well-made than those made in Europe or the US, and much has been made over a handful of Chinese product recalls that have been announced for deadly dog food and baby formula or lead-filled toothpaste.

So when Hermes says that they’re going to launch a Chinese-designed, Chinese-manufactured luxury brand, surely they jest, correct? Wrong. Hermes never jests. According to Women’s Wear Daily, the new brand, Shang Xia, will be helmed by a head designer from the Chinese mainland, feature products made from Chinese materials and techniques and be autonomous from the design influence of its legendary parent company. All things considered, is it time to reevaluate our preconceived notions about Chinese-made goods?

Developments in Chinese fashion probably can’t be extrapolated out to optimism about more mundane Chinese exports, but considering how strongly so many of our forum members feel about their favorite brands outsourcing manufacturing to Asia, it’s still a phenomenon worth discussing.

In her oft-quoted book Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, Dana Thomas explains some unfortunate, well-hidden truths about Asian fashion manufacturing. As it turns out, many of those “Made in Italy” or “Made in France” tags on our favorite bags are technicalities at best. As is the case with lots of electronics, cars, appliances and other consumer items that boast a “Made in the USA” label, most of the components that go into the manufacture of our handbags are made overseas, often in China, before they’re shipped to their final assembly destination to receive their finishing touches and the all-important tag.

Some brands still do all their manufacturing where they say that they do, some save the European manufacturing for runway pieces and outsource the more mundane things to China and some do it all overseas. They all go to great lengths to hide any of their Asian manufacturing from the eyes of their consumers, but fashion is a bottom-line-focused business and Chinese factories present an opportunity to save money that’s too difficult to resist.

Is that necessarily a bad thing? Maybe not. Not all Chinese factories are created equal, and I don’t see why it would be impossible for a brand to enforce meticulous quality standards in whatever factory and country that they choose to produce their bags, as long as they have the correct oversight structure in place. Sure, China is known as the originator of many of the fake handbags that we all hate, but that doesn’t mean LVMH or a company nearly as powerful couldn’t build a state-of-the-art factory for authentic goods down the street. There is nothing inherent in Chinese soil that means that everything that we import from the country must be total crap.

Hermes’s investment in Chinese craftsmanship is perhaps the most striking measure thus far to indicate that China is coming into its own as both a market for and source of luxury fashion. Much has been made over the country’s burgeoning middle class, and it only stands to grown more over the next decade. It’s natural that consumers with newfound expendable income will look to companies in their own country for goods on which to spend it, and giving the Chinese an opportunity to do that may very well be a lucrative venture for the people behind this decision at Hermes. In addition to that, it’s one more step towards legitimizing Chinese manufacturing in the Euro-centric fashion industry, for better or for worse.

Original article via Women’s Wear Daily.

Original post by Amanda Mull

Great googly moogly, people. I sit here every day and talk about $2500 handbags like they’re the most normal thing in the world, so most sane people would consider me somewhat desensitized to luxury prices. And they’d probably be right – I sort of consider Balenciaga bags to be a steal, since most of their motorcycle styles are still priced under $1500.

But even the fact that I don’t live in objective reality when it comes to the prices of designer duds can’t stop my mouth from falling slightly agape at the fact that those in the Fashion Ivory Tower want us to pay $73,000 for the Balmain Crocodile Tail Leather Jacket. Let’s get a better look, after the jump…

Don’t get me wrong – I love this jacket almost as much as that guy from Anchorman loves lamp. It’s fantastically hip, impeccably tailored and made out of the most luxurious leather on the face of the planet. It’s post-apocolyptic chic and so cool it hurts me to look at it. I want to live in it. It may be the greatest jacket that I have ever glimpsed in my young life. But holy crap, $74,000?!?!

Off the top of my head, the things that I could buy with that include: a black-on-black BMW ͵ with an engine upgrade, a big down payment on a modernist condo in a really nice building in midtown Atlanta, a herd of tiny Bulldog puppies to follow me everywhere I go, a freaking boat (not that I even want a boat), a houseful of Jonathan Adler furniture, rugs, linens, and accessories, or a lifetime supply of Apple laptops, so that it would no longer be a big deal when I knock mine off the couch.

Or I could buy an absolutely sublime Balmain jacket. The grousing about price can be easily extrapolated down to the price levels that we normally talk about – $1500 is a mortgage payment that is hard to come by for a lot of people. I recognize the inherent hypocrisy. But as with everything, there are degrees to exorbitant pricing, and this jacket may have reached one with which I am simply not comfortable. But, if you happen to have $74,000+shipping laying around and you’re a French size 38 (and if it’s only available in that size, that means it has already sold out in all the other ones. Wrap your head around that), you can buy it through Luisa Via Roma for $73,935.

Original post by Amanda Mull

File this under “Things That Really Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone, Ever.”

According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Renee Richardson Gosline (yeah, that’s right, MIT is interested in your handbag), consumers are far more likely to identify a counterfeit bag as real when worn by someone that “looks” rich and a real bag as counterfeit when worn by someone that “looks” poor. I’m not sure why that would come as a huge surprise to anyone, but the fact that its been scientifically confirmed means that we can all congratulate ourselves on being logical, I suppose..

Before you fire up the keyboard and claim in the comments that you don’t care if people think your bag is fake or that it’s shallow for people to assume things about you because you dress a certain way, please slow your roll and read the stuff after the jump.

Inherent in fashion is the desire to create a cohesive personal style and public image, and if we weren’t expecting for it to matter in some way how we portray ourselves to the world, then we’d just all wear sweatpants and Ugg boots like we all really want to, deep down (or maybe I’m projecting). And it’s okay! Caring about public perception is actually a very grown-up thing to do, no matter how many times you told your mom that you didn’t care what people thought of you as a teenager.

As it turns out, the efforts that we make on behalf of our egos are perceived pretty accurately, which is to say that people with money usually do a good job looking like they have money, and others are more likely to assume that the bags of wealthy-looking people are real. On the other hand, most people think a bag is fake if the other contextual clues in the wearer’s appearance don’t project wealth.

The most relevant conclusion of the study for people that love authentic bags is that buying a counterfeits, by itself, isn’t fooling anyone. Carrying a fake bag (one which many people might perceive as expensive in another context) isn’t enough to override everything else about someone’s appearance – instead of making the person look rich by proximity, it just makes everyone think that the bag they’re carrying is fake. That means that the people out there that bought a fake Louis Vuitton and have no other personal style to speak of wasted their money, and most people are able to accurately surmise that their bag isn’t the real thing. As it turns out, you really can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, as they say.

Bloomberg really managed to bury the lede on this article, though. All of the previous stuff seems fairly logical, but what I found most interesting was this little statistic, nestled at the end: Of women that buy counterfeit bags, 46% go on to buy the real thing within two years. People that buy fakes may think that they have one over on the rest of us bag-buying fools, but as it turns out, a lot of them are just at the beginning of a fashion progression that will ultimately turn them into the high-dollar consumers that they thought they could fool with a pleather Gucci.

Original article via Bloomberg.com.

Original post by Amanda Mull

Something is rotten in the state of Louisiana.

As we all know by now, the luxury market was hit hard by last year’s economic collapse. Despite what some snide fashion-haters would tell you, the industry in fact does affect people at every level of the economy, and Louisiana’s alligator farmers are just the most recent people to feel the pressure as a result of tough economic times, according to The New York Times.

It would follow logically that reduced retail sales have lead to a drop in international interest in exotic skins, of which alligator is among the most expensive, but the farmers tell it a bit differently. According to them, it’s all Hermes’s fault.

The economic progression of alligator skins goes something like this: farmers on the American Gulf Coast, mostly in small operations in Louisiana, harvest eggs from natural habitats. 12% of the hatched gators are returned to the wild, the others are raised for their skins. Tanneries buy the skins from these small farmers and process them in order to be suitable for the manufacture of watches, handbags, and other various and sundry luxury goods. When they’re done being processed, luxury manufacturers purchase them and turn them into the asininely expensive things that we know and love.

Once upon a time, those three were completely separate from each other, but then Hermes started buying up tanneries. Now they’re the biggest tanners in the business and are therefore able to control the flow and prices of alligator skins in ways that were previously impossible, according to the farmers. Hermes is now its own middle man, in addition to being the middle man for a huge swath of its luxury competitors.

The farmers think that that may indeed be the cause of their current problems. Prices for raw alligator hides have dropped precipitously, to the point where its not profitable for some operations to continue raising the animals, and many skins go unsold completely. On the other end of the equation, non-Hermes luxury brands complain that the cost of tanned alligator skins has risen so much that it’s almost no longer profitable to use them in the manufacture of things like watches and loafers because consumers are unwilling to keep pace with the rising prices.

Well isn’t that odd? If my memory of freshman econ serves me correctly, prices shouldn’t be way up on one end of the supply chain while prices are rock-bottom at the other end. Something’s going on in the middle, and many people posit that that something is Hermes’s tannery ownership. The farmers accuse the company of hoarding the skins for themselves, making the purchase of finished skins prohibitively expensive for other brands, which makes overall demand for untanned skins (as well as prices) drop on the farmer’s end.

Hermes representatives claim that they only buy up about 30% of the available gator skins, but one has to wonder if that’s really the case, considering the disparate price problems coming from farmers and competing luxury brands. Or maybe 30% is enough to throw the entire industry out of whack and give Hermes a significant competitive advantage. Either way, something is going on that may wipe alligator off of the luxury market completely if things don’t change. Except for at Hermes, of course.

Original story via NYTimes.com
Image via TheOnion.com

Original post by Amanda Mull

In my region of the country, usually we get a nice, gentle transition from summer to fall, and the weather is generally mild until around the holidays. This year, that’s not the case: one day it was 80 degrees, the next day it was 50, and I’ve had to pull out my winter clothes a lot earlier than I ever have in recent memory. And with that comes one of my favorite vestiges of cold weather: my much-loved but widely reviled UGG boots.

Don’t get me wrong – I resisted for years. They first came to popularity around the time that I started college, and for three long years, I snickered and rolled my eyes every time I saw a girl wear them. I joined a Facebook group about how hideous they were. I considered them utterly and completely gauche.

And then I tried on a pair.

Suddenly, the sun shone brighter, rainbows were more plentiful, and flowers smelled better. The world was a nicer place. And it caused me to do something that I hadn’t done since elementary school: I left the store with my new shoes on my feet and my old ones in their box. Two more pairs of Classic Short boots and two years later, I actually love them more than my summertime staple, Havaianas flip-flops.

I wear them everywhere. To a bar with tights, to the grocery store with sweatpants, and every occasion in between. I try my best to not wear them with gym shorts, but sometimes I falter. And I’m okay with that – the UGGs are worth the occasional raised eyebrow.

Normally I’m not one to let function triumph over fashion, but the boots have totally won me over. They’ve been around for quite a while at this point, and I think that maybe more people are starting to accept them as a normal part of winter attire instead of a trendy item for young girls. From time to time, they still make me feel like I’m an 18-year-old coed, but perhaps there are worse ways to feel.

So, have you started drinking the UGG Kool-Aid yet? If you haven’t and wish to never venture down that road, I have but one piece of advice for you – never, ever let anyone convince you to try on a pair. Not even just for a second, just to see how it feels.

A wide variety of UGG boots are available via Bloomingdale’s.

Original post by Amanda Mull

Alright, I’m bored.

I’m sick of designers making cocktail dresses out of actual fabric with a reasonable budget and amount of time within which to accomplish things. I want coffee filters and corn husks and candy wrappers. I want to watch a dozen designers make something out of nothing with very little time in which to do it, because when you expect fashion miracles from people, sometimes you get astoundingly great stuff. Remember Blue Cup Dress, or what about Pleated Twizzler Wrapper Dress? A great designers can make a great dress out of anything. A mediocre Project Runway contestant can make something passable out of fabric, if given enough time. Those challenges are what separate the men from the boys on Project Runway.

And apparently, we shall have none of that on Lifetime. What was this week’s challenge? Party dresses! For models! And I guess it was at least partly interesting, because it sharply underlined which designers really aren’t familiar with the fashion industry, with models, with what models actually wear in their down time, or with what looks good on a model. And I guess that all of those things are kind of important if you want to be a designer.

The party-dresses-for-models challenge was actually a bit of a blast from the past – in season 2 (I believe), the models got to tell their designers what they wanted to wear, which is what happened here. And not only did this process indicate which designers weren’t really aware of how “fashion people” dress, but it also did the same for the models. Perhaps I’m being too judge-y, but it seems like the subsets of both groups that didn’t understand this concept were the ones least likely to have a grip on what it takes to make it in the world of high fashion, and are subsequently least likely to succeed.

For those that don’t follow this world as obsessively as I do, models don’t dress like regular humans. Not the really good ones, anyway, and at least part of the trick to this business is fooling people into believing your own hype. Successful models wear Alexander Wang and Band of Outsiders and shop at Opening Ceremony, and the ones that don’t have the cash on hand at least have a good enough eye to pick through vintage and consignment deals and find fabulous things that would look ridiculous on the rest of us (they are models, after all). Take a look at any of the photos from this week’s New York Fashion Week after parties, and you’ll see what I mean.

But, sadly, some of the designers that have spent their lives thus far on the outskirts of the fashion world didn’t quite get that. But some of them did. So who was really good, and who was really bad?

Our top three were Carol Hannah, Althea, and Epperson. And I couldn’t have agreed more – they all made things young and edgy enough to be worn by a successful high fashion model, and I probably would have agreed with any of them taking home the crown this week. Epperson was my favorite, if only because his model gave him a thousand different directions in which to go and he had to coalesce all of that into a wearable, sexy, totally model-y dress. It was the kind of thing that would look ridiculous on a mere mortal, and that’s exactly the kind of thing that models should always wear. It’s how you know they’re really models.

Both Althea and Carol Hannah made things that would be wearable for model or mortal. Carol Hannah’s dress was flowy and purple on top, tailored and dark on the bottom, and absolutely divine. The kick pleat on the back of the skirt provided a little bit of movement, as did the draping at the bust, and I want one immediately. But the winner was Althea, who creates a totally modern, totally not stuffy three-piece suit that was so incredibly on-trend and appropriate for a model that I could barely speak. It was exactly the kind of outfit that you see girls wear at after parties and openings, and the blazer and the proportions of the skirt and tank were spot-on. Any of the top three could have been legitimately given the win, and I have no problem with Althea being chosen.

Qristyl, Johnny and Logan were the bottom three. Qristyl just isn’t a particularly talented high fashion designer (something we already knew), which was why she was there. She made a ruched (the only thing she knows how to do is cut and ruche, apparently) black cocktail dress that was not the most atrocious thing we’ve ever seen from her, but certainly not particularly young or fun or edgy, which is what a model needs to be. It was bulky and looked like something that could easily have been found at a mall store.

Johnny made what was very aptly described as a bridesmaid dress (as did Shirin’s, but at least the color and fabric were better), and it wasn’t even a particularly sleek one. It was bunchy and awkward and had two different waistlines. The fabric looked like it would make noise when the model walked and it added pounds to her frame, which is obviously even more of a sin in model world than it is in everyday life. On top of all that, it didn’t even appear to fit her particularly well, which is also even worse than it would normally be since the garment was supposed to be a bespoke piece made specifically for her use.

And then there was Logan, who was a surprise first-time visitor to the bottom of the barrel. Logically, he shouldn’t have been there – his own personal style indicates that he understands the odd and wonderful pieces of clothing that fashion people embrace (guest judge and stylist Jennifer Rade even complimented him on his own clothes), and his model seems like the kind of woman that has enough personal style and point of view that she’d ask for something interesting (I had to actually watch ‘Models of the Runway’ to find out more about her – it was terrible and more or less an abomination against God). And she did – she gave him 50s, feathers, lace and all kinds of fun stuff. He should have done more with it, and he didn’t.

But Logan lives to fight another day because Qristyl was the one that was ultimately auf’d. Which was the correct decision, since she’s not playing in the same league with the rest of these people, and she hasn’t been since the beginning. Getting her out of the way was a necessary trimming of the fat before we (hopefully) get to more interesting challenges.

As for next week, it looks like we might get an interesting challenge – is that newspaper that I spy on those dress forms next week?

Original post by Amanda Mull

So, as it turns out, bloggers get national holidays off too! Who would have known? Real Housewives of Atlanta and Labor Day conspired to make our Project Runway recap a little later than is ideal, but better late than never, right? Of course.

With that in mind, we’re going to try and make this one quick and dirty. For our take on what happened, make the jump.

So what did they do? They made surf outfits. Which have no relevancy to fashion whatsoever, and seems like such a throwaway challenge. What have they done so far? Evening gowns, maternity, and surf. And none of them were made out of nuts and bolts or auto parts or cabbage. And that’s a problem for me, because most self-professed designers that make it on to Project Runway can make a dress out of fabric just fine, even if it’s for a pregnant lady. I want something that’s actually a challenge, that shows resourcefulness and creativity and the willingness to take a risk. So far, the only people to take risks have been kicked off. Bo-ring.

And then the designers were told that, gasp, it was time to also make an avant garde outfit. Which made no sense, because it had no relevancy to the original idea of surf wear. Avant garde designers don’t also make usable surf wear, and designers that actually make usable bathing suits don’t also make avant garde things. At least when Bravo tried this trick, their juxtaposition of two looks made sense – it was pret-a-porter vs. couture, not surf wear vs. wonky surf wear. But if it’s this or nothing, I guess I choose this.

As promised, we got our first partner challenge. Our principle whiners were Qristyl and Epperson, who didn’t do well but also didn’t go home. At judging, instead of talking about their design, they each talked about how much the other person was a giant d-bag. Always productive, guys.

Speaking of judging, the entire thing kind of confused me. When they called out the first three teams, I thought for sure that they were the ones that would be in the top. Instead, they told ‘em to go backstage. We were left with Mitchell and Ra’mon, Qristyl and Epperson, Irina and Johnny, and Nicolas and Gordana.

Irina and Johnny made some perfectly reasonable stuff, and I kind of liked the over-the-top take on macrame that constituted their avant garde look. Their surf wear look was also unoffensive and wearable, even quite pretty from the back. But they didn’t win. And neither did the aforementioned duo of Qristyl and Epperson – anyone that bickers like that shall never win. They weren’t oh-my-god-my-eyes-they-burn bad, but bad nonetheless.

The other terribleness was Nicolas and Gordana, who made a not-that-bad macrame top and billowy pants that had some hem issues, but also managed to make an outfit for what could only have been a tranny hooker of the sea. When stretch lace garters and micro-minis get involved, things can only be bad, unless you’re dressing up as 80s Madonna for Halloween. The chiffon collar was not bad, but everything below it made that angry vein in my forehead pop out. But they didn’t go home either.

Which leaves us with only one team and no winners or losers so far – Mitchell and Ra’mon. Their partnership was a debacle, and that’s probably putting it charitably. They had both been in the bottom three the week before, and Mitchell had yet to make anything resembling wearable clothing for both previous episodes. He really went for the threepete here; instead of making a contribution to the team’s two looks, he made a bikini that we didn’t even get to see and burned himself with an iron.

Ra’mon made the fairly average surf look and then made and remade the avant garde look until he came up with an asymmetrical cocktail dress made out of green neoprene. It wasn’t my favorite thing that I’ve ever seen (and I thought at least 3 or 4 of the other avant garde looks were better), but if anyone ever deserved an A for effort, it was him. He made two actual sets of clothes in spite of his useless partner, who is full of fail. And fail he did!

In what was a Project Runway first, Ra’mon was given the win and Mitchell was auf’d. Mitchell should have been out last week so we could have dear, odd Malvin with us once again, but I’ll take it. You have to be pretty awful to get kicked off for being part of a winning garment, but the idea that he was part of it is speculation at best, and as it turns out, doing nothing is actually worse than making an outfit for a tranny hooker of the sea.

Original post by Amanda Mull

What scares a bunch of gay men and young, urban women more than a pregnant lady? As it turns out, not much! And that might be the primary lesson that we learned on this week’s Project Runway.

They’re particularly terrified when forced to make an outfit for one. Which is kind of counter-intuitive, considering all the empire waist, babydoll, flowing tops that we’ve seen in fashion over the past couple of years. If you can figure that part out, then don’t you just drape the dress with more fabric in front so that the hem hangs straight at the bottom? And they had these weird pillow things to strap to their dress forms, so shouldn’t they have been able to figure that out?

And some of them did, while others chose to make carriers for all manner of round objects – bowling balls, eggs, you get the idea. And guess what! Those people weren’t rewarded. We try not to bore Nina, after the jump.

I continue to be impressed with the fact that Project Runway still feels like Project Runway, even on Lifetime and in Los Angeles. We had a bit more personality coming out this week than we did the week before, and we’ll only continue to see more as there are fewer designers on which to focus (and next week, we have a partner challenge, so everyone will start hating each other then, surely!). And while not everyone is blowing me away, most of this week’s looks were decidedly NOT bad, which is rare to say so early in a season of this show. We haven’t even gotten rid of the riff-raff yet.

The challenge was to create a stylish maternity outfit for Rebecca Romijn, who was pregnant with twins when this show was taped eight years ago. She wanted something flattering and body conscious. Simple enough, but only one of the designers had ever been pregnant, and a lot of them were baffled. The top three were all women and the bottom three were all men, which I have to believe was not a coincidence. Pregnancy – confusing to dudes! And the pregnancy simulation was, admittedly, completely bizarre. They strapped pillow bumps to their stick-thin, not-anywhere-near-pregnant models, and instead of looking like they were going to have babies, they just looked like they had lumpy, misshapen pillows strapped to them.

The girls in the top three all made pretty, dark-color dresses that would be plenty comfortable for sitting and moving with an enormous preggo-eggo (as our beloved Shannon would say) belly. Althea was the only person (that I can remember, at least – sheesh, there are like 100 designers left) that made an evening gown, and despite the fact that it looked like the model’s boobs were going to pop out, it was actually quite pretty. It accented the shapelier parts of a pregnant body and used jersey to drape over the bump itself, giving the dress some give and movement. The ribbons that made up the bodice weren’t exactly matched up in the back, which requires me to deduct points, but a solid effort nonetheless.

Louise, who is Kenley verson 2.0 (meaning not nearly as annoying and a better designer) made a negligee-inspired cocktail dress out of scarlet silk and hand-dyed lace, and I swooned. It was teared and pleated and perfect. It was also sexy and pretty, which is too often not something that pregnant women are allowed to be, and if it was too sexy for some, it would also have been pretty with a shrunken cardigan over the top. It would have been my pick to win, purely for the amount of work that went in to it and how professional and perfect it looked when she was done.

But Louise didn’t win, Shirin did, which I don’t entirely disagree with. The pleated waist of her burgundy jersey dress was gorgeous and not something you see often, and the draping of the neck was a great way to add texture without complicating the dress’s structure. Plus, she made a charcoal coat with a LINING to go over it, and in the Project Runway universe, making a lined coat is like birthing the Baby Jesus himself. They should have just skipped the runway shenanigans and given her the win in the workroom as soon as she completed the coat. Her win was virtually guaranteed by that point.

And then there were the not-so-successful designs. Mitchell was the only repeat visitor to the bottom three, and Malvin and Ra’mon, who had been in the top three last week, joined him.

Ra’mon decided to give Rebecca some pregnancy racing stripes and made a dress that looked like a 70s bowling ball bag. Mitchell, the gay little elf from Savannah that made nothing but a collar in the first episode, was the first to recognize the resemblance, and his off-the-cuff comment sent Ra’mon fleeing from the room on the verge of a breakdown. Really, it was epic, and the entire exchange made me and the friend I was watching with giggle incessantly. And that’s when I knew this season was going to be okay – personalities are emerging quickly, the designers are talking smack, the people are real and believable. It’s still Project Runway as we know and love it! The fact that he later decided that instead of being crazy, that he was in fact the front runner (!!!) almost immediately after he flipped out made my night.

And then Ra’mon made a reference to STELLA and her LEATHAH from last season, and I knew that I would love him forever. And despite the fact that his dress was atrocious, he got to stay, which I’m totally fine with – his dress last week was great, and his concept just didn’t pan out this time.

And perhaps if Mitchell had spent less time making fun of Ra’mon’s bowling bag and jumping around in his enormous shorts and more time working on his outfit, he wouldn’t have produced the pile of crap that he did. His shorts had to be the worst-executed thing I’ve ever seen on Project Runway, and they showed a complete inability to plan for proportion once a garment has been fitted. If he was planning on gathering the top of the shorts so much, why not make the leg holes SMALLER? So that, ya know, they’re appropriate for the garment after the size of the top has been altered? One of the other designers mentioned that he had previous experience designing maternity, and if that’s true, he definitely would have been my choice to leave. Even if it’s not, I still think he was the worst of the week. But he didn’t go home.

Malvin did. Poor, weird Malvin. His outfit was a wacky chicken/egg contraption, sure. He adhered to his concept too slavishly and didn’t consider wearability as much as he probably should have. But he did execute it very well, even the judges commented on the beauty of some of the construction, and I must protest vociferously the fact that he was sent home instead of Mitchell, who cannot create a concept OR execute. In Project Runway, being unable to actually make clothes has always been a greater sin than having a wacky idea, and Malvin had created a perfectly reasonable, pretty dress during the previous challenge. Mitchell had turned out two piles of crap, the second bigger than the first, because it was actually made of clothes. Bad ones.

My write-in vote for the top three would have been Christopher’s (who didn’t go to college! Has he told you yet?) jewel-purple bubble-hem top with pleating at the bodice (seriously, where do I order one? I already have the tights to go with it. I’m not even pregnant). For the bottom three, I think the correct people were chosen, but I’d also add Epperson’s ivory disco pregnancy jumpsuit. When you have a baby kicking you in the bladder, how bad of an idea is it to wear a giant preggo onesie? Terrible, or totally terrible?

Alas, Mitchell lives to design another day and we send home a designer that should have been great fodder for recaps for weeks to come. If you believe that an injustice has been done here, I implore you, call your congressman on behalf of Malvin.

Original post by Amanda Mull

So tonight is the main event – the much-awaited debut of Project Runway on Lifetime. It’s been over a year since we last saw Heidi & Co. strut down the runway, and a lot has happened in the interim. Lawsuits, network changes, coast changes. The show is now in LA instead of New York, it’s on Lifetime instead of Bravo, and the production company that created it is no longer a part of its production.

And I’m worried.

My reaction when I first heard that the show was changing networks was one of contempt; in fact, my Lifetime-bashing jokes were the source of my first Great Commenter Revolt (you’re not a real blogger until the commenters turn on you, kids!). But Richard Lawson, one of my favorite bloggers, crystallized my continuing apprehension over the show’s move. Lifetime and Bravo traffic in fundamentally different ideas and subcultures Bravo is sleek and snarky and self-aware, Lifetime is more heavy-handed and sentimental.

And my anxiety over this switch is only bolstered by the promo commercials that Lifetime is running for the new season: they’re emotionally wrought testimonials by contestants about how designing is their life’s dream, and they’re bathed in slow-motion and soft light. I don’t want my Project Runway to be sappy and friendly and nice! I want sneering, crap-talking and snickering. That was always one of the show’s greatest assets: it was smart and snappy instead of dumb and slow like so many other reality competitions.

And I’m also worried because, as Lawson points out, the last season of PR on Bravo wasn’t that spectacular. After Christian Siriano won, everything was sort of downhill – the contestants were too obviously aware of what archetypal character that they desired to play, and the clothes, with rare exception, were just not particularly fantastic. So if even a hip network like Bravo can’t sustain something as fantastic as Project Runway forever, what chance does Lifetime, Bravo’s decidedly less cool aunt from the suburbs, really have?

And then there’s the issue of the show’s physical location. Los Angeles and New York City are simply NOT comparable, when speaking of fashion authenticity. I can’t imagine Tim Gunn gadding about in Hollywood, but he and the show’s other denizens seem so perfect against the backdrop of New York. Moving the show is a further step into the mainstream middle-brow culture of America, and sadly, that culture is not one that embraces high fashion. There’s nothing wrong with being middle-brow in general, but it doesn’t work for this type of show.

I still have hope, though. I love this show so much that I have to. In college, we used to play drinking games while we watched it every week (if Tim Gunn says “make it work,” take a drink! If someone does a Tim Gunn impersonation, finish your drink!), and it was the first show that I ever recapped. It’s such a gleefully intelligent, sleek show in a TV lineup of almost endless drivel (some of which I also recap) that it would be a shame to lose it to mediocrity. So I’ll be watching tonight (on DVR, after Real Housewives of Atlanta) and recapping it (which will be published on Monday – unfortunately, both shows air at exactly the same time, and there’s no way for me to recap them simultaneously for Friday), and hopefully this will all turn out better than I fear. But until then, I’m prepared for the worst.

Original post by Amanda Mull