Custom Design

This week, dear readers, Project Runway had one of those oh-so-sublime “alternative materials” challenges. Our top ten (really, they were celebrating that? Top ten is not even making it halfway…) designers were sent to a hardware store by Princess Michael Kors and told to gather enough random objects to somehow make clothing, but then when judging came around, the judges couldn’t decide if they really wanted the designers to turn something hard into something soft or not. Some designers got chastised for it, others were applauded.

Huge, annoying judging inconsistencies aside (but not too far aside – we’ll get to them later), it was nice to see a non-fabric challenge, since those appear to be a fairly accurate bellwether of who will survive and who will eventually be auf’d. In the world of Project Runway, if you can’t make a dress out of sheet metal, you shan’t be long for this world. Likewise, it’s the Tin Man catastrophes that we all enjoy the most, and it’s not as fun when the designers are merely screwing up regular fabric. This episode was great because it separated the real contenders from the straight guys, and it was about time that that happened.

The challenge was as straightforward as it sounds: make an outfit, any outfit, out of materials from a hardware store. Designers were also supposed to make an accessory, but it didn’t seem like the judges really cared about what they made as long as one was present. With those kinds of parameters, it baffles me that so many of these fools decided it would be a good idea to make a metal dress, despite the fact that none of them have ever worked with metal. Hardware stores have lots of non-metal options: drop cloths, rope, tarp, garbage bags, electrical tape, you get the idea. Even if the designers had been set on metal, there are pliable metal options: screen and mesh, anyone?

Indeed, the top three dresses were all from designers that had forgone sheet metal for materials that weren’t quite so obvious. The judges praised Mila for her use of plastic paint tray liners in white and black, cut into small pieces to make a plastic dress that improbably had a lot of movement. I have a problem with Mila’s design sense, however, and it’s not as a result of the mod colorblocking that she uses in every outfit. On the contrary, the thing that always sticks with me is that her outfits tend to not be particularly flattering. Her model looked completely square through the waist, which I probably would have attributed to the difficult materials if the exact same thing hadn’t happened with the nude/peach jersey dress that Mila made a few weeks back.

I don’t think her model is square, so the issue appears to be with Mila herself. Even her challenge-winning track suit didn’t have a defined shape, and as much of a point of view as Mila might have, no one really wants to look like any geometric shape except an hourglass. If she can’t find a waistline eventually, I think that she might make herself vulnerable to eventual elimination. Her plastic outfit was cool on its own, but her schtick may be wearing thing, despite Nina Garcia’s apparent decision that she shall be the eventual winner.

It was a good week for people with Serious Fashion Hair, however, because Mini Mila…err, Maya…was also in the top three. She made a wire-frame jacket out of (if I remember correctly) the cording for miniblinds, and it was utterly brilliant. Put that jacket in an editorial in V Magazine, and I’m all over it. That jacket? That jacket was The Truth. Her dress, made out of metal screen, wasn’t bad either – you wouldn’t have guessed that it was metal, and the key necklace that she made as her accessory was something that I’d buy in a heartbeat. It was modern, pretty, and still a little hard – it may have been my favorite look of the challenge.

Maya didn’t win, however, because Jay managed to somehow make leather pants out of layer upon layer of bias-cut garbage bags, and really, that’s a freakin’ miracle of sewing machine ingenuity if I’ve ever seen one. Not only did he make leather pants, but he made a corset with ruffles (also made out of garbage bags, but this time with blue masking tape accents) and a woven belt that no one would have ever guessed wasn’t leather. Jay probably did the best job of utterly transforming his materials from something mundane to something spectacular, and for that, he was awarded the richly deserved win.

But that last sentence? That’s where things went a wee bit off the rails in the judging peanut gallery. Jay was rewarded for turning his garbage bags into something that did not at all resemble their original state, but for doing the same thing, Anthony was put in the bottom three. He made a soft, flowered cocktail dress out of metal mesh and some sort of pink lining, and his expertly curved metal belt was easily the best use of the solid material on this week’s runway.

The judges didn’t like it, though. It didn’t look enough like it came from a hardware store. Um, excuse me, but was that the point of the challenge? If it was, I totally missed it. Jay missed it too, but instead of nearly losing, he won. The dress wasn’t particularly innovative, but are leather leggings innovative? No. If they want innovation to be the primary judging metric, they should use it for everyone, not just people that make something pretty out of ugly materials.

In challenges where regular fabric is used, innovation is important. In a situation like this, where the innovation should be inherent in the materials used, I don’t think there’s anything to be celebrated in taking a crazy material and making something crazy out of it (Emilio, I’m looking at you). Anthony made a dress that a lot of women would love to wear, and he did it out of the same stuff that covers my screen door, and he shouldn’t have been in the bottom. I wouldn’t have necessarily put him in the top, but he should have been safe.

I can’t say the same for the two others that joined him in the bottom three. Anthony was ultimately safe (and he skittered off the runway like he was afraid that the judges would change their minds if he stood there too long), and it was only Jesse and Emilio standing there with their sad little outfits. Well, calling Emilio’s string (literally) bikini an “outfit” might be just a tad charitable.

You see, it started out as a dress and went off the rails from there, because he didn’t have enough string or washers (the string was woven with washers, I’m not making that up) to cover his model’s butt. Ironically, after he ditched all the material between her chest and pelvis, he STILL didn’t bother to give her enough of a garment to obscure her rear end from popular view. He lied on the runway and said that he had purposefully made a bikini to stand out from all the dresses, which may have been the line that saved his (partially covered) behind.

That’s right, it was Jesse’s night to leave, and not a moment too soon. He’s never come across as particularly talented or particularly interesting, and we’ve seen enough of him. He made a dress that looked like a Hershey Kiss in both shape and material, and although it may have been less terrible than Emilio’s string bikini, I think that we all know that Emilio is a more talented designer. Since we’ve seen a half dozen looks from each designer, I’m ok with the judges auf’ing people with their body of work considered – it’s only fair.

I would entertain the argument, however, that the bikini was bad enough to mitigate any pretty dress Emilio had ever made in his entire life – luckily for him, he had the presence of mind to lie. He’ll do well in the fashion industry.

Original post by Amanda Mull

Why in the world did it take so long for Project Runway to come up with the challenge that we had this week? Why hasn’t anyone ever thought of forcing the designers to create a cover look before? They’ve always has a partnership with one magazine or another, right?

I can understand why maybe Elle wouldn’t want to promise a cover spot to a reality show contestant, because Elle is a magazine with a fashion reputation and all. Marie Claire, of course, still has quite a reputation, but not so much as a strictly serious fashion publication. There’s less at stake for them in putting an unknown on the cover, and I guess that’s exactly how this dear little episode came to be. The request was practical, it still allowed for individuality, and it promised a big reward – this would be great, right? Well, not so much, but let’s talk about it anyway.

Personally, I loved this challenge, even though I didn’t love all of the results. It was a great ode to us journalism school hacks and anyone who has ever designed a cover, which I’ve done a handful of times, even if they were only for my student portfolio. And, well, it’s a lot harder than it looks. Finding a font color that’s appropriate for writing over a multicolor picture? Surprisingly difficult.

The fashion business relies to heavily on editorial exposure in order to gets its wares in front of consumers’ eyes, and getting your brand on the cover is the holy grail of editorial. So I have to ask again: why haven’t we had this sort of practical, realistic challenge before? Isn’t this essentially the constant challenge of working in the fashion world? Even if the producers couldn’t have previously promised a magazine cover, they could have at least put forth the idea as a challenge, right?

Not that any of this is entirely relevant, but this seemed like such a perfect challenge and several of the designers failed so spectacularly that I’m kind of peeved. Getting clothes into good editorial positions is one of the main business goals of a designer – if our designers can’t do that, then they’re sunk.

The rules for cover clothes are fairly simple: no black, bright colors are preferred, patterns are difficult to print over, detailing should be in the upper part of the dress because mid-thigh and below will probably be cropped out. The producers also added the minimally challenging additional rule that Heidi would be the one wearing the winning dress on the cover of a spring issue. All of these things are guidelines that the average magazine reader could have figured out, given a little time to think, but about half of our designers had some serious problems listening.

As a result, I’m going to dub this the Second Universal Rule of Project Runway: always listen to the challenge rules, even if you don’t like them. Your personal feelings about the rules are not relevant or interesting to Nina Garcia. As long as you speak reasonably good English and you’re awake during the rules portion of this whole shindig, there’s no reason not to follow them.

But for some reason, a lot of them didn’t. Marie Claire EIC Joanna Coles told them to stay away from pattern, so Amy made a patterned dress. She told them to make a spring look, Seth Aaron made a grey pantsuit. She said that she preferred bright colors, and Jay, Maya, Janeane, and Jesse all made things that were either the color of faded bedsheets or so dark that they might as well have been black. Anna made a pair of pinstriped hip-hugger shorts with a shapeless tank and a vest, showing no awareness of modern fashion OR the fact that she was going to be dressing Heidi Freakin’ Klum. Inexplicably, Mila made something that looked like a flesh-toned onesie with vagina arrows, but was somehow just a badly colorblocked dress. Jonathan actually did make a onesie.

Wait, I need to slow my roll a bit. Mila. Speaking of her, she also complained that no one congratulated her on second place the previous week and posited that they were all jealous of her success, but really, it just seemed like she’s a bit of a hag to be around and she didn’t win anyway, so no fake happiness on the part of the other designers was really required. Maybe she made her horrible dress this week in protest, I’m not sure. Moving on.

Anthony and Ben were the only designers that made passable cover outfits, with the addition of Emilio after he hacked off the twee little straps on his red dress (did anyone have visions of the judging during America’s Next Top Model when Tyra is always making the wannabe models change their hair and outfits?). Really, I would have lumped Ben in with the rest of them – his modernist Madame Butterfly routine was too dark for spring, and the vertical color changes would have been difficult to write on in any color except white (and even then, white on yellow is not a good look). Plus, I mean, the belt. Don’t even get me started on that atrocious faux-leather, weathered-gold-hardware’d belt. It might have given me brain damage.

Thankfully, Anthony won with his kicky little modern cocktail dress. It had an asymmetrical strap with lots of draping that was somehow also structured, and all of the interesting stuff happened on the part of the dress that will be featured prominently on the magazine cover. Plus, for a blond, blue-eyed supermodel, is there anything better than a curve-hugging, tailored dress in bright turquoise? I think not. His was such an obvious choice that I was surprised that any of the other designers were even seriously considered.

Initially, I was worried that Anthony may not be long for this show, but his progress has been steady and entertaining. Hopefully a win will keep him around for at least a few more episodes. Whacking Jay with his Bible? Pure comedy gold, and I’m not even religious. He’s just so endearing, and I find myself wishing they’d give him more and more camera time with each episode. I totally love him, down to the jaunty little blazer he wore for the runway show. I think the overjoyed response to his win from the other designers was a really interesting contrast to how everyone felt about Mila’s second-place finish last week. One of these people is well-liked…

Now, on to things I loved less – namely, the half of the designers that didn’t follow instructions. Mila, Anna and Janeane were the final three, but it really came down to Janeane’s mother-of-the-bride under the sea look and Anna’s shorts and a tank top. In the grand scheme of fashion editorial, it’s more of a sin to dress Heidi Klum like a frumpy teenager than a bridesmaid, so Anna was out. After her red abomination against god that she called a dress last week, I can’t say that I disagree with the decision – we’ve seen all we need to see from her. I predict that Janeane will not last much longer, but her dress was the lesser offense this week.

Next week, it looks like we’re going to be dressing children. I’m not great lover of kids, but how much the designers are going to crap themselves over this challenge has me looking forward to it nonetheless.

Original post by Amanda Mull

Through the miracles of modern medicine and heavy-duty antibiotics, I have thrown off the chains of the worst bout of strep throat known to mankind (or at least to Amandakind) to come and recap the latest episode of Project Runway (sorry, Real Housewives fans – I was face-down in a bottle of Nyquil while I was supposed to be recapping that, but it, will be back next week, swears).

This week was another mash-up of classic ProjRun challenge archetypes, this time with “real women as models” on a collision course toward “unacceptable and inappropriate product placement.” We’ve seen challenges in the past where a designer made a “real woman model” cry and where the designers had to incorporate a paid sponsor via car-part dresses, so the bar has been set high for a challenge of either type, let alone one that combined elements of both. Did it live up to the car-crash possibilities? Eh, not quite, but there were a few fantastically ugly dresses.

I feel as though now is the appropriate time to revisit the First Universal Rule of Project Runway: Never listen to your model. I introduced this rule back when the models referenced were professional clothes-wearers, but it’s also true when the designers are tasked with creating a look for a “regular” woman, as they were in this episode. It never helps anyone, and it certainly didn’t in this episode.

To say that that was the only thing that didn’t help these designers would be…an understatement. The challenge was sponsored by Campbell’s, who brought in a bunch of women who had been touched by heart disease so that the designers could make red dresses for them to wear to a Fashion Week gala in their honor. Except, catch #1, only one of these women apparently got to go. And also, catch #2, Campbell’s branding had to be included in the dress.

Not only is it super grinchy to keep hopeful women that have been afflicted by health problems out of their party because they were randomly assigned to a crappy designer, but why in the world is Campbell’s, purveyor of soups filled with enough salt to choke a horse and gross globules of chicken fat, associated with a charity that promotes heart health? Most of their products are like heart-disease kryptonite. On top of all of that, why force the designers, who mostly seemed to like their clients and want to make them feel good, to include Campbell’s branding in a dress that one of these nice ladies was actually going to have to wear to a fancy Fashion Week party, at which she was already likely to feel like a bit of an outsider without a soup can on her dress?

The stupidity of it all made me seriously rage-y, and the Campbell’s cross-promotion made the warm and fuzzy potentially of a charity challenge basically null and void. If anyone out there knows the greedy people that run this show, can one of you tell them to take their hands out of the cookie jar for, you know, at least one or two episodes? It’s become a tad mind-numbing. I don’t want a soup dress. Ladies that have had heart problems don’t want soup dresses. No one wants an effing soup dress.

I wouldn’t have wanted some of these dresses even if they hadn’t been soup-based, however. Even some of those made by the designers in the top three, which were Maya, Mila and Amy. It was a good week for people with Serious Fashion Hair – we also got a clip of Mila and Maya flat ironing their black bobs together, and I wanted to plop down next to them with my GHD and do mine, too. They probably would have made me get up, however, because I hated Maya’s dress. HATED. IT.

It looked like someone had taken a giant glob of poop and just smeared it right across the dress. The ruching and draping were wonky, the heart-shaped sash was the color of excrement and looked completely tacked-on, and it wasn’t flattering on her model, who should have been relatively easy since she wasn’t particularly large. If I could confiscate her hair until she made something better, I would do it. For some reason, though, Princess Michael Kors just let the poop comparison float right by him without saying a word, which makes me think he might have been distracted by a lonely bottle of spray-tan, glinting in the stage lights somewhere off camera.

I also didn’t adore Mila’s, but it had some construction elements that actually worked in its favor. She chose to sew two giant stars into her dress for reasons that aren’t entirely clear (since they aren’t a part of the Campbell’s logo, as she suggested), and the overall affect was as if her model had Scarlett O’Hara’d the flag of…a country whose flag is red and white with large stars. The stars placed at the hip, however, was actually quite slimming, which is why I’ll let the giant one that tried to eat the rest of the dress slide.

The conclusion here is obvious: Amy won, and she won by being the only person out of our dozen designers who made a dress that I would even consider leaving the house in. It wasn’t super special, but it was pretty and flowy and comfortable-looking enough that, in my estimation, I could wear it to a gala and hit both the buffet and the open bar heavily. Not that I’m recommending that sort of behavior for a woman with heart problems, of course. I merely have problematic tonsils, and my pre-op instructions say nothing about any of that.

Now we have to talk about the bottom three, but really, the line between the bottom three and everyone else was so slim that it seemed hardly fair to only single out these poor souls. But singling out is what reality TV (and life, honestly) is all about, so it was Anna, Jesse, and Jesus. Jesse made a mostly unflattering little dress with an entirely unflattering little white coat on top, but his dress did manage to flatter his model’s ample bosom. As we all know, an ample and flattered bosom turns Heidi into a drooling but well-intentioned boob zombie, so he got to stay.

And then there was Anna. Poor, sweet, well-intentioned Anna. She had an awkwardly shaped model, I wouldn’t deny that fact, but she made a dress that made her look just about as awkwardly shaped as humanly possible. It was not pretty, and I mean that in the most literal, non-figure-of-speech-y way possible. Beyond that, I’m mostly at a loss for words as to what to say about this dress. We all know how odd that is for me.

The only thing that saved Anna and her poor model was Jesus’s even poorer taste level. He made a date-night dress that would have been most appropriate on an aging, slightly meth-y stripper, and not in an ironic way. I thought Nina was going to rip one of the rhinestone straps (oh yes, he went there) straight off of it and use it to choke the last drops of life out of him right there, in front of all of the other designers, just to make an example of him. Compared to that, his actual fate seems pretty easy. And well-deserved, at that.

Remember the First Universal Law of Project Runway, which I mentioned at the beginning of this recap? Well, his dress is where it really came in to play in this episode. His model did, indeed, ask for something tacky and ridiculous, and Jesus didn’t have the taste level to realize that not only was that a bad idea, but that putting the rhinestone chain straps on it actually made it worse. If he couldn’t figure that out, then it was better that he left sooner rather than later.

Original post by Amanda Mull

I wrote about the Rebecca Minkoff Knocked-Up Baby Bag last week for PurseBlog Savvy, and ever since then, I’ve been on the lookout for some kind of not-awful baby bag to write about for you guys. What I’ve realized in that time is that what might not pass for a cool handbag will often be totally awesome, compared to the other available bags made for the same purpose. That’s kind of how I’m feeling about The Chaiken Diaper Bag. (Side note - has anyone ever seen Chaiken make a handbag? I’ve never seen them for sale anywhere. I checked their brand website, and this bag is literally the only thing they have in their online store. I’m perplexed). If this were just a regular tote bag, I would think that’s it’s decidedly “meh,” despite the fact that it’s made from lambskin. But call it a diaper bag, and it’s suddenly the least offensive diaper bag on the planet (well, nevermind, I still like the less-expensive Minkoff version better). With the addition of a baby bag being possibly the most significant handbag adjustment of a woman’s life, why aren’t there more good options out there? Buy through Saks for $550.

Original post by Amanda Mull