Project Runway recap

Ah, the Project Runway finale. It's like my Super Bowl. Luckily for me, it came twice this year (which is an especially good thing knowing that the fate of next season is up in the air). But enough about the future of ProjRun — let's talk about the present. As you know, last week Jerell was eliminated, leaving the three female contestants to vie for the win: Leanne, Korto, and Kenley.

The good news is that I was excited to see what all three of these women could do on the runway — after all, each of them made my top 10 looks of the season list. The bad news is that it was probably the dullest finale in the show's history. I mean, where was the drama? Even the cameo from Morgan (the terror model from season one) was devoid of tension, and they had to turn to dog poo to liven things up a little. That's not to say I didn't like their respective collections. On the contrary, I thought all three had very strong showings; I'm even ready to say these were three of the strongest overall collections in the show's history and the first time I would have been satisfied with any winner. I was just a little bored. Boo.

To talk more about the episode, and to see all of the final looks, read more

There's just one week left till the end of the Project Runway road, and you know what that means: a little thing I like to call Tim Gunn's Couture Tour. This is the episode where Tim travels to each designer's home to critique his or her forthcoming collection, and from that standpoint, this season's version was about what I expected. Luckily, in true ProjRun fashion, they threw the contestants a curve ball . . . or two.

The first twist occurred at the beginning of the episode. Before the designers were sent home, Heidi delivered the usual "create a collection that represents you as a designer" assignment but added an additional task: designing a wedding dress. This news made me giddy, especially when I remembered how fun the wedding challenge was in the first season. The second twist came when the designers returned to New York, where Tim asked them to produce another piece: a bridesmaid's dress that complemented both the wedding dress and the collection as a whole. Also, whether they competed at Bryant Park would depend entirely on the wedding and bridesmaid's dresses. Yikes for them; yay for us!

To find out how each of the designers entertained Tim and to see who's competing in next week's finale, read more

Last night on Project Runway, the remaining four designers had to step up and prove themselves (and their designs) to the judges in hopes of moving on to Fashion Week. Of course, we know that they (and two others) all make it to Bryant Park, but last night it was about discovering who would present his or her collection in the final episode of the season as a contender for the Project Runway win.

I thought each designer would blow me out of the water, especially since the challenge was so basic. Actually "basic" is probably the wrong word — I think "stale" is better. We've seen the "take a picture and be inspired" challenge before (this time the theme was nature), even earlier this season. And in season two, Daniel V won a very similar challenge with his orchid-inspired ensemble, a look that was much more stunning than what these designers produced. That said, the final challenges are almost always a letdown; the judges want the designers to take risks (but punish them when they go awry), while the designers are so close to their goal that they get safe.

To read (and see) more about last night's episode — including a spoiler that annoyed me to no end — read more

When the challenge on this week's Project Runway first got announced, I was thrilled, because I've always loved challenges where the designers have to be each other's clients. But then, Tim announced the music component of the challenge, and suddenly, we were looking at one of the most poorly conceived Runway challenges ever.

If the designers had been asked to design outfits for each other based on either the designer's or the client's favorite musical genre, that would have been fine. But to design an outfit based on a totally random musical genre, pulled out of a bag, that neither designer nor client might have any interest in? Stupid. Of course Kenley designing a hip-hop outfit for Leanne is going to be a wreck — neither one of them seems to know/care much about hip-hop! It made what could have been a really cool challenge into something meaningless and silly. That said, some of the designers still managed to produce good work, while others crashed and burned in stunning fashion, so to hear my thoughts, just read more

The Project Runway challenge a couple of years back where the designers had to dress other contestants' mothers was a nightmare, so it's no wonder that when this year's crop of designers saw a bunch of average-looking, middle-aged women walk out onto the runway, they feared the worst. But the Project Runway team had something new up its sleeve in Wednesday's episode: This time, the designers had to dress the women's daughters, hip young women just out of college and looking for jobs.

Of course, it still could have been a disaster, with pushy mothers overruling what their daughters wanted, but for the most part (save for Leanne's family, and even then only slightly) the challenge proceeded with little drama. In fact, the episode was almost a little boring: relatively calm workroom, relatively good designs, relatively happy clients. Hey, at least we had Jerell to light the room up with his wit. From "Come on, Joe, you can work on Nancy Reagan tomorrow" to his story of working at McDonald's and "getting all kinds of free Big-n-Tasties," our boy was on fire last night!

Meanwhile, Kenley dressed her mini-me, we saw pictures of the designers in their own just-entering-the-workforce days, and the fabulous Cynthia Rowley stopped by to judge, so to see my thoughts on the episode, just read more

With the Project Runway show at New York Fashion Week scheduled for this Friday, it seemed that we'd need to say goodbye to some designers fast. I mean, we've seen ProjRun Fashion Week shows with four designers, and I think even five, but eight? So I wasn't the least bit surprised to learn that two designers would be chopped after the avant garde challenge.

The double elimination was just one piece of what was going on in this jam-packed episode, though. There were old designers aplenty — eliminated contestants from this season back to help the remaining designers, plus favorites from previous seasons who returned to judge the winner at a cocktail party. Oh, and the outfits had to be both avant garde and based on the signs of the zodiac. To see all the outfits and talk about the auffings, just read more

The "design something for a fashion icon" challenge is nothing new for Project Runway, but what was rather refreshing about Wednesday's episode was that the icon this time truly was a legend. The designers were asked to design something that would impress Diane von Furstenberg — she of the wrap dress — enough that she would consider including it in her next collection. That was a pretty big deal for all the designers (except maybe Blayne, who would have preferred an Olsen twin), and they really let the pressure show as they worked on the challenge.

In fact, none of them let Diane's iconic status get to them more than the typically smooth Kenley. She was sobbing so much through all of her early interviews, in fact, that I was convinced she'd be the one sent home. Then again, maybe her tears came because things in the workroom were so tense — I'm not sure I've ever seen a season of Project Runway where all the designers seemed to dislike each other so early. There's a feud a'brewing between Leanne and Kenley, another between Korto and Terri, still another between Terri and . . . everyone else. The Parsons workroom just doesn't seem like a very happy place to be right now.

That said, the designers still turned out some iconic looks of their own — plus some requisite disasters — so to hear my thoughts on the designs and see a gallery of all the looks, just read more

Last night's episode of Project Runway was surprisingly entertaining (I figured it would be hard to follow the drag queen episode) — not because of the challenge, per se, but because Tim Gunn shamed the designers right off the bat, reminding them of how pathetically they performed in the very first challenge that required innovative thinking. And thank goodness Tim lit that fire under their you-know-whats, because otherwise we would have seen a boatload of beige seat belt pencil skirts coming down that runway, which makes me fall asleep just typing about it.

As it happened, we were only subjected to a small percentage of seat belt skirts (and one unfortunate seat belt dress) while a good portion of the designers used this challenge as a moment to stand out. So far this season I've been unsure about which designers I would want to see at Bryant Park, and this Saturn hybrid commercial car parts challenge helped me understand who among this group has taste and vision and who just . . . doesn't. To see which designers I have a new respect for and what I thought of one designer's mental meltdown, read more