Project Runway Season 13, Episode 3: Back to the Future

Greetings, Project Runway fans!

FINALLY!  We've been looking forward to this challenge.

No, seriously.

"Exactly!  We at Marie Claire have been doing a lot of research about the future.  This year, the magazine celebrates its 20th year.  If magazines are still around in 20 years, we'll be selling them to old people."

"What are these 'magazines' of which you speak?"

The task for our designers this week was to create a design for 20 years into the future inspired by 20 years ago in their past.  To drive that point home, the producers hung pictures of the designers from 20 years ago.

Emily won the best picture from 20 years ago.  

Twenty years ago, Emily was Foxy Brown.

I was really disappointed that none of them embraced the real potential for this challenge.  Since many of the designers were in diapers and onesies twenty years ago, they could legitimately design them for an aging population that will need them twenty years from now.  But no.  Instead, there was talk of designing for the "Marie Claire woman" because we know that she regenerates herself like a time lord.

The real Marie Claire woman.

The designers weren't pleased about the one-day time limit, but that was offset by a $200 budget and a trip to Mood.

Amanda 

Even though Amanda used the "color of the future," also known as black, the judges weren't happy with her outfit.  We don't know if they were messing with her or not. There really isn't much futuristic design here, but I don't think it warranted an admonition from Heidi that she was lucky to have immunity this week.

Samantha

I would have poked my bony finger at Samantha.  She threw every "futuristic" cliche at this outfit: muffler neckline, leather vest, black fabric... I don't know about the circle skirt except to say that the hem was very uneven.

It does get the award for Best Use of the Aldo Accessory Wall with backpack, boots and a necklace.  

Korina

Dear Korina, I want to like you but you are making it so difficult.  First of all, what's going on with the waistband and crotch of those pants?  Second, the Dorothy Zbornak duster...so 20 years ago.  The origami top is a mess.  I just note that in an action-packed runway with designers ripping off jackets and parts of dresses left and right, this jacket stayed on.  What were you trying to hide?

Hernan

Hernan's dress started off as a little black dress.  The model unsnapped two pieces from the bodice that fell to either side creating a "gown."  It's a clever idea that could use about two more weeks of work to perfect.  The pieces that fell became a two-part train instead of a neat, manageable skirt.  How this goes from "day to evening" is beyond me.

Kini

More action-packed frock removing....this time it was Kini's cape because we all know the future will be about capes, skinny jeans and poet tops with holes cut out of the shoulders. In black, of course.

Kini, once again, proved the old Project Runway adage that making three pieces only counts when each of them fits the challenge.

Mitchell

I really want to hate this guy, don't you?

His was an idea ripped from today's headlines: global climate change, rising seas, cities threatened with inundation.  His original design featured a ridiculous bubble skirt.  You can count on one hand how many designers have won a Project Runway challenge with a bubble skirt and you'd still have fingers left over.  Tim advised against it and he followed Tim's direction.  The result was ok.

It was a shame he didn't make it to judging because I wanted to hear his rationale for styling it with a purse and high heels.  But as sportswear, it is sophisticated, indeed. Modern?  Not sure.  But a solid contribution from Mitchell this week.

Charketa

It's an interesting design, but very safe.  The slashes and exposures are right off today's runway.  There's nothing innovative or futuristic here.

fäde

fäde has an interesting point of view with print and design.  While it's a fresh take on sportswear, I'm not seeing anything modernistic or innovative.

Alexander

Alexander intended to do a more complex, jacket-like overlay of leather to go on top of the blanket fabric he chose.  His inspiration was the afghan he had when he was a kid. I'm not sure his planned design would have been received any better than this one.  One last minute thing he could have done was to hem the bottom of the dress in leather.  It would have made the leather look like less of an afterthought and the dress would have looked neater and more tailored.  Still, nothing modern about the dress.

Emily

The break-away "Ewok hood" made Zac Posen gasp.

Underneath was a jumpsuit.  

Nina was right.  There are jumpsuits now and there's nothing special or innovative about this one.  You know what would be modern?  Design a jumpsuit that a woman doesn't have to take off from the top just to go to the bathroom.  That would be innovative.  I hope that by 2034, someone has invented that.

Kristine

Kristine has been flying completely under the radar until this week.  Luckily, she didn't let Tim talk her out of the sleeve treatment.  Smartly, she used a fabric for the jacket that didn't need finishing when you cut it.  

The dress underneath was interesting as well.  Is it modern?  It's more avant garde than anything.  Very cute, though.

Sean

"In the future, everyone will want less clutter."  This was Sean's mantra.  Thing is, if you want less clutter, why make an outfit with two pieces? Of course there will be jackets in the future, but if your premise is that people will have less stuff, a two-piece outfit doesn't support your premise.  Then you go in and throw in a hat.  

The hat is too floppy for such a tailored dress.  The jacket and dress are too wrinkled. Again with the black, which made her look more like a bedraggled mortician. Here's where doing more than one piece paid off for Sean.  They hated both pieces, but at least he put some effort into the challenge.

Angela

Which isn't to say that Angela did not put effort into the challenge.  She was after my own heart when she wanted to do a take on a modern suit.  I would die for a modern take on a suit.  Suits, as they currently are constructed, are quite uncomfortable.  I happen to have a female boss who has eschewed tailored suit jackets completely.  If you see her in a jacket, it will be knit and soft.  She runs around from meeting to meeting and wants to be comfortable.

So for modern styling, Angela went for a single lapel.  Still, no problem with that.  The treatment on the back of the jacket was very nice as well.  However...

The soft pink looked juvenile.  The skirt was too short and the she did some sort of puckered detail on the sides that looked hideous.

Wait. 

Angela could have totally saved herself this week.

By making THE VERY JACKET SHE WAS WEARING FOR THE CHALLENGE!!!!!

Imagine it rendered in a steel grey with a sheath version of the top and skirt underneath. That would be a totally different take on the suit and would have wowed the judges.

Her biggest problem is not her lack of talent or ideas.  It's that she exudes insecurity-- about her design, about how much time she has left, about how to construct a garment and lastly, about how to sell herself and the garment.  

Sandhya

I'm not on the Sandhya bandwagon.

This was a total cliché of what "modern" looks like.  Oh, space age materials, space suits, robotic clothes.  All of these have promise for the future.  But will we really be wearing clothes like this or just think we will?

Oh look!  Someone predicted the underwire bra back in the 1930's!

The funniest line from the judges was "Maybe we'll be wearing oxygen tanks!"  Still, Marie Claire was doing a spread and the winning dress needed to be "editorial," a definition that Nina Garcia totally made up to describe what editors are looking for in a dress for a spread--visually stunning.

You know what that means.  There will be no dresses in magazine spreads, not now or in the future, that are the color of the future: black.

So if you're playing at home: if you wish to win a magazine spread challenge, don't produce your outfit in black.

See you next week in the blog or join the gang for real-time chatroom fun on Blogging Project Runway at 8:30 pm EDT.

Project Runway, Season 13, Episode 2: Lights, Camera, Factions!

Greetings, Project Runway Fans!
I have a friend who loves to review movies.  When he sees one he doesn't like, he says, "That movie would be so much better in 3-D."

Judges, what do you think?

Wiseacres.

So this week, our designers had a team challenge combined with an unconventional materials challenge.  Sandhya had immunity.

"All of my outfits tell a story."

Right.  Sandhya lives in the land of stories.  She also has immunity this week.  You DO NOT WANT TO BE ON HER TEAM.  So what happens to Hernan and Carrie, they're on Sandhya's team.  Oh noes!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Every team challenge needs a good theme.  Tim?

"Your challenge is to make clothes out of movie-related items we have for you here."

Most of you are experienced Project Runway fans, so you know what's coming: a mash-up between the team parameters and the crazy judge rules that go into unconventional challenges.  Let me break it down for you.

Team parameters

1. The judges will always award the winner from the winning team.
2. If the best design is on a weak team, it will not win.
3. The loser always comes from the worst team.
4. If the worst design is on a strong team, the designer will not be eliminated.
5. Cohesiveness is important until it isn't.

Unconventional challenge crazy judge rules

1. Don't be too literal.
2. Have fun with your materials.
3. The outfit should have some movement.
4. Don't just glue things onto muslin and call it good.
5. Treat your materials as if they were fabric.
6. We're going to put fabric in there for you to choose....at your peril!

So with a number of combinations of rules and parameters, you can easily come up with a logical explanation of the results from this last episode.

Before we dive head-first into each team, what is a Garance Doré?

Besides being this week's guest judge, that is.

She's a fashion illustrator and photographer.

She's a blogger.

She dates Scott Schuman, otherwise known as the Sartorialist.

She wisely didn't bother to be a hero this week.  She ran with the herd as they pretty much ran roughshod over this week's competition.  A team challenge brings out the crazy in everyone!

Sean, Angela and fäde

This week, we discovered what we already suspected.

"I am smahtah zen anyone else."

So caught up in his own brilliance, fäde almost let his teammate, Angela, get away with this.

No Angela, don't do it!!!

Remember the last time an Angela decided that "fleurchons" were a good idea?

They were NOT a good idea.

fäde wasn't smart enough to realize that Angela was dragging his team down until it was too late.  They could have been the winning team.  They should have been the winning team.  

fäde's dress was creative and dramatic.  The breastplate was indicative of a superhero--a common movie theme.  It had movement and used multiple materials in unique ways.

Sean's straw dress was an eye catcher.  It was beautifully constructed and designed.  It could have easily been the winner.  So could fäde's dress.  What brought them down was this.

Angela's ashes.

She had the clever idea to use scripts.  The problem was that Angela glued paper onto muslin with no consciousness of why she was using scripts.  Those could have been receipts from Mood Fabrics, for all we knew.  Cutting them into geometric shapes didn't exactly reflect the common theme running through the team, either.  What makes the scripts so special?  The words on them. Trouble is, they're small, so to use them as a print might not have translated on the runway.

Project Runway producers throw a smörgåsbord of objects into an unconventional materials challenge.  If you're going to use something, you have to think about how it's going to be used and whether that meaning and purpose will translate effectively.

This was a wasted effort and deserved the boot.  Instead, the high level of her teammates's work kept her hanging on for another episode while she simultaneously dragged them from the top spot.

Char, Kini, Mitchell 

This collection was one of my favorites.  It reflected the spirit of the movies, but with color and imagination.

Char used tickets to a fun effect.  

Kimi used mostly duct tape (who knew that movies used colored duct tape?) to make an interesting and colorful dress.

Mitchell totally redeemed himself this week with a mix of tape and DVDs.  The dress is really basic, but the color was spectacular.

Emily, Samantha, Alexander 

This was another safe team, but with much less stunning results.

Samantha spent a ton of time making a gorgeous DVD top only to completely ruin it with a sloppy tape skirt.  The skirt is too long and the hem is uneven for no good reason.

Alexander used the same hard, molded plastic that fäde used but the result was less focused.  While there's some interest using the tape diagonally in the skirt, the fringe in the front and back just makes it look unfinished and unwieldy.

This looks like Emily ran out of time making a perfect bodice and had to scramble tape pieces together for a skirt.  Had the skirts been more finished on this collection, it could have contended for the win.

Carrie, Hernan, Sandhya 

What a bunch of sad sacks, no?

That's what being under relentless attack will do to a person.  Was it well founded?  In part, sort of.  Here's the thing....Sandhya had immunity and she had it too early in the game to understand what it really meant.  What did she learn last week?  Tell your stories and be creative.  With that encouragement, she gave us the story of Sandhy, a transfer student from India who attends Rydell High and falls in love over the summer with Danny on a beach holiday.

Hopelessly devoted to you.....

Hernan fell in love with the ability to sew film together.  He and Carrie began going their own way and letting Sandhya go hers...except...Sandhya had immunity...and the potential to drag the entire team into the dumper.  Tim complained that the collection had no cohesion only as a way to snap Sandhya out of her thrall of her story.  He did not overly praise the other two looks and there was no need for them to charge forth and make three dresses out of the same material.

Hernan's dress is not bad.  I love the shape and styling.  It's nothing to write home about, however any of the contestants in the other safe team with the sloppy film tape dresses were probably thinking they could have sewn film together instead to contend for a win.

Let's face it.  This dress was way too simple to carry a team anywhere.  This is a dress you make when you are wrestling with difficult materials and are trying to present something that doesn't embarrass you on the runway.  There's no design here.  Had the duct tape skirt been, say, duct tape shorts, maybe she could have gotten a pass.  There were other short dresses on the runway with far more interest.  Seeing them walk should have put fear in Carrie right away.

Before getting to Sandhya's monstrosity, let me say something about the film material.  It wasn't bad.  In fact, it was very beautiful.  I kept saying the words "tortoise shell" to myself, over and over.  That's the effect it had from a distance.  This could have been a winning collection had they used it with other objects as an accent instead of the predominant material.

Sandhya did not put her heart into this dress.  It's not even a "slutty Sandhy wearing one of Rizzo's dresses after she gets too fat for them after Sandhya finds out that Danny still has feelings for her" dress.   This is an "ok, Hernan, you win; let's go cohesive, dammit..." dress. She's exposing the middle because they are separates?  She didn't cut her stray film because she ran out of time?  This dress if full of spite and and disappointment.  The judges picked up on that.

I was curious that no one expressed any love for their outfits.  Hernan, perhaps, came the closest.  Carrie's only defense of herself while under attack was "I can do much better than this.  I have so much to show you."

In the middle of Carrie's defense, Zac Posen seemed to laugh at her. I say "seem to" because it was a cut between two shots and we have no way to know if it was edited that way.  He did seem exasperated with her.  "We can only judge what we see before us." While that isn't exactly true, Carrie didn't do anything spectacular last week either. Still, many us Project Runway old timers just haven't warmed up to Zac Posen just yet.  He's got a youthful face that borderlines on smarmy when he sees something he doesn't like. Michael Kors and Nina Garcia are experts at expressing pain in their faces when they see something they don't like.  Maybe it's his baby face, I don't know, but Zac is incapable of communicating his disapproval without a dollop of disdain.  

Amanda, Korina, Kristine 

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Nina called Korina's dress a "flapper dress." Sure, it' had flapping video tape fringe, but it is only tangentially in a flapper style.  It is graphicaly interesting and beautifully styled with the shoes she picked out.  

Kristine's marquee dress was easily the chatroom favorite during the show last week. The use of speaker wire was quite notable and well done.  Of all the short dresses that walked, this had the biggest impact.

It was also fun to watch Zac struggle to think of the word "marquee."  He used "sign" and "title" at one point.  

Was Amanda's dress the winning look?  Not to me.  It's a toss-up between Katherine's or Sean's, had the team dynamics been different.  I want to run up with a pair of scissors and cut the errant wires that are hanging down.  I want to roll back the clock and weave more fringe into the skirt.  Maybe give it a more dramatic strap.  I think it's incomplete and unfinished.  But everyone fell in love with idea.

Nina said, "You could wear it with jeans."  I would love to see Nina try to wear this with a pair of jeans.  How ridiculous!  

What I did love from this team is the marquee letter bracelets the designers sported.  I would have loved to have seen them on the models, instead.  Judges love it when designers manage to make an accessory out of the materials as well.

Over thirteen seasons of watching team challenges, it occurs to me that what makes them work is a sense of mutual respect.  Musicians collaborate out of mutual respect and the blend of ideas can often be greater than the individual talents.  A team challenge this early in the competition, or a season of team challenges, like the one that Amanda was originally on, are designed to weed out people with strong visions but weak construction and interpersonal skills.  Good collaborators are the ones who see the strengths of the people with which they work and seek them out for it.

Instead of dismissing Sandhya's stories, Hernan should have encouraged her to come up with the team story and everyone work together to design to that.  Instead, he dismissed her story and wanted to focus on the aesthetic.  She comes from a different place--less visual, more conceptual.  All she needed to hear, early on, was "how do we hear your idea without rendering it into a costume?"  She would have lost the foil skirt and moved on to something else.  But Hernan didn't respect her creative process and things deteriorated from there.

Likewise, fäde didn't respect Angela's construction skills.  He let her flounder instead of intervening to ask her some pointed questions about her graphic statement and how it was cohesive, either visually or materials-wise, with the other two pieces.  

See you next week for more Project Runway.  And join us for all the real-time fun on Blogging Project Runway on Thursday at 8:30 PM EDT.