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New York Magazine has an eye-opening article about what happens to Bravo reality show contestants after their 15 minutes are up. We were really happy to read this because it contains stuff that we'd been hearing for a while but didn't have the right to publish ourselves. Bravo doesn't come off that great here and Heidi has a real bitchquote at the end.

Some choice bits (but you really need to read the whole thing):

Jay:
“I haven’t been living anywhere for two years,” he says. “I sleep at other people’s houses. I sleep here if I’m drunk.”

“I have a fucking gazillion e-mails from all over the world from people asking, Why isn’t your stuff out there?” says Jay. “Yet financially, I have no way to get them a product because I got pushed out of a boat and into the ocean, as if, Oh, you can survive now.”

(Photo: Jessica Wynne)

Andrae:
"Today, he still sews the odd custom dress for $1,500, and he teaches too, but he makes a fair chunk of his money doing gigs that exploit his reality-show fame, like hosting events at gay bars in Pittsburgh. He knows this won’t last. “I tell everyone I’m not a star,” he says. “I’m a brown dwarf.”

Austin:
"Austin Scarlett, the young Quentin Crisp from the first season of Project Runway, says he was approached about a role on Heather Graham’s short-lived sitcom, Emily’s Reasons Why Not. Today he wonders if he should have mulled it over. “Because I don’t think you should turn down work that much,” he says. “That’s one of my continuing struggles, being considered a reality-TV, you know, star.” I ask if he’s ever done TV gigs he’s come to regret. “Yeeeeeeeees,” he says. “Battle of the Network Reality Stars.” Shortly afterward, he appeared on a reality reunion show on Bravo, too. “I felt so cheap and tawdry,” he says. “They gave me $500, and I was like, Keep the money. It was just part of my confusion, grasping for the next thing.”

Nick:
“When they asked me why I wanted to be on Project Runway,” says Nick Verreos, 40, who made the fetching Barbie dress from Season Two (it sold for $1,700 on projectrunway.com), “I said I wanted to use it as a trampoline. Because I knew I was doing fierce stuff, but nobody was noticing.”

Santino:
“No one wanted to interview Chloe,” Santino says. “I’m sure I did like 500 percent more interviews. That’s what I won.”

"I crack myself up by saying, It’s lucky that I turn things down so that Nick has stuff to do,” says Santino."

“Between Heidi and Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, the judges were like a three-headed monster,” he says. “They all basically have the same point of view. I mean, have one avant-garde person who has an art-as-fashion approach, rather than fashion-as-commerce approach.” Then, of course, he made an almost perversely beautiful collection for Fashion Week, and the judges said there wasn’t enough of him in it. “And it’s like, Really?” he asks. “Gee, that’s funny, because I made this shit!”

Laura:
"When Laura, hugely popular with fans, failed to notify the network she’d signed a contract to host a style show on MSN.com, they called and demanded an explanation. “And I said, ‘So what do you have to offer me?’ ” she says. (She’s now in talks with Bravo about doing something for its Website and iVillage.)"

UPDATE: "Is Jay McCarroll Homeless? He Sure Said So (and So Did His Publicist)." Read it here.

Ripping the Collections: Santino, Part Two

We don't get this one at all. What about this says "old Hollywood glamour" or "boudoir photography?"

Ignoring its thematic incongruity, we just don't like the proportions on this. She's drab, shapeless and practically colorless. Not exactly glamour.

What a Monet of an outfit. At first glance it comes across cute.

Get a little closer, though...

Ai, chihuahua, what is going on there?

The jacket's fine. Cute, even. But that dress. Scratch Monet, that's Cubism in dress form. Nothing on her body is quite where it's supposed to be. She looks like she has scoliosis or hip displacement.

This is pretty, but terribly basic. The colors are beautiful.

The cups are almost cupping, so that's an improvement -- and we like the strip of leather even if it is oddly placed.

Still, the finishing on that skirt doesn't look so hot.

Y'know...this is more of what we expected from Santino. It's waaaay off-theme, but that's not why it stands out. It stands out because it's the most dramatic, interesting look in the collection.

That top is actually quite beautiful and striking. Of course it's paired with absolutely the worst skirt with which you could pair it, but it's the only look that made us sit up in our seats. A shame that his whole collection wasn't more along this line.

Feh.

We're getting a little tired of saying "pretty, but basic." Although, truth be told, it's not even all that pretty.

Here's something to add to that mantra: "cheap." Sorry, but this looks like something you could pick up in a discount store for under 30 bucks.

It's like her boobs and her dress got in an argument and they're not speaking to each other.

Thank GOD we've moved away from "pretty, but basic!" Now we're in "UGLY, but basic" mode! And look! We can see her boobs! No, right there! Sliding into her armpits!

It's appropriate that this looks like a grandmother's nightgown because it's totally putting us to sleep.

Credit where it's due, this really is a beautiful dress. The pleating is perfection and we even love the flowy layered hems.

Ladies and Gentlemen, MISS STEVIE NICKS!

Of course, the boobs still aren't where they're supposed to be.

Maybe he's got boob issues. Maybe the whole collection was some sort of Freudian ode to his mother. He's never forgiven her for taking the boob away and this collection is an ode to his life-long search for the boob.

Naah. He just can't do fit well.

The judges beat the risk-taking parts out of him over the course of the competition and he responded with a collection that didn't feel like him at all. There were some bits and pieces that showed his creativity, but he seemed restricted by the more moderate view of fashion that the judges unwittingly imposed on him. Kind of a shame. We don't share his aesthetic and we liked very little of what he did during the competition, but we would have enjoyed, and we think he would have been better served by, a collection that was bold and crazy, rather than one that seemed like a deliberate toning down in order to make the judges happy.


[Photos: FirstView]


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Ripping the Collections: Santino, Part One

We're not entirely of one mind on Santino's collection. Picking "old Hollywood" as a theme wasn't the most interesting crayon in the box, but Tom liked the "boudoir photography" aspect of it. In what may have been a fit of self-conscious irony, he gave us a runway show that consisted almost entirely of very literal lingerie-inspired looks. Lorenzo was underwhelmed by the theme and we both thought that the construction issues were a major problem. Fit and construction are important, not just for aesthetic reasons, but because they demonstrate that you understand how to make fabric work on a body.

His styling was a little bland. If you're going for old Hollywood glamour intersecting with soft-core porn, then big and luscious would have been more impactful than the restrained prettiness on display.

Let's start the show.

It's okay. Not what we would consider a "wow" piece, but it's pretty. The waist on that thing is pretty high, but he's going for an undergarment feel, so the line actually makes sense. The color's a little subdued, but again, look at vintage lingerie.

And then we see the fit problems. There's no real sense that there's a set of boobs under there. There's just two cups that aren't, y'know...cupping.

We're back and forth on this one. We have to fight the urge to simply say "We don't like it." But y'know? It is flattering and pretty. It does make a bolder statement.

Plus, there's less of a fit issue on this one. We're not crazy about the almost-jodhpurs but overall, the proportions are flattering and the pleating is beautiful.

Again, colors too subdued, but think of vintage foundation garments in an old trunk.

Ick.

She's like a walking Listerine breath strip.

This one seems to veer off-theme, but that's not really the issue. It's just not very flattering or pretty.

We could be sold on the color, but the garment is just so big and blousey and uninteresting.

This is another one that's just okay and slightly off-theme. The more overtly lingerie-inspired stuff is more interesting than the blandly "glamorous" stuff. That layered hem is irritating. It looks unfinished.

And her girls are so squished in there they look like they're holding their breath and the overall effect makes her look hip-y. And yeah, the color story is already starting to bore us, no matter how much we try to defend it.

Love-hate.

It's definitely one of the more interesting looks in the collection.

The problem is, it's just too literal. It doesn't look like it was inspired by vintage lingerie; it looks exactly like vintage lingerie. Except of course, that vintage lingerie took into account that women have breasts. What is going on with those gigantic scalloped things? They're not accentuating her boobs, they're shielding them. Titwalls.

This was actually quite pretty and feminine and flattering. A little basic, yes. But it fit the theme well, it added color without going off-story, and the mix of fabrics give it more interest.

Although, maybe it was just editing, but it seemed pretty clear that this was an Andrae dress - and it looks it.


[Photos: FirstView]


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The ultimate Recap/Rethink

In scrutinizing Project Runway Season 2 at a level that just isn't healthy, we realized something that surprised us: we don't hate Santino.

Not that we ever really did. It's kind of hard to work up the necessary bile over a contestant in a reality show competition, but we basically always followed the accepted line that most viewers did: he was the Season 2 "villain," in large part because he was bombastic and obnoxious but mostly because he wasn't auf'd when Nick was, something many viewers considered the death knell for the show's respectability.

Except it hasn't worked out that way. After Season 3, the show's been riding on a wave of respectability higher than previous seasons. Despite the attempts by the viewership to portray him as an evil mustache-twirling villain, in the long run, all he was was good television.

Now, put down the pitchforks, girls. We're not excusing bad behavior and Santino said things that were simply indefensible. We have not a shred of doubt that he was a major pain in the ass to deal with day in and day out.

On the other hand, this is a reality show. And like all reality shows, it lives or dies based on the "performances" of its "characters." Project Runway in particular among the genre has always been lauded for casting interesting, creative people, some of whom are intensely competitive (Wendy, Jeffrey), some of whom are crazy creatives (Jay, Austin), some of whom are ice cold professionals (Kara Saun, Emmett), some of whom are adorable little balls of fluff (Nick, Daniel V., Kayne) and some of whom are just...special (Lupe, Angela, Daniel Franco). All of these people are memorable for bringing their personalities to the table in full force, but no one did so more than and better than Santino.

For all the talk of his "villainy," Santino was, to us, hellaciously funny most of the time. Not just the much-lauded Tim Gunn impressions, but also the singing and dancing, the amazing ease he had in front of the camera, the eye-rolling and laughing on the runway, and best of all, the cagematches with the judges, Nina especially. Oh sure, we can all boo-hoo that he was "disrespectful" to them, but they're not royalty; they're just judges on a reality show. Clearly, the judges enjoyed the backing and forthing just as much as he did, despite Nina's stated fear that he was going to kill her.

Everyone always criticizes these shows for manufactured drama and we don't disagree. Not totally. When the drama is too heavy-handed or when it has the producers' fingerprints all over it, then we get annoyed. But simple drama arising out of strangers being forced to live and work together? Darlings, that's what reality TV is for. You might as well complain that there are too many horses in a western. Sit back and enjoy it, we say. If the show consisted of 44 minutes of designers quietly sewing, none of us would watch it. Well, almost none of us.

What we're trying to say in our roundabout not-enough-coffee way is, take away the drama of wondering who's going to be auf'd next and Santino comes off a lot better. Once you don't have a horse in the race, you notice just how funny and entertaining he can be. Again, we realize some of what he said was nasty but he admitted that he never really meant for any of it to be taken seriously. Certainly the argument could be made that he should take more responsibility for the things he says (and we agree), but it's hard to stay mad when so many of the things he said were some of the funniest and most memorable moments in the show's history.








[Screencaps: projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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This is it!

Sharpen your claws, kittens! It's time to dissect the auf'ing heard 'round the world!

Okay, let's start off by pretending that this was a perfectly executed garment (Haha! I know, right?). We'd still consider it an ugly design - and one that isn't really appropriate for Kara. Unless one defines "makeover" as "force someone in to clothes they'd never wear because they look horrible in them." The colors are drab, depressing, and they do nothing for Kara.

Jumpsuits only ever look good on one very tiny, very young, very skinny segment of the population, which is why you don't tend to see a lot of people wearing them. To the rest of the population, they're hugely unflattering.

Kara's got a great body, but even she couldn't pull this off (or put it on, for that matter).

No kittens, not even the design could save this from being a disaster. The poor execution only sealed the deal as far as we were concerned. That puckering and pulling around her torso made her look like she was about to give birth to a baby alien.

But this, THIS should have been grounds for auf'ing. Nina made quite a stink about Zulema's poor execution, going so far as to auf her over it, but nothing Shatangi sent down the runway was as bad as this. We don't generally like to throw around accusations, but this was, to us, a clear example of the judges having an agenda and voting accordingly. Santino's loudmouth rebel act really got them moist in their seats and they wanted to make sure he got his shot at Bryant Park. Yeah, Freddie Lieba liked it, but there were three other judges well aware of Santino's previous entries and behavior. At any other point in the competition and with any other designer, they would have found a way to send him home.

This isn't an anti-Santino rant. For the most part, we think he's entertaining as hell and kind of talented. This is an anti-judge rant. We don't subscribe to the notion that the producers run in and tell them how to vote, but the judges DO have an agenda and WILL overlook their own established criteria in order to keep the designers they like. This is just the clearest, most obvious example of that.


[Sreecncaps: projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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