Nicotino: Crash and Burn

This was a disastrously bad pairing of two opposing aesthetics and personalities. Santino's all structure and form and occasionally deconstruction. Santino wants to make a statement.

Whereas Nick's all Glam! Fierce! Body! Nick wants to make an impact.

The outfit isn't without value, though. That jacket is actually quite beautiful even if the proportions are off.

And the top has a nice look to it, even if it is either poorly fitted or just in the wrong fabric for the design.

Worse still, nothing in either aspect of the design was appropriate for Banana Republic. Sure, neither of them normally work in that style, but we'd have thought they were both aware enough of what that style is to attempt to mimic it. We can understand Santino banging on the bars of the cage, but Nick? This would seem like something Nick would understand fairly well.

And holy God, is that window FUGLY.

In other news...

Heidi Klum attempts to start new trend by applying makeup with magic markers. Film at 11.

She looks like she had someone else's face tattooed on her own.


[Screencaps: projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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You better cry and cut!

Sometimes - not always, mind you, but sometimes - the manipulated drama on Project Runway really does foster some interesting results. All too often, and probably to the producers' delight, the drama produces nothing more than, well...drama, but this time it worked.

This was a pretty, flowy, simple dress that looked great - and to our eyes, looked the most like a Banana Republic dress.

Despite all the delicious bitchery these two engaged in (or, more likely, because of it), they managed to produce a garment perfect for the challenge and - again, to our eyes - a perfect melding of both their aesthetics.

That bodice looks pure Kara Janx to us - body conscious and flattering at the same time.

The full skirt hitting below the knee, the (ugly) vest, and black and white fabric are more Zulema's thing.

We have to give them both a lot of credit for doing a complete course correction in the middle of the process. Just look at that hideous thing. That doesn't look like either one of them.

"I don't care if you cry and cut, but you're going to cry and cut. You're going to cut at that rate. Do whatever you need to do. You need to work. Don't stop and cry."

For all the talk about what a bitch Zulema is, she was totally in the right here. Yes, the infamous "cry and cut" comment was nasty (and funny), but it was absolutely what needed to be said to get the project done.

There's no doubt that Kara is the better designer (and sew-er) of the two of them, but man does she crumble at crunch-time or what?

No, what was needed at that moment was pure unadulterated bitchery and THAT is what Zulema excels at.

And damn, if it didn't work because Kara pulled it together and the two of them managed to not only complete a great design, but they pulled off a great window to boot.

It's a shame about the vest, which comes close to ruining the outfit. If Kara had been a little more pulled-together, she might have had the cojones to stand up to Zulema at the end of the process and say "You know what? Let's lose the vest. We don't need it." She was probably so grateful to be done with it and so grateful that there were clearly worse garments on the runway, that she didn't care at that point.

We don't know what they managed to do to change course in the middle of the process and produce a good design, but if they had managed to do that from their starting point, they could have easily won it. In a strange way, this is probably one of the best teamups the competition had ever seen.


[Screencaps: projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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Chloe & Emmett: You wuz ROBBED!

This should have been the winner, poodles. No doubt about it.

It was chic and stylish, perfectly executed, and the window looked fantastic.

That skirt is hot.

You know, normally we'd hate a big floppy bow on a blouse like this. Always makes us think of Lily Tomlin in "Nine to Five." But this works, probably because the exposed skin makes it sexier.

MAJOR kudos to Grace for whipping that thing off and reversing it on the runway without missing a beat. Now that's a model.

We're not super-crazy about the fabric on the jacket, veering as it does dangerously close to tacky. Then again, these are the official Banana Republic fabrics for that season, so we can't really blame them for working with what they were given.

Which brings us to our judging bullshittery of the week. Emmett's not very good at keeping his thoughts off his face, is he?

"I loved this outfit."

*pleased as punch*

"The only thing I look at...I think it looks very Bergdorf and not very Banana Republic."

*thinking 'You WISH your stuff looked good enough for Bergdorf's, you tacky queen'*

Seriously, what kind of criticism is that? This is right up BR's alley. Simple, classically inspired, well-tailored - AND done in BR's own fabrics. Sometimes those bitches just make up shit to criticize.

God almighty, how the hell tall IS Grace? Because Emmett's like seven-and-a-half-feet tall.


[Screencaps: projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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Ciao, Ladies!

Sometimes those judges can be a bunch of drama queens.

Don't get us wrong. For the most part, we agreed with their assessment that this was too severe, too retro (neither of which was helped by the styling) and just not the Banana Republic look. Add to that, some issues of poor execution and a stupid window display and we can't really dispute the outcome.

Although we did kind of like the blouse.

We just think the judges overreacted a bit to this one, as if it was some horrid crime against fashion. This is a fairly classic look that goes in and out of style constantly, with practically the only change being the hemline. We didn't get or agree with the Duchess's crack that this looked like a stewardess. Keep your eyes peeled. We can practically guarantee that at some point in the next 5 years, Michael Kors will send something that looks remarkably like this down the runway.

We'll miss Diana. We know she gets on the nerves of some people, but we always thought she was adorable and we thought she produced surprisingly interesting designs. Marla, well she never produced anything that we could find a way to compliment, but it's to her credit that she knew all through this challenge that the design wasn't working, even if she didn't really demonstrate enough self-confidence to actually speak up about it.


[Screencaps: projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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Congratulations Daniel and Andrae!

Quickie recap: The designers not only have to design an outfit for Banana Republic, they have to design and implement a window display for a Banana Republic store. You can read Tim's take on this episode here and listen to his podcast here.

Truth be told, we don't love this outfit.

The dress itself has some nice detailing and it's well executed but we both went "Hunh?" when Nina called it "modern." We were thinking exactly the opposite. It just looked so done to us.

See, this just falls into the "pretty but plain" category for us. It looks like a basic but well done Simplicity pattern. Not to disparage home-sewers (in fact, we love checking out what some of our talented bitches-with-needles are working on), but you have to admit ladies, there are a lot of very basic designs out there for the intermediate-level sewer and this looks like one of them to us.

And it's made doubly worse by the addition of that far-too-precious jacket.

It not only looks, as Tim suggested, a little prim, it looks a little juvenile. Like a ten-year-old's party dress.

We suspect that a big part of the win was due to Rebecca really hauling ass and working it in the window. We hope you took her out for some solid food as a treat, boys.

Despite our criticisms, we don't hate the outfit. Like we said, it's well-executed. It's just kinda basic - even for that House of Basic, Banana Republic.

And besides, it once again afforded us a minor, but delicious weekly pleasure.

The "steam coming out of Santino's ears" screencap. Say what you will about the man, he is hella entertaining. There is not one emotion that he can successfully keep off his face. He puts everything right out there. Which is why, every time we get one of these screencaps, there is only one person we can think of.

We can't be the only ones who see it, can we?


[Screencaps: projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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