Project Runway All-Stars: Middle of the Road

OK, I'm gonna have to do this more quickly that I had intended because I want to do a pre-show post as well tonight. It's a shame, because the middle produced a lot of the most interesting looks and they often deserved discussing as much as, if not more than, the top and bottom. I'll do them in order of preference.

Christopher

OK, I don't like Christopher or his aesthetic much. I hate the overuse of punk cliches like chains and safety pins. I hate the combo of black, brown and grey. So obviously this was never gonna impress me. PSYCH! I really rather like this, in fact it's probably my favourite of the middle looks. I love the sort of sloppy, relaxed punk element, but it's chic and put together at the same time. A strange paradox, but it works here. Styling's nice. Love the long top over leggings. I love the shape of the jacket, and the back is stunning. The black piece really is pretty cool. With the chain neck, is it removable? Can you slip off the black and have it as just the brown and grey, because that's really cool? If so, he made two cool, wearable punk outfits.  Much as I hate to say it, Pissy Chrissy really did deserve some praise for this. I hate the bite out of the hem of the top.

Korto

Could Poutyface be the winner they're looking to crown? She was fan favourite in her series, many still say she was robbed, her business doesn't seem to have taken off massively, which is sad, and she's extremely popular. She is, however, an alumnus from one of Bravo's seasons and on Lifetime I'm not sure they're ever gonna reward one of them. But anyhoo. This was a nice look. I like the shape of the skirt a lot in the front, less in the back. The huge zipper, sometimes I'd say no, but since it's punk I'll give it a pass. The three fabrics (matte black, printed and leather in the waist) work really well and are all used near-perfectly.) I love the waist detail, the way she used the print in the front, and especially the back, which is TO DIE FOR. The chains work well, and there are just about the right amount. I don't like the one strip of print that doesn't stick down on the model's right sleeve, and it's not very Korto as I've seen her. Punk was a near-impossible challenge for her with her aesthetic, and this is a fantastic answer to it, but realistically it couldn't have won because Korto would have been very low down the list if I was forced to guess which of the designers made this. In fact I think my first guess would have been Ari. Still, it's fabulous. Good job. You can smile now.

Irina

To me this was absolutely a middle entry. It's not bad at all and it's very Irina. It's trashy in a really cool punk way. The zipper trim's not exactly something new, especially with Jeffrey actually in the competition, but it elevates the design slightly. The straps are absolutely amazing. The zip in the back I could take or leave, but I love the hot pink down the back. The black and white stripes give it a bold graphic element which is actually pretty cool. It's slightly sloppy in a bad way. I like the studs but HATE the way they're applied. There's one long strip running diagonally across the front. I wish she'd just kept that.The uneven hem is clearly deliberate, but it's not for me. I don't think it needed the leather, and I never thought I'd say that. And the red and pink together I don't like, they don't match, complement with or clash with each other and I wish she'd gone for black, white and pink. Problem is, she seems to have been directly inspired by the lyric in Blondie's "A Rose By Any Name" which says "Black and red looks so good on you" and decided to design a black and red dress. It's not a lazy inspiration or design, but the red is annoying me, although it's one of my favourite colours. It's a strong design, but some of the others did very well and to me it falls around 5th or 6th in the rankings. Still, easily good enough to move her on.

Daniel

OK, two sentences which strongly contrast each other. I really like this design. I think it should maybe have 

been in the bottom. I don't have much to say about the design. It is a great suit, one that a lot of women would probably love to have. But Daniel has made this suit several times before. And then he tied a load of dayglo pink string to her waist. It's just not all that new, interesting, and he didn't push himself. The makeup is just so obviously an attempt to go too far in a way the look should have and didn't. The back of the jacket is actually quite cool, it does have a sense of punkness to it, and the string looks so sloppy and homemade it kinda works. The neckline is great, but all in all I'm left with an impression of someone who has barely grown at all in any way since their season, and who doesn't know what to do when they have to leave their wheelhouse for the challenges. I can kinda see it as a 2013 New York-city version of punk with a chicness to it but it doesn't go nearly far enough. I imagine he was near the bottom of the pile and I can't see him lasting long.

Mychael 

This sucks. I would have sent him home for this. No, really. The jacket, which I don't have a picture of her wearing, looks like cheap paper, as does the dress. I have no idea how the jacket looks, because it photographs so horribly. All I can say is sloppy. Also unflattering. The dress is god-awful. This is so trashy, and not in a cool punk kind of way, in a 21st century tacky Kardashian kind of way. That is way too short. And too tight. Yes, her ass looks great but everywhere else it's too tight and puckery. This feels like it could have come from his finale collection of slutty tacky and poorly-made looks. He didn't win for that. There's a reason. This feels like a Mychael Knyght design from 2005 that he was told to make into a punk look in 20 minutes for $5 so added 2 dozen safety pins. Seriously, did they forget to say that he was set some kind of secret unconventional materials challenge, where he was given reams of white paper and some safety pins? That's how cheap this fabric looks. Elena got all that leather for the same price as this. Seth-Aaron, Jeffrey, even Melissa, they all look like they should have cost 10 times the price of this. Did he spend the money on alcohol? Because I can't explain the shittiness of this otherwise. The back detail and the neck cutout are very nice, but that's it. I even hate the styling, on the whole OK, except that the hair is covering the back detail, the glasses are awful and the shoes add to the tacky. Has he started believing his own hype? I hope not.  He's better than this.

Project Runway All-Stars: What the........no, seriously, what the...........

The rest of the people on the top and bottom I didn't really agree with. One thing to say, that I'm finding my feet, and the pictures for this are gonna be better and fuller than the first post, and I'll work on uploading the improved versions for the first post once I'm done with all the first drafts. For now, let's launch in.

Jeffrey really had to nail this, because the aesthetic he works in is punk-adjacent at least, so if he didn't hit the mark he'd be in trouble, probably in the bottom, and he ...

 

...well he did OK. I'd say he passed. Certainly I wouldn't have sent him home for this, but would I have ranked it second? I doubt it. I mean, I hate leopard print, but it's well-used here. I like the other jacket fabrics, the leather(?) with the textured trim, but it's too sloppy, even for a Jeffrey piece. The back is stunning, and the illusion netting is nearly perfectly deployed, except when it spreads over the left sleeve. It could have gone under and been a big improvement and I'm surprised a veteran designer like Jeffrey would do that. And the skirt, interesting that this was the softest piece on the runway by far, and not quite what you'd expect from Jeffrey. Growth maybe? I don't love it from the front but it is certainly current and the back is amazing. One of the main reasons I was so keen to get up front and back photos was to show the differences, because walking towards you it's cute but very messy, walking away it's gorgeous. I do like it, but not enough to get it in the top 2. To me it's high middle, or sneaking into third.

And Seth-Aaron had exactly the same problem as Jeffrey coming into the challenge, that punk should have suited him down to the ground. The judges kind of had to either praise him or criticize him, because a middle score would automatically be a disappointing one.

And this is kinda disappointing. In all fairness I'm coming around on it, in the sense that there are a lot of elements I like. But considering his model is topless there are way too many elements happening here. Seth-Aaron is an absolute master of plaids, and he made many amazing pairs of pants in his time on the show. But he should have known that this plaid, gorgeous as it is, is totally wrong to make pants from. He's failed to match it at the crotch. In all fairness that seems nigh-on impossible to do but that should have been the red light for doing pants. Anyway, I hate the cut. The model's legs look way bigger than they actually are. The waist detail is gorgeous, but I can't quite tell exactly what's what between the jacket closures and the pants waist, and it makes me confused and cranky. The jacket needs to lose a couple of elements. Actually really just the hanging braces. They have to go because they're really throwing everything off to me. Other than that the jacket is a really amazing piece. Words just cannot express how much I love the sleeves with the little pop of red. The shape is cool and I like the leather trim. I actually do like that you can see skin under the jacket as well.  The main fabric looks a little cheap, but that's forgiven because I don't know the budget they had but I'm thinking it was low. So, one AMAZING piece with one too many elements, one catastrophic piece, result: dead middle. Or that's what I thought.

And Viktor was in the bottom, a decision which I cannot sign off on, because....well let's look at the outfit.

 

That's really a pretty good answer to the question "What would Viktor Luna make if given a punk inspiration." Is it a punk version of what he did in his season 9 finale collection with the pearl-emblazoned leather jacket and printed pants. Yes it kind of is. Are the pants a touch on the snug side? Yes they are. But is the jacket a straight-up  fabulous piece and is the print amazing-looking and perfect for punk? Why, yes. If the judges seriously felt he played it safe, which is possible, that's surely not enough to pull a great look so far down. Because to me it ranks, much like Jeffrey's, high middle. This might yet all be part of a series-long editing plan, because I thought Viktor might have a shot at winning the series and the judges could want to throw people off the scent, because it was so obvious last year with Anthony Ryan.

So there you go, 6 down, 5 to go. Tomorrow I'll start with who I woulda seen in the top and bottom rather than Jeffrey, Seth-Aaron and Viktor.

Project Runway All-Stars: What the........actually, fair enough

Now this is very strange. I'm over here in the UK, so I'll probably get the episode online late this afternoon, so for now I have the shots on Mylifetime and the very base information of who had high and low scores (I could get the rest from blogs but this is meant to be my opinion so....) and really very little of it makes sense to me. I'm gonna say "I like him/her" a lot, because for the most part I do. This season has the highest talent level ever and a lot of them have quite distinct aesthetics that appeal to me personally, as opposed to the norm, where I can appreciate the talent and like the clothes for a certain woman, but they're not to my taste. In fact, Uli and Emilio from All Stars 2 are both prime examples of this. Having said very little of it makes sense, you're probably expecting solid rage, but the decisions that actually matter were mostly the correct ones. I (more or less) agreed with 3 of the 6 placings in the top/bottom, and I'll start with them, especially because it does include both the winner and the unfortunate mess that led to Ari's elimination.

OK, first thing to say about Ari is, before we get to the outfit, I had to do some research. I saw her name as Ari on Wikipedia (I know what you're thinking, but the Project Runway pages are mostly solid) and I was genuinely concerned that Ari Fish from Season 6, who may or may not be talented but definitely wasn't cut out for Project Runway, was back to quilt more shiny, shiny fabric (shudders.) Except that all of the other information corresponded to Season 8 designer Andy South. The picture was of a woman, but a woman who looked like Andy. It was only then that I realised she was transgender. I liked Andy as a guy, and he didn't seem insecure on his series, but if she wants to be Ari, good for her.

Shoulda stayed a guy. No, I don't mean it quite that way. Andy wasn't one of the designers who didn't put a foot wrong first time around. Not at all. He was very young but very talented. It wasn't quite the wild veering from gorgeous to catastrophic that we see with some designers, but he had some amazing looks (like the ribbon party-store dress) and some that just weren't good (like the print outfit with the sad droopy bubble-print top.) So it's not like when Ari was Andy she was always perfect or even particularly solid, but this is, hands down, the worst thing Ari has ever made within either gender. Again, there are some good ideas, like the short-suit, which coulda worked, but keep the two darker fabrics, replace the taupe-y colour with the grey from the rest of the jacket, lose the weird green thing completely,  and add something recognisably punk ( a studded belt woulda worked) and you've got at least an outfit that would have kept her in as far as I can see. But as is, I don't understand any of it. The styling doesn't "go there" and, perhaps understandably in a punk challenge, it seems to have mattered a lot to the judges, with the best styled looks often being the ones on top. I'm really sad to ask this about Ari, but, with the title of the episode being "You Got Punked," is this a joke? Go home and remember how good Andy's clothes were, Ari. Good luck.

And so to the underdog, one of only two not to have competed at fashion week the first time around, along with Daniel, who at least did make his collection in the competition. Elena must at least have been a little intimidated, because the first two All-Stars series had 9 and 8 designers respectively who weren't finalists. But she made a decoy collection, and it was among the best in her season, so she might just be able to beat the two from her season, Melissa and Christopher, who did make it to fashion week. If she keeps the bubbling crazy locked up inside her that is.

Well whaddya know, Underbitch nailed it. It's a really cool outfit, and it looks very Elena. Is it punk enough for the challenge? I'm not sure, but if the judges think so, then it's definitely a winner. The colour blocking, mixing of colours (which is so tricky to get right with these colours but done beautifully here) the almost-print in green and black (which looks a bit sloppy but that's the only execution issue I can see), use of leather and the short tight skirt, which is just the right length to be young but not slutty, are all excellent. And she piled on all these design elements but kept the look just on the right side of overdone, because it kinda looks like she just tossed it on to go out. Ah, now, having seen it from the back, it's a jacket and a dress. I don't really love the back of the jacket, but I'm still very impressed with the whole look and the technical skill that went into it. Here we see the styling done very well. The makeup is simple, which keeps it modern, but the hair is pure punk and the little socks with sandals are just a really nice finishing touch. Good job. Don't ruin it on a team challenge now.

And the other woman from that season, Melissa, was in the bottom, which I'm sorry to say is the other decision I agree with. Actually, looking down the list of designers, not that sorry. With Elena having done really pretty well, there aren't all that many designers I don't like left, and Melissa comes somewhere towards the bottom. Still don't dislike her, like her aesthetic a lot, but I would have been a lot less sad with her leaving than Viktor, or Ari actually. Anyway, the outfit......

Well Elena's really puts it to shame. This is a very typically Melissa look, showing very little growth. Apparently her work since her series has been custom leather jackets. That's good, it's what she's best at, but I'm not so sure that's a great thing for All-Stars, where she can only make so many leather jackets before she gets called out on it. Especially ones like this. It's just not very well-made. The hem is uneven, especially in the back, and I can't tell if it's deliberate or not, so I'm always thinking it's not. The back (sorry, I don't have pictures) is a very nice idea but executed horribly. And I may be spoiled by the gorgeous jacket/dress combos created in the season 12 finale, I hate that the asymmetry of the back of the dress combines with the cut-out of the jacket to create a small bare area, and the black pieces in the cut-out tend to work against the line in the back of the dress. I like the dress, love the print and the small piece of solid blue, but it's so typically Melissa that I can't get excited. An interesting idea, showing very little creativity or innovation from her, not very well constructed, but at least showing some punk elements, just barely good enough to survive in my book, and apparently also the judges'. As an all-star, she's in so much trouble. She'd be my pick to go next, which is kinda a good thing because Golden Goth just isn't that great a nickname, and it's all I have so far.

The rest of the top and bottom to come later, people. I don't agree with any of them. Tune in to see me get annoyed. ;)

Project Runway All-Stars: Prologue

OK, Tom and Lorenzo, two of my blogging icons and guilty pleasures, have said they won't be blogging Project Runway. I'll do it, not exactly in their stead because I haven't been doing this for 14 seasons including past all-stars, but I'll give it a go. I'll say bitchy things and occasionally quite like something, will that do? Now I tried and failed to take season 12 seriously, although it picked up hugely by the end, but I think the talent level here should be high enough that I can do it. As for who the judges feel is owed a win they didn't get in their series (because the entirety of seasons 1 and 2 may as well have been entitled "How Mondo/ Anthony Ryan won his crown back") I have to guess Korto, although that's more to do with her bad luck facing Leanne's world-beating petal collection whereas Viktor was genuinely robbed against Anya (more on that the same time next week) and that was the judges' fault. But I'll hold judgment until the actual judges start handing out ridiculous praise to justify the fact they've already been told who to give the win to. So let's go, with pre-judging.