Topic: Project Runway Canada II
Tonight our intrepid designers have a very sticky challenge and we viewers are stuck with this season's Gimmick challenge take THREE. We've already had the gimmicky recycled clothes challenge TWICE now we have the non-fabric challenge. Over the years Project Runway has presented some far-fetched non traditional fabric and gimmick challenges with varying degrees of success. They've done the food store twice, Car parts, candy stores finds, plants and flowers, home furnishings, Umbrellas, and recyclables, (which is a nice way of saying trash) Car parts worked well, plants and flowers, not so much.
These challenges are supposed to be about innovation, creativity and artistry. The truth is they are unrealistic and more about creating high drama than high art. Usually novelty materials are only used for gimmicky contests, attention grabbing promotions and as centrepieces for fund-raisers. An excellent designer can be absolutely stonewalled by non-fabric challenges and they really don't tell anyone anything about a designer's talents.
The designers are given the challenge of making artistic evening gown for breast cancer survivors from post it notes as part of some big cross promotional fund raiser. The dresses will be auctioned off and the money raised will go to breast cancer research. The contestants pick a word and then match the word with a woman who will serve as muse and model.
Cue the violins and the sad yet inspirational stories. Cue designers getting all mushy and poetic over the stories.
Making a dress from paper presents several technical challenges. It is versatile, it can be pleated, folded, sculpted, painted, stencilled ruffled, cut apart, put back together, turned into thin strips and woven into fabric...but it is still paper and the way the fibers are oriented makes it stiff and unyielding. Add to that the fact that too many layers of paper become cardboard, this adds a level of extra difficulty.
I love some of the paper cut sculptures that were done in the 1960's as part of the Op Art And Pop Art movement. It was in this time that it was discovered that if you skillfully cut a 3x5 index card you could make a hole big enough for someone to walk through. It's quite easy once you know the trick. These lattice works were used as mobiles, in the manner of Calder and some were woven together to form checker-board type fabrics sculpted into undulating shapes and stiffened with glue. The more paper is cut into, the more flexible it becomes because you are breaking the fiber chains. paper cut into thin fringy strips will be the most flexible,
Post it notes come in a huge variety of shapes, sizes and colours. There are arrow shapes, rounded shapes, rectangles, squares, some are small and thin, some are wide and long, some have things printed on them, most are blank.
So this is the sketch I did while the designers and muses/models were engrossed in each other's heart wrenching yet uplifting stories of courage and yadda yadda. The paper will be fluted, ruffled and left to flutter on the over skirt and one the ruffled flots of the straps and bands. The bodice will be made of the smallest post-its woven into a checker-board. The tighter underskirt will be made of post-its going from small at the waist to large at the hem cut apart and re-woven and re-cut into swirls. I have a bustle-like thing sketched made of pleated paper. The back of the overdress will be made of small pleated pieces of paper. The inspiration is 18th century mantuas, I'm sure I could also have it mean courage or strength or faith or any other of the buzzwords.
The designers go to the fabric store for their foundation fabric and structural elements. For me this would be a light drapy foundation such as chiffon or china silk, a bit of elastic, some plastic bones and cases and a zipper or two. I would allow the stiffness of the paper to become part of the bodice's structure. Not much time is spent in the fabric store, and it's not exciting except for Kim who want to make a pair of wings for her "angel" This is an artistic dress, Kim, not a maxi-pad.
After the commercial Sunny increases the English language by one word by describing his process as "post-iting" Brian arrives for some wise mentoring. Although Jessica is immune Brian is concerned about her dress which has all the drape and flexibility of a skirt made of newspaper. He tells Jason that his dress is gimmicky and he doesn't want gimmicks. Hello! This whole challenge is a gimmick! Brian tells Jason to edit and I agree, lose the train! He likes Kim's leaves and says the big pink foam wings are disrespectful and turn it into a cirque de soliel costume. (now there's a challenge i would love to see! Over the top cirque de soliel dresses! She wisely jettisons the wings and focuses on the leaves, which are absolutely gorgeous.
Night falls and they go for three hours of restless sleep and return for another full day of paperwork. Jessica dumps her entire dress after spray painting it black. She starts anew. Brian enters with the models for a fitting. Sunny has clipped his paper into feathers making the skirt light as can be. Kim brags about her sparkling personality (NU-UH BEEYOTCH!) Now Kim hates her dress because there are no wings. Or whatever, she's harder to follow than Paula Abdul was during tonight's American Idol, which was far more entertaining than this. Jason calls Kim a Lunatic, which makes me forgive him for his hideous dress. Jessica is making thousands of little thingies. Once again while she's under stress the obnoxious gangsta garbage is gone and the real Jessica comes out. She would be ten thousand times more likable if she would completely drop the badly dated street act and just be herself. That type of slang was funny and dated when the Aqua Teen Hunger Force did that three years ago, now, not as funny and more dated.
Once again Brian says no Gimmicks, yet this entire challenge is nothing but a gimmick
One more four hour night and it's the morning of the show. Brian sends in the models and we get our first look at the complete dresses. Genevieve's is gorgeous, I love the little origami thing on the bodice. Sunny's model loves her dress and I think it turned out nice with it's feathery skirt. Jessica now hates the challenge and doesn't like the big hedgehog on the shoulder and the back. Jason's dress is truly horrifying, from the colour choice to train to everything. Brian want the dress refined and Jason cut off three feet of train, which is still not enough cutting.
In make-up and hair my husband says that all the dresses are ugly and look like piñatas. He thinks it's the dumbest gimmick challenge ever. He thinks it was a waste of the designers time and effort and the forty minutes of this show seems far longer than American idol's two hours. Go Adam Lambert! And not just because your brother is a fellow Something Awful Goon.
We finally arrive at the runways show and I have some unexpected company arrive at my door, which means I miss some of what the judge's say. I do catch that the guest judge is an avant gard designer known for her innovation. The few things they show look not quite Gareth Pugh unwearable, but close. The show:
Genevieve's dress looks like a real dress and not a piñata. The blue is watery and pretty and i do like the origami on the bodice.
Jason's dress is a train wreck and one of the ugliest things ever on any Project Runway show, Canada, us, UK wherever.
Adejoke is over the top, she presents a green nature goddess dress that looks not too bad, at least to my eyes.
Kim: I love the leaves on the skirt, the back lacing is a bit sloppy, but it is paper after all. Not too bad, really.
Jessica presents a weird red Carmen Miranda type dress with a anemone and hedgehogs as decoration. the judges will either love this or hate this, it could go either way.
Sunny's dress doesn't look like paper, it also looks like a dress. The top is a bit of snooze, but the skirt makes up for it.
I miss the judges comments as i am updated on a family member's health, but they appear to love Jessica and Sunny. I think I hate this guest judge, she's a bit on the pompous ass side. My father thinks she's rude, even for a judge.
There are deliberations which I miss completely and the designers return for final judgement. They seem to think Jessica is this amazing original, yet there's nothing from her that I haven't seen somewhere else. Jessica wins. Sunny is second. Genevieve is third. Kim is fourth. It's between Adejoke and Jason for who is out. They thought Adejoke was too literal and too busy with this and that and the other thing going one. They thought Jason was a train wreck. In the end Adejoke stays and Jason is told that he doesn't measure up.
In the end Brian says Jason is fabulous and he'll do well in the future because he loves women. Oh no! Was Jason just outed as a straight guy? Doesn't matter really. Next week's preview tells us that the designers will have a super-model as their muse and they must design something spectacular for her.
Here is the link to the auction site for the dresses: http://auctionwire.com/runway The reserve bid is 10,000$ Yeah, right. The winning dress is already off the block having been purchased by 3-M, probably as a promotion piece.
Here's the cross promotional post it site with its own little design contest: site not yet live! Sorry! Maybe later today.
