The Project Runway Withdrawl

Manolo says, ayyyyyyyy! The Project Runway season two, it is over! What will the Manolo now do with his Wednesday evenings?

Happily, the Manolo’s many internet friends at the Blogging the Project Runway are still on the job, keeping the fanatics of the Project Runway updated with the latest news and gossip.

Also, the various sources of media still continue to deliver the information about the contestants. Here, for the example, is the story about the Chloe, one that contains the reactions from the Tim Gunn and the Jay.

“I was STUNNED when I realized that Chloe was the winner,” said Tim Gunn, chair of Parsons New School For Design and Project Runway’s resident den father. “Why? Because Daniel V. had been the Golden Boy and I knew that he was a hands-down favorite going into the Bryant Park Tents, and Santino had evolved to a level of sophistication that I was dubious he could achieve.”

“But frankly, looking at the designers as individuals, independent of their work, what do we have?” added Gunn. “Had Santino won, then we would have had the Project Runway Winners’ Circle Freak Show – Jay first, and now Santino. Daniel is extremely inexperienced in the industry to deliver on the expectations of the win. Chloe is, indeed, seasoned and experienced and professional.”

In other words, she won “because she’s the opposite of me!” Jay McCarroll told FWD with a laugh.

Leave it to the Jay to say that which is both the most outrageous and the most correct thing.

He had been rooting for Daniel V. to win, as had many other people, including, not surprisingly, the entire F.I.T. student body. (A colleague who watched the final episode at the school last Wednesday reports that a collective gasp erupted in the room when Dao was pronounced the winner.)

“I thought her shapes were good, but her fabrications and color palette were kind of gross,” McCarroll opined of Dao’s winning collection. “Just because you use the same fabric in three garments doesn’t mean that it’s a cohesive collection. And there was no vision.”

Project Runway judge Nina Garcia defended Dao’s win, telling FWD the Houston native took home the prize because “she did a great job and her work was consistent with a strong point of view” and that it was the memorable nature of Dao’s previous PR work that tipped the scales in her favor.

“The last collections that we saw on the runway were not very different from one another,” said Garcia. “So we had to judge them in terms of how they had fared in the other competitions, and we thought, whom do we remember? We could remember the orchid and flower dresses from Daniel. With Chloe, you remember the “clothes off her back” challenge, the flower dress and the one she did for the inspiration challenge, because it was so labor intensive.”

And yes, the judges did “weigh in that Chloe has a business sense,” as well, confirms Garcia. “Daniel V. looks the part and has the talent. But when we talked about what would be the ideal situation for Daniel, it’s to work with a designer for a few more years and learn what it takes. Chloe is mature and can handle the opportunities that come with becoming instantly famous. So the message here is: you have to be creative and you have to have business sense.”

Nina, dear heart, you have made the mistake. It is best to not try to justify, best to just move on and pretend that it has never happened.

0