JUL
2008
17

Project Runway, Season 5, Episode One

Manolo says, and so the latest season of the Project Runway begins, not with the exciting dash across the verdant fields of Bryant Park, but with the early morning Festival of Gristedes, the ritual that many of us who have lived in the City of New York know quite well. Indeed, who among us has not rushed into the Gristedes first thing in morning, and emerged the half hour later with our bags full of plastic shower curtains, rubber gloves, vacuum cleaner bags, mop heads and enough gingham table clothes to go all Christo on the Grand Central Station? Ayyyyyy!…

JUL
2008
16

Project Runway Returns!

Manolo says, ayyyyy! The new season of the Project Runway is beginning this evening and the Manolo is living in the Malibu home that does not have the television set! Measures must immediately be taken! In the meantime, while you are waiting for the commencement of the new season (which apparently includes the contestant with the provocatively leathery name of “Suede”) you must go check out the indispensable and always informative Blogging the Project Runway blog. There you will find more Project Runway news than you can reasonably process, all of it given to you in the most pleasant and…

MAR
2008
06

Project Runway 4, Grand Final Finale!

Manolo says, this was perhaps the most anti-climatic Project Runway grand final finale ever. Indeed, as soon the Manolo heard that Victoria “Posh but Ridiculous Spice” Beckham was going to be the celebrity judge the Manolo assumed that Christian would be the winner. Victoria Beckham’s own peculiar tastes run so much to the spectacularly unwearable that only Christian could satisfy her increasingly outrageous and idiosyncratic ideas about fashion. Indeed, Christian designs clothes that could only be worn by Victoria Beckham, very tall 14-year-old Slavic girls, and himself. No one else could possibly fit into those super-skinny pants. Please note that…

FEB
2008
27

Laura K. and Blogging the Project Runway

Manolo says, there is the marvelous article in the Arizona paper about the Manolo’s internet friend, Laura K., who is the founder of the Blogging the Project Runway blog. Laura Kluvo has a big secret. It’s about the winner of Season 4 of Project Runway, the Bravo reality series where rookie designers compete to be the next big thing in fashion. She won’t say who it is or how she knows – until it’s revealed properly on the show’s finale next Wednesday – because she hates spoilers. The stay-at-home Scottsdale mom runs the show’s ultimate fan Web site, called Blogging…

FEB
2008
22

Project Runway 4, Renunion Show

Manolo says, the reunion shows, they are always so boring, with the tedious and contrived confrontations, the sad outtakes, and those lame “greatest hits” montages. Tim: “Designers, Ms. Mamie Kerpslach of Abilene, Kansas writes in to ask if Nina Garcia is really the bitch she seems to be on the show. Well, Mamie, the producers have put together this montage of Nina, dressed head-to-toe in Chloé, biting the heads off of live sparrows to prove that it’s all an act.” Please, spare the Manolo from such maudlin and sentimental, phony-baloney moments. Better to get on with the cat fighting right…

FEB
2008
15

Project Runway 4, Episode Eleven

Manolo says, Once upon the time, there was the poor tailor who was in danger of having his head chopped off if he did not complete the fabulously fierce outfits for the evil queen, and her court… …jesters, Toothy Orange Bottom and Brunhilde Valkyrie. The tailor worked for many days without sleep, cutting and sewing, sewing and cutting. But, as the deadline approached, there were as yet fifteen yards of organza to be worked into the designs he had chosen, and the unhappy but honest tailor became worried and began to despair. Even his acquaintance, the wise wizard who lived…

FEB
2008
07

Project Runway 4, Episode Ten

Manolo says, Ayyyyyy! Lady wrestlers! Spandex! Tim Gunn! This challenge, to make the costumes for the modern-day Fabulous Moolahs, out of spandex and spangles, was completely ridiculous and yet also terribly entertaining. And nothing was more delightful than the lady wrestlers themselves. Yes, they were tacky, with their giant fake breasts, tanning-booth tans, and rigorously gym-toned bodies, but they were also lively and funny and seemed to be genuinely happy. When they entered the sewing room it was as if the lights were turned on, making everything brighter and sharper. Query: Were the lady wrestlers sexy? Answer: No. The wrestling…

JAN
2008
26

Project Runway 4, Episode Nine

Manolo says, after studiously avoiding the internets and the television, the Manolo was finally able to see the latest episode of the Project Runway without having heard any results. And now the Manolo can give you his impressions of this moderately amusing episode. In short, this was yet another good challenge, to take the sack full of Levi’s jeans and jackets and turn them into the “iconic denim look”. Although, what is meant here by the word “iconic” the Manolo does not fully understand. The truly iconic item appears only rarely, when design and culture achieve perfect symbiosis, and so…

JAN
2008
24

Desastre!

Manolo says, ayyyyy! The Manolo has been travelling this week and tonight he has landed at the hotel whose television system does not have the Bravo channel, and tonight is the Project Runway! Do not worry, though, the Manolo will watch it tomorrow and give you his report tomorrow evening.

JAN
2008
17

Project Runway 4, Season Eight

Manolo says, this week gave us yet another admirable challenge, to produce the avant-garde work based upon the wacky hairdo of the model, and then to take this look of avant gardedness and turn it into the ready-to-wear outfit. This was perhaps the smartest challenge yet presented to the designers, as it allowed them the most freedom to explore their art. And because this sort of detailed and extravagant work takes so much time, the Manolo did not resent the natural decision to divide the designers up into teams, even though such team challenges are patently unfair to whomever is…

JAN
2008
10

Project Runway 4, Episode Seven

Manolo says, savor these words, dear internet friends: “New Jersey High School Prom.” Such delicious and horrifying images are conjured up, no? And yet, for the most part, the young women who were selected to be the “clients” were smart, and sophisticated, and somewhat knowledgeable about fashion. And they seemed to provide enough guidance to the designers so that some of them were able to produce attractive and flattering gowns. Undoubtedly, some of this precocious knowledge is attributable to Project Runway, itself, for it has popularized the production of fashion like nothing before it. Certainly, the fashion blogs also deserve…

JAN
2008
04

Project Runway 4, Episode Six

Manolo says, ayyyyy! The best challenge yet, to grab the giant fistfuls of second-rate but popular candies and candy merchandises in the candy store and to transform this mass of junk into the fashion. This was the sort of challenge that made the original Project Runway so delightful, and not something about which Michael Kors could ecstatically shout “super commercial!!!!” For the Manolo, the best part of the evening was that the likable chubster Chris, over whom the Manolo had begun to despair, showed that he could produce the completely wearable, and yet also sophisticated, mature, and attractive outfit.