At what point does love turn to ambivalence, and ambivalence to hate? I would suggest that, in the case of Project Runway's awful Kenley, I began to seriously cool on her last week (ambivalence!) and really just couldn't abide her anymore last night (hate). Which was funny because I actually kinda liked two of the other people I've normally disliked. The world is upside down! Project Runway is lurching ever closer to the end of its final Bravo season!
Last night there were moms—short ones, tall ones, fat ones, skinny ones, even ones with chicken pox—and their daughters. The challenge was to give the recent college-graduate daughters a head-to-toe makeover to prepare them for the professional world. No mind was paid to the fact that this country is currently a scorched, burnt-over land where no one can get jobs, no matter how smartly they are dressed. But, no matter! On with the challenge.
Korto talked a lot about her daughter and then made a coat out of a potato sack. Her girl, a 22-year-old (I think) who looked significantly older, seemed to like the look. Perhaps she is presciently planning a career as a boxcar hobo. She's just one pickle barrel away from the Complete Look! Leanne, turning very slowly into a mouse so she can meet her boyfriend, Luke from The Witches, made some sort of school marm frumpy dump jacket that covered up her Contempo CasualsSignature Collection dress. She received necessary criticism and will hopefully rally next week, even though it appears to be a hip hop challenge and Leanne couldn't be whiter if she was made of snow and drove a Volkswagen. She is my favorite to win it, so hopefully she'll bounce back.
On to Suede, who made something very sad and strange and reminiscent of a time that never quite existed. Sure, you saw jackets like his—with shopping mall-daring flared sleeves and tacked-on purple stripes—in the pink cardboard boxes of Barbie doll fashions and on the overly-lit soundstages of shows like Saved By the Bell andCalifornia Dreams, but no one in the history of the known world has ever actually worn such a thing. Which is why it was such a wrenching bit of industrial horror techno to watch his poor model/real girl tromp on down the runway in it. Nina Garcia was appropriately tight-lipped about it. I think if she'd opened her mouth, wasps would have flown out of it and the skies would have blackened and all that would have been left would be a candle to huddle around and the vague hope for some kind of merciful god. All that said, though, he didn't go home. Which is fine, because he said some funny things this episode. Yes Suede did.
And then Jerrell who, bless his skinny heart, endeared himself to me by calling himself weird and not being arrogant and designing a lovely dress for a lovely girl. He gets both points on and points off for wearing his Pan, nymph of the forest headdress on the runway and in his victory lap Elle photoshoot. For shame, Jerrell. But also: good for you Jerrell! I suspect he'll be joining Leanne in the finals.
You know who won't be joining Leanne in the finals? Ol' Joe Schmo, our regulah guy friend from Deeetroit, Em Eye who would have won this competition soundly had it been fought in 1988. He was, as the acerbic and wonderful (come back any time!) guest judge Cynthia Rowley put it, completely out of touch. He made an ill-fitting stewardess' uniform that Diane Keaton wore in Baby Boom 2: Sam Shepard's Not In This One. Yes he has daughters and it is sad that he has to go back to them empty handed, but it is also good that he has daughters and that he went home to them. He still got to show at Fashion Week, so I consider it something of a victory anyway.
And then. And then and then and then. Do you remember that girl you knew in college who was fashionable in this timid, darting way. Who things never seemed to go quite right for until they really did and there was something so smug and self-satisfied about her success. And then you'd see her at parties or in the dining hall and she was always talking to boys, only boys, perhaps one out-of-her-league fellow in particular, in this cloying and sad and infuriating way. She would get a little too sloppy at parties and quietly profess her sad love for this boy—who probably played club lacrosse or rowed crew and had some family money and was kind but aloof to her—and she would glare at any girl in a shrill passive aggressive way if she felt encroached upon. That girl was someone you felt bad for, sure, but mostly you couldn't stand her. Because she was a poor representative of Women, the kind of deliberately damaged goods (I don't mean mental imbalance—I mean put-on modesty wrapped in over-confidence swathed in self-righteous anger) who made boys thinks that "chicks are crazy, man." That is Kenley. And that's all I'll say about her.
So yes, we rumble on toward the finale. Everyone in last night's episode did in fact show a collection at Fashion Week last week, so they're all winners! Except for Kenley who is a miserable annoyance who laughed—cackled, really—at Joe's misfortune during the judging. She blows. Evs. At least she seems to be getting hers in next week's episode.
OK. I'm going to stop writing now, lest I become another Hedda Lettuce.
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