Project Runway: S14 E14 "Finale Part 2"

I honestly can't wait to hear what everyone thinks about this episode. I'm tempted to just say "Ok, Ashley won, Now go!" and have that serve as the review. Not that I don't have thoughts of my own, because I do, but because I honestly think the discussion over these last couple episodes has been stellar and I can't wait to get to it on this final episode. Because honestly is there a more rote and simple episode in Project Runway's run than the final episode? Here is where you do away with typical drama and challenges and get to the meat of it all. It's the closest thing to an all runway all the time episode that we get, and I don't know if that improves or decreases the overall appeal of the thing.

If there's one thing I feel is totally true here, it's that this final episode is honestly a solid encapsulation of what this season was, for better or worse. There's no big drama, no big personality, and the outcome isn't even surprising. The talent seen in the final collections is on par with the talent level we've seen all season, and somehow that's both gratifying and a bit sad at this stage in the competition. I think what most viewers want is a situation wherein the final collections blow us all away. This is supposed to be the best of the best. If you'll allow me to make yet another one of my patented sports analogies: the Pros of any sport is meant to be a distillation of the best talent available. Colleges and minor leagues feature a bunch of players who, ostensibly, aren't good enough for the Pros. The people who end up drafted to the Pro level tend to be the top 2% of the talent available. Thusly, they tend to turn out a better product than their lower level counterparts. Likewise, that's what we expect for the finale of PR. I've said it before and I'll say it again, these are the four best and most talented designers this season had to offer. So isn't it fair to expect that every look of each collection will be a WOW? Even if they aren't looks you'd want to wear or buy, they should be looks that move you and allow you to see why they're worthy of being at this point.

I don't think it'll surprise anyone when I say that I don't think these collections do that, but I also don't think it was possible for them to given what we know about these designers. At the end of the episode during the judges' deliberation, Nina says something that reconceptualizes the season for me. She says that this feels like a season about identity. The question for these final collections, therefore, is who kept their identity and who lost it?

So we start where we left off with Ashley and Kelly having very small and easy things to do based on the remarks from the judges, and Candice and Edmond needing to rework most of their collections at this point. They have about two days, but also a lot of consultations and fittings to get in there as well. Tim asks everyone if they want another Mood trip. Ashley and Kelly are the only ones who bite, but both say they'd only get small things, so Tim offers to go to Mood for them and let them keep working. I was only half listening when this happened and had to rewind to see what I had missed because when Tim offered to go shopping for Kelly and Ashley I nearly jumped out of my seat and yelled about favoritism. But no, it all seems fair and on the up and up, so we can move on.

The major take away from these last couple days of work is that Candice seems to be handling her critique and tasks better than Edmond is. They're both changing a lot and creating new looks, but by the time Tim comes in to meet with them, Candice at least looks like she has a direction carved out while Edmond is still waffling on major decisions. We know he can sew like the dickens, but still. When Tim tells him these choices on where he's going should have been made already, he's right and a sense of doom encapsulates all.

I have a confession to make, Runaways: the pre-runway scramble before NYFW is one of my very favorite aspects of the show. I don't tend to like it much before each individual runway, but there's something about it on this episode that I love. We've had models showing up late, people spilling coffee on dresses, and all kinds of drama happen here. It's hardly ever very long lasting, and most often something happens off camera to resolve it, but I love it anyway. Such is the case when Ashley busts a zipper while dressing one of her models. I didn't think it was going to stop or delay her from showing, and indeed since she showed last that wasn't really an option, but it was still a remarkable moment. And the only moment of drama before the runway that we got, so I guess let's move on. Carrie Underwood was the guest judge this week, and apparently she just released her own fashion line, so good on her.

The Runway:

Kelly: Is it just me or does this look a million times better than what she showed in the last challenge? Is it just that the sparkle factor has been kicked up a few notches? I was worried it’d make a cheap collection look even cheaper, but I don’t think that’s been the outcome. I think Kelly has a very unique and specific perspective and point of view and it comes through well in her designs here. I still think the full wood panel look is a bit off. And there’s a more elegant look towards the end that strikes a discordant note too, but for the first time I can say that I fully see who she is as a designer and I can accept that there’s a legit place for her in the market. I’m far more impressed than I expected. 

Edmond: “Failure” is the only word that comes to mind here. The first look is a simple and boring black dress. And the ruffles are indeed overdone. The ninth look reminds me of toilet papered house, and the last look is nice but I felt like it was diminished by all the ruffle looks that came before it. It could have stood out and been more of a statement piece if he had allowed it to be unique. The second look in the collection becomes a silhouette that we see in the collection over and over again and it gets boring. Or maybe it's just bad in general as I hate all three of those looks. There are some stand out pieces here, but I am ultimately unimpressed. 

Candice: Good, not great. I think they did Candice a disservice by telling her to pair it down, the collection needed volume and drama. The first three or four looks I found boring and forgettable, but I think it picks up more towards the middle starting with that great jacket which I still love. The red leather look and the dress with the sparkly red skirt with all the right amounts of skin showing are statement pieces. And I like the final looks as well, though it's easy to argue they're dressing two different women. The collection reads like her in the sense of bringing her own personal style to the runway, so that’s good, but I think it’s a shame that she lost all of the bigger standout pieces which spoke more to her design aesthetic.  

Ashley: The thing to me about Ashley’s collection is that the lows are really low and I don’t know that I think the highs are quite high enough to circumvent that. There’s a full teal look that feels last minute and thrown together and way too covered up. And I don’t know what I think about the last look which is pretty and moves well, but also looks a little arts and crafts to me. But the purple look we saw last week is still really good, and the pieces that show some skin in this collection are always the best. The fact of the collection and the importance of it is never lost on me, but I’m not sure where I fall on the execution of it. 

So as is expected, the collections are too close to really call and none of them offer any kind of standout from the pack pieces that we've seen before. Compare this to last season's finale when I couldn't stop gushing over all of Sean's looks while everyone else's except Amanda's left me a bit stagnant. Granted, I was biased towards Sean for awhile, and PR has taken last season's pics down so the links in that review are dead and I don't feel like looking up all of their respective collections, but still. The fact remains that we've seen collections in the past that were clear statements about who deserved the win. We don't really have that here and I don't think we expected to. 

The judging goes along those lines we've been used to for the last few weeks. They loved some things from each contestant, and hated some things from each as well. Everyone compliments Kelly's voice and point of view and justify her place in the fashion world. This is something I agree with fully as I can totally see a number of girls excited to wear her looks. I don't think her's is a name we'll hear on red carpets too often, but her strength is clearly ready to wear, and that's where she can make an impact. 

They also commend Ashley's bravery for creating a collection that was so her. I've said it multiple times, but the sheer existence of this collection on this show is super important. And Ashley's ability and willingness to helm this ship is great and says a lot about her. Heidi points out that the dresses look expensive, and Zac points out that her girls all looked really happy and comfortable in her looks, and those things go a long way for me. In short, Kelly and Ashley are praised for keeping their identity within the challenge. 

Conversely, Candice and Edmond are chided for not doing so. Candice admits later on that she allowed the judges to strip her identity out of the collection in an effort to give them what she thought (and what they said) they wanted. Meanwhile, Edmond is kind of scrambling to explain that what he wanted to convey with some of his looks, the toilet paper dress for example, which Heidi hates as much as I do, is that he wants you to feel something when you see it. Whether that something is love or hate doesn't matter to him so long as he's brought on a response. I want to say that I think that ideology is perfectly valid for a piece of art that might hang on a wall or sit on a pedestal; it is not, however, acceptable for a piece of fashion that an amateur (because let's be honest, that's what PR contestants are) designer is going to send down the runway at NYFW. There's been a lot of talk about whether you should keep the identity you've had all season long to this point, or ditch it and show the judges something new, but I think what most of us should be able to agree with is that you don't send something down you know people might hate and be OK with the fact that they might hate it. That's not winning anyone the PR crown. 

I like Nina's statements about this season being about identity because they harken back to the very first episode to me. Remember my cute Ginger Bear and that draped gown he sent down the runway? I loved it, but the judges sent it home because they felt it didn't tell them anything about who he was as a designer. When they questioned him, he didn't seem to have much of an answer about who he was yet, and said he's still trying to figure it out. Nina's statements pull us back to that moment and to the possibility of a season long arc for these contestants. Kelly found a strong identity and point of view in the later weeks and rode that to more wins than anyone else, as Heidi points out. Candice and Edmond found some amount of success and then lost their identities at the end either because the judges didn't like what they saw in their mini-collections, or because they tried to get too artsy and lost an essential part of themselves. 

But Ashley's is the story of a girl who starts out with an identity and a point of view that she maybe doesn't know she has, or at least doesn't fully know if she believes in. It's there though, and it propels her to a win in the first episode with this breathtaking look. She gets another win later on before she starts to falter and lose faith in herself in the face of some Mean Girls bullshit from the other designers. But then she rallies, finds herself again, and turns out a collection that marks a great first for Project Runway, and earns her the ultimate win. I don't think the entire season was edited in such a way that it could get at the heart of this story, or this theme of identity. Indeed, every season of Project Runway can be said to be about identity in some way or another. But I think this season featured the least talented group of designers we've seen in awhile, and therefore it lends itself to this reading more than past seasons might. These people had to go about finding themselves over the course of this competition, and acknowledging that journey and the stumbles along the way (and the stumbles at the end here) somehow makes this entire season feel a lot more purposeful and generally better than it felt in the middle of it. 

Loose Threads:

--OK I've been holding this in for a long time but I have to say it: Guys, I'm REALLY REALLY excited for PR Junior. I'll detail all the reasons why in the first comment, but yeah, I'm in!

--Kelly's tears and disappointment at the end make perfect sense as she made it to the top two and really wanted to win. She even says that she's happy for Ashley and these are mostly happy tears. But given the Mean Girls behavior from her all the way up until the last freaking episode, I'm calling bull shit. I think she was mad that Ashley, whom she has no faith in, beat her. Prior to the episode, I said I'd be happy with any win other than Kelly, then I saw her collection and changed my mind, and then I saw her reaction to losing and changed it back. Sorry, but Kelly can go fuck herself!

--Looking at Candice's pieces all laid out at the beginning of the episode as she decided what to keep, scrap, and edit, was heart braking to me. 

--Thanks to everyone for joining in for another year with Project Runaways. It's be a pleasure writing up these episodes and engaging with you guys in the comments as always. I might actually watch the reunion episode this year, which I don't generally do. But if I do, I doubt I'll write it up for the blog. Instead, if you watch it, and want to say something about it, feel free to come back to this post and leave a comment and we can get a thread started there. Other than that, I'm thinking we'll certainly be back next year for another season, so be sure to check back in, and I might even keep going and writing up PR JR when that get's started, so maybe we can spend even more time together.

Project Runway: S14 E3: "Shut Up and Sew"

There's something wonderfully organic about the drama of a team challenge on Project Runway. It's not really forced except when it feels like the producers have put certain people together for the sake of creating drama. A collection of artists with their own ideas and aesthetics are of course going to clash when asked to create something together. The truth is that compromise isn't in our nature. Everyone thinks their ideas are right. It's actually the same way I tend to think about religious people; when talking about the strife between different religions, something very basic has always been so clear to me: Of course the believers of this or that religion believe their religion to be the "right" one, if they didn't, they'd change and go with the one that was "right." That's what's at the heart of team challenges on this show; each designer, by their very nature, thinks their designs are best. The nature of a true collaboration isn't about getting them to see that their designs aren't the best, but that the two of you are more capable of coming up with something better if you work together. But until you setup the teams for any given episode, it's impossible to tell who'll be capable of doing that and who won't be.

This week, the designers are taken onto a luxurious cruise ship and told that they'll be put in pairs at which point they'll choose a suitcase. The suitcase has a destination written on it and fabric inside that will serve as the fabric they'll use. The challenge? Create a look that can easily transition from the excursion at your chosen destination back onto the ship and the typical night life found therein. For the second time this season I have to take some time and praise the show for maximizing the appeal of its runtime. This episode hit the ground running in a way that we haven't seen in years. There was no segment of the designers waking up and meeting Heidi to be told where to go meet Tim. Instead, the episode starts and the designers are already heading to the boat. Also, all of the impressed gushing over the lavish nature of the cruise ship feels earned. I don't buy for a minute that people are excited to be in a Hallmark store, but on a ship that big? Sure even I'd be awestruck. I know it's hard to sell some of the support of their sponsors, but this worked in a way very few things of this nature do. Bravo, PR, you seem to have finally learned a lesson.

I complained earlier that there didn't seem to be any big personalities on this season, and I stand by that observation, but it seems like the recipe for bringing that out of these contestants is to pair them up in some fashion. From the word "team," some of the gloves came off in confessionals. Candice (I think?) is quick to point out that she doesn't want to work with Edmond because he has immunity this week and she doesn't want to carry the brunt of the burden. Joseph says he doesn't want to work with Merline because she drives him crazy. And I was fully expecting both of them to be screwed on those points, but I was only half right. Tim pulls out the button bag and pairs people at random and Joseph and Merline end up being the last two left. To her credit, Merline seems honestly excited to be working with Joseph. Her smile during the car ride back to the workroom is unflappable as Joseph tells her point blank that her singing and dancing annoys him and she won't be allowed to do any of that when they work together.

Something else I said about the first episode of this season was that Merline was someone I found to be wonderfully authentic and the edits around her would be interesting. As we spend more time with her this week, I find myself being impressed with her authenticity as she shows how she's capable of being vulnerable. Or maybe vulnerable isn't the best word, but there's something about the way she gets upset and worries about her inability to make her and Joseph's look carry any part of her signature style, and the way she admits to being maybe too concerned with letting people down and trying hard to fit in with other people like she's still in high school. It feels honest and watching it transpire was oddly affecting. Either way, in this pair Merline comes off as the far more sympathetic party.

Once everyone gets back to the workroom, there's some small amount of manufactured drama about Blake grabbing the white fabric that Gabrielle and Amanda wanted to use, but it's short lived. There's a brief glance at all the designers working and getting along well with each other, and then the bulk of the episode is spent focusing on the three teams with the most toxic relationships. Merline and Joseph have problems whereby he seems to think his job is to teach Merline how to make the outfit he wants to make. Some portion of the problem here is that Merline isn't forceful enough to stand up for herself and speak her case. She's so concerned with hoping she doesn't let him down or that he likes her that she just allows him to make whatever he wants and then sits there demurely while he condescendingly tells her how to make it. Meanwhile, Joseph sees all the time that he "has" to spend telling her how to make his dress as a distraction from the work he could be doing if he were alone. But unless I missed something in the editing or through just not paying close enough attention, there wasn't a "need" to hold Merline's hand through it all; he chose to do that on his own accord and then got made at her for it. Joseph seems to thrive best when he's teaching someone else how to do something, and that's the dynamic he gets with Merline because he doesn't respect her and she's too passive to stand up and demand respect.

Meanwhile, Jake and Lindsey have their own set of problems. She doesn't like it when he calls her things like "sweetie" and "honey" and he doesn't like how forceful and direct she is with some of her opinions. There are, I think, two ways to read this situation. 1) Jake is a misogynistic ass who purposefully condescends to women with pet names in a manner that's meant to be placatory, and he has a problem with the fact that Lindsey has thoughts and opinions of her own. 2) There's a cultural misunderstanding between them and a fundamental difference in the way they communicate. What I mean by that is that I think, though I can't be sure, that I hear a hint of a southern accent when Jake speaks. If that's the case, then calling a woman, especially a woman younger than himself, things like sweetie is just so deeply engrained in him that he couldn't turn it off even if he tried. That's not to say that such a thing isn't accidentally condescending in and of itself, but I didn't get the impression that that was his intention, so maybe if they had just talked that out before getting to the runway, things could have been better? Either way, they don't like each other, and Jake's brilliant plan on how to get around that is to sit around doing nothing while Lindsey does all the work so he can throw her under the bus when they inevitably find themselves in the bottom.

Communication problems also extend to Han and Edmond. The interesting thing about this pairing was in how splendidly wrong they both were. Edmond wants them to communicate and wants Han to tell him all of her thoughts while she's having them right there right now. On the one hand, this is because they only really have eight hours in which to work and finish their look. On the other hand, he isn't taking into consideration the possibility that Han thinks in a different language than he does and therefore would have to formulate her thoughts and then translate them to English all in her head before she can even begin to get the words out. And even if that's not the case, different people think and process information differently; Edmond's insistence on her just blurting out what she's thinking isn't taking these things into consideration. But with all that being said, Han also has to do a better job of expressing her thoughts and concerns in a timely manner. When she complains that the dress she sketched was more in Edmond's aesthetic than in her own and she doesn't like it, he's right to point out that that's something they needed to address long before the time in which she brought it up. She's also inflexible to an extent that I found odd, and both of them are passive aggressive and a bit petty. So there's that.

Tim's visit is predictable. The teams that are getting along well need very little help, and the teams that aren't need miracles. My artists thinking that they're right theory holds true in a brief moment between Swapnil and Laurie when he points out that he wants to use one kind of fabric and she wants a different one, and Tim agrees with Laurie's choice and Swapnil looks a bit dejected. But to his credit, he listens and the outfit is made all the better for it. Tim's advice to Han and Edmond is that Han basically just needs to do what Edmond is saying and I'm left wondering what the fuck kind of advice is that? Sorry, but Tim's stock as a mentor is just plummeting with me this season.

There's one more moment of drama before the runway when Edmond decides to stop working on the skirt that's going to serve as the wrap for their bathing suit and start making a new bathing suit from scratch as he assumes the one Han made won't fit properly. Meanwhile, Han sees this, grabs her suit and their model and locks them both in a bathroom while she sews the model into the two piece without Edmond's knowledge. It's petty, deceitful, and underhanded, and hilarious. It's especially funny that Edmond complains about Han's move being those things without acknowledging that his own choice to make a second bathing suit on his own was also all of those things. It's a pot and kettle kind of moment, but I still couldn't help but to laugh.

On the runway, the lovely, funny, and talented Tracee Ellis Ross is a guest judge, and in that moment the reason why Laurie was talking about how much she loved Girlfriends and Tracee Ellis Ross earlier in the episode is made clear. For what it's worth, Ross is a thoughtful, capable, and rightfully harsh judge and I'd love for her to come back anytime!

The Runway:

Ashley and Candice Venice:

I like it way more than I expected to. I thought it would all be a bit much together, and there is a slight feeling of a lack of cohesion in the textiles, but not the looks themselves. It's something I can see someone buying specifically for vacation and I think it does serve to transition well between spaces. I think it's really pretty and well made. Welcome back to form, Ashley.

Swapnil & Laurie India:

Is there a weird fit to the pants? It looks oddly bunched up in the back. Maybe it’s just the fabric. Other than that, I like this look a lot. I like the fabric choice for the Sari drape as it’s really nicely understated. The top is really pretty. The pants are probably the weakest part of the look for me, but they work as part of the outfit. Maybe a little more time on getting the tailoring just right would make the difference. 

Lindsey & Jake Hong Kong:

I actually think it’s cute, but I don’t think the fabric photos well at all. It hurts my eyes on the runway. The cut of it is simple, but still cute, so I honestly have no complaints. If I didn’t want to see them on the runway complaining about each other, I’d say they deserved to be safe based on the look. 

Joseph & Merline St. Petersburg:

I like Joseph’s taste level, I really do, but good lord could that dress look any older, sadder, or more simple? The complaint that there’s no Merline is accurate. There’s no fun, and no youth, and I can’t imagine anyone who'd want to wear that on a cruise vacation. 

Edmond & Han The Caribbean:

The first thing I notice about this look is the way the model turns around and holds the skirt up over her ass to cover up just how exposed she is. It’s a bottom that wasn’t meant to be a thong but turned into a thong and that’s a problem. Other than that misstep, do I hate it? Maybe a bit, but not fully. It looks thrown together around all those straps in the middle, and the top looks poorly constructed, but there’s an idea there and there’s someone that I could imagine wearing it if it were actually finished. It needs a lot of work, but it's not the single worst piece of shit I've ever seen. It is, however, the worst thing on the runway thus far. 

Amanda & Gabrielle South of France:

The puckering in the back of the top is an eyesore. The pants are well made and cute, but ultimately I just found it boring. And I don’t see much of a transition to it. So I think it’s boring and it doesn’t really embody the challenge all that well. 

Blake & Kelly Greek Isles:

hm….. I want to like this, I really really do. And I find the cut of the top to be sexy without being tasteless. The only thing I don’t like is the cut of the bottom. The flowy sides look like fish fins to me, or something, and I can’t take my eyes off of them. On the one hand, it adds movement, so that’s nice, but on the other hand I find it distracting and not very flattering. Heidi smiling like that doesn’t surprise me though, this looks screams her. 

Blake & Kelly are the only safe look. Joseph & Merline and Edmond & Han are of course in the bottom. The surprise comes from Jake & Lindsey being in the top. They're joined by Swapnil & Laurie and Ashley & Candice. Gabrielle & Amanda round out the bottom. Which all just goes to show that how a team does or doesn't work together might not have much baring on where they end up. 

It's positive things all around for Ashley & Candice. Ross calls their willingness to mix textiles bold, and when they're asked who should win neither of them can pick. Heidi points out the poor fit on the pants in Swapnil & Laurie's look, but other than that the judges respond favorably to it. Ross, after being flattered by Laurie before the runway show started, admits that she doesn't mind the pants at all. So take that, Heidi! Laurie says, without hesitation, that Swapnil should win and he seems happy with that assessment. Jake & Lindsey's critique is the shit show we all could have assumed it would be. The manner in which they can't seem to leave well enough alone is just ridiculous. You made it to the top looks, take the compliment and try to sneak off with some amount of dignity. It doesn't even seem like the judges grill them much before Jake is just spilling the beans on everything that was wrong with their partnership. When it's time for the judges to talk about the outfit, they all seem a bit flustered and taken aback by just how much the designers didn't get along. They have nice things to say about the look, but it's clear they won't get giving the win to this team after all that dysfunction. 

As for the bottom looks, there's no real surprises in what the judges say. What annoys me the most is how even faced with the critique, with the judges asking who should go home, and with Joseph throwing her so firmly under the bus, Merline never really mounts a solid defense for herself. The dress is so clearly of Joseph's design and construction that there can be no doubt that it's all on him. He opens the defense by saying the person he designs for is older and everyone rips the dress for being too old. This is 100% his look, this is 100% his screw up, and yet he firmly believes that Merline should go home? He cites that having to take time away from what he needed to do caused the dress to be a s bad as it is, but at no point does Merline say that she never asked for or needed his constant tutelage and overbearing nature. Never once does she say she deserves to stay simply because she didn't really have a hand in anything that went down the runway. If they want to eliminate her for not working to help her partner, that'd be one thing, but it's information that the judges would have to have and make the call themselves. Instead she mostly just says that she shouldn't go home because she wants to stay and we're all left rolling our eyes. You've got to do better than that, baby girl. 

In the end, Ashley and Candice both get the win because the judges can't decide who to give it to. And Han goes home mostly, it seems, because Edmond has immunity. This is already the second win for Ashley who seems to have rebounded after the disaster last week, but in truth I would have given this one to Swapnil and Laurie. This makes the second week in a row that Swapnil was only barely edged out when he could have and should have won and it's starting to remind me of the times Sean stole wins from Kini last year. This also makes the second time that a contest went from a top look to a look that would have sent them home if they didn't already have immunity. So I guess we've gotta keep our eye on Candice and Ashley next week and see if the pattern holds. 

Loose Threads: 

--Joseph lost a lot of points with me in this episode. I don't know how much of it is the editing and how much of it is just him being a dick, but I was not a fan of his this week. 

--Idk how many people saw this, but there was a little moment during one of the commercial breaks where we got to spend time with Laurie while she called her daughter and gave a little more backstory on herself. It was the single cutest thing in the world. I'm always so much more invested in teary calls home with they involve children than I am when it's to partners. If you can't be without your boyfriend or girlfriend for a couple week without crying about it, then that speaks of codependency and it ain't cute. But this worked and it was a nice way to make the commercial break tolerable and to get to know a little more about one of the contestants without taking up the more important show time. Project Runway's good show management shows up again, and I'm loving it. 

--Why is everything always "about to get real" with Merline? Is she from some place where everything is just constantly fake?

--There was a significant lack of Blake in this episode and that was 100% the way to go. The less I see of him the better. 

Project Runway: S14 E1: "Mad Dash Mayhem"

Happy birthday to me! In honor of my 30th (good God it sounds horrible saying that), Project Runway has decided to start their 14th season a bit later than usual it seems. But oh well, here we are at season 14, and here we are at another year spent with the best Runaways on the planet! I hope everyone's having a great 2015, and I hope no one's too burnt out on PR and all it's (pointless) spinoffs to come and join us for another season of the program that started it all! Because if this first episode is any indication, we could be in for one of the better seasons we've seen in quiet some time! So buckle up, Runaways, and away we go.

The first thing I noticed about this season of PR is just how racially diverse the contestants seem to be. It's not that PR has had a huge problem with racial diversity in the past. Indeed, with a healthy helping of women and LGBT peoples, it's long been one of the more richly diverse shows on Reality TV. But it feels like even a bigger effort has been made this season to vary out the racial makeup of the show. Or maybe the stars just aligned and the talent that went out for this season just so happened to be more racially diverse than usual? Either way, a big thumbs up from me!

While everyone looks right on the outside, this first episode left me wondering about whether or not we have a really diverse group of characters in the mix? Early on, Lindsey seems to want to paint herself as a kind of a villain. She did the typical "Not here to make friends" thing we've all heard a million times, but her cute-blonde-hipster styling didn't make it very believable, and the outfit she ended up sending down the runway makes me think she won't be around long enough for any of it to come to fruition. Blake is likewise a bit full of himself in a stereotypical young (white) gay boy fashion, but it's also obvious that he thinks he's better than he actually is, so I don't know how much weight to give that either. Both of these contestants could end up being an example of people on a reality show trying to write their own narrative and define how the world sees them only to fail in the face of the strong editing that comes along. Merline is one of the more interesting contests to be spotlit in this episode, and she seems to be the one most poised to fall into the Reality TV trope of someone who, just by being her most authentic self, ends up looking a bit like a caricature of someone else. There's still some question about how much of her constant talking, singing, and speaking in Twitter-ese is real and not just a show for the cameras, but if we take it at face value, the shows can pretty much edit themselves around her being her and everyone being annoyed by it. Far more interesting than her loud, constantly-open mouth, is the work she sends down the runway, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The episode opens with the contestants walking around New York and heading towards Madison Square Garden. There's no "last minute plea" to be on the show like last year. The team is assembled already, there's no manufactured drama to it, just a small amount of time to get a quick primer on most on them before the challenge starts. Before I go too far, allow me to say that in a pre-birthday excitement, I totally forgot to watch the episode on Lifetime last night, and the version I found on Lifetime's site was only an hour long. So if I got a different version than the rest of you, sorry about that, and please let me know in the comments what I missed. But if this was the version that they aired last night allow me to say THANK GOD! It's almost as if they're learning and have finally figured out that 90 minutes is too long. Or at the very least they've remembered how to make a great one hour long episode, and I couldn't be more grateful!

On the way to the arena, Blake makes a statement about thinking some kind of sport takes place in The Garden, like baseball or something. And I decided definitively to hate him. Look, Sports don't have to be your thing, if you don't like watching hot and sweaty men run around playing with balls and patting each other on the ass, then fine. But as a gay man who loves sports, I tend to take umbrage with gay men who disrespect sports just because that's what they're supposed to do as gay people. In the same manner that I would hate any straight guy who didn't like fashion because it was too gay, I can't help but to hate a gay man who hates sports because it's too straight. But there, I hate him, he sucks, I hope he's gone soon, rant over.

When they arrive, they meet Heidi and Tim and are told that the seats in the arena are all draped with fabric (provided by Mood of course) and everyone has three minutes to run around, grab four textiles, and then take them back to design a dress that tells the judges who you are. It's a simple and straight forward challenge to kick things off; complete with a situation for the possibility of drama as people fight over the best fabrics. To their credit, none of the fabric offered was horribly hideous to the point where the only thing that could work would be to burn it and salt the earth. So it's basically a one day challenge where you make whatever kind of dress you want just without the millions of options Mood generally has to offer. I respect it.

Surprisingly, there isn't nearly as much fighting over fabric as I imagined there would be. People, for the most part, seem to be cordial and if someone else gets their hands on a piece they wanted first, they just let them have it and move on to the next spot. It's the first piece of evidence that this season won't be filled with big and aggressive personalities like we've seen in the past, and I for one found it a welcome breath of fresh air.

Everyone goes back to the workroom, introduces themselves to one another, is told by Tim that they have until nine that night, and gets to work. Merline's chatterboxiness annoys everyone, but other than that everyone seems to get along great. it's during these moments that we get our first tears of the season though, and I don't know if I'm getting soft in my advanced age, or if the stories just worked for me, but I didn't find the crying nearly as annoying as I usually do. Candice relays the story of having her daughter and is moved by a very fitting amount of motherly emotion over how her kid saved her life. It's not an original story, but it's something I can support 100%. They're happy tears instead of sad, and I think that goes a long way towards gaining my sympathy. Either way, she's now an early favorite of mine...damnit, I'm totally turning into a big softy. Our other cryer is Ashley, who I have to admit is also an early favorite of mine. Ashley starts out the show by pointing out her weight and drawing attention to why fashion is both important to her and why it's been hard for her. While working, she has a moment where she's a bit overwhelmed by the pressure of the moment as well as lingering feelings of not deserving to be there born of (I assume) a life time of being told or at least feeling as though she's worthless or not deserving because of her weight. I don't know if it was just the outsider in me (grew up gay and black, so that's always hard) that connected with her, or what, but I felt what she was feeling in that moment and I just wanted to wrap her up in a big hug and tell her it would all be ok, she's beautiful (because she is just totally fucking adorable!), and she's going to rock it. And rock it she does, but more on that in a minute. Her fellow contestants make those points well and inform her that she's one of 16 people here out of the world of people they could have chosen; she's more than worthy!

But all of that is just a run up to my personal favorite of the episode, Duncan. From the moment the camera cut to him while they were heading to The Garden, I was in love. And then he opened his mouth and showed off that accent, and I was even more in love. Duncan was put on this show just for me. He's ginger (my own personal favorite), bear-ish, with a killer beard and an Aussie (he's from New Zealand) accent. When I go to the Build-A-Bear, he's exactly what I'd want to walk out with. And then he starts designing what (and Tim Gunn, I might add) think is a beautiful dress, and I found myself imagining our long future together. You know, at least for the rest of the season where I'd write reviews each week gushing over how beautiful and perfect he and his designs are in the same way I did with Sean last year. In fact, given that they're both from the same region, I think Project Runway is trying to tell me I need to move to New Zealand.... But still, it was a wonderful fantasy, and I can't see how anything could possibly get in the way of it. So onwards!

Tim visits and it's about what you'd expect at this point. he has positive things to say for some of the designers, gives a great piece of advice to Ashley about her dress, and has less than positive things to say about others. His correcting Merline on how to pronounce "muslin" was a nice moment of "Jesus woman, if you butcher this word one more fucking time, I'll kill you!" but in Tim Gunn's sweet and measured and always polite way. He leaves saying he's really disappointed, but that surprised me; I didn't expect anything better or worse than what we got for the first episode. It's probably just his way of trying to push them to go a bit harder.

Edmond and Kelly are two contestants with very unflattering critiques from Tim and both of them scramble to come up with new designs in the last four hours or so until the day ends. To his credit, Edmond at least just tries to edit his existing look. Kelly goes for the "Scrap it and start all over" technique we've seen work a million times before. Or, wait, no, not work, I meant to say fail miserably. I always get those two confused. More power to her since we all know how horribly embarrassing it is to go home first, right? I mean whoever goes home first must just be the biggest loser of all losers. I'd never want to be in that position...... So yeah, Runway, it's a long runway, so I'll try to be brief where possible!

The Runway:

Blake: One the runway, before the camera pulls in for a close up, I don't hate it. The color pops, the dress moves well, it looks vibrant and exciting. Then the camera pulls in and I hate it as much as I did in the workroom. It's overwrought, over designed, and contains just everything it possibly can. Less is more, kid. Though it maybe plunges a little too deep, I honestly don't mind the plunging neckline.

Amanda: Cute. Good, but not great by any means.

Laurie: I honestly loved this. The color was simple, but the dress was still elegant in a lot of ways, but damn was the split high. I don't think it's a big detractor from the rest of the dress, but anyone feeling a bit put off by it wouldn't surprise me.

Hanmiao: No! Just No! A million times No!

Swapnil: I love this look! I think there's a simplicity to the design, or maybe just the construction, of the skirt that either pairs perfectly with or totally detracts from the well crafted and beautifully designed top. I personally liked the two, but I think both ways of looking at it could work.

Duncan: YES! I love him! I mean I love his dress. I'm a sucker for beautiful draping. I love how elegant but effortless it looks. I don't like the color on his model, but I don't think he chose to have a ginger model (though it's fitting, gingers of the world unite and make more gingers, damnit!). That color on a black woman's skin would be perfect though. I do think maybe a bit more skin in the back would be a way to go, but I love this dress!

Edmond: I like this a lot. Though I'm not sure if I like it on its own merits, or because I know he had to scramble to get it to do what he wanted. So maybe I like the work he put into it more than I like the dress itself, but I like it nonetheless.

Merline: This is one where I know I like it because of how much work and how quickly she got it together. To think that by Tim's visit she didn't have a skirt at all, and then she put this down the runway? I love that! The outfit itself is nice, not great or perfect, but certainly strong and unique in a way I like and want to see more of.

Lindsey: No!

David: NO!

Joseph: Cute. Safe. But not great by any means.

Kelly: Remember she scraped her first look and went with a whole new dress in the time after Tim left? Well this is the dress, and holy shit is it great!!! I love a designer who maybe just needs a little push or a fire lit under her ass to get it in gear and then can turn out something of this caliber. I love it a lot!

Jake: Ok, I guess? Mostly boring.

Gabrielle: I think the design is good, but construction and execution are lacking. She's harder on it than I am, mostly because I love the back! But I think if she'd taken her time and cleaned up some of the lines and seams it would have been a lot better.

Candice: YES!

Ashley: WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?!?! This girl thought she didn't deserve to be here? Are you fucking kidding me! This is breathtaking! The top is bold and young and sexy, the skirt is just to die for. I can see who she is and I can see a lot of people who would love to wear that outfit. Yes, more of this please, and thank you!

So ours tops for the evening are Edmond, Merline, and Ashley (of course), and our bottoms are Blake, Han, and Duncan....wait, what? Yup, my ginger love bear is an endangered species. And I'm shocked. The judges remark on looks. They seem to be fairly split on Edmond's look with some of them liking it and some liking it just a bit less. Guest judge Hanna Who-Ever-The-Fuck doesn't like the pop of neon green from the train, which happens to be my favorite part of the dress and the only element that probably puts him in the top instead of the bottom for creating a boring black dress. They ask Han who she thinks would wear her outfit and whe she says someone young and in her 20s, they all look like she just declared World War Three. And rightfully so, I don't know a single person in their 20s who's want to wear that. When they do finally get to Duncan, they commend his draping, but also deride the dress for being simple, directionless, and seriously unsexy. I think Heidi makes the point that an open back would have meant the difference between being safe and being in the bottom, and I can't disagree with that, but still. I think Zac complained about the color, but fuck him what does he know? All around they mention that they can't get a clear idea of who he is as a designer from this dress, and he admits that being fresh out of design school, he's not even sure himself. Immediately, my fantasy about the two of us features us going on a journey as I allow him to get in touch with who he really is deep down inside. It's a journey of love and self discovery, the voice over guy from every movie trailer would say; the feel good movie of the year, obviously. But I digress.

As soon as the designers make it to the greenroom, everyone is shocked to find out that Duncan is in the bottom and rush to assure him that he's not really going home. Their surprise I share, their assurances that his time isn't over yet I'm more dubious on. Because here's the thing, I love Duncan's dress, I really do, but even I have to admit that you get a clearer picture of who Han and Blake are from their shitty looks than you do about who Duncan is from his beautiful look. On the one hand, this show is about finding the best new designer, but on the other hand this challenge specifically is about making your mark and telling the judges who you are. Did Duncan do that? In a way, he did; he told them he's not sure, but he's capable of producing strong work while he finds out. In the end, Nina points out that too many ideas (as is the case with Blake) are better than no ideas (as she thinks is the case with Duncan), and Zac and Heidi point out that Duncan's work still feels like school work and Project Runway isn't school time. So Duncan's out and Ashely racks up her first win. I don't agree with the decision in the scheme of the entire season, but I don't disagree with it in the scheme of just this one episode. My heart breaks that we won't get to see his handsome bearded face and hear that sexy voice for the rest of the season, but it also soars over a strong victory for Ashley. I love her, I loved her look this week, and I can't wait to see what's left to come. All in all, my broken heart aside, this was a really strong episode of a new season of a show I think we all were kind of counting out for awhile there. Maybe we should start out season 14 with a big bold statement that Project Runway is back, baby!

Loose Threads:

--Welcome back to Project Runaways, again. I haven't heard anything from Julius (if you read this, fearless leader, chime in a let me know how you want to tackle this season), so until further notice, I think I might cap each episode? I feel like I've taken over the blog, and that's not fair because Julius is great and this was all his brilliant idea. But we also do need a space to talk about this show each season. Along those lines, someone should probably pimp us out to AV Club in case anyone looking to watch this season wants a place to chat it up....

--Over on my own personal blog, this summer I'm also reviewing So You Think You Can Dance each week. So feel free to check that out if you like. But more importantly, on that show I've talked a lot about what makes a good reality show good, and long lasting. This is because I think SYTYCD is on it's way out in the midst of its 10th, and weakest, season. Meanwhile, PR is in its 14th season and seem to be resurging. How long do we think we've got with this show? Is it the sort of thing that could just be on the air until Tim and Heidi get bored with doing it?

--Anyone else think Merline's statements to Swapnil were kind of racist? Or am I being overly sensative? Either way, shut it down, Merline, shut it down.

--Duncan being ousted also means we lose someone with a background in Menswear. Which is always bothersome to me because I always think the show could use more Menswear challenges and I like to see how designers with the background tend to work in women's clothes. But that's just one more thing that I'll have to miss with him gone.

--Personally, I'm hoping that Ashley sticks around long enough to be here for a "Regular women" challenge and I hope she calls this show and it's past contestants out for their inabilities to work on normal (read plus) sized women. Carry the torch, girl!

--Who are you guy's early favorites? Also I never quiet got around to making nicknames for everyone, so I figured I'd let you guys do that. I was going to go with Ginger Bear for Duncan if he'd stuck around, and I think I'm sticking with Han for Hanmiao, but that's all I got.