Top Ten Project Runway Bryant Park Looks: 7, 6, 5

Number 7: Daniel Vosovic



When we were coming up with this list, Tom brought this look up. Lorenzo said, "Really?" Top Ten?" Tom brought up the pictures to prove his point and as soon as Lorenzo looked at them, he said, "Oh God, that's gorgeous. Definitely Top Ten." We're happy to put this look here because we suspect a lot of people may have forgotten just how beautiful it was. Perfect in its simplicity, it still has a bit of interest and innovation in that collar.

Number 6: Jeffrey Sebelia



There was no question this one was going to make the list. We'll be blunt, this look, like everything in Jeffrey's collection was not to our taste, to say the least. Nonetheless, we can't deny that it's a high-impact dress and one that virtually all fans of the show have in their permanent memory files. You just can't forget this dress.

Number 5: Christian Siriano



The only problem with Christian and this list was deciding WHICH look was going to make it. He had so many memorable, high-impact looks that we could have chosen any one of them. Still, we chose this one, partially because it was probably the least derivative of any of his looks, but also because it happens to be our personal favorite.


[Photos: Getty Images/firstVIEW]

Top Ten PR Looks of All Time: Number One

Drumroll please...



Number 1




Season 1: Episode 3 - "Commercial Appeal"
Designed by Jay McCarroll
Model: Julia Beynon

You all had this one figured out anyway. Besides, we've said in the past, many many times, that this was the number one look of all time. And it came in the third episode! Several have come close but no one has ever beaten Jay's Banana Republic dress.

The details are what make this dress - the pin tucking, the buttons in the back, the buckles on the straps, and of course, the Chrysler Building-inspired chevrons in the bodice. This was the dress that not only got the judges to sit up and notice Jay and got Jay to realize he was in it to win it, it was also the dress that got that relatively small group of people watching the show at the time to realize "Hey, this show is pretty special." We don't think we're overstating it when we say that this was the dress that launched Project Runway.

Honorable Mentions:

There was only one criterion for the Top Ten list: we both had to be in full agreement. The following looks were instances where one of us couldn't get the other to agree that it was Top Ten material. Don't get us wrong, though; we're in full agreement that these were among the best looks of all time for the show, we just couldn't agree to place them in the Top Ten.


First row: Daniel Vosovic, Andrae Gonzalo, Austin Scarlett
Second row: Jeffrey Sebelia, Rami Kashou, Nick Verreos


[Photos: Barbara Nitke/Bravotv.com - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]

Peanut Provocateur

Sorry, Jeffreyphiles. We hated this one.

Y'know, it really says something about Jeffrey that when he thinks "Romantic, provocative," he thinks of the St. Pauli Girl.

It's to his credit that he consistently makes the attempt to work outside his expectations. That can't be said of any of the other designers this season. The problem is, he doesn't do well outside of his comfort zone, which forces the question, Is he to be commended for shaking things up or condemned for not realizing his limitations?

The jet-setter outfit? The couture dress? They worked because Jeffrey took those challenges and molded his style and strengths to them. Simply declaring "I'm going to shake things up" isn't enough of a design statement. In fact, it's not a statement at all; it's a reaction.

He's got a very strong aesthetic and when he's working within the boundaries of that aesthetic, he's capable of producing some really interesting stuff. Thing is, Jeffrey doing "romantic" is about as good a fit as Laura doing "hip-hop" or Uli doing business wear.

And, well...this is a bit nasty, but Jeffrey always seems to make expensive fabrics look cheap.

"I made a dress like this once before and people almost cried when they saw it."

Well, we can certainly understand that.

As with so much of Jeffrey's stuff, this just looks rough and unfinished. Yes, it could be said that this is his style, but another question that has to be asked at this point is, can he just not sew?

Uli made a dress in less than a day, Laura made an incredibly intricate, hand-beaded dress in two days. This was a relatively simple dress, so there's just no excuse for pulling a Libretti and whipping out the glue gun.

Awwww. They are totally going to be voted cutest couple by the Prom Committee. They're like those old "Love is..." tchotchkes. "Love is...wearing a poorly fitted skirt with bugs on it."

Bad Mommy vs. The Angry Little Peanut.

Ruh-roh.

"But when they returned for their group show at Bryant Park, fellow contestant Laura Bennett accused Sebelia of cheating."

Don't you love it when fashion bitches get all, y'know...bitchy?

Pippi Whorestocking

It's a little disturbing that so many designers last week interpreted "cocktail dress" as "streetwalker uniform."

As always with Jeffrey's designs, we WANT to like them, else we fear being seen as old farts, but there's "rock and roll" and then there's "cheap slut," and unfortunately, this design is far too much of the latter without enough of the former.

Aww, they look cute together, don't they? Like something out of a Tim Burton movie. "Corpse Hooker."

Gwen Stefani can wear some pretty out-there stuff some times, but as far as we can remember, she never wore anything from the Bebe Spring 1989 catalogue. We have no idea where Duchess Kors was getting the Stefani vibe.

That runway's starting to look a little like a convention down by the airport. Vincent's all "My girl has class. Your girl looks slutty. Oh god, I can't stop staring at her tootie. It's blowing my doors off."

Jeffrey's collection

More pictures here and here.

We could hear you all screaming last night.

We admit it. It took us a while to come to terms with this one. We seriously did not understand why the judges were falling all over this dress.

It wasn't until we got up this morning and looked at it again that we sort of got what the judges were saying. We really loved the fabric choices and the deconstructive aspects, although we have to say it looks like he tied the thing together rather than sew it. When we saw the previews, we were expecting something Vivienne Westwood-esque, but it's more along the lines of a salute to the films of Mel Gibson: Mad Max meets Braveheart.

If Jeffrey were to win the whole competition, he should just hand over the Saturn Sky Roadster to Marilinda because she worked the shit out of that thing last night. In fact, she provided a perfect illustration of the importance of a good model. It looks like an entirely different dress on her than it did on the model in Paris. Those moody French bitches just don't know how to work it.

Poodle, that is entirely too much la tootie. And what the hell are you wearing on your feet?

Peanut Prevails in Paris!

Believe it or not, we're happy for him.

Similar to the situation with the Kayne/Miss USA challenge, this was an instance where the challenge was so matched to the sensibilities and strengths of a particular designer that if he couldn't win it, he should just pack his bags and go home. This outfit was definitely jet-setter, paparazzi-friendly and totally Jeffrey. Perfect.

You can take the sock out now.

Save the drama for your Mama.

Ugh. This was the hardest post to write.

Good Lord, you can practically diagram the tension
and denial in this picture.

See, we're all for bringing the bitchery to the designers because, hey, they chose to do this and if you want the exposure, then you have to put up with people's opinions about your behavior. But getting nasty with someone's mom? That's tough, even for us. You have to be a real asshole to do such a thing.

Well, meet the asshole:

Now, we realize that the producers edit the hell out of this thing in order to form a "story," but no matter how open-minded we try to be, there's just no way the Angry Little Peanut doesn't come off as a major jerk in this one.

To be fair, Angela's mom was whiny and more than a little passive-agressive about the whole thing. She would have driven us right up the wall too.

Has anyone outside of a drag queen or silent movie actress
ever made this gesture to indicate they were upset?

Of course, we wouldn't have resorted to calling her a "crazy bitch" about it, but then again, our mamas raised us right. Which brings us to the next chapter in this little melodrama.

Don't touch me, bitch. Your son's an asshole.

Jeffrey's mom seems like a very sweet woman, but we can't help thinking she's spent the last 30 years having conversations exactly like the one above. Both of our mothers, had they witnessed us behaving like Jeffrey did, would have spent their time leaving bright red handprints on our faces rather than trying to make excuses for us.

Then there was Angela.

Yeah, yeah, Jeffrey's an ass, but that hat ain't exactly
helping your case, Spanky.

We were feeling pretty bad for Jubilee Jumbles. She seemed genuinely upset - and who wouldn't be? But then she had to go and do this:

We don't care if that's your mother. A designer coaching another designer's model on what to say to the judges strikes us as blatantly unethical and she should have been called on that.

Then there was the dress:

That asshole tried to put a snake down my dress!

That is some serious fug. We said that Robert's auf'ing was deserved, but really, Jeffrey was the clear loser here. He not only designed something outrageously ugly and unflattering, but he also ignored his client's wishes and treated her like shit the entire time. And don't tell us the judges didn't know about all the drama. Why else would they question Angela, Jeffrey and Laura (whose client was Jeffrey's mother) separately from the other designers? Why did they ask Angela for her opinion on how her mother looked when they didn't ask anyone else that question? Clearly, the producers were doing everything they could to ramp up the drama and like we said, that's fine when you do that to the contestants, but dragging their mothers into it was just a shitty thing to do.

Jeffrey: Angry Little Peanut.

Here's the thing about Jeffrey:

We don't like him all that much.

Not in the "love to hate him" manner that is the stock in trade of all reality shows, but more in the manner of "you're boring and one-note and full of yourself" that is the stock in trade of, well...reality. Say what you will about Santino or Wendy Pepper, but they were endlessly entertaining in the ways that their insecurities and paranoia played themselves out, both in their work and in their interactions with the other designers. Jeffrey, on the other hand, is that guy you went to high school with who got beat up a lot because he was still under 5 feet by Junior year, so he went all "hardcore," which meant of course, that he went around constantly describing himself as "hardcore" even though he never really explained what it meant and we were all left to assume that it had a lot do with wearing chains and spikes and a lot of black and angrily writing on your jeans with a Bic pen.

Dude, don't you get tired of bragging to the cameraman that you're the obvious winner - and then you don't win? Every week! You'd think by week 4, you'd be a little more "I think my stuff's good, but I don't know about these judges..." instead of "OH YEAH! IN! THE! BAG!!!"

We'll say this: most of his garments are interesting and do indeed demonstrate his self-proclaimed "mad skillZ." We just think that, aesthetically speaking, his designs are limited in scope and worse than that, somewhat ... we want to say "puerile" but that's not it; not quite.

It's just that "angry teenager" is a really limiting aesthetic, bordering on silly when it's coming from a 36-year-old man.

Anyway, the dress:

It IS beautiful, and we do love it, but we're not as convinced as so many others (Jeffrey foremost) that he should have won for it. Yes, you could move in the dress - and every time you did, you left behind a permanent crinkle. Look at the gathering in the waist in the top pic. Looks pretty messy to us. There's nothing wrong with making a conceptual piece, most of the designers did just that, but both Jeffrey and the judges talked this dress up like it was off-the-rack wearable and it was anything but.

Then there's the belt. We like the idea of a trompe l'oeil belt, just not this trompe l'oeil belt. It's too crude and messy-looking. It's, if we can be excused for using a very over-used word, "costumey." In fact, we think it could have been a stunning dress had he not painted it at all.

To be fair, we do sympathize with him that his work gets little consideration from the judges week in and week out. It's not to our tastes - or apparently theirs - but it's usually well executed and makes the attempt to be interesting. We're not his biggest fans, but we would like to see him win one. We even wouldn't mind seeing him in the final 4.

Now sit up straight and stop pouting, cranky hobbit.

Quackass.

What else is there to say, really?

Oh yeah, your dress sucked.

Jeffrey

We think these two pictures just about sum it up, don't you?

[Screencaps: Project RunGay]