I watched last year's season of Project Runway and hardly imparted any thoughts on the blog--a big mistake, I learned from Elisa Camahort, whose musings seemed to elicit a lot of response on her blog. I get all uppity after every episode of that show--why waste it? I've already let the first few episodes of this season pass with ary a snicker on the blog. This will change today.
Reviewer's Caveat: In order for my analysis of this passing week's episode to be taken truly in context, I think it's important to remember that we--the audience--are being manipulated by the editors. We don't see all of the snide comments or underhanded bitchiness, or we see too much of it. For example, during the second to last episode of Top Chef, when Dave was kicked off the show. why did he hug his nemesis, Tiffany? Could we have missed a warm moment or two? Did the editors focus too much on Dave's obsessive hatred toward his fiery, self-taught competitor? We don't know. But we must keep this in mind before we rant about the "facts" presented on these programs. That said, let the ranting begin.
The Tension of the Week was between two diametrically different designers: Vincent, a bespectacled, 49-year-old former design professional, re-entering the field after years of, well, being medicated, perhaps. He's established himself from the get-go as weird and self-important (his insistence on destroying a perfectly decent outfit by wearing a bowl on her head in the first challenge shows a kind of courageous tastelessness that beats being boring, but won't earn him a spot in the top eight).
Then there's Angela. Attractive, able to blend well with others in the group, and with some major flaws: 1) she comes from Ohio, where wearing poufy skirts is apparently all you need to look chic, and 2) she's surprisingly, annoyingly enterprising. After getting the challenge--design an evening gown for Miss USA--She tried to partner with a Prom-ier designer, immediately ensuring that she would be picked last to partner with someone.
Needless to say Angela and Vincent didn't get along. The bickering began from the beginning of the challenge, when they went to pick out materials. Angela didn't like the design, claiming she'd "done something like that in college." Oooooh. Them's fighting words, on par with Santino's claim last season that Chloe (who ended up beating him) was just a "pattern maker."
At this point, I'm thinking Angela should just shut up. The challenge was also about teamwork, and teamwork often means that when you find yourself in a situation, chosen or not, you back the others on your team and help them achieve the vision. Angela's attempt at CYA from the get-go hinted to me that she was a lesser designer, shooting down work before it was even realized so that she could avoid blame.
But as the challenge evolved I started to feel differently. Vincent became irrational, telling Angela to "stay three feet away from the dress because her energy wasn't good." He didnt let her work on the dress, sign of a moody, oversensitive designer--the kind who flames out in disappointment because nobody "gets" him. Hey, are we starting to see a pattern here?
Toward the end of the challenge, Angela seemed to buck up and move forward, but Vincent was still bitter and blasted her in front of the judges. Her response to Vincent's personal attacks, "I'm shocked." I thought that under the circumstances, she chose the high road.
At this point I have no idea who will be voted off the show. The dress, despite some Star-Trekky shoulder extensions, actually looks decent, like someone who knew how to make beautiful clothes designed it, but it was admittedly uninspired.
Still Miss USA sees some redeeming qualities in it, and now I'm starting to question her taste. She'd asked for a monochromatic dress that would "lengthen her out," and the one she ended up choosing made her look like a coral-colored mermaid.
Fortunately for both Vincent and Angela, Malan created a brown disaster that bunched up like a bad halter top you think might look bustier when you spot it in the Jr. section of Macy's but that ends up distorting the little you have. (Something that "lengthens" does not necessarily mean something that's tight.)
Vincent was allowed to leave the runway without comment, Angela was scolded for having poor teamwork skills, and Malan was sent packing. His breakdown over feeling like he was never accepted was as awkward as his bunched-up dress. He does score for consistency.
I was left feeling icky this week. Sure, they couldn't keep Malan in the competition just because he was a nice guy. But both Vincent and Angela played in the mud, and only one of them was called on it.
Of course, the audience voted Angela as being more wrong than Vincent, so maybe I'm missing something. Maybe there is something more appealing about attacking people in public than slowly whittling away their confidence by being condescending yet likable. Clearly, when it comes to fashion, the outspoken win.
Weird!!! I just watched this last night out of my Tivo "suggestions" folder, and because I'm drawn to forms of design I don't understand, I actually watched it and enjoyed it. I liked it when Vera Wang muttered "horrible" like a war veteran, flashbacks of messy spats still fresh in her mind.
I'm wondering how much editing was done to make Angela look so awful as a person. I might be missing some past context about Vincent being one of those behind-the-back types, though I could see oozing off him. I could identify though with the feeling of working with someone who on the surface thinks they know better than you, puts the lip service into meeting the technical requirements of "being in the team", but just sends out waves and waves of doubts. PASSIVE COMPETENCE is just as bad as PASSIVE AGGRESSION. So I thought when Vincent described the experience as being the worse time of his life (maybe a little dramatic), at least he was describing how he felt. It wasn't a "Angela is a terrible designer because X Y Z", but "Angela made me feel bad". I don't think Angela so much took the high road when she said she was shocked. She just couldn't see the effect of her own destructive behavior on other people.
I used to be EXACTLY the same way.
Posted by: Dave | July 28, 2006 at 09:42 AM