Some belated sad thoughts about Project Runway, Season 8 . . . and more and better thoughts about Ossie Clark

I spent most of October drafting complaining posts about Project Runway, then spending so much time collecting my thoughts and pictures to illustrate my annoyance with said program, its contestants and judges, that the next week's episode was upon us and something else about the show annoyed me. Needless to say, all that pent up annoyance just overflowed when the pretentious Ms. Gretchen Jones was picked as the winner over Mr. Joyous-in-the-Face of Adversity, Mondo Guerra. Since then I spent more time than I care to admit reading the hundreds of comments at Tom & Lorenzo, sulking, and, obviously, not blogging.

All was not bad, however, because as a reaction to the Project Runway looks, which seemed to be very 70's influenced, I started looking again at 70's fashion, and remembering . . . oh yeah, the 70's, that blissfully ignorant time before AIDS awareness and the herpes epidemic, when people believed that cocaine wasn't addictive, suburbanites were swinging, groupies became superstars, the beautiful people were doing screwing in the dark corners of Studio 54, and Fire Island was one big orgy, was a damn sexy time. In case anyone didn't get the idea, the designers made clothes that were transparent, cut down to there and held on by a couple of strings, not to mention teeny-tiny hot pants that in no way resembled Granny's panties. But most of the faux retro clothes on Project Runway were not sexy at all, with the exception of Michael Costello's occasional foray into Halston territory.

To backtrack, my trip down nostalgia lane really started with the Hewlett Packard product placement design-your-own-print gimmick episode. In those episodes (a total of two, so far) technology and the creative opportunities are talked up, and the designers faked excitement over their chance to, well, design. Then most of them made garments that used the smallest amount possible of their mostly dreary grey and black prints, leaving me to wonder whether the contestants' print and color phobias arose because they are all colorblind, or because they're so self-absorbed that they've never looked at any clothing except the stuff they design themselves. For a print fetishist like me, watching those dreary messes come down the runway was torture.

All that made me think of Great Prints I Have Known, which made me think of Celia Birtwell, fabric designing star of the late 60's and 70's, which made me think of her husband, Ossie Clark, Designer to Rock Star Girlfriends. Thinking of Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark is always a Good Thing.


Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney, Tate Collection

Looking at vintage Ossie Clark clothing is an even better thing, for example:



Ossie Clark Print Blouse, Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art



Ossie Clark Print Dresses featured at The Hoard Gazette

Look!  Prints and fabulosity!!!  Enduring fabulosity, in fact, given that vintage Ossie is always in high demand and very expensive. [To gaze on more fabulosity, print or otherwise, see the sold gallery at C20 Vintage Fashion.  To buy vintage Ossie, try Shrimpton Couture, Posh Vintage, or Vintage-a-Peel.   Alas, vintage Ossie seems to come only in size 0 – 4, being made in the days before breast implants and waistline inflation became endemic.  *Le Sigh*

But back to Project Runway, briefly. Gretchen did patterns for the finale, possibly to challenge Mondo on his own turf, but . . . brown? For Spring? I don't dislike brown clothing as much as I dislike, say, brown comforter covers (I own, for example, two lush and lovely brown mink coats – oh, get over it, they're both vintage; those nasty cat-killing, chicken-eating rodents would have died of old age long before now), and yeah, yeah, I know that there are no rules about color any more, but geez, when Mother Nature is throwing color around, don't you think designers should too?

Goes to show what I know: when I first saw Mondo's collection, way back in September, I saw his bubble dress and thought: "That's it, that's the winning look."  Heh.

Unlike everyone else in the world, I actually liked Andy's headpieces, in fact, I liked them better than I liked his clothes.

To sum up: Everything y'all thought and said about Gretchen's win is correct. I mostly said and I continue to say, "What the hell were they thinking?"

I am enjoying The Fashion Show on Bravo -- it's way better than last year.

Clothes on T.V.

Yes, Project Runway is back, in spades and in bulk: specials and the show and a spinoff and all sorts of extras online. It's no wonder Lifetime is working the show like crazy, considering that the channel's other programing consists entirely of reruns of Reba, Will & Grace, and, no kidding, Cybill. All it needed was reruns of The Golden Girls and Lifetime could have changed its name to the Nursing Home Channel. At least with PR and its spinoff, Models of the Runway, viewers in the über-desirable 24-54 demographic -- and I -- will tune in to Lifetime for at least an hour and a half every week.

Anyway, the show looks good, the contestants are interesting, and Tim Gunn is still a style god. I enjoyed the first show even though the garments the designers produced were pretty boring, and I was floored when Lindsay Lohan was trotted out as the guest judge. Lindsay Lohan, she of the tights and lateral boobage, a fashion expert! Can't say that wasn't entertainment, though.

Been there, done that.

I'm sure the show will get better as the season progresses, too. The first few episodes of all these reality shows have too many unknown people throwing too much unfamiliar -- or too familiar -- stuff at the screen to really engage me. And I insist upon being engaged. Make it work, people!

I really enjoyed the first episode of The Rachel Zoe Project, Season 2(hereinafter TRZP2) because it featured lots of dresses, and some of them really, really great dresses. Rachel was dressing five stars for the Golden Globes, and our girl did good:

Demi Moore in Armani Privé

Debra Messing in Vera Wang

Eva Mendes in Dior

Cameron Diaz in Chanel Couture


Anne Hathaway in Armani Privé

The big drama was over the pink Chanel Couture dress worn by Cameron Diaz. Rachel not only wanted it shipped to L.A. from Paris, she wanted it altered to remove the cap sleeve on the runway look. But lo! The dress arrived on time for Cameron to wear, and, apparently, roll around in the limo until that beautiful garment was crumpled like a plastic bag. I preferred it on the hanger.

I confess I don't understand why so many beautiful women in Hollywood (and I have to admit that they're all beautiful, even the ones I don't like *cough* Lindsay *cough*)) have such hard dressing themselves, but, alas, they do. Are there no full-length mirrors in Celebrity Land? Whatever, stylists need jobs too.

Oh, this is fun. Pictures of "Rachel Zoe Through the Years." Heavy on the vintage, unfortunately uncredited. I think looks 5 and 16 are vintage Halston, look 24 is vintage Stephen Burrows, and looks 14 and 25 are vintage Pucci. Any other guesses?

More Clothes on TV

A beautiful dress for a beautiful body.

Normal women need not apply.

Lazaro Spring 2008

The new seasons of Project Runway and Say Yes to the Dress are well underway, to my clothes and comedy delight. I'm not going to write at length about Project Runway, because no blog does that better than Project Rungay, but I will say the this season the producers put together the right combination of ego, incompetence and neuroses to yield some damn entertaining TV (although I could have done without the product plug for the Oppression Olympics). My previous desire for a season that concentrated only on the clothes, clothes, clothes has completely evaporated. Tight-lipped super-competent contestants who whip up ballgowns in 15 minutes do not TV excitement make.

As usual, I'm rooting for the token Old Broad, Stella, not only because she's carrying the flag for maturity among virtual infants, but because she's so in-your-face herself. Go STELLA!!!!

There's a new "oh honey, no" dress, or at least silhouette, on SYttD; it's the trumpet or mermaid dress, i.e. a garment that's skin tight from the bust to mid-thigh then flares into an enormous pouf, the mermaid being less extreme than the trumpet. This is a style that really can only be worn by winners of the genetic jackpot, like Charlize Theron and the chick in the Taittinger champagne ad, although looking at the pictures again I see even they avoid being cut off mid-thigh. Several of the SSttD featured brides this season, who specifically asked for mermaid dresses, are, alas, not so physically gifted.

In the first or second episode this season the viewers were introduced to Randy, Kleinfeld's fashion director, a man of taste who, evidently, is not being paid on commission. He arrives at a consultation where a very short, round future bride is happily modeling a trumpet dress which she declared to be the one. Foolishly, Randy tried to talk her into something more sensible, saying, most tactfully, that the trumpet wasn't the best silhouette for someone so "petite." Meanwhile the consultant was in the background grumbling because the Fashion Director's taste was getting between her and a sure sale: it didn't matter if her if the bride went down the aisle looking like an exploding bratwurst. In the end, Randy was elbowed out of the way and the bride bought the trumpet dress.

And what did we learn from this? 1. A saleswoman working on commission is not your friend, and 2. when buying clothing, always, always, listen to the nice gay man!

If PR and SYttD aren'te enough of a TV fashon fix, Bravo is bringing us The Rachel Zoe Project, a so-called reality show featuring the notorious Hollywood stylist. The half-hour preview episode showed scenes of Rachel crying as someone was removing her make-up, and Rachel waving a vintage sequin-spangled tulle dress around, and I was hooked. The RZP premiers on Bravo Monday, September 8, at 11:00 P.M. I can't wait.

P.S., the chick in the Taittinger ad is supposed to be Grace Kelly. I don't see it, but I like the champagne!