Don’t get me wrong – like any member of the fashion industry, I love black and own a great deal of it. But when I think of Project Runway favorite Christian Siriano, somber darkness isn’t necessarily what comes to mind or what I expected to see in his Fall 2011 collection. But more than anything, black is what I found.

Siriano’s signature ruffles and frills were still there, but in a somewhat more somber aesthetic mixed with some sharp tailoring and and a few splashes of mauve and olive toward the middle and end of the presentation. The drama and overabundance of some of Siriano’s previous collections had been noticeably tempered, perhaps with more of an eye toward retail sales. Several gorgeously detailed pieces remained, though, and I’m sure they’d be a marvel up close. Even when cloaked in black, Siriano doesn’t lose his eye for exquisite details.

Photos via the New York Times.

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week New York: Christian Siriano Fall 2011 is a post from: Cheap Online Shopping

Despite being promised the glamour and clothes porn that goes along with the Met Ball, all we got were a few Marc Jacobs dresses and 40 minutes of baby chatter and relationship issues. Even Anne Hathaway and her perfect hair couldn’t save this episode for me, although she made a herculean effort to do just that.

The first task of the last episode was a Bardot-themed shoot for Love magazine (which is great, if you’ve never read it), and of course things had to happen immediately – no time for planning, eating or breathing. Brad says that Rachel has a hard time saying no to jobs, but I’m not sure that’s a job to which I’d want to say no, if I were her. Styling a shoot for an avant-garde fashion glossy has to be a lot more fun than picking yet another unoffensive red carpet dress.

Brigitte Bardot is a wonderful, if perhaps overused, muse, but her style inspiration provides a convenient excuse to pull beautiful clothes and give a model giant blonde hair. Despite the presence of wonderful gold minidresses and ridiculous fur jackets, everyone was kind of pissy for the entire afternoon. Brad posited the idea of calling a car service to take him home, and he and Jordan both more or less ignored Rachel while she ordered them to and fro with very little organization. Brad mentioned that he might be turning into Taylor, which was surprisingly accurate – I guess we all know where Taylor’s nasty attitude came from, and I guess it’s not just The Rodge who is affected by Rachel’s frazzled, scattered, obsessive approach to the workday.

In the next scene, Rachel and Rodger were suddenly in New York for the Met Ball, and The Rodge was clearly not amused by, uh, anything that they were doing. Rachel was attending the ball with Marc Jacobs, so I’m honestly not sure whey Rodger even bothered coming along for the trip. He complained about having to hear about The Met and the people Rachel needed to dress, and he also didn’t understand why they had to talk about fashion the entire time. He did realize he was on a business trip, right?

I’m not entirely unsympathetic to Rodger’s plight – Rachel does seem to prioritize everything else in her life over him – but why he would go on a business trip and then complain about all the business going on is sort of baffling to me, and it seemed to confuse Rachel as well. Because Rodger wouldn’t list her anymore, she went down the hall to crawl into bed with Brad (who was still sleeping) and bother him with their daily schedule. She did bring a very large cup of coffee, however, so I think that’s forgivable.

Rachel’s first project of the day was a Piperlime shoot with a styling contest winner, who seemed incredibly excited and also incredibly over-accessorized. Brad didn’t seem nearly as excited, mostly because being happy isn’t part of his storyline for this episode. Meanwhile, Joey the Hair Gay was having lunch with Rachel’s sister in another part of town, and they discussed the progress of the Rachel Baby Mission. Both of them seemed to take the fact that Rachel doesn’t have a kid as a personal affront to decency and morality, and although I’ve been watching this show for two solid months, I still can’t figure out why. Other than Rodger, who cares if she doesn’t have a kid?

Thankfully we were soon distracted by the charming and lovely Anne Hathaway, whose hair is perfect, as is everything else about her. Also, she’s actually good friends with Brad, in addition to being a client, which just makes me all the more jealous of her. If she didn’t seem so awesome, I would absolutely despise her from the pure ache of envy that she gives me deep within my being.

Sadly, the detour of wonderfulness was short-lived and Rachel’s meddling sister came back to cry and needle Rachel about babies. Well technically, she needed Rachel about being too “busy,” but that’s just code for NEED BABIES NAO KTHX. Rachel admitted that she knows people want her to slow down and enjoy life, but no one can do that for her – either she wants to do that or she doesn’t, and Rodger’s insults about her lack of cleavage probably aren’t going to make her want to spend more time with him.

Rachel’s experience being fitted for her dress for the Met Ball wasn’t much more pleasant – she had to pick one of Jacobs’ dresses to wear to the event, which was a bit of a problem since she doesn’t generally wear ball gowns, she just picks them out. Also, Marc Jacobs isn’t a traditional red carpet designer, so the dresses themselves were a bit…challenging. She settled on a deep-v mustard velvet gown that probably exposed more ribs than was wise, but it definitely fit her better than the patterned dress she tried before it. Sadly, we didn’t get to see much else in the way of Met Ball fashion.

The next thing we knew, Rachel and Rodger were back in LA and headed to the gynecologist. I’m not entirely convinced that Rachel really wanted him to come along, but along he went anyway. Once there, Rodger stamped his hand with random stuff sitting on the doctor’s desk and then denied saying that Rachel might be too old to have a baby. Rachel said that she desperately wanted to be a mother but, uh, is anyone else not buying that? She freaked out at the prospect of having a blood test right afterward, and in this instance, I have to agree with Rodger. If she’s so desperate to get pregnant, why delay a simple blood test when she’s already in the doctor’s office?

Back at their apartment, Rachel admitted that she’s still afraid of what having a baby would do to her career, and she doesn’t want to put her work on the back burner. That seemed obvious all along, so I’m not sure exactly why they had to have that conversation all over again – if the reality of the situation is apparent to a casual viewer after two months, why can’t Rodger see the writing on the wall?

Rachel apparently wasn’t clear on why they were having that conversation either, because she got up and walked outside to avoid continuing on the subject. She doesn’t want to deny Rodger a baby because she doesn’t want to lose him, but she also doesn’t really want to have a kid for any other reason. Rachel ended the show (and the season) by reiterating her commitment to becoming a parent, but I think I can speak for all of us when I say that I won’t believe it until I see the baby bump.

Rachel Zoe Project: “Why are you asking me if I’ve read a book?” is a post from: Cheap Online Shopping

The finale answered one big question and launched a thousand more, most notably whether or not this show is still worth watching. My answer: sort of. But before we talk about that, we have to discuss how this whole thing went down and the collections (or lines? Princess Michael Kors says that’s an important distinction) that constituted the grand finale.

This finale, unlike almost every one that has come before it, included no surprise 11th hour challenges or extra looks to make – everyone showed up, put their clothes on their models, and got judged. The producers tried to make us believe that it was an issue when several of Mila’s and one of Emilio’s models didn’t show, but as soon as Tim Gunn made it clear that there were alternates ready and waiting, the bloom was off of that rose.

One by one, the excited designers came out to explain their inspiration and thank their families. Seth Aaron was first, and I very nearly missed it when he said that he was inspired by 1940s German military. For a second, I was like, ok, yeah, military. Uniforms. Tailoring. Right. But then I realized…wait, Nazis. That was the 1940s. That’s a little weird.

I’ve read some reactions that found his inspiration offensive, and I can understand why people might. Dictatorial regimes tend to include a lot of useless pomp and circumstance, however, and that often begets the need for extremely sharp (albeit somewhat unnecessary) dress uniforms – I found it hard not to stare at the costumes when I first saw Inglourious Basterds. Plus, much of the Nazi wardrobe was supplied by Hugo Boss, so there is a somewhat interesting sartorial element. I fully believe that good art can come from extremely dark places, and Seth Aaron mostly seems like an overgrown kid that wouldn’t even consider that the German military was, like, totally heinous, brah.

And his clothes? They were easily my favorite of the three presentations. His designs had McQueen-esque flourishes here and there, particularly reminiscent of his houndstooth-heavy work, and the graphic patterns and bold shapes were indeed a little military-reminiscent. As was to be expected, his jackets were tailored perfectly and it looked like an ultra-glam Hot Topic collection from time to time, as Mila somewhat accurately noticed. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

You certainly got a sense, however, that the clothes told a story that reverberated to the back of the house. His was the showiest of the shows, and it was also so rich in pattern and structure (and, somewhat surprisingly, in bright color) that Nina deemed it “very editorial.” Watch out, designers – when Nina decides that she could put a collection in that ladymag that she works for, it’s got a good shot of winning.

Next was Mila, whose collection looked exactly how’d you expect: black. Then some grey. And how about some white? Just for a twist, let’s add some dark purple on a couple of the looks. But not too much – Mila wouldn’t want to give anyone the impression that she intends to embrace color at any time in the future. Her collection was cohesive and capably tailored, and I actually liked it more than I expected to. I prefer my runways to be conceptual rather than commercial, and I found Mila’s collection interesting to look at. Color me surprised.

Speaking of conceptual rather than commercial (or the other way around, actually), Emilio rounded out the top three. He called his collection “Color Me Bad,” which was kind of hilariously awful, as was his “signature” pattern. Signature fabric is one thing for a handbag or wallet, but a dress? Count me out. I didn’t hate his collection – in fact, I want his blue coat – but as Princess Michael Kors so aptly noticed, it’s not a collection, it’s a line. With the exception of the gorgeous gold gown at the end, those weren’t runway clothes that Nina could put in her precious little magazine. I was disappointed that Emilio went so commercial because I think that he’s a good designer, if a bit of a jerk.

The judging went exactly how you would expect it from those descriptions: Mila was too expected, Emilio was too commercial, Seth Aaron was just right, save for the weird purple torture device that he called a final look. And he was victorious! They didn’t even take off points for his weird haircut! His kids and wife ran out and he said that he was so happy that they were proud of him and it was adorable. I wanted to join in the group hug and perhaps slip Seth Aaron the card of the girl that does my hair.

Before we knew what hit us, it was time for the reunion. We didn’t get one last season so I was pleased that we had one this time, but then I became significantly less pleased when I realized that all of the models were there. I still don’t care about the models and Lifetime can’t make me!

In stark contrast to reunions of the Real Housewives variety, Nina Garcia and Tim Gunn spent most of the reunion trying to make the designers be nice to each other. They prompted a lot of apologies about various buffer-interview snark, including Anthony’s declaration that Mila is some kind of 50-year-old harpy, which sounded surprisingly apt when the remark was recounted. Because Anthony is wonderful, however, he managed to both apologize and make another joke in the process, thereby providing yours truly with a title for this post. Anthony is the reality tv gift that keeps on giving.

I wasn’t aware of most of the model drama because I try to avoid the terrible model show, but I was aware that Ceri had talked some relatively pathetic smack about Jay’s aesthetic in the past. I don’t know why the models feel qualified to comment on the clothes, since last time I checked their job didn’t require them to be knowledgeable about fashion or trends, but she did and it aired and we all knew about it.

When that incident was brought up, instead of taking the high road, Jay managed to look like a smug little a-hole and make a really uncreative, mean-spirited comment about Ceri’s teeth and legs. Not that either of those things had anything to do with the issue at hand – some men are just gross misogynists, and their first line of defense against a woman is to call her ugly in some way. He looked so disgustingly proud of himself after he said it that it only magnified how shocked everyone else was, and Tim Gunn made him apologize like everyone’s favorite gay uncle.

That unpleasant incident was at the end of the episode and left a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing. I enjoyed this season more than the last, but besides Anthony, there weren’t many interesting characters to keep the narrative arc of the show going. I’ll probably keep watching the series, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it to continue recapping – do you guys want more Project Runway recaps when the new season debuts?

Project Runway: “I already apologized, I can’t give her a kidney.” is a post from: Cheap Online Shopping