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"Official Project Runway Finale Summary: "Sole Power""
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AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings
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03-02-05, 08:39 PM (EST)
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"Official Project Runway Finale Summary: "Sole Power""
LAST EDITED ON 03-10-05 AT 02:49 PM (EST)

LAST EDITED ON 03-03-05 AT 11:05 AM (EST)

Project Runway
Finale (Episode 11) Summary
“Sole Power”
By AyaK

Previously on Project Runway: We get a recap showing the elimination of all of the prior losers, with the beautiful and not particularly talented Heidi Glum Klum telling each of them in her soft voice, overdubbed and perhaps digitally enhanced to minimize the harsh Germanic accent: “You’re fired!” No, wait, it’s “Auf Wiedersehen.” Or is it “Deutschland Über Alles”? It’s so hard to tell, when the voice isn’t in sync with the mouth. Maybe the series should be Projekt Runway. Anyway, after a shocker in the last actual episode (prior to the “losers reunion”), Miss Scarlett (Austin) got it in the parlor with one of Nancy O’Dell’s stiletto heels, and we’re down to the final three.

On with the new stuff, featuring Wendy Pepper as the scheming shrew (think “Jerri” from Survivor 2, then take away looks and add a child), Kara Saun as the hard-nosed single-minded fashion pro (think “Tina,” except without children and silicone) and Jay McCarroll as the clown prince of fashion design (think “Mitchell,” except actually funny):

The Intro and the Outro

Wendy won the last challenge, and she didn’t even need Peter Pan and the Lost Boys to help her do it. With the orange material that she lifted from Kara (or should that be Karasaun, since everyone wants to use both of her names), she made a great outfit for Nancy O’Dell to wear to the Grammys and was rewarded for it. The fact that most of the people watching the show think that Wendy is a fitting mate for Captain Hook and that Austin Scarlett is the second coming of Tinkerbell doesn’t help Austin one bit, because the judges don’t believe in fairies. At least Austin can give the models their makeup back now.

Windy admits that she was doing all the scheming and conniving she could to get into the final three. She says she was just playing the game. Sure, and so was Lucretia Borgia.

To be honest, it was almost all for naught, because Windy did such a BAD outfit for the Episode 8 (Going Postal) challenge that she was lucky that someone did one even worse (though not by much). It seemed certain that she’d be cashiered next. Maybe she learned from her mistakes … or maybe she just got lucky at the right time. Whether anyone other than Nancy O’Dell wants to admit to owning a genuine Wendy Pepper after this, though, is an open question. Banana Republic will get the first crack at answering that question, because it’s now selling Windy’s winning design from Episode 3.

For background, Windy won two challenges (Episodes 3 and 9). Karasene won four (Episodes 2, 5, 7 and 8), and she's the overwhelming favorite, plus she's the "principled" character to Windy's "unprincipled" one. Jay didn’t win any, and he’s the “dark horse.” Neigh. (The other three challenges were won by Austin (two, Episodes 1 and 6) and Kevin (Episode 4).)

As a result of her win, Windy gets to choose the first model for the final show. Naturally, she sticks with Melissa; Jaybird sticks with the 6-foot-tall blonde Julia, despite the fact that her absence almost got him bounced in the Going Postal challenge (instead of shooting the place up, though, he ended up using Miss Scarlett as his model!); and once again, Karasene sticks with Jenny. Martinique has to go back to Fort-de-France. The prize for the winning model: being featured in the Elle Magazine photo spread of the winner’s collection. The prize for the others: a featured slot during a Fashion Week show. Not a bad consolation, that. Almost as good as a spot in Donald Trump’s personal harem.

Each of the final three designers gets $8,000 to create their collection, which will show in Olympia Beer Fashion Week in February … and it’s already October. Everyone is so sick of them that they need to go home before the producers inflict bodily harm, so they have to produce all the clothes at home. So get to work, you slackers, you’re already late! And they’re off.

Fava Beans and a Nice Chianti

Ten weeks later…

Tim “Peter” Gunn needs to get himself in the show so that he can plug the Parsons School of Design some more. Peter may really be a whiz-bang design expert, but all we ever see him do is shill for Parsons, so for all we know, he could be an actor. Hey, maybe it’s Joe Schmo 3, and one of these designers gets punk’d? Windy, it’s a fake! Nyah-nyah! You’ve trashed your reputation for nothing! Naah, we’ve actually seen the other designers turn out some nice clothes. Oh, well, then the only way for Tim to get his face time is to visit the other designers at home. So he starts with Jay.

Blue Jay (so named because of his two years of porn background), it turns out, really is a hick from the sticks. He comes from Lehman, a small town in the Poconos of north central Pennsylvania. How small is it? It’s so small that looking for high fashion in the area means a lengthy drive to Wal-Mart. How did BLUE JAY ever come from THERE?

Blue Jay has been hard at work … but he’s far from finished when Tim comes a-callin’ … which might be why Blue Jay greets Tim by pointing a hunting rifle at him. Despite loud chants from the camera crew, hootin’ and hollerin’ “Shoot! Shoot!”, Blue Jay doesn’t. Instead, we cut to Tim looking at Jay’s incredibly organized fabric collection. He’s got all of the fabric shelved by color … in his living room. Hey, must make for some fun nights at home – “come on over, but no drinking – you might spill on the fabric.” Maybe he has quilting bees. Sounds like loads of fun. “Hey, wanna go see a movie or go to a quilting bee at Blue Jay’s?” “Oh, they both sound like a good time.” Hicks from the sticks, all right.

But who would have thought that Blue Jay, who looks like he picked his clothes at random, would be so disciplined as to have his fabric so perfectly organized?

Using his drawings, Blue Jay explains that his collection is called “Stereotypes” and involves taking women with a wide variety of “stereotyped” looks, playing off the stereotypes with typical Jay humor and then unifying the different looks by the use of color, fabric and headphones (to block out the voices trying to make them conform). Blue Jay promises to clip his wings for the month of January so that the collection will be finished on time. Tim looks appropriately skeptical.

Then, in a throwback to The Bachelor, Tim gets to meet Blue Jay’s family: mother, sister, niece. In a special treat for all you readers, the famous psychiatrist U. R. Nuhtz has agreed to analyze the body language of Blue Jay’s family, to figure out what each of them wanted to tell Tim but didn’t.

Blue Jay’s mom: “He started sewing on his own little sewing machine when he was 5.”
Body language: “His father thought he’d been possessed by the devil and had him exorcised, but he still kept sewing. Must have been one powerful demon.”

Blue Jay’s sister: “We’re so proud of him for making it this far.”
Body language: “At least now, I don’t have to tell my daughter that her uncle is a pornographer.”

Blue Jay’s niece: “Hi.”
Body language: “Oh my heck, a stranger! I’ve never seen one in person before. Can you tell me how to get out of this town before I grow up to be a colorful rube, too?”

Blue Jay’s mom: “It’s nice to have him home.”
Body language; “Now if he’d just settle down. When he said he was going on a reality show, I was hoping it would be Boy Meets Boy. And it’s time for him to take an interest in the family business. He’s a McCarroll, dadgum it, and McCarrolls make the world safe for flushing.”

Yep, that’s right, flushing. The McCarrolls make septic tanks. No wonder Blue Jay had so little problem with all of Windy’s crap on the show.

Blue Jay’s dad started and runs McCarroll Precast Concrete. Motto: “Our s—t doesn’t stink” or something like that. Tim asks Blue Jay if he gets his design ability from his father’s precast concrete slabs. Blue Jay fake-laughs while staring daggers. Then he sneakily positions Tim to be crushed under a falling stack of slabs. So much for any more free publicity for Parsons School of Design this week. But wait? It’s a miracle! Mark Burnett, the god of reality-TV product placement, resurrects Tim, in the name of the almighty dollar. Bow and worship! Blessed be the product placement. Amen.

Blue Jay also gets to show Tim the “village” of Lehman. It seems to have exactly one building: a convenience store. The place looks like it must cater to the local bears, because there aren’t any people nearby. In the background, in fact, I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like a bear was carrying a shotgun and buying a six-pack of beer. Who would blame it? If I lived in Lehman, I’d drink heavily, too.

Next, Tim heads for suburban D.C. Wicked Wendy lives in northern Virginia. She says that her line was inspired by the fall foliage around her house. Does that mean that the clothes drop off their wearer to the ground with the slightest provocation? Might be a good line for some of the Hollywood actresses…. Or does it mean that they shrivel up over a few days? No, it seems to mean that they use fall-type colors, except when they don’t.

But the view of Windy’s home also lets us meet five-year-old Finley. Finley is a doll. I figured she’d be a doll … but a doll kinda like Chuckie from Child’s Play. Or maybe Daughter of Frankenstein. Instead, she’s cute, charming and completely innocent. Maybe Windy was telling the truth when she claimed that some of her bad behavior was an act, because Finley is a delightful child. And, like Blue Jay before her, she has her own mini sewing machine. Look for her clothes dominating the runways in about 20 years.

Tim shows up and promptly gets dragged down by Windy into her basement sewing area. You know, I once saw a movie in which one of the main characters had a basement sewing area where he made his own clothes. It was called The Silence of the Lambs. If Tim saw it, bet he had a few anxious moments on his way down.

But no. No hidden cisterns. No woman-suit made out of real women. Such a disappointment.

But that’s not to say that Windy has given up her deceptions. She shows Tim a large Finley-painted picture and tells him that Finley made it for the judges, because they were so nice to her mommy. But…

Finley (who was off-camera when Windy started into this story): “That’s not right, Mommy. Don’t you remember? I painted that because I didn’t have anything to do when you were working one afternoon. Remember?”

Caught! Now what would Windy do? Would she try to convince her daughter that Mommy’s story was right, perhaps leading to a lifetime of visits to the psychologist for Finley, as she relapses to primal screams to sort out her mother-phobia? Would she explain to Tim that Finley didn’t really remember, because five-year-old memories have the consistency of Swiss cheese? What?

Well, here’s what she did: nothing. All she did was smile guiltily, as many other parents have been forced to do over the years when their children blurt out something that makes their parents look bad and the parents have no idea how to recover. And at this point, I realized something important about Wendy: she looked bad on the show because she has no real practice in lying. Lying by an amateur without any training: priceless, if you’re a producer of a reality show.

Compare Wendy to Evil Dr. Will, the winner of Big Brother 2. Will told everyone that he was going to lie to them. Then he did lie to them … and they believed him. Then, when they found out he was lying, they blamed themselves, not Will. By contrast, even when Wendy tells the truth from now on, no one will believe her. Amateur. Of course, you don’t find too many polished liars among amateur fashionistas. It’s one of the skills you have to learn on your way up the ladder, when you learn how to tell your rich but clueless clients that they have exquisite taste and that anything, even that hideous design that wouldn’t look good on the most beautiful woman in the world, will look good on them.

Come to think of it, whoever advises Renee Zellweger (who looked at the Oscars like she’d been spending her spare time in a Mississippi swamp) should come and teach these wannabes how to lie like a pro. I’m sure Renee went on the red carpet thinking she looked great, because someone had told her that she’d look great, and she didn’t find out otherwise until later.

Tim looks at Windy’s collection and has a lot of suggestions. This doesn’t bode well for Windy’s chances. Maybe Tim has noticed that Windy does best when she has a client (e.g., Nancy O’Dell, Banana Republic) telling her what to do. The problem is, most of America just wants to tell her where to go.

For local color, Windy takes Tim to her grandmother’s old house … which is now a museum. It’s also a mansion. Or an estate. It’s so big that Tara from Gone With the Wind could be the playhouse out back. And I wonder. Were Windy’s family slaveowners? Maybe that’s where Windy learned her manners from: “Do what I want, or it’s the whip for you!” And where did all the money go? Second family? Frittered away on fast cars and faster women? All I know is that people whose grandparents lived in a house like this usually don’t have to sew in their basements. Instead, their servants sew for them.

Now Tim’s off to L.A., to see Karasene. She’s been hard at work on her collection, which looks to be largely complete. Did she work faster, or did Tim spend a week or two in Vegas before reaching the Southland?

Karasene says that she was inspired to create her line by the movie The Aviator. Based on the amount of leather that she’s used, I expected her inspiration to be her local S&M store. I haven’t seen so many leather suits since I went to a Village People concert.

Karasene likes furs, too. If she wins, expect PETA to protest the next edition of Project Runway. Maybe they’ll resort to one of their old tricks: throwing blood on the clothes. I don’t mind, as long as they use Tim’s blood to do it. If Tim actually has any blood, that is.

Because Kara’s clothes are so much further along, we can make a preliminary judgment about them. Remember the movies of the 1930s? Apparently, Karasene got hold of the costumes left over from one of them. The only thing different is Karasene’s hand-made stitching on the back of the leathers, giving then the look of pieces rejected by Nashville. But we know that she’s a good tailor, even if she isn’t a great designer, and the clothes will fit the models “just so.” We’ll get to see how much the judges like leather-clad women, because if they have a “thing” for leather, Kara-san’s the one. And if she loses, she’ll have a bright future in bondage.

Soul? Sole!

So … another gap to the week before Olympia Beer Fashion Week.

Windy arrives in NYC. She bemoans being just another worm in the Big Apple. She also gets into the room first. Why? Probably because she’s seen the show now and knows that she comes across as the villain, and she doesn’t want Blue Jay and Karasaun to talk about her behind her back. Hey, Windy, a clue: if you don’t want to be edited into a villain, stay off of reality TV.

Next to arrive: Blue Jay. He says that Fashion Week isn’t too bad for a barely-reformed pornographer. But he’s not too pleased to arrive in the room and see Windy there waiting for him. In fact, he tells her how he feels about her … except that, because he was raised in the family septic tank business, he knows to keep his language out of the toilet. Acting coaches, if you want to cast for “indignant but not nasty,” show your students this tape of Blue Jay. Windy states again that she was just playing a game. Blue Jay says that no one else was. Is he for real, or is he really this naïve? Uh, Blue Jay, do you often try to dress people in fruit unless you’re playing a game? Oh, wait, I forgot about the porn Web site. Maybe he does.

Blue Jay tells Windy that he intended to come to NYC and ignore her, but that he can’t really do that now that she’s here. Windy wants to bury the hatchet. Although Blue Jay would like to bury it in Windy’s brain, he agrees. Which sets the stage for the arrival of …

Karasene. She’s upset. The black woman is normally the attention-grabbing b---- on reality TV. Ask Omarosa. Ask Alicia. Ask Ghandia. Ask Stacie J. But Karasene wasn’t. Windy was. Karasene’s been deprived of the spotlight that should have been hers by those racists at Miramax, and she’s ready to reclaim it!

Karasene enters the room. Windy and Blue Jay are there. Kara walks up to Blue Jay while calling his name and hugs him. However, she pretends that Windy doesn’t exist and says nothing to her. In fact, she doesn’t acknowledge Windy’s presence in any way. I’ve seen this behavior before; my daughters occasionally pulled it on each other … although not since they were 7. Come to think of it, maybe that’s Karasene’s mental age.

And they’re off to unload their fashions and do the final preparation for the big day during Olympia Beer Fashion Week. Let’s see, they need a spill-proof apron, and one of those silly hats that let you chug hands-free… But no, it’s still a collection of fashion, and the only connection to beer is that you probably need to be drunk to wear some of it.

Now it’s time to set the lineup of models. Each designer has one model, of course. They audition several … including a former runner-up on America’s Next Top Model. Heck, they could use Tyra Banks or Heidi Klum herself, and it wouldn’t help some of these clothes. Then the producers tell Wendy, Kara and Blue Jay that they have been able to get a few “big-name” models for the show. Kara tries to grab them all, in a power play rivaling Wendy’s for the orange material. Interestingly, Kara breaks her childish pretence that Wendy isn’t in the room with her for this task. Guess her desire to grab all the name models overcame her inner child for the moment. Karasaun is definitely in touch with her inner child. In fact, her personality IS her inner child.

Unpacking … and Windy comes to a horrible realization. She made fifteen outfits, so that she was certain to have twelve good outfits for the show. But she didn’t think about shoes. And both of the others did. Karasene has BEAUTIFUL rhinestone-studded shoes that match her designs. Blue Jay has bought shoes for the models at thrift stores, with some priced as low as $9. But Windy has done nothing. Maybe her models can march down the runway barefoot, to match the Gidget-goes-to-NYC theme of her designs? Or she could create a mist along the floor, so that no one can see her unshod models … or the clothes of the other two? Anyway, she resolves to ask judge/designer Michael “Coors” Kors whether they will be given shoes to use.

But the fact that Kinderkara has resumed totally ignoring Windy, combined with the pressure, has really started to gnaw at Windy. To be honest, it looks like the producers have made it pretty darn hard for the three of them to ignore each other. They work in a relatively crowded space, where they trip over each other constantly. They are staying in a nice but not overly spacious suite. Continuing to ignore someone in this environment takes the kind of single-mindedness normally found in the kind of people who throw temper tantrums and threaten to hold their breath until they turn blue. In other words, small children and Kara.

Windy decides to call Karasene on it, back in their room. What does Kara do at first? Blatantly LIE. Who does she think she is: Wendy Pepper?

Karasene first claims that she never saw Windy. Even Blue Jay won’t buy that one. Then Kara finally gives in to her inner Jerri Manthey, and what follows is the catfight from the previews. In the previews, it looked thrilling to see the other two call out Windy for her earlier behavior. But, in context, it just looks catty. MRRRROW!

It starts promisingly. Karasene and Blue Jay take Windy to task for backstabbing in the first round. Windy has little defense. Blue Jay continues his naïvety about this being a game, and Windy tells him that her goal was to make it to the final three by any means necessary. Just call her Windy X. Windy says that, at this point, she could rely on her talent.

Then it turns ugly. Karasene screams at Windy that she and Blue Jay got there on their talent, but Windy couldn’t have done that because “YOU DON’T HAVE ANY TALENT!” Now, say what you want about some of Windy’s awful designs like the one for USPS, but she certainly has talent. She may not have the consistency of Karasene or Blue Jay, but she’s not clueless, either. This wasn’t Porno Brian Lowdik in Survivor: Thailand voting everyone off the island because they were dumb enough to trust him. The judges may have wanted to carry Windy for dramatic value through some of her bad weeks, but Windy also won two competitions, and she deserved to win them. Even though Nancy O’Dell had the ruffled skirt flattened, she definitely looked sharp at the Grammys:


(Note: picture linked from remote website -- too large to upload to RTW)

You may need great legs to pull that outfit off, but Nancy has ‘em and made it clear that she wanted to show ‘em.

Even Blue Jay pulled back at this last blast from Karasene. RRRROOOWWRR! But Kara’s not nearly done yet. Now she’s changed from talent expert to storefront preacher. “The day will come when you need your soul, and you won’t have it!” Can anybody give me an “Amen”? Since when did Kara become an expert on Faustian deals with the devil? Perhaps after she sold her own soul?

Blue Jay’s had enough. He bails out, even though Karasene isn’t anywhere close to wound down. Kara can now relax. She has established her own claim to be the show’s #1 b----. And she looks like she can go on all night, in true evil-b---- style!

Talk about turning the tables on the previous shows. Wendy has suddenly become sympathetic, despite all the conniving that she did earlier. Looks like Karasene saved the day for her. Or maybe Kara’s just tired after trying to look like a nice person for five months. MMMRRRRROWWWLLL.

Windy looks emotionally crushed. And now it’s time to meet with Michael Coors. Fits right in to Olympia Beer Fashion Week, wouldn’t you say? Michael tells the three of them about the way to pace a show. First should come a “WOW” outfit, to capture the audience’s attention. Then a more-normal outfit. Then mix them up, because it’s hard for the audience to respond to one “WOW” outfit following another one, but build to the finale’s piece de resistance. He stresses the importance of appropriate accessories in the overall look. And he tells Windy that he’ll have some generic shoes sent over for the models to wear on the runway walk.

By now, Windy appears to be on the verge of emotional collapse. She confesses that she has really forgotten to accessorize appropriately. She confesses that she never thought about the timing issues in ordering the collection for the show. She confesses that she isn’t even sure that she should be there. Between Karasene and the pressure, she sounds like she’s on the verge of coming apart. Blue Jay comments that Windy’s collection looks like it was designed by an older woman trying to guess what younger women would like. Jaybird must have been swallowed by Jaycat….

Emmy nominations for the editors, for making Windy seem so sympathetic five months later. Talk about slanting!

A big box of shoes shows up. Windy scrounges through them. Blue Jay says that he’d like at least one pair too. Karasaan, of course, doesn’t need any, because she has her beautiful custom-matched shoes. Then comes time for first fittings with the models, so the designers can see how the clothes look and work on tailoring them to fit. Windy has issues with fit, including with the shoes. Kara has shoe issues too; the rhinestones across the arch are snagging the bottoms of some of the longer dresses. Only Blue Jay seems to have issues merely related to customizing the fit.

It’s hard for me to believe too much customization is needed. Just design the clothes to fit stick figures – say, 5’11” and 110 pounds. Can you say anorexia? Oops, I heard some of you say bulimia instead!

Tim visits, looks at the dresses on the models and makes some last-minute suggestions. Just what these three need in their final days before the biggest show of their lives. Where’s the Olympia Beer when they need it?

A makeup artist from a show co-sponsor shows up. The co-sponsor hasn’t gotten enough product placement value, so Tim brings him onscreen to meet with all three designers about the makeup that they want on the models for their shows. Windy and Karasene have no clue, and they rely on his judgment. Surprisingly, the only one who knows what he wants is Blue Jay. He wants the models to have the color bleached out – a pale, alienated look to go along with the headphones. Interesting idea, if it works. If not, at least Blue Jay will spur sales of non-narcotic white powder.

See Wendy work. Work, Wendy work. Work, work, work.
See Jay work. Work, Jay, work. Work, work, work.
See Karasaun whip out her cell phone. Whip it, Kara, whip it. Whip, whip, whip.
No wonder she has so many leathers in her collection. Maybe she should use Devo for the theme song on the runway.

And then, just as Windy is teetering on the verge of collapse again, she gets a break. Her mom brings Finley to the workroom. Finley is, once again, a doll. Jay is impressed. He confesses that Finley was really cute, and that if she’s Windy’s daughter, maybe Windy isn’t so bad after all. He is also impressed by Windy’s relationship with her mom, saying that the last thing that he would want right now is his mother there. We can picture it…

Blue Jay: How are you, Mom?
Mom: Never mind that. Why didn’t you put this much effort into septic tanks? Flush, Jay, flush!

Not a pretty sight. By contrast, Windy’s mom goes out with Blue Jay on the balcony for a smoke and tells him how natural and funny he was on the show, and she praises his designs, too. Although Blue Jay looks like he’d really rather be back working, he also looks a little surprised to learn that he’s a favorite in Windy’s household. He talks to Finley a little. She's still charming in the well-behaved small child way. But Karasene treats Finley the same way she treats Windy, even though much of the rest of America is wishing that Finley was adoptable. Anyone for some foreshadowing, Kara? But this isn’t enough to completely trash Kara, so…

Kara whipped out her cell phone to call an NYC friend of hers to come over and prep the shoes, so that the rhinestones don’t snag. Huh? Turns out this friend works with high-fashion shoes such as Dollhouse Shoes, the high-fashion brand that made Kara’s shoes. The friend shows up and works on the shoes while Kara is working on the clothes. He does it for free, so it doesn’t come out of Kara’s $8K budget for her collection. Now even Blue Jay is upset … and he gets more upset when Karosene tells him that the shoes were “comped” to her by Dollhouse Shoes. Uh, wasn’t there something in the contract about not using any “comped” work or any “comped” help?

Why, yes, Grasshopper, there was.

Ten hours before the show. A call for Kara. There’s a problem with her collection. It’s the shoes. She explains to Tim, in front of the others, that the shoes were complementary from Dollhouse, which custom-made them in China for her. Tim explains to her that there was a clause in her contract with Project Runway that bans the use of complementary merchandise; she had to pay full market value for them if she was going to use them. Kara gets livid. She claims she's being persecuted for having "good taste." She insists that she’ll take care of it. After Tim leaves, she berates Blue Jay and Windy, accusing Windy of getting her shoes for free, just like she did. Of course, Windy’s were generic, not custom-made, but facts haven’t stopped Kerosene yet this episode. In Blue Jay’s case, he’s only using one pair of the Coors Lite shoes, but she says that makes him as guilty of using freebies as she is. Kinda like the old apocryphal Churchill story, where he asks the woman if she’d sleep with him for a million dollars ("yes"), then if she’d sleep with him for $10, and when she indignantly asks what kind of woman Churchill thinks she is, he replies, “We’ve already established that; all we’re doing now is debating the price.”

Karasaun apparently knows this story. Perhaps from personal experience.

Anyway, she calls Dollhouse and asks for a sales invoice for the shoes. On camera, with a couple million of her closest friends watching, she asks for the price to be around $5 or $10 a pair, because she doesn’t have that much money left in her budget. Lots of women across America dream that Dollhouse might sell them 12 pairs of shoes for $5-$10 per pair too.

Later … Kara O’Hara brings her freshly-minted invoice to Tim. She goes back to work. Tim looks at the invoice. $15/pair. In a confessional, Tim laughs at the absurd price and notes that the U.S. import duty per pair is probably higher than that.

Still later … Tim calls Kara back to the stage. He tells her that the invoice is obviously phony. Kara becomes irate again. Tim tells her that she had the same opportunity that the others did to use the free Michael CoorsLite shoes. Kara rants. Tim tells her that they have two choices: either she switches to the Michael CoorsLite shoes, or Tim will tell the judges that they have to ignore the shoes, because Kara procured them in a method that violates her contract. Kara rants. Tim says that they’ll follow the second option. Kara rants. In confessional, Kara rants. In fact, the entire last 30 minutes has seemed like an extended Kara rant. Be honest – other than the leather-and-fur crowd, is there anyone left who has an iota of sympathy for Karasene?

Thought not. What happened to the "principled" woman from the previous 10 shows? Did she really exist? It turns out that the final show focused less on Windy’s soul than it did on Karasene’s soles. In fashion design, Karasene now knows that “sole power” defeats “soul power” every time.

Skip to My Lou, My Darling

Final fittings, morning of the show. One of Windy’s models is missing. SEVEN of Jaybird’s models are missing. Well, we know that Austin is there, so maybe he could fill in again!

Wait a minute, Austin? Yep. Seems like the producers came to the realization a month and a half before the show aired that viewers were watching it, and people would learn the results of the Nancy O’Dell competition through the articles on the fashion pages unless all four of the remaining contestants were there. So, with six weeks to go before Olympia Beer Fashion Week, they offered Austin the chance to make a “dummy” collection to display on the runway. Austin accepted, despite the incredible difficulties that this schedule imposed. BUT … those of us who watched the finale saw none of this. As far as we know, Austin is roadkill. We don’t see hide nor hair of him.

The models eventually all show up. Blue Jay tells Julia that she looks like an alien after her makeup. Blue Jay is thrilled. Julia just looks happy to be there. The show is ordered: first Karasene, then Windy, then Blue Jay. Um, if we learned anything from Michael CoorsLite earlier, it’s that we want to start with a “Wow!,” then go to something more common, then finish with a bang. Is that why the designers were placed in this order? Isn’t it obvious, without actually seeing the clothes yet?

Time to go. Karasene, who had always referred to her collection as “The Aviatrix” previously, now calls it the “Fantasy Fly-girl.” I wonder which copyright lawyer got involved here. Probably the movie The Aviator is planning its own clothing line. And out come the models. Nice look. Nice fit. Very sharp. Lots of leather. Lots of fur. Lots of derivative ideas. Just about what we expected.

Nest up is Windy, with her fall harvest collection. In the audience is Finley, with mom. Right away, there’s a problem. The first outfit isn’t a “Wow!” In fact, I’d charitably call it a “Whoops!” There are some other, very nice pieces in the collection, and Melissa’s outfit looks great. But there are some clunkers, too, especially a black see-through top. Who is THAT designed for, John Kerry's daughter Alexandra?

Again, it’s what we expected: some nice pieces, but inconsistent. At the end, when Windy comes out on the runway, she goes over to Finley, picks her up, and carries Finley off, walking next to Melissa back down the runway. Shortly after the three of them go behind the curtain, we see a small silhouette cross in front of the screen. It’s a little girl, skipping. It’s one of the cutest moments of the entire Projekt Runway series. Is it enough to forgive the subpar pieces in Windy’s collection? No. But it’s great TV.

Last comes Blue Jay, with his “Stereotypes” collection. Blue Jay looks like he just ran out to Goodwill to buy his own outfit. Talk about alienation from fashion! Blue Jay cleverly tells the audience that the pieces speak for themselves. And they do. But…

Julia’s piece is kind of a shocker. The others are all stereotypes, all right – but with color and humor, because Jay is all about color and humor. But the last piece is different. It’s Jay, returning to the Nancy O’Dell challenge, creating the dress that he had envisioned and described but that he didn’t have time to complete. Don’t believe me? Compare the dress from the challenge (using a shorter skirt due to lack of time) with the final dress in his collection:

I don’t know what stereotype this is supposed to represent (celebrity at an award show?), but it’s a great piece. I doubt that I’m the only one who realized that Blue Jay had finally executed the dress that he conceived and struggled with in Episode 9, and done so marvelously. But many of his works are great. He has a knit shawl and a quilted full-length jacket that look simply mah-velous. And the headphones really do act as a unifying theme. He pulled off what he described, back when the works were little more than disjointed pieces of fabric. In fact, his pieces may not be the sexiest (that would go to Karasene’s leathers), but they are original and attractive. No question that it’s the best collection. What do others think?

After the show, we are shown comments from several people in attendance, starting with Carson Kressley from Bravo’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Nothing like a little cross-promotion, especially after Carson’s quote about the show was so widely reported:

“I hate to pick favorites, but Jay's collection was far and away the best, A fashion show is all about point of view. His show told a story.”

Olympia Beer Fashion Week is over. So, did Blue Jay win? Carson thought so. So did the fashion reporter from the Associated Press, whose story appears above. And the fashion reporter from the Houston Chronicle. But most of the people interviewed on camera preferred Kara’s collection. Lotta S&M fans present, I guess.

I'm A Nut

Time for the final verdict, featuring Heidi, the judges, the models and the designers. Third judge this week is actress Parker Posey, taking some time out from appearing in Christopher Guest movies (Best in Show, A Mighty Wind). Michael Coors and Elle’s Nina Garcia savage Windy for her inconsistency and for her lack of a clear vision (most notable in the see-through top), although Michael admits that she has great skills with some difficult materials. Windy looks ready to cry. Michael asks Blue Jay about his precise color matches, and Blue Jay admits that most of them were hand-dyed. Coors calls it “DTM” (dyed to match). Is that a bad thing or a good thing? We never find out. Coors then points out how derivative Karasene’s pieces were, and that one of her dresses tripped up one of the best models in the business because it wasn’t cut so that it could be walked in. Hmm, so one was inconsistent and one was derivative and miscut a dress? Is there any real drama left?

The producers try to make believe that there is. Without the designers present, we see Parker say that she could envision wearing one of Karasene’s pieces to the Oscars. Parker, frankly I thought you were more the Independent Spirit Awards type. We get some debate between Blue Jay and Karasene, that seems to favor Karasene. But we already know that reality shows try to trick us. So…

The final three return. Heidi addresses Windy. Third place. We see Windy go backstage, where a disappointed Finley can’t believe it. Clearly, her mother is a winner with her, and Windy says just about that before they hug. I don’t know if Windy achieved total redemption from her earlier villainhood, but she’s at least started on the road back.

Down to Blue Jay and Karasene. Heidi addresses Blue Jay first. Is she going to dump him, a la Windy? No. Then she addresses Kara? Still no. Then back to Blue Jay. He’s the winner. In a clearly dubbed comment, Heidi says that the judges think Jay is the next great American designer. Jay can't believe it. He blurts out, "This is nutty! Nutty!" And that's about it. Nina notes that he's finally speechless.

Karasene is left to tell her parents that she didn’t win. She’s sad, because she would have liked her mom to see her win. Bet she was a lot sadder when she saw how evil she came off in this episode.

In a final confessional, Jay says that he thought he was just being kept around for his comedy value, and he never really thought that he would win. Evidently, he hadn’t been watching the way the finale was edited.

With that, the first Project Runway comes to a halt. Jay McCarroll is now one of the most famous designers in America … at least until Projekt Runway 2 comes along. Strike while the iron is hot, Jay! Kara has a future too, if PETA doesn’t start picketing her. Hollywood actresses like to look sexy in leather and fur, and she's located in their midst. And Wendy? Well, it looks like she’d do better with commissioned work than original work. Then again, MOST design work is commissioned. So as long as Good Wendy shows up, it looks good for all three … right now.

By next week, who knows?

Edited on 3-10 to correct an error in Jay's quote after he won...

Soylent Green: recycling America, one person at a time.

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  Table of Contents

  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
 RE: Official Project Runway Finale ... Skiver 03-02-05 1
 RE: Official Project Runway Finale ... okaychatt 03-02-05 2
 RE: Official Project Runway Finale ... Estee 03-03-05 3
   Comment AyaK 03-04-05 4
       RE: Comment ginger 03-09-05 5
           No ANTM AyaK 03-10-05 6
   RE: Official Project Runway Finale ... Eman 03-16-05 7

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Skiver 1118 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Politically Incorrect Guest"

03-02-05, 10:57 PM (EST)
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1. "RE: Official Project Runway Finale Summary: "Sole Power""
For maybe the first time, I've seen an upside in the supposed victory of Dubbya in the last election. Imagine if Alexandra had modeled that dress while she was the daughter of the president. Fox would have made Janet Jackson's Nipplegate look like Whitewatergate in comparison.

Thanks for the entertaining (and comprehensive) summary.


Handcrafted by RollDdice

"I know it's hard to put food on your family." - GW Bush

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okaychatt 2810 desperate attention whore postings
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03-02-05, 11:08 PM (EST)
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2. "RE: Official Project Runway Finale Summary: "Sole Power""
Ever so clever, AyaK. More fun than the finale.

I especially liked: Coors Lite shoes


Everyone is entitled to my opinion.

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Estee 55195 desperate attention whore postings
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03-03-05, 07:23 AM (EST)
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3. "RE: Official Project Runway Finale Summary: "Sole Power""
And you were doing so well until you undercut the models' heights by five inches and overdid their weights by twenty pounds.

For having no idea who any of these people were, what they did to get here, or having even the slightest idea what channel they were on -- Bravo, that's the poker network, right? -- I still managed to enjoy the summary a lot, and I think I disliked everyone more or less on cue.

Beside, I don't trust sewing machines in the basement, either.

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AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings
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03-04-05, 11:22 AM (EST)
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4. "Comment"
And you were doing so well until you undercut the models' heights by five inches and overdid their weights by twenty pounds

LMAO!

Seriously, though, Julia (the "winning" model, whose picture is shown in Jay's Nancy O'Dell dresses) was the tallest of the original 12 models, at 6'0"; Melissa (Wendy's model in the finals) was the shortest, at 5'9". The amount by which Julia towered over Jay almost merited its own discussion in the summary. BTW, Melissa was also the youngest model of the original 12, at just 17; Jenny (Kara Saun's model in the finals) was the oldest, at 22. It's kinda strange that the models at both ends of the height and age spectrum stuck around to be the final 3 models.

But I might well have overshot their weights with a guess of 110.

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ginger 22511 desperate attention whore postings
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03-09-05, 02:57 PM (EST)
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5. "RE: Comment"
LAST EDITED ON 03-09-05 AT 06:23 PM (EST)

It was genius, Ayak. And I still lvoe thinking about you as a fashionista. Will you grace the ANTM forum tonight?

ETA: The "Silence of the Lambs" reference was golden.



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AyaK 10083 desperate attention whore postings
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03-10-05, 02:53 PM (EST)
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6. "No ANTM"
I have a tough time just watching models preen.

Part of the fun of Project Runway was that you were watching creative people under severe time pressure. Would their visions eclipse their productive capabilities, as Jay's almost did in the Nancy O'Dell challenge? That kind of situation never happens in ANTM.

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Eman 9 desperate attention whore postings
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03-16-05, 05:58 PM (EST)
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7. "RE: Official Project Runway Finale Summary: "Sole Power""
AYAK,

Nancy Odell did quite a bit of "tweeking" to Wendy's outfit.
In my opinion, if you have to change it so much, it's hard to say it's Wendy's.

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