Pop Culture Princess

Pop Culture Princess
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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Project Runway loves the nightlife,Shear Genius clipped a few Angels and The Next Food Network Star is...



Another celebrity judge on Project Runway appeared on Project Runway this week(Bravo is certainly making a good case for PR to stay with them,getting famous folks like this!),Sandra Bernhard who was considered an "expert" on chic New York night club style.

For their challenge this week,the designers were taken on a double decker sightseeing bus around to certain sections of NYC(Greenwich Village,Times Square,etc)at night and given cameras to take photos for inspiration. They had to choose one picture as representative of their take on New York City nightlife and make a evening wear outfit based on that.



Terri made a strong showing this week with her eye catching dress and pants combo was inspired by a blurry picture of a metal bin plastered with stickers and graffiti.

Her outfit had a modern flair with a good retro vibe that Sandra described as "the kind of chick that if she was walking down a dark street and someone was tailing her,she'd pull out a knife and say"I'm going to cut you up!" It was taken as a compliment and I really thought the judges would give Terri the win here,all of them were blown away by this ensemble.



Instead,they chose Kenley's retro in a bad way dress. Sorry to disagree guys,but frankly my dears,I don't get it. It was well made,I grant you,and Kenley did put some real thought into the dress but that weird mix of tulle and fabric for the bottom half of it was some even you judges joked about there.



My favorite outfit of the night was Leanne's sculptural skirt with the basic black top-she based the skirt design on a planter grate,of all things,and really came up with a subtly chic outfit.

I would've been happy if either Terri or Leanne had been given the win but I'm not very annoyed about Kenley's triumph. Kenley seems like a nice person and I do like her "calendar girl" sense of style.

At least she's not a constant whiner like Stella(who drove everyone in the workroom crazy with her loud hammering on her precious leather) or wacked out like Blayne with his weird"I'm gonna eat you" bit when he's not trying to teach Tim Gunn hip-hop phrases like "Holla atcha boy!" or Suede's persistent talking about himself in the third person. Dude,it's not endearing,it's stupid,okay?!



On to the clunkers;Keith tried hard to make his inspiration(a damp and stepped on magazine)work for his tattered fabric fringe dress but all of those pieces of white cloth did make it look,in the words of Michael Kors,"like tissue paper caught in a fan". Also,the dress was very shapeless and did nothing for the model wearing it.

Since Keith's original model had to drop out of the competition and had to fit the dress onto a last minute replacement girl,I think the judges were more inclined to give him a break on this one.



No such mercy was given to Jennifer,who used a clock as the basis for this dour dress and claims to have a "Holly Golightly meets Salvador Dali" type of fashion sense. This outfit looked like something a Victorian schoolgirl would wear,not a grown woman going out for a night on the town.

I have no trouble imaging Violet Baudelaire putting this on before planning another escape from the clutches of Count Olaf with her smart siblings and tying up her hair with a matching ribbon to help her think.



Fortunately for Jennifer,Emily's misguided version of shimmering lights across the darkness of the city screamed out for dismissal much louder. Tim Gunn told Emily in the workroom that her dress looked like it would disappoint the judges but did she listen? No,no,no-it would've been easier to pull Amy Winehouse away from a case of Tanqueray than to get Emily to change her course of action.

That godawful zigzag of ruffles was so bad that Nina had "no comment" about it during the deliberations. WOW! That's as rare as winning the lottery twenty times in a row for Nina to be so nonverbal about such a bad outfit. Cheer up,Emily-you did make Nina speechless,a Project Runway first,I think!




Shear Genius also had a celeb judge this week-Kate Jackson,to help her former fellow Angel with the big Charlie's Angels challenge. The stylists had to take the trademark hair of those "three little girls from the police academy" and do a modern day spin on those legendary locks.



Before jumping that hurdle,they had to face the Shortcut challenge,which was all about color. I loved Dee's Birds of Paradise hair that layered the colors very well but for some reason,Charlie won this round.

He started out going for a "flame" look but ended up with what he called "carousel horse" instead. Even My Little Pony wouldn't want to look like this,dude. It's very Beauty School Drop Out,in my opinion.



Beauty School Drop out also applies to Nekisa,who blamed a clogged sink on her botched up color job. Honey,if you're having problems with your equipment,it's your responsibility to deal with it and make it work,not just say"Not my fault!" I wouldn't want to make a salon appointment with you,if that's your attitude.

Charlie was granted immunity and made the odd man out for the Angel's challenge. Since there were groups of three to work on,the stylists were paired up and Charlie was made a floater,to help out each team. He also got to chose the teams and deliberately linked up folks who were friendly to each other but whose styles were bound to clash.



Well,his evil plan worked like a charm. All of the hairstyles were so lackluster that the judges couldn't declare a winner. Out of the bunch,I did think that Daniel and Paulo pulled off a decent Farrah but that's like saying a burnt pizza delivery was forgivable because the cheezy bread wasn't stale.

Nekisa worked with Dee but took total responsibility for her flop of a Farrah curl that actually seemed to have holes in the back. Charlie must've been extra pleased at seeing her on the chopping block due to their constant bickering. I swear,if he had one of those old timey villain mustaches,he would've been twirling the ends of it with glee.



It was Glenn,however,who was subject to the wrath of the Angels for creating a pitiful excuse of Jaclyn Smith's classic do. Nicole was her partner but she didn't work on those limp curls for that model which spare her from censure.

Kim Vo pointed out that the standards for this challenge were high,especially since the stylists are exposed to Jaclyn's look on a nearly daily basis. I just hope that they get their act together by the time the next challenge rolls around or more heads will be snipped off.



The winner for this year's Next Food Network Star is...Aaron McCargo,Jr! His new show,Big Daddy's House,will be debuting this Sunday and I couldn't be happier for him.

Adam did have a good concept for his cooking program,Hungry In Philadelphia,which would have him answering e-mail queries for recipes and webcam guests. Lisa's Beautiful Basics show was rather bland and not much of a stand out(I knew she was in trouble when she presented her ideas to producer Gordon Elliot in diorama form). Congrats to Aaron and I look forward to watching him cook in Big Daddy's House:



RANDOM NOTES:

DESIGN STAR: The voting may be over,but it's still a race to see who will come out on top. I fully intend to find out if either Matt or Jenn wins and I hope you will,too:






MAD MEN: Season Two started off with bang,as the gang at Sterling Cooper celebrated Valentine's Day in 1962 with candy,flowers and a shiny new copier that Joan stuck in Peggy's office as payback for sniping at Don Draper's new secretary(I loved that whole "there's no crying in the break room" conversational bit).

While Peggy is a favorite character of mine(what happened to that baby of hers,I'm dying to know!),Joan is rather a formidable opponent when it comes to office wars. Peggy needs to keep that in mind when the inevitable clash of the titans occurs:

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