Project Runway

anyone tune into Making the Cut? It's quite good. As much as I like Christian Siriano he's the only thing about PR that is still good.

Making the Cut is essentially exactly the same show, with the difference that all the designers are a lot further along in their careers and the prize money is way higher so the expectation is that whoever wins this really will launch into a much bigger brand. So far there have also been fewer design fails. The only thing I dont like about Making the Cut is that the judge panel has Naomi Campbell on it and she's so incredibly unpleasant.

I am LOVING this show. The clothes are amazing. Sander and Esther are my favourites and I really don't see what they see in Johnny.

Naomi is great TV. I can see how her directness can come across as rude but I actually think it's very honest and the praise she gives is always really precise and useful and celebratory. I'm sure Simon Cowell has said nastier things on his shows and got away with it.

Chiara Ferragni seems the weak link to me - she doesn't seem to have anything useful to contribute. It is hilarious how blatant they've made it that Nicole Richie couldn't get a visa for Japan though.

Also the budget for this must be unreal. Not just the main prize but the weekly ones too. And it looks gorgeous on screen too. When Esther went for a swim I wanted to jump in that water, it was so beautifully shot.

oh is that what happened to richie? I actually forgot she was even on it. you'd think they would have researched that more before hand.

wait are there THREE shows like this now

the Netflix one was quite good, or at least the designers were

the one bad thing about this show: the music is unbearable. too loud, generic, awful. go back to some bland vocal-free stuff please.

you guys are talking about Making the Cut? I only saw some headline about it dissing on Amazon so I kind of overlooked it, but it's good?

Yes. If you liked PR with Heidi and Tim you'll like it, it's essentially the same show with a bigger budget and more accomplished designers.

oh this was the headline that I think turned me off from watching it, "Making the Cut Is a Thinly Disguised Amazon Marketing Campaign".

eh, PR itself was a marketing campaign for the different brands they took on as sponsors and it was more intrusive IMO.

oh yes the music is massively distracting, although 20+ seasons of ANTM has kinda made it easy for me to overlook it now. I don't think it's too bad in terms of pushing Amazon - you're watching it on Amazon Prime and they sell the clothes on their website but it doesn't seem any more heavy-handed than the various sponsored shoes-and-accessories walls on Project Runway. Heidi and Tim get some interludes to themselves and usually these things are quite cringey but I find them really endearing, Tim is such a sweetheart and Heidi seems a lot more relaxed in this than I've ever seen her. I like that the show is much more focussed on the design rather than the craft (cf getting the seamstresses in overnight, off camera, to fashion the garments based on instructions) and also the dynamics between contestants seems particuarly peaceful for this kind of show.

I tried with Alexa and Tan but I've always found Alexa to be massively unlikable and Tan seemed equally awful so we didn't even make it through five minutes of that.

as I say, they had to be tolerated - the contestants made it worth it

xpost I knew PR was over in that incarnation when it had Red Robin as a sponsor.

but i guess the idea is that amazon is an entirely different beast in terms of pushing their total takeover of everything in the world (all their new lines of "branded" clothes now). I really want to completely cut off amazon, but it is extremely difficult. I did get rid of Prime. awwww... i like Alexa so much.

Enjoying Making the Cut on amazon but not completely getting the judging process which it doesn't seem very well thought through as a thing for the viewer to process. Picking just a couple out to talk to then HK asking the other judges if anyone has changed their mind? Kinda stupid, imo. There are a lot of nice contestants in it though! Naiomi is fierce and fearless as a judge! I'm only on episode three so please flag spoilers if you have got further. Ta.

oops, sorry, I searched for this through the site function but didn't realise it had already been discussed - Just swiped straight to the bottom and posted.

The Netflix one had different problems. It seems that in order to avoid litigation for copyright for the shows themselves you have to make certain processes more distinct so that it's not a straight copy of another show but in doing that you simply make the thing needlessly complicated in increasingly atomised judging processes.

The judging makes more sense the less of them there are

Good to hear.

I'd imagine Naomi's fee for this approaches the entire budget for the other similar shows on its own.

Tim Gunn is such a gentle soul.

EP 4 SPOLIER

It was quite clear that Esther was the winner of that but that they couldn't make her win again three times out of four.

seems obvious that esther is going to win the whole thing unless the avant garde guy steps it up a bit

what really needs to stop is the Heidi and Tim hanging out interludes, which it goes without saying are total shite, we just need more Naiomi and her lack of filter. There are literally zero people watching this that want to watch those.

(those H&T 'ludes)

Oh I like the interludes! But I have so much affection for Tim doing, well, anything. The Heidi and Chiara one was rubbish

I mean... obviously these interludes would be 100% better if they replaced Heidi with Naomi and Tim with a Nokia 3310 handset

I like Sander but he seems to be taking a stupidly long time working out how the avant brands exist. Comme des Garcons don't make money by selling cocoon dresses with mad bulges and no armholes. We know all the other things they do to build their brand and it's sometimes inside out suiting in plaid and it's even sometimes converse plimsolls or t-shirts with hearts-with-eyes at £120.

to steer it back to Project Runway proper, I've watched the last two seasons and honestly, since it's gone back to Bravo, it's been as good as it's ever been? I really like Brandon Maxwell and this may be recency bias talking, and I know this might be heresy to most, but Christian Siriano might be a better mentor than Tim Gunn ever is/was? He's a lot less paternal/father figure-like (which I know goes against being a mentor for some), gives more practical advice, and knows when to push the designers to be pragmatic or take risks when necessary, which I honestly don't remember Tim Gunn ever doing

From a purely teaching perspective I don’t think that Christian is a good mentor at all; but that being said I really like him on the show

Tim was so great at problem solving but also getting the designer to come to the better solution WITH him, rather than just telling them it sucks or it’s good. It’s an underrated skill. And he made ppl feel good even when they were failing.

FYI

I watched the last two episodes.

Let me know when we can *talk*

I've watched the penultimate episode and I am too angry to talk

i feel like Christian doesn't get the respect from the designers that he deserves.

I've now watched the final and I am not impressed at all!

Also the last two minutes of this was like the end of an early noughties episode of Big Brother

I've watched the penultimate episode and I am too angry to talk

― boxedjoy, Friday, 24 April 2020 19:27 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Totally.

well these posts are helping narrow down our forthcoming fashion fix to just the Siriano PR haha

this is why you should stomach Tan and Alexa, folks: they give you what you want

the main problem with PR is that the episodes are way way way too long.

even the new one?

*SPOILERS*

So, Sander should not have gone after the pop-up-shop challenge, he totally switched up his whole game. Then he should not have won over Esther. Did they just want an American winner? It's the only possible explanation, imo.

he=Jonnie.

the "Hungry 4 Success" messaging and cutlery print (!) was probably the fastest I have ever been drained of goodwill to a reality show contestant ever, what a truly awful direction to go in

Sander showing versatility, high-fashion looks, commercial appeal, a USP to his pop-up and a willingness to adapt over the season, all made me think this was a set-up. I've seen clothes that were like Johnny's but nicer in the Zara sale.

I did laugh when the woman from Amazon turned up in that bright floral print though - Esther had no chance!

i'm interested in how egregious this was compared to, say, Gretchen beating Mondo on PR, then a few years later turning out to be grifting a living as a life-coach charging $800/h

also we're watching the first Siriano series from last year no spoilers plsss it's good tho

"i'm interested in how egregious this was compared to, say, Gretchen beating Mondo on PR, then a few years later turning out to be grifting a living as a life-coach charging $800/h" I didn't know about that!

I finally watched this. I see why they didn't go with Esther but I disagree with it. It was purely a commercial choice. They were worried she wouldn't want to dilute her aesthetic for mass production.

anyway, in general I still liked this more than recent PR but they have got to turn to the fucking music down next time.

xpost looking online the PR episodes from season 8 onward are a little over 60 minutes as opposed to ~40 minutes. That is way too much filler.

grr last year's PR (only halfway through!) is starting to severely overrate the one designer I'm kind of aesthetically opposed to. they did a video game character challenge and just handed her the win even though the other two at the top were entirely and demonstrably better. why did they have to keep Nina around lol

oh yeah Hester's thing was super tiresome.

thank GOD she did not win (although her final runway contained arguably her best work of the series), still would have preferred to see Bishme's runway

anyway

the winner was ordained from the second episode of the series onward. tt and i looked at each other. he was the one