Project Runway Season 8 Finale

We interrupt your usual programming of the usual weekend meme and bring you a special report on Thursday night's Project Runway finale. I have been a fan of Project Runway and love the creativity, the process and the challenges most of all. Like many fans, I have followed the show from Bravo to Lifetime and I too enjoyed the extended 90 minutes episodes so to better understand the creative process of each clothing.

This year, our villain is in the form of a pompous Gretchen Jones and her lackey head-bitch Ivy Higa picking on a cute bear called Michael Costello who doesn't have formal design training. Said bear has a son and a wife and everyone. including me, thought he was straight at first but turns out he was forced into marrying a girl when he was younger and he's in fact gay and has a partner.



As with any usual talent competition show, the talent pool and the interest wanes, and if it's not for the drama I doubt that anyone would watch it. The challenges had been somewhat predictable and boring, maybe due to its move to a lesser channel the celebrities who appears on the show also seems to be of a lower rank. After 13 grueling weeks, 3 contestants ended up in the finale:

Exciting Mondo who likes to mix-and-match prints:



Hawaiian Asian Andy with a shiny, Asian influenced collection with celestial headgears.



Decidedly granola, monotone and drab Gretchen with a chunky jewelry collection that she designed herself:



Based on my description, I'm sure you already know my feelings towards certain designers and their designs. Overall, I like Mondo's the best. His inspirations were Latinas, Mexican Day of the Dead festival, Aztec and his black and white prints. Somehow, I see early black and white version of Minnie Mouse. Is it just me?

While Andy's headgears were distractingly bad, I didn't mind the collection too much. It's short and shiny just like what Heidi Klum would like and there's an easy and lightness to it that I do enjoy. But the bigger story is that there seems to be accusations that some of Andy's designs actually comes from a Japanese pattern book. Plagiarism is seriously shunned on and if it was intentional, and it seems that it is, it's seriously unwise.

Gretchen's collection is really humdrum, the fabrics utilized were drab and uninspired. Truly it's the worst amongst the three. I can see the collection being sold at Burlington Coat Factory or Ross. Not that there's not a market for it, but it's for a girl who likes to browse consignment and second hand shops. The jewelry reminds me of car hood ornaments, they are clunky. Maybe it's just personal taste, I've never responded well to drapey clothing, I'm more into form fitting pieces.

So how in the hell did Gretchen become the winner of this season? My theory is that one of the prize for the winner is to have his winning collections produced for sale and Gretchen's collection seems to be the easiest. It's not easy to use the prints exactly right and it surely will not fit most body types. Also, a little controversy makes for good TV. Anyway, too bad reputation of the show suffers because of a bad decision, Lifetime really dropped the ball on this. I mean even queen bitch Ivy Higa managed to turn out a pretty respectable decoy collection: