Tag: fashion

Making it count

Apparently a few Mattel Top Models were concerned to hear that the High Priestess of Plastic, Mattel Top Model Barbie herself, was looking for them backstage at Fashion Week. No worries. She’s joining Tyra Banks, creator and executive producer of America’s Next Top Model, to promote the web site declareyourself.com. On Declare Yourself, you can find your state’s guidelines for early voting; how, when, and where (including online deadlines) you can register to vote; and information about issues.

No matter what your political leanings, it’s important to be part of the process. Voting is one way you use your voice. Fashion is fabulous and dolls are fun–but the Mattel Top Models (plus Alan) agreed to model my design challenge winners and pose with Barbie’s Uncle Sam to remind you that:


ONLY YOU CAN SILENCE YOURSELF!

Thank you, Lynne, for Uncle Sam.

Runway Monday results


Summer, no doubt annoyed that I previously won with Nikki as my model, did her best for me this week–and we won! You can read what the judges had to say about each of the designs here.

Thank you to my fellow designers, Timothy and Mark, who did great jobs for:

Nikki

and Figaro
.

Thanks also to the judges for giving their time and consideration to the designs, and to Heidi Gunn for producing us.

Bravo’s Project Runway designers are now into their final collection phase, with no more weekly challenges. That means the challenge the Runway Monday designers just completed is also our last regular challenge. I’m not sure what goodies we’ll have in store for you on Monday, October 13–workroom drama? an unexpected curve thrown at us by Heidi Gunn because of something that happens on the show? a model meltdown or two?–but we’ll have our final collections ready for the judges’–and your–consideration on Monday, October 20.

Thanks for following along while we did this. It was done in fun, but it was surprisingly hard work–at least for me–to conceive of a design each week then try to make it–since I don’t know much about fashion and I don’t know how to sew! The most fun has been hearing from people–friends and strangers–who I never expected would be so amused and eager to see our designs each week.

Ultimately, I think it’s the magic of Barbie. Whoever designed these dolls for Mattel really did create models in Summer, Nikki, and Teresa (aka Figaro). I hope they’d be amused to see that their dolls are getting to model original designs. I also hope they don’t file a cease and desist against Mark for Figaro.

LJ Runway Monday, Challenge 12

On Bravo’s Project Runway, contestants took cameras to New York Botanical Garden, where they shot photos as inspiration for evening gowns for their models.

Heidi Gunn asked the Runway Monday contestants to do likewise. Here’s the photo I chose, from a field trip I took last year in Houston.

How did I transfer this photo to fashion?

Totally random thoughts

For all those who have berated me over the years because I never saw The Princess Bride, you can now relax. I watched it with The Brides, Tim, and Tom when Mark was here. Yes, I liked it. No, I can’t quote large chunks of it yet. But at least I’ve seen it.

Speaking of quoting large chunks of movie dialogue, Tim and I rented Zoolander last night so I could see it (he’d seen it already). Now I know what people are talking about when they quote from it while talking about Runway Monday.

Last March, among my birthday gifts, was a book from The Brides, A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style, written by Tim Gunn with Kate Moloney. Now that I’ve finally had time to read it, I see that I should have read it BEFORE I embarked on Runway Monday. I’m glad Tim Gunn isn’t one of the judges.

Yeehaw!


Thanks to Nikki’s cooperation, we won this week’s LJ Runway Monday challenge with our country music look. I’d like to congratulate my fellow designers:


Timothy, who punked out Figaro, and


Mark, who made Summer all about pop music.

Thanks also to producer Heidi Gunn, all the judges (including TWO guest judges this week!), and everybody who plays along and gives praise and snark about our designs. We’re in the final weeks of LJ Runway Monday, and it’s still fun.

See you on the runway!

LJ Runway Monday, Challenge 11

On Bravo’s Project Runway, contestants were asked to design an outfit in a particular musical genre for their fellow designers.

Because no one on this planet is ever taking my measurements, I was relieved when Heidi Gunn asked the Runway Monday designers to switch models and pick a musical style for them. I was lucky enough to get Nikki–

Nikki: Damn right.

–and my genre is country music.

Nikki: What?

It hasn’t escaped my attention that many of country music’s female stars don’t really dress “country” anymore. Most of the time, Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, the Dixie Chicks, and even more traditional country singers like Dolly and Reba, are red-carpet-ready. I wanted to borrow a little of their shimmer, but also give my design some country and western flavor.

Nikki: I’m allergic to grease. And gingham.

Will Nikki break out in hives? Click here and find out.

The insanity intensifies

ETA WARNING: There are “Survivor” spoilers in this post’s comments.

No, I’m not talking about politics. I can’t read or discuss the news right now without fighting the compulsion to hyperventilate and stock the shelves with canned goods.

As you so often have heard me boast, I don’t watch much TV. We record our soap each day and watch it during dinner if nothing else is going on, or catch up on the weekends if the week is busy. I watch Project Runway because even though I know squat about fashion, I love to see creative people at work and try to get inside their heads.

On occasion, I have slipped into a glassy-eyed (but fascinated) state when an America’s Next Top Model marathon is on. It’s that damn Tyra Banks, I think. She is (brace yourself for this most overused word) fierce. Aside: Is “fierce” the word that finally knocked out “fabulous?” If we use “fierce” and “hunker down” in the same sentence, do we know we’re finally as on our way out as a Britney Spears husband?

So when Tim asked if I wanted to watch an actual first-run season of America’s Next Top Model, I nodded with enthusiasm. And we’ve missed it twice, so all hail the ability to watch episodes online. It didn’t occur to me that it was SEPTEMBER, and September means Survivor. Which starts tonight. So now I’ll be watching eight hours of television a week. That’s a WORKDAY of television.

Who am I?

LJ Runway Monday Challenge, Week 10

On Bravo’s Project Runway, contestants were asked to design an outfit transforming recent college graduates into career women. The designers had to please not only the young women who were their clients, but also the women’s mothers.

Heidi Gunn asked the Runway Monday designers to show the judges what our models would be doing if they weren’t models. When Summer was discovered by Mattel, she was a college student with a double major in broadcast journalism and political science. When I asked why she picked those fields, she said she’d always been inspired by Barbara Walters’ interviews with world leaders including U.S. presidents, Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Russia’s Boris Yeltsin, China’s Jiang Zemin, the UK’s Margaret Thatcher, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, India’s Indira Gandhi, and King Hussein of Jordan.

As Summer said, “A good TV interviewer wears clothes that make her look professional and attractive, but her clothes shouldn’t draw attention away from the person she’s questioning. The interviewer isn’t the story.”

Summer on the job