>is this a hidden pucci?
argh. so this is my theory: the guest judges on project runway always cause the upsetting, inconceivable auf.
to wit:
nancy o’dell picked wendy’s trashy, orange, feathered, minidress over austin’s flowing blue, pink goddess gown to wear at the grammys. how in the world…? she ended up wearing it to the grammys sans feathers, so it was basically an orange top and bottom. unremarkable and disappointing.
nicky hilton liked santino, more because of his aggressive salesmanship than his dress wearability. plus, her braids ‘reminded her of her own fashion line.’ gag. my all-time favorite dress of this PR season was the print dress by daniel vosovic. look at that class + sass!
anne slowey from elle magazine called emmett’s ice-skating outfit (which i thought was classy, if not a bit conservative) for sasha cohen vulgar. um, what? and we’ve all heard about the tootie-this and tootie-that. but, did it occur to anyone that zulema’s winning white ensemble was more sheer than not?
freddie leiba, famous stylist, loved santino’s jumpsuit for kara because it was ‘different’, though everyone hated nick’s suit for daniel because it didnt have pockets? menswear is boring! nick made it different! why oh why was something that was glued and with open seams accepted over something that was just a tad purplish?
and now tonight, iman loves santino because he has a ‘vision’, though no one seems to understand that his vision is always in some way unwearable for the woman in question. notice how she said she ‘liked’ his but wouldn’t dare to wear it? i appreciated kara’s, i thought it would probably flatter iman the best, and the racerback and long sash constructed a sporty surprise behind the look.
what bugs me about the guest judges is that they don’t see what t. gunn, h. klum, m. kors, and n. garcia see from challenge to challenge, taking in the continuity of the designers. the competition is about innovation as well as endurance, and the guest judges are just plopped in there, with no basis on judging whether someone is one-note, or if they did an unusually good or bad job for them, etc. and that is why santino kept escaping the cut again and again! not only does he make good tv, his stuff is so preposterously different that the guests remark at how ‘visionary’ he is, that he will do better ‘next time.’ i mean, honestly, that jumpsuit was a joke. how could freddie like it? if freddie knew that zulema was auf‘d from poor execution, it just does not compute that LYING santino would pass with a DISMEMBERED SLEEVE.
did you notice that tonight’s episode was the only one with footage evidence that the dress-for-a-client was really worn? i.e. iman really wore daniel’s dress at some fancy gathering. when did sasha cohen wear zulema’s outfit? when did nicky hilton wear santino’s dress?
my plea to the PR producers is to include more real designers. props to betsey johnson (1st season) and cynthia rowley (2nd season). people who know the industry, know how hard it is to create under pressure, and not merely ‘ooh that skirt makes my bum look like a size 1 rather than a size 0’. i wish tim gunn could advise the judging… he has the purest observations of all.
oh yeah, anyone notice that no one cares about wendy pepper at all? as far as anybody’s concerned, the top three from last year are jay mccarroll, kara saun, and austin scarlett. will kara still remain a PR2 sweetheart? or are the proverbial finalists really the final 3?
santino’s style is interesting, no doubt. it’s just… is he designing clothes to be actually worn, or merely to be influential for influential’s sake? i guess his designs are intended to be explosive more than anything…
cmliu 
>Personally, I thought that golden monstrosity looked like something a gypsy hooker would throw away! Hate Santino…
>I think you might be a bit off base here. The guest judges might cause the win, but they are only 1 in 4 in causing the loss. In every one of your examples, except maybe “Makeover,” the guest judge only truly impacted who won. And since it was an outfit FOR THEM, I feel that is entirely appropriate.Now for the exception. Though Santino might have had execution problems on “Makeover”, so did Nick (puckering). The reason Nick left was because his idea was bad from start to finish. Bad idea, bad choice of fabrics, badly executed. Santino had the first two, just missed the last. So in that respect, Nick was the clear loser.
>Amen to the guest judge nonsense, Christine! Santino has a way of swooning everyone at first blush. It just takes a little time to peel away the thin, poorly sewn layers to reveal the underbelly of the beast.Anne Slowey was the worst, though. Emmett McCarthy “vulgar”?? Please.
>thanks everyone for the comments!sean, the guest judge has a little more weight than you think: 1 out of 3. heidi isn’t a judge, she’s more of a mediator / prodder / executor (in all senses of the word) :) i believe she’s just there to offer support and to keep the discussion flowing (as the main producer of the show).also, i would beg to differ on the client end. nancy o’dell picked wendy, but she didn’t pick wendy’s dress. if so, where were the feathers? nicky hilton looked utterly disinterested in everything, and basically picked santino because he shoved a card in her hand. i would love to see a picture of her wearing the blue dress in any of her future socialite sprees. has anyone seen sasha cohen skating in the white thing yet? i didnt mind her at all, but anne slowey had me missing nina for sure! and iman said that although santino’s dress wasnt for her (for whom is it?) it was like… in her. i didnt really understand that, though her statement frames his designs as more sculpture than clothing. for completely amorphous and sentimental reasons, nick still wins in my book! :)
>Well, for one, I think Heidi is a judge. Why takes notes and score if you are just there for moderation? Moderators don’t offer their opinion, they should be neutral. So I think her vote counts.Either way, two votes are probably enough to get someone off. So even if the guest judge loved something and doesn’t want someone to go, Nina and Michael could easily override that.And back to the client thing. I don’t know anyone in any type of design field that nails a client’s request the first time. Tweaking is part of the life. So the fact that the dresses change after the show is a natural part of the process.I guess it boils down to the fact that if Nina and Michael wanted any designer gone, they could have done it at any time. So the fact that the final three are who they are indicates that N and M didn’t have a problem with them.Plus, a little luck never helps.