Saturday, July 19, 2008

Project Runway

is on y'all! The new season started this week on Bravo. You may not know it because there hasn't been one ad for it, not that I've seen anyway. Looks like Bravo is not spending one cent on it since the show is going to the Lifetime Network next season.

Love Project Runway. I don't know how to sew or make clothes so I am slightly amazed at how people can make an article of clothing in a couple of hours, much less make it out of recycling materials or food or whatever the challenge is that week.

I think the structure of the show is great. In the first half you watch how the contestants make clothes within the challenge, and in the second half you get to spend time with the judges -- funny Michael Kors, fashion editor Nina Garcia who is sharp without being mean, and a guest judge like Vera Wang or Zac Posen. You can learn a lot about design from the way they judge the clothes and the observations that they make.

Although this week I think they eliminated the wrong person; the woman who made the outfit of garbage bags should have gone. Definitely.

Speaking of Lifetime, there is coverage in the media this week about the law suit that NBC, parent of Bravo, is filing against the Project Runway producer, The Weinstein Company, for moving the show to Lifetime. The co-chairman of The Weinstein Company is of course Harvey Weinstein, the co-founder of Miramax Films. Mr. Weinstein is now married to a fashion designer, Georgina Chapman, a co-designer of the Marchesa label, and he has become more involved in the fashion business. But besides the brouhaha over Project Runway, there was more bad news from Weinstein this week when it was announced that Marco Zanini, the new designer at Halston which is now owned by The Weinstein Company, is out the door after one year.

Companies trying to revive moribund brands by bringing in a fresh designer hope to create magic like Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, John Galliano at Dior, and Marc Jacobs in Vuitton, but it's not easy to find the right match.

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