RunGay at the Runway, Part Zwei

So.

We'll be ripping the mini-collections in a later post, but we figured you'd all want to hear a little first-hand account of what it was like at the show yesterday. Once again, the word that comes to mind is "surreal."

So, we get to the tent at Lincoln Center and unsurprisingly, there's a healthy line of hopefuls waiting to get in. Security wasn't letting anyone in yet, so we went and got our tickets and stood around feeling superior to the people in line when all the way in the back, behind the tent, a tiny little figure was jumping up and down waving frantically at us. We squinted our middle-aged eyes for a moment and both exclaimed "AMANDA!!!" and we scurried to the back for a quick hello. "Quick" meaning Amanda spoke about 6 thousand words after we managed to squeeze out a "How ARE you, girl?!" As we stood there trying to take everything she was saying in we heard another high-pitched squeal behind us and it was none other than the fabulous Camilla, waving her arms in the air and coming over to hug us. We fawned over her (as we're prone to doing) and thanked her profusely for the incredible interview she gave us last week. As we were chatting with her, we heard this low hum of "It's Tom and Lorenzo" behind us and turned around (yet again) to be faced with Javi, Marilinda and Lindsay from season 3. Girls, we HAD to get a picture with all these fabulous glamazons. And so, we did.

The area we were schmoozing in was the de facto smoking section for everybody involved in the show (how do you think those models stay so thin?) and through the haze of smoke we heard an "I know you guys!" and waved our hands around to part the carcinogens. Who was speaking but none other than Sweet P, who is, believe it or not, incredibly sweet. Hence the name, we guess. She's also really pretty. It's always jarring to meet reality show contestants in person for the first time because they've had a normal night's sleep and don't look as haggard and stressed out as they do in the shows and promotional materials.

In that vein, we ran into Steven as he was rushing about and grabbed a quick picture with him. He is VERY tall and much, much better looking in person. Downright hot. But then, that seems to be the theme this year. Season 4 is going to go down as "The Season Where Tom and Lorenzo Wanted to Sex Most of the Male Designers."

Anyway, we made our way into the tent and into our seats. Dear god, flying coach gives you more leg and arm room than sitting in a fashion show. We're still not walking upright yet. We managed to catch a few quick words with Laura K from BPR (who was doing her own schmoozing), and a quick picture with Malan Darling before we were all ordered by the booming disembodied voice to take our seats. Just before Heidi came out, we glanced over and, to our amusement, observed Santino giving his business card to one of the Housewives of Orange County. Surreal.

Then, Heidi came out. In a hideous dress. In fact, Tom leaned right over and whispered "That's a hideous dress." to Lorenzo's furiously nodding head. Heidi is, of course, gorgeous, but she also has an absolutely adorable personality. She's really grown into her own as a hostess from the "this is also a competition for you as well" days of seasons one and two. But we have to say, as charming and beautiful as she is, she has a voice that can cut glass.

She introduced Nina and Tim to the crowd. Nina is quite a bit prettier in person. We think she tends to look a little hard in photographs but we didn't think that was the case in person. To no one's surprise, her hair is FABULOUS.

As we said, we'll talk about the fashions later, but we just have to reiterate how utterly bizarre it is to be watching Project Runway models strut down a runway to Project Runway theme music while Heidi, Nina and Tim are sitting less than twenty feet away. Heidi looked teutonically blank throughout most of the show, Tim looked adorably disgusted by most of the clothes, and Nina looked utterly bored by them. We imagined little thought balloons over her head that said things like "Aesthetically not pleasing" and "I'm confused" and "There is something to be desired in the execution."

Oh and by the way, Amanda and Camilla can WORK IT. They were the two best walkers BY FAR. Some of those girls looked like they just figured out how to walk in the last week or so.

The whole thing was over relatively quick. We made the rounds saying hello to some of our Bravo peeps. Andy Cohen is such the little Bravo cheerleader. He can't wait for the season to start. Then, burly security people ushered us to the exits.

We went around to the back again and sure enough, under a heavy cloud of cancer agents, we met a few more of the S4 designers. Chris? Absolutely adorable in person. Sweetheart. We're going to hate ripping him to shreds in the coming weeks (not really). Kevin and Ricky seemed nice, but we barely had more than a second to snap a picture before someone else was vying for their attention. Rami? THE HOTNESS. Honey? Call us. Angry people with clipboards and headphones ushered the designers and models back into the tents for some form of press-induced torture and thus, our brush with Season 4 greatness came to an end.

So we met up with S2 greatness and went and had lunch with Emmett and one of our all-time favorite commenters on this blog, Gotham Tomato, who is funny and sweet and no, honey. You didn't offend us with the "tourists" comment. We happened to totally agree.


(Photos: ProjectRunGay)