Thursday, January 10, 2008 by
Author
Bullshit.
We think that about says it all, but we figure we have to write another couple hundred words to keep you entertained.
We think a win like this sums up the main problem of having someone like Nina wielding such influence in the judging decisions. A lot of the features on the dress are very much on trend: the color, the fullness and body-hiding quality of it, the bejeweled part, and the tight bust. If you put this dress on a 90-lb model and light her correctly and photograph her professionally, it would look great on the pages of a fashion mag.
But put it on a regular girl and try to pass it off as a prom dress? No freaking way.
Personally, we think it's straight-up fugly, but as we said, it's very much on trend.
And we're getting a little tired of Victorya sending exactly the same silhouette down the runway week after week without getting called on it. She's the Uli of S4.
Plus, we can't help thinking that she has issues with women's bodies. In fact, if a male designer repeatedly showed looks that completely obliterate any traces of shape or curve and openly admits that he likes to see women's breasts bound as tight as possible, the judges would rake him over the coals for it. They certainly had no problem repeatedly hanging the woman-hating criticism on Santino and Jeffrey - both of whom showed very similar silhouettes at times.
There's nothing wrong with making a fashion-forward prom dress but in our opinion, there's really only so far you can go in that direction. Generally speaking, girls that age want to look grown up and sophisticated so the dresses almost always trend toward classic goddess gowns or cocktail dresses.
Now, it could be argued that her client seemed to love the dress but frankly, you pull the average teenage girl off the street and tell her she's going to have a dress custom-made for her by a fashion designer, she's going to be made up by professional hair and makeup people and she's going to get to walk a runway like a real model, plenty of them are going to be thrilled. Do we think plenty of them would pick a dress like this to wear to their prom? Nope. Not for a minute.
We might have been able to accept this win if there were a lot of ugly or boring dresses last night, but the fact is there were several dresses that were truly stunning and one or two that not only looked appropriately prom-ish, but also managed to look stylish and up-to-the-minute.
If you can't tell, we absolutely hated this decision. We have nothing against VictorYA's aesthetic. There are times when it's entirely appropriate. Her Bitten dress for Sarah Jessica Parker had pretty much exactly the same silhouette and we thought it deserved the win. But that was an instance of the look matching the challenge. This, to us, was a wrong decision on every level.
[Photo: Barbara Nitke/Bravotv.com - Screencaps: Project RunGay]
Post a Comment
252 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 252 of 252 Newer› Newest»Thank you, you said it all.
I liked the dress. I loved the color, and the neckline mimics one of those diamond collars Liz Taylor used to wear. A teenaged girl isn't going to remember La Liz in her prime, but she *will* get by osmosis the gestalt of Hollywood Oscar night glamor, and *would* go for it (what ever gay people with too much testosterone might think to the contrary).
The skirt wasn't too too short, and the poofy is a current look.
I don't like Victorya as a person, and I detest the cutesy way she spells her name, but I agree with the judges' choice in picking this particular dress.
I really liked Remy's dress, too, except the length was wonky and the color was drab and pea-soup'ish. Most of the dresses were drab, in fact. Why would you dress a black girl in a brown dress so that the dress blended with her skin, and the braid design ended up looking like 3-D tattoo's hoovering about her.
Kevin's dress wasn't just red, but it was flaming scarlet. What an ugly color, although I guess technically it wasn't drab.
But so much faded green and bleached-out flesh-pink walking down the runway on fresh pink-cheeked young ladies. I sighest at what they were thinking.
flairmanwoo writes, of vYa's dress: "I thought it was youthful and fun, buoyant and effervescent and looked like a teenager dressed like young people dress today."
maybe. BUT NOT TO PROM. I could see vYa's dress at, say, homecoming. or a summer party or something. but not PROMENADE!!! My own prom, way back in 1996!!!!, was mostly attended by girls wearing long, formal dresses like (duh) the ones made by Sweet P, Chris and Jillian. Buoyant and effervescent are not prom code words. And it may be true that Sweet P and Chris didn't do anything "fashion forward," but none of their clients REQUESTED anything like that. These girls WANTED seventeen-magazine style prom dresses.
i dunno - i still don't think Princess Puffysleeves's dress was *that* bad. Kevin's and vYa's were worse. I also didn't really like Kit's, honestly, because the color-blocky stuff on the top, and that ELECTRIC SCREAMING BLUE are just too unpleasantly 80s.
and you know, most girls at prom are dressing for the boys - it's not the time to pack away your boobs and pretend you haven't hit puberty yet.
http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1565072&vid=164230
check it out :: its the mychael knight dress that victorya copied lol
I agree completely on your dislike of Victorya's dress. The one that *should* have won was Sweet P's. It was a beautiful color for the girl, classy and elegant but not too old... and she did a *wonderful* job of tailoring the design to the girl's figure (NOT an easy thing to do, especially with that thin, shimmery fabric!).
To me, Victorya's dress looked far too much like a negligee with a big lump of flash in one spot, to be a winner.
As for the worst dress... definitely Ricky's. It looked like a pale pink pillowcase, with a ballooned-up hem.
VictorYa for the win??!? Clearly Nina isn't getting enough sleep, Michael was distracted by VYa's bedazzled T-bone bodice, and Heidi, well, she ain't no Iman. I miss PRC!!
clearly, the only way this season can redeem itself to you guys is if the judges take victorya and throw her to a pack of starving dogs. you all are INSANE with your mob mentality.
btw. the bedazzler joke was funny when the PR gayboys made it. after being repeated amongst yourselves a hundred rounds or so, it's not nearly as fresh as you think it is. she used rhinestones, people. some designers actually do that from time to time. get over it.
"Anonymous," you're overgeneralizing when you say "all" and "mob mentality." This is the first episode of the show I've seen, and the first time I've come here to read the blog (got referred to it when posting somewhere else)... and I stand by what I said. Her dress was NOT the best prom dress offered, and it DID have several aspects I found totally unappealing.
As for the bedazzler stuff, she could've at least gotten it EVEN, on the dress: part of it ran off the V-line and onto the bodice, on one side. And I think simple clear rhinestones would've looked better than the mishmosh of colors and sizes she used.
I've *worn* a dress out of the fabric Sweet P used (even the same color), and I can tell you that it's a very difficult and supple material; she did a masterful job in designing and sewing it *just* right, to fit her girl. One misplaced tuck with that stuff stands out like a neon sign, because it affects the drape severely.
Oh god. That dress is UGLY.
To be quite honest, I wore a dress very similar to Kevin's to MY prom, and NO ONE wore a dress like Victorya's.
This is what my friends and I call a Strawberry dress. Because of the bubble skirt and its fullness, she looks like a blue strawberry.
Not only that this look could not work on most girls [Although that's probably not a judging point] It hardly works on THAT girl. And the beads look really cheap.
As for being fashion forward... I dunno. Fashions come and fashions go, and this, I think, is the uglier side of today's fashion. Just because it's trendy doesn't mean it has to be done. Better let it sink as fast as possible.
[So that next year, in outdated trends, they could make this again. ]
At least Mychael Knight's dress didn't make Malia look like she had no chest of any sort. THAT was the right way to do the racer front and still allow the girl to look like she had more than a neck connected to an unreasonably high waist.
The racist bullshit being posted here is completely assinine.
I dislike Victorya's designs as much as the next person, but those ignoramuses among you who cannot critique her work without making racist remarks are the ones with the biggest problems.
Doesn't Ann Coulter have a blog somewhere, where you would be more at home?
--GothamTomato
*Sighs* As a fourty something indulgent gay uncle of 2 teenage girls, I knew that Victorya's dress would win. It's very "Gossip Girl".
During my prom in the early eighties, all the girls wear beautiful bridesmaid like long flowing dress with big puffy sleeves mostly in whites, pinks or lavenders. Now, all my nieces want are cute short bubbly dress or tight slinky dress in jewel tones. I took them shopping for junior n senior prom dress last year and started again for this year. I learned aht the beautiful long flowing dresses I expected to buy for them are replaced by short glitering dress like what they see on "Gossip Girl". And unfortunately, Victorya's is that "Gossip Girl" dress.
-Fairy GodUncle
Is she throwing a gang sign in the second picture?
A diaper. That's what the hemline of YaYa's mess reminded me of. This whole episode has just been tragic on so many levels.
IMHO YaYa is simply detestible for so many valid reasons; I have to agree with Gotham Tomato that there is no need to resort to racial slurs.
oh wow ... vYa's dress is a redux of Mychael's dress for the Sweet 16 show ... just vYa'd
What a bummer this result is! What were the judges thinking?
To those who point out that Ms Ya-ya's design esthetic shows that she has issues with women's bodies, I give you the traditional Korean dress, the Han-Bok. There are a lot of lovely photos on the web of Han-bok complete with jackets, but I am providing a link to the folkwear pattern that shows a line drawing of the underdress and the little jacket. Here is the link: http://www.folkwear.com/asian.html
Now, click on pattern number 141 and look a the lines of the undergarment. Looks familiar, doesn't it. Think about the lines of several of her garments.
As a fiberartist (weaver, surface designer, and sometime seamstress, I love the lines of ethnic garments that allow me to use the surface as a canvas for embellishment (and as a 58 year old woman with a spine-screpancy the looser lines of these ethnic garments are more flattering to me. )
But were I a designer creating a line for young women, I would be more interested in creating clothing that complimented the youthful, shapely attributes of my client. I find Victorya's work to be heavily derivative, and recommend that the Duchess and her pals do a little historical researach before they declare her work to be fashion forward. Just sayin'
Rosie's girl,
Thanks for the comment about Korean folkwear...I've been thinking about that for a couple of days now.
I guess I watched too many M*A*S*H episodes in my youth....
To be honest, the Korean influence had occurred to us, but we don't know enough about Victorya's background to make that point. Plus, like the occasional comparison to Vera Wang (which is somewhat valid), it just seemed too easy and obvious to jump to that conclusion.
Boys, that's why we pay you the big bucks. You show us the not-so-obvious conclusions.
Love ya. Thanks for all the time you put in.
I hear you, TLo. When the thought came to me that her pieces reminded me of the Han-bok, I went to the Project Runway site, and read Victorya's bio to see if traditional Korean dress could easily have influenced her aesthetic. Based on my knowledge of ethnic clothing, it was interesting to me that the Han-bok compresses the body in much the same way that several of Victorya's garments do.
Whether the lines of this traditional garment are indeed a significant influence in her aesthetic, many of the garments she has produced on the show are repetitive. Had her influence been Scottish or Hungarian traditional clothing, I would have had the same comment.
I love the lines of most asian garments for use in art wear. But I am not a designer trying to establish my creative chops. Is Victorya a one note designer or is she just creating a cohesive line? (Only the Duchess and NinaGarciaofElleMagazine know for sure.)
Love your site - and insightful commentary! Thanks for all the work.
Cheers,
Rosie's Girl
T-LO,
What's happened to Project Runway?
I don't love it anymore.
I just got back from a month of travel, settled in to watch 3 episodes and barely got through 2.
Challenges: Boring
Designers: Boring
Designs: Boring
Judging: Just south of evil.
Can you explain what's happened?
Your commentary, though, absolutely spot on as usual.
You make it worthwhile.
Emma P.
I hate VictorYa(whatev!) and her half blown up balloon dress. Bubble dresses are OUT! They don't even feature them in Elle anymore! There hasn't been a clavicle dress in Elle in over a year! Nina's baby is obviously preventing her from getting some much needed sleep!
Your final picture of VictorYa is the perfect visual representation of everyting I don't like about her. Two words come to mind: haughty and impervious. Yuck.
Don't you think Victorya's dress reminds me of the dress that Tara Connor(Miss USA) wore. The neck is nearly identical.
This challenge reminds me of why I lied to my boyfriend and told him I was sick during our prom. The truth was that I couldn't find a dress that wasn't a godawful nightmare. Seems like these designers couldn't figure it out either. Let's face it, a prom dress is as nightmarish as a bridesmaid's dress. No matter how "fun" or "edgy" you try to make it it's still a dress made for an inherently awkward occasion during which you'll probably get drunk, throw up on said dress and sleep with the wrong boy/girl.
re: racism. there are the comments that are so obviously offensive that they don't remain on the blog long enough for most of us to read them, and there are the more subtle jabs about how victorya is the "stereotypical asian bitch, able to convey scorn with the flick of an eyelid." as a fellow korean american, i have to say i find both absolutely detestable and *yawn* uncreative. like, ooh, an asian bitch insult. that's never been said before. maharhar and lynette are RIGHT on.
and i personally think comparisons to hanbok are a bit far-fetched, if all you have to go on is a compressed bustline and a full skirt. instead, i rather think that victorya is just designing for her own body type. i have a similarly petite frame, and the silhouette she favors in her designs is one i like on myself. i have come to realize it's not one that guys appreciate so much -- but sometimes you don't dress for men, you know. and please, no comments about being a boob-hating bitch.
Anonymos: Have you made the same thoughtful suggestion when Project Runway's regular crew of seventeen year old models are similarly jeered?
No, I think I made a rather critical statement of the models in response to the post by T & Lo in regards to their post wondering why the models this season aren't the best and I agreed. But as someone pointed out in response to your comment, there is a big difference between someone who comes on this show to participate as a normal person, and someone whose job it is to wear clothes and look good in them. I was just merely trying to state that being overly critical of them may be appropriate. Additionally, the models in this season (as mentioned) are all older. Gone are the days when project runway had underage girls model (I am getting a creepy image of Austin's model in the bathing suit challenge being ooggled by the judge :)
And in response to the interpretation that I think the girls should be coddled, I certainly don't think they should be. But I don't think that refraining from making more personalized statements of criticism would be coddeling, nor would it be appropriate to treat them like the shows standard professional models.
Stuff like this is why I'm not watching any more. For all the talk about the most TALENTED GROUP OF SUPERSTARS EVAH!!!!!!!1!1!! this group has continually failed to impress me. These dresses are all either super generic or uggggly IMO.
Thank goodness for you two to comment! It's all I have left for PR....
Someone has seen a "similarity" between this dress and one by a previous PR designer:
http://jezebel.com/343485/copy-cats
I think the dress looked better on the runway, since the skirt had a nice movement and the model's awkwardness -- some of these girls seem to have never walked in heels before -- "explained" the sense of visual dissonance. But the still pictures are unforgiving. The neck strap seems to pull the model's shoulders forward, which makes me wonder how the bust would fit if she were standing up straight, or if she'd strangle herself. (Victorya Hong Fashions -- for the woman who slouches!) The length of the skirt accentuates her gangliness, like a tall girl trying to wear a petite dress. I don't get the placement of the sparkly stuff -- why draw attention to her short neck?
Of course, Victorya is the designer who said that "the rules are different" for women who aren't typical model sizes, which really makes me wonder what "the rules" are. Because the dress she made for Ory had natural boobs and a fitted skirt.
I'm very tired of the smashed boobs little girl look. But I do sense that she's a pet of Michael and Heidi's.
I think YaYa's next challenge should be to design for Dolly Parton, for whom big boobs are expected on stage. No flattening those girlpillows down!
In fact, may I add Dolly Parton to the list of "dream bitches" I'd like to see as a judge?
Just put Dolly Parton up there with Elaine Stritch, and they'd completely dominate Michael and Nina.
Michael Knight made the same dress for a girl on My Super Sweet 16.
As jezebel reported, this is just like Michael's sweet sixteen dress.... http://jezebel.com/343485/copy-cats
CB said: "My own prom, way back in 1996!!!!, was mostly attended by girls wearing long, formal dresses like (duh) the ones made by Sweet P, Chris and Jillian."
You sort of illustrate the issue on why VictorYA won, Sweet P and Chris' dresses have been done again and again and again. They would not have looked fashion forward at the 1996, let alone the 2008 prom. Which is why YA won over Sweet P, me thinks, her look was a different, modern, spin on the prom dress.
I think you actually summed it up well with just "bullshit".
An anonymous poster wrote:
"re: racism. there are the comments that are so obviously offensive that they don't remain on the blog long enough for most of us to read them, and there are the more subtle jabs about how victorya is the "stereotypical asian bitch, able to convey scorn with the flick of an eyelid." as a fellow korean american, i have to say i find both absolutely detestable and *yawn* uncreative. like, ooh, an asian bitch insult. that's never been said before. maharhar and lynette are RIGHT on."
um.....I was being sarcastic to maharhar's comment. I'm asian too and the only stereotype I come close to is being a bad driver! When it comes to insulting people, I've always believed in being bitchy in a generic way; never bringing race or sexual orientation into it. But I only insult people in my brain (unless it's in response to a comment like maharhar's).
re: re: racism.
oh. sorry about that, lynette.
The last picture of her in this section scares me. Does anyone else think that? Look at it! She looks like she's gonna rip off the head of whoever she's looking at and throw it across the room!
That said, I was indifferent about the dress--I saw many of its twins while prom dress shopping a two years ago. I would never wear an overly beaded dress as I've never cared for that style. I just knew, though, that they wouldn't give the win to Sweet P. I started stabbing at my bedsheets nonetheless when they announced Victorya was the winner.
Oh, and I agree, T & L! Kit's been robbed over and over again.
~Zippylittlerat~
Well, to everyone who has been saying that you can't buy this dress at the stores, you can.
Prior to Christmas this year, my sister and I were laughing at the dresses at Kohls which featured huge, cheap gemstones that looked straight out of a Barbie massacre. The line that these dresses were from? Simply Vera by Vera Wang...
conspiracy.
"bejewelled smurf turd"
PERFECT description
And coming from an AGGRESSIVE Asian bitch, this girl has passive aggressive down pat. I've said it once and I'll say it again - I wish Shetangi would bust in and and turn her face into hamburger for her crimes against fashion.
To all who hates V, including Tim... this is from one of you lovers, Jay McCarroll
"the color and silhouette were very appropriate for this challenge. I usually hate royal blue but for some reason I actually liked it in this dress. I do love the jeweled neckpiece. I didn’t love the models hair. I found it to be too long and distracting. after all, this show is about judging clothes….isn’t it?"
"and the winner is….victorya…which i agree with".
Best to all.
Go to way, Victorya
Sorry... way to go, Victorya
Once again Victorya has SMUSHED a girl's boobs flat. Ridiculous. Both of Victorya's winning outfits were ridiculous. Are the judges blind?
Wow. Just wow.
The only designers whose work actually looked appropriate for a prom, IMHO, were Sweet P and Chris, and possibly Jillian. Those should have been top 3, and I would have given Sweet P the win.
VictorYA should have been bottom 3 along with Christian and Ricky. No way did Kevin or Rami belong there. I probably would have aufed Ricky, in the end, but VictorYA's dress was so far from a prom dress that she should have just barely made the cut.
Talk about judges on crack!
I am sorry, but I was at Kohl's last week,and I swear I saw that exact dress on the 80% off rack.
It was tired back in the 80's when the Debbie Gibson Bedazzled Bubble Dress was 1st in style.'
All that girl needed was a fedora and a bad spiral perm.
Also, did anyone notice that her and the robbed Sweet P. VictorYuk allowed SweetP to walk off arm in arm, but as soon as she thought she was out of view of the camera, she threw Sweet P's arm off her like it had cooties.
I thought designer clothes were supposed to be nicely finished, every detail. This dress might have flowed better with just a rolled hem, instad of that awful bubble look.
The fitting and finishes on these dresses is very disappointing
THANK YOU!! A thousand times thank you. Thank you for confirming that there is still some sanity in this world. My partner and I were screaming at the TV when this dress won.
Did anyone EXPLAIN to the foreign-born judges what prom is like in America? Nina kept lobbing this criticisms at other designers that their dresses were too "sophisticated"? REALLY??!! Does she realize that, for an American girl, prom is the most sophisticated event before the age of 21, at least in terms of dress?
This is judging for the cameras, nothing else.
Greetings FabBoys!
I was thinking about this -- every time there is a "real woman" design, the skinniest chick wins. Think about it. I'm going to go check to be sure . . . robin in Colorado
since the han bok came up, I wonder if that is what she was referring to in the team challenge when Ricky wanted to correct the fit on her corset and she said that she had seen similar corset tops on the runway that really flattened the model's breasts and she liked it that way.
If she had seen an ethnic show at some point, maybe it was a look she preferred.
I know I say this every season, but...WTF!? I know the judging is completely arbitrary and capricous, but come on. Did you anyone notice how Heidi's eyes lit up talking about SweetP's dress? She loved it! Everyone loved it! But Vicious Vicki the boob squasher won. I would really like to see transparency with what input the producers have rather than some vague disclaimer that goes by at 100mph at the end of the show.
Didn't like it, but yeah, Nina could've put it on the front page of her stupid magazine, so...
Victorya is a little too popular with the judges. Not as much as Rami, but still...
I really disagree with you about this episode :-)
This dress is young, pretty, vibrant, easy but elegant. The usual prom dresses make the girls look old. This is an improvement to me.
Raffaella
Post a Comment