Here’s our new weekly TV blog post about Project Runway Australia. There will be spoilers, so if you haven’t watched it yet – don’t read any further.
Project Runway, the Australian version, returned to our screens last night after a year of rest and without host Kristy Hinze, mentor Henry Roth, or any of the old the judges. Out with the old and in with the new. Megan Gale takes over as the host and Alex Perry is the new mentor. Does it make a difference? Not really, the host says the same thing every week, it’s so scripted, it could be Hinze, Gale or US host Heidi Klum, how hard is to say the show’s catch phrase, ‘One day you’re in and the next day you’re out’?
Alex Perry was quite invigorating as the mentor, we didn’t really see him give much fashion advice to the contestants yet, but his threats to ‘stop touching’, and ‘hurry up and get out of here’ were quite menacing. Perry managed to squeeze four outfits into the episode, two more than the host Megan Gale – something I’m sure Henry Roth or Tim Gunn have never achieved.
For their first challenge the contestants had to make a cocktail dress that expressed who they are as a designer. The twist was the colour and fabrics were randomly chosen for them. They had to use all three fabrics.
So to the contestants, sorry Designers, we started with twelve of them, and we’re going to whittle away until there’s just three for the finale. Let’s hope they keep the bitchy and nasty ones – because that’s what the show is really about.
Gabrielle (40), is a bit of a big sister character, she made a cream dress with deliberately loose hanging threads. Claire (24) is a hipster from Melbourne, didn’t see much of her this week, Amanda (36) is from Perth and has her own label and shop, and Anna (31) also from Perth, and also has her own label Moocha Bella. These four all made it through and we didn’t see much of them this episode.
Now to the ones we did see, Dylan Cooper, a 21 year old queerling from Sydney who says his best feature is his eyebrows… so much eye makeup. I spent the first half of the show thinking how much he reminded me of a raccoon, and the second half thinking how much he looked like Servelan, the President of the Universe from Blakes 7. But he made a lovely blue dress and almost won.
Matcho (24) is the boy who looks like comedian Alan Carr and has clearly stolen all of Elton’s old glasses. He describes himself as flamboyant, and is originally from Slovania. He studied in London but moved to Australia with his husband last year. After last night’s episode I’m calling him EuroGiggler. His design was outrageously strange, let’s hope he hangs around for a few episodes.
Nerida (21) is the short-haired black-clad bleach-blond girl from Sydney who refers to herself in the third person. Never short of a snide comment; let’s hope she lasts a while, or at least until just before referring to yourself in the third person becomes really annoying.
Timothy (42) is from Perth, he’s a designer not a dress maker, he hasn’t sewn a garment for 25 years, and we know this because he said it four times last night. He’s a bit of a name dropper, he once hung out with Donatella Versace. Name dropping’s OK – I once worked for Fat Cat. I thought his peach cocktail dress looked like a 1970’s airline stewardesses uniform, but that’s just me.
Rachel (21) is the one with the bright pink hair, pink clothes, pink bracelets and all the face piercings. She looks like she was kidnapped and re-styled in Shibuya. Her jade green dress looked like it was going to be a disaster but was actually quite stylish by the time it reached the catwalk.
Johnny (21) is from Sydney and does a nice line in bow ties. He was the winner this week with his purple creation; I thought Dylan’s blue number would be the winner, but a fair call.
So the bottom two were Craig (45) who is teacher of design who has his own wedding wear label and
Anthony (34) from Sydney. Craig spent the episode saying how much he liked the colour red before sending the model down the runway is a dress that had droopy shoulders. Anthony spent the episode complaining about how much he didn’t like the colour yellow before suddenly realising that there was only five minutes left. So he wrapped the fabric round the model and manically stapled and pinned it together.
Under the judges interrogation Craig tried to pass off the droopy shoulders as a feature, before caving and admitting fashion Viagra was required. Anthony cited a time management issues and requested a copy of David Allen’s How to Get Things Done. I was a little disappointed, one week I just want someone to face off the judges and claim ‘My inspiration was the stationary cupboard, I’ve utilised sticky tape, blue-tac and staples in my design’.
So Anthony was bid farewell after showing the judges a cocktail dress that really did express who he was as a designer, he was the designer who would forget to sew it together. ..and then there were eleven.
What did you think of this week’s Project Runway Australia? Send an email or comment on Facebook
Graeme Watson
