Gayest Runway Ever!  | PROJECT RUNWAY | Advocate.com

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Gayest Runway Ever!
As Bravo launches the queerest season of Project Runway—is that redundant?—we launch a brand-new weekly recap column that captures the wholesome camaraderie and chivalry of the show. (Kidding!)
An Advocate.com exclusive posted July 14, 2006

Before we talk about Project Runway, you should know that I didn’t watch the final cut on actual TV on Wednesday. I’m a totally important cultural critic now, and I got an advance rough cut DVD, so if I mention stuff that you didn’t see, then it’s because of that. It probably got cut.

I also think it’s really important that you know how much actual fashion credibility I have. That would be none. I am currently wearing the following items:

  • 1 pair of seven-year-old Doc Martens, paint splattered and nearly destroyed. Two holes in the sides of the right boot.
  • 1 pair of Levi’s shrink-to-fit 501s. Shredded hem on the left leg.
  • 1 pair of gray Fruit-of-the-Loom boxer briefs.
  • 1 black T-shirt repping the metal band High on Fire. The logo is of a Viking guy with a giant ax. Soon he will chop off your head.

But I have opinions about clothes. Most menswear is boring, so women’s is where it’s at if you’re talking about things being rad to look at. Here are some things that are rad:

1. Viktor & Rolf’s pink-and-orange ribbon-patterned silk scarves that I saw online this morning at Papermag.com. If I were a fancy lady instead of a 265-pound man, I’d wrap one around my head. I might still wrap one around my head.

2. My friend Aaron’s new wallet from Assume Vivid Astro Focus for LeSportsac because it’s crazy shiny and retarded.

3. The midnight-blue-satin vinyl rose sandals from Roger Vivier on the back page of July’s Vogue because they have giant red plastic flowers on them. And because they’re $1,495, a silly, silly amount of money for a pair of shoes.

As it stands now, Project Runway is the most gay-intensive program on TV in terms of actual homosexuals featured per square inch of screen, not counting the Isaac Mizrahi show. There’s only one of him there, even if he counts as four. You still get more practical faggotry on Runway. And unlike American Idol, which is really all about packaging a star, Runway is about grown-ups with a talent for creating something. So let’s talk shit about the new contestants from the first half of the two-hour season opener.

The auditions, much like those for American Idol, are seam-busting with out-of-control lunatics and drama queens. They bring back season 2 people like boring Chloe, who somehow won that shit, the extravagantly obnoxious and yet still awesome Santino, who’s seen throat-groaning like a Gyuto monk and wearing a T-shirt with his own face on it (I want one of those too. My face is sculptural and would look great silk-screened), and Jay McCarroll, the season 1 winner who’s lost weight. He still looks OK, though. Then there’s Austin Scarlett, flouncier than ever with his YSL-babies glasses, designing wedding gowns for Kenneth Cole.

The ones that got picked:

Bradley Baumkirchner—he’s got the best sketches. They remind me of Amy Davis’s (see her stuff at www.amydavis.com because I like her a lot) and his clothes look at least as cool as the guitar straps from Built by Wendy, and that’s really the standard, I think. If your shit can’t look as awesome as the BBW guitar straps, then you can get out of my face with your dumb clothes.

Robert Best—makes outfits for Barbie, so I automatically dislike him. That shit’s boring. And he’s got Gay Arm. Two of them.

Laura Bennett—automatically makes you think of Wendy Pepper from season 1, except she seems not stupid. But then again, check out the new improved Wendy Pepper. Divorced, new hair, slimmed down, and unfrumped. Probably still a pain in the ass, though. As for Laura, she seems like the kind of glamour-mom who reads D.V. for inspiration on the toilet.

Project Runway Malan | Advocate.com

Malan Breton (above)—a bitch. Full of himself. Possibly fake British accent. The kind of homo—well, I mean, if he’s not a fag, then we’re all living in Crazy Backwards Land—who won’t even go to Beige a lot because he thinks he’s A+ list instead of just plain old A, you can just tell. Snooty, awful, and mean-faced. So he should stick around for a long time because I like my gays to be evil.

Bonnie Dominguez—best quote: “I got to work with Serena Williams designing her tennis outfits, which was always an interesting experience.”

Now see if you can fill in the blank with what she says next:

(a) Because she fancies herself a bit of a designer, so I always had to make it seem like my ideas were her ideas.

(b) Because Venus paid me to make Serena’s clothes look ridiculous.

(c) Because she had a penis.

The true answer is (a), but...

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Dave White is the author of Exile in Guyville , a book in which he fruitlessly searches for a Commes des Garçons shirt with a 19-inch neck. He can be found at imdavewhite.com.
From the archives of The Advocate and Advocate.com

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