"It's So Gravy"  | PROJECT RUNWAY | Advocate.com

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"It's So Gravy"
Laura enters her second trimester and scores her first win on this week's Project Runway. Meanwhile, Angela and Vincent return to lose some more.
An Advocate.com exclusive posted September 15, 2006
Project Runway
Photos courtesy BravoTV.com

I finished the September issue of Elle. And Lindsay Lohan looks somewhat “exhausted” in her photos and her interview is not going to help her win any new fans. But still, she's 20, so she's allowed to act as stupidly in public as she likes. And I don't have to work on a set with her or ever have to meet her, so who cares anyway?

Cool-kid label Obesity and Speed gets referenced on page 408. They've got lots of skulls on their stuff. And a great name. Check them out at www.obesityandspeed.com.

So goodbye for now, Elle. I'm bored with you now and only paying attention to the Sundance Channel program Signé Chanel. That's some breathless shit right there, that show. I don't speak a lick of French but I've seen plenty of their movies and the Voiceover Lady of this series is high on Chanel nail polish fumes. Here's some of the narration:

“The dreamiest of wedding dresses, designer kisses, rush hour in the fashion world, famous clients, and of course Karl Lagerfeld! Karl! Karl! Haute couture! Pure couture!”

The exclamations are mine. But for real, the woman reading this copy is, to paraphrase Maya Rudolph as Donatella Versace, smiling down there. And by the eighth minute of the documentary series they've delivered a brutally expensive embroidered thing wrapped in tissue to a client at the Ritz, just in the nick of time to avoid the consequences, because in real life there's no such thing as fashionably late. Then you get to see Lagerfeld's seamstresses gossiping and complaining about him. By the eighth minute, did I mention that? Project Runway better kick out the jams in its remaining episodes because, entertainment-wise, this other show is about to stomp its fat American ass.

Oh, and P.S., Viktor & Rolf for H&M? Who wants to go camp out and wait in line with me at the Beverly Center the day that shit goes on sale? I don't even know if there'll be men's stuff. I know none of it will fit me if there is. But there might be accessories. You never know.

The show begins…

Kayne The Flaming Lisp, Jeffrey Christ, and Michael Knight With No Talking Car hang out at Atlas New York and talk about Corky [Vincent] finally leaving. “I think we are the absolute most talented. I think we just deserve to be in the top five,” says Kayne. Do you now? Don't get too comfortable on that Atlas mattress, Red.

Laura Glamour Mom is freaked out that she almost got the shove last week. Her collar wilted and now so has her self-esteem. She sits on a bed next to Uli, Heidi's German Pet, and does that thing where you're asking your friends to tell you that you're worthwhile but not actually asking them to do that. You know what I mean?

The designers head to the runway to meet Heidi, who's wearing yet another incredibly awesome thing—it looks like a giant scarf and that's it. She asks them if they're ready for their next challenge.

Nods all around.

“Too bet,” she says. She means “too bad.” Uli understands this, at least. When does she pull the riding crop out of that outfit? “L'Oréal Paris is hosting a little party for you tonight," Heidi says. "And I'll tell you about your challenge there.” Then she says that she's invited some very special guests. She pauses before using the word “special.” I really hope this means they're going to be designing clothes for the kids of Widney High.

Jeffrey smells the trickery. “It's going to be a trap. It's not going to be a party,” he says. “At all. It's never a fuckin' party.”

Now we're outside on the streets of New York and, oh, look at those cabs driving past that both just happen to have ads for Elle magazine on top. The gang enters what Kayne describes as “this really kind of chic club.” That makes two good loony quotes from Kayne so far tonight. Would Kayne know chic if it punched him in the face? I think I should be in charge of the text-message voting question this week.

They drink champagne—water for Jeffrey—and play Guess Who with the identities of the “special” guests. A celebrity who needs an outfit? “Destiny's Child, Destiny's Child,” says Kayne, as though Jambi from Pee-Wee's Playhouse just popped by and cooed, “Wish? Did somebody say wish?” Kayne has obviously not heard about House of Dereon yet or read Tina Knowles's book Destiny's Style—the one she wrote about how to live and look like Beyoncé, Kelly, and that other one—or he'd know that nobody gets to put tacky dresses on those ladies except her. I question his fandom now.

I get to watch the show with a group of friends tonight and one of them suggests that America's Next Top Model—and remember to boycott watching the upcoming season until Tyra helps settle her writers' strike, kids, because everyone needs health insurance, not just models-turned-media-moguls—has loaned the DSquared boys to PR for the evening because those two will go anywhere there's a camera. I can't offer an opinion on that, but I like the idea a lot more than what we get. And that's Corky. And Angela, Headmistress of Jubilee Jumbles.

I know that this is the show's way of trying to stir up trouble, but I kind of like to be done with the discards after they're discarded. I like to move into the future. Unless Malan gets to come back too. Then I'd be cool with it. But this is going nowhere. The show just wants to abuse these two people some more. And they're both already big successes with doing that all by themselves. Jeffrey takes this opportunity, in interview, to make note of the word “special” so I don't have to.

Angela is wearing her usual window-treatment-as-skirt and seems genuinely shocked to be told that she and Corky are being given a second chance. Everyone who won a challenge gets a chance to come back for one more try, Heidi explains. Except Keith Michael The Total Cheater, I guess, for totally cheating.

Angela says, in interview, that it's “so gravy.” How is it gravy? You're just going home again. Corky is laughing. Because that's what he does. In that way that makes your flesh crawl. So they're back. It's like acid reflux.

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Dave White is the author of Exile in Guyville. He can be found at www.imdavewhite.com .
From the archives of The Advocate and Advocate.com

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