what jeffrey has to show for himself

As I predicted would be the predictable outcome, Jeffrey won.

Woo hoo.

I am afraid I can't bring myself to use exclamation points to talk about the finale. It just wasn't all that exciting to me. I get cranky when I feel people are trying to manipulate me. Bravo served up that story of the prodigal son so many times that we may all need to go into detox to get it out of our system. And there were all those maudlin scenes of the weepy daddy and his li'l baby boy that he Just Loves Ever So Much. (I'm not saying he doesn't love his kid. I'm just saying that these displays of paternal affection were obviously part of Bravo's attempt to "repackage" Jeffrey so that the audience would like him more and that I found it manipulative.) Considering Jeffrey is also milking the image of the punk rock fashion designer I'd just like to point out that some of us remember punk as something that either smashed or mocked these images but Whatever. It is all rather passé at this point.

Now that we've gone through that little exercise in reality show clichés, let's see what the clothes Jeffrey made have to say for themselves.

THE CLOTHES

collection overview
The judges kept saying that Jeffrey offered a whole collection. Uli and Laura were too narrow compared to him, they said. So let's take a look at the 12 pieces:


I can see certainly cohesion but there are 3 items that look like the models got confused and wandered on to the wrong runway:

It also looks like Jeffrey got confused and thought they he could design dresses like Uli and Laura. Even the judges agreed that these were mistakes. They are unflattering and well, just ugly. For someone who is supposed to be designing for the young hipsters they are also almost frumpy.

Here is what those dresses look like when they are done by someone who knows how to design and create that style of fashion ( i.e., elegant, pretty, flattering, lively):

(fall 2006: doo.ri, laura bennett, uli herzer)

I'll talk more about Uli and Laura's collections in later posts so for now I'll just make the observation that I am constantly struck by how much their talent is undermined because their clothes have a kind of effortlessness: they make it look too easy. It works against them that their quality is so consistently high.

pieces of nine
So we've jettisoned three dresses. The nine remaining items all seem to fit together in terms of pattern and/or style. Color and pattern seems to be the main thing that unifies the collection: specifically, red polka dots and green stripes.



I'll admit that the outfit in the bottom center is a little bit off (perhaps that is why the photo wasn't provided in New York Magazine) since nothing else is black and white but the jacket has zippers and the top has stripes so I'm counting it as part of the whole even if it feels a little off.

The style of the collection is a mix of retro beach/country/school girl. People, including, especially, Jeffrey were throwing around a lot of impressive sounding words and associations to describe this collection but when I just look at the clothes all I'm coming up with is "retro beach/country/school girl."

row 1: holly hobbie goes to the beach


Did anyone else notice that right after Angela was auffed Jeffrey made that Hollie Hobbie dress? I think he missed Angela.

And now his final collection has a whole Hollie Hobbie motif in it!

I think this part of his collection is his homage to Angela.

The first outfit above is an apron dress that has these big curvy folds that hang down in the front and it is open and shorter in the back. (I'll come back to his fondness for this cut later on.)

The second dress was, in fact, NOT the itsy-bitsy-ist baby doll dress on the runway this fall. That award would have to go to Anna Sui.

But Jeffrey's was close. And lets face it, at that point, what's the difference. These dresses have a very limited market. At any one time in American there are between 1 and 3 women/girls rich enough, young enough, thin enough, and so stupid and/or lacking in self esteem that they would wear these dresses. In another month one will have broken down and eaten more than 500 calories a day. There goes a client and a third of your market, at least until she gets an eating disorder.

Another one could read her first book (perhaps it was a dare? Or perhaps she couldn't find the Cliff's Notes to The Crucible). This could lead to her having her first independent thought and from there it is a downward slope towards making fashion choices that do not include wearing baby doll dresses that don't reach your tootie.

Moving on, in this first group we also go to the beach with the 40s pinup look, which isn't exactly innovative but it is always a lot of fun.

The above image is from a fabric selection used by the cat's pajamas: check out their fabulous pjs!
(Note: kora gets no payment for this endorsement but she's a size small and especially likes the haiku cat flannel.)

Jeffrey's was also not the only red polka dot retro bathing suit on the runway this fall. Betsey Johnson had an adorable Lolita number that looks like you might actually be able to swim in it:

Okay, I know that judging a bathing suit on whether or not you can swim in it is absurd since no one in the fashion world actually swims. Designers only need to create suits that can stand up to the exercise of lifting one's head from the chaise and ordering another drink from the cabana boy.

Still I do wonder if the strings on Jeffrey's suit have some sort of purpose. Perhaps they are there so that in case you have too many piña coladas and fall off of your yacht you can tie yourself to a buoy?

The more important point about his suit is that any woman who weighs more that 90 pounds would look at the size of the bottom with horror. Every woman knows that a cut like that would make her rear-end look like it was the size of a Mack truck. I bet that it even makes that model's butt look big (i.e., it makes her look like she has one). Johnson's suit might not flatter a Mack truck ass but it could do wonders for a VW bus butt. Besides, I'm just a sucker for little pockets.

row 2: jeffrey's pants
The first look below is the one I think is the cutest and the one I'd be most likely to own provided that the pants didn't show any "butt cleavage." I like the sweater but I know I would catch those hanging strings on things and knock things over and/or injure myself. I don't really have anything else to say about the various looks except that they look like the kind of thing you'd wear to school with the exception of the jacket in the last picture.

That looks like the kind of thing that would be worn by a ring master or a member of a barbershop quartet. Maybe that's what the kids are calling rock and roll these days. The shiny silver tops strike me as a little trashy -- they almost look like lamé. I like to think of them as evidence of the sparkly fairy dust that Kayne sprinkled on Jeffrey.

row 3: jeffrey's dresses
Jeffrey's dresses can be really hit or miss. We saw during the season that one week he'd make something that looked like the outfit worn by a two-bit hooker and the next week he'd come up with something very strong and innovative. Luckily we had no hooker looks on the runway but his dresses ran the gamut from awful to ordinary to wow. The final dress with the zippers is a great dress. The other two looks below are okay but they don't impress me as anything new.


The first dress is worn by an especially pretty model which always does a lot to enhance the look.

It is a nice halter dress, the top drapes well. The colors are a little more subtle. It does poof out at the tummy, which might not look great on a woman with a normal figure but that's a minor point.

The bigger issue is that Jeffrey really likes to cut dresses longer in front and shorter in back. I don't think that is a particularly good look and it feels weird to wear this cut.

The dress in the middle picture is more in the style of the casual school-wear look. I can't see it close up so perhaps I'm missing something but I don't really see how it goes together. It looks like a flowing chiffony skirt with a rough denim zippered jacket and a cotton? stripe top? But that is okay. It has that thrown together look I suppose. If he were going for more of a street-wear look I wouldn't want the skirt to be so chiffony. I don't really think the look is all that pretty but it could be the model:

What crawled up her ass and died?

I think that Marilinda's dress is excellent design work. I'm not thrilled with the fabric choice frankly -- it looks like clown costuming -- but I think it is so good that the judges didn't really look at the rest of the collection very closely or weigh it very heavily.


In her Washington Post review Robin Givhan thinks that that dress alone is why Jeffrey won. I think she's right.

However, I don't know that I'd agree with Givhan that Jeffrey's other looks are actually more "creative, surprising and unique" than the other designers. With a couple of exceptions all you have to do is go to the junior sections in any department store and you will find clothes that look just like what Jeffrey is making. (Jeffrey's are more upscale versions of course.) Perhaps people in the high fashion industry are so used to shopping couture that they just don't know what is sold in the mall shops and discount stores that cater to teen-age girls.

returning to where we started
We began with the premise that what Jeffrey offered that Laura and Uli did not is a "whole" collection. We've ended with one dress.

I realize that this is making an overstatement in order to make the point but I'm doing so in order to raise a few questions. Whether or not this is the case with Jeffrey:

• Is it okay to win Project Runway on the basis of one really brilliant piece?
• How good does it have to be?
• How bad do the other collections have to be?
• What does is say when what they are calling a "whole collection" on closer examination turns out to really be one dress?
• Do you think Jeffrey won because he made a whole collection or because he made one really good dress?

I'm not saying this is bad or invalidates the win. It just tells us something about what is valued and rewarded in fashion design. At least by these judges.

In the end I have to say that I liked Jeffrey's clothes less the closer I looked at them. Sometimes the opposite happens. Sometimes you have to spend some time with an object in order to appreciate it. Or you like something and the closer you look the deeper your appreciation grows. But I feel that these clothes didn't stand up to scrutiny. Not for me.