November 22, 2009

Project Runway

The final episode of the latest season of Project Runway took place Thursday night. My favorite didn't win. Truthfully, I haven't heard of anyone who preferred the winner, Irina. I wear a lot of black, but I also like color. Irina's show was all black with the exception of two tan jackets. Boring. (To see the three finalists' runway show, click here.) And don't get me started on the bitchy factor!

I receive the online newsletter from the Poetry Foundation and the latest issue contained an article called Poetry and Project Runway by Stephen Burt! It was interesting and compared the way the work of poets and fashion designers is critiqued.
...Techniques command attention from technicians, practitioners of the relevant art, and those who know it intimately. Life stories, on the other hand, are easy to follow; so are "personalities." And flagrant failures—easy to judge, and easy to describe—tend to stick in the mind.

Those truths affect, not only the judging of hurriedly-assembled cocktail dresses on television, but the reading and reviewing of new poems.
Quite an interesting article, I recommend you take look at it and Project Runway when the new season starts in January. I'll be right there watching. Why? Because fashion is another art, and art always has a story behind it!
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3 comments:

  1. Andrea MurphyNovember 23, 2009 at 4:03 PM

    I so love that show! (Even if Carol Hannah was robbed.)

    I'd never thought of the critique aspect of "Project Runway" and how it relates to critique in writing. I'll be watching next season with a different set of eyes.

    Andy

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  2. Julie November 26, 2009 at 3:18 AM

    Aha - more Project Runway Poets! I am a fellow traveler. I didn't think much of this season & it seems to me that taking it back to New York will help. Irina drove me crazy, especially when she picked Gordana to help her for the 13th look. I would like to have seen what Gordana produced when left to her own imagination.

    I can follow the poetry/fashion design connection (artists, creativity, risk, imagination, technique, form) quite a distance - but I wish the designers didn't get eliminated. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a dozen creative people offer up responses to a challenge each week without elimination? And at the end of the season, since it's a competition, a "winner" could be chosen.

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  3. Diane MayrDecember 1, 2009 at 8:23 AM

    Julie, I would have 8 designers respond to a challenge each week and then the group would critique each outfit with an eye to growth and improvement--just like we do in our writers' groups. Of course, someone like Tim Gunn would sit in on the critiques and comment to add "legitimacy." Like you suggested, the weekly eliminations would be eliminated. But, reality tv is built on conflict and personality, not the quality of the work. Too bad.

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