Teen Choice Awards 2010, Part 1

We don't even know who most of these people are! Let's judge them anyway.

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Christopher Straub Fall 2010 Collection

Chinstrap on the runway!

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T Lo Interviews Christopher

Chinstrap speaks!

You said you were surprised you made it this far. Why?
Maybe not so much surprised. I mean, my goal was to make it this far, but I think the most surprising thing was that I was the last guy, when there were people like Ra’mon Lawrence and Nicolas and in the case of Ra’mon, I think he was so talented and it was a shock to all of us when he went home.

Was it hard for you to watch the last episode?
I think it was probably a little harder than other episodes but I had a couple friends with me – I’m in New York right now - and Carol Hannah came and hung out at the hotel with me too.

How hard was it to stay quiet about this season for a whole year?
It’s so funny, because people were coming up to me and going “Tell me who won,” or “Who makes it to the finals?” and I always go, “I had to wait like a year to even say I was on the show. You can wait a couple of weeks.” And who would want to spoil it anyway? I’m a huge fan of the show like you guys are, and I would not want to know who advances and who doesn’t and that sort of thing.

How was it reading all the comments online, all the I-Hate-Hims and even the I-Love-Hims?
Yeah, I think the hate ones were the hardest. It just didn’t come from your blog or other blogs, I was getting it in email. In the beginning I was getting a lot of “Good luck” or “I’ll see you at fashion week,” or whatever, and then all of a sudden it turns around I’m getting hate mail. It was hard to adjust to that. You start off loving the blogs and reading all the comments on blogs and refreshing every 15 minutes and the next thing you know you keep going and going and going. And then it reaches a point where you say, “I’m only gonna read what Tom and Lorenzo have to say because I can’t read all the comments.” It really got tough and I never expected that it would be as tough it was. I really had no problem for a long time reading the criticisms but after a while it became the same thing over and over and I thought “I really have to stop this.”

So what happened with you? You went from winning the first challenge and being on the top to being on the bottom over and over again.
It never really changed, what my process was. I really internalized whatever the challenge was and just did what I thought was appropriate. And it just happened to work out that they like it for the first couple challenges but then after that it kind of turned. But I never stopped doing what I felt always needed to do and I felt very validated because – well I made the mistake of reading you guys the other day, talking about how I was delusional, and I thought I was very aware of my place. This last episode showed that when I said that I get it. I’m the whacky oddball that doesn’t listen to the judges. That made me very happy to see that.

Do you think the lack of consistency in the judges had something to do with it?
I really didn’t have an issue with the judges because it didn’t matter to me who was judging it or if I was top and bottom because it was just about me wanting to tell my story and present my vision with every piece. I always used to say back when I was just a fan of the show and watching it, “If it was me, well first, I would prefer to be at the top, but if I can’t be at the top, I’d rather be on the bottom before being safe.” Because if you’re safe, you’re forgettable.

One of the criticisms that came up on our blog was that you never seemed to have a moment where you looked at your work and said “Oh, I think I’m in trouble.” You were always very happy with your work and then, bottom again. What happened there?
Well, I showed twelve pieces and I was really only safe twice. After that, I was always either in the top or the bottom. So I really got a lot of runway time, whether it was defending myself or just telling my story. I got a lot of exposure and that was really the reason I wanted to do the show; to get the exposure.

Yeah, you mentioned in your exit interview that you got to show twelve pieces. That’s definitely an accomplishment.
Absolutely. It’s still one step away but so many steps further than other designers got to take so to be able to see all my pieces, a piece from every show, was really amazing and not every designer on the show gets that. I got as far as other designers like Chris March and Austin Scarlett who I’ve been looking up to for so long.

What was the atmosphere like when it was down to just the five of you and you were the only guy?
You know they were talking the other episode about how there aren’t enough female designers representing and the industry is dominated by male designers and that’s a totally valid view, that there are a lot of male designers dominating this world. But my take on it wasn’t specifically about the gender issue; my take was more that I really just wanted to take it to the next level and if they appreciate it, that’s great.

You were one of the few designers who never seemed to have a bad thing to say about the other designers.
I’m the type of person who doesn’t want to have to take something back or to have regrets. I was aware of how I was going to be portrayed as on the show and I didn’t want to give them any opportunity to portray me as the jerk. But that’s not me in real life. I don’t sit there and bash people. It’s like when Johnny made that jacket that everyone hated? And all the other designers were going, “It’s disgusting!” and I could kind of relate to it and it was hard for me to sit there and judge. I might have made a jacket like that.

Do you think you would have fared better if you had schooling or training?
As a real-life designer, if I was going to try and get a job somewhere and design for them? Absolutely, 100 percent. The advantage that I have is that I just sort of come up with my own way of doing things. There’s a market out there for the odd. I loved Ari, I was surprised she was gone by the second episode, but I loved her and appreciated what she did. On as show like this, the fact that I didn’t go to school was to my advantage because it helped me get cast.

Did you enjoy the experience? Do you think you got something out of it?
I would do it a hundred times over again even with the same outcome. It was definitely a goal of mine, to do something like this, not only for my professional life but also as a sort of a documentary of a designer like myself, that just sort of tries and tries and tries and sometimes they stumble and sometimes they succeed, but I’m just so glad it all got caught on on-camera because it’s something I’ll look back on for the rest of my life.

So what’s next for you?
I have a collection of handbags and accessories available on my web site, www.christopherstraub.com, and I have them at several boutiques and I’m working with a number of retailers on developing collections with them and I’m really taking my point of view to the next level. After all the agreements are signed, I’ll keep you guys posted on where you might be seeing more work.

Well, good luck with that. Thank you so much, Christopher.
Well thank you! I love you guys! Without you guys, this wouldn’t be as big as it is.



[Photos: myLifetime.com]


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Auf Wiedersehen 2

No WTFery this time, kittens.

Poor guy. He really is very likeable and it was endearing how appreciative he was to still be there this late in the game, but let's face it: the writing was on the wall a long time ago.

We give him credit for choosing an inspiration way off the beaten path, but it kind of reinforced the idea in our heads that he doesn't have great instincts and he's amazingly unself-aware as a designer.

He's at his best when he's doing romantic, conventionally beautiful clothing. He's not, so far as we can tell, a conceptual designer. He was standing in front of one of the world's finest art collections. He could have picked almost any artwork in that museum and it would have been a good fit for his aesthetic. Instead, he picked the most challenging and least-like-himself inspiration he could find. Not that we're arguing he should have played it safe, but he really should have played to his strengths.

Model: Katie Sticksel

When this first came out, we momentarily thought, "No volume. Good for him." We were ready to applaud him for trying out a new silhouette.

But then we saw how the bottom half moved and we realized why he does voluminous skirts so much: because he doesn't really know how to do otherwise. A skirt with a slimmer silhouette requires a sense of flow and movement and this heavy thing just hung on her as she walked down the runway.

The top is very cute but he's done the exact same top several times this season. It was just more of the same. The corset waist just looked incongruous to us. It didn't really add any thing to the look.

And we have to say, while the execution wasn't bad exactly, it wasn't "set the world on fire" good either. Anyone who's ever watched the show knows that the final challenge is basically an audition for Bryant Park and it's the one moment where all the stops really needed to be pulled out.

Even if all the elements came together and worked perfectly, it's still not a terribly ambitious design.

Nor is it a particularly pretty dress. That skirt fabric, besides being too heavy, was just plain ugly.

In season 2, Andrae famously made a dress inspired by dirty gutter water. What made that dress so memorable is that he took something ugly and turned it into something beautiful. The fountain wasn't exactly ugly, but it did pose roughly the same challenge. This needed to be a uniquely beautiful dress and it just wasn't. It was kind of sad and stiff and depressing.

We really do think he's a sweetheart and we hope he's learned a lot from this experience. There's definitely a lot of potential there, but in our opinion, he either needs to go to school or he needs to intern for a design house to learn some of the basics. It was cute in the beginning when he admitted he didn't know what smocking is, but after weeks of demonstrating that he doesn't know how to edit or interpret, he's proven to us that he needs guidance in order to move on.

Extended Judging:


Tim Gunn's Workroom Critique:


Exit Interview:




[Photos: Mike Yarish/myLifetime.com - Videos: myLifetime.com - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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Chinstrap

Oh, honey.

"When my garment walks down the runway, they're going to look at it and go, "That's a Christopher piece."

Oh, honey.

Oh, HONEY.

This concludes our summary of reactions to Christopher's decisions this episode.

Actually, that's not quite true. At some point when we saw the direction he was heading in (i.e., the same direction he always heads) we actually yelled out "Jesus Christ, Christopher! Really?!"

Model: Katie Sticksel

Because how unself-aware do you have to be to not realize that this look is just a basic retread of every single other look he's done this season? How unself-aware do you have to be to realize that doing the same thing week after week is exactly why you've been in the bottom so much?

And how unself-aware do you have to be to not realize that this is in fact the worst version of your typical "volume, volume, volume + needless frippery" aesthetic that the judges lost interest in weeks ago?

There's a question here that needs to be asked and it's such a basic question that we're surprised the judges didn't haul it out: Who is wearing this dress? Where would anyone wear a dress like this? We'd say it looks costume-y except we wouldn't be able to figure out what exactly it's supposed to be. One of those old toilet paper roll covers that you can buy at church bazaars maybe?

Not to mention how cheap and badly made this thing is. The black portion of this look, the "over dress," as they called it, fits her terribly. What's with all that extra fabric hanging off her left hip?

Sure, it looks similar to the original dress but only in that he made the same dress and removed anything interesting or stylish about it.

The ruffles on the bottom look cheap and way overdone.

And those petals are ridiculous. This kid has absolutely no tools to self-assess or edit his work.

Wow. We're cranky this morning. But we can't help it, kittens. This isn't just a terrible entry. It's the latest in a long line of terrible entries representing all the same mistakes. And to watch the show and hear Christopher say over and over again that he loves what he's doing and he thinks the judges will love it too is just painful to hear. He can make pretty dresses when he sets his mind to it, but as a competitor in a design competition he's severely lacking in the skills one needs to make it to the end.

We know a lot of you are pissed that he's still here and that he should have gone a while ago. We can't say we disagree with that, but we will say this: we suspect that he's still her because he showed so much promise early on in the competition and the judges are loathe to let go of that image that they had of him starting out. Besides, it may be cynical of us to say this but let's face it: at this point it's all about biding our time until they whittle the pool down to the final three that we all know is coming. Maybe he should have gone home this week (or last week or the week before that) but we're fairly convinced (in fact, we're sure of it) that he won't be walking a collection down the Bryant Park runway.



Extended Judging:


Tim Gunn's Workroom Critique:



[Photos: Mike Yarish/myLifetime.com - Videos: myLifetime.com - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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Bottom Boys 3.0

Bottom boys ain't got no style.

With this week's episode, Christopher has gone from being in the top three three times to being in the bottom three four times. Has anyone in the history of the show made that precipitous a fall, ever?

We were early supporters of the guy but with that many low showings - and worse, declaring each showing to be among your best work - we're left with the uncomfortable prospect that he's more of a dressmaker than a designer, at least at this stage.

Model: Matar Cohen

This? Doll clothes. Seriously. There's about as much design and detailing in this look as there is in the average cheap 6-outfit set for a Barbie knockoff you can find in the bargain bins by the register.

There's nothing there. Okay, yes. A belt. But that's it. That was the beginning and the end of his design process. Everything else wasn't just basic, it was practically invisible.

Technically, he did a decent job, but then again, we can't see anything here that even comes close to technically challenging.

It's just clothes. The kind of outfit you could put together for practically no money from practically any department store. That shouldn't be what Project Runway is about.

Personally, we adore the guy and we think he's made some very nice stuff both on and off the show, but we can't help thinking his trick bag is empty. He's going to have to pull out a major design for us to have faith again.

Um... ditto?

Seriously, we could just copy and paste the above captions and they'd be perfectly applicable.

Model: Celine Chua

At the sight of this ensemble, The Duchess flicked open her fan and reminded us why she's The Duchess: "They're clothes, they're not fashion."

EXACTLY.

There is virtually no sense of design or style to these pieces.

Like Christopher's belt, the only thing of any interest here are the suspenders and even they aren't exactly providing a focal point.

Exactly the same criticism applies: These could be picked up for nothing at a million stores the world over.

In fact, the more we look at these two looks, the more we think it was wrong of the judges to send Nicolas home. Sure, his look was off-concept, but at least it was designed. At least it had some detailing and a certain style to it. Lorenzo thinks Logan definitely should have gone home and Tom would have been fine if either of these two went home. All we can think is, if Nina had been sitting in that chair more often, these two never would have made it this far, with one boring outfit after another.

Extended Judging:





[Photos: Mike Yarish/myLifetime.com - Videos: myLifetime.com - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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Bottom Boys - The Sequel

They're a modern stone age family!

You know we love you all like a gay kid loves sequins, but there are times when the commenters reach a consensus and all we can do is sit back and wonder where it came from.

When did adorable, weepy Christopher become the guy everyone hates? Sure, his work has been less than stellar these last few challenges and we can understand why people think he should have gone home, but the anger, kittens. Where is the anger coming from? He's like a little fluffy bunny of fashion!

Model: Katie Sticksel

Here's the thing: we think this earned its spot in the bottom but we actually would have been a bit pissed if he'd been sent home over it.

Cliche? You betcha. Not so great execution? No argument there. Tacky? Well yes, but we're talking about stagewear for Christina Aguilera here. If you really want to be pedantic about it, most of Bob Mackie's oeuvre could be considered tacky.

We actually like the bustier, although it could have been fitted better.

And we honestly don't mind the idea of hot pants, except these hot pants look decidedly flimsy. Nina went off on the whole Lady Marmalade thing but it's not uncommon for singers to wear costumes that hearken back to earlier looks when they're singing their greatest hits. Cher does it all the time and even Madonna broke out the wedding gowns and pointy bras in concert years after she made them famous.

Note to Katie: You may think your ass is your worst feature, and we realize we're not the demographic your ass should be appealing to, but you're nuts, girl. That ass is FINE.


For us, what makes this entry defensible is the fact that he was the only designer who conceptualized it in terms of stage wear. He gave her two distinct looks with quick-change capabilities. And to be honest, we kind of liked this look.

On the other hand, it's looking more and more obvious to us that Logan's being kept in the game in the hopes that he trips and falls and accidentally winds up with his penis inside one of the other contestants.

Model: Kojii Helnwein

Because this strikes us as pretty much indefensible.

Okay, that's not entirely true. We can defend it on the grounds that it least attempts an over-the-top stagewear sensibility. That's commendable since so many other designers for some inexplicable reason made gowns.

And he did use color, so points for that in a sea of black and white.

The problem is it's just drab and a little ugly.

And what is that? Seriously, WHAT IS THAT?

She kinda looks a little like she's being attacked from behind by some sort of animal.

Thankfully, Nina was finally home where she belonged.

"HAHAHA! Oh, 'Edgy?!' You think this sad piece of crap is "edgy?!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!'

"Oh, kid. You're killing Nina here. She looks like a hooker in Bedrock."

"Nina! Say something about Christopher's look! Go ahead!"

"There is nothing amusing about Christopher's look. It sickens me."

"Why oh why am I forced to look at these tasteless, style-free garments? Why are these designers still here?"

"We should have kept the fish girl and the egg boy instead of these catalogue designers. Nina is sickened by the lack of talent. SICKENED."

"I leave you people for a couple of weeks, and this is what you have waiting for me when I come back? Shitty retreads? Why? Why can't I trust you to do the right thing when I'm not here, Heidi? Didn't I leave you extensive instructions? Didn't I tell you what to say?"

"Well, they haven't really done anything too bad. We just figured when you and Michael came back, we could --"

"HA! I'm just fucking with you. Now let's send one of these losers packing. Send the girl home. She's too perky and she gets on my nerves."

Extended Judging:




[Photos: Mike Yarish/myLifetime.com - Videos: myLifetime.com - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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