Project Runway's Most Dramatic Moments, S1, Part 1

Let's get our crazy on, bitches!

We're at 17 days and counting until the LONG OVERDUE premiere of Project Runway Season 6 and we thought it would be fun to take a look back at the most dramatic moments in the show's history. Sure, we all SAY we watch the show because we love fashion and creativity and enjoy watching talented people do amazing things - and that's true (partially) - but no matter how much we all may complain when the drama gets out of hand, we can't deny that the dramatic moments are what make the show so DELICIOUS to watch. Besides, we'd argue that if you want to watch creative and talented people pull out work under ridiculous circumstances, the drama is to be expected.

We struggled to figure out a way to do this in countdown format but we simply couldn't come up with an order that either of us agreed with. Instead, we're going to break it down by season. We leave it up to you guys to determine what order they should be in, but we guarantee, you'll find it an almost impossible task.

So, without further ado...

1) MUSTACHE-GATE

"The Wendy Pepper that showed up the first day of Project Runway is not the Wendy Pepper we know now."

Oh, honey. Truer words were never spoken.

She's long been considered Project Runway's first "villain," and while we agree that it's a sobriquet Wendy Pepper more than earned, it wasn't quite so simple as that.

The truth of the matter was that Wendy was in fact the show's first walking tragedy. She THOUGHT she was getting by through her scheming and her plotting, but in the end, the people she "plotted" against would have gone home with or without her added schemes. In reality, she was a fascinating person to watch because she was so completely un-self-aware and instead of revealing what a Machiavellian schemer she was, she instead showed the world how low her self esteem was and how out of her element she felt. She didn't make it to the finals because of talent or because of scheming. She made it there because the competition was structured in such a way that consistently doing just well enough to not be auf'd had the same outcome as doing the best work week after week. A flaw in the show that we suspect was "corrected" in subsequent seasons.

All of this came to a head when someone who'd had enough of her crap took a pen and drew a mustache on a picture of her daughter. Now, in real life, with people who aren't completely drowning in stress and low self esteem, such an act might make them angry, but they wouldn't have a complete meltdown over it.

Not so with our Wendy. She completely LOST IT. You would have thought that someone had assaulted her daughter instead of the silly, childish prank it was.

In all likelihood, her sobbing response to the situation was simply another in a long line of ploys to cover for the fact that she thought that EVERYONE ELSE was more talented than her and that she had no right to be there.

Was it wrong for Kevin someone to draw that mustache on a picture of someone's daughter? Absolutely. But people were under tremendous stress at the time and Wendy had just gotten away with throwing Kevin under the bus deliberately in order to get him auf'd.

Under different circumstances, her co-designers would have probably been a little more sympathetic, but she'd burned all her bridges behind her and at that point, no one really cared anymore.

Of course, part of what made it fun ...




... was the bald-faced lying. Like we said, DELICIOUS.

Also, it was hysterical that the whole drama played out with everyone dressed in ugly postal uniforms.

2) SHOE-GATE

Ah...yes. Shoe-gate. Part of what made S1 so great was that the personal dramas all played out like one season-long plotline. Like Melrose Place with sewing machines. There probably wouldn't have been a shoe-gate if there already hadn't been a mustache-gate.

The short version: Kara Saun contracted with Dollhouse shoes to give her custom-made shoes to be worn in her runway show and then when she was called on it by Tim (on behalf of the producers), tried to claim that the shoes were worth 15 dollars a piece in order to ensure that she stayed under her $8000 budget.

A claim that was clearly bullshit after one glance at the shoes.

The reason this made for such delicious drama was because Kara Saun had always been the golden girl of the season. She'd won more challenges than any other designer and the judges clearly adored her. Wendy, dripping with low self esteem and feeling like the dirty girl in the school cafeteria, was LOVING the controversy.

This all played out in the pre-finale show workroom, with two people who HATED each other (Kara Saun and Wendy) and one person who was trying desperately to stay above the whole thing (Jay).

"Finally! Something happens to Miss Fucking Perfect. Love it!"

Although he wasn't coming off as above-it-all as he would have liked. Yes, we know that sound bite was him quoting Wendy but he clearly had a problem with the situation.

Up till that point, Kara Saun really HAD been Miss Perfect. Not only had she won the most challenges, but she'd done almost everything she could to get along with other people and stay above the fray.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason (we suspect she felt she was untouchable at this point), she tried to pull a fast one on the producers, which left her open to criticism from the very LAST person she wanted to hear:

"No, don't talk to me."

"Well, I will talk to you because I'm going to tell you that Jay and I shopping at the store for five-dollar shoes is hardly comparable to you custom-designing shoes and putting an arbitrary value of five dollars on something that looks like your shoes."

"I just heard you on the phone equate a shoe at a sample sale for five dollars to a shoe you custom-designed and had made to your specifications..."

"...and that, my dear, is not fair or above board, Miss Perfect."

All of which put we, the viewers, in the bizarre position of cheering on the person we hated while she tore into the person we previously had been cheering on. The fact of the matter was that Wendy was RIGHT.

In the end, the producers came up with a solution that was so bull-shitty that we're still rolling our eyes 5 years later: the models would walk the runway in the custom-made shoes but the judges were supposed to ignore them in assessing the collection, which is all but impossible when the shoes are perfectly coordinated to the outfits, not to mention when they're knee-high white leather boots with fur trim.

[Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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