With My Hoodie On

The "reality" shows I actually like tend to be the ones where people with mad skilz are asked to do something that would be totally easy for them if they had 4X the time limit, but tends to make a good portion of them look incompetent.  For instance, on "America's Handyman" there are only 2 of them that I'd let near any project of mine.  "Chopped" makes chefs who are otherwise probably awesome get *very* *near* to genius dishes and somehow have something go horribly wrong. Austin and Santino roadtripping to small towns to make dresses for deserving women who are mostly not thin makes me giggle. Then there's "Project Runway".

Project Runway routinely drives me crazy, but I keep watching because every so often they go to the circus and come out with some of the best funky looks I've seen in fashion.  (2nd from left is the winner, deservedly.)  Every once in a while, the event just gels with one of the designers and they make something fabulous, and we get to see how it happened.
 
Today, with the 6 designers left, they asked them to design something in godawful-grey for Heidi's baggy loooking "active wear" collection that left me thinking someone left the fabric in an ashtray somewhere.  It seemed an odd choice for a show that is looking for the designer's voice to come through, to ask them to design for someone else - even if that winds up being their day job next year.

Often, I disagree with the PR judges about the lower ranking people.  However,  I so totally agree with their winning choice of Andy's design that I want that hoodie!!! The one with the round shape on the body and the stripey sleeves.  Super flattering, and fun.  Can't find it on Amazon, even though they said on the show it would be part of the line. Maybe Heidi's executive decision got shot down?  She probably doesn't sell stuff in my size anyway...

That said, I really didn't appreciate the focus on negativity and mocking that occurred with this episode.  Most of it was in the commercial, which almost made me skip it because I'm not watching to see these people be jerked around in front of their peers in their field. Constructive criticism is all well and good, but I could do with a lot less "creativity" on the negativity.  Although grumpy Gretchen's bike shorts topped with puce ruched skirt hurt my eyes a little too, so they aren't always wrong there.

Now I'm rambling.  I just caught a nice episode of Chopped while writing this, one of the rare ones where everyone either has a good idea or good execution making the choices best of the best, not who screwed up the least.  If anyone knows how to get that hoodie, let me know. It would be easier for you if I could find the picture, but alas and alack, my googling skills are not bringing it up.