PR: Christopher and April

Now we have a craving for cotton candy. And we kind of hate cotton candy.

We hate to say it, but not only has Christopher's work been bland, it's also been a bit derivative.

You could argue that since his work is not innovative, then by definition it's all derivative, but that's an unfair criticism to make in the general sense. Very few designers recreate the wheel with each look or collection.

We said before that there's nothing wrong with designing wearable, salable clothes to a broad range of people. That's not our issue with Christopher and it's certainly not our issue this week.

Our issue? This is a Marchesa gown from top to bottom. There's referential and then there's derivative and to our eyes, this is the latter.



The lace, and the netting, and the cotton candy confection of a skirt, the silhouette, the textural qualities, the architectural aspects, the asymmetry, the colors; it's all there, from top to bottom. Classic Marchesa.

We doubt very much he thought at any point, "I know! I'll do a Marchesa knockoff for this challenge!" These things just happen some times in the creative process. Still, we don't think we're asking too much that a designer display some creativity by this point in the competition and for the most part, he hasn't.

Exhibit B on that last point.

Nothing awful here. It almost works as a callback to the other dress, but we would have thought a bit of lace or some texture somewhere would have been a good idea.

But let's face it. It's another boring dress from Christopher. Not even attitudinal Ify could save this one. Since we're too bored to say anything more about this dress, let's share some Ify gossip, courtesy of Peach. Many of you wanted to know why the designers didn't want to work with her and we forgot to ask during our interview with Peach. We asked her at Laura's party about it and she emailed us the official Peach answer:

"The reason no one wanted to work with Ify was because, although she has a great walk, when she stands on the runway, she stands like a tired old woman waiting for a bus in the rain; slouched over and appears to be over the whole runway thing!"

"Heidi scolded her heavily when I was in the bottom for the Barbie challenge. She stood there during the entire critique staring at her fingernails and picking the polish off them. Heidi was very angry! Christopher said he was going to steal my model until he saw her standing on the runway."

"Ify was also unprepared as a professional model. Black underwear, she didn't like to get undressed in front of anyone, blue acrylic toe polish on for the Betsey Johnson challenge. It took three makeup people to scrape it off for the open toe shoes. She also told me that she did not intend to listen to the professional fashion photographer in the Marie Claire challenge, because NO ONE tells her how to pose! YIKES! She was very sweet and GORGEOUS but not easy to work with; but I would hire her to walk a runway in a minute, just not to stand and pose."

T Lo: Getting you the dirt since 2006.

Tim Gunn's Workroom:


Oh, April honey. We can't not love a girl who still wants a pony. And considering how little we normally go for that sort of thing, it's amazing how well we respond to your broken-goth-doll aesthetic. But sweetie?

It's all kind of blurring together at this point.




We can pretty much expect almost everything to be black with a lot of asymmetrical frippery all over it. Shoulders will be accentuated and hot pants or granny panties will be favored, if not short, tight skirts.

Nothing wrong with having a look, especially if you do it well, but from a reality television perspective, we're getting bored. Worse, we fear that the judges are right on the verge of noticing how repetitive she is.

It's not that we don't think her looks aren't inventive. A lot of them are. This one, for instance. We really like it. Probably not right for a makeup ad, but it's striking and it's totally April.

And this is a super-cute little dress.

More importantly, these two looks of hers were probably the best example of effectively translating a high end look into ready-to-wear.


They are easily recognizable as two pieces coming from the same designer, working from the same point of inspiration.

In fact, the more we look at these two, the more we think they should have been in the top 3. It could be that the judges have noticed how repetitive she is and gave her lower scores because of it.

Tim Gunn's Workroom:



[Screencaps: projectrungay.blogspot.com - Video Credit: myLifetime.com - Photo Credit: Barbara Nitke/myLifetime.com]

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Labels: April Johnston, Christopher Collins, Project Runway, Project Runway Season 8, Project Runway Season 8 Episode 9