Project Runway season 8 premiered last night, and the above dress was really the only decent thing to come out of it. The challenge was to incorporate a garment from another designer’s suitcase into a completely new look, but with only 5 hours to accomplish this, pretty much all of the designers fell short. Lifetime’s new, irritating format changes included a 90 minute long show and pretending that the 17 designers featured in the first episode were not yet finalists (apparently, despite its being the first episode, the person eliminated yesterday was not in fact a contestant.) Also annoying was Heidi’s insinuations that more than one designer would be sent home; despite the judges’ assembling of the show’s first-ever bottom 6, only one poor, not-quite-the-worst designer was off’d (McKell.) I had hoped it would Jason, whose comments about the model’s body were disgusting, and whose backwards kimono-turned-bathrobe did not in any way resemble fashion. Hopefully he’ll be next. In any case, I’m reluctantly watching this season, because no matter how much certain aspects of the show or certain designers irritate me, I love watching people make clothes from scratch, and usually there’s at least one good designer, right? Right???

(Image from mylifetime.com)