Project Runway - Let's hear it for the old guy!

The new season of Project Runway premiered last night. I love this show. Heidi, Tim, Michael and Nina were all back, with special guest judge Christina Ricci. (I didn't find a picture of Christina.  You can google her. The other photos are from the Lifetime TV Project Runway page.)

Heidi Klum - Host and judge

Tim Gunn - Mentor



Nina Garcia - Judge



Michael Kors - Judge

To be honest, I was a little disappointed. The first bit of the episode showed Heidi and the others interviewing the twenty semi-finalists. This seemed redundant to me since I had watched the hour-long casting special just before the regular episode. That one had previous PR winners Seth-Aaron Henderson and Leanne Marshall and runner-up Mondo Guerra evaluating contestants and we saw the same contestants and the same outfits they brought to show. Curiously, they never identified Leanne or Mondo, although Seth-Aaron got some face time on camera.

So the first thing that happened was that Heidi "auf-ed" four people immediately. Surprisingly, they kept the former Miss Trinidad who admitted that she only started to learn to sew last year. Well, she is beautiful so I guess that counts for something. But, I thought this year's cast was pretty bland. No really strange ones like that chick who spit on her fabric because she liked to make herself part of it. Or Ping, who just sort of draped fabric on her models. Or the guy last year who designed an outfit that was like an egg for the maternity wear challenge. It represented "fertility" and he went home that day.

The always-dapper Tim Gunn leads the just-rolled-out-of-bed designers on Project Runway for a 5 a.m. walk to the Parsons School.

The first challenge had Tim Gunn waking them all up at about 5 a.m. They had to wear their pajamas, or whatever substituted for pajamas, and to bring one bedsheet. Yep, they had to make their first runway look from the clothes on their back and their sheet. Actually, most of them were decent which made for some of the episode's blandness.

Rafael Cox - "Auf-ed" on Episode One

Several were spectacularly bad and Rafael went home because he didn't seem to know that his outfit was bad. That doesn't seem to deter many very popular designers who seem to enjoy being really, really bad at their art. Or craft. Or whatever it is. But, I'm glad to know that Project Runway does not encourage that sort of behavior.

This week's winner, Bert Keeter, aka "The Old Guy"

The best part of the episode came when Bert won it. Bert is a 57 year-old recovering alcoholic that all those sassy kids had ignored. Of course, he had been a designer with Oleg Cassini and Halston before his personal downturn so you know he has the chops. Still, it was nice to see even if Michael Kors hated his styling.

Bert has immunity so he won't go home next week. Hopefully, I will find myself feeling a little more interested in the rest of the crew soon. If not, I may have to say "auf weidersehen" to this season's PR. But, I'll always love Tim.