I know nothing about fashion. I thought Jillian should have won. Her collection seemed the most weareable to me. Chris’s looked like half those woman were swallowed by canaries. Rami’s was the same old, same old. The only pieces I liked were his woven dresses. But his color choices were so jarring and too loud.
I was surprised they gave to Christian at least in part because he’s so young.
I was expecting Jillian to win - her designs were surprising, interesting, and also commercial, as well as diverse (perhaps too diverse for the judges). Rami would have been my second choice - the work and designs were amazing, and surprising too - although I agreed that his color choices were not the best; also - the dresses were a little too uniform in color. Christian’s stuff was amazing, but there was too much black, and not much in terms of commercial designs; also - the feathery ruffleyness was a bit too much, especially on the one model who was wearing the large hat - I kept expecting her to fall over from not being able to see out of her dress!
Altho Chris and Sweet Pea weren’t in the running, I hear they also did shows so as to not spoil who won the earlier rounds of the show when it aired. I’d be interested in seeing their final collections…
If I have the link right, you can see all five of the top finalists here. http://www.bravotv.com/Project_Runway/season/4/final_collections//index.php
Here ya go!
I was surprised myself. I think he has a little maturing to do. But they were all so lovely. If I were younger and thinner and fiercer, I would’ve worn several of Jillian’s and Rami’s looks. Christian was definitely avant guard. But congrats, Cricket!
I thought Christian had the most raw talent of the whole bunch. His designs are usually overblown and just “a lot of look”, as Tim would say, but that’s a good thing at 21. Maturity and restraint can come with age.
I found it hard to compare the final three because they’re such different personalities and they’re at such different places in their maturity as designers. It was almost like judging a dog show–you have to look at how well each designer lives up to the best that he can be, rather than one against the other.
I started out not liking Christian very much, but I started to turn around during his team challenge with Chris. I expected him to be totally impossible to work with, particularly for Chris, but it wasn’t the case at all. He definitely leads with his weirdness, but the older I get the more I think that everyone ought to be (or at least appear) crazy at 21.
I have to wonder how much Posh Spice’s infatuation with Christian’s designs played into the win. I think he probably would have won anyway, but his work was clearly right up her alley.
So can winning contests. My wife and I liked Rami the best.
I also wonder how much Victoria had to do with Christian’s success - she just happened to be really really into his style. Also - of the three, Christian is the one who benefited the most from winning. I wonder if that factored into it. He was living and working in a closet!
My wife and I agree with jackdavinci – she may love Christian’s dresses for herself, but we think Rami’s will sell better. Rami design dresses that one might expect to find in high-end stores (Saks, say) and that normal women (not just anorexic, skinny-as-a-pole fashion models) can wear. We thought Jillian’s stuff was just ugly, but we’ve never liked her stuff.
Christian’s collection looked like a collection. Of course, I think all of his work looks more or less the same; anything he’s done all season could be dropped into the collection, and it too would have looked like it belonged there. Rami & Jillian didn’t have the same strength of theme that Christian’s did.
I think that was a bad thing for the particular judges they had. I absolutely agree with Rami’s criticism that Christian designs for models not for people…but Rami has some of the same problems with his collection. He’s not as women-unfriendly as Christian’s are - but he does weird things with breasts.
Jillian had the stuff I’d most like to wear (with the exception of one of Rami’s woven things. It was gorgeous).
I’m not sure what Christian’s theme was exactly, unless it was black on black. And then there was that out-of-control billowy thing that with its hat made a silhouette that looked like a nuclear mushroom cloud. I have to agree with those who say that Victoria influenced the outcome, and I guess that’s okay but they wasted a lot of the season talking about the importance of commercial design and broad appeal.
My 2 cents,
Rami’s color choices were pretty bad. Maybe the guy is color blind? And he also seems to have an aversion to added details to his garments. No zippers, buttons, snaps, trim, etc. If he was a child in an arts and crafts room filled with scissors, glue, glitter, beads, yarn, and a whole ton of other fun stuff to work with he’d settle for oragami.
Christian’s was good but I think I counted more than half his models with the exact same pair of black pants on. And some of his pieces seemed more proto-type experimental looks rather than finished garments.
Jillian had some great looking beautiful pieces. Awesome marketable wearable stuff. Her downfall was that it didn’t look like a collection from the same line.
There was no common element or theme running through all her pieces. No trademark or signature style. But I still think she should have won.
Really? A lot of his gowns made his extremely thin models look rather hippy. I already HAVE enough hips; I don’t need visual volume added to them!
Well, I’m not a fan of his particular style, but if their runway shows as a whole were a factor in the judging I can see why Christian would win. I thought the layered '30s antique lace dress of Rami’s was breathtakingly beautiful, and I thought Christian’s feather dress was preposterous. But looking at their entire collections together, and details like the styling I saw Christian with a bit of an advantage.
If Rami’s colors had made more sense I might be saying he was robbed, but honestly some of the colors were awful. His first piece out lokked almost exactly like my best friend’s junior prom dress from 1985.
Jillian’s collection, though many reviews include words like unique and wearable, looked anything but that to me. The helmets were odd. I liked that stripy sweater less than Tim Gunn did.
Fah. Christian’s final dress that everyone was creaming their pants over is a remake (albeit with a little added at the neck and bottom) of an Alexander McQueen from the Paris runways in 06 or 07, I forget. My friend has the book with the pics in it and busted it out when during the show and I was like facepalm. I also saw it in an editorial spread. I noticed a few other of his looks and the whole thing with feathers (including their color/patterns - A. MQ again), as well as the ruffled conquistador inverted big-bird thing as obvious “tributes,” shall we say. The judges must know this, why don’t they ever mention it?? Derivative, derivative, derivative and even if it hadn’t been, still the least impressive to my eyes; I guess because I’m a woman who is actually interested in wearing clothes instead of being arbitrarily “fierce”. You know, one of those people he couldn’t care less about. They were all too similar (crossing the line from “point of view,” which I do think the others showed), and while I’m not as concerned with market-wearability as some (after all, they can always be translated to more ready-to-wear later on), these were just…juh. I’m reduced to making sound effects to describe everything like Lady Elisa Moonbeam.
But then again I don’t quite share PoshBot’s coconut-boobed fashion sense. So he won because he matched one singular and particularly plastic woman’s taste perfectly, great. Is it just me or is her face crooked?
I think either of the other two should have won. I really liked certain pieces in both their collections (although I saw a lot of fit problems) and kind of got where most of the others were going, with a few weird and fugly exceptions. I never particularly liked Jillian as a person, but some of those looks were great, lots better than stuff on the show. Pretty much the same with Rami. I liked him personally a little bit more than Jillian, but that wasn’t saying much and isn’t important anyway. I was always annoyed that the judges kept ignoring that he’s already a Designer designer, with multiple shows and stuff - I think Amanda from season 3 walked in one or two of them - and for that he shouldn’t have even been on this show. So I guess if pressed to choose I’d pick Jillian. Really, though, I don’t care too much.
The funny part was when they were showing shots of contestants from the past seasons attending and my brain finally perked up and went “Hey! People with rl character! Some quite likeable! Where’ve they been all season?”
Oh well.
Oh yeah, and the winning model - still don’t really remember any of their names - is fugly. Possibly the most fugly model ever on Project Runway; I’m not sure.
Well, Rami said at the outset that his theme was a celebration of women, and I really like the idea that a celebration of women can include dresses that accentuate hips and don’t just pare down a woman’s frame into the thinnest twiggy thing possible.
Personally, I didn’t like Jillian’s collection. The pieces were too disparate and I thought the dresses she made were HIDEOUS, especially the gold one and the one where the transparent layered skirt looked like a shower curtain.
I liked Rami’s clothing the best but I understand why he didn’t win- he’s also relatively established, has that huge-ass private studio that Tim visited. Christian is more of the type that, IMHO, Project Runway is meant for- the young, up-and-comer who is living in a closet and doesn’t have the capital to invest to really market oneself. I daresay that was part of the decision, as is the fact that Christian (my b/f calls him the cockatoo) will be better in promoting the show as his primary gateway into the fashion world. In some sense, Rami is already in the fashion world, and wouldn’t give Project Runway as much credit if he makes it big.
I liked most of Jillian’s collection. The only things of Rami’s that I liked were the color skirt/black top and color top/black skirt. I did not at all like those weird cap sleeves of his. And hated hated hated all of Christian’s stuff. Who but a supermodel could wear any of it? Maybe with some seasoning (read ‘age’) Christian will get better. I do concede he is ‘fierce’-ly (;)) talented, but very narrow visioned.
The same could be said of Jillian
And see, I think that’s actually not a compliment in terms of “capitol F” Fashion shows. I think his stuff looks dowdy. Beautifully made of course. I did love the lace gown.
Christian’s stuff is, I think, more ambitious than successful. I think he’s still too close to his school experience. It will be interesting to see how he grows in the next ten years.
Jillian, I think her jackets are inspired. I’m interested to see where she goes too, if she can develop a more cohesive vision.
Honestly, I thought Chris March’s faux-monkey fur stuff was more interesting than the final three.
What struck me was how frail and vulnerable Christian appeared in the finale. Did that kid not eat at all during the couple of months they had to work on their collection? It was such a contrast to his fierce, overly confident attitude in earlier shows. I can’t help but wonder if it was editing or if he had really been beaten down by the process. I’m glad he said he was going to take a break after the show, he can use some of that money to buy some food, too.
I didn’t really have a favorite in the finals and none of them really blew me away. But I figured Christian was going to win because his collection was the most cohesive and Posh was drooling all over it, but even she might have to lose a few more pounds to fit in those clothes. How many calories are in air?
I am by no stretch a fashionista, but even I noticed how terrible Rami’s color choices were. He also had picked a terrible color in the WWE Divas challenge.