Yes, we know we skipped one week of Project Catwalk reviews, sorry about that. Here is a quick run-down of week 4. The challenge for this week was to further spoil one of the United Kingdom’s most pampered children, Kelly Osborne, by designing a flattering outfit for her. During the designers’ initial interview with Kelly, she not once got off of her bed / throne. Kelly really ought to have moved around a little, it wouldn’t do her any harm, and what’s with the big black hair? She looked like a puffy mushroom.
*Spoiler Alert* Winner/Loser Revealed, although you probably already know.
This was PC’s first team challenge and the groups were split via kick-ball team picking style best to worst. Chris picked Kirsty then Shakeil. Lesley picked Renato then Mathew.
Marianne picked Debi then Gemma. Further spoiling Kelly, the designers got £300 ($540) for materials!! This didn’t include shoes, just materials, I think that’s a bit excessive for one outfit to be made in 16 hours of studio time.
It was interesting to see how the tree teams prepared, or didn’t, for the designing and this related to the final outcome.
As usual the actual 16 hour design part of the show was edited down to a paltry 10 minutes. This included a jaunt by a designated team member to meet Patrick Cox and pick out a pair of his shoes for the model to wear. Even though Project Catwalk has been pretty subtle with its product tie-ins, this was one of the more questionable ones as we think that Cox’s shoes are to be uterlly tasteless. I guess that it was just a push for a domestic brand.
Unfortunately, all of the designs were weak durring this episode. Marianne, the chosen winner, designed the same dress that she has designed for every other episode. Despite her boring repetition, I think that the early planning executed by Marianne’s team was very helpful in their end product. Chris’s outfit, my favorite of this episode was ok, but definitely not suited in any way to Kelly Osborne’s full-figure. Finally Lesley’s design was plagued by very bad execution. Trompe l’oeil is hard to do well, without looking like a silly fake tuxedo shirt, and without her creative direction the design was a flop. She was definitely right to say that had she done it again she would’ve sent Mathew to get the shoes, so that she could monitor and execute the dress the way that she wanted. She didn’t follow her own sage advice of ‘if you want to things done right you have to do it yourself’. I particularly admired Lesley’s refusal to put blame on Mathew for executing poorly. It’s unfortunate that she was kicked off, but we’re sure that she will go on to do better things in the real world of fashion. One thing that I didn’t care for was Merthyr Tydfil’s ( Julien Macdonald’s real name) characterization fo Lesley as frumpy, I think it’s a bit of base and further proves that under all the glitz and glamour he’s a bit of a douchebag.
That’s all for now, and look for our upcoming exclusive interview with Lesley D.
The designs are not to bad for a compitition, it is of a high standerd, the briefs on the other hand are very poor,it is not a reflection on what people want or admire, models making a decision on a brief who look good in anything,or kelly Osbourne sitting on a bed to be catered to is not the real fashion. only segment of the industry as a whole.
I think something more interesting and workable would be better, a brief that has a better learning challenge. I am sure that Julien MacDonald, with has knowledge of working in the fashion world would be able to come up with something.
i love projesct cat walk and i never missed it , because i am interested in fasion and have made lots of clothes eg a wedding dress,i am 15 years old