Project Runway with no Tim Gunn? Could be a fashion nightmare.
(Photo from AP)
All book-reading and resolution-keeping makes for a dull lady.
So thank reality TV for a winter guilty pleasure -- mine is going to be
Project Runway All Stars.
I've watched every season of the fashion competition show since its beginning on Bravo back in 2005. Has it really been more than six years since Heidi Klum first said, 'Auf wiedersehen' to the first unlucky designer?
OK, that descriptor is as cliched as the "You're either in, or you're out" phrase. But you get the drift. I've been watching a
long time. Even when it moved over to Lifetime.
And I have to say it's been a pretty productive reality show -- as far as reality TV is concerned. The contestants have actual talent, which is a concept far, far, far away from today's reality TV criteria.
But aside from
PR All Stars' fun cast (who doesn't love to love -- or hate-- the ever-audacious Austin Scarlett?), I have some reservations.
Love the judges, designers Isaac Mizrahi and Georgina Chapman (of Marchesa), and I'm fine with the new host Angela Lindvall, a blonde model, of course.
But no Tim Gunn? I just don't think there's a replacement for the longtime mentor for the frazzled designers (he's said that filming for
All Stars overlapped filming for the most recently wrapped
PR season).
Still he has the magic ingredient that
Runway needs -- he offers frank opinions without being too harsh or demeaning, and he owns a sense of style so polished that he's a fashion icon in his own right.
Will All Stars be as satisfying as other reality competition versions, such as
Top Chef: All Stars?
Who knows, but I'm giving it a try.
What's your winter reality guilty pleasure? (It's OK if you say
The Bachelor. I won't judge. Promise).
