Project Runway - Supermarket Challenge

The first challenge of the new season took the designers back to the supermarket where the first challenge of the first season took place. Tim mentioned that this brought them 'Full Circle' which struck me as a strange comment. Don't you usually say that at the END of something? We've come Full Circle to the END or is that to a new beginning? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it seemed odd. One good thing was bringing in the lovely and delightful Austin Scarlet, winner of the Supermarket challenge from Season 1, to introduce the challenge and to be a guest judge. Seeing Austin float across the street was a joy. I still adore him.
At first I thought repeating this challenge was a bad idea, have they run out of ideas for challenges? But it still turned out to be fairly challenging. This crowd of new designers all knew the original challenge, but most of them went for the unispiring and easy idea of using tablecloths. Tim gave them a verbal spanking for not being more innovative.
Kelli won with the dress above. The skirt was made from vacuum cleaner bags that were dyed and bleached to create the print. The top was made of coffee filters with strips of tacks on the waist and the spiral spine from a notebook was used to make the closure on the back of the dress. The skirt, the tacks and the back closure were really cool. I wasn't a fan of the round top though for some reason. Kelli is cute and seems pretty cool. She used to sell the clothing that she made on ebay until she was chosen to go on PR.
Kenley also seems pretty cool and she has kind of a vintage look. Stella is a cool rocker chick from Queens, and she kinda reminds me of oldschool Cher. She used garbage bags to create a dress. I guess she forgot the negative reaction to the garbage bag dress in the original challenge. Plus the bags she bought turned out to be those really cheap thin ones that tear when you lift them. She might have done better with the really thick and shiny ones. I felt bad for her, and was glad that she wasn't the one to go.

Shayne is my current pick for most annoying, which isn't really a horribley bad thing for a reality show. He is an admitted tanning addict and apparently likes the knit hats too. I'm not sure what it is that he made here. But he thought it was fabulous. It certainly was not 'Girliscious' which was what he was calling it (and saying over and over again) even writing it on the model's leg for the runway show. Tone down the attitude and the catch phrases Shayne, you are no Christian!

This crowd of designers is mostly younger. Out of 16, only 6 are in their 30s or older. I'm guessing from the looks of this crowd that we're going to get alot of attitude this year. Awesome! last year's crowd, while very talented, were kind of tame. I like the drama and attitude, as long as it doesn't distract from the creativity.


Designer profiles on Bravo - http://www.bravotv.com/Project_Runway/season/5/bios/index.php

My Project Runway post on the Vintage Bulletin blog