LAURA BENNETT Obsessive beader, impulsive breeder, aggressive succeeder: Laura Bennett ought to win “Project Runway” this season. She gets how America likes to dress when it dresses up.
Sure, Lipstick Laura comes off as an iceberg, but no other designer has a style distinct enough to bank a reputation on, and none design the way we want to look: sharp and simple, comfortable, clean and classy.
Bennett understands that real people don’t live on the runway. Women may have visions of Versace in their heads, but they have Liz Claiborne and Donna Karan in their closets. Men may fancy themselves rock ‘n’ roll-wild, but they’re actually Ralph Lauren-styled. Even guys who admire Alexander McQueen suits on David Bowie choose classic Prada for themselves.
Bennett’s subdued color palette, sharp corners and elegantly beaded clothes fit the bills.
Plus Bennett – an architect by training who pulled off “PR” with four boys at home and a fifth on the way – has the maturity to make it in business. Something Jeffrey “The Neck” Sebelia, “Hippie Uli” Herzner and Michael “Hot Pants” Knight might lack.
– Ray Mark Rinaldi
MICHAEL KNIGHT Michael Knight will win Season 3 because he understands that the business of fashion isn’t about garments. It’s about
storytelling.
To succeed in the rag trade, you have to move product. That means attracting and keeping customers interested in a clear, cohesive brand. And you keep customers interested by telling, and retelling, a story.
Take Ralph Lauren. He’s not the best designer in the world, but he tells wonderful stories. “Polo” isn’t just a brand, it’s a story, an imaginary world populated with people the rest of us want to be, and date. Polo models aren’t mannequins, they’re actors, pretending to live in the rarefied, perfectly styled world of Polo, where we all want to be.
In each challenge, except one, Michael sent out a model who told a story. A modern Pam Grier in hot pants and hoop earrings. A music exec in cargos and shades. An edgy, sophisticated partygoer clutching the perfect black bag. The characters Michael created and the stories he told were evident, lucid and desirable. His products will move.
Michael Knight, storyteller, will win Season 3.
– Tucker Shaw
JEFFREY SEBELIA Fashion is an industry in which nice guys finish last, which is why Jeffrey Sebelia is going to win Season 3 of “Project Runway.” Not only is Jeffrey mean to the other designers (and even their mothers!), he’s rude, arrogant and has bad taste in sunglasses.
Style loves a bad boy, and so do we.
I admit that for a couple of episodes early in the season, I was hoping the judges would “auf” Jeffrey, particularly after he trashed Angela’s mom and put her in an ugly dress. But as the 36-year-old L.A. rocker hung on and won challenges, I started believing he had the talent to succeed. (I just hope those rumors of him getting help sewing the final collection prove false.)
The line Jeffrey showed at Bryant Park during Fashion Week was full of finesse, and I could see young women falling in love with his striped, dotted and zippered Gwen Stefani-style dresses and separates.
Jeffrey’s neck tattoo looks menacing but is actually a tribute to his young son. The tenderness Jeffrey showed Harrison on Part 1 of the final episode, along with his confessions of drug addiction and recovery, convinced me that he could be a force to be reckoned with in the fashion industry – or at least an interesting flameout if his demons return.
– Suzanne S. Brown
ULI HERZNER Up until the final four were picked from the litter of Season 3 “Project Runway” designers, I felt like throwing the remote everytime an “Uli dress” came flowing down the catwalk.
How many caftans for the über-rich party set – apparently pieced together from my grandma’s old scarves – does the fashion world really need?
But the hot little number Miami designer Uli Herzner threw together in record time to win the Elle magazine First Look challenge made me replay the Episode 11 walk again and again. Body skimming in bright blue tie-dyed silk – And look, Mutti! No frumpy braided cords or straps! – this short shift proved that Uli’s got point of view, not tunnel vision.
Uli knows exactly who her clients are: chic young things who are sexy, not skanky. And her final safari-themed runway collection – including a hot, but not whorish, bikini – delivers exactly what she promised to the judges week after week.
If “Project Runway” is brave enough to let someone really live out their American Dream, German immigrant Uli Herzner will drive away in the Saturn Sky roadster.
– Dana Coffield
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