Word: runway
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...nation’s weary battle with obesity, the other extreme on the spectrum. But obesity, also a visual cue of infertility and unhealthiness, is hardly a worthy goal. The Western world prefers to appear hungry rather than sated. Commonly understood in the fashion industry is the concept that runway models are not the main attraction, but merely human coat hangers, used to display designers’ wares. Inexplicably, these human coat hangers have become the standard of beauty. As Grammer writes, although attractive features themselves are “cross-culturally universal,” socio-economic factors within...
...Runway is far more successful than Greenlight was. Besides the fact that host-producer Heidi Klum looks better in a cocktail dress than movie producer Chris Moore would, Runway has the sizzle of a tense competition, while Greenlight picked its filmmakers right off the bat. (Perhaps learning from Greenlight, in Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett's On the Lot, for Fox next season, filmmakers will duke it out Runway-style...
Just as important, Runway isn't afraid to be fun. Like the couture world itself, it plays with the tension between high- and lowbrow, combining earnest discussions of artistic intent with shamelessly over-the-top challenges. In the first challenge of Season 3, the contestants "source" the materials for their first outfits from the apartments they're staying in--tearing down chandeliers and shearing the fabric off mattresses. And the contestants know that performance is part of their business. A contestant in the Season 3 premiere lays out her "four cs" theory of success: "courage, creativity, cash and celebrity...
...HGTV Design Star (Sundays, 9 p.m. E.T.; debuts July 23), celebrity is the prize: as on The Next Food Network Star, the winner gets to host a show on the channel. (Runway's winner gets, among other perks, $100,000 to start a business.) Otherwise, the show is basically Project Living Room--10 aspiring home designers try to please a troika of judges--with a focus on collaboration. In the first episode, the competitors work in teams to appoint the extremely narrow town house they're staying in. "Design is not all about your personal tastes," says HGTV programming vice...
...course, TLC did not invent the idea of inspiration as a performance, any more than Runway, Top Chef et al. transformed design, cooking and so on into entertainment. Isaac Mizrahi, Emeril Lagasse and Martha Stewart turned their fields into reality TV long before reality TV did, making their personae inseparable from their work. Says Kara Janx, who finished fourth on last season's Runway: Celebrity "is part and parcel of being a designer today. When people know the person behind the brand, they become invested in it." That said, she adds, "I want to die as a good designer...