Project Runway - It's Already Fashion Week?

Amazingly I haven't posted about this season of Project Runway yet. Somehow it just felt extremely slow getting started and I wasn't really wowed by many of the earlier challenges or designs. It wasn't until Episode 6 (the drag queen challenge) that things really started to pick up and I was starting to pick out favorites.

I'm not sure what's up with the timing of this season though...we started off the week with half of the designers and on Wednesday night were only down to six but the Fashion Week show at Bryant Park was today. So all 6 collections were shown. I believe there are still two regular elimination shows left, so I guess that means there are 4 finalists this year, and 2 decoys? I find the decoy thing to be kind of annoying. They get eliminated but still get to do collections for Fashion Week and at the time of the show no one knows that they're not in the running to win, so it's pretty much the same as being a finalist, right?

Anyway, even though the winner won't be revealed for another MONTH, you can go look at the collections online. Also I read that the guest judge had to drop out at the last second and Tim Gunn filled in! Yay, Tim! I don't want to speculate too much but I had some definite likes and dislikes. Based on the challenges so far only, here's my rundown:

Leanne: Possibly my favorite and my current pick to win. I think she took a little while to kind of get into her groove, but she's made some of my favorite looks from this season. She does some really interesting things with shape and pieced looks while still remaining elegant and refined. Her car dress ROCKED and I totally loved the skirt she did for the NYC challenge. And her Diane von Furstenberg dress was just gorgeous. I also like that she's not really a reality-TV personality. While I did love Christian from last season, it's nice to see normal people succeed once in awhile.

Korto: She caught my attention much earlier than everyone else. She's really thoughtful and smart about her designs and she's been amazingly consistent. Again, not so much wild and crazy like we've seen from past winners Jay and Jeffrey and Christian, but really new and interesting things that women would actually want to wear. The seat belt coat was gorgeous (though I read that it was incredibly heavy!)

Kenley: Cannot stand her personality. I thought she was kind of cute during the first episode, but then I started to get more and more irked. Laughing at Daniel on the runway was just plain rude (especially since she claimed to be his friend) and she seems to be getting more and more defensive as the weeks go on. She can't take criticism and she can't stop interrupting the judges. Unfortunately, her designs have actually been alright. I'm not that big a fan...I didn't like the bubble dress thing that she won the NYC challenge with, and her look for this past week's challenge was terrible. I was kind of hoping she would get kicked off this week just so I wouldn't have to see her interview segments anymore...ok, yes I'm mean.

Jerell: This guy confuses me. He seems to put together these looks that don't seem like they'll make any sense and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. He's flip-flopped from the top to the bottom a couple of times and I can never tell when he's going to do well. I was kind of surprised by his win this week...I liked his outfit but I'm not entirely sure what it had to do with Sagittarius?

Suede: At least he's kind of weaned himself off referring to himself in the third person all the time but I don't really get his style point of view yet. He's been riding safely in the middle for most of the season, which might be a bad thing.

Joe: Honestly I don't think he really belongs at the top. He's not terrible but he has this sort of sportswear thing going that's not that new or interesting but has served him well in a couple of challenges. Sometimes I feel like he's just a little too literal with the challenge descriptions though.

Was kind of surprised to see Terri out this week. Her attitude has getting on my nerves these past couple of weeks and the other designers have been calling her out for always doing the same pants, but she was never in the bottom before this week and she was good at what she did.