Project Runway 10/11/06 *Spoilers*

[bluenoise]

Hmmm...Did Jeffrey cheat? He sure seemed to be acting strangely, but I don't dismiss the power of editing to show what the producers want us to see. This should be interesting, though.

Though I like Michael the best and Jeffrey the least, I think Jeffrey's collection seemed much stronger than Michael's.

[cmgal]

I hope he did cheat, was found out, and kicked off the show. I have not liked his attitude or his designs from the very beginning.

[Stylin]

I hope so too, but I think they edited next wk's preview to just look that way. I'm pretty sure he will be showing his collection.
So far from what I've seen of Micheal's collection it's pretty disappointing. I want him to win!
OK, I'm trying to figure out what the deal is with Laura. Bit*ch is rich!! LOL, ok not rich but they are doing well. Did you see her loft??? As a NYer I can tell you that apt is a pretty hefty chunk of change. If they are renting, which I doubt, it's at least 5K/mth. I'd guess the apt is worth about $2-$3 mil on the low side. So what I don't understand is how come she never started her own line? In tonight's ep she said she didn't have the money, but in everything I've seen and read that didn't seem like a roadblock. But then again I'm not a married mother of 6 kids...

[mportuesi]

I've thought Jeffrey was an ass from the start, but I have to admit his line does look the strongest of the four contestants. Personally I'd like to see either Michael or Laura win, but I was really disappointed with what Michael had to show this week.

I had the same thought as everyone else when we saw Laura's loft....that she must have a very successful career as an architect to afford a place that swank in NYC. I've always thought the show's prize of $100K to start a fashion line is actually pretty meager. I imagine it would cost a lot more to launch a fashion line.

If I won the prize, the first thing I'd do is sell off the car to get more cash. Though I think the exposure and the connections the contestants gain from being on the show is probably more valuable than the cash prize.

[katbug]

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Jeffrey cheated, but I doubt that they will be able to prove it. I can't imagine he would have been stupid enough (well, maybe so, lol) to keep evidence in his reciepts.

[Ruth]

I have mixed feelings about the Jeffrey thing. Of course if he cheated that is not OK. And I guess it's more on everyone's radar screen now since that other guy already got kicked off for cheating.

But, I was shocked that Laura was making that accusation to Tim based on "this work is so much better than what he did before." I mean she has no evidence at all, and she hates the guy already . . . it just seemed so mean-spirited. It's one thing to gossip about it, but to try and rat the guy out based on nothing more than mere suspicion? I think that's wrong and it really lowered my opinion of her. If it is that obvious then the producers/judges/Tim would notice it as well. Let them be the ones to bring it up.

Also, while I know nothing about crafting garments, it certainly seems reasonable to me that you would be able to create a much better work product in 2 months than anything you could do in the 2-day challenges. You would be able to choose more ambitious projects and have a lot more time to do them carefully. Wouldn't you expect the quality of everyone's work to be substantially better under those circumstances?

And wow! Laura is certainly not hurting for money, that apartment was amazing.

[MFruchey]

Are y'all going to stone me if I stick up for Jeffrey? Sure, he's made some unkind comments in the past, but so has Laura, and who's to say he's not edited to fit the role of the villain. Many of his comments, while perhaps not phrased in the nicest of ways, weren't too off base, and his work has been pretty consistently good and almost always interesting. Now I may be biased, having always preferred Jeffrey to at least most of his fellow contestants, but I feel as though he's come across as much more sympathetic in his interviews and in non-competition shows such as this episode and the reunion. Maybe he just doesn't translate well in the competition format.

P.S.--I'm a really nice person, I swear. I hope me liking Jeffrey won't make any of you think otherwise. :p

[Stylin]

Lol! At least someone is sticking up for Jeffrey, so that makes me respect you. I don't think he is a bad person, just unneccesarily arrogant. I think he's insecure and just shows it by being snarky. Design wise, not my style, but I respect it. He is good.
Here's a link to an article about the alleged cheating http://www.newyorkmetro.com/news/intelligencer/21688/?imw=Y . Seems like even if he did work 24/7 the work was too much for him to be completely done (no final touches), but regardless I can't see how they could prove it. I think the 'investigation' will be fruitless.

[Bill Reeves]

I'm going to stick up for Jeffrey too. I don't know enough about sewing to say for sure, but it seems like Laura was making an unsubstantiated allegation which they would have no way of proving, and the only effect was to get inside Jeffrey's head and make him nervous. I would have thought that she would not need to play mind games and would want to beat the other contestants fair and square.

Jeffrey's explanation -- that when he had the time, he could sew much better than on the show when they were always pressed for time -- makes sense to me -- and the fact that he now has to defend himself against these allegations takes away from his efforts to get ready for Fashion Week.

If they're true, and they can prove it, then yeah, dump his ass out, but I don't see how they would be able to prove it, and his explanation is totally reasonable to me.

Tim said that they are going to assume innocence until proven guilty, but they are all treating him like he's guilty. I thought it was a low blow and expected better from Laura. If he's innocent, then I hope Laura gets accused of some violation that she needs to defend herself against so she can see how it feels to have done unto her what she has done to Jeffrey.

[ccwf]

I had the same thought as everyone else when we saw Laura's loft....that she must have a very successful career as an architect to afford a place that swank in NYC. Tim's podcast mentioned that Laura's husband is founder Peter Shelton of Shelton, Mindel & Associates (http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0504/perelli1.html), one of the largest architectural firms in the U.S.

While I agree that Jeffrey was sometimes an ass, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt on the cheating allegation. Remember that we saw he had a separate office with a lot more space and equipment than the other finalists, who were working at home. With his comments about industrial sewing machines (which sew faster and heavier fabrics than consumer sewing machines but are more specialized), it wouldn't surprise me if he had several industrial sewing machines in his office. Here (http://www.haloscan.com/comments/laurak/115919004870233843/#57911) is Jeffrey's response to the allegations.

And Laura's no slouch when it comes to time management: part one showed her well on her way on almost all her looks. Compare that to the finalists' progress during Tim's visit in past seasons. And with half a dozen kids, five of them male (Peter's)! Laura's also the one who finished one of the challenges so early she slept while the other designers were working (in hindsight: the sleeping might also have been an early indication of her pregnancy). The podcast also reveals that Laura had organized all her receipts with a spreadsheet and gave that to Tim. :)
http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0504/images/perelli01.gif
http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0504/images/perelli03.gif (http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0504/perelli1.html)

[MFruchey]

I read on Wiki that Allison said he was portrayed in a much more unflattering light than how he acted in reality. Now, I know that's a common complaint of reality show contestants, but we viewers should realize that there probably is some truth to this. I mean, no one can put words in the contestants' mouths, but editing can make things seem much worse than they actually are.

[mportuesi]

I thought it was a low blow and expected better from Laura. If he's innocent, then I hope Laura gets accused of some violation that she needs to defend herself against so she can see how it feels to have done unto her what she has done to Jeffrey.

I also listened to the podcast, and Tim Gunn says that Laura felt compelled to step forward, because in her mind the concern was genuine. If she had waited until after the judging to make her reservations known, she would have been written off as a sore loser with an axe to grind.

That may not change your opinion of Laura, and of course it doesn't mean Jeffrey cheated. And it's no secret there's animosity between the two. But there was enough sincere doubt in Laura's mind that I think she wasn't simply trying to play head games with Jeffrey.

[Bill Reeves]

I also listened to the podcast, and Tim Gunn says that Laura felt compelled to step forward, because in her mind the concern was genuine. If she had waited until after the judging to make her reservations known, she would have been written off as a sore loser with an axe to grind.

That may not change your opinion of Laura, and of course it doesn't mean Jeffrey cheated. And it's no secret there's animosity between the two. But there was enough sincere doubt in Laura's mind that I think she wasn't simply trying to play head games with Jeffrey.

That's pretty much what my wife told me -- she thinks that Laura knows her stuff well enough to be able to tell that the sewing was so much better that she genuinely thought he had cheated.

Like I said, I don't know enough about sewing to know if that's possible, but to make a lame analogy, if on Survivor the two teams were supposed to use stuff from Home Depot to make, I dunno, storage sheds, and one of them put together a shack with a leaky roof, and the other team came up with one of those prebuilt plastic sheds, then yeah, it's pretty obvious that the other team was cheating.

So I guess I shouldn't blame Laura -- but the effect on Jeffrey is the same, regardless of whether he is innocent or guilty, in that he has to take away from his efforts to prepare for Fashion Week to defend himself against these accusations. Fortunately his stuff was pretty well prepared but if his garments didn't get fitted or whatever because of this, it would give him a disadvantage against the others.

[Ruth]

Like I said, I don't know enough about sewing to know if that's possible, but to make a lame analogy, if on Survivor the two teams were supposed to use stuff from Home Depot to make, I dunno, storage sheds, and one of them put together a shack with a leaky roof, and the other team came up with one of those prebuilt plastic sheds, then yeah, it's pretty obvious that the other team was cheating.


But this is more analogous to sending the survivors home and giving them a month to build a storage shed using thier own workspace and materials. It wouldn't be fair to say, wow, that shed is a whole lot better than anything you built on the island during the show, so you must have cheated. It could just as easily be that the island-built sheds were crappy because of the time and material constraints on the show, and that once you got home you could really show what you can do.

Like I said, I also know nothing about construction of clothing so I am just playing devil's advocate. I don't know if Jeffrey cheated -- but I do know you can ruin someone's career by making an allegation like that. I sure wouldn't do it unless I had some sort of proof.

[bluenoise]

I actually felt a little bad for Jeffrey on this episode. I think he could do all that sewing. He had that nice shop at his disposal and he may be able to get by on little sleep. It certainly felt that the others, especially Laura, were thinking, "I wasn't able to finish, so there's no way he could've either." While Michael and Uli seemed to be pretty scattered in their approach to time-management, Laura seemed pretty organized and capable. The fact that Jeffrey finished everything and she didn't doesn't necessarily mean he cheated; he may have just had more total hours available to himself to focus on the challenge.

[ireland967]

I don't see much wrong with what Laura did, except not going to Jeffrey first before speaking with Tim. Her comment regarding how she was only able to go out for food twice during their break was pretty silly, she has four kids - I would think anyone would have a great deal more time on their hands without that load.

[bilbo]

i believe tenth through fourteenth looks are by jeffrey. i think the tenth look is the zipper dress. the white pants in the eleventh look have a distinct jeffrey "patch" on the right quad.

of course this still doesn't mean he wasn't kicked off the show or silently eliminated. after all the queer-eye-carson look-a-like showed his big dresses and cowboy collection in season 1 so that the viewers wouldn't know he was eliminated before the final three. after all they still let kara saun show her collection with shoes that put her several thousand dollars over budget. supposedly the judges were supposed to disregard the gold shoes? that's like the wizard saying, "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

once the cat's out of the bag it is hard to forget that it was there and not have it effect your judging. of course for kara saun, she was probably as much interested in wowing the crowd as wowing the judges. i mean you wouldn't want to let your collection look bad to the public, who might actually buy your clothes or hire you to make them.

http://www.olympusfashionweek.com/spring2007/designers/project_runway/index.html