No one's really sure how the hell Mikey actually manages to make anything. He seems to just vanish when they're at Mood, has never been spotted at the machines, and is hardly ever in the workroom. They don't even know where he keeps his dressform, which hasn't been seen since the first challenge. Everyone's also lost count of the number of times Tim Gunn's come into the room and asked, "Designers, where's Mikey?"
Generally he's found in the sitting area, huddled over his iPod, and he always blinks at Tim blankly and says vague things like, "Oh, right, my garment is..." and never finishes the sentence.
Despite all of that, when the models come in Mikey manages to fit his with a completed garment, which is always damn good and well-received by the judges. He hasn't won a challenge, but he moves forward without getting skewered.
Except for one time, when Michael Kors totally gets his bitch on and says that Mikey's design is reminiscent of a gay French beatnik pirate, Nina Garcia asks if they're supposed to be looking for Waldo, and Heidi Klum does that thing where she uses her score card to hide her slack-jawed horror from the nose down.
The only reason Mikey doesn't get sent home on that challenge is because Brian redesigns his garment at the last minute, has to piece it together with glue to get it done on time, and his model ends up half-naked on the runway.
Mikey then spends an evening back at the apartments refitting his highly criticized outfit for himself and wears it at the next judging, because he's a contrary bitch that way.
*
Gerard's manner of design involves a lot of smoke breaks while he "fosters the fucking, you know, creative process. And shit." It eats into his time, and he generally ends up with, like, five minutes out of thirty to sketch. He also streaks into Mood when there's only ten minutes left to shop, his last exhale of smoke trailing behind him, and makes for reams of material and racks of trim like a freakish fashion homing pigeon.
He also chain smokes for an hour when they get back to Parsons, then comes up and starts cutting his pattern like it's something he's made a dozen times and is doing from muscle memory. Mostly he makes it work because he's so goddamn good, but every once in a while he's left flailing around the workroom in a panic at the last minute because figuring out how to make that pleated lettuce cape work with the cucumber slice dress involves an entire pack of cigarettes and three hours outside.
Gerard in a panic is a menace to himself and everyone around him. Once, he accidentally knocks down Frank's dressform, trips over it, and tears Frank's garment in half when there's only an hour left in the day. Another time, he sews a pair of pants to his finger, which results in a screaming fit due to his terror of needles in relation to his flesh. His material is stained all to hell by the blood, and he breaks the sewing machine when he beats it with a boot to free himself.
Mikey tends to sidle into the workroom when Gerard gets into that state and the two of them will put their heads together--literally--and whisper back and forth as they stare at Gerard's garment. After that, Mikey stands nearby with his arms crossed and his knees tucked together while Gerard pulls at his hair, frantically tacks things together and slams rivets into fabric with excess force.
Gerard's in the lead when it comes to winning challenges and it's generally expected that not only will he make it to the final three, but that he'll be the winner of Project Runway. The judges love him to the point that Frank has scribbled "Michael Kors lurves Gee!" on the whiteboard in the apartment and drawn stupid red hearts all around it, and Ray used white puff paint to write "NINA AND GERARD 4EVA!!!" on one of Gerard's black t-shirts.
*
Ray is the most methodical of them all. He plans his work, works his plan, and manages his time so well that the others would hate him for it, except that he's the kind of guy who's always willing to help someone else out, offer advice and give pep talks when someone's on the verge of hyperventilating/freaking/screaming/quitting.
His designs lean towards simple but bold, and the judges are forever telling him to put more of himself into his designs, but Ray's the kind of guy who wears Metallica band shirts and faded jeans to judging, so, yeah. He's solid, reliable, and consistent with his designs, and while his work is never avant-garde, it's also never boring. His seams are always especially noteworthy; they're set in interesting locations, have curving lines, serve to add to the overall design aesthetic, and are feats of scary talent with the sewing machines.
Ray has a tendency, when he's working, to gather his considerable amount of curly hair on top of his head with an elastic hair band. Mikey dubs it the Pom-Fro early on, and when Gerard is feeling particularly punch drunk in the late hours, he'll compose and perform dramatic odes to it in the work room.
He's also the go-to guy when you need someone to find every single fault in a design, because he's got a good and quick eye for what's not possible to realize in the time they have to work with.
The consensus among the others is that Ray's going to get courted by major retail outlets after the show's run, regardless of whether he makes it to the final three.
*
Frank is like a whirling dervish in the workroom and his process is chaotic. It's only rarely that his finished garments resemble his initial sketches, and on close inspection it's easy to see that he does it all on the fly. Sometimes three or five designs are rejected and reworked during the course of a challenge, as something catches Frank's eye and switches his entire vision of his outfits.
It becomes commonplace to see material literally flying through the air around Frank as he cuts and reshapes patterns at his station, rips raw material and tosses aside what he doesn't need, and throws spools of edging up towards the ceiling and cuts off lengths of it as he sees fit.
He's also known for scavenging scraps from others at the last minute and hand-sewing them onto finished garments mere minutes before Tim comes to corral everyone to the runway for judging.
He's second only to Ray on the machines, coaxing them to do things they probably shouldn't be able to do, and he's fast, running material through at an impossible pace and still coming out with straight seams and neat hems.
Frank is the one who most often gets Tim's signature finger-on-lip expression and I'm concerned commentary, followed by a highly doubtful Okay, make it work, which is because Tim tends to come by when Frank's just about to tear down his current pattern and rework it into whatever new thing has popped into his tiny little head.
His finished garments are inconsistent due to his process, and the judges are often divided on his stuff, but they all agree that he needs a tighter focus.
*
The thing about Matt P. is--well, there are several things about Matt P., actually--but the first thing of note is that all the other designers actually like him at first. The second thing to know is that he leaves a lot to be desired as a designer: his finishing is always shoddy, his overall designs are decent in theory but always poorly constructed, and he spends more of his time goofing off than actually working.
But because everyone initially likes him, they step up and help him out when they can. It gets old in short order because Matt P. just never seems to learn anything from the help he gets and continues to land himself in the same jams, with the same problems, and expects someone else to fix it for him as a matter of course.
He also doesn't seem to take designing in general, or Project Runway in particular, very seriously and is content to half-ass everything. That wears on everyone's nerves because they're all running themselves ragged to meet and exceed challenge expectations. After a while, it gets to the point no one wants anything to do with him.
The main thing to know about Matt P., however, is that he makes Project Runway history by getting his sorry ass kicked off for being "a total douchebag" (per an anonymous source close to the show; the official story is smoother and more diplomatic than that) after he and Ray are paired together for a challenge that Ray has the lead on.
And, honestly, everyone knows from the get-go that it's a disaster in the making, because Ray is the one who's the most fed up with Matt P.'s bullshit in general. Also, there's additional bitterness on Ray's part because early on Matt P. totally stole Ray's model, Sonya, from him. The poor girl then cried on Ray's shoulder right before the next judging on account of Matt P. shoving a piece of gum at her and demanding that she chew it while walking as part of his horribly realized homage to stereotypical Jersey Girl fashion.
(And that totally would have gotten Matt P. voted out, except that was the same challenge in which Pete sent the now-legendary sequined chartreuse nightmare down the runway in a fit of rebellion against "the man." Considering that Pete admitted one time to having been willing to sell his left nut to get on the show, and refused to clarify just who, exactly, constituted "the man," most people think he just didn't want to stick around after Patrick left.)
What happens during the challenge is this: Matt P. refuses to cut any patterns--a recurring issue with him--for Ray's design, and completely fucks up everything when he cuts the raw material free form.
Ray looks to be torn between tears and a violent rage blackout, and that's when Gerard, Mikey, and Frank step in. Gerard helps Ray tweak the design to something he can actually make with the unwieldy swatches of fabric Matt P. left him to work with; Mikey appears from the lounge with patterns he's mysteriously traced and cut to the specs of Ray's new design; and Frank joins Ray at the sewing machines and uses his mutant super-sewing-speed to help piece it all together.
And Matt P., well, he doesn't do much of anything and then has the nerve to talk about the design at the judging, as though he actually participated in the making of it.
Every single designer bitches him out right there on the runway, in the middle of the judging.
What they learn later is that, apparently, Tim Gunn had already expressed his own concerns with the situation to the producers, and the overall feeling behind the scenes was that Matt P. was detracting so much from the competition itself that the exciting drama of his douchebaggery wasn't even worth it anymore.
All the designers know in that moment, though, is that after declaring Ray--and only Ray--the winner of the challenge and sending the losing designer home, the judges also give Matt P. the old auf wiedersehen.
*
Bob was actually a participant in the previous season, but had to bow out early on due to a family emergency. The producers ask him to take Matt P.'s spot before they even officially kick him off, so Bob is already in New York and firmly ensconced in the apartment while Matt P. is still cleaning up his workstation.
Bob's first day in the workroom starts inauspiciously when Frank breaks Bob's dressform in half during an ill-advised leap from the tabletop. Bob turns really red and looks about ready to punch Frank, which leaves everyone very nervous and wondering if they wouldn't have been better off with Matt P. But then Bob takes a breath and very calmly explains to Frank how essential it is to Show Proper Respect to Bob's dressform and workstation. After that, it's all good, and Bob and Frank actually get on really well.
Bob's strength, last season and now, is his detail work. It's intricate, unique, well crafted, and painstakingly meticulous. It's what makes his garments--even the plain ones with traditional silhouettes--reach out and grab you. His creative process involves a lot of intent staring, which makes sense because Bob's kind of an intense guy in his own way.
However, his sketches are remarkably bad because he can't actually draw for shit, and he has a difficult time articulating his artistic vision with, like, words, even when combined with gestures, during the judging process.
When the judges ask him about the inspiration for a design he freezes up, stares at them with wide eyes like a deer in the headlights, and says something along the lines of, "I dunno. Like, I thought it seemed cool? With the--" Shrug. "--and the--" Slight lifting of hands. "--and I came up with the--" Vague look at the design. "--at the last minute."
Once, he looks at Gerard with pleading eyes, and Gerard, who is never one to not talk about fashion, relates everything Bob told him in casual conversation about how Bob got the idea, what he was trying to say with the design, and how he came up with the edging detail. Because the thing is, Bob can and does talk, at length, and with obvious competence and knowledge. He's just got a thing about doing it in front of the judges, apparently.
Bob also puts an insane amount of pressure on himself and has frequent internal freak-outs as a result. Luckily, familiarity from having seen him on the show last year, combined with Frank's odd perceptiveness, mean that the others know when he needs a break. Sometimes that involves Frank jumping on his back and demanding to be carted outside for a cigarette. Other times it's Ray asking what it was like last season, with Bert, Jepha and the rest of that crazy group.
All in all, Bob's arrival gives the designers a much needed morale boost, and an extra dose of energy for the next leg of the challenges.
*
This season of Project Runway becomes infamous for reasons beyond the quirks of the designers, Matt P.'s ousting, Pete's apparently crippling co-dependence on Patrick, and the rumored trysts between Mikey and Pete spawned by their formation of the Sweet Little Dudes Club (and the resulting matching t-shirts).
There is, for example, the number of bleeps per episode required because of frequent cursing done by several of the participants. Early on it isn't so noticeable because there are also participants who rarely if ever curse. But towards the end of the run, when the main perpetrators of the cursing are the only ones left on the show, it gets really bad.
Tim Gunn says, "Designers, can I ask you to gather 'round?" at the start of one day, which is never good, but this time he hasn't come to inform them of a last minute upping of the ante.
Instead, Tim says, "I understand that all of you are passionate individuals, and I'm not one to stifle the manner in which you choose to express yourselves. That being said--" And here he tilts his head and looks at them over the tops of his glasses. "--we are running into the problem of having to censor large chunks of the workroom conversations and individual diaries due to excessive use of expletives."
Everyone stares at Tim in horror; a crazy addendum to the challenge would actually be preferable to what they know is coming.
"I'm asking all of you to be more judicious in your word choices from now on," Tim finishes. He stares each of them down, with that icy gaze of his which books no room for argument, then nods. "Carry on."
(Gerard's one-on-one with the camera later, which is never aired but somehow gets leaked onto the internet, goes something like this: "I was like, are you fucking kidding me? You're really standing there talking to us about our language like we're five? Seriously? That whole thing, about how intelligent people don't need to curse--fuck that shit. I'm intelligent, all of us are, but sometimes you need a good fuck to make your point, you know? It's like fucking verbal punctuation!"
Mikey's, which is aired, consists of: "Maybe if we just don't talk for the rest of the season. Like, ever. Maybe then...")
Instead of silence--which would have been impossible for just one much less all of them, as Ray points out reasonably--the remaining designers find a workaround in their shared geek backgrounds.
Their conversations become littered with frells, motherfraks, gorrams, and luh suhs, which spawn entire threads on forums for those fashionistas and general viewers who aren't as well-versed in sci-fi as the remaining designers.
Bob also manages to lift the season--and himself--into the ranks of infamy with an act of late night goofiness inspired by too-little sleep and too much pleating. He stands behind his dressform, which is draped in yards of stretchy dark fabric that Gerard's been coveting since he saw Bob pull it out of the Mood bag, and flaps it around the form dramatically.
"If I win Project Runway," Bob announces, material billowing in all directions, his voice both serious and dreamy, "my entire line is going to be about Gerard. It's going to be all stuff he would wear, or stuff he'd want to wear, or stuff inspired by him. And I'll stitch tributes to him on the hem in navy blue thread on black fabric. It'll be awesome."
And, thus, a Movement is born overnight in which Bob is crowned Awesome on the forums, the ladies over at Go Fug Yourself declare--in the middle of yet another Celebrity Terror Watch update on Vincent Gallo--that Bob's Signature Line is the most anticipated line of the next year, and all of America collectively and rhetorically asks, "Matt P. who?"
*
When Worm and then Matt C. get the kiss off from Heidi, it comes down to Gerard, Ray, Mikey, Frank, and Bob. None of them is really all that surprised, though they do think it's anyone's guess as to who will round out the top three with Gerard.
The mood when they enter the workroom for the first challenge that will take one of them out of the running is somewhat conflicted: they all want to go the distance, but they want the others around, too. They deal with the issue by singing Joy Division and Smiths songs, and decorating Frank in spare swatches of fabric until he resembles nothing so much as a disenfranchised and gender-conflicted Halloween gnome.
*
It's Mikey who leaves them first, after a men's wear challenge that everyone agrees will go down in the annals of Project Runway history as one of the most controversial and confrontational judgings ever.
The judges insist that his outfit is quite obviously women's wear. Mikey argues vehemently--and not vehemently for Mikey but vehemently for, like, a rabid raccoon--that it is "absolutely for men" and "just because a woman could wear it doesn't mean it's designed for her" and "yes, I totally think that waist line is appropriate for men" and "no, the bias cut of the top is not a definitive marker of women's wear."
In the end it comes down to the guest judge--Pittsburgh Steeler Ben Roethlisberger, for whom the outfit was designed--who says that Mikey didn't at all conform to the fashion preferences Ben provided at the start of the challenge.
That? Is not actually something Mikey can argue, so he backs down, thanks the judges sincerely for the opportunity, then goes into the waiting area. The goodbyes are tearful and filled with bone-crushing hugs. On Gerard's part there is also so much desperate clinging that Tim Gunn has to physically pry Gerard off of Mikey so he can clean up his workstation.
(The emails and texts start arriving at Bravo the next day from thousands of indignant viewers all across the country, in a mass, identically worded protest: "I know a guy/am a guy who'd wear Mikeyway's outfit!!!" The mailing campaign kicks off not long after.)
*
The atmosphere in the workroom changes dramatically with Mikey's departure, even though he never actually worked there. Frank whirls his dervishes significantly more slowly, and Ray refuses to even go into the sitting area that Mikey made his own and which is now bereft of his accumulated detritus (something that Ray actually always bitched about but now misses). Bob keeps his head down, barely speaks, and has twenty-percent more internal freak-outs, which go unnoticed ten-percent more often.
Gerard is near to inconsolable for the first day, then comes back from a smoke break that lasts half the work day with a gleam in his eyes and a secretive smile on his lips.
*
Bob is next to go, and it's not that he fails at the challenge so much as his detail work isn't enough to one-up the others, whose garments are, on the whole, showier and more couture than Bob's is. The others pile onto him when he gets into the waiting area, taking him to the floor with their farewells, and are more upset at his loss than their own wins.
That leaves Gerard, Frank and Ray as the final three, which is an interesting turn of events given the extreme differences in their designing styles.
*
In the months leading up to the show at Fashion Week, Ray sketches, makes patterns, and puts together a schedule in which he plans out, to the stitch, every item in his collection and assigns a timeline for everything.
Frank blows through three-quarters of his budget and discards three separate and distinct design schemes before his collection is finalized in his head, and elicits one more I'm concerned, Frank when Tim comes to visit and all Frank has to show him are the sketches he made the previous week.
Gerard, meanwhile, spends half the allotted time period paralyzed by his conviction that he's going to fail. Then he has a weekend in which he smokes five packs of cigarettes and loses his voice as a result, and somewhere in there he decides that if he's going to fail, then fucking hell, he will fail spectacularly. After that he goes on a tear and gets to work.
*
When the three of them arrive in New York several days before Fashion Week, they're all ready to collapse. Frank has a ton of work still to do because after wasting so much money in the beginning he then lost time finding the materials he needed at prices he could afford with what he had left; Brian actually came through for him on that, because despite Brian's lackluster designing talents, he's the guy who always knows a guy and has connections to pretty much everyone and everything.
Gerard is in panic mode. He has, in fact, been in that state for two weeks straight, and is strung out and ready to snap or crumble. Without Mikey there to whisper whatever into his ear and watch from the sidelines, even hanging his garments on his assigned rack upon arrival is overwhelming, so he ends up piling them all onto his table and staring at them balefully.
Ray is on task, but because of the complexity of the garments in his collection, his time is accounted for right up until the models actually step onto the runway. There's no margin for error and he has a really, really bad feeling about that, even though he knows how Project Runway works and built in a cushion for whatever last minute twist they decide to add.
Of course, then Tim and Heidi show up with the twist, and it's just wrong, so wrong, because Gerard, Ray and Frank all talked during the preceding months and were smart enough to have plans in mind for an additional piece for their collections. But none of them were figuring on having the entire Blue Fly wall taken away from them and being required to design and make accessories for each of the garments in their collection.
Gerard's head is immediately filled by a sheer magnitude of possibilities, some of which would require him to cobble shoes with his own two hands but which he can't bring himself to discard as impossible and instead continues contemplating in all seriousness. In a fit of dramatics that is less dramatic than legitimately stress induced, he literally falls over.
He's only saved from landing on the floor by the fact that Ray is standing in front of him, frozen statue-like in panic at the realization that a) there is absolutely nothing in his past experience that has prepared him, even a little bit, for accessory design, and b) this is going to fuck up his entire schedule and timeline.
Beside them, the whites of Frank's eyes are showing and he's vibrating in place, as though he's about to start bouncing off the walls like one of those little rubber balls from a vending machine. He still has two outfits that are only half-complete, and finishing and trim work to do on all but one of the other pieces in his collection. Also, after a critical look at his single completed and finished outfit earlier, he has realized that he did all the hem work in a thread that's a shade too pale and is going to have to re-do it in the right color so that it doesn't look like shit. He can't even contemplate accessories yet...just, no, that problem Does Not Exist for the moment.
"Designers, you will have a budget of five hundred dollars each, and we'll be taking trips to Mood for fabric, and DSW Shoe Outlets for footwear," Tim informs them, then looks in concern at Frank, who seems to be near to hyperventilating.
"To assist you," Heidi continues, "we've brought back your fellow designers from this season. You will each pick one person to help you complete this final challenge."
Tim calls in all the other designers and then Heidi brandishes the velvet bag of buttons. Ray gets first choice and he takes Bob because Bob is calm, has the ability to build off of an existing foundation, and excels at the detail work required for accessories. Gerard, predictably and to the gratitude of everyone else who will be stuck in this room with him, takes Mikey. Frank, who is in dire need of someone who can fucking get shit done quickly, effectively and efficiently, takes Brian.
Tim advises them all to make it work and seems genuinely sympathetic to their plight. Heidi just gives them a blank, stern look and wishes them luck with no actual inflection in her voice. Ray sort of hates her in that moment. Frank and Gerard would, too, except Gerard has his eyes closed and misses the look, and Frank is staring at his rack like he can will his garments to finish themselves.
The clock starts ticking as they're given thirty minutes to sketch.
*
There's no singing or decoration of Frank in the days that follow. There aren't even any smoke breaks because Brian is a true genius of practicalities and brought with him several boxes of nicotine patches for all of the smokers.
Ray's sketches consist of a variety of serviceable but dull handbags, scarves and belts. He does a preliminary mock-up on his dressform of some of the pieces, hoping they'll magically become more interesting, but they don't. Bob comes to his rescue with a basket full of the odds and ends he gathered at Mood while Ray was off getting fabric. Because Bob is smart, he doesn't even try to draw his ideas onto the sketch, just uses double-sided tape to tack things to Ray's mock-up. And it works, it works like burning. Ray has to take a moment to turn away so he can wipe his eyes discreetly.
Mikey stares at Gerard's sketches--done in a hasty five minutes after Gerard spent most of his sketch time looking out the window, chewing gum, and poking at his nicotine patch--and then uses a pair of scissors to carefully cut the papers, rearranging parts of one sketch with parts of another. When he's done, Gerard whimpers at the back of his throat and hangs off of Mikey in weak-kneed relief.
Frank didn't bother sketching and instead used the time to fix his one complete outfit. When they headed out to shop, he left Brian at a machine with ragged hems to tidy and just grabbed whatever caught his eye at Mood and DSW. He doesn't have time to create or design, he just doesn't, and he ends up tossing together his accessories in fits and bursts as ideas come to him at random times. There's no forethought, just pure gut instinct, and Brian, who plods along like a fucking workhorse or something, keeps Frank's focus directed where it needs to be and pulls him back from the edge when he has to.
*
The night before the final three show their collections at Fashion Week, the six of them gather in the apartment, tense and excited, chain smoking despite the rules the producers laid down about keeping the space smoke-free, and talk about everything they can think of except fashion and design.
Gerard, Ray, Frank and Bob squeeze onto one of the couches, where they fall asleep in vaguely tilted upright positions. Mike sprawls out on the floor and curls his back against their socked feet as he drifts off mid-sentence. Brian digs through their individual work bags, sets himself up on one of the beds, and takes care of some simple trim work before giving himself an hour to recharge.
*
It is complete chaos the following morning as the designers and helpers rush to bring all the details and minutia together.
Frank is seized by inspiration and tears apart the entire set of accessories for one of his garments, then handsews a new set on the ride over to Bryant Park, using Brian's lap as a tabletop.
Gerard loses one of his outfits, which consists of three pieces, and after a desperate and unsuccessful search is about to press himself into a corner and bawl. Right about then Mikey comes in with the garment bag in hand and asks, "Why was this in the bathroom, Gee?" (Gerard, for the record, doesn't have an answer for that.)
Ray fruitlessly tries to reschedule his remaining time, but a broken heel on a shoe throws a wrench into the works that his schedule just can't recover from. He has a mini-breakdown and tears his carefully written timeline to pieces, then leaves the workroom. He comes back with a hammer and several nails, has Bob use them to fix the shoe, and then reinforces it with Krazy Glue that Gerard lends them.
Backstage at the Tents, the chaos increases tenfold as they dress their models, line them up for a last minute once-over, and send them back to hair or make-up for corrections and finishing touches.
Brian manhandles Frank away from a belt that he suddenly wants to reconstruct and instead points him at an uneven cuff on one of his tops. Bob keeps a mental list of what they have to double-check and fix, and gently lobs it at Ray one item at a time. Gerard flails his arms at his models and tells them about his Vision and how they need to Bring it to Life. Mikey, meanwhile, goes to each model and tugs material into neater folds, tucks linings out of sight, and uses a pair of pliers to firmly attach metal detailing to the trim of a cape.
*
Ray's collection is shown first, and he's wearing a Slayer shirt and tight, ancient jeans when he comes out to introduce it. His models stomp down the runway with flirty smiles, portraying nothing but comfort and confidence. His collection contains surprising silhouettes, some bright colors shot through with bold patterns, and comes across as accessibly fashionable yet chic.
Gerard is next, and his models work the runway with ferocity, their makeup stark and haughty. Overall, his collection is all dark colors that come across as vibrant, and flowing lines that are dramatic and striking. It's cohesive, with a Grand and Unifying Theme evident throughout, including in Gerard's own clothing.
Frank's collection is sharper in contrast, with tight lines and elegant edges that are combined in such a way as to breach the great divide between scenester hip and Fifth Avenue couture. His models saunter, bored and disdainful, the jut of their hips dismissive but alluring.
It's a solid showing for all three, even if the judges do pick at even the smallest inconsistency and poor decision, making it seem like there's little good to be found in any of the collections.
*
The deliberation goes on for what feels like days but is, in actuality, hours. The six of them go outside to smoke, accompanied by a production assistant who keeps them herded together and finally, after ages, quickly ushers them back into the tent when the judges are ready.
The judges say, "Ray, you wanted your collection to be appealing to people who don't usually feel comfortable in high fashion, but we felt you played it too safe and made it too mass-market."
They say, "Frank. We liked your designs, but your collection wasn't cohesive. It seemed to be two different collections tossed together. You focused well on your individual outfits but lost sight of your theme on the whole."
They say, "Gerard, we felt that your collection had a clear theme, and overall it was unique and cutting-edge. But some of your outfits were too over the top and there are pieces that can't be translated into wearable garments."
It's a humiliating and demeaning process, and halfway through Gerard leaves his assigned space on the spotlighted stage and moves closer to Ray, who then reaches out and jerks Frank to them.
"The winning designer of Project Runway is..." Heidi's pause before she announces the winner could be considered justification for homicide, it goes on for so long, and Gerard, Frank and Ray press bruises into each other's hands with their nervous grips on one another. "...Gerard." She smiles brightly. "Congratulations."
*
The thing about Gerard Way is that he has Big Ideas, okay? Everyone knows this about him. So it's not really a surprise when he says that he wants to save the world of fashion, and it's sort of hard to mock him for the idea because he obviously believes in his mission whole-heartedly and speaks about it rather intelligently.
Gerard's plan to Save Fashion involves using his prize money to start an independent fashion label. He brings Mikey, Frank, Ray and Bob on board and the five of them work as a unified design team, all of their strengths managing to offset individual weaknesses. Brian offers his connections and industry knowledge, and at their request ends up running the business side of things.
No one's quite sure if the highly anticipated inaugural collection from My Chemical Romance Designs is going to make a noticeable splash in the fashion world, much less save it, but everyone agrees it should definitely be interesting.
.End
Story Notes:
Amand-r planted this seed in my head over here, and because I have a weakness for absurd crack!fic, I ran with it for 6000 words. Gratitude to Arsenicjade for the read through and corrections, since my vision is still shot all to hell.