Style.com, LuisaViaRoma

One of the things that used to drive me a little crazy when Project Runway started about 9 years ago was how unaware all the designers were of what the big names were doing on the runway. This, of course, is arguably a good or bad thing –the way I see it, you need to know what the competition is doing.

During this new season of the show we've already seen some clear references to other designers, especially McQueen, which keeps coming up on the judges' comments too. In last week's episode the only similarity between the contestants' work and the high fashion runway was the picture of an angry dog that served as inspiration for one of the dresses.

The final result was hideous but it seemed interesting to me how the girl who painted the picture, whose Christopher Kane dress made it evident that she knows fashion, might have been somehow influenced by Riccardo Tisci's f/w11 Rottweiler menswear collection.

I also loved Viktor in one of Prada's famous s/s11 shirts. It was about time some of the designers started dressing well because I will never understand how you can make beautiful things if you can't start with dressing yourself well.

Style.com, MyLifetime.com

I am really trying not to post about Project Runway because I know that I will get into it and I will end up doing weekly posts on each week's episodes like I do with Gossip Girl. But that's too much work.

I am really enjoying the current season so far –contestants are fun enough, though they have big egos, and the judges know they can get away with being meaner. I have loved Nina Garcia since season one because she's so dry and chic. And this season she's feeling really verbal about her opinions.
She is also wearing a lot of beautiful pieces from the FW11 season. Only a week or two ago she was wearing an incredible mini dress by Lanvin. But my favourite Nina look so far has been the one she wore for the episode in which the contestants need to create an outfit for her. She wore this amazing Preen FW11 blouse I remembered form the catwalk. Nina wore a black top underneath it to keep it classy and demure as it was originally see-through at the front. She also accessorised it, and this I found très genius, with hardware cuffs making the look a lot more personal.

Are you watching Project Runway?

Style.com,  myLifetime.com

I don't know if any of you still watch Project Runway. I was a big fan of the show during the first two seasons. After stopping watching the seasons when they moved the show to LA, I started to watch again for season 8. Now we're onto season 9 and it seems to be quite good so far.

For the second challenge –My Pet Project– they had to make clothes out of pet shop materials. Contestants usually suck at this challenge season after season because it's hard to work with awkward materials but two of the designs really impressed me.

The first one was a sleeveless mini dress with a mid-rise neck. It was covered with bird food had a sunflower-seed degradé detail on the neck. It was so chic and it reminded me a lot of the bejewelled Alexander McQueen number from SS09.

The second one had a similar silhouette. This one had short sleeves and a more voluminous skirt. The top was made of polyester filter fibre –a kind of shearling– and the skirt was made of two tones of hamster bedding. The texture of this one also reminded me of a McQueen dress from the same SS09 collection. Even the styling was a little McQueen.

I am hoping for great fashion moments like these in the coming episodes of season 9.

Are you watching?