New York Fashion Week Awaits - SPOILERS

It's Veteran's Day here in the USA, and of course I think back to the peace treaty that was signed at 11:00 am on November 11th, 1918 to end the "War to End All Wars". We were such dreamers! If you are a veteran, thank you for your service. If you know one, this is their special day and one well-deserved. 

Now ... on to the Runway!

As you read in yesterday's post, the designers had separated to their homes with a budget of $10,000 and a mandate to create ten outfits to show on the Runway in hopes of gaining one of three guaranteed spots for New York Fashion Week. After returning to New York and gathering back in the workshop, the five designers began tweaking their two choices for their fashion preview runway that would determine who moved on. Their future depended on choosing the correct clothing - two items that would show their strengths as designers and capture the votes of the judges. Here's what they chose in alphabetical order of the designer.

I really loved this outfit by Ayana. Even though it had
dropped crotch pants, the artificially distressed pants
coupled with the high necked shirt and easy overshirt is
something I'd love to wear. 

I wasn't quite as happy with this outfit, although the top
was quite fun. I loved the netting at the neckline, along
the hem, and at the bottoms of the sleeves. 

Ayana kept to her focus of making modest clothing fashionable and attractive. I liked her choices of fabric as well as her designs and her styling of her models was perfect for a casual look that allowed the models to look feminine but still allowed the clothes to be the stars of the show.

Brandon's design for Liris left me unimpressed. I was
fine with the skirt, but didn't like his choice of top. She's a
stunning woman, but he didn't make her shine at all. 

His choices for his second model were much better. I liked her
styling and I loved the solid colored top over the crazy,
multi-layered apron shorts. Here, the model and
the clothing were both allowed to shine.

Brandon's choices were both positive and negative. I actually really enjoyed that crazy flamingo fabric, and the solids that he chose to accompany the print were perfectly complimentary. The judges still liked his clothing, but he will have to choose the components with greater care. If he chooses well, it's his competition to lose. If not, Ayana may end up with the win; she's come up stronger every week since the competition began.

Now - let's look at the next tier of quality - the other three designers.

OMG, Kentaro! What was up with this white dress and side 
pom-pom? The clothing was a disaster and the styling???
The models are beautiful women and he made them into
androgynous humans that looked more male than female. 

The disaster of the white garment was offset by this
salmon leather top with pleated long skirt ensemble. This, I
loved. Nina specifically commented on the origami
styling of the leather top. I still want better styling for
the models, but this outfit was a good choice for
Kentaro. 

Kentaro may have been better off listening to the dead cat and Tim Gunn's comments with more attention (see yesterday's post for the dead cat reference). These two outfits were all over the place and it's indicative of his entire 10-outfit group. His body of work has been sporadic, high-highs and low-lows. That carried through to his preview choices. When the judges talk to him, he nods, but doesn't seem to understand the concepts they are discussing. Maybe it's the language difference, but I feel that Kentaro doesn't understand what the judges are trying to teach him.

Kenya wanted her looks to be reminiscent of the shore - sand,
water and vegetation. Tim Gunn said that her palette was
a "snooze-fest" and recommended that she add a darker
color for accent. She chose black. I think she would have
done better to choose a deep wine or burgundy. 

There were some fit problems with the black dress, it 
didn't fit the model as well as it should have. Based on a 
recommendation from Tim Gunn, she added the
pearl-studded mesh coat, hiding the clean lines
of her design. 

Kenya had two fails for her preview choices. She only had one clothing item appropriately sized for her larger model - the black dress, and not enough time to make anything new from scratch. Both of her outfits used overcoats, and the judges pointed out that her clean lines and strong designs were obscured by the coats. It was one time when Tim Gunn's recommendations worked against a designer, since she was following his recommendations.

Margarita designed her fabric, based on a couch her parents
had in the 1980's. These pants with extreme flare below
the knees, were fun. The navy top was minimal, allowing
the pants to be the star. 

The "onesie" underneath the shirred-waistband shorts,
was colorful and fun. Margarita killed the design by
pairing it with the bomber jacket (which was a to-die-for
jacket, BTW), and those rather horrid shorts did
nothing for her model. 

Margarita also paid attention to Tim Gunn, and it bit her. He recommended that she make a pant for the second outfit. Maybe a long pant might have been a better choice, but the shorts were a poor design decision. The beading on the clothing and the design of her custom fabric were well received by the judges, although she was warned to pull the resort out of her collection and put in some of New York.

So ... who got a spot in New York Fashion Week? The judges revealed that instead of three moving on, four would be walking the Runway for Fashion Week. Who did they choose? 

Brandon and Ayana were shoo-ins. There was no question that these two would be walking their collections down the longer runway. Who would be the third person? Did you guess Margarita? Yes - Margarita, the designer who was saved by the 'Tim Gunn Save' several weeks ago, was the third designer chosen.

Then it was down to Kentaro and Kenya. I wouldn't have minded if the choices stopped there - although I loved what Kenya put onto the models this season, her preview choices weren't as strong as she thought. As for Kentaro - he's either freaky good or scary bad. There's not a lot of in-between with Kentaro.

Who would be joining Brandon, Ayana and Margarita for Fashion Week? After a lot of discussion, Kentaro got the nod. I feel totally confident that Kenya will be producing some really wonderful work in the future, and hope that she already has received job offers from several design firms. I loved her as a contestant and hope that all goes well for her in the future.

As for Brandon, Ayana, Margarita and Kentaro - I wish all of them the best and I can hardly wait for next week. The finale should be kick-ass! Have an excellent Veteran's Day Saturday. I'm bundling up today - turtleneck and overshirt along with a heavy skirt. We've been in a cold snap and I'm really feeling it, plus I'll have to shovel before leaving for the gym. Thank goodness I'll be able to sleep in tomorrow. I'm desperate for some serious sleep!

Gargoyle Explanation and Vietnam

Finally I was able to swim yesterday, and also got the full scoop. Thanks to all of you for your suggestions, we've acted upon some of them, but some things were unavoidable.

First, the Saturday doors didn't end up being opened until 6:35 am! Apparently the Gate Guardian (Gargoyle) was "too tired" to get out of bed. That was reported to her supervisor. Second, the lifeguard on Monday is usually one of the better ones - very rarely late. He overslept (it's fall, the weather's cooler, and school has started again - not excuses, but perhaps explanations). He rushed out and got to the pool as quickly as he could.

I had such fun finding gargoyles for all of you yesterday, that I'm continuing
with this one today. This alien is on Paisley Abbey. I guess in that Abbey, you're
protected from all manner of extra-terrestrial monsters! 

The Tuesday mess-up was exactly that - a kid in the pool on Monday night had a bad case of diarrhea. ICK! They had to close, filter, chemical the heck out of the water, etc. Our standard lifeguard - Rachel - had texted Meg and a few other regulars whose numbers she had, but she didn't have Rosemary's or my contact numbers. She made sure to get them first thing on Tuesday and we'll be texted if the pool is unexpectedly closed in future. So ... shit happens (in this case, quite literally), but it seems that it was just a very unlucky string of three days at two different locations for me. Now, on to Vietnam.

This was an extraordinary documentary and I want
to see the episodes I missed and maybe watch the
whole thing again a few more times. This is history that I
lived through. My parents had WWII, I had Vietnam. 

The final episode of Ken Burns' "Vietnam" aired last night. DH had tried to watch it earlier in the run, but turned it off. I didn't catch up with it until the 1967 year onward, but watched as much as I could.

Vietnam - 1965 Dong Xoai. As the first war where news photographers
were often with the troops on the front lines, the immediacy of the
war, its effects, and the people involved poured into each home. 

This was MY war. These men and women from the US sent over to fight or work in the support staff and hospitals were people I knew from school, or older siblings of friends and classmates. This was the war I was protesting, the music I was hearing, and the events I saw unfolding as I was in my teenage years. This was the war that was at my dinner table each night - the first televised war, Dad had the TV news on at the dinner table each night specifically to find out about the latest in the war. It was the first war that came directly into the homes of the populace.

I remember Kent State - seeing the photographs of the dead on the
street and this iconic photograph. We held a ceremony at my high
school, planting four trees for the four dead students and hoping
for peace. The trees flourish, peace has been harder to come by. 

Ken Burns did his usual excellent job of bringing a variety of people together to tell the story from very different perspectives. He had soldiers, prisoners-of-war, politicians, members of the South Vietnamese army and government, and even members of the North Vietnamese army and government. He had news clips, sound bites, film bits and pieces. He had Congressional hearings, anti-war TV coverage, and everyone from proud-to-serve Marines to Conscious Objectors and "Draft Dodgers" who crossed over into Canada. He even had Jane Fonda - "Hanoi Jane".

A victim of the napalm bombing in the background, these people fled
from the fires. The young girl in the center was badly burned, but she
survived and they showed a photo of her as an adult, holding a baby of her
own in the documentary. This photo was plastered on the front pages
of newspapers around the world and won a Pulitzer Prize for the photographer. 

Was Vietnam your generation? Your war? I was just slightly too young (by less than five years) to be totally embroiled in this war, but I remember clearly sitting and watching the draft lottery on the television. My husband was lucky - his number was very high. His older brother also got very lucky. Friends of theirs ... some shipped out and didn't come back.

The Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC is different from other war
memorials. The polished stone surface, marred only by the names of
those who didn't return, stretches as a bleak reminder of past
and present. It personalizes the war that created a schism  in society
that still hasn't healed. 

When the US went into the Middle East and Afghanistan for this latest conflict, my thoughts immediately turned to Vietnam. I could see our position once again becoming a long, destined to fail, slog through enemy country with a less than satisfying conclusion. And that's what's happening. I hate it when I'm right about political things like that! When I watched the populace rise up against the politicians and the President in the 1970's and compare those days to now, I'm not seeing a lot that's different. Washington DC hasn't changed and we've only exchanged one crook for another in the White House. Obviously we haven't learned our lessons.

Trump and Nixon - they're not that different and they're both crooks.
It doesn't seem that we've learned a lot in the past 40 years. 

Have an excellent Thursday. Tonight is the next episode of Project Runway, so tomorrow will be the generalized synopsis, with Saturday being the in-depth and spoiler analysis of the top and bottom three. Meanwhile, I'm going to try and make up for all of those days without the pool. I need to shave back my lap times!

Happy 245th Birthday to Ludwig van Beethoven

I grew up seeing Schroeder playing glorious music with his statue of Ludwig van Beethoven perched upon his toy piano. I always wondered, when I was a kid, how he managed to get such sound and so many octaves from the keyboard of a small, toy piano. I still wonder that today.

Schroeder, when possible, has this great statue of Beethoven
that he places at the back of his toy piano. 

Then again, I've also wondered how Beethoven was able to get such glorious music out of his head and onto paper when he was deaf and unable to hear a single note? The fact that our world had produced genius of this caliber through the years serves to offer me hope, even as we turn our backs on one another and slaughter innocents. Beethoven's time was also filled with war. I'm not sure if any time of our entire history as a species has managed to live more than a single generation without war. It is an impossible dream.

Single-minded devotion from Schroeder makes Beethoven the answer
to everything. I don't think he was wrong. There's just something about Beethoven
that moves the soul. 

Today I'm going to take some time out to listen to Beethoven, because his music speaks to my soul and says "We can be better - in fact, we can be great!" I'm raising a virtual glass to the composer who will always be my number one - Ludwig van Beethoven.

Happy Birthday, Ludwig van Beethoven. 

I'm sending all of you off to play with the Google headpiece of Ludwig van Beethoven's journey to the concert hall. It's a fun trip through pieces of his music and very easy if you are familiar with his best-known scores. Go to Google now, put on your headphones, click and play. Happy Thursday!

Veterans Day (Remembrance Day)

Do we even remember when wars end any more? For that matter - do wars ever really end? Today is Veterans Day here in the USA and Remembrance Day across the pond where many other friends of mine live. I'm remembering and honoring veterans throughout the world today on their day and I hope each of you also keeping those who have served in your thoughts.

Honor all veterans today and thank them for their service. 

At 11:00 am on the 11th day of the 11th month, an end to World War I was declared to be over on what was then called "Armistice Day". It took a few more wars - WWII and Korea to be precise - before the title of the date was changed to "Veterans Day". Now Veterans Day encompasses a vast spread of veterans throughout the past century, but if you look at history and pre-history, there have been veterans of organized conflict going back into the dawn of historical record and beyond.

I doubt we'll ever see another headline like this. Were those
days simpler? Or were we just more willing to believe the
idea of world peace? 

What is it about mankind that makes us so aggressive? Is there a gene we could pull to eliminate this tendency? Why must almost every generation have their conflict and their war? My father's war was WWII - he lost everything; family, home and nation to that war. My own war was Vietnam. I didn't serve but knew friends who did. I was on the other side - fighting for peace and an end to that conflict. My cousin's war was Korea - she's older than I am. My other cousin's kids war was the Gulf War. And so on, and so on ... every generation having their own war somewhere in the world. That's not world peace, that's conflict on a daily basis, spilled blood and tears.

Never forget our veterans who placed their lives on the line. Also don't
forget those who didn't come home and who gave the ultimate sacrifice
in the fight for freedom. 

We're standing on the brink of another world war, this time in the Middle East, or maybe in Africa, or even in parts of the Western Hemisphere. The general Middle Eastern area seems to be a focal once more, however, and with Russia entering the Syrian and ISIS conflict, the stage is being set for another possible world war. The area that was a haven for refugees from the second World War is now becoming the battleground for a third one. If that doesn't frighten you, it should.

If this doesn't make you nervous, it should. The only really good
thing about getting older is that eventually I'll die and I won't
experience even more war. This map really sucks, doesn't it! 

But today, remember those who served your country and those few years of peace that we gained from those conflicts. Peace may be fugitive at best, but I'll always be striving for peace rather than war. Honor your veterans and hold them in your heart today. Have a good Wednesday.