The Columnist Manifesto

A brief post-mortem on Project Runway. As you all know by know, Santino Rice did not win. The three finalists each had a collection of garmets whose beauty exceeded most of the week-to-week challenges -- hardly surprising that clothing designed and made over six months will look better than project-"challenges" thrown together in 48 hours -- and I really couldn't say that one was better than another. The judges seemed hard pressed too.

Santino, having served his purpose as "enfant terrible" for the season, was tossed aside for being too "safe." Yet for weeks the very same judges had been whaling on him for being too over the top. For once he wasn't BSing when he defended himself -- his stuff was indeed too subtle for the judges!

Chloe Dao won -- a pleaseant surprise, since it was starting to look like the whole season was orchestrated to crown Daniel V. Plus, you get the impression that women don't catch many breaks in this business and that the show was perfectly okay with that.

Let me just say that Chloe was the only one of the finalists who seemed to be genuine and honest in her self-presentation. I found Daniel's whole "nice/ gracious" schtick to be every bit as much a persona as Santino's "obnoxious jerk" schtick. Santino was smart enough to figure out that big personality is a good survival strategy on an elimination "reality" show. And the producers clearly wanted that from him, taking every opportunity to play up his obnoxious side. If you were splattered across 100 hours of "documentary" reality-TV footage, the editors could probably make you into a wide range of apparent personalities.

So what is my next project? Well, I have to say, the first installment of Top Chef has already drawn me in.