Let's take a breather from S5 madness and check in with one of our favorites from S4.
Jillian Lewis is unveiling her Fall 2008 collection. Here's what she had to say to us about it:
"Both my runway collection (from the show) and my current ready to wear collection were inspired by the beautiful embellishments and functionality of the combatant costumes of the past... more specifically 15th century armor. I am often inspired by history, though it is important that my designs reflect the culture and the technological advancements of our time."
"The fit and construction are the most important elements. I have never been the type of designer who embellishes with extraneous details. The details exist within the form."
What else is Baby working on? Well, she's also preparing a Spring 2009 ready-to-wear line; she's working on several private client orders and she's designing 6 dance costumes for the Guggenheim museum for a performance in September. We're so pleased that she's so busy. She was somewhat overshadowed by her fellow finalists, Rami and Christian and we felt all along that the girl had the chops to have an incredibly successful career.
As for her collection, we love it. You'll find some of her more memorable looks from her BP show, like her signature ruffled coat and knits, but there are some new pieces in there as well. We think she has a fresh and unique style and we wish her well. We're not bitches ALL the time, y'know.
Jillian Lewis Fall 2008 is expected to hit stores at the end of August. We'll keep you posted as to where you can find it.
PR Bitches made several appearances at this year's Gen Art show. Let's take a peek, shall we?
"Now in its tenth year, the 2008 Gen Art Styles competition presented the next crop of emerging fashion talent at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on Monday night, May 19, before a panel of judges that included fashion designers Victoria Bartlett and Marc Ecko among others, Sak's Fifth Avenue Fashion Director Michael Fink and Designer & Agent's founder Barbara Kramer.
A sixth award, the Tone Skincare Fashion Vision Award for Radiance, a $10,000 prize given to the designer best interpreting the Tone brand's theme, "Radiance," through sketches and text, was awarded to Jolibe. [Alison and Jillian were up for this award but sadly, neither won.]
Gen Art is well-known for launching the careers of some of fashion's best rising talents today, including Rodarte, Peter Som, Cloak, Loden Dager, Duckie Browne and Sari Gueron."
Miss McCarroll was there with his ubiquitous gigantic bag.
Alison Kelly. Um....we kinda hate the outfit.
She's wearing a cute necklace from her line of unisex jewelry.
Jillian Lewis. The shoes are fun and the dress is pretty cute, but we're more in love with the bottom half than we are the top.
Kara Saun. Oh honey, no. This isn't working for us at all.
UPDATE: "So ELLE.com enlisted him to head to this year’s Gen Art Styles show and take stock of the talent pool, then pen a personal essay on rising stars, reality checks, and how to blow the judges’ minds. The result is Jay McCarroll, uncensored and (mostly) unedited." Read Jay's take on the event here.
We haven't heard from Jillian in a while, so we dropped her a line and asked her to fill us in on her doings. Unsurprisingly, her doings are plentiful (and that sounded a little dirty).
"Hi guys,
My business partner Lewaa and I opened a corporation together, Jillian Lewis Inc. , back in November while I was working on my Project Runway collection. By March we had our first collection completed, a mini fall line. We spent the entire months of March and April dragging heavy garment bags to buyer offices. We had great success for our first season, though it was a long and difficult journey to get there. Let me also mention that starting a business during what is being called a recession was a bit discouraging at first, though we have had several trunk shows in Long Island that were so incredibly successful. I guess it proves that if you have special pieces that are desirable, even a recession can’t stop success in the fashion world.Lewaa and I worked together at Searle. Now, Lewaa and I live and work together, are newly engaged and we will be selling our line at the Searle stores among several other boutiques to be delivered at the end of July. We will be having a trunk show in September at the 60th/Madison Ave. location...I will keep you posted on an exact date.Now that our fall line is in the production status, I am working on a more extensive spring line and have private client orders lined up until September. I will be designing dance costumes for Works & Process at The Guggenheim Museum, performance September 21st and 22nd.
I will have some illustrations on display at Gen Art’s Styles 08 event for Tone Skin Care [TLo note: Five finalists who best interpret the theme "radiance" through sketches or storyboards will be featured at the Styles show on May 19th in competition for the Tone Fashion Vision Award. The winner will be awarded $10,000 to put toward their business. Jillian and Allison Kelly from S3 are finalists. Project Runway reprezent, yo!]
and of course I designed 3 dress options for Newsday’s Project Prom. [TLo Note: See below].
We have a few other deals on the horizon that we are not yet ready to announce but there is more excitement to come .Hope that is enough my friends. Again, thanks so much for your interest and support. Hope you are both happy and well.-Jillian"
Here are the sketches and video for Jillian's Project Prom entry.
This is the third time we've seen this look from Jillian, but we can't blame her. It's a great look and it's quickly becoming her signature. On the other hand, we think she overworked it this time. There's a lot of great detailing here, but too much for one look. Although we love the splash of red and the dovetail seam in the bodice.
Love this look. That sweater is both gorgeous and different. Very chic.
We don't care what anyone says, we love those hats.
We go back and forth on this one. It's an interesting look and it certainly fits in with her armor/equestrian/military theme, but it's kind of incongruous to put such a conceptual piece in the middle of all these wearable sportswear looks.
LOVE IT. This is definitely one of those pieces that needs to be seen in person. That skirt almost looks like a special effect as it floats away from her and seems to be levitating on its own. The bodice is just a skosh too armor-like, but the ethereal skirt counteracts the effect. The crowd loved this look and so did we. Very feminine and chic.
Beautiful color, beautiful fabric, very slinky and sexy. The only thing we don't like is that raised-in-the-middle hem she's using again. It's distracting and it makes her look like she's always lifting her skirt to show her bits. Still, it's a minor complaint because it really is a beautiful dress.
The corset top is only okay, but the pants - and yes, they ARE pants - are phenomenal. Very sophisticated, sexy look.
In the end, well...we've said about all there is to say. We think her collection demonstrated a vision and an ability to make clothes that women want to wear. Her look is sporty, feminine and sophisticated and yet she still manages to do things with a slight twist to them. As much as we think she should have won, we can understand why the judges didn't give it to her. There were one or two missteps and as a whole, the collection lacked cohesion. She clearly wanted to put everything out there to show what she could do and she accomplished that, in our opinion.
We haven't tried to hide the fact that we loved Jillian's collection the best. It seems to us that in a competition like Project Runway, the final winner should demonstrate not only a strong point of view and a sense of innovation, but also the ability to get their clothes on racks in stores, and more importantly, on the bodies of consumers. Retailability and wearability are just as important as a strong editorial sense. Clearly, the judges don't agree with us on that one as they tend to more often choose strong points of view over clothes that women actually want to wear and buy. That's fine. There are plenty of ways to look at fashion and their view isn't wrong in that sense, just different from our own. Jillian showed a sportswear-themed collection full of items and elements that looked new and fresh to our eyes but at the same time, looked like clothes that a lot of women would love to own.
If you didn't know anything about the 3 finalists and didn't know who showed what, it would be fairly easy to peg this collection as the one designed by a woman. Not only for its chic femininity, but also for its near-perfect styling and accessories. The hair was long and bouncy and the makeup classic and pretty.
Let's start the show.
Love it. A very strong opening look. That coat is simply gorgeous. We love the lapel treatment and the head scarf. The fabric is beautiful and the accessories are perfect. Love the belt and the boots with this look. We don't actually love the hat. Laura Bennett recently teased us by saying we always criticize hats, which came as a surprise to us. We love hats. We just aren't huge fans of women wearing fedoras because we think any irony or surprise such a look might generate is long in the past. This look definitely needs a hat, but we're just not crazy about this hat.
We are, on the other hand, crazy about her gladiator-helmet knit caps. Very fresh, kind of witty and just plain cute. It's definitely a look only a younger girl could pull off, but then again, that seems to be the clientele she's aiming for with this collection.
That skirt is to-die-for. In fact, the whole look is. The scarf, the belt, the shoes, even the barely-seen sweater underneath. Just a fresh, chic, feminine look overall. Beautifully rendered, too. One of our favorites.
Another favorite. That's three very strong, statement-making looks in a row that don't look repetitive. Love the sweater. We wouldn't normally love the equestrian-themed pants but the whole look comes together very nicely.
*clunk*
It's our least favorite look. Not just because it's, to be blunt, not very attractive, but also because it feels like this model walked in from another show. Following up three sporty, knitwear-heavy, perfectly accessorized looks with a gold lame cocktail dress equalled a big WTF? from us.
We will say that the pleating is flawless, though.
She doesn't do it as often as Rami does, but every once in a while Jillian overworks something. This look shows a slight hint of that. The jacket is simple and classic, but those things on the sleeves and the pointy shoulders kind of detract from that. We're also not sure what she was attempting with that skirt but we don't like the way the hem hits unevenly.
The dustmop reference has already been made, but sometimes, you gotta watch the show with a straight man to get a new take. Ours said her sleeves looked like white cheddar cheese curls and after we stopped laughing, we had to agree.
Despite that, we actually liked both the top and the skirt. We just didn't think they worked well together (that sweater would look great with a pair of skinny black jeans) and neither of them looked right with this collection.
The Dish announced today that Jillian is the winner of the Sew Not Over competition:
"Well, Bravotv.com users, you've spoken. Just to refresh, we asked this season's Project Runway designers to create a three-piece collection for our Sew Not Over online challenge and had you guys vote. And your winner, with over 20,000 votes, is ... JILLIAN! We called up the Sew Not Over winner to tell her the good news and she couldn't have been happier."Congrats, darling!
