Judges Defend Jeffrey Win

October 20, 2006

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Yesterday started with a phone call to Tim Gunn to see how his finale night was and to get the poop on the TRESemmé finale party. He told me who was there (all the Final Four and a lot of the designers) and how the show went down (very well). I told him that from what I was reading, the online chatter was that Uli was robbed. Tim was not going for that at all. I gots to say -- the judges loved Uli's collection but really responded to Jeffrey's innovation and new point of view. The fashionistas went for the new sparkly sparklies in front of them and so did Tim. It is interesting to see how steadfast the Runway crew was in their commitment to their decision and then to see the real people chattering passionately online.

After I hung up with Tim I moved on to one of my fave ways to start a day: a quick catch-up at Bonsignor with "Flags of our Fathers" star John Benjamin Hickey. We were in the middle of a Runway debrief (he was cool with Jeffrey's win) when we ran into Ethan Hawke. Hawke told us about being onstage the night before in Tom Stoppard's "Coast of Utopia" when co-star Richard Easton dropped to the floor, mid-monologue, with a heart attack. From the stage, Martha Coolidge threw out the classic, but underused "is there a doctor in the house?".

Ethan has an adorable border collie and Easton is gonna be ok.

In the taxi to work, I heard from Bruce, who was furious himself about Uli being overlooked for the win. He thought her stuff was the most wearable and beautiful. He was saying "why, Nina, why!?" I told him I spoke to Nina on Wednesday and she was still carrying on about how much she loved Jeffrey's stuff and how she felt like Uli is going to have a huge career, but that she's seen it all before.

Bravo shares the 8th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza with the SNL studios. On my way to the john, I popped in to ask the SNL costume department what they thought of Runway. They were team Uli people as well. And they were pissed.

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