Launch My Line: It’s No Jersey Shore

Photo of Courtesy of NBC

This week the "designers" (the contestants, most of whom know zero things about how clothes are made, worn or sold) and their "experts" (the actual designers who are doing all the work) went to Venice Beach for inspiration.

Apparently in 2010, you ladies reading this (and possibly some of you gays) will all want to begin dressing in garments that make you look like butterflies and/or jellyfish. They call that trend forecasting. Come March next spring you'll wake up, call your personal stylist and scream into the phone for that person to get you into a Mothra-inspired tunic immediately or heads will roll. The DSquared boys, Dan and Dean, your hosts, are already dangling a million things from the waistbands of their own jeans this week to make the jellyfish point. Question: when you've got on charm-pants like that, how do you sit without something pointy jabbing you in the butt? No homo.

To make this future-vision a reality, it was off to Venice Beach. Ever been there? They sell plastic sunglasses, wind socks, the burnout lifestyle and the allure of knowing that everything you just touched is covered with bird shit. But if this show had wanted truly modern inspiration they'd have jetted them all off to the set of Jersey Shore. Because you may turn up your snooty fashion nose at kids named JWoWW and "The Situation," but they're the ones buying fugly beach-inspired clothes. They're your bread and butter one of these days, the only trend forecast you need to know.

And since this isn't Project Runway or Top Chef and since Miami Social is probably never coming back and since Bravo knows that none of this matters, the show just wants to retain viewers with spats, tiffs, manufactured tension and gays getting all jacked up on the idea of TV fame and showing out for the camera. It's only episode 2 and already Oprah-pal Marilyn is so bossy that her expert is threatening to quit.

But the guy who knows how to play nutjob for TV the right way is Patrick's expert, Roberto. (I finally figured out his name.) It's like this dude found the secret list of rules for getting cast as the insane fag on a TV show and memorized every one of them: dress like a fool, namedrop Valentino to increasingly annoyed contestants, sit in a chair and make your non-designer partner do work he doesn't understand, pitch fits and tear down pieces of the set, apologize for the fit but not really, rewrite the show's rules in your own head and announce your creative interpretation on camera, continue to sell the "I was born in a volcano" personality-disorder defense, make viewers wonder aloud how you stay employed in the real world. Supergays like this are a performing a public service for every homosexual watching. He's someone you can point at to your parents and say, "Look at what you got and look at what you could have gotten. Count your blessings. Now where's my Christmas gift?"

Oh yeah, the DJ won the challenge and the architect got kicked off this week. Like you care.

Next week: more fighting. Also possibly some clothes being made.

-- DAVE WHITE

Previously > Launch My Line: Faking Fashion