Last night GenArt held its 10th International Styles Runway event with $35,000 in cash going to 6 winners. Women's rtw was boring, avant garde wasn't even close to my definition of avant garde but pretty good, evening was good, men's was a strong group, and the video presentations were, again, a bore. The highlight was emcee Robert Verdi making jokes about Nicole Kidman and Botox, the event's sponsor.
I say kill the rtw category, move the avg designers to a new category, and find some real, couture-esque designers for the avg category. And who wants to watch videos at this type of thing? No one. We want to see new and emerging designers on the runway. GenArt is great and all but their events are boring to sit through. After ten years, this is the best they can do from more than 800 submissions? I honestly hate to rip on GenArt but the runway show could've lasted 8 minutes, instead we sit there for an hour or so. Maybe each designer could show more than 2 looks? Maybe the designers could sit near the front so when they come up to accept an award, it's not a long wait? Maybe the whole event should just switch to a webcast?
winners: Yujin Song (rtw), Timothy Franklin (men's), Ninaki (accessories), Marie Potesta (avg), Louisa Parris (evening), Jobile (special award).
