‘Project Runway’ Season 16 Episode 2 Betting Odds
–’Project Runway’ will feature a wide array of models this year ranging in size from 0 to 22.
–’Project Runway’ has already been renewed for two more seasons after this one.
–Episode 2 of ‘Project Runway’ Season 16 will air on August 24, 2017 at 8:00 PM Eastern on the Lifetime Network
The first few episodes of any reality show are tough to handicap and for some reason ‘Project Runway’ is especially so. That’s likely because the key ‘skill set’ for a winner is part experience, part talent and part discipline. At the same time, having a strong personality makes for better television so you’re likely to stick around if people (particularly viewers) either love you or hate you. It *is* possible to have too much personality and not enough legit talent as the first designer eliminated learned all to well during Episode 1. ChaCha had the vibe of someone who could have stuck around for awhile based on personality alone. He claims his nickname (spoiler alert–‘ChaCha’ isn’t his real name)is derived from a presumably Taiwanese word for ‘Annoying Bird’. Actually, his real ‘crime’ appears to have been a lack of ‘sensitivity’ which was more than likely poor English skills. He had the temerity to call his dress form ‘too fat’ and the rest of the contests piled on to emphasize just how politically correct and ‘inclusive’ they are. Whatever. The mainstream media is doing their best spin to weave the narrative that the decision to go with larger sized models has been a big hit–‘People’ magazine gushed that ‘People are loving the decision’. Their evidence was scant–a few Tweets supporting the move doesn’t exactly validate a consensus. That’s the narrative, however, and the media is going to keep patting ‘Project Runway’ for their decision to include larger models.
THE PROTOTYPICAL MODEL SHAPE AND SIZE
No matter your opinion of the ‘Project Runway’ move to add larger sized models it definitely impacts the handicapping and oddsmaking of the field. One of the primary reasons that models have historically been of a certain size and stature was to provide some uniformity for designers. A designer just trying to get started in the fashion biz wouldn’t have to make samples of their wares in every size prior to a show or shoot. They could be confident that the models they’d be working with would fit into a certain size or limited range of sizes. Also in the interest of uniformity–what looks good on one body shape doesn’t look good on another body shape and vice versa. It would be silly for a designer to showcase their clothing on a model that didn’t make it look their best for whatever reason. This had less to do about ‘fat shaming’ or ‘exclusion’ and more to do with pragmatism and efficiency. There’s certainly a market demand for models of all shapes, sizes and genders but for ‘haute couture’ the demand has always been for the ‘protoypical’ model shape and size for a number of very practical reasons that have nothing to do with denegrating anyone who doesn’t fit this template. There’s a reason that you don’t see many NBA basketball players under 6′ tall or many 300 pound ballet dancers. There’s a relationship by what those jobs demand at their highest level and certain physical characteristics.
The flipside of this–and where the challenge arises in the new season of ‘Project Runway’–is that designers have to display a certain amount of imagination, fitting skill and adaptation to work with a model that isn’t the ‘traditional model size’. They may have designed for a prototypical model frame and have experience working with and fitting the same but they can’t automatically assume that this will be the case on the current season of ‘Project Runway’. More problematically, one thing that ChaCha’s summary dismissal from the competition demonstrated that it won’t be enough to ‘do the work’ with models of different sizes–you’ll have to advance the narrative that having a keno board full of sizes to design for is a positive thing because ‘inclusion’ and all of that. Never mind that most of the designers didn’t like the change when it was first announced, primarily for the ‘uniformity’ reasons I outlined above.
Ultimately, it’s the same thing that I discussed in the preview of Episode One–is it the designers’ fault that Americans are the most obese people in the world? European and Asian women don’t have problems fitting into standard dress sizes. It’s not really the place of the designers or the fashion industry to accept the blame for the poor lifestyle choices and sedentary ways of the average American. If they’re designing clothes that ‘real women’ won’t buy they’ll soon be looking for another line of work as the market for their creations won’t be there. If a designer is running a business profitably and has good market demand there’s no reason whatsoever that they should dumb down their designs for the corpulent frames of middle American women.
WHATS UP FOR SEASON SIXTEEN
In addition to the change to models of larger girth there appears to be a few other things in the works for the new season. A trailer released by the Lifetime Network suggests something of a ‘cheating scandal’ is afoot. A contestant is shown suggesting that the competition is ‘not fair’ after which Tim Gunn is seen ‘cutting a promo’ to the same effect. Here’s the video–I’ll quote the important parts if you don’t want to watch it:
Here’s a recap of the clip from MovieFone:
Lifetime released a trailer for the season, via Entertainment Tonight, and it is heavy on the tears and drama. We see designer Michael Brambila walk off the runway, after telling the judges, “The way that it was done, I do not agree with.” The stunned judges looked on, asking what happened. Backstage, we see Michael say, “I came to play fair, and there is no fairness in this game.”
We also see Tim Gunn backstage, looking right into the camera to say, “This is cheating. It all has to stop.” That’s followed by Tim in the workroom telling a group of designers, “This entire thing disgusts me. It was unprofessional, unseemly, atrocious.”
So there we go. It could be selective editing to make the situation appear more dire than it really is. Still, it would be one thing for a contestant to suggest the fix is in but it’s another thing entirely for the erstwhile Mr. Gunn to make the same case. We didn’t get any kind of revealAnyway, here’s the revised odds to win Season 16 of ‘Project Runway’ along with some prop odds for Episode 1:
PROJECT RUNWAY SEASON 16 BETTING ODDS
TO WIN SEASON 16 OF ‘PROJECT RUNWAY’
Margarita Alvarez: +150
Brandon Kee: +750
Sentell McDonald: +750
Batani-Khalfani: +900
Ayana Ife: +900
Deyonté Weather: +1250
Amy Bond: +1750
Kenya Freeman: +1750
Kudzanai Karidza: +1750
Aaron Myers: +2500
Samantha Rei: +2500
Kentaro Kameyama: +2500
Claire Buitendorp: +3500
Shawn Buitendorp: +3500
Michael Brambila: +3500
PROJECT RUNWAY SEASON 16 EPISODE 2 PROPOSITION BETTING ODDS
TO BE ELIMINATED IN EPISODE 2 ‘PROJECT RUNWAY’ SEASON 16
Aaron Myers: +250
Samantha Rei: +450
Amy Bond: +750
Deyonté Weather: +750
Margarita Alvarez: +1500
Brandon Kee: +1500
Claire Buitendorp: +1500
Shawn Buitendorp: +1500
Kenya Freeman: +1500
No One Eliminated in Episode 2: +2500
Kudzanai Karidza: +2500
Sentell McDonald: +2500
Kentaro Kameyama: +2500
Ayana Ife: +2500
Michael Brambila: +2500
Batani-Khalfani: +2500
TO FINISH BOTTOM TWO BUT SAFE EPISODE 2 ‘PROJECT RUNWAY’ SEASON 16
Aaron Myers: +300
Samantha Rei: +300
Deyonté Weather: +750
Margarita Alvarez: +1500
Brandon Kee: +1500
Claire Buitendorp: +1500
Shawn Buitendorp: +1500
Kenya Freeman: +1500
No One Safe in Episode 2: +2500
Kudzanai Karidza: +2500
Sentell McDonald: +2500
Kentaro Kameyama: +2500
Ayana Ife: +2500
Michael Brambila: +2500
Batani-Khalfani: +2500
TO WIN CHALLENGE IN EPISODE 2 ‘PROJECT RUNWAY’ SEASON 16
Batani-Khalfani: +300
Samantha Rei: +650
Kudzanai Karidza: +650
Margarita Alvarez: +650
Brandon Kee: +1500
Kentaro Kameyama: +1500
Sentell McDonald: +1500
Aaron Myers: +1500
Kenya Freeman: +1500
Ayana Ife: +1500
Michael Brambila: +1500
Amy Bond: +2500
Deyonté Weather: +2500
No challenge winner in Episode 2: +2500
Claire Buitendorp: +2500
Shawn Buitendorp: +2500
TO FINISH SECOND IN CHALLENGE IN EPISODE 2 ‘PROJECT RUNWAY’ SEASON 16
Ayana Ife: +350
Samantha Rei: +500
Sentell McDonald: +600
Deyonté Weather: +900
Kudzanai Karidza: +900
Margarita Alvarez: +900
Claire Buitendorp: +1500
Shawn Buitendorp: +1500
Kentaro Kameyama: +2500
Aaron Myers: +2500
Kenya Freeman: +2500
Brandon Kee: +2500
Michael Brambila: +2500
Amy Bond: +2500
Batani-Khalfani: +2500
No challenge runner up in Episode 2: +2500
WILL TIM GUNN USE HIS SAVE IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: +750
No: -1500
WILL TIM GUNN SAY ‘GATHER ROUND’ IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: -250
No: +210
WILL TIM GUNN SAY THE WORD ‘FABULOUS’ IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: -250
No: +210
WILL TIM GUNN SAY THAT HE’LL ‘MISS’ THE ELIMINATED DESIGNER?
Yes: +250
No: -500
WILL ANY JUDGE ASK ‘WHERE IS SHE GOING’ OR ‘WHERE IS SHE GOING IN THIS OUTFIT’ IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: +180
No: -210
WILL ANY JUDGE SAY THAT A DESIGN ‘LOOKS EXPENSIVE’ IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: +180
No: -210
WILL ANY JUDGE SAY ‘I WOULD WEAR THAT’ IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: +180
No: -210
WILL ANY CONTESTANT SAY ‘THIS IS A COMPETITION’ IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: +300
No: -450
WILL ANY CONTESTANT USE THE EXPRESSION ‘WHO I AM AS A DESIGNER’ IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: +180
No: -210
WILL ANYONE ON THE SHOW USE THE EXPRESSION ‘MAKE IT WORK’ IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: -280
No: +250
WILL ANYONE ON THE SHOW SAY THE WORD ‘MATRONLY’ IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: -150
No: +130
WILL ANY DESIGNER SUFFER AN INJURY IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: +600
No: -750
WILL ANY DESIGNER CRY ON CAMERA IN EPISODE 2?
Yes: -180
No: +150
KEY DEMO RATING FOR EPISODE 2 AS REPORTED BY ‘TV BY THE NUMBERS‘?
Over 3.9: -120
Under 3.9: +100
TOTAL VIEWERSHIP FOR EPISODE 2 AS REPORTED BY ‘TV BY THE NUMBERS‘?
Over 1.6 million: -130
Under 1.6 million: +110