"Top Design" Judges' Shocker!! Margaret Russell Denies Dieting, Jonathan Adler Denies Loving Kitsch, Todd Oldham to Deny Being Gay

Though there was no episode of Top Design last night, the judges, keen on keeping us faithful viewers satisfied, revved up their Instablogger 3000s and gave us fresh content. And, possums, it's a veritable treasure trove of aw shucks and awe.

Jonathan Adler-Doonan starts off by telling us that his uncharitable self thinks Michael Adams is crazy, and then hits us with the ultimate crazy talk:

Re: kitsch, I've often been accused of being a kitsch-enthusiast, which is totally untrue -- I actually hate kitsch. Pink flamingoes on the front lawn? No, merci. But, in the hands of some creative mavericks, traditional kitsch iconography transcends its kitschiness and becomes fantastic.

For instance, I have a giant poodle lamp in my bedroom that's so big and well-crafted that I couldn't say no. I have series of clown pictures that are intricately crafted in wood marquetry and they are so brilliantly designed and made that you really can't argue with them.

Uh, Jonathan, possum, you are a poodle lamp. There ain't nuthin' wrong with a dash of kitsch cleverly deployed, nuthin' to be ashamed of, and your website seems to indicate you have no shame at all. For example, that "Extended! Sale!" illustration from your website--totally kitsch! And let's not even mention the "novelty needlepoint" and "pop yarmulkes" offered for sale on http://www.jonathanadler.com/.

Jonathan also takes Michael Adams to task for the birds he used as part of his design in last week's episode, saying

Them birds are one of the great mysteries of our time, up there with crop circles and the popularity of Dane Cook. I found the birds so mystifying that I've spent an inappropriate amount of time pondering what Michael might have been thinking.

So we were a little mystified ourselves (almost as mystified as we are by Dane Cook's popularity) when we happened upon this little bird in Jonathan's pottery collection (in fact, there's a whole flock of them). It looks an awful lot like the partridges from Michael's walls, just transformed into pottery. What gives?


The divinely divine Margaret Russell also gave us quite a shock with this assertion:

Paris Libbey is an amazingly talented stylist...but I wore all my own clothes on the show. (Although his blog about having a dieting competition with me is pure fantasy: I’m petite, and I weighed 100 pounds when I arrived in LA and 100 pounds the day I left. Some people have commented that I look skinny -- even starved -- but I don’t diet, I eat. A lot.)

Well, as soon as we heard poor Paris chattering about his dieting competition with Margaret, we knew there'd be trouble. Poor faggy bastard spoke out of turn, tsk tsk. We fully expect his fauxhawked head to be mounted on the grille of Margaret's chauffeured car, warning every gay within spitting distance of Hachette Filipacchi and Condé Nast headquarters about the fate of those who tell tales out of dressing rooms.

Notice the delicate footwork in Margaret's denial. The diet/starvation denial is standard-issue stuff in the fashion industry, but pay attention to the exquisite backslap. You can almost hear Margaret's thoughts (or at least, this is what they sound like to us):

Paris (as if I would ever take advice from someone named Paris!) is amazingly talented (yeah, right! he helps to dress Kelly Wearstler, for God's sake, and don't you know that "amazingly talented" is the euphemism of choice for "talentless hack I'm about to do an Apocalypto on"?), but I would never be caught dead in anything he would give me to wear. And, in fact, I don't have to be caught dead in the stuff, since all my things are Prada, and Derek Lam, and Narciso Rodriguez, and not borrowed finery procured by some queen who wears a fauxhawk over a year after the style fell out of fashion.

I work my exquisitely small butt off raising money for AIDS charities, and for what? So that some queen in a cardigan can suggest to the world that I am not naturally a sylph-cum-wire hanger (if wire hangers were actually acceptable), always at a perfect weight, able to fit into any goddamned Narciso Rodriguez dress I choose? This is the thanks I get? And when I say that his blog is pure fantasy, I mean that he's a tweaker, and that his little fauxhawk is actually a wig made of spun crystal meth.

That's why we love posh, imperious women. They can say so much with so little.