<p>Yikes, I was sorry at first to see this thread too - cause I didn’t want to find out the winner yet! Will be watching tonight sadly…Mondo - I have grown to love his clothes and his being. </p>
<p>Hopefully, this will be one of those situations where coming in 2nd (ala American Idol) actually is for the best. Go show em, Mondo!!!</p>
<p>I “friended” him on facebook and enjoyed looking at the photos from his screening party from last night. He runs with a very down-to-earth crowd.</p>
<p>Sooooo disappointed.</p>
<p>I love Mondo! I love this show, but I have to say my Skepticism meter about the editing rises with every viewing moment:</p>
<p>*Gretchen cannot play well with others throughout the whole season and suddenly it is a love-fest among the final four??!?
*Gretchen’s clothes are as blah as everyone above (plus the judges) have said, and suddenly she’s the winner??!?
*The 4 judges split absolutley down the middle for this Finale… when has that ever happened before???
*Their entire deliberation last night has them split down the middle and the editors can’t give us the actual portions when Heidi/Jessica start to get won over to Michael and Nina’s point of view??? Ha! I no longer believe the judges actually decide. I think the Producers do… although I can’t for the life of me figure out why they’d pick Gretchen either.
*Mondo’s collection “slanted young”??? So inventive, so classic… I’m nearly a geezer and I could wear his stuff. What woman over a certain age is going to wear Gretchen’s stuff - I’ll tell you—an aging hippie in Birkenstocks (meaning no offense to Birkenstock lovers 
).</p>
<p>END OF RANT.</p>
<p>PS I thought Gretchen’s collection was better than we could have expected. I think (20/20 hindsight) Mondo needed to come up with some sort of “surprise” element in the final collection? He is so unique already, but I think they got what they expected from him… which should have been enough! But it wasn’t.</p>
<p>This show has increased by respect for Jessica Simpson. </p>
<p>I can picture not only a MONDO line, but MONDO for Juniors and MONDO BABY as well.</p>
<p>As Tom and Lorenzo pointed out in their excellent blog post on the finale (I can’t link to it, but just google “tom and lorenzo” or “project rungay”), producer manipulation makes no sense here. First of all, Heidi is a producer, one of the main ones. She loved Mondo. By the time the finale was filmed, Mondo was already, clearly, much more popular than Gretchen. And to the extent editing was involved, the editing throughout this season seemed designed to promote Mondo in every way, and to reveal Gretchen as an extremely insecure, passive-aggressive person (to put it kindly). Maybe the producers did that on purpose, as their way of getting back at Michael and Nina. Who have <em>not</em> come across well this year. Funny how everyone was saying two seasons ago that the main problem with the Los Angeles season was that Michael and Nina weren’t there a lot of the time, and now everyone seems to hate them!</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. They are dead on accurate.</p>
<p>I have sewn quite a few clothes in my day. I could easily put together a collection that looked like Gretchen’s. I am not a fashion designer, either. I started sewing when I was in elementary school and made many of my own clothes over the years. </p>
<p>Except for the Granny undies, I think I have seen almost every piece in a Butterick pattern over the years. </p>
<p>Boring. </p>
<p>Mondo and Andy will land on their feet. I think Michael C had a much more interesting POV than Gretchen throughout the season. Even when the other designers weren’t particularly nice to him.</p>
<p>I just saw some pictures of the designs on the runway from last night on the internet. Everything from Gretchen’s collection looked very brown. To me (aside from the granny panties) it all sort of melted together. Once again I loved Mondo’s looks. I had forgotten about Mondo’s cute black print tank top that was with some cute little black shorts. Like others have said, I am anything but young, but I would definitely wear some of Mondo’s designs. Maybe they picked Gretchen on purpose so everybody would be talking about it today.</p>
<p>Love this quote from someone posting on the Tom and Lorenzo blog</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am usually not one to enter in to the fray but…I Really disliked Gretchen’s stuff! Mondo was robbed!</p>
<p>Mondo should have won over Gretchen. Her outfits were awful. I loved Nina saying she woulodn’t wear the polka dot dress. I’d love to see her wear the green colored diapers. LOL.</p>
<p>I’m actually done watching it, that finale just ruined the show for me for good. </p>
<p>Did you guys see Michael C’s collection? It was GORGEOUS. He may have given Mondo a run for his money had they let him show instead of Gretchen. They thought his was too monotone… but what does that make Gretchen and Andy??</p>
<p>swimcatsmom- Best quote ever!</p>
<p>Darn. I didn’t know there was a last show already. I catch up on the weekends. Well at least I won’t be anxious waiting for results. Mondo will be more successful. Love him.</p>
<p>DVR’d it and watched it tonite. Absolutely terrible. Gretchen is off the rack at Macy’s. Is that what PR has become? It is “runway” not “off the rack”. Not sure how Heidi got talked into Gwetchen.</p>
<p>I saw one online poll with thousands of votes – I think it was about 92% who thought Mondo should have won, and 4% each for Gretchen and Andy.</p>
<p>If you google “T Lo Interviews: Mondo Guerra,” you’ll find a very nice interview that Tom and Lorenzo have up now. I’m even more impressed by him than I was before. He doesn’t seem bitter at all.</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of this show and do a bit of sewing myself for my daughters . . . although you can’t call me a designer. I am surprised that more people don’t like Andy’s looks. I have to admit that during season, they were too S&M for me, but several of the pieces at the finale were quite lovely . . . loved the first pair of pants, for instance, and I loved the gorgeous soft metallic fabrics. I, too, had problems with some of the commentary by the judges at the end in that they seemed to change their emphasis, from art to commercial. I was disappointed in Heidi this season. Perhaps this is the first year I noticed, but I thought her taste was a bit too cheesy for me in that some of the things she liked were inexpensive looking, not elegant. Mondo definitely knows how to put prints together, and I loved that, but the styles were too tight fitting (sorry, I know that’s something that comes from wanting the product to be more commercial, not artistic). Gretchen . . . ugh on those panties. I guess for me, no matter what the occasion, people should look elegant, even a punk rocker.</p>
<p>I couldn’t believe they chose Gretchen. Her whole line was so blah. It was nothing but a compilation of repetitive ugly brown patterns…Mondo’s was gorgeous! His creativity was on high. And yet they chose Gretchen…</p>
<p>I have forever lost my faith in the judges. </p>
<p>Really, there was no excuse. Gretchen’s line looked like it came from the off-brand racks at a department store. I’ve never seen another professional designer put out a collection like that (at least not the ones who have shows that I’ve seen). </p>
<p>Mondo’s on the other hand looked he could be up with the best of the best. </p>
<p>Honestly, I’m just really disappointed by this year’s show. I disliked Gretchen’s line the most of all three of them. And as for Gretchen herself…I would’ve kicked her off the show early on. She showed herself as a whiny, manipulative *****. </p>
<p>I can’t see why anyone would’ve picked her as the winner. It seems like an insult to past winners to me.</p>
<p>I agree, I thought Mondo should win.
The other thing I felt was odd, during the discussion portion, the whole thing sounded so scripted. I also felt the first half of the season, Gretchen was being obnoxious and then it seemed to diminish quite a bit and everythng was super low keyed about her afterwards. Looking back, it gives me the impression she was the chosen one long before the competion was over and the rest was just television.</p>
<p>The week before the finale the judges told Gretchen that her clothes were blah and that she should jazz them up with better hair, shoes, makeup, etc. Then when she did what they told her, they gave her the prize - for her clothes. Ah well, I’m pretty confident that Mondo (who I love) will be the one to have a successful career and Gretchen will be the answer to a future trivia question.</p>
<p>Incidentally, I also think Andy’s clothes were way better than Gretchen’s. And he seems like a lovely person. Always annoying when the nastiest person wins.</p>
<p>I can survive the nasty person winning when they are good. There was that one winner a couple of seasons back who was an utter b*tch - but her clothes were amazing. But Gretchen’s clothes…</p>