You're living in the monkey house.

Discuss the new "Project Runway."

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo writes:

The "monkey house" comment was hilarious. Any design that elicits a gag reflux from Mr. Gunn needs to be rethought.

Human hair? Why human? Why mention the origin if the effect was solely the look itself? Because the desire was to shock, which is the last refuge of a hack. It's the fashion equivalent of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ ("It's repellent, so it must be good! Isn't urine pretty?"). It's a territory best left to 19-year-old rockers.

Chris is imaginative, but the hair idea was sophomoric. It made me think for the first time that he really does not understand people very well.

I loved the hair. First, it looked great. Second, it was a retro allusion to monkey fur, which was used in fashion — exactly the way Chris used it — in the 1920s and 1940s. I remember a glorious monkey fur dress that Eartha Kitt wore in the 1960s. I hope that Tim Gunn realized this before he riffed on the stink of a monkey house and that it was merely edited out, or he is not as great as we like to think he is. Third, using human hair as though it were monkey fur is both humorous and philosophical. If we react with disgust or outrage, we should progress to the next step and ask why? Why does it seem different from fur? Why is it worse? Fur entails the death of the animal, and the skin is still attached, making that obvious. No one imagines that a human being died to contribute the hair to Chris's project. So where does the disgust come from? Why didn't Nina Garcia accept the challenge and inquire into her own reaction? Could it be that we cling to our illusion that we are not one with the animals?